She was making a simple red dress for herself, a tank top A-line that would come to midthigh and move well. It would be perfect for dancing. She kept trying to get Jim to go dancing with her, but he was afraid to go out in public. “Like, do you think one of her judges is going to be boogying at a club?”
Beverly pointed, grinning. “Only you sew.”
“You mean I’m the only one in the family who can.”
Beverly nodded. “Never patient.” Pointing to herself. “Nor Suzanne.”
“I find it relaxing. I don’t do anything I don’t want to, Grandma. It’s sensual sometimes, the feeling of the material, seeing something take shape under my hands.”
Jim crossed over them, back from his run, and both women looked up. Beverly smiled at her. “You…love him.”
“Like crazy.”
“Powerful.” Beverly shook her head. “Big wind.”
Elena wasn’t quite sure what her grandmother meant, but she smiled and nodded back. Whatever Beverly meant, Beverly was on her side and wished her well, so it didn’t matter if she couldn’t exactly understand what the words intended. Big wind, she mulled over, something that tears the roof off. “You mean like a hurricane that blows everything inside out and tears the leaves from the trees and roofs off houses.”
Beverly nodded fervently. “All changed.”
She made lunch for them, hot dogs she found in the freezer. They were turkey hot dogs but that was better than tofu, anyhow. Didn’t people eat real hot dogs any longer? She also found whole wheat buns. Beverly had no trouble managing a hot dog in a bun, since it was essentially one-handed food. They drank diet soda that Elena went down to the corner to buy, since Suzanne simply wouldn’t get it. Elena decided she would get real buns and hot dogs with her own money. If you were going to eat a hot dog, you wanted a real hot dog, not a health food imitation.
After a leisurely lunch, Elena loaded the dishwasher and turned it on. Then she kissed Beverly on the forehead and went upstairs. As she climbed the stairs, already her heart was beating loudly, quickly. She began to feel that warmth building in her groin, liquid heat pooling between her thighs. She liked the way it made her feel. She liked the leisurely morning with Beverly, getting ready, slowly moving toward him. By the time she pushed in the kitchen door, she could have fucked him right away. They kissed with her sitting in his lap feeling his erection against her stomach as she faced him, her thighs on either side of his narrow hips. They used to have lunch together on Mondays. Now they didn’t, but it was cool. They had lunch together Tuesday through Friday, and they had the whole afternoon to themselves on Mondays, a treat after the wasteland of the weekend.
His hair was all tousled, the way it got when he was trying to work on his book. She liked to muss his hair, hair almond brown, close to blond, with small patches of gray over both ears, fine and silky. She loved to tangle her hands in it. He wore it too close to his head. He looked much younger when it was messed. He was letting it grow lately, over his collar. His features were so chiseled. She kissed his nose, his forehead, his chin, his cheeks, his eyelids. “I adore you, I adore you.”
“I like being adored. Adore me some more.” He led her into the bedroom. With a practiced hand, he shucked her clothes, spreading her on the towel he always carefully placed over the wedding ring quilt on his bed. She hated that towel. It represented stealth and secrecy. She needed to be with him all the time, in light as well as in shadow, but she wanted him too badly to argue about it now. He was in a hurry, thrusting into her. The weekend drought stoked up his desire too. He told her he was no longer having sex with Marta, that it had been more than a year, and she believed him. Why would he want to? Getting thick in the waist and with her belly sticking out, obviously she didn’t care. He rode hard on her, his balls slapping against her. She tongued his nipple as he rode, making it hard. Then she nipped him lightly. Riding her at a gallop, pounding. Lately she liked it that way. Hard, fast. Harder, their bodies thumping one on one, so that she felt as if they were rising and being pounded down at one and the same time, a complicated motion like those carnival rides she had loved as a child. And then at last she burst.
They showered together. Then they split a beer, both naked in the heat of the afternoon. She wished they could make love on a blanket in the yard. It must be eighty in the full sun and heat of midafternoon. She told him her wish as they lay on the bed again, just chilling. Relaxed together.
