Gingerly, glacially she moved her foot. She held her breath until, through her sleeping bag, she could feel, ever so lightly with her big toe, the shape of his heel. She prayed he wouldn’t notice or stir. He didn’t. He slept.
She withdrew her foot, feeling sorry.
She would have given anything for him to want her again. But she would have given even more for him to trust her.
Don’t ask me any questions right now. I’m grumpy and I’ll probably make fun of you.
—Effie Kaligaris
Tibby was standing at the front of the theater, waiting for the one o’clock show to end. She’d stopped watching the movies altogether. These days she preferred to stand by the front windows and look out. One afternoon the box office lady was sick, and Tibby got to take over in the tiny room. That was fun—safe, contained, predictable.
Tibby wondered, once again, about the wisdom of her career choice. She wondered if maybe NYU had any openings in accounting. Or maybe they offered a program for future tollbooth attendants. Or cashiers. She pictured herself enjoying a career in one of those liquor stores in bad neighborhoods where you sat behind a thick sheet of bulletproof Plexiglas and people paid for their stuff through a slot in the window. That sounded about right.
She spotted a little group across the street, and she experienced that split second of objectivity when you see someone you know before you realize you know them. The tall one, of course, was Brian. Tibby constantly had to relearn what he looked like now. When he had been the lowliest of dorks, his unkempt hair—longish, unbrushed, needing a cut—had played a role in the vicious circle that had been Brian’s appearance. Now it looked conspicuously cool, neglected in exactly the right manner. She bought his clothes for him at Old Navy a couple times a year, so there were no pitfalls there. He had learned to like taking showers of his own accord. That helped too.
The little figure with the giant, lolling, hockey-player head was Katherine, of course. Every time Tibby saw that hockey helmet, she felt her guts constrict. Her facial muscles pulled into a grimace, even when she fought against it. The sight of it made her feel angry and it made her want to cry.
Nicky was holding Katherine’s other hand. Even he had become more protective of her.
They crossed the street and approached the doors of the theater. Katherine caught sight of Tibby in the plate-glass windows. She waved so fervently her helmet slid to the side, the chinstrap bending her ear in half. Tibby opened the doors for them.
“We’re going to see a movie at your theater!” Katherine shouted.
Tibby straightened the helmet. She was always doing that.
“Hey, look.” Katherine pointed to her head.
“What?” Tibby said.
“Stickers!” Katherine was exultant. “Nicky helped me do it.”
The hockey helmet was indeed plastered with stickers, every superhero and cartoon character in the history of cheap merchandising.
“Wow. Nice,” Tibby said.
“Now I might never want to take it off,” Katherine declared triumphantly.
Tibby felt her breath catch. There was some torture in this she couldn’t even identify. God bless, Katherine. How could she be how she was? How could Tibby be so different? Why was she so pained when Katherine really was okay? Tibby wasn’t the one who fell out the window. Her concern for Katherine had become a waste; Katherine didn’t need it. Who was it really for?
Forgetting about what had happened for a moment, Tibby looked instinctively at Brian. And Brian touched her tenderly on the hand, enveloping her in a look of support that didn’t have anything to do with whether he wanted to kiss her or not.
Carmen had saved Win’s telephone message and replayed it fourteen times in one hour. So why was she in the hospital—the very place where he worked—hunkered over a book in a corner, wearing sunglasses and a hat? It was Wednesday afternoon and Valia had her usual physical therapy session. Carmen knew where to find Win. Win might even be looking for her.
Instead, she picked the most remote spot she could find, which happened to be a deserted hallway in labor and delivery. It was nice and quiet for a while, but suddenly there was a virtual gaggle of pregnant women waddling toward her. She bent her head and tried to read a few more pages, but she was distracted. So much for her solitude. There was nowhere to run in this place.
All the women and their spouses were piling into a room. Carmen was imagining what it could mean—a big, wild rave for the pregnant folks?—when something began to dawn on her. She looked at her watch.
For the most part, she meanly ignored anything her mother said that contained the words labor, birth, pregnancy, or baby. But vaguely in the back of her mind she knew her mom and David were coming to a childbirth class at this very hospital.
Could it be? Could it?
Oh, man.
She tried to get back into her book, but she couldn’t. For pages and pages, Jane Austen’s elegant banter went into her eyes and stopped short of her brain. Carmen was curious now. Once she framed a question, it was so hard for her not to answer it. She put her book in her bag and walked down the hall. She stopped at the room where the pregnant women had gone. It had a frosted glass window, fairly convenient for snooping. She saw the couples sitting on the floor. The men had their legs spread out with their rotund wives between them. It looked pretty peculiar, frankly. The teacher stood behind a table at the front.
Carmen had come to the conclusion that her mother wasn’t, in fact, part of this strange class when she peered farther in to the back and saw the familiar angle of dark hair. Christina was easy to miss because even with her big round belly, she seemed to be shrinking against the wall.
Everybody was a couple and Christina was alone. Why was that? The current exercise involved the men massaging their wives’ shoulders, and Christina just sat there.
