“Alice!”
She turns around, startled. “It works!”
“How did you do that?” I say. “Stop that!”
“Come here, come here!” she whispers. “Let’s go in!”
“Alice, you can’t do this! What if she’s home?”
Alice leans in, says, “Hello?” Then, looking back at me, “She’s not home. She’s at work, fucking my husband in the supply closet.” She goes in the front door.
I stand still for a moment, then follow her, close the door behind me. Alice is standing in the living room, staring at a painting over a sofa. It’s hypermodern, as is everything else in the room.
“How did you get in?” I whisper. And then, “We have to get out of here!”
Alice stares at the painting while she answers me. “A friend of mine told me about this a long time ago. She said if the dead bolt wasn’t on, you could slide a credit card in and open the door. She’s right.”
“Fine. Now you’ve seen the place. Let’s go.” Alice doesn’t move. I see a flowering floor plant in one corner, a beautiful burgundy throw over an armchair. Slut has a lot of books, a whole wall of them. Very nice. From the living room, I can see part of the kitchen. I tiptoe toward it.
“Where are you going?” Alice whispers.
“I just … let me see the kitchen.”
Alice follows me into a small room, nicely equipped. “Wow,” I say. “Look at her appliances. She has everything.” I start to pull open a drawer.
“Don’t do that,” Alice says.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. An alarm might go off.”
“Now you think of that. If she doesn’t arm her door, I’m sure she doesn’t arm her kitchen drawer.” I pull it open. “Look, she has good knives, too.”
“Come on,” Alice says. “Let’s find the bedroom. That’s what I really want to see. Or do you want to inspect her spices?”
I do, actually. She probably has the mail-order vanilla, whole nutmeg that she grates on a special fifteen-dollar grater. But I follow Alice into the bedroom. I pass a bathroom on the way, see blue pottery on the tank top, blue and white towels rolled up in a basket beside the tub, what looks like a silk kimono hanging on a hook. A small vase by the sink holds one white freesia.
In the bedroom, there’s a kind of Chinese motif—a lot of black lacquer and red. Alice uses a brass pull to open the drawer of the bedside stand and I lean over her shoulder to see in. There’s a pair of glasses in there, a tasteful tortoise-shell; a tube of generic hand lotion, a paperback book of poetry and a large number of condoms. “Oh God,” I say. “Come on, Alice. Shut that. Don’t look.”
Alice closes the drawer slowly, stands still for a long, terrible moment. “I just want to see her clothes,” she says. “And then we’ll leave.”
She starts toward the closet and then stops, stares at a sweater lying across a chair in the corner. “Look,” she says, pointing at it.
“What?” I say.
“That’s Ed’s.”
“Are you sure?”
Alice goes to pick the sweater up. “Yeah. I bought it for him.” She smells it, holds her face against it for a while. “Nice new cologne.” She looks up, her face remarkably impassive. “Let’s go,” she says.
I follow her out. On the porch, she touches the largest blossom on the geranium. I think she’s going to pinch it off, but she leaves it there.
I come home before the kids, meet them on the porch when they come back from school. Alice doesn’t need to do anything extra today. I give them the candy bars I bought on the way home because I know if I give them those they’ll do whatever I say for the next hour. I tell them to eat outside, then to play for a while. And then I go over to Alice’s. She is in the kitchen, sitting before an empty cup. I think she’s probably been sitting there a long time. She looks up, smiles at me.
“So?” I say.
“So I’ll be a single mother. It’s all the rage.”
“You’re going to separate?”
