Sparks
He was gone again. Brian's trips were getting longer. He promised they would explore this new city, but there was never time. There would be, when the third quarter ended. After the Board meeting. Next month. Soon. He asked her to trust him. He stroked the smooth skin of her perfect body in the moonlight and said he trusted her.
Loneliness weighed on her like the heavy clouds shrouding the moon. She left the stifling suburb and cruised into the city, along an eclectic street, where art galleries neighbored antique shops, and churches mingled with strip clubs. She pulled into Armando's Ristorante and handed her keys to the valet.
Armando had no tables. "Friday night you know. You can wait in the bar."
Laughter spilled out of the cozy room, just what she needed. She chose a dark table along the wall. The waiter arrived, with a glass of red wine. Gesturing across the room, he said, "From the gentleman in black."
Ellen glanced at the man. Anticipation stirred as she recalled the game of hunting, and the sensation of being the prey. His eyes pierced through the haze, and raised gooseflesh on the back of her neck. She touched temptation in the crimson glass. "Why not?" she asked.
And her conscience answered. She wasn't that lonely.
She slipped into the night before he could reach her table. Too embarrassed to request her car so soon, she hurried away from the restaurant. A sign in the window of the next building read "Madame Rosa, psychic." Ellen heard solitary footsteps following, and stepped over Madame Rosa's threshold.
Ellen could see no crystal balls or smell incense, but minor chords sang from hidden speakers. Madame Rosa didn't wear hoop earrings or colorful scarves, but cradled a telephone receiver on her shoulder. Her wrist guards rested on the keyboard of a computer flanked by a switchboard, with a dozen lights flashing. Her fingers danced, pausing only long enough to switch lines.
She looked away from the computer and acknowledged Ellen.. "Most of them just need to be forwarded. We handle it all. Opera tickets to suicide to....well, phone sex for that one."
"Phone sex?" Ellen glanced toward the door. At the window, Mr Red Wine waved in at her.
Rosa caught the glance. "Friend of yours?"
Ellen shook her head. "I never realized your... business... was so... technical."
Rosa's head fell back into a crow's caw of laughter. "Technical? What with the Psychic Hotline, SurfthePsychic.com, Tarot cards at Borders and Ouija Boards at Toys R Us, it's diversify or starve. I take it you have trouble with a man?" She leaned her head toward the window. The full moon caught the movement and a shadow of her jutting chin formed an arrow, targeted at Ellen.
Ellen gasped. "Of course not. I'm married!" She wove the fringe of her shawl through shaking fingers. "I love my husband. But I get so lonely."
Rosa smiled. "Let me see your hands."
"I don't want to have my palm read... I'm sorry.. I..."
"We haven't read palms in years. Leave that for the circus." She reached out and took Ellen's hands into hers. A quick jolt made Ellen draw back, but Rosa held firm. "Sorry, static electricity. Good, long fingers, short nails. Got a computer?"
Ellen frowned. "Yes... why?"
"You don't need to worry about your marriage. This is the year 2000. Here." She typed into the keyboard.
The screen said "Welcome to Lonely.com."
"What is this?" Ellen asked.
"A safe place. A place to go for company. You'll never get in trouble there." Rosa glanced toward the window and handed her a card. "Not like you would with that one."
Lights flashed on the switchboard. Ellen heard Rosa answer as she stepped back into the night.. "Power of Prayer. What channel are you on?"
By the time Ellen turned into her driveway, her curiosity was piqued. After all, she had control. It wasn't like going to a bar and meeting strangers. All she had to do was turn the computer off, and her marriage was safe.
She clicked online, poured a glass of merlot, and slid behind her desk. She felt energy surging in her fingers as she clicked into the chat room.
Almost immediately, a message scrolled onto the screen. "So you came at last."
"Do I know you?" she typed in.
"Only as you know your dreams."
She laughed and typed back, "My dreams? Or my nightmares?"
A typed smile was the reply. The quiet spring night folded around her. One glass of wine became two, two became the bottle. The click of the keyboard became a romantic melody set against the moonlight. Before she slept, they had agreed to meet online again. She dreamed of lightning surging through her fingers.
Brian's trips stayed frequent through the summer. Whenever he was gone, she was at her desk. The rest of the world faded away.
Her new lifestyle took its toll. She knew she wasn't eating well. Wine left her nauseous. Her muscles grew soft as she forgot her workouts. Her back ached from hours at the keyboard. Her tailored suits were too confining, and gave way to gypsy dresses.
But she was home every night.
She learned. She was amazed at the abilities of two minds connected in a private chat room. Her body reacted in ways she never dreamed possible. She typed words she could never say aloud.
She wasn't lonely anymore.
By October, Brian was home. The full moon illuminated them as he kissed the nape of her neck . "Ellen, have you put on weight? If I didn't know better, I'd swear..."
"Impossible!" she laughed. "I'm home every night, and you and I haven't..." She stopped short, startled.
"No, we haven't." he answered. "Not in months."
She shook off the uneasiness. The psychic said she would never get in trouble there.
She put her hands on her rounding form, and felt a surge of electrical proportion.
It kicked.
Monday, October 17, 2011
If Looks Could Kill
When I drove into the parking lot of the clinic “approved” by my insurance provider, it was clear to me how they cut costs. The metal frame structure was a long way from the brick and steel, world-class med center downtown. Not necessary for outpatient surgery, I was told. Whatever. I just wanted to get it over with.
It didn’t occur to me to be nervous until the anesthesiologist came in wearing a dew rag, a gold hoop earring and what looked like molars as buttons on his island print shirt. His accent was island also, Haitian or Jamaican, maybe even something from Cajun country. Something about the way he said "We gonna pahty" didn't quite fit the ream of forms I'd signed saying whatever it is they say. I've written enough releases to fill the whole building, and know that they don't generally mean a damn thing anyway. Insurance is insurance and it's all about settling within the limits of liability.
His nametag read simply "Chad," and while he was extremely attractive, my nerves had me focusing instead on the three vials he had in his hands. He stepped outside the curtain of my prep room, just before the nurse came in to draw a big red X on my knee. Only after yet another scrub-clad intern had hooked me to an IV did Chad return with his vials. I wondered if it was too late to change my mind.
“Don’t worry, babe," he said. "You won’t feel… or remember a thing. This one here, " he tapped a vial that clouded when it shook, "it makes you forget anything your body wants it to. And this one," he tapped the vial filled with translucent pink, something like the color of watered down blood, "this is the good stuff. Made it special, just for you."
I wanted to ask what the third one was, but he was already hooking the vials in place on the IV line. I felt so sleepy, I forgot to talk.
Since the next thing I remembered was waking with an unquenchable thirst to the plastic oxygen mask, I guess he was right. Only the headache that lodged right behind my eyes and the throbbing in my leg reminded me why I was there.
My nurse shook her head. “Don’t worry, common complication of anesthesia. Take your pain meds as directed; you’ll be dancing around in no time.
I lost the next two days to fitful sleep, strange erotic dreams, and pain. On the third day, I left the pain medication in the cupboard. I had to get back to work.
My first appointment that morning was with a CEO in his downtown skyline office, whose company’s efforts to comply with EPA regulations were less than stellar. I would have cancelled, but it had taken me weeks to get even the meager amount of time he had granted. The Downstream Development Citizens Organization, "DoDevOr," my clients, weren’t as interested in litigation as they were getting the pollution out of their neighborhood. I presented the plan they came up with, and he actually laughed.
“You are kidding aren’t you Ms. Roper?” He swept his arm, surveying the elegant office on the 43rd floor, high above the smog level of the city. “I didn’t get here by catering to mamby pamby do gooders, tree huggers or fish kissers. Your people want to come up with the millions that compliance will take, then we’ll talk. Until then, we’ll stick with our loopholes. All within the bounds of the law, you know.”
“Mr. Case, there are a lot of kids in that neighborhood. Children can't play in the parks or swim in the nasty water. They are getting sick.”
“So? We’ve got some of the best medical facilities in the country, as you yourself well know,” he motioned to the brace I wore to stabilize my knee. “It’s all about the economy, Ms. Roper. They get sick, they go to the doctor, doctor cures them, we all make a buck. Don’t you know anything about trickle down economics? What law school did you go to?”
He laughed again. I could only stare at him as I thought about what a cold heart he had to have, to even say such a thing aloud.
He waved his hand at me as he reached for his necktie. “That’s all I have to say. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m not feeling well myself.” His chuckle turned to a bit of a gurgle as he punched the intercom button on his phone.
I was happy to leave. The pompous bastard looked like he might be suffering from angina or something, and I was afraid I’d laugh at him. Trickle down economics, indeed.
I didn’t have time to go back to the office before I was due for a post op check up at my doctors office, which was in the med center close to downtown, so I stopped for lunch at my favorite sandwich shop at the city center. There was a new kid working the cash register, and I was pretty sure that the tunes he was listening to in the headset weren’t part of the job for which he’d been hired. The thought occurred to me to mumble "brainless" before he took my order, but something about the look in his eyes just before he clutched his hands to the headphones made me remember, he's just somebody's kid. I smiled.
"Whoa that was weird," he said.
"I beg your pardon?" It looked like he was having trouble focusing.
"Sorry lady. Just, like, for a second there, everything went blank, you know? Like just blank." He shook his head like my dog does when he's been caught in the rain.
"Are you okay?" The motion made even my head ache.
"Yeah, yeah. Guess so. What can I get for you?" just as quickly as the "fit" came, it seemed to end. He simply looked bored with his job, again.
"I'll have a number seven, please." I guessed it was just one of those days.
I took my salad to my favorite window booth to eat while I watched the people on the street. Late October was the beginning of good weather in south Texas, the humidity lifting its stranglehold, and hundreds of people were out walking. I watched a jaunty woman wearing a sequined jack-O-lantern sweater, short black skirt and bright orange slides with heels every bit of five inches high. She had that confident Texas beauty look: long blond hair and enough make-up to throw her off balance, but she moved like she was suspended by marionette strings. She made walking in those heels look as easy as going barefoot. I rubbed the bandages on my newly repaired knee and felt the frown lines on my face contract. Just once, I'd love to see one of those honeys fall on her well-toned ass.
Then she stumbled, her perfectly manicured fingers flailing for someone, anyone to catch her. It didn't take long for her to find a knight to help her up, but I felt a glow of satisfaction that seemed foreign to me. I'm a nice person; what pleasure is there in witnessing the misfortune of someone else? Even if she did have legs that didn't seem to end.
Endlessness reminded me of the pain in my own leg. No doubt I'd be waiting until Dr. Dune was caught up from his morning surgery schedule, but on the off chance that he was on time, I wanted to be, too.
I limped up the walk to the office, my knee swollen from the morning's exertion, and took note of the fall leaf cutouts pasted in the windows. Next to an orange poster announcing the Halloween blood drive with promises of Vampire visits, someone had pasted over Dune's name on the door with green sponge letters so that it read "Dr. Goon" instead. I'd noticed several children with casts come and go during my appointments. Nine year olds were going to get a kick out of it, for sure.
The receptionist wasn't at the desk, so I signed in and took a seat in the waiting room. An older woman with the telltale vertical scars of knee replacement argued with the man sitting next to her, and a young boy sporting a sling scrolled through daytime TV with the remote left on the table. I picked up a magazine, but before I'd turned to the first article, they called my name.
More Halloween décor was strung through the halls to the examining room, and again there were green foam letters replacing my kindly doctor's nameplate. I tried to imagine what a "Dr. Goon" would look like. His eyes would bug out, I decided, and his tongue would hang inches below his chin. He'd smell of dark earth, and his skin would feel like the rubber they use on masks, but it wouldn't come off. Unless it came off in clumps, exposing the sinew and bone beneath its surface. And bugs. Surely there would be bugs….
I'd only waited a few minutes when the door opened and the young man who'd been in the clinic came in holding my chart. "Ah, and how are we doing today, Miz Roper?"
"Hi," I replied. "Weren't you the anesthesiologist the other day?"
"See, you remember the good stuff." He held out his hand. " Actually, I'm more of an, shall we say, intern, here. I'm learning the ways of western surgery, while sharing some of the ...secrets, of the ancient medicines of my people."
"Oh. Sort of a holistic thing? I've heard of those programs."
"Good. Then you know there is much that modern medicine hasn't yet explained, that some of the tribal doctors have at their disposal."
"Like the amnesia drug?"
"Very good! You were paying attention. My grandmother told me you were smart. She told me you did things because they were right, not just for money, like most of dis place."
"Your Grandmother?"
"Yes, she lives in the Downstream Development. I've been staying with her. Nasty stuff in the air an'such." He put his hand on my knee and examined the staples.
I grimaced with the pain, and tried to make polite conversation. "I wish I could do more there. It doesn't look good right now."
"Well maybe it will go bettah with Case out of de way." He changed the bandages as we talked. His touch was that gentle kind that felt like it had magical healing powers. The pain in my knee was almost gone. I wondered what it would be like to feel that touch in other situations.
"What do you mean? I just met with him this morning."
"Ah, that explains it then." He crossed his legs then. It bothered me; I had a definite sense that he was somehow aroused.
"I don't understand."
Just then I heard a child's scream down the hall. Chad opened the door and we could see the little boy from the waiting room and his mother rush past the doorway, followed closely by someone dressed in a Halloween costume. The costume looked familiar, and I was a little disturbed to see some sort of squirmy insects crawling on what looked like an arm of exposed sinew, with plastic looking flesh dangling free from it. The costume even had a tongue that flapped over the persons shoulder.
Chad started laughing. "Nice one Ms. Roper. But you really should change him back."
"What?"
"Let me guess. Dat's your image of a Goon?"
"How did you know that?"
He closed the door to the exam room and I began to feel queasy. "T'ink about what you want Dr. Dune to look like, Ms. Roper. Just do it."
I didn't like the way his accent reverted to Creole when he fell out of his formal tone. I thought of the kindly gentleman who'd done my surgery, and while I was thinking about him, he opened the door to the room.
He looked just as I'd pictured him.
"Everything under control Chad?"
"Yes sir, Dr. Dune. Think the staples need to stay a few more days though."
"Good work Chad. You doing okay on medicine Megg? I can write you another prescription, if you like."
I was still trying to comprehend what was going on. "No, no thanks Dr. Dune. It's really feeling much better." It was. I noticed even the swelling had dissipated.
"Good, good." He signed the chart, and left the room.
"You are quick." Chad smiled an electric smile. "That was a great recovery."
"What are you talking about?" "Grandmother told me about your problems with Case, and, well. We decided it was time the cards weren't so unevenly stacked." He touched his fingertips together, forming a bridge with his hands and his gaze, directly in my eyes, was purposeful. "Do you remember those vials I showed you the other day?"
"Yes."
"The third vial was a little specialty of mine from the islands. Sort of a modern day derivative of what used to be used, well, in voodoo."
"Voodoo? You've got to be kidding."
"Not at all Miz Roper. By adding what we know from the ancient arts of black magic to the details science has discovered about the human brain, we combine the ability to transmit pain, and pleasure for that matter, to the telekinetic forces of the brain. In effect, you are a human voodoo doll. Whenever your thoughts tap into those basic emotions, love, desire, jealousy, anger, even impatience, you have the power to… influence others."
"This is crazy."
"Perhaps. But that is what the third vial gave you."
"I don't believe it."
Chad laughed, a melodious deep laugh that suddenly seemed quite mad. I wanted out of there.
"Just one thing you need to remember. Good is almost always vulnerable to evil, but evil, while it may secretly long for it, almost never looks for good." He ran his hand alongside my face then, his touch as innervating as before. Instinctively I turned toward it, like a nursling seeking sustenance, and saw the tattoo of a tribal knot on the inside of his wrist. I knew without asking that it represented something sacred. Then he opened the door and was gone.
I checked out, a little stunned that I no longer needed the brace to walk back to my car.
Things were starting to fall in place in my head, and a warmth that reminded me of the dreams from the night before settled in my belly. It was like the feeling that new knowledge in a case always gave me, a power of knowing I'm right, that I have the tools to make things happen. It was my biggest frustration with DoDevOr. No matter how much I learned, no matter how convinced I was that the equities were on the side of the homeowners, I kept hitting roadblocks. Case's words came back to me. It's about the economy. Not about what is right or wrong. I felt the frown lines on my face disappear for the first time since I'd agreed to take the case.
The next day's paper featured a biographical review of Robert Case's life. The obituary didn't give details of his death, but a search on the rumor boards on the internet said he'd died of some strange heart disease. His heart tissue had been all gray, like meat that had been frozen and thawed and left to rot.
The paper also detailed the procedure the board of the company was going to use to choose a successor. They were looking for someone who believed in the company enough to hold shares in it. I tucked the ten-share certificate I'd purchased in order to be able to file a shareholder derivative suit for DoDevOr into my briefcase. I'd have to look at the numbers to decide if loopholes were better for my company than being a good neighbor. I didn't want to mess up the economy after all.
I went into my bathroom to dress for the meeting, finished my ensemble by pulling on a red blazer, and sliding into five-inch heels. The image of marionette strings came back to me. My image of myself was no longer of the bleeding heart do-gooder. Pulling those strings was going to be fun. I looked into the mirror and admired the sheen of my newly blond hair, and imagined my chin just a little more pointed, my blouse a little more full.
Yes. That was better.
I flipped open my cell phone and called Dune's office. They agreed to give Chad the message that I'd be meeting him for dinner after the meeting. The address I gave them was for a suite that was something out of a dream. My dream. He deserved to know just what his concoction could do, after all. And smiling at my own reflection, I decided I did, too.
