What do you give the woman who has everything? It’s a problem. By definition, femininity is yearning for a never-to-arrive completion. Queens, of course, are different. Power is what we yearn for. One thing I’ve learned, if it’s masculine “approval” you’re waiting for; you’ll never get that! Men call us “insatiable” in self- excuse. So what new toy could tempt me?
I hesitated a little as I opened the mailbox. Usually it’s a pleasure to stand in my immaculately groomed garden looking through trust and bank statements, but last week, for the first tie in my life I received an anonymous letter. It was postmarked Colorado Springs, the old neighborhood, but the address had been made by label and the return address was “Suite 7, Flatirons Office Park”. So even though the envelope said “Hallmark” I opened it with a distinct lack of excitement. Almost certain to be begging disguised as an invitation. Strangely enough, it was both.
Inside were cut out letters assembled to form the words:
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
A chill ran through me and I looked up hastily, but as far as one can see through woods and leaves, I was alone. Things that seem very unpleasant at first conceal hidden delights; there’s a life lesson for you. Emotions first repelled as shocks to the system can even become addictive. So I thought hard about it. In fact, I had been thinking about it all week.
A new game. I used to love games. A hazard of wealth is a lack of surprises, since you control everything. I usually visit the sex club as a corrective. Plenty of surprises there. Here’s a game with a new disguised player. Someone jealous, obviously. Someone who feared coming out from behind the mask; someone who hoped to upset me from a distance.
I’ve done some terrible things in my life, that’s for certain. A Queenship that’s routinely handed over isn’t worth having. On the other hand, it’s literally impossible for anyone to know what those were. So here’s a person – a disguised person, a gameplayer – trying to manipulate me into acting in some way I wouldn’t have acted without this incitement. Now what could that be?
Criminal psychology says it’s a woman, an older woman (what junior would ever choose this mode of communication?) but it might be a man. A man-woman. I know plenty of those. That’s the reason that I put my hand slowly into the mailbox as if a second coachwhip waited in the dark to pounce. But no Colorado Springs Hallmark card. Instead, a summons to jury duty!
What could be more intriguingly amusing than a power of life or death? In Colorado, death sentences are decided by the jury. My whole life has been about deciding when to cut the cord. I might have to share it with eleven others, but most people are easily manipulateable, and our jury system is such that one holdout is all it takes to derail a prosecution.
KDVR has been screaming at me for weeks about the Sivarro-Haymaker case. Did pretty Karen Sivarro, dragged back from Europe in chains, really ask her boyfriend to hire a hitman? Is she as responsible as said hitman or perhaps even more so? The murder of Rafe Zanelli – we had all seen pictures of his bullet-ridden body sprawled in the roadway – wouldn’t have occurred without her, that’s for certain.
I became aware of someone creeping up behind me. It could only be my neighbor, Judge Sugarman, who has lately been stalking me. I steeled myself to face him with a smile. The Judge came lumbering at me with such speed he must have been spying from his kitchen window with binoculars. Judge Sugarman has a sort of a wife – what is left of her. She’s already been outsourced to a nursing home so he is frantically shopping for a replacement. He has a fine pool to select from – literally vans of women arrive carrying electric brooms and casseroles and baskets of flowers — but in the most ancient tradition of romance, he doesn’t want anyone who wants him.
He wants me. His only love affair at present is with the internal combustion engine, so a racket of clippers or weed whacking usually precedes him as he angles towards the privet separating our lawns. I tried not to gag at the love light in his eyes. After all, this summons I held in my hand could give him an opportunity to be useful. Quid pro quo makes the world go round, as my dear, late, late husband used to say.
I could have told him that being alone these days is no reason to go without sex. As a local potentate he probably knows about the sex club. I see plenty like him on my nights there – suited up and eager for excitement. But they don’t last. They soon discover that anonymity removes their sole attraction. Suddenly they experience the kind of catastrophic fall in status it used to be their professional obligation to inflict on the rest of us. They find themselves subject to a new order – the rule of beauty. If they expect to dance, they had better bring a partner. Judge Sugarman has big shoes that need filling.
He is looking to purchase, not rent. His clothes say Nieman Marcus but his jowls say prenup. Someone patient with him in bed, supportive at public events, self-effacing at parties and ready to memorize the birthdays and anniversaries of children and grandchildren. Been there, done that. This man doesn’t need a beginner, he needs an immigrant. Off the boat, or under the fence. An indentured servant with a huge bill hanging over her head. He had better look elsewhere. Now I please only myself.
I made a magnanimous effort to pretend I’m not automatically repulsed by wandering nasal hair and a gym-free torso – Goddess knows I’ve had worse. His needs and my needs do not match up. Yet he possessed a small capability to be of service. The judge took my hand and as I touched his Mount of Venus I could read that he is an ungenerous lover. Failure to achieve paradise is your own damn fault. I relinquished his hand by the simple stratagem of spewing my mail at his feet. He half bent – half knelt – to pick it up, allowing my eyes to stray to a more delectable sight – the arrival of Brainerd’s assistant.
Brainerd is my gardener, and there is nothing attractive about him. He is slowly becoming skeletally thin – Paris Hilton would be jealous – but on him it’s not attractive and suggests some terminal condition unresponsive to modern meds. Lately he has started bringing an assistant – his heir, one supposes – who is as radiant as sunrise. I don’t know his name, but I have stood at my bathroom window many times watching the muscles slide around under his tattoos. He’s probably gay, but I can play male. One has the obligation to explore all appetites, creating new ones as necessary.
Only the dead don’t hunger. Nostalgie de la boue, as my late husband used to say. We all suffer from an atavistic longing for the primeval mud. I admit, I’ve even been tempted to slide a guest card to the sex club underneath the bent windshield wipers of the ramshackle steamship he uses for transportation, but frankly, I’m too lazy.
Brainerd’s assistant acknowledged my presence shyly and began unloading a collection of rakes and sprays. I favored him with a luxurious smile while Judge Sugarman staggered red-faced to his feet. “You certainly get a lot of catalogs,” he puffed.
I dazzled him with a leftover lip-pleat. “Oh, you know how it is,” I told him, “So much money, so little time. Why should my stepdaughters get spoiled? We must prevent the heirs from plundering the estate.” He laughed gamely. He loves it when I flirt with him, but I like to go beyond flirtation into actual discomfort. Because it’s fun.
“Here’s my latest acquisition,” I said, dangling the jury notice in front of his yellow-orbed irises. “The Sivarro-Haymaker case is the one I want.”
“That’s the one everybody wants,” he said, and I saw his mind struggling with the realization that I was asking for something in his power to grant.
He backpedalled. “They usually divide the pool randomly between civil and criminal.” I pouted. “I don’t want to waste my time on a civil case.”
Still, he hesitated. “I could make a call but…even if you had a very high number and were interviewed late the prosecution might use a strike against you.”
“Why the prosecution?” I was annoyed. Dr. Quantreau’s widow was a celebrant of the status quo, why should anyone assume I automatically identify with the accused? I have personal reason to know, where there’s smoke there’s usually a smoldering ember someplace. I felt insulted by the ugly film muddying his eyes. I could hear what he was thinking – yes, I read minds when it’s worth my while. Isn’t he thinking the trophy second wife is just the kind of predatory adventuress poor Karen Sivarro is accused of being? Yet it’s a damned poor adventuress who ends up on a murder rap. They had to drag her back from England in chains.
Cut to the chase. “So who’s their ideal juror?” No false pride here. I can play anything. Pick his brains since that’s what he’s here for.
“The different sides want different things. They’ll give you a questionnaire. The trick is to appeal to both of them.”
“And how would I do that?”
“You’re uninterested in gossip. Never read “bad” news or watch frightening television. No relatives in prison or law enforcement. No crime victims in the family tree.” He leaned forward to whisper in my ear, “Easily swayed.”
I laughed out loud. “Why that old thing!” I exclaimed in my best Southern accent. “I can fake that twice a day!”
I rapped him on the shoulder with my invisible fan. “Don’t forget to make that phone call! I’m counting on you now!” And then I was sprinting for the house, leaving him standing there as if he had forgotten why he had come, as, given his advanced age, quite possibly he had. Bastard! He owed me that phone call! The more I thought about it, the more it seemed likely that he himself was my anonymous correspondent. It was just the kind of thing an elderly law-saturated geezer would get up to.
He’d probably had plenty of cases like this, when he was on the bench. Why should a beautiful, rich young woman with all of life as her plaything have anything to do with the likes of him, unless she required his counsel, expertise, and a professional shoulder to lean on? It certainly would explain why he hovered for the “trigger” of me at my mailbox. Men are so transparent.
I always knew she murdered my father. Does evil have a smell? Only eleven percent of people can detect the odor of cyanide. Almonds. But I am one of the eleven percent. I guess I have a nose for evil. Something about Charmian twitched my nostrils from the beginning. Charmian! That name is fake like everything else about her – nails, hair, eyes, breasts; fake, fake, fake. And my poor idiot father, who raised me to know quality and to seek it out, to insist on value, to treasure worth and reward effort – said he didn’t give a damn about Charmian’s past – who or where she had been.
Didn’t care that she was forty years younger! Or was it what was left of his dick that didn’t care? My older sisters were much more pragmatic about his dick of clay. They had husbands, children, they were grown and gone. Out of the house. In fact they said all men had clay dicks. McKenzie says every man’s ideal woman is a Vegas stripper. Darby says hookers work hard and earn their money just like everyone else. McKenzie says old men are a lot of work, and Darby says Dad treated Mom like crap and karma is a bitch.
I don’t remember. I was still little when she died. I took his side, always. He was the fun parent, giver of candy and prizes. He pointed out to me how logical he was and how stupid she was; why should I ever join her team? Dad and I read hero books; Beowulf, the Iliad, Genji, Gilgamesh. He encouraged the highest aspirations. I was the son he never had and didn’t need, because he had me. Then came the stroke. He needed help. No biggie, basic assistance. He didn’t want to help from me; he said I had my own life to live. I should have worried more when he hired Charmian. She was totally unqualified.
She was dangerous. Anyone could see. Every layer I’ve peeled back is perfidious and I don’t think I’ve hit bottom yet. I learned it from you, dad. You were so demanding, such a skeptic. My father was a doctor, a teacher, a diagnostician. Whenever I say my last name everyone asks, any relation to Dr. Quantreau? His whole ethos was to look beneath the surface – never settle for the obvious – take full note of signs and portents. Intelligent people have the obligation to educate themselves until they understand what they’re up against.
So that’s what I’m doing. I’m going t catch her and expose her. After they married he kicked me out of the house – she kicked me out – and he had no protections. I thought I had more time. When nobody was looking she finished him off.
I didn’t tell my sisters. I should have seen it coming. felt too guilty. So it’s up to me to do the dirty work. But is it really “dirty work” when it concerns someone you love? Dad, the raging unbeliever who taught me how to make the most of every second we are given, was tricked into lapsing gently into the dark night. How could you have disappeared so completely from the lovely earth you taught me how to savor? Exactly as if you had never been here at all.
Duel between a stepmother and stepdaughter turns deadly.
Charmian: Chapter I – The Knight of Swords
My mother was bitten by a coachwhip while carrying me; that’s how I got my second sight. My stepfather, not a witness to the event but someone who always had the be the smartest person in any room he was in and the greatest living authority on everything, said it wasn’t a coachwhip but a blue runner and it never would have killed her anyhow. It wasn’t until I left home that I discovered they’re the same snake. So that argument, like most they had, was entirely pointless.
She would have killed me deader than any snakebite but she was too fat to even realize she was pregnant. So that was the first lucky thing in my lifetime string of magical good fortune, the second being that I didn’t drown in the toilet. Let’s say my “home birth” was quite a surprise.
To those blessed with second sight time is circular. There I was: an old soul born to pawns of fate just up from rats. When they come back it will be as cockroaches. I was seventeen when I came into my royal nature as Queen of Swords. The Queen ‘s blood is power, intuition is her oxygen, action is her throne. I am the only one who recognizes truth. My sword cauterizes like a laser. You might as well submit; you’ll feel better after. All living creatures, whether they know it or not, draw breath in fealty. I grant consciousness and unconsciousness; just as I choose.
This morning, I pulled a card, as is my daily custom. And there you were, my Knight of Swords, leaning down from your horse to penetrate a dragon’s proffered belly. I must have need of you because when I summoned; you came. My late husband used to say, “When the servant is ready, the master will appear.” He thought he knew who was the servant and who the master — a dangerous assumption to make when I’m around.
In my beautiful Doré deck this Knight is teen-mag handsome, with a carved-marble face, blocky jaw and a panther’s square nose. Luxuriant blonde hair, rippling into curls, is tied back for battle. His quiver contains a multitude of arrows unlike the poorly-equipped King of Swords. A “suicide king”; his blade is turned against himself.
This knight is also slightly cross-eyed, like a Siamese cat. Does it mean that, like me, you see forward and back? I almost feel I’m looking at an echo of my double-eyed face – one eye green and one eye blue. He is ready to launch himself on his heroic quest; but one eye still looks behind him.
There’s fate for you. Even when you don’t believe in it, it believes in you. Let this card inaugurate my new life. I have been feeling something missing. My ideal lover is out there waiting for me to find him. In a way, I feel I have invented you. Or perhaps you, lonely as only gods are lonely, have invented me. I rose up out of one of your nocturnal emissions in my most seductive guise. Blonde (of course), full-breasted (of course), boy-hipped, five feet eleven in stilettos. Come and get me. Since I can recall eternity I must have always been here. We are primal elements: archetypes. We are fated to meet maskless. History itself evolves to smooth my path. I will teach you mastery of the future. I inserted your card in a gilt display box and left exposed it to the consideration of the universe on my mother-of-pearl dressing table.
I live surrounded by beautiful objects, such as this suede book in which I write with my ivory pen. I too lived my early life as a beautiful object, much sought after by collectors. Beauty is my birthright, but conquest has leaves me lonely. Until now.
What Bish called “the lachrymose moment” had passed. Why was it so difficult to convince Cinda that her companion of fifteen years was the last person on earth to take a shotgun and blast someone away with it? What was wrong with people? Persey wondered, driving home. Was this just the luck of Lucifer, or something Jarod and Roy had actually foreseen? Blitz attacks and “easy” takedowns were their cherished specialty. Reserved energy for later, for stripping the game and playing with the meat.
The tragedy of it all was how Bish was the only person she could think of who would actually appreciate the crazy irony of his own demise. We make it too easy for them, thought Persey, maneuvering the truck over unpaved back roads. Our secret lives have made us victims. Predators just look for hunger and promise dinner.
The rage that swelled her now felt holy, a condition unknown to the Persey of ten days ago. With her gift of new vision it was obvious why she and Roy had been so perfect together: the doubleness in her called out to the doubleness in him. The dissociated meeting in midair; addicts recognizing one other. Roy had gambled on Persey’s addiction to peace and quiet and pretty things.
