Broken for You (46 page)

Roxie looked unsure. "Are you gonna show me how? I mean, are you gonna play too?"

M.J. felt Irma's eyes on him. He turned and looked up at her. She was due for a dye job, he noticed. At the same time, she'd never looked prettier.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I'm gonna play."

And so it was that, after a twenty-seven-year hiatus from the sport he loved best in the world, M.J. Striker bowled. He gave Roxie a two-hour lesson. The girl had potential, she really did. After that, he bowled with some of the regular customers. He bowled with Rudy. He even bowled two games with Irma. Both times, she won.

When M.J. arrived at work the next morning, there were five new Hawaiian shirts waiting on the front desk and a slew of notes from customers and staff. A person would've thought he'd finally graduated college or something.

Early in the afternoon, The Hits and Missus started drifting in. M.J. checked his watch. He called Irma's apartment. He waved to Rudy.

"Mrs. K.'s a little late," he said. "She's probably already left, but. . ."

"Go ahead," Rudy said. "I can watch the front."

M.J. walked; it was a nice day—clear blue skies, warm for October. He figured he'd run into Irma on the way and they could walk back to the bowling alley together; they'd done it before. Maybe he'd finally give
in and be her partner in The Hits and Missus. That would get her out of the house on time.

He arrived at Irma's door and knocked. No answer. He knocked again. He waited. "Irma?" he called, his chest tightening. He pressed his ear against the door; he heard Maurice on the other side, scratching at it, meowing. "Irma? Are you in there?"

Irma's neighbor opened her apartment door a crack and glowered at him. "I haven't heard a peep all morning," she said. "Just that damned cat. You want me to call the building manager?"

"No," M.J. said, taking a few steps back, getting ready to kick in the door. "Call 911."

A few days after the funeral, Rudy and M.J. were cleaning out Irma's apartment.

"You'll be leaving, won't you," Rudy said.

M.J. was folding some of Irma's clothes. They still smelled like that perfume she wore. Like Hawaii. She'd left instructions about where she wanted everything to be donated: a shelter for battered women, Northwest Center for the Retarded, the Goodwill. She was still doing mitzvahs.

"We agreed to six months," M.J. reminded him. "It's been a lot longer than that, you'll have to admit."

"I was just hoping. Any idea how soon you'll be taking off?"

"I don't want to leave you in the lurch. How about another couple of weeks?"

Rudy groaned. "You think I can find somebody to replace you that fast? And then train them? You underestimate yourself. How about another month, at least?"

"Sure."

Maurice squeaked.

"Did she make plans for him?"

"Yeah. The lawyer said she wanted me to take him, but. . . Would it be okay if he lived at the alley? Jean said she'd make sure he got fed. She likes cats."

"Won't he get scared, with all the noise?"

"Nah. He's deaf as a post." Maurice looked up at M.J. and squeaked again. M.J. reached down and petted him.

Rudy finished labeling the last of Irma's things for pickup. "I'll start taking the boxes down to the curb. Then we can get the furniture. The truck should be here pretty soon." "Sounds good."

M.J. went into the bathroom. Maurice followed him, playing up his limp. He'd been doing that a lot lately. M.J. opened up the medicine chest and started dropping things into the wastebasket. Maurice jumped up onto the toilet seat and started crying.

"I'm sorry, okay? They don't allow pets at my apartment. And besides, you heard me: I'm not staying. You wouldn't be happy traveling around the country in the luggage compartment of a Greyhound bus." In the back of the cabinet, M.J. found an unopened box of hair color: Tropical Red Ginger Glimmer. "Fuck all," he said. He sank onto the edge of the toilet seat lid. Maurice climbed into his lap. Sitting there together—transcending vast differences in species and temperament, and with an empathy that, if studied, could have earned some zoologist the Nobel Peace Prize—they keened and wept as if the world were coming to an end.

He called Joyce to let her know, because Irma would have wanted him to.

"I'm so sorry, Michael," she said. "She was a remarkable person."

Nobody had called him Michael in almost thirty years, and he didn't
like the fact that his heart slid sideways in his chest when he heard her
say it. "Will I be able to see you when I get to Seattle? I'll be there in a
month, for Thanksgiving break. We could get together. Have coffee."

"No," he told her. "I'll be gone by then.

"
Thirty-one

Mannerly Devotion

T
he effects of radiation hit Margaret hard. She was tired always, frequently nauseous. There were more medications to take, injections to receive. There were trips to the doctor's office and the hospital. It took a great deal of work, she discovered, to arrest the expansion of The Star, now that it had acquired a will and power of its own.

On days she felt well enough, she made use of Troy's escalator and came downstairs. So many things had changed. The Hughes mansion had entered another era.

The living room and parlor had been appropriated as sorting and construction sites, and were filled from morning until evening with volunteers. Margaret loved meeting them, shaking their hands, hearing about their lives and their reasons for being here. They were young and old and everything in between. They were art enthusiasts and history teachers; women who called themselves "stay-at-home moms" and men who called themselves "house husbands"; nuns, pastors, rabbis, swamis, young people on summer vacation, retired Boeing workers, yoga students, Veterans of Foreign Wars. Occasionally, she joined them in their labors. It was so restful. Sorting was like beachcombing on a shore where every pebble is precious and time is boundless. And the familiar way everyone chatted—so many hands in constant, purpose
ful, attentive motion—gave Margaret the feeling of being at a quilting bee, a barn raising, or a wake.

