The Fainting Room

by Sarah Pemberton Strong

  That was better. Now, if not quite her sister’s body, it could be her still agile mother’s or some cousin’s maybe, with a flatter stomach, hard thighs, and even, in these shadows, normal-colored hair. Seen myopically, her skin could be creamy, unblemished by muddy brown freckles. Some cousin, yes. This new cousin was part of the high wire act, was, in fact, its centerpiece. She could dance on the wire as if it were a floor, jump on the wire as if it were a trampoline; she could perch there as if she were a bird.

  Evie turned from the mirror and without putting her glasses back on, picked her blurry way past indistinct objects looming up along the ringside. She crossed to the pole in the center of the ring and hesitated only a moment before beginning to climb.

  After the first few rungs she kicked off her sandals and continued barefoot, feeling the metal bars against her feet and then finding her hands on the gritty rubber pads of the platform at the top. She stood up on the platform and placed one foot on the wire. She hadn’t done this in almost two years, not since her parents had given up on her for good, but the rope under her feet felt right.

  When she looked down all she could see was blur. The lack of markers to gauge her height gave her the feeling that she could be just a few feet above the ground on the practice rope, with just a few steps to take to reach the other side. Perhaps that had been her problem all along—it was not her balance that was at fault, but the unnerving distance that upset her. She let go of the platform railing and took another step out onto the wire. Why had she never tried to walk tightrope without her glasses? It was easy this way. The wire pressed hard into the soles of her feet each time she stepped, but the tingle of pain it produced reinforced her sense of balance. Ouch—one step, zing—another. Zing—she walked on, eyes naked, around her nothing but dark air whose forms had dissolved. Evie stepped her body forward, arms extended on either side like bird wings, helping her fly.

  And then she was flying; she swung her arms and the air found a sound and whistled: she was falling, she was falling from the high wire.

  And because her family performed without nets, nothing would catch her before she hit the ground. In the two seconds it took her to fall, Evie tried to change herself from bird to cat in the absurd hope of landing on her feet. Through the singing terror of her blood hurtling toward the earth, for two seconds of her life, Evie surpassed her family in her understanding of what it meant to be a high wire walker. She was having the consummate experience of the art.

  And then she hit the ground.

  “Jesus,” said Ingrid. Her glass sat empty beside her, her cigarette unlit and forgotten in her hand. “It’s amazing you’re not dead.”

  Evelyn nodded. “That’s what everyone said, once they started speaking to me again. I was in disgrace for the rest of the season.” She drained the remains of her wine cooler. “Another drink?”

  Ingrid held out her glass. “We’re out of Fresca. I’ll take straight wine.” She was drunk enough to have relaxed into the extraordinary science experiment her nervous system was conducting; it seemed that when Evelyn spoke to her, something in the tone of her voice caused high voltage electricity to shoot all through her body. With the addition of alcohol, however, the experience was not frightening and unbearable; in the presence of wine, the chemical reaction produced was more like the delicious electrics of having your scalp lightly scratched, or the tingle of sinking into a warm bath.

  “So what bones did you break?” she asked.

  “Let’s see. I had a concussion, and something called a burst fracture along my spine, and I broke my right leg and both ankles, and a bunch of ribs. The only thing they could set was the leg and ankles, so for the spine and the ribs I had to just lie around not moving for about a month while everyone ignored me. To teach me a lesson, you know. It was awful—it hurt even to breathe.”

  “Have you ever done it again?”

  “Walked on the wire? Not high like that. Joe—my first husband—bet me once that I couldn’t walk a wire that was about three feet off the ground and I did it. That was, gosh, six or seven years ago, I guess. I haven’t done it since.”

  “Could you do it now?”

  “There’s no wire.”

  “Sure there is,” Ingrid said. “The wire on that guard rail thing down the road by the bridge.”

  “That’s not a wire. More like a big steel cable. Anybody could walk that.”

  “I couldn’t. I’ve tried. Would you? I just want to see what it looks like. Please?”

  Evelyn looked out across the dark backyard. You couldn’t see anything out there, there was no moon, and there were no streetlights until Old Adams Road joined Brook Road, where the bridge was. The night was full of crickets, singing in her ears and in her bloodstream, it seemed; she felt excited, buzzy, daring. She looked over at Ingrid, who was gazing at her intently, but when their eyes met Ingrid looked away.

