What is a nail. A nail is unison.
I am pretending to read her Cosmo article about clitoridectomies when she reaches the table.
“You thinking of having one?” she asks. We’ve never met, but we both know good and well who the other is. I was her husband’s mistress. She was my lover’s wife.
“Actually, I was thinking of a scone.”
She extends her hand. “I’m Maggie. I don’t recommend either of them.” I want to ask if this is based on hearsay or personal experience, but I don’t. I close the magazine instead and take her hand. Our hands are about the same size, but she’s had her nails done. The acrylic tips are painted a geranium pink to match her lips.
She doesn’t look at all like I expected. I’m not sure what I expected, but this is definitely not it. I suppose I wanted her to be homely. Not necessarily ugly or fat. Just homely. Isn’t there an unwritten rule that says the mistress must be more attractive? I’ve seen her before, lots of times, but only in a black-and-white head shot in Robert’s office. In person she looks at least ten years younger.
“Have a seat,” I offer. This meeting, my idea, no longer seems like such a good one. I can’t figure out why she looks younger. Could be the piece of brown leather that’s almost a miniskirt. My sixteen-year-old niece has one like it. Or maybe its the Jamie Lee Curtis legs. Though I’ve never seen Jamie Lee Curtis with suntan hose. On second thought, it’s not the miniskirt or the legs. She must have had a facelift. The wrinkles around her mouth in the picture are gone.
“I’m so glad you called,” she begins. I’m sure she is. She looks me directly in the eyes. God, they’re big. Larger than Brazil. The better to see me with. They seem to be spinning centrifugally from the pupils. I focus mine on the chalkboard behind the cash register where my four-week tab is $44.63.
Although lots of people from the hospital had recommended Lucy’s for its variety of teas, I’d never had time to try it. Any spare minute I had was spent with Robert, either in his office, or my studio. Besides, any drink I was going to pay for needed alcohol. Preferably tequila.
But I’ve come here almost every day since Robert’s death and I always order a lemon chamomile with real sugar and a side of ice. I haven’t been able to develop a taste for hot tea yet. Sometimes I manage a sip or two before I add the ice. This morning, the ice machine jammed. That’ll save me the additional quarter. As for the saltines, they are always free and always therapeutic. Today, I’ve already crushed three packs with my pointer finger.
I tell myself I like sitting in Lucy’s because I’m comforted by the bohemian flair, the eclectic mismatched antiques and third-hand sofas slung against half-painted walls with local artwork covering bare spots. What I refuse to admit is that Lucy’s plays a hell of a lot of salsa music.
“Is that tea?” Maggie asks, pointing to my mug.
“Lemon chamomile,” I say, wondering what my choice might be a sign of in her mind. That I’m a tart perhaps? Not very daring? The look on her face says she’s wondering if I have a sore throat.
“Sounds wonderful,” she coos.
I swear she coos, like some sort of songbird. The counter guy has come out from behind the cash register to take her order. He never comes out from behind the counter. I can never once remember him having legs before today. Must be her cooing. That and her white turtleneck. I wonder if I should tell her bras are back in style these days.
“Lemon chamomile for me, too.”
He smiles as if that’s exactly what he’d recommend she drink.
“I hear you have a sister my age,” she says. The emphasis is on “my” as though there’s something slightly wise about her age, something better about her age than mine, which, if I remember correctly, is sixteen years younger than hers.
He told her my sister’s age? Wonder what else she knows? Counter boy hasn’t moved. “Anything to go with your tea?” He’s lurking, or is it loitering?
“Let me think on that. I’ll let you know.” She rotates her head and sighs. “I’m already sore from working out this morning.” One more rotation of the head and she tenses her shoulders, raising each almost to her ears, which have long lobes that I hadn’t noticed in the photograph, and then relaxes each shoulder with a long exhale. “Do you work out?” She looks directly at me. No. Into me. It’s a polite question and I don’t think she really wants to know. The freckle at the outer corner of her left eye seems to be winking. It shrinks back and forth folding over on top of itself as she narrows her eyes. Could be a scalpel faux pas.
“Forgive me for squinting, but I forgot my glasses.” She’s twisted her mouth sideways and is carving me up with her eyes. “He was right. You are something.”
God, what’d he say? What the hell does “something” mean? He never told me I was something. He never told me I was anything other than the possessor of good teeth.
Counter Boy is back. Apparently he’s not content ogling her from afar.
