Hearts

by Hilma Wolitzer

  The game was to stay out of her father’s notice for as much of the day as possible, to listen for his footsteps and his wheezing and to always go the other way. It was a large house, at least, with plenty of places to hide. She spent considerable time in the pantry, carefully examining the labels on cans. There was one for green peas, with a picture of a rainbow arcing over a sunny meadow. A chimney with a single spiral of smoke could be seen in the distance, and a giant pod, in which the pearly and perfect peas nestled, was superimposed across the scene. That label always filled Linda with an illogical surge of splendor and longing.

  Sometimes she even hid upstairs in the more treacherous territory of her mother’s closet, because there was consolation in the company of her clothes left behind, dresses and shoes that waited unmistakably for future days of celebration.

  This time, though, Linda was downstairs, wandering. The radio played, with fitful bursts of static, in the kitchen. It was a religious program: God this and God that. She hated God that year and He hated her back. Elsewhere, the Hoover was droning, sucking up dust; Mrs. Piner always vacuumed when Mr. Botts was sleeping. Linda’s father could be heard walking heavily overhead. The old lady was stationed in her wheelchair near the kitchen and, as usual, her face was wet. How did she manage to weep like that without bawling? Her eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth was stretched wide by despair. Linda wondered what sad thing she remembered or what people she yearned after. Maybe her own family, lost somewhere beyond the front door. Couldn’t she just get up if she wanted to and go after them? She was that close. And she had legs. They were supposed to be paralyzed. They were as thin as canes and covered with ulcerous sores, but still they were legs. Helpless herself, Linda could not bear to comprehend that much helplessness. Maybe it was only her loss of will the woman mourned. Linda went closer and watched the intricate passage of tears through the maze of wrinkles. “What?” she whispered. “What is it?” She was thrilled by the remote possibility of a response, but of course there wasn’t any, only more of that silent crying. “Walk,” Linda said, high-pitched, conspiratorial. “Go ahead. Do it.” Her cheeks smoldered. She was much too old for such overwrought pretending, and even if the old lady didn’t know what was going on, Linda suspected the savagery inside herself that wrestled with the desire to be good.

  And then her father was coming down the stairs. As if he knew what she was up to in her Saturday boredom.

  Linda went swiftly past the wheelchair, into the kitchen, and down the wooden steps to the basement, where the huge red heart of the furnace boomed. This was not her favorite place. She still kept an early belief that all her just punishments waited in its shadows for her descent. “They’ll get you,” her father had promised, and here she was, freshly stained with guilt, and making herself available.

  But there were no visible demons lurking, only a sudden and shimmering field of water. The basement sometimes flooded like this during heavy rainstorms, despite her father’s summer caulking around the small high windows. Other things he fixed failed to work soon after, also. Faucets with brand-new washers leaked. Radio voices came and went like ghosts after the replacement of tubes, and lamps he’d rewired flickered a few warnings and blinked out.

  Linda sloshed around. There was more than an inch of water, maybe two inches, and her thin-soled shoes and cotton socks drank quickly and were soaked. She knew she had acted recklessly by plunging in like that. She knew she should go up and tell him about the flood, even at the risk of enraging him with such bad news. Mr. Piner was away, doing overtime at the mill. It would be her father’s job to pump the water out, it would be his fault. The vacuum howled directly overhead. She could tell Mrs. Piner first, although that carried its own risks. Linda’s wet feet would leave evidence of their passage across the clean floors, and Mrs. Piner would demand to know what she’d been doing down there in the first place.

  Linda liked the water, despite the chilling discomfort. She pretended it was the ocean, which she had never seen, a gentle lapping ocean with France or China somewhere in the distance past the spot where Mr. Piner stored the snow tires for his pickup. It was difficult to pretend sunlight, but that was all right. It rained on oceans, too. There was a poem in one of her schoolbooks about it, by Robert Louis Stevenson. He had been sick when he was a child and spent lots of time in bed making up poems. In one of them he mentioned a counterpane. Linda wasn’t sure what that was, but she liked the way it sounded. Now she waded through the shallow water, her arms out like a tightrope walker’s, saying the word “counterpane” over and over, almost to herself.