He grinned. “That would give the neighbors a thrill.”
“It would give me a thrill.”
“I can arrange that, without needing to trot downstairs.” Languidly he reached for her, and they began slow, easy, sensuous lovemaking. The towel had fallen to the floor. She noticed that but didn’t think he had. Good-bye, towel like a condom, towel like a no trespassing sign. They kissed and kissed, touching each other all over their sleek backs, his chest and her breasts, their bellies and thighs. She plucked a hair from his thigh, causing him to cry out. He bit her neck.
“Vampire!” she moaned.
“I am ze Count Drac-yu-lah…I do not drink…wine.”
Finally he spread her legs and began to eat her, his head buried in her thighs, doing her leisurely, feeling her, tasting her, flicking his tongue. She lay with her eyes closed, concentrating, when she heard something. Someone walking. She froze, but he did not notice. His ears were buried in her flesh. A woman’s voice called something. Marta. Elena controlled her reaction. She did not blink or move a muscle. Let Marta find them. Let the secrecy be over. Let the farce end. He was making those funny noises he made when he was eating her, as if she tasted like ice cream, and he heard nothing. Elena controlled her breathing, controlled her desire to bolt. She lay there, waiting.
Marta appeared in the doorway, stopping abruptly as if flash frozen. She stood staring, Elena saw through her lashes. Elena had her lids lowered, her head flung back, as if she were in a trance and could see nothing. Marta made an awful choking sound. Elena was cold through but determined. Let the pretense end. Let the lying stop. Marta was still standing just inside the bedroom staring, transfixed. Elena was beginning to get nervous. She was trying to decide if it was time for her to see Marta and scream. She felt stone cold. How long could Marta just stand there?
Then Marta began to scream herself. “No!” She cried out, “No!” moving now, toward the dresser just inside the door, the chest of drawers with a green bag on top and a pile of books. Jim froze and then leapt from between Elena’s legs and knelt on the bed babbling. “Marta, I’m sorry! It doesn’t mean anything!” he cried out.
Elena was naked and exposed to Marta. She had to explain quickly. “We love each other. We have to be together. We’re going to live together. I wanted him to tell you, but he wasn’t ready….” It did not feel victorious but bad. Sickening. Wrong all through.
Jim was mumbling, “Oh my god, oh my god, shit, shit…” He hopped off the bed and took a step toward Marta. “Marta, never mind the kid—”
She tried to calm him. “Jim, it’s okay. It had to happen. We have to make her understand how we feel about each other.”
Marta was fumbling with the green gym bag on the top of the dresser. The books cascaded to the floor. “You bastards! I’m pregnant, you bastards.” She was holding something now in both her hands, letting the bag drop with the books. She was clicking something into place. Elena scrambled off the bed in Jim’s direction, the bed now between them and Marta, who was holding something out. Elena looked around the room for her clothes. She was not sure where they had fallen. She grabbed the bedspread off the bed and wrapped it around herself. Jim was stepping into his briefs, yanking them on as if it mattered. Then she saw what Marta had in her hand. She stared, disbelieving.
“No,” Jim was saying to Marta. He took a step toward her and then backed rapidly away. “Baby, this doesn’t mean what you think. It’s a mistake! You don’t want to do this, Marta. Put down the gun.” He climbed back onto the bed, crouching there.
“Whi
le I’m working and in court, this is what you do, you bastards.” She raised the gun in both hands and shot. Elena threw herself in front of Jim. Marta fired shot after shot. Elena waited for the bullets to tear through her flesh. She had been meant to die in the desert and she had failed then. Now it would be complete. At least she would save her lover.
Jim was shouting over and over, “It didn’t mean anything, baby, it didn’t mean anything. It was just this once. It was an accident!”
As what he was saying sank in, she drew away from him and sat on the bed, stunned. She felt very cold. Everything seemed too brightly lit in the room and outlined in light. She saw that Marta was aiming way over both their heads. Marta had drilled a neat line of bullet holes in the wall high over the bed. Elena almost smiled, but her face was frozen. Her heart was frozen. She did not think it was beating. “Jim, you don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to lie about us,” she said, but he paid no attention. “Don’t be scared. She isn’t shooting at us.” He would not even look at her. It was as if she had not spoken.
