Read Online Play It as It Lays: A Novel by Joan Didion - Free Book Online
Authors: Joan Didion
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polished floor covered with shards of broken mirror and flesh-colored ceramic, they left the Christmas dinner. All that night the two of them held each other with a dumb protective ferocity but the next day at the hospital, parting, only Maria cried.
In January there were poinsettias in front of all the bungalows between Melrose and Sunset, and the rain set in, and Maria wore not sandals but real shoes and a Shetland sweater she had bought in New York the year she was nineteen. For days during the rain she did not speak out loud or read a newspaper. She could not read newspapers because certain stories leapt at her from the page: the four-year-olds in the abandoned refrigerator, the tea party with Purex, the infant in the driveway, rattlesnake in the playpen, the peril, unspeakable peril, in the everyday. She grew faint as the processions swept before her, the children alive when last scolded, dead when next seen, the children in the locked car burning, the little faces, helpless screams. The mothers were always reported to be under sedation. In the whole world there was not as much sedation as there was instantaneous peril. Maria ate frozen enchiladas, looked at television for word of the world, thought of herself as under sedation and did not leave the apartment on Fountain Avenue.
35
"I DON'T KNOW if you noticed, I'm mentally ill," the woman said. The woman was sitting next to Maria at the snack counter in Ralph's Market. "I'm talking to you."
Maria turned around. "I'm sorry."
"I've been mentally ill for seven years. You don't know what a struggle it is to get through a day like this."
"This is a bad day for you," Maria said in a neutral voice.
"What's so different about this day."
Maria looked covertly at the pay phones but there was still a line.
The telephone in the apartment was out of order and she had to report it. The line at the pay phones in Ralph's Market suddenly suggested to Maria a disorganization so general that the norm was to have either a disconnected telephone or some clandestine business to conduct, some extramarital error. She had to have a telephone. There was no one to whom she wanted to talk but she had to have a telephone. If she could not be reached it would happen, the peril would find Kate. Beside her the woman's voice rose and fell monotonously .
"I mean you can't fathom the despair. Believe me I've thought of ending it. Kaput. Over. Head in the oven.'
"A doctor," Maria said.
" Doctor . I've talked to doctors."
'You'll feel better. Try to feel better." The girl now using the nearest telephone seemed to be calling a taxi to take her home from Ralph's. The girl had rollers in her hair and a small child in her basket and Maria wondered whether her car had been repossessed or her husband had left her or just what had happened, why was she calling a taxi from Ralph's. "I mean you have to try, you can't feel this way forever."
"I'll say I can't." Tears began to roll down the woman's f ace.
"You don't even want to talk to me."
"But I do." Maria touched her arm. "I do."
'Get your whore's hands off me," the woman screamed.
36
"THERE'S SOME PRINCIPLE I'm not grasping, Maria,"
Carter said on the telephone from New York. "You've got a $1,500-a-month house sitting empty in Beverly Hills, and you're living in a furnished apartment on Fountain Avenue. You want to be closer to Schwab's? Is that it?"
Maria lay on the bed watching a television news film of a house about to slide into the Tujunga Wash. "I'm not living here, I'm just staying here."
"I still don't get the joke."
She kept her eyes on the screen. "Then don't get it," she said at the exact instant the house splintered and fell.
After Carter had hung up Maria wrapped her robe close and smoked part of a joint and watched an interview with the woman whose house it had been. "You boys did a really outstanding camera job," the woman said. Maria finished the cigarette and repeated the compliment out loud. The day's slide and flood news
In January there were poinsettias in front of all the bungalows between Melrose and Sunset, and the rain set in, and Maria wore not sandals but real shoes and a Shetland sweater she had bought in New York the year she was nineteen. For days during the rain she did not speak out loud or read a newspaper. She could not read newspapers because certain stories leapt at her from the page: the four-year-olds in the abandoned refrigerator, the tea party with Purex, the infant in the driveway, rattlesnake in the playpen, the peril, unspeakable peril, in the everyday. She grew faint as the processions swept before her, the children alive when last scolded, dead when next seen, the children in the locked car burning, the little faces, helpless screams. The mothers were always reported to be under sedation. In the whole world there was not as much sedation as there was instantaneous peril. Maria ate frozen enchiladas, looked at television for word of the world, thought of herself as under sedation and did not leave the apartment on Fountain Avenue.
35
"I DON'T KNOW if you noticed, I'm mentally ill," the woman said. The woman was sitting next to Maria at the snack counter in Ralph's Market. "I'm talking to you."
Maria turned around. "I'm sorry."
"I've been mentally ill for seven years. You don't know what a struggle it is to get through a day like this."
"This is a bad day for you," Maria said in a neutral voice.
"What's so different about this day."
Maria looked covertly at the pay phones but there was still a line.
The telephone in the apartment was out of order and she had to report it. The line at the pay phones in Ralph's Market suddenly suggested to Maria a disorganization so general that the norm was to have either a disconnected telephone or some clandestine business to conduct, some extramarital error. She had to have a telephone. There was no one to whom she wanted to talk but she had to have a telephone. If she could not be reached it would happen, the peril would find Kate. Beside her the woman's voice rose and fell monotonously .
"I mean you can't fathom the despair. Believe me I've thought of ending it. Kaput. Over. Head in the oven.'
"A doctor," Maria said.
" Doctor . I've talked to doctors."
'You'll feel better. Try to feel better." The girl now using the nearest telephone seemed to be calling a taxi to take her home from Ralph's. The girl had rollers in her hair and a small child in her basket and Maria wondered whether her car had been repossessed or her husband had left her or just what had happened, why was she calling a taxi from Ralph's. "I mean you have to try, you can't feel this way forever."
"I'll say I can't." Tears began to roll down the woman's f ace.
"You don't even want to talk to me."
"But I do." Maria touched her arm. "I do."
'Get your whore's hands off me," the woman screamed.
36
"THERE'S SOME PRINCIPLE I'm not grasping, Maria,"
Carter said on the telephone from New York. "You've got a $1,500-a-month house sitting empty in Beverly Hills, and you're living in a furnished apartment on Fountain Avenue. You want to be closer to Schwab's? Is that it?"
Maria lay on the bed watching a television news film of a house about to slide into the Tujunga Wash. "I'm not living here, I'm just staying here."
"I still don't get the joke."
She kept her eyes on the screen. "Then don't get it," she said at the exact instant the house splintered and fell.
After Carter had hung up Maria wrapped her robe close and smoked part of a joint and watched an interview with the woman whose house it had been. "You boys did a really outstanding camera job," the woman said. Maria finished the cigarette and repeated the compliment out loud. The day's slide and flood news
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