“There’s cake,” said Mrs. Sweatt. She’d set the empty box on the table by the door and now peered into the little white cake that balanced on her upturned palms.
James did not have dinner with us; he was working on some homework at a friend’s. I wondered whether he spent a lot of time avoiding the grown-ups—I wanted to pin his absence on something other than my presence, since I’d secretly hoped that the invitation was his doing. Well, I thought: James’s house. I wanted to look at every object and invest it with him, to pick up a bottle off the plate rail that ran the edge of the dining room, unfold the quilt hanging off the back of a chair, saying, James? as if James were a relative so long missing I believed he’d somehow become the bottle, the quilt. But that was impossible. The knickknacks had clearly belonged to some significant but long-dead old lady; the furniture was mismatched and gummy with years of hasty polishings. Nothing reminded me of him. I sat at the dinner table in what I assumed was his chair.
They called Mrs. Sweatt simply Missus and treated her like a girl who might be ruining her chance for happiness at every turn. Eat your meatballs, Missus. Aren’t you cutting off your circulation, sitting that way? Missus made the dinner; she embroidered the tablecloth, too; we’re trying to get her to sell her work in town, but she won’t. I felt like they were trying to arrange a marriage between the two of us.
“I hope you’re feeling better,” I told Mrs. Sweatt, wondering what she’d been sick with. Perhaps I’d try to look it up in my book of symptoms: swollen face, lethargy. The only affliction I knew so defined was desperate weeping.
She shrugged. “They tell me I’m supposed to.”
“Missus is getting skinnier,” said Caroline, “while I’m getting fatter.” She thumped her stomach.
“Don’t hit the baby,” said Mrs. Sweatt. “Caroline’s going to have a baby. She treats it like a drum, but it’s a baby.”
“It isn’t anything yet,” Caroline told me. “I’m barely pregnant.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said.
Caroline nodded shyly.
Mrs. Sweatt drank milk from an enormous glass. At first I wondered whether there was any vodka in it; then I saw that she wasn’t really drinking at all: every now and then she lifted the glass to her face, looked in, and set it back down, the milk level the same.
After dinner Caroline suggested a break before dessert, and Mrs. Sweatt started to clear the table. She moved very slowly, as if the table were a magnet and all the dishes steel. Several times she lifted a dish a few inches and put it right down.
“Do you need help?” I asked.
Mrs. Sweatt straightened the tablecloth and said, slowly, “You’re a guest.” Maybe she was drunk.
Caroline took me by the elbow. “Come see the house.”
So Oscar and Caroline gave me a tour; I looked around greedily. It seemed much the same as it had the last time I’d been there, a motley, homely, dazzling collection of furnishings that seemed to have only the most tenuous relationship to one another. I imagined taking down books and vases, anything I pleased, even curtains, and inquiring, in a businesslike tone, how long I might keep them. There is nothing I can’t make into a library in my brain, no objects I don’t imagine borrowing or lending out. Not out of generosity—I am a librarian, and protective—but out of a sense of strange careful justice. Part of me believes all material things belong to all people.
It was a house easily taken over by objects. White thuggy appliances crowded the kitchen; a huge unmade bed took up almost the entire bedroom. The thrown-back messy blankets embarrassed me.
On the back wall of the shadowy basement, dozens of little pictures hung off a peg board: the ocean, wheat fields, a woman brushing her hair, a horse, and one large canvas that looked abstract but I suspected was merely bad. They were Oscar’s; he was the artist of the seascape in James’s room, of the little flowers on the side of the house. The paintings were damp and blurry and looked ready to overflow their frames, as though they’d been painted through tears.
“What medium do you prefer?” I asked.
“All of ’em. I’m thinking of getting into comic books.” He walked to a table and picked up a piece of paper. It was a cartoon of a bride, with long blond hair, her veil flipped back and streaming behind her like a cape. The bodice of her dress was tight, cut low, and the deep line of her cleavage split in two and broke into curves over each breast. Flames shot out from the bottom of her skirt, a train of flames, and her face was full-lipped and big-eyed and small-nosed and smirking and unmistakably Mrs. Sweatt’s. Mrs. Sweatt a month before, with her old cheekbones and cynicism.
