Let the Great World Spin (46 page)

said Claire. I was careful to take the end of the bed where there was most support—I didn’t want it creaking. I put my hands down on the mattress so it wouldn’t bounce and I leaned against the wall where I could feel the cool of the plaster against my back. Janet sat on the beanbag chair—she hardly made a dent in it—and the others took the far end of the bed, while Claire herself took a small white chair by the window where the breeze came in.

“Here we are,” she said.

The sound in her voice like we’d come to the end of a very long journey.

“Well, it’s lovely,” said Jacqueline.

“It really is,” said Marcia.

The ceiling fan spun and the dust settled like little mosquitoes around us. Along the shelves there were lots of radio parts and flat boards with electronic gizmos, wires hanging down. Big batteries. Three screens, their backs open and tubes showing.

“He liked his televisions?” I said.

“Oh, they’re bits of computers,” said Claire.

She reached across and picked up a photo of him in a silver frame on McCa_9781400063734_4p_04_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:39 PM Page 293

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his table, passed it around. The frame was heavy and it had a MADE IN EN -

GLAND sticker on the back velvet. In the photo Joshua was a thin little white boy with pimples on his chin. Dark glasses and short hair. Eyes that weren’t comfortable looking in the camera. He wasn’t in uniform either.

She said it was taken just before his graduation from high school, when he was valedictorian. Jacqueline rolled her eyes again but Claire didn’t notice—every word she said about her son seemed to spread the smile on her face. She picked up a snow globe from his desk, shook it up and down. The globe was from Miami, and I thought, There’s someone with a touch of funny—snow falling over Florida. But when she turned it upside down it was like there was some other gravity in the world: she waited until every little flake had settled and then she turned it again and she told us all about him, Joshua, where he went to school, the notes he liked on the piano, what he was doing for his country, how he read all the books on the shelves, how he even built himself his own adding machine, went to college, then out to some park somewhere—he was the sort of boy who was once liable to put another man on the Moon.

I had asked her once if she thought Joshua and my boys were friends, and she said yes, but I knew nothing was probably further from the truth.

No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final.

No shame in saying either that I let her rattle on, even encouraged her to get it all out. Years ago, when I was at university in Syracuse, I developed a manner of saying things that made people happy, kept them talking so I didn’t have to say much myself, I guess now I’d say that I was building a wall to keep myself safe. In the rooms of wealthy folk, I had perfected my hard southern habit of
Mercy
and
Lord
and
Landsakes.
They were the words I fell back on for another form of silence, the words I’ve always fallen back on, my reliables, they’ve been my last resort for I don’t know how long. And sure enough, I fell into the same ditch in Claire’s house. She spun off into her own little world of wires and computers and electric gadgets, and I spun right back.

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at me from under her gray streak, and smiled, like she was surprised to be talking and nothing could stop her now. She was a picture of pure happiness, collecting one thought after the other, circling around, going back, explaining another thing about the electronics, detailing another about Joshua’s time in school, rattling on about a piano in Florida, doing her own peculiar hopscotch through that boy’s life.

It grew hot in the room, all five of us stuffed together. The hand of the clock by the bedside table didn’t move anymore, maybe the batteries were expired, but it got to ticking in my mind. I could feel myself drifting. I didn’t want to fall asleep. I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep myself from nodding off. Sure enough, it wasn’t just me, we were all getting a little itchy, I could feel it, the shifting of bodies, and the way Jacqueline was breathing and the little cough that came every now and then from Janet, and Marcia wiping her brow with her little handkerchief.

I could feel a case of pins and needles coming on. I kept trying to move my toes and tighten my calf muscles—I guess I was grimacing a little, moving my body, making too much noise.

