by Nina Malkin
—Vicarious pleasure? I? The nerve!
—Sorry . . .
—So there is nothing I can do for you? Did you not come here . . . wanting?
—Yeah, but I got what I wanted. Come on, don’t pout. Look, I could use a ride. To my campsite. It’s just beyond the woods . . .
—A ride. To your campsite. You are too cruel. But very well, my lamb, I’ll shepherd you there. Climb on!
LVII
Reality sneaks up shortly before noon. Adequate cell phone reception at the Chest-ah-Fest grounds puts Pen back in business mode immediately. There’s a bit of verbal bob and weave with her boy—Tosh informing her they’ve been at the festival half an hour and already unloaded the gear; where have we been? She calms him down, arranges coordinates to hook up on the midway for lunch. Marsh and I hang back at the campsite, noshing on provisions brought from home, then amble over to the festival.
That’s when we notice Sin squiring Antonia through the throng. Marsh snags my belt loop as the ultimate odd couple investigates a kiosk.
“Oh, Dice,” she says haltingly. “They’re looking at rings.”
“It’s all right,” I tell her. “Really.”
We put it in gear. “You made it,” I say, marching up.
Sin has swapped his PWT for a tapered shirt of apropos lapis lazuli. The other wardrobe addition: a pair of mirrored aviators. I can’t see his eyes, but I see his smile. It’s bittersweet and strained, but it’s his and he’s made it mine. “An interminable journey,” he says, “but yes.”
A silver-haired silversmith bedecked in her own baubles sits behind her wares. She reminds me a little of Duck and Crane’s mom. “You make beautiful things,” I tell her, admiring a cuff inlaid with abalone.
“Everything here is silver,” Antonia complains. “I should think we’d want gold, at the very least. I read on the Internet machine that platinum is most precious. Oh, and I did espy some lovely diamond-encrusted rings on the Tiffany and Company dot com.” She suctions the arm of her begrudging groom-to-be. Behind those shades, he could be anywhere.
“Still, I have always believed a simple gold band ought suffice. No cause for ostentation—so long as the love shines bright.”
Marsh pokes me in sickened amusement—I bug my eyes at her, like: Stop!
Sin, meanwhile, gives an equine stomp. “If there’s nothing here you want,” he says, “shall we move on?”
“No!” Fiercely she tugs his hand. And presses the place above his wrist like it’s his control button—or do I just imagine that? Unwittingly my fingers trace the still unfeeling swatch along my thigh. “Let us choose trinkets for the ceremony. We can find more suitable rings later.” The ceremony. The actual exchange of vows. It seems . . . imminent. “So you’ve set the date,” I say numbly.
“Indeed,” Antonia says. “This Saturday at four, on the grounds of my erstwhile estate.”
This Saturday. Mere days away. Between now and then, I’d better be a very busy girl.
The Chest-ah-Fest crowd is as eclectic as Connecticut gets: mostly white, yeah; mostly monied, sure; but all ages, kids to crusties, and that works for Bruise Blue. The way we tinge every tune with throwback blues flavor makes our sound old-school and cutting-edge at once. So it’s fair to say they’re digging us—and we’re feeding on the energy. As musical director, Tosh is popping—he’ll flex on drums, then leave the kit to handle more intricate guitar parts while Duck picks up the bass to keep the beat. Still, I’d say it’s the vibe between Sin and me that has our listeners on lock.
When he first got with Bruise Blue, we were at odds—that lent an interesting tension to the music. But now we’re in it together, and everything we’ve been through pours into our songs—the passion, the peril, the battles, the bliss. Though I’m the aggressor, my vocals demanding his echoes, Sin is there for every taunt and invitation, licking it up and down and sideways. Except when he solos—then he’s on top, chest and belly muscles pumping wails through his harp. All the while, we’re conscious that this is a show, fusing with our bandmates for public entertainment, yet it’s intrinsically all about us—Sin and I might as well be deep in that canyon again, the only boy and girl in the world.
In the swirling mass in front of us, a few figures I recognize.
Right up front, big and beautiful, Pen bops around, loose and loud and jubilant—our number one fan. Bruise Blue wouldn’t be here if not for her, and despite a few lapses while under the influence last fall, she’s always been there for me.
