“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 an
y 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.”
They grin at each other, raise their glasses, sip.
Leonora shudders. “The clear one has a medicine smell. The black one is like licorice.”
“They smell the same.”
“Okay.” Leonora lights one of her Pall Malls. “Since you believe they’re the same, you may as well drink the clear Sambuca.”
“I’m drinking both.” Floria dips one finger into the yellow-and-black coffee can. Hers is a face Leonora would trust if she were to meet her now for the first time, a face that’s angular without being narrow, plain without being ugly. And out of all that emerges an odd loveliness.
“You look lovely,” she tells her.
Floria makes her eyes go crossways, aims the tip of her tongue toward her left ear.
“How much tasting did you do before you got here?”
Floria takes a sip of clear Sambuca, sucks on her finger, sighs, and takes another sip. All at once her face is somber again.
“Hey…” Leonora tries to pull her in and away from herself, from the sorrow, from that window. She’s good at pulling others to her when she chooses to. Cold fire. Brilliant fire. Equally good at keeping others out. The cold without the fire. She leans toward Floria. “Let me explain what’s wrong with the clear Sambuca. It bites you after you swallow. Like the serpent of Eve’s Paradise.”
“Now I understand where Anthony gets his creativity.”
But Leonora doesn’t want Floria to mention Anthony. Not in this room. Because to mention him is to evoke Bianca even more. Already, she feels her niece’s death rising, here, between Floria and herself, and she tries to keep it down, because she’s terrified Floria will blame Anthony. I would. If Anthony were the one who’d died, I would blame Bianca forever. She feels the effort of keeping it down. Because, along with it, there is so much more she must keep down—not just Bianca’s loss, but everything else connected to her. Bianca and Belinda as infants, dark and tiny and lovely, curled toward each other in one crib, twin babies whose combined birth weight is to the ounce what Anthony will weigh at birth one year later. Eight pounds and six ounces.
One child to equal two.
To finally equal one.
With the last one Leonora didn’t even realize she was pregnant until Floria and the twins moved in that Christmas. Migraines, she thought she had, and when Floria said, “Maybe you’re pregnant,” Leonora said no, but felt it—that instant—the heaviness, familiar and frightening, weighing you down, though you know that you’re merely one week late and that the child forming weighs close to nothing. And though you picture yourself holding it, feeding it, you cannot feed yourself. Whatever you force down, your body heaves up. You vomit, hot and sudden. Feel nourishment shoot through you in a hot, dark stench. While you stay hollow. And yet, you believe there has to be room for whatever is forming in you, child or tumor or abyss, and so you hold yourself still, so still, a cradle for your child. You don’t dare admit to your husband or his sister that you’re pregnant because you don’t want them propping you up, fretting you’ll lose this one, too, already grieving, though you may be able to hold on to this child and watch it be lifted from between your thighs. You wave their concern away, tell them you have migraines. Gentle and safe you keep yourself. Because you want it, want this child. And you make yourself believe that you can. You order your body to contain this child. After all, it’s not for long, your child’s life within you, compared with the lifetime it will live outside you. Yet, already you feel your body refusing, hoarding its selfish heat for no one but yourself, though you want to give shelter to your child. Already something within you is shifting, closing off to anyone but yourself. You feel your child sliding away from you, exiled from your body, from life. Because you are too selfish. Though the doctor says that it’s not so, that you have no control over this, you know in the depth of that dark nastiness how it’s always about you. About your selfishness, that you can’t turn around though you want to. The selfishness that caused your father to punish you. The selfishness that leads to yet another child falling from you. Falling just weeks after Bianca falls from your lives. Following Bianca on her bloody path. That’s why you don’t admit to anyone about losing yet another child. Not even to Victor. Because how can your grief possibly compare to his sister’s?
Leonora can’t imagine what it must be like to have your already-born child die before you. Out of natural sequence.
