Daughter of Regals and Other Tales

  When the lights came back on, the danger was gone from the greenhouse. All the crying and the pain and the pressure were gone. Only the sculptures themselves remained.

  They were slumped and ruined, like melted wax.

  Outside, rain began to rattle against the glass of the greenhouse.

  Later, I went looking for some clothes; I couldn’t very well go around naked. After a while, I located a suite of private rooms at the back of the building. But everything I found there belonged to Root. His personal stink had soaked right into the fabric. I hated the idea of putting his things on my skin when I’d just been burned clean. But I had to wear something. In disgust, I took one of his rich shirts and a pair of pants. That was my punishment for having been so eager to judge Reese Dona.

  Back in the greenhouse, I found him sitting on the floor with Kristen’s head cradled in his lap. He was stroking the soft hair at her temples and grieving to himself. For the time being, at least, I was sure his grief had nothing to do with his mined work.

  Kristen was fast asleep, exhausted by exertion and loss of blood. But I could see that she was going to be all right.

  Her bleeding had stopped completely. And Reese had already cleaned some of the stains from her face and neck.

  Rain thundered against the ceiling of the greenhouse; jagged lines of lightning scrawled the heavens. But all the glass was intact, and the storm stayed outside, where it belonged. From the safety of shelter, the downpour felt comforting.

  And the manufactured cool of the building had wiped out most of Root’s unnatural heat. That was comforting, too.

  It was time for me to go.

  But I didn’t want to leave Reese like this. I couldn’t do anything about the regret that was going to dog him for the rest of his life. But I wanted to try.

  The river was calling for me. Abruptly, as if I thought he was in any shape to hear me, I said, “What you did here—the work you did for Root—wasn’t wrong. Don’t blame yourself for that. You just went too far. You need to find the balance. Reason and energy.” Need and help. “There’s no limit to what you can do, if you just keep your balance.

  He didn’t answer. Maybe he wasn’t listening to me at all. But ‘after a moment he bent over Kristen and kissed her forehead.

  That was enough. I had to go. Some of the details of the greenhouse were already starting to melt.

  My bare feet didn’t make any sound as I left the room, crossed the foyer, and went out into…

  BEFORE HE REALIZED WHAT HE WAS DOING, HE SWUNG the knife.

  The home of Creel and Vi Sump. The living room.

  Her real name is Violet, but everyone calls her Vi. They’ve been married for two years now, and she isn’t blooming.

  Their home is modest but comfortable: Creel has a good job with his company, but he isn’t moving up. In the living room, some of the furnishings are better than the space they occupy. A good stereo contrasts with the state of the wallpaper. The arrangement of the furniture shows a certain amount of frustration: there’s no way to set the armchairs and sofa so that people who sit on them can’t see the water spots in the ceiling. The flowers in the vase on the end table are real, but they look plastic. At night, the lights leave shadows at odd places around the room.

  They were out late at a large party where acquaintances, business associates, and strangers drank a lot. As Creel unlocked the front door and came into the living room ahead of Vi, he looked more than ever like a rumpled bear. Whisky made the usual dullness of his eyes seem baleful. Behind him, Vi resembled a flower in the process of becoming a wasp.

  “I don’t care,” he said, moving directly to the sideboard to get himself another drink. “I wish you wouldn’t do it.”

  She sat down on the sofa, took off her shoes. “God, I’m tired.”

  “If you aren’t interested in anything else,” he said, “think about me. I have to work with most of those people. Half of them can fire me if they want to. You’re affecting my job.”

  “We’ve had this conversation before,” she said. “We’ve had it eight times this month.” A vague movement in one of the shadows across the room turned her head toward the corner. “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “I saw something move. Over there in the corner. Don’t tell me we’ve got mice.”

  “I didn’t see anything. We haven’t got mice. And I don’t care how many times we’ve had this conversation. I want you to stop.”

  She stared into the corner for a moment. Then she leaned back on the sofa. “I can’t stop. I’m not doing anything.”

  “The hell you’re not doing anything.” He took a drink and refilled his glass. “If you were after him any harder, you’d have your hand in his pants.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You think nobody sees what you’re doing. You act like you’re alone. But you’re not. Everybody at that whole damn party was watching you. The way you flirt—”

  “I wasn’t flirting. I was just talking to him.”

  “The way you flirt, you ought to have the decency to be embarrassed.”

  “Oh, go to bed. I’m too tired for this.”

  ‘Is it because he’s a vice-president? Do you think that’s going to make him better in bed? Or do you just like the status of playing around with a vice-president?”

  “I wasn’t flirting with him. I swear to God, there’s something the matter with you. We were just talking. You know—moving our mouths so that words could come out. He was a literature major in college. We have something in common. We’ve read the same books. Remember books? Those things with ideas and stories printed in them? All you ever talk about is football—and how somebody at the company has it in for you—and how the latest secretary doesn’t wear a bra. Sometimes I think I’m the last literate person left alive.”

  She raised her head to look at him. Then she sighed, “Why do I even bother? You’re not listening to me.

