Crooked Hearts

by Patricia Gaffney

  All she could think was that he didn’t like her anymore. Simple as that. Or else he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, treat her so coldly. But why didn’t he like her? Hadn’t he just told her she’d saved his life? What had she done to make him reconsider and withdraw his affection? Only two possible explanations came to mind: one, that she’d already slept with him, so he’d lost interest in her; two, that he couldn’t use her in any more money-making schemes, so he’d lost interest in her.

  And he wasn’t even consistent! If he was going to treat her like a leper, the least he could do was keep it up full-time. But he seemed to enjoy torturing her, because sometimes he forgot to be nasty to her. Then she’d forget she was angry and hurt, and pretty soon they would be talking and laughing, teasing each other and carrying on like old times. Then, bang, the wall would drop back down between them, for absolutely no reason she could see, and he would go back to treating her like some girl he barely knew and didn’t much care for.

  As a result, she was losing her mind. She didn’t sleep, she was irritable, forgetful, out of sorts, she couldn’t think straight. Considering how impossible she’d already decided he was as a candidate for a steady lover or, God forbid, a husband, she should be glad he was apparently finished with her. After all, he’d taken the hard part—giving him up—out of her hands. But she wasn’t glad. When she wasn’t crying because of him, she was thinking up ways to kill him. He was driving her insane.

  And if she’d ever entertained any hopes of him and Henry becoming friends, he put them to rest the first day he got out of bed. She’d been sitting in the living room, sewing new buttons on Henry’s plaid night robe. Reuben came limping in with his stick and stopped short when he saw her, obviously startled, and actually looking as if he might turn around and limp out. Couldn’t he even sit in the same room with her anymore? She wanted to jump up and yell that at him, but she subdued the impulse and made herself inquire casually, almost sweetly, “Won’t you come in and keep me company for a while? It’s good to see you up and around. I hope that means you’re feeling better.” She kept talking, giving him no opportunity to refuse her invitation, until finally he came all the way in and plopped down in the chair across from hers. Determinedly chatty, she kept up a pretense of normalcy by not allowing any silences to fall, while Reuben alternated between gazing vacantly out the window and staring with an extremely odd, fixed concentration directly at her.

  If she had any spine at all, she’d simply blurt out the questions flailing around inside her head: Why don’t you like me anymore? What’s happening between us? Why do you want to hurt me this way? But her relentless chatter finally coaxed a few words out of him, and then a few more, and then an actual smile—and she was filled with such relief, such foolish, pathetic happiness because he was speaking to her again, that she wouldn’t have risked spoiling that rare moment for anything.

  Then Henry came, and it was spoiled anyway.

  “Ich bin Herr Doktor Heinrich Zollenkleimer, und ich bin selling dis here Miraculessen Goldwasser.”

  He stood in the hall doorway, holding up a muddy-looking glass jar. Bushy gray side-whiskers—fake— sprouted from his cheeks, and a matching wig had slipped down over one eyebrow. The sofa cushion he’d stuffed under his vest made him look more deformed than portly, but the silver pince-nez stuck on the end of his nose added a nice doctorly touch.

  Accustomed to his impromptu disguises, Grace didn’t even blink. “Needs work,” she said critically. “What’s in the bottle?”

  “Water.” He crossed the room and sat beside her on the sofa. “And a few gold filings—see ’em?” He held the bottle up to the light. “The whole thing’s worth at least five dollars.”

  “Mm-hm. And what are you selling it for?”

  “I was thinking an even fifty. It’s concentrated, don’t you know. Comes with a brochure. The customer adds a tablespoon to a gallon of water, freezes it in little blocks—et voilà—he’s got solid gold bricks worth a fortune.” Grace’s tickled laugh made him stiffen his neck, offended. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had!”

  Even Reuben was chuckling. “What happens when the bricks melt?”

  “But that’s the best part,” Henry insisted. “Along with the fifty-dollar bottle of Goldwasser, we sell a certificate promising that the Zollenkleimer Institute—no, Foundation; that’s better—the Zollenkleimer Foundation will maintain all the gold bricks in pristine frozen condition for perpetuity, or until the purchaser instructs otherwise. And in addition, the Foundation will undertake to perform any fiduciary transfers which the purchaser authorizes, with no loss of integrity to the financial instrument.”