“Rocket Bride,” Oscar said. “My newest invention.”
Rocket Bride, Oscar explained, had been abandoned by her groom at their wedding reception. In her grief she developed the ability to fly and now traveled the world, looking for her husband, but more importantly, stressed Oscar, fighting crime and injustice. She subdued criminals with her bouquet. She sometimes worked with her sidekick, Maid O’ Honor. It was her wedding dress that supplied her superpowers, and she vowed not to take it off until she found her wayward groom.
“Do you pose?” I asked Caroline.
“He’s never asked me,” she said.
Oscar laughed. “For a comic book? I work from the imagination only. Not that you wouldn’t make an excellent superhero,” he said to Caroline.
“I haven’t got any superpowers,” she said.
“What will she do when she finds him?” I asked.
“Finds who?” asked Oscar.
I took the page from his hand. “Her husband. Will they settle down and live happily ever after?”
“Lord, no.” He looked over my shoulder at Rocket Bride, put a finger on the crown of her head. I saw by the careful signature in the corner that he was the one who’d written my dinner invitation. He stretched his arm around me, set his hand on my shoulder. Then he frowned, and with his other hand carefully whisked away a few pink-and-gray eraser leavings from the edge of Rocket Bride’s veil. “Never. Rocket Bride’s not the forgiving kind. No,” he said. “I think that husband should just pray he never gets found.”
His hand was still on my shoulder.
I am not a person who likes to be touched casually, which means of course that I like it a great deal. Every little touch takes on great meaning—oh, I could catalog them all for you: the bus driver who offered his hand as I stepped down from his bus, his other hand hovering near but not touching the small of my back. My flirtatious college friend who could not keep her hands off of anyone, who flicked one restless finger on the back of my wrist, on my forearm. Handshakes. Because I am short, certain tall people cannot resist palming my head; one college boyfriend stroked my hair so often in the early days of our courtship that, crackling with static, I could have clung to the wall like a child’s balloon.
My list would go on forever, and still it would be shorter than other people’s, because those tentative friendly fingers make me stiffen, and by the time I realize I’ve done it and try to relax, the hands are gone. People get the idea. The better they know me, the less they touch me.
But Oscar did not know me at all. Did not notice the way I quietly jumped as his hand touched my shoulder blade. Did not take his hand away until he was ready to set Rocket Bride down again.
“I have lots of ideas,” he said. “She’s just the first. There’s Fancy Boy, and the Mighty Midget, and, let’s see, Radio Dog—”
Caroline shook her head. “Oscar dreams big.”
“Why not?” said Oscar. “Doesn’t cost anything. Here’s another idea. Record players for cars. I can’t get anybody to invest, but it’s what the American public wants.”
“It is?” I said.
“Well,” said Caroline, “it’s what Oscar wants.”
I said, “But is this a nation of Oscars?”
He got a happy, planning look in his eyes. “A nation of Oscars,” he said, as if he were wondering how to swing it.
“There’s an idea,” sai
d Caroline.
“A nation of Oscars,” he repeated, smiling fondly.
He would have loved that, I think. Some people like to think they are unique; I saw immediately Oscar did not. What better than walking into a crowd of himself, brillantined, back-slapping men who would congratulate themselves on the good fortune of being who they were. “I commend you on your taste,” Oscar would say to Oscar. “You’re my kind of man.”
When we went back upstairs, Mrs. Sweatt was simultaneously smoking a cigarette and trying to put on a duffel coat. She was apparently unwilling to put down the cigarette and kept switching it from one hand to her mouth to the other hand, trying to avoid the cloth.
“Where you going, Missus?” Caroline asked.
She looked a little panicked, as if she’d been caught doing something she’d been warned against. “Just going for a walk.”
“Missus,” said Oscar. “You think that’s a good idea?”
“Around the block,” she said.
“Why don’t you have dessert with us,” said Caroline.
