The Best of Crimes

by K. C. Maher

  The accidental endearment sends me from the table again and into the living room, where I try to remember if I’ve ever called Olivia ‘honey.’

  Amanda tiptoes in and sits on the couch, across from the chair where I’ve landed. She pulls the huge Leonardo da Vinci book from the coffee table onto her lap. The cover is a glossy collage of his masterpieces, including The Vitruvian Man.

  ‘Did you see The Simpsons’ “Vitruvian Man” episode?’

  I confess that I haven’t. I ask if she’s studied proportions in school.

  ‘We’re starting to. Ratios and proportions.’

  I tell her about Leonardo’s theory of the human body in relation to the universe. ‘Cosmological and micro-logical.’ Without thinking, I cross the room, sit beside her, and flip to the full illustration.

  Amanda’s voice drops to a whisper. ‘He looks like he’s going to cartwheel off the page.’

  Momentarily stunned, I say, ‘You’re right. I never noticed that before.’ Our two heads peer down at the picture.

  I stand and take a step back, gazing at the exquisite girl who, as of today, has become a conscious obsession.

  She asks if we can watch her favorite TV show, The Real Miranda. ‘Olivia has them on DVDs. But she didn’t love it like me.’

  ‘Don’t you have homework to do?’

  ‘Of course, but today is Saturday.’

  The rain continues to fall outside and the day is losing its light. I don’t have the heart to send her home.

  While I search through a jumble of DVD cases in one of Sterling’s Navajo baskets, Amanda chatters about the pilot episode, which is where she thinks we should start. ‘This girl Miranda moves from New York City to Ames, Iowa just before high school. And the first day of high school—in Iowa—she feels like the other kids have superpowers. Except maybe for this one girl, Iris, who befriends her. They collect evidence but can’t prove anything.’

  She asks if I have a favorite show.

  ‘I don’t watch much television.’

  ‘Because you work so much?’

  ‘Not anymore. I’m taking a hiatus.’

  ‘Hiatus like a TV series?’

  Murmuring yes, I find The Real Miranda and hold it up in ridiculous triumph.

  Amanda giggles as I try various remotes.

  We sit side by side on the low orange couch, which forces me into a half-supine position but isn’t uncomfortable. Amanda’s delicate fingers slowly rotate the DVD box.

  ‘The Real Miranda,’ she says, ‘is full of references that I don’t know. I look online, but the people on those forums make up shit—stuff, I mean. So, if you watch the first season with me, I’ll be able to learn what I’ve missed. Someone said that the name Miranda comes from Shakespeare.’

  ‘The Tempest has a character named Miranda, and I believe there’s an Iris, too.’

  The show opens with Miranda singing at her bedroom window. She’s looking out and we’re looking in at her. Amanda says that, instead of one recurring theme song, each episode has its own song. This one’s about moving to Iowa. The second verse asks whether Iris has a superpower but doesn’t know it.

  Amanda swoops about the room, singing along. When the song ends, she looks at me, her hands covering half her face, her big round eyes gleaming into mine. A terrific urge to embrace her possesses me. To suppress it, I focus on the TV.

  The actress playing Iris is quick and dark and moves like a ballerina. I ask if Amanda knows that Iris comes from Greek mythology, like Persephone.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Iris represented the rainbow.’

  ‘So cool.’

  I nod like an idiot.

  Amanda tries to recall when the kids in Iowa will first demonstrate their powers.

  While saying this, she tucks her legs beneath her and sits on her feet—so she can drape her arm around my neck. ‘Do you think it’s better to be honest about being super-good at stuff even if it sounds like bragging, or better to act like you’re ordinary when you’re not?’

  Staring at my shoes, I say, ‘Best to be honest about your abilities and learn to recognize and appreciate other people’s strengths and talents.’

  ‘That’s one of the theme songs,’ she says, tilting back as she shifts position again. ‘Everyone’s unique but united.’ Now she rests on one flank and slowly arcs her long legs and striped socks over my head before resting them in my lap.

  Gently, I lift her legs off of me. Gently, I arrange her so that she’s sitting up, feet on the floor.

