by Molly Giles
“Of course you watched a pro for years,” Zabeth continued. “I just never thought it rubbed off. I guess I thought you were too pure or something.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your mother. This is the way your mother operated. She always crippled herself.”
Kay stood up. “I have not crippled myself,” she said indignantly.
“It’s okay,” Zabeth mused. “It’s a great old gimmick. All you have to be is helpless.”
“I am not helpless.”
“Remind me: how did you meet Neal?”
Kay started to hop down the path.
“You locked yourself out of your car, right? And had to go into Neal’s shop to ask for a hanger so you could jimmy it open? And that guy Biff. Didn’t you seduce him by literally falling out of your chair because you were clapping so hard at his recital?”
“You are going to make a great lawyer, Zabeth. You have a real calling. And anyway—you’re the one who engineered this whole thing, not me.”
“So what do you say?”
“Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
Kay paused mid-hop. There had been something in the encounter that puzzled her. Some ease. Despite the body heat and the golden hairs on the bare brown skin there had been too much ease, in a way. When she had finally brought herself to meet Charles Lichtman’s eyes it had been … a little … like meeting anyone’s eyes, and his touch on her back had been like anyone’s touch. I am thrilled, she lectured herself. I am in love. I am about to commit adultery and live a real life at last. She hobbled back to the car with Zabeth’s laughter ringing in her ears but it wasn’t until she was almost home that she felt an answering laugh rise inside her.
Her happiness lasted all week. It was a strange and fragile happiness, an eerie rainbow-colored bubble that hovered around her heart, always ready to disappear or drift away, but in the meantime doing neither, simply hanging there, alive and demanding. This odd elation made her hands tremble as she measured protein powder into Neal’s fruit shakes and walked Coco through obedience school. It swelled and spilled as she watched Nicky at karate class. She was happy at work, missorting cartloads of books, and she was happy in her car, driving to the market, her wallet forgotten on the table at home. But she was happiest at the piano, playing alone when the house was empty. She tried to bring the image of Charles Lichtman, bare-chested, into the music room, but time after time it was Ida who came, quiet in the corner, her presence close and dear and somehow more welcome than it had ever been in life.
Only thoughts of Francis could bring her down, and when a week had passed and she still hadn’t heard from him she dialed with such difficulty she got the wrong number twice. His voice, when she did reach him early one morning, was so warm, a playful rising “Hello?”, that she thought she’d misdialed again.
“Dad? This is your daughter? Kay? Wanting to know if you’d checked your calendar and would like to come over this Sunday.”
“Can’t think why not. What time?”
“Around six?” Here Kay heard a scuffling sound and a growl and—she couldn’t be sure—a laugh. Francis’s laugh. “Dad?”
“Just talking to the dog.”
“I have the dog.”
“This is a different dog.”
“You have a new dog?” Kay looked out the kitchen window to the pen Neal had built in back. Coco shivered and bit at herself in its open doorway.
“It’s a temp. Leaving right now as a matter of fact.”
“Does it have an owner?”
“Whoa.” Francis’s voice was merry and distant, and then he gave that sound again, that laugh, and then he hung up the phone. She stared at it before setting it down. Why did every encounter with Francis make her feel as if she’d stepped into a box full of bees? He didn’t have to love her if he didn’t want to. He didn’t have to open up or talk. She’d settle for politeness. Simple politeness. At least one thing was clear, she thought, as she turned from the phone. They had not had sex. She and her father were not intimate enough for incest. You had to be related for that and they weren’t.
She spent the next few days cleaning the cottage, studying recipe books at the library, and weeding and replanting the front walkway with primroses. Nicky helped her, his eyes on the ground, trained to look for anything blue and shiny that might be a sapphire. By Sunday afternoon the floors were polished, the windows were shining, she and Nicky were showered, the dog was fed and calm. There were fresh flowers everywhere, a butterflied rack of lamb in the oven, an asparagus salad in the refrigerator, a cherry pie cooling on the counter. Francis would see nothing here to complain about. Except of course the still missing ring.
