Then she was falling, and there was a scent of dead leaves and creeping moss, damp shadows and slithering things, and she was in a
real
cocoon, sleepy, oh, so gloriously sleepy, and hands were moving over the bulge of her body, potter’s hands, awakening sweet passions, bringing hot thrills and slick wetness but also shaping, molding,
changing
.
She knew the mystery then. She
was
the mystery...
The insect’s head popped free, it’s antennae droopy with moisture. Kim selected an HB pencil and bent over her pad. She would do the finished works later. For now quick sketches would have to suffice. Of all the specimens she’d collected and drawn over the years, this would be her masterwork. It was a Luna moth, an elegant green giant reaching lengths of up to five inches and sporting impressive, out-sweeping tail fins.
The proboscis appeared, coiled and faintly pulsing, then the first few millimeters of bristled thorax—
“
There
you are.”
Kim spun in her seat and saw Tracy Goodman standing right behind her. Blushing furiously, Kim closed her sketch book and switched off the extension lamp.
I’ve been, like, looking all
over
for you,” Tracy said. She peered over Kim’s shoulder at the Mason jar, saying, “Whatcha got in the jam jar? Oh, gag. A bug.”
“It’s not a bug. It’s—”
“A
bug
, Fallon.” Tracy planted a ring-infested fist on one hip, a dozen neon-colored bracelets chattering on her wrist. “Now c’mon,” she said, the wad of gum in her mouth snapping under the vigorous assault of her perfect white teeth. “We’ve got things to do.” She flashed a “get over it” look at Kim and then just stood there, waiting.
Kim felt her heart sink. She looked at the Mason jar and saw that her exquisite green moth had almost got its thorax free. What she really wanted was to tell Tracy to leave her alone. But without Tracy, she really was alone. And there were other urges stirring inside her, strange, unsettling urges. And some nameless instinct told her Tracy might be her only key to their gratification.
With a last glance at the Mason jar, Kim stuffed her things into her tote bag and followed Tracy outside.
* * *
With an hour to spare until her lunch date with Nina, Jenny decided to drop in on Paul Daw. His office was in the same building as Craig’s, and he usually spent Monday mornings catching up on his charts. His secretary told Jenny to just go ahead in.
Paul was seated at his desk with his back to the door, facing the single tall window that overlooked Bank Street, three stories below. He was on the phone, his tone sharp, and Jenny was sure he hadn’t heard her come in.
“Chris, I’ve told you why I can’t let you move in. My mother would never understand. Why do you insist on—”
Jenny cleared her throat and Paul spun in his chair. It was the first time Jenny had ever seen anger in her old friend’s eyes, even the startled kind, and she felt her simple desire to see him wither into embarrassment. Paul’s face was beet red. Absurdly, Jenny was reminded of a time as a girl when she walked into a bedroom in her Aunt Frannie’s house and caught her cousin Nelson masturbating over a
Playboy
centerfold.
Without addressing her, Paul turned his chair back to the window and spoke in hushed tones. Jenny caught only fragments.
“...talk to you tonight...can’t right now...don’t push it, Chris, okay...love you, too...”
Paul hung up and turned to face her, a big bogus grin on his face. And although Jenny had no idea why, she felt a sudden pity for him. She’d always suspected, and this accidental trespass only reinforced the notion, that Paul functioned under some burden of guilt or shame. She’d never asked him about it because their relationship, their intimate exchanges, had always flowed in the opposite direction, from Jenny to Paul. It struck her now how very little she knew about the man. She’d always taken it for granted that Paul was straight and well adjusted and that whatever he was hiding—if anything—was none of her business anyway.
She wished she’d exercised the simple courtesy of knocking before waltzing in where she wasn’t wanted.
“Paul, I’m sorry...”
“Nonsense,” Paul said, getting to his feet. “Come in. Take a load off. You startled me is all.” He looked at the phone. “That was just...a friend. No big deal.”
Jenny sat in the comfy leather chair Paul used for his patients. The action seemed to ease him and he sat across from her, assuming his accustomed posture, arms crossed, head cocked, lips thoughtfully pursed. The attentive therapist.
“So,” he said. “To what do I owe the honor?”
Jenny wanted to take up the pretense of normalcy, but the way he’d looked at her just then...
