by Lorrie Moore
amahara, can you come here please and take care of Mrs. Baker's account?
That old bag?
I grimace. Mrs. Baker is standing not six feet away. What I mean, Amahara recovers impressively, picking up a marked-down patent leather purse and smiling at Mrs. Baker, is that you really do need a new bag.
perhaps i should do something else. Teach or something, I am saying to my mother who has relapsed into senility again but who is demanding that I confide professional and domestic secrets. She will insist she doesn't remember a thing, that I should tell her my troubles again. She already has forgotten her announced intention to leave St. Veronica's.
Has this Tom got a new mistress? she asks sternly, as if that would explain my discontent with Leigenbaum's.
No, no. That's not it, I say quickly and turn the subject to the gum she is chewing, which smells like suntan lotion.
Honey-coconut, she says. No problem with my dentures either. There is a long silence. I look at my hands.
Good stuff, reiterates my mother. Honey-coconut. Made by Beech-Nut.
Why do you haunt me? You, like a tattoo on my tongue, like the bay leaf at the bottom of every pan. You who sprawled out beside me and sang my horoscope to a Schubert symphony, something about travel and money again, and we lay there, both of our breaths bad, both of our underwear dangling elastic, and then you turned toward me with a gaze like two matches, putting the horoscope aside, you traced my buried ribs with an index finger, lingered at my collarbone, admiring it as one might a flying buttress, murmuring: Nice clavicle. And me, too new at it and scared, not knowing what to say, whispering: You should see my ten-speed.
Jeffrey get in here, I yell out the back door. It's getting dark and dinner's ready. He is playing Murder the Leaf in the backyard with his friend Angela Dillersham. They carry large sticks.
Jeffrey do you hear me?
Yeah, he says and mumbles see ya to Angela, then shambles toward the back porch. Fuck it, damn it all, I hear him say, dragging himself up the stairs and I slap him as he comes in the door and send him crying to his room without his spaghetti or his fruit cocktail or his stick.
where's Jeffrey? asks Tom.
He's being punished, I say, twirling spaghetti into a spoon.
But you sent him to bed without dinner two nights ago, says Tom, petulantly poking a wrinkled grape. Fuck it, damn it all, Riva, he's going to starve if you keep this up.
Go to your room, Tom, I say.
But he doesn't. He stays. He looks at me, blinking and amazed.
we are in Tom's room. My curtains and my clothes are here, but more and more it has taken on a disgruntled greenishness that is Tom's, a foggy haze like a fish tank that needs to be cleaned. We have to talk about this, he says.
What is this'? I ask.
Scranton. Julia. You know. It's at the root of it all.
It all? I ask, a tyrant for precision.
Yes, well, this giant ravine between us, he explains.
Ah yes. Ravine. I think of my stolen wallet. There were pictures. And an eye donor's card. And then I think of the sun, the son.
I'm sure it's hard for you to believe, he continues. After all I said and promised last year and now all this… again…
All this? I ask, getting good at it.
Julia.
Oh, right. Scranton. I have always hated her name.
You must feel you're caught up in some vicious cycle. His voice sounds kind, sympathetic. At least I know I do, he is saying.
Cycle? I feel sarcasm flying up into my throat, shrill and inarticulate as a blue jay. Vicious cycle? I shout again. Hey. Listen. You should see my ten-speed.
i grow incomprehensible.
easter. We try not to make too much of it. Jeffrey finds all the jelly-beans, saves me the purple ones. The air's warming, it's hard to sleep, and caterpillars sound like wind munching, denuding the spring trees. The days smell like a hamster cage, leaf bits littering the walks.
I long for you, I short for you, I wear shorts for you.
Jeffrey eats all his dinner tonight. He has been sweet all day, brought me a potato print of what he calls the limpbirdie bell. Before bed I read him a story about a Mexican boy and a pinata, and Jeffrey says: Am I gonna do that, too, Mom? Smash my horse pinata? And I say that his horse pinata is different, it's a gift from Mr. Fernandez, and it's supposed to just hang there and not be broken. He yawns and stumbles off to plunk and deedle-dee, his sound words—where has he gotten this other stuff from?
