Anton looked at her.
“Kiss me,” said Amanda, kissing him.
The door opened. Mr. Carlisle stood at attention. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Shawangunk,” he said. “It’s time to begin.”
“Here’s one for you,” said Judith. “Southeast Asia River. Six letters. The first letter is M.”
“Mekong,” suggested Henry.
Judith and Henry were sitting up in bed doing the Sunday Times crossword. Actually, Judith was doing it, and Henry was watching. His vocabulary was quite good, but it was ill-suited to the intricacies of Eugene Maleska. This was fine with Judith, who was territorial where crosswords were concerned. It was the bane of her marriage: She and Leonard were constantly fighting over who got first crack. It was heaven to have it all to yourself.
“M-E-K-O-N-G,” said Judith, writing it in. “Of course. Thank you.”
Henry beamed, and lay back in bed.
They had established the pattern of their relationship. They met every Saturday evening at the upper tiers of the New York State Theater, from which they watched the brightly colored spectacle of opera combust far below them. They had dinner and took the A train up to Judith’s. They spent the night on the waterbed. Sunday morning began with the crossword, followed by breakfast, after which Henry made his complicated way back to Queens, from which he would call Judith midweek, wondering if she wished to get together again? Yes, she would say, that would be nice.
They took nothing for granted. Each week Henry sweated while dialing Judith’s phone number, which he had taken the liberty of memorizing. He repeated it to himself at odd times, mantralike. But when it came time to call her, he would think, This time she will say no. And each week Judith waited for his call, an anticipation that gave answering the phone a sexual thrill she hadn’t experienced in years. Decades.
A six-letter word for malodorous. Smelly, thought Judith. Putrid. Rancid. This litany was interrupted by the caw of her door buzzer.
“Is that your buzzer?” asked Henry.
“It must be a mistake,” said Judith. “I’m expecting no one. What time is it?”
Henry leaned out of bed and fished his watch from the floor. Judith admired the taut brown boyish skin of his back. She kissed his spine. “Nine-thirty,” he said.
“They pushed the wrong buzzer, I’m sure. It often happens.” Judith returned to the puzzle, but the buzzer persisted. She got out of bed and gave the puzzle to Henry. “Finish this up,” she said.
In the kitchen she pushed the TALK button. “Who is it?” she asked.
She pressed LISTEN. First she heard a roar of traffic and static, and then she heard a voice quite clearly. It was a voice from her past. A voice she knew well. It said, “Judith? It’s Leonard.”
CHAPTER 25
AFTER A MOMENT OF PURE shock, Judith recovered sufficiently to press the TALK button. “Leonard?” she croaked.
“Yes,” said Leonard. “Let me in.”
“Who is Leonard?”
Judith turned to see Henry standing in the bedroom doorway. The realization that he did not know Leonard was her husband startled her. “Leonard?” she said into the grill.
“Yes, it’s me. Let me in!” His patience seemed to be waning.
“I’ll be right down,” Judith found herself saying. “Stay there.”
By cleverly not pushing the LISTEN button she managed to avoid hearing Leonard’s response to this order. But Henry was repeating his unnerving question. She found it was time to lie.
“Leonard is my cousin,” she said. “I’ll go down and see what he wants.”
“Why don’t you let him up?”
“Because…because, well, look at us: We aren’t dressed. It wouldn’t be decent, you know. Leonard is something of a prude, you see, and this being Sunday…” Judith found lying to Henry almost impossible. The look on his face told her he believed none of what she was saying, yet he listened with a maddening politeness. What does it mean, thought Judith, that I can’t lie to him? She had always managed to lie (when absolutely necessary) to Leonard.
This thought was interrupted by an insistent buzzing. “Leonard,” she shouted, “I’ll be right down!”
“Who’s up there with you?” Leonard shouted back.
“No one,” Judith lied.
“I heard him,” said Leonard. “ ‘Who is Leonard? Who is Leonard?’ ”
“Oh,” said Judith, “it’s just a friend. I’ll be right down.”
