Sacred Time (13 page)

“Maybe I don't want to be a real knockout.” She hears the sharpness in her voice and thinks how much quicker this man retreats from her edges than Victor. James cannot match her there. Cannot grind his edges against hers and set off fire. Not like Victor. It makes her feel sorry for James. Makes her wonder how many men she will scar with her edges.
I hope there'll be many.

Setting down her glass, she reaches for James, traces the dark curls on his chest with her tongue, draws him close to her skin, aroused by his swift desire that blots out images of Victor walking toward a distant and deceptive altar.

Minutes after James leaves comes a knock on the door, and she opens it in her robe, thinking he must have forgotten something. But it's Victor's sister in the black party dress that used to fit just right but now hangs on her with the darts in the wrong places and the scalloped hem drooping.

“What is it?” Leonora shifts one hip into the opening of the door to keep Floria out.

“I want to be sure you're all right.”

“I am very much all right.”

“May I come in?” No makeup ever. Just planes of pale, mobile skin. And that wide, mobile mouth with one freckle on the left side.

“I'm about to take my bath.”

“Only for a few minutes? You don't even have to talk to me.”

“Did you go?”

“He's my brother.”

“So…how was it then, his engagement party?”

“Sickening. I couldn't stay.”

“Oh.” Leonora steps aside. Lets her in. “Anthony…How did he—”

“Quiet. The way he gets, you know? But not unhappy.”

“To think I'd ever settle for having him ‘not unhappy.'”

“He and Belinda were playing dominoes. My parents are sitting with them. Malcolm, too.”

“I want a bath. I'm so…tired. And—”

“I figured we might want something special.” Floria rummages through her big handbag: the smell of mothballs…

Leonora fans one hand in front of her nose. She hates that smell.…a pack of Lucky Strikes…two half-empty bottles, one black, one clear. She hands them to Leonora. “Sambuca. I stole them.”

Leonora grins. “From Victor's party?”

“You mind?”

“Let's drink to that.” From the mahogany buffet, Leonora gets two of the gold-rimmed shot glasses with the logo “Festa Liguria” that Victor brought home after catering a bar mitzvah.

“Coffee beans. You got coffee beans for good luck?”

“Only ground coffee. I'll get it. You stay here.”

But Floria follows her toward the kitchen she hasn't entered since Bianca fell. She has never spoken to Leonora about Bianca's death. For a while, she couldn't even bear to be on this block of Creston though she lives five minutes away on Ryer Avenue, in a ground-floor apartment for which Riptide put up the deposit and Victor the first month's rent.

“I'll get the coffee.” Leonora stops her from entering the kitchen. “Really.”

Floria passes her. “I think—I think I'm ready to be in there.” But in the open doorframe she falters, her back slumped, before she pulls herself inside, one hand reaching for the wall as if she were walking on an ocean liner. Leonora has never been on an ocean liner, at least not at sea—just the
Queen Mary
and the
Mauretania
when she'd picked up Aunt Camilla—but she has read how, even after you're back on land, you'll hold on to walls for days because you'll feel the ground beneath you slanting. And that's how Floria is walking.

Leonora grips her arm. “Here.” Leads her to a chair with its back to the windows. “Sit here.” Gently, she presses Floria down, feels her shoulders through the fabric of the dress like planks. “You know what I'd like to do soon with you?”

“No.”

“Go downtown and try on the most expensive clothes we can find.” Leonora knows that what gives Floria more of a lift than anything else is the feel of expensive fabric against her skin, the kind of details you'd never find at Alexander's.

“All right,” Floria says without enthusiasm. Above her, the fan cuts the light, makes it blink as if the entire room were breathing. But it's really Floria's breath, the kind of breath you have to strain for.

Leonora reminds her, “You used to love those excursions, the two of us, no children along, all dressed up.” She reminds Floria of walking into the most exorbitant stores on Madison or Fifth, trying on clothes that cost more than a year's rent. Floria would comment on the quality of the work, compare it with her hems, her seams. In the dressing room, she'd study the design, get out the notebook with her drawings and fabric swatches and pictures from magazines, and sketch rapidly: the way in which a dart might angle, or a waistline might gather, or a collar might drape.

“I still remember when you sketched that hem at Bergdorf Goodman's.”

“I don't copy everything I see.”

“Of course not. Only details that appeal to you.”

“To steal an idea in its entirety would be unethical.”

“But to be inspired by someone else's idea is different.”

“We need coffee beans.”

“We'll do it like this.” Leonora licks her right index finger, dabs it into a can of Chock-full-o'-Nuts-is-the-heavenly-coffee, and licks off the brown granules. “Pretty bad. See?”

Floria tries it. Grimaces.

