by Molly Giles
“Sort of. My cuticle’s bleeding.”
“Well don’t let it get infected. Do you have any antiseptic there at the library?”
“Yes. Mom? Are they going to … can they operate?”
“Nope. I’m inoperable.”
“Chemotherapy?”
“What’s the point. Are you there?”
“Yes. How do you feel? Aren’t you in pain?”
“No. That’s the strange thing. I feel better than I have in eight years. I slept like a baby for ten hours straight without a single hallucination, and this morning”—her voice lifted—“I had seven little BMs, like seven little …”
“Dwarves.”
“Yes!”
“So they’re not going to treat you at all?”
“Of course they’re going to treat me, Kay. I’m starting radiation therapy at one-fifteen tomorrow. What, Francis? Oh yes. Francis wants you to know that tomorrow’s the Day of the Dead, ha-ha.”
“No it’s not. Tell him it’s All Souls’ Day.”
“No it’s not. It’s All Saints’ Day, dum-dums, both of you. Oh hang on a minute, Greta’s leaving. Bye, Greta. Are you coming back tomorrow?”
“Of course she’s not coming back,” Francis’s voice answered, as Greta’s tinkle of assurances petered out and their front door slammed. “It’s a big holiday, remember?”
“She’ll be sick tomorrow,” Ida predicted, back on the phone.
“Holidays take their toll on Greta,” Francis agreed in the background.
“She didn’t come back for a week after Christmas,” Ida remembered.
“And when she did come back,” Francis finished, “she had a tan.”
The two of them laughed, merry as wolves, Kay thought, with their sharp teeth glinting. “About the radiation,” she began.
“Oh darling, look and see what she left for our dinner,” Ida interrupted, calling to Francis. “I just hope it isn’t that dreadful Wiener schnitzel again,” she said in a lower voice to Kay. “Coco was sick for two days after we fed it to her.”
“So at one-fifteen …”
“Yes. At one-fifteen tomorrow, think of me.”
“Of course I’ll think of you!” Kay promised, but Ida had hung up.
At one-fifteen the next afternoon Kay was sitting in a small restaurant with Zabeth, thinking of nothing but lunch. She was just about to open her mouth and give her order when Zabeth, with a jangle of earrings and bracelets, snatched her menu away and said, “Forget it. No chicken salad.”
“I like chicken salad.”
“I’m ordering for you today. You’re having grilled anchovies, steak tartare, garlic bread, and a martini.”
“I am?” The table at the Dark Moon Grill tipped when Kay crossed her legs and the floor felt as gritty as the floor of a movie theater. The dabs of light falling from the stained-glass windows made polka dots of green and amber on the backs of the chairs. “Why?”
“Because your mother has cancer.”
“I don’t see how my having a martini is going to help her with that.”
“Not her. You.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.” Zabeth gave their orders to the waiter and returned to the appetizer she had already ordered for them, forking some fresh mozzarella onto a tomato slice and handing it across the table to Kay. Zabeth’s nails weren’t clean, but her black suit was fashionably padded at the shoulders and cinched at the waist and her hair had just been blunt cut and dyed—“Only you would say ‘dyed,’” she had groaned when Kay said she liked it. Her direct eyes regarded Kay through the chaos of colored mascaras that fringed them. “If you’re so fine, why are you sitting there wringing your hands.”
Kay unknit her hands and smoothed them on her lap.
“You know if she dies you’ll be free.”
“She’s not going to die,” Kay said. “And I’ve always been free.”
“Ha-ha-ha.”
“My problems are my own,” Kay recited. “I can’t blame my mother for them.” She lifted the martini the waiter brought; it looked lethal. When she brought it to her lips, it tasted lethal too. A sharp oily hit like an eel bite. She could feel her blood slow and chill. The restaurant around her, however, instantly lightened. It seemed cleaner, cozier. The few diners left at the other tables looked less intimidating and the Vivaldi in the background didn’t annoy her so much. “This seems like a good place to meet for an affair,” she said, and then, almost in the same breath, just to get it over with, “Is this where you had lunch with Dad?”
“No. We never did get together. I went by his office and gave the stuff to his secretary.”
Kay dropped her eyes, relieved. “What kinds of prescriptions does Garret give him anyway?”
“Swiss vitamins. A new kind of painkiller.”
