Twenty Grand (9 page)

I did not answer. He leaned on his elbows, watching them, without letting go of my hand.

A pale snake wobbled up through the low clouds, flopped down, and divided itself among the clouds above the lake. Others followed, reaching higher, expanding in lemon and ruby and diamond snails. The shapes of the others around us sat up and clapped and howled and we clapped and howled with them. Jacob offered the wine and I drank some. It's good, I said, although it was not—it was sharp and tasted of metal.

Kiss me, he said. Everyone else is kissing.

I'm sorry, I said.

 

W
HEN WE REACHED
my dormitory he did not insist on seeing me inside.

I enjoyed being with you, he said, and I answered something to the same effect. I had realized as we packed our things into the truck that he had drunk both bottles of wine, but said nothing; and though he had none of the signs of an alcoholic, his driving, as we descended the roads that departed the village, was perfectly graceful, as if he had drunk nothing at all.

I fell asleep immediately and did not recall my dreams. The next day I returned to work and the day was long. But I was happier than I had been in some time, because I knew now that I had tried and failed and therefore felt no guilt that I was happiest without the company of others. By eleven that night I lay in my bed, in a nightshirt, almost asleep, reading a book with only the small lamp by my bed lit, ready to be dimmed. I do not know why I had not locked my door except that it was not my habit. When I was almost asleep someone's hand fell against it. I knew that it was Jacob. No one else had a reason to see me at this hour, or, in fact, at any hour at all, unless one of my foreign neighbors needed to borrow something, although I had nothing they would want; in addition, the building was empty. The foreigners were gone for the night, surely bowling or seeing a late-night movie, and that it was not one of them I was even more certain than I otherwise might have been, because of the hesitancy of the knock, as if the knock itself were the request. Jacob's parents' home was forty miles away. I tried to think: Had he been in the area? What did I leave in his truck? What did I not understand, or forget?

The knock came again.

I said nothing. As quietly as I could, I turned off the light. There would be no answer, there would be no light, and he would leave.

The knob turned slowly, as if not to wake me, and the door opened. He said my name as he entered the room. I had closed my eyes. I hoped it might convince him to leave as he had entered. I saw, through the space between my eyelashes and eyelids, his body standing over mine, next to the bed. He had a shape in his hands, and he stood, not moving.

I turned on the light.

The shape in his hands was a grocery bag.

I thought I would see you, he said.

How did you get in?

The door was propped. He meant the door downstairs. It was always propped. The foreigners propped it, I propped it, the security guards, on their infrequent rounds, propped it.

He placed the bag on the floor next to the clothes I had worn that day.

I brought you things. He looked down and did not smile. He seemed both abashed and pleased. I'm sorry I woke you up, he said.

I wasn't asleep, I said.

I was angry. I was furious. I let it sound, somewhat, in my voice. I was also afraid. I knew the body in my room was a wrecked ship or a ship about to wreck, a tourniquet, a tight wrapping unwrapping, here.

It's okay, I added. I was reading.

He smiled. What were you reading?

I showed him my book. He took it and held it up. I haven't read this, he said. Then he moved his hands inside the grocery bag and withdrew three books.

I brought these for you, he said.

I looked at them. Two of them I had already begun to read and stopped. It was nice of you to come by, I said.

I was thinking of you. He sat down on the floor and smiled and looked around my room, as if, for the first time, content.

I have to work tomorrow. I spoke carefully, gently. I knew he had driven here from forty miles away only to enter my room.

He put his hands back into the grocery bag and took out a container of hard-packed ice cream, the kind that's vanilla with toffee and almonds that I ordinarily would have liked very much.

I know. I thought I would read to you as you fell asleep. I know you go to sleep by reading.

I pulled the covers across myself. He watched me do it. I'm not dressed, I said.

He nodded. I'll go outside. He stepped beyond the door. The door failed to latch and I saw the line of dark from the hall. My room attached by a common area to four other rooms, occupied by three foreign students, now absent, whom I had never met. The common area was dark. A plane moved over the mountains toward the coast. The door opened and Jacob reentered. I'd like to read you something, he said.

No.

No?