I have to admit, the view was awfully nice from the 43rd floor. I'll have to practice my laugh though.
It didn’t occur to me to be nervous until the anesthesiologist came in wearing a dew rag, a gold hoop earring and what looked like molars as buttons on his island print shirt. His accent was island also, Haitian or Jamaican, maybe even something from Cajun country. Something about the way he said "We gonna pahty" didn't quite fit the ream of forms I'd signed saying whatever it is they say. I've written enough releases to fill the whole building, and know that they don't generally mean a damn thing anyway. Insurance is insurance and it's all about settling within the limits of liability.
His nametag read simply "Chad," and while he was extremely attractive, my nerves had me focusing instead on the three vials he had in his hands. He stepped outside the curtain of my prep room, just before the nurse came in to draw a big red X on my knee. Only after yet another scrub-clad intern had hooked me to an IV did Chad return with his vials. I wondered if it was too late to change my mind.
“Don’t worry, babe," he said. "You won’t feel… or remember a thing. This one here, " he tapped a vial that clouded when it shook, "it makes you forget anything your body wants it to. And this one," he tapped the vial filled with translucent pink, something like the color of watered down blood, "this is the good stuff. Made it special, just for you."
I wanted to ask what the third one was, but he was already hooking the vials in place on the IV line. I felt so sleepy, I forgot to talk.
Since the next thing I remembered was waking with an unquenchable thirst to the plastic oxygen mask, I guess he was right. Only the headache that lodged right behind my eyes and the throbbing in my leg reminded me why I was there.
My nurse shook her head. “Don’t worry, common complication of anesthesia. Take your pain meds as directed; you’ll be dancing around in no time.
I lost the next two days to fitful sleep, strange erotic dreams, and pain. On the third day, I left the pain medication in the cupboard. I had to get back to work.
My first appointment that morning was with a CEO in his downtown skyline office, whose company’s efforts to comply with EPA regulations were less than stellar. I would have cancelled, but it had taken me weeks to get even the meager amount of time he had granted. The Downstream Development Citizens Organization, "DoDevOr," my clients, weren’t as interested in litigation as they were getting the pollution out of their neighborhood. I presented the plan they came up with, and he actually laughed.
“You are kidding aren’t you Ms. Roper?” He swept his arm, surveying the elegant office on the 43rd floor, high above the smog level of the city. “I didn’t get here by catering to mamby pamby do gooders, tree huggers or fish kissers. Your people want to come up with the millions that compliance will take, then we’ll talk. Until then, we’ll stick with our loopholes. All within the bounds of the law, you know.”
“Mr. Case, there are a lot of kids in that neighborhood. Children can't play in the parks or swim in the nasty water. They are getting sick.”
“So? We’ve got some of the best medical facilities in the country, as you yourself well know,” he motioned to the brace I wore to stabilize my knee. “It’s all about the economy, Ms. Roper. They get sick, they go to the doctor, doctor cures them, we all make a buck. Don’t you know anything about trickle down economics? What law school did you go to?”
He laughed again. I could only stare at him as I thought about what a cold heart he had to have, to even say such a thing aloud.
He waved his hand at me as he reached for his necktie. “That’s all I have to say. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m not feeling well myself.” His chuckle turned to a bit of a gurgle as he punched the intercom button on his phone.
I was happy to leave. The pompous bastard looked like he might be suffering from angina or something, and I was afraid I’d laugh at him. Trickle down economics, indeed.
I didn’t have time to go back to the office before I was due for a post op check up at my doctors office, which was in the med center close to downtown, so I stopped for lunch at my favorite sandwich shop at the city center. There was a new kid working the cash register, and I was pretty sure that the tunes he was listening to in the headset weren’t part of the job for which he’d been hired. The thought occurred to me to mumble "brainless" before he took my order, but something about the look in his eyes just before he clutched his hands to the headphones made me remember, he's just somebody's kid. I smiled.
"Whoa that was weird," he said.
"I beg your pardon?" It looked like he was having trouble focusing.
"Sorry lady. Just, like, for a second there, everything went blank, you know? Like just blank." He shook his head like my dog does when he's been caught in the rain.
"Are you okay?" The motion made even my head ache.
"Yeah, yeah. Guess so. What can I get for you?" just as quickly as the "fit" came, it seemed to end. He simply looked bored with his job, again.
"I'll have a number seven, please." I guessed it was just one of those days.
I took my salad to my favorite window booth to eat while I watched the people on the street. Late October was the beginning of good weather in south Texas, the humidity lifting its stranglehold, and hundreds of people were out walking. I watched a jaunty woman wearing a sequined jack-O-lantern sweater, short black skirt and bright orange slides with heels every bit of five inches high. She had that confident Texas beauty look: long blond hair and enough make-up to throw her off balance, but she moved like she was suspended by marionette strings. She made walking in those heels look as easy as going barefoot. I rubbed the bandages on my newly repaired knee and felt the frown lines on my face contract. Just once, I'd love to see one of those honeys fall on her well-toned ass.
Then she stumbled, her perfectly manicured fingers flailing for someone, anyone to catch her. It didn't take long for her to find a knight to help her up, but I felt a glow of satisfaction that seemed foreign to me. I'm a nice person; what pleasure is there in witnessing the misfortune of someone else? Even if she did have legs that didn't seem to end.
Endlessness reminded me of the pain in my own leg. No doubt I'd be waiting until Dr. Dune was caught up from his morning surgery schedule, but on the off chance that he was on time, I wanted to be, too.
I limped up the walk to the office, my knee swollen from the morning's exertion, and took note of the fall leaf cutouts pasted in the windows. Next to an orange poster announcing the Halloween blood drive with promises of Vampire visits, someone had pasted over Dune's name on the door with green sponge letters so that it read "Dr. Goon" instead. I'd noticed several children with casts come and go during my appointments. Nine year olds were going to get a kick out of it, for sure.
The receptionist wasn't at the desk, so I signed in and took a seat in the waiting room. An older woman with the telltale vertical scars of knee replacement argued with the man sitting next to her, and a young boy sporting a sling scrolled through daytime TV with the remote left on the table. I picked up a magazine, but before I'd turned to the first article, they called my name.
More Halloween décor was strung through the halls to the examining room, and again there were green foam letters replacing my kindly doctor's nameplate. I tried to imagine what a "Dr. Goon" would look like. His eyes would bug out, I decided, and his tongue would hang inches below his chin. He'd smell of dark earth, and his skin would feel like the rubber they use on masks, but it wouldn't come off. Unless it came off in clumps, exposing the sinew and bone beneath its surface. And bugs. Surely there would be bugs….
I'd only waited a few minutes when the door opened and the young man who'd been in the clinic came in holding my chart. "Ah, and how are we doing today, Miz Roper?"
"Hi," I replied. "Weren't you the anesthesiologist the other day?"
"See, you remember the good stuff." He held out his hand. " Actually, I'm more of an, shall we say, intern, here. I'm learning the ways of western surgery, while sharing some of the ...secrets, of the ancient medicines of my people."
"Oh. Sort of a holistic thing? I've heard of those programs."
"Good. Then you know there is much that modern medicine hasn't yet explained, that some of the tribal doctors have at their disposal."
"Like the amnesia drug?"
"Very good! You were paying attention. My grandmother told me you were smart. She told me you did things because they were right, not just for money, like most of dis place."
"Your Grandmother?"
"Yes, she lives in the Downstream Development. I've been staying with her. Nasty stuff in the air an'such." He put his hand on my knee and examined the staples.
I grimaced with the pain, and tried to make polite conversation. "I wish I could do more there. It doesn't look good right now."
"Well maybe it will go bettah with Case out of de way." He changed the bandages as we talked. His touch was that gentle kind that felt like it had magical healing powers. The pain in my knee was almost gone. I wondered what it would be like to feel that touch in other situations.
"What do you mean? I just met with him this morning."
"Ah, that explains it then." He crossed his legs then. It bothered me; I had a definite sense that he was somehow aroused.
"I don't understand."
Just then I heard a child's scream down the hall. Chad opened the door and we could see the little boy from the waiting room and his mother rush past the doorway, followed closely by someone dressed in a Halloween costume. The costume looked familiar, and I was a little disturbed to see some sort of squirmy insects crawling on what looked like an arm of exposed sinew, with plastic looking flesh dangling free from it. The costume even had a tongue that flapped over the persons shoulder.
Chad started laughing. "Nice one Ms. Roper. But you really should change him back."
"What?"
"Let me guess. Dat's your image of a Goon?"
"How did you know that?"
He closed the door to the exam room and I began to feel queasy. "T'ink about what you want Dr. Dune to look like, Ms. Roper. Just do it."
I didn't like the way his accent reverted to Creole when he fell out of his formal tone. I thought of the kindly gentleman who'd done my surgery, and while I was thinking about him, he opened the door to the room.
He looked just as I'd pictured him.
"Everything under control Chad?"
"Yes sir, Dr. Dune. Think the staples need to stay a few more days though."
"Good work Chad. You doing okay on medicine Megg? I can write you another prescription, if you like."
I was still trying to comprehend what was going on. "No, no thanks Dr. Dune. It's really feeling much better." It was. I noticed even the swelling had dissipated.
"Good, good." He signed the chart, and left the room.
"You are quick." Chad smiled an electric smile. "That was a great recovery."
"What are you talking about?" "Grandmother told me about your problems with Case, and, well. We decided it was time the cards weren't so unevenly stacked." He touched his fingertips together, forming a bridge with his hands and his gaze, directly in my eyes, was purposeful. "Do you remember those vials I showed you the other day?"
"Yes."
"The third vial was a little specialty of mine from the islands. Sort of a modern day derivative of what used to be used, well, in voodoo."
"Voodoo? You've got to be kidding."
"Not at all Miz Roper. By adding what we know from the ancient arts of black magic to the details science has discovered about the human brain, we combine the ability to transmit pain, and pleasure for that matter, to the telekinetic forces of the brain. In effect, you are a human voodoo doll. Whenever your thoughts tap into those basic emotions, love, desire, jealousy, anger, even impatience, you have the power to… influence others."
"This is crazy."
"Perhaps. But that is what the third vial gave you."
"I don't believe it."
Chad laughed, a melodious deep laugh that suddenly seemed quite mad. I wanted out of there.
"Just one thing you need to remember. Good is almost always vulnerable to evil, but evil, while it may secretly long for it, almost never looks for good." He ran his hand alongside my face then, his touch as innervating as before. Instinctively I turned toward it, like a nursling seeking sustenance, and saw the tattoo of a tribal knot on the inside of his wrist. I knew without asking that it represented something sacred. Then he opened the door and was gone.
I checked out, a little stunned that I no longer needed the brace to walk back to my car.
Things were starting to fall in place in my head, and a warmth that reminded me of the dreams from the night before settled in my belly. It was like the feeling that new knowledge in a case always gave me, a power of knowing I'm right, that I have the tools to make things happen. It was my biggest frustration with DoDevOr. No matter how much I learned, no matter how convinced I was that the equities were on the side of the homeowners, I kept hitting roadblocks. Case's words came back to me. It's about the economy. Not about what is right or wrong. I felt the frown lines on my face disappear for the first time since I'd agreed to take the case.
The next day's paper featured a biographical review of Robert Case's life. The obituary didn't give details of his death, but a search on the rumor boards on the internet said he'd died of some strange heart disease. His heart tissue had been all gray, like meat that had been frozen and thawed and left to rot.
The paper also detailed the procedure the board of the company was going to use to choose a successor. They were looking for someone who believed in the company enough to hold shares in it. I tucked the ten-share certificate I'd purchased in order to be able to file a shareholder derivative suit for DoDevOr into my briefcase. I'd have to look at the numbers to decide if loopholes were better for my company than being a good neighbor. I didn't want to mess up the economy after all.
I went into my bathroom to dress for the meeting, finished my ensemble by pulling on a red blazer, and sliding into five-inch heels. The image of marionette strings came back to me. My image of myself was no longer of the bleeding heart do-gooder. Pulling those strings was going to be fun. I looked into the mirror and admired the sheen of my newly blond hair, and imagined my chin just a little more pointed, my blouse a little more full.
Yes. That was better.
I flipped open my cell phone and called Dune's office. They agreed to give Chad the message that I'd be meeting him for dinner after the meeting. The address I gave them was for a suite that was something out of a dream. My dream. He deserved to know just what his concoction could do, after all. And smiling at my own reflection, I decided I did, too.
I have to admit, the view was awfully nice from the 43rd floor. I'll have to practice my laugh though.
Tess
I smeared the condensation, fogging up the glass, as if the amber liquid inside carried a chill to it. Maybe I wanted to soften the edges though, the way I had of memories so over the top good they hurt. I drained it again, letting the fire pool on my tongue, then radiate down, my throat, my chest, the tight place below my belly and let the heat come to its natural head. No matter that I'd sent it to join the better part of the bottle.
It is the music that does it. That smoky voice, heavy with Cajun spice and a cadence only a broken heart knows courses across the polished bar with the one song I can’t hide from. My body responds; it has no more shame now than it did ten years ago. The blood drains all reason; once again memory and lust combine in sweet anticipation. Of Tess.
There is a house in New Orleans,
They call the Rising Sun…
Craig, behind the bar, watches me, and asks, "Another one Scott?"
I nod. Again. Yes. Again. Craig knows I can handle the liquor. It isn’t the first time for either of us, Craig or me. The woman singing? Who knows. With any luck, before I leave, I will.
But she won't be Tess.
I was just twenty-five and newly wed. Should have been still on my honeymoon, but I bought into a bill of goods about virgin brides and got waylaid with frigidity. All I had to do was reach for Molly, feel the warmth of her skin against mine and I couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. It wasn’t Molly’s fault. I should have known more, better. I should have taken my time. I tried; I swear I tried.
I suppose if I ‘d realized how futile it was, I’d have never decided to buy the house. We were almost finished with the paperwork when she panicked and ran home to her mother. I thought she might be pregnant, and knew she was just too young. I wasn’t sure if she was coming back. Wasn’t sure what I’d do with her if she did.
It might have been okay, eventually. But then I met Tess.
I'd gone to the Realtor's office to see if I could get out of the deal. The receptionist sat behind a glass block counter so I couldn't see more than the back of her head and the coral tipped finger she held up to me while she finished her call. The black hair cascaded around her shoulders in tousled, just-been-fucked curls and the nail was chipped at the edges like maybe she chewed it. I listened to her conversation, her voice scaling from a musky whisper to an innocent incredulity, spiced like jambalaya. She threw around terms I’d heard, but didn’t understand. She stopped mid-sentence at one point and turned to me, as though she felt my stare on the back of her neck. I swear she licked her lips when our eyes made contact.
She was older than me, how much I’m not sure. Could have been a tough two years, or a very well done twenty. She finished the call and listened to my story, gazing out in space somewhere. She looked up to explain to me, but before I could bring my eyes back to hers, she caught me.
I couldn't help that either. Her breasts were small, and the nipples pressed against the fabric of her silk sweater, barely concealed by the smooth fabric. No lines at all; she wasn’t wearing a bra. She smiled with half her mouth, and said, “We’ll deal with that later. For now, tell me if you still want the house?”
I hoped the shadow of the beige stress I wore since Molly had left covered the color I felt rising, and stood closer to the office partition so she wouldn't feel obliged to comment on the response from below my waist. I couldn’t speak, didn’t speak until she cleared her throat. “Oh. Yes. I want it, if there is enough money…my wife had to go away…” It was hardly a stammer.
“You told me that. Hang on.”
I couldn’t tell you today what made her intoxicating. I couldn’t say it was her body, or her hair or her eyes. None of the parts were beyond special, but together? Together it was like immersion in some mystical aphrodisiac. She explained to me that the owners would go for a smaller down payment, so the house was mine. Ours that is. Molly's and mine.
I just didn’t care. All I cared about was the way her tongue flicked at her lipstick when she concentrated, the way her bottom lip pouted into a smile. I sucked my own bottom lip tight against my teeth, and did my best not to growl.
She looped a strand of her dark hair around one coral tipped finger. “So your wife is away?”
“Yeah.”
“Pleasure trip?”
“Trying to get away from me.” I wasn’t in the mood for flirting. Not when all I could do was stand closer to the partition to hide my arousal. Even that pressure felt too damn good.
She laughed, icicles melting in the heat of the moment. “You should celebrate. I'll get my coat.”
That was all it took. We went to a local dive, where two pool tables and a dartboard in the back seemed to be waiting for her. Something magnetic about her shook a room when she went into it; I could almost feel the collective pulse of the men in the bar quicken, just being around her. She made contact with them all. If it hadn’t been so amazing, it would have been strange, like a female lead on Broadway decked out in sequins and spotlights, a whole company of men in non-descript black ready to catch her falls, lift her high or just keep the rhythm going.
I got hooked. I spent every night, trailing after her. In every club she had a dance partner or three. She never dug for quarters or bought her own drinks. The sight of her stretched over the pool table, breasts neatly hugging the cue, made me as hard as the pool cue, and god help me, jealous of it.
It didn’t feel like cheating. It felt like having my lottery ticket drawn and someone telling me I’d won, when she started paying more attention to me. I sent flowers every day. I bought her trinkets; a toe ring once, a feather-trimmed sweater another time, just to see her smile at me. Mostly, I forgot I was married. That was the sweetest part of all, to have that Scott back in my life.