She shrugs. “Yeah. That’s what I want to do. I think it might be better, anyway. It’s hard, to be lonely in a marriage. Especially when you try to act as though you’re not lonely. You know, every weekend morning I’d get up before Ed, and I’d make coffee and I’d hope that he would come down and sit with me, that it would be early morning and we’d be sitting in the kitchen together, having coffee and talking. It seems like once you have kids that’s such a rare thing. But he would never get up, even the few times that I asked him the night before and he promised that he would. I’d wait, and the coffee would get stale and when he got up he’d throw it out and make a new pot. And I always thought that was so sad, you know, that two people who lived together in the same house would be making separate pots of coffee. Do you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean.” There would be an island of sun on the kitchen table, warming the bananas in the fruit bowl. Jay and I would be in our pajamas, teeth unbrushed, faces still creased with sleep, yawning, ignoring the paper in favor of describing our dreams, talking about what we might do that day, wondering if we had any money we could go throw around. I knew it was a rare thing every time it happened; I am not unaware of what happens on most Sunday mornings when the people have been married for a while, when they are past the time of lounging on love seats, looking cute in their T-shirt pajamas and sweatsocks and glasses, the woman resting her feet in the lap of the man as they read the paper. I know how uncommon it is for the interest to hold, the joy. Before I met Jay, I worked one summer as a waitress. An old man came in with his wife, taking her out to dinner on their anniversary. When I brought their salads, he told me they’d been married fifty-three years. Then he took her hand and they looked at each other with such honest and tremulous affection I had to go in the back room where the potatoes and onions were kept so I could weep. It was because I knew it was possible, that sort of staying power, and I was afraid I’d never find it. But I did.
Alice sighs hugely, then looks up at me. “Would you say that you’re happy? I mean, before the accident. Were you happy?”
I want to say no. It seems disloyal not to. She’s feeling so badly. I ought to keep her company. But I tell her the truth. I nod yes.
“But … would you say you’re a happy person anyway? I mean, you know, optimistic?”
“I guess so.”
“I’m just trying … I just would like to know some things about you, Lainey. About your nature. I’m just trying to figure some things out, here.”
“Well, yes, I would say I was optimistic.”
“So you look forward to the future.”
“It’s been hard lately.”
“I know. I know that. But I mean, generally.”
“Yes. Yes, Alice, I do! Okay?”
“Well, don’t get mad.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m not! It’s just that … I don’t know, it’s kind of a sore spot with me. People make fun of me for … Okay, I had a roommate my first year in college who was depressed all the time. I think she was majoring in depression. But she was very chic, everybody thought she was very hip. She dressed only in black, dyed her hair black, wore this thick line of black makeup around her eyes, even to bed. Black panties, black bra, black socks, black shoes … you know. She never smiled. And I really irritated her. We got a bottle of wine one night and got drunk in our room and she asked what I felt like first thing in the morning. She said to tell the truth, now, tell the truth. She was talking in this really low voice, her head close to mine. So I said, in this really low voice back, that I felt happy first thing in the morning. She sat there for a long time, kind of swaying, and then she said, ‘You feel happy.’ And I said yes. And she said, Why? And I said I didn’t know, exactly, but that for one thing I was very interested to see what might happen. She said, ‘You mean, you feel, a sense of … excitement?’ and I said yes, that was what it was. She said, ‘Really,’ and I said yes, really.
/>
“The next morning I was standing at the window in my underwear and a T-shirt, watching the sun come up. She told me I had a rip in my underwear, and I said yes I knew that but these were my period pants, I used them the first day of my period, and she said she thought that was ridiculous. Sad. She pulled the covers back over her head and went to sleep. I got dressed and went out for breakfast. It was a fine day, a bit of cold in the air, frost on the grass. I had two over easy and hash browns at Al’s Diner and the coffee was so perfect I drank too much and then I talked too much in humanities class. When I got back to the room, it was one-thirty and my roommate was just getting up. And we just looked at each other, and I know she was thinking I was such a jerk and I said, ‘Look. For me, the glass is a fucking waterfall. Get used to it.’ ”
Alice is staring at me. I can’t tell how she feels. “I know,” I say. “I’m an imbecile.”
“You’re not an imbecile,” Alice says. “It’s something else. Naïveté, maybe. But that’s only part of it. I envy you. I mean, you’re the kind of person who gets happy if the leftovers fit exactly into the Tupperware container.”
I say nothing.
“Right?”