I need to go to sleep, I said. I tried to make my voice certain, as with a strange dog that must not hear fear in the stranger's voice.

He stood there. I drove a long way here.

Yes.

He looked around my room. I was ashamed of my room, my mess, my underthings, my food wrappers, my papers and books piled about the floor; but more than ashamed, protective—they were my books, my papers. Nobody had a right to be here.

Let's just talk for fifteen minutes, he said.

Fine, I said.

Okay. He sat down.

Not here.

Where?

Downstairs.

I had the idea we could talk in your room, he repeated, and I would read to you as you fell asleep.

It's a mess.

I don't mind.

I don't want to talk here, I said. My fear entered everywhere in my voice. I want to talk downstairs.

Fine. He was angry. But I have some things to tell you that I don't appreciate.

Okay. I walked downstairs, and he followed. I led us to our lobby, one of those lobbies dressed as a living room, with bare, scratchy, curving couches to discourage sleepers and a piano and a fireplace to encourage important guests. He sat across from me on his own Edwardian couch. I sat on mine. I'd like to read to you, he said, and then he began to read, I believe, from Alberto Moravia's “The Fetish.” It was not, as the title might indicate, a mythic or sexual perversion, but the careful nothings of a man, in his room, unable to leave his room, noting, from his tiny window, counting and measuring the distances and notches of all the buildings within that block, and then finding a book, a notebook, the writings of another man in a room, also unable to leave the room, but a prisoner, who also looked out the window and transcribed into a notebook the heights and lengths of rusty pinnacles, water towers, shingles of roofs, corroded mauve corollas.

I thought of my sister. I had followed her here, really, to California. I had no reason to come, except that she was here, and because she had begun much earlier than I, she finished and left, married. I remember standing in the quad of the college, in a horrible mauve dress, that shimmered for all the world like a planet. In the pictures I have I am pale, and next to her, fat, and later, hands filled with flowers I will hand to her so that she may throw them and I step to avoid. I thought of her, a lawyer, and married, and married to a lawyer, performing a million trivial tasks with certainty, generosity, and meticulousness.

Do you like it? Jacob held the book in the air above his thighs.

No, I said. I don't like it.

He placed the book carefully down on the table. You said you liked to read.

What was it you wanted to tell me? I said. What didn't you appreciate?

Nothing, he said. Forget it. You've disappointed me like everyone else has disappointed me.

I'm sorry it didn't work, I said. I stood up. The furniture in the room—almost none—a one-colored rug and a painting of anyone's landscape, two couches with tightly curving backs—was the furniture of an asylum for the gently, the only mildly, disturbed or aged. He bowed and spread a hand toward the door.

I'll walk you to your room, he said.

When I woke the next morning I unlocked the door that I had carefully locked upon his departure and found the container of ice cream, melted and thick, the cream, though still sweet—I put my finger in—a strange, foamy consistency.

 

Y
EARS LATER
I was awake late at night. I was doing nothing, alone, late at night, when I saw, beyond my window, down the block, a fire I can only describe as immense, an entire house aflame, and—this was before the sirens had been called and the red trucks filled the road—dozens of shapes, moving slowly back and forth below the houses next to mine, the people who had gone outside to see the fire, which for seconds shot up to the height of the telephone wires and then almost extinguished itself and then shot up again. The neighboring houses, only five feet away, were surely blackening, and all the people on the block, now, it seemed had been drawn outside to see, and I thought: How morbid, how petty, this unabashed fascination with someone else's tragedy.

