Broken for You (19 page)

"Here it is."

Wanda didn't know much about fine china, but she knew enough to recognize that this—like everything else in the house—had probably cost a small fortune. The pattern featured orange, yellow, and black geometric shapes decorated in gold leaf.

"You're getting rid of this?"

"That's right."

"All of it?"

"Every bit."

"How come?"

Margaret reached into the cabinet and picked up a dinner plate. "I don't do a lot of entertaining anymore. Never did, actually." She held the plate with two hands—steadily, firmly, as she had always done. "My father was the great entertainer. My husband, too, to some extent."

Margaret was regarding the plate with an expression Wanda hadn't seen on her face before. It was a funny look to give a plate, nothing at all like the look women used to give plates in those old dishwashing liquid commercials. Nothing at all like the radiant, transcendent look that accompanied their exclamations of "I
can see
myself!" If Marga
ret
could
see herself in this plate—and it's quite possible that she could; it was gloriously, scrupulously shiny—she certainly didn't like what she saw.

"It's my wedding china," Margaret continued. "We were registered at Frederick & Nelson's." She began turning the plate over in her hands.

"It's very . . . ornate."

"It's gaudy. Self-centered. Desperate. Preening. I've never liked it." Margaret's hands were gaining courage now; one of them left the plate and fell limply to her side.
It's just a plate, after all,
she thought, at the same time knowing full well that it was much, much more than a plate.

"It also happens to be the only set of china in the house that actually belongs to me."

"I don't understand."

"The point is, no one ever uses it."

"But are you sure you want to give all this away? Couldn't you sell it?"

"I don't want to give it away. Or sell it," Margaret announced, as much to herself as anyone. "I want to break it."

With that, she let go.

For a while, it was as if gravity ceased to exist, and the plate made its way to the hardwood floor with the dreamy languor of a snowflake. A great deal of time seemed to go by, and as Margaret watched the slow, unreal descent of the plate, she thought,
I could still catch it if I wanted to, change history, interrupt this tragedy. It's not too late.
She heard Wanda gasp and saw her make an involuntary lunge for the doomed plate.
How funny,
she puzzled.
No one likes to see something break
—
even if that thing has no relationship to them whatsoever. Even if they're completely unattached to it. Why is that? I wonder. It is, after all, the inevitable fate of a plate, isn't it? If it's not shut away, that is. If it's put to its intended purpose
—
as a vessel, something useful, something human hands are meant to handle and interact with. The natural fate of a plate
—
and therefore the appropriate one
—
is that it be chipped or cracked or broken. Why should that decrease its value?

The plate arrived. The sound it made was not nearly as loud as Margaret had anticipated, nor did it shatter dramatically as she had secretly hoped. Actually, the damage was probably not irreparable. But Margaret was in charge of this plate's future, for the time being anyway, and she did not want to see it repaired.

Both women stared, speechless, at the plate's remains. The house, too—and whatever entities it harbored—maintained a shocked silence. Without knowing exactly why, Margaret giggled abruptly, and then, just as abruptly, stopped.

"Crash," she said.

Wanda looked up from the ruined plate. "Margaret?" she said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She didn't seem to realize that she had begun to weep. "Margaret?" Wanda repeated. "Are you—?"

"It's all right, dear. Really. It's what I want to do."

Margaret patted Wanda's hand and smiled radiantly. The tears gave her face a dewy, glistening look. And then she was on the move, yanking dishes out of the cabinet with an energetic carelessness.

"Let's get these out to the back patio, shall we?"

As Wanda watched her haul the first armload of dishes outside and heard the clamor that followed a few seconds after her exit—in the theatre this would have been accomplished with something called a "crash box"—she suddenly knew that she had found a home with someone who was as deeply aggrieved and crazy as she was.

It was tremendously comforting.

It took them a bit under an hour to do the whole job.

It would've taken much less time had they simply boxed up the entire set of china and dumped it all at once. That would have been the quick, efficient way to do it. But when Margaret came back inside, she announced her decision that they should give each piece an individual and personalized send-off. "It's too casual the other way," she said. "Too unceremonious." Margaret also produced—Wanda hadn't the slightest idea from where—two pairs of OSHA-approved eye goggles. "We should wear these," she said. "For safety's sake."

They brought several sturdy boxes up from the basement, filled them so that they weren't too heavy, and carried them outside.

The large patio behind Margaret's house was perfect for their purposes. It was enclosed on all three sides by a low wall constructed of gray, egg-shaped river rocks. There was a small wooden gate in one side of the wall; it was much weathered now, but Wanda could tell that it had been beautifully designed and expertly constructed.

She loved the pebbly, rustic look of the wall—although she supposed that certain people would regard it as an architectural affront; its lumpy surface was out of character with the rest of the house, with its flat, formal angles of brick and stucco. But there was something irresistibly whimsical about this wall; and although it took Wanda a little while to catch Margaret's enthusiasm—"This is FUN!" Margaret kept shouting—once she did, Wanda found that she enjoyed aiming her throws at specific places in its cobbled, friendly facade.

"WHEEEEE!" Margaret sang out gleefully. "BON VOYAGE!" They began to experiment with various throwing techniques: over the head, under the leg, two-handed throws, backward throws, bowling throws, attempts at juggling. Margaret played horseshoes and shuffleboard with the dessert plates. Wanda shot hoops with the soup bowls. The pieces of china were beginning to accumulate, like exotic ice floes, forming random piles and patterns on the patio floor.