There had been changes in the live-in community too. Bruce—who had his hands full with cooking for such a large and diverse population—took on the help of a sous-chef, who moved into the Satsuma Geisha Room. (Margaret had been unable to remember his actual name. He was one of those people whose appellations do not in any way match their appearance, so she called him "Gaylord." He didn't seem to mind.) And once Wanda was strong enough to manage the stairs without the escalator, she reclaimed the privacy of her old upstairs bedroom, while Nestor, her physical therapist, took the Aviary Suite. He massaged the aching hands, forearms, and wrists of the volunteers, and performed administrative duties related to the Academy and Wanda's career.

One day when Susan brought Margaret downstairs—she'd started to use a walker by then—Stephen and Marita were standing in the foyer. Margaret hadn't seen either of them in years. Stephen, more jowly in face but trim in body, still wore his hair on the longish side; Margaret had to remind herself that he was a sixty-something architect, not the twenty-eight-year-old art student she'd fallen in love with and still pictured whenever she thought of him. Marita still favored a dramatic and colorful style of dress; however, she was clearly no longer a size 6.

"I wasn't sure we should come," Stephen began, "but your nurse said she didn't think you'd mind."

"Of course I don't mind. This is a wonderful surprise."

"I thought you might be angry—our showing up, well . . ."

". . . When I'm so close to kicking the bucket?" Margaret joked. "I know that you're not after my money, Stephen, if that's what you're worried about." He smiled, and Margaret stilled an impulse to reach up and touch his face. "You'll enjoy seeing what's become of all the . . . What did you used to call it?"

Stephen cringed. "The loot. That was wrong of me, Margaret."

"No it wasn't."

Marita—unsuccessfully stanching her tears
---
tottered toward her, wearing too-small pink and black shoes with impractical heels. She hugged Margaret with such force that had Susan not stepped in to act as a human buttress, the two of them would surely have toppled over in a heap. "I'm so sorry, Margaret. I'm so very sorry. . . ."

"There, there, Marita." Margaret patted her fleshy back. "Susan, would you please get some gloves and goggles? Let's find these two something to break."

Other changes were behind-the-scenes in nature; Margaret had put her hand to a number of legal documents in the past months, making sure that all of this—the work, the Academy, the use of the house— would stay in place after she was gone. That much, anyway, was a relief. But they had heard nothing from Sylvie since her phone call in June.

On bad days, Margaret remained upstairs. Gus bought a VCR and a new television for their room so that she could watch movies in bed if she wished. It was wonderful, seeing films she hadn't seen in years. Everything, apparently, was available on videotape. Susan and Bruce, the dears, were quite the film buffs, and they enjoyed the challenge of finding whatever movies she requested, no matter how rare or outdated, even if she could only provide the scantest details about plot or character. They always came home with exactly what she wanted.

Sometimes she had trouble opening her eyes to actually watch the films, but it was still a decadent pleasure to lie in bed and listen to the voices of the old stars—Greta Garbo, Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Paul Henreid, Ingrid Bergman—and the lush sound tracks that never left any doubt where the sad parts were; when there was peril, betrayal, frivolity, or tenderness; when a tragic loss or a joyful reunion was taking place.

Then, too, she learned a great deal by eavesdropping on Susan and Bruce's conversations when they thought she was asleep:

"We should start trying," Bruce half-whispered. Margaret could hear the voices of Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne in the background. "I have a whole stash of muscle mags waiting to get some use. We could have a Leo! Leos love to eat. Especially if they've been conceived by turkey baster."

Susan laughed feebly. "Not yet," she said. "Not until Margaret is . . ." She started to cry.

"You're taking wonderful care of her."

"So are you," Susan sniffled. Her voice put on a brave face. "You know, her not eating, it's not because your food isn't marvelous. It is. It's just. . . she can't. Their bodies—when they're this close, you know, this far along, they seem to understand instinctively that food . . ."

"I know, Suzy-Q. It's okay."

Susan started weeping again. "I don't think she's suffering too much, do you? Oh, bloody hell. This is why I gave up nursing in the first place."

"I think," Bruce said, in the exaggerated Southern accent that always signaled a joke, "it would tickle her no end to hear you've got a biscuit in the oven."

Susan laughed—from the sound of it, expelling a great deal of mucus in the process. "You don't think she'd consider me morally unfit? Unwed mother and all that. . ."

"An immaculate conception? Hell, no. Here. Blow."

Margaret's mother and Daniel were often at her side, munching on popcorn, gummy bears, Junior Mints, and nonpareils. Their appetites were just fine. Thankfully, they didn't talk much. They seemed to enjoy the films as much as she did—although Daniel sometimes griped at what he called "the mushy parts."

Yuk
!
Gross! They're KISSING! I'm glad
I
never had to do that.

You're so right, sweetie,
Margaret's mother said.
In my opinion, all that nonsense is wildly overrated. You didn't miss a thing.

You two,
Margaret scoffed.
No sense of romance.

Every day, Wanda wheeled in the serving cart and fed her small mouthfuls of soup, if she could tolerate it, pureed fruit, sips of herbal tea. She also used this time to share sketches, paintings, and models of whatever projects she was involved in—the room was full of these— and often she surprised Margaret with some delightful whimsy: a mosaic portrait of Daniel, modeled on his last school picture and assembled out of buttons, beach glass, beads, and marbles in all the colors of a candy store; a tesseraed clock set to Paris time, its face framed, raylike, with dozens of tiny souvenir shop Eiffel Towers; a functional teapot decorated with little-boy treasures, things of Daniel's that Wanda had unboxed after Margaret gave her the key to the upstairs floor of the carriage house: race cars, action figures, LEGOs, coins, dominoes, dice. A tin kazoo.

Wanda had several small-scale commissions going, and recently she'd received grant money to begin another large work, her biggest yet. On the day she arrived to unveil the plans, she seemed oddly reticent.