“A short walk,” said Mrs. Sweatt. She had the cigarette in her mouth now, buttoning her coat, her eyes shut to avoid the smoke. She slipped the last toggle through the loop by her neck.
“Alice,” said Caroline. “He said he’d be home by nine.”
The sleeves of Mrs. Sweatt’s coat covered her hands; the smoke threatened to cover her face. Her skirt was longer than the coat and bunched up in flowered folds around her calves. She stood still for a minute, considering, then silently went to the table and sat down and ground the cigarette out on the edge of a plate.
“Peggy, come to the kitchen with me,” said Caroline. “Help me cut your beautiful cake.”
Caroline turned on the faucet and washed her hands.
“An after-dinner walk doesn’t sound so bad to me,” I said, rubbing my stomach. “Nice to take the air after a meal.”
“Missus doesn’t want to walk,” said Caroline. “She wants to spy.”
In the dining room, Mrs. Sweatt sat rigidly on her chair. “It’s cold outside.”
Oscar looked through the window at a thermometer attached to the outside sill. “Forty-one. Not too bad. Missus, why don’t you take off your coat.”
She undid the toggles slowly, top to bottom, then slipped out of it one arm at a time. It flopped over the back of her chair.
“Here,” said Oscar. “Let me help you.” He stood up and walked behind her.
Mrs. Sweatt took hold of one of the sleeves of the coat as if it were the arm of a favored suitor. “I might go out after.”
“Just stand up a minute.”
She did, and Oscar pulled out the coat and draped it over the back of her chair. “That better?” he asked.
She nodded.
Oscar picked up the plate with the cigarette. “Missus has started smoking again.”
“I picked it up from some friends in the hospital,” she said.
Caroline passed around slices of cake. The white frosting was gritty with sugar.
“Why, it’s chocolate,” said Oscar. “Sort of a surprise. Eat your cake, Missus.”
“I don’t want to get fat,” she said.
“You!” Caroline leaned back to display her tiny gut. “I myself feel like the Titanic.”
“Be careful of icebergs,” said Mrs. Sweatt. “I have it on good authority that it’s a terrible thing to sink.”
Then the front door rattled, and James stepped in, his hair blown back by the wind, his cheeks tweaked pink by the cold. Mrs. Sweatt stood up. Her chair fell back in a dead swoon.
“Jim,” she said. She went to him, tugged on the lapels of his coat as if she were getting him ready to go back out again. She was tiny next to him, tiny and voluptuous.
“How are you feeling, Mom?” He set his hand on her head. Well, maybe he had been avoiding her, but the loving concern on his face was so clear it pained me, and then I was disgusted with myself for envying a boy’s love for his mother.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Here.” She helped him off with his coat. Her hands went all around him, patting his chest, reaching up to touch his shoulder, his cheek. It was as if she wanted to check whether he’d grown while out of her sight, the way some mothers check for cigarette smoke or whiskey breath—though, of course, she was the one likely to smell of either. “Did you have a good time?” she asked. “Did you get supper?”
“Stuart’s dad has a darkroom,” said James.
“I thought so,” she said. “You smell like chemicals. Go wash.” But she wouldn’t let him go. His glasses had fogged up in the sudden heat of the living room, but he didn’t take them off to clear them, just stood still and let his mother straighten his shirt, feel his hands for chill, smooth his cuffs. Finally she took the glasses from his face—he had to bend down to let her reach—and wiped them on the bottom edge of her sweater.
She handed them back. “You go ahead now,” she said as he put them back on. “Wash your hands.”
“First come say hello,” Caroline called to him. She got up to help Mrs. Sweatt’s chair to its feet.
“Hello, James,” I said.
“Hello, Miss Cort.”
“You like photography?” I asked, though I knew he did.
“Yes. I need a new camera, though.”
In the living room, Mrs. Sweatt lay back on the sofa. The little bit of her face I could see past the dining room’s door frame was dreamy, resolved into its former beautiful shape.
I wanted to offer him something. “We have books on pinhole cameras.” That was just the sort of thing that interested him. “You can make one from a box.”
“From a box?” he asked.
From a box, I heard Mrs. Sweatt say from the other room, but I could not tell whether she was echoing my statement or her son’s question.