Where was David? Carmen watched in puzzlement until Christina reached up her arms to massage her own shoulders. That was all Carmen needed. The ache in her chest caught her by surprise and propelled her straight through the door and into the room.
“Can I help you?” the instructor asked her.
“Hold on just a sec,” Carmen said. She went to her mother. “What’s going on? Where’s David?”
Christina’s eyes were pinkish. “There was a big emergency on his case. He had to fly to St. Louis,” she whispered. To her immense credit, there was lots of sadness in the way she said it, but no blame. “What are you doing here, nena?”
“Valia has physical therapy,” Carmen explained.
Christina nodded.
The instructor appeared in front of them. “Are you registered for this class…?” she asked Carmen. She didn’t say it in a snotty way, but she obviously preferred complete order.
Carmen looked from the instructor to her mother and back again. She pointed to her mother. “I’m her partner.”
The instructor looked surprised. Politically, it was her responsibility to be open to all kinds of couples. “Fine. That’s fine. We’re starting with some labor massage techniques. Just follow the rest of the class to get started.”
Carmen situated her mother between her knees and began massaging her tense shoulders. Carmen had strong hands. She felt like she was good at this. She heard a little hitch in her mother’s breathing, and she knew Christina was crying.
But she knew Christina was crying because she was happy, and that gave Carmen her own feeling of happiness unlike anything she’d felt in a long time.
Hey, you beautiful girls!
My dad just sent me a pile of stuff from Brown.
My roommate’s name is Aisha Lennox. Doesn’t that sound cool?
I’m gonna live with her. We’re gonna know her. How weird is that?
Bee
Lena thought the drawing of Effie would be the easy one. She didn’t dread it. She didn’t overprepare. She sauntered in. Lena was not a saunterer, and for good reason, she decided. She always ended up regretting it.
“Where do
you want to be?” Lena asked. “Your room? Your bed? Someplace else?”
“Um.” Effie was painting her toenails. “Can you just do it here?” She was sitting on the floor in front of the TV in the den. Some reality show was blaring. Effie had her chin resting on her knee and was giving full attention to her toenail, as though it were one of the more demanding things she’d ever grappled with.
“I guess,” Lena said. “Do you mind if I turn the TV off?”
“Leave it on,” Effie said. “I won’t watch.”
Lena didn’t question this. She had an instinct that bossing your model around was no way to get her to loosen up. No matter how stupid she was being.
Lena settled on a profile. Effie’s knees bent, her chin down, her toes flexed. She started sketching.
Effie was no Valia. She moved around as though modeling for Lena’s picture wasn’t even on her to-do list.
“Sheesh, Ef. Can you hold still?”
Effie flashed her a look. She went back to her toenails.
Lena tried. She really did. It was hard to draw a moving hand. Lena let it blur. It was hard to draw someone’s character when they kept their face turned away. She tried to suggest the resistance in Effie’s pose. It was the only thing that felt true.
And then Lena had to ask herself, why was Effie resisting so hard? It was true they’d been missing each other this summer. They’d both gotten jobs early. They’d both spent as much time away from the house as possible. Was her relationship with Effie another casualty of the Valia debacle?
Had it gone more wrong than Lena knew?
“Effie?”
“What?” Effie snapped, still not turning her head.
Lena’s mouth seemed to work a little better with a charcoal in her hand. She opened it. “Ef, I feel like you don’t want this to work. Like you’re mad at me.”
Effie rolled her eyes. She made a show of blowing dry the shiny pink polish on her big toe. “Why do you think that?”
“Because you won’t look at me. You won’t sit still.”
If Effie had been Lena and Lena had been Effie, this could have taken all day. But luckily, Effie was Effie. When she finally turned, her face was full of expression.
“Maybe I don’t want you to go to art school.”
Lena put down her pad. “Why not?” She couldn’t help showing her astonishment. She always just assumed that Effie sided with her in any struggle against her parents, just as she always sided with Effie, even when Effie was wrong. Did Effie actually agree with her parents this time? Did she resent that Lena was causing more turbulence in their already turbulent home?
Effie’s eyes were full of tears. At long last she capped her polish and tossed it aside. “Why do you think?” she demanded.
Lena felt her own eyes pulling wide open. “Ef. I don’t know. Please tell me.”
Effie put her face in her hands. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to leave me here…with all of them.”
On her knees, Lena made her way the few feet to her sister. She put her arms around Effie. “I’m so sorry,” Lena said honestly. “I don’t want to leave you.” She felt Effie’s tears against her shoulder and she held her tighter. “I hate to even think about leaving you.”
The beautiful thing about getting someone to tell you what was wrong was that you could tell them something to make it a little better. Lena made a mental note that she should try it more often.
In the lobby a while later, Carmen was hugging her mom good-bye when she saw Win. He smiled eagerly, doubling his pace to get to her, like he was afraid she might slip away.
“Carmen!”
“Hey, Win,” she said. She couldn’t help smiling at him. He was too sweet not to. Win and Christina were looking at each other. Win was probably wondering which distant relative of which distant acquaintance Carmen would be accompanying to the hospital now.
“This is my mom, Christina,” Carmen said. “Mom, this is Win.”
“Nice to meet you, Win,” Christina said.