“Do me no favors,” Leonard said.
Before she could respond to this suggestion, Henry was standing beside her, fully dressed. “I think Leonard must be your husband,” he said.
“Yes,” admitted Judith, “he is. But I don’t know what he’s doing here now. He’s supposed to be in India.”
“Well, maybe there is something bad happened. I think you should let him up, and I will go.” He reached his hand toward her face. For a moment Judith thought he was going to touch her cheek in some tender gesture, but his hand kept moving. He pressed the DOOR button. “You can call me, maybe, when this gets discovered, the reason of Leonard being here, and so forth. I will go now.” He opened the door.
“I’m sorry,” said Judith. “I don’t know …I mean, yes, I’ll call you. I’m sure it’s …well, I’ll call you, I promise.”
Henry bowed his head in farewell, and then disappeared down the hall. She heard him descend the stairs, avoiding the elevator. She stood in the open doorway, frozen and confused, waiting for her husband’s appearance.
But the elevator was suspiciously quiet. Where could he be? She returned to the intercom and paged him, but Leonard no longer seemed to be in the lobby. Her mind began to fill with wild thoughts: maybe he had intercepted Henry, and had caused a scene. She immediately pictured a fist fight in her tranquil lobby. Forgetting her keys, she vacated the apartment and followed Henry’s trail down the stairs, only to find the lobby empty. She ventured timidly out onto Bennett Avenue, but found it was as still as a diorama: there was no sign of Leonard, no sign of Henry.
Judith was perfectly alone. She stood there for a moment, trying to make sense of what had just happened. She then tried to think of what she should do next. At this, too, she failed.
“Do you know what an experiment is?” Loren asked Kate. They were having breakfast at Aggie’s.
“Yes,” said Kate. “We did an experiment at daycare. With Miss Coco.”
“What did you do?”
“We cut a worm in half. It was supposed to grow two worms but it didn’t.”
“Oh,” said Loren. “Well, what happened?”
“It died,” said Kate.
“Well, that wasn’t a very successful experiment. Miss Coco should have known better.”
“Known what better?”
“That it’s not smart to cut worms in half. Perhaps some worms you can do that with, but not all.”
“We cut a leg off Jiffy to see if it growed back.”
“Who’s Jiffy?”
“Our hamster,” said Kate.
Loren shuddered. “Well, that was very cruel and naughty,” she managed to say. “Did Miss Coco know you did that?”
“Yes,” said Kate.
“Well, I hope she saved Jiffy.”
“No,” said Kate. “We had to sacrifice him.”
Miss Coco has gone too far, thought Loren. She made a mental note to pursue the matter at work on Monday. Or perhaps a phone call as soon as she got home. “Well,” she said to Kate, “that is what is known as an unsuccessful experiment.”
“What?”
“The experiment didn’t work, did it?”
“No,” said Kate.
“So you learned something from it.”
“I don’t know,” said Kate.
“Of course you did. You learned not to cut legs off hamsters. That’s bad.”
“But it was good to sacrifice it.”
“No. Sacrificing things is naughty. I hope you know that.”
“It brings g
ood to the world,” said Kate.
“No it doesn’t. Miss Coco is wrong about that!” Loren paused for a moment, trying to think of a way to return the conversation to the matter at hand. Kate picked at her eggs. “What’s the matter?” Loren asked. “Don’t you like your eggs?”
“They taste funny.”
“Here, let me taste.” Loren forked a bite of Kate’s omelet. “They taste good, honey. That’s basil. You said you liked basil. Remember we had it at Lillian’s house in the country?”
“No,” said Kate.
“Well, we did. With tomatoes, remember?”
“There’s Grandpa.”
“Where?”
“Outside. He was walking.”
“Grandpa’s in India, honey. You know that. Now eat your eggs.”
“I don’t like them.”
“Do you want mine? We can switch. Mine has nice cheese in it.”
“What kind?”
“Goat cheese. You like goat cheese.”
“No, I don’t. Can I have a muffin?”