That night, when I got outside, when Oscar and Caroline and James had seen me to the door, Oscar touching my shoulder again, Caroline my elbow, James not touching any part of me—I remember all the careless fingers of my life, those that settle and those that don’t—when the door was closed behind me and I was alone in the cold, I hugged myself, smiled to myself, whispered assurances in my own ears—those little things you do, alone, when you have just glimpsed part of an agreeable future. No doubts, no apprehension—those are for later, when the future has arrived and you have to deal with the particulars. This moment was the best time. Everything was possible and improbable and meant nothing at all to anyone but me.
I’d read a little about magic; it was something I’d liked as a child, too, not sleight of hand but spectacular escapes. I thought my size would be an advantage. Houdini knew how to dislocate his shoulders, but I was so small I was sure I wouldn’t have to do that: my mere tininess would free me.
Now, I wanted to out-Houdini Houdini, but in reverse. I wanted not to escape, but to enter, to insinuate myself into the smallest places in that house, behind the oil burner, underneath the buffet, inside the oven. I wanted to get myself so caught they’d have to let me stay. Look, they’d say, how did she manage that? That space isn’t big enough for anyone. Look at her: she’s surely trapped.
Cures for Height
Caroline started coming to visit me at work. At first I tried to give her library service. “What kind of books do you like?” I asked, and she smiled and said, “Nothing for me, thank you.” She carried some knitting in a bag and sat at the front table, as though it were somebody’s living room; she showed absolutely no interest in the smallest resource of the library, apart from the furniture and the librarian.
She wanted to make conversation. “How’s business?” she asked. At first I was terse. (Well, all my life I’ve been terse, but I mean especially.) In my role as a boss I constantly had to give Astoria meaningful looks when one of her pals lingered too long. It rarely worked; Astoria kept on talking, setting first her elbows, then her upper arms, and finally her impressive bosom upon the counter. Sometimes her voice got too loud; sometimes she whispered i
n a conspiratorial way. For years I’d tried to keep myself pure in this respect, talking solely about library issues to patrons, even James. That way my meaningful looks could be righteous, if ineffective.
But that was impossible with Caroline, and finally I thought, Forget it, Peggy. Astoria would never change. Astoria got to talk. Why not me?
“Can’t I do anything for you?” I asked Caroline.
“Nope.”
Still, I pulled chairs around so she could put her feet up, even filled and delivered pointed paper cups from the dispenser near the bubbler. I took care of her in any little way I could.
Finally one week, she said, “I wish I could return the favor.”
“Okay,” I said. “Next time, you get me a glass of water.”
“No.” She was working on a bright red sweater, which she set on the table. The needles stuck out of it, like Raggedy Ann’s geisha wig. “I mean, invite you over. But Missus—well, she’s not feeling well, and she doesn’t want visitors. When she’s perked up, you’ll have to come back to dinner.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Had I said something to alienate Mrs. Sweatt at the Stricklands’? Going over everything that I’d said that night occupied me for several hours after work, a jury member reviewing the evidence. Hello? Perfectly blameless. I hope you’re feeling better. Do you need help? Maybe there was something in my delivery that poisoned my intended politeness. Or maybe she objected to something I’d said to someone else, conversation that floated up through the registers from the basement with the heat, my offer of books on cameras to James. I looked in my mirror and said Hello to myself. It took several repetitions for me to decide I was being ridiculous.
Besides, Caroline came and knit, more pregnant every week, and James came to play tricks, tell bad jokes, and do research. That was more than enough consolation.
“Can you imagine,” Astoria said to me, when James came in. “Being that tall.”
“No,” I said.
But I tried. I imagined staring down upon the heads of the world. I imagined never fitting anywhere. I tried to move my body the way James did, one slow piece at a time. But when I thought about these things, when I saw myself as the tallest woman in the world, it felt hollow. So did I. One day after closing I stood on the circulation desk, made myself eight feet tall, taller than James was at the time. A short, ridiculous person on a waist-high desk. The tops of the shelves, I saw, needed dusting.