Tess didn't forget though. When she joked with me to name the place, she reminded me that she never slept with married men, at least in her own town. I was near broke, having closed on the damned house just to be near her. It took the last hurrah of the visa card to deliver the tickets, but the thought of Tess, the Big Easy and me was half my undoing. The kiss on my cheek when she said yes was the rest. She said it would be like going home.
I’m not a lucky man when I think straight, and that day I couldn’t get past my waistline with common sense. I got plane tickets, but forgot about Mardi Gras. We got to New Orleans and had no place to stay, no prospects. I expected temper, anger. I didn’t make allowance for the Tess factor. She flipped my hair from where it fell in my eyes, and traced my jaw with those nails. "Let's just hang out for a while and see what happens."
I couldn’t speak at all.
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
She took my hand. Like kids playing hooky we walked along Bourbon Street, meandering through the alleys. We stepped over horse dung from the carriages, kicked through the litter and discarded beads scattered over the French Quarter, and I listened to her voice, as mellow as any jazz singer, as sweet as a choirgirl. I have no idea what she talked about. It was the tone of promise that kept me going. She moved her hands up my arm to my elbow, then around to my back. She dropped it to the back pocket of my jeans, and I had to think about the rats in the gutters to keep from going off right then.
She saw the empty townhouse first, gave me that one-sided smile, and winked. "Let's go in."
"It looks vacant, but I'm sure it's locked." I couldn’t stand to disappoint her.
We climbed the front steps, three from the damp street, and peered through window glass that warped the inside of the house into the carnival outside. I fell into that warp, losing my inhibitions the way the revelers on Bourbon Street did with their masks and beads.
I tried the door. It opened to a landing, which led to a courtyard on the inside of the street. I bowed to her, then followed her across the anteroom. The walls were covered in gilded velvet-on-velvet brocade and smelled like the musk of a night of elliptical passion. The windows inside were framed by heavy red velvet drapes. Her laugh, low, full of challenge, abandoned all semblance of innocence. "It looks like a brothel. Let's see what's upstairs.”
I laughed then too, a laugh so easy that I made a point to make a memory of it. I guess I knew even then that my world was changing.
Three flights led to a stack of discarded movers' quilts at the top floor, and the door to the roof closed tight. I took the heel of my hand and pushed hard on the window light of the door, and the antique glass shattered with the force. I reached through to undo the lock and caught the back of my hand on a shard of glass. The bright red blood beaded, and Tess reached for it, lapped it into her own mouth. I couldn’t have stopped her if I wanted to. And I didn’t want to.
And God, I know, I'm one.
"Scotty, come and look!" I stepped through the doorway, winded from the climb and effort. She was breathless as well, but smug as a teenager out past curfew, nearly skipping across the roof. She was on stage there too, framed by the liquid silk of the New Orleans sky, a backdrop of a thousand stars, the full moon her spotlight. I walked up behind her, to see what she saw, and slid my arms around her waist. I felt her press her back against what had become my non-stop erection.
"I think we could travel roof to roof all over the Quarter," her voice wistful as I kissed her hair.
"Anywhere you want to go, Tess." I brushed her hair aside, and touched my lips to her neck. Beneath the web of her hair, a spider tattoo, black ink with a bright center. I traced it with my tongue.
I felt her shiver and heard her moan of pleasure for the first time as she turned toward me inside my arms. "Let’s spend the night here, Scotty."
And then she kissed me, in a way that I didn't think existed outside of fantasy. Full lips pressed against mine so that I was possessed. I yielded, pressed close against her and felt her tongue claim mine. Her teeth nipped my lips, branding her seal on me.
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
We gathered the quilts, and spread them over the tiles of the roof close enough to the edge to see and hear the revelry. She raked her fingers through my hair, along my jaw, letting them scrape the tender skin behind my ear. The jazz from the street, the song, over and over, wound around me, matching the rhythm of her dance as her fingers skimmed my clothing, a moth looking for the best place to alight. My tongue, molded to hers, trembled. She exhaled into me, my lungs taking in her hot liquid air. I tasted almond as she slipped her fingers beneath the buttons of my shirt. When I inhaled, it was the scent of cinnamon or something hot and spicy, cumin or pepper or maybe it was just the scent of the city. I'll never forget it though.
“Will you take it off if I give you beads?” she murmured as she slipped the last button of my shirt open and I felt her lips diving into the soft curls of my chest
“Beads?” I gasped, an effort to uncloud my head.
“Maybe pearls.” She giggled then, no child's giggle. Sultry, that is the only word I can think to describe the melody of her laugh. I tried not to focus on her warm mouth, the incubator of the tongue searing my skin where she'd released the shirt buttons. I felt her teeth against my belly, then her tongue running along the top of my pants. She glanced up at me, eyes shining, and while she held my gaze, those coral tips slid to the front of my jeans.
I let my sleeves fall away, and stood as tall as I could, my hands shaking like a junkie about to get a fix. I tightened the my muscles, to try and balance the building pressure and knew that if she touched me, I wouldn't stop. “Pearls?” My voice cracked like a twelve year old.
She stepped back, that half smile spread to her glistening eyes. I could focus on nothing but her as she pulled the black sweater she was wearing over her head. I was caught in the motion of her shining hair, shattering in the dark like waves released from the tidal pull of the moon, but falling to splash on her shoulders as she shook it back in place. Pulled by her undertow, I stepped toward her, sucked into that sea where I wanted to drown in her fluids.
Where the fabric had been, champagne-glass breasts toasted me so that the only response was to sip from them. The nipple was warm, and it awakened in my mouth like a ripening berry in the sun. I heard her gasp, and felt the moan in my own throat.
She smoothed my jean all the way down to my feet where I stepped out of them and left them pooled on the roof. I felt the heat of the night on my skin, intoxicated by the scent of her so close and wanted to howl myself. The surge built within me.
Before I could catch my breath, she stepped back again, and slid out of the skirt she’d worn on the plane. She stood naked there before me on the roof, her arms lifted to the night and wore the glorious sense of being unrestrained like the force of nature it was meant to be.
She spun in the moonlight, swaying to the rhythm of that song, lifting her hair and reaching to the sky, her fingers splayed and extended, the coral tips catching the light and shining like blazing triangles. I needed release, and I wanted her. The echo of the music on the street throbbed in my groin. I reached for her, and her eyes darkened, deep, like there was no end to them. All I could think was to dive in, and I did. I lifted her up, and entered her. It was over for me, a detonation of pleasure quaking to my core before she arched in my arms.
I would like to think the rest of it blended together, like so many other sessions of lovemaking. I would like to think that for a moment I remembered Molly, or at least that I was not free. But what I know is that every detail of that night, every sensation of what followed, her touch, her scent, the pungent taste of well aged whiskey that met my lips as I traveled down her body to its center and back again, are burned into every pore of my skin. We drank of each other, indulgent and greedy and mirrored the humid New Orleans night without rest. Perhaps it was the city that had hold of us, its pleasure spell cast, or perhaps she was something beyond mortal. It didn't matter. Her lips covered mine, covered me, drank me as though parched in the desert and taught me that there was so much more to making love. I was confident that it was special, that no one could love her like I could; no one could possess me like she.
Fatigue has a way of humanizing a man, and when I was no longer able to come back for more, despite her touch, her mouth or her sweet body sliding wet and slick against me, she simply kissed me. We fell into the quilts, and I must have slept. I woke slowly, feeling her feather touch trace across my chest, my arms, and my legs at once. I opened my eyes to the crimson fingers of dawn and the noise of garbage trucks on the street below.
But she was gone. I sat up, and all around me, on my chest, my legs, my arms, and even between my legs, crawled spiders, shining black spiders, with coral triangles on their backs. The quilts were alive with them.
And the only time when he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk.
Now instead of spending time with my wife and child, I sit in bars and alternate between tracing the tiny scar on the back of my hand, fingering the gold band I still wear, and drinking the best whiskey I can afford. As much as I can afford.
You see, given the chance, I would do it again without hesitation. Even now, years later, every time the music turns sultry, I reach for Tess. Whenever dawn strokes my temple, I turn to kiss Tess. And whenever I come across a glistening web strung across a window, or a tree branch or a doorway, I wonder. I look for her shining hair and coral nails in every woman I meet, her cadence in every voice I hear. It doesn’t matter, because she is never there. I can't go home, because no one knows. No one could understand.
But I know. I know I would sell my soul for one more taste of that sweet poison, one more night with Tess. Maybe I already have.
I lift up the foggy glass, and motion both to Craig and the woman as she finishes her set. “Pour me another, Craig. And one for the lady."
That's how it is, once you are bitten.
Promises
I wondered who Mary was today. I pulled the shade to the back window, and scanned the street. She was already thirty minutes late. It could mean anything, or it could mean nothing.
The afternoon sun filtered through the glass and warmed my skin as I watched, until I felt damp with perspiration, almost feverish. Only the slow traffic of the off-season cruised our sleepy Saturday morning streets. It wasn’t my habit to go to the office on weekends, and I can’t remember ever initiating a call to a patient. But there were too many coincidences for me, and I needed to know what she knew, if anything. I needed to know what she was responsible for.
My office sits at the edge of town; only an empty lot separates it from state property, earmarked for a park before the funds ran out. A narrow road alongside the vacant land ends at the lake, and the locals like to drive down the lane and park their cars on their way to the beach in the summer or to ski the woods in the winter. My own habit was to take my coffee and walk the trails through the woods from my house on the other side of the state land, especially on fine mornings. It was what I’d seen out there in the woods this morning that had caused me to break routine.
As if I’d had a routine at all since meeting Mary. I spoke to her the first time simply by chance. Twenty-five hours of public service were necessary if I wanted to keep my license, and the easiest way to get it was working the suicide hotline. Two hours, once a month was the commitment. I could fudge the last hour on follow up. I fought for the Tuesday and Wednesday shifts, because I could usually catch up on my reading then. Suicide candidates tend to prefer the weekends.
The first call had come from a terrified teenager who called herself Robin. With professional arrogance, I recognized the symptoms of classic paranoia, and began to initiate the appropriate response protocol. Before the software we used to trace calls and send intervention could finish its routing, Elizabeth came on the line and explained that Robin was just a drama queen, in no danger. The line went dead and all I had was the number. Moments later, the caller I.D. confirmed that she was calling back. I listened with fascination as Mary emerged, flustered, trying to excuse the other’s behavior.
It was Mary I convinced that it was safe to talk to me and that counseling was the only way to keep the police from following up on the hotline call. Robin would have to keep the appointment, or I had to file a report. The rules made my job simple.
So I thought. I thought it would be an easy way to finish up my community service hours. A little family counseling, group session. I could count each person attending as an hour, and I’d be set.
I thought I would be speaking to three different women.
Six months had passed, and I had met five distinct personalities. I knew there were more. One was an older man named Adam; one a crying infant the "others" refer to as Angel. Mary lives most in the world. Mary is a mother; she has a son, Stephen, in reality. My reality, not hers. But the rest all share the same body, and technically the same mind.
As I waited, I reviewed the thick file that had nearly consumed my practice. A mind forced to survive the un-survivable travels many roads, but none are as complicated as when it recreates itself. I hate to admit that Mary may never be completely unraveled. My job is to determine if she is a threat to herself, or, more importantly, to her son. Under every stone I turn is more psychosis.
Mary works in the Café on the south side of town, and the job there somehow triggers her panic attacks. Every shift seemed to be leading up to something more important. I’d stopped in the restaurant out of curiosity shortly after our first session, but Mary didn’t appear to recognize me. The oath I took wouldn’t allow me to acknowledge her without her consent. Even if she was “Mary” she just might not want anyone to know she was seeing a shrink. Common enough occurrence. I can’t say that the visit was enlightening though. Just greasy eggs and soggy toast, and while it may have turned my stomach, nothing I saw accounted for a scrambled mind.
I peered through the slats of the blinds on the back window again, and continued to flip through my file. I found the notes from an intense session with Adam. I’d flagged that session with bright red tabs, because that was the day I knew I was in well over my head, and should have given up. In that session, I was introduced to “them.” They are everywhere: the police, the barbershop, the fruit stand. The grocery store in the center of town is their headquarters. Adam told me they require gifts, and that the only real giving is sacrificial giving.
The books I consult remind me that too often, psychosis is based in fact. Until I can determine the depth of this delusion, I dare not trust anyone. Especially any of the people living “inside” Mary.
This morning, in a clearing in the woods behind my office, a circle of stones surrounded smoldering ash. A larger stone stood in the center of the ash, and a lamb, still dripping blood, was draped across the stone. Adam had said that sometimes, a lamb or a rabbit is enough. But the purity is what is important, and there is only one way to assure the purity of the soul. And that is to create it themselves.
Flipping through the file, I come to another session. Another day, Elizabeth came back. My notes record that her voice was hollow, as though it came from a distant place while Mary rested on my couch. “We deliver in the woods, among ourselves.” Her sigh was so long suffering it appeared cliché, put on. “So there are no birth records, nor death records.”
I remember it was hot then too, and as she told her story the gooseflesh that rose on my bare arms had no plausible explanation. “I became high priestess when I delivered a daughter, down near the river.” She sighed, satisfied in her accomplishment. “My sisters attended me, helped me. In return, I gave them a taste of the placenta, and we each were anointed with the holy fluid of birth.”
“And then what?” I asked. It didn’t even occur to me that the question was unprofessional.
Mary returned then, with only one sentence. “She turned innocence over to evil.”
I hadn’t been able to figure out the time frame, and had considered hospitalizing Mary to determine if her story could be real. I know there are ways to determine the number of pregnancies a body has borne, but that was well beyond the boundaries of professional conduct, and I needed to remember that this wasn’t just a community service case. Mary had come to me for help, and Stephen was to be my priority. On that, Mary was adamant.
Stephen is ten. Born before Mary swallowed the first taste of encapsulated nirvana that I presume started the delusion. If I took Mary’s account at face value, the drugs gave the cult strength and ensured its addictive hold on its members.
Stephen is too old for sacrifice, yet too young to trust. Mary says they wanted her to give the drugs to him, but something inside all those voices in her head bound together to protect the boy. The mother voice came through and cried for help.
I am brought back from the fantastic world of the file by the grind of gravel spinning away from wheels stopped too fast in my driveway. Mary gets out of the front seat, and opens the back door to retrieve a parcel. She stands straight, clutching the bundle to her chest, and her eyes look toward mine behind the window. I have the distinct feeling that she doesn’t see me, though I don’t drop my gaze.
The back door on the other side of the car springs open, and Stephen gets out, watching his mother as though he is afraid she will disintegrate. I wonder how much he has seen of her transitions, and hope that Mary has been strong enough for his sake. His agitation wins his own battle though and he runs to me as I open the office door for them. "You have to help us Doc! They're coming!"
Fear has a way of aging people, even ten year olds. My agreement with Mary is that he will be kept safe at all cost. As her doctor, I know I have an obligation first to her, but this is the pact I have made, to keep this boy from harm. I think it might be time to find him a safe place, when Mary comes up to the door and I hear the mewling cry of a newborn.
"Hush, little one, hush." Mary coos to the bundle in her arms. "No one will hurt you, little Angel." She doesn’t acknowledge that I am there.
I give another inspection to the quiet street. The late afternoon sun has given way to an overcast early evening. I see no one, hear nothing beyond the drama of these three. I hold the door and we all go inside. Turning the lock seems only appropriate. "Stephen, what happened?"
Furtive glances between his mother, who is humming lullabies now and swaying to her own rhythm, the now blocked window, and me, pepper his story. "I was hungry; there was nothing to eat in the house. So we went to the store. We just went for food.”
He is a slight child; it isn’t hard to believe he would be hungry. His tone is confessional, as though it is his responsibility and he has failed. I can see ahead to his future in that moment, and realize that families ensure full employment for my profession for a long time. But for now, he is not my patient. “What happened Stephen?” I repeat.
“Mom saw some people she knew, or at least they seemed to know her. She freaked. She ran out of the store like ... like she was ... possessed or something, screaming “Not this time! Not this time!” It was like she didn’t know where she was… she never said a word to me… just left our cart right there by the meat department.”
"Stephen, where did the baby come from?"
His voice is low, yet the terror in it is not. His eyes are pulled down by the gravity of what he has seen, and he stares at the floor. “I tried following her… I called to her but she just kept going, right out of the building. When I got to the door, she was standing by this blue car. It was weird, the engine was running, sitting there with no driver in the parking lot.” He casts a fearful eye toward the window, and takes in the smile on his mother’s face as she cradles the infant. “The doors must have been unlocked, and well…that’s where it was, all by itself, in the car, crying.”
He paused, as though he were finished. “Stephen?” I tried to use a tone that made clear stopping was not an option.
“Mom just ... grabbed it, okay? She just took someone's baby!" His voice cracks, the ten-year-old child now returning, the ten-year-old man's job complete. "She put it in the back seat of our car and told me to hang on. I didn’t even think she saw me, but I got in and we just drove away. She kept watching behind us in the mirror, and she drove all over town before we came here. I think the police are coming!"
The lullaby has stopped and the deep voice I have come to know as Adam speaks then, standing straight and tall in contrast to the nurturing curve Mary had wrapped around the infant. The baby’s head flops around and her feet dangle, as though she is inanimate, unfeeling, as Adam/Mary holds her by her armpits. "What is this? She's kidnapped a child!” The baby begins to cry again. “It has to go back!" My patient and the infant start for the door.
