Martin Sloane (28 page)

I don’t know yet. He touched the magazine himself, as if to return his valence to it. She liked watching that, seeing his pale hand brush over the surface of something he’d made, long fingers, fingernails like slivers of almond.

I guess it’s funny to meet each other after all this time, isn’t it?

It took a while, he said.

Although it’s almost like we’ve known each other for years. He nodded, willing to accept that view of things for the sake of being friendly. Am I the way you thought I’d be?

I don’t know, he said. I can see why you and Jolene are friends, though.

She laughed, tossing her hair behind her neck. That was diplomatic. Does that mean you were expecting some kind of bombshell?

All I mean is Jolene wouldn’t be friends with someone who didn’t have wonderful qualities.

Thank you
. Her face became hot. Anyway, I actually came in here to apologize.

For what?

For starting that fight this afternoon.

That
wasn’t a fight, he said. He swivelled in the chair to follow her around the tiny space.

Your fights are a little harsher than that, are they?

When we fight.

She went
huh
under her breath. I can’t imagine you two in a knock’em down, drag’em out kind of thing anyway.

Do you fight like that?

Naw, she said. I’m a nice girl who don’t make no trouble for no one.

He smiled and the lines beside his eyes appeared. Sure.

Anyway. Sorry if I kicked up any dirt. It’s just I love your stuff, and I remember it really well. It was all over our house, so it was almost like
I
was living with you.

Thanks. It’s nice of you to say that.

We had — she had — shelves of your things. Jolene always came back from your weekends together with something. And she’d say, Look what Martin made me. It’s funny, we’d both be looking at whatever it was, but I’d always be the one to say, Hey, this is like a diary made up of bus tickets — you know, that little book you made of bus tickets all in order of the times you came down that first year?

I remember it.

It’s just interesting that I’d
get it
, you know, before she did. Maybe she was just too starry-eyed to see straight!

Maybe, he said. He was listening carefully to her now, not only because she was nervous and speaking quickly but because she was related by love, if there was such a thing. (He believed there was, in the same way he believed that every one thing in the world had its kindred in at least one other thing.) He was trying not to slip into the truisms he often used with people he didn’t know. He said, I tried to make her stuff that she’d like. I kept my eye out for little knick-knacks that seemed like they were
her
, you know? So she’d understand I knew who she was.

She loved them, Molly said quietly. She was proud of them. At first she kept them in her bedroom, but I suggested we make a place for them where we could both see them. Molly glanced up quickly at him.

I’m flattered. He shifted in his seat and looked around at the objects scattered on his desk.

It’s nice to have beautiful things.

Well … that
is
nice of you to say.

She ran a finger down one of the boxes facing side-out on the wall near the back of the shed. Her finger came away dustless. Do you know she offered me the honeycomb? she said. This afternoon, when we were swimming?

He lifted a hand off his lap and rested it on the desk. Really. That was a nice thing to do.

I told her no.

You didn’t have to, he said. You
should
have it. You practically earned it this afternoon.

You made it for her, though.

Yes, he said. He looked down at his hand and swept an unseen bit of dirt off the desk. It doesn’t
mean
you shouldn’t have it. She didn’t look happy with that justification. Well, look, he said, I’ll make something for you, then.

I wouldn’t ask that. A person doesn’t ask for something like that.

You didn’t. I offered.

She ignored him and went on. It bothered me that you’d made something for her, she said, and she’d never really looked at it. I mean, obviously, I’m not saying anything bad about her. I love Jolene. But it didn’t bother you?

No, he said. I
wish
she’d seen the doll, but you can’t ask people to see the exact thing you want them to.

But don’t you want someone to feel what it is that
you
put there?

It’s not that important.

She spread her arms open. Why make all this stuff, then?

He shrugged and tried to make light. I’m a collector. I see something I like, I want to keep it somewhere I can enjoy it.

That’s not true, she said, shaking her head. You’re trying to reach someone. Like you said. You wanted to
show
her you knew who she was.

