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  “Nothing.” She doesn’t understand how Maya can go on as if nothing has happened, but at this moment she’s grateful for it. “You are right. I don’t have to think about him, not right now.” It’s a wonderful release.

  Maya pours the rest of her beer into her cup. “When do you find out about the Galley?”

  Sarah rubs her neck. “A couple months.”

  “You picked that up from Philip.”

  “What?”

  “That neck rub. Don’t be nervous. You’ll get it.”

  “Well, if it happens, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I haven’t been able to paint.”

  “Sweetheart, you’ve got a studio filled to the gills. You’ve got enough for five or six shows.”

  “It’s all old.”

  “Old—don’t tell me about old.” Maya makes a face. “I’m thinking of cutting my hair. What do you think? A man’s cut. I’ll scare the hell out of them at board meetings.”

  The waiter returns, arranging plates piled high with chili-flecked bean sprouts and leafy stems of mint.

  Maya squeezes lemon on her salad and takes a bite. “Oh! This is good. I love mint.”

  “Do you remember that stream with the mint growing—”

  “Yes! Near Roncesvalles, I think.”

  “Where they stoned Charlemagne’s army.”

  “Oh god, that was a cold stream. My feet were ice. What a good day. Can you find water that clear anymore? I remember looking down and seeing your white toes and the round speckled pebbles.”

  “Maya! Since when are you getting nostalgic?”

  “Since I looked in the mirror. Did you read that review?”

  “It said you were a legend.”

  “It said I was a historical reenactment. It’s that Henrietta Porchetta whatever-her-name-is, overrated. Ah, what the hell. They still like me in Biarritz.”

  “You’re still top of the heap—the reviewer said as much.”

  “She’s afraid to cross me.” Maya pushes away her plate, her salad half-eaten. “It becomes a bore,” she says, “keeping people in line. And for a hobby too. It’s pathetic, at my age.”

  “Maya?”

  “What?”

  “Henrietta’s nothing, a blip, a pimple on a porcupine.”

  *

  Outside, it is finally cool, with the taxi lights glowing in the humid air. They walk through sour-smelling alleys to the wide, oil-puddled avenues by the Hudson piers, then north to the Meatpacking District. The trucks rumble by, and the streetwalkers swish their hips and check their watches. They don’t say much, enjoying the silence, the beer in their bellies. Sarah, not eager to return to her and Philip’s deadly apartment, would like to walk all night, like back in art school, walking, ducking into delis for candy bars, resting on stoops when her feet get tired, getting up and wandering again until the sun rises. But stoops don’t look as welcoming at forty.

  She and Maya find a bar with a sign flickering in the window, and inside a bunch of faded and aging gay men who don’t seem to have left the place for the past twenty years. They shift on tarnished barstools, their expressions neither welcoming nor sneering, but droopy-jowled and boozy-eyed. The air is stale and hotter than outdoors, but Sarah and Maya are inside now and don’t feel like backing out. They sit. Sarah bums a cigarette from her neighbor, a Latino guy in a stained white shirt with penciled-in eyebrows. She thanks him as he lights it for her. “De nada, precious.” Out of the blackness at the far end of the bar, the bartender appears, out of place and with a bounce in his step, a young blond boy in a sleeveless T-shirt that shows off his muscles.

  “Heh-lo!” he says in Scandinavian sing-song. “What can I get you?”

  “Two whiskey sours,” says Maya.

  “I give you extra cherries, just for being here.” He prepares their drinks and places them on the bar with a flourish.

  “So,” says Maya, raising her glass to him, “are you a bartender-bartender or an actor-bartender?”

  “A performance-artist bartender. I’m having my first show in September.”

  “A pity. I won’t be here.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “In Biarritz, doing my last show.”

  Sarah laughs. “How many last shows have you had?”

  “This one will be it.”

  “Ah. A singer. According to Mr. Mariachi,” he nods at the pencil-eyebrow man next to Sarah, “that is the highest art.” The bartender pours them another round, then a shot for himself. “On the house. I like that phrase. It makes me feel like I’m on the roof.” They clink glasses. “Why don’t you sing a song for us?”

  “Here?”

  “We have a piano.” He tosses his head toward a dark corner of the bar.

