Black Dahlia White Rose: Stories

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “What do you mean—‘secondary’?”

  “The cut in my head wasn’t on purpose. Nobody actually hit me. I was slow doing something and she pushed me from behind and I stumbled and hit my own damn head myself on something sharp—not a locker door but a chrome table edge. And she stopped the bleeding, and put disinfectant on it, and kissed it, and was sorry. So—it’s OK. It’s, like, nothing.”

  “Who did this? She?”

  “Scotti. Who’ve we been talking about?”

  “Scotia? Scotia did this to you? What do you mean?”

  “Oh, Mom. Jeez! Just forget it.”

  “But—what did Scotia do to you? Pushed you? So you fell, and hit your head? Why?”

  Kimi shrugs. Kimi’s eyes shine with a sort of defiant merriment but her skin is flushed-red, smarting.

  “Why would Scotia do such a thing? What were the circumstances?”

  “Probably some stupid thing I said. Or didn’t answer fast enough. Scotti has a problem with slow. Half the kids in our class, Scotti says, are retards.”

  “That terrible cut in your scalp—Scotia caused? But why are you protecting her?”

  “Yes, my scalp. Mom. And my damn arms—you’re so excited about—Scotti was helping me on the bars. Gymnastics.”

  “Scotia did that, too? ‘Gymnastics’?”

  “We were fooling around at her house. She’s got all this Nautilus equipment her dad bought for her. You’re always telling me to lose weight so I’m doing exercises at Scotti’s. There’re these, like, bars you hang on—Scotti was showing me how. No big deal, Mom—will you stop staring at me? I hate it.”

  “I’ll call Scotia’s mother. This has got to stop.”

  “It’s stopped, Mom. I told you—it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

  “It was Scotia’s fault. And it isn’t going to happen again.”

  “No! Don’t you dare call Mrs. Perry! Scotti is the only thing in my life that means anything—the only person who gives a damn about me. If you take Scotti from me, I will kill myself.”

  Kimi begins crying, sobbing. Her swollen face seems to be melting. When Candace moves to embrace her, Kimi shoves her away as Candace expected—which doesn’t make the hurt less painful.

  Candace stumbles downstairs. Rapidly her mind is working—thoughts fly at her, through her, like neutrinos—can’t quite comprehend the significance of these thoughts or what they are urging her to do—for a mom must do, a mom must more than simply be—until she’s in the kitchen peering into the refrigerator: no Odwalla smoothies? None?

  But there are ingredients for smoothies, Candace can make her own for Kimi, and for herself; strawberries and raspberries, banana, a dollop of orange juice, the remains of a container of yogurt blended together in Candace’s shiny, rarely used twelve-speed blender. She is thrilled to be preparing something homemade for Kimi which she knows Kimi will love, and she knows that Kimi is hungry for Kimi is always hungry at this time of day, after school and before dinner which isn’t always on the table until—well, after 8 P.M. Or then. The blender yields two tall glasses of strawberry-tinged smoothies, rich with nutrients, and delicious. Candace thinks But more. She goes to a kitchen drawer where there’s an old stash of pills, pre-lorazepam, a handful of anti-anxiety meds, with tremulous fingers she empties one of the tall brimming glasses into the blender, tosses in a pill or two—or three—and whips the liquid again, grinds the pills to a froth, repours into the glass; then, who knows why, a neutrino-thought has pierced her brain with the cunning of desperation, she empties the other glass into the blender, tosses in a pill or two—or three—and whips the liquid again into a strawberry-hued froth.

  Upstairs there is Kimi sprawled on her bed still wet-faced, panting and indignant—under the pretext of squinting into To Kill a Mockingbird she’s been texting on her cell phone, which with clumsy childish deceit she tries to hide beneath the book so that Mom can’t see. Of course Mom can see but Mom smiles radiant and forgiving as if not-seeing, carrying the glasses of strawberry-raspberry-banana smoothies—“For you, sweetie. And for me.” Kimi is sullen but surprised and pleased—Kimi can’t resist of course. Mumbling Thanks Mom for truly Kimi is a very well behaved and polite girl and always hungry.

