The little man wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket and grinned at her.
“What’s the matter, princess?” he asked. “If I can’t afford a bed for the night, what makes you think I’d go out and buy a handkerchief just to avoid offending your sensibilities?”
It took her a moment to digest that. Then digging in the bib pocket of her overalls, she found a couple of crumpled dollar bills and offered them to him. He regarded the money with suspicion and made no move to take it from her.
“What’s this?” he said.
“I just … I thought maybe you could use a couple of dollars.”
“Freely given?” he asked. “No strings, no ties?”
“Well, it’s not a loan,” she told him. Like she was ever going to see him again.
He took the money with obvious reluctance and a muttered, “Damn.”
Mona couldn’t help herself. “Most people would say thank you,” she said.
“Most people wouldn’t be beholden to you because of it,” he replied.
“I’m sorry?”
“What for?”
Mona blinked. “I meant, I don’t understand why you’re indebted to me now. It was just a couple of dollars.”
“Then why apologize?”
“I didn’t. Or I suppose I did, but—” This was getting far too confusing. “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want anything in return.”
“Too late for that.” He stuffed the money in his pocket. “Because your gift was freely given, it means I owe you now.” He offered her his hand. “Nacky Wilde, at your service.”
Seeing it was the same one he’d used to blow his nose, Mona decided to forgo the social amenities. She stuck her own hands in the side pockets of her overalls.
“Mona Morgan,” she told him.
“Alliterative parents?”
“What?”
“You really should see a doctor about your hearing problem.”
“I don’t have a hearing problem,” she said.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Well, lead on. Where are we going?”
“We’re not going anywhere. I’m going home, and you can go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before we started this conversation.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. I have to stick with you until I can repay my debt.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, it’s very much so. What’s the matter? Ashamed to be seen in my company? I’m too short for you? Too grubby? I can be invisible, if you like, but I get the feeling that’d only upset you more.”
She had to be way more drunk than she thought she was. This wasn’t even remotely a normal conversation.
“Invisible,” she repeated.
He gave her an irritated look. “As in, not perceptible by the human eye. You do understand the concept, don’t you?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“No, of course not. I’m making it up just to appear more interesting to you. Great big, semi-deaf women like you feature prominently in my daydreams, so naturally I’ll say anything to try to win you over.”
Working all day at her drawing desk didn’t give Mona as much chance to exercise as she’d like, so she was a bit touchy about the few extra pounds she was carrying.
“I’m not big.”
He craned his neck. “Depends on the perspective, sweetheart.”
“And I’m not deaf.”
“I was being polite. I thought it was kinder than saying you were mentally disadvantaged.”
“And you’re certainly not coming home with me.”
“Whatever you say,” he said.
And then he vanished.
One moment he was there, two feet of unsavory rudeness, and the next she was alone on the street. The abruptness of his disappearance, the very weirdness of it, made her legs go all watery, and she had to put a hand against the wall until the weak feeling went away.
I am way too drunk, she thought as she pushed off from the wall.
She peered into the alleyway, then looked up and down the street. Nothing. Gave the nest of newspapers a poke with her foot. Still nothing. Finally she started walking again, but nervously now, listening for footsteps, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She was almost back at her apartment when she remembered what he’d said about how he could be invisible.
Impossible.
But what if …?
In the end she found a phone booth and gave Jilly a call.
“Is it too late to change my mind?” she asked.
“Not at all. Come on over.”
Mona leaned against the glass of the booth and watched the street all around her. Occasional cabs went by. She saw a couple at the far end of the block and followed them with her gaze until they turned a corner. So far as she could tell, there was no little man, grotty or otherwise, anywhere in view.
“Is it okay if I bring my invisible friend?” she said.
Jilly laughed. “Sure. I’ll put the kettle on. Does your invisible friend drink coffee?”
“I haven’t asked him.”
“Well,” Jilly said, “if either of you are feeling as woozy as I am, I’m sure you could use a mug.”
“I could use something,” Mona said after she’d hung up.
“My Life as a Bird”
Mona’s monologue from chapter eight:
Sometimes I think of God as this little man sitting on a café patio somewhere, bewildered at how it’s all gotten so out of his control. He had such good intentions, but everything he made had a mind of its own and, right from the first, he found himself unable to contain their conflicting impulses. He tried to create paradise, but he soon discovered that free will and paradise were incompatible because everybody has a different idea as to what paradise should be like.
But usually when I think of him, I think of a cat: a little mysterious, a little aloof, never coming when he’s called. And in my mind, Cod’s always a he. The New Testament makes it pretty clear that men are the doers; women can only be virgins or whores. In God’s eyes, we can only exist somewhere in between the two Marys, the Mother of Jesus and the Magdalene.
What kind of a religion is that? What kind of religion ignores the rights of half the world’s population just because they’re supposed to have envy instead of a penis? One run by men. The strong, the brave, the true. The old boys’ club that wrote the book and made the laws.
I’d like to find him and ask him, “Is that it, God? Did we really get cloned from a rib and because we’re hand-me-downs, you don’t think we’ve got what it takes to be strong and brave and true?”
But that’s only part of what’s wrong with the world. You also have to ask, what’s the rationale behind wars and sickness and suffering?
Or is there no point? Is God just as bewildered as the rest of the us? Has he finally given up, spending his days now on that café patio, sipping strong espresso, and watching the world go by, none of it his concern anymore? Has he washed his hands of it all?
I’ve got a thousand questions for God, but he never answers any of them. Maybe he’s still trying to figure out where I fit on the scale between the two Marys and he can’t reply until he does. Maybe he doesn’t hear me, doesn’t see me, doesn’t think of me at all. Maybe in his version of what the world is, I don’t even exist.
Or if he’s a cat, then I’m a bird, and he’s just waiting to pounce.
“You actually believe me, don’t you?” Mona said.
The two of them were sitting in the window seat of Jilly’s studio loft, sipping coffee from fat china mugs, piano music playing softly in the background, courtesy of a recording by Mitsuko Uchida. The studio was tidier than Mona had ever seen it. All the canvases that weren’t hanging up had been neatly stacked against one wall. Books were in their shelves, paintbrushes cleaned and lying out in rows on the worktable, tubes of paint organized by color in wooden and cardboard boxes. The drop cloth under the easel even looked as though it had recently gone through a wash.