The gun fell and Marta ran from the room, sobbing wildly, crying out something Elena could not understand. Jim was talking now very fast, “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t mean anything!” he was shouting and chasing after Marta, leaving Elena on the bed. She got up and grabbed her clothes from the floor, dressing quickly. Jim in his underwear was pleading with Marta in the living room. Carrying her shoes, Elena headed for the kitchen and the back stairs.
It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if he says it doesn’t. Maybe nothing at all mattered in her life. She wished Marta had shot both of them dead. Marta said she was pregnant, she was sure Marta had said that, which meant Jim had been lying and lying to her. She put her hand on the kitchen door and paused. In her head his words repeated themselves over and over again. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything. So it didn’t.
30
Beverly
After Elena made them lunch, her granddaughter went upstairs, and Beverly, back to bed. Waking from her postlunch nap, Beverly rolled over to her computer and started composing an E-mail to the New York Times, complaining about their coverage of an airline strike. She was trying to think of a word that was escaping her, the way they so often did—like trying to grab a minnow in a bucket—when she heard loud noises from upstairs. Screaming. More screaming. Then the sharp report of shots.
Beverly had heard shots often enough in her life to recognize them. Heard them in the South. Heard them in the streets of her neighborhood. Guns meant trouble. Trouble and blood and somebody hurt. Then she heard even more loud yelling. She called out, “Elena! Elena?”
Beverly struggled out of her chair into her walker and began her slow progress toward the back stairs. Finally she arrived at the bottom and called out again. No one answered, although she could hear someone crying upstairs. It must be Elena. She had to get to her. Marta had a gun upstairs. It was a stupid thing to have around. She hated firearms. Little kids were always getting killed playing with them. They should be banned. She could understand some clerk in a 7-Eleven keeping one under the counter, but in somebody’s house? She had fought with Suzanne many times about owning a gun, but Suzanne at least kept hers under lock and key. Nobody else ever saw or handled it, stored in a small safe in her office.
Beverly began laboring up the stairs. It was hard. In fact, it was almost impossible. The walker just wouldn’t balance on the narrow back stairs. She was dragging herself up by the railing, pulling the walker after her, thumping. She had to get upstairs to see what had happened. Oh, she could imagine terrible things. She heard yelling but no one answered her calling for Elena.
She had climbed halfway up when she lost her balance. The walker skidded on the edge of the narrow step. She grabbed at the railing and held herself by her good left hand. The walker clattered down. She was lying on the steps holding on by one hand. Her arm ached. She tried to form words more clearly, but she could only shriek in incoherent blurts of sound. Slowly her grip began to slide off the railing. She tried to get her knee up onto the step, but she couldn’t. Her leg wasn’t strong enough.
She heard steps coming, the door opening. “Help…me,” she called. Elena appeared at the head of the steps. She was crying and her sundress was on inside out. Beverly tried to speak but she was slipping down the steps and then thumping, banging, step after step hitting her brutally as she went down. Elena came after her, flinging herself down the stairs, grabbing for her. “Grandma! Hold on! I’m coming!”
Their hands touched. Elena tried to grip her but could not get a purchase on her hand. Beverly was hurled from step to step to the bottom where she lay in a heap. Elena ran down and knelt over her. “Grandma. Are you okay?” Elena was gently examining her. “Grandma, where does it hurt?”
Now Marta appeared at the top of the stairs. Her face was swollen and wet. She spoke in a strange numb voice, “What happened?” She came slowly down the steps and leaned over Beverly, touching her carefully. She did not look at Elena. Jim was standing above in his underwear, wringing his hands and calling to Marta, who ignored him.
Marta was gingerly exploring her leg. “Beverly, can you hear me? I think your leg is broken. We mustn’t move you.” Gently Marta ran her hands over Beverly’s back. “I don’t think you have a spinal injury, but I’m not a doctor. Listen, don’t be afraid, Beverly. I’ll call an ambulance.” She carefully disengaged herself, never touching Elena or looking at her, and ran back upstairs.
