He felt certain he was wasting his afternoon when, on a rainy Saturday in early November, he arrived at Boston Garden to meet Fergus Keeley. He navigated the current of jostling bodies up through the Garden’s vast and chilly stairwells, and the damp crowds surging around him made him feel both claustrophobic and lonely. His seat was good—midway up in the orchestra section in front of the center ring, and a bank of several seats on either side of him were empty, waiting, he supposed, to be filled by Keeley and his grandsons. Despite the empty seats around him, still Ray felt hemmed in by noise and bodies. The cement under his feet was slick with tracked rain and spilled soda, the damp in the air infused with the smell of elephant dung. But where was Keeley?
The lights went down and the ringmaster began rolling his voice out over the audience. The show began. Still Keeley did not appear. Clowns came and went, then bareback riders. Vendors went up and down the aisles hawking programs, popcorn, and noisemakers. The wedding of two midgets was announced.
A woman appeared in his aisle. “Excuse me,” she said, and Ray looked up, confused: was this Keeley’s wife? No, ‘excuse me’ meant, Move your knees, I want to get by. So he stood to let her pass, a young woman mostly hidden inside a hooded blue raincoat, holding in front of her like a torch a large burst of pink cotton candy.
“I was way up there where God lost his shoes,” she said above the noise of the orchestra. “No sense wrecking my eyes when there’s empty seats down here. No one’s sitting here, are they?” She plunked down in the seat next to his but one and took a bite of cotton candy.
“Ah, no, I mean, actually, I was supposed to meet some people in this row.”
“Then someone is sitting here, you mean?” She started to get up, and he waved his hand to stop her.
“You’re welcome to sit there,” he said. “I don’t think they’re coming.”
“Thanks,” she said, and shrugged out of her hooded raincoat, which Ray now saw had concealed brilliant red hair and an intent expression. She watched the clowns, he thought, as if she were studying for an exam. Her red eyebrows angled together in an odd little frown of concentration, broken now and again when she smiled. She seemed to be enjoying both the performance and her cotton candy, licking the clots of pink sugar off the tips of her fingers with gusto. Something about it made him feel sad: he was an imposter here. The next time a vendor climbed by, he signaled him over and asked for a bag of popcorn.
“No popcorn,” said the vendor. “Pinwheels, hooters, snake whistles. No food.”
Ray felt foolish.
“Here,” said the woman beside him, “piece of mine?”
Peace of mind, Ray heard her say, then interpreted correctly and watched in surprise as his hand reached out for the paper cone. Then he was holding the sticky thing and utterly ignorant of the rules for cotton candy eating. He stuck out a finger and touched the substance: it felt like cheap upholstery stuffing. He pinched a bit away and felt it dissolve slightly in the heat of his fingers. In his mouth it was oddly pleasant. There was a second of flavorlessness, sensation of eating a dust ball, and then the stuff melted in absurd sweetness over his tongue.
The spotlight swung up to the rafters and tightrope walkers were announced. Ray watched a shirtless man in glittering tights cross the wire blindfolded, pausing in the center to perform a backbend. When he righted himself by kicking his legs over his head the audience cheered. Ray thought he should probably cheer too, but felt too self-conscious. So he clapped, realizing as he did so that the woman beside him was silent, neither cheering nor clapping. He glanced at her. Her eyes were fixed on the performers. The cotton candy was gone, her hands were empty now, and she was crying.
He turned away, pretending not to notice, and the next time he allowed himself to glance at her, at intermission, her eyes were dry. She caught him looking and smiled. She wore too much makeup, he thought, but in spite of that, she was pretty, with bright eyes that looked more intelligent than her blue eye shadow suggested. And he liked the way she smiled at him: friendly without being a come-on, a kind of friendliness less guarded than what he was used to in New England; he knew without being told that she was from somewhere else. When the food vendor came by he bought two cups of soda pop and offered her one.
“So why’re you all alone in this row?” she asked. “Somebody stand you up?”