It was time to pick up Digger at the kennel; but she did not. There were too many animals already in the cannibalistic dance. For once the sight of the extra red truck parked in her driveway made her glad. There was so much to do.
As she pulled her own truck behind “The Most Toys Wins,” she gazed in wonderment at a truckbed filled with red rosebushes. What construction site had Jarod looted? Were these the very roses among which Bish awakened to his last days of life? She stood on the curb a moment, staring. Jarod appeared in her doorway, sheltering beside the stained glass like a bum in church. He’d taken off his short, wore only wife-beater and shoulder holster, and assaulted Persey with his lubricious, wet-eyed glare. He’s a vampire, thought Persey. Once allowed in, he can never be kept out. Jarod gestured toward his offering.
“Those are for you, Persey. I know you like plants. I’ll plant them for you anywhere you say. Give me another chance to say I’m really sorry.”
What was he so sorry about? His sorrily rapacious body or his scurrilously rapacious soul? He hadn’t heard the Blake poem Bish quoted about the party and so could not partake of the second sight it granted. She alone was left to see the worm at the heart of every rose. It came in a flash what she had to do. She herself was Jarod’s emotional signature. He wanted to win her. Last dance was always lady’s choice, and the music was starting. Mustn’t be late.
She shouldered him aside, entering the house like a sleepwalker. He stank strongly, horsily, of sweat; of his recent labors killing living things. He gazed after her. His hunger made him clueless. “Want me to bring them in?”
“You can leave them there.” She locked the front door behind her, then headed for the kitchen. “Where’s Roy?”
“He took your car.” Jarod laughed smugly, pulling his moustache. “Roy’s got a lot to do.” I’ll bet, thought Persey. The countryside pullulated with corpses seeking shelter. Or was he purging the storage unit? If so, it was a wasted effort. Persey as an experienced cleaner knew there wasn’t enough bleach in the universe to cleanse that cave of death. But it didn’t matter now.
Jarod pursued her, like a jailer, into the kitchen, the hearth of her hive. To postpone the fateful moment she handed him a beer, something to set between them. It worked as it had worked with Roy so many times. There are some things a man must accept from a woman. In the refrigerator she saw champagne and her muscles convulsed. She recovered and filled a glass with ice and spring water.
He was watching her closely. He knew there was something different about her and he must be trying to think how it affected him. Would she go down without a struggle or would she fight back? Which would give him greater pleasure?
“Have a drink with me,” he said roughly. “We’ve got so much to celebrate.” Here it was. This is the hardest part, but I can do it, thought Persey. I’m good for it. Consider the Bird Lady’s courage when the soldiers came for her; she lied so convincingly they accepted her as their only captive. She armed herself with Bish in his last moments. She had lied so much, sparing people’s feelings and freezing her own, she had always known how to play this. For the first time she faced him squarely, leaning against the sink, keeping her eyes soft and limpid, draping one hand across a stomach pushed deliberately convex.
“You can’t drink in the first trimester.” His eyes swell dark with longing; she saw how much he wanted to believe. But he wouldn’t be convinced till he saw pain; he grabbed the hair on the back of her head and jerked her face upwards, backing her hard against the sink. He choked, “Don’t lie to me now.”
He was gone. Easy takedown. She touched his neck and whispered, “I just got the results. It’s certain. But I’m so afraid of Roy.” The pulse inside the best lies is truth, but how could even his monstrous ego swallow her monstrous turnaround?
“I’ve been out to the storage unit,” she said. “I know what Roy’s been up to.” Jarod clutched her painfully. She saw him close his eyes and grimace. The prime danger she had feared, that he would never want anyone who wanted him, passed. When his eyes opened again she knew his ego was big enough for anything. She saw the little boy who wanted everything so badly but never received anything he hadn’t plotted, schemed and fought dirty for. He gambled and again he won, and she was the trophy to prove it.
“Sure took you long enough,” he agreed. “Roy is one sick pup. It’s time to take him down.”
“How can we be together til he’s gone?” Persey asked. “Last time the trial took forever.” She whispered so low only his ego could hear it, “I’m a one woman man.“ He lifted her off her feet in his excitement. She had to drop the water glass.
“Stop being a scaredy-cat,” he promised. “He can’t do nothing. He’s a dead man.” He scoured her mouth with his, his tongue reaching down her throat. She tried not to care how much he hurt her. It was nothing compared to what had Bish suffered. As Babe had said, maybe she deserved it.
He held her face with both hands, the better to direct his ravening tongue. She thought she might drown. It was time for Roy to come home — where was he? How much of this could she stand? She sent out frantic signals to the man she had known as her rescuer since high school. Come, come, come.
Now Jarod was carrying her up the stairs. She had hoped to be spared this. But even this, she thought, I can stand. She thought of the Bird Lady, alone and frightened with the soldiers. I can survive.
She begged him for a chance to visit the bathroom; so vital that he not encounter blood. Jealously, he loitered right outside as if she contemplated escape. Probably all his conquests suffered second thoughts. I can get through this, thought Persey. I matriculated at the school of cruelty, and now it ‘s time to graduate. Anyone can survive a few minutes of horror; it’s different if you chose it. She stood in the doorway naked and let him take her.
She had to be careful not to say Roy’s name. Each time she used Jarod’s he shuddered with ecstasy, as if she was creating him. She survived by pretending she was one of Roy’s captive women; if she showed him a good time, maybe he would let her live. He was insatiable. She gave him her body and threw her soul toward the skylight with both of her bound hands. It flew and flew until it was free.
She had to pretend to climax in order to put a stop to it. Jarod was artless; he would have rocked around up there forever. He was surprisingly easy to fool; his own duplicity guaranteed he could not tell truth from fake. Instantly he flooded out, rolling back exhausted. After a lifetime in suspension long last, finally it was time for Persey to concentrate on her own desires. She was in the bathroom when she heard the car drive up.
She opened the door. “He’s here.”
She was ashamed of her own nakedness but it was vital that Roy see how things stood. She pulled on thong and camisole but left the laces hanging. No time, no time; she must not get trapped upstairs.
Jarod jumped out of bed and didn’t even stop to pull on boxers. He was jacked for sure, pumped to twice his usual size. He left behind the Glock, left behind the knife. He was crazy to go down there without a weapon, Persey thought fearfully. What was he thinking? One more demented peak of manhood left to summit? An unarmed, naked man taking down an armed serial killer; now there was a tale for Jarod to dine out on. But Roy was dangerous and Jarod only vain, what if he misjudged his strength? Every bully falls to a greater one eventually. Jarod must not lose this contest. She raced down the kitchen stairs. Roy had encountered the locked door; Persey had his keys. He was pounding, yelling. He would break that lady, smash that unicorn for good.
Her eyes met Jarod’s where he stood at the top of the stairs surveying what he thought was his new house. She saw his plan so plain; caught by a murderer in bed with his wife. His nakedness would be the final insult. Jarod nodded, so she opened the door and tucked herself behind it. Roy rushed past her, then stopped in the hallway, looking up the stairs at his friend.
“It’s over, buddy,” said Jarod, spreading his arms as if saying, “I’m unarmed.” “Persey’s with me now. You’re out of control. You’re going back to jail where you belong.”
Roy heard her close the door behind him, turned and incinerated her with filthy, crazy eyes. For a terrible moment she thought he would rip her head right off her body but Jarod distracted him, shouting and whacking his chest,
“It’s between you and me, buddy! Man up!” Roy hammered up the staircase, a terrible animal roar boiling from the pit inside him. They grappled in the embrace they had practiced so many times, but this time Jarod pulled the Randall out of Roy’s belt and sank it into the middle of his lower back. Persey knew he was going for a kill shot to the spine, trying to drop him with a technique he’d described to entertain party guests, but this time at least it didn’t work. Roy whirled and grabbed Jarod’s arms instead. Jarod began stabbing at Roy’s face, right at his eyes, some blows audibly striking bone.
Still Roy did not go down, so they struggled for the knife, panting and grunting. Jarod tried to kick his legs out from under him and stabbed again and again until his own hands were cut. The stairs were slippery with blood. For a moment Roy seemed immortal, but in truth it had never been an even fight. Jarod was by far the dirtier, crueler fighter; Roy carefully chose victims to surprise; young, female, unprepared. He made sure he was the only one with a weapon but this time Jarod secured that advantage.
For one moment it looked like Roy had the knife by the blade and would be able to wrest it away. Persey had to face the possibility that he might win. She pulled from the umbrella stand the shotgun always intended for threatening rapists and rocked back the slide.
But no, the blade just sliced his fingers off. Jarod stabbed him directly in the neck, searching for an artery. The spurt blinded them both. Roy threw his arms around Jarod and pulled him off his feet. They slid together partway down the steps. Jarod fell heavily on Roy, cannonballing his whole body, a wrestling move that had felled a lighter opponent so many times before.
The knife stuck in Roy’s throat. His oxygenless chest crushed by his faithless friend, upward reaching arms fell back. His throat gurgled. The victor staggered to his feet, panting. He was covered with Roy’s blood; no, some of it was his. One eye bugged at Persey, dwarfing the other. He saw the gun and leaned against the banister, wiping his hands on his boxers.
“Persey, he’s gone,” he growled. “He won’t come back. We’re good.” Good? He just didn’t get it. He took a step down, towards her. Blood squished between his toes. Persey wanted to shoot but worried that he wasn’t close enough. These shaking fingers could never reload.
“Persey, you’re a witness,” Jarod croaked. “Justified killing. I can prove what he did. Give me the gun.”
The moment his foot hit tile she blew him away. Power roared through her like the long-delayed orgasm. But the blast exploded them apart, like the opposite of sex. He flew backwards, midsection blossoming red, spatter misting the stairs, the hall, the ceiling. Persey thought, I gave him roses. I gave him worms.
The recoil threw her against the door and the stained glass finally shattered. She picked herself up with care, scrambling for the shotgun in case in case he kept coming. But he was the one who was gone for good; Roy still sputtered. She stood for a moment over Jarod’s pulsating wreck. She was the conqueror; he was fertilizer, compost for his roses. He had become the past, the fallen and the overly confident, those who, fancying themselves immortal, misjudged their enemy by ridiculing the power of fear and revenge.
She stepped over his smoking corpse and climbed the stairs to be with Roy. His blood was everywhere. It was still warm and stank like a sewer. To sit down, she would have to wallow in it. But she had accomplished harder things today. She tried to hold Roy’s head in her lap. His beauty was gone. He was all damage now. One of his eyes was stuck closed, but when she picked up his hand, his other eyelid fluttered and the lone blue orb seemed to stare unblinking up at her. Seeking forgiveness for all the lies she’d lived, she told one final lie.
“Roy, ” she whispered. “Forgive me. You were the one. You were always the one.” The ghost of Persey addressed the ghost of Roy, reassured him just as, had the tables been turned, he would have reassured her that all his victims meant nothing to him. To give him something to take to hell, or wherever he was going, she spared him the knowledge that men like Ned existed. Ned, the man who came back from the dead for her.
Roy convulsed as if trying to answer and his windpipe bubbled. She rocked him like a bloody, imperfectly delivered baby with no chance of life. Because he loved music, she sang their wedding song:
“And if this world runs out of lovers, we’ll still have each other…” Like most songs it was untrue; but it was all that was left when the truth was so hard to tell. Holding his bloody hand she said goodbye to the little boy sentenced to play hide and seek with an imaginary friend, a friend who became a brother who grew to be an enemy, a vicious little doppelganger only his mother could see.
They held hands until consciousness evaporated from his eye. Now the night of two against one had transmuted to a tale the law could understand. She stepped high over Jarod’s splatter to get to the phone.
Trustworthy Ned. He always answered on the first ring. She hated to be the one telling him that once again it was time to take out the garbage.
“Ned?” Her voice was hushed, as if the dead might listen, girlish, as though the years had rolled away. “It’s Persey. Two more bodies for you. Come and get me, please?”
Persey hated driving Roy’s truck. She could barely see over the steering wheel, barely reach the pedals. It inevitably took longer driving anywhere in this gas-guzzling behemoth. Roy had turned down the gift of a Hummer from his mother because “it wasn’t big enough.” This thing bounced all over the back roads Persey made her fiefdom.
She welcomed the luxury of a tough job to do. It forced her to concentrate; she couldn’t afford to daydream, maybe she wouldn’t even be able to think. On top of everything else, it seemed to be raining. She turned on the wipers, but that didn’t help at all. The rain was inside the car. She was weeping for her friend.
It was all her fault. That was the most horrible part of everything; much more painful than the murder of all those strangers who’d died alone. She had given them their victim. How could Bish have died and she not known? Still it felt unreal. He claimed to be the poet of “the frissons of existence;” where was she when the “frisson” of death came to claim him?
She rocked with sobs. The pain in that direction was too terrible to explore. Bish was drifting away now, into that heaven he’d tried to write about. She let him go.
Behind my castle walls I have been infected, Persey thought. Is there any way to get clean? Trace the source of infection, said the Bird Lady’s voice.
Persey had always known Roy was difficult, temperamental, even dangerous; face it; she had liked that about him. He hated everyone but Jarod. His exclusivity only made her safer. She flattered herself that only she could manage him.
She regarded the ruins of her marriage with cold new eyes. From this new vantage point it had always been about murder; a slow strangulation punctuated by hostage taking. Their crowded bed was stocked with cadavers who bore Roy’s rage so he could massage his wife with the delicacy his mother taught him. The only moment he ever truly united with another human being was when the brothers ran together. The hunter became the butcher, dismantling souls and stealing their life-springs; just enough to get him through another night.
No wonder Persey cleaned obsessively. She had been trying to rid her nostrils of the smell of their decomposing marriage. What had she been thinking to let herself become so weak and weaponless? Roy was supposed to be her weapon, and look at him. She thought love was anchored at the flywheel of his soul but there was nothing there but emptiness. The abyss.
Had Jarod used insider knowledge to tease Roy into doing the dirty work of his super-cheap “quickie divorce”? I was bought and paid for, thought Persey, it all made sense; the disorganized mess of Stormee’s murder was caused by the rage of Roy’s failed imposture. He required anonymity to perpetrate his crimes. Behind the mask of Bruce was a raging, impotent child.
If he’d been smart he’d have tackled Stormee while she slept. She was no mean “piqueur” herself; she always knew just where to sink the knife. Talk about a wife-swap gone wrong. I was present at that murder, thought Persey, I just didn’t know it. If Jarod had congratulated himself that a professional killer would solve his problems he must have been astonished by the mess that Roy created.
But Jarod was a fixer, he could fix anything. He had favors on call in fifteen counties. That was where Ned’s faith in justice ran aground; it relied on objectivity, and what human being ever achieved that? If anything, Jarod’s grip on Roy was tightened.
