Her family, eyes bit as buttons, nodded her on.
“Go ahead,” he urged her. “Open ’em up.”
Uncertainly, she tugged at a ribbon.
“Not like that,” Zinnie yelled at her. “Rip the mother open!”
“Here’s a knife,” Mary sang.
Stan, a veteran of too many birthday parties throughout the years, went back with one eye to Jimmy Breslin’s column. He hated Breslin. Or so he said. The columnist’s heated opinions held his devoted daily fury, though. Some hates were indeed akin to love.
“Here,” said Johnny. “Open this one first. This one’s the main one. Maybe you’re gonna like it. Maybe not.” He said this as though it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. Claire peeked into the box. It was an Olympus. A good old Olympus, just like the first thirty-five she’d ever shot with. She hadn’t had one in her hand for years. Professionals all used Nikons nowadays and she had followed suit, but many a time she’d had a yearning for the downright lightness and practicality of her old manual Olympus. She broke into a smile, such a smile that he knew he’d done the right thing. Whatever he’d done wrong with her so far was wiped out good by this. He knew he shouldn’t have jumped on her like that last night and he was sorry. But not too sorry.
“Such an expensive camera,” Mary touched it tentatively.
“I had a little luck at the track,” he offered humbly.
Claire opened the next package. It was a seventy-five-to-one-fifty zoom. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe you knew just what to get.”
Johnny shrugged. “I saw you up in the woods with that kind of lens. At least I hoped it was that kind. I mean if you don’t like it or it’s wrong you can take it back.”
“The lens is wonderful,” Claire said.
This news was met by the rest of them with satisfaction. They knew how picky Claire could be. Next she opened the flash. She shook her head with wonder. Johnny sat back down for the rest of his waffles.
For some reason Claire was overcome by a sickening sense of suspicion. Her mother dalloped the last of the sour cream onto Johnny’s plate and she watched their eyes meet conspiratorially. It hit her as the signing of the deal. She had no idea why she felt that way, but there it was, strong and real in her, the witness to the signing away of the proverbial truant daughter. She burned with shame. And Johnny. He looked so damn smug. Suddenly she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
“I can’t accept this,” she told him in her gravely voice.
They all stopped talking and looked at her.
“It’s much too kind of you. I … thank you … but I’m sorry. I can’t accept it.”
“Can’t accept what? What are you talkin’ about?”
“I can’t. It’s just too much when I hardly know you. I’m expecting some money shortly … a great deal of money … and I’ll be able to replace my cameras myself, you see.”
The Mayor searched his brain. Embroidered and elaborated grains of truth rang truer than fact. But so did lies. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on. “It’s much too kind of you,” she was saying again. “It’s just too much. Thank you, but I can’t.” Claire studied Johnny’s face for traces of change. Still he watched her with that mocking, amused, unblinking, infuriating look. No one in the family knew exactly what to do. “Excuse me,” murmered Claire and she left the table. It didn’t surprise her that they were all whispering. Uh-oh, the Mayor thought, and he followed her out. She was standing, hunched and listening, behind the door.
“Don’t worry. Claire’s just a dumb girl.” Michaelaen, the little traitor, was comforting Johnny. Michaelaen’s sense of protective guardianship only extended to the offended at hand.
“Three things my mother told me about life,” Stan’s voice rang out suddenly. “‘Never,’ she said, ‘eat meat loaf out.’ That was the first thing. Two was: ‘Never loan money you can’t afford to give away.’ And the third was, ‘Never, but never think you might be smarter than the stupidest woman.’”
CHAPTER 9
“That’s it,” Claire said out loud. “That’s the last of them. They’ve all gone out.”