“It'll be better once we chase it with Sambuca.”

“Which one do you want?”

“The black. It's thicker. Like oil almost.”

“You wouldn't drink oil.”

“Okay, not oil. How about like coffee liqueur?”

“The black is not thicker.”

“What are you? A Sambuca expert?”

“The black only seems thicker because the clear Sambuca looks like water.”

“It also flows like water. Faster than the black.”

“We simply must conduct some experiments then.” Finally, Floria manages a smile.

If this is what it takes, Leonora will play along. “We simply must.” She knots the belt of her yellow robe. “Let me get a few extra glasses.” But she can't move, can't look away from the smile, an inward smile that brings some of the light back into Floria and reminds Leonora of the love that used to link them, love for each other's children while they bent across the twins' stroller, across Anthony's baby carriage; while they took their children to the carousel in Palisades Park and strapped them between the swan's angel-wings, safe for children too small to ride the horses that moved up and down on poles. “Glasses,” she reminds herself and darts into the living room. Returns with the two bottles and four shot glasses. She fusses with them, lines them up on the kitchen table in front of Floria.

Who sits there so stiffly.

Who says, “I have missed you.”

“I've missed you, too.”

Who says, “I get afraid of sleep.”

“Of nightmares?”

“Of not being able to sleep.”

“Have you tried counting backwards?”

“I used to look forward to sleep. Now I'm tired all day and all night and I still can't sleep.”

“You will again,” Leonora says.

From Malcolm—who has been amazingly devoted to Floria, who has managed to stay out of jail since his release four months after Bianca's funeral, who has been holding the same job with Solid Roofing—Leonora knows that sometimes Floria stays in bed for days, once as long as eleven days, seldom bathing or eating. Whenever Leonora visits her during those spells, Floria seems slow, inert, forgetting what Leonora said the moment she said it, forgetting what she was about to do. She doesn't let Leonora help her get up, doesn't want to talk, not even sit up in bed, just lies there without a pillow beneath her head. She, who's always been on time with her sewing business, now neglects deadlines. Her sadness can be set off by a crooked seam, say. By a cracked eggshell. A lost glove…

Last October, Malcolm dragged Floria out of bed and to Montauk for an off-season special, three nights for the price of two, hoping that walking on the beach would make her feel better. And it did. For a while. Until the sadness claimed her once again. It always got bigger than what had started it. Immobilized her.

People in the family took turns staying with her while Malcolm was at work and Belinda in school. Once, Leonora arrived to find the apartment open. She followed the short hallway into the kitchen, where Floria had squeezed a brown, lumpy couch between the stove and her sewing machine. There was no living room. Sounds of weeping came from the bedroom behind the kitchen.

Then Belinda's voice. “Don't do that. Please, stop—”

Floria was sitting on the floor, rocking herself, moaning.

Quickly, Leonora knelt in front of her, brought both arms around her, started rocking with her. “Don't you have school?” she asked Belinda.

“I didn't go.” Belinda's eyes were frightened. “Mama found Cuddles on the bottom of the bird cage.” From the way she said it, Leonora knew the parakeet was dead.

“What did you do with it?”

“I wrapped him in a dishtowel.”

“I'll take him with me.”

Belinda looked alarmed. “But don't flush him.”

“Of course not,” Leonora lied. “I'll give him a burial.”

Heat climbed from Floria's scalp into Leonora's face. The grass-and-vinegar smell of tears.

Rocking, and gradually slowing the monotonous back and forth, Leonora whispered, “It's all right,” knowing it never would be all right again—for Floria or Belinda or any of them.

“About that Elaine…” Floria lights a fresh cigarette from the butt of her last one. “She salivates when she speaks.”

Leonora laughs aloud.

“You want a description?”

“No.” Leonora shakes her head. Shrugs. Says, “Yes.”

“Makes you want to wipe her mouth.”

“More,” Leonora demands.

“She has gangly legs and forward features.”

“Forward features?”

“Well…those lips. And then her forehead and chin stick out.”

“Neanderthal style?”

“Not quite. But the general direction.”

“I am so happy for Victor.” When Leonora opens the black Sambuca, its licorice scent hits her before she can pour it. “It
is
thicker,” she insists, watching it fan out in two of the glasses.

Floria opens the clear Sambuca. Splashes some into the other shot glasses. “Same consistency.”

“She's a blonde, right?”

“Mouse-blonde. Thin hair.”

“Mousy…thin hair.” Leonora leans forward, lets her abundant hair tumble across her face. Shakes it back. Sighs. “My hair is too heavy.”

“Poor you.” Floria yanks pins from her bun. Lifts her hands beneath her lush mane. “Too heavy. Mine, too.”