Like the coffee shop. It was still and quiet, no matter how crowded. People kept their voices down. It was clean. There were tables you could sit at and a counter with round stools that rose out of the floor on columns. It was open twenty-four hours. You could get any meal you wanted, breakfast, lunch, or dinner, at any time. I came before work. The waiter knew me, not by name, but he said hello in a certain way, a salute. I was a fellow anonymous citizen.
If there is a religion of the city, I decided, then this is one of its holy places.
I got coffee and stared out the window. My pale reflection was sanded away to nothingness, eyes, nose, mouth, so insubstantial compared to the bodies that pushed their way past on the sidewalk. What just happened? I couldn’t even tell. Did I love him? What did that even mean? Maybe I needed Horace the way, when your body needs a certain vitamin or mineral, you crave a certain food. But love? I felt like telling the waiter, just to get sympathy, how I had discovered that my boyfriend (Was he? My boyfriend? No) turned out to be (Wait a minute. I hadn’t even thought of this. She did have a key, though. Was it possible?) living with another girl! But he already knew. Everyone in Manhattan probably knew, and was laughing at me. Or would be, soon, because I would tell them all. I would blurt it out. I would turn it into a funny story. I smiled. Actually, it was kind of funny.
Eve?
I spun slowly on my stool to discover no one, just the diner’s air of sanctuary, its even light and padded plastic booths. A wind blew down the street. The door banged. I kept spinning, pushing with my feet. But when I completed my revolution, returning to where I never left, a second face had joined me in the mirror.
It was her, the woman I’d seen. She superimposed her face right on my own. We kept moving, both of us, to see how we were the same and how we were different, staring deep into each other’s eyes. Finally, our mouths lined up perfectly.
Where did you come from? I asked.
Nowhere. I’ve been here the whole time. Waiting.
Waiting for what?
For you.
The knife was at her throat again. She couldn’t swallow. He had found her, tracked her down. She was cornered now, alone. She couldn’t breathe. She felt this awful force. Not strength, but the crushing force of habit, the sense that this was how things were and nothing she could do would change them. She almost gave up. But then something happened. The feeling wavered, boundaries blurred. She became strong to the exact same degree that he became weak. She plucked the glowing metal, turned it around, and pushed him away. He responded so easily. It was a dance. He swayed back, then forward again. She pushed, using his own force against him, the mirror image of what he had been doing to her. He fell. She floated free, a balloon, and at the last minute, not even thinking, cut the string that held her down.
“Coffee?”
I jerked awake. I didn’t fit the outlines of my body. Things didn’t match their shapes. I was a thing among things. Slowly, the world came back into focus. My cup was cold. So was I. We were both shivering.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “You looked like you could use the rest.”
“I was asleep? For how long?”
“Just five minutes or so.”
I wanted to go home. It broke on me like a wave. It was time. My adventure was over. I would go back to being who I was, but enriched with this knowledge, this warning, of what the world outside held. I was scared straight. I had learned my lesson. I would go back to Iowa and never leave again. I felt this resolve freshening my spirit, making me sit up. It was all in my head. My head was the temple I had to scourge. My own imagination. I had this picture of me lashing the interior of my skull. Driving out all the sick, sex-soaked nightmares.
“Thank you, Jesus,” I whispered, leaving a big tip.
“No problem,” he called.
On the street, even though it was uphill, I felt myself gaining strength, becoming healthier with each step. I walked so fast it was almost a run, except I kept both feet on the ground at all times. That was the definition of Olympic Walking. I had read a book about it. This whole time, I had been secretly training for some event. And now it had come. In fact, it was almost over. This was the home stretch. A man was ahead of me. I came up behind. I didn’t slow down. I climbed right up his back, then over his head, and down his front. He didn’t even realize what had happened, that he’d been passed. He didn’t even know it was a race! That was the key to my success. People cheered from windows. Cars honked. Lights changed as I approached. I was at one with the grid.
“I quit!” I practiced saying.
It sounded so positive. I quit everything. My job. Drinking. Love. Suddenly, the idea of giving things up really appealed to me. Was there still time to be a nun? I skipped down the steps to the bar, determined to keep this momentum.
I quit, I reminded myself. I’ll give them a few days to find a replacement, check bus times, do my laundry, and then—
“So I said to him, Do you love me? And he said, What a question. And I said, What an answer. And he said, Of course I love you. And I said, Prove it. And he said, How? And I said . . .”
Everything had changed so much that it was weird to see them act like nothing had happened. Except, of course, nothing had. Not on the outside. I was still me.
“Hi, Eve.”
“That’s some dress,” Viktor commented.
I kept walking, a little self-consciously, right past everyone, to the room in back. I locked the door and started changing. Through my newly virginal eyes, the bar seemed sinister. Scary, even. How come I’d never noticed?
“Hello, Eve.”
I screamed. Nora was sitting in the dark. She had dragged in a chair. Crates of beer towered over her. The tip of her cigarette glowed.