"Adam, wait! I need to speak with Mary!" I command with authority. One thing I have learned is that all the people inside Mary’s head are afraid of something, and the something usually is any authority at all.
"Oh that weakling! She ran away again. I have to go Doc. We need this child ... her …family will be looking for her." She looks straight through Stephen, not seeing her son.
"Mom, why are you talking that way?" Tears have now joined the anguish on the frightened boy’s face. Too much, I think. This is too much.
I step to Mary and take her face into my hands, my palms suctioned against her cheeks and make her look into my eyes. I know the risk. But I have no choice; I have made promises. "Mary, give me the baby."
Her eyes truly focus on mine in recognition for the first time since we have been meeting. “My baby,” she whispers. “Not my baby.”
“Give me the baby, Mary.”
I sense Stephen’s fear, though I don’t dare break eye contact with Mary yet. There is still a chance. I say a silent, very unpsychiatric prayer for the child.
But Mary is weak. She yields. She closes her eyes and collapses, cushioning the infant as she falls and curls into fetal position. Their cries blend eerily together. I know I have lost her.
Stephen is crying in earnest as well, repeating, “I’m your baby mom, I’m your baby.” and I catch the flashing light of the sheriff’s car between the slats of the blinds. I peel Mary’s fingers from the shrieking infant and shoulder it, then comfort Stephen as best I can with a hand on his back. He pulls away from my touch, and keeps crying “Mom, mom.” He has never been more like his mother.
The sheriff worked quietly, calling the hospital for Mary, and agreed to take the baby himself while I waited with Stephen. Since it was a pro bono case, there won’t be much paperwork for me to deal with at least. I don’t know what will happen to Stephen, but I am a professional, and can’t get involved.
When he is gone, I open the small vial the sheriff left on my desk, and breathe in the sweet scent of the membrane. I’ll allow myself a taste as a reward, though I’ll save the anointment for the ceremony. I fulfilled my promises after all, and it is time to celebrate.
Debris
I'd never liked to drive at night much; the lights all seemed to run together and the glare
off my glasses made it even harder to concentrate. But the freeways of Houston leave no margin for error. Even when the traffic is light, there are problems.
The biggest problem is that nobody covers the beds on their trucks, and well, it's Texas. There are a lot of trucks. The result is debris, some days like a war zone on the highway.
I'd had a long day at the office; it was past dark when I waved to Simon in the parking garage. The lights of downtown twinkled, laughing at me for wanting the comfort of my suburban nights, a glass of scotch and mindless blaring of the television.
I was caught in a memory from last week's TV drama when I pulled onto I 45 south. Right away, I knew something was wrong. There were just too many cars, the traffic going too slow. I flipped my radio from the best of alternative rock to the irritating voice of the AM traffic station. But all they had to report were last night's baseball scores. Boring game then, even worse to hear the recap. I punched buttons, hoping to find something to explain the delays, and wasn't focusing on the road the way I should have been.
I almost didn't have time to swerve out of the way when I saw the suitcase. It was an old Samsonite, cracked, I'm sure, from the fall to the pavement, and women's clothing blew from it. A red negligee, with deep lace and streaming ribbons flew out in the wind as I steered around it, and caught on the wiper blade on the passenger side of my car. Horns blared behind me as I corrected a near miss and I waved my hand to the mirror as apology. Only thing worse than junk on the highway is an unpredictable driver in front of you, especially in the late rush hour.
The nightgown clung with a kind of desperation, flying like a fan flag from the car. I found myself wondering about the woman it belonged to. She must be shapely and confident to wear something like that. It would be something to come home to that at night, instead of the cats and my slippers. I felt the first warm slickness between my thighs and wondered if Joe might want to come over later.
Taillights in front of me swung into a wide S before I realized there must be something else on the road and hit the brakes. Good thing I did, or I'd have never missed the mattress lying there. I shook my head as the fender of my car caught an edge of it anyway, and I could see in my mirror that part of the pillow top was caught on the underside of my car. What kind of idiot carries a mattress in an open truck on the interstate?
I'd have to get under there and hope it didn't muck up the engine somehow. I hate car trouble. I checked my location and realized there wasn't another exit for five miles. By then I'd be one exit from home. Might as well take my chances. I heard more than felt the clunking of the thing as it no doubt wrapped around my drive shaft.
The number of cars didn't seem to be thinning, the way it normally did as I got farther from town. I wondered if there had been an accident or roadwork or just what was going on. I didn't want to fiddle with the radio anymore and knew there were no options to avoid the traffic mess that were still left to me, so I hit the button to the rock station again and hummed along to Hotel California. The mattress top or whatever it was, thumped along to the rhythm, and I signaled to change lanes. With so many cars, it would take a while to work my way to the exit, and I needed to get started. I glanced in the rearview mirror and then glanced again. Something was hanging from the car behind me, too. A spot opened to my right: I had three lanes to cross, so I moved into it.
From the new lane, I looked back again. The something that was caught in the shattered glass was an arm, with the fingers of the hand tipped with glittering silver nails, fluttering in the wind as the car moved. I looked back several times, the way one does at any accident along the freeway, before I realized that the red negligee was no longer hooked to my wiper. The clumping at the wheel continued though. I signaled again, two more lanes to cross and less than a mile to the exit. I forced my way into a space that caused the car I cut off to lay on his horn, but that's life in the city. In a few minutes, I'd be home.
I would have been, but the inching traffic stopped moving altogether. The interstates are their best when you can speed along and avoid the stop and go of regular town traffic, and at their worst when they become parking lots. Stopped half a mile from my exit, two miles from my scotch. I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, pissed. Still I jumped when I heard the pounding on the glass.
A woman, dark waves tangled like she'd been riding in a convertible, dressed in what seemed to be the negligee that had flown from my windshield, hit her open palm against the window. The strap to the gown fell empty on the left side and she leaned heavily. "Hey can I have the rest of my stuff lady?"
I hit the button for the power window to hear her better.
"Since you're stopped now, do you mind if I get the rest of my stuff?" She was looking around as though she were in a hurry to find everything. "Jesus, there's my arm over there. Can you just help me here a minute?"
She bent down and I could hear her struggling with what was caught beneath the right wheel. I looked out into the mass of unmoving cars, and saw them then. It seemed that every car had something hanging, an arm, a swatch of hair; one even had the torso of someone whose bare bottom had caught on the bumper and was mooning whoever looked that way. Between the cars was movement, a mass of inhumanity that I couldn't blame on bad night vision.
I looked closer. Every car had something wrong… a bent fender, smashed windshield, caved in side panels. I got out of the car to see what it was she struggled with, and felt nausea rolling up my belly at the sight. "It was just a mattress. I only hit a mattress"
The leg, wrapped around my axel like thread in a vacuum cleaner, did not bleed, but seemed more like used chewing gum. The toes of the mangled foot were painted silver, and though limp, glittered with tiny rhinestones. I turned away to vomit, and when I looked back the woman in the negligee had released it and was putting it back on like it was a silk stocking. "Thanks hon." She moved away with a flip of her dark hair, licking lips that were far too blue to be warm, and yet. And yet. She pulled the other arm from the windshield of the wreck behind us; a pick-up with a mattress still tied securely in its bed, and smiled. "I think you will find yours three rows back, over there in that third lane."
I felt limp then, startled to see that only one of my legs was beneath me. I looked back to where I'd been sitting in my car and saw the team of rescue workers wielding the huge saw to cut my bleeding body from the sedan. I don't know how I did it, but I moved closer to them, catching the tunes of the radio, still playing hotel California.
"Witness said she was swerving all over the highway," one officer said to another, filling out a clipboard. "I can smell the preservative on her even now, even above the stench of death. What kind of nut hits rush hour traffic in Houston in that condition?"
"No clue," his partner said as he picked my glasses up from the pavement, the lenses oddly still intact. "Has the aroma of old scotch though, wouldn't you say?"
The biggest problem is that nobody covers the beds on their trucks, and well, it's Texas. There are a lot of trucks. The result is debris, some days like a war zone on the highway.
I'd had a long day at the office; it was past dark when I waved to Simon in the parking garage. The lights of downtown twinkled, laughing at me for wanting the comfort of my suburban nights, a glass of scotch and mindless blaring of the television.
I was caught in a memory from last week's TV drama when I pulled onto I 45 south. Right away, I knew something was wrong. There were just too many cars, the traffic going too slow. I flipped my radio from the best of alternative rock to the irritating voice of the AM traffic station. But all they had to report were last night's baseball scores. Boring game then, even worse to hear the recap. I punched buttons, hoping to find something to explain the delays, and wasn't focusing on the road the way I should have been.
I almost didn't have time to swerve out of the way when I saw the suitcase. It was an old Samsonite, cracked, I'm sure, from the fall to the pavement, and women's clothing blew from it. A red negligee, with deep lace and streaming ribbons flew out in the wind as I steered around it, and caught on the wiper blade on the passenger side of my car. Horns blared behind me as I corrected a near miss and I waved my hand to the mirror as apology. Only thing worse than junk on the highway is an unpredictable driver in front of you, especially in the late rush hour.
The nightgown clung with a kind of desperation, flying like a fan flag from the car. I found myself wondering about the woman it belonged to. She must be shapely and confident to wear something like that. It would be something to come home to that at night, instead of the cats and my slippers. I felt the first warm slickness between my thighs and wondered if Joe might want to come over later.
Taillights in front of me swung into a wide S before I realized there must be something else on the road and hit the brakes. Good thing I did, or I'd have never missed the mattress lying there. I shook my head as the fender of my car caught an edge of it anyway, and I could see in my mirror that part of the pillow top was caught on the underside of my car. What kind of idiot carries a mattress in an open truck on the interstate?
I'd have to get under there and hope it didn't muck up the engine somehow. I hate car trouble. I checked my location and realized there wasn't another exit for five miles. By then I'd be one exit from home. Might as well take my chances. I heard more than felt the clunking of the thing as it no doubt wrapped around my drive shaft.
The number of cars didn't seem to be thinning, the way it normally did as I got farther from town. I wondered if there had been an accident or roadwork or just what was going on. I didn't want to fiddle with the radio anymore and knew there were no options to avoid the traffic mess that were still left to me, so I hit the button to the rock station again and hummed along to Hotel California. The mattress top or whatever it was, thumped along to the rhythm, and I signaled to change lanes. With so many cars, it would take a while to work my way to the exit, and I needed to get started. I glanced in the rearview mirror and then glanced again. Something was hanging from the car behind me, too. A spot opened to my right: I had three lanes to cross, so I moved into it.
From the new lane, I looked back again. The something that was caught in the shattered glass was an arm, with the fingers of the hand tipped with glittering silver nails, fluttering in the wind as the car moved. I looked back several times, the way one does at any accident along the freeway, before I realized that the red negligee was no longer hooked to my wiper. The clumping at the wheel continued though. I signaled again, two more lanes to cross and less than a mile to the exit. I forced my way into a space that caused the car I cut off to lay on his horn, but that's life in the city. In a few minutes, I'd be home.
I would have been, but the inching traffic stopped moving altogether. The interstates are their best when you can speed along and avoid the stop and go of regular town traffic, and at their worst when they become parking lots. Stopped half a mile from my exit, two miles from my scotch. I slammed my hand against the steering wheel, pissed. Still I jumped when I heard the pounding on the glass.
A woman, dark waves tangled like she'd been riding in a convertible, dressed in what seemed to be the negligee that had flown from my windshield, hit her open palm against the window. The strap to the gown fell empty on the left side and she leaned heavily. "Hey can I have the rest of my stuff lady?"
I hit the button for the power window to hear her better.
"Since you're stopped now, do you mind if I get the rest of my stuff?" She was looking around as though she were in a hurry to find everything. "Jesus, there's my arm over there. Can you just help me here a minute?"
She bent down and I could hear her struggling with what was caught beneath the right wheel. I looked out into the mass of unmoving cars, and saw them then. It seemed that every car had something hanging, an arm, a swatch of hair; one even had the torso of someone whose bare bottom had caught on the bumper and was mooning whoever looked that way. Between the cars was movement, a mass of inhumanity that I couldn't blame on bad night vision.
I looked closer. Every car had something wrong… a bent fender, smashed windshield, caved in side panels. I got out of the car to see what it was she struggled with, and felt nausea rolling up my belly at the sight. "It was just a mattress. I only hit a mattress"
The leg, wrapped around my axel like thread in a vacuum cleaner, did not bleed, but seemed more like used chewing gum. The toes of the mangled foot were painted silver, and though limp, glittered with tiny rhinestones. I turned away to vomit, and when I looked back the woman in the negligee had released it and was putting it back on like it was a silk stocking. "Thanks hon." She moved away with a flip of her dark hair, licking lips that were far too blue to be warm, and yet. And yet. She pulled the other arm from the windshield of the wreck behind us; a pick-up with a mattress still tied securely in its bed, and smiled. "I think you will find yours three rows back, over there in that third lane."
I felt limp then, startled to see that only one of my legs was beneath me. I looked back to where I'd been sitting in my car and saw the team of rescue workers wielding the huge saw to cut my bleeding body from the sedan. I don't know how I did it, but I moved closer to them, catching the tunes of the radio, still playing hotel California.
"Witness said she was swerving all over the highway," one officer said to another, filling out a clipboard. "I can smell the preservative on her even now, even above the stench of death. What kind of nut hits rush hour traffic in Houston in that condition?"
"No clue," his partner said as he picked my glasses up from the pavement, the lenses oddly still intact. "Has the aroma of old scotch though, wouldn't you say?"
The Christmas Demon
They're usually easy to find. They stop in after work for milk, if they are hopeful, beer if they are not. Maybe they plan to feed a sweet tooth on one more lonely night when they come to the Seven Eleven with their few dollars and their false smiles. The loneliest ones always make the call, whether it is home to momma, or to the married man they'd been dumped by, or the last boyfriend to make them happy. I can tell when they've lost out again by the tears that gather in the corners of their eyes. I want to drink those tears. I need that anguish to live.
I leave them alone, though, unless they are foolish enough to make the call. When they pick up that phone, they are mine.
In the bathroom I check the mirror, just to make sure I look okay. The cracked mirror lit by a single bulb makes my nose look a bit too pointy, but it's not too bad for a beak. My hair falls in layered clumps around my collar. Sort of a wise owl look, I decide. My eyes are the most disturbing I suppose, as they peer out opposite sides of my head. It makes it easy to see things going on outside a normal plane of vision though. Angels get human bodies and wings; we get bird bodies and arms. Someone down there has a sense of humor.
The black overcoat does a good job of covering my feathers, and since I have the arms of a human, it fits okay. My feet would give me away, if anyone bothered to look. When they are being kidnapped, maimed or murdered, as I see fit, most people aren't too worried about the feet of the perpetrator.
The things the callers say are fascinating, though. They pray a lot, as if that is going to change things. Not bloody likely.
I'm hungry. Christmas time has so many do-gooders that the balance between good and evil gets lopsided. But the closer we get to the holiday, the more desperate people become. Then I can feast.
Especially at the Seven Eleven. Tonight's morsel seemed to be waiting for someone. When she picked up the phone, she asked for someone named Joe. "Please tell him I'm waiting for him, and to hurry." My lucky day. I hang up my end, and slide out of the shadows.
"Something wrong, Ma'am?" I asked her. She sort of glowed there in the circle of yellow neon light. Her belly made it clear her pregnancy was pretty far along. I'd never taken a pregnant one before. This would be fun.
"No, thank you." She replied. "My boyfriend is just held up at work. I'm sure he'll be here any minute. We're having a baby." She smiled.
"I see that. When?"
"Any day now. We came up from Corpus Christi so we could have the baby in a real hospital. But now Joe's insurance says they won't pay if we aren't married. We are hoping to be able to tie the knot before the baby comes."
"Insurance... there's a bah humbug for you. Worse than taxes in this day and age."
"You got that right." She gripped her lower abdomen. "Oh wow."
"You okay?" I asked. She was nearly doubled over.
"No, I think I'm... I'm in labor. Where is Joe?" she wailed.
I walked over and touched her, light as a feather, and sealed her fate. "Why don't you let me take you? Then I'll come back and wait for Joe." And I would. Oh yes, I would.
I could tell she wanted to say no, so I was patient. She really didn't know yet she was all mine. The next contraction convinced her.
I drove her to St. Anne's Episcopal first. Nice modern private hospital. The receptionist had three questions. "Are you pre registered?"
The girl, whose name was Maria, was being as brave as could be expected. "No, I'm not from here."
"Is your doctor on staff?" the efficient woman asked.
"I don't have a doctor." Maria gritted her teeth. I moved next to her to… okay, I moved next to her to increase her pain. She groaned.
"Are you the father?" the receptionist asked me.
"No, I just offered to drive her here."
The receptionist allowed herself one more question. "You know where County General is?"
When I nodded, she suggested I "offer" to drive her "there."
I knew what it would be like at County. Especially on Christmas Eve. I drove her instead to a little out of the way place I know, called the Stable Inn.
The baby was born just after midnight, a moonless night so dark there wasn't a star in the sky. Maria, of course, bled to death. I'm keeping the baby, and naming him Susej. I'll call him Sue, like that old Johnny Cash song. If I'm lucky, and raise him right, he'll grow up to be a terrorist.
I leave them alone, though, unless they are foolish enough to make the call. When they pick up that phone, they are mine.