The Mayor came to attention at once. He hadn’t realized she’d been speaking to him. Had he been dozing? He blinked reassuringly at Claire. She was standing at the window. “The yard is full of crows,” she said. “I can’t understand what the sun is doing shining. I’ve never known crows to creep around the backyard unless it was to rain.” She looked at him and he looked at her. He wished there was something he could do. She was so obviously in a bog. He used to be very good at that sort of thing: lightening people’s loads. All he’d had to do was wraggle around undulating his charming little rear and they’d literally melt. That kind of frivolity wouldn’t do nowadays. It wasn’t seemly for the stout to try to be too cute. Not past a certain age. And then there was that ever-humbling reminder of one’s limitations: arthritis. The mind went on and the body just disintegrated. The way of the world, he supposed. Ah, well. One placed too much importance on one’s own capabilities. More often than not, what was needed was a simple ear to listen. With Claire this was especially true. Because she’d go on and on whether you were there or not. There were those who would think this odd. He, a democrat, did not.
“I don’t know what it is,” Claire said, “about that man. He puts me so on the defensive that I don’t know what I’m doing. Or saying. Now I’ve got myself in a fine mess. I haven’t got any load of money coming in. I only said that so they wouldn’t feel sorry for me. I can’t bear the way they all watch me with such pity. It’s disheartening.” She was tooling a broad figure eight in the carpet. “And I know they want what’s best for me. But him. He thinks he can dare to be familiar with me, and I just won’t have it. I won’t!” She picked an orange out of the bowl and began to peel it. The smell of it filled up the room. “It’s good to have some peace and quiet for a change. Someone who’s been alone for as long as I’ve been … let’s face it, you need time to yourself. You know, this jogging business seems the right thing to do, it just seems right for other people. Not for me. I won’t lose any weight jogging. I’m sure I won’t. I’ll just build up a healthier appetite and wind up gaining. And on top of that, my breasts will sag.” She sank to the floor and proceeded to do sit-ups. She did five. On the sixth she groaned and strained and made a terrible face. “After all,” she stopped and looked at him, “I am in love with him. At least I think I am. I know I’m in lust. I’ve so often confused the two and wound up sorry I had. In the beginning it’s always so hard to tell.” She stood up, covered with dog hair, and went searching for the telephone book. “What are you looking at?” she said. “This is the twentieth century. Women telephone men all the time. Anyway, I’m not calling him, am I? It can’t hurt to have his number in my book. There have been two murders, haven’t there? And I am involved somehow, whether I like it or not. Honestly, it’s like being caught up in a circle of evil.” She stood suddenly still. The Mayor sat up. She looked over her shoulder as though she expected someone to be there. Then she walked into the kitchen, to the table where the newspapers were still spread about. She pored through them, looking for she didn’t know what. The Post was all sensationalism. The Times was cut and dry. She flipped through the News. “… there were certain similarities in this murder that lead authorities to believe,” etcetera, etcetera. Ah, here it was: “… the body was found in a circle of pine not ten feet from the scene of last week’s crime where the victim, Miguel Velasquez …” A circle of pine. Again. She sat down. She could see old Iris out the window in her garden. What on earth was she doing? Digging? What was it Michael used to say about her? “Magic is her middle name.” Of course Iris couldn’t have killed little children. The idea was preposterous. But somebody had. And whoever that had been, she suspected, had some knowledge of the ceremonial occult.
She was duty bound to share her suspicions with Johnny, wasn’t she? Of course, she could be completely wrong. She hoped she was. It wasn�
��t just a cheap excuse to get in touch with him after she’d behaved so badly toward him? An honorable bridge across the childish moat she’d dug? Well, then, what if it was? The end, if she were right, would surely justify the means. She approached the hallway mirror and inspected her face. She didn’t really look old. What she needed was a bath. She returned to the kitchen and rifled through the cabinets. Vanilla. She pulled the bottle down from the shelf. What else? Olive oil? No, he would have enough of that. Almond oil. That was nice. Yes, she took that down, then spied the jasmine tea. Perfect. She carried her booty furtively up to the bathroom and brewed herself a bath. The Mayor watched, appalled. What women went through to cover up their natural provocative scents bewildered him. Claire lowered herself into the pale scented water. Ugh, thought the Mayor. He decided then and there to go out for a quick spin and take some fresh air. He left harriedly by way of the newly reinstated doggy door, a nice little hookup Stan had arranged through what used to be the back stairs. He’d be back before she even noticed he was gone.