  “Come again?” Grace inquired. “No loss of—”

  “Integrity to the financial instrument.”

  The light dawned slowly. “We guarantee the bricks won’t thaw?”

  “Right.”

  She couldn’t help it: she threw back her head and roared with laughter. A second later Reuben doubled up, guffawing and smacking his knee. Henry glared at them for as long as he could, but pretty soon their hilarity was too much for him. Grudgingly at first, then heartily, he laughed with them.

  To Grace, the sound was sweeter than music, and Reuben’s mirthful, unguarded face made her heart sing. Still chuckling, she snatched off Henry’s wig and ruffled his hair affectionately. He grinned, sheepishly, then put his arm around her and squeezed. “Rascal,” he muttered fondly.

  She smiled across at Reuben. “Tell Reuben about the time you sold fake silkworms to the farmers with government subsidies.”

  “Now, that was a good one. I dug up grubs for two days, put ’em in egg cartons, and stenciled the American flag on …” He trailed off, realizing he was talking to nobody. Reuben had hoisted himself out of the chair and was hobbling toward the terrace doors.

  “Reuben?” Grace called after him anxiously. “Are you all right? Is anyth—”

  Without stopping, he turned his head and snapped, “I need some fresh air.” The contempt in his face froze her in her chair.

  “Well,” Henry said faintly when he was gone. “Moody fellow, isn’t he?”

  She got up, mumbling something about lunch, and raced from the room. If she was going to burst into tears, she was damn well going to do it in private.

  Three days went by, during which she made an effort to keep out of Reuben’s way, but without much success. Avoiding him in her own house was like trying to pretend a fly wasn’t crawling across her nose. There were too many places where they both were expected to be, together, at the same time. Like the dining room, three times a day unless she skipped breakfast. Or the veranda, after breakfast, where she liked to sit and sun herself, and he liked to do his exercises.

  On the third day, lurking in the morning-dark shadows of the parlor, she saw him through the open terrace doors, swaying and bending in the bright sun. He was still stiff on his right leg, but getting smoother and more graceful every day. With a sinking feeling, she realized that in spite of everything she was dying to see him, and damn the consequences. Besides, avoiding him was a coward’s way out. Who knew—maybe today he’d be nice to her. If not … by God, she’d make him as miserable as he was making her. Patting her hair at the back, smoothing down her skirts, she sailed out onto the porch.

  “Oh,” she said, feigning surprise, “I didn’t know you were here. Don’t let me disturb you, just go on with what you were doing.”

  For one lovely, unwary moment, he smiled. Delighted, she started to smile back, but then he remembered himself—remembered he was a bastard—and his face shut down; it was exactly as if he’d seen a friend in the distance, gone closer, and realized it was nobody he knew after all.

  Crestfallen, hating herself for it, Grace went to sit on the low stone wall, positioning herself so she could watch Reuben while she appeared to be looking out over the garden. Presently he went back to staring at the clay pot of pink geraniums on the top step, which she conclud
ed must be his “subject” today. Ah You said you should focus your mind on something quiet and pleasing while you did the tai-chi-ch’uan, so your brain as well as your muscles could flow into a state of relaxation. Reuben closed his eyes and slowly turned his torso to the left, clenching his left hand at his waist while pushing his right hand out in front. Then the reverse, twisting slowly to the right, inhaling on the push-out, exhaling on the draw-back. The movement looked like “Thrusting Hands into Mount Hua” to her; either that or “An Immortal Pushes Over a Stone Tablet.” He was wearing the linen shirt and brown cord trousers she’d gone into town to get for him over the weekend—now they’d both bought each other new clothes—and it was an illicit thrill to admire the way he looked in them openly instead of covertly for once, at least as long as he kept his eyes closed.