“No,” I say. But I’m lying. I do get a little charge when everything fits.
“It’s all right,” Alice says. “I admire you. I think you’ve got a good way of thinking.”
Not always. Not lately. “Alice?” I say. “I have to tell you something. I think things are starting to fall apart on me. My mind, I mean. I feel sort of shaky. I’ve been having these thoughts …”
She stands, holds out her hand. “Come on. Let’s go out in the backyard. Tell me out there. It’s nice outside.”
We go outside and settle ourselves in the grass. I can hear the kids’ voices on the other side of the house.
“So what’s going on?” Alice says.
“Do you remember reading some old letters that were here in the basement?” I ask.
“No. What letters?”
“You know, from the woman who used to live here.”
“No. Are there letters down there?”
“Yeah,” I say. Maybe Alice wasn’t with me. Maybe I read them alone. “Never mind,” I say. “I just … I’ve been feeling sort of crazy.”
“You’d be crazy not to,” Alice says. She lies down, closes her eyes. “Did you know that Ed never proposed to me? I did it. I asked him. Twice.”
“Did you?”
“He was on the rebound, he’d just been dumped by somebody. I never met her. I’m so sorry he said yes.”
“Oh, Alice, maybe it’s just a bad time. You know? Maybe you’ll work it out. People do.”
“No. Now that I know what’s going on for sure, I can’t wait for him to leave. Really.”
“Right,” I say. And then, because I don’t believe her and we need to move on to something else, I say, “I’m ready for the hot weather. I can’t wait for the kids to run through the sprinkler. I can’t wait to run through the sprinkler myself.”
“Me neither,” Alice says. And then, “You know, it’s funny that you should mention those letters. Today, I was sitting at the kitchen table feeling really terrible and I all of a sudden started thinking about the people who might have first lived in this house. And I had this vision of a woman. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen with her kids. There was a tablecloth, and a fan on the table turning from side to side, and she and the kids were playing a game with those wooden markers, drinking lemonade, the old-fashioned kind that looks white. She had on a sleeveless blouse and a skirt, all ironed, remember ironing? And the boy was wearing this striped T-shirt and the little girl a dress with a bow that tied in the back. It was so clear, everything!”
Every hair on the back of my neck is raised. “You saw this?” I ask. “I mean, literally?”
Alice leans up on one elbow, looks at me. “No! What do you think? No, I just saw it in my head. It was just a little daydream. Nice diversion, though. Took my mind off things for a minute.”
No it wasn’t a daydream, I think. But I don’t say anything. Potato salad was in the refrigerator, hamburger shaped into patties and ready to get fried. The woman straightened her back, stretched it, when the game was over. She had a mild ache between her shoulder blades, a good kind of fatigue. She moved to the sink to slice tomatoes while the kids put away the game, looked up at the clock, got glad.
Monday morning, when I get to Jay’s room, I find Gloria straightening his sheets. She must have just bathed him; his hair is slicked back in a way he would never comb it.
“Anything new?” I ask. Gloria shakes her head.
“Okay.” I lower the bed rail, sit beside him, kiss his cheek.
Lainey. Your flesh smell. The small breeze of you bending over me.
“He had one eye open today, like to scare me to death,” Gloria says.
I look at Jay’s face.
“Just a reflex. He wasn’t seeing nothing. I shut it again,” Gloria says.
No.
“He can’t be doing that, he’ll get an infection. You tell me if you see it open again; I’ll tape it shut.”
“His eyes? You’d tape his eyes shut?”
“It doesn’t hurt. You put a little dressing there, some tape over it.”
“But what if he wakes up? He won’t be able to see.”
“He wakes up, he’ll rip it off. Take it right off.”
“All right,” I say, though it isn’t.
“What’d you bring him today?” Gloria asks. I suppose it’s amusing to the staff, the things I do every time I come here. But they show me a certain amount of respect, too. Most of them.
“You want to know what I brought?”
“Show me.”
“Okay.” I open my purse, show Gloria small plastic bags, knotted with rubber bands.
