Impersonal Attractions

by Sarah Shankman

  “Atlanta!” the older woman exclaimed. “How charming. I thought I heard a bit of the South in you.” She passed the butter to Annie. “No, I always cook like this. Just can’t break the habit of so many years. Even if there are just the three of us.”

  John looked at his mother sharply, the first negative emotion either of them had ever seen on his face. His mother felt it too.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I meant the two of us. I always speak as if John’s father were with us still.”

  “He’s been dead for twenty years, Mother.” John’s voice was cold.

  “I know, dear. I’m not that dotty.” She turned to the two women. “John’s father was such a dear man and such a strong personality that I still feel his presence. But I know he’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry about Mr. Sharder,” Annie said with her best southern manners. “But,” she added, “this would be a generous dinner even for three of you.”

  “Oh, yes, dear. I know. You see, I used to run a boardinghouse back in Kansas. I’d cook two meals a day and make box lunches for ten or fifteen hungry men, mostly farm laborers and railroad men, though sometimes we had a maiden lady schoolteacher or two.

  “Lord, I loved those days.” Mrs. Sharder’s eyes grew wistful with remembrance. “All those people living in my house. Filling up all the nooks and crannies with their lives and their dreams. It was like having the huge family I always wanted.”

  “I’m an only child,” John said, looking down at his plate.

  “Yes, he’s my darling only angel.” Mrs. Sharder beamed at her son. “John was a late blessing in our lives. I wanted a dozen children, but it looked like we weren’t even going to have one. John’s father and I had given up on little ones. I had my boarders and my flowers, and was resigned to it, when God blessed us with John.”

  She began lifting their empty plates from the table. Despite their protestations, they had both eaten a helping of everything, plus a bit of both desserts. It was wonderful, comforting food, but they groaned like stuffed Strasbourg geese.

  “Speaking of my flowers”—Mrs. Sharder gestured toward a low vase of white mums on the table—“would you girls like to come out to the greenhouse and see them? John, do you mind cleaning up while I show the girls my babies?”

  The small greenhouse had the warm, fecund odor of pampered vegetation. Flowers bloomed aggressively with no regard for season. Ruffly orchids pushed their way in among red, pink, and violet cyclamen. Annie caught the unmistakable sweetness of roses. There they were—tall, long-stemmed, white.

  “Aren’t they pretty?” Mrs. Sharder caught Annie’s glance. “They’re my favorites. I grow only the white ones. Here.” She reached out with a pair of shears. “Let me cut you some.”

  “No,” Annie recoiled, the final scene at Lola’s flashing in her imagination.

  “You have to excuse my friend.” Sam frowned at Annie. “I’d love to have some roses, Mrs. Sharder.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Annie blushed. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that white roses remind me of…of an old boyfriend. I’m afraid it’s not a very pleasant association.”

  “That’s all right, dear. I know what you mean. Flowers are like colors and scents and songs. They’re tied to memories, both good and bad. Here”—she looked around the greenhouse and reached toward another plant—“take this spray of cymbidium instead.”

  She cut a branch of the tiny green orchids before Annie could protest and pressed them into her hand.

  Mrs. Sharder continued her tour, chatting on about her flowers and the vegetables she grew year-round. Onions, potatoes, beans, squash, plus herbs to flavor the vegetables before she served them up on her round kitchen table. She talked about how much easier it was to grow things in California than in Kansas, how quickly she had adjusted to her new home when Mr. Sharder had moved them, though she’d been reluctant to leave old friends. And all the time she was patting a plant here, pinching a bud there, pruning and pampering as she talked.

  Then she stopped for a moment, suddenly hesitant. There was something she wanted to say, but was afraid to.

  “You have to forgive my John.” The words came slowly and tears began to well in her eyes.

  They stopped and listened to her, somber-faced, stock-still, as if fearful that movement would stay her words.

  “He’s a loving, well-meaning boy. I hope he hasn’t been pestering you too much. Or frightening you. There’s really nothing to be frightened of.”

  They both nodded.