  “You’re right,” he said. “There is something in the corner. I saw it move.”

  They both stared at the corner. After a moment, a centipede scuttled out into the light.

  It looked slimy and malicious, and it waved its antennae hungrily. It was nearly ten inches long. Its thick legs seemed to ripple as it shot across the rug. Then it stopped to scan its surroundings. Creel and Vi could see its mandibles chewing expectantly as it flexed its poison claws. It had entered the house to escape the cold, dry night outside—and to hunt for food.

  She wasn’t the kind of woman who screamed easily; but she hopped up onto the sofa to get her bare feet away from the floor. ‘Good God,” she whispered. “Creel, look at that. Don’t let it come any closer.”

  He leaped at the centipede and tried to stamp one of his heavy shoes down on it. But it moved so fast that he didn’t come close to it. Neither of them saw where it went.

  “It’s under the sofa,” he said. “Get off of there”

  She obeyed without question. Wincing, she jumped out into the middle of the rug.

  As soon as she was out of the way, he heaved the sofa onto its back.

  The centipede wasn’t there.

  “The poison isn’t fatal,” Vi said. “One of the kids in the neighborhood got stung last week. Her mother told me all about it. It’s like getting a bad bee-sting.”

  Creel didn’t listen to her. He lifted the entire sofa into the air so that he could see more of the floor. But the centipede was gone.

  He dropped the sofa back onto its legs, knocking over the endtable, spilling the flowers. “Where did that bastard go?”

  They hunted around the room for several minutes without leaving the protection of the light. Then he went and got himself another drink. His hands were shaking.

  She said, “I wasn’t flirting.”

  He looked at her. “Then it’s something worse. You’re already sleeping with him. You must’ve been making plans for the next time you get together.”

  “I’m going to bed,” she said. “I don
’t have to put up with this. You’re disgusting.”

  He finished his drink and refilled his glass from the nearest bottle.

  The Sumps’ gameroom.

  This room is the real reason why Creel bought this house over Vi’s objections: he wanted a house with a gameroom. The money which could have replaced the wallpaper and fixed the ceiling of the living room has been spent here. The room contains a full-size pool table with all the trimmings, a long, imitation leather couch along one wall, and a wet-bar. But the light here isn’t any better than in the living room because the fixtures are focused on the pool table. Even the wet-bar is so ill-lit that its users have to guess what they’re doing.

  When he isn’t working, traveling for his company, or watching football with his buddies. Creel spends a lot of time here.

  After Vi went to bed, Creel came into the gameroom. First he went to the wet-bar and refilled his glass. Then he racked up the balls and broke so violently that the cue ball sailed off the table. It made a dull, thudding noise as it bounced on the spongy linoleum.

  “Fuck,” he said, lumbering after the ball. The liquor he had consumed showed in the way he moved but not in his speech. He sounded sober.

  Bracing himself with his custom-made cuestick, he bent to pick up the ball. Before he put it back on the table, Vi entered the room. She hadn’t changed her clothes for bed. Instead, she bad put her shoes back on. She scrutinized the shadows around the floor and under the table before she looked at Creel.

  He said, “I thought you were going to bed.”

  “I can’t leave it like this,” she said tiredly. “It hurts too much.”

  “What do you want from me?” he said. “Approval?”

  She glared at him.

  He didn’t stop. “That would be terrific for you. If I approved, you wouldn’t have anything else to worry about. The only problem would be, most of the bastards I introduce you to are married. Their wives might be a little more normal. They might give you some trouble.”

  She bit her lip and went on glaring at him.

  “But I don’t see why you should worry about that. If those women aren’t as understanding as I am, that’s their tough luck. As long as I approve, right? There’s no reason why you shouldn’t screw anybody you want.”

  “Are you finished?”

  “Hell, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t screw ail of them. I mean, as long as I approve. Why waste it?”

  “Damn it, are you finished?”

  “There’s only one thing I don’t understand. If you’re so hot for sex, how come you don’t want to screw me?”

  “That’s not true.”

  He blinked at her through a haze of alcohol. “What’s not true? You’re not hot for sex? Or you do want to screw me? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Creel, what’s the matter with you? I don’t understand any of this. You didn’t used to be like this. You weren’t like this when we were dating. You weren’t like this when we got married. What’s happened to you?”

  For a minute, he didn’t say anything. He went back to the edge of the pool table, where he’d left his drink. But with his cue in one hand and the ball in the other, he didn’t have a hand free. Carefully, he set his stick down on the table.

  After he finished his drink, he said, “You changed.”

  “I changed? You’re the one who’s acting crazy. All I did was talk to some company vice-president about books.”

  “No, I’m not,” he said. His knuckles were white around the cue ball. “You think I’m stupid. Because I wasn’t a literature major in college. Maybe that’s what changed. When we got married, you didn’t think I was stupid. But now you do. You think I’m too stupid to notice the difference.”

  “What difference is that?”

  “You never want to have sex with me anymore.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “We had sex the day before yesterday.”