  Maya sucks at her cherry.

  “Do,” says Sarah.

  The bartender takes them to the back of the bar, and the stench of disinfectant and cheap booze gets stronger. Sarah makes out shadows of men slouched in booths and the waxy glimmer of beer pitchers. Maya stands by the piano, fingers laced together. The Swede sits at the piano bench and experiments with a chord.

  “When in hell’s that thing been tuned?” shouts one of the men.

  “It’s a blues piano, Frank.”

  The men in the booths laugh and grumble until Maya’s first note breaks forth. Then the men lean out of the booths, cigarettes hanging forgotten from lips. She holds her arms out to them and a few voices join hers, a derelict chorus that compliments her tunefulness. By the end, most are on their feet, swaying and singing. All of them applaud. Maya wipes her forehead, grinning. “You know Piaf?”

  The bartender shakes his head. “Only Robeson.”

  “Ah, the frigging Swede,” says Mr. Mariachi, slipping off his barstool.

  “Emiliano!” the men shout.

  Mr. Mariachi, or Emiliano, stumbles, catches himself, arrives at the piano in one piece. The bartender winks at Sarah and disappears into the darkness. Mr. Mariachi sits at the bench and adjusts his cuffs. “Je ne regrette rien,” Maya says.

  “You got that right,” he replies. He touches the keys. His style is sad and playful, just right for that piano. Maya slinks around the murk, casting devilish looks to anyone who can see her. The queens giggle and slap the tables and dish back what she’s giving. Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien. Ni le mal, ni le bien. Sarah smiles shamelessly.

  The bartender gives out free pitchers of beer, and Maya and Emiliano sing a duet. He’s got a surprisingly strong voice for such a spent-looking man.

  Maya insists that he come to Biarritz with her. “Don’t you agree?” she calls to Sarah.

  “Yes!” Sarah shouts back.

  “We’ll all go to Biarritz!” says Maya, weaving toward her. She grabs Sarah and they waltz around the comfortably blurry room.

  Sarah laughs, amazed that she can be happy. They spin, narrowly avoiding tables and knees. Sarah could be twelve. They could be dancing to the radio in a cheap motel, so comfortable in each other’s arms, their flesh the same temperature, as if it belongs to the same body.

  Chapter 15

  Connecticut, October 1997

  The photo in the wedding announcement showed Maya and her architect leaning against a stone fence, she dressed in a simple black V-neck, he dark-haired and eagle-nosed, the two of them holding hands, their smiles not too bright, just marking a nice moment by a stone wall. She held the picture under the desk lamp and squinted, trying to get beneath Maya’s expression, find something that hadn’t been there before, a Max-like regret, an acknowledgment, something in the eyes, but it was newsprint, just black-and-white dots the closer you got. The younger Max coughed in his sleep. The whole upstairs reeked of tobacco. She opened a window, then fell back on the bed. The mattress was a mess, all the stuff she’d taken out of the drawer when she was searching for the wedding announcement. A pack of cards, a broken barrette too nice to throw away, the keys to the Riverside Drive apartment, a rusty bell from Philip’s old Schwinn. He’d spent the best part o
f his boyhood on that Schwinn, bumping down dirt roads, past the cornfields to Conningsby’s house, the sky big above him. She pressed the bell to her mouth, tasted the rust on her tongue.

  They had found the bell in his parents’ garage on their one trip to Terre Haute together. She could not recall a single conversation with his parents, just the sinking feeling of trying to tell them a story. They’d sat side by side, their clothes pressed, their faces impassive. What would they say if they found out they’d had a grandson all these years? Not well to judge probably, something like that, their lips straight and thin, their eyes so guarded you had no idea what they were thinking. She must have had her reasons. They would give Max checkerboards, sports jerseys, pay for a month of summer camp. They would forgive her. It would be unchristian not to. Max could visit them, screw the Christmas tree together, help them hang ornaments. It wouldn’t be so awful. He needed more old people in his life. She went downstairs, scowled at the dishwasher, the faint smell of burned fish, and poured herself another glass of wine. There were no trains, the last had screeched by an hour ago. There were no telephone calls. She checked the ringer. It was on. Of course it was. It had rung when Carlos called. She listened to the dial tone, sniffing her knuckles, the sour tang of tobacco. She dialed.