  After a while she realized the house was unnaturally quiet. The furnace was quiet, its glow darkening. The vacuum was off and even the radio had stopped playing. Then her father shouted something and Mrs. Piner shouted back. Theirs were like voices calling across mountains. “Yes!” Mrs. Piner yelled. “All the lights! And the vacuum!” And Linda knew the electricity had gone off.

  That and the flood! He’ll be furious, she thought, with a wild shiver of pleasure. And then she remembered that this was where he would come, this was where he always came to investigate when things went wrong with the functions of the house.

  There was no quick and comfortable place to hide. Her feet dragged in the water, their wetness now intolerable. She could have been pushing through mud and slush. Finally Linda realized that the snow tires made a low circular tower she could crouch behind. She worked her way toward it and got there just in time.

  The weak, tri-circled beam of his flashlight preceded him, bouncing on the steps and then moving playfully up toward the ceiling. He stepped into the water before he saw it, and growled at the first splash. “What the—!” he cried, and the light danced jerkily across the room, passing just over Linda’s head, like a bullet. “Flood!” he bellowed up the stairs and began to ford the ocean, in the direction of the furnace. “What?” Mrs. Piner shrieked from above. He didn’t bother to answer her. Instead, he played the light along the walls, across the hanging shelves to the switches and outlets, to the fuse box and a coiling pipe above it; they all retained their mystery. “What?” Mrs. Piner insisted, and at the same moment the furnace rumbled to life, making him jump and curse. The vacuum started up again and the radio began to play music at a deafening volume. Someone must have fooled with the knobs when everything went off. It was a mad serenade of machinery, and Linda had an impulse to laugh with surprise and relief. He’d go away soon; she would not be discovered. Her father wasn’t laughing, though, and was still in earshot, more than enough reason to contain that impulse. She watched as he poked around, doing useless things, hitting the furnace door with the side of the flashlight, patting the pipe above the fuse box, so that a small flurry of dust floated down and disappeared into the water. “Fixed!” Mrs. Piner screamed idiotically over the noise of the vacuum. If Mr. Botts could sleep through all that, Linda thought, he’d have to be dead. He must be up now, rushing his startled bladder to the bathroom, or to the kitchen if he was confused enough. Maybe he’d collide with the old lady in the hallway, astonishing them both. They were so far away from their own lives, as Linda’s mother was far away with a nameless drowsing infant against her breast.

  “Linda!” her father said. Had he seen or heard her? She was still in her hiding place, still silent. And she could see he was turned toward the stairs and looking up. He probably only wanted her to fetch some tool or bring a message to Mrs. Piner, who was vacuuming again. But there was no way to make the stairs without attracting his attention, no way to go up and then come down again, innocent and dry. He would know she was not responsible for the flood, of course. The walls were black with dampness, and water seeped steadily through the windows. Could he blame her for the other thing, the lights going off? Not likely; he knew she was not the sort of child who arbitrarily touched things. Yet she felt strangely culpable and afraid she would confess everything, anything, under the slightest stress of inquisition.

  “Lin-daaa!” His voice rolled out like drums and
she was certain now that she would never answer him. Her shoes and socks were probably ruined. Why in the world had she jumped in with them on, just like a baby in a rain puddle? He would get her for that alone, and her feet ached with the cold that was rising like a tide up her bare legs and into her groin.

  “Goddamn!” he muttered. “Goddamn!” And Linda said, “Counterpane, counterpane,” but not really aloud. Her teeth skidded against each other.

  He was coming toward her, splashing, stirring up a minor current. And then he stopped, as if he’d remembered something, and he turned around, reaching above him to take Mr. Piner’s electric lantern from one of the shelves. Linda watched as her father slowly unwound the thick black cord until it was a long and restless serpent swaying at his side.