“One lemon chamomile for the lady.” He has hair. I never knew that. All I’ve ever seen on his head is a Braves cap. “What did you decide on to go with it?”
He wants her to say “you.” God, he’s so obvious. He wants her to reach up and grab him between the legs, give him a little squeeze, and say, I’ll have you.
“What sort of bagels do you have?”
“Round.”
I think I’m going to throw up. Maggie laughs. It’s a forced, fake laugh. Probably like her orgasms.
“Do you have round, plain ones?”
He has a pencil behind his ear that bobs up and down like an insect feeler as he nods. I hope he stabs himself with it. Maybe I should stab them both. He’s off fetching a bagel before I’ve injected either of them with lead. Good boy.
“What’d you think of the article?”
I sat here staring at the captions, while I waited for her, but I didn’t actually get around to reading it. I know the gist. Something about young girls having the tips of their clitorises sliced off as a means of cultural submission.
“It was something.”
“The research was grueling. The worst part was the apathy. I can’t believe Americans aren’t more outspoken. Can you?”
I can’t, but I can’t talk intelligently about it, either, since I don’t think clitoris mutilation goes well with sweet tea. I shake my head no.
“One plain, round bagel lightly toasted.” Counter Boy sits the plate a little too close to the edge of the table so that his hand bumps into her chest. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact she’s underneath the air vent and the cold air is blowing directly on her chest. She’s annoyed. I see it in the ways her eyes are now darkening.
“I brought you extra cream cheese.”
I just bet you did. It’s my thought, but I think she’s having the same one.
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
I sit, waiting to be asked if I need anything. A cup of chopped liver perhaps.
“I think that’ll do it,” she says. “Thanks.” His eyes shift in their sockets. Perhaps he’s having a twitch. His pupils haven’t strayed from her face. Of course. What am I thinking? The struggle of not looking at her tits is both exciting and painful. He fidgets with the pencil, steals a quick glance, then goes back to his stool and continues his crossword puzzle.
“What an idiot,” she says through a mouthful of bagel. “Men are idiots.
“They should come with warning signs,” I say. I really want ice. Lukewarm is worse than hot.
“Wasn’t Robert one of the biggest ones you knew?” I knew she had her gripes about him, but I didn’t expect her to unload so freely with him barely cold. She must be adjusting to his death better than me. Maybe that’s what she said during his eulogy. Thank you all for coming to remember my husband, the idiot. I would have divorced him long ago, but the prenuptials ruled that out.
Robert always told me Maggie would never divorce him because then she’d have to get a real job and quit freelancing. According to him, she didn’t mind what he did or who he did it with as long as she didn’t have to work full-time.
It’s been five weeks and two days since the idiot had his heart attack. And she’s right. He really was an idiot. Nobody else I’ve ever known could lose themselves so completely in music. It didn’t matter what kind. He just closed his eyes and his body started to move as though the Pied Piper was calling for him.
I made the mistake of taking my Walkman the first time he did my taxes. Basia was in it, and he had the tape out and in his stereo before I could get my W-2 out of the manila envelope. Before I could ask him exactly what the hell he thought he was doing, he had his hand in the small of my back pressing my body into his and we were salsa-ing.
“What about the IRS?” I asked.
“Fuck the IRS,” he said. For a solid hour he danced around his office like some Dilbert version of Sammy Davis Jr., while I hung on for dear life.
He was really good on his feet. Not bad off them, either.
“You’ve got great teeth,” he told me. “Come back tomorrow afternoon same time and we’ll get this tax problem taken care of. Leave the envelope so I can get a head start.” He shooed me past an old man, out the door, and into the parking lot. “No extra charge for the salsa lessons,” he called after me.
I could see him pumping the old man’s arm and slapping him on the back when I got in my car. He probably hugged him bye when he left. That was his way. He let everybody think they were his dearest friends, but it was an act. He came on strong and warm because it instilled confidence, I think. Confidence in whoever he was meeting, as well as in himself.
Three weeks later we were still dancing and not doing taxes. “You must bring Godiva chocolates to appease the tax Gods,” he wrote in my palm, using a different color Sharpie for each letter. On that day we made love. Right in his office on the green commercial grade-carpet with Maggie’s black-and-white eyes watching. We would have made love a second time, but he couldn’t get hard.
“I probably should have had a funeral. I just wasn’t up to it. Besides, you know Robert. He’d have wanted to save a dollar. Did you know cremation is half the cost of a burial?”