“Dope?” she asks, incredulously.
“No,” I tell her. “Spices.”
“Spices.”
“Yes.”
She straightens, nods. “Uh-huh.”
“Where’s Wanda today?” I ask. Wanda would say, “Spices! Great!”
“She’s on nights this week. Working the moonlight shift. And there’s a full moon tonight. I feel sorry for her, all hell breaks out nights when the moon is full. Mrs. Eliot be screaming her lungs out all night long, I can guarantee you that. That woman’s evil, one of those old ladies be squinting out the window from behind the curtains, don’t let no kids come on her lawn. ‘Git on out of here, now, don’t you be stepping on my grass!’ You know what I mean. She takes the balls away from the children, keeps them in her creepy old basement.”
“Oh, come on.”
“It’s the God’s truth. Her daughter told me. Mean woman, her whole life long. Used to wear her daughter out she come home one minute late. She pinches you every time you give her a bath. Hard! One time I’m washing her leg and she kicks me in the stomach. I nearly laid her out flat. I’m telling you, they say respect the patient, respect the patient, but that’s hard to do when they trying to kill you.”
“How’s Jeannie Nichols?” I ask. I haven’t seen Ted since we last talked.
“Oh.” Gloria’s face changes. She looks away from me to fiddle with Jay’s sheets. “She died last week. You didn’t know?”
“No, I … Nobody told me.”
“She got pneumonia. She fried herself. Temperature off the chart the night she died. Hundred five, hundred six.”
“Was her husband here?”
“Oh yeah. He was with her the last whole day. You really didn’t know?”
“No, I haven’t seen Ted for a while. Do you have his phone number?”
“Yeah, I think we still got it. You want it?”
“Please.”
Gloria leaves the room and I sit still for a moment, thinking. And then I turn to Jay. “That won’t happen to you. I brought you something, Jay. I’ve got some spices here. Just … for fun.” I put the cinnamon under his nose. “Now, here. Isn’t this nice?”
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A call to the table, my mother’s hands. Breakfast.
“How about this? This is sage, Jay. You know? What’s this remind you of? Thanksgiving, right? You remember that turkey platter we always use, that the woman down the street threw away and we snuck out that night and got it?”
I take out the nutmeg, rub some between my fingers, hold it beneath his nose. “Christmas, Jay. Eggnog.” I open the clove bag. “Easter. Ham.” I keep going. I line up the little spice bags all across his chest. All across his University of California T-shirt are requests from the kitchen. Come back, says the curry, the oregano. And me. Sometimes when I’m doing this, when I’m trying really hard to reach him, I’ll start to perspire. Which I’ve never done before. I share this with an aunt of mine, we never perspire, it’s kind of a family joke about how Aunt Mary and I are too repressed to sweat. But doing this, calling Jay, I often feel a wetness come under my arms, across my forehead. And almost every time, I start to cry a little, too. I try not to let him know. Sometimes I feel so hard that he’s just so close to being ready to answer me. I can feel it in me like a taut line extending from my brain to my heels. It may be what’s holding me up. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I wish he could tell me, somehow. Even if he were to wake up for one second, take hold of my wrists, look into my eyes and say, “I can hear you, Lainey. Keep trying. It’s going to take three more months.” Fine, I would say. Just so I know.
On the surface, the soft shell of skin, and I am only below here, loose, unmoored, bumping up against the sides of myself. Look deeper. The will to turn over is a handful of empty air, a concept amusing and useless. I am seeing the genius of being alive, and it holds me. I have the ear to hear now, I have the original eye, there is an understanding. I try, I think hard, use the dim light left to pull my muscles in and up, suspend myself from dropping deeper. Though it does seem soft and so welcoming. Though the black space does form a mouth calling my real name, and it is heard with such clarity I cannot yet move from listening to it. A rare directness. The source.
Gloria gave me not only Ted’s number, but his address, and that is where I am now, parked on the curb in front of a smallish, modern house only about fifteen minutes from mine. There is a car in the driveway; I think he’s home.