  “He’s a good boy. A good son. He works hard. He takes good care of me. But he’s always had this…this”—she searched for the exact words—“oddness with women, pretty women.”

  They both tried to keep their faces expressionless.

  Mrs. Sharder shook her head. “Oh, I know. I know what you’re thinking. But there really isn’t anything wrong with him.” She paused and dabbed at her eyes. “He’s never hurt anyone. But he stopped somewhere when he was growing up. It’s as if he were so enchanted by the land of fairy tales that part of him went there and never came back.” Her fingers started to work at the dark soil on a potting table.

  “He still believes in fairy tales. In knights. White horses. Shining armor. And, most of all, in chivalry, heroic deeds done for ladies worshiped from afar.”

  Sam took a sharp breath. It was, eerily enough, exactly how they’d joked about him.

  “I don’t know exactly what John has said to you,” his mother continued. “I’m sure you found him strange. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  They both nodded. That certainly was part of it.

  “I’ve taken him to scores of doctors, and they all say he’s harmless. And he is. He’s never hurt anyone. I’m sure he never will. He’ll always be just a little odd. My odd little boy.”

  Annie was skeptical. She wasn’t so sure he was harmless. Also, he couldn’t always be his momma’s little boy, because Mrs. Sharder was easily pushing seventy. What would happen when she was gone?

  But she wasn’t going to argue with a little old lady who had welcomed her into her home, fed her a wonderful dinner, and given her orchids.

  *

  They drove in silence for about twenty minutes until they were on the Bay Bridge, with the lights of the city before them. That familiar downtown skyline—the Transamerica building standing out like an Egyptian pyramid in a nest of tall cracker boxes.

  “So what do you think?” Annie asked.

  “I’m not sure. You?”

  “I think I believed her. He’s crazy, but harmless crazy. I’d like to believe her, anyway.”

  “Me too. I liked her. And John, too, actually. At least we can have the roses examined and see if they’re the same.”

  “I never thought of that.” They drove in silence for a few more moments. “But you know, Sam, that really doesn’t tell us anything. If they’re different, maybe he simply didn’t take the flowers from his mother’s garden. And if they’re alike—can a lab tell if they’re from the same plant?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe plants have fingerprints, like people.”

  “Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be that easy to determine if John Sharder delivers those funeral flowers or not.”

  *

  But it was. That part of it was. Because while they were sitting at Mrs. Sharder’s table eating pot roast with her and her little boy, John, back in the city, South of Market, a young woman named Paula Eisenberg was cooking her last supper.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Paula stood, humming to herself, as a duck sputtered in the oven. It was going to be a wonderful meal. She hoped Brad would like it.

  She loved to cook. She often thought that if she had to choose between food and sex, food would win. It had a lot more variety and you could buy it whenever you wanted it at the grocery store. But tonight with Brad, maybe she wouldn’t have to choose; maybe she could have both.

  She’d seen him only a couple of times, if she counted the day she’d met him
on the bus. She hugged the memory to her breast, and took it out and looked at it as she had many times in the past few days.

  He’d gotten on the bus a couple of stops after she had. He was carrying a box of carpenter’s tools. Paula had looked up his tall, lean Levi-covered legs, past a gray sweater, into his smiling blue eyes, and had been unable to tear her glance away until he had passed and taken the seat directly behind her.

  He had stared at the back of her head so intently that she had to turn around. They’d chatted, exchanging the kind of conversation that first passes between a man and a woman. It could be a discussion of U.S./Middle Eastern relations or they could just say words “Hamburger, hamburger” over and over. What they were really saying was “I like the way you look.”

  When she arose at her stop he did too. He continued talking as they got off the bus. They walked for half a block before she asked, “Do you live in this neighborhood?”

  “No.” He laughed, a little flustered. “But I knew if I didn’t get off when you did, I’d maybe never see you again. I didn’t want that to happen.”

  She had laughed, complimented, but a little flustered too.

  “Would you like to stop and have a drink?” she asked shyly in front of a neighborhood pub.