  Without waiting to be invited Candace sits cautiously on the edge of the badly rumpled bed and both Kimi and Candace drink their smoothies which are in fact delicious—“Better than what you get in the store, isn’t it?”—and Kimi has to concede, yes.

  “Just so you know I love you, honey. You do, don’t you?—know this?”

  Kimi shrugs, maybe. Yes.

  Soon Kimi is yawning and blinking in a futile effort to keep her eyes open and Candace says yes, why don’t you have a nap before dinner sweetie, a nap is a very good idea as Kimi whimpers faint as a kitten sighing and curling up to sleep unprotesting amid the stuffed animals which Candace has retrieved, to arrange on the bed around her daughter; as Candace, grunting with effort, beginning to be light-headed, straightens the comforter, fluffs up the flattened tear- and mucus-dampened pillow. Kimi’s face is still puffy, flushed—her lips are swollen like labia—there’s a babyish glisten at her nostrils Candace wipes tenderly with a tissue. With her new caution Candace takes away the smoothie glasses, makes her way swaying into the hall into the bathroom to wash each glass thoroughly in hot water, rub her fingers around inside the glasses and again hold them beneath the hot-gushing water and then returning to Kimi’s room making her way carefully now knowing it is crucial not to slip, not to fall heavily onto the floor Candace returns to the white-wicker girl’s bed where Kimi is now snoring faintly, lying on her side with her head flung back and her fine pale-brown hair in a halo on the pillow, beads of sweat at her forehead; the sweatshirt has been pulled down as if to flatten her breasts, showing a soiled neckline. Carefully Candace climbs onto the bed and gathers Kimi in her arms, her heart is suffused with love for her limp unresisting daughter, sweet little piglet, Mommy’s own piglet, she has forgotten to switch off the light, the God-damned light is in her eyes. But what the hell.

  Run Kiss Daddy

  Tell Daddy hello! Run kiss Daddy.”

  He’d been gone from the lake less than an hour but in this new family each parting and each return signaled a sort of antic improvised celebration—he didn’t want to think it was the obverse of what must have happened before he’d arrived in their lives—the daddy departing, and the daddy not returning.

  “Sweetie, h’lo! C’mere.”

  He dropped to one knee as the boy ran at him to be hugged. A rough wet kiss on Kevin’s forehead.

  The little girl hesitated. Only when the mother pushed more firmly at her small shoulders did she spring forward and run—wild-blue-eyed suddenly, with a high-pitched squeal like a mouse being squeezed—into his arms. He laughed—he was startled by the heat of the little body—flattered and deeply moved kissing the excited child on the delicate soft skin at her temple where—he’d only just noticed recently—a pale blue vein pulsed.

  “What do you say to Daddy when Daddy comes back?”

  The mother clapped her hands to make a game of it. This new family was so new to her too, weekends at Paraquarry Lake were best borne as a game, as play.

  “Say ‘Hi Daddy!’—‘Kiss-kiss Daddy!’ ”

  Obediently the children cried what sounded like Hi Daddy! Kiss-kiss Daddy!

  Little fish-mouths pursed for kisses against Daddy’s cheek.

  Reno had only driven into the village of Paraquarry Falls bringing back semi-emergency supplies: toilet paper, flashlight batteries, mosquito repellent, mousetraps, a gallon container of milk, a shiny new garden shovel to replace the badly rusted shovel that had come with the camp. Also small sweet-fruit yogurts for the children though both he and the mother weren’t happy about the children developing a taste for sugary foods—but there wasn’t much of a selection at the convenience store.

  In this new-Daddy phase in which unexpected treats are the very coinage of love.

  “Who
wants to help Daddy dig?”

  Both children cried Me!—thrilled at the very prospect of working with Daddy on the exciting new terrace overlooking the lake.

  And so they helped Daddy excavate the old, crumbled-brick terrace a previous owner had left amid a tangle of weeds, pebbles and broken glass, or tried to help Daddy—for a while. Clearly such work was too arduous for a seven-year-old, still more for a four-year-old, with play-shovels and rakes; and the mild June air too humid for much exertion. And there were mosquitoes, and gnats. Despite the repellent. For these were the Kittatinny Mountains east of the Delaware Water Gap in early June—that season of teeming buzzing fecundity—just to inhale the air is to inhale the smells of burgeoning life.