  ‘Why can’t we curl up? I know you like me.’

  ‘That’s the problem. I like you too much.’

  She moves to the extreme other end of the couch, crosses her arms, and twines her legs. Her indignation, and maybe embarrassment too, fills the air.

  ‘A million times I’ve been told to keep away from strange men. And you’re the only man on earth who isn’t strange.’

  ‘There’s more to it, Amanda. You know that.’

  ‘It’s cold and raining. We’re happy and cozy. Why can’t we cuddle?’

  ‘It’s better if we don’t, honey.’ The endearment, which so upset me earlier, sounds exactly right now. In fact, from now on, whenever I have to deny Amanda anything, I’ll sweeten it with ‘honey,’ which hurts no one.

  *

  She pouts and fidgets. The fine line I’m walking is no more substantial than a silken thread and I’m too far along to turn back. If I tried, she would take it as rejection. And besides, the mere attempt would send me into a free fall.

  The pilot episode ends. Amanda clicks on a cartoon. Subdued, she says, ‘Futurama’s all reruns now, but I still watch it.’

  Then, in an overreaction to distant lightning, she startles into the air, and ends up with her head resting on my chest. Tilting her chin, she asks, ‘Okay?’

  ‘All right.’ She shifts her head higher. Her hair, mostly dry now, is coming loose from the braid. Strands fan across the front of my sweater and tickle my neck. She shifts again. I concentrate on remaining still.

  For nearly an hour, I restrain myself—I cannot and will not touch her shoulder. I will not trace a finger from her delicate earlobe to the base of her throat. I ache everywhere. She wraps an arm around me, her fingertips fluttering against my ribcage. I regulate my breathing but cannot slow my heartbeat, which pulses hard in my chest.

  Finally, she sits up—and, thank God, moves to pick up the remote. She selects a sitcom punctuated by loud, abrasive commercials. When she sits down again, it takes all my self-control not to guide her head back to my chest. Music blares, and she cups her hands around my ear, whispering, ‘Do you like this?’

  Not for a split second do I imagine she’s asking about the TV show.

  ‘I like it so much that you must go home now.’

  ‘But why? The show’s not over.’

  ‘Wait here and I’ll get you some rain gear.’

  I find a pair of red rubber boots Olivia has outgrown. ‘Try these. No, keep the socks.’ The waxy raincoat I lend her is too big. She makes a face at the hat but keeps it on nonetheless, her smirk irresistible and a bit forgiving.

  ‘Once you’re inside, honey, flick the lights, so I’ll know you’re safe.’

  Ten

  The next morning, Sunday, I return from my run and she’s standing in her doorway as if waiting for me. Walking toward her, I ask, ‘What are you doing up so early?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just awake.’

  Reinforcing our roles as adult and child, I ask if she’ll let me see her homework sometime.

  Amanda’s eyes widen. ‘You want to?’

  ‘I’m interested, yes.’

  She smiles and says, ‘How ’bout tonight after dinner?’

  That wasn’t my plan but it makes sense, so I spend the day cleaning the house and preparing tomato sauce for pasta. Fixating all the while on our lives being misaligned by two decades.

  At the first dimming into evening, I stroll outside, listening to the mild Sep
tember wind blow through the trees. They have grown considerably since we moved here, and now blend with the natural forest. This lends Amanda and me shelter, and isolates us from the rest of Oak Grove Point.

  I hop onto the front porch and go inside. The phone rings. She breathes softly but cannot disguise her anxiety.

  ‘Amanda, is that you?’

  ‘Dinner’s ready!’ She bursts out with this so abruptly that I laugh without thinking.

  ‘What’s so funny? We’re having hamburgers. Can you bring over some sparkling water and pomegranate juice?’

  ‘But I made dinner for you.’

  ‘No, please! I made dinner!’

  ‘Amanda, it has to be at my house, or we cannot do it.’ My words sound sharper than I intend.

  ‘Come on, I vacuumed and everything.’

  ‘If I enter your house, while you’re there alone—well, I might seem like an intruder.’