She’s not the flighty, flirty girl of a year ago, but a woman in the cerulean stage of love, and I beam at her, wishing every happiness her way.
Over there, my new friend Fracas dances with herself and all the girls on this blue planet. Her journey gem, its duty done, is safe in my front pocket, soon to be exchanged for Saint Michael. Can Fracas read the results of my trip in my aura, the blots of fear banished, my deep and my bright in full effect?
Finally, a stilted figure in clothes that don’t quite fit, Antonia neither blends in nor stands out. It’s like she’s a forgotten knapsack, something to be swerved around or accidentally trampled. That I’d feel anything for her besides hate or fear should surprise me but doesn’t. It sucks to be her, and always has—all she really evokes in me is pity. Can I show mercy and still not falter, expunge her from our lives forever without sending her straight to hell?
That question, posed to the blessings newly activated inside me, sparks my psyche. Inspired, I take a bow and shout major thank-yous, then ask permission to switch things up a bit.
Taking the mic from the stand, I holler, “How’s about a little freestyle?”
They holler back affirmative, and I stroll to the kit. Tosh gives me a look like: What the? My smile says: Just trust.
“Come on now, Tosh, give me a blues shuffle, huh?” I snap my fingers. “A very basic groove.”
He delivers—not too fast, not too slow, just enough high hat, just enough strut.
“And Duck, you know I’m partial to A-minor . . .” If he didn’t, he does now, and he gives it to me, gives it to me good.
“Now, Marsh here—she’s my girl. She’s knows aaaaalll about it, and she’s going to make it clear to you.” Losing what’s left of her inhibitions, Marsh shakes and shimmies, and they love her for it.
Finally, Sin. Stroke him sweet along the jaw. Place a palm against his heart. Dive into his eyes. Say nothing, till the crowd hurls excitement. I wink at them and say to him, “And you, Sin Powers . . .” Beat . . . “You . . .” Beat. “Oh my boy, you know exactly what to do . . .”
At center stage, I feel for my cue and rely on all the gifts within me when I spilll. . .
You and she go back a while
She won’t let you go
She don’t speak, she don’t smile,
She won’t let you go
She don’t talk but she done told me,
Yeah, she told me so
She won’t let you, she won’t let you, she won’t let you go.
Marsh, right up close beside me, bangs that curvy cymbal box against her hip. With her throat arched and her eyes slit and her lips parted. Yeah, uh-huh, that way.
I don’t know you very well
But boy I know you good
I won’t ask but I can tell
Just what’s in your blood
I don’t make the flowers grow
I ain’t no sold-out show
And she won’t let you, she won’t let you, she won’t let you go.
Now Duck, for all his teddy-bear cuddliness, has been around the globe and around the block. He comes up on my other side with a sure and tender touch on the SG. And behind me, the boy who’s got my back as well as my beat puts in slurry harmony just where it belongs to spur my lament to the next level, my voice finding an even more plaintive spot.
Why she think she got a claim?
Why she think she got a right?
Now we’re caught in her cruel game
And she can play a
ll night
She got hands and she got eyes
Yeah, she got them on the prize
She won’t let you, she won’t let you, she won’t let you go.
I have no shame. I’m in the open-door confessional. This is my purge, my complete indecent exposure. My ache, my anger, my excoriation. Too intimate to admit, too honest to share, I’m doing it anyway. I have no clue how it works, how blues music, born of pain, can make
me feel so good, but it does. My weakness is my strength, and when I feel it, I lay it on the man I’d do anything for. Sin solos to strip his own soul for me—breath believing as his mouth makes a miracle.
And when he’s done, I take it back, take it all the way.
So she want to fight a duel
She sharpening her claws
Don’t she know that I’m no fool
I ain’t no just because
Doesn’t matter what you said
What you promised, what you did
She gonna let you go, she gonna let you, she gonna let you go
I can take her, I’m gonna make her, she gonna let you go.