  He was tall and strong, but not brawny or muscle-bound, and his strength was more wiry than brute. The tight new corduroys clung to his hips and his long, strong legs in a way that made it difficult to take her eyes off him. She watched his bare toes on the wooden porch floor as he slowly twisted and thrust, swayed and bent. The white shirt billowed loosely out of his unbelted trousers, drawing her eye to his flat belly and the neat line of buttons down his fly. He pivoted, and she feasted her eyes on his wide shoulders and handsome back, the high, hard curves of his buttocks. Sex was a paradox, she philosophized randily; having seen a man naked, she’d have thought a lady would be less interested in his body, her curiosity having been satisfied. Apparently it was just the opposite. Then too, she wasn’t much of a lady.

  The direction of her thoughts irritated her. “What’s that,” she asked for a distraction, “‘Grasp the Bird’s Tail’?”

  “Grace, you wound me. This is ‘Wave Hands Like Clouds.’”

  “Don’t stop,” she said quickly. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  “No, I was finished.”

  “Oh.” She felt disappointed; she’d been hoping he’d do “A Skilled Craftsman Uses His Drill.”

  She was afraid he would leave, but just then Ah You appeared, holding a tray with one cup and a small pot on it. Grace declined when he asked if she wanted some too, while he poured hot, steaming liquid into the cup.

  “What is it?” Reuben asked suspiciously, peering.

  “Tea, boss.” Ah You addressed all white men as “boss”; it was simply a word, like “sir,” and it might or might not connote respect, depending on his opinion of the person he was talking to.

  “What kind of tea?”

  “Tangerine and jujube. Make you gain weight. Also good for liver and muscle.”

  He took a cautious sip. “Mmm,” he judged. “Not bad.”

  “Also phlegm and flatulence,” Ah You added, and started waving a feather duster around the veranda furniture.

  Reuben frowned down into his cup. “You mean it’s good for phlegm and flatulence, or it’s good for getting rid of them?”

  Ah You put his finger on the side of his nose, thinking. “Question too tricky,” he decided, tapping his skull with the finger. “Simple mind not understand.”

  Grace snorted.

  To her amazement, Reuben sat down beside her on the railing. She could smell sun-warmed linen and clean sweat, and if she leaned closer, she could smell pine soap and bay rum—she’d bought them for him in town, too. Sometimes the intimacy of the things she knew about Reuben Jones scared her.

  “So,” said Ah You, still dusting. “You two meet Godfather in Fah-lan-sze-ko, hah?”

  Reuben looked at her sharply, then at Ah You. “How do you know that?”

  “He knows everything,” Grace answered for him, unsurprised. “Have you been talking to Henry?” she asked the houseboy.

  He gave a high, exaggerated shrug of his skinny shoulders.

  “He’s been talking to Henry,” she confirmed positively. “What do you know about Wing, Ah You? Tell us whatever you told Henry.”

  “Don’t know much,” he said deprecatingly.

  “We heard he’s in exile for trying to overthrow the Manchus about twelve years ago,” she prodded, to get him going. Why it hadn’t once occurred to her to ask Ah You about Mark Wing was an embarrassing mystery; she guessed she’d had her mind on other things.

  “Mark Wing not exile,” he corrected, “he escape. Belong to White Lotus, ancient sect in Forbidden City—Peking. He try with friends to kill Kuang Hsu, Emperor. All caught but him, he run away. All executed, set on fire, turn into celestial lamps.”

  “Lovely. And now he lives in Chinatown;”

  “Just so. Very rich man, very bad. Rich from opium and whores and thieving. He say he go home with tong army someday, kill Emperor for good.”

  “Well, I for one,” said Grace, “hope he goes soon.”

  “He never go. Too sick from smoke, too corrupt from money. All talk, no go. He try to be white man once, wear wool suit, hard shoes, cut hair. White men laugh, ha ha, big joke, make him crazy. Now he stay home, crazy crazy.”

  You don’t know the half, she thought. Then again, he probably did.

  “How do you know all this?” asked Reuben.

  Ah You spread his hands. “How does deer in forest find green grass in winter? How does ant build city? How does wood thrush know storm is coming?”

  Reuben stared at him, flummoxed.

