The Mirror Thief(130)

Cwoffee, huh? she says, copping his accent with a raised eyebrow. Solid, pops. I hear you cats knocked us some fish.

You heard right.

Groovy, the girl says. A slow smile creeps across her face like a dropped egg.

Synn?ve reappears, bearing another teacup and saucer; Cynthia stands up slowly, stretches—twisting her arms above her head till her spine pops—and takes them. Stanley can’t decide if this girl is movie-star gorgeous or slightly grotesque, which he guesses must mean she’s gorgeous. Stacked sugarcubes ring her cup; she spoons a few into the liquid, then eats the rest, crunching as she stirs. The milky tea is exactly the color of her eyes, and a whole lot warmer. Stanley can already tell that he and this skirt are not going to be pals.

Claudio shoulders past him into the room. Cynthia! he says.

Hey, gatemouth, the girl says. Slip me some skin.

I have some skin for you, mija, Claudio laughs, and gives her a warm careful hug. Their teacups rattle on their saucers. I did not expect to see you, he says. What are you doing here?

This is my lilypad, froggy. This is where I catch my cups.

Stanley looks rapidly between the two of them. You know this chick? he says.

This is Cynthia, Claudio says, looking at Stanley like he’s gone simple. My friend from the café. I told you.

Stanley furrows his brow. Maybe Claudio did tell him; he doesn’t listen to half of what the kid says. He watches the two of them chat—naming people he’s never heard of, who he never cares to meet—until he notices the large canvas hung on the wall behind them. Amid rough splashes of flung color and glued-on dried flowers and lumps of paint-soaked fabric, Stanley gradually discerns the shape of a tree. Sigils cut from silver foil scatter in its gnarled bare branches. Two shadowy human shapes huddle by its trunk.

From the kitchen comes Synn?ve’s voice, calling over the sound of the running faucet. I just remembered, she says. The bakery closes early today, and I want a loaf of challah bread for dinner. Cynthia, will you entertain our guests while I’m out? I’m afraid I can’t guess when Adrian will emerge from his lair. Boys, if I give you my good knife, would you clean the fish you brought?

I’ll clean the fish, Cynthia says.

As Synn?ve pulls the front door shut behind her, Stanley and Claudio carry the buckets to a sunny spot on the covered side porch. Cynthia gathers equipment—brown paper bag, vegetable scraper, eyelash-thin fillet knife, beachtowels to sit on, old copies of the Mirror-News—and follows them outside. The porch is bordered by plank benches, and she spreads newspaper over these, then pours water from one of the buckets onto the lawn, crowding the fish down, making them easier to grab. The salt will probably kill the grass, but Stanley doesn’t say anything.

Cynthia hands the scraper to Claudio. You’re doing the scales, she says.

Then she dips her hand into the bucket, comes out with a squirming fish, slaps it on the paper, and opens its belly from its anus to its throat. Her small thumb slips inside to push out the little lump of guts. Then she chops off its head just behind its pectoral fins, and she hands the body to Claudio. The tiny downturned mouth is still gasping as she tosses it, trailing intestines, into the paper bag.

Claudio sets to work on the headless fish without asking Cynthia any questions, without even seeming to think, and soon the newspaper is showered with silver flecks. Cynthia has the head off another fish and is starting on a third. The one she just finished twitches a little on the paper. Her knife reminds Stanley of one he had for a while back home: he taped the handle of his, wore it on his calf. Then he used it and had to get rid of it. He begins to feel lightheaded from watching her work. He stands up, crosses the backyard to where a rambling rose pushes through the fence, and breathes deeply over its waxy white blossoms.

Soon a ragged calico cat is walking toward him across the toprail, sniffing the air; a second cat meows from somewhere below. Back on the porch, Claudio has fired up his customary jag, talking about movies, movie stars. The chick has no problem keeping up: she chimes in with her own material—foreign-sounding names that Stanley’s never heard in his life, strung together with obscure hepcat jive that he can’t make heads or tails of—as she slaughters her way through the twin buckets. Looking past them to the house, Stanley sees Synn?ve in the kitchen, home from the bakery. He figures he probably ought to go in and talk to her about art or something, but he doesn’t. Instead he just moves back and forth along the fence, stopping sometimes to scratch the stray cats on their matted necks, sometimes to catch them as they make beelines for the bag of heads and plop them back over the fence. Just once, he thinks, just one goddamn time, he’d like something to work out like he expects it to. That might be nice for a switch.

After a while the girl takes the cleaned fish into the kitchen, and Claudio crosses the yard. Stanley? he says. Are you okay?

Stanley keeps his eyes on the cats. Don’t come near me with that shit on your hands, he says.

In a moment I will wash them. Are you feeling sick? You seem strange.

I’m doing great, Stanley says. I just got a lot on my mind.

Claudio’s quiet for a second. He’s doing that nervous thing he does with his fingers: Stanley can hear soft smacks as their tips stick and un-stick from his slimy thumb. Cynthia is my friend, Claudio says. I like to make friends. I believe it is a natural thing to do. You left me in the café alone. You did not say you were going. Stanley, you don’t think—