Fiona stormed after her.
“Good morning!” Sandy said, pouring their water.
“Excuse me.” Fiona tapped Sandy’s shoulder, and Sandy looked back, startled.
“I don’t like what you just said to me.”
The two women and the man watched curiously.
“Fiona!” Sandy gasped.
“You better apologize.”
“Fiona!” Maxine called nervously.
Sandy’s round, dimpled chin trembled with shock.
“Did you hear me?”
“I’m sorry,” Sandy whispered.
“I didn’t hear that.”
“I’m sorry,” Sandy repeated in a choked voice.
“Thank you,” Fiona said, then flashed a smile at the bewildered customers. “Be sure and try the corned beef hash. It’s Chester’s specialty.”
It was early in the morning when George Grimshaw finally called. He offered no excuse or apology for his ten-day silence, but asked to see her that night. If she wasn’t busy, he added quickly. Actually, she was busy, she lied, surveying her chaotic apartment. Tomorrow would be better. She ran around, picking up as much as she could, then after work she bought new mauve-colored sheets, their thread count so high they billowed like silk when she shook them open onto the bed. She tucked lacy rose sachets under the pillows. She raced home from work the next day with groceries, a new tablecloth, and curtains for the living room. “That looks really nice,” she called down the hall to Mrs. Terrill, who was taping a faded crepe paper pumpkin on her door. It was one of the decorations she had saved from her schoolteaching days. Halloween was her favorite holiday because she got to see so many children, the tiny old woman gasped as she stretched to reach the top of the sagging pumpkin. Fiona set down her bags and quickly taped the pumpkin. Grateful, Mrs. Terrill invited her in for cider. Fiona explained she was expecting someone for dinner and only had an hour before he came.
“Oh!” said Mrs. Terrill, grinning as she opened her door. “Well maybe the two of you can come then. I’d love that. I really would.”
Fiona patted her thin arm and said she couldn’t promise, but she’d try. Though she hadn’t wanted to get the sweet old woman’s hopes up, she was sure George would go with her.
The doorbell rang just as she was hanging the last sheer panel.
She hooked the rod onto the bracket, then jumped off the chair and dragged it back to the table. She grabbed the Halloween candy and ran to the door.
“Hello, stranger.” She held out the bag. “Take your pick. Trick or treat.”
George hesitated, then took a Snickers bar. “Thanks,” he said as he stepped inside.
The apartment smelled of hollyberry potpourri simmering on the stove and the scented candles that threw ripples of light across the living room ceiling.
“Clever costume,” Fiona said, disappointed that he still had on his dark blue work clothes.
“I figured I’d come straight here.” He shrugged. “It didn’t make sense to go home first and change.” He swallowed hard and winced, as if that hadn’t come out right.
She smiled, pleased he was this eager to see her. He looked wonderful, lean and muscular, but so nervous it was almost amusing. Hunched on the edge of her pink velvet couch, he kept folding his arms, crossing his legs, clearing his throat. She went to get him a beer. She peeked out from the kitchen and saw him tapping the candy bar on his knee and looking around as if someone else were in the room with him. She understood his edginess: it was the same desire she’d had in the pit of her stomach ever since she’d opened the door. This time there would be no rush, she reminded herself, no fumbling at buttons, and afterwards no remorse.
He drank half the beer in his first swallow. “I was thirsty,” he said sheepishly, then set the mug on the coaster. Peering closely, he moved it first to the right, then a bit to the left, as if this precise placement were the very reason he had come. Suddenly the oven timer buzzed, and he flinched, looking toward the door with a startled expression.
“Don’t worry, it’s locked,” she said and couldn’t help smiling. “You must be hungry.” She hurried into the kitchen to turn off the timer. The meatloaf and baked potatoes were ready. “Turn on the TV,” she called as she bent to open the oven. His shadow fell over her just as the oven’s heat stung her face.
“No, don’t,” he said from the doorway.
She gripped the counter edge a little dizzily as she stood up. He couldn’t wait.
“I didn’t come to eat. I . . . “
“But it’s all ready.”
“No. I have to talk to you. That’s why I’m here.”