“Eat some of your eggs first. Eat five bites.”
“Four.”
“No,” said Loren. “Five. And then you can have a muffin.”
“Do they have chocolate chip?”
“No. They have blueberry. Anyway, so you know what an experiment is?”
“Yes,” said Kate.
“What is it?”
“It’s where you cut something off.”
“No. It’s when you try something, to see if it works. I mean, cutting the hamster’s leg off was an experiment in a way, but it was a cruel experiment. It was a naughty thing to do, you see: You hurt the hamster, and that isn’t nice.”
Kate was frowning down at her omelet.
“But the idea is the same,” Loren continued, more gently. “You wanted to see if the hamster would grow another leg, so you cut it off. And you found out he wouldn’t.”
“Couldn’t, not wouldn’t,” said Kate.
“You’re right: couldn’t. He would if he could, I’m sure. Anyway—two more bites; I’m counting—Daddy and I did an experiment. When we decided to live together again. We wanted to see what would happen. If it would make us happy.”
“You should cut Daddy’s leg off.”
“No I shouldn’t. Stop being silly. We thought we knew how the experiment would end. We thought it would make us happy to live together. But we were wrong. Just like Miss Coco was wrong about the worm and Skippy.”
“Who?”
“The hamster.”
“Jiffy,” said Kate.
“Oh, yes, Jiffy. Poor Jiffy. But it’s good to do experiments, if they’re not cruel and stupid ones like Miss Coco’s, because you learn things from them, even if they don’t work out the way you thought they would. In fact, that’s how you learn, when things don’t work out.”
“I had five,” said Kate.
“I know.”
“Are you crying?”
“No,” said Loren.
“You look like you are.”
“I’m just a little sad,” said Loren.
“Can I have a muffin now?”
“Yes,” said Loren. “Of course you can.”
CHAPTER 26
THE NEW YORK BANK FOR WOMEN
INTER-OFFICE MEMORANDUM
TO: Esther Ploth
DATE: October 3, 1988
FROM: Loren Connor
RE: Voodoo at Daycare
My daughter, Kate, recently told me a rather alarming story about activities that were taking place at the NYBW daycare center. According to Kate, a hamster by the name of Jiffy (possibly Skippy) was mutilated in the guise of an “experiment” by Miss Coco. Kate claimed Miss Coco cut a leg off the hamster with the purpose of seeing if it would “grow back.” When the leg showed no signs of reappearing, the animal was (according to Kate) “sacrificed.”
While I believe that the dissection of certain already dead animals can be a valid educational experience, I think such experiments, even if properly conducted, are inappropriate at the daycare level, to say nothing of what was in effect a vivisection. Kate seems to have taken this grotesque event in stride, but I was not pleased to hear about it and think an end should be put to such activities. I confronted Miss Coco (is Coco her first or last name? I don’t see her listed in the employment directory), who denied Kate’s entire story. She told me Kate was a troubled child with a vivid imagination and that perhaps “her head should be shrunk.” (I found that remark threatening and unprofessional.) I do not believe Kate was lying. I believe Miss Coco, or whatever her name is, was. I asked to see the hamster—assuming if it had not been sacrificed it would still be inhabiting the Habitrail. Miss Coco showed me a gerbil, claiming it was a hamster. Esther, I know a gerbil when I see one, and this animal was most certainly a gerbil. Miss Coco continued to insist it was a hamster.
I found her most uncooperative about the whole matter, which leads me to believe that she should be at least more closely supervised, if not dismissed. I know it isn’t easy to find qualified daycare practitioners, but our record hasn’t been very good. It seems that if Kate isn’t singing insipid Jesus songs (remember Mrs. Betty?) she’s performing satanic rituals. I’m all for progressive education (we’re planning to send Kate to the Little Red School House), but I feel that activities in the daycare center may be getting out of hand. I hope you agree with me and will look into this matter. Perhaps we should schedule a meeting to discuss this.
“What can you do?” the man asked Heath.
