by Lydia Millet
Rita shook her head.
“I am,” said Lexie. “I’m actually starving.”
Then again, restaurant, wretched crying lady . . . bad scene.
“How about this,” said Jem. “We’ll go back to my place.”
WTF. Had he said that?
His moms, though. Maybe she could do something. Maybe she could talk to the lady.
“Then if you do get hungry, my mom can fix you something,” he said. “If not, you can kick back. There’s guestrooms. You could rest a bit, Mrs.—Rita.”
Rita didn’t say anything. Either nodding or shaking her head. Couldn’t tell.
“I like it,” said Lexie.
“OK. You just follow me there.”
He texted before he started the truck. Had to give the moms a heads-up. She was welcoming, but she liked to tidy the house if people were coming. Though it was always tidy. Outside his room.
She’d been watching for them when they pulled up, because she opened the door as they were coming in from the drive. She had a serious expression, but also brought a smile. Concerned but friendly. She was good that way. The moms was hella appropriate.
“Lexie,” she said, and held both of Lexie’s hands in hers. Smile gone. “And this must be your mother. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Rita,” said Rita, and then burst into full-out tears. Wailing, almost. Mascara was all around her eyes. Nose running. Straight embarrassing.
The moms steered her inside. Jem and Lexie followed. Kind of a lame feeling. “Why don’t you get Rita a glass of ice water, Jem,” and so he and Lexie veered off toward the kitchen.
“Can we let your mom deal a bit?” said Lexie. “Rita keeps doing this. I don’t know how to make it stop.”
“Yeah, no.”
They hung in the kitchen a few minutes, Lexie not wanting to get back in the fray. He rustled up a bag of chips, which she ate like she hadn’t eaten in days. Salt and vinegar. Then got them sodas, poured the glass of water.
“I’ll take it in,” he said.
“Thank you.”
So he trudged back to the living room, where the two moms sat on a couch, his mother patting Rita’s knee. Rita was talking between sniffs. Hard to catch the words.
“I just can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s not—I can’t believe it.”
Rita didn’t seem to notice him with the water, but his mother looked up and reached for it.
“Here,” she said to Rita. “Drink a little. You need to rehydrate.”
“He’s—he was such a good man,” said Rita.
Golden.
“I’m sure he was,” said the moms. If only she knew.
Once he would’ve wanted to say to the mom, stop blubbering. He fucked with your daughter.
But now. No. Didn’t want to. At all.
“They made me . . . I had to look at his . . .”
The crying started again. He took it as his cue. Found Lexie still standing in the kitchen. A trapped animal.
“Can we smoke some weed?”
He could get her stoned, sure, and not even partake, but the moms would suss it out and maybe get pissed. No. Surely get pissed.
“Normally yeah. Of course. But she asked me not to, today. Out of respect. Which I think would include you.”
“Yeah. I get it,” said Lexie.
She looked forlorn, standing there with her Coke.
“You want to listen to some tunes? Just hide out in my room?”
She fished for her phone.
“We have an appointment at the crematorium,” she said. “But not for a couple hours.”
Were they going to watch him burn? Stand there beside the furnace? People did that. Occasionally. He read it somewhere. But no, probably not. Don’t ask.
“Can we go outside?” said Lexie. “The backyard. Fresh air.”
So they went out. There were trees. Flowers. Purple and white and orange. Grass yellow from the water restrictions.
“A crazy lady owned this house before,” he said. “She thought there were midgets living in the attic, I guess. Like seven. She thought she was Snow White. Or that’s how Nina tells it.”
“Midgets? Or dwarves?” said Lexie, walking, swinging an arm to trail one hand along the bushes. “They’re different. Right?”
“How Nina tells it, at first she thought they were little, but then they turned big. So then she had to sell. She was OK with them living there when they were small.”
“I could see that. If Pete was a dwarf, he might have been easier to deal with.”
“You think?”
“Well. Maybe.”
“Yeah. You’re being, like, a heightist.”
“Is that a thing?”