Claire smiled at me but it was one of those smiles that has a little zipper in it, a little too tight at the edges. I gave her a smile back, and tried hard not to make it seem like I was fidgety and awkward both. It wasn’t as if she was boring me, it had nothing at all to do with what she was telling me, just my body giving me a hard time. I tightened my toes again, but that didn’t work, and as quiet as possible I started knocking my knee off the edge of the bed, trying to get that half- gone feeling out of my leg. Claire gave me a look like she was disappointed, but it wasn’t me who stood up at all; it was Marcia who finally stretched herself up in the air and flat- out yawned—yawned, like a child pulling a piece of chewing gum from her mouth, a thing that said, Look at me, I’m bored, I’m going to yawn and nobody’s going to stop me.

“Excuse me,” she said with a half- apology.

There was a lockdown for a moment. It was like seeing the air fall apart so that you could recognize all the separate things that go together to make it.

Janet leaned across and tapped Claire on the knee and said: “Go on with your story.”

“I forget what I was saying,” she said. “What was I saying?”

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Nobody stirred.

“I know I was saying something important,” she said.

“It was about Joshua,” said Jacqueline.

Marcia glared across the room.

“I can’t for the life of me recall what it was,” said Claire.

She smiled another one of her quick zipper smiles, like her brain was refusing to accept the bold- faced evidence, and took a deep breath and jumped right in. Soon she was traveling on that highballing Joshua train again—he was at the cusp of something so entirely new, she said, that the world would never quite know what it missed, he was bringing machines to a place where they would do good things for man and mankind, and someday these machines would talk to each other just like people, even our wars would be fought through machines, it might be impossible to understand, but believe me, she said, it was the direction the world was going.

Marcia stood up again and stretched near the doorway. Her second yawn was not as bad as the first, but then she said: “Has anyone got the timetable for the ferry?”

Claire stopped cold.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Sorry. I just don’t want to get caught up in any rush hour,” said Marcia.

“It’s lunchtime.”

“I know, but it gets very busy sometimes.”

“Oh, it does, yes,” piped Janet.

“Sometimes you have to wait in line for hours.”

“Hours.”

“Even on Wednesdays.”

“We could order something in,” said Claire. “There’s a new Chinese place on Lexington.”

“Really, no. Thank you.”

I could see the red rising to Claire’s cheeks. She tried to smile again, a neutral smile, and I thought of that old yea- saying line
A little bit of poison
helped her along,
from an old song my mother had taught me as a child.

Claire was pulling at her dress, straightening it, making sure it wasn’t puckered. Then she picked the photo of her Joshua off the window ledge, and got to her feet.

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“Well, I can’t thank you enough for coming,” she said. “It’s been I don’t know how long since someone has been in this room.”

Her smile could’ve broken glass.

Marcia smiled a hammer blow right back. Jacqueline wiped her brow like she’d just been through the longest ordeal. The room filled with hems and haws and pauses and coughs, but Claire still clutched the photo frame right into her dress. Everyone began saying what a wonderful morning it was, and thank you so much for the hospitality, and wasn’t Joshua such a brave guy, and yes we’ll meet as soon as we can, and wasn’t it a wonder that he was so smart, and Lord give me the address of the bakery that made the doughnuts, and whatever other specimen of word- fill we could find to plug the silence around us.

“Don’t forget your umbrella, Janet.”

“I was born with my umbrella in hand.”

“It won’t rain, will it?”

“Impossible to get a cab when it rains.”

In the corridor Marcia adjusted her lipstick in the mirror and hung her handbag on her wrist.

“Next time I’m here, remind me to bring a tent.”

“A what?”

“I’ll camp right here.”

“Me too,” said Janet. “It’s really a glorious apartment, Claire.”

“A penthouse,” said Marcia.

All sorts of lies were flying through the air, going back and forth, colliding with each other, and even Marcia was afraid to be the first to turn the handle of the door. She stood by the hat stand with the ball- and- claw feet. Her shoulder touched against it. The feet tottered and the handles swayed.

“I’ll call you first thing next week.”

“That would be wonderful,” said Claire.

“We’ll begin again in my house.”

“Great idea—I can’t wait.”