“Well, you’re a sharp guy. You can talk and eat, can’t you?” She removed the sizzling pan, then the potatoes, conscious of his frozen silence in the doorway while his eyes darted everywhere but at her. Jimmy Leonard’s Halloween party was tonight, but costumes and getting wasted on a weeknight just didn’t do it for her anymore, she said as she gave the limp salad a quick toss. She had poured in too much dressing and now the spoon flew from her hand onto the floor. She didn’t know why she felt so nervous. She set the bowl on the table that with its leaf up almost filled the tiny kitchen. She asked if he’d seen any trick-or-treaters on his way here. Maybe they’re starting early, she said when he didn’t answer. She wished some would come now. She pictured the two of them passing out candy and then, as soon as the door closed, bursting into laughter at the unrecognizable costumes. “Oh! I bought this really interesting wine,” she said, turning with the corkscrew and the bottle. Seeing the grim set of his mouth, she decided he didn’t know how to do it. It was a Spanish wine, she said, twisting in the screw then pulling out the cork, amused that its soft pop made him wince.
“George!” She put her arms around him and held him tightly. “Oh George, I know how awful you must have felt that morning. I mean, how confusing it must have seemed. I know, because I felt the same way. And poor Elizabeth.” She sighed. “I mean, it’s just all so damn confusing, isn’t it?”
“It’s not that.” He stared past her at the clock, at the molten brown mass of potpourri, the grease-moated meatloaf, and the two shriveling potatoes on the stove top.
“What is it then? Come on, George, tell me. You can tell me,” she whispered at his ear, while with a child’s perversity she kept her fingers knotted at the small of his rigid back, as she pressed her pelvis, bone hard against bone, into his as if by force, by friction, by the sheer intensity of her own desire she could reignite some flickering ember and will his limp flesh to stir so that everything would be good again.
“We’re not right for each other,” he said, so resolutely that she was certain he’d spent days repeating these very words in his van as he drove from job to job. “We’re just two very different people.”
“What do you mean, George?” She smiled at the heat of his face against hers.
“We were both kind of alone, so it just, you know, kind of happened,” he said.
She knew by his uneasiness that he’d either already said it or intended to explain it exactly this way to Elizabeth. It fascinated her that his feelings for her cousin continued to be so pure, so worshipful that he’d never been angry or even resentful that she’d gone away and chosen someone else to love. Elizabeth was love in the abstract, while she, Fiona, was his reality.
“It? What’s it? What do you mean, George?”
“You know. Us.” He reached back and unpried her hands. “I’m sorry. But I’m just trying to be honest. It doesn’t make sense not to be. I mean, I know I could just let this whole thing play itself out, but really what would be the point of that?”
“Well, I suppose one advantage would be the sex you’d still be getting,” she teased with a pat on his cheek, and he shuddered, his head jerking back as if from a venomous sting. His eyes glazed with such affliction she didn’t know what to say. She felt breathless and panicky. How could she have been so stupid, and once again, so blind? She picked up a potato and juggled its heat from ha
nd to hand. “But then you’d always be feeling weird around Elizabeth, right? And that’s the real reason, isn’t it?”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Elizabeth.” He looked deeply offended.
“Jesus Christ, George, of course it does!” she roared, hurling the potato, smashing it into the tiled wall over the sink. “Admit it! She’s the reason you asked me out in the first place! And now she’s the reason you want to end it! Admit it, George! You’ve never gotten over her! You’re so desperate, you’re still trying to figure out ways to please her and make her happy and get her attention. But George!” she goaded, waving her hand in his face. “George Grimshaw, it’s over! She’s in love with someone else, and she’s going to marry him! For godsakes, George, don’t look so pathetic! Face the facts! It is over!”
He stared at her. “All right,” he said with cold appraisal. “I didn’t want to have to say this. But maybe it’s the only way to make you understand. I know about you and Brad Glidden. About what happened.”
“What?” Her head trembled as if from a blow. “What do you mean?
“I mean it changes things.”
“Changes things! What do you mean? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I just can’t have the same feeling for anyone who’d do that.”