“For sure. Listen. And get this straight. A dwarf can molest just as good as a tall guy. Any day of the week.”
She chortled. Score.
“Molestation ability, it’s not all in the legs. Am I right?”
“You’re right, Jem.”
“Upper body strength. That’s more of a factor.”
“A dwarf could have great upper-body strength.”
“That guy from GoT ? Peter whatever? I bet he has fair upper-body strength.”
“Dinklage. Peter Dinklage.”
“Man. It’s not enough the guy has to be a dwarf, he also has to have the last name Dinklage.”
“Jem?”
They both turned. Moms at the back door. She walked out to them.
“Your mother’s lying down, Lexie. I gave her a Klonopin.”
“Word,” said Jem. “Can I get one of them?”
“Thank you,” said Lexie. “Thank you a lot. For all the help.”
“Now. Would you like a cheese sandwich? Or I also have some gazpacho.”
He left the two of them once they got into the house, headed to the downstairs bathroom. Rita’d left her purse on the sink. Gaping open, the top of a pack of Menthols sticking out. Even if she wasn’t messy and crying, he’d feel sorry for her. That scarecrow body, and her gray roots showing up patchy on her head. And then the long nails. Fake. Hot pink.
He was an asshole. It was poverty. He got that. What did she do for work? Lexie had told him but he couldn’t remember. Maybe answering phones somewhere. Yeah, that was it. At a locksmith or something. Been doing it forever.
Lexie wouldn’t end up like that. No fucking way. He wouldn’t let it happen.
Course, Lexie could look after herself.
But still.
Pissing, he looked at the purse again. It was a dirty beige, maybe fake leather. Vinyl or whatever. It had a little fringe. Some of the pieces of the fringe were missing and the paint on the zipper was half peeled off. It had been used a lot.
Lexie had been used. Sometimes a picture came into his head—only a half-picture. A hint of a picture. The heart attack. Had that been during—? Had Lexie let him—? Shit. Let was a fucked-up word. Guys died like that. Old guys. Died in the sack. Plugging away. Maybe it happened more often with Viagra. Was that true? Nah, there’d be too many big lawsuits. Right? So glad he hadn’t met the guy. Couldn’t fill in the blanks. Never wanted to see a photo of him. If someone tried to show him one, man. He’d turn his face away so fast.
She’d been used, and now she thought of her mother. She only wanted to protect her mother. Her mother who, fuck knew, should have protected her. But Rita. You only had to meet her once to know she couldn’t protect jack shit.
Did he respect it? No. He didn’t respect it.
Didn’t matter. It just was.
He picked up the bag, poked the cigarette pack farther in so it wouldn’t fall out, and left the bathroom.
Met Rita in the hallway, bumbling out of the guestroom. Bleary and half-asleep. Mouth rubbery. Maybe she’d taken a pill.
“That’s mine!” she said. Grabbed for the purse.
“You left it in the bathroom. I was bringing—”
“It’s mine!”
Like anyone else would want the ratty thing.
“Right, I was ju
st—”
“You can’t take it!”
Then she was slipping through the guestroom door again, hunched over the bag, hugging it. The door slammed in his face.
He stood there. Had he done something wrong? Apparently. Maybe he shouldn’t have touched it. Not his business.
Whatever.
Went into the dining room, where Lexie and his moms were eating. Sat down with them, though he wasn’t hungry.
“This is good,” said Lexie to the moms.
He had a flashback to the divorce: moms crying, ragged. Now her face shone. She was almost serene. Even spooning up soup, she looked elegant. Back then he’d been like Lexie was now. Wanting to help. Trying to shelter. Something like that.
Then Rita was there. She held her purse still and was shaking.
“He tried to take my bag,” she said, nodding her head at him.
“Pardon?”
“He tried to take my bag,” repeated Rita.
“I found it on the bathroom sink,” he protested. “Was bringing it out. In case she forgot where she left it.”
“I didn’t forget!”
