The Misfortunes of Others

by Gloria Dank

  “Did you see what he ate before that?”

  “Cooking for him is like cooking for a large hotel full of people,” said Weezy. “Which I did once, in my renegade past.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. I was twenty-one and didn’t know any better. I thought I could handle it. I was wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  “My sous-chef and I ended up sending out to various restaurants in town for the meals people requested. The hotel manager, when he heard of this, was not delighted. Still, have you ever tried cooking for a hundred and fifty people at once? I was beside myself.”

  “Well, you can certainly cook for four people. Four and a half, counting the baby,” said Snooky.

  “Four and two-ninths,” said Maya.

  Weezy had served them a whole fish split and baked with garlic, wine and herbs. She had thrown together a gigantic salad in an old wooden bowl, and dressed it with olive oil, lemon juice and more fresh herbs. There was a ceramic bowl (“I made it myself, in my pottery stage”) filled with small red potatoes covered with melted butter and dill, and for dessert, a creamy cheesecake with a graham cookie crust. “I think I’m going to die of happiness,” Snooky said when Weezy served the cheesecake.

  “You are some cook,” he said now, swirling the wine in his glass.

  “Thank you so much.”

  “A cook and an artist. As I’ve said before, the perfect woman.”

  Weezy looked at him wryly. “Tell Harold that.”

  “Harold is obviously a fool.”

  “Men are all fools, Snooky.”

  “Not Bernard,” said Maya.

  Weezy glanced over to where Bernard slumbered happily on his lounge chair. “No. Not Bernard. Bernard is a teddy bear. I envy you so much for finding him, Maya.”

  “It wasn’t easy. I looked a long time too.”

  “Not as long as me.”

  “It’ll happen for you.”

  “I doubt it.” Weezy looked up at the sky. “Still, I shouldn’t brood. It’s so boring for everybody. Look at that moon, how perfect it is. It looks like it’s smiling tonight.”

  “How do you arrange not to have any insects?” asked Snooky.

  “It’s March, sweetie. The mosquitoes aren’t out yet.”

  “Oh.”

  The sweet strains of a Mendelssohn symphony filtered out from the house. Weezy, upon arriving in Ridgewood, had gone straight to a real estate office, plunked herself down in front of a desk and said to the agent, “I want a house with light—plenty of light. That’s my only requirement. Oh, and high ceilings. Someplace where I can paint and grow my plants.”

  Weezy’s plants consisted of approximately a hundred and thirty different specimens, creepers, hangers, blooming and non-blooming, annual and perennial, fuchsias and orchids, purple passion and spider plants, dracaenas and begonias, a profusion of greenery which had filled her Manhattan apartment. She cherished them like children. On moving day, the one time she had lost her temper was when her monstera plant had been dropped, several of the large leaves bruised and the pot broken.

  “No!” she had sobbed to Maya. “No! Not the monstera!”

  The realtor, as directed, had looked through her lists and shown Weezy only two houses. The first was too far out of town for her taste; she wanted to live close by and be able to walk to the stores. The second one she bought as soon as she laid eyes upon it. It was a sprawling ranch house with a greenhouse addition and a large wooden deck. She moved her plants into the greenhouse, where they settled down happily, basking in the unaccustomed light, and converted one of the bedrooms into a studio. She filled the house with an eclectic mixture of new and antique furniture, some of it outrageously expensive and some found broken on the street, and covered the walls with art—her own work and that of others. She had been there for almost a year and had yet to tire of it.

  “Weezy found a wonderful house,” said Maya now, huddled in the depths of the chair.

  “I was lucky about that. Are you cold, sweetie? Think of the child.”

  “I’m fine. It’s beautiful out here.”

  “Once Snooky is finished draining my wine cabinet dry, and Bernard wakes up from his little nap, would you like to see my newest show? It’s all new work, I don’t think you’ve seen it yet.”

  “Love to.” Maya smiled comfortably at her friend. Weezy’s paintings were like her, flashes of temperament bathed in light. They were mostly abstracts which teased the eye with movement and bold color. Occasionally she painted from life, such as a seashore scene which had caught her interest, catching the waves about to spill with froth and the children at play in the sand. Since she had moved to Ridgewood, she had been trying her hand at still lifes of fruit and vegetables in a bowl or suspended in space.

  “I’m finished now,” said Snooky, putting down his glass.

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to hurry you.”

  “Delicious meal, Weezy. Soup to nuts.”

  “Have you gotten in enough moon-gazing for this evening?”

  Snooky tilted back his head to see the moon, winking at him as gray clouds moved across its face. “I think so. I feel satisfied.”

  “Should we wake up Bernard?”

  “No,” said Maya. “Let him sleep. He could use the rest.”

  “Come with me, then.”

  They followed her through the house into the studio, a large room with a slanted ceiling in which she had installed two skylights. The room was scrupulously neat; the one time Weezy was compulsive about cleanliness was in her work. Her paints were stored in cabinets and canvases were stacked tidily against the walls. Weezy turned on the track lighting overhead and switched on a few lamps around the room.

  “Here we go,” she said, taking out the canvases and displaying them. “What do you think, Maya? Different, isn’t it?”

  Maya studied them in silence. The paintings were abstract, glowing with soft shades of pink, blue and violet. Small ink-drawn shapes danced in and out of the edges of the canvas.

  “You must be getting over Harold,” Maya said at last. “These are spectacular, Weezy. So much softer than before.”

  Weezy nodded, studying her work. “I suppose so. I must be feeling a little bit better. Everything I painted after Harold left me was red,” she explained to Snooky. “Bright red. Red on red. Purple on red. The color of inchoate rage.”

  “I hear you. What’s this one, Weeze?”

  “What does it look like to you?”

  “It looks like …” Snooky paused. “Like a fish having sex with an antelope.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s called ‘Harmony III.’ ”

  “How about this one? This looks like a fish having sex with a bear.”

  “Interesting.” Weezy chewed her lower lip and studied the painting. “Interesting. Yes, possibly.”

  “And this one over here is Queen Catherine of Russia having sex with a horse?”

  “Fascinating. Fascinating. Sad, of course, but fascinating. Have you ever done any Rorschach work?”

  “Not really.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you, Snooks, but none of these paintings have anything to do with sex.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  “I mean, you can interpret them any way you want, particularly if you pay me large sums of money, but sex was not on my mind while I was creating them.”

  “I see.”

  “Sex is always on Snooky’s mind,” said Maya. “He thinks of nothing else.”

  “That’s not true. Occasionally I also think about wine.”

  “Wine, women and song,” said Weezy. “That’s what a boy your age should be thinking about. You’re right on schedule, Snooky.”

  “Weezy understands me. She understands me in a way you never have, Missy. Why couldn’t she have been my sister instead?”

  “A tragic accident of fate,” said Maya. “Weezy, I love these new paintings. They’re gorgeous. A whole different side of you, much softer and hap
pier. You must be feeling better, and I’m glad to see it. Now please excuse me. I have to go outside and throw up.”

  Bernard was sitting in his lounge chair, his head bent back at an awkward angle, mouth open, snoring happily, when the phone rang. Weezy had rigged up the phone line so that it rang loudly in the greenhouse, next to the deck, and nowhere else in the house. This allowed her to work undisturbed in the studio. “Nothing worse than hearing the phone while you’re working,” she had told Bernard once. “Even if you don’t answer it, you have to wonder who it was.”

  Bernard himself dealt with this problem by never answering his phone at all, at any time of day, whether he was working or not. He had never once wondered who it was. However, after the fourth ring he reluctantly opened his eyes and heaved himself out of his chair. Some vestigial impulse told him that Maya would want him to answer Weezy’s phone.

  He went through the greenhouse into the living room and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  There was silence on the other end: a living, breathing silence. It was not the sound of a disconnected line. Bernard had the distinct feeling that someone was there.

  He did not say “hello” again. Neither did he hang up. Instead, he stood with the phone to his ear and waited.

  The person on the other end was silent. Bernard smiled grimly. Maya had told him about the strange goings-on with Weezy’s phone. He figured that this time the caller was in for a little surprise. Unlike most other people, Bernard loved silence. He could wait for hours like this if necessary.

  Finally, after several long minutes had crawled past, he could hear a faint hiss on the other end. It did not even sound human. It sounded alien and malevolent. Bernard felt a slight chill. There was a gentle click as the caller hung up.

  Bernard put the receiver down. He stood for a moment, thinking. Then he picked it up and rapidly dialed *69.

  There was a pause and a click. A recorded female voice came on.

  “This service cannot be activated because the telephone number is not in our service area.”

  Bernard slowly put the receiver down. He was standing there, his mind far away, when Maya and the others came into the room.

  “Sweetheart,” said Maya. “I got queasy all of a sudden. It’s not a comment on Weezy’s paintings, they’re marvelous. What’s the matter?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re staring at the phone as if you’ve never seen one before.”

  Bernard fidgeted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, Weezy. You got one of those calls just now.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Weezy. “And you picked up?”

  “Yes.”

  Maya stared at him. “But, sweetheart, you never answer the phone.”

  “I thought you’d want me to. I know you can’t hear it in the studio.”

  “What happened?” asked Snooky eagerly.

  “I said hello. Whoever it was didn’t say anything. So I didn’t say anything either.”

  “You hung up?” said Weezy.

  “No.”

  “You didn’t hang up?”

  “No. I waited.”

  “You waited. How very interesting and strange of you,” said Weezy. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Silence. Then, after a couple of minutes, the person hissed.”

  “Hissed?” echoed Maya.

  “Hissed. A low kind of hiss. I think whoever it was was frustrated,” Bernard said. “I think they were surprised.”

  “Hissed,” said Snooky. “That’s creepy.”

  “Was it a male or a female hiss?” asked Maya.

  “I couldn’t tell. Then, when they hung up, I tried to call them back.”

  “Pardon me?” said Weezy.

  Bernard pointed to her phone. “I dialed star sixtynine. You know. It calls back the last person who called you.”

  “How amazing. My phone will do that?”

  “You’ve never done it?”

  “Never done it? I’ve never even heard of it. Am I paying for it? Does it work?”

  “Oh, it works all right. But the caller is outside our area code, so I got a recording. That’s reassuring, actually, we know it’s not someone next door. Are you sure that nobody’s ever said anything to you before? No sound at all?”

  “No, no. Not even breathing.” She shook her head. “Of course, they never had the opportunity. I’ve never stayed on the line for more than a few seconds.”

  “So it isn’t a glitch in your phone line,” Snooky said. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

  “Any idea who it could be?” asked Bernard.

  “No. None. Probably just a prankster who got hold of my number somehow.”

  Maya sat down on the sofa. She looked faintly green. “I feel funny again.”

  “All this talk about phone calls and hissing is upsetting you,” Weezy said, throwing an accusing glance at the two men. “Hissing, indeed! It was probably just static. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Can I get you something?” Bernard asked his wife.

  “I’d like … I’d like a carrot. Yes. A nice carrot, and a glass of seltzer. Do you have seltzer, Weezy?”

  “Of course. Give me a second.” She vanished into the kitchen.

  “I just want to go on record as saying that it’s not the phone call,” Maya said. “I mean, I’m upset about the phone call, but that’s not why I’m feeling this way. I ate too much at dinner, I suppose.”

  “Punished for eating too much,” her brother said sympathetically. He sat down next to her and patted her hand.

  Weezy came back into the room. “One very nice carrot. And a glass of seltzer with ice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How many of these calls have you gotten, Weezy?” asked Bernard.

  She wrinkled her forehead. “Snooky asked me that the other day. I don’t know. Four or five. Maybe five.”

  “When did they start?”

  “I’m not sure, really. Six months ago. About that. Yes, last fall sometime. After that article came out. A couple of months after I moved here.”

  “You never got any when you lived in New York?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Any reason somebody might not have liked it when you moved away?”

  Weezy stared at him in surprise. “No. None that I can think of. I mean, my students have to travel farther, but they don’t seem to care.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Snooky.

  She tapped one foot impatiently. “Yes, Snooky, I’m sure. My students are not the shy type—at least most of them aren’t. If something was bothering them, they wouldn’t be calling me up mysteriously on the phone. They’d tell me all about it in front of the whole class. That’s usually how they share their innermost thoughts and feelings, I assure you.”

  “Anybody with any grudges against you?” asked Bernard.

  “No, Bernard. Nobody has any grudges against me. I am, as you may have noticed, an extremely nice person. Nobody dislikes me. Everybody likes me. I go out of my way to make other people happy. Now, can we discuss something else, or am I going to be grilled on this all night? How’s that carrot, Maya?”

  “Fine. I feel better, thanks.”

  “Is your phone number listed?” asked Bernard.

  Weezy nodded.

  “Perhaps you should consider getting an unlisted number.”

  “Thank you, Bernard. That way nobody could get in touch with me—including gallery owners who want to show my work, or clients who want to commission a painting, or students who want to take my class. It wouldn’t exactly be a boost to my career if nobody knew how to find me, would it? And now, enough about all this. If the phone rings again, don’t answer it. I’ll put the machine on. I have to put the machine on, otherwise my mother calls and thinks I’m dead. All right, now we can all rest easy. Would anyone like some more coffee or tea?”

  “Weezy’s worried,” Maya told her husband later that night, as they got ready for bed.

 
“I know.”

  “I’m worried, too.”

  “I know you are.”

  “Are you worried?”

  Bernard was brushing his teeth. “Yadonnowattoyink,” he said indistinctly.

  “Pardon me?”

  Bernard spat into the sink. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “It’s strange, though, isn’t it?”

  “It could be nothing. It could be somebody who’s playing around with phone numbers and likes the look of Weezy’s.”

  “But you don’t think it is, do you?”

  Bernard stared into the bathroom mirror. His reflection stared back at him with tired eyes. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t.”

  Snooky knocked at Weezy’s front door a few days later, then let himself in. Nobody in Ridgewood—nobody except Bernard, that is, and then only occasionally—ever locked their doors. He was carrying a small package under his arm. He walked, whistling, down the hallway toward the studio.

  “Weezy? It’s me.”

  The studio door opened and he was confronted by a stranger: a heavyset young woman with a round moon face and brown hair which hung in strings down to her shoulders. She looked at him in surprise. “Yes?”

  “I’m Snooky Randolph. A friend of Weezy’s. Is she around?”

  “Oh … oh, yes. She’s in the garden.”

  “Are you one of her students?”

  She smiled shyly. “Yes. My name’s Nikki. Nikki Cooper.”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  There was an awkward silence. She looked at him anxiously, as if begging him to say something.

  “Do you come from around here?” asked Snooky at last.

  “No … no. I live in New York City. I come up here for the classes, and sometimes in between to work with her on my own.”

  “I heard that she was giving classes. What kind of a teacher is she?”

  The girl looked slightly scandalized. “Oh, she’s wonderful,” she began, when Weezy swept in, freshly cut daffodils filling her arms, her hair bright with sticks of grass and weeds.

  “Gossiping about me, are you?” she said cheerfully.

  “Oh, no—”

  “Yes,” said Snooky. “I was just asking what kind of teacher you are.”

  “I am a brilliant teacher,” said Weezy. “Absolutely brilliant. My students are devoted to me. Aren’t you all, Nikki?”