Yes, but —

So who are you talking to with this? She’d come back to the desk and now she picked up the
Collier’s
. Are you talking to yourself?

You really shouldn’t touch that.

The people who want to talk to you at these openings? They’re just carrying on their half of the conversation with you.

It’s not my intention to —

There was a crack. To his horror, she’d pushed the sparrow out of the magazine, forcing it out with her thumbs and breaking the glue seal. She held the wooden bird up in her hand.

Molly —

I
know what you’re saying to me with this. His face was fixed. She held the bird away from him. It’s like … here’s this thing that before you altered it was just a picture of a little bird. But now you’ve made it heavier. You’ve weighed it down, and put it back in the sky. So now, even though before it was just a picture and everyone knows a picture can’t fly, you’ve made extra sure of it. I
know
how that feels. She lowered the wooden bird to the table, her hand shaking, and he quietly took it. Outside, they heard Jolene open the sliding door. Martin gingerly pushed the sparrow back into the space he’d made for it. His face was flushed and his hand was unsteady.

I’m flattered that you like my work, Molly. But it doesn’t mean you know me.

There’s something in you that can’t get away from itself.

That’s what
you
see in this. His voice was controlled, but angry. This is not
about
you. It doesn’t know you. It doesn’t even know me.

Of course it does.

No, Molly. It’s not for that.

Well, does
she
know you, for Christ’s sake?

Jolene called from the yard. Guys?

Martin … Molly reached for him, wanting to fix what she’d just done, but then her face hardened and she withdrew her hand. How can you not expect to touch people? He’d gotten up to get to Jolene. They could both hear her approaching. Answer
that
, she said. Where do you think you’ll end up if you push away the ones you actually reach?

XII.

CARRIAGE, 1984. 17" X 13" X 3" BOX CONSTRUCTION. WOOD AND GLASS WITH PAPER ILLUSTRATION, VELVET, FOUND OBJECTS, DOLL PARTS. NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, WASHINGTON, DC. VELVET CURTAINS OBSCURE THE OCCUPANTS OF A HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE, THEIR HANDS RESTING, ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER, ON THE RIM OF THE DOOR. THE CARRIAGE, A LITHOGRAPH FORTIFIED WITH IRON WHEELS AND A GLASS LAMP, RIDES OVER AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION OF THE GREAT LAKES.

THE PROMISED CHANGE IN THE WEATHER HAD COME
and the night was cooling off. In the afternoon, it had been summer, and now it was fall. We closed the windows against the edge of cold in the air. It was hard to imagine ourselves at the quarries just hours before, under the sun, the sheer stone hot to the very surface of the water, and then cold beneath. Tomorrow the stone would still retain some of that warmth, but it wouldn’t be long until the quarries started freezing over
.

Martin ran us a bath and when he dropped the salts in, thick steam billowed out into the hall. At one point, he walked through it toward me, a naked chimera trimmed in clouds. He always liked the water scalding; I’d have to sit on the edge of the tub, trailing my fingers until it felt like I could slide in with him. I followed him back through the steam and shed my robe as he got in. I sat on the edge with my feet tucked under his thighs and his forearm draped over the tops of my legs, his skin so hot that it gave me goosebumps on my arms and chest
.

I don’t know how you’re going to get up in the morning and take a ten-hour bus, I said. It’s almost midnight
.

I’ll sleep on the way home
.

Take the next one, Martin. An extra day won’t make any difference
.

He slid down a little into the water. I pushed his arm off me and got in facing him, gasped up the pang of heat and then settled, feeling sedated. We laced our legs together and some water sloshed over the side. Over the surface, I could only see his nose and eyes. His mind was drifting
.

Don’t fall asleep
.

Mm.