“OK, OK,” he said, and raised his hands. Surrender. Lady was totally wigging.
“He’s taking my things!”
“Mom,” said Lexie. “No one’s stealing from you. OK?”
It was pretty ridiculous, the idea. Rita stood there all sticklike and messy, her face a contortion. Jem felt the hairs stand up on his neck, the backs of his hands. Weird how your flesh could crawl even when you hadn’t done much. Guilty over nothing.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to overstep,” said the moms. But she looked at Jem sternly.
“I’m really sorry,” he said to Rita. “Just trying to help. Kind of like, keep stuff tidy. You know?”
“You can’t take other people’s things!” said Rita.
Something was weird in her face. Something was off. Like someone had slapped her. Like she had a mask on. And it didn’t fit right.
“You can’t just take things from people,” she said. “You can’t just—you can’t do that. You can’t go in and take them. And wreck them! You can’t take what’s not yours!”
That was when he saw. That was it. Why her mouth was all twisted, her eyes crazy.
It was because she knew. She knew about the dead husband. She knew exactly what he’d been doing.
Maybe she’d known for a long time. Known and never said a word. Because she was so desperate to keep him. Keep everything the same. Her life. She was so desperate.
It was just true.
He’d never been so sure of anything.
But Lexie. He glanced at her. Lexie had no idea.
Then looked at Rita again. She met his eyes. Locked in.
He was right.
He felt a wave of sickness. Almost dizzy. Blinked slowly. The dizziness receded.
Lexie hadn’t picked up on any of it.
She put down her sandwich and got up.
“Hey, Mom,” she said gently, and slipped an arm around her mother’s shoulders. “It’s gonna be all right. You’re just in shock. Maybe come lie down again. OK?”
Then she steered her out of the room.
She had no idea her mother knew.
She wouldn’t have believed it.
And she would never know. She would not know. Not from him.
Cadavera vero innumera. Truly countless bodies, was what it meant. People got caught in their own wars all the time. You never knew what wars they could be fighting. No idea. But when you could, you dragged them off the battlefield.
Some were heavier than others. Harder to move. Some were lighter. Some were dead already and others were only dying, but none would ever be the same.
THOSE ARE PEARLS
Marnie was married now, and with the marriage had come peace.
Her husband was a dim man. Not in the sense that he wasn’t smart—he was smart enough to make a lot of money—but in the sense that he often went unnoticed, as though the light avoided him. He could stand in a room and hardly be seen.
Still, his presence was pleasant. It had a tranquilizing effect. If you were tired, his conversation could lull you to sleep. Not a bad quality. He was like Ambien.
Marnie was less angry. The money was part of it. They had a big house in Austin, in a rich neighborhood near a river that was really a lake. Or a lake that was really a river. Endangered lizards lived in it. “No, salamanders,” corrected Marnie, when Nina said lizards. “Water, get it? Lizards don’t like water. Lizards like sand. Or jungles. These ones like water.”
Nina remembered something about lizards that lived in the ocean—huge ones with spikes on their back. Iguanas, maybe. But she didn’t want to argue with her sister. Marnie would say: “Why are you so invested in being right? Do you need to be right?”
Not really, Nina wanted to answer. But I may be right, now and then. It’s not impossible. Technically.
They took her out on a boat. The salamanders were so rare you never saw them. Unless you went to a small museum in a certain park, where some were on display in a tank. Even there, they hid behind the plastic plants. Maybe they weren’t rare after all. Maybe they were just shy. You could see other animals from the boat, though—turtles with moss on their shells, swimming or sitting on tree branches. Ospreys and great blue herons perched on the banks.
Lewis paddled while she and Marnie talked. Marnie, mostly. Marnie talked about decorators and taxes and vacations. They were going to the Caymans soon. They would stay in a resort where there were flowers on the pillows. Or maybe not whole flowers, maybe just rose petals. A second honeymoon, said Marnie.
During the first she’d gotten a urinary tract infection.
“Do-over,” said Lewis, flipping his paddle.