She said, “I feel so bad about just barging in like that. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine, Jen. Actually, I should thank you. You saved me from a row with a pushy female.”
Did I?
Jenny thought. But she decided to let it go.
Smiling, she said, “When are you gonna let one of these ‘pushy females’ net you?” She patted her belly. “Get one of ’em knocked up and settle down once and for all?”
Paul said, “When hell freezes over,” his smile more genuine now. “When the sun sets in the east and God renews Satan’s pass at the Pearly Gates. Coffee?”
“Got any lemonade?”
Paul came around the desk and offered Jenny his hand. “Follow me,” he said. “I’ve got just the thing.”
Relieved to have that pocket of tension closed, Jenny cheerfully complied.
* * *
“When did you build this little nest?”
They were on the roof of the Doctors’ Building, Jenny gazing at the distant green spine of the Gatineau Hills, Paul serving iced tea from a Coleman thermos. There was some inexpensive patio furniture up here—a circular table with a gaudy parasol and two plastic chairs—and Jenny sat in one of the chairs, tilting her face into the mild breeze that was working at this altitude. It was going to be another hot, muggy day in the nation’s capitol.
“I got the idea about a month ago,” Paul said. He handed her a glass of tea. “I bring some of my more difficult patients up here. The casual setting helps open them up.” He grinned. “And I can ignore them better up here.” He sat across from her and took a sip of his drink. He was a tall, slender man of thirty-eight with fine, almost effeminate features. “So, what brings you to this neck of the woods?”
“I had to see Craig. And I want to kill him. He’s cut me off until July, if you can believe that.”
Paul shrugged. “Probably doesn’t want you worrying.”
“Jesus,” Jenny said with a grim chuckle. “You guys are all the same.”
“Anything else on your mind?”
And until that moment Jenny hadn’t thought there was. Nothing special. She opened her mouth to say as much—then sucked in a breath, the swift passage of air causing a pained sounding whistle in her throat. Her eyes opened wide, her hands flew to the curve of her abdomen and Paul sprang to his feet in alarm, tipping over his deck chair.
“Jen, are you all right?”
Then a beaming smile broke on Jenny’s face and she began digging her shirttail out of her jeans. When her tummy was showing she grabbed Paul’s hand and placed it over her swollen womb saying, “It moved...can you feel it, Paul? Can you feel it?”
“I think so. Is this the first time you’ve felt anything?”
“Yes, anything so definite.” A tear skimmed down her cheek. “I wish Jack could’ve felt it...” And that really got the tears flowing.
Paul righted his chair and sat down.
Composing herself, Jenny said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that I want so much for us to be happy. Me and Jack and Kim and the baby. That’s not asking too much, is it?” Paul agreed that it wasn’t. “I mean, so what if Kim isn’t ours by birth. She’s still
ours
. We brought her up. She believes she’s ours. So why can’t Jack love her, too?”
Paul handed her some Kleenex. Jenny wiped her eyes with it, then gave her nose a brisk honk.
“Better?”
Jenny nodded. It was true. She did feel better. She’d opened a door just a crack, a door that had been straining bravely for more years than she cared to admit, and although she had every intention of opening it wider, for the moment she lapsed into sniffling silence. The surge of emotion had come out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning out of a clear summer sky, and Jenny was annoyed with herself for the loss of control. It was...unbecoming. Jack’s word.
She started to hand the soggy Kleenex back to Paul and snorted laughter. She tucked it into her pocket instead. “It must be the heat,” she said. “Or the hormones. Or the hormones
and
the heat.”
Paul fell into his role. “Why don’t you tell me about it, Jen.”
She started by telling him about how Jack had floored her last night by acting like the father she and Kim had always wished he would be. “They’re supposed to go out together tonight, just the two of them.”
“That sounds like real progress,” Paul said.
“But that’s just like him, Paul. I may sound cynical, but it’s all just part of the Fallon terrorist technique. Just when you think you’ve got him pegged, just when you’ve decided he’s a mean, selfish son of a bitch and he’ll be that way forever, he throws you a curve. He does something nice, something you never would have expected.” Jenny cocked her head. “But you can bet it’ll be something you want. Something you’ve wanted for a very long time.” She gazed out over the city, roofed in a noxious, static haze. “That’s how he does it. That’s how he keeps you off balance. I only have to entertain the idea of leaving him—and believe me, I’ve
entertained
it more than once—I only have to brush past the notion in the night, and boom, there he is with a dozen roses, a candle-lit dinner and the sweetest lovemaking you can imagine.”