She felt certain Jarod murdered Bish. After Stormee’s botched slaughter he must have seen the need for professionalism. Jarod knew all about staging a crime scene, and his “emotional signature” – the effortless extraction of DNA — was a side specialty only Persey knew. Bish, on his guard against “crazy” Roy, might have even welcomed Jarod. Might have been willing to play; one more time.
She writhed at the memory of things undone. Could she have warned him? If she’d told Bish the truth about Jarod, would that have armored him?
It seemed unlikely. Bish didn’t believe in hell. He had no idea the abyss could assume human form and walk around. If Roy was the animal bridegroom, what was Jarod’s excuse? It had started as a relationship that asked so little. All Jarod had to do was impersonate Roy’s lost piece of himself. She could only bring Roy down if Jarod allowed it. He himself was indestructible.
Did Roy now feel the way she once had, safe in the arms of the trusted beloved, gambling everything on one invisible soul? She began to see the lineaments of the job that had always been marked out for her. Roy and Jarod, Jarod and Roy, they were a double-headed monster now.
Babe came in for her well-earned share of rage. It was beyond Persey how any human being could be as stupidly reckless as Babe had been, priming a hunter to the point of dementia. Alas the past was never past. Babe had poisoned her own well and drank her punishment daily. She prayed that now that Bish was content. Perhaps in heaven he’d even acquire the healthy, beautiful body he’d always admired. What else was heaven for? She tried imagining him sitting down at his welcoming feast, getting to know his Viking friends.
But he would never sit with Roy or Jarod, not ever. That part of the poem would not come true. God recognized only the innocent and their protectors. Jarod and Roy had pronounced their own sentences when they toasted, “Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out.”
They never learned what Bish knew, thought Persey. Everything links to everything, so one distortion in the fabric rends us all. And according to Ned, murderers always make at least one big mistake. She prayed, let their mistake be me.
It was after lunch when she finally pulled up to Cinda’s house, but the time for refreshment had passed. Police and town vehicles stretched down the street and around the corner. The crime van with which she was now familiar sidled at the curb. The garage door was covered with plastic sheeting. Inside she could see the reflection of powerful lights. This was Bish’s jumping off place, where he said goodbye to the dimension that clothed his poems. Now he must praise the infinite. She saw him now on a mortuary slab, right across from Stormee. If they were together perhaps they wouldn’t be so cold or lonely. Would they wink at each other knowingly? Would they smile and hold hands?
A uniformed officer sat on a folding chair beside the front door. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might not let her in. She said, “I’m a friend of Cinda’s,” and he stepped aside. Persey thought, am I the only mourner? The only one who showed up?
The door was decorated as she had last seen it, a dried grass wreath ornamented with gingham ribbons and the posting, “Welcome, Friends!” There had been no time, apparently, for the switch to black crepe and the “As You Are Now So Once I Was” legend. That would have been a lot more appropriate.
An older woman with bulldog jaws answered the knock. Her hair was the same color as the dried grasses but not so artfully arranged. She wore a checked apron, a red sweater appliquéd with tartan Scottie dogs and an expression of disapproval so profound it was set in her face like plaster. She was much scarier than the police officer.
“Is… Cinda here?” Persey quavered.
The woman’s face softened one degree. Persey’s blue-eyed fragility often had that effect on people.
“Let her in, Mom,” called Cinda from the top of the stairs. “She’s Bish’s best friend.” The bulldog face hardened right back up again. Persey could see this woman trying to cast her for a role in Bish’s disgrace. If she only knew!
“Cinda can’t see anyone right now,” said the woman. “If you leave your phone number, we’ll give you the funeral information as soon as the police release the body.” “Let me in,” Persey shouted over the guard dog’s shoulder.
Cinda came rushing down the stairs. She wore candy-striped men’s pajamas – probably Bish’s — and her tear-stained, makeup-free face bore an unsettling resemblance to the bulldog’s. She dodged the guardian and threw herself into Persey’s arms. “Oh Persey,” she sobbed. “You’re the only one who knows how happy we were! No one believes it now.”
“I know,” Persey soothed. “Everyone envied what you had.” “For God’s sake, Cinda, you’re as drunk as a skunk! Lay off the sherry!” barked the mother, and then, addressing a seated, silver haired man watching TV news with the sound turned down, “Does she have a bottle in her room?”
“How would I know?” Attention riveted by helicopters and explosions, he brushed away her question as if dodging fire.
“I expect you to go and look. You know I can’t climb stairs.”
“I’ll take care of her,” said Persey. “Let’s go.” Cinda collapsed against Persey, allowing herself to be led. But the low-intensity bickering continued over Persey’s shoulder. “I only had a couple of drinks because the sleeping pill didn’t work. It’s your fault because you wouldn’t give me another pill.“
“You can’t combine pills and booze,” shouted her mother until the stairs shook, as if they all were deaf. “Then you’ll be dead too, and what about those poor kids? Where will they be then?” “Let’s get you into a hot bath,” Persey suggested. “That’s what helps me.”
The master bathroom was more dwarfish than masterly but cute and retro with its pink and black diamond–paned tile and ”his and her” sinks. At least the tub was a Jacuzzi. It was here that husband and wife had sat and talked on the phone to Persey after the party eons ago. Cinda turned the water on obediently and Persey threw in bath salts. A grapefruit plantation sprang up suddenly between them.
“Jesus, I’m so glad you’re here,” said Cinda. “I’m the one that found him and I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again. Somebody has to protect me from that woman. Another hour with her and I would have slit my wrists. Or hers.”
Fragrant steam fogged the tiny room. Persey helped Cinda out of her pajamas and looked for somewhere to hang them. A man’s bathrobe hung on the hook in back of the door. It must be Bish’s. In fact he was everywhere: shaving products and leather-encased toiletries littered the faux marble counter. Persey folded the pajamas carefully, laid them on the counter, and sat down on the pink fur of the closed toilet seat. Cinda stepped into the water and turned up the jets.
“Oh…that feels good…” her voice faded as she slipped down and closed her eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here, Persey,” She murmured dreamily. “You know, you’re the one person I never wanted to see me naked? Look at the way they botched my Caesarean. Botched it twice. I’m practically marsupial. The second time I said to Bish, make them clean it up this time and then they fucked it up again. They always blame you, you know. “Incompetent cervix!” Blaming the victim is what they’re best at. I guess I’m supposed to accept that I was born with a body designed for ruin. Incompetent! Those bastards! But we couldn’t pick and choose; we’re stuck with whoever the health plan gives us.
Poor Bish couldn’t stand up against them. He was just helpless in any kind of real emergency. He said to me, what was I supposed to do, take the scalpel out of the doctor’s hand? He offered to carry the next baby, to make medical history, but I told him, this it for us, buddy.”
She laughed and laughed above the rising water. “Bish never minded my scar, I’ll say that about him. He understood what it’s like to be imperfect. Stormee probably said something about his body. I wonder what it was? Usually he could just toss it off. He never got violent with me, even when I could have used a little violence.” She sighed, blowing away encroaching foam. “I couldn’t even make him angry. Do you know how difficult it is to fight with a person who won’t get angry? He was always so maddeningly reasonable. The best I could ever do was make him cry.” “Cinda,” said Persey, “Bish didn’t do this. I’m sure of it.”
Cinda opened one eye. “Poor Persey. You think he was murdered? Or are you trying to say he couldn’t have killed Stormee? I found the confession. You didn’t know him as well as you thought you did. Bish admired you, so he hid himself from you. Believe me, Bish had problems.”
“We all have problems,” said Persey. “Where was the confession?” “Bish’s problems were worse. He was born in the wrong body. He may even have been the wrong sex. “
Hardly a reason to be sentenced to death. Persey repeated herself. “Where did you find the confession?”
“It was on his laptop,” said Cinda, beginning to cry. “He’d been writing a poem about heaven. I guess he was wondering what it’s like there, but Mom says that’s the last place he’ll end up.” “On a laptop! Cinda! Anyone could have written that!” Cinda opened both eyes. “But I know his poetry!”
“I mean the confession.”
“Maybe. But why would they? I came home early…because I got a call that the kids had never been picked up. And his job said he never showed, either. His car was here but he wasn’t. That was weird right there. He was always so good about picking up the kids. At work they called him The Seahorse. I knew something must have happened to him. Then I found him in the garage.” She hissed the words, “His head was blown off. The whole top of it was gone.”
A chill of death rippled through the hothouse room. Persey said, “You know Bish was totally against guns. He couldn’t shoot. He never had a gun in his life.”
“Anyone can shoot themselves in the head. You just put it up against the side and pull the trigger. No missing with a .45. Apparently he stole it from Jarod’s house. He said as much in the suicide note.”
Persey’s pulse raced. “Where’s the laptop now?” “The police have it. The police have everything.” Of course they did. Their chain-of-custody dancing frenziedly to Jarod’s tune.
“He didn’t mention you,” continued Cinda, “if that’s what you want to know. He didn’t even mention me. Just said he was sorry. “Goodbye cruel world”. It won’t appear in his Collected Works, I’ll tell you that.” She barked with laughter.
Is the truth still the truth, wondered Persey, if no one believes it? This was harder than she had expected. It hadn’t occurred to her that Cinda would
actually think her husband could be guilty. They had chosen their victim well; he had no defenders. Apparently Persey herself did not count. The depth and viciousness of this crime – of all of them really – took her breath away. Look how much could be destroyed with a single bullet; not just a victim’s future but his past as well; the very memories of survivors were affected.
Now the world dismisses them as prostitutes, suicides, revenge artists longing for destruction. They must have been, because they’re dead. How we despise the weakness of the dead! In the wrong place at the wrong time, frozen in the headlights of cruelty, they had lost their seat in life’s game of musical chairs.
Cinda sat up and blinked. Water rocketed over the side at Persey’s feet. “How am I going to get by, Persey? I’ve got insurance but what if Jarod sues? What if Jarod sues me for wrongful death? He could get everything.”
But Jarod, the devious mofo, was history.
“If I can promise you he won’t,” said Persey, “would you give me something?” Cinda’s eyes focused at last. Her face contorted with hope. “Jarod will do anything for you, Persey. Of course. Whatever you want.” “Let me be Bish’s literary executor?”
Cinda snorted as if she’d asked for trash. “Sure. You can have it all.”
“And answer one question for me, please. Seems idiotic but you’ll have to trust me that it’s important. Your children…they are Bish’s aren’t they? Did you have trouble getting pregnant?” Cinda’s head dipped below the water, then bobbed back up again, her hair streaming into her eyes. “Oh Persey, of course they are his. No, I never had any trouble getting pregnant – I’m too fertile if anything. We had to get rid of one while we were in college. Everybody blamed me for that too.
Not that Bish put much mileage on me. He was always sort of otherworldly, if you know what I mean. Lately we’ve been in kind of in a dead spot. I knew he was looking for something else. But then again, who isn’t?” She rose up in the water and fell against the towel bar. “Let me help,” said Persey, grabbing her and enfolding her in a towel. “Think you could sleep now?”
“I do feel more relaxed,” murmured Cinda, slurring her words. “You were right. I feel almost clean. You always have such good ideas.”
Persey powdered her body with lavender and rose, then helped her back into her candy-striped pajamas. Cinda, much taller, leaned against her like a drunk. They staggered toward the bedroom. “You going to be all right?” Persey asked. Cinda chose to interpret the question financially.
“As long as I get to keep the insurance,” she said. “Lots of insurance. There had to be some luck somewhere. Bish’s luck was being married to an insurance agent.” “You’ll keep it all,” Persey soothed, plumping up the pillows and pulling the covers up to Cinda’s shoulders.
“Thank you, Persey.” Cinda sighed, sinking under the down comforter. “Thank you, thank you. Maybe I’ll change my name and go to Paris. I don’t want the children to ever know what their father did.” She rolled over on her stomach, her voice partially projecting through a pillow. “Goodbye, Persey. Have a nice life. I know you will. Lucky Persey with that sexy, rich, adoring husband. Goodnight. Goodnight.”
She thinks I won’t come back, thought Persey sadly as she ran down the stairs. Was I Bish’s only friend?
The bulldog guarded the stairs; jealous of the regions she could never see. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Persey told her formally. “I think Cinda will sleep now. Where can I leave my phone number?”
The bulldog extended a pad and pen. She set her jaw so hard her wattles quivered. She was the kind who has to have the last word.
“Well, you know what they say,” she said. “You can’t break God’s laws. You can only break yourself against them.”
Downstairs Persey was surprised to find Babe garbed in a black velvet caftan padding disconsolately about outside her library. Babe usually had breakfast in bed brought by loyal Mickey. Babe claimed she never slept until dawn began to break. She must have been up all night. In this early light she seemed broken and witch-like. Without makeup she was a different person; someone with timid, tired eyes, rousted prematurely from hibernation to face an upside down world. “I hope I didn’t take your last Ambien,” said Persey, conscience stricken.
“No, no, no. Of course you didn’t. They just don’t seem to work anymore. When I close my eyes I can’t stop thinking I won’t wake up.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ”So much left undone. And who, I’d like to know, could sleep through all those phone calls? Feet up and down the stairs? Didn’t you hear it? You heard the good news?”
Persey wasn’t going to call it good news. Not for anybody. Not to serve any purpose. “I heard about the suicide.”
Babe rattled the silver coffeepot, filling a cup for Persey, even though she hadn’t asked.
“It’s always hard to live with what we’ve done, but in his case he saved us a lot of bother, poor man. Jarod said Stormee could be very, very difficult. Very demeaning. When a woman really knows how to find a man’s pressure points, well, a lot of men can’t handle it. Not when a woman is demeaning in that way.” Her eyelids fluttered suggestively.
There was no milk for the coffee but Persey didn’t care. She wanted things to taste different now; harsher. The very air felt crueler. In the past she had disliked and avoided the “library”, the one room in the house with no real windows. A whisper fan circulated air from God knows where; it smelled of multiple disinfectants.
Babe had stigmatized the place with a disturbing nautical theme that made Persey feel seasick; a faux figurehead jutted from the wall as if a ship had assaulted the house; trompe l’oeil portholes showcased shadowboxed views of an alternate universe. Stay here too long, thought Persey, and we’ll drift beyond help.
To spite its name only a few morocco bound books huddled together under glass. Stage prop tributes to a staging master. Persey had actually tried to borrow one once, only to be told it was “uncut”. Reading it would diminish its value, Babe warned. After all, she told her daughter-in-law, you can get all the books you want for free at the public library.
But this felt like the right place to tackle Babe, a place where she checked defenses at the door. Already the lighting had been adjusted to a soft pink. At the touch of a button she could summon appropriate background music just as if life itself was one long entertainment. Persey recognized Berlioz swelling soulfully around them now. Babe settled back on the crushed velvet sofa and patted the cushion beside her.
Persey braced herself for the usual shellacking of self-pitying goo; Babe’s coin in Babe’s house. “Don’t go back, Persey. Relax. You can stay here for as long as you want.”