Later Lewis went into the office—he worked weekends, often—and Marnie got out the wine. She wanted to have children, she said, but Lewis wasn’t sure. It was the one thing that they disagreed on.
Nina thought, Well, it’s not exactly a minor point, but she just nodded and listened, sipping the wine.
“He likes kids fine,” said Marnie. “And he thinks I’d be a good mother, of course.”
“OK,” said Nina. “So . . . ?”
“It’s, like, the world,” said Marnie, and shrugged.
“The world?”
“He says he doesn’t want to bring them into it,” said Marnie. “You wouldn’t think it, because he’s such a sweet guy, right? But at times he can be negative.”
They’d met at a self-help seminar in a hotel conference room, the same series Marnie had insisted Nina sign up for. Though Marnie didn’t call it self-help. She said it was language technology. There, Marnie said, Lewis had seemed so positive. Embracing possibility. But later, after they started dating, it turned out he only embraced some possibilities. Not all of them.
“The possibility of kids, he isn’t enrolled,” said Marnie. “It wasn’t a total deal-breaker for me. So I said yes when he proposed. But I was kind of thinking, if I got pregnant by accident, he wouldn’t make me get an abortion. I mean, he grew up Catholic. But he’s so careful? It’ll never happen. Condoms! I mean what married guy insists on condoms? But he does. It’s like he doesn’t trust me with the pill!”
And rightly not, apparently.
“So what is it about the um, world?” asked Nina.
“Like, everything.”
Nina waited.
“God, I don’t know. Global warming? At work he has to research crops. And insurance. He talks about the future like it’s not going to be normal. At all. I kind of tune it out. It starts to sound paranoid, you know? Next he’ll be stockpiling canned foods in the basement.”
Marnie never asked her about Lynn. She knew how he’d died, and when Nina said motorcycle accident she said she was sorry. But then she said motorcycles were deathtraps. You took your life in your hands when you rode one, she said. It came so close to blaming Lynn that Nina had felt a gate shut inside her, even her face closing. She�
�d changed the subject back to Marnie. Safer.
“I’m hoping it’ll pass,” said Marnie. “We still have a few years. If we do some more seminars, maybe he’ll start to feel more positive. Get enrolled.”
Nina smiled, reassuring, she hoped. Reached for an olive.
“But you, I mean, you’re three years older than me,” said Marnie. “If you want a kid you should get cracking, right? You could go to a sperm bank. Have you thought of that?”
Then she talked about her upcoming vacation again. Lewis had booked a suite, and couples massages.
The guestroom had a queen bed and, on end tables and shelves, several photos of Marnie and Lewis. Shots of them doing leisure activities and looking pleased. In one they held ski poles and wore woolen hats with snowflakes gathered on them, smiling and leaning their heads together. (Aspen, Marnie had said when she first showed her in.) In another they were on a beach, also smiling. Somewhat tanned. Winter and summer. Two seasons of happiness were shown.
When couples came to stay, when they lay in the bed, did they feel Marnie and Lewis were happily watching them?
She wondered if people in the Caymans also kept pictures of themselves throughout their homes, themselves watching their guests. And watching them. Themselves, looking on happily as they lived. Reminding them to be happy, maybe. You’ve done it before. You can do it again!
No one kept sad photos on the walls, or photos of themselves feeling harassed while buying groceries.
Did people in Africa put self-portraits in their guestrooms? People in Azerbaijan? She’d never kept pictures of herself on her walls and shelves, but many of her sellers did. It was common.
She couldn’t sleep—too bad Lewis wasn’t around—so she got up and browsed the bookshelves. Display volumes of Shakespeare, all perfect and likely never opened, with gold titles stamped on them. “THE TEMPEST.” She cracked it open.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Alone. Crying. Dammit. She hadn’t done this in months.
Full fathom five his father lies.
The words pulsed in her head like a tide.
Lynn had been the love she chose. That chosen love saved you from the mandatory kind. The ones you had to love. It made the burden of that mandatory love feel light.