Now that Claire had made the decision to call Johnny up she had to figure out, besides the business at hand, what she would say. It always started off with her losing her temper. This time she would be very cool. She would trick him. She would tell him the truth. Fine. What was the truth? That she couldn’t get him off her mind? That would go right to his head. There was no telling how arrogant that would make him. “Hello?” Claire stood up straight in the tub. “Hello?” Had someone come in? She could have sworn—no, that was absurd, the Mayor was here. He would eat anyone who tried to get in. Or at least bark them to smithereens. She sat back down, relieved, and turned on the hot water tap. Her nerves were good and shot, weren’t they. What she really needed was a big dose of bourbon with a ton of chipped ice. Or no ice. But the steam from the gentle water was lulling; she really didn’t want to budge. And she was getting just the smallest bit fed up with seeing herself as an alcoholic. Claire blew softly out of her mouth. She could hear the Mayor waddling about in the hallway. Or was that the pine against the house? The sunlight through the milk glass window was so beautiful. Just beautiful. There was a small clock radio plugged in up on the ledge; someone had left it on, but the volume was so low you could barely hear it. She felt the Mayor’s comforting presence. “You know,” she said to him, “even if my being straight with Johnny did go right to his head, I mean, what of it? Either I want him to know how I feel or I don’t. Now, I’m just putting off the inevitable, hoping he’ll do my job for me; come back once again so I can tell him no again.” It was pretty obvious that she was postponing commitment for the top-ten thrill of the chase. And she, who fancied herself the great seeker of truth, had better face the fact.
The telephone rang with such jarring suddenness that Claire bolted upright and sprang out of the tub before the first ring ended. At that exact moment the radio hit the water, went zzzip and made a dull, guttural crackle where her body had just been.
“Christ,” she answered the phone.
“Hello? Zinnie?”
“Hello? Oh Jesus, I just almost got killed. I’m sorry. Who is this? God!”
“Hello? This is Emil … you all right there?”
Zinnie’s enamored young doctor. “Yes. Yes, Emil, I’m fine. I just had a terrible close call. The radio fell into my tub and,” she shuddered with goosebumps, “and I think if you hadn’t called at that moment and wakened me out of my reverie, I’d be dead. Do people die from radios in bathtubs?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, then you just saved my life.”
“Fine,” he surprised her by saying. It always astonished her with what nonchalance the medical profession greeted life-and-death drama. “I was hoping to catch Zinnie in,” he continued.
“No. No, she’s on overtime, I think. I don’t know. I get so mixed up with her schedule.” She continued to look at the tub. “I think it blew the fuse. The overhead light is out as well.”
“That’s good. Just make sure it is blown before you take the radio out of the tub.”
Claire followed the wire with her eyes. It was plugged into another wire that went out into the hall.
“All right then,” said Emil. “Tell her I called. And I hope you’re all right.”
“I’ll write it down.” She heard the Mayor running down the hall and wondered where he was off to. “Good-bye,” she said, “and thanks.” Gingerly, she tried the light switch. It didn’t work. She pulled the radio out and let the water out of the tub. How easy it is, she thought to herself. You’re here one minute and gone the next. Just like that. She remembered Johnny. The best way to begin, she’d heard it said, was to start. All right. She’d give up procrastination for action. She toweled off hurriedly. Where to begin? Call? She had his address. Why not drive directly to his house? He lived in South Ozone Park, three or four miles away. It was still early in the afternoon. If he wasn’t there, she would leave a note. “You’ll come with me,” she said to the Mayor, who’d just come up the stairs. “Let me just go and look at that circuit breaker first. We’ll bring back the camera at the same time.” Johnny might even persuade her to keep it, she realized hopefully.
See that? remarked the Mayor to himself. She didn’t even miss me. Just as I’d suspected.