In the bathroom I check the mirror, just to make sure I look okay. The cracked mirror lit by a single bulb makes my nose look a bit too pointy, but it's not too bad for a beak. My hair falls in layered clumps around my collar. Sort of a wise owl look, I decide. My eyes are the most disturbing I suppose, as they peer out opposite sides of my head. It makes it easy to see things going on outside a normal plane of vision though. Angels get human bodies and wings; we get bird bodies and arms. Someone down there has a sense of humor.
The black overcoat does a good job of covering my feathers, and since I have the arms of a human, it fits okay. My feet would give me away, if anyone bothered to look. When they are being kidnapped, maimed or murdered, as I see fit, most people aren't too worried about the feet of the perpetrator.
The things the callers say are fascinating, though. They pray a lot, as if that is going to change things. Not bloody likely.
I'm hungry. Christmas time has so many do-gooders that the balance between good and evil gets lopsided. But the closer we get to the holiday, the more desperate people become. Then I can feast.
Especially at the Seven Eleven. Tonight's morsel seemed to be waiting for someone. When she picked up the phone, she asked for someone named Joe. "Please tell him I'm waiting for him, and to hurry." My lucky day. I hang up my end, and slide out of the shadows.
"Something wrong, Ma'am?" I asked her. She sort of glowed there in the circle of yellow neon light. Her belly made it clear her pregnancy was pretty far along. I'd never taken a pregnant one before. This would be fun.
"No, thank you." She replied. "My boyfriend is just held up at work. I'm sure he'll be here any minute. We're having a baby." She smiled.
"I see that. When?"
"Any day now. We came up from Corpus Christi so we could have the baby in a real hospital. But now Joe's insurance says they won't pay if we aren't married. We are hoping to be able to tie the knot before the baby comes."
"Insurance... there's a bah humbug for you. Worse than taxes in this day and age."
"You got that right." She gripped her lower abdomen. "Oh wow."
"You okay?" I asked. She was nearly doubled over.
"No, I think I'm... I'm in labor. Where is Joe?" she wailed.
I walked over and touched her, light as a feather, and sealed her fate. "Why don't you let me take you? Then I'll come back and wait for Joe." And I would. Oh yes, I would.
I could tell she wanted to say no, so I was patient. She really didn't know yet she was all mine. The next contraction convinced her.
I drove her to St. Anne's Episcopal first. Nice modern private hospital. The receptionist had three questions. "Are you pre registered?"
The girl, whose name was Maria, was being as brave as could be expected. "No, I'm not from here."
"Is your doctor on staff?" the efficient woman asked.
"I don't have a doctor." Maria gritted her teeth. I moved next to her to… okay, I moved next to her to increase her pain. She groaned.
"Are you the father?" the receptionist asked me.
"No, I just offered to drive her here."
The receptionist allowed herself one more question. "You know where County General is?"
When I nodded, she suggested I "offer" to drive her "there."
I knew what it would be like at County. Especially on Christmas Eve. I drove her instead to a little out of the way place I know, called the Stable Inn.
The baby was born just after midnight, a moonless night so dark there wasn't a star in the sky. Maria, of course, bled to death. I'm keeping the baby, and naming him Susej. I'll call him Sue, like that old Johnny Cash song. If I'm lucky, and raise him right, he'll grow up to be a terrorist.
Perfect
Vienna, 1938
"Thank you Doctor. This is perfect. And you are sure it's got the right … ingredients?" Wolfgang Liebeneiner took his gloves off to place it in the special box, and marked "Xmas" on the side before closing it. He had to get back to work.
"Of course." Eduard Pernkopf smiled. "Since the Third Reich has come into power, we have devoted all the scientific capacity of the entire University of Vienna to the cause." His smile was genuine. He'd been able to rise to the top of the heap just by understanding the politics, and he was dean of the greatest university in the world. Commitment to the promotion of racial cleansing had been a small price to pay.
"Yes, Hitler is very proud of your work here. But this piece… this looks so innocent. "
"I am honored that the Fuhrer even knows who I am. He is the greatest son of our home country and it is with joyful devotion and loyalty that we are able to employ what we have learned in our experiments to support this noble cause." He had to keep reminding himself. He was dean now.
"I must say I am happy and surprised, Eduard. Most of your profession isn't as enlightened. "
"They are weak. They don't understand the glory of the Aryan. And besides, if we had to rely solely on medicine, this task would not have been possible."
"What do you mean?" Wolfgang asked, concerned.
"Let's just say we had to import a little black magic, in furtherance of the cause. The craftsmanship is of course, pure German. No one makes Christmas ornaments like the Germans."
Liebeneiner laughed. "Whatever it takes, my friend. I'm having dinner with my brother -in-law's family tonight and we will observe how it works for ourselves. My wife thinks they are harboring Jews. Imagine, my own family!"
Pernkopf shook hands with the officer. "These are trying times indeed, my friend. Make sure no one is in contact with the infidel when it is employed. Magic like this is very hard to control. And I don't need to tell you to keep this quiet, do I?"
Liebeneiner raised his hand in the popular salute and tucked the box under his arm. "Yes, yes, I will be careful. It will be our little secret."
Upstate New York, 1969
"Lucinda! What are you doing up there? Just hand them down!"
Lucinda scooted the boxes of decorations to the edge of the attic entrance and peered through the opening at her father. "Just a minute, Dad, there's more!"
"More? It figures. Grandma never threw anything out. We already have more than any normal tree will hold. Come on down, honey."
"One second." Lucinda called back over her shoulder. She'd been given the job of retrieving the Christmas decorations because she was still short enough to stand up in the attic. Her mother might have been, but she was too busy with the baby, and her father was over six feet. Good Aryan stock, her Grandma used to say.
Lucinda stepped over the boxes that were ready to hand down to her Dad, and reached for one marked "Xmas," still tucked up under the attic eaves. She thought it odd because all the others were marked "Christmas" and she remembered Grandma always hating that abbreviation. "Don't ever take the Christ out of Christmas," she'd say.
Attic dust coated everything up there, but that Xmas box looked like it hadn't been moved since her great grandparents, Wolfgang and Gretchen, bought the old house in the forties. They had emigrated from Austria right before the war. Their son, Grandma's father, and his young wife Hilda had died before they came. Grandma wouldn't talk about it. She just said it was a terrible time, and prayed a lot.
After Wolfgang, and then Gretchen passed away, Grandma had been raised by her mother's cousin in Manhattan, and since the cousin's family was Jewish, they never celebrated Christmas. The beautiful old house Wolfgang and Gretchen had bought was closed up, but Grandma and Grandpa moved back when they married. They were active and generous people, and every year at Christmas time, they packed the whole family up for ski trips or cruises, always far from home. The family fortune was vast, Grandpa explained. Why not enjoy it?
Lucinda brushed the dust from her dark curls and watched the snow falling outside, happy that their first "real" Christmas was going to be a white one. It was good to be in a real house and not the city apartment or traveling for a change. She frowned to herself. Had Grandma lived longer, they might still be there. It seemed she got meaner after Grandpa died, spending more and more time with her clubs, always muttering about changing the will.
House hunting had been fun for a while, but every house they looked at seemed to "be under contract" as soon as Lucinda's dad took his family to see it. Lucinda heard her dad use the term "block buster" and her mom sadly laugh "there goes the neighborhood" each time they drove away from another of the neat suburbs. They had been looking since they'd learned the baby was on its way. Noah was three months old now and smiling.
Now though, they were all going a little crazy about the holidays. They decided to decorate for all the holidays of their heritage. The menorah sat on the fireplace, in honor of their cousins, the Kwanzaa flags from mother's side by the doors. They were staying home, cooking goose and roasting chestnuts, and wanted to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve. They didn't want to deal with the rest of the world this year, the staring and the rude comments Lucinda heard people say about her parents whenever they were out together in public.
Lucinda tugged the Xmas box from under the eave, leaving bits of paper from the bottom where it had stuck over the years. She didn't look inside, but pushed it to the edge of the attic opening so she could hand it down with the rest.
****
"Is it straight?"
Lucinda's dad was lying on the floor beneath the biggest Douglas fir that was left in the lot. They'd had to cut another foot off the trunk just to fit it in the house, but it was beautiful and its soft needles smelled of the clean outdoors. She stepped back and squinted. "It's leaning a little too far to the right, Dad."
"Your right or mine?" He grunted. He didn't like being under the tree, she guessed.
"Toward the kitchen." The scent of gingerbread and cocoa came from that direction. "I think it smells the cookies!"
He laughed and adjusted the pins again as she stepped around it, surveying. "Perfect. It’s going to look so great!"
He crawled out and admired the tree. "Yes, it is isn't it? Let's get the decorations on!"
They strung multi-colored lights, testing first to make sure they all lit. Then they hung the glass balls, straw snowflakes and tiny toys from the attic. The baby finally napped, and Lucinda's mom came into the room with cocoa and gingerbread for Lucinda and eggnog for her Dad. "It’s beautiful, " she declared, tears in her eyes. "Ready for a break?"
Lucinda's dad was hanging the last ornament up as high as he could reach. "Yes, I think we are finished. Shall we turn on the lights?"
Lucinda stacked the empty boxes together to shove back up in the attic until after Christmas. It was then she noticed the unopened "Xmas" box. "Look, we forgot one!"
"I don't think we need any more ornaments honey. The tree is covered!" Her dad took a cup of the eggnog and sipped. "Wow. This is wonderful. I feel like something out of a storybook. It's so nice not to be packing for trip for a change. I wish Mom and Dad could have enjoyed this kind of Christmas."
Lucinda slipped the lid from the dusty box and caught her breath. Inside was an angel, dressed in silver and gold. Her porcelain face had a far off expression and honey blond tresses curled around her shoulders and over her wings. "Oh Daddy. Wait 'til you see!"
She carried the box and held it reverently as she walked to where her parents were sitting. "An angel for the treetop. The finishing touch. " He set his eggnog on the table and took the old box from Lucinda's hands. "She practically glows. " He turned the angel around. "There is an inscription in the porcelain. Wow. I never knew mom had anything like this. I guess little boys don't remember details very well."
"It must be very valuable. Do you think we should really use it?" Lucinda's mother asked.
"What harm is there in putting it on the tree on Christmas Eve? " He reached toward the top of the tree and realized that he was just a few inches too short to place something so delicate there. "Tell you what, Lucinda. How about you climb on my shoulders and put her where she belongs?" He turned to his wife and handed her the switch for the lights and smiled. "You can do the honors."
Lucinda felt her father's hands on her waist as he lifted her, and his strong shoulders as she swung around to sit on them. Her mother lifted the box to her, and as Lucinda picked up the angel, she smiled, watching her mother clasp her father's hand. It was all so perfect.
As soon as she placed the angel on the tree, the serene expression on the porcelain face changed into an almost euphoric grin. Lucinda steadied the angel with her hand, confused at what she'd done to it. Her mother clicked the switch to the lights.
For a moment, the tree glowed with all the glory of a Christmas miracle. Then the angel 's silver gown turned to black, and the golden threads glowed with red flame. One by one, starting at the top, each of the lights on the tree turned from bright green or red or white to black, until the tree, from top to trunk, glowed with a black darker than all the hatred in the world. At the same time, a cold current ran through Lucinda's fingers. It started where she touched the Angel, and sped through her arm into her body and legs. She felt her father go rigid as the cold jumped from her legs onto his shoulders. It traveled through him, reaching the fingers clasped to his wife in less than a blink of an eye. Lucinda's mother felt the tingle, and though t it must be a short from the lights, and looked up, but the cold gained speed and energy as it traveled up her arm, through her heart and spread through the rest of her body. The door to the house blew open, the ancient hinges reversing for the malevolent cold. It blew out of the house, then the door blew back in, not even hesitating at the latch. The clean wind of the white Christmas blew in.
The baby's cry through the open door on Christmas morning finally got the attention of a patrol car doing the quiet morning rounds of the affluent street. Even then, it took three passes by the house before they went inside. "What makes a family abandon a baby on Christmas? " The officer asked his partner.
"Well, this was that "mixed" family, you know? Hard to tell what they were thinking." They'd walked through the house and discovered nothing amiss, except for the Christmas ornaments spread all over the floor in the living room, and four piles of what looked like dust, already scattered by the hours of wind. "People are weird about holidays. He picked up the beautiful angel in the center. "Nice stuff though. Look at this." He turned the angel, and moved aside the perfect silver gown so his partner could read the inscription.
"Salem Mass, 1688. Wow."
"Wow indeed." He placed it gently back into a box marked "Xmas" that looked as though it was made for it.
Iran, 2004
Really, Shazia, we have to go. The trust my grandfather set up says when I am 35,I officially own the place after all, and all that snow…don't you want to get out of this desert for a while? We can celebrate Christmas the old fashioned way. "
"Noah, my father would disown me forever if he knew I was celebrating Christmas at all! You know that! We've been together ten years, and he still thinks you are Muslim!"
"I do fit in so well, so long as I keep my head shaved and he never sees I have curly African hair instead of that nice straight stuff your brothers have!" Noah didn't care about the silly old man.
"I just can't Noah. It's bad enough I wouldn't marry his choice for me." Shazia shuddered as she thought of the nice Bedouin friend of her fathers, and all those camels.
"Shazi, you and I are married. We have a new baby. Don't you think its time we started doing things we want to do instead of what THEY want all the time? You really think Allah will punish you for celebrating a "pagan "holiday?"
She laughed. That's infidel if you don't mind. If you are going to make fun of the religion, get your terms right."
"Infidel, pagan, whatever. Just a holiday about a baby being born. One that changed history. Maybe our son will be the next great peacekeeper. Maybe if we bring him up with love instead of hate…" He took her hands and gave her the little boy look she never resisted.
"You're right, Noah. I know you are. Just something feels … I don't know. Foreboding."
He pulled her into his arms. "You've already thrown off your burqa; you are a Harvard grad. A little snow, chestnuts on the open fire, heck, we can even get a tree. We don't have to go to church or anything. Just come celebrate Christmas with me in the old house. Let's see how we like the lifestyle."
She laid her head on his shoulder. "I don't suppose we have to tell my family. It will be our little secret, okay?"
"You'll see. It will be perfect."
"Thank you Doctor. This is perfect. And you are sure it's got the right … ingredients?" Wolfgang Liebeneiner took his gloves off to place it in the special box, and marked "Xmas" on the side before closing it. He had to get back to work.
"Of course." Eduard Pernkopf smiled. "Since the Third Reich has come into power, we have devoted all the scientific capacity of the entire University of Vienna to the cause." His smile was genuine. He'd been able to rise to the top of the heap just by understanding the politics, and he was dean of the greatest university in the world. Commitment to the promotion of racial cleansing had been a small price to pay.
"Yes, Hitler is very proud of your work here. But this piece… this looks so innocent. "
"I am honored that the Fuhrer even knows who I am. He is the greatest son of our home country and it is with joyful devotion and loyalty that we are able to employ what we have learned in our experiments to support this noble cause." He had to keep reminding himself. He was dean now.
"I must say I am happy and surprised, Eduard. Most of your profession isn't as enlightened. "
"They are weak. They don't understand the glory of the Aryan. And besides, if we had to rely solely on medicine, this task would not have been possible."
"What do you mean?" Wolfgang asked, concerned.
"Let's just say we had to import a little black magic, in furtherance of the cause. The craftsmanship is of course, pure German. No one makes Christmas ornaments like the Germans."
Liebeneiner laughed. "Whatever it takes, my friend. I'm having dinner with my brother -in-law's family tonight and we will observe how it works for ourselves. My wife thinks they are harboring Jews. Imagine, my own family!"
Pernkopf shook hands with the officer. "These are trying times indeed, my friend. Make sure no one is in contact with the infidel when it is employed. Magic like this is very hard to control. And I don't need to tell you to keep this quiet, do I?"
Liebeneiner raised his hand in the popular salute and tucked the box under his arm. "Yes, yes, I will be careful. It will be our little secret."
Upstate New York, 1969
"Lucinda! What are you doing up there? Just hand them down!"
Lucinda scooted the boxes of decorations to the edge of the attic entrance and peered through the opening at her father. "Just a minute, Dad, there's more!"
"More? It figures. Grandma never threw anything out. We already have more than any normal tree will hold. Come on down, honey."
"One second." Lucinda called back over her shoulder. She'd been given the job of retrieving the Christmas decorations because she was still short enough to stand up in the attic. Her mother might have been, but she was too busy with the baby, and her father was over six feet. Good Aryan stock, her Grandma used to say.
Lucinda stepped over the boxes that were ready to hand down to her Dad, and reached for one marked "Xmas," still tucked up under the attic eaves. She thought it odd because all the others were marked "Christmas" and she remembered Grandma always hating that abbreviation. "Don't ever take the Christ out of Christmas," she'd say.
Attic dust coated everything up there, but that Xmas box looked like it hadn't been moved since her great grandparents, Wolfgang and Gretchen, bought the old house in the forties. They had emigrated from Austria right before the war. Their son, Grandma's father, and his young wife Hilda had died before they came. Grandma wouldn't talk about it. She just said it was a terrible time, and prayed a lot.
After Wolfgang, and then Gretchen passed away, Grandma had been raised by her mother's cousin in Manhattan, and since the cousin's family was Jewish, they never celebrated Christmas. The beautiful old house Wolfgang and Gretchen had bought was closed up, but Grandma and Grandpa moved back when they married. They were active and generous people, and every year at Christmas time, they packed the whole family up for ski trips or cruises, always far from home. The family fortune was vast, Grandpa explained. Why not enjoy it?
