I know a valentine. I am sure you do, Joseph said, uncertain of what he meant. I’m sure you’ve received many, he blundered on, with lace and flowers and little hearts. Miss Moss held up a flour-white hand. