by Emily Anglin
I told him to try to sleep and we hung up. I lay down on top of the quilt on Richard’s bed. Against the wall opposite was a chest on which sat one of his grandmother’s sculptures: Water. I liked that one: an upright human figure’s legs spread into a circular, rippling pool that formed the sculpture’s base; the fluid-shaped body looked like it was pouring down into the pool. I liked it a lot more than Truth. For the first time, I wondered if Richard might have given me that Truth sculpture not because of the connection to my name, but because he didn’t like it, and wanted to give it away. If so, I wouldn’t feel as bad selling it.
I fell asleep trying to picture his grandmother’s workroom: its plastic-draped tables strewn with flakes of stone, and metal tools; the sound of chisels cutting negative space away from a stone shape; voices and faces moving through the room admiring her work, and seeking to tempt her gaze away from her still figures toward their moving forms.
I spent the next day moving around in Richard’s apartment, from the couch to the table to the kitchen. It was mid-winter, and the cold snap continued, with more snow that had fallen overnight. I stayed inside, making myself snacks and cups of instant coffee from a jar in Richard’s cupboard. The light outside, reflected from the snow, was brilliant that afternoon, and the whole apartment looked bigger, brighter, and more cheerful than it had the night before.
As four-thirty approached, the last hour of light, Richard’s painting, Stained Glass Nine, caught my eye. It looked brighter, somehow, though it had just started getting darker outside, and I realized that the sensation of brightness in the apartment earlier that day had been partially an effect of the painting fading into the background. The painting’s light was dark, viscous, and set off, jewel-like, by the darkening sky.
An hour later, I realized I’d only eaten cheese and crackers and apples that day. I rummaged through the cupboards again. At the back of one I saw a tall bottle with a black-and-white label, and pulled it out. It was a full bottle of a dark, brownish-red alcohol that looked like port or sherry. “Oloroso del Puerto,” the label said in curlicued letters. I put it back in the cupboard, remembering that I should never drink, not even a sip, on an empty stomach. I decided that no matter the cold, I would have to go to the grocery store for some real food. I put on my coat and went down to the street.
When I stepped outside, I was surprised to see Cheri standing there on the sidewalk, a couple of feet away. She was talking to someone, another woman. I wonder if I can run past them? I thought. Or go back inside. But when Cheri saw me, she waved and smiled at me, and the other woman waved at her and walked away.
“Hi, Vera!” she said. “I was just coming by to see you. Is Richard around by any chance? Have you heard from him?”
“Richard says hi,” I said. “I talked to him. He’s in Maine. He’ll be away for a while.”
“Oh, well,” she said. “I hope he has a wonderful trip. It must be snowy there too, though. It gets dark early these days, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” I said. “I was just on my way to get some groceries. I didn’t eat much today.”
“I was thinking I might eat out somewhere tonight. Have you been to the place on the corner? They have good food. You’re welcome to join me.”
I’d noticed the place on the corner, although I hadn’t been sure if it was a nightclub or a bar or a restaurant. The windows looking in were tinted to appear almost opaque, and you could see only outlines of objects inside.
“Okay,” I said. I scanned my mind for any reason I could give for saying no. I could say I couldn’t afford it, which was true, but I heard myself saying yes before I could say no. I was too hungry to think straight, and again I noticed that she looked slightly sad and nervous, and I felt bad leaving her, despite my anxiety about entering into conversations about religion.
We walked together through the dark door into a small, slightly dingy pub with one pool table in the middle of the room, and sat at a table near the window. A woman in a tight black dress came and took our order—steak and fries. Cheri ordered for herself, and I asked for the same, not wanting to think about the decision.
“And wine,” said Cheri. “Some wine would be nice. What do you think?” she asked.
“A litre or half-litre?” asked the woman in the black dress.
“A litre,” Cheri said. “That’s okay, right,” she said to me, and I nodded. I felt trapped by the wine. I didn’t expect her to be a drinker, and I felt uneasy drinking with her, fearing I might let my guard down and enter into a conversation about the Bible that could only become insincere or argumentative on my end. But I also really wanted a drink.
The steak was simple and pretty good. I was famished, and ate it quickly. Cheri hardly touched hers, and I ate my fries as she drank her wine.
“Have you been in the neighbourhood for long?” she asked.
“No. I don’t really know this neighbourhood. I’m just house-sitting for Richard,” I said.
“I grew up in this neighbourhood. But it feels like I’m getting to know it for the first time. I’ve gone through a bit of a life event over the last few years and the world looks pretty new in general. Different.”
I wasn’t sure if this was a reference to a religious awakening or not. I tried to keep things general. She told me about the street where she’d grown up, not far from there, and the big trees on it with curving branches that she said she liked looking up at from her bedroom window. She said she’d spent a lot of time in bed because of a health problem that had changed things for her.
She looked down, and I worried for a moment that she was crying, but she looked back up and seemed composed.
“But it’s had a few silver linings. I’ve spent a lot of time reading, and learning about things I never cared about before. That’s part of why Richard and I connected. We’re interested in some of the same things—stained glass, especially. Actually, part of why I wanted to see Richard is because I wanted to ask him something.”
“What’s that?”
“I wanted to ask him if he knows that stained glass was once known as ‘the poor man’s Bible.’ I wondered if he was already intending to convey God’s ideas in his work.”
I paused and looked down at my hands. The direct refocusing onto religion had come up so suddenly that I was taken off guard. And I began to wonder if she’d seen his paintings, and whether she’d been in his apartment, and if so, when and how.
“Richard definitely talks like an artist. You know what he told me? He said he likes my name because he thinks of the word sherry as referring to a colour, more than anything else—the colour cast by light shining through a glass of sherry. After all the comments I’ve gotten about drinks and wine because of my name, all my life, no one’s ever commented on sherry as a colour.”
“But your name is Cheri, not Sherry,” I said. I was getting tipsy and starting to feel giddy as my disorientation deepened. “You’re a dear, not a drink.” My voice sounded strange to me, speaking like this with a stranger.
“It’s pronounced the same, though. People tend to think in spoken words, not written ones.”
I recalled the bottle of what looked like sherry that I’d seen sitting in Richard’s cupboard. If Richard had been talking to Cheri about her name, and about the drink, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had bought the bottle of wine in expectation of Cheri’s visit to talk to him about the Bible. Richard had left me the bottle of Vera wine, after all. He’d also given me the sculpture with the woman hiding her face because he said it was named after truth, like me. Giving thought to Richard’s fixation on names made me recall something: I was almost sure that I’d once told him that my mom had always said I’d been named for the Albanian word for summer, not for the word truth. But he’d given me the sculpture after that. He must have forgotten what I’d told him.
“So you and Richard talked about stained glass?” I asked, wondering how long they had talked.
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve had troubles,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said. “I feel like I’m being cryptic. I’ll just tell you. My brother had a head injury a few years ago. He was okay physically but his personality changed. I missed—and still miss—him, even though he’s still there. After his accident, I got into a bad pattern with pills and alcohol. I lived with my parents for a few rough years after that. Eventually, I found a support group, though. That’s when things changed. I met some people who read the Bible with me and helped me find ways of coping. It’s a daily struggle, but I manage. I still drink more than I should, but I’m not ready to work on that at this point. My friends wouldn’t like it if they knew, but if they asked I’d be honest about it.”
I wondered if Richard knew Cheri’s full story. If so, I thought it was strange, maybe even deceptive, that he hadn’t told me that they were closer than he’d let on. I also wasn’t sure how I felt about him having her over for drinks.
Our server came with the bill. Cheri picked it up and looked at it. She leaned in toward me. “This sounds sudden, but do you mind if we go?” I looked at her, not sure if she meant we should leave without paying. “I mean, I think I’m ready to go, if that’s okay. Let’s just pay. Maybe we’ll split it? Then I’ll walk you home.” She laughed. I hid my confusion by looking for change and bills in my pockets to cover my half.
The night air back out on the street was damp and frigid, and as we walked, the idea of strolling down the block wrapping up our conversation began to seem impossible, but I didn’t want to cut off the conversation. I’d relaxed into her company—the wine had helped. And though I couldn’t quite read her, I found her interesting and liked her openness.
“Hey,” I said, turning to her on the sidewalk, near Richard’s door. “Why don’t you come up for a bit? To Richard’s place? We can finish our chat and we won’t have to stand in the cold.”
“If you’re sure,” she said. “That would be nice.”
Upstairs, I let her in and then went to throw both of our coats onto Richard’s bed. When I came into the living room, she was sitting on the green couch across from Richard’s painting, Stained Glass Nine, looking at it.
“Sorry it’s so dark in here,” I said, and walked around the room turning on lamps. “What can I offer you to drink?”
“What do you have?”
I went to the fridge and inspected the carton of milk and the half-finished bottle of apple juice that had been there when I arrived. I opened one cupboard and saw the jar of instant coffee, and in the next, the bottle of Oloroso del Puerto. I hesitated for a moment, wondering how Richard would feel if I drank from his bottle, and if I’d be able to find a replacement. I decided not to think about it. I couldn’t offer her instant coffee or apple juice after she bought me dinner.
I turned to offer it to her, and started: Cheri’s hair had changed colour, from dark brown to red. She had lain back against the arm of the couch, and the light cast by the lamp on the end table behind her was falling through the red lampshade, tinting her hair magenta. I shook off the start I’d had and spoke.
“This seems ridiculous,” I said. “But all I have to offer you is a glass of what I think is sherry.”
She laughed. “The funny thing is that I’ve been given bottles of sherry all my life, as gifts, for obvious reasons. And I’ve actually come to like it a bit. What kind is it?”
I passed her the bottle.
“Oh. Oloroso. I had this once, I think. I’d love some, if you’re having some.”
I poured us each a tumbler full and added some ice from the tray in the freezer, not knowing whether it should be drunk cold or warm. The smell of it was sweet and burnt and made my eyes water and my stomach turn slightly. I sat down at the other end of the couch, and put my glass on the table beside me.
“I wanted to ask you a question,” she said. “I can’t let myself forget. But first, you should tell me about yourself. I’ve talked too much.”
I started talking and she drank her sherry. I told her about how I didn’t know where I was going to go after Richard got back, and about the things I wanted to sell or get rid of to make any move easier. I mentioned the sculpture Richard had given me, and that I’d had to consider selling it, too. And I also heard myself telling her something I’d never told anyone before, that I’d stolen a few things from the department store when I worked there, and still had them in my storage locker. I told her that I thought the management had suspected it but didn’t really care. I told her I’d done it on autopilot, and that I’d never stolen anything before.
She paused, looking at me, when I stopped talking, and I could see that she knew I was waiting to hear what she thought. “I’m glad I came over,” she said. “I love hearing about people’s lives. Yours in particular, I mean, not just in general. I’m happy to have met you.”
“What was the question you were going to ask?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s about Richard’s grandmother. Her art. What do you think of it?”
“It’s good,” I said. “I like it.”
“I like it too. I like her Water sculpture. And I figured out why.” How did she know about the sculpture in the bedroom? Had Richard told her about it, shown her a picture, or was it somehow possible that she’d been in there?
“Why?” I asked.
“The figure looks strong, even though it’s fluid rather than solid. I like that contrast.”
“Have you been in Richard’s bedroom?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
She looked at me sharply for a second, and then laughed. “I don’t like this painting, though,” she said, ignoring my question and looking at Stained Glass Nine on Richard’s wall.
“Why not?” I asked. I felt terrible that I had asked the question about the bedroom. I didn’t know why I’d felt entitled to ask it, or why I’d felt the need to pry.
“Because it’s nothing like stained glass. The concept doesn’t really work. Stained glass changes the colour of light. It takes something that was already there—light—and adds something—colour. This painting takes something that’s not there and tries to make it look like it is, but doesn’t.”
I looked at the painting too, but it was hard to focus. It was so dark in there, and I felt hot. I took another drink of the sherry, my fourth sip, and swallowed it with difficulty, the plummy, dry sweetness coating my mouth. The squares of colour in the painting seemed to shimmer.
“Have you been here before?” I said. “That’s what I meant to ask before. I didn’t mean specifically whether you’d been in the bedroom.”
“Yes,” she said. “Once before. But just briefly, to see Richard’s art. We didn’t have time to talk much. But you know what he told me that day when I came up?”
“What?” I asked.
“He said I reminded him of a woman he’d seen out there, and saw around the neighbourhood after that.”
“Did he offer you sherry?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Just like you did. But I understand. Everyone seems to want to see me drink sherry. Maybe they just want to see me drink, because of the Christian thing. I know my story doesn’t seem to make sense—being religious and being not so clean-cut. Or maybe it does. Anyway, I’m just looking for friends, even though I know people think I’m trying to sell something.”
“I didn’t think so,” I said.
“Maybe I am, in a way. It’s what I have to offer right now. Maybe I’ll have something else soon. For now, I know from experience that there’s a relief in just suspending disbelief. It can see you through. I can’t get past this one fact, for better or for worse: for me to get by, I need some kind of film or slide to look through. If I can share that view with someone, all the better. I don’t fool myself. I kn
ow those people in the recovery group aren’t my friends. They just want to project something onto me. But that’s not what I’m doing to the people I meet.”
“But you don’t mind being with people who treat you that way? And you don’t mind using their way of talking to communicate with the strangers you meet?”
“I don’t do that,” she said. “And I’m still here, inside myself, even if people want me to become, or appear to become, something else on the outside—what they want to see. And I don’t try to make other people become what I want or expect to see.”
She drank the last sip of her sherry. I had another sip of mine, and glanced back at the painting, not wanting to look right at her because I felt like I’d crossed a line. I closed my eyes for a moment, and heard Cheri saying that that she should get going before we both fell asleep. She let herself out, and as I heard her go down the stairs and out the door, I went to the window to see if I could see her walking away down the street. But then I did, and I could—her back was quickly receding from view. I sat back down, feeling that I didn’t want to pretend Richard’s apartment was my home anymore.
A Head for Words
Of the two women, Celina was the writer of the pair, but she was best known among their acquaintances for having a head for numbers. Mattie, on the other hand, though not much of a writer, had a head for words. Or maybe more accurately, Mattie had a head that was prone to getting words stuck in it, like a spiderweb filling with flies. The words that stuck in Mattie’s head, once stuck, would get wrapped up like a spider’s flies as she worked on them, until they were iridescent sarcophagi of the flying things they had once been.
For some hours now, Mattie had been thinking over the word counsel as she sat in an armchair by a window with a manuscript of Celina’s most recent writing project on her lap, in the living room of the dark, perpetually cool house the two women lived in.
Namely, Mattie wondered, as the hours rolled by and she counted down the minutes until five o’clock when she could have her first drink, what exactly is the difference between the words counsel and console? A few transposed letters; the closing of an open “u” into a sober “o”; a deepening from advice to condolence.