  He was a cabinetmaker and lived with a vile-tempered, twenty-two-pound cat named Bertram in the Haight, the onetime bastion of the city’s flower children. Paula had watched him as he talked. She liked his smile and his long, square-tipped fingers. She was glad he’d gotten on and off her bus.

  They’d met for dinner a week later and had drunk enough wine to grow warm and giggly together. Then they’d walked up to the Buena Vista area, which towered above a good portion of the city, and stood on a street corner looking at the twinkling lights of the East Bay. They’d brushed fingertips and then held hands on the walk up. When they arrived at the top Brad had held her head in his hands and brushed his face through her short dark curls.

  He’d kissed her softly, his lips like butterflies exploring a dark, secret room.

  “That’s all we get for now,” he’d whispered as he ended the kiss with a big hug. Then they’d run back down the hill to her door, where he’d left her.

  Paula had lain awake for an hour that night, open-eyed, with the moonlight pouring across the foot of her bed. She hadn’t felt like this in a decade—since high school. When finally she slept she dreamed of white lace curtains floating in the wind and a dark chestnut horse blowing as he cantered riderless down a lane.

  *

  And tonight. Tonight she was giddy with anticipation. Tonight she knew they would make love and she’d… Brrrrr. Her fantasy was interrupted by the ringing of her kitchen timer.

  No, it couldn’t be. She frowned for a minute, puzzled. If it wasn’t the timer… Oh, it was the buzzer from the door downstairs.

  That was funny. It was only six-thirty. Brad wasn’t due yet for another hour. He wouldn’t come early, would he? Surely not that early. She still had to bathe and get pretty. But she wasn’t expecting anyone else.

  Brrrr. It rang again.

  Paula zipped around the corner into her hallway and had her finger halfway to the buzzer to release the lock of the street-level door when she paused. She remembered the agreement that the four tenants of the building had recently made after a flurry of robberies in the neighborhood. Even though it was a drag, because there was no speaker system, none of them would let anyone in without checking to see who it was.

  Leaving her apartment door ajar behind her, she ran down the two flights of stairs.

  Through the beveled panes of the heavy front door, she could see a man holding a long, white box.

  “Hello?” She opened the door.

  “Paula Eisenberg?”

  “Yes.”

  “Flowers for you.” He pressed the box into her hands.

  “For me?” Paula’s voice was full of excitement. “Who would send me flowers? Is there a card?”

  “Uh, I think so. Probably inside. Could you sign for me, please?” He laid a small clipboard with a delivery receipt atop the box.

  Paula looked at him expectantly. She had no pen or pencil.

  “Oh, just a minute,” he said, slapping his T-shirt pocket. “Damn, I guess the lady at the last delivery kept my pen. Do you have one? If I don’t get the receipt signed, I get hell back at the shop.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Come on up.”

  Paula raced up the stairs, carrying the box. She couldn’t wait to open it. Were they roses? From Brad? Who else? God, this man had to be the answer to her mother’s prayers.

  “Come on in,” she said to the deliveryman when they reached her door. He was a few yards behind her.

  “Whew!” he exclaimed. “You must be in good shape, running up and down those stairs all the time.” He pushed his sandy-blond hair back off his forehead.

  “Well, you’re not in bad shape,” Paula responded, noting his muscular arms and sturdy build.

  “Yeah, I work out.” He looked around the kitchen Paula had led him into. She put the box down on a yellow-and-white-tiled cabinet. “Smells good in here,” he said.

  “Yes. Thanks, it’s a duck. I’m cooking dinner for a friend.” She was struggling with the stiff, green, florist’s ribbon that encircled the box. Then she realized he was standing there watching her. Waiting. “Oh, I shouldn’t be doing this now. I’m keeping you. I’m sorry, let me find a pen.”

  “No, that’s okay. Here, can I help you with that?” He brushed her body slightly as he took the box away from her.

  “There,” he said, having deftly loosened the knotted ribbon. He’d pulled it off and held it loosely in one hand.