  ‘Do I seem like an intruder when I enter your house, and you’re there alone?’

  ‘I can’t explain the difference, honey. But you must come here. I cannot go there.’ To me, the difference is critical. Setting foot where she bathes and sleeps, wakes and dresses is forbidden. And after yesterday, maintaining my balance with Amanda has become life or death.

  Perhaps five seconds pass.

  ‘Walter, what’s wrong?’

  ‘What if we bring the meal to my house and eat in the dining room?’

  She mutters in annoyance but agrees.

  At Amanda’s front door, I take a platter with two uncooked hamburgers and buns from her arms and remind her to bring her homework. She grabs a jacket and two notebooks.

  Back in my kitchen, I review several pages of math functions while Amanda arranges the food on the counter. ‘Excellent work.’

  A shy smile and she asks if she can fix the same drinks as yesterday. I nod and turn to her weekly journal.

  ‘We’re supposed to write about our families,’ she says. ‘But I write whatever I want. The teacher said fine before I even finished explaining . . . ’

  She trails off and I lose myself in her journal, which describes yesterday’s thunderstorm as a flashy, just-passing-through kind of guy, who deliberately vanishes the moment the grass and the trees, the earth, and even the sky want more.

  While I broil the hamburgers with scallions from my garden and toast the buns, she sets the dining room table. I suspect she bought the most expensive ground beef she could find: sirloin. I slice a just-picked tomato and cut a crisp bell pepper into strips. ‘Want a piece of cheese melted on top?’

  ‘No, thanks. But do you have any brown mustard?’

  I smile at her and spoon it into a tiny flat bowl with a matching spoon. It’s nearly 8:00 pm by the time we sit down.

  I light Sterling’s entire collection of candlesticks and the room glows like a church. Amanda’s eyes are dazzling in the candlelight and she whispers, ‘So romantic, Walter.’

  In my mind, I hit hard against moral rock-face and soon reverse my earlier resolution not to sit on the couch with her and watch TV. Amanda needs the warmth and reassurance of human connection. If the brief, silken contact between her skin and mine stokes anything improper in me, I swear she will never know—no matter what.

  For, as well as anyone, and certainly better than most, I know the toll of being required to fend for yourself too soon. It would be wrong for us to live parallel lives, performing similar motions inside our houses. If I were to fail to give this child the consideration she’s due, it would be criminal.

  But my reasons are far from altruistic. Without Amanda, life would feel grim and stale. Without her bright tenor, I’d fall flat.

  *

  Employed or not, I wake every day at 5:00. Without a morning train to catch, I run for an hour and a half. Upon reaching the aqueduct, I walk to cool down. But at Oak Grove Point, I sprint to the top for the foolish satisfaction that comes from ‘conquering the hill.’

  On schooldays, at 7:15, I’m dressed and drinking coffee by the window. By eight, Amanda skips past my house without looking up. My hand is raised and I wait until she reaches the road to drop it. She’s dancing down the spiraling hill in Olivia’s old red rubber boots. Her lithe body flows and her silken, tawny hair waves behind her.

  I spend the next few hours studying my Renaissance art books. Later, I start dinner, usually a pot of soup. After lunch, I lift weights while listening to jazz.

  At the afternoon’s peak, I brush my teeth again. I shave thoroughly, including my neck, and change into a clean casual shirt. I’ve found the one I bought when Sterling took up with Kevin Dalton. It’s a blue-gray button-down of heavy silk and cotton twill that makes me feel sleek and strong.

  To my surprise, Sterling had noticed it. She said, ‘Don’t wear that when you’re trying to be invisible.’

  The remark was far from mean but she had intended it to hurt me, because the subtext compared me to Kevin. It hadn’t hurt at all, however. What did hurt—a little—was discovering that Sterling could no longer hurt my feelings. Because I don’t love her like that anymore. Whatever Sterling thinks about a shirt or a house or a man doesn’t concern me.

  Amanda Jonette concerns me. And I, who have always been risk averse, will risk all decency to give her a fraction of the love she deserves. Impeccable attire that looks like ordinary casual clothing will lend me refinement, and maybe even padlock the wild animal rattling the cage.