  “Oh!—Dad-dy!”—Devra recoiled from something she’d unearthed in the soil, lost her balance and fell back onto her bottom with a little cry. Reno saw it was just a beetle—iridescent, wriggling—and told her not to be afraid: “They just live in the ground, sweetie. They have special beetle-work to do in the ground.”

  Kevin said, “Like worms! They have ‘work’ in the ground.”

  This simple science—earth science—the little boy had gotten from Reno. Very gratifying to hear your words repeated with child-pride.

  From the mother Reno knew that their now-departed father had often behaved “unpredictably” with the children and so Reno made it a point to be soft-spoken in their presence, good-natured and unexcitable, predictable.

  What pleasure in being predictable!

  Still, Devra was frightened. She’d dropped her play shovel in the dirt. Reno saw that the little girl had enough of helping Daddy with the terrace for the time being. “Sweetie, go see what Mommy’s doing. You don’t need to dig any more right now.”

  Kevin remained with Daddy. Kevin snorted in derision, his baby sister was so scaredy.

  Reno was a father, again. Fatherhood, returned to him. A gift he hadn’t quite deserved the first time—maybe—but this time, he would strive to deserve it.

  This time, he was forty-seven years old. He—who’d had a very hard time perceiving himself other than young, a kid.

  And this new marriage!—this beautiful new family small and vulnerable as a mouse cupped trembling in the hand—he was determined to protect with his life. Not ever not ever let this family slip from his grasp as he’d let slip from his grasp his previous family—two young children rapidly retreating now in Reno’s very memory like a scene glimpsed in the rearview mirror of a speeding vehicle.

  “Come to Paraquarry Lake! You will love Paraquarry Lake.”

  The name itself seemed to him beautiful, seductive—like the Delaware River at the Water Gap where the river was wide, glittering and winking like shaken foil. As a boy he’d hiked the Appalachian Trail in this area of northeastern Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey—across the river on the high pedestrian walkway, north to Dunfield Creek and Sunfish Pond and so to Paraquarry Lake which was the most singular of the Kittatinny Ridge lakes, edged with rocks like a crude lacework and densely wooded with ash, elm, birch and maples that flamed red in autumn.

  So he courted them with tales of his boyhood hikes, canoeing on the river and on Paraquarry Lake, camping along the Kittatinny Ridge where once, thousands of years ago, a glacier lay like a massive claw over the land.

  He told them of the Lenni Lenape Indians who’d inhabited this part of the country for thousands of years!—far longer than their own kind.

  Though as a boy he’d never found arrowheads at Paraquarry Lake or elsewhere, yet he recalled that others had, and so spoke excitedly to the boy Kevin as if to enlist him in a search; he did not quite suggest that they might discover Indian bones, that sometimes came to the surface at Paraquarry Lake, amid shattered red shale and ordinary rock and dirt.

  In this way and in others he courted the new wife Marlena, who was a decade younger than he; and the new son, Kevin; and the new daughter who’d won his heart the first glimpse he’d had of her—tiny Devra with white-blond hair fine as the silk of milkweed.

  Another man’s lost family. Or maybe cast off—as Marlena said in her bright brave voice determined not to appear hurt, humiliated.

  His own family—Reno had hardly cast off. Whatever his ex-wife would claim. If anything, Reno had been the one to be cast off by her.

  Yet careful to tell Marlena, early in their relationship: “It was my fault, I think. I was too young. When we’d gotten married—just out of college—we were both too young. It’s said that if you ‘cohabit’ before getting married it doesn’t actually make any difference in the long run—whether you stay married, or get divorced—but our problem was that we hadn’t a clue what ‘cohabitation’ meant—means. We were always two separate people and then my career took off . . .”

  Took off wasn’t Reno’s usual habit of speech. Nor was it Reno’s habit to talk so much, and so eagerly. But when he’d met a woman he believed he might come to seriously care for—at last—he’d felt obliged to explain himself to her: there had to be some failure in his personality, some flaw, otherwise why was he alone, unmarried; why had he become a father whose children had grown up largely without him, and without seeming to need him?