  The houseboy took the teacup out of his hand, humming approval when he saw it was empty. “Lunch today, make you turnip dumpling. Good comfort for internal organs.” When he bowed, his long queue slipped over the shoulder of his red flannel shirt. He backed up, still bowing, then turned and padded into the house in silent cloth slippers.

  Reuben said, “I can’t figure him out,” shifting on the railing to ease his hip.

  “He doesn’t want you to figure him out.”

  “You know what he said this morning? I couldn’t find my handkerchief, I’d mislaid it, and he said, ‘Look in nightshirt.’ Sure enough, there it was in the pocket. ‘How’d you know it was there?’ I asked. Guess what he said.”

  “What?”

  “‘Wind sough in pine tree same as willow, but one-eyed wolf still sleep soundly.’ What the hell does that mean?”

  “Nothing, I’m sure,” Grace answered, laughing. “He loves to make up profound sayings that turn out to be gibberish. He drives Henry insane.” Reuben smiled; that pleased him. “He likes you, though,” she added.

  “Who, Henry or—”

  “Ah You. He didn’t trust you at first, but now he does.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I can tell.” He’d said so the night he’d given her a lecture on the necessity of male and female mating calls in song sparrows; the species would die out, he maintained, if either bird was too shy or too proud to let the other know it was interested in mating—all this in the halting Pidgin English he affected, of course, to make the moral sound more mystical and profound. But the message wasn’t very subtle this time; he hadn’t couched it in enough gibberish: he thought Grace had something important to say to Reuben, but she was too scared to say it. Which was absolutely ridiculous. She had nothing to say to him. If anybody had anything to say to anybody, it was Reuben who ought to be saying it to her.

  “Where did Ah You come from, Grace?” he asked.

  Why was he being so talkative? “I’m not really sure. He’s been with Henry for years. I know he’s got a lot of cousins in San Francisco, and I know he worked on the Pacific Railroad back in the seventies, but that’s about all. He never talks about himself.”

  “He’s very protective of you.”

  She nodded. Sometimes Ah You was downright maternal. She got up from the railing, surprised to see how high the sun had risen. “It’s getting late—”

  “Don’t go yet.”

  She stilled, staring down at the hand Reuben had put over hers. A breathless moment passed, and then he let go. Her heart finally stopped hammering; she was able to look up at him with a pretense of calm. What she saw in his eyes only confused her more, though: it look
ed almost like tenderness. But how could it be? She licked her lips and asked as carelessly as she could, “Did you want to say something to me?”

  His features seemed to sharpen; something significant happened behind his eyes, but for the life of her she couldn’t put a name to it. In the end he said, “I—just wanted to ask you why it’s failing.”

  “What?”

  “The farm, why the farm is failing. It looks so fertile.”

  She followed his troubled gaze across the border of acacias and pepper trees to the sloping wheat fields in the distance, fallow this year, gently rising toward the unkempt orchard and the wild, uncultivated uplands beyond. “It’s not Henry’s fault,” she said defensively.

  He swung away from her. “I didn’t say it was.”

  “It’s just that he’s not a farmer. I’m not either, I guess, although I haven’t tried very hard to be one. I wish now I had tried,” she said bitterly, “instead of getting involved in schemes.”

  He whirled back around, shocked. “You sound like a reforming character!”

  “No, I’m not,” she denied automatically. The very idea. “I’m not. All I know is, we’re going to lose everything in a month unless we come up with … some money.”

  “How much money?”

  She hesitated only a second, then confessed. “Five thousand, eight hundred dollars.” Odd, considering what a scoundrel he was, that she felt relatively safe telling Reuben the details of her finances. She guessed it was only her heart she didn’t trust him with.

  He whistled.

  “Henry had a scheme that took all our savings, and it fell through.”

  “What kind of scheme?”

  “Fake mineral rights. It was complicated, I never really understood it. Anyway, now there’s nothing left. This spring we had to let our last two farm hands go.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She looked away. “I don’t know.” The old depression threatened, but she rallied. “Henry will think of something. Whenever things look really bleak, that’s when he comes up with his best schemes.” She smiled determinedly. “It never fails. Henry always—”