“They probably need me,” said Persey, thinking actually of Digger but not daring to say so. Babe considered all pets children substitutes, airily devaluing their wildness link. Persey was sitting so close to the older woman now, she could see white roots nestling like doves at the roots of Babe’s night-black hair. A conversation with Babe was usually a question of landmine detection. The game of weapon du jour was bitterly hard to play if you weren’t a natural scorekeeper.
Nobody had grappled with Babe over the truth for a long time. Why had she sentenced herself to this cruel fate, Persey wondered. It was a self-punishment crueler than any crime could possibly be. In any case, it was time to set her free and show her the consequences of arming herself against the realities of the universe. Persey put down her coffee cup, picked up her mother-in-law’s hands and just came out with it.
“Where’s Bruce, Babe?”
Babe’s eyes retracted in their doughy lids. “Mickey will be disappointed.” What’s this, wondered Persey. The insanity defense?
Persey massaged Babe’s be-ringed hands and stared her down. “Where’s Bruce, Babe?” Babe closed her eyes. Easy to imagine Babe as a little girl, winning every battle with the power of passive resistance: “You can’t make me” “I won’t look” “You’re not there” and “I’m not listening to you.” Powerful, powerful weapons, even in the hands of toddlers. In Persey’s hands her mother-in-law’s claws quivered like rescued birds. Persey said, “Bruce has been hurting people again, Babe. You have to tell me where he is.” Babe sucked in a death rattle of processed air.
“I’m going to tell you a secret, Persey,” she said. “Now that you are about to become a mother yourself it’s only right that you know the truth. But you have to promise me –“ The hands became claws and gripped Persey’s fiercely – “You will never, ever tell.”
“I promise,” said Persey, thinking, Thank God you don’t have to keep the promises you make to insane people. Ned lied to the mutants to find out facts; so could she. Babe opened her eyes to their widest extent as if drinking Persey in.
“I’m sick,” she said. “I’ve been diagnosed with a disease of the spine. Dr. Zu is treating me. Mickey knows. But I don’t want Roy – or anyone else – ever to find out.” She hissed the words.
God, thought Persey. Was I naïve. Never saw this one coming. What can I say now? She wins this round, too.
“Is it cancer?” Babe nodded. She couldn’t say the word.
“I know I caught it from Roy Senior. But Dr. Zu says the life force is too strong for me to lose as long as I believe and I do believe. Bryan — I mean Roy Junior of course, used to give me such wonderful massages, protecting me with nourishing little sensitive strokes. He kept the damage from internalizing. Then when he began to hate me his touch became destructive. I think I caught the cancer then.”
Her death-grip was so tight it made Persey wince. She struggled with this new round of blame. It was everyone’s fault, ultimately, for not loving Babe enough, for not giving her their souls to use however she chose. How did Ned stand it? Did it help knowing it was just a performance, that others were looking through the glass approvingly?
But she and Babe were utterly alone in the privacy of secrecy, peering into a never-opened Pandora’s box of pain. What had Ned called it? The abyss? Persey tried her hardest to stay calm. You couldn’t let the wilderness know you were afraid of it.
“Cancer isn’t contagious, Babe,” she said wishing she believed it. “You can’t catch it from other people.”
“But don’t you think it’s possible, Persey, to contaminate another’s soul with anger and revenge?” “No,” lied Persey painfully. “Impossible.” She refused to set foot in Babe’s crazy world. Talk about contamination! Babe’s bruised eyes filled with tears.
“I want to believe you, Persey, but I can’t be sure. Someday – maybe sooner than we think — you’ll be alone with him and you have to know how to manage him. That’s why I’m going to tell you about Bruce. If you tell Roy I told—“ she gulped, then hissed, “He’ll kill me.”
Persey’s hands were going numb. The heat pouring off Babe was suffocating; we’re all drowning in a hot flash now, she thought. Locked in the stare of those dark, dark eyes, she thought, this is it, this is the decisive moment when the cobra unfurls the secrets of the universe and spits them at the rabbit.
“Bruce… is… dead,” sighed Babe, surrendering her furnace of pain. “He died a long time ago.” Persey snatched away her hands. What a liar!
“It wasn’t my fault,” Babe insisted. “I didn’t have enough milk for two babies. I thought I wanted twins to replace my lost uncles, but it was just too much for me. You can’t imagine the pain when your own child seems to hate you, rejects your milk, and cries nonstop. I was surrounded by foreigners and Roy Senior was never home; off with his slender-bodied women no doubt.
I had no help at all and I was hardly more than a child myself. I thought Bryan needed me most because he was the weak one. Bruce seemed so strong but he died anyway. Bruce was Roy Senior’s favorite and he was so disappointed. But there we were with two passports, two Social Security numbers, and Roy Senior’s parents had already set up two separate trust funds, so I agreed it seemed a shame to let that money go to waste. Was I wrong?
Roy Senior’s mother was afraid to leave her house so we knew they’d never visit. It was all Roy Senior’s doing, I just went along with it. But…I don’t know how to explain this to you… in some ways Bruce never left. We could see how he was growing because of Bryan.
It started as a rainy-day game, you know, a mother’s effort to put a smile on frowns. A joke. When Bryan was naughty, well, then he was Bruce. When he behaved himself, he was back to Bryan. But as he grew up he got worse and worse. He wanted to be Bruce all the time, just so he could do these terrible things. I couldn’t manage him and Roy Senior refused to try. He loved having another sword to wound me with. After Roy Senior’s parents died, and we could come home, I thought we could get rid of Bruce. We didn’t need Bruce any more.
We tried to make a ceremony out of killing him – so many times. To make it stick, you know. We gave him the most beautiful graveside service — told the funeral director we brought the cremains from overseas and were keeping them at home just so we could fill the casket with things bad old Brucie broke or ruined. I bought the most expensive casket they had, the very best grave plot. Bryan promised it was over, promised solemnly. He swore to God. He took his father’s name to symbolize the new start.
But Bruce wouldn’t stay dead. Bryan kept resurrecting him, just to punish me. His father couldn’t handle it. No help as usual. He just ran away.”
She spat into a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “That’s what men do. They leave the filth, the cleanup, to us. I warned him Bryan was dangerous but he refused to believe me until Bryan insisted on moving in with him. What’s the next thing I hear? Roy Senior’s dead! That big man’s heart gave out. So who was the strong one, after all?”
Persey struggled to keep up. What the hell had happened in this family? It sounded like Babe had murdered her eldest child to punish her husband for abandonment and then resurrected him at will to stop her conscience. But didn’t that mean…
“Are you saying that Roy is the one…” But Babe was in spate. No one could ever stop her then.
“I know I made mistakes. I’m not denying that. Battlefield decisions, Mickey calls them. You have to think on your feet and if you’re tired and under pressure and not well to start with then of course you make mistakes. Wait until you’re a parent, Persey, then you’ll see.
There’s so much I bitterly regret. Nothing I’ve ever tried works. But how was his becoming a felon my fault? I have to face the fact that Roy hates me. My own son hates me. He had a poor example from his father, I’ll say that. He learned how to treat me with utter contempt in my own house. You know what the worst thing is?” Tears sprang into her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks. “I know I should have given Bryan his money…when his father died…but I was so afraid. I knew he’d leave just like his father did, take off and never come back. I didn’t see how else to keep him. And then when he went to prison I was trustee for life. Of course that only made him hate me more. So Persey, I say, thank God for you.”
She shook her daughter-in-law’s hands fiercely. “You saved him. You must admit it’s been just miraculous.”
But Persey was still clinging to the cliff-edge, unable to go up or down. “Are you saying Roy was the rapist?”
Babe barked a short, sharp laugh and gave Persey a shrewd look. “I’ve owned up to my part in this, Persey, now it’s time for you to do the same. Didn’t you abandon Roy in his hour of need? Roy loved you. Roy gave himself to you. Roy takes after my side of the family; I’m proud to say he’s a one- woman man. He made it clear he’d chosen you for life, but you were toying with his heart. There’s been no one else for him, ever. He pledged himself to you at an age when most men are happy to play the field.
He was fine when he was with you. What were you thinking? You dumped him, Persey. Of course he was angry. Of course he went crazy. Bruce came back with a vengeance because Bryan had been so rejected and wounded. He hated all women. You didn’t make my life any easier, I’ll tell you that. You can’t demean a man in that way, Persey. No woman can – it guts their masculinity. Don’t you understand?
You should be grateful that Roy gave you a second chance. He’s quite a catch, my son; especially compared to that first husband of yours. You owe that second chance to me. I told him that once you’d had a chance to experience other men you’d see how lucky you had been. And I was right, wasn’t I? Doesn’t he treat you like a princess? I’ll bet he hasn’t hit you once – unlike Roy Senior — and let’s face it, most of us deserve it.
I know you’ve been fine since the wedding; I’m not saying anything different. But haven’t you been leading a very self-indulgent life? Now it’s time for you to mature, Persey, and step up to the plate. Stop taking and give a little. You have a place in this family. I understand it’s hard to give up girlish dreams and focus just on what’s in front of you; no one knows that better than me. Stop worrying. All the misery is behind us, as long as you keep Brucie dead. We have the future to think about. New life, Persey! Don’t you see how it cancels out the bad things, just as if none of it ever happened? And thank God for Jarod when we’re not around. Jarod knows everything. Jarod has promised to keep him out of trouble. Why would he ever need another woman if you’re giving him what he wants?”
“It means Roy’s a killer!” shouted Persey, trying to stand up. “Don’t you see?”
“We can contain this,” Babe argued comfortably. “Hurt young men lash out! There will always be plenty of women who want to test their power by teasing men into fits. But he’s got you, Persey. He’s going to be a father and he’s so proud. You’ll see, that changes everything.”
“Why can’t you face the truth for once?” shrieked Persey. “Your son is a murderer! He probably killed Stormee too!”
Babe slapped Persey’s face hard. “You keep your voice down in my house! Don’t you ever talk that way around Roy! If he thinks you’ve lost faith in him, he’s finished! Roy would never do anything to hurt Jarod! Jarod is his best friend! Jarod’s the one that’s kept him from running off the rails! He’s the only man Roy has ever looked up to, ever even respected. He needed a role model when Roy Senior bailed out, don’t you see? Persey, focus. You have a job to do. I’m telling you my mistakes so you don’t have to repeat them, don’t you see? You’re too small for twins, so that won’t happen, doctors know how to prevent that now. They kill the weak one to give the strong a chance. I’ll make sure you don’t suffer the way I did. And you’ll have all the love and help you need. I guarantee it.”
Persey backed away, Babe’s red handprint staining and stinging her cheek. Ned had marked her and the demons answered back. The ice that had frozen this family for so long was melting, exposing the river of fire beneath. She, Persey, had been the human sacrifice all along. “You mean Roy never was in Special Forces — he was in prison all those years?”
Babe waved a hand dismissively. “A prison record is a terrible blot on a young man’s escutcheon. We couldn’t allow that. Those poor young men are marked for life. So many doors are closed to them. We all agreed Bruce needed to be brought back just one more time. Prison’s just like boot camp, really. Jarod told us all about it. Jarod’s a hero.”
“You know nothing,” snapped Persey. “Your truth is poisoned. Everything you think you know is a lie.” She backed against the door, planning her escape route. Where was her purse? Her keys? She didn’t want to share oxygen with this woman for one more second. Babe folded her stained handkerchief and pressed it to her face.
“I understand the power of denial,” she sniffed. “I won’t judge you. I’m not saying the truth isn’t painful. It’s hell, Persey! I’ve groveled and groveled for years! Why aren’t I forgiven? No; I had to be destroyed. But you, Persey, you and your child have nothing to fear. Bryan takes it all out on me. He killed Bruce, he killed his father, and when he’s killed me, we’ll all be even.
Don’t you see we have no choice, Persey but to believe? To hope? We have to accept our role, which is to model forgiveness and love however painful that may be.“ She was openly weeping now. “I don’t understand why is this so hard for you. After all, you have nothing of your own. Everything you are, everything you have, comes from Roy.”
This may look like love to the uninitiated, thought Persey, but the Bird Lady’s pupil cannot be fooled. You name the demons, and then get rid of them. Their names are rape, theft, soul-rape, soul-theft, bribery, murder and blackmail. She turned her back on the doublethink-polluted air. She had to flee before she went down with the ship.
“Where are you going?” A shocked Babe pursued her, stumbling, as if her legs had fallen asleep. “What are you going to do? Don’t make decisions when you’re so upset! Don’t you see this is bad for the baby? Please don’t leave!”
“I have to go,” said Persey. She was quivering with rage on Bish’s behalf. She imagined Babe’s cold response if she tried to explain how the universe had been impoverished. Babe knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
“But what about your luggage?” gasped Babe. It was almost ludicrous, her evident conviction that Persey was tethered to this house by the contents of a suitcase. “Let me get Mickey.” “Forget the luggage,” said Persey cruelly. She could keep the luggage. A pile of bloody sheets was all the baby she’d ever have. “I thought you said everything
I have comes from Roy.” It was stupid to answer back, she recognized as she said it. Wasn’t she right now climbing into Roy’s truck?
“Don’t be that way, Persey,” Babe begged, clutching at the window. “Don’t tell me I’ve misjudged you! I trusted you. If you tell Roy you’re signing my death warrant!”
He probably would kill her, thought Persey, detaching her mother-in-law’s fingers one by one. Why not? He’d been killing her for years. But it would be needlessly cruel when Babe was never really alive, and when there was so little left to kill.
Gravel spat at Babe from beneath the massive tires, pushing her away.
“I won’t tell him,” Persey promised, over her shoulder, “I’m the only one in this goddam family who knows how to keep a secret.”
If in the wide world Bruce was nowhere to be seen, he could not hide in dreams. Persey sought him out, consulting the Bird Lady, her dream mentor; where would they hide him? The Bird Lady covered her eyes with her hands and spoke: people are just animals disguised. And the pack is only as strong as its weakest member.
The Bird Lady knew everything because she had suffered. So now I’m a wolf, thought Persey, fleeing the Ambien, recklessly digging in Babe’s birthday flowerbed with broad white paws. Why fight the trend? Why bother with humanity when beast was all the rage? She was finished cleaning up, she was going to make some messes now.
Who would curse a wolf for digging in a flowerbed? As she went deeper she bit herself in excitement and abandon; bloody slobber dribbled from her lips and stained her silver hide. She was not the weakest member, not she. Truly she feared no one. But as she dug deeper the world grew darker; she needed the Bird Lady’s reflection to see by, but she was a moon that withheld its rays. Was it something I have done or something left undone? Howled Persey. But the moon pursed its nursery-rhyme lips as if to castigate her for selfishness; she had been a willful girl. There was something she had forgotten, but how could she remember if she was just a wolf? She would make up for everything by finding Bruce and dragging him to the surface.