“Do what, George? Say it! Tell me! Tell me what I did! Go ahead!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, with a deep shrug that buried his neck in his shoulders. “It’s just I wanted to be honest with you. And fair. I mean, we’ve known each other for so long. And that’s why I had to come and do it in person.” He opened the door. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, then hurried out.
She ran into the hallway. “Well aren’t you the noble prick,” she called over the railing as he raced down the stairs. “Thanks, George! Thanks for being so damn fair. I really appreciate it!” On her way back to her apartment, she was ashamed to see Mrs. Terrill’s door closing down the hall.
She dumped the meatloaf into the trash, grease-dripping pan and all. She opened a beer and sprawled on the couch, staring at the television, oblivious to the packs of giddy children roaming the building now. A flurry of knocks banged on her door and she continued to ignore them. Footsteps stampeded down the hall to Mrs. Terrill’s opening door. “Trick or treat!” the children screamed, and the old woman laughed. Fiona’s half-eaten bag of Snickers bars lay warm and soft on her belly. She opened another one, balled up the wrapper, and tossed it into the growing pile on the coffee table.
“One, I said. Just take one,” Mr. Clinch insisted from his doorway across the hall. He had begun the evening admiring the different costumes, but it was now nine-thirty and these foragers sounded like an older, greedier pack. “All right then, that’s it!” he announced in a shrill voice. “Halloween’s over! Go home! It’s too late anyway!” His door slammed.
“But I didn’t get any,” a younger child whined.
Fiona opened her door and tossed the bag into the hallway at the feet of a charcoal-faced, startled boy in a baggy, patched tramp suit.
She put on tight red pants, a black lace top that barely covered her midriff, and gold spike heels. She laughed as she put on her makeup: shimmering red lipstick, thick black mascara on her lashes, and purple shadow that swept up from the corners of her eyes like the wings of an exotic bird.
“Trick or treat!” she said as Jimmy Leonard’s front door opened into a narrow foyer lit by sputtering jack-o’-lanterns. A low cackle rose from the life-size dummy of a witch sitting on the bench.
“Fiona! I haven’t seen you in so long,” cried Louise, Jimmy’s girlfriend, in a leopard costume. She flicked the long ropy tail she was carrying. “Jimmy’ll be so glad you’re here.” The rest of her greeting was lost in the din of voices and music as she led Fiona into the crowded, smoky living room.
“Fiona!”
“Hey Fiona, how ya doing?”
“Fiona!” called people she knew, barely knew, or couldn’t recognize behind their masks as she squeezed past.
“Bar’s in here!” Louise shouted, pointing toward the bright kitchen. The table was covered with bottles and plastic cups. There were two kegs in the corner. The five people huddled by the counter were Jimmy’s relatives, Louise said. One was dressed in black with a hang-man’s noose dangling from his neck. Blood leaked from his nose and the corner of his mouth. Jimmy was out on the side porch, smoking, Louise said, rolling her eyes. She taught at the junior high and couldn’t risk having the smell of pot get into her clothes.
“Great costume,” Fiona said, stroking Louise’s spotted furry arm. Louise thanked her. She’d made it herself, she said, then assured Fiona she wasn’t alone. A lot of people hadn’t worn costumes.
“But I am in costume!” Fiona said.
“As what then? It’s way too subtle for me,” Louise said, looking her up and down.
“Oh, it’ll come to you.” She smiled as she filled a cup at the keg spout.
Louise grabbed a five-pound bag of pretzels and said she was going to refill bowls. Fiona edged closer to Jimmy Leonard’s relatives, whose animated conversation about pickup trucks waned with her approach. She introduced herself. They said hi and no more. “Well, nice to meet you,’ she said, then moved away a few feet into the doorway. A slow, sweet ballad was playing. She could feel someone staring at her. It was Sandy, sitting next to Todd, wedged into the corner of the sofa, looking miserable. In her lap was a gorilla mask that she kept folding and unfolding. Todd’s Frankenstein mask hung loosely around his neck as he talked animatedly to Lynn Clarino, who sat on his other side. Fiona and Lynn had been friends in high school until the senior party at the town pond. Lynn had hated her ever since. Although Fiona had absolutely no memory of the incident, it had been retold so many times that by now she knew all the alleged details. Apparently she had stood on the dock and in a pitch-perfect stammer had recited Lynn’s own plea, made in confidence just hours before, asking Fiona why nobody ever asked her out; was it her big thighs, her tiny tits, what was wrong with her? The laughter faded and no one could even look at Lynn, who crouched on the beach with her head in her arms, crying. Todd climbed onto the dock and pushed Fiona into the water while everyone cheered.