  “Thanks!” Paula could stand the anticipation no longer. She lifted the box’s lid. There, cushioned in green tissue, were a dozen long-stemmed white roses.

  “Ohhhh,” she sighed. “Aren’t they lovely!” She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

  Tucked into the side of the box was a small white envelope.

  She fumbled opening it, tearing it a little in her excitement.

  Brad, Brad, what a wonderful man.

  But, no, what was this? These words weren’t Brad’s.

  You BITCH.

  She stared at the letters. Her mouth fell open. Tears were bright in her eyes. What did this mean?

  Paula stared down at the roses.

  Her eyes were unfocused with shock, so she didn’t see it coming. She just felt it, the bright pain encircling her throat. She dropped the hateful card as her hands flew upward. The pain grew tighter, stopping her breath. Her fingertips scrabbled at the pain and then she felt it—the smooth ribbon, its edges cutting into her skin. It was going to leave ugly bruises, she thought.

  She struggled to push her fingers under it, under the pain. The room started to move, to buzz with light. Familiar objects, her refrigerator, her stove, where the duck cozily sizzled, were outlined with halos of light. She had to get a handle on what was happening here. Things were out of control.

  Control…control…the word turned around and around in her mind as if it were stuck on a turntable. Who’s in control? He is. He is! The man with the flowers—choking you to death.

  Suddenly she was aware of him behind her. Before there had only been her throat and the ribbon and the pain, the pain that made things flash with strange lights in the growing darkness of her kitchen.

  Now he was there, too, cupping her body with his, pressing against her as if he were a lover taking her from behind. The motion of her hips echoed those of love as she tried to shove him away with her body. He pushed back, harder and harder. He pushed his erect penis against her backside.

  “That’s right, baby. Do it, do it to me,” he whispered into her hair. His mouth was hot and wet. “Soft, soft ass,” he hissed as he jerked the ribbon tighter.

  Paula scratched at her throat again, leaving dark red scratches with her nails. Blood was beginning to well at the edges of the ribbon where it cut into her tende
r flesh.

  Her fingertips were starting to feel numb. Her forearms.

  Someone was whispering in her ear.

  “Choking you to death…to death. You are going to die…to die.”

  The words seemed to echo through a tunnel. Was he saying those words? Were voices talking to one another in her mind?

  “NO!” she gasped. A burst of energy coursed through her. She flailed at the man behind her holding her life by a green thread.

  “Yeah, fight me, you bitch. You show me. I like that.” He ground into her with his pelvis. His mouth was obscene with spit.

  In the battle between the blackness and the lights flashing and haloed in her mind, the dark was gaining. Here and there was a pinpoint of light, but it was growing very, very dark.

  The last thing she felt before all the lights went out was his tongue, hot and wet, very wet, sliding in and out of her ear.

  He grinned. Just as he’d hoped. He cut through the crotch of her jeans with his razor-sharp knife. She was wearing lacy white bikini panties. Pretty. Just like in the movies.

  But the white was blotched with red. Was she on her period?

  No, he’d cut her. Just a little too deep with his knife.

  He carefully slipped out of his jeans and T-shirt, holding them in his rubber-gloved hand. He didn’t want to get them stained. Much easier to wash the blood off his body in her shower before he left.

  He propped her knees up, her feet flat on the kitchen tiles, as he pushed himself into her. Her legs fell apart and her unconscious body flailed loosely from side to side.

  She was wet. He knew she would be. They all were. They all wanted it, just pretended that they didn’t. It never occurred to him that blood is just as wet as passion.

  He began to laugh as he pumped, and then he could feel the tingling beginning. He moaned aloud. But she was groaning, too, under him.

  He pumped faster, faster, watching her face. He wanted to see her smile. Her eyes opened. And then she started to scream.

  She was going to ruin it. Bitch. He slapped her hard. Once. Twice. Again. She couldn’t stop him now, not now. Blood began to trickle from her nose.

  The tingling grew and concentrated and grew, and there it was. There. There. There. He spurted, staring into her open, screaming mouth.