I sat in my small second-floor apartment and watched, by myself, from there. I thought of Jacob. The association—sentimental, clichéd, or simply unkind; but who can condone or forgive an association?—was involuntary. In the fall of that year I had heard from my sister, who was pregnant and had taken to mailing me, along with brief notes, small tins of dried fruits or decorated sachets of herbal tea, things that she thought I might like. I could barely read her letters, although they were typed. She was married and a lawyer and lived in an entire world of lawyers, who played softball together and together raised vast funds for notable charities and came together on weekends to teach their tiny and beautiful children to sing, and among all this detail she wrote well meant things like “It just takes time” and “I know one day soon you'll find someone” that made me feel as if no one in the vastness of a million well-named villages would ever know anyone else. She added, by hand, at the bottom of one of these letters, that she'd seen Jacob at the law school, where she'd been invited to preside over the moot court—a semi-pathetic contraption like a debate team for people done with high school—and that he seemed well, was scheduled to graduate in spring in the bottom middle of his class, and had accepted a job in the Bay Area, where his parents had moved for their health. Had his skin always been so bad? she asked. She didn't remember. She wouldn't want me to think that she didn't think well of me, or that she didn't think I was beautiful. This was her longest ever P.S. I hadn't heard from him, myself, after that night, although I had been nervous for a while, when the phone rang, until I realized it wasn't ever going to be him. I'm sure, now, in retrospect, that the fire was set only for the utterly practical purpose of insurance; the house was old, in bad condition, and no one lived in it. But watching, then, I imagined another reason: no reason at all, or anger, or despair; and this filled me with such wonder and sympathy—if I deserved to feel that—for the man of whom it reminded me, and I crossed my arms and pressed my face against the glass.

T
HE GROUND WAS MOVING
outside the house. First Ellie's plate moved. Then Ellie's sister's plate moved. Ellie stood up. Ellie's sister, Francine, fed her piece of meat loaf to the dog. The dog was happy and ate the meat loaf quickly. Their mother, who was washing dishes at the sink, said, “Sit down, Ellie. Eat your meat loaf.” The doors and the windows were moving. Ellie went to the door and opened it. Far below the house, near the lake, three dark trees stood up and became monsters.

“I guess it's monsters,” said Ellie's father. He had come outside with Ellie's mother. Ellie's mother crossed her arms.

“Impossible,” she said, looking meaningfully at Ellie's father. “They can't be monsters. Those are trees.” Then she pulled a large green weed from the flower bed.

The monsters made three dark forms against the lake.

“Those are monsters,” Ellie said.

“Trees,” Ellie's mother said.

“Wanda,” Ellie's father said, “let's admit they're monsters.”

“Okay,” Ellie's mother said. “But how do you know they're coming here? Maybe they're going next door.”

Ellie looked at the house next door. The house next door was not really next door. The other house was a long ways away.

“I think we should go inside,” Ellie said. “And I think we should lock all the doors.”

“It's a very nice day,” Ellie's mother said. “Let's play outside. There'll be plenty of time for locking doors later.” She pulled some weeds.

“Can we please go inside?” Ellie said. The monsters were climbing the hill.

“Fine,” Ellie's mother said. “If you insist on being pushy.” Ellie's family went inside. As soon as Ellie got inside she began locking doors. First she locked the one that led from the cellar into the house. Then she locked the porch door, even though it was only a thin wooden frame and a ripped wire screen. Then she locked the kitchen door. In the kitchen, Ellie's father and mother and sister were doing dishes together. Ellie's father was washing, and Ellie's mother was drying, and Ellie's sister was putting away, even though every minute or so the floor shook and she dropped a dish.

“No one's helping me,” Ellie said. “Help!”

“All right,” Ellie's father said. “All right.” He locked the window above the sink. Ellie looked out the window. The monsters were checking the mailbox. They found three pieces of crappy mail, took them out, and walked toward the house.

“It's too late,” Ellie's sister, Francine, said. “I'm hiding. If you weren't so dumb you'd hide too.” Francine ran upstairs.

“Maybe it's not,” Ellie said. She ran down the long hall toward the front door. But as she put her hand on the lock to lock it, the door swung in. In the doorway stood three monsters. One was very big, one was medium-big, and one was small. They had green and brown fur and where their mouths would be were small black holes.

“Hello,” said Ellie's mother, who was standing behind Ellie. “We were just about to hide.”

The monsters shrugged and handed her the mail.

“Can I get you something?” Ellie's mother said. “Cookie? Diet cola?”

The mosters nodded.

After serving drinks, Ellie's mother came into the playroom where Ellie had gone to hide. Her face appeared underneath the play table where Ellie was crouched. “You better come out Ellie,” she said. “Your sister did. She's being friendly and polite. Why don't you come out and be friendly too?”