  “I’ll show you,” Evelyn said, deciding as she spoke. “It isn’t hard. Come on.”

  They picked their way along the dark road to the bridge, which was in fact just a part of the road that ran over a dry creek bed filled with sumac and poison ivy. Evelyn kicked off her shoes and stepped up onto the guard rail post, then laid one taupe-stockinged foot on the cable.

  Next foot, now step—but she was leaning too far back on her heels: her arms pinwheeled and she jumped down onto the asphalt, glanced at Ingrid standing a few feet away under the street lamp.

  “Try again,” Ingrid said.

  Evelyn thought of her father, imagined her father’s feet folding themselves around the wire—feeling, as he said, for what the wire wanted. She tried again.

  One step, another, a third. A half-dozen in rapid succession. From under the streetlight, Ingrid applauded.

  But the guard rail was only two feet off the ground. Evelyn thought she should show Ingrid something actually worth clapping for. Try a little jump, reverse turn.

  She bounced in preparation, jumped and spun, landed facing the other way. She had done it, actually done it, and now another reverse jump, a quick run forward to the next post, another jump, reverse turn, a skip, and now she was falling, jump again, make it look like part of the act, arms high, dismount!

  She landed on her feet on the pavement, staggered, but stayed upright.

  Ingrid clapped and whistled through her teeth, ran up beside her.

  “That was so excellent. That was great!”

  Did you see that? Evelyn thought at the ghost of Joe Cullen. Ha.

  But Joe was passed out in the ravine and had missed the whole thing.

  “Do it again?” Ingrid asked.

  “No,” said Evelyn firmly. “It’s amazing I did it even once. We’ll go back and celebrate that.”

  “Awesome,” Ingrid said.

  Coming around the side of the house to the dark backyard, Evelyn thought of the night she’d broken the window. She looked up toward the study and stumbled, nearly fell. She realized she was still barefoot save for her torn stockings.

  “Where are my shoes?” she asked.

  “I have them,” Ingrid said. “Can we have some more wine?”

  “Haven’t you had enough?”

  “You drank practically all of it. Besides, you said we had to celebrate.”

  “That’s true—how often have I done that jump right while someone was watching? Never. Celebrate how?”

  They went in through the back door.

  “Champagne?” Ingrid suggested.

  “Champagne.” Evelyn laughed. “Ray will love that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Who cares what he thinks? Go see if there’s some downstairs, then. In the wine cellar.”

  While Ingrid was downstairs in the basement, Evelyn looked in the fridge. She was hungry again, she was starving. She was drunker than she’d intended to be, but so what? There was no Joe here to ruin it, take it from buzzed to ballistic, ball up his meaty fists. She pulled out the Pyrex dish of chicken, now congealing in fat mixed with tomato,
and sat down at the kitchen table, speared a piece of chicken with the tips of her nails.

  Ingrid burst through the basement door yelling something. “What? Slow down.”

  “I said, it’s a fucking fallout shelter, your wine room. I totally forgot. How awesome is that? Right in your own basement, the whole concrete and steel shebang.”

  I don’t think it works,” Evelyn said.

  Ingrid began to laugh. She laughed so hard she sat down on the kitchen floor. “Of course it doesn’t work. How could it work? Oh, boy. Your basement is not where I’ll run for safety when the bombing begins.” She twisted the wire off the champagne cork and aimed the bottle at the ceiling. “Bang,” she said, as the cork hit the door frame. “But let’s talk about you, sweetheart,” she said, old movie voice. “You got any glasses in this dump?”

  The champagne glasses were in the china cabinet in the dining room, but that seemed too far away. Ingrid found two coffee mugs out of the dish drainer instead and filled them to the rim. “To your balance,” Ingrid said, and laughed.

  “Oh, I just love you,” Evelyn said, and drank.

  “You do?” The chemistry experiment inside Ingrid sent up a shower of sparks.

  “I mean,” Evelyn said, “this is great. You’re great. I’m so glad you’re here. Ray would never do this.”

  “Do what?” Ingrid asked. Sparking, blinking, dizzy.

  “Oh, champagne for no reason, champagne in coffee mugs—I can’t explain it. It’s just—relaxing.”

  They ate cold chicken and drank warm champagne.