“Oh.” Kay’s relief increased. “He’s been so secretive about it I thought it was polar bear sperm or something.”
“Ha-ha-ha. Now there’s a job for you to look into when your library closes. Jerking off a polar bear.”
“I do have to think about looking for work. What could I do?”
“You could do anything.”
“You think so?”
“Anything where you took orders,” Zabeth said wickedly, “and ran around trying to please other people all day.”
“And failing,” Kay agreed. She sipped her martini. Forty years old and no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up. She’d had a hundred jobs. But a real career to commit to? She loved the little West Valley branch library, but you couldn’t make a life out of a place that was doomed to close soon. She thought of her morning at work—she’d read Henny Penny to a class of preschoolers, led Mrs. Holland through six trial Web searches, fixed the Xerox machine, handed a Kleenex to the homeless man sneezing behind the Wall Street Journal, cleaned out a cache of Kentucky Fried Chicken bones some teenagers had picnicked on in the Nature Nook, helped old Mr. Giddings find a magazine article on kickboxing, pinned autumn leaves and cutouts of Thanksgiving turkeys all over the bulletin boards, reshelved a cartload of murder mysteries, and fed the goldfish. None of that seemed like work. She looked at her friend. Zabeth was a licensed masseuse who ran her own business, partied hard, studied law six hours a day, and planned to take the bar exam in a few months. “What made you decide to go back to school?” she asked.
“I love the law,” Zabeth said. “You get to wear great clothes and send people to prison. Plus, you know, my Dad always wanted me to be a lawyer. What did your Dad want you to be? I know what Ida wanted you to be—her favorite flunky. But what did Francis think you’d become?”
“Who knows? Nothing.” Kay ran her finger around the rim of her glass, licked it. “I don’t think he was as serious about my so-called concert career as Mother was. He never paid any attention to the classical stuff. But he used to sing when I played pop songs. ‘Darktown Strutters’ Ball’ was his favorite. And ‘Pennies from Heaven.’” She smiled, remembering Francis’s sweet tenor swinging up from its hiding place in the deep leather chair, lilting through the newspaper he held in front of his face, joining her, on the piano bench, in a covert coupling of beat and rhythm. Ida would sometimes try to join in, but she never could carry a tune, and Francis and Kay would continue to soar around, beneath, above her. They would finish together on a rapturous high, Francis’s loafer stopping its polished bounce precisely at the moment when Kay took her hands off the keys, the rattle of ice in Ida’s highball glass their only applause. “He had a beautiful voice. But he hasn’t sung with me in years. Not since I left school and ran off with Biff.”
“I always wanted to run off with a Gypsy,” Zabeth said.
“Oh Biff wasn’t a Gypsy. He was from Cleveland. It’s just that he wore an earring.” Kay closed her eyes. She could no longer remember Biff’s face but she could still see his narrow shoulders and strong wrists poised over the keyboard, the way he fell forward into the music. “He was a genius,” she said. “The real thing. I hope he’s al
l right.”
“He ruined your career, broke your heart, and you miss him.”
“He was really a good pianist,” Kay protested. “I was crazy about him.”
“So you did the right thing. You met a boy, fell in love, and followed him. You needed love then.”
“I still need love.” Kay suddenly noticed Zabeth’s wrists were circled with bruises. “Ouch. What happened to you?”
Zabeth grinned. “I need love too.” She saw Kay’s look and laughed. “It’s nothing. Rope burns. Garret and I started bondage. He ties me up.”
“Why?”
“Why rope? Or why bondage? Well we don’t always use rope. Sometimes we use handcuffs. And it’s not all one way. I tie him up too.”
“Really?” Kay focused on her food. She didn’t want Zabeth to see her face; it was twitching with condemnation. She remembered the glimpse she had had once of Zabeth’s bedroom—dark unpolished furniture, the walls hung with scarves and masks and feathered hats, an unmade bed, a shelf of antique dolls. The heavy scents of marijuana and oranges; the I Ching open on top of a stack of law books piled on the floor.
“It’s sexy,” Zabeth said.
“Yes? Well. Then Neal and I ought to try it. We don’t do much that’s sexy.”
“What is the matter with that man?”
“I don’t know. It’s me too. It’s my fault too. I’ve been uninspired.”