Is God a giant like Hercules? asks Jeffrey just before drifting off. And I sit at the bed's edge and say God's a giant like the sun or like the sky, a huge blanket that all the planets are swimming in.
Could Hercules kill a gorilla? asks Jeffrey.
i slather heavy peach makeup over the rash by my mouth and go to see Mr. Fernandez at the lunch hour again. He insists Jeffrey is fine, although I'm still worried about his language. I sit next to Mr. Fernandez at a low, made-for-kids table, watching Jeffrey and the others play. He notices I am glum and places his hand on mine, says nothing.
Mr. Fernandez, I ask him finally. Are you happy?
He looks straight ahead for a minute.
Riva, he says, at last. You're not asking the right questions.
What's a right question?
Ah, he says mysteriously.
Ah? I ask. It sounds like tonsilitis. He nods, grins through his beard.
A little girl with short hair pale as the inside of a lemon rind runs up and places her cheek against Mr. Fernandez's knee. She has wet brown cookie remnants at the corner of her mouth. Can I have some juice now, please? she asks, running her fingers up and down the corduroy grooves of his thigh. She stops and looks up at me quizzically. A tiny cookie bit falls from her mouth. What kind of juice do you like? I ask her, solicitous, false-friendly, ridiculous.
She looks at me, knits her brows, takes Mr. Fernandez's hand, and turns away, pulling him toward the refrigerator at the far end of the room. He looks at me and shrugs and I shrug back. Not asking the right questions.
things seem tense at work. People are wooden, scarcely polite, their eyes like fruit pits.
in bed with tom. He holds me. I am sorry, he says. I love you. I love Jeffrey, I love that kid.
So do I, I say carefully.
There's a long moment before he says: What should we do? Do you want a divorce?
You are my husband, I say with difficulty, like a stroke victim, my tongue plugged in my throat like a scarf or a handbag.
i'm thinking of writing an herb book, says the woman in the health food store. Her hair lies in unwashed strings on the shoulders of her pink-gray sweater and against the pink-gray slope of her face.
It's good to have a project, I say, trying to sound cheerful, encouraging. Something to live with, something to always return to.
Something you love, she says, and holds up a green sprig of something, looks at me, smiles weakly.
today i did a thousand dollars.
Things. Sometimes you just have to do them.
what do you want to be when you grow up, Jeffrey? I ask, chopping squash, squashing chops.
A car driver.
A car driver?
Yeah, you drive cars, he says and starts to zoom around the kitchen, three-point turning into cupboards.
Jeffrey, come and stir this brownie mix for me.
Okay, he says obediently, and we sit next to each other on stools at the counter. He is fidgety, restless. I push his hair back out of his face with my one clean hand. I can cradle his whole head with it, it seems.
What do you want me to be when I grow up? he asks, stirring, licking a fingertip.
I want you to be good.
I'm good at potato prints, he says, my earnest little potato prince.
No, I don't mean good at something, I mean just plain good. Being just plain good.
I'm good, he says.
You're good, I smile, mussing up his hair and smoothing it down again.
He reaches up, plays with my earring. I like it when you get dressed up, Mommy, he says.
i step out of the bathroom with nothing on.
Well, Tom, Sergeant, babydollbaby. Do I get into a prone position? A provolone position? I lumber into bed like a mammoth cheese.
Tom reaches under the covers and clasps my hand. Riva, I'm worried about you. Everything's a joke. You're always flip-flopping words, only listening to the edge of things. It's like you're always, constantly, on the edge.
Life is a pun, I say. It's something that sounds like one thing but also sounds like even means like something else.
Riva, what you just said. It's empty. It doesn't mean anything. He says this with a sort of tender reluctance, as if it were the last thing in the world he wanted to do.
