My Name Is Venus Black(75)
Another bottle? She’s that desperate to keep me here. Or else she’s truly turned into a drunk. While she’s gone, I realize two things: I must be what you call tipsy, and I’ve heard the joke before. Inez returns with the open bottle.
“So they can catch all the stuff that goes over their heads?” I ask.
“Yes!” cries Inez, actually laughing, which makes me laugh, too.
It must be true that alcohol will make you do things you normally wouldn’t do, since that’s the only possible explanation for what happens next, which is that I agree to stay and eat dinner with the person I’m supposed to hate most.
* * *
—
INEZ TELLS ME to relax while she makes spaghetti. She turns on the TV for me and then heads down the hall to the bathroom, and I realize my own bladder is about to burst, too. The nightly news is on, but I’m not the slightest bit interested.
When Inez emerges from the hall, I take my turn in the pink-tiled bathroom. After I’m done, I can’t resist the urge to peek into Leo’s old room. I don’t flip on the light, but in the dim glow from a streetlamp, I can see it looks exactly the same, like Inez has found a way to freeze the past in place. If I didn’t know better—aromas can’t possibly last six years—I’d swear it still smells like Leo. A combination of sweaty sleep, Ritz crackers, and the faint tang of a mattress wet one too many times.
As my eyes adjust to the low light, I walk over and touch his painted-blue dresser. It reminds me how I used to open these drawers every morning and pick out Leo’s clothes for the day, which were all as close to primary blue as possible.
For a fleeting moment, I wonder what happened to my planets, if they’re still hanging downstairs in my room. Or did Inez clean my room all out?
I pick up one of Leo’s cars from his shelf. I spin the wheels; I’m still amazed how long Leo could be content to stare at them.
On impulse, I open the door to his small closet. His favorite blanket, the purple one, is lying on the floor. I hear Inez in the kitchen, making noise with pots and pans. I think of Inez passing Leo’s empty room night after night, and an unexpected wave of horror and sadness washes over me—on her behalf.
It must be the wine, or maybe it’s that I worked so hard to hate Inez I never allowed myself to imagine what it would feel like to lose a child into thin air.
Now, because of Piper, I almost can. And it’s just too much.
I make my way into the kitchen, afraid to be alone. As if on autopilot, I offer to set the table, since that was always my job. “Sure thing,” she says.
It freaks me out a little that I know exactly where the plates are, where the silverware drawer is. And the bouquet pattern on the flatware I could have drawn by heart. I’m careful to ignore the door at the end of the kitchen, the one to the basement stairs.
When I go to the freezer for ice, I find the same blue cracked ice trays from before. Probably lots of people keep ice trays this long, but it just seems wrong somehow.
I decide I need more wine.
It’s time to sit down to the familiar meal of tossed garden salad and Inez’s idea of spaghetti—Ragú sauce mixed with hamburger and onions over pasta. As I awkwardly dig in, I notice the familiar painting of a sad old man praying with folded hands over his soup and bread. It has always hung on this wall. Inez was never a religious person, but it must have seemed to her like the kind of art that one should hang near a kitchen table.
Once, when I was ten or so, I asked her why we had to eat near such a depressing painting. She said, “He is praying over his food because he is grateful.”
“Well, we don’t pray over our food,” I challenged.
“You’re right, Venus,” she said. “Maybe we should.”
“No thanks,” I told her. “Besides, I don’t think he is grateful for his bread; I think he’s praying for some butter and jam to put on it.” I remember this detail because Inez laughed so hard, and she often repeated the story to friends.
“I see our man is still praying for jam,” I say now, nodding toward the art.
She turns to see and breaks out laughing. “Oh my God!” she exclaims, “I almost forgot about that.”
I almost forgot how much I used to love her laugh. “Have you had any bites on the house?” I ask.
“Not really,” she says. “It’s not even for sale yet. Officially. But actually, I did show it for the first time this afternoon. Right before you showed up. You practically passed each other on the porch.”
“Really? How did it go? Pretty cool if you get a buyer before you even have it on the market.”
“It went okay,” she says thoughtfully. “But it was kind of weird, too. Normally my realtor would show it. You remember Melissa Lansing? She went into real estate.”
“I think so.” I vaguely remember a brassy friend of Inez’s who had a large mole above her lip, and not the pretty kind.
“I wouldn’t have showed the house without Melissa, but this guy said he was from California and going back tomorrow and it would be his only chance.”
“Well, how did it go? Did he like the house?”
“I suppose so, but he acted kind of weird about it.”
“What do you mean, weird?”