Now, she and Floria each have only one child: Anthony who has become timid and quiet; and Belinda who seems frantic as she watches over her mother, whose bridal gowns are no longer ready when promised, who is preoccupied with making dolls. It started when Floria made a large doll for Belinda to keep her from being afraid at night in a room set up for two. Although the doll was made from linen, it looked remarkably like Bianca. Its hair was brown yarn, and Floria embroidered the mouth and cheeks and eyes like Bianca’s.
Creepy as all hell, Leonora thought when she first saw the doll. But Belinda adored it. Named it Belinda-doll. Took it to bed. To school. To the doctor. Whenever Floria sewed an outfit for Belinda, she made a matching one for the doll. Creepy as all hell. Then Belinda’s teacher, Sister Marguerite, wondered if Floria would enjoy making a doll for her niece. Floria worked from photos, made the doll skinnier and shorter than Belinda’s doll. Yellow yarn for the hair, braided down the doll’s back. Matching green dresses for the doll and for Sister Marguerite’s niece.
Her payment: five weeks of prayers. The first customer who paid with money was Belinda’s doctor, who admired the doll Belinda clutched while getting her sinuses examined, who asked if Floria would be interested in sewing dolls for both his daughters. Gradually, other inquiries came in from people who’d seen one of Floria’s dolls. They gave her photos. Snips of hair to match the color. The doctor’s aunt from Connecticut wrote. Asked if Floria ever sent dolls out of state. Someone else had relatives in Texas. In Wyoming.
So far, Floria has sent dolls to nine states, each different in appearance and age, depending for whom it is: toddlers, five-year-olds, even a twelve-year-old whose parents wanted to lure her back into childhood.
Leonora thinks making those dolls can’t be healthy for Floria; but when she told Floria what everyone else in the family didn’t dare say, Floria didn’t want to hear. “It has nothing to do with Bianca,” she said.
Malcolm’s the only one who’s grown stronger, and he’s been wonderful with Floria, except for encouraging her with these creepy dolls. He does all the shipping, decides on the prices. “Never give your talent away,” he told Floria. “Except to the church.”
Floria is sampling the black Sambuca with great concentration. Dips her finger into the coffee can. Licks it off and
drinks again.
“What I was saying about this clear Sambuca,” Leonora explains, “is that it bites you after you swallow. And then it rises like fire into your brain. Try a sip of the black. Just to compare.”
Floria compares. Smacks her lips.
“Can’t you feel that the black is more compact?”
Floria shakes her head. “Please, tell me I am hallucinating.”
“All right. You’re hallucinating. Why?”
Floria motions toward the counter where Leonora’s centerpiece sits in questionable splendor. “Whatever is that…thing?”
“An edible flower basket I made from vegetables.”
“Why?” Floria shakes her pack of Lucky Strikes. When nothing comes out, she crushes it and lights one of Leonora’s cigarettes. They both have one. “Why would you do that? It’s ghastly.”
“Not as ghastly as your creepy dolls.” Horrified at what she’s said, Leonora gets up. Bends across her basket: nothing is what it seems to be, only more so now that her braids of bread have split and her scallions are wilting and her radish blossoms have turned scabby. “Quite ghastly,” she says. “You’re right.”
Floria doesn’t answer.
“I’m sorry.”
Floria nods.
“So then, to make this up to you, I’ll send the basket home with you.”
“I couldn’t.”
“It’s yours.”
“I couldn’t bear looking at it.”
“It’s yours, along with all those pots and dishes and baking pans and napkins and tablecloths and glasses your brother dragged in here because he could write them off.”
“We could take the centerpiece to his party.”
Leonora starts laughing. “Let’s. It’s as fake as his promises.”
“Ultimately, though…that basket is too good for him.”
“True.” Leonora sits down and takes one long sip. Closes her eyes. “Feel how the black curls up behind your nose but doesn’t go any higher, not into your brain like the clear stuff.”
“Your brain. Not mine.”
“I was talking brain in general. Not yours.” Leonora takes another sip, coats her fingertip with coffee, sings the Chock-full-o’-Nuts-is-the-heavenly-coffee jingle, “…better coffee millionaires’ money can’t buy.”