“We’ll put out yellow balloons,” said Janet. “Remember those?”

“Did we have yellow balloons?”

“In the trees.”

“I can’t recall,” said Marcia. “My mind’s shot.” Then she leaned across and whispered something in Janet’s ear and they both giggled.

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We could hear the clack outside from the elevator going up and down.

“Delicate question?” said Marcia. She had a guilty look on her face.

She touched Claire’s forearm.

“Please, please.”

“Should we tip the elevator boy?”

“Oh, no, of course not.”

I took a quick last look in the hallway mirror, and checked the clasp of my handbag, when all of a sudden Claire tugged my elbow and brought me down the corridor a little ways.

“Would you like some extra bagels, Gloria?” she said for all to hear.

“Oh, I’ve got enough bagels,” I said.

“Just stay here a little while,” she said under her breath.

There was a little rim of moist at her eye.

“Really, Claire, I got enough bagels.”

“Stay awhile,” she whispered.

“Claire,” I said, trying to move away, but she had a hold of my elbow like she was clutching a last piece of twine.

“After everyone leaves?”

I could see the little tremble going in her nostrils. She had the type of face when you look closely at it, you think it’s gone all a sudden old. There was a pleading in her voice. Janet and Jacqueline and Marcia were down the far end of the corridor, tickling their ribs now at one of the paintings on the wall.

Sure, I didn’t want to leave Claire there with all those leftover crumbs on the carpet, and the crushed- out cigarettes in the ashtrays and I suppose I could’ve easily stayed, rolled up my sleeves, and started washing the dishes and cleaning the floor and tucking the lemons away in the Tupper-ware, but the thing is, I had the thought that we didn’t go freedom- riding years ago to clean apartments on Park Avenue, no matter how nice she was, no matter how much she smiled. I had nothing against her. Her eyes were big and wide and generous. I was pretty sure I could’ve just sat down on the sofa and she would’ve served me hand and foot, but we didn’t go marching for that either.

“Mercy,” I said.

I couldn’t help it.

“ Ah- hem,” went Jacqueline from the front door, like she was clearing her throat for speech.

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“ Coca- Cola one two three,” said Marcia.

I could hear the tip- tap of Janet’s shoes against the wooden floors.

Jacqueline gave another little cough. Marcia was adjusting her hair in the mirror and muttering something under her breath.

There it was, I might never have believed it at any other time in my life—three white women wanting me to leave with them, and one of them trying to get me to hold back with her. I was flat- out dilemma’d, tied to a galloping horse. My heart began going hammer and tongs. There was moistness gathering in Claire’s eyes and she was looking at me like I had to decide quickly. One choice was, I went with the others, down the elevator and out into the street, where we could stand and say our good-byes. The next choice was I stayed with Claire. I didn’t want to lose our run of mornings by playing favorites, no matter how good- hearted she was, or how fancy her apartment, and so I stepped back and flat- out lied to her.

“Well, I got to make my way home to the Bronx, Claire, I got a church appointment in the afternoon, the choir.”

I felt plain- out awkward for the way I was lying. She said of course, yes, she understood, how silly of her, and then she kissed me gentle on the cheek. Her lips brushed against the side of my hair clip and she said:

“Don’t worry.”

I don’t know the words for how she looked at me—there are few words—it was a welling up, a rising, a lifting up on the surface from the water, it was the sort of thing that could not be told. It felt for a moment that something had unthreaded down my spine, and my skin got tight, but what could I say? She grabbed hold of my wrist and tweaked it, saying a second time that she understood and she didn’t mean to take me away from the choir. I stood away from her. It was over then, I was sure, happily solved, and the corridor brightened up for me and a few more smiles went around among us, and we declared we’d see each other at Marcia’s next time—though it felt to me that there’d probably never be another time, that was the heartbreaker, I had a good idea that we’d let it slip away now, we had all had our chance, we’d brought our boys back to life for a little while—and we stepped out into the hallway, where Claire pressed the button for the elevator.