I can’t lift you out of here, hon. He pushed up a little. His face was scarlet. I wanted to keep him awake longer, just in case I lost the battle for one more day. I’d already begun to plan the morning: eggs and lattes at the Runcible Spoon, a walk through town, a visit to Loeb’s to buy next week’s groceries, meals we’d be eating together in six days, five if I got my way. The usual hope-making illusions of continuity. I excused this form of greed in myself, calling it love
.

Did you have a nice afternoon?

I had an interesting afternoon, he said
.

I’m sure you did. It was kind of you to give Molly the grand tour. I hope you left out the lap-sitting
.

I had to push her off me a couple times, he said. She’s a lovely girl. I liked meeting her finally
.

Did she say anything interesting? Give you any girlish insights into the mystery that is Jolene? I batted my eyes at him
.

She told me she loved my work
.

That made me smile, thinking of the honeycomb in her luggage. Well, what does she know
.

He shrugged. She must know something
.

I lifted his legs up over mine and pulled myself toward him and pressed my stomach against his. I felt him brush against me under the water. Sometimes we made love like this, although the heat of the water made for logy sex. But it was comfortable to be loved this way, it felt like married sex, whatever that was, and that appealed to me. But we were both too tired. Martin lowered his head to my shoulder and turned his face away
.

Are you hungry? I asked him
.

Nuh-uh, he groaned. Just want to turn out all the lights. Go to bed
.

I lowered my lips to his ear. Will you stay tomorrow, Martin? Please? Stay with me. I want a day where I don’t have to share you with anyone
.

Ask me in the morning
.

Stay with me
.

He turned his face and kissed my collarbone on the way to my mouth. I closed my legs around his back and pulled him harder against me. I can’t, he said. I’m practically dead
.

Okay. I felt with my foot for the chain to the stopper and pulled it up. Let’s get you out, then, before you get sucked down the drain
.

I wrapped him in a towel and brought him into bed. His breathing was deep and slow, like a child’s after a long day. He fell asleep almost right away, without another word to me, and when I drifted off, my arm lay against the length of his thigh, and his back was still hot against my skin
.

We’d driven down into the city, against a sun that lay low and bright over the Atlantic. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. We’d pulled over to the side of the road after following the direction to a street where the houses sat back on small lawns. Streams of traffic went by in both directions: people heading home to town, to the country. Galway was not even a tenth the size of Dublin. A backwater. We’d driven in from the top of the city along the N6, into the fragrance of fishrot and hops. We’d watched the houses appear, getting closer together, first the estates, then the homes, then the row houses.

Near the end of her story, she’d pulled over onto the shoulder and told the rest of it with her hands frozen on the wheel. I’d gotten out and gone around to drive. We wentthe rest of the way not talking, her face turned to the scenery. Now she pushed herself up in the seat. “How long were they here?”

“A while,” I said. “Too long and not long enough.”

Our address was a white stuccoed cottage with two floors on a row of houses pushed back off the street behind short brick walls. Most had gardens still in bloom; this one didn’t. Through the iron gate, we could see a trellis with a wisp of dead black vine resting against the front of the house on one side of the door. The garden patch running along the wall beside it was empty of plants, a dried white crest of minerals washed up from rains lay on top of it all.

The windows I could see from the car were dark.

“You’re not saying much,” she said.

“That’s because I don’t know how I feel yet.”

She rubbed her palms along the tops of her legs. “I’ve had longer to think about it.”

“I guess so.” I hadn’t looked at her since somewhere outside of Kilreekill, but at least now I had a reason outside of the car to avoid her eyes. I tried to picture Martin walking up the sidewalk there, a couple paper bags of groceries balanced on one arm as he dug in his coat pocket for a key. Upstairs, unpacking, finding the bag with the sweet thing he’d bought himself for eating right away. It was a quiet street, altogether an unremarkable place, and it was difficult to imagine the years of unnoticed routine that must have unfolded there on a daily basis. Difficult, because one house in the middle of it seemed to glow with significance, like the houses you sometimes see on television roped off by the police, men with shovels tromping down the alleyways.

Molly looked up toward the darkened house. “Should we come back later?”