  He looked straight at her. “But you didn’t want to. I can tell. You never want to.”

  “What do you mean, you can tell?”

  “You make a lot of excuses.”

  “I do not.”

  “And when we do have sex, you don’t pay any attention to me. You’re always somewhere else. Thinking about something else. You’re always thinking about somebody else.”

  “But that’s normal,” she said. “Everybody does it. Everybody fantasizes during sex. You fantasize during sex. That’s what makes it fun.”

  At first, she didn’t see the centipede as it wriggled out from under the pool table, its antennae searching for her legs. But then she happened to glance downward.

  “Creel!”

  The centipede started toward her. She jumped back, out of the way.

  Creel threw the cue ball with all his strength. It made a dent in the linoleum beside the centipede, then crashed into the side of the wet-bar.

  The centipede went for Vi. It was so fast that she couldn’t get away from it. As its segments caught the light, they gleamed poisonously.

  Creel snatched his cuestick off the table and hammered at the centipede. Again, he missed. But flying splinters of wood made the centipede turn and shoot in the other direction. It disappeared under the couch.

  “Get it,” she panted.

  He shook the pieces of his cue at her. “I’ll tell you what I fantasize. I fantasize that you like having sex with me. You fantasize that I’m somebody else.” Then he wrenched the couch away from the wall, brandishing his weapons.

  “So would you,” she retorted, “if you had to sleep with a sensitive, considerate, imaginative animal like you.”

  As she left the room, she slammed the door behind her.

  Shoving the furniture bodily from side to side, he continued hunting for the centipede.

  The bedroom.

  This room expresses Vi as much as the limitations of the house permit. The bed is really too big for the space available, but at least it has an elaborate brass headstead and footboard. The sheets and pillowcases match the bedspread, which is decorated with white flowers on a blue background. Unfortunately, Creel’s weight makes the bed sag. The closet doors are warped and can’t be closed.

  There’s an overhead light, but Vi never uses it. She relies on a pair of goose-necked Tiffany reading lamps. As a result, the bed seems to be surrounded by gloom in all directions.

  Creel sat on the bed and watched the bathroom door. His back was bowed. His right fist gripped the neck of a bottle of tequila, but he wasn’t drinking.

  The bathroom door was closed. He appeared to be staring at himself in the full-length mirror attached to it. A strip of fluorescent light showed past the bottom of the door. He could see Vi’s shadow as she moved around in the bathroom.

  He stared at the door for several minutes, but she was taking her time. Finally, he shifted the bottle to his left hand.

  “I never understand what you do in there.”

  Through the door, she said, “I’m waiting for you to pass out so I can go to sleep in peace.”

  He looked offended. “Well, I’m not going to pass out.

  — I never pass out. You might as well give up.”

  Abruptly, the door opened. She snapped off the bathroom light and stood in the darkened doorway, facing him. She was dressed for bed in a nightie that would have made her look desirable if she had wished to look desirable.

  “What do you want now?” she said. “Are you finished wrecking the gameroom already?”

  “I was trying to kill that centipede. The one that scared you so badly.”

  “I wasn’t scared—just startled. It’s only a centipede. Did you get it?”

  “You’re too slow. You’ll have to call an exterminator.”

  “Damn the exterminator,” he said slowly. “Fuck the exterminator. Fuck the centipede. I can take care of my own problems. Why did you call me that?”

  “Call you what?”

  He didn’t look at her. “An Then he did. “I’ve never lifted a finger to hurt
you.”

  She moved past him to the bed and propped the pillows up against the brass bedstead. Sitting on the bed, she curled her legs under her and leaned back against the pillows.

  “I know,” she said. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I was just mad.”

  He frowned. “You didn’t mean it the way it sounded. How nice. That makes me feel a whole lot better. What in hell did you mean?”

  “I hope you realize you’re not making this any easier.”

  “It isn’t easy for me. Do you think I like sitting here begging my own wife to tell me why I’m not good enough for her?”

  “Actually,” she said, “I think you do like it. This way, you get to feel like a victim.”

  He raised his bottle until the tequila caught the light. He peered into the golden liquid for a moment, then transferred the bottle back to his right hand. But he didn’t say anything.

  “All right,” she said after a while. “You treat me like you don’t care what I think or how I feel.”

  “I do it the way I know how,” he protested. “If it feels good for me, it’s supposed to feel good for you.”

  “I’m not just talking about sex. I’m talking about the way you treat me. The way you talk to me. The way you assume I have to like everything you like and can’t like anything you don’t like. The way you think my whole life is supposed to revolve around you.”

  “Then why did you marry me? Did it take you two years to find out you don’t really want to be my wife?”

  She stretched her legs out in front of her. Her nightie covered them to the knees. “I married you because I loved you. Not because I want to be treated like an object for the rest of my natural life. I need friends. People I can share things with. People who care what I’m thinking. I almost went to grad school because I wanted to study Baudelaire. We’ve been married for two years, and you still don’t know who Baudelaire is. The only people I ever meet are your drinking buddies. Or the people who work for your company.”