Ellie followed her mother to the kitchen, where her sister, Francine, was playing patty-cake with the smallest monster. The big monsters were sitting at the table.

“They only want one of us,” Ellie's mother said. “That's not so bad.”

“That's sort of bad,” Ellie said.

“Don't contradict me,” Ellie's mother said.

“Sorry,” Ellie said.

“It's okay,” Ellie's mother said, “you're forgiven.”

“Well,” Ellie's father said, “we shouldn't keep them waiting. We should decide.” He looked around. “Who should it be? Should it be Ellie?”

“Okay,” Ellie's mother said.

“No!” Ellie said. “That's not fair.” She looked at Francine, who continued to play patty-cake with the littlest monster.

“All right, Ellie,” Ellie's father said, and sighed. “Let's be fair. What's fair?”

“Well,” Ellie's mother said. “Ellie didn't eat her lunch.”

“Okay,” Ellie's father said. He nodded. “Then it should be Ellie. If you think that's fair.”

“It's not,” Ellie said. “Lunch has nothing to do with monsters.”

“Wanda,” Ellie's father said, turning to Ellie's mother, “Ellie says lunch has nothing to do with monsters. Do you agree?”

“I don't know,” Ellie's mother said. “I've been reading a good book called
The Connection Web
that says that everything is connected. So I don't know if I agree.”

“She fed her meat loaf to the dog.” Ellie pointed at Francine.

“Oh, Ellie,” Ellie's mother said. “I don't like tattletales. How would you like it if your sister tattled on you?”

Ellie squeezed her eyes shut. “Why should it be me? Why not one of you?”

Ellie's father nodded. “Good point, Ellie,” he said. “I didn't think of that. But you're right. It should probably be me. I don't mind.” He took off his shirt. His belly was large and soft and white.

“I mind!” Ellie's mother frowned, and put her hand on his shoulder. She said softly, “I don't want it to be you. What will I do without you?”

Ellie's father frowned as well. But he put his shirt back on. “What do you want me to do?” he said. “I'm trying to make everyone happy here. If it's not me, then who will it be?”

“Me, I guess.” Ellie's mother sat down on the chair. She did not look happy. “If the girls are going to make such a fuss—it can be me.”

But the monsters shook their shaggy heads. They didn't really want it to be Ellie's mother.

“No,” Ellie's father said. “There's no way I want that. I won't let it be you.”

“Okay then,” Ellie's mother said. She looked resolved. “Then we have to choose a girl.”

“What about the dog?” Ellie said. “Do they like dogs?”

“Shut up,” Francine said. “There's no way I'm letting it be the dog. I love the dog.”

“True,” Ellie's father said. “She's a good dog. She hasn't disobeyed in a long time.”

“Plus, I don't think they like dogs,” Francine said.

The monsters nodded. They did not like dogs.

“But it's nice that you were willing to sacrifice our dog,” Francine said.

“Let's be reasonable,” Ellie's father said. “Ellie, what do you consider fair? Is Rock Paper Scissors fair?”

“No,” said Ellie, who always lost at Rock Paper Scissors. Ellie tried to think of a game she'd win. Francine won most games of chance, all games of skill, and most games that combined the two.

“Hide and go seek!” Ellie said. Ellie sometimes won at hide and go seek.

Ellie's parents nodded. “Okay,” they said. “Okay,” Ellie's sister said. She seemed happy. The monsters nodded their heads.

“Hide and Seek,” Ellie's father said. “Count to thirty.” He pointed to the smallest monster, who covered its eyes with one paw. “Okay girls,” Ellie's father said. “You both have to hide in the cellar, and whoever is found first doesn't win.”

Both girls ran to the cellar door. Ellie unlocked it, and they ran down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Ellie's sister stood in the center of the cellar, turning in forlorn circles in front of an old wood-burning stove. Ellie, who had immediately hidden herself extremely well underneath the canvas that covered their father's cracked little dinghy, watched her sister. There was no good spot for Francine to hide. “Five,” said the littlest monster. “Four! Three!”

“Get behind the stove,” Ellie said. She hoped it didn't lose her the game. But behind the stove wasn't a very good hiding place, anyway.