He explained about the sports arena and basketball and Fergus Keeley. And then, in a burst of not caring whether he was being a polite conversationalist he asked if she too had been waiting for someone.
She shook her head. “I came alone. I just saw a poster, on the way home from work.”
“What do you do?”
She hesitated. “I work in a beauty salon.”
He asked her which one, as if he were in the habit of frequenting beauty salons.
“Hollywood,” she said, in a tone that suggested the name annoyed her. Then the overhead lights dimmed. The show was beginning again and Ray was sorry; it was nice to talk to a woman he wasn’t trying to impress. Then he realized he did want to impress her. And he wanted her to keep talking—she had a voice with a hint of music in it, not a southern accent, quite, but her words were slower, rounder than he was used to hearing.
“What’s your name?” he asked, leaning in toward her and whispering since it was, after all, a performance they were watching. She smelled of cheap fruity shampoo and the vinyl of her raincoat and another, fainter scent he could identify only as female.
“Evelyn,” she answered, but she was not interested in talking any more; she was watching the tigers take their places in the ring below.
When it was over he walked beside her through the masses shuffling along the ugly cement ramps out into the rain.
“Can I drop you somewhere?” he asked.
She hesitated. “I was going to walk, actually. But you could walk me part of the way, I guess. I mean, if you want to.”
They set off down Causeway Street in the early evening light, a sky orange after the rain. She remembered he’d said he was an architect, asked in her lilting voice if he’d designed anything around here. Ray cast his eyes reflexively up and down the street. Beautiful buildings, some of them, above crummy storefronts. “Not on this street. But there’s something I worked on over near South Station.”
“I’ve been to South Station,” she said, the way someone else might say, I’ve been to Paris. As if it were a destination in itself. Her mascara had run, he noticed, and remembered the tears she’d shed during the performance. Why did that make his heart pound? Why did he want to take his handkerchief and wipe away the streaks of brown at the inner corners of her eyes?
Then she said, “It must be fun, designing buildings and things. When I was a kid, I used to cut out pictures in magazines of houses I wanted to live in and keep them in a scrapbook.”
“That’s very sweet.” Can I buy you a drink, he wanted to say, he did not say it.
She kept peeking at him from beneath the hood of her raincoat, wondering, he supposed, if this man were trying to pick her up. Ray wondered it too. He had never picked up a woman in his life, but everything about this afternoon was different from what he usually did. Then she pushed her hood back from her face and he saw all over again how very brilliant red her hair was. She caught him looking, and blushed, an actual blush, her fair skin coloring pink beneath its dusting of powder. She looked away, then looked back at him and smiled. Her two front teeth were very slightly pushed in, and he found this—there was no denying it now—unaccountably sexy.
Then she pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and he caught sight of the wedding band on her finger. Why hadn’t he noticed she was married? He didn’t want to pursue another man’s wife. He felt a twinge of unease at the idea that he had even started to do so, then told himself he was being childish; he hadn’t done anything, he was only walking her—where, actually? They were practically in Chinatown now. He mentioned this.
“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t mean to take you so far
out of your way. I can go on alone from here. I live just a few blocks further on.”
She had misunderstood him. “I’m happy to walk you to your door,” he said. “I just wondered where—”
She was uncomfortable. Perhaps she was afraid to tell him where she lived in case he turned out to be a stalker. But she didn’t look frightened; if anything, she seemed embarrassed. “I’m practically there,” she said. “It’s on Washington Street, just at Lagrange.”
“Then I certainly should walk you the rest of the way. That’s a terrible neighborhood.”
“It’s the neighborhood I live in.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Ray said hurriedly. “I just meant I’ve probably made you late, ambling along talking, and now it’s dark: I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”
“I walk home from work every night,” Evelyn said, “so one night of protection probably won’t make much difference.” She traced a crack on the sidewalk with her shoe. “Well, it was nice meeting you. Now I guess have one friend here.”
“Not counting your husband, that is.” He blurted it.