  Of course he knew she was there. How could she think he wouldn’t? He could sniff her out like those dogs the police used on television to find murderers. And now he only wanted more light by which to see her. He started moving again, toward the outlet next to the furnace, his left hand gripping the cord’s neck just under its tiny dark head. Two silver tongues glinted in the dimness.

  What was the use? Linda stood up, surrendering, as his arm reached out. “I’m here!” she cried at the very moment of connection and met his astounded eyes with her own, and saw the crooked arrow of light as it entered his fingertips and sped directly to his heart. She saw the blazing outline of his heart, too, its last suspended pulse of blood like a ball of mercury. She saw right through him to the leaning mops and brooms against the wall. His entire frame lit up like a neon sign, and he danced and sizzled in a yellow circle of fire before he went out. He screamed, of course, or she did, and then the whole place reeked of smoke and cooked flesh.

  Fifteen years later, the paramedic said, “God, you’ve got a lovely ass. And a terrific imagination, too. How about using a little of it on me, hmmmm?”

  “But it’s true!” Linda told him.

  “Listen,” he said. “You don’t light up when you’re electrocuted. That’s first of all. Wait. And second of all, there is absolutely no fire. And I’m not even sure he’d get enough current that way to kill him, although the water must have been a perfect ground. I’ve seen people—a kid, once, who took maybe twenty thousand volts grabbing a kite from a live wire, and he lived to tell the tale. And another guy, taking a bath—”

  “But it’s true!” Linda said again, her voice rising dangerously.

  “Okay, okay, so it’s true,” he agreed, in the soothing tone he probably used to reassure injured children or potential suicides teetering on ledges. “You got the smell right at least. It’s the cannibal’s dinner. Now why don’t you lie back and relax a little.” And his hands and mouth worked over her with the expertise of a rescue team.

  But it really was true. Nothing anyone said could make her doubt the stubborn memory she had of those events. The emergency crews showed up that day, sirens going like crazy: policemen, firemen, all the king’s horses and men. By the time they got there it was over. His glow had darkened, like the furnace, and he was ordinary and harmless, a dead man deprived of influence, of venom, of everything.

  She was still alive, her hands wildly gripping the tire treads. They had to pry them loose a finger at a time, and carry her like a drowned maiden up the wooden stairs and then to the second floor. The house swelled with neighbors and strangers, and Mr. Botts careened among them in his bathrobe. A policeman had his arm around the weeping old woman, trying vainly to comfort her.

  Linda was placed in the center of her parents’ bed. Her shoes and socks were removed, and someone rubbed her feet, which were even bluer than those of Jesus on the Lutheran Church calendar. Someone else tried to feed her golden, burning whiskey. She wailed, she screamed with previously untested operatic strength—“Oh, no, oh, please!”—and her mother, summoned away from the newest baby by Linda’s need, materialized at bedside. Linda, in a sudden revival of piety and infancy, took her rightful place against her mother’s breast, intoning, “Please, God, please.” With the shocked outrage of the pious, she also heard an internal voice that said, “Thank you, thank you. Thine is the kingdom and the glory. Thank you, forever and always, amen.”

  25 Linda ran her hands one more time under the beds in their room at Buddy’s Siesta, searching for a possible stray sock or two. There was nothing there, though, except for the usual dust collection, and the paper band from a former tenant’s cigar. Te-Amo, it said. She put the band on her wedding finger and pushed herself up again. Bending like this made her red-faced and dizzy. I need exercise, she thought. When I get to California, I’ll swim and I’ll jog. I’ll jog along the beach, maybe. It would be her initiation into the real America. “Okay,” she told Robin. “That’s it. Let’s hit the road.”

  When she looked up, Robin was slouched in the green armchair near the window, eating potato chips from a crackling bag. It was only seven o’clock in the morning. They’d shared an orange and intended to stop for a regular breakfast in an hour or two. And now Robin was inhaling junk food again.