“It’s this hard time you’re going through. You’ll be fine once this is all over.”
“Once what’s all over?”
Zabeth shook her head, then gestured to the waiter to bring them two fresh martinis.
“Oh no,” Kay said. “I can’t drink another. I have to pick Nicky up from school.”
“I’m sure they’re used to parents reeling in drunk at school. Anyway, it’s my treat.”
“No it’s not, Zabeth. You can’t afford—”
“Yes I can. Garret left a five-hundred-dollar bill on my dresser this morning. Oh Kay. You should see your face. Lighten up.”
“I don’t suppose you have a cigarette?”
“Have I ever let you down?” Zabeth opened her palm. Two Marlboros nestled inside.
Coffin nails, Kay thought, long and white, with brown filters like dried blood at the tips. She took one, lit it and sat back, expansive and sickened. “I love wasting days like this,” she lied.
“Well don’t get too relaxed. It’s your afternoon off and you have to go home and practice.”
“For what?”
“For your concert.”
“You’re not coming to that thing, are you?”
“Of course I’m coming. Garret’s coming too.”
“On a choke chain?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”
They smoked in silence. Then Kay said, “I’ll tell you something. I have a real crush on someone—a man who comes into the library.”
“Have you slept with him yet?”
“Zabeth? It’s me. Kay? I haven’t even said hello to him yet. Well. I’ve gone that far. I know his name. Charles Lichtman. Isn’t that a lovely name? He’s a painter. He rides a bicycle. I’ve memorized his phone number, but I haven’t used it yet. I have to be sure he’s out so I can listen to his answering machine.”
“This is pathetic,” Zabeth said.
“I know it is. But he’s gorgeous. And I think about him all the time. I do idiot things … Halloween night I took Nicky trick-or-treating to his house, and I stood under a tree, it was raining, and he came to his door and he gave Nicky a whole Cadbury bar and I’ve kept it.”
She exhaled and crushed the cigarette out, waiting for Zabeth’s hard laugh. But Zabeth was licking cheese off her fingers and studying her.
“You need something, Kay,” Zabeth said. “I don’t think it’s a candy bar. And I’m not sure it’s a job. But it may be this guy. Or it may be your own little monogrammed whip. Or it may”—she paused—“be another martini.”
The third martini was as good as the first two. Better. Kay took a slow, smiling drive to the school where Nicky was waiting by the window with his jacket hood up. She kissed him on top of the hood all the way to the car. Then she drove to the grocery store, where she bought breath mints, chewing gum, a single Sherman cigarette from a stranger standing in the frozen food section, and an eight-ounce jar of aspirin. Once home, she parked Nicky in front of the television with his entire bag of Halloween candy. He looked up at her, not sure. “How many can I have?” he asked.
“Oh, honey, I don’t know. As much as you want.” She poured herself a glass of jug burgundy, lit the Sherman, and drifted into the chilly, unlit music room, where she sat down at the piano and pounded out the Haydn, amazed at how good it sounded, especially when she sang along, and slid through the Chopin, touched almost to tears by her own subtle shadings. It was going to be a wonderful concert. She had nothing to worry about. She probably did not even need to practice. She hummed as she cooked dinner, sipping from the glass hidden behind the juicer. Neal looked up once during the meal to praise the stir fry.
“Remember,” he said, his eyes grave, “when you used to use MSG?”
“Oh the bad old days,” she agreed. “Back before I knew who I was or what I wanted to do with my life.” She beamed at him but he was bent over his food again. Neither she nor Nicky ate a thing, though Nicky made a nice design on his plate with the mushrooms to one side, the bean sprouts to another, and the tofu in the center, which she admired with a private toast. As she was doing the dishes, she heard Nicky scream, “I’m not going to bed and you can’t make me,” followed by a crash, running footsteps, a slamming door.
“Oh-oh,” she said out loud, blowing bubbles off her hand. “The birth of a brat.”
When Neal stormed in to take his after-dinner dose of antioxidants and purified water, she listened to his complaint that Nicky was acting hyper. “He hasn’t been eating sugar or anything has he?” Neal questioned and Kay, trying to remember if the ravaged remnants of his Halloween bag had been hidden back in the cupboard or not, said, “I’ll go ask.”