Jenny noticed that her last comment made Paul blush. The reaction struck her as absurd, considering his profession, but that door, that floodgate, was wide open now and there was no stopping it.
“You know what I think sometimes? What I feel? I feel as though I’m a fixture, an appliance in the Fallon kitchen or the Fallon bedroom or wherever Jack happens to have a use for me. I think he married me because I looked fertile. Simple as that. A baby-maker who had a few social skills and enough wit to be trained.”
Jenny picked up her sweating glass and took a sip of tea, then went on.
“You know what escaped me for a long time, though, Paul? Why he bothered to stay with me when it became obvious I’d probably never have his baby. God knows, other women swoon over him all the time.” She gave Paul a knowing, sidelong glance. “I’ll tell you why. Because he had to punish me. As much as he wanted children from me, the need to hurt back was the greater one.”
Perceptive
, Paul thought. “But he’s never hit you. Has he?” Jenny shook her head. “And I’ve never heard the two of you having a shouting match. How does he punish you?”
Jenny’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, he’s subtle. So much so I’m having a hard time putting it into words. It’s not so much things he does as it’s a process. Example: I don’t have a single friend who wasn’t Jack’s friend first. Look at you and Nina. And until I met Jack I had oodles of my own friends.” A brief, puzzled look crossed Jenny’s face. “Where are they now? And what about my photography? I could’ve had a gallery showing—a dozen gallery showings by now—but Jack killed all that with a glance. He looked at my work as if it were an annoying stack of junk mail. Do you know how that made me feel?”
“Why don’t you defy him?” Paul said. “Why
don’t
you leave him?”
“Because I’m afraid,” Jenny said, realizing this was the first time she’d ever said the words out loud, though she’d known it for years.
“I’m afraid.”
* * *
Tracy strode briskly across the crowded campus toward its Fifth Avenue perimeter, Kim shuffling along behind her like an obedient pup. There were two guys standing over there in the shade of an oak tree, passing a cigarette back and forth. To Kim it looked like a joint. Tracy was always after her to try drugs, everything from weed to the prescription stuff she pilfered from her mother’s seemingly endless supply, but Kim could never muster the nerve.
The guys had spiky, dyed-red hair and wore cleated leathers. As Kim drew closer, she realized they were members of a school punk band called Slap Hammer. Kim recognized the tall one as the lead singer and the short one as the drummer. The tall one had a gold stud in his eyebrow and a barbed-wire tattoo around one skinny arm.
“Hey, Trace,” the tall one said. “Babe.” He held out the smoldering spliff.
Frowning, Tracy closed the distance between them in three quick strides, slapped the joint out of his hand and crushed it into the sod with her heel. “Jerk,” she hissed. “I almost got busted Saturday night.”
“That’s cool,” the tall one said, glancing at the ruined joint. “Plenty more where that came from.”
Tracy smiled now, flashing those perfect white teeth. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, sliding between the boys, resting a hand on each of their behinds. “You guys wanna party Friday night?” She grinned at Kim and Kim winced, realizing too late that a trap had been set and she was its prey.
“Fuckin’ A,” the short one said, high-fiving his bleary-eyed partner. He squinted at Kim. “Who gets Metal Mouth?”
Tracy wrapped her arms around the tall one’s waist. “Who do you think, glue head?”
“I can dig it.” He threw an arm around Kim’s shoulders. “Does she do any tricks?”
Kim felt herself shrinking inside.
* * *
Jenny came out of the Doctors’ Building so rattled by her session with Paul she almost forgot her lunch date with Nina. She was halfway across the parking lot, keys in hand, when she remembered. She stopped short, checked her watch and decided to walk, hoping the exercise would ease her fraying nerves.
She pocketed her keys and set off, trying not to think about it. But it was no use; her mind insisted on replaying it all in an endless loop. It amazed her sometimes, the amount of unexpressed conflict she carried inside. It was good to get it out like this, decompress, but at best it was a temporary measure. Nothing would ever get fixed until she found the nerve to confront Jack head-on...and she was just no good at it. It left her feeling trapped, helpless, and by the time she reached the Byward Market her stride had turned into a grim march.