“Grandma, Grandma. Don’t die on me! Grandma! I couldn’t stand it. Please! Please don’t die. It’s all my fault. Please!”
She wanted to speak but she couldn’t. Elena was cradling her. Beverly could not form words. Her head was roaring. Her back hurt horribly, her legs hurt. One of them was twisted under her. It must be broken, as Marta said. But the worst pain was the one in her head. She recognized it. She remembered it. It was lightning in the brain, the nightmare come again. She was having another stroke.
31
Suzanne
Suzanne canceled her litigation class. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to dictate the note Jaime taped to her office door canceling her hours till further notice. Then he got her car to take her to the hospital, for she did not trust herself to drive. Her mouth kept twisting into a weird crooked smile, a nervous grimace of appeasement, the way a frightened dog will wag his tail. Beverly had been doing so well. She had been walking daily, no matter how awkwardly. She had been involved with acquaintances and causes on the Internet. There had been no warning signs. Beverly seemed to have been steadily improving, pleasing her therapists with her progress. Suzanne had just talked to the agency about cutting back Sylvia to four mornings, since Beverly thought she could manage by herself in the afternoons.
Suzanne went up to the front desk of the hospital, to ask for her mother. Beverly was in surgery. In addition to the stroke, she had broken bones. Suzanne was directed to a lounge, where she found Elena huddled in a chair. “What happened?”
Elena looked at her momentarily, but her eyes immediately slipped away from Suzanne’s gaze. “It’s all my fault.”
“Just tell me what happened.”
Elena was silent for several minutes, while Suzanne reminded herself of her vows of patience. Finally Elena in a flat almost inaudible voice told her the story. Halfway through she began to weep uncontrollably. Suzanne was startled, almost frightened. Elena never cried. Elena had stopped crying when she was twelve, and Suzanne had not seen her in tears since. Elena seemed reduced to childhood by her tears, convulsed, out of control. She spat the story out in gulps. Tentatively, Suzanne embraced her, held her as her shoulders shook.
“Marta started screaming, I was screaming, Jim was going on and on to her how she should forgive him and I meant nothing, nothing to him.”
“He was scared. And guilty.”
“She said she was pregnant. Then she took her gun out of the gym bag on the dresser—”
“Did she shoot Jim?”
<
br /> “She didn’t shoot anyone. She just drilled a row of holes over our heads to scare us.” Elena sighed. “She had every right to shoot us, and I wish she had!”
“I’m devoutly glad she didn’t.” Marta was volatile, but under it, she was a rock. Besides, it was hard for a defense attorney to ignore the consequences of murder. This was a disaster. “It was my fault too. I should have gone to her with my suspicions.” She should have confronted Elena more forcefully. She should have backed Jim into a corner. He had always been a little afraid of her. She could have used that on him.
“It’s not your fault, Mother. You tried to tell me. You said I’d get hurt. I deserve to get hurt, but Grandma didn’t.” Quickly, brokenly Elena told her what had happened. “I’ve killed her. And I love her so much!”
“She’s not dead.” Suzanne hugged her daughter. “She’s not dead and you’re alive. I couldn’t lose you, and Marta knows that.” Marta had been there for her for years and years, before she had married Sam, when Rachel was little, after Sam and she broke up. Marta had helped raise Rachel, certainly. She had been more than an aunt. If she had been raised by her Aunt Karla as much as by Beverly, so Rachel at least had been raised partly by Marta, and Marta had always helped with Elena, when Elena would permit any help.
Suzanne sighed. “It is a mess, that’s for sure. Now I’m going to try to find someone I can ask about Beverly. She can’t still be in the operating room.”
She found a nurse at last who had an answer. “Mrs. Blume’s in the recovery room. I can’t tell you anything else. You’ll have to speak to the doctor, and he’s operating. No, you can’t see her yet. Come back in an hour. She should be out of recovery by then.”