Boy, Snow, Bird(66)

“They’re not poison flowers, are they?”

She stared at me. “What?”

“You know . . . like La Belle Capuchine’s flowers in your letter . . .”

“Oh! Ha ha. No, no poison.”

“And no suitcase, either?”

“Left it at number eleven. I’ll be sleeping over there, in that creepy room with the tulle curtains and the sugar plum fairy mobiles. You know, I never even liked ballerinas.”

“Huh, well you should’ve said so.”

“I think I started to once, and everybody started saying, ‘Uh oh . . . somebody’s not herself today.’ I was outnumbered.”

“Oh.” So she was outnumbered. That was not a good excuse.

“Come to the mirror.” She fixed one of the night flowers behind my ear and stood looking over my shoulder.

“I see it,” she said.

I looked at us. “What?” We didn’t look as though we were related. Not even cousins.

“That thing you wrote to me about how technically impossible things are always trying so hard to happen to us, and just letting the nearest technically impossible thing happen—”

“Oh . . . yeah, I see it too! Oh, Snow. Think of all the pranks we can play.”

The mirror caught a few rays of sunset through the open front door, and the image of us went chestnut-colored at the corners. Snow’s hand was on my shoulder and both my own hands were at my sides, but our reflections didn’t call that any kind of reunion. The girls in the mirror had their arms around each other, and they smiled at us until we followed their lead.

“Looks like long ago,” Snow said. “Like Great-aunt Effie just said: ‘I hope you girls don’t think you’re something new? We’ve had sisters like you in this family before.’ And then she shows us an old, old photo . . . one of those tinted daguerreotypes . . .”

She lay with her head in my lap for most of the afternoon, jumping up every now and again to start a disc spinning on the record player. We talked about Frank Novak and how he’d told me Mom was evil and she said, “You know that’s not true, right? I don’t know what she is, but evil isn’t it.” We talked about Ephraim, who was most definitely not her boyfriend and was never going to be.

“So . . . your room at number eleven. What did you want instead of ballerinas?” I asked.

She really considered the question, as if it still mattered and changes would be made based on the answer she gave.

“Plain pink and white. Deep pink, not cotton-candy pink.”

We heard Dad telling someone it was an open house, and Miss Fairfax started walking up the hallway toward us. The pattern of her footsteps is pretty distinctive, elegant, just like her. I know it well from being designated lookout at school. But she turned back when she heard us talking. Others came by with covered dishes and clay pots; they didn’t speak to us, just rapped their knuckles on the open door, waved, and left notes on the kitchen table, alongside their offerings.

(Will return to kiss thine hand at thy earliest convenience, fair maiden—Anon.

Welcome back, Snow. Let’s catch up soon! Susie Conlin.

Hey there, beautiful one, don’t you dare leave before you come see us—Mr. and Mrs. Murray.)

Later in the evening we went to see what there was to eat and I was awestruck. There wasn’t an inch of space left on the tabletop, or on any of the counters; it had all been taken over by multicolored crockery. The air smelled roasted. “Uh . . . I’ve never seen anything like this before,” I said, grabbing at a pile of note cards before they slipped onto the floor. But when I looked at Snow, I caught her finishing a yawn.

“Me, either,” she said. “Isn’t it kind of everybody?” I didn’t answer her. She started reading some of the note cards with a really touched expression, but I’d caught her. She was used to being treated like this. It was nothing to her. I had a moment of hating her, or at least understanding why Mom did. Thankfully it came and went really quickly, like a dizzy spell, or a three-second blizzard. Does she know that she does this to people? Dumb question. This is something we do to her.





1

i don’t know who or what anybody is anymore. There are exceptions: My husband is one, and Alecto Fletcher’s another. The other day Arturo looked into my eyes and said: “Here I am, with my stupid face. Remember? The face that’s so stupid you told me you never wanted to see it again?” His hair’s thinned a lot on top, but he’s even more lionlike now that he’s all bewhiskered, and I just haven’t got a single defense against him anymore. I almost spoke about it to Webster. Ted gets cheaper and cheaper all the time; his behavior at restaurants is becoming incredible—how convenient that he falls asleep or has to use the restroom just before the bill arrives. The question “How can you love him?” could sour my friendship with Webster at this point. Because she does love Ted. Fiercely. Wives are uncanny creatures, the day is a boxing ring and we dart around the corners of it, pushing our luck with both hands. We risk becoming so commonplace to the men we’ve thrown our lots in with who can’t see us anymore, and who pat the sofa when they mean to pat our knee. That or we become so incomprehensible that it repulses our husbands, who after all can’t be expected to stomach a side dish of passionate misery at every meal, no matter how much variety there is. But husbands are uncanny too. It all seems to come from having to be each other’s anchor, bread and butter, constant calm. Emotionally speaking he and I have to remain in some fixed state where we can always be found if necessary. In the midst of arguments I should rightfully have won I’ve found myself conceding points to him because some appeal is made to this fixed place. A look, a word, a touch. How could anyone enjoy this, the possibility, necessity even, of their being called to heel in this way? It disturbs me that there’s a part of my heart or mind, or some spot where the two meet, a spot that isn’t mine because I’m a wife. This part isn’t really me at all, but a promise I made on a snowy day. A promise to stay and to be with Arturo and to be good to him, and when there’s no other way, I have to go to that promise to find my feeling for my husband. We walk the finest of foolish, foolish lines. How can Webster still love Ted? How can anybody love anybody else for more than five minutes?