  At the time of the divorce, Reno had granted his wife too many concessions. In his guilty wish to be generous to her though the breakup had been as much his wife’s decision as his own. He’d signed away much of their jointly owned property, and agreed to severely curtail visitation rights with the children. He hadn’t yet grasped this simple fact of human relations—the more readily you give, the more readily it will be taken from you as what you owe.

  His wife had appealed to him to be allowed to move to Oregon where she had relatives, with the children; Reno hadn’t wanted to contest her.

  Within a few years, she’d relocated again—with a new husband, to Sacramento.

  In these circuitous moves, somehow Reno was cast off. One too many corners had been turned, the father had been left behind except for child-support payments which did not diminish.

  Trying not to feel like a fool. Trying to remain a gentleman long after he’d come to wonder why.

  “Paraquarry Lake! You will all love Paraquarry Lake.”

  The new wife was sure, yes she would love Paraquarry Lake. Laughing at Reno’s boyish enthusiasm, squeezing his arm.

  Kevin and Devra were thrilled of course. Their new father—new Daddy—so much nicer than the old, other Daddy—eagerly spreading out photographs on a tabletop like playing cards.

  “Of course,” the new Daddy said, a sudden crease between his eyes, “this cabin in the photos isn’t the one we’ll be staying in. This is the one—” Reno paused, stricken. It felt as if a thorn had lodged in his throat.

  This is the one I have lost was not an appropriate statement to make to the new children and to the new wife listening so raptly to him, the new wife’s fingers lightly resting on his arm.

  These photographs had been selected of course. Reno’s former wife and former children—of course, “former” wasn’t the appropriate word!—were not shown to the new family.

  Sixteen years invested in the former marriage! It made Reno sick—just faintly, mildly sick—to think of so much energy and emotion, lost.

  Though there’d been strain between Reno and his ex-wife—exacerbated when they were in close quarters together—yet he’d insisted upon bringing his family to Paraquarry Lake on weekends through much of the year and staying there—of course—for at least six weeks each summer. When Reno couldn’t get off from work he drove up weekends. For the “camp” at Paraquarry Lake—as he called it—was essential to his happiness.

  Not that it was a particularly fancy place: it wasn’t. Several acres of deciduous and pine woods, and hundred-foot frontage on the lake—that was what made the place special.

  Eventually, in the breakup, the Paraquarry Lake camp had been sold. Reno’s wife had come to hate the place and had no wish to buy him out—nor would she sell her half to him. In the woman’s bitterness, th
e camp had been lost to strangers.

  Now, it was nine years later. Reno hadn’t seen the place in years. He’d driven along the Delaware River and inland to the lake and past the camp several times but became too emotional staring at it from the road, such bitter nostalgia wasn’t good for him, and wasn’t, he wanted to think, typical of him. So much better to think—to tell people in his new life It was an amicable split-up and an amicable divorce over all. We’re civilized people—the kids come first!

  Was this what people said, in such circumstances? You did expect to hear The kids come first!

  Now, there was a new camp. A new “cabin”—an A-frame, in fact—the sort of thing for which Reno had always felt contempt; but the dwelling was attractive, “modern” and in reasonably good condition with a redwood deck and sliding glass doors overlooking both the lake and a ravine of tangled wild roses to the rear. The nearest neighbor was uncomfortably close—only a few yards away—but screened by evergreens and a makeshift redwood fence a previous owner had erected.

  Makeshift too was the way in which the A-frame had been cantilevered over a drop in the rocky earth, with wooden posts supporting it; if you entered at the rear you stepped directly into the house but if you entered from the front, that is, facing the lake, you had to climb a steep flight of not-very-sturdy wood steps, gripping a not-very-sturdy railing. The property had been owned by a half-dozen parties since its original owner in the 1950s. Reno wondered at the frequent turnover of owners—this wasn’t typical of the Water Gap area where people returned summer after summer for a lifetime.

  The children loved the “Paraquarry camp”—they hugged their new Daddy happily, to thank him—and the new wife who’d murmured that she wasn’t an “outdoor type” conceded that it was really very nice—“And what a beautiful view.”

  Reno wasn’t about to tell Marlena that the view from his previous place had been more expansive, and more beautiful.

  Marlena kissed him, so very happy. For he had saved her, as she had saved him. From what—neither could have said.