“Can I have some of that?” I asked.
“You don’t smoke.”
“I used to. I mean I tried it, once.”
She reached into her bag, but I said, “No, could I just have a puff of yours?”
She handed it to me. I tasted her lipstick. I was trembling, from excitement. I thought it would calm me. And maybe I wanted to commune with her. But all I did was cough.
“You’re pretty tonight,” she said.
I looked down. I had one leg of my pantyhose on. There was a stain, a huge one, like a birthmark, on my sleeve. I had no idea what it was or how it got there.
“No I’m not.”
I handed the cigarette back to her. Our thumbs rolled against each other. We’d never actually talked.
“So what are you doing here, Nora?”
My eyes, getting used to the dark, saw she had a drink on the floor.
“Pretty, not beautiful,” she went on. “Just like you can be smart without being wise.”
“I’m not smart, either.”
“No. You’re not smart. You’re actually kind of stupid.”
“Hey!”
It was all right for me to say that, but not her. She was very drunk. I guess she always was, but usually she handled it better. She functioned. Now it looked like she couldn’t even get up.
“You remind me of someone.”
“You? A younger you?” I added quickly.
She laughed. She’d been lighting another cigarette (I noticed she hadn’t taken another drag of the one I used) and put both down, the cigarette and the lighter, she was laughing so hard. This silent heaving. I smiled at first, along with her, but then it seemed more like a nasty laugh, the way it was soundless and directed at me.
“All right,” I said. “So I’m not like you.”
She stopped as quickly as she’d started, then finished her drink.
“How come you picked ‘Eve’ when you started working here?”
“I didn’t pick Eve. That’s my name.”
“Mine’s Eunice.”
“Eunice?”
“I was going to be an actress.” She picked the cigarette off the floor and lit it. So dirt was all right. Just not my germs. “They told me to change it. I too
k Nora from this play we were rehearsing.”
“It’s a nice name.”
She nodded.
“I mean Eunice is, too.”
“I think it’s great what you’re doing.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“I think it’s really smart.”
I nodded. How did she know? I guess it showed on my face, that I was gone, in spirit. She was looking at me with this weird intensity, like she hated me. I had no idea why.
“Well, I’ve got to get dressed,” I said.
She did that slow yawn, that shaking out of dreams. Except this time she almost fell. It was sad. Nora was so sure-footed, usually. She never dropped a glass or spilled a drink. I had thought she was a professional, if there was such a thing. A professional barmaid. It surprised me she’d wanted to act. She didn’t seem perky or anything. Especially now. She looked all discombobulated and tired. Somehow, I had done it, was the implication. It was my fault. She found my dress, lying there, and mechanically began to fold it.
“I didn’t know what I was doing. You never do.”
“When?”
“When I changed my name. I hated my old one. I love it now.”
“So why don’t you go back?”
She shook her head.
“It’s my mom’s.” I nodded at the dress. “I’m going to go see her. In a couple of days.”
I was hopping around on one leg, trying to get ready and look up at her at the same time, trying to win back this friendship which I’d never had but now, somehow, I’d managed to lose.
“The thing is, I wasn’t even playing Nora in that production. I just had a bit part. I wasn’t any good.”
“Oh, I’m sure you were good.”
“You’re such a little bitch, Eve. Or whatever your real name is.”
“What?”
I stopped, still on one leg. You could have knocked me over. She had knocked me over. With a word. And then she did it again, kicked me when I was down, just to make sure:
“You have no idea what a little bitch you are, do you?”
It was a wild night. There were all these sailors, not the navy guys or merchant seamen who sometimes wandered in, but amateur, hobbyist types.
“It is the Tall Ships,” Viktor explained, although at the time, over the noise, I thought he said “Tall Shits,” because they were so obnoxious, acting like they’d been at sea for six months, asking for all sorts of drinks we didn’t have, like grog or glogg, and actually saying, “Yo-ho-ho.”
“Why are they all dressed like pimps?”
“They are reenactors. It is historical.”
“It sure is.”
“That guy says he’s from a slave ship,” Brandy complained, as if it was a personal insult. “I mean, I didn’t even know they had those anymore.”
I am not taking money for this, I thought, as I squeezed my way between tables. It helped to know I had quit, in my mind, that this was actually charity work. I was just helping out Brandy, Crystal, and, yes, even that psycho Nora, on a busy night. I would explain to them all later how I was leaving, evolving really, to a higher plane of emotional maturity. How I was going home to live with Mother.
“So how are you doing?” Brandy asked, while we both waited for Viktor to fill our orders.
“What?”
“I said, how are you doing?”
“Great, actually.”
“No. Really.”
She looked at me. Her eyes were such a clear blue. She actually seemed to be concerned for my well-being, for once. I began to describe what happened in the back room.
“Nora’s crazy,” she cut me off. “Do what you want to do. Don’t listen to anybody else.”