Well, she wasn’t about to start mending that broken fence. Not tonight. Besides there were too many Lynn Clarinos in her life, all judgmental and too quick to take offense. Bored, she wandered back into the kitchen. She got another beer and went out to the porch where Jimmy Leonard and some couple were smoking. When she sat down Jimmy passed her his wet and shriveled joint. She took a deep drag, then held it as long as she could. She exhaled, then took another drag before returning it to Jimmy. She didn’t feel a thing. The spike-haired woman’s name was Gretchen. She laughed at everything her boyfriend, Pete, said. He was describing the crunch of his kid’s turtle under his shoe.
“‘Daddy, Daddy, he’s jumping up and down and screaming. ‘You’re standing on Freddy.’ ‘No I’m not,’ I said. ‘Freddy’s in the kitchen. I just saw him.’ So off he runs in the other room and I reach down with my fingers and actually have to scrape turtle crud off my shoe and off the floor. And right then I hear someone coming, so I’m standing there with this mess in my hand, and it’s his mother and she’s screaming at me about the support payment being late, and then she hears the kid screaming he can’t find Freddy so she takes off to look and her jacket’s hanging on the back of the chair so I reach over and dump Freddy and his shit bits right into her pocket just as neat as neat can be.”
The woman’s head rolled on her arms as she gasped with laughter. Jimmy chuckled. “Man,” he kept saying. “Man, oh man.”
“Dick,” Fiona said.
Pete looked at her. “Huh? What’d you say?”
“Dick,” she repeated, getting up. “You dick,” she said, leaning over him.
“No, not Dick,” he called as she went inside. “Pete! The name’s Pete.” Gretchen and Jimmy Leonard giggled.
Talking to people she knew along
the way, she ended up in the living room. Sandy had sunk deeper into the corner of the sofa, but now Todd stood by the stereo unit, talking to Bill Hatcher.
“Hey, cuz!” she said, joining them. Bill Hatcher’s mother and her uncle Charles were cousins.
“Cuz!” He greeted her with a long kiss on the mouth. The joke had always been that he could kiss her romantically because they were related only by marriage. Hatcher’s hand strayed to her backside and she gave him a good-natured swat.
“Hey, Toddie,” she said with a poke in his ribs and a long lazy smile that made her wonder if she was high.
He had been telling Bill how much fun it had been taking Sandy’s girls trick-or-treating tonight. He and Sandy had brought them to every house on his parents’ street.
“That must have been quite the sight,” she said. “Those little hellions running up and down Humphrey Street.”
“They had a great time,” he said. “They got so much . . .”
“That’s Sandy,” Fiona told Hatcher with a nod. “We work together. Not too bright, but cute, huh?”
“Umm,” Hatcher agreed, then said he was going to get a beer. Could he get either one of them something?
“No thanks,” Fiona said. “Don’t bother. She’s underage,” she called as he started toward Sandy. “So,” she said, turning back to Todd with a smile so dazzling it ached. “I hear you’re quite the daddy now.”
“They’re a lot of fun. I really like being with them.”
“Wow!” She staggered as if she’d been blown back.
“I always liked kids,” he said.
“You did?”
“Kids’re great. All they want is to have fun.”
“Which is all you ever wanted, if I remember correctly, you bastard!” she whispered through a shaky smile. “You no-good bastard.”
“Are you all right? What is it, Fiona?” he asked.
Afraid to speak, she kept trying to hold her smile.
He lowered his head and pretended to rub his nose. “Go on outside. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Fiona Range Page 15