She poured another full glass of burgundy and floated down the hall to the bedroom, where Nicky perched tense and flushed and fully dressed on top of his desk, kicking the drawers with his heels.
“Act like a human and I’ll tell you a story. No. Put that dinosaurbook down. This is going to be an old-fashioned fairy story. Now hup-hup. Into your pajamas. Into bed.” She lay down on the side of Nicky’s bed herself, the glass balanced on her strangely drenched apron. “Once upon a time there was an unhappy queen who wanted to fly.”
Nicky slid down heavily, scowled, and fell into the bed beside her. “Why does it have to be about a queen?” he asked.
“Who knows. It’s my story.” Kay raised her head and took a sip. “The king tried to talk her out of it. ‘You’ll kill yourself,’ he warned. But the queen didn’t listen. She waved her arms and fluttered her legs and jumped off the top of the tower. The king grabbed her by her cloak, yanked her back and locked her up. He put nets everywhere, bolted the windows, carpeted the entire castle with goosedown, and barricaded the stairs. Then he went back to his throne and tried to rule while the queen banged and crashed around in the bedroom. You could hear her swearing all over the country. One day an evil troll came to the door and told the king, ‘I can help with your queen problem but you have to give me your daughter.’ ‘What daughter,’ the king said. ‘Her,’ said the troll pointing to this girl sitting in the corner spinning gold out of straw or combing the tangles out of her hair or whatever princesses did in those days. ‘Oh her,’ said the king. ‘Sure. Help yourself. But what are you going to give me?’ ‘These,’ said the troll, and he held up a pair of iron shoes. ‘Put these on the queen and she’ll never try to fly again.’ The king laughed for these were really ugly shoes. Black as black and cold as cold. They were lined with sharp nails on the inside, they had barbed-wire laces, and they weighed a ton. ‘She’ll never wear them,’ he said, but he went int
o the bedroom, pulled the queen down off the chandelier, said, ‘Look honey,’ and to his astonishment the queen smiled for the first time in months and put the shoes right on. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I love them.’ ‘They are pretty neat,’ the king agreed. ‘Have you any more?’ ‘Oh I have a factory full,’ the troll told him. ‘In fact I brought an extra pair just in case you might be interested’—and he whipped out apair of loafers black as manhole covers. The king sat down on his throne and put them on. ‘They fit!’ he said. ‘What?’ the queen called. She couldn’t hear him from the bedroom very well because of course she couldn’t walk and the king couldn’t go repeat himself because he couldn’t walk either. ‘Hey,’ said the princess, ‘what have you done to my parents?’ ‘Oh don’t worry about them,’ said the troll. ‘Put these on and you’ll be fine.’ And he held up a third pair of shoes. Black as skillets, heavy as trucks.”
“Did she put them on?”
Kay drained the last drop of wine in her glass. Of course she put them on, she thought. “No,” she said. “Young Prince Nicholas was riding through the forest just then on his trusty brontosaurus and when he saw what was happening he told the troll to leave the princess alone and never come back.” She swung upright, dizzy, and swallowed back a hiccup. “Here’s Pokey to keep you company,” she said, picking his favorite stuffed animal up off the floor. “I’m sorry about the dumb story. Now sleep tight. I love you.”
She guided herself down the hall by her fingertips, dropping her clothes as she moved, and fell into bed naked. She woke up hours later to the sound of Nicky screaming from a nightmare. She cradled him, listened to his rapidly recited dream—the house in flames, a skateboarder with a knife, Neal fighting wolves. At least nothing about trolls or frying pans: that was, as she’d said, her story. She rocked him until he finally slept. Then she eased him back down next to Pokey and tiptoed out.
She went into the kitchen, poured a glass of water in the dark, and looked out the window. Moonlight made the back yard blue. Rainwater puddled the uncut grass. The plum trees were already bare. She wondered if Charles Lichtman would stay in West Valley through the winter. His house, her glimpse of it on Halloween, had looked warm and colorful; she’d seen pillows on the floor and paintings on the wall; a homey smell of soup and baked potato and a snatch of La Bohème had wafted out when he’d opened the door. Nicky, in a dinosaur costume she’d sewn with green scales, had held out a paw and piped, “Trick or treat?” Charles had seen her hanging back under the dripping trees. “Treat,” he had answered.