  Each day at 4:00 pm, I stand in Olivia’s bedroom, watching from the window. In fifteen to thirty minutes, I see Amanda tossing her backpack high in the air, twirling beneath it, and catching it. She proceeds up the hill in crisscrossing arcs. When she rounds the last bend at the top, I step across the hall and watch from my own bedroom window. She reaches her front door and rewards me with a curtsy, a smile, and a pretty little wave before disappearing inside her mother’s empty house.

  Two hours later, she rings the doorbell. We have dinner. I review her homework and we watch television.

  Amanda thinks our ‘snuggling’ is what fathers and daughters do. Except, she’s never met her father. And no daughter demonstrates such mad devotion. Amanda is strong and capable, yet she cries for cuddling and cooing as urgently as an infant.

  This cannot last. But, for now, I crave the splendor stirring the air that surrounds her. She presses against me, nestles and squirms. The thrilling pleasure she inflicts cuts straight through me. For which, I’ll gladly suffer whatever lies ahead.

  Eleven

  By mid-October, the oak and beech trees in Oak Grove Point are denuded and the wind blows hard down from Canada. Tonight, Amanda arrives shivering in the oversized hand-me-down sweater of Olivia’s and tan corduroy jeans rolled up to her knees. She steps out of the rubber boots and her delicate feet and ankles are chafed from the cold.

  My impressions become jumbled. She talks faster than her mouth moves. Her voice trills while her face conveys a cunning loveliness.

  She takes my hand and asks if we can sit down for a minute.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I want to cuddle.’

  ‘After dinner, while we watch TV.’

  ‘Okay, but can’t I have a hug first?’

  Seeing my hesitation, she rolls her eyes. ‘A hug hello.’

  ‘All right.’

  She throws her long slender arms around my neck. Pressing into me, her head at my heart, she looks up and asks if I missed her, because she missed me.

  ‘It’s only been about twenty hours,’ I remind her, but Amanda doesn’t let go. I hate doing it, but I do—I remove her hands and ask her to pour us sparkling water with orange bitters, something new. ‘See if you like it. Just a shake or two, though. It’s an acquired taste.’

  Stirring a pot of minestrone, I remind her that she should drink milk with dinner.

  ‘Do you have skim?’

  ‘Do you remember Sterling?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. So you do.’

  Minestrone and homemade bread with Jarlsb
erg cheese, after which I make ginger tea to go with the baked apples, which she’s never tasted.

  ‘Who invented these?’

  ‘Someone who didn’t have time for apple pie.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what it tastes like.’

  While she clears the table and loads the dishwasher, I look at her homework. She’s completed pages of elementary matrices and written a short but interesting description of life in New Amsterdam.

  She sits and shifts her chair so that she’s facing me. She tilts her head and asks, with a tinge of shyness, if I think she’s smart.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell her. ‘You’re so smart that I can’t believe you don’t know it.’ I attempt a lighter tone and ask if she has a boyfriend.

  She tosses her napkin in exasperation. ‘You must have forgotten how juvenile middle-school boys are. Stupid show-offs. Anything—and I mean anything—for attention.’

  ‘You and Olivia said that right after starting middle school, remember? But in Maine, Olivia’s best friend is also her boyfriend, a skateboarder.’

  Amanda widens her eyes. Sarcastic or genuinely impressed? ‘Ooh, a skateboarder. That’s insane.’ (Sarcastic.)

  ‘Her grandmother likes him.’

  ‘Maybe Maine’s different.’ In middle school here, Amanda explains, the gossip and practical jokes are so brutal that the kids have to attend anti-bullying sessions.

  I close her notebooks and stare out the window. Behind me, she leans down and wraps her arms around my shoulders. ‘I know that when you were an eighth-grade boy, you weren’t like the buffoons in my class.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because I was never in eighth grade.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I crammed five years of school into one.’

  ‘Because you’re a genius.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I wasn’t then, either, but I studied nonstop rather than contend with loneliness. And because my parents were important scientists, the school administrators found special tutors for me. I was allowed to soar past my age group.’