  “Tori?”

  “Sarah—is that you? Is something wrong?”

  “Oh god. It’s late. I’m sorry,” said Sarah.

  “I don’t get to have too many nocturnal conversations these days.” A dry husk of a laugh, but good-humored. Sarah could hear her laboring to pull herself up and settle against a pillow.

  “Philip’s coming here tomorrow. Or he might be.”

  “Is that so? I’m glad to hear you two patched things up. Conningsby always did like that young man.”

  “We didn’t patch things up. I don’t even know if he’ll show.”

  “Well, you should, no reason not to. I hope it rains. You should see my squashes.”

  “I think he found out about Max.”

  “You didn’t tell him about Max? How in the world could he not know about Max?”

  “Not my father, my son.”

  “Ah,” said Tori. “Well, that’s all right.”

  “But Tori …” Sarah caught her breath, suddenly battling away tears.

  “What’s wrong, honey bee?”

  Sobs overtook her, unchecked phlegmy sobs that convulsed her whole body. She started laughing in the middle of it. “I wanted him to come back for me.”

  “Well of course you did,” Tori said kindly, making Sarah wish she could crawl into that telephone and put her head on Tori’s bony lap.

  She inhaled, wiping her face. “I love you, Tori. How are you doing, anyway?”

  “Well, you know. I’m ninety-seven. That hasn’t changed.” More of that dry laughter.

  Sarah wished she could say something, but her throat was too tight.

  “Don’t you start crying again. You need to go to sleep. Make yourself some chamomile tea and get into bed.”

  *

  Philip’s balled-up letter, splotched with fish grease, lay atop the trash can. Sarah took the letter out and flattened it on the counter. I’ve been thinking about the things you told me, or rather yelled at me, in that hole, and a hell of a lot of it was true. She couldn’t remember what she’d yelled to him underground. That part would have to get torn off before she shared it with Max.

  She lifted the trash bag out of the container. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well finish cleaning the kitchen. Outside was colder than before. It felt good, sobering. The trash bag was heavy and she held it with both hands. Around the side of the house she quietly lifted the lid of the garbage can, but it slipped from her hands and crashed upon the concrete, then wobbled on its circumference, clanging loudly. She cringed, but the lights in Mr. Walpole’s bedroom did not flash on. No one yelled at her. All was silent save for the fading vibrations of the lid. The moon emerged from behind a cloud, and she saw the rake leaning against Mr. Walpole’s garage.

  It felt good, flexing her muscles, bracing herself against the wind. She should have done this sooner. She didn’t need cigarettes or wine or godmothers; she needed good, strenuous, physical labor. Who needed sleep when you could rake? She was establishing order, making peace with her neighbors. The leaves piled up. Presumably. The moon had gone back behind a cloud, making it hard to see. Maybe she was just redistributing. She squatted and waved her hands across the ground. A shape, kind of mound-like, possibly baggable. Where were those bags? Down in the basement with the lost socks, ashtrays, and dusty art supplies. She blew on her hands, trying to warm them. She lay down. The earth, although hardened by frost, felt soft. Maybe she could freeze to death. Let Philip find her, if he came. Let him deal with the funeral.

  Something rang. An alarm. No, couldn’t be. She was outside. It was cold, dark; there was the moon again, and stars through black branches. She crouched, stood, sneezed. Her foot landed on something—rake tines. The rake pole swung up and smacked her in the face. Just like dodgeball. She had played dodgeball at school, her one taste of school. There had been a caged-in lot, sticky-fingered children who grabbed her hands and made her stand still as the ball hurtled forward and smacked her in the face. She’d run, burning red, the kids howling behind her, to the school, to the stairwell, which was caged too. The whole building had been caged. The stairs had iron-mesh walls on either side, and were bisected by an iron-mesh divider that separated those going up from those going down, and even an iron-mesh roof. Up those stairs, clinging to the banister, slightly limping; she had recently broken her leg, they had just removed the cast. Up and up, dull gray light coming through the wire mesh, her breathing and footsteps abnormally loud. It was strange being in the stairwell alone; it usually burst with kids. She stopped at a barred window. Outside, there were brown leaves on the trees, and an American flag sagged at half-mast. Somebody must have died. Her face still stung from the ball. Worse than the jeers and the pain was the private humiliation. School had been her idea; no one had talked her into it. She had conned and wheedled. She had broken her leg to get out of the tour. Please, Dad, no more classes in cafés, no more mornings drinking hot chocolate, no more Metamorphoses. Let me play dodgeball!