  Linda hesitated. She had decided, she had promised herself she wouldn’t nag during this last segment of their trip. Things were easier between them. It would be possible to part soon with some feeling of friendship. She imagined them shaking hands warmly, perhaps even embracing, the way Begin and Sadat had done at the airport after the Mideast Peace Treaty was signed. In her mind, Miriam appeared, too, a blurred but benevolent background figure, like Rosalynn Carter.

  But the potato chips looked so greasy; Robin’s fingers glistened as she pushed them into her mouth. And she chewed with such noisy pleasure. Hadn’t Wright bothered to teach the girl simple good manners? “You eat a lot of unhealthy snack food,” Linda commented finally. She couldn’t help herself; the words flew out. “Sweets and stuff fried in rancid fat.”

  “Who cares?” Robin said, and licked salt from her fingers, one by one.

  “I care,” Linda said, wondering if she really did, or had only fallen into the habit of conflict. “I want to deliver you to your mother in the best of health. All these chips and cheese things and candy bars are terrible for you. Your teeth will rot in your mouth before you’re sweet sixteen.”

  As a matter of fact, there was practically no silver in Robin’s mouth. She had nearly perfect teeth, a lucky genetic handout, no doubt. Now she bared them to demonstrate. Golden flakes were wedged between them and Linda was revolted. “Mo cabities,” Robin managed to say, still munching, and pointing inside.

  Linda, who suffered fleeting toothaches on contact with any food that was either hot or cold, sweet or spicy, suspected that she had plenty of cavities. “You’ll get fat, then,” she said.

  In answer, Robin smiled and held the loose waistband of her jeans away from her slender waist with the hook of one thumb. She hadn’t lost any weight, certainly, not with her diet, but she must have grown a little since they’d started out, which gave the same favorable effect. She looked at Linda with that calculated stare and said, “If anybody’s getting fat, it’s you.”

  Linda had picked up her suitcase during this exchange and was ready to leave the room. As Robin spoke, she glanced behind her and saw her own reflection in the bureau mirror. It wasn’t the best mirror in the world. When she stood directly in front of it, her forehead wavered and melted into her hairline. But there were no real distortions below that. And Linda did look fatter. Fatter than what? Fatter than when?

  The waistband on her canvas skirt was made of soft elastic, so it offered no clue to possible change. She had two skirts in the same pattern, this dark red one and a navy blue, and she wore them frequently because they didn’t show stains much and were comfortable for driving. The jeans she’d tried on yesterday had obviously shrunk in the last laundromat, and she had been thinking of offering them to Robin, and was trying to find an acceptable way of doing so.

  “Why don’t you put our stuff in the car, Robin,” she said, holding out her suitcase and the keys. “I want to check the room one more
time, in case we left anything.”

  “You did that already,” Robin complained, and upended the bag of chips to shake the last crumbs into her open mouth. Linda marveled that anyone ever comes through childhood and adolescence still loved by anyone else. She almost shoved Robin through the door.

  As soon as she was alone, Linda put the chain lock on and began pulling off her clothes. She threw them across the unmade beds. Breathing heavily, she faced the mirror again, that new accuser. She knew immediately that this was not her previously known self. This sleek fullness, this rosy roundness were surely new. She looked like a bowl of fruit.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. She went closer to the mirror, dissolving her forehead until she became a Neanderthal.

  Robin was waiting impatiently in the front seat, her bare feet on the padded steering wheel, her head hanging out the opposite window for air. All she could get on the radio was Country and Western, nothing good. She contemplated driving around the parking lot a few times to work up a breeze. Using the heel of one foot, she beeped the horn twice. What was Linda doing in there? Did she suspect something? Robin checked her treasures—the wrapped fork, the untouched joint, and the tiny roach, all still safely hidden—and felt better. She wished she had remembered to bring a roach clip, though. It was going to be hard to hold on to that little thing and get a decent toke. She’d have to look through Linda’s junk and see if she had a pair of tweezers.