Lucinda brushed the dust from her dark curls and watched the snow falling outside, happy that their first "real" Christmas was going to be a white one. It was good to be in a real house and not the city apartment or traveling for a change. She frowned to herself. Had Grandma lived longer, they might still be there. It seemed she got meaner after Grandpa died, spending more and more time with her clubs, always muttering about changing the will.
House hunting had been fun for a while, but every house they looked at seemed to "be under contract" as soon as Lucinda's dad took his family to see it. Lucinda heard her dad use the term "block buster" and her mom sadly laugh "there goes the neighborhood" each time they drove away from another of the neat suburbs. They had been looking since they'd learned the baby was on its way. Noah was three months old now and smiling.
Now though, they were all going a little crazy about the holidays. They decided to decorate for all the holidays of their heritage. The menorah sat on the fireplace, in honor of their cousins, the Kwanzaa flags from mother's side by the doors. They were staying home, cooking goose and roasting chestnuts, and wanted to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve. They didn't want to deal with the rest of the world this year, the staring and the rude comments Lucinda heard people say about her parents whenever they were out together in public.
Lucinda tugged the Xmas box from under the eave, leaving bits of paper from the bottom where it had stuck over the years. She didn't look inside, but pushed it to the edge of the attic opening so she could hand it down with the rest.
****
"Is it straight?"
Lucinda's dad was lying on the floor beneath the biggest Douglas fir that was left in the lot. They'd had to cut another foot off the trunk just to fit it in the house, but it was beautiful and its soft needles smelled of the clean outdoors. She stepped back and squinted. "It's leaning a little too far to the right, Dad."
"Your right or mine?" He grunted. He didn't like being under the tree, she guessed.
"Toward the kitchen." The scent of gingerbread and cocoa came from that direction. "I think it smells the cookies!"
He laughed and adjusted the pins again as she stepped around it, surveying. "Perfect. It’s going to look so great!"
He crawled out and admired the tree. "Yes, it is isn't it? Let's get the decorations on!"
They strung multi-colored lights, testing first to make sure they all lit. Then they hung the glass balls, straw snowflakes and tiny toys from the attic. The baby finally napped, and Lucinda's mom came into the room with cocoa and gingerbread for Lucinda and eggnog for her Dad. "It’s beautiful, " she declared, tears in her eyes. "Ready for a break?"
Lucinda's dad was hanging the last ornament up as high as he could reach. "Yes, I think we are finished. Shall we turn on the lights?"
Lucinda stacked the empty boxes together to shove back up in the attic until after Christmas. It was then she noticed the unopened "Xmas" box. "Look, we forgot one!"
"I don't think we need any more ornaments honey. The tree is covered!" Her dad took a cup of the eggnog and sipped. "Wow. This is wonderful. I feel like something out of a storybook. It's so nice not to be packing for trip for a change. I wish Mom and Dad could have enjoyed this kind of Christmas."
Lucinda slipped the lid from the dusty box and caught her breath. Inside was an angel, dressed in silver and gold. Her porcelain face had a far off expression and honey blond tresses curled around her shoulders and over her wings. "Oh Daddy. Wait 'til you see!"
She carried the box and held it reverently as she walked to where her parents were sitting. "An angel for the treetop. The finishing touch. " He set his eggnog on the table and took the old box from Lucinda's hands. "She practically glows. " He turned the angel around. "There is an inscription in the porcelain. Wow. I never knew mom had anything like this. I guess little boys don't remember details very well."
"It must be very valuable. Do you think we should really use it?" Lucinda's mother asked.
"What harm is there in putting it on the tree on Christmas Eve? " He reached toward the top of the tree and realized that he was just a few inches too short to place something so delicate there. "Tell you what, Lucinda. How about you climb on my shoulders and put her where she belongs?" He turned to his wife and handed her the switch for the lights and smiled. "You can do the honors."
Lucinda felt her father's hands on her waist as he lifted her, and his strong shoulders as she swung around to sit on them. Her mother lifted the box to her, and as Lucinda picked up the angel, she smiled, watching her mother clasp her father's hand. It was all so perfect.
As soon as she placed the angel on the tree, the serene expression on the porcelain face changed into an almost euphoric grin. Lucinda steadied the angel with her hand, confused at what she'd done to it. Her mother clicked the switch to the lights.
For a moment, the tree glowed with all the glory of a Christmas miracle. Then the angel 's silver gown turned to black, and the golden threads glowed with red flame. One by one, starting at the top, each of the lights on the tree turned from bright green or red or white to black, until the tree, from top to trunk, glowed with a black darker than all the hatred in the world. At the same time, a cold current ran through Lucinda's fingers. It started where she touched the Angel, and sped through her arm into her body and legs. She felt her father go rigid as the cold jumped from her legs onto his shoulders. It traveled through him, reaching the fingers clasped to his wife in less than a blink of an eye. Lucinda's mother felt the tingle, and though t it must be a short from the lights, and looked up, but the cold gained speed and energy as it traveled up her arm, through her heart and spread through the rest of her body. The door to the house blew open, the ancient hinges reversing for the malevolent cold. It blew out of the house, then the door blew back in, not even hesitating at the latch. The clean wind of the white Christmas blew in.
The baby's cry through the open door on Christmas morning finally got the attention of a patrol car doing the quiet morning rounds of the affluent street. Even then, it took three passes by the house before they went inside. "What makes a family abandon a baby on Christmas? " The officer asked his partner.
"Well, this was that "mixed" family, you know? Hard to tell what they were thinking." They'd walked through the house and discovered nothing amiss, except for the Christmas ornaments spread all over the floor in the living room, and four piles of what looked like dust, already scattered by the hours of wind. "People are weird about holidays. He picked up the beautiful angel in the center. "Nice stuff though. Look at this." He turned the angel, and moved aside the perfect silver gown so his partner could read the inscription.
"Salem Mass, 1688. Wow."
"Wow indeed." He placed it gently back into a box marked "Xmas" that looked as though it was made for it.
Iran, 2004
Really, Shazia, we have to go. The trust my grandfather set up says when I am 35,I officially own the place after all, and all that snow…don't you want to get out of this desert for a while? We can celebrate Christmas the old fashioned way. "
"Noah, my father would disown me forever if he knew I was celebrating Christmas at all! You know that! We've been together ten years, and he still thinks you are Muslim!"
"I do fit in so well, so long as I keep my head shaved and he never sees I have curly African hair instead of that nice straight stuff your brothers have!" Noah didn't care about the silly old man.
"I just can't Noah. It's bad enough I wouldn't marry his choice for me." Shazia shuddered as she thought of the nice Bedouin friend of her fathers, and all those camels.
"Shazi, you and I are married. We have a new baby. Don't you think its time we started doing things we want to do instead of what THEY want all the time? You really think Allah will punish you for celebrating a "pagan "holiday?"
She laughed. That's infidel if you don't mind. If you are going to make fun of the religion, get your terms right."
"Infidel, pagan, whatever. Just a holiday about a baby being born. One that changed history. Maybe our son will be the next great peacekeeper. Maybe if we bring him up with love instead of hate…" He took her hands and gave her the little boy look she never resisted.
"You're right, Noah. I know you are. Just something feels … I don't know. Foreboding."
He pulled her into his arms. "You've already thrown off your burqa; you are a Harvard grad. A little snow, chestnuts on the open fire, heck, we can even get a tree. We don't have to go to church or anything. Just come celebrate Christmas with me in the old house. Let's see how we like the lifestyle."
She laid her head on his shoulder. "I don't suppose we have to tell my family. It will be our little secret, okay?"
"You'll see. It will be perfect."
The Acid Girls
This story was the result of a challenge... we all were to interpret the phrase Acid Girls fictionally. (i have no idea where this stuff comes from!) -G
The Acid Girls
Hunger gnawed at the edges of Pieter DeVries' belly as he slid the stack of nature prints back into the worn leather portfolio. He shook his head. Long hair, tied back with a shoelace, came loose in slick strands. "I just don't understand."
"I'm sorry Pieter." Michael Graham needed Pieter out of his gallery before one of his customers saw … or worse… smelled the artist. "It's the new narcissism. The public is fickle. The only things the patrons of this city want are portraits of themselves, the more avant-garde, the better.
Michael set the tone of what the "patrons" would purchase, and Pieter and every other artist in the city knew it. If Graham told them toadstools were "all the rage," then a child's scribble title Toadstool would bring in a fortune.
But Pieter was trained in the old school. He had Dutch masters in his bloodline. His preferred subjects were landscapes or flowers or trees. His prints ranged from woodcuts to aquatints, and he knew they were good. Why couldn't he sell them? "Intaglio is painstaking in its precision. How can they not see the value?"
"Play to their weakness, and your strengths my friend. How many artists before you have been advised to make portraits for the wealthy, just to pay their bills while keeping their dream alive? Even Rembrandt did etchings of Lords and Ladies in shades of gray." He guided Pieter to the back door, his slight touch like leading him in a waltz, "Call me when you've something to show me. " His last touch was more of a shove, and Pieter heard the deadbolt click behind him.
He held the portfolio in front of him, a shield against the cold and walked behind the gallery. Dirty snow crunched and gave way to icy water as the laceless wingtips broke through the crust. "Patrons," he mumbled. "I'll see the patrons."
He worked his way down the city block and cut through an alley to return to the storefront side of the gallery. The wind wasn't so bad there, so he tucked his portfolio under his arm, straightened his spine and walked up to the line forming outside the Michaels elegant doors. An opening was about to begin. The crowd of patrons, dressed in evening gowns and dinner jackets, hummed the social chatter of the idle rich.
Pieter had an idea.
He scanned the crowd, waiting for the kind of inspiration that captivates the artist, lets him work through the hunger and fatigue to produce his masterpiece. When he found her, he felt the gnawing in his stomach turn to the warmth only fine wine or bourbon gives most men. She had red hair, done up in ringlets and braids that must have taken hours in a beautician's chair. Her skin was unlined, her make-up perfect. But she was very heavy, her body unmatched to the pretty face. She stood off from the crowd somewhat, either without a companion or waiting for someone. Pieter smiled. Perhaps she had been stood up.
"Excuse me, miss?"
"Yes?" She eyed the tattered cape Pieter wore and stepped back.
He slipped a business card from his pocket, the engraved ones he'd bought for price tags for his etchings when they hung in the Gallery. "You are such a beautiful woman. I am an artist, and am captivated by your stunning beauty."
She giggled and touched her hair. "Why thank you, Mr…" She looked at the card, "De Vries. Have I heard of you?"
Pieter bowed. "I have had my measure of fame. But… you must think me terribly bold… have you ever modeled?"
"Me?" she laughed again, but stepped closer.
Pieter wanted to groan. Manipulating the ego was almost too easy. "I wonder if you would be interested in having your beauty preserved?"
"Preserved?"
"Yes, a portrait. An intaglio … a new process I am developing. My friend Michael," he gestured to the gallery, "says it will be "all the rage.""
"Really? How exciting!"
"Yes, it is. It would make a lovely gift, for your husband, perhaps?"
"Oh, no. I'm not married. I am…" She scanned the crowd again for the missing companion. "I seem to be available."
"Really? Oh wonderful! I am ready now, would love to capture the look of you with your hair just as it is, your face…" Pieter turned then to the gallery window, "Though if you want to see the paintings, I understand. Another time…"
"No, really, I can come back here anytime." She answered to fast. She liked the fact that she would be walking away with an artiste who understood that beauty was more than wearing a size two dress.
Pieter smiled again, and offered her his arm.
Together they sloshed through the snow down the block to the apartment he kept for working and storing his prints. "What exactly is an intaglio?" the woman asked, breathless. She was nearly jogging to keep pace with Pieter.
"Ah, well, simply put, it is a printing technique, where rather than painting or drawing on the canvas or paper, the design is cut into a plate of some material: wood, copper or such, as opposed to applying the medium to the material."
"Fascinating!" She panted. She had no idea what he was talking about. His smile spread, lighting his eyes with the empty metallic gleam sometimes caught in photographs when the camera appears to look into the soul.
"Yes, it is quite fulfilling work, especially when experimenting with different substances and subjects." They were at the studio door. "Here we are. I'll show you some of my work when we get inside, perhaps that will explain better."
They climbed the stairs and the woman dabbing at droplets of sweat springing around her forehead from the exertion. Pieter ushered her into the workroom, and opened his portfolio. "Take a look at these and I'll get you a drink. I did cheat you out of your cocktail party after all."
"Oh, thank you. That would be lovely." She dropped her fur, clearly from a past season, onto on a chair and turned to the portfolio. His collection of landscapes and flora was impressive, and she gurgled her delight. "You are quite good!"
Pieter went into the tiny kitchen and took a tumbler from the shelf. Then he found the bottle of sleeping pills he kept for when he had finished a work and needed to stop the adrenalin rush. One capsule had him out in a matter of moments. He emptied three of them into the glass, and filled it with a splash of whiskey and water. He poured another tumbler full of whiskey for himself.
He handed her the drink and started the heater for the wax. "The process we are going to use tonight is one called etching. In an etching, the medium is covered with acid resistant wax, and then acid is used to "cut" the detail into the design. Then inks are infused into the cuttings, and the whole thing is pressed against the fixing medium…paper or canvas or cloth…. That sort of thing. That gown is just lovely! Is it silk?"
"Why, yes, thank you! My friends think this shade of peach is perfect with my hair, and I do like it. She wore the stupid grin of a schoolgirl on her first date. He made note of the expression on a sketchpad as she drank deeply from the cocktail he offered her. "Won't you sit down? The wax needs time to melt before we begin."
She sat in the only chair in the room, fanning the skirt of her gown as though she were royalty. It took only moments for her to lean back, her head lolling in drugged stupor. He took silk scarves he normally kept for still life settings, and tied her hands behind her, looping them fast against the chair. He threaded another through the elegant carvings on the back of the chair to wrap around her throat, tight enough to support her head, but not cut off her air. Then he sketched her sleeping pose, noting her open mouth and escaping drool. Finally, he stirred the melted wax. It was time.
He dipped the wide natural-fiber brush into the vat of wax and began to coat her face. The heat of it woke her, but the drug would hold her captive for a few hours more, he knew. The wax crept into the creases of her brows, the line of her lips and clung to each of her fake lashes. He let it set, then carefully took the etching knife and cut around the edges of the wax. He cut into her skin around the hairline in several places, but was able to lift a perfect mask from her face. She moaned in pain, but couldn't awaken. He repeated the process through the night, sipping on the whiskey and labeled each for one of the emotions he'd witnessed and recorded: flirtation, stupidity, delight, unconsciousness, and pain. He set each mask aside, each bearing unique remnants of her makeup and different amounts of blood, depending on how well he'd controlled the etching knife.
He worked as she slept, his full talent engaged as he let the acid etch the expressions from his sketches onto each mask. It was nearly dawn when she emerged from the depths of the drug's effect and screamed.
"Ah, you've rejoined me. At last." He finished the last of the whiskey and stepped aside so that she could see what he had done. Six masks, perfect reflections of her face stood facing her, set on poles to let them dry, each bearing the expressions he'd noted. Red blood stains outlined them, and he had added color where it would have been. Powder blue over her closed eyes, ruby tints to her lips.
"What are you doing? Let me go!" Her terror increased as she struggled with the scarves. They wouldn't budge.
"Let you go? Oh, but we aren't finished!" He dipped his brush into the wax again and approached her face. "I told you I would preserve your beauty. My masterpiece won't be finished until we capture this last emotion."
"No!" She screamed again and tried to turn her head, but it was bound too tight. He applied the wax once more, leaving her eyes and mouth uncovered. Terror made the screams even more shrill.
"That's right. Perfect."
Her eyes were wide open as he poured the acid onto the wax. The circles of them smoldered and bled and bits of charred flesh and colored iris clung to the mask that was forming. Her tongue too melted into an array of flesh tones that pleased his artist's eyes. The screams died with her.
"I knew you could do it." Michael clapped Pieter on the shoulder as he surveyed the crowded gallery filled with prints. Landscapes and flowers were selling well, but the most interest, that which would make them both rich, was in a series of tinted sculptures that he'd printed in small runs on a peach tinted, almost flesh-toned, silk.
Michael knew how easy it was to influence Pieter. "They capture so perfectly the emotions of women that they are indeed 'all the rage'! Perhaps as an encore, you could do a man. You'll need to follow up quickly to capitalize on the popularity. What are you calling them?"
"Perhaps, but only if you agree to model for me, Michael. I call them The Acid Girls, of course."
The Acid Girls
Hunger gnawed at the edges of Pieter DeVries' belly as he slid the stack of nature prints back into the worn leather portfolio. He shook his head. Long hair, tied back with a shoelace, came loose in slick strands. "I just don't understand."
"I'm sorry Pieter." Michael Graham needed Pieter out of his gallery before one of his customers saw … or worse… smelled the artist. "It's the new narcissism. The public is fickle. The only things the patrons of this city want are portraits of themselves, the more avant-garde, the better.
Michael set the tone of what the "patrons" would purchase, and Pieter and every other artist in the city knew it. If Graham told them toadstools were "all the rage," then a child's scribble title Toadstool would bring in a fortune.
But Pieter was trained in the old school. He had Dutch masters in his bloodline. His preferred subjects were landscapes or flowers or trees. His prints ranged from woodcuts to aquatints, and he knew they were good. Why couldn't he sell them? "Intaglio is painstaking in its precision. How can they not see the value?"
