romantic nihilism. For them, Sylvie’s songs are kind of a liturgy. Which is great. All that intense devotion. Still, I’d like to see her reach a wider audience.”
Alice couldn’t listen to Jean talk about Sylvie at the moment. She told her that Maude might have left her.
“You don’t know for sure?”
“What can I say? She’s here, then not here. She won’t stay put. I am either with her or waiting for her. I’m so used to the pattern I’m imprinted with it by now. Like T. E. Lawrence. He was beaten and maybe buggered by Turkish guards in a prison cell, and then for the rest of his life, to get aroused he had to hire someone to give him a good whipping.”
“Yes,” Jean said. “Just like you. A little more exotic than your case, maybe, what with the Turks and the prison cell and all.”
“There’s something else,” Alice said. She needed to tell someone who knew Carmen, to test the waters. “Matt is having an affair with the babysitter. I saw them in his car in a 7-Eleven lot.”
“Maybe they were getting milk.”
“They were not getting milk. They were having a big serious conversation. It’s worse than if they were making out. It means they’re already up to the serious conversation stage.”
“What’s Carmen going to do?”
“I haven’t told her. I’m still thinking about that. I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it’s better she doesn’t know. Maybe it’ll blow over.”
Long blank of dead silence from Jean. One eyebrow went up and didn’t come down.
“Okay, I know. But shut up about it now. Shut up that silence. And especially shut up that eyebrow.”
On the way back into her building, Alice pulled a handful of mail out of the box. Here was something good. She had won a fellowship. A few thousand dollars. She had applied for this, among many others, so many months back she recalled its specifics only vaguely. Coming off the elevator into her loft, another small surprise awaited her. The small breeze of Maude’s absence was no longer present. The space was filled with vague energy. Maude was on the sofa, reading a script. She was making tentative moves out of modeling, into acting.
“I missed you,” she said, then took Alice’s hand, pulling her down on top of her. “I just fucking missed you.”
At the bank the next day, Alice hummed along to the jaunty instrumental piping ludicrously from the speaker in the ceiling above her. “He blew his mind out in a car,” she hummed as she filled out a deposit slip, and saw that she had misread the amount of the fellowship check, that there was another zero at the end, ten times what she thought she was getting. About twice what she made in a year. She went over and sat down on a long leather-covered bench near the entrance. Alice had wondered in the past what this padded bench was for, who would need to sit down at the bank. Now she knew. People who needed a moment or two to accommodate the news that their life was about to change.
saints and martyrs
Carmen was frosting a cake in a kitchen electrically bright, and cozy—twice warmed by the furnace and the oven, an atmosphere antidotal to the damp chill pressing against the windows. “Imagine” was playing on the radio. Today marked ten years since John Lennon’s death and the airwaves were thick with Beatles songs.
She was so exhausted she could almost fall asleep right here, standing up. Her nights lately passed with a tumble of fatiguing dreams, wet socks in a dryer.
Abruptly, a work crew—husband, son, dog—barged in through the side door. They dragged big smells—adrenaline and chilled sweat, damp fur—with them from the alley where they’d been shoveling last night’s snow to clear a patch in front of the garage door. The blast of cold air, the noisy explosion of arrival, filled the kitchen and jostled the delicate balance of elements Carmen had assembled around her.
Matt was big when she met him, but a couple of years ago he started working out at the
Alice couldn’t listen to Jean talk about Sylvie at the moment. She told her that Maude might have left her.
“You don’t know for sure?”
“What can I say? She’s here, then not here. She won’t stay put. I am either with her or waiting for her. I’m so used to the pattern I’m imprinted with it by now. Like T. E. Lawrence. He was beaten and maybe buggered by Turkish guards in a prison cell, and then for the rest of his life, to get aroused he had to hire someone to give him a good whipping.”
“Yes,” Jean said. “Just like you. A little more exotic than your case, maybe, what with the Turks and the prison cell and all.”
“There’s something else,” Alice said. She needed to tell someone who knew Carmen, to test the waters. “Matt is having an affair with the babysitter. I saw them in his car in a 7-Eleven lot.”
“Maybe they were getting milk.”
“They were not getting milk. They were having a big serious conversation. It’s worse than if they were making out. It means they’re already up to the serious conversation stage.”
“What’s Carmen going to do?”
“I haven’t told her. I’m still thinking about that. I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it’s better she doesn’t know. Maybe it’ll blow over.”
Long blank of dead silence from Jean. One eyebrow went up and didn’t come down.
“Okay, I know. But shut up about it now. Shut up that silence. And especially shut up that eyebrow.”
On the way back into her building, Alice pulled a handful of mail out of the box. Here was something good. She had won a fellowship. A few thousand dollars. She had applied for this, among many others, so many months back she recalled its specifics only vaguely. Coming off the elevator into her loft, another small surprise awaited her. The small breeze of Maude’s absence was no longer present. The space was filled with vague energy. Maude was on the sofa, reading a script. She was making tentative moves out of modeling, into acting.
“I missed you,” she said, then took Alice’s hand, pulling her down on top of her. “I just fucking missed you.”
At the bank the next day, Alice hummed along to the jaunty instrumental piping ludicrously from the speaker in the ceiling above her. “He blew his mind out in a car,” she hummed as she filled out a deposit slip, and saw that she had misread the amount of the fellowship check, that there was another zero at the end, ten times what she thought she was getting. About twice what she made in a year. She went over and sat down on a long leather-covered bench near the entrance. Alice had wondered in the past what this padded bench was for, who would need to sit down at the bank. Now she knew. People who needed a moment or two to accommodate the news that their life was about to change.
saints and martyrs
Carmen was frosting a cake in a kitchen electrically bright, and cozy—twice warmed by the furnace and the oven, an atmosphere antidotal to the damp chill pressing against the windows. “Imagine” was playing on the radio. Today marked ten years since John Lennon’s death and the airwaves were thick with Beatles songs.
She was so exhausted she could almost fall asleep right here, standing up. Her nights lately passed with a tumble of fatiguing dreams, wet socks in a dryer.
Abruptly, a work crew—husband, son, dog—barged in through the side door. They dragged big smells—adrenaline and chilled sweat, damp fur—with them from the alley where they’d been shoveling last night’s snow to clear a patch in front of the garage door. The blast of cold air, the noisy explosion of arrival, filled the kitchen and jostled the delicate balance of elements Carmen had assembled around her.
Matt was big when she met him, but a couple of years ago he started working out at the
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