“I just know he’s going to ask.” She sat on the edge of the bed and watched Neal take a shirt from the closet, pull it on. How slow his movements were. “I don’t know what to tell him.”
“Don’t tell him anything.”
Kay stood up and rebuttoned Neal’s shirt. She handed him his belt and he slipped it on, loop by loop, missing the one in back as he always did. He’d been putting on weight and his chin doubled as he bent his head to buckle. His eyes, when he looked up, had that mild, clouded, inward expression she hadn’t seen since they’d received the inheritance.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, alarmed. “You’re not worried about money again, are you?”
“My worries are my worries. I’ll deal with them. You,” Neal added, as the doorbell rang, “have enough of your own, babe.”
Francis was scraping loose paint off a shingle with his fingernail as she opened the door. “I know,” she said immediately, seeing, through his eyes, how shabby the front porch looked, even after she and Nicky had both swept it. “I’ve got to paint it. I will. But come on in. Let me get you a drink. I bought a bottle of Scotch especially for you.”
“I don’t drink Scotch,” Francis said. “And I won’t come in until you’ve all come out and seen my new car.” He pivoted and started to walk back down the path. Kay, frowning, called to Neal and Nicky and hurried after him. A sports car, bright red and built like a bullet, was parked at the front gate.
“Fire and Ice,” Kay murmured. “Same shade as Mom’s lipstick.”
“That right? Look at this.” Francis’s voice was expansive and pedantic as he opened the door and explained the dials on the dash to Neal and Nicky. Kay reached out and touched the hood. “Careful,” Francis called. “Don’t scratch the paint.”
“I wasn’t.” Kay glared and turned away. She heard him tell Nicky about the time she’d hit the baseball into the windshield of a Thunderbird when she was ten, the time she’d accidentally slammed a Mercedes door on Ida’s finger when she was twelve. “Six hours in emergency for that one,” Francis finished. “Kay the Klutz.” She made a face and continued to walk around the new car. It was bigger than the old Porsche and probably went faster, but what was the point? Maybe buying it was one of the ways her father was helping himself through. Everyone grieves in different ways, she reminded herself. Not all ways are visible.
“Think it will be safe out here on your street?” Francis gave the car a final glance as they turned back toward the cottage. Kay rolled her eyes and took another deep breath. This was going to be a hell of a night.
But oddly enough it wasn’t. Francis drank only wine and did not smoke. He ate everything on his plate. He was expansive with Neal, jocular with Nicky. He seemed to enjoy being in the cottage, with the three of them, and although his eyes sometimes lingered a little too long on the tattered plaid wallpaper, he said nothing unkind until coffee. And then, setting his cup down, he said, “You’re not wearing the sapphire, I see. Did you take it in to have it sized?”
Neal was out of the room, getting an old photograph of the West Valley stables Francis had asked to see. Nicky was still at the table, bent over a piece of butcher paper with a crayon in his hand, drawing. “Sized?” Kay repeated. “Yes. I did. I took it in to have it sized.”
“Must need
a good cleaning too.”
“That’s what the jeweler said.”
“Al?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Bald with a belly. You didn’t go to Ned down in Rancho Valdez did you? Because Ned is a crook. So what did Al say?”
“Just that he’d fix it. But not right away. He’s got a real backlog.”
“She lost it,” Nicky said. “We’ve torn the whole house apart but we haven’t found it yet. I get ten dollars if I find it first.” Neal, coming toward the table, said, almost simultaneously, “Here’s that blown-up photo, Francis. I think you’ll see what I mean,” and it was to Neal that Francis turned, with a final, easy, “Al’s the man you ought to talk to if you ever need to get your watch fixed,” over his shoulder to Kay. Kay let her breath out. He hadn’t heard. Hadn’t been paying attention. She glared at Nicky, who lifted heavy-lidded traitor’s eyes and said, “What?” and she blew a kiss toward Neal, who, startled, actually glanced over his shoulder as if it was intended for someone behind him.
