Wallflowers (15 page)

He said, “Ursula! My day is brighter.”

“I received your amaryllises.”

“Oh—did you like them?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I found a brooch yesterday. A pearl dove, with blue stones set in the eyes. It made me think of you. I wanted to buy it.”

“My eyes are brown,” she said, and smiled.

On his desk, a brass picture frame was angled between him and her so that she could see the face—a soft-cheeked woman with a limp bow tied around her neck. He followed her gaze and adjusted the frame nearer to his microscope, where he was examining a feather beneath a glass slide.

“I can’t meet you this evening,” he said. “But perhaps Saturday. After your show?”

She nodded, then paused.

“I need a hundred
RM
for my daughter,” she said.

His smile faded. His eyes drifted to the lens of his microscope.

“I’m free Saturday,” she continued. “We can take wine in my flat.”

He nodded. She looked down. She hadn’t had time that morning to press her skirt. She flattened a pleat with her thumb, then looked up again and rested her palm on the picture frame.

“She’s pretty,” she said, though she found the woman rather plain.

He smiled in a way that pinched his cheeks. Neither of them spoke. Finally he leaned over his lens and said, “A feather is one of the most elegant structures in nature. Want to see?”

She nodded and walked to his side of the desk. He withdrew from the lens so she could lean down. The feather looked like a disintegrated fern. The main vein was translucent and sprouting oily barbs, with tiny specks in the fibres like white dirt or dandruff.

“This one’s from a Eurasian griffon,” he said. “Beautiful plumage. You see?”

That Saturday night the puppeteer was arrested and the Fischglas closed early at 9 p.m. The Danish birder walked her home. Neither of them spoke when he followed her inside the flat. Fritz slept in her cot, in the corner by the stove. Her hair had loosed from its braid, and a crimped wisp of it lay over her lip like a moustache. Ursula lit the table lamp and poured two glasses of rye. The Dane hovered at the arm of the sofa. He lifted a corner of the brown butcher paper. It tore and he withdrew his hand.

“For the birds,” she said. She slumped into a dining chair and bent over her knee to unfasten the strap of her shoe. The Dane leaned closer to the paper, then stretched his neck and sniffed.

“Is that …” He indicated a spot of white with his chin. She smiled, and at that moment a pigeon ruffled its feathers from the shadowed corner of the couch and flapped into the air. The birder leaped back. Ursula poured herself more rye. The pigeon resettled onto the couch’s arm.

“You keep them inside?”

He stepped farther from the couch and stuffed both hands inside the pockets of his trousers. She peeled off her second shoe. The twill of his pockets bulged as he flexed and unflexed his fists.

“Does it displease you?” She passed him his tumbler. He took the glass and sniffed the liquor. She scooped the pigeon into her thin bare arms and released it onto the balcony.

“Can we remove the paper?” he said as she returned inside. She stared at him, then swallowed another pull from her glass.

“The scissors are in my sewing basket,” she said. “Behind you, on the floor.”

He passed her the scissors. She kneeled into the couch and sliced the paper from the cushion in stiff, uneven cuts. He peeled the paper from his side and dropped a long strip of it onto the rug.

“All right?” she said when the seats were cleared.

“All right,” he repeated.

She sat with her legs tucked beneath her and stared at the floor. He sank beside her and took the glass from her hand.

“Be quiet about it, okay?” Fritz was still sleeping in the corner.

He nodded and placed his hand on her breast, then slid it up, past her clavicle, into her hair.

UP YER ALLEY blinked the sign above the shoe counter. THREE STRIKES AND YER NOT OUT!

“Sevens?” said the boy who swapped shoes. He looked sixteen and well oiled, his hair slick to his forehead, a flush of acne across the bridge of his nose.

“That’s right,” said Fritz.

He smiled at her shoulder when she spoke, like a blind person, how they don’t find your eyes, and he had a way of constantly nodding.

“I remembered.” His eyes dropped to the tan leather boots she had plonked onto the counter. “I mean, your size is here,” he said, tapping a boot. “But I didn’t look.”

“Those are eights, anyway,” she said.

“They’re nice.” He tilted the shaft of her boot into the lamplight.

“Thanks.”

“I can spray them if you like.”

“What?”

“I have shoe spray,” he said. “Anti-fungal.”

“Oh.” She looked down at her sock feet. “No, thanks.”

“Okay,” he said, still nodding. “That’s okay.” He took her boots and fetched a pair of blue-and-cream two-tones from the cubbies.

“So you’re the first one here tonight?” he said when he returned to the counter.

“What?”

“Your work friends. My boss said you worked together. You’re the first one here.”

She glanced behind her at their regular booth. She’d hardly noticed it was empty.

“They’re on their way.”

Then at the same time she said, “How much do I owe you?” and he said, “Where are you from, anyway?” They paused. She said, “Berlin. The West.” He said, “Two dollars.”

“Thanks.” She gave him a bill and walked away with the shoes tucked under her arm.

Twenty minutes later she sat with Mina, a barely legal “girlfriend experience.” Fritz’s bowling shoes were still tied together by the laces, balanced on the napkin dispenser between the ketchup and the salt. Mina ordered fries and soup du jour. Fritz ordered a root beer float. She sucked the foam through a thin red straw, and they talked about salad dressing. The merits of olive oil versus cream, how good it was for your hair. Your hair? Yes, and honey. Then Mina’s eyes drifted over Fritz’s shoulder and Fritz felt a tap on her back. The shoe-spray boy stood behind her with a slip of paper. She had a phone call. He read the name off the paper. From Ilsa. “Is she all right?” she asked. He bobbed his chin at her collarbone and said she could use the phone in the office. The call went like this:

“What’s up, sweets—are you okay?”

“Can I go to Julia’s for dinner?”