Uncovering a tunnel, she felt a gush of adrenalin like an electric jolt. This was it, Bruce’s hideout, the secret world. She slid down easy, all unwary, not expecting the splash. Disused well? The Greeks had claimed the underworld was a watery place. This wasn’t water, though, but blood, clogging mouth, ears, strangling her with the strands of own hair. She was drowning in it. The shock was too terrible. She had lost her protective wolfskin and now was only Persey, naked, struggling and alone. If left to itself does every dream become too terrible? She fought to wake up.
“Wake up,” said the rescuing voice. But it wasn’t the Bird Lady, it was Roy, sitting on the edge of the bed, handing her a mug of strong coffee in one of Babe’s heart-red mugs; coffee taken white, without sugar, just the way she liked it. Of course Roy knew what his wife liked. He was already dressed, face glowing; silvery curls gelled behind his ears. Where had he been all night? Refreshing himself in the darkness that had defeated her? Groggily she took the cup with sleep-stained, sticky fingers.
“What time is it?” He ignored the question. “The cops caught the guy that did Stormee,” said Roy. “Jarod and I have got to go.”
She drank. Hot coffee stuck to the roof of her mouth, her fingers stuck to the coffee cup. Had they glued it? Was this one of those pranks where somebody hands you something you can never get rid of? Was she “punk’d” for good? She looked around for the hidden camera and there it was; Jarod, recording, recording, looming in the doorway.
“They got somebody?” She was the weak link after all. Unable to keep up. They were way ahead of her.
“It’s your fudge packer friend,” said Roy. “I knew there was something about that guy. Apparently he couldn’t handle Stormee’s little games.”
“No one could handle them,” Jarod spoke roughly, but from the doorway, like a vampire who lacked permission to get in. “Pity the fool. She really got to him. Poor guy offed himself. You know what happened, Persey? I bet he killed her because she wasn’t you.”
What kind of a mean joke was this? It wasn’t funny at all. Had she fallen out of one nightmare into another? Persey tried to sit up, to shake the sleep from her ears. “What are you two talking about?”
“He left a suicide note, confessing the whole thing. That’s right, hon, killed himself. Man enough to do that at least.”
“Plus they have the DNA,” said Jarod. “Plus they have the DNA,” echoed his sidekick. “Slam dunk.” “Slam dunk,” said Jarod.
Persey tried to put the coffee cup down, but couldn’t. She considered throwing it at him, but since it felt so tethered, feared it would only boomerang. “That’s just impossible.” It must be the Ambien that was making her so stupid. She never could take drugs like other people.
“Believe me, the world is better off without him. Those guys are carriers. Keep your cell turned on. We’ll all know more in just a few hours.”
Roy rose up fast, so tall she feared him. His head must literally bump the ceiling. She stared up at him. He was dressed once again for a pirate’s funeral; black turtleneck, black jeans; one diamond earring.
“Jarod and I are going in his truck. We left the keys in mine. Or you can stay with Babe as long as you want.”
“Lots to do to close up a case,” said Jarod. Roy swooped down from his height like a vulture – she flinched – but he only kissed her lightly, and then the pair of them were gone.
First order of business was to pry this coffee cup out of her sticky hands. It hadn’t been a dream at all; her hands were stained with blood. She lifted the sheet and looked down at her legs. Blood everywhere. Where had Roy been sleeping? In the arms of his new sweetie, the man-tiger? Had her womb cut itself wandering out in search of him? No baby for Jarod; her body had decisively rejected him. No human sacrifice for Babe, alas. There never would be a substitute for Savage Bruce.
She jumped out of bed and began stripping the sheets. It went clear through to the mattress. She wasn’t strong enough to flip the mattress by herself. She wondered if she dared ask Mickey. There was probably no way to conceal this from Babe. But of what use was concealment? Babe made it her business to find everything out in the end. Not that the truth ever did her any good.
Time for Persey to summon up a fresh disguise just like the rest of them, make up this bed with sparkling sheets and take the polluted ones away. In the bathroom she ran a tub and threw in the pomegranate bath salts Babe provided. Six-thirty on her watch. Night was over and it was full daylight out.
In the hot pink water her brain finally cleared. A chill thought struck her: if this sick punishment of a joke was directed at her, the self-anointed she-wolf, recoverer of lost corpses, it was a good get-even for hiding behind Bish as an alibi. But what if it wasn’t a joke? She ruled out everything they said: death and suicide were equally impossible, but still felt fatally unsettled.
In the dream she dug for Bruce; but the blood she found was her own. If Bish was really gone, she would feel his absence in the universe. Nothing would ever be the same without him; food would lose its taste and alcohol its buzz. Language and ideas would lose their magic.
She assembled daylight reason while she scrubbed. She couldn’t call Bish’s house at six-thirty in the morning and ask, “Are you dead?”
But she knew someone she could call. She stepped out of the bath and set the raspberry-colored water swirling down the drain, plugged in a tampon from her cosmetic case, wrapped herself in an oversized terry robe, and dialed Ned on Babe’s landline. No cell reception at the lagoon, thanks to Babe’s buyers and their militant battle against the ugliness of cell towers. Fortunately she’d memorized the number.
His voice wasn’t tired at all. Clearly he had been up for hours. Bad sign, right there. “Oh, Perse,” he said. ”Hoping it was you. Sorry about all the messages I left, but I feel bad about the other night. I wasn’t much of a Romeo. Usually I take better precautions.” Time to mentally re-orient. She had forgotten he, too, had seeded her, because it felt so much like she had seeded him. Maybe she had, from the emotion in his voice.
“You were fine. Sorry to call so early, but Jarod says they caught the guy who killed Stormee.” “Well, hardly caught,” said Ned. “I wish. His wife found him last night in their garage. Apparently he left a confession and then shot himself. It’s totally unconnected to our serial case.”
“Bishop DeBarr?” “That’s him. You know him?” “He’s my best friend. This isn’t a suicide, Ned. Believe me, it’s impossible. And he couldn’t kill anyone or anything. You have to take it from me: he absolutely isn’t the type.” “That’s what friends and families always say. If I could only tell you. “The unlikeliest guy.”” Why couldn’t he ever take her word for anything? She cursed his detective, policeman self. She wished he was right in front of her so she could smack him.
“He doesn’t even own a gun.” “He stole one of Gunver’s.” “And wasn’t that convenient! I tell you, you’re being messed with. Everybody’s lying to you.”
He delivered the final curse: “DNA doesn’t lie.” In her frustration she beat the bedside table with her fist. “Well in this case, your God has failed. For one thing, didn’t you tell me the DNA was tailless? Bish has two kids.”
“Well, maybe some of them had tails. Maybe they used to have tails. How would I know? Maybe the kids are adopted. A match is a match. It’s him among forty billion; nothing you can do about it. Trust me, friends can surprise you. You really can’t be objective about your friends. He was at the party, right?”
“He was,” she admitted. “He begged me to get him an invitation.” That was the trouble with unplanned, messy truth; what chance did it have against a cleverly organized lie? Lies could be designed to meet every contingency; truth was just the truth. What could she say to convince him? Truth was too big, it overwhelmed paperwork, boxes checked off so people could go home. Why couldn’t she open his inner eye of wisdom the way he had opened hers?
Maybe, like anything else, you have to want it. Persey was beginning to develop a taste. The Bird Lady always said, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. “This situation is a complete fake,” she assured him. She summoned up his jargon, a word that he could understand. “Staged. It’s staging, that’s what it is.”
His voice became more distant; she could hear him float away. “Then an investigation will show that to be the case,” he told her patiently. “I’ll keep you apprised. OK?”
No, she didn’t want to be “apprised.” Sounded like a livestock judging at the county fair. She wouldn’t be sent home with a pretty colored ribbon. She didn’t want to be “apprised”, she wanted him to change things.
“How about the storage locker?” she asked aggressively. “Have you been out there?”
“Not yet.” He sighed. She read that sigh. He was thinking her hormonal, just like Roy had; Jarod, Babe, everyone.
“Well, what’s the holdup?” “You didn’t tell me Jarod Gunver’s name is on the rental application. I can’t investigate a fellow cop. That has to go through Internal Affairs. Delay, delay.” She froze. Goddamnit! Checkmate.
“Then it’s too late,” she said. Evidence was too fragile. It would be destroyed. IA would tell Jarod he was being investigated. Her voice was biting. “It’s over.” “Justice crawls, Persey. That’s the way it works. Nothing moves as fast as in the movies.” How she hated his superiority!
“I’ll tell you what happened. Jarod got to the medical examiner, or whoever guards the DNA. He switched the samples, don’t you see? Or he made them do it.” Poor trusting, thrill-seeking Bish. Too painful even to imagine how his sample was acquired. The distant voice acquired an edge. Maybe Ned was a useless genie.
“Can you hear yourself? You sound like a conspiracy nut.” Damn him! “You’re the one who told me crime scenes have been altered – you said it happens all the time.”
She had finally managed to make him angry; it was a poor substitute for contact but it was all she had going now.
“You have a lot of nerve saying that! I did it for you!” “And I found those bodies for you! I’m the one who got your stupid case off the ground. You’re the one who altered the scene to disguise who really found those bodies! That’s the point!”
“It ain’t switching lab samples. Ever heard of Occam’s razor? Your scenario is just too unlikely!” She challenged him. “Unlikely or impossible?”
He had the grace to hesitate and consider the question on its merits. “Well, nothing is impossible. But no justice system can idiot-proof the outer fringe of probability.”
Was he insulting her? Sounded like his anger had subsided. He was back in command, wielding the tools of rationality he said had saved his life, sanity and job. But not his relationships, of course. Too bad, she thought. Tools construct fences. Fences protect ideas from becoming free-range.
“Think horses, not zebras,” he quoted patronizingly. “Now what exactly is your complaint against Jarod Gunver? What’s he ever done to you? Why don’t you tell me about it? I’m listening. “ He was hopeless. He wanted to fight fire with textbooks. Just like the blood in her dream her anger bubbled up, threatening to engulf the universe. Thanks to the Bird Lady, she could match him.
“Well, I have a quote for you,” she said. “Reality astonishes theory.” And she hung up on him. It was something the Bird Lady quoted about the humble bumblebee. Science doesn’t know everything.
Her exultation crashed. It only hurt worse because she’d allowed herself to climb. She’d lost Bish; the universe had lost him, and it was her fault. Obsessed as she was with her own problems she’d brought him in. He’d been a friend to her; to him she was nothing but destruction and danger. But she couldn’t collapse now. Hadn’t Ned promised she would recognize justice if she saw it? He had been there, he sworn he had seen justice close up so it must exist. She’d have to take him at his word.
“Woman up,” she said out loud with a bitter laugh. She should have quoted the truest saying; if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself.
No one in the upstairs hall, but downstairs she encountered Mickey. Mickey wore a velvet smoking jacket and a string tie. He enfolded her in a warm hug. In spite of his age, bay window avoirdupois and burned Chia Pet perm, Persey knew they were cousins beneath the skin. Outsiders, that’s what they were. The pair had no chance to exchange a single sentence before the pocket doors of Babe’s bookless library slid open and Babe herself appeared.
“Oh, there you are, Mickey,” she said, chastising freely as if they were alone, “Did you really have to wear that tie? String ties are déclassé. Zip?” She presented her back, scarred red from surgery. Mickey obediently zipped up the tissue of gold lamé.
“We’re about to sit down to dinner and the wine is overdue for opening. We need to let it breathe. Even wine needs oxygen! Make an effort, for God’s sake.”
“We” was Mickey. It was always Mickey Babe had not lost the ability to open a wine bottle, or manipulate that neo-Victorian gadget Persey thought resembled nothing so much as a gynecological instrument of torture. Help, help, the wine is suffocating, thought Persey, smothering a laugh. Hurry, we must give it mouth- to-mouth.
Babe led the charge into the dining room, heels clicking on parquet. Mickey, who never complained about the tasks she gave him or registered displeasure covertly or overtly, submitted the bottle’s neck to the wrought-iron guillotine. “You’re so pale, Persey,” said her mother-in-law critically.
Persey jumped, having almost forgotten she was a participant in this scene and not simply an observer. So this was what it felt like to be a ghost, all eyes and memory; without ties or responsibility. It was not unpleasant.
“I don’t care for this so-called “natural” look,” Babe nattered on. “What’s natural these days? If we were “natural” we’d be hairy cave dwellers. We’re far beyond that. You need all the help you can get, poor thing.” She pinched Persey’s cheek: hard. And sighed. “It’s as if you have no blood in you.”
As Persey gazed into the back of Babe’s eyes, looking for Bruce, what she saw was the older woman’s expression deepen into triumph.
“Maybe you’re pregnant! That’s one of the signs of early pregnancy, you know, a certain peakedness. Feeling queasy? I know I couldn’t keep anything down. Forget the bloom of pregnancy! I looked like hell for nine long months. How are you sleeping?”
“Horribly,” said Persey. The truth was easiest, but did not make for charming dinner conversation. Stomachs, then bed. Civilized converse should be better disguised. She missed Bish.
“Well, I don’t think it would hurt to take an Ambien. Or if you like, I can call Dr. Zu and have him make you up some tea.”
Persey doubted Dr. Zu was an insomnia expert for a woman he had never seen. Babe’s determination to stave off ill health and old age with an army of chiropractors, acupuncturists and naturopaths appeared nonsensical; whatever was ordered by one was probably cancelled by the next. Maybe the “doctor” title wasn’t an honorific, but a mistranslation. Probably Chinese for wizard.
Babe herself was looking a bit run-down. But at least the chatelaine, though haggard beneath her maquillage, seemed to have plenty of energy left. After making sure Mickey performed his duties she allowed Persey to eddy in her wake as they wended their way kitchen-wards.
Persey found Babe’s kitchen an oppressively sterile chamber. Surely a kitchen should be a warm cocoon of comfort, but Babe’s resembled an icy prison where food was tortured to death. Perhaps the glossy white and stainless steel surfaces conflated food with medicine, or was nutrition another subject to be disciplined and dominated?
Queasy? Maybe she was. Persey had to cover her eyes because the black and white checkerboard floor seemed to shift beneath her feet. Babe opened up the massive Sub Zero and set out bowls of white gazpacho.
“Persey, sliver me some almonds, please?” she requested. Persey obediently inserted nuts into the silver crusher while Babe sprinkled cheese on the salads.
Jarod, invader disguised as guest, pushed the swing doors out of his way and swiveled his dark eyebeams appreciatively towards Persey. He was dressed all in black, but if “bereaved husband” was the look he was going for, a knife belt and a tight, body shirt with sleeves rolled up to expose his tats were spoiling the effect. Persey turned her back on him. He wouldn’t dare solicit her in front of Babe. But it was Babe he spoke to. “Can I help?”
“You can wheel this in,” said his hostess, pushing the serving trolley of salads in his direction. She also began loading on the bowls of soup, as if in implicit criticism of Persey’s slower deliberation. Babe at least was an efficient hostess, Persey thought, especially if you saw dinner parties as a competitive sport. She routinely fed twenty or thirty people with no help at all. Who could she find worthy to offer her help? The invisible immigrants who came in to clean she disparaged as “unpresentable”, and she was without close women friends. Babe had no peers. She seemed to prefer up- and-down relationships.