“Well, she’s a good businesswoman,” Francis said to Neal. “I’ll say that about her. Knows what she wants and goes for it.”
“Who’s that?” Kay asked, clearing the table. She paused, blinked. “Me?”
“No. Oh no. Glo.”
Kay laughed. “The hara-kiri queen?”
“That’s not appropriate, Kay,” Francis said.
“No,” Neal chimed in. “It’s really not.”
Kay stared at them. They looked alike, she realized. Zabeth had pointed that out long ago but she’d never really seen it before. Neal had always seemed so soft and slumped, Francis so quick and straight. But now, as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, she saw the resemblance: different coloring, different builds, but the same cold eyes, cold lips. Ice men. “I’m sure she’s a very nice woman,” she said.
Francis nodded. “Any more of that good coffee?”
He stayed another hour, helped Nicky draw a dinosaur’s dream cave, talked to Neal about some unrelated Sorensens he and Ida had met in Norway years ago and asked Kay, with no irony, if the jeans she was wearing were “the new style now.” He stood at last, creakily hamming his own aches and pains, and said, “Well if I’m going to log in my usual twelve hours a night, I better get going.”
Kay rose too. “You’re sleeping a lot?”
“Can’t stay awake.”
“Me either. No energy.”
“Tonight’s the first meal I’ve been able to eat.”
“Tonight’s the first meal I’ve been able to cook.”
“What’s it been? Two months?”
“Fifty-seven days.”
“Then I’d say we’re doing all right. Considering.”
“Considering,” Kay agreed. She did not attempt a hug but gave a shy wave goodbye and watched from the porch as he walked away, her elegant father, picking his way between primroses toward his toy car. I’ll ask him to come back next week, she thought. And the week after. I’ll take care of him. I’ll help him, Mama. Don’t worry. You’re not forgotten.
Fourteen
She was dreaming of Ida the next morning, an odd, unsettling dream of Ida turning to strike her with a silver mirror. When she woke up, arms thrown over her face, Neal was nuzzling her. They had not made love since Christmas. Why was he aroused now, the day she was finally supposed to meet Charles Lichtman? She struggled with about ten different emotions, then gave up. Maybe he loved her after all. Maybe it was as simple as that. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said back, his voice sweet and deep.
“Hey,” she conceded. She brought his hand around to her breast, settled it on top like a baby’s cap, and cuddled back into his embrace as he water-witched around, looking for entrance. She shivered with welcome as he finally slipped inside. What a sweet connection. Surely she had never done anything this warm—this friendly—this human—with her father. Again she realized that whatever had happened that night with Francis, it hadn’t been sex. Sex was too innocent and too easy and too much fun. She let herself relax and open in a soft rush.
“Whoa,” Neal cautioned. “Slow down.” His low, excited breathing filled her ear; married music. Drenched and dreamy, she gazed out through half-opened eyes into a charcoal grey room. The curtains glimmered, the alarm clock glowed. Somewhere down the valley a rooster crowed. What a good feeling it was to be alive after all—fresh-throated, headache-free—no wine last night, she remembered, no cigarettes either. Neal, inside her, felt young and strong, a little slow. Slower. Very slow. Stopped.
“What is it?” she whispered. “Are we waking Nicky up?”
“Garbage.”
She heard it too, the high whine of the garbage truck down at the corner. And that was another good thing: the world was in fine working order this morning, all those strong men running up and down the streets of town, hauling everyone’s rubbish away. “Umm,” she said, reaching back to cradle Neal’s small velvety balls, like tomcat balls, she’d always thought, high and firm and that plush pretty pink.
“I didn’t carry the can out last night,” Neal said.
“It doesn’t—”
She was about to say “matter” when Neal slid out of her, pulled on his robe, kicked into his slippers, and slammed out the front door. She lay still for a second in shock, feeling the cold air pass over her body. Then she went to the window, parted the curtains, and watched him hurrying down the driveway with the big green can of trash in his arms. She heard him call out to the garbage men, heard them call back, heard a word or two of cheerful morning exchange, a rumble of laughter.
