“I do?” said Veronica. Of course I do, she thought.
From the shadows came the voice of the Salesman. “Why were you nervous?” he said.
The room disappeared. The table was still there, and the chairs, but the people were gone, and all around her was nothing but darkness.
The Salesman came closer and asked again, “Why were you nervous?”
“Why was I nervous?” she said.
The Salesman sat down in the chair opposite Veronica, and as he did another memory flashed to life around them, then dimmed. She wondered suddenly about who had the power here. Was he the one conjuring these scenes, or was she? Could she force him to see, the way he had just forced her?
“I’ll show you why I was nervous,” she said, gambling. “It was another night,” she said, “around another table.”
Veronica picked up the bottle and tossed it to him. “You were there,” she said.
As he caught the bottle, it transformed from clear glass to brown.
“Yeah,” she said. “You were there and I, I was there.” She pointed to her right, to another chair, and the Vern of her memory stepped out of the shadows, a game board under her arm. She sat and began to set it up.
Veronica stayed where she was, remembering who had been there, and she wondered how far she could push the magic of this place. “And Matt,” she said, “my brother, your son—he was here.” Veronica looked down at her hands, but they were no longer hers. Her engagement ring was gone, her wedding band too, and the fingernails she saw were not bitten, no longer covered in chipped and fading paint. The nails were immaculate now, in fact. The fingers slender and clean, if a bit hairy. Her hands had become her brother’s. She looked down and saw that she was wearing the Kimball College shirt Matt that had been wearing that day. All of her had become all of him.
The Salesman shuffled back and forth in his seat, obviously uncomfortable at the sight of Veronica’s transformation. He hadn’t expected to see his son this night. Hadn’t expected it, and wasn’t prepared. He looked away, ashamed. “And then what?” he said.
Veronica watched as the dining room of her grandfather’s house on Cape Cod materialized around her. As far as the Silver family went, you knew it was the end of summer when the board games came out. It was tradition on the last night down the Cape to gather for a game of Monopoly, or Risk, or Clue. She looked to her left, as the kitchen table of her parents’ house elongated into the dining room table at Grampy’s, and she noted, with a choked back tear, the old man who appeared next to her father. Grampy hadn’t played in years by that point, since before Grammy died, but he stayed up to watch.
“Do you remember this?” Veronica asked the Salesman.
He picked up his cards from the table and mumbled. “I’d rather I didn’t.”
Then, as young Vern moved the token for Miss Scarlet across the board and began to consult her detective’s notepad, Grampy spoke, asking the question that would ruin everything.
“What’s the name of that colored fellow who’s got his own talk show now?”
“That’s Arsenio Hall,” someone said.
The Salesman chimed in, laughing as he observed, “Next thing you know, they’ll be replacing Carson with a fag. Or a lesbian.”
Veronica remembered all too well the words her brother spoke next, so she spoke them. Under her breath, just as he had. “Yeah,” she mumbled. “Someone like me.”
Vern kicked Veronica under the table and gave her a frown.
So Veronica reached under the table and gave her leg a rub. Then she pressed on, just as Matt had, just as older brothers often did, deciding that a little sister’s discomfort was more than enough reason to keep at it. “Hey Gramp,” she said, “didn’t Great Aunt Dottie have an affair with another woman once?”
Grampy sighed. “My sister was a wild stallion. She did a lot of things.” He reached his hand across the table and patted Veronica’s. “But we loved her regardless.”
Young Vern set her cards down and said, “I’m going to suggest Mrs. Peacock, in the study—”
Veronica picked Matt’s blue pawn up, then set it down in the study beside Vern’s piece. Then she spoke the words of her brother once more: “You don’t have a comment on all this, sis? You just want to move straight to the accusations?”
“I’m suggesting at the moment. I’m not sure yet.”
“What weapon?” Veronica asked.
“The rope,” said Vern.
Veronica grunted. “I’m not man enough for the gun?
“That has nothing to do with it.”