"Play to their weakness, and your strengths my friend. How many artists before you have been advised to make portraits for the wealthy, just to pay their bills while keeping their dream alive? Even Rembrandt did etchings of Lords and Ladies in shades of gray." He guided Pieter to the back door, his slight touch like leading him in a waltz, "Call me when you've something to show me. " His last touch was more of a shove, and Pieter heard the deadbolt click behind him.
He held the portfolio in front of him, a shield against the cold and walked behind the gallery. Dirty snow crunched and gave way to icy water as the laceless wingtips broke through the crust. "Patrons," he mumbled. "I'll see the patrons."
He worked his way down the city block and cut through an alley to return to the storefront side of the gallery. The wind wasn't so bad there, so he tucked his portfolio under his arm, straightened his spine and walked up to the line forming outside the Michaels elegant doors. An opening was about to begin. The crowd of patrons, dressed in evening gowns and dinner jackets, hummed the social chatter of the idle rich.
Pieter had an idea.
He scanned the crowd, waiting for the kind of inspiration that captivates the artist, lets him work through the hunger and fatigue to produce his masterpiece. When he found her, he felt the gnawing in his stomach turn to the warmth only fine wine or bourbon gives most men. She had red hair, done up in ringlets and braids that must have taken hours in a beautician's chair. Her skin was unlined, her make-up perfect. But she was very heavy, her body unmatched to the pretty face. She stood off from the crowd somewhat, either without a companion or waiting for someone. Pieter smiled. Perhaps she had been stood up.
"Excuse me, miss?"
"Yes?" She eyed the tattered cape Pieter wore and stepped back.
He slipped a business card from his pocket, the engraved ones he'd bought for price tags for his etchings when they hung in the Gallery. "You are such a beautiful woman. I am an artist, and am captivated by your stunning beauty."
She giggled and touched her hair. "Why thank you, Mr…" She looked at the card, "De Vries. Have I heard of you?"
Pieter bowed. "I have had my measure of fame. But… you must think me terribly bold… have you ever modeled?"
"Me?" she laughed again, but stepped closer.
Pieter wanted to groan. Manipulating the ego was almost too easy. "I wonder if you would be interested in having your beauty preserved?"
"Preserved?"
"Yes, a portrait. An intaglio … a new process I am developing. My friend Michael," he gestured to the gallery, "says it will be "all the rage.""
"Really? How exciting!"
"Yes, it is. It would make a lovely gift, for your husband, perhaps?"
"Oh, no. I'm not married. I am…" She scanned the crowd again for the missing companion. "I seem to be available."
"Really? Oh wonderful! I am ready now, would love to capture the look of you with your hair just as it is, your face…" Pieter turned then to the gallery window, "Though if you want to see the paintings, I understand. Another time…"
"No, really, I can come back here anytime." She answered to fast. She liked the fact that she would be walking away with an artiste who understood that beauty was more than wearing a size two dress.
Pieter smiled again, and offered her his arm.
Together they sloshed through the snow down the block to the apartment he kept for working and storing his prints. "What exactly is an intaglio?" the woman asked, breathless. She was nearly jogging to keep pace with Pieter.
"Ah, well, simply put, it is a printing technique, where rather than painting or drawing on the canvas or paper, the design is cut into a plate of some material: wood, copper or such, as opposed to applying the medium to the material."
"Fascinating!" She panted. She had no idea what he was talking about. His smile spread, lighting his eyes with the empty metallic gleam sometimes caught in photographs when the camera appears to look into the soul.
"Yes, it is quite fulfilling work, especially when experimenting with different substances and subjects." They were at the studio door. "Here we are. I'll show you some of my work when we get inside, perhaps that will explain better."
They climbed the stairs and the woman dabbing at droplets of sweat springing around her forehead from the exertion. Pieter ushered her into the workroom, and opened his portfolio. "Take a look at these and I'll get you a drink. I did cheat you out of your cocktail party after all."
"Oh, thank you. That would be lovely." She dropped her fur, clearly from a past season, onto on a chair and turned to the portfolio. His collection of landscapes and flora was impressive, and she gurgled her delight. "You are quite good!"
Pieter went into the tiny kitchen and took a tumbler from the shelf. Then he found the bottle of sleeping pills he kept for when he had finished a work and needed to stop the adrenalin rush. One capsule had him out in a matter of moments. He emptied three of them into the glass, and filled it with a splash of whiskey and water. He poured another tumbler full of whiskey for himself.
He handed her the drink and started the heater for the wax. "The process we are going to use tonight is one called etching. In an etching, the medium is covered with acid resistant wax, and then acid is used to "cut" the detail into the design. Then inks are infused into the cuttings, and the whole thing is pressed against the fixing medium…paper or canvas or cloth…. That sort of thing. That gown is just lovely! Is it silk?"
"Why, yes, thank you! My friends think this shade of peach is perfect with my hair, and I do like it. She wore the stupid grin of a schoolgirl on her first date. He made note of the expression on a sketchpad as she drank deeply from the cocktail he offered her. "Won't you sit down? The wax needs time to melt before we begin."
She sat in the only chair in the room, fanning the skirt of her gown as though she were royalty. It took only moments for her to lean back, her head lolling in drugged stupor. He took silk scarves he normally kept for still life settings, and tied her hands behind her, looping them fast against the chair. He threaded another through the elegant carvings on the back of the chair to wrap around her throat, tight enough to support her head, but not cut off her air. Then he sketched her sleeping pose, noting her open mouth and escaping drool. Finally, he stirred the melted wax. It was time.
He dipped the wide natural-fiber brush into the vat of wax and began to coat her face. The heat of it woke her, but the drug would hold her captive for a few hours more, he knew. The wax crept into the creases of her brows, the line of her lips and clung to each of her fake lashes. He let it set, then carefully took the etching knife and cut around the edges of the wax. He cut into her skin around the hairline in several places, but was able to lift a perfect mask from her face. She moaned in pain, but couldn't awaken. He repeated the process through the night, sipping on the whiskey and labeled each for one of the emotions he'd witnessed and recorded: flirtation, stupidity, delight, unconsciousness, and pain. He set each mask aside, each bearing unique remnants of her makeup and different amounts of blood, depending on how well he'd controlled the etching knife.
He worked as she slept, his full talent engaged as he let the acid etch the expressions from his sketches onto each mask. It was nearly dawn when she emerged from the depths of the drug's effect and screamed.
"Ah, you've rejoined me. At last." He finished the last of the whiskey and stepped aside so that she could see what he had done. Six masks, perfect reflections of her face stood facing her, set on poles to let them dry, each bearing the expressions he'd noted. Red blood stains outlined them, and he had added color where it would have been. Powder blue over her closed eyes, ruby tints to her lips.
"What are you doing? Let me go!" Her terror increased as she struggled with the scarves. They wouldn't budge.
"Let you go? Oh, but we aren't finished!" He dipped his brush into the wax again and approached her face. "I told you I would preserve your beauty. My masterpiece won't be finished until we capture this last emotion."
"No!" She screamed again and tried to turn her head, but it was bound too tight. He applied the wax once more, leaving her eyes and mouth uncovered. Terror made the screams even more shrill.
"That's right. Perfect."
Her eyes were wide open as he poured the acid onto the wax. The circles of them smoldered and bled and bits of charred flesh and colored iris clung to the mask that was forming. Her tongue too melted into an array of flesh tones that pleased his artist's eyes. The screams died with her.
"I knew you could do it." Michael clapped Pieter on the shoulder as he surveyed the crowded gallery filled with prints. Landscapes and flowers were selling well, but the most interest, that which would make them both rich, was in a series of tinted sculptures that he'd printed in small runs on a peach tinted, almost flesh-toned, silk.
Michael knew how easy it was to influence Pieter. "They capture so perfectly the emotions of women that they are indeed 'all the rage'! Perhaps as an encore, you could do a man. You'll need to follow up quickly to capitalize on the popularity. What are you calling them?"
"Perhaps, but only if you agree to model for me, Michael. I call them The Acid Girls, of course."
A Choice Delivery
Sarah was at the club pool watching the kids jump from the high dive while balancing her checkbook, when a tremble of recognition tingled down here spine. It couldn't be. She pulled out her calendar, counting over and over. It just wasn't possible. She counted again. Thirty-six days. Too late, just to be irregular. She had never been irregular.
"Sarah, you look how I feel when I see my account statements! What is wrong?" Kate, her "club" friend, slid into the iron chair next to Sarah and handed her a margarita. "Here, from Stephen."
Sarah smiled quickly and waved to the watching bartender. She sipped from the icy drink, and remembered, no alcohol. "I'm fine, Kate, you're right. I was just … er…balancing the checkbook... a little error I hadn't expected."
"Overspend your allowance, sweetie? I still don't believe Dave gets by with that. What are you supposed to be, sixteen?"
Sarah frowned. "He wants to retire early and chase parrots or something in the tropics. He is just careful."
"Careful? He's cheap Sar; don't defend him to me. Retire to the tropics? The man is only 48!"
Sarah started to sip the cold drink, then put it down and jumped up. "Oh my, what time is it? Lacey has piano this afternoon...I've got to go!
Thanks for the drink!" She turned and waved to the bartender. "Thanks Stephan!"
"But..." Kate lifted the full glass and spoke to Sarah's retreating back "...you didn't drink it. Oh well" She poured the froth mixture into her own glass. "Cheers," she said to herself.
It took two more days of worry before Sarah decided to be sure. She drove for an hour to get to the next town's pharmacy, where no one knew her. She bought the test and took it home.
Her hands trembled and she set the holder on the granite counter in her bathroom. She'd waited until Dave had left for the office, pretending to sleep, so she could do it just right. First morning urine was the right way, and no way she could get up and drink coffee without a pit stop first. She locked the door, and took the test tube to the toilet. Thirty seconds later she was setting the timer. She brushed her teeth and was doing her stretches when the timer rang. She remembered how she'd felt when she'd learned Lacey was on the way; thrilled but so terrified she'd actually hid beneath the covers on the bed while Dave laughed. Dave wasn't here to laugh, but she needed to know.
The magic circle had turned pink. She was forty-four years old, mother of a sixteen year old, and she was pregnant. She let the joy of it bubble up, and for old times sake, crawled back into bed, pulling the covers over her head.
***
Nella had awakened Saturday to the crying again, and stopped for coffee on her way to the clinic. She had pulled the old pickup into her usual spot and turned the key all the way to "accessory" so that she could listen to the gospel station while she finished drinking it. Her fingers ran gently across the silk binding of the blue blanket, bundled on the seat beside her and she hummed, mesmerized by the melody of the music. She watched the door of the clinic and thought about the joy she had to share with them. It had been six weeks already. Time for a check up.
She sipped the steaming coffee and watched as a woman a bit younger than Nella herded her toddler inside, and saw the Mercedes take a spot in the lot. The woman who got out of it was trim and wore a tailored suit in a shade of blue that matched the soft blanket Nella stroked. Nella thought she recognized her from First Methodist. The woman looked around, as though she could feel herself being watched, and Nella caught her eye. She lifted her hand in recognition, and wondered if this woman would listen to her message. It gave Nella joy to bear witness for her Lord, but the woman turned away quickly and hurried inside. Perhaps she needed something for the pain, Nella thought. Saturday was the day for that. She wondered why they could do so much for the mother's and so little for the babies. She knew the babies felt the pain of delivery, why else would there be so much crying?
She finished her coffee and started up the truck. Tomorrow, that was right, after church. Sunday was the day, she was sure. She had an appointment.
****
Sarah had driven to the clinic alone on Saturday. I just need to talk to someone, she thought, pulling the blue Mercedes into the parking lot. Tom had been her doctor for years, and he and Dave played golf on Saturday and she wanted to have all the facts before she broke the news to Dave. This was going to be hardest for him. She pulled the keys from the ignition and wondered if the car would be okay, noting the tall chain link fence surrounding the clinic.
A sign on the door showed the hours of the clinic, only weekends and Wednesday nights. Sarah knew it was run by volunteers; Kate had worked the desk years ago. The reception area was a little shabby, but clean and Sara sat next to a young girl with a toddler on her lap. "Nice shoes," the girl said. "First time here?"
"Yes," Sarah answered. "I just need some… information."
"Yeah, me too," the girl laughed. "Like can I have some drugs this time."
"This time?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, this'll be my fourth."
"Oh my! And you look so young. How old are your other kids?"
The girl looked at Sarah as if to decide if she were for real. "This is my only kid. CJ here is nine months.
"Oh."
The receptionist came for Sarah before she could follow up, and led her to an exam room. "Everything off, the gown opens in front."
"Oh dear, no. I don't want an exam. I... I just need to talk to the Doctor."
"Doctor won’t tell you about anything until she does an exam. Flip the switch on the wall, so we'll know when you are ready."
Sarah decided it would be easier to just go along. The room was too cool, the vents right above the exam table, and it occurred to Sarah that a man must have designed it. She undressed and flipped the switch and had just returned to the paper lined exam table when the door opened. "Hello . . .Mrs. . . .Smith . . . I'm Dr. Herman." The graying woman reached out her hand. "How can I help you today?"
Her eyes were kind and she was tall enough to be imposing. "I guess I'm pregnant." Sarah replied.
The doctor laughed. "Well, we can take the guessing out, if that's what you want." Her smile was gentle.
Sarah relaxed. "Its just that . . . I have children, older, teenagers really, and...."
"Mrs. Smith, we will discuss all the options with you once we have the facts, including the option of abortion. I take it you want to terminate your pregnancy?"
Sarah gasped. "Oh my no! It's just . . .well I know that I am old for this and there are problems and I don't want to put my family through the worry, and I'm sure there are all sorts of things that can happen and down syndrome and all and the things they are doing with children with disabilities and all. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, and . . .and I'm kind of embarrassed . . ." Sarah ended on a sob.
"You don't really doubt that you are pregnant do you?" The doctor rubbed her temples; the day was already too long.
"No. It's just like with my daughter, and I took a home test." Sarah suddenly had a feeling of being surplus, out of place, taking up time and space that she wasn't entitled to.
"No surprises anymore are there?" The doctor picked up Sarah's chart and made some notes. "I'm guessing you won't be using us for prenatal care? We don't see many patients from your side of town here."
"Probably not, but my husband's best friend is my normal doctor…" Sarah apologized.
"You haven't told your husband yet." The doctor sighed a "if it isn't one thing it's another" sigh. "Is the baby his?"
Sarah might have been offended, but the doctor hadn't even looked up. She wondered what it was like working in such a place, where choices were made every day that changed lives, and apparently most of them were no. "Maybe I was wrong in coming here," Sarah said. "I just wanted my husband to get to hear the news from me instead of his golfing buddy."
"Mrs… Smith," the doctor stressed her skepticism. "I don't mean to be short with you. I understand that you are nervous. To be honest, I'm kind of sorry you won't be my patient. It isn't very often I get to see someone here actually happy with the news anymore." She smiled and put the chart back in the file. "There is no reason in the world you can't have a healthy child. The medical profession will consider you high risk, but remember it is just risk. There are more winners than losers."
Sarah drove home, playing the scene over and over. She couldn't believe it. After all this time. A baby. She stopped to pick up milk and chocolate, Lacey's current obsession, wanting a peace offering in case she needed it. Feeling closer to the hormones of her firstborn, her eyes filled again as she passed the diapers stacked in bright display, smiling at the silly designs. In her mind and heart, she embraced the tiny embryo.
****
Nella folded the downy blanket into a triangle, tucking the corners in. She swaddled it tight, the way she'd learned. It was supposed to give a sensation of security that calmed, and imparted warm embracing comfort. She looped her own scarf around her collar despite the summer heat, shouldered the bundle and picked up her Bible. She walked in the bright sunlight to the early service at First Methodist, picked up the program in the narthex and turned away from the somber Sanctuary to climb the two flights to the crying room. She laid the soft blue bundle in the crib that was tucked into the corner of the small room and took a seat next to it on the mauve sateen-cushioned pew.
Her family had always been part of the eleven o'clock gray flannel set, but she liked the early service, so separate from the congregation below. It was quiet in the crying room then; most of the new parents preferred to sleep in, and Nella had the room to herself. She breathed deeply of the subtle church scent, of old stone and incense and closed her eyes as the first strains of the processional poured through the speakers provided for the soundproofed room.
The music thrilled her. Faith was no longer a quiet affair for Nella. She practiced it like she would a cheer, lifting her arms in praise and her voice in vibrant song, throwing in a "Hallelujah" or "Amen" whenever there was a chance. No one was happy with Nella's newfound enthusiasm, but Nella didn't care. All she saw was the rapture and there were fewer questions at early service. She had heard the voice of God, and she had been delivered from evil. She left the service after the first hymn. On her way by the crib, she touched her fingers to her lips, then placed them briefly on the quiet bundle as she left the room. There was so much to do.
****
Lacey nibbled on the chocolate bar and twirled her long blonde hair around her finger. "You spoil me mom."
Sarah took the chocolate from her young daughter's hand and laughed, "That's my job Lace, and my pleasure. But you still can't have chocolate for breakfast!"
Lacey hugged her mom close. "You're a good mommy," she said.
Sarah hugged her back, and wondered how Lacey would feel about a little one. She was sure she'd be great with a baby.
Dave though, Dave would be tough. He would need the facts in hand. She knew he would be shocked, maybe even angry at first. She needed to find just the right time, and place and way to break it to him gently. Too bad she hadn't planned it like she had Lacey, because she'd been able to make Dave think starting a family was his idea.