Maybe she was a tad too efficient, ordering her guests around like a synchronized sports team of which she was coach. On my signal, stand, speak, sit. Applaud. Persey had the grace to feel a little guilty for these thoughts. Look at Babe working so hard, wearing those high heels when her back must be hurting her. Those scars had looked so raw. If this vast house was finally getting to be too much, that would go a long way toward explaining Bruce’s forlorn chamber. It would also make it easier to get the truth out of her.
The dining room was oval in shape; lit only by skylights, a room where dusk was always falling and Babe’s most flattering candlelight always appropriate. The long table was loaded with glass – three wineglasses per plate plus the hurricane lamps – and glittered with Babe’s German black and gold china. The lush green carpet and magnolia wallpaper lent the impression of an elegant forest picnic. There was already a fire in the gas fireplace and Mickey presiding at the bar. Impassively he handed Babe a huge old-fashioned. He had long ago discovered what it took to mellow her out. “Would you care for a cocktail?” he asked Persey in his formal manner. “I’ll just have a glass of wine.”
“White or red?”
She studied the bottles of breathless red, panting on the sideboard. ”Red, please.” The wine was Yugoslavian, what the peasants call “bull’s blood”. Warm and oniony, with a high iron content. Reminiscent of the blood she and Roy had licked from one another’s teenage wounds. Roy himself was last to appear. Babe refused to allow the others take their seats without him, so the guests lounged about the room in an impromptu cocktail party, like characters in a play.
Bruce did not walk in. This could only be beautiful Roy, Persey’s husband, fresh from his shower. In spite of the frost between them, Persey felt a pang of protective love. What a pity he was so perfect still. Was there no time left to start over, or had things gone too far? Could she trust him? Could he trust her?
The sight of those boyish wet curls escaping from behind his ears almost tamed Persey’s raging heart. In the past this was a detail she would personally have corrected, loving his submission beneath her scissors, saving the curls for her private treasure trove.
In spite of his feigned deafness to his mother’s social demands, he had dressed up, glittering in a pearl-buttoned Western shirt and a pair of leather pants he would never spoil by wearing out of doors. His pale eyes beneath their lupine brows sought Persey out and found her where she stood against the wall, her black dress camouflaged against the trunk of a magnolia tree. Clutching her glass of blood-red wine.
Bruce would never look this nervous, thought Persey. Bruce wouldn’t be afraid of me. I’m Roy’s conscience, he knows that he’s done wrong. Mickey came to Roy’s side immediately with a glass of iceless Glenlivet, understanding what he liked. Or needed. Persey saw Babe war briefly with herself, itching to quell her impulse to rule out her son’s curls. “Well, then, here we all are,” she sighed. “All together.”
Bluff Mickey raised his own glass. “What shall we drink to?” Babe regarded him repressively. “It’s a sad occasion,” she warned. “Toasts are inappropriate.” “Not on my account,” said Jarod, handing over his already empty glass for seconds. “Or Stormee’s. Stormee lived for parties. She couldn’t rest if she knew she’d ruined one.”
Stormee routinely ruined parties, thought Persey, usually with her insistence that every game be played her way. That alone probably killed her. Babe put an arm over Jarod’s shoulders and personally escorted him to his chair at the hostess’ right.
“You were wise to come to the water,” she told him. “This is the place for people in grief. Stay as long as you like.”
Persey could scarcely hide a smile. Here was an unconsidered possibility. Why shouldn’t Jarod become Babe’s best friend? Wouldn’t that solve everything? Let him stay here forever. What would Roy think of his buddy as his own stepfather? Let’s offer him up to Babe as a human sacrifice. “Everyone ready?” Babe touched a button and the sounds of the Flower Duet from Lakmé – her signature tune – swelled from the walls.
Persey placed a bowl of gazpacho on each charger, ignoring Roy who loomed behind, aggressively not helping. Jarod pulled out Babe’s chair, Mickey pulled out Persey’s. There was nothing for Roy to do. After pacing for a moment like a caged lion, he sat down.
“Have I seen that skirt before?” Babe asked her daughter in law. Was the note of disapproval in her voice a product of Persey’s imagination, and if not, what did it imply? Was failure to purchase a new outfit for the occasion a personal insult to the hostess, or was she resentful on Stormee behalf? Hard to know just what to wear to commemorate an unexpected blasting into the netherworld. She said, “Probably. It’s my favorite one. My only long black skirt.”
Babe laughed explosively. “I think a woman’s entitled to more than one black skirt! Do you know I’ve got twenty pairs of red shoes? I counted.”
“I’m sure there’s something unique about each pair,” suggested Mickey. “This looks delicious, Babe.”
“It’s the memories they hold I cherish,” said Babe, her voice throbbing. “Perhaps that’s a sign of age. But I find I can’t get rid of an item of clothing once I’ve worn it someplace special. I always remember exactly what I was wearing when — whenever anything important happened.” No one cared to probe that story deeper. Persey tasted the gazpacho. It was wonderful. Her spoon turned up a welcome grape.
Mickey carefully poured each guest half a glass of white wine, then passed the bottle for inspection. Drinking was usually heavy at Babe’s parties; one had to pace oneself. Happy with the nourishing thickness of her red wine, Persey was not likely to savor this new offering.
But she was savvy enough to compliment the hostess on her decorating changes, and there were always decorating changes. Get on her good side.
“You’ve had the ceiling papered!” It was a pale blue paper sprinkled with gauzy silver clouds and gold stars. The gold stars glittered reflections of the candlelight. Babe purred like a kitten. “Oh, Babe it’s charming.” Persey meant it.
Babe laughed outright with pleasure. “You’ll never believe where I got it. It was on clearance at the Just for Babies outlet – don’t ask me what I was doing there — and so I bought the whole inventory. In hurricane season that damn skylight leaks, but now I have plenty of extra paper if necessary. And do you know those stars are painted in luminous paint, so even without light they still glow?” “They have to reflect something,” said Roy in his quarrelsome way. “Paint can’t generate light.” Still the stargazers glanced upwards, entranced.
“I wonder if there are actual constellations represented,” said Mickey, “And if so, which ones.” “Only the lucky ones,” said Babe. “Virgo and Sagittarius, eh Persey? Someone clever enough to be born beneath the lucky stars.”
Persey blanched. She had a disgusting vision of herself giving birth on this very table, against her will, held down by the others. A “bull’s blood” vision, brewed by this “black” wine. Persey didn’t need the kind of nightmares you have while wakeful. She set it down and picked up the white. White was better because no one could detect a surreptitious watering. If she kept her wits about her she could snoop when Roy was asleep, check the places she had never been, like basement and garage. Who knew what she might find? As for now, Babe had specifically requested no one ask the central question; why she was she shopping at the Just for Babies outlet, and no one did. But Persey thought she knew.
Could the advent of this mythic child explain Babe’s waning interest in the Legend of Bruce? Maybe Persey should be afraid; if she sought Bruce in garage or basement maybe she would find something even more terrible than his pale ghost; a nursery or an operating room. “I love a Jeu d’esprit,” Babe sighed. Babe never bothered to translate for those who slept through French class. Her attitude was that you’ve either got it or you haven’t, and if you haven’t got it, pretend like hell. It had always worked for her.
Wine was drunk and soup consumed in silence. Roy got up to place an extra log on Mickey’s fire, reminding Mickey of his interloper status. Persey rose and traded soup bowls for majolica salad plates. Mickey took advantage of the momentary busyness to ask Jarod, man-to-man,
“You think they’ll catch that guy?”
“They’ve got quite a few suspects. Just gave one poor bastard a polygraph.” Persey wondered if this suspect had taken Jarod’s class in How to Fool a Polygraph. According to him it was one of the lessons at Special Forces boot camp. Step on a tack while answering to mess up the baseline. You might not pass, but “inconclusive” was just as good. “Waiting must be hell,” gasped Babe. “Knowing that he’s out there.”
Hell was nothing to Jarod. “He wants us to catch him. This was a messy, crazy crime. The guy’s a first-timer on the edge.”
His willingness to discuss it sparked Babe’s curiosity. “Was it some kind of … home invasion, do they think?”
Jarod basked in the dinner table’s full attention. Whore, thought Persey. “Stormee was constantly bringing bozos home, trying to make me jealous. Just one of the reasons I was filing for divorce.”
Mr. Virtuous! thought Persey. She wondered what it would feel like to stab him in the eye with her gold-plated salad fork. In just a few short days she had learned so much about becoming homicidal. It’s always closer than we think. “It’s all about triggers”, Ned would say. Stressors.
“They even suspected me,” Jarod continued while Mickey made a shocked noise and Roy looked bored. “But I have a perfect alibi.”
“It’s terrible,” Babe commiserated. “What a nightmare!”
“Just basic police work,” instructed Jarod. “Start at the center and work outwards in concentric circles, eliminating. Next question, did I hire anybody? They’ll check my accounts, but there won’t be any money transfers.” Jarod grinned smugly. “There won’t be any money period. Such is the life of a public servant.”
Persey wished she could mention there were incentives past money, and to her personal knowledge Jarod reveled in all of them. Call them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; Secrets, Pain, Humiliation and Blackmail. But she was silent, sorting through her endive, tomato and feta salad as if seeking the invisible worm of Bish’s poem.
“Maybe it’s a revenge killing,” suggested Babe. “You must make lots of enemies in your line of work.”
“I’ve pissed off more than a few people in my time,” agreed Jarod proudly, stroking his mustache. “Most of them were pretty dangerous.”
Like me, thought Persey. You have no idea how dangerous I am. “I guess they don’t let you investigate your own case,” said Mickey. “Hardly. Bereavement leave til further notice.”
Time on his hands, thought Persey. Great. Just so he stays out of the storage unit. She prayed he would take Babe up on the offer of a longer visit. “It’s all this decadence,” spat Babe feverishly. “Our world is deteriorating like the Fall of the Roman Empire. Anything for a new thrill.”
“Swirling around the bowl,” agreed Mickey.
“We’ve interfered with natural selection, that’s the problem,“ said Roy. “They’re saving babies that are deformed, babies born drug-addicted. Leeches on society. What can they grow up to be?” That won’t serve as Bruce’s excuse, thought Persey. He was born first. He was the big one. The strong one. Roy – baby Bryan — was the weaker, the deprived one, struggling to catch up. She rose robotically to serve the lamb and rice. She preferred to bustle around. That way who would notice if she didn’t eat? But apparently someone did notice.
“This is why I worry about you bringing a child to term,” said Babe, freezing Persey’s hand in flight. “Take another scoop at least. You need to start taking better care of yourself, honey.” “I’m just not used to six course meals,” protested Persey.
“Stop worrying, Ma,” said Roy. “Look at those Asian women. No bigger than dolls themselves and they keep popping the babies out.”
“You can’t compare Persey to a slit,” said Jarod. “Those women are born crones.” Even Babe blanched at this. In fact the group was silenced as Mickey poured out the red wine and passed the bottle around. This wine was old; old enough to be a grandparent. Everyone oohed-and ahhed. Jarod sniffed the cork, like an idiot at a Hugh Hefner after-party.
“The real problem is it seems like the law is on the side of the criminals,” said Mickey, as if glad to change the subject, take the heat off his fellow outsider. “Criminals are getting away with more and more these days.”
“That’s because the barriers to proving a case are so huge,” said Jarod. “Often we know who did something, we just can’t prove it. But in this case, you better believe he won’t get away with it. It doesn’t need to get as far as court. ”
“Gonna get ganked,” said Roy. “Frontier justice.” In reality he would give the guy a medal for ridding him of Stormee, thought Persey. Probably he had.
Mickey turned to smile at Persey. “This is delicious,” he said. “Are there apples in here?”
Babe’s grin was beatific. “Persey’s lamb dish is her piece de resistance.” Persey’s first husband, the expert on human appetites, had taught her how to make this dish. But Persey knew better than to bring him up. Jarod, flushed with wine and calories, couldn’t leave the subject of murder alone.
“Sometimes even if convicted they go to mental hospitals that are more like summer camps. The question shouldn’t be whether they’re sane, but whether they’re dangerous. If you ask me, they all belong on death row. ”
“Surely anyone who commits murder is a little bit insane,” contributed Babe. “That ought to be a given. It’s just polluting the process to have all these competing experts. I mean, what’s a jury to think? They’re not scientists. If you have two experts canceling each other out, why bring on either? You’re back at zero, the way I look at it.”
Babe failed to mention her personal, extensive experience of court. “Executions should be public,” said Roy. “That would put some teeth in deterrence.” This conversation was certainly a deterrent to a dinner party, thought Persey. Mickey must have thought so too because, earning his keep by main force, he managed to turn the subject to his new boat, and the fun they’d have with it tomorrow.
After dinner was the scheduled excitement of pay-per-view boxing. That meant petits fours and coffee served in the library. Persey was happy to extract herself from the blood fest with an offer to do the dishes. She rose to load the serving trolley.
“Persey’s squeamish,” said Roy, teasingly. “Persey is afraid of blood.” Persey boiled inside, thinking of her recent finds, but her outside remained cool. Glacial. Fondness hardened to fondant. It was a reflex now; too easy if anything. Would her inner and outer lives ever coalesce?
“Persey needs to think about Persey.” Babe squeezed her daughter-in-law’s shoulder and air-kissed in her general direction. “Do you know, they used to think pregnant women’s fetuses were affected by anything they saw? If the baby was defective, they thought the mother had seen a ghost. I saw my dead twin uncles the week before you boys were born. I wonder if that’s what happened to poor Bruce.”
The “uh-oh” moment, thought Persey. There’s one at every dinner party. Get me out of here. But her hands were full of china and glass. Roy’s face predictably suffused.
“What a crock of shit,” he said. “Don’t you bring up that name at this table.” Had he forgotten who lived here and who had run away? But Jarod came to Babe’s assistance.
“You saw a ghost?” he asked, really interested. Was he wondering whether Stormee had the power to come after him?
“I saw them both.” Tears fogged the iridescent whites of her heavily made up eyes, glistening in the candle shine. “They died in a car crash when I was a child and the caskets had to be closed but there they were, young and whole, standing outside my window, waving at me. But I couldn’t hear what they were saying.”
”They call those old wives’ tales for a reason,” said Roy.
As Persey took his plate, he touched her belly tentatively. Reverently. Persey deliberately spilled gravy on the beloved leather pants, bracing for a fight. To her surprise he threw his napkin over it as if he hadn’t even seen the stain.
Babe commented obliquely,
“When things are so hard to forget, it’s better not to remember them in the first place.” She mimicked her son’s gesture, brushing Persey’s belly lightly, but not light enough for Mickey to miss it.
“Are we expecting a glad announcement?” he asked cluelessly as Persey swept the dishes out from beneath his nose.