Calmly, Veronica asked, “Are you trying to say that I’m just a little bitch who’d have to use a rope to kill someone? That I’m some kind of nancy boy?”
Vern frowned. “That’s not what I’m—”
“Hey,” Veronica shouted at the Salesman, who was sipping at his beer again, “what if Vern’s right? What if I am some gay little nancy boy?”
“My son?” the Salesman scoffed. “The Eagle Scout? The star shortstop for the Lions? A faggot?” he spat. “I don’t think so.”
“What if I told you,” said Veronica, “that the reason I keep going back to Wa-Tut-Ca each summer is because I have a crush on the quartermaster?”
“You better cut the shit,” said the Salesman.
“Grampy knows,” said Veronica, waving a hand toward the old man. “He’s known for a long time. You think he was gullible enough to accept that I had a sudden interest in cars, after years of avoiding the garage like the plague? No, he actually asked me questions. He pretended like he gave a damn.”
“The quartermaster?” the Salesman shouted. “The Italian kid with the cars? Are you trying to tell me that when you were sleeping over there... Are you trying to tell me that—”
“Yeah,” said Veronica. “That’s just what I’m trying to tell you. He taught me more than just knots and camping and canoeing and cars. He taught me fellatio and rimming and—”
“Matt!” shouted Vern.
“And anilingus,” said Veronica. “He helped me earn my merit badge in anal—”
The Salesman reached across the table and grabbed hold of Veronica’s neck with both hands, seeing not his daughter but the son she was pretending to be. Through her tears, Veronica could see Grampy and her Uncle Albert wrapping themselves around the Salesman’s hulking arms, trying to pull him off. But she was fading out. She couldn’t breathe. Bursts of light were flashing before her eyes, like miniature fireworks announcing the beginning of some grand event, or the end. And then, without realizing what she was doing, she pursed her lips and spat out what little saliva she could muster.
The Salesman let go and stepped away from her. He stared and seemed to see, seemed to see what he had done and who he had done it to. Veronica rubbed at her throat and laughed a mirthless laugh as her old man retreated into the shadows.
4
Emerson, Silver & Silver
Veronica stood her ground as the scene shifted around her, as Grampy’s dining room disappeared and her parents’ kitchen materialized once more. She stared into the shadows, waiting for the Salesman to return, because she could not bear to look at what was about to happen behind her, because this particular tableau was etched onto the insides of her eyelids. This scene was what she saw when she tried to sleep, what she’d been seeing for nearly a decade now, whenever she closed her eyes, whenever rest would not come.
“You wanted to know why I was nervous?” she shouted. “You wanted to know why, old man. That night—what you did to Matt—that’s why!”
His voice came from behind her, from the opposite side of the table. “But still you kissed her,” he said, meaning to make her turn, to make her see. “Despite the nerves,” he said, “you still did it.”
“And what good did it do me?” she said, as she turned around to watch, as she gave him the satisfaction of watching her discomfort.
Desiree tilted her head and leaned in, her face drifting toward Vern’s like a luxury liner comi
ng into port. Vern closed her eyes.
She blushed as their lips met. Veronica remembered the feeling of shame coursing down through the trunk of her body, the feel of it settling down into that part of her which was crying out for more. Desiree’s lips were smooth and thick and warm, and Veronica remembered wanting to die right there, with that feeling the last thing on her mind. But Desiree was going further, feeding off of the energy of the audience, pushing Vern’s lips apart with her slippery tongue. Veronica could still remember the taste: tequila and cherry lip gloss.
Alcohol and hormones conspired against them, raging through their bodies, shouting orders. Vern pulled Desiree closer and let herself go. To hell with all of them—that’s what she’d thought. If it was a show they wanted, then it was a show they were going to get.
Vern’s fingers wandered through the tangled curls atop Desiree’s head, her other hand running along her friend’s back, its gentle arch. One of the boys gave a wolf whistle. Desiree’s hands squeezed Vern’s shoulders, then ventured southward until they rested above her throbbing heart.