I’m not sure if this is a question or a wisdom nugget.
“That much less? Does Bob Barker have the first-round contestants bid again if they overbid the first time?”
She frowns first, the little fold at the corner of her eye stretching down to her ear, then she smiles. “He mentioned your sense of humor.”
Pleasantries are not why I’ve asked her to tea. Somewhere in my mind I feel like Robert is just at an extended tax convention, which is why my therapist says that I need closure.
“I hate people like you that look great naturally.” She does not look like she hates anybody. “I have to work at it like a dog.” I wonder if she barks when she’s bent over. “Are you not eating?” she asks.
“Their bagels suck.” I’ve never been much on tact. I can’t tell if she’s wincing at me or smiling, because of that damn freckle faux pas.
“Oh, listen.” She strains her long earlobe toward the charcoal sketch of the pig where one of the speakers is covered. “It’s his favorite song.” For a moment I can’t think who “he” is. She has thrown the pronoun out like bait and watches to see the effect. I concentrate, turning my right ear to the wall, then I get up and adjust the volume knob. I’ve never heard the song before, and I hate it immediately because it’s country. I consider telling her that when he was with me, he liked music with real rhythm. I tap my fingernails on the magazine cover in front of me, though, as if I know the country whining by heart. And smile as though in joint recognition. Her smile reaches out to me in a strange welcoming way.
She is not having a problem with me like I thought betrayed wives were supposed to have. The magazine I’m tapping my unpainted, uneven fingernail on is a big damn freelance deal, not only with her article in it, but with a list of ten suggestions for extending orgasms, an interview with Cameron Diaz reporting what she finds sexy, and bust tips for the bosom-challenged.
She lowers her head for a second, and I think she’s looking at a hair on her plate. But she says “Amen” and takes a bite. Grace. She says grace.
She pulls off a bite of bagel with her fingernails and pops it into her mouth like an antibiotic.
“Listen, Maggie, I have a question to ask you. Please feel free to be honest. Tell me if you think I’m crazy. Or just get up and leave if you’re offended.” She nods and dabs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. She’s still wearing her wedding ring—an anniversary band in white gold.
“What do you have planned for Robert’s ashes?” I suppose I want her to choke. I want her be surprised by this question or by something I say or do. I don’t want her to sit there smug as if she’s known me all her life. I’m trying to be as calm. I’m trying to seem as smarmy. My stupid hands, though, are starting to tremble. I lift my cup of tea, but the weight makes it worse, not better. She smiles at my cup and probably wonders if I’ve forgotten my anti-seizure medication.
She continues grinding the bagel with even motions. How long can it take to chew up a bite of bagel?
“I haven’t given it much thought,” she says and then she swallows. “Did you have a suggestion?”
This is not what I’d rehearsed. In rehearsal I ask the question and then she asks me if I want them, not “Do I have a suggestion?”
I shrug. My head is paralyzed and will not nod yes. My windpipe contracts. I try to say yes but something like a wet/dry vac noise comes out instead. I shrug again.
Her eyes are doing the spinning thing again. Only her hands reach out with them. She takes my right hand in both of hers and starts to rub my palm and knead the small bones beneath my knuckles. Tiny electric sensations run up my arm. She’s done this before.
“He loved you. He really did.” There is a pause and I feel the heat of tears backing up somewhere inside or else she’s pressing too hard. My windpipe feels like a balloon, a water balloon. “In the end that’s all there really is. Don’t you think? Robert’s love still lives between us. It transcends the pain. I know. I feel it sitting here. I love you, too.”
Shit. She must be running for office. Either that or she’s from the Church of Barry Manilow. Is she wanting me to reciprocate?
“Excuse me.” Counter Boy’s back. This time he’s holding his crossword-puzzle book. “Do you know a word for lean? Five letters with a ‘v’ in the middle?” The only word with a “v” in it I can think of, the only word I can think of at all in fact, is love. It feels like a curse hanging in the air, slapping my face from side to side. Love. Love. Love. She loves me. God, we should do a New-Age infomercial next time we get together.
“Favor,” I say. She says it, too, at the exact same time.
“Jinx. One two three,” I count.
“Nuh uh. I’ve got my ankles crossed.”
We laugh. We actually laugh, and tears start to roll down my face. Nice quiet polite tears. This makes no sense. I breathe deeply hoping I don’t sob. I hate it when my face does the screwy-twisted thing.