She knew facts were her best ammunition. She decided to drive back to the clinic, hopeful that Dr. Herman would have literature that would graph out the statistics. Dave was a numbers man, and statistics would help. "Lacey, will you and Daddy drive yourselves to church this morning? I think I'll go to the early service so I can go to Sunday school. Dad should be back in plenty of time to change."
"Sure Mom. We'll catch up with you afterwards. "
*****
Nella went home and finished preparing the formula to the tune of Amazing Grace and cooed in the tone that she knew was most soothing. She untaped the disposable diaper and checked it for moisture; it was still dry. She worked quickly and carefully, tying up wires with a delicate touch, as if they were pink ribbons. It was important to be ready for her appointment. Six weeks ago Sunday, she had learned first hand. She tucked her charge into her favorite pink blanket. Then she sat in the rocking chair and waited. She must have dozed, because she woke to crying again. She patted the blanket, and the crying quieted.
She went into her parents' room to say good-bye, and pulled the quilt up under their chins. They would miss church again today it looked like. She noticed that Daddy needed a shave and she wanted to help him get ready. She went to his dresser and picked up his portable shaver, turned it on and touched it to his cheek. The skin swirled under the rotary blades, and pulled into the gears with the short whiskers, clogging the blade. She smoothed the edges of the rotted flesh, and put the razor aside. He didn't turn away or waken; she'd given him enough of the medicine.
She looked at her watch and listened for crying. It was still too early.
She crossed to her mother's side of the bed. She thought of the beautiful church service, and used soft tones to tell her mother about it. Her mother loved church and loved showing Nella off, all dressed up in patent leather Mary Janes as a girl, and then her high school sweaters, and then her dress whites. She'd been so proud of Nella until she found out that what she'd learned in the service. Things about destruction.
Her mother was sensitive, and she wouldn't like the scent in the room. Nella took a bottle of White Shoulders from the vanity and sprayed it into the air. Then she lifted a lock of her mothers hair to spritz it on the pulse points, The clump of hair came off in her hand, so she laid it gently back across her mothers ear. Appearances were so important to her parents, and they had explained that on their way to the clinic. That was when she got the medicine. She was glad they had felt no pain when they had been delivered.
She heard the crying then, and knew it was time to go. She took the pink bundle, and got into the truck. She had time to stop for coffee.
***
The new life she carried made Sarah want to share with the whole world. She had pulled out pictures of her kids to show Dr. Herman. She felt like she'd given her permission to love in that special way, one more time.
Nella finished her coffee just as the blue Mercedes she'd seen the day before pulled into the lot. She got out, left the pick up unlocked, and walked into the clinic.
"Hi, I'm Nella Jones? I was here last month?" she told the receptionist. "Doctor gave me some vitamins and I lost the prescription. Could I get another one please?"
"Let me get your chart. Last month you say?" The receptionist smiled.
"Maybe about six weeks ago. Lose track of time nowadays." She smiled and patted the soft pink bundle she clutched to her shoulder. The woman was still waiting, so Nella nodded and spelled her name.
"Jones is a pretty common name here, it will take me a second to find it." She walked into the second row of files, and Nella laid the pink bundle gently in the chair next to the window, touched her fingers to her lips, then touched them gently to the pink blanket. When the receptionist returned, flustered, to explain that the chart wasn't filed where it should have been, Nella was gone.
Sarah decided she would share the news at brunch. She should be able to make it back to church in time to catch Dave and Lacey after the second service. She was preoccupied and looking at Lacey's cheerleading photo as she walked into the clinic and bumped into Nella at the door.
Nella picked up the pictures that fell from Sarah's grasp, looked Sarah in the eye and said, "God forgive you."
"I'm sorry?" Sarah asked, confused.
Nella pushed open the door, and walked quickly to her truck. Sarah turned to the receptionist, holding Lacey's picture out to share it, and smiled.
Nella was halfway between the church and the clinic, when she felt the shock of the explosions bleed up into the upholstery of her truck. The vibrations shook the stack of pastel blankets on the seat next to her, and they slid toward the floor, but she reached out and caught them. She was so happy; she broke out singing in a joyous Hallelujah.
There would be no procedures today. She had been delivered, again.
"Sarah, you look how I feel when I see my account statements! What is wrong?" Kate, her "club" friend, slid into the iron chair next to Sarah and handed her a margarita. "Here, from Stephen."
Sarah smiled quickly and waved to the watching bartender. She sipped from the icy drink, and remembered, no alcohol. "I'm fine, Kate, you're right. I was just … er…balancing the checkbook... a little error I hadn't expected."
"Overspend your allowance, sweetie? I still don't believe Dave gets by with that. What are you supposed to be, sixteen?"
Sarah frowned. "He wants to retire early and chase parrots or something in the tropics. He is just careful."
"Careful? He's cheap Sar; don't defend him to me. Retire to the tropics? The man is only 48!"
Sarah started to sip the cold drink, then put it down and jumped up. "Oh my, what time is it? Lacey has piano this afternoon...I've got to go!
Thanks for the drink!" She turned and waved to the bartender. "Thanks Stephan!"
"But..." Kate lifted the full glass and spoke to Sarah's retreating back "...you didn't drink it. Oh well" She poured the froth mixture into her own glass. "Cheers," she said to herself.
It took two more days of worry before Sarah decided to be sure. She drove for an hour to get to the next town's pharmacy, where no one knew her. She bought the test and took it home.
Her hands trembled and she set the holder on the granite counter in her bathroom. She'd waited until Dave had left for the office, pretending to sleep, so she could do it just right. First morning urine was the right way, and no way she could get up and drink coffee without a pit stop first. She locked the door, and took the test tube to the toilet. Thirty seconds later she was setting the timer. She brushed her teeth and was doing her stretches when the timer rang. She remembered how she'd felt when she'd learned Lacey was on the way; thrilled but so terrified she'd actually hid beneath the covers on the bed while Dave laughed. Dave wasn't here to laugh, but she needed to know.
The magic circle had turned pink. She was forty-four years old, mother of a sixteen year old, and she was pregnant. She let the joy of it bubble up, and for old times sake, crawled back into bed, pulling the covers over her head.
***
Nella had awakened Saturday to the crying again, and stopped for coffee on her way to the clinic. She had pulled the old pickup into her usual spot and turned the key all the way to "accessory" so that she could listen to the gospel station while she finished drinking it. Her fingers ran gently across the silk binding of the blue blanket, bundled on the seat beside her and she hummed, mesmerized by the melody of the music. She watched the door of the clinic and thought about the joy she had to share with them. It had been six weeks already. Time for a check up.
She sipped the steaming coffee and watched as a woman a bit younger than Nella herded her toddler inside, and saw the Mercedes take a spot in the lot. The woman who got out of it was trim and wore a tailored suit in a shade of blue that matched the soft blanket Nella stroked. Nella thought she recognized her from First Methodist. The woman looked around, as though she could feel herself being watched, and Nella caught her eye. She lifted her hand in recognition, and wondered if this woman would listen to her message. It gave Nella joy to bear witness for her Lord, but the woman turned away quickly and hurried inside. Perhaps she needed something for the pain, Nella thought. Saturday was the day for that. She wondered why they could do so much for the mother's and so little for the babies. She knew the babies felt the pain of delivery, why else would there be so much crying?
She finished her coffee and started up the truck. Tomorrow, that was right, after church. Sunday was the day, she was sure. She had an appointment.
****
Sarah had driven to the clinic alone on Saturday. I just need to talk to someone, she thought, pulling the blue Mercedes into the parking lot. Tom had been her doctor for years, and he and Dave played golf on Saturday and she wanted to have all the facts before she broke the news to Dave. This was going to be hardest for him. She pulled the keys from the ignition and wondered if the car would be okay, noting the tall chain link fence surrounding the clinic.
A sign on the door showed the hours of the clinic, only weekends and Wednesday nights. Sarah knew it was run by volunteers; Kate had worked the desk years ago. The reception area was a little shabby, but clean and Sara sat next to a young girl with a toddler on her lap. "Nice shoes," the girl said. "First time here?"
"Yes," Sarah answered. "I just need some… information."
"Yeah, me too," the girl laughed. "Like can I have some drugs this time."
"This time?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, this'll be my fourth."
"Oh my! And you look so young. How old are your other kids?"
The girl looked at Sarah as if to decide if she were for real. "This is my only kid. CJ here is nine months.
"Oh."
The receptionist came for Sarah before she could follow up, and led her to an exam room. "Everything off, the gown opens in front."
"Oh dear, no. I don't want an exam. I... I just need to talk to the Doctor."
"Doctor won’t tell you about anything until she does an exam. Flip the switch on the wall, so we'll know when you are ready."
Sarah decided it would be easier to just go along. The room was too cool, the vents right above the exam table, and it occurred to Sarah that a man must have designed it. She undressed and flipped the switch and had just returned to the paper lined exam table when the door opened. "Hello . . .Mrs. . . .Smith . . . I'm Dr. Herman." The graying woman reached out her hand. "How can I help you today?"
Her eyes were kind and she was tall enough to be imposing. "I guess I'm pregnant." Sarah replied.
The doctor laughed. "Well, we can take the guessing out, if that's what you want." Her smile was gentle.
Sarah relaxed. "Its just that . . . I have children, older, teenagers really, and...."
"Mrs. Smith, we will discuss all the options with you once we have the facts, including the option of abortion. I take it you want to terminate your pregnancy?"
Sarah gasped. "Oh my no! It's just . . .well I know that I am old for this and there are problems and I don't want to put my family through the worry, and I'm sure there are all sorts of things that can happen and down syndrome and all and the things they are doing with children with disabilities and all. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, and . . .and I'm kind of embarrassed . . ." Sarah ended on a sob.
"You don't really doubt that you are pregnant do you?" The doctor rubbed her temples; the day was already too long.
"No. It's just like with my daughter, and I took a home test." Sarah suddenly had a feeling of being surplus, out of place, taking up time and space that she wasn't entitled to.
"No surprises anymore are there?" The doctor picked up Sarah's chart and made some notes. "I'm guessing you won't be using us for prenatal care? We don't see many patients from your side of town here."
"Probably not, but my husband's best friend is my normal doctor…" Sarah apologized.
"You haven't told your husband yet." The doctor sighed a "if it isn't one thing it's another" sigh. "Is the baby his?"
Sarah might have been offended, but the doctor hadn't even looked up. She wondered what it was like working in such a place, where choices were made every day that changed lives, and apparently most of them were no. "Maybe I was wrong in coming here," Sarah said. "I just wanted my husband to get to hear the news from me instead of his golfing buddy."
"Mrs… Smith," the doctor stressed her skepticism. "I don't mean to be short with you. I understand that you are nervous. To be honest, I'm kind of sorry you won't be my patient. It isn't very often I get to see someone here actually happy with the news anymore." She smiled and put the chart back in the file. "There is no reason in the world you can't have a healthy child. The medical profession will consider you high risk, but remember it is just risk. There are more winners than losers."
Sarah drove home, playing the scene over and over. She couldn't believe it. After all this time. A baby. She stopped to pick up milk and chocolate, Lacey's current obsession, wanting a peace offering in case she needed it. Feeling closer to the hormones of her firstborn, her eyes filled again as she passed the diapers stacked in bright display, smiling at the silly designs. In her mind and heart, she embraced the tiny embryo.
****
Nella folded the downy blanket into a triangle, tucking the corners in. She swaddled it tight, the way she'd learned. It was supposed to give a sensation of security that calmed, and imparted warm embracing comfort. She looped her own scarf around her collar despite the summer heat, shouldered the bundle and picked up her Bible. She walked in the bright sunlight to the early service at First Methodist, picked up the program in the narthex and turned away from the somber Sanctuary to climb the two flights to the crying room. She laid the soft blue bundle in the crib that was tucked into the corner of the small room and took a seat next to it on the mauve sateen-cushioned pew.
Her family had always been part of the eleven o'clock gray flannel set, but she liked the early service, so separate from the congregation below. It was quiet in the crying room then; most of the new parents preferred to sleep in, and Nella had the room to herself. She breathed deeply of the subtle church scent, of old stone and incense and closed her eyes as the first strains of the processional poured through the speakers provided for the soundproofed room.
The music thrilled her. Faith was no longer a quiet affair for Nella. She practiced it like she would a cheer, lifting her arms in praise and her voice in vibrant song, throwing in a "Hallelujah" or "Amen" whenever there was a chance. No one was happy with Nella's newfound enthusiasm, but Nella didn't care. All she saw was the rapture and there were fewer questions at early service. She had heard the voice of God, and she had been delivered from evil. She left the service after the first hymn. On her way by the crib, she touched her fingers to her lips, then placed them briefly on the quiet bundle as she left the room. There was so much to do.
****
Lacey nibbled on the chocolate bar and twirled her long blonde hair around her finger. "You spoil me mom."
Sarah took the chocolate from her young daughter's hand and laughed, "That's my job Lace, and my pleasure. But you still can't have chocolate for breakfast!"
Lacey hugged her mom close. "You're a good mommy," she said.
Sarah hugged her back, and wondered how Lacey would feel about a little one. She was sure she'd be great with a baby.
Dave though, Dave would be tough. He would need the facts in hand. She knew he would be shocked, maybe even angry at first. She needed to find just the right time, and place and way to break it to him gently. Too bad she hadn't planned it like she had Lacey, because she'd been able to make Dave think starting a family was his idea.
She knew facts were her best ammunition. She decided to drive back to the clinic, hopeful that Dr. Herman would have literature that would graph out the statistics. Dave was a numbers man, and statistics would help. "Lacey, will you and Daddy drive yourselves to church this morning? I think I'll go to the early service so I can go to Sunday school. Dad should be back in plenty of time to change."
"Sure Mom. We'll catch up with you afterwards. "
*****
Nella went home and finished preparing the formula to the tune of Amazing Grace and cooed in the tone that she knew was most soothing. She untaped the disposable diaper and checked it for moisture; it was still dry. She worked quickly and carefully, tying up wires with a delicate touch, as if they were pink ribbons. It was important to be ready for her appointment. Six weeks ago Sunday, she had learned first hand. She tucked her charge into her favorite pink blanket. Then she sat in the rocking chair and waited. She must have dozed, because she woke to crying again. She patted the blanket, and the crying quieted.
She went into her parents' room to say good-bye, and pulled the quilt up under their chins. They would miss church again today it looked like. She noticed that Daddy needed a shave and she wanted to help him get ready. She went to his dresser and picked up his portable shaver, turned it on and touched it to his cheek. The skin swirled under the rotary blades, and pulled into the gears with the short whiskers, clogging the blade. She smoothed the edges of the rotted flesh, and put the razor aside. He didn't turn away or waken; she'd given him enough of the medicine.
She looked at her watch and listened for crying. It was still too early.
She crossed to her mother's side of the bed. She thought of the beautiful church service, and used soft tones to tell her mother about it. Her mother loved church and loved showing Nella off, all dressed up in patent leather Mary Janes as a girl, and then her high school sweaters, and then her dress whites. She'd been so proud of Nella until she found out that what she'd learned in the service. Things about destruction.
Her mother was sensitive, and she wouldn't like the scent in the room. Nella took a bottle of White Shoulders from the vanity and sprayed it into the air. Then she lifted a lock of her mothers hair to spritz it on the pulse points, The clump of hair came off in her hand, so she laid it gently back across her mothers ear. Appearances were so important to her parents, and they had explained that on their way to the clinic. That was when she got the medicine. She was glad they had felt no pain when they had been delivered.
She heard the crying then, and knew it was time to go. She took the pink bundle, and got into the truck. She had time to stop for coffee.
***
The new life she carried made Sarah want to share with the whole world. She had pulled out pictures of her kids to show Dr. Herman. She felt like she'd given her permission to love in that special way, one more time.
Nella finished her coffee just as the blue Mercedes she'd seen the day before pulled into the lot. She got out, left the pick up unlocked, and walked into the clinic.
"Hi, I'm Nella Jones? I was here last month?" she told the receptionist. "Doctor gave me some vitamins and I lost the prescription. Could I get another one please?"
"Let me get your chart. Last month you say?" The receptionist smiled.
"Maybe about six weeks ago. Lose track of time nowadays." She smiled and patted the soft pink bundle she clutched to her shoulder. The woman was still waiting, so Nella nodded and spelled her name.
"Jones is a pretty common name here, it will take me a second to find it." She walked into the second row of files, and Nella laid the pink bundle gently in the chair next to the window, touched her fingers to her lips, then touched them gently to the pink blanket. When the receptionist returned, flustered, to explain that the chart wasn't filed where it should have been, Nella was gone.
Sarah decided she would share the news at brunch. She should be able to make it back to church in time to catch Dave and Lacey after the second service. She was preoccupied and looking at Lacey's cheerleading photo as she walked into the clinic and bumped into Nella at the door.
Nella picked up the pictures that fell from Sarah's grasp, looked Sarah in the eye and said, "God forgive you."
"I'm sorry?" Sarah asked, confused.
Nella pushed open the door, and walked quickly to her truck. Sarah turned to the receptionist, holding Lacey's picture out to share it, and smiled.
Nella was halfway between the church and the clinic, when she felt the shock of the explosions bleed up into the upholstery of her truck. The vibrations shook the stack of pastel blankets on the seat next to her, and they slid toward the floor, but she reached out and caught them. She was so happy; she broke out singing in a joyous Hallelujah.
There would be no procedures today. She had been delivered, again.
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