  Wait. Something rang again. It was the telephone. The telephone! She ran across the dark lawn, feeling in her pajama pocket for the keys. She only found cigarettes—where were the keys? She tried her bathrobe. She patted again. She slapped. Nothing. She could ring the doorbell, wake Max. No. But he’d be awake anyway. The telephone would have woken him. What if he had answered it? Everything stopped: her feet, her hands, the pain in her face. The phone rang one more time, then silence. She collapsed against the front door, then tried the knob. It opened. It hadn’t been locked. It was dark upstairs. Max would have turned on the lights if he’d gotten up. She hugged herself, trying to stop trembling.

  The radiator felt good. The steam coated the outside of her pajamas, then the inside, then her skin, then below the skin to that territory of marrow and vein and tissue, the meat and bones of her that she couldn’t see but accepted on faith. She sneezed. She suddenly remembered the X-ray of her leg, her fall-from-the-statue break. She used to come across it when she cleaned up her desk, a big manila envelope with a blue-and-tan string wound around the clasp, containing black, glossy celluloid and spectrally glowing bones. She’d lost the envelope in the move. Someone might have picked it up, stashed it away, reopened it, and thought that the X-ray was theirs—their leg, their shattered bone. Why not? X-rays were impersonal: no pulse, vein, tissue, life. Even if you could see the life, you couldn’t tell if it was yours or someone else’s. She patted her forehead, sore from where the rake had hit her. She’d cry if her bone shattered, but would her bone cry for her? It wasn’t fair. What was she doing? She was drunk. She pressed her palms into her eyes, then kept pressing, harder and harder. Flashes of light swirled with the blackness inside her lids.

  She climbed the stairs, still cold ex
cept for the fronts of her legs which burned when they touched the steaming cotton of her pajamas. She’d definitely get a bruise, she could feel it spreading across her forehead. Not my husband, just a rake. She laughed, then clutched the banister. The stairs, the walls, the house—all were moving, swaying. An earthquake? No. Impossible. Not in Connecticut. She inhaled. The house settled. Aspirin, that’s what she needed. She went to the bathroom, fumbled through the cabinet, found the pills, swore at the childproof cap, finally got it open. She leaned against the sink. She was warmer now, not so dizzy. Maybe she could get some sleep. But she couldn’t leave the bathroom. It was a dump, the ceiling scabby with peeling paint, the only thing decent about it the shower curtain. She’d splurged at MoMA, bought a fancy one decorated with deadpan Magritte men, all neat and clean with their overcoats and bowler hats: don’t mind us, we’re just dropping from the sky.

  Chapter 16

  New York City, 1989

  He disappears into his study and reappears with the tin cup containing Conningsby’s ashes. “I’m going.”

  “Where?”

  “To Texas.” He has on his trench coat with the plaid lining. He’s gotten so thin, it droops from him like he’s little more than a hanger. “I never scattered him. I never dealt with it.”

  “Philip, you should take a shower. You look exhausted. Take a shower and a nap and we’ll talk about it afterward.”

  He walks toward her, or rather, toward the door behind her. He doesn’t see her. He hasn’t seen her for months, but this not-seeing is worse. A stronger degree of blindness—though perhaps it’s the same degree, and it’s just hitting her full throttle. He keeps walking toward the door, his face slack, his pace slow and intractable. She steps directly into his path. She imagines him passing right through her, dark matter undisturbed by her presence, reforming himself out on the street and then continuing, clutching his tin cup, stepping into the middle of Riverside Drive, the cabs screeching, the drivers cursing him. And on, over the George Washington Bridge, onto the shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike, a small brittle figure growing paler and lighter with every step until the tin cup becomes more substantial than the body holding it.