It doesn't? I ask, suddenly embarrassed, confused, thinking that there is so much sanity in the insurance business. I slide down into the bed, press my face into his ribs, his strong ribs, the health food lady, I think, should have these ribs against her Velcro lips for a night, just a night, and then it occurs to me that maybe she already has.
i have brought my mother roses and a Tolkien trilogy. She smiles weakly, then lays them aside. Now, what was his name again? she asks, pouring ice water into a glass.
in the leigenbaum's employees' ladies' room, someone has written: I'm a virgin what is wrong with me? Beneath that, other people have written a string of feminist graffiti to reassure her, and underneath that, someone else has written in huge red letters: I don't care if I'm a fish, I still want a bicycle.
By the scarves, a woman asks me skeptically about designer names. I go into my rap about differences in French and Italian mills and also about supporting living working artists.
Do you think it really matters if you get laid in a Pucci scarf rather than one by somebody else? she asks.
I stare at her nose, tough as a root. You get laid in scarves? I say.
there are problems with these receipts, says the district manager, who is in for the day, on an official visit. Amahara is sitting next to him, not looking at me, her face blank as a window shade. I have just been called into the office.
I'm not sure what you mean, I say.
I think you are, he says. We could get into accusations here of gross negligence or outright criminal behavior. But the outcome would be the same. I don't know what sort of stress you've been under, but, Riva, you are fired. Without severance pay. You can pack your stuff and leave this afternoon.
Excuse me? I ask, not at all the right question, for he gets up and leaves without answering, Amahara close behind.
a smoky, hot pretzel smell in the city of blubbery love. A woman with jam on her plastic arm is attracting bees in Rittenhouse Square. Steam jostles the manhole covers, traffic resetting them, flat, flush, a regular metallic thud. The dusty burn of subway wafts up from concrete descents, and a peddler with a hint of mange at the hairline shouts fourteen carat, twenty at Bonwit's we'll give it to you for ten. Music grows loud and near, then fades and is gone, a casual invasion, hasty imprint and flight like the path of a bullet. I wander the streets frowsy and bloated, a W. C. Fields in drag, my mascara smeared like coal around my eyes, in store windows it is hard to recognize myself. I walk into places and flip through the racks, then leave, not really seeing too much, people spinning through doors, buzzing by me. They have drunk too much coffee. Caterpillars crawl the edge of the sidewalks like chromosomes. Looking for food, I roam slowly.
At Beefsteak Charley's I stop to blindly read the menu and the poster for the circus and suddenly notice Tom inside eating. He is with a thin, dark-haired woman and Jeffrey, whom he wasn't supposed to pick up from Mr. Fernandez's until six. The circus clown grins.
I pull the door open, walk in. It is fairly empty. In the center is a giant salad bar island with sneeze guards. They must have three kinds of macaroni salad here.
Tom looks up and is a bit taken aback at seeing me. Riva, he says unimaginatively. I thought you were working late tonight.
Hi Mom, chirps Jeffrey, his mouth full of corn relish and pickled beets. Look what Julia gave me. He points to the blue University of Kentucky T-shirt he is wearing.
Neat, I say.
I went to graduate school there, smiles the brunette.
Oh, introductions, says Tom, a bit frantic. Riva, this is Julia. Julia is a poet, he says hopefully. She teaches in Scranton.
Yes, I've heard, I say, my eye in third gear, hives blooming, lumps forming under my skin, near my mouth, ready to be lanced. How do you do? It sounds like the right question. I continue: I've never met a skinny poet before.
Tom looks at me oddly, vaguely yellow. Julia smiles sweet as cake.
Tom, can I talk to you for a moment? I ask, still standing, and he says sure and we walk together back toward the entrance by the unmanned cash register and a phone and extra menus and matches with "What's Your Beef?" printed on them, and I place my pocket-book in the after-dinner mints, slowly reach for a steak knife from an empty table and when he says what are you doing, what is it, I look at his murky hairline receding like a tide and I say you are my goddamned husband and jam the knife hard into his ribs.