“Well, I can mix just about any drink known to man. I’m good with people. And I’ve had lots of experience: I’ve worked for two years at the Cafe Wisteria—that’s in Tribeca—and before that I worked in a restaurant in Charlottesville.”
“Can you do tricks?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, tricks. Like in that movie.”
“What movie?”
“The one with Tom Cruise. Cocktail. Have you seen it?”
“No,” said Heath. “I heard it was awful.”
“Awful? It was great. You should have seem him. He could…well, he and this other guy, they threw bottles around and danced a lot and shook drinks behind their backs. He also recited poems, but I wouldn’t want you to do that. I don’t like poetry.”
“Well, I’m just a normal bartender. I mix the drinks, you know, without messing around.”
“Anyone can do that. I can do that. What I want is someone who can dance around and throw stuff. Juggle, I mean.”
Get me out of here, thought Heath. Colette Menzies, his lawyer, had told him he had to find a job: He couldn’t be unemployed when his case came to trial, especially now that Solange was dead. Colette didn’t appreciate the fact that he had been trying but that no one wanted to hire someone accused of attempted murder. She told him if worse came to worst, he would have to go to McDonald’s. A few days earlier he thought he had found a job as a Party Animal. He would have had to dress up like a dog or something and go to children’s birthday parties and act stupid. The person doing the hiring thought it would be okay to use him because he’d be in a disguise, but then she called back the next day to say the boss had said no. A cow Party Animal had recently molested a birthday girl, so they were being unusually careful.
Heath hadn’t slept since he heard Solange had died, at least not at night. He slept a little during the day in front of the TV, but it was hard to tell how much he slept because he watched soap operas and time seemed very skewed on them. He also noticed how nobody had windows in their houses on the soaps. Or if they did, their curtains were always drawn.
He had called David a couple of times and listened to his machine, trying to think of some clever, pithy, and hurtful message to leave. But he thought of nothing. Once David had picked up, which was odd, since he was living downtown with Loren.
It was horrible just waiting to be found guilty. Sometimes he thought about killing himself. All he knew was that he didn’t want to go to prison.
The one night he had spent in jail had been awful. One of the men in the cell with him—a thin drunk man with very few teeth—kept trying to hug him. For luck, he said. I’ll hug you for luck. Come here and I’ll hug you. I’ll hug you good. Heath couldn’t face fifteen years of that.
Solange woke up in the hotel room in Aix. It was evening. The room had gone dark. It was still raining. Someone—Anton—was closing the terrace doors, drawing the drapes. He came and sat beside her on the huge tousled bed.
“Darling,” he said, stroking hair off her forehead, “you’ve slept for ages. Was it nice?”
She looked up at him. In the gloom she could just make out his face, peering lovingly down at her. “I’ve been dreaming…” she said.
“Lovely,” he said. He lifted back the blankets from her throat, tucking them under her breasts, which lay uncovered, quivering slightly in the cool air, like something at the bottom of a river. He touched them both. “You’re shivering,” he said.
“You didn’t kill me,” she said.
He smiled, leaned down, touched his lips to her sternum. “Not quite,” he whispered into her skin.
She reached her hand out from under the blankets and stroked the back of his head, tangling her fingers in his silky hair.
“I thought you were going to kill me,” she said.
He lifted his head, brought it close to her face. “Was I too rough, darling?” he asked.
“No,” she said, confused. “It’s…I thought I was…I thought you were…it was an awful dream.” She lifted her face toward his, kissed him, long and slow. She closed her eyes and reached out in the dark to embrace him, to pull him down alongside her, but her hands, however far out they reached, remained empty.…She opened her eyes.
A large smiling woman sat beside her, patting the soles of her bare feet. “Well, you finally come to,” she said. “We was beginning to wonder.”
Solange closed her eyes.
“Whoah,” said the woman, cradling her face. “Open up. You ain’t going back now you come to. We was worried about you, I’ll say. I got to call Coco. I promised I’d call her moment you come to. I’m Coco’s ma.”
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