At one point, Margaret took off her goggles and massaged her forehead. "I think I'll take a break," she said, and then emitted a sharp, gooselike noise than could have passed equally well for a chuckle or a sob. She stretched out on a lounge chair.

As she watched Wanda dodge and weave skillfully from one end of the patio to the other, she began to whistle. Margaret hadn't whistled for nearly three decades, and at first her efforts produced more air than actual musical tone. But eventually she was able to manage a robustly out-of-tune rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown," accompanied by hand-clapping and foot-stomping. Wanda made an impressive leap and executed a perfect mock layup. Margaret applauded and hooted wildly.

"However did you learn to do
that
?
"
Margaret exclaimed. "Boys," Wanda said somewhat breathlessly. "I grew up around a lot of boys."

"Really?" Margaret was intrigued. This was the first personal information Wanda had offered since they'd met. "For some reason I thought you were an only child."

"I am," Wanda replied, "but I have a lot of cousins. James John Jacob Jesse Jordan Joshua Jeremiah."

"No other girls?" Margaret pressed.

"Jacqueline. We weren't especially close. I was more like their troop leader."

This admission, Margaret realized, was probably as much as she'd ever get from this girl on the subject of her childhood.

"Would you like some tea?" Wanda offered.

There was that distinct change in tone; Margaret recognized it now. Whenever their conversation became too intimate, Wanda reliably fell back into her default position—one of servitude.

"Not right now, dear," she answered. "Why don't you have a rest. You've been a wonderful help."

Wanda stretched out on the lounge chair next to Margaret. They gazed quietly at their work.

By this time, they had destroyed
(No,
Margaret thought.
Not destroyed
—
reconfigured)
all of the dinner, salad, and dessert plates, the soup bowls, and six teacups. The gold leaf reflected the sloping rays of afternoon light, giving the scattered pieces a look that spoke not of ruin, but of opulence and festivity, of things precious and celebratory and child-prized: ticker tape and pirate treasure, dress-up jewels and New Year's Eve confetti.

"Shall we?" Margaret said after a while.

They got up again, and—with a less athletic style, to be sure, for both women were feeling tired—they proceeded to finish off the rest of it.

"We're mad, aren't we?" Wanda said glumly. She seemed uncheered by the fact that she'd just given the gravy boat a unique launch involving the use of her nose.

"Quite possibly."

All of the boxes were finally empty, and Margaret held out a piece of porcelain which did not match the others. She regarded it briefly: It was an odd-sized, canister-like container with a domed lid. An Italian biscuit holder. In the thirty-some years it had spent in Margaret's china cabinet, it hadn't come within two miles of an Italian biscotti. Furthermore, if Margaret remembered correctly, it had been a wedding gift from a person completely unknown to either herself or Stephen by the name of. . .
What was it?
"My God," Margaret muttered, taking off the lid and producing a small rectangular card with white wedding bells and pink roses around the border. "The card is still inside! 'Fondly, with best wishes for your future, Mrs. Carmella Manzito.' I never did write her a thank-you note," Margaret said. "Oh, well."

Margaret pocketed the card, handed Wanda the lid, and grasped the biscuit holder firmly in her right hand. "Ready?" she said, settling herself into a wide stance.

Wanda mirrored Margaret's position. "Uh-huh."

"This is it, now. On three. Let's make it count!" In perfect synchronization, they revolved their arms in two fluid, generous circles as Margaret called "One! . . .Two!". . .and then, on "Three!" simultaneously released their throws. The biscuit holder was smashed to smithereens.

"THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH, MRS. MANZITO!!!" Margaret yelled.

"WHOEVER THE HELL YOU ARE!" Wanda added.

They stood quietly for a moment. Their goggles were foggy. They looked like two explorers adrift on an exotic arctic sea.

"I would really appreciate an alcoholic beverage," Margaret said. "Wouldn't you? I have no idea what time it is, but I really do think that a drink is in order under the circumstances."

Wanda checked her watch. "It's twelve fifty-three. I don't have to leave for the theatre till five-thirty, so I say let's go for it."

"Champagne, n'est-ce pas?"
Margaret asked.
"Un verre de champagne sera la chose parfaite
!
"
Margaret's use of French failed to animate her expression in the usual way. She frowned, and swiped her fingertips across her closed eyes several times. "The trouble is, I don't think there's anything in the house besides cooking sherry."

"I have some champagne," Wanda offered. "One of the designers gave me a bottle for opening night. Would you like some?"

"How generous of you, dear. That would be lovely."

"I'll bring out some blankets, too," Wanda said. "It's getting chilly."

"Don't forget the champagne glasses!" Margaret called. "All of them!
Tous!"

Margaret reclined in her lounge chair, closed her eyes, and tried to imagine what it was like inside the house. Different, surely. Surely there was some form of discussion among her things as to what had just transpired. She imagined high-pitched, subtle resonances, muted versions of the sounds made by tracing a wet finger around the rim of a crystal goblet, or the thrumming vibrations of a tuning fork. Too faint for human perception, of course, but wasn't it true, hadn't scientists discovered, that inanimate objects gave off sounds? Who was to say that those sounds weren't utterances? Forms of intelligent communication?

She tried to accomplish a kind of cross-matter transference of energy, willing herself into one of her many fragile, valuable, and stolen things: the Royal Worcester jardiniere, the one signed by W. Powell. Circa 1907, thirty-four centimeters tall, valued at $ 10,500. Perhaps it was feeling anxious and fearful. Perhaps it was quaking with a sudden, grave understanding of that old homily: "Whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it's going to be hard for the pitcher."