Claire’s heart leapt at the thought of keeping the camera. She’d be right back in business. She dressed quickly, with a light, happy heart. She dried her hair with Zinnie’s dryer and brazenly stole Carmela’s car.
Once you got past Liberty Avenue, Lefferts Boulevard was chock full of Indians. This didn’t bother Claire. She felt right at home. Purple and pink flower beds grew in whimsical tufts across the little front yards. They’d torn down all the German fir trees, the Indians, so they would have more light. Mighty sunflowers loomed with determined cheerfulness between the garbage pails. There was a wedding going on, the dark, plump bride just coming out of the rented white limousine. She wore a Western wedding gown and her bridesmaids their traditional saris. The young men stood about with shy, expectant, self-important gestures. “It’s good luck to see a bride,” Claire told the Mayor. He enjoyed a ride in a car, as long as they weren’t on their way to the vet.
On Rockaway Boulevard Claire turned right and drove through a visible cloud of gasoline fumes. She God blessed American shampoo with its vivacious redolence. Now they were in the Italian sector: pizza places, gas stations, hubcap specialty lots. She drove along putting rouge on in the rearview mirror. When she decided she looked all right, she made a left at the Aqua Motel and cruised down the row of blocks. She liked to drive. As soon as she could get her hands on some money, she’d buy herself a nice little used car. Here the houses were semiattached brick with geranium pots on perfect cement stoops. There were several grottos to the Virgin and one black-faced jockey, still carrying that years-ago burnt out white lantern. On the right side the houses’ backyards faced the racetrack and you looked right across the field to the distant bleachers. The last house on the last block was Johnny’s. It was just a plain old house, she reasoned, but even so, her blood pounded through her temples. He probably isn’t even home, she sniggered wildly to herself. She checked her purse to make sure she would have pen and paper handy for a note. If she had it, she calmed herself superstitiously, she wouldn’t need it. The Mayor leaned against her, panting reassuringly. His breath, she noticed, was atrocious.
Johnny’s lawn was parched and uncared for in this quarter of Italian husbandry. Prickled hoses spurted up and down the block. There were grape arbours and tomato plants in every backyard. Johnny seemed to be cultivating a bevy of Coke cans in his. And car skeletons. It looked more like a car cemetery than somebody’s home.
She parked the car in his driveway, then backed it out and parked parallel to the curb. No sense being presumptuous. With studied calm, she got out. The Mayor flinched at the low-flying 747 that roared darkly through the still-bright light. That’s what you got when you lived near the airport. A timid team, they climbed the steps. She pushed the
bell. It chimed out the theme from The Godfather. Good Lord, she thought. She waited. She tried the knocker. Still nothing. What did she want with some slobby detective, anyway? she thought, taking in the rumpled pile of laundry in there on the porch floor. She turned to go. It was a good thing he wasn’t at home, she realized now. She wouldn’t even leave a note. “Look at this.” She heard a voice and her heart stood still. He was at the upstairs window, peering out of the screen. She could hardly see him but she knew he was scratching that furry chest.
“Hang on a second,” he said and she followed the Mayor back to the stoop. When he turned the lock and opened the door she forgot for a moment why she’d come. He looked like a film star. No shirt. Just a pair of navy blue sweatpants.
“Come on in.” The sudden dark made her temporarily blind. He’d been conked out, he said. This overtime had him all banged up. “Siddown, siddown.”
She took in the room as her eyes adjusted to the light. Here was a rollicking carnival of kitsch. Rubber carnations, enshrined in glass, were shamelessly exhibited upon the dusty coffee table, which was made up of artificial marble itself. Psychedelic flower decals from the sixties peppered the wall. And a touch of glamor: plastic logs blazed in the grate with their own make-believe orange flames. Aesthetically, it couldn’t have been worse. And yet, the whole thing broke her heart. He didn’t know about those things. How could he? Where had he traveled in his life? To Atlantic City? She couldn’t not love him for his lack of opportunity. And she admired the way he didn’t seem to mind her catching him in a mess. Unless of course he didn’t realize it was a mess.
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