  “Can I tell you something?” Ingrid said after a while. “When I met you I thought you were—I don’t know how to say it. Like, you were just this wife.”

  “I am just a wife,” Evelyn said. “Mrs. Arthur Braeburn Shepard.”

  “I know, but I just mean, I don’t know. If I had something really interesting in my life, I don’t think I’d try to hide it.”

  Evelyn sat up a little. “What do you think I’m hiding?”

  Ingrid made an impatient face. “Um, everything? Like that you were in the circus and stuff. How come you didn’t just tell me?”

  Evelyn relaxed again. “Because when I tell people, it’s all they see. And they think I’m some kind of freak. I feel stared at.”

  “That’s not why people stare at you,” Ingrid said.

  “No?”

  “They stare at you because you’re beautiful, duh.” You’re drunk, Slade. You must be fucking drunk.

  “How would you know? Pass me some more chicken.”

  Ingrid passed a drumstick and watched Evelyn beautifully eat it. “There’s tomato sauce on your cheek,” she said.

  Evelyn wiped the wrong side of her face with the back of her greasy hand, missing the tomato sauce and smearing what was left of her Maybelline.

  “Why do you wear pancake makeup, anyway?” Ingrid asked.

  “It’s called foundation, not pancake. Because I have too many freckles.”

  “But I like them.”

  “Besides, it moisturizes.”

  “That’s no reason. So does chicken grease.”

  “You don’t wear chicken grease.”

  “You’re wearing it right now. It’s your left cheek. It makes your freckles shiny.”

  “You’re crazy,” said Evelyn, wiping at her other cheek.

  “I am not—look.” Ingrid dipped her finger in the oily tomato sauce and rubbed it against her own cheek as if she were applying rouge. “See? Glisteny. That’s how you look.”

  “Crazy,” Evelyn repeated.

  “Try it,” Ingrid insisted. She dipped her finger again and dabbed it against Evelyn’s cheek. “New formula! Goes on smoother than ever.”

  “You maniac!” Evelyn stuck her hand in the pan and painted a smear of sauce across Ingrid’s forehead.

  Ingrid burst out laughing. “How do I look?” she asked.

  “Yummy.”

  Ingrid dipped her fingers into the sauce as Evelyn had done. She reached up and touched Evelyn’s other cheek, then laid her whole hand there.

  “Hey,” Evelyn protested.

  Ingrid took her hand away; it was on fire anyhow. “Now you look great too,” she said, and put her burned fingers in her mouth.

  Evelyn grinned. “Look great, taste great!” She began to giggle. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Then Ray’s voice broke over them. “What in God’s name are you two doing?”

  Evelyn looked up from the veil of delicious girl laughter and there was her husband, suddenly materialized in the kitchen, staring at them from under one of his old-fashioned hats. She felt her chest contract. He looked too clean standing there, and stupid—she had never thought of that word in connection with him, but there it was, it was obvious, suddenly: he didn’t know anything. That was the problem. He didn’t know. If she could just get him to enjoy what she was enjoying, he would understand in a way that he didn’t and never had.

  “Hey, Ray,” said Ingrid. “Cool fedora you’re wearing. Siddown, have some chicken.”

  Ray didn’t move, trying to make sense of the scene. He had heard their laughter from the front door and moved toward it, moth-like, as if toward light. But what was this? Their faces were covered with tomato sauce. Evelyn’s hair was disheveled, her stockings torn, and her toes poking out were filthy with dirt. She looked drunk. Ingrid was sitting with one leg up on the table and looked drunker. And there was a bottle of Veuve Cliquot—Veuve Cliquot!—on the table.

  He’d seen how Evelyn’s face closed up when he came into the room. He didn’t want to be the kind of person who made people’s faces tighten. He wanted to be the kind of person who could be laughing drunk and happy at a kitchen table with his face all greasy. He felt at once censorious and jealous, utterly left out.

  “Have we run out of napkins?” he said. It didn’t come out as humorously as he’d hoped.

  “Oh, shush, Ray,” said Evelyn, “don’t be so fucking proper.”

  He turned to Ingrid. “What are you two doing?”

  “Jes settin’,” said Ingrid in a fake southern accent. “Eatin’ and drinkin’ and settin’. Evelyn, give your husband some chicken.”