“My husband?”
“I see you’re married.”
She followed his gaze to her left hand and raised it, looked at the ring as if she were surprised to see it there, and then back at him.
“We were separated,” she said, “and then three weeks ago he died. It was very sudden.” She crossed her arms and huddled inside her raincoat.
“Evelyn, I’m so sorry.” He didn’t know what he was feeling; it wasn’t sorry at all. “How terrible for you.”
“I came up here to give his ashes to his people,” she said, looking at the sidewalk. “And then I got kind of stuck here.” She looked up at him. “Why am I telling you this?”
“It sounds like you’ve had an awful time,” Ray said.
“Well—I should go.” She took a step away from him. “See you around.”
It was extraordinary, the feeling he was having. This afternoon he had become a man who went to the circus, who ate cotton candy, who was trying to pick up a redhead who worked in a beauty salon in the Combat Zone. He had the sense that he had stepped outside his life, and he was astonished to find he could breathe better here. He did not want her to go. It was as if when she left, the sense of freedom the afternoon had turned out to contain would disappear with her.
“Would you have dinner with me sometime?” He blurted it.
“Me?”
“You said you don’t know anyone here. I could show you the city a little, if you’d like.” His voice sounded unbearably foolish in his ears.
“Yes, I’d like.” She was laughing, now, he didn’t know why. “When?”
“Now,” he heard himself say.
“Seriously?”
What has come over me, he thought, but even as he wondered at himself, he took her arm. “The restaurant’s this way,” he said.
It was dark, it was French, there was a menu of nothing but wine. Evelyn hid her acid-washed jeans beneath the enormous white napkin and pointed at random to one of the indecipherable menu items. At least my manicure’s French, she thought.
Afterward, as they stood outside waiting for the taxi he’d called to take her home, he took her hand. His own hand was warm from the lined pocket of a good overcoat and she could not remember Joe Cullen ever taking her hand in this way, simply holding it as he stood beside her, in the whole twelve years of their marriage.
“I had fun with you tonight—” Ray began, and stopped. Cleared his throat. “Perhaps you’d like—” Stopped, ahem’d again.
He’s nervous, Evelyn realized. Because of me.
“Perhaps you’d let me cook you dinner next Saturday?”
At his house, that meant. He wanted to sleep with her, that meant. He had mistaken her for someone else, someone who hadn’t grown up in a circus, someone without a dead first husband whose death certificate said Broken Neck, someone whose body wasn’t covered in every known color of ink. But if she let him take off her clothes it would be all over because there was no way Ray would want a tattooed lady as a dinner guest. Never mind that she wasn’t a real tattooed lady—she had chickened out and refused to let Joe do anything below her knees and elbows or above her breastbone—it would be too much for Ray, this fancy architect who held the door open for her and ordered dinner in French.
When he found out about the tattoos that would be the end of it, yes, but she would let him cook her dinner first. Soak up the way he looked at her like a dry plant soaks up water. His eyes on hers as if he thought she was actually interesting. Or beautiful. Or good.
“Next Saturday—just consider it,” he said, opening the door of the taxi for her. “I’m an excellent cook.”
As if she could have said no. As if the cab, speeding back to her crummy rented room, were taking her anyplace else worth going.
Evelyn finished vacuuming the broken glass in the study and drew the curtains to hide the garbage bags taped over the broken window. The guest room, its almost-matching yellows bravely pretending to be the same shade, was ready for Ingrid’s arrival. Now there was the downstairs to tackle, dinner to think of. She was running the ElectroLux in the living room when Ray came home, early for once. She shut off the machine to greet him.
“My God,” he said, “it’s even more sparkling in here than usual. I take it Liz Luce didn’t reach you.” He kissed her forehead and she realized how sweaty she was.
“Did she call? I can’t hear anything when the vacuum’s running.”
“She got me at work. She’s busy with commencement and whatnot, so she asked if we’d pick Ingrid up at her dorm at 4:00—which was five minutes ago.”