She couldn’t spill food on everyone. She was sick of all of them looking through her to the other person they imagined in her belly.
“Life is full of surprises,” she answered ironically. If she pretended to be pregnant, would that encourage them to leave her alone? She answered her own question. Not for one minute. Roy and his mother locked eyes voicelessly. Persey turned her back on the pair of them and wheeled the cart into the kitchen. Housework went faster to rock music; so she shifted the radio away from Babe’s usual cacophony of alarmist talking heads. It was a relief having something to do. She hummed to the music of Savage Garden, one of her favorites: “Time will be the thief and the fallen king will end up alone.”
The Bird Lady’s tale about the princess who rescued her brothers from life as swans sprang into her mind unbidden. Under a sentence of silence the princess wove jackets out of nettles. Washing the Black Knight china and the Lalique crystal by hand was not dissimilar, especially if the water was really hot. She didn’t bother with gloves, welcoming the scorching blast to sterilize her rings and nails.
Her period was late, but she couldn’t be pregnant. She had seen too many terrible things. She willed a gush of lubrication between her legs.
She was placing leftovers in Tupperware for Babe to feed to poor Mickey throughout the week when she heard the door open behind her and felt Jarod approach like a darkening fog. Deliberately she refused to turn until she knew he was standing right behind her. She hoped he could not see her shoulders stiffen against his touch. He didn’t know her well enough to tell what she might be thinking; no one did. He planted himself in her path. She dodged around him to open the SubZero and take out the cream.
“You can take in the coffee cart,” she said, not looking at him. Eye contact would give away how much she hated him, and he would take that as a tribute. She had never felt this way about anyone in her life before. If only ideas could become reality, as Ned said, she would willingly have incinerated him right here in Babe’s kitchen. With pleasure she imagined pointing out to the others his smudgy pile of ash.
“In a minute,” said Jarod. He launched himself up on the counter – showing off as usual – unpleasantly close to the dishwasher. If he thought she was going to load it between his oozing thighs he had another think coming. She would defrost the frostless freezer first.
“Roy says you’re pissed at me,” said Jarod.
Finally she turned to face him when a safe number of black and white squares stretched between them. Knights move only two squares at a time; pawns hardly move at all, queens command the field. She was a princess. He couldn’t touch her.
“I think you take advantage of people,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest to keep her heart from leaping out.
There was something odd about his face. He’d clipped the messy tendrils from moustache and beard. For whose benefit had he discarded his usual persona of heavy metal thrasher? It was almost as if he cared what Persey thought of him. Too bad; the kitchen’s unflattering fluorescent lighting lent a unearthed corpse cast to his greenish skin. He was spoiled forever now; ruined. There would be no resurrection.
“Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly you didn’t care what it took to get it?” he asked her. She did know. She turned away so he couldn’t see the memory of Ned.
“You’re missing your game,” she said coldly, pouring cream in one pitcher and skim in another. The petit fours were cold, but there was a frigid quality to all Babe’s food; sub-zero about described it. No time now to allow them to come up to room temperature. This dinner party needed sugar. Probably they were all sitting in the library jonesing for the rush.
“The first part is worthless,” he told her. “It’s only at the end that it gets interesting.” Was he talking about boxing? This was one-night-stand Jarod speaking. But why were his eyes still hungry? What more could he want? A frightening notion: he wanted Roy’s wife because he wanted Roy’s life.
“Roy’s not enough for you?” she inquired.
Jarod chuckled. “I like the ladies,” he asserted. “But boys will be boys. I’m a hungry, hungry man. Fast food’s OK if that’s all there is. I’ll take it on the run at a pinch. But everyone prefers a four-star meal.”
Drive-thru sex. He’d described himself. If Roy could see him now, would the scales fall? She feared he was too far gone. She turned her back on Jarod to let him know she was finished with him and began wheeling out the cart herself. As if to comment that he was good for nothing. That got him off the counter. He pursued her.
“Hey, I’m trying to apologize.” He was touching her now, way too close, her frenzied pounding heart giving her away. She closed her eyes. “Don’t touch me.”
In a harsh angry whisper he hissed, “I know what you’re really like, sweetmeat, so don’t pose with me. I been there. You ain’t above it.”
He had been there the way Kilroy saw Paris. She maneuvered the cart between them and shoved it at him.
Nothing ever happens the way you expect. Roy, acting normal, a little cold perhaps, never sought the alibi prepared so carefully for his delectation.
The slow week sped up; now they were driving in tandem to Babe’s house, Jarod steaming up ahead. Persey hated leaving Digger at the kennel, but dogs were not welcome in Babe’s bell jar of a mansion. Time itself was banished there. Eager to ask Babe about Bruce, Persey had pushed for the trip; and now she was stuck with Jarod too, because according to Roy, the “grieving widower” could not be left alone.
Persey certainly didn’t want to ride with Jarod, so the game of “drive it like you stole it” the two men played must be Persey’s fault.
This was the genesis of her driving phobia, she thought, sitting white knuckled and braced against the door. Neither man could bear a vehicle in front, and Jarod wasn’t above turning on his bar lights or riding the shoulder to gain an advantage. Conversation was hopeless; she could barely bring herself to open her eyes.
She practiced deep breathing while Roy bounced the truck into the breakdown lane at eighty miles an hour. Remonstrating would only make him worse and if they got into a wreck it would be her fault for distracting him.
She was so relieved to find herself in one piece Persey was actually happy to see Babe’s house up ahead. Babe’s house, and the development it pinnacled, were quite a sight. Twelve palaces on interlocking man-made lagoons represented the apex of Roy Senior’s life achievement. Babe often said that it was the perfect house that broke her perfect marriage. She meant it as a cautionary tale, against, presumably, reaching for that final upgrade. Not that she ever tried to dissuade anybody from making the same mistake; it was to her advantage to get that signature on the dotted line. If she lived alone in a five-bedroom, six- bathroom house, no doubt her clients saw it as a monument to success, not failure.
In spite of Roy’s best offensive moves, Jarod pulled into the driveway first and was standing on the path with his hostess as Roy and Persey parked. Roy turned his back huffily on Persey as if his loss was clearly her fault. He was the one encumbered with human luggage conspiring to slow him down. Burdened only by a bottle of wine and a paper cone of flowers, Jarod floated free. “What kept you?” Jarod teased.
Roy took off his cowboy hat and hit his friend on the shoulder with it.
“I had to let you win. You know how Persey PMS’s.” In a high voice he mimicked her: “Roy, that’s just too fast.”
“Yeah,” Jarod agreed, swaggering in his “Fuck Fear” t-shirt, “We had air.” Wearing an Opium-perfumed caftan of gold and silver tissue, Babe rushed out to greet them. “Thank God you’re safe, Bryan,” she said, reaching for a hug. There was an awful silence as the blood drained from Roy’s face and exploded into his eye- sockets. Terrified, Babe covered her mouth.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Roy,” she whispered nervously. “It was a mistake. I know you hate that name.” He jerked his head away from her, sinews jangling in his neck. It was Jarod who rescued the moment. He chose that second to deliver his gifts to Babe so he could slide both arms around his buddy’s shoulders.
“Gorgeous house.”
Persey was awestruck at this demonstration of his power. Nobody else could have touched Roy just then. Roy was basking in Jarod’s envy. He relaxed and smiled. “Water view from every room,” said the developer’s son. The Bad Moment was averted. Roy lifted out his wife’s luggage and Persey rescued the crockpot of lamb from the front seat. “Let me get that for you, sweetmeat.”
Muscles bulging, Jarod seemed more than willing to arm-wrestle her for it. She wanted to smack him, but Babe was watching so she allowed him to win. They walked together up the crazy-paving towards the house.
Babe could talk and walk at the same time.
“See what a big success your flower bed is, Roy? Roy dug up all those nasty dead rhododendrons for my birthday, and planted all this blue salvia. I added the birdbath. Of course the birds won’t come this close to the house – it’s really just for show. What do you think, Persey?”
“Gorgeous,” said Persey, deliberately echoing Jarod. A word as good as any, and Babe accepted it unironically. She contemplated this strange evidence of Roy doing anything for his mother. Was this Bruce’s real gravesite? Could Roy have told any version of the truth when he bragged to her about his kill?
That would be the final joke on poor Babe; two childless sons in a death struggle, the loser locked forever beneath her perfect lawn. Persey poked the dirt with her foot. Was Ned searching Roy’s storage locker while Bruce moldered beneath his mother’s sod? If Bruce was finally dead then all the deaths would stop. But if Bruce was really gone, why wouldn’t he leave Persey alone? Impatiently, Babe seized Persey’s shoulders, branded her a “slowpoke” and scuttled her along. “I’ve got so much to show you,” she burbled.
In the front hall Persey caught Jarod by surprise and wrested the crockpot back. Jarod surrendered, smiling into Persey’s eyes as if they had a secret, playful understanding. Roy whisked his friend upstairs to see his room.
Babe was well prepared as usual. The table was already set and the food prepared in advance. Persey plugged in the crockpot and centered it on the serving cart. As usual, Babe followed too closely, invading her daughter-in-law’s space, nattering on in her pressured speech. She behaved like a woman who never saw other people, but Persey knew that wasn’t the case. Maybe it’s me, thought Persey. She saves things up to tell me. Maybe she has to be so different around her “marks” that taking off the professional girdle produces an explosion.
Babe set Jarod’s modest wine on the buffet and began inserting his flowers into the centerpiece, the casually acquired daisies — probably from a convenience store — looking ridiculous among the calla lilies.
“I want to tell Jarod I’m so sorry about his devastating loss, but under the horrific circumstances I don’t know if it’s even polite to bring it up. I mean, why remind him? On the other hand, I wouldn’t want him to think I’m cavalier about his feelings.
But considering how it happened, what can one possibly say? I know what it is to lose someone you love, but in that awful way…and also—“ she hissed the words – “they were getting a divorce. So how does one handle that? I may be the only person here who fully comprehends the pain of losing someone you’re so angry at. It doesn’t make it better, it makes it worse. Because you can’t take back the things you’ve said. You’ll never be able to –“
“I really need to take a shower, Babe,” said Persey. “Then I’ll be right back down.” No point waiting for a break in Babe’s monologue because one never, ever came. “You go,” said Babe dismissively. “Cleanse yourself.” Presumably she knew what it was like to sit in a car with Roy.
Persey hurried through the marble foyer, up the chocolate and yellow Chinese stair carpet, past huge shellacked paintings of shorebirds frozen in driftwood frames, only to stumble over Roy and Jarod hunched conspiratorially at the top of the stairs. They admired not the lagoon view, but the doorjamb displaying Bruce’s and Bryan’s heights throughout the years. This was one of Babe’s most annoying affectations. For Pete’s sake, they were identical twins – why set them against each other? To hear the doorjamb tell it, Bruce was taller. Persey didn’t buy it. Did he stand straighter, wear different shoes, or was Babe just trying to drive her second son crazy?
“But you didn’t grow up here,” Jarod protested. “They brought the wood from Germany,” said Roy. Jarod stroked his chin in admiration. “My family torched the place where I grew up,” he said. “Nobody gave a shit.”
Persey had to push past them to get to her bedroom. Interior decorating was Babe’s greatest pleasure, her area of self-appointed expertise. She considered all rooms should be “done over” every three to five years and was beginning to nag Persey to change her house, just when she felt it was perfect. But Babe was less interested in what people actually liked than in what they ought to like. And she turned all the family’s memories into artifacts.
To Persey’s mind, this curator’s approach sabotaged memory without enhancing it. The stories Roy told of his childhood hardly matched the atmosphere of showcased baptismal suits and framed sports trophies. Too bad Babe refused to listen to the facts about anything; it certainly took nerve to discuss the truth with her. She was “truth-blind.” Still, Persey had to try.
Babe even took the time to update Bruce’s room, allowing none to stay there. Jarod would be given the Chinese room, sometimes called “the Lacquer Room,” because it fell to anyone Babe was trying to impress. Quite a showpiece if dragons didn’t give you nightmares. Most importantly, it had its own bathroom, whereas Roy and Persey had theoretically to share with Bruce. But so far at least, Bruce had never shown up to claim his rights.
Maybe Roy liked his room. He sometimes seemed almost proud of his mother’s rather tarty taste. He carefully monitored his “Wall of Triumph”—the endlessly reframed photographs of childhood and wedding, newspaper catalogues of sporting and business accomplishments, checking to see what was. different. God forbid anything should ever be taken away. Accretion – never diminution — was the only possibility. This wall contained Persey’s favorite photograph of Roy, the last in a series of diving stills. Here his nineteen-year-old face the way she had first seen it, erupting from the water with open eyes. Wet and reborn, it was the picture of her husband that she carried in her heart. Roy’s room was now outfitted in deep blue fabric and embossed maroon leather. Babe considered these “masculine” colors. The pale colors Persey preferred caused Babe to needle Roy, as he’d “lost” that argument.
A new and rather strange pelmet was suspended over the headboard, as if for minor royalty. On Roy’s night table stood a close-up of Babe herself, a flattering glamour shot in a malachite frame carefully positioned to be the last thing Roy saw before turning off the light. Persey smiled. She knew Roy wouldn’t allow it to remain. In fact, Babe would be lucky if, during the course of this visit, it didn’t end up smashed against a wall.
Persey hastily unpacked, laying out a long black chiffon skirt and a short black velvet top on the bed. Babe made a fetish and ritual of dressing for dinner. Circumstance called for black on black. The funerals were not yet over and perhaps never would be.
It was Persey’s plan to be the first one ready, the better to have a chance to explore Bruce’s room. Roy would think she was just avoiding him, as she had all week. If Bruce lived on – if his mother knew — wouldn’t there be some kind of sign?
She was in the shower when the door opened and Roy stepped inside. He turned his back on her and began soaping himself, not her as he usually did. Why the hell was he mad at her? Was he angry that she didn’t like his friend? She should be the one withholding and furious. His advent meant it was time to get out of the shower. From this point on, it could only make her dirtier.
In front of the mirror she twisted her hair upon her head, sprayed Bal a Versailles haphazardly at herself and dressed hurriedly. Didn’t matter what she looked like for this crew. The only finishing touches were her opal dinner ring and a breastplate necklace. Because the bathroom door to Bruce’s room was mirrored, it felt like stepping through the looking glass to enter his domain. Bruce’s “Wall of Triumph” was a lot smaller and contained no information about his rape conviction.
The color scheme was olive leather and dark green fabric, but Persey sniffed out a half-hearted quality in the decorating. Could Babe finally be tiring of the Legend of Bruce? The emotional upkeep must be horrendous. The curtains were drawn and the room smelled musty. In spite of Roy’s bragging Bruce lacked a water view. She waited three beats but no Bruce uncoiled to spring at her. Were the twin sleigh beds some kind of subtle acknowledgement of the reduced emotional needs of sex offenders? Or a formal reminder of Bruce’s supposed age at death?