She hands me part of her napkin, pink lipstick stain and all. I blot the lower insides of my eyeballs.
Counter Boy is writing down “favor” in the blocks, unaware of any unspoken or spoken words that won’t fit into his puzzle.
“Don’t move.” Before I can ask why, Maggie is out the door. Then she’s back carrying a Macy’s shopping bag. “Here.” She sits the bag between the teas. “Take as much as you want.”
“You don’t mean . . . He’s not?”
“Yep. All eight and half pounds.” She pulls off another bite of bagel. “I didn’t know they’d weigh that much. My Naturalizer boot box is the perfect size. So until I figure something else out, I just keep the ashes in it.” I know I’m staring. I look from the bag, to her, to the bag.
“What about probability?” Counter Boy calls; he’s back behind the counter half-propped on a stool, ignoring a customer. “Six letters. Starts with a ‘c’.” It’s funny how I can watch myself sitting here with Maggie and what’s left of Robert as if I’m somewhere above, maybe in a crack in the ceiling. Then I see the word Counter Boy wants. Plain. In Times New Roman twelve-point type. I see the word in an invisible color.
We both call out “chance.” She must have seen it, too.
“Want to see them?” She takes the box top off.
I do. And I don’t.
“Just get a load of this bag they’re in,” she says, taking out a thick, black Hefty bag. It’s the size of a small bathroom garbage-can liner.
“Take some.” She’s untwisting the tie. “How much do you want?”
“We can’t do this here.”
Maggie stops and looks around. Nobody’s paying us any attention. “You wanna go back to the bathroom?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“What about outside? Somewhere outside?” she asks.
She’s up before I can decide and out the door again. This time I follow her. She’s digging in the trunk of her Lexus. “I don’t have another bag. I thought I did.” She’s parked in a handicap space.
“I should tell you that this is not quite all of him. I spilled some when I put him in the box. I just couldn’t leave him in that plaster thing they gave me. It was too heavy to carry around.” She’s working as though she’s not afraid she’ll spill any more of him. “Do you have something to put him, or them, I should say, in? The only other thing in my trunk is a Krispy Kreme coffee cup.”
This is not what I planned. I thought I’d go to her house, pick up the ashes in whatever he was in, and go home. “Will a cup work?” I ask. I have no idea what container will work. Surely Lucy’s has something better. “Let me run in and see what they have inside that would be good.”
Inside Counter Boy is erasing my tab. “I thought y’all’d left.”
“Not quite. Do you have a bag or something I could have?”
“A ‘to-go’ box?”
“No. More like a small garbage bag.”
“For her bagel?”
“For something else.” He doesn’t answer. “Do you have the bag or not?” He looks hurt but fishes beneath the counter and comes up with a medium-sized bag full of Sweet’N Low packets. “I could empty this out.”
“It can’t have holes.”
“Is this for her or you?”
“Her,” I lie.
“What about this?” He holds up a red plastic bag with “Thé Sucre” in gold letters stamped across the top. “We get our Celestial Seasonings in these. They’re pretty sturdy.”
“That’ll work. Thanks.” I hold it up as I walk outside.
“Nice bag. His favorite color, too.”
I hate her for knowing that.
She sticks the Krispy Kreme cup into the black bag and comes up with a cup full of gray concrete dust-looking powder. Just like something you’d find on the freeway shoulder. She empties it into the red bag. “How much do you want?”
“I don’t know.” It’s the truth. I don’t know. I haven’t ever thought of measuring Robert by cupfuls. Six weeks ago the question would have been easy. “All of him,” I would have said. But now that he’s a bag of cremains, I’m not sure I even want half.
“Three cupfuls be enough? I’m filling them extra full.”
I nod. “That’s plenty,” I say as she hands me the red bag. “Thank you.”
“There.” She twists the tie back around the bag and places it back in the Naturalizer boot box. The Lexus trunk closes quietly. A hydraulic spring. “I’m going back in and finish my bagel. Want to come?”
Counter Boy leans his face out the door. “What about a four-letter word for passion?”
Maggie and I exchange glances. Four-letter passion. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing.
“Does it rhyme with truck?” she asks, then winks at me.
“It has to start with a ‘z’,” he says. “‘Z’ something something ‘L’.”
I should’ve known it couldn’t be a simple fuck. It never is.