Carmen saw him through her mother’s eyes and was again struck by his exceeding gorgeousness. Carmen found most guys who looked that good intimidating, but Win was different. He was not arrogant or scary. He had a self-deprecating smile and a shuffling posture totally at odds with the usual “I’m gorgeous” swagger.
“Nice to meet you, too,” he said earnestly. “I thought you must be related. You’re beautiful like Carmen.”
If Carmen had just heard about this statement rather than actually listening to it in person, she would have groaned and rolled her eyes and told Mr. Slick to get out of town. But hearing him say it and seeing the look on his face as he did, she believed it was the most innocent and sincere compliment she’d ever gotten. And so did her mother, apparently.
Christina flushed with pleasure. “Thank you. I like to think I look like her.”
Carmen felt unbalanced, buffeted as she was by all the goodness. She had no idea what to say.
“Carmen saved me today,” Christina volunteered to Win, emotion all through her voice. “My husband couldn’t make it to childbirth class, and Carmen came to my rescue. She’s my partner and coach. Can you imagine?” Christina was laughing, but her eyes were full of tears. Carmen had heard about pregnant women being extra emotional, but jeez, this was a bit much.
Win stared at Christina with rapt attention. And then he turned to look at Carmen. She’d wished many times for a boy like Win to look at her this way. But now it was wrong. The stuff her mom was saying made it all worse.
She opened her mouth to say something. And then she realized. “Oh, my God! I have to get Valia! I’m gonna be late for her.” Oh, God. She could practically hear the bone-splintering howl from the eighth floor.
“I’ll come,” Christina said, running after her to the bank of elevators.
“Bye, Win,” Carmen shouted over her shoulder.
He looked a little sad as she waved to him through the narrowing gap of the elevator door. As soon as it closed, Christina burst. “Nena, who is he?” She was obviously excited. “He is…he is just adorable! And the way he looked at you.”
Carmen’s face was hot. “He does seem…nice.” She didn’t want her mother to see her flustered smile. She wished she could get her mouth into a normal shape.
“Nice! He’s more than nice! How do you know him?”
Carmen shrugged. “I don’t really know him. Or I guess I do kind of know him.” She chewed the inside of her lip. “But he doesn’t know me.”
To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail.
—Abraham Maslow
It took four evenings for Tibby to pounce on the garbage bags and take them out to the alley before Margaret could get there first. Margaret was so experienced at her job, having worked at this very Pavillion Theater for well over twenty years, and so dedicated to it, that it was nearly impossible for Tibby to manage to do her coworker even this one small favor.
“Tibby, thanks!” Margaret said brightly when she saw the empty cans. “You’re jis sweet.”
“I’m returning a favor,” Tibby said.
Tibby watched as Margaret put her sweater in her employee locker (no pictures pinned up inside, Tibby noticed) and collected her purse, in exactly the same manner she did every evening. Tibby knew Margaret would take the bus on Wisconsin Avenue to her home, which was somewhere north of here. She couldn’t exactly guess what Margaret did with her free time, but she felt almost sure Margaret did it alone.
Suddenly Tibby felt inspired. “Hey, Margaret?”
Margaret turned, her purse dangling neatly from the crook of her elbow.
“Do you want to get some dinner with me?”
Margaret looked utterly bewildered.
“We could just get something quick, if you want. We could go right around the corner to that Italian place.”
Why not spend some time with a gravely lonely person? Tibby thought, silently applauding herself. Wasn’t that a worthy thi
ng to do? Tibby felt sure it was something a good person would do.
Margaret looked around, as though to see if perhaps Tibby was talking to someone else. The muscles around her mouth twitched a little. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”
“Do you want to have dinner?”
Margaret looked a bit frightened. “You and me?”
“Yes.” Tibby was beginning to wonder if she had overstepped.
“Will, uh, okay. I giss I could.”
“Great.”
Tibby led the way around the corner. She had never seen Margaret outside the movie theater. It was kind of strange. She wondered how many times Margaret had been out of the movie theater—other than when she was home. In her pale pink cardigan, with her white vinyl purse with gold buckles and her bewildered expression, Margaret looked like an innocent victim of some time-travel mishap.
“Is this place okay?” Tibby asked, holding open the door to the restaurant.
“Yes,” Margaret agreed in a slightly quavering voice.
Tibby had been to this restaurant before and it had seemed perfectly normal. But now, with Margaret at her side, the place struck her as raucous, dark, nightmarishly noisy, and totally wrong.
The hostess showed them to a table. Margaret perched on the very front of her chair, her backbone stiff, as though ready to flee at a second’s notice.
“They have good pizza,” Tibby said feebly.
Did Margaret eat pizza? Did she eat anything? Margaret was terribly thin, nearly as small as a child. There were certain clues to her age: the loose skin of her neck, the texture of her blond ponytail. Tibby knew she had to be in her mid-forties. But in almost all other respects, Margaret looked just shy of puberty.
What had happened to her to make her like this? Tibby wondered. Had there been a tragedy? A loss? Was there some terrible thing that had caused her to step off the conveyor belt of life around the age of fourteen?