The beds were made, but clearly hadn’t been slept in, and the mattresses were still encased in crackling plastic. Either Bruce was still a bedwetter or Babe must know her son would never come home. No place would be set for him at the table tonight. Persey peered into dusty wall displays of riding bits and spurs. Had Bruce really used these – on horses or people – or had Babe just picked them up at auction? To her, the past was only the way things should have been.
The closet was packed with boxes, marked, “Hockey”, “Christmas” and “Swap.” Babe, the packrat, ever acquiring. Wasn’t hoarding a disease? Persey felt smothered by all this junk; in a raging fire, who would know what to save? There was no distinction between the vital, the memorable, and the weird. Under Bruce’s bed was a box marked “Broken”. Persey pulled it out in case it might contain Bruce himself. But it was filled with shattered plates, dismembered lamps, anonymous bits of wood. Only a broken person saves broken things.
Sitting on his bed, she closed her eyes and tried to summon him up, but the room itself was dead. She felt closer to Bruce in her own house, anywhere but here. Bruce had gained a reputation for doing exactly what he wanted, so, what did he want? She tried to imagine him climbing the stairs in darkness, coming to reclaim his heritage. Would he tiptoe so as not to wake his mother, or would he saunter like a conqueror?
Bruce was gone; this room was now a junk repository. Hadn’t its previous incarnations been more youthful? She recalled school pennants and rock posters.
Was this present somber sadness a final acknowledgement that Bruce was dead against all the hopeless wishes? Was Babe giving up?
Perhaps — revolutionary thought — Babe was secretly just as glad to get rid of Bruce as his brother was. It must be a relief to rid oneself of policemen and probation officers. Now who was there to interfere as she molded Bruce’s image to her own? Only Bruce himself, he who had asserted his real personality in the most decisive way.
Was this where he was supposed to have hanged himself? Some detective I am, thought Persey. I can’t find out the basic facts. Cops loved lies — the more stories to check the better — but she herself had no appetite for Babe’s falsehoods. Perhaps she could borrow Ned’s approach; be a buddy. Don’t let them know you think they’re mutant. Let Babe ramble on; accept her confidence, be her friend. That was one thing the woman who had everything didn’t have.
There was more than one reason she needed to see Bish. Only with Bish could she share her fresh discovery: that sex, the devouring ritual, can birth a new self. No wonder men thought they could become stronger giving themselves away. Would Bish proclaim this new insight “poem-worthy”? His highest accolade.
Bish transcended ordinary girlfriends because he lacked the spark of competition. He was all sympathy, all nourishment, all delight; just like the Bird Lady really.
She couldn’t say any of this to Ned; the healing she extracted from his body distanced them. Was that what always happened when another person’s being became a field of play? Now she was initiated into the secret Bruce had always known; Roy and Jarod, too. There was a first time for everything. Was this what being guiltless felt like? Like a warrior she flicked the pain away. Bish would sort it out. She was impenetrable once again.
Cinda and Bish’s house was in the kind of development Babe and Roy could bond in ridiculing. They were never so united as when running someone down. Babe would call it “Big Sky Country” because it lacked mature plantings; Roy would dub it “Alcatraz” because of all the floodlights. Bish would have laughed with them; he named it “Bolonial Estates.” This was reality; what an insurance adjuster and an editor working full and over-time, could actually afford.
Bish opened the door, notebook to chest, a smile on his eager face. He wore yoga pants and a Hard Rock t-shirt. He ushered her inside.
“Princess! Bless your psychic abilities; I summoned and you came. I need help on my poem. I know I should put it away and sleep on it but I whenever I close my eyes I’m afraid I might miss something wonderful– like you. Sleep is such a waste. A fifty year old man who hasn’t slept at all has lived a hundred years.”
He waved his notebook in front of her eyes. “I’ve gotten myself in an embarrassing knot, like a kitten with a ball of string. I need you to cut me loose.”
“Oh Bish,” she protested, shrugging off her jacket, “You know I’m no good with words.”
He ushered her inside. “Never run yourself down, princess. It’s not even true. By the way, may I say you’re looking especially ravishing this evening? Or should I say ravished? Love the bellybutton set to full exposure.”
She blushed, wondering what he would say if he knew this time she was the ravisher, and Bish’s face crumpled in delight.
“But enough about me! This needs to be all about you.” He took her jacket, murmuring thoughtfully, “Will you tell me or will you force me to guess? I warn you, Cinda’s not here so we only have one player.”
That was a relief. Cinda couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. Gracefully as she could manage, Persey said. “I need you both. But I want you.” Bish purred with satisfaction. “I knew it! Well said. And you claim to be no good with words! Yet as we are promised to others we must yearn in silence.” She glanced around the living room with pleasure. Cinda and Bish’s house was always a mess, but it was a reassuring mess. “Lived-in” Babe the realtor would say, and she didn’t mean it as a compliment. But to Persey the house was as comfortable as a favorite pair of jeans; maybe not for every day, but treasured as the very definition of comfort and satisfaction.
“Feng Shui by way of Fisher Price,” Bish sighed, kicking a Big Wheel out of her way. Through the tumble of plants, books, kids’ toys and furniture in various stages of disrepair darted unnumbered cats with complex personalities and literary names. African and Native American art on the walls, Orientals on the floor, an admittedly fake fire – who had time to drag in logs? — glowing on the hearth, the violins of Mozart sounding low and sweet. According to Bish Bach was heaven’s official musician, but God preferred Mozart.
This was not a place Roy could ever visit, not with his allergies. No Roy. No Bruce. No Jarod. Batik draperies were drawn tight against the world’s judgmental eyes.
Bish shook a tempting bottle of sherry at his guest. “Nepenthe? I’ve got special glasses, just for you.”
As he went to get them she picked up the discarded notebook. Through furious cross-hatching she made out a few words.
The fountains of our fear shoot high at first
Across playing fields of ravishment and pain
Where soldiers murdered by hormonal burst Bless fatherlands with bonemeal spiked with brain.
Severed quarters must ejaculate their dross, As blood born of blood we consecrate to loss.
Persey fell into a mock Eames rocker. She was not psychic about Bish; Bish was psychic about her. He always had been.
“Your poem, Bish,” she called. “It’s perfect just the way it is.”
He appeared with a pair of cobalt-colored gold-veined shot-glasses. “It’s my footballer poem. Called In Heaven the Victors. I had this idea of heaven as a huge Viking feast where the victors are amazed to find the vanquished. All their enemies, in fact, everyone they defeated. So all of them sit down for a meal and a chat and get to know each other. But I don’t think I’ll ever finish. The best labors are the labors of eternity, I’m afraid.“
She looked at the shot glasses disapprovingly. “I thought I told you to use the gallon jug.”
“No, Princess, no. You have the metabolism of a hummingbird, and you’ve already had something to drink, I can see. I won’t be your enabler. Besides, you’re driving. Swallow, sister, o swallow. A thimbleful is all you’ll get.”
She flushed. “How could you tell?”
He sipped. “I know you, princess. Spend the night and you can drink all you like.” For a moment she considered it. But that would bring Roy over here. Not a nice thing to do to a friend like Bish.
“I better not,” she sighed. Bish sat on the sofa nearest her and rubbed her arm. “Princess, you’re all over bruises. Does the glam Nazi beat you?”
“Of course not,” said Persey. How to explain that Roy was just a rock and Jarod was a hard place? You’d never get a poet to agree that some things are just inexpressible, but she couldn’t tell Bish after all. Already, with his psychic powers, he seemed to pity her. And telling anything had added dangers because telling made things true. Time to woman up, she thought.
“I’d rather talk about your poem,” she sniffed, blotting her eyes with a gauze sleeve. “Inspired by your soybean field?”
He looked surprised. “Well no. Of course my experiences inform it, so to speak. But ultimately everything links to everything, in the end.” He patted her back. “Poetry is unimportant when a princess weeps.”
The sherry was so dry that, hornet–like, it stung and swelled her lips. She looked down into the empty glass. He was right about the booze. Here she was getting all maudlin.
“Where’s Cinda? Where are the kids?”
“Cinda’s out with Les girls from the office, ” said Bish, “Or so she says. One never really knows.” He looked up at the dusty ceiling with a faraway glance. “She needs time off from parenting, as don’t we all? It doesn’t take a mere village, it takes factories, highways, convenience stores and banks open round the clock to keep a family on its feet. We all wimp out occasionally.” He looked at his watch. “The baby barbarians are now asleep and I’d like to keep it that way, so keep the tumult down. God knows how they ever lose consciousness with all that Ritalin in their systems. It doesn’t work that way on me. I can only assume they’ve built a tolerance.”
Focus on the goal. She resolved to expose Bish to as little risk as possible. But she did need that alibi.
“Has Roy called looking for me?”
Bish studied her intently, eyes bugging in clown-like astonishment. “Trouble in paradise? Well, blast my eyes, Princess, it took you long enough!
People might wail about you and Roy as the perfect couple, but I was never fooled. I could see that man was starving you to death. I thought you were the “anti-couple!” I knew you’d break your bonds in time. No, princess, Roy didn’t call, or anyone else. The phone may be on the fritz again. Those damn squirrels keep building nests in the lines; they want us to be their village.
Am I the first one honored with this revelation? Undress thy soul! Where did you meet him? Or is it a her?”
She smiled to think of Ned. A pleasure merely to think of him, going on and on about hope and justice. Everyone needs a light in the window, she thought. Without that we couldn’t see at all. “It’s a him. You can’t even share this with Cinda,” she warned Bish. “I’m telling you and you only.” Bish made the time-honored gesture of locking his lips and throwing away the key. “Oh, Persey, I’m so excited! I can’t wait to hear! Is he very, very beautiful?”
She laughed. Would anyone think so besides her? “He’s very, very beautiful.”
Bish sighed ecstatically. “Of course he is. Big and strong, I’ll wager, with a perfect six-pack and eyes like coal fires. Anyone I know? Did he pledge eternal fealty as he crushed you to his massive chest and showered kisses on your upturned face or was it just a skirmish in a restaurant cloakroom? Was it worth it? Did he remind you of me? Will it be happening every Thursday?”
She rose to fetch the sherry bottle for herself since her host had cut her off. She loved this pajama party atmosphere, but she hardly knew how to answer his questions. How many nights with Ned would erase Jarod? Bruce? Roy?
“It was worth it,” was all she could commit to.
Bish’s long sigh was like a gush of pleasure. “Don’t I get a play-by play?” She shook her head. “No. Maybe someday, if you’re good.”
“Curses! Drink all you want,” Bish told her, “Then you’ll change your mind. You’ll see I can be the best girlfriend ever. Utterly discreet yet eminently supportive. Whatever you want, I’ll say. Cinda will never even guess. Oh, she would be so jealous if she knew!”
“I’m a little nervous about Cinda not being home,” said Persey. “We don’t want Roy getting jealous of you.”
“That would of course be the ultimate compliment,” said Bish. “If we hadn’t all known for years that Roy’s insane. I’m sorry Persey, but it has to be faced. Painful as it is for me especially to admit it, looks aren’t everything. He growls at people just like an animal.” He sipped his sherry thoughtfully. “OK. I’ve got it. You were babysitting. Cinda and I were both out for the evening. Capiche?
Nothing to be jealous of. Better say your car started its evening in the garage, in case he drove past. He’s not to know we’ve been unable to get any cars in there since 1999.”
Babysitting was good, thought Persey. Roy would have to buy it. Under the circumstances. Wouldn’t he?
“You’re awfully good at this alibi stuff,” teased Persey.
Bish preened. “I am a creative artist, remember. I make things up daily out of mustard and stardust. Let’s see, what time did you arrive?“ “Seven-twenty,” said Persey.
Bish’s grin deepened. He looked at his watch. “We have been having fun, haven’t we? All right, you came, we went. I’ll find out later from Cinda where we went — probably The Tropics Club. It’s dark in there, nobody ever sees anybody, and that’s the whole idea. You gave the kids dinner. Chicken nuggets, leftover Chinese and ice cream. That’s what they like, Princess, don’t look at me that way, I can’t help it. Believe me, we’ve tried to civilize them. It’s the fluoride – or the mercury –Algar — something poisoning their tiny brains. It’s like something out of a William Golding novel. They are such utter savages.”
“I guess we all were, once upon a time,” said Persey, thinking, but some of us don’t change. “What then?”
“You read a book – maybe Screwfly for the book club – I’ll give it to you — and they watched that goddam Dalmatian movie for the four thousandth time, and then the big one beat up the little one. The requisite tears before bedtime, the lachrymose moment before we say goodbye. The little one insists on it, she’s such a masochist. I suppose the boy’s a sadist but I prefer to think of him as an infant fauve. Would you like to have given them a bath? Bath night’s a hoot.”
“No, thanks. Too Much Information. Roy won’t want to know all this.”
Even I don’t, she thought, rising. Sadists, masochists, tears before bedtime was an unpleasant tour through the childhood of Bruce and Roy. She herself had longed for sibling as a buffer to distract her parents, but maybe it’s all about the hell you know, which, on the other side of the fence, could so much worse.
She looked at her watch. Almost midnight. She couldn’t just stay here swilling sherry all night, much as she’d love to freeze the moment. Her eyes searched for her jacket. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said, like a well- brought-up child.
His face collapsed in worry as he chased her to the door.
“How do you know Roy won’t go all caveman on your ass? Allow me to remind you that testosterone is a dangerous psychoactive drug. Princess, that man carries a knife with him everywhere he goes.”
But Persey knew the other Roy, the one without the knife; the Roy drowsing in the hot tub, naked and vulnerable in the shower, sweaty and boyish in bed. The other Roy was all fakery, like the feathery gills of a puffer fish. Jarod was his weapon, and poor Bish admired Jarod. It was hopeless to explain.
“I know Roy. He’d never do anything to me.” She’d given him the opportunity, but the arm raised to strike her had been stayed. It was Jarod you couldn’t trust, and he was off and running. Had he been released by Roy or Bruce?
“Here’s your book,” said Bish, handing her the volume. “I know you’ll love it. One last question, princess, this new man; is he truly worthy of you?”
Persey closed her eyes, allowing the evening’s deepening skirmishes to play out in the slow motion of memory. The sinews of his compact body were hard as ripcords. He might as well wear a sign: Pull here to save yourself. She opened her eyes.
“I’ll answer that if you answer one for me.” Bish quirked an eyebrow in astonishment. “Anything.” “I worry about being worthy of him.”
Bish’s face warmed, eyes crinkled, lips parted in a joyous grin. “Oh, Persephone, you are so modest,” he sighed. “Your sweetness makes me feel romantic. I can’t wait till Cinda comes home – won’t she get a surprise. Ask your question.”
“It’s about your poem. If the victors and the vanquished are all in heaven, then who’s in hell?” Bish spluttered his amazement.
“Silly Princess! No one believes in hell anymore!”
Alysse Aallyn 