  Evelyn picked out a bit of chicken and offered it, dubiously, on the tips of her fingers.

  What the hell, Ray thought, and bent forward, took the chicken carefully between his teeth.

  Evelyn felt a wave of happiness wash through her. Maybe Ray wasn’t a complete stick in the mud after all. Maybe there was hope. She scooped up a dripping chunk of meat and Ray let her push it into his mouth. His lips closed over her fingers. She smiled at him, kept her fingers in his mouth until he blushed and pulled his head away, darted his eyes sideways to remind her that Ingrid was right there watching.

  “Fine,” she said, “let’s go upstairs.”

  “Yes, it’s very late.” Ray tried to cover. “We should all go to bed.”

  “Except,” Evelyn said, and then fell silent. She didn’t really want to go upstairs with Ray if it meant leaving Ingrid; what she wanted was to be two places at once, to be both making love with Ray and continuing to sit beside this beautiful crazy laughing girl. If she could take the part of her that Ingrid was making laugh into the bedroom with Ray, it would all be all right. But if she left this table, left Ingrid behind, something would close up in her again.

  Ray was standing up now and pulling her up as well. Evelyn grasped Ingrid’s arm with her free hand, not wanting to leave.

  Ingrid looked at Ray. “Where’d you get such an nifty fedora at this time of night?”

  “I left it at work ages ago, and just found it. Come on, Evelyn, it’s bedtime.”

  “Well it’s excellent,” Ingrid said. “Very noirish.”

  “It’s yours,” said Ray, taking off the hat and plopping it on Ingrid’s head; Ingrid, delighted, shook her hand free of Evelyn’s, and reached up to adjust the brim. Ray seized his opportunity and pulled Evelyn toward the hall.

  “But I like it down
here,” Evelyn said loudly.

  Ray looked over his wife’s shoulder at Ingrid. “You should go to bed, now too,” he said. “You’re both drunk.”

  “Yes, come on, Ingrid,” said Evelyn, “It’s way past your bedtime.” She held out her hand and Ingrid took it again.

  “Sweetheart, enough,” Ray said in Evelyn’s ear, “Come on.”

  Evelyn sighed. Suddenly she felt exhausted. She didn’t want to make love: it was too late, the moment was over.

  “Good night, Ingrid,” said Ray. “Evelyn, come on.”

  “Good night Ingrid,” Evelyn repeated. She leaned forward and solemnly kissed the splotch of tomato sauce on Ingrid’s forehead. “Thank you,” she said, and drew back, meaning to go. But a look had come over Ingrid’s face—a stricken look that made Evelyn want to say, Don’t cry, it’s all right, though no one was crying.

  “Kiss her good night, Ray,” she said. There was no reason to cry, they were all here.

  “Evelyn, come on, let’s just get you to bed.”

  “Just kiss her good night, Ray,” Evelyn said stubbornly, “don’t be rude.” And she kissed Ingrid again, on the mouth this time.

  “Fine,” Ray said, and leaned in toward Ingrid’s cheek, intending an air kiss there; then maybe his drunk wife would go upstairs.

  But Ingrid’s mouth had just been kissed. Kissed. By Evelyn. Ingrid’s mouth, just kissed, had sprung to life independent of the rest of her, which was in shock; Ingrid’s mouth,just kissed by Evelyn, wanted to be kissed again. Not knowing she was going to do it, Ingrid turned her mouth toward Ray and then as if by magic his lips, too, were on hers. And then gone.

  Ray stepped backward, pulled Evelyn’s arm hard. “Good night now,” he said desperately, “Evelyn, come on.” And he pulled her toward the stairs, then pushed her up the first step in front of him.

  He had kissed Ingrid, her lips had moved tentatively against his before she had thank God pulled away—Ingrid was drunk, and he felt suddenly drunk himself, dislocated and full of desire for something. He looked at his wife on the stairs ahead of him. He wanted to take his wife to bed, that was all. The alcohol had made her silly, loose in a way she rarely was, and though she was being annoying, she was also being sexy. He wanted to get her in bed, but the drunken glow on Ingrid’s face, the taste of expensive wine and stale cigarettes on her smooth lips, what did it mean that Ingrid had made him kiss her there, on her mouth, he’d been aiming for her cheek and she’d deliberately turned her mouth toward him?