She went back to bed and sat straight, hugging her knees, staring blearily at Mrs. Sorensen’s framed photo on Neal’s side of the dresser. She touched her ankle, which still ached from her fall in the woods, and rubbed her shoulder, which still ached from her fall at her father’s. “Why did you do that?” she asked when Neal returned.
“Do what?”
“Choose the garbage over me.”
“Don’t go into one of your spirals please.” He hung up his bathrobe, slipped back into bed, and reached for her. But his skin felt clammy, his erection was gone, and his fingers smelled like compost. She pulled away. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” he warned.
“Am I? Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to make a whole life out of nothing.”
Neal raised his hands in the air and clapped. She stared at him as he sat up, threw his covers back, and began to get dressed. What a remarkably unattractive person he was. That double chin. That big mole like a greasy salmon egg right between his eyes. “The way you behaved last night …” Neal said.
“What do you mean?”
“That crack about Glo Sinclair was totally unnecessary.”
“Glo Sinclair is unnecessary.”
“You owe her some thanks.”
“For what?” Kay turned on the pillow, waiting.
“Big thanks. She got us out of debt.”
“What debt?”
Neal didn’t answer.
“What debt?”
He left the room. Kay pulled on a long sweatshirt and followed him. The house seemed foreign to her in the early morning dusk; someone else’s, always had been. A dim ugly place she was visiting. She stepped on a loose nail in the flooring and swore, her anger sparking around her like an electric outline. I can go to Charles Lichtman tonight with a clear conscience, she thought. There is nothing to stop me. She stumbled into the kitchen where she switched on the light and stared at her bent husband. “What debt?”
“All right,” Neal said after a minute. “Sit down. We’ll talk. I should have told you about this before.” He plucked at a corner of the place mat as he sipped from a glass of wheat juice. “You know I bought the stables.”
“No, I didn’t know.” Kay sat. “When?”
“Last October. I was going to surprise you on our anniversary, but you had a lot on your mind, with your mother—”
“You always blame my mother.”
Kay rose and looked in the refrigerator. Maybe there was an overlooked Marlboro in there after all. No. Just the remains of last night’s dinner; nothing else. She closed the door and sat down. “How did you get the money?” She leaned forward. “You didn’t ask my dad, did you? I have asked you and asked you never to borrow from my family.”
“Calm down. Yes, I did, but he said no. So I borrowed from a loan shark.”
“I hate you, Neal. What’s a loan shark?”
“A so-called broker who charges thirty percent interest.” Neal’s voice rose for the first time and he sounded aggrieved. Righteous. As if he had a point to make. As if he had a case. As if he had not betrayed her trust and in some essential way her honor. He held her eyes, willing her to sympathize. Slowly she remembered the junk mail she’d seen him reading all year, the “literature” he’d been “studying.”
“Oh Neal. Not that Dominic DelGotcha person.”
“Delgardo. And yes okay, you’re right, the guy’s a crook. But it could have worked. Only I had to put the business up for collateral. And the house.”
“This house?”
Neal was silent.
“Your mother’s house? You know I will say one thing about not drinking. I don’t have a hangover. Do you? I just feel worse than I’ve ever felt before in my life. But clear. Pretty clear. So go on.”
“Well. I paid the first installment on time …”
“How.”
“We had. Oh babe. You know. Your mother’s money.”
“That ten thousand? It’s gone?”
“You’ll get it back. Triple, I promise. So then the second installment came due. And I hadn’t landed the other investors I’d beentrying to get. So I didn’t have the money.” He took a last sip of juice. “And then Glo Sinclair dropped by the shop.” Kay, impatient, clicked her tongue; Neal ignored her. “So we started talking, and I told her what I wanted to do with the stables and it turns out she had some capital gains tax she needed to invest so it made perfect sense that she invest in me.” His voice rose. “Thanks to her, I’m going to make it, I’m going to make a minimall. It’s going to have shops. Restaurants. A health food store. You know how you’ve always said there’s no good music store around here? I thought you could open your own music store, stock it yourself, run it yourself.”