Veronica watched the tears welling up in the eyes of her younger self, recalled how her whole face ached from having to hold them back. Nobody could know what this meant to her. None of these people would understand. And what would Desiree do if she did know, if she felt a tear on her face that she knew wasn’t her own? She would disappear, wouldn’t she? That’s what any sensible straight girl would do, wasn’t it?
A bedroom door slammed shut, somewhere down the hall. And then, they parted. Amy and her beau were gone. The Letterman stood then, put his hands on Desiree’s shoulders. And Veronica watched as Vern came to the realization that it was over, the night and the dream that she and Desiree would lose together that part of themselves which had so far remained unfound, hidden. Veronica watched a pained smile form on the face of her younger self. She watched as Vern realized that a part of Des would forever belong to the Letterman now, another patch to sew onto his godforsaken jacket. Des gave Vern’s hand a squeeze, and then she was gone. Veronica and Vern, the both of them, they watched Desiree slink down the hallway. They listened to the sound of another bedroom door closing, to the sound of a heavy jacket falling to the floor. Then they turned back to the situation at hand.
At the far end of the tunnel, again on the opposite track, there was a light growing brighter. Another train on its way. The Salesman turned to see it and then seemed to spot something: the train’s headlamp had illuminated. He stepped toward the nearest pillar and reached behind it. And, as he did, he said, “Could you think of no other reason to stop yourself? Sure, you’d been spurned by love,” he said, pulling from the shadows, impossibly, the guitar case she’d left on the platform. “But was there no other place you could take solace?”
“Music?” said Veronica.
“Music,” said the Salesman.
Veronica laughed, raising her voice to compete with the volume of the oncoming train. “Christ,” she said. “I was a teenager. I had an itch, and my guitar wasn’t going to scratch it.”
The Salesman shook his head, then shook the guitar at her. “Some itches never stop itching,” he said. “Some itches are best left unscratched.”
“What the fuck does that even mean?” said Veronica. And then, she caught on. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Wait just a damned minute. Are you the one that regrets me having the baby?”
The train was almost upon them now, so it was hard to tell if he was shouting because he was angry, or just because he wanted to be heard. He said, “This is and has always been about you, not me. If I regret anything, it’s that your actions forced me to force you into a situation that—”
“My actions?!” she shouted, shoving him. “MY ACTIONS?!” she shouted again, pushing him across the divider between the tracks, right into the light of the train’s headlamp.
The train roared as they fell into the light, but then the light changed. It faded, transformed, from bright white to pale purple glow. The guitar tumbled to the floor of what Veronica suddenly realized was a hospital room. And the Salesman, he tumbled into a chair that sat beside a bed. And in that bed, holding a baby, holding her baby, was young Vern, who said, with a note of concern in her voice, “Dad?”
“I know,” said the Salesman, “that you’re unhappy about the situation.”
“That’s not what I...” said Vern, trailing off. She laughed, then continued: “Yeah, what’s there to be unhappy about.”
“You stay with us a year,” said the Salesman. “We’ll help you take care of the baby, you and Tim will have time to get to know each other better, and at the end of the year I’ll set you up with an apartment in Boston and you can get on with Berklee like you want to.”
Veronica watched herself boiling over, a poisonous mixture of teenage angst and righteous indignation churning inside of her. Vern said, “When will I have time for Berklee with a baby to take care of? And a husband to take care of? A husband, Dad! Are you really going to force me to marry—”
The Salesman stood and set his hands upon Vern’s shoulders. “We’ll work something out for the baby,” he said. “A nanny, or something.”
“But what about—”
The Salesman started for the door. “You’ve done good,” he said, not looking at her. “You’ve done everything I’ve asked you to do, and you deserve to be repaid for that. For your loyalty,” he said, opening the door. “For your understanding,” he said, leaving.