“Ilsa, this isn’t my phone line.”

“I found the number myself. In the phone booth.”

“Phone booth? Where are you?”

“At the rink. It’s juice break.”

“Book, then,” she said. “
Buch.
Phone book.”

“Telefonbuch,”
said Ilsa.

“Good girl.”

“Julia’s mom will drive me home after.”

She told her not to be too late. When she hung up, the shoe-spray boy was smiling at her shoulder.

“Thanks,” she said, and stepped past him.

“Wait.”

She turned as he unzipped his jeans. He slipped his hand inside and withdrew his penis.

“How much?” he said. He thrust his pelvis toward her and searched for something in his back pocket.

She shook her head.

“How much,” he said again. He tossed his wallet at her. It hit her shin and landed on the carpet.

She stepped away and navigated the space behind her for the doorknob. She didn’t want her back to him. His penis was long and pink tipped. It lay stiff in his palm like a dead thing, an iguana maybe, or the iguana’s tail. His hand curled into a fist around the shaft and began to beat back and forth.

She found the knob and swung the door open, pushed past the queue at the shoe counter, and ran through the glass doors to the parking lot. She bent over and breathed into her knees. Her toes in white socks curled into a pavement crack, into the dandelions that forced their heads through.

After sushi they sat in Dex’s living room, on bar stools. He had bought stools when he moved in because he could carry four at a time. He didn’t have a car to transport real furniture, and he said he didn’t believe in paid delivery. Now she was moving in. She had packed her life into two trunks. One for costumes, another for civvies and books. She had brought her bed linen too, folded her sheets into a neat pile on the dining room table. It was the year of Our Lord two thousand and Facebook. Tomorrow Dex would sail for Libya. Tomorrow she would swan-spin around the Empire State Building as Fay Wray and King Kong. He would wear a beret and his name on a dog tag. She would dab her palms with acetone for better grip.

“You want to see my new costume?” she said.

“I don’t know.” He fingered the collar of his wool sweater, which he still hadn’t taken off. “I should pack.”

“You haven’t packed?”

“Well,” he said. “Not my toiletries.”

“Will you brush your teeth in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Will you shave?”

“Probably.”

“Then you still need your toiletries.”

“Fine,” he said. “What’s your costume?”

She’d got the idea from a burlesque performer in New York. A take on the old “Dance with the Devil” routine, where your costume divides vertically in half, and you wear a second head. Virgin versus Devil. Fay Wray vs. King Kong.

She unfolded the polyester fur from a bag in her trunk. She had bought it on eBay—kept the head whole, but cut the body down the centre with carpet shears.

Dex watched from his bar stool. He folded his lips. “Don’t tell me you’re a guerrilla fighter.”

“No, but good one.”

She changed in the bathroom, into a silk slip of a dress that detached down the centre by metal snaps. Beneath the slip, she wore a peach bra and hip-cincher underwear. She slid one leg into the ape suit, one arm, secured to her torso by Velcro and double-sided tape. King Kong’s head perched on her shoulder. She could fit an entire unpeeled banana inside his jaw.

She opened the door with her gorilla paw because the suit was on the right side of her body. Then she clasped the paw with her bare hand and arched her back for a waltz. A Viennese waltz, down the hall, into the living room, spinning like a window display cake; a rotary dance, it’s called, the Viennese waltz.

“Oh my god,” said Dex.

She stopped and stood with both hands on her hips. “You like it?”

“Oh my god,” he said again. He stretched his hand toward Kong’s jaw, then withdrew it, like he might bite. “Does Terry?”

“Terry doesn’t care as long as I’m naked by the end of the song,” she said. “But I haven’t asked about the Empire State Building.”

Dex stood very straight now, with his hands behind his back. She wondered if this was at attention or at ease. Or if she could tell the difference. He’d become so temperate since he’d returned from training. Poised. Like they made the recruits balance books on their heads.

She let Kong’s paw migrate over the fur to Fay’s side, and maintained a neutral expression as his black, fur-tufted fingers spidered over her ribs. The paw cupped her breast. Her bare hand slapped it away. Kong stuffed his hand into his pocket.

Dex smiled like he was trying not to smile. “Chewbacca has pockets?”

“I sewed them. For props.” She transferred her weight to one hip. “Bananas.”

“Ah.” He shifted his eyes from Kong’s to her own. She could trace the movement in the dimples of his scalp, how they flexed when he clenched or unclenched his teeth.

Half her torso felt snug in the ape fur, but she was cold on the side of her slip, gooseflesh puckering her skin above the hem of her stocking. Dex wore his dinner shirt now, she realized. His navy sweater was folded over his sea boots at the door, next to her denim jacket, which he had also folded. She wanted to enfold
him
, she realized next. She stepped forward and pulled his torso toward hers, her arms around his back so that his armpit cupped her shoulder. His other arm circled her gorilla sleeve. Outside, you could hear the Saturday-night drunks laughing off the curb of the twenty-four-hour pizza joint, the shrieks of seagulls after their crusts. The living room bulb was dull, but light filtered in from the window, from the street lamps and rolling headlights, which grazed their shoulders toward the wall. Neither of them spoke. She wanted to stay here, in the hinge of this moment, before it tipped into the future or back into the past.

We Are As Mayflies

On the patio, my mother bets her boyfriend she can pour wine upside down. She drips wax into the ashtray and plugs a tea light in the wax. She pours wine into the ashtray and sets her glass over the tea light.

In the parking lot, Felicia Neufeld leans against the bumper of a dusty Jeep from Nevada. She licks her finger and carves messages into the rear window. WASH ME, she wipes. BITE ME.

In the blue room at the top of the house, my brother rows his ergometer machine. His shoulders tack forward. The flywheel eases into air from the fan.