Good and done, I send my eyes to the sky. It’s that infinite blue of dusk, cool yet warm, far yet close, and host to a filling silver moon. Hey, moon, I think, you crazy, random thing, you don’t scare me. Since just above you, small but a billion times more bright, the first star of evening shines. It shines for me.
LVIII
I know, I know—me and my arcane observations on the heavens. Yeah, well, here’s another: The cosmos has got to be female, beset by fluctuating hormones and major mood swings.
Since once minute you’re onstage with your band, wowing newfound fans. The next you’re alone in your own kitchen—not even the cat for commiseration—wondering how things got so bad. Specifically, the dismal conditions at 12 Daisy Lane.
I’m pretty adept at ignoring a mess, but this is no mere mess—this is a shambles. Tower of dishes in the sink, clothes and magazines willy-nilly, every surface splattered and splotched. The bathroom is its own special science project, the kind that demands a hazmat suit. Now, I realize Momster was visiting, and the woman definitely has tumbleweed tendencies.
Plus, Marsh may have slacked on the tidy tip, having pulled extra shifts at work to snag time off for Chest-ah-Fest. As for me, recuperating from the s’mores incident, maybe I wasn’t all that concerned about leaving a trail of crumbs in my wake. Yet all those factors combined couldn’t possibly wreak this kind of wreckage. I stand in the middle, mystified, when Marsh walks in from her morning ride.
“I was thinking you might never come back,” I tell her. “You saw the place and decided you’d rather live in a barn.”
“I did run out of here screaming, ‘Oh, the horror,’” she admits, puzzling over a lone sock lying on the sideboard.
“It’s like we’ve been marauded . . .”
That’s when Antonia descends with her saccharine “good morning”—and I know. The destruction has got to be her doing. After all, she’d spent some twenty-four hours home alone, left to her own devices. I have every intention of calling her on it, but instead can only gawp. The girl has gone green.
All that fun in the sun at Chest-ah-Fest must have tweaked her undead melanin to give her skin a freakish cast (who knew to recommend an SPF of 15 or higher?). So I simply stare as she opens a cupboard, closes it, peers in the basin, and ultimately inquires of Marsh and me, “How am I to enjoy my Cocoa Puffs with no clean dishware?”
Audacity jump-starts my larynx. “Gee, Antonia, I don’t know. Though I do believe the larger question is, why is there no clean dishware? When here we have the modern miracle of hot and cold running water.” I twist the tap to demonstrate.
“Soap—and lo!—a sponge. Even”—a quick stride along the counter—“the ingenious appliance known as the dish washer.”
“Oh.” She sends her glance askance.
“And while we’re on the subject,” Marsh chimes in, popping open the utility closet. “Here we have the mop, the broom, the dustpan—traditional tools I’m sure existed in seventeen hundred whenever.”
I take it from there. “Ever so handy when it comes to spilled milk, cereal, just about anything that doesn’t make it into your mouth, as you well know.”
Flushing, Antonia’s complexion deepens—it’s like confronting an olive. “Alas, that is the problem,” she creakily confesses. “I haven’t the faintest notion how to use”—she flips useless digits toward the cleaning supplies—“such things.” With a soft snort, Marsh drops the dishwasher door. She, of course, has been doing chores since she could toddle and has often had cause for impatience when it comes to Swoon’s idle rich. Naturally, she assumes she’ll spend the next few hours applying serious elbow grease, but I shoot her a look: Hold up.
“You don’t?” I’m full of mock chagrin. “Damn, Antonia, what sort of wife will you make Sin if you can’t even keep house for him?”
The way she wrings her wrists and skitters her eyes, it’s clear she’s got a problem. “Gracious!” She touches the sticky counter, pulls back as if scorched. “Surely my Sinclair’s the sort of man who likes everything just so.” Surely he’s never brought her by the crummy crib he shares with Kurt Libo.
“What shall I do?”
Hooting louder now, Marsh doesn’t bother to disguise her disgust.
“We could teach you.” This could be fun, though I wonder at the source of the idea—a domestic goddess, or a mischievous one? “We’ll tell you what to do, then inspect as you go along to make sure it gets done right.”