Once again, Ingrid was arriving before she was prepared.
“Would you get her yourself, Ray? I’m a sweaty mess, and I still haven’t cleaned the guest bathroom.”
“You’re going to clean an already clean bathroom for a teenager who wears jeans held together with safety pins?”
“I’m cleaning because a guest should be welcomed into a clean house.”
“Okay, Emily Post,” Ray said, and then, lest she take the joke as a barb, bent to kiss her again.
When he had gone, Evelyn spritzed the bathroom mirror, scrubbed the tub, folded and refolded the towels. She knew she should stop if she wanted time for a shower, but she checked the guest bedroom again, smoothed the chenille spread, pulled a dust bunny from under the radiator, noticed she had hung one of the curtains wrong side out, turned it around and there was Ray’s Saab pulling into the driveway. Evelyn leaned against the window, sweat running down between her breasts, and watched as Ray and Ingrid each took a cardboard box from the back of the car. Today Ingrid’s hair stuck up from her head in a series of points, like a cross between the Statue of Liberty’s crown and a spike helmet. Evelyn wondered how she’d gotten it to do that—Elmer’s glue, maybe? She’d been stalling on the shower, she realized, because she didn’t want to be the one to bring Ingrid inside, help her unpack, show her the bedroom—what if Ingrid didn’t like it? Evelyn went into the master bathroom and locked the door, slowly peeled off her clothes. You’re scared of her, you chicken. You’re scared of a sixteen-year-old kid.
Half an hour later, in fresh clothes and makeup, Evelyn was nearly ready when the sound of hammering made her forget about drying her hair. She went down the hall to investigate. The door to the guest room was open, and Ingrid was standing in the middle of the bed, hoisting above the headboard an enormous stuffed white owl mounted on a wooden plaque.
“Um, hi,” said Ingrid, a little gaspy from the weight of the plaque. She managed to get it hooked over the nail she had just hammered, with a hammer that now lay on the bedspread. Evelyn stared.
Ingrid dropped to her knees on the bed.
“I was just hanging up my owl,” she said. “Ray said to just put up my own stuff if I wanted.”
“Ray did?” Evelyn looked around, trying to take in what had happened. The curtains were gone. Ing
rid had threaded the curtain rods through the arms of four tee shirts instead, two per window. One tee shirt had a silkscreen print of Reagan’s head with a cartoon balloon over it that said, “The bombing begins in five minutes.” The brand new bedspread was nowhere to be seen, and the bed was already unmade. One pillow had disappeared, and the other pillow had books lying on it. Evelyn turned her head sideways and read the titles: Farewell, My Lovely; In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer; Orienteering for Beginners; Silent Spring. There was a huge terrarium that appeared to be full of sand parked on top of the dresser; more books and piles of clothes lay scattered across the floor.
Ingrid cleared her throat. “It’s kind of a mess in here, I know,” she said. “It’ll take me a while to get everything set up.”
“I can see that. Where are the curtains?”
“Oh, I folded them up and put them in the bottom drawer. I um, I didn’t want them to get dirty or anything.”
But the curtains were nice, Evelyn wanted to protest. Her eyes fell on the missing pillow—on the floor between the bed and the nightstand—and she bent to retrieve it, composing in her head how she would phrase her complaints to Ray. But as she patted the pillow back in place she became aware of a sensation that had sprung up alongside her annoyance: something other than mess had transpired.
She straightened up and looked around the room again. Yes, there was no denying it. In the space of half an hour, Ingrid had done what Evelyn had not managed in over a year: she had made a part of Ray’s house utterly and unalterably hers. Ingrid’s, the room said. She had marked it: even the smell was different. Evelyn breathed in old cotton, tobacco, and—from the owl, she supposed—mothballs.
Ingrid was looking at her.
“Is there anything you need?” Evelyn said, just to be saying something. She hoped her tone of voice conveyed her disapproval of the mess, and not her admiration of the room’s metamorphosis.
The Fainting Room Page 7