Francine got behind the stove. The space behind the stove was very narrow and her arm and one of her pink shoes stuck out.

“Two!” said the smallest monster. “One!” Soon the small monster stood in the place where Francine had just been. Ellie ducked deeper underneath the canvas that covered the dinghy. The smallest monster saw Francine's arm and pink shoe and pointed at the stove.

“I see you,” the small monster said. “Ha.”

Francine came out. “I guess I didn't win,” she said. She looked unhappy. The two large monsters appeared on the stairs. Ellie's mother came down with them. The shaggiest one held out a comb. “They'd like to comb your hair first,” Ellie's mother said. Francine sat down Indian-style on the floor. The monster made pleasant sounds while it combed Francine's hair. The comb caught and yanked hard several times.

“Thank you for combing my hair,” Francine said. “I love it.”

“Ellie!” Ellie's mother said. “You can come out now. The game's done.”

Ellie came out. Francine and the shaggy monster went upstairs holding hands. Ellie watched them go.

“The monsters want to comb your hair,” Ellie's mother said.

“No thanks,” Ellie said.

“Don't be uncooperative,” Ellie's mother said.

Ellie sat down. The largest monster moved forward. Soon the comb caught a snarl and yanked. “Ow!” Ellie said. “Cut it out!” The monster stopped.

“Forget it,” Ellie said. “I don't want my hair combed.”

The largest monster looked hurt. Its shag ruffled. It walked upstairs with Ellie's mother. A few minutes later, Ellie's mother returned to the top of the stairs. Her hand was on Francine's shoulder. Francine was wearing a large pink ribbon in her hair and she was holding the smallest monster's paw.

“Why doesn't everyone but Ellie go sit in the kitchen,” Ellie's mother said. “There's some cookies in the cookie jar for people to snack on.”

Everyone went to the kitchen.

“Look Ellie,” Ellie's mother said. “Come with me. I'm going to tell you something.”

“What?” Ellie said. They had reached the first floor hall. No one was in the kitchen. The monsters, who hadn't felt like eating cookies after all, were playing television tag in the front yard with Francine and Ellie's father and the dog.

“The monsters choose you,” Ellie's mother said.

“But I won,” Ellie said.

“That's true,” Ellie's mother said. “But they like Francine a lot, so they choose you.”

“It's not fair,” Ellie said.

“Try to be more cooperative,” Ellie's mother said. “In the future, try to be pleasant.”

“What future?” Ellie said.

“That's all I have to say,” Ellie's mother said.

Ellie's father came inside and Ellie's mother went out.

“I don't always agree with your mother,” Ellie's father said. “But I do agree to work as a team.”

“Dad,” Ellie said. “Help!”

Ellie's father pulled a little butter knife out of his pocket. “I love you, Ellie,” he said. “I know this knife is small and crappy, but maybe it will help.”

Ellie looked at the butter knife. “Do you have something bigger?”

He shrugged. “Bigger wouldn't really be fair, I think. How would you like it if you were eating a sandwich and all of a sudden the sandwich stuck a big crappy knife in you?” He shook his head. “No,” he said, “a little crappy knife is all I have. Plus,” he continued, “any bigger would be hard to hide in your pants. You should hide this little knife in your pants, and when the time comes, stick it in someone's nose. Maybe that will help.”

“Thanks,” Ellie said. She put the crappy little knife in her pocket. Her father left and the dog came in.

“Hi, dog,” Ellie said.

The dog lifted its nose and licked Ellie's knee.

“I'm sorry I tried to give you to the monsters,” Ellie said.

The dog wagged its tail. Ellie put her arms around the dog. The dog wagged its tail harder.

“Don't cry,” Francine said. She'd walked in alongside the shaggy monster. She held its paw in her hand. “It's not your fault,” Francine said. “I guess some people are born like you. Maybe you'll get another chance to start over somewhere else as a little baby. I hope so. That would be cool.”

“Can't it be someone else?” Ellie said. “Can't it be you?”

“No,” Francine said. “No one wants it to be me. You better get out there now. They're waiting.”

“All right,” Ellie said, “all right.” She fingered the crappy little knife in her pocket, and then she stepped outside.