Pippa liked the feeling of the spinning, wet clay between her fingers, the way it rose up like a wave as she pinched it, the gray disk of the potter’s wheel circling furiously between her knees. Transfixed by her power over the clay, Pippa let it grow too high, too thin. The pot listed, warped, then toppled and imploded, spiraling chaotically. It was her third class, and every effort had been a failure. The problem was, she wanted to make a vase with a long neck, not a stubby little potpourri container like everyone else in the class. She could tell her teacher, Mrs Mankevitz, a reptilian woman with a crooked back and bohemian taste in jewelry, disliked her for this. ‘Mrs Lee?’ she would say, ‘Still unwilling to work your way up like the rest of us, I see.’ On one such occasion, Pippa whispered to herself, as the teacher turned her hunched back to her, ‘Oh, go fuck yourself.’
She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but Dot’s head swiveled to look at her like a magpie spotting a rhinestone. Mrs Mankevitz halted, then turned slowly, long earrings tinkling, her toadlike face pale, her wide, lipless mouth set. ‘What did you say to me?’
Pippa blushed. Fifty years old and still screwing up in the classroom.
‘It’s just that I don’t care if I end up with a perfect pot,’ Pippa explained. She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, her throat tight. ‘I don’t need more clutter in my house. All I want is to feel the clay.’
‘Well, if all you want to do is play with clay,’ said Mrs Mankevitz, putting a veiny hand on one hip, ‘I suggest you take a block of it home with you and knead it on the kitchen floor. This is a pottery class, not Montessori.’
Pippa looked around at the other members of the class. Six elderly women and a bearded old man, they all watched her complacently, curiously, as though chewing their cuds. Only Dot kept her eyes lowered, the coward. With a shock, Pippa realized she was being asked to leave. She felt sweat on her upper lip, her breath was shallow. She was trembling. She wiped her hands on a towel, took her jacket, her bag, and left.
Once in the parking lot, she couldn’t face getting into her car. She didn’t want to go home. She didn’t know what to do with herself. It was eleven in the morning. Chris was asleep. Herb was in his office. She could go and see him. It was strange, Pippa felt, that she hadn’t thought of Herb first. That was wrong. She must pay more attention to Herb. She walked over to the building where his office was, pushed open the door, ran up the flight of stairs to his door, knocked. She already had her first sentence formed: ‘I got kicked out of pottery class.’ There was a little laugh in it, the way she was saying it in her head; already she was making fun of Mrs Mankevitz, her gypsy jewelry, the way the whole class had stared at her as though she had just admitted to a sex crime. Herb would crack up about it. She could hear shuffling inside his office. She knocked again.
‘Who is it?’ Herb asked.
‘It’s me,’ she called out. More shuffling. The door opened at last. Herb stood there, his clothes rumpled, his hair disheveled.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘I got thrown out of pottery class,’ she said. But it didn’t come out funny at all. It came out pathetic. She sat down on the couch and saw there was a towel spread out on it, but she didn’t really take it in.
‘I told the teacher to fuck off,’ she said.
‘What did you do that for?’ said Herb. His voice sounded so tired.
‘She’s a bitch, that’s why,’ said Pippa. ‘What’s this towel doing here?’ There was a long silence. ‘Were you eating and you didn’t want to mess the couch up?’ she asked helpfully.
‘No.’ He put his head in his hands.
‘What?’ There was a long silence then, it lasted a minute. Pippa’s eyes traveled around the room until they came upon a pair of jeans. And there, threaded through the belt loops, was Moira Dulles’s belt with the buckle, the silver star that she had admired. Pippa stood up, walked over to the bathroom door, and knocked. Then she tried the knob. The door swung open, and there was Moira, in Herb’s teal blue V-neck sweater, sitting on the rim of the bathtub, clutching herself, her cheeks shiny with tears. She looked up at Pippa. ‘Oh, Pippa … what have I done?’
Pippa stood on the threshold, staring stupidly at her friend, unable to collect her feelings. They ran higgledy-piggledy, like a flock of sheep scattering before an oncoming truck. Shock, anger, hurt, disbelief – they scrambled in all directions within her. She was unable to harness a single one of them. She felt Herb’s hand on her shoulder. She shook it off, walked back into the office, and sat on the couch. He stood before her, frowning. Moira was sobbing loudly in the bathroom now.
‘When did this start?’ Pippa asked.
‘Sometime after we moved here.’ Herb sighed. ‘I wanted it to just be an affair, Pippa, but it … isn’t. I know it’s horrible for you. I want you to have the money. You deserve everything.’
‘Keep the money. You’re going to marry her?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. At my age, it would be ridiculous. I just want to live, Pippa. It’s my right. You’ve been burying me for the last few years. I feel the earth in my mouth. Almost like you’re looking forward to it.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘You always said old age disgusts you. Why would I be an exception? I can feel you beginning to pity me, to be afraid of me. You’re already in mourning. Be honest.’
‘Yes, I am afraid of you getting old. Dying. It’s normal to be afraid.’
‘I don’t want to be normal, and I don’t want to be mourned. I’m not a ghost. I want to live. No one knows when they are going to die. You could die tomorrow. I want to be alive. Fuck you for making me feel like an old man!’
‘Herb,’ she said in a flat tone, ‘you are an old man.’
Herb sat down hard on the couch and looked out the window, as if lost in thought. Pippa watched him become a stranger before her eyes. The transformation was almost magical in its completeness. Next door, in the bathroom, Moira started baying like an animal. Then she went quiet. Pippa heard heavy breathing, a clatter, and a thump. Herb and Pippa rushed to see. Moira was lying on the floor of the bathroom, blood all over her arms.
*
‘Killing yourself with a disposable razor. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before,’ said Pippa as she knelt on the bathroom floor, bandaging Moira’s scraped up wrists. Moira, her face slippery with tears and snot, was sitting on the lid of the toilet, staring vacantly at the wall.
Herb stood awkwardly in the doorway. ‘She was in despair,’ he said. Pippa looked up at him sharply. He looked pale and clammy. ‘She loves you, you know,’ he added sheepishly.
‘You should take a nap,’ said Pippa drily. She still couldn’t feel anything. It occurred to her that maybe she had actually stopped loving Herb without realizing it. No. That wasn’t it. She remembered adoring him only this morning. Then why was she such a blank? Pippa had bought the first aid supplies only a week earlier, on impulse, to stock Herb’s office bathroom. As she taped the bandages around Moira’s wrists, something loosened from her mind and fell away, like a clump of earth from a crumbling dam. And all of a sudden, she was flooded with relief. It was her guilt that had fallen away, she realized, and landed right on Moira, smashed her to smithereens. Poor Moira. This was what guilt did to a person. Pippa felt time spinning back, back, back, until the bullet reversed out of Gigi’s brain and she was innocent of murder, innocent of betrayal.
Pippa’s luck had finally run out. She was the victim now. She had passed the guilt baton to Moira, and she felt so empty! Calm, peaceful, sad. Drained of her sin, Pippa felt herself slipping away, like a shade, no longer flesh and blood, no longer here, even. She stood up.
‘That should do it,’ she said. Then she took her handbag from the couch and walked out the door, down the stairs. Her steps made no sound. Herb didn’t need her anymore. Nobody needed her anymore. Nobody at all!