It doesn't seem to go very far, like something thrust into a radiator, but I let go and it sticks there for a long moment, then falls toward the carpet like a small, dumb, wingless bat. Tom's face is a horrible orgasm with eyes. He slumps toward the phone, lifts the receiver, slowly begins dialing 911, blood splotching onto his white shirt like cardinals in the snow, or sunburned nuns, I have lost my mind there is now I realize some commotion, some howling about the place, waiters in bow ties have come out from the kitchen and Julia flushed and murmuring like a very true poet fuck it! comes stumbling over and the little University of Kentucky is frozen in his chair clutching a forkful of corn relish, his face a terrified marshmallow, oh my god, my god, I whisper into my hands.
You'll never see Jeffrey again, murmurs Tom, you can count on that, the pain on Tom's face, in his chest something enormous and sad, and then he is giving information to the operator and soon there are sirens.
J have my own room. Someone has sent me flowers. Is it you, Phil, who could it be, thinking of me?
mr. Fernandez drops by to see me at St. Veronica's during visiting hours.
Do you realize, he says, that there's a nuclear bomb hanging over each and every one of us like a monster pinata?
I begin to understand his metaphors.
And you go off and do this, he says. Who the hell do you think you are?
I think to myself that this must be the right sort of question, the sort one is supposed to ask.
Pride cometh before the fall, I say, lost, foundering. Sometimes in May.
He leans over and kisses me. Riva, he says. I saw your husband today. He's fine but says he and Jeffrey will not come to see you.
I look out the windows, at gray, gray buildings, and say shit, and then start crying. I am crying, I can't help it.
I brought you a treat, Mr. Fernandez says, holding me with one arm and handing me a cheese danish wrapped in cellophane.
I blow my nose, unwrap the danish, break off part and push it in my mouth. I'm bonkers, aren't I? I ask with my mouth full.
You're unhappy, says Mr. Fernandez. It can be the same thing. You are unhappy because you believe in such a thing as happy.
I stop eating. I feel sick. This danish is too sweetish to finish, I say, a little Scandinavian humor, and fillip the crumbs off the bed-sheets.
I'm going to leave you now. I just stopped by for a minute.
I look at his magic Jesus beard and panic. Please don't go.
I'll stop by tomorrow, he says gently.
Thank you, I say, never more grateful for anything in my whole life.
orderlies roll the days by me like carts.
Mr. Fernandez visits, but only him. My husband and son are off someplace, walking and trying not to cry.
aging flowers, daisies when they die look like hopeful hags, their sunny, ha
tless faces, their shriveled, limp hair. Tulips wither into birdcages, six black stamens inside, each dried to a dim chirp.
The gray buildings fill my windows, my gibbering with salt: Who were you ever? An apoplexy to fill my days, to fill my insomnia with your insomnia, my hard of lard, my long ago husband, sometimes I think I made you up, but sometimes I think you live close, in this city, in my house, buried in the cellar or in paperwork and business trips, rising up at night like a past repast I can wish to death: Please die.
my mother is two floors above me. It would be humorous, but it's not humorous. We are allowed finally to meet in our bathrobes in the coffee shop downstairs.
Well, I say, quoting Humphrey Bogart in a line to Ingrid Bergman at a table at Rick's: I guess neither one of our stories is very funny.
Riva, she says. Your father was a madman. He used to punch cars and threaten to swallow things. Maybe you inherited his genes.
I like to swallow things, I say.
today is friday. The nuns are friendlier, my eye flickless, my skin, body, brighter, thinner. I take an afternoon nap and dream bittersweetly that all the friends I've ever had march in here to see how I am.
When I wake up, Sister Henrietta knocks at my door and says a gentleman is here to see you, Riva.
I am disoriented from my dream, quickly straighten my hair, and say, as in the movies, Sister, you can send him in now. I turn to look out the window: the gray buildings of my life, the gray buildings.
And it is Jeffrey who appears in the doorway. He hangs there small and alone. Mom? he squeaks, then steps closer to the bed. He is wearing an oversized Penn T-shirt, twisting and wringing at the bottom of it with one hand. Hi, Mom, he says.
My hips ache. My eyes burn happy sad happy. Nice shirt there, Batman, I say.
He tugs at it. Dad says this is where you went to college, he says, too far away for me to touch his arm.