“My loyalty?” said Vern. “Ha! And my understanding?” She shook her head and then, a grin playing across her lips, obviously amused by something—Veronica felt strange, not remembering what that something might have been—Vern began to rap. “Boys are stupid,” she spit, “boys are dumb. I hate dem boys so much, I kick ’em in da bum. Girls are purty, girls are sweet. Everything ’bout my girl is wicked fucking neat.”
In the shadows, Veronica laughed. But Vern, she looked mortified.
“I didn’t swear in front of my baby,” said Vern, standing up as the baby began to cry. “Nope. Didn’t happen.”
The baby cried again, and Veronica felt that all too familiar feeling of being split in two, one part of her still standing in the shadows, the other part swaddled up and fussy despite her best efforts. It was a strange feeling, but not an altogether unpleasant one. The unpleasant parts were always really unpleasant—from the toe-curling pain that had come when the baby had first latched onto her breast to the time, at age 7, when her not-so-little one had flown over the handlebars of her bicycle. But, for the most part, she felt this cleaving of herself to be a natural and welcome thing. That part of her that they had pulled from her body, that she had given a name of its very own—it was the first thing she had ever really finished. Her notebooks were full of verses without choruses, of choruses without verses, but this Tracy, this tiny being she had created almost entirely on her own—she was a full song, a full album’s worth of songs. And Veronica was prouder of her Tracy than she was of any chord progression she’d plunked out on the piano, than any string of notes she’d noodled out of her guitar.
Vern was trying to sing the baby to sleep now. “Oh, Desiree,” she sang, and the baby seemed to respond. “You like that, huh?” said Vern, a smile lightening her weary face. “Oh, Desiree,” she sang again. “So long hoped for, so long denied. Please come and rescue my baby and I.”
Veronica crept closer to the edge of her memory, wanting to see Tracy’s face, suddenly possessed with the desire to see if the baby really was the sweet cherub she remembered, or if it might be the wrinkled old man she feared.
“Des,” said Vern, speaking in Veronica’s direction. “Is that you?”
Veronica looked down at herself and saw that the chest she had always envied was now obscuring the paunch she had come to dread. Desiree’s maroon field hockey number was emblazoned there, on a white shirt. She ran hands along the pleated skirt she had never worn, except in her daydreams, and then she twirled a strand of curly hair around her finger as
she said, “Yeah.”
“I got your flowers,” said Vern, pointing to the shelf by the window. “They were beautiful.”
“Were?” said Veronica. “They’re dead already, huh?”
Vern teared up a little. “I can’t even keep a plant alive,” she said. “Pathetic, huh? What makes me think—”
Veronica ran to Vern’s side and took hold of her free hand. “Don’t,” she said. “You’ll be an awesome mom. You’ll be perfect. And I’ll be there, Vern. Best friends for life, right?”
Vern pulled away, headed for the window.
“What?” said Veronica. “Did your dad say something?”
Vern turned around to face Veronica again. To face Desiree again, Veronica had to remind herself. “Never mind,” said Vern. “I just... I want to tell you something, something important, but...”
“But what?” said Veronica.
“Never mind,” said Vern. “Can you get me out of here?”
“Can you leave?” said Veronica. “What about the baby?”
“I’ve got the car seat,” said Vern. “I’ve got everything ready.”
“But what about the Runt?” said Veronica, looking around the room. “Shouldn’t you wait for—”
“I’ll just leave him a note,” said Vern, handing the baby to Veronica, then rushing across the room for pen and paper. “Tracy and I just want to be with you right now. Just us girls. Can you do that?”
Veronica looked down into the face of her daughter. Damn it, she thought. Wrinkled old man.
“Desiree?” said Vern.
“Hell yeah,” said Veronica, strapping Tracy into the car seat. “Let’s go.”
Vern did a little dance and gave a little squee, then grabbed the handle of the car seat and stepped through the door. Veronica made to follow after her, but a hand squeezed her arm and stopped her in her tracks. She turned and saw the Salesman. She looked down at herself and saw her own small tits were back. Damn, she thought.
“So,” said the Salesman, as the hospital room faded away, “where did you go that day?”
Missing Mr. Wingfield Page 3