The hope that enters Antonia’s face, it’s sort of sad. Does she really think I’d offer aid in any way? Didn’t she hear my song last night, my reclaimed commitment to bouncing her butt? “What do you think, Marsh?” I say. “Start her with the bathroom? It’s particularly gross in there.” Either Marsh fails to grasp the humor in this or she believes demonic ineptitude will just make matters worse. “Why bother?” she says. “Antonia, you have money; just get a maid.” Which of course makes sense. Yet Antonia’s reaction is peculiar—to me, intriguingly so.
“A maid?” The prim way she latches her neckline, you’d think Marsh suggested she hire a hooker to accommodate Sin’s manly needs. “I will have no maid in my home.”
“Don’t be silly, of course you will,” I say dismissively, my precog engine revving, both barrels. “You can afford a full staff. A strong young girl for the heavy-duty stuff. A top-notch cook—Tosh knows this chick who trained in Paris; he’ll hook you up. Oh, and a laundress to ensure Sin’s T-shirts are starched and ironed precisely—”
“No!” the monstress almost shouts.
“But a lady of your breeding is naturally inclined to leisure.” I cast my glance. “I mean, look at this place—you didn’t even think to lift a finger.” I turn to Marsh. “Okay, fine, I’ll do the bathroom.”
Antonia reaches for my arm. “Dice, please—do allow me, instruct me. I’m sure to enjoy humble duties, and even if I come to find them . . . tiresome, that would surely be preferable to having sneaky, skulking servants about.” I take back my arm, crossing it and its partner over my chest.
“You don’t know what those people are like,” she says.
“Why, my father had to dismiss a cook once—some indelicate behavior with the butcher.”
My unconvinced stare prompts her to continue.
“And the deceit, the skulduggery . . . oh, the very thought of that vile Mae Molly gives me the vapors.”
“Ooh!” I nudge Marsh to feign interest.
“She must have been terrible,” my girl plays. “Do tell, Antonia—did she steal?”
“Oh, indubitably, though I never caught her red-handed, vixen that she was, so cunning. Yet her treachery went beyond pilfering the silver; she’d snatch your very soul if she could.” A ripple of distaste courses through her. Marsh and I watch, rapt.
“Only no one would suspect; indeed I found her most congenial myself—at first. Her appearance abetted
her knavery—some would call her pretty, I suppose, and she was . . . buxom. She had my mother wrapped around her finger, that’s for certain. You see, Mae Molly was our ladies maid; ostensibly her duties included sewing, attending the toilette, assisting with the social schedule. Yet in truth it seemed she existed to amuse my mother. I would hear them laugh together, the Lady Anne often exclaiming over Mae Molly’s wit. And of course she could sing . . .”
Antonia says it as if the talent were a curse, then attempts to correct herself with her forced excuse for a smile.
“I, however, had plenty of menial tasks for her, particularly once I began to sequester myself in the east wing.” Here she seems to search for words. “There was a period—a phase—when I did not speak or venture much beyond my garden and was rather . . . dependent on the maid. I’d have her carry meals to my room and manage my chamber pot.”
I’ve been back and forth from the east wing, a long walk with a loaded tray or bucket of you-know-what.
“I also relied on her to run errands: to the general store, the apothecary, the stationers—I’d became a prodigious lady of letters. Oh, she’d dash into town at the drop of a pin, that one.” In fact, I can envision her, sashaying around with her tiny waist and switching hips, her cap so carelessly tied. I can also imagine the admiring glances she no doubt garnered from men and boys alike, one end of Swoon to the other.
“She did my bidding well enough,” Antonia says. “But one day, after I’d cut myself pruning, I ran up to wash, when I heard Mae Molly in my room. Speaking aloud, some foolish game, I assumed. Rather than intrude and embarrass her, I decided to come upon her softly—that’s when I spied what she was up to.” A small shudder at the memory, and the young mistress goes on. “She’d littered all my dresses across the bed, and while holding one of my favorites against herself, assumed the role of my mother’s confidante. ‘Poor dear Lady Anne,’ she said in a false cultured accent, ‘my pity upon you—having such a sniveling, bumbling daughter. Perhaps if you were to send her away, some school that rigorously instills charm upon young ladies?’”