It got so crowded people actually lined up on the stairs, waiting for a table. We were rushed off our feet. I saw Crystal standing talking to a customer, which was unusual even when the place was empty. It was good to keep moving. You were less of a target that way. But whatever he said must have really been getting to her, because the next time I passed, she was still there, talking back and forth with him. Then her voice rose above the crowd:
“Go to hell!”
Viktor vaulted over the bar. He must have been watching, getting ready, because he had the baseball bat he kept next to the cash box. The guys left. They even paid. New people took their place. Crystal was still standing there, solid, but quivering. Brandy and I got her to come back with us and sit. I caught Nora gazing from across the room, like it was a memory she was seeing.
“There are still customers,” Viktor pointed out.
“What did he say?”
“It’s OK, honey,” Brandy was cooing. She hugged Crystal’s shoulders, rocked them in her arms.
“I know,” she said, trying to sound tough, staring in that sullen way, straight ahead.
Everyone’s crazy tonight, I thought. Good thing I’m here.
I tried smiling at Nora a few times, but she ignored me. She was flirting, laughing, not her typical dreamy, spaced-out self. Everything was backwards. Brandy was being nice to me. Nora, not. Crystal was having a nervous breakdown. Viktor didn’t mind my being late. Maybe they’d all had visions, too. Seen their past. Seen their future. Maybe this was The Night Jesus Did Manhattan.
“So what are you going to wear?” Brandy continued, passing by.
“What?”
“To get married in.”
I got orders, filled them, got more orders, took money, then came back to the bar while she was just loading up.
“What did you say?”
“You going to wear a wedding dress?”
“I told them,” Viktor said.
“Told them what?”
“Congratulations.” Crystal was still sitting there.
“Thanks,” I said automatically. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re all talking about?”
Brandy was gone by then. We were working hard. Viktor put out my drinks and touched my hand. Not his usual way, like he was leaving his mark, demonstrating his ownership, but this tender squeeze. It was much more obscene than when he acted like a jerk. I looked up at him.
“It was better they know. About us.”
“What about us?”
“Eve.”
“I didn’t say yes.”
“You didn’t say no.”
“I said I’d think about it.”
“Ah yes, you and your thinking. I would never have asked had I not decided you were ready.”
“Are those for the guys with the parrots?” Brandy came back, almost panting. “Because they want them. Now.”
“Just a minute.”
“Better go,” Viktor said.
“I am not getting married,” I told anyone who cared to listen. Which seemed like mostly Nora, who looked at me, hate still smoldering in her eyes. My God, did she want him? She was the last person I would have suspected.
“Ever?” Crystal asked.
“Well, no, not ever. But I mean we are not getting married. Viktor and me.”
“Of course we are. What a question. These go to the buccaneers, Eve. Please.”
He’d put the glasses on my tray, which he didn’t do for anyone. You had to lift them yourself and try not to spill. He had been making all these little gestures, I realized now, starting with not yelling at me when I came in late. And everyone else had been watching, because he’d told them, before I came. But I had just been oblivious, as usual, with my head in the clouds, or in the cornfields, dreaming about going home, while they schemed and stewed all around me.
“The buccaneers?”
“The pirates,” Brandy translated. “Over there.”
I lifted the tray. It was heavy. My wrists strained, like they were in handcuffs.
“It came up.”
“How did it come up?”
“I wanted them all to know. I thought it would make you happy. Proud, even.”
We were alone. It was five-thirty. Almost light outside, I could tell, even though there were no windows. Just a feeling. The
girls were waiting between the doors for him to drive us home. I stayed, pretending to finish cleaning. They knew we had to talk. For the last three hours I hadn’t said anything to him but the names of drinks.
“You act as if it is a shameful thing. Marrying me.”
“You said it was for legal reasons.”
“Mostly. Yes.”
Mostly. See, it was those little hints he threw in. I didn’t even know if they were intentional. Little hooks, trying to drag me back. But it wouldn’t work.
“When we kissed, I thought we were sealing some kind of compact.”
“It was just a kiss,” I said, numb.
“Not to me.”
He was concentrating, counting money.
The bus was leaving for Iowa. I could hear them announcing it. All the stops. The big cities and little towns. Change here. Change there. Then finally it slows down on the highway. You get up, grab your bags, move swaying down the aisle, bouncing off seatbacks, and jolt down those extra-steep steps. Then there’s the steepest step of all, the drop down onto the ground. The bus roars off and you’re not moving anymore. You’re part of the landscape, again. Fixed. Was that what I wanted?
“By the way,” he asked casually. “Are you still seeing the boy?”
“What boy?”
“The one who came here. Pointdexter.”
“Horace. And he’s not a boy.”
“I agree. He is a veal calf. He has no muscle. He was raised in a box.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You should never eat veal. It is a sin.”
“I’m not seeing Horace.”
“I thought maybe that was the reason you changed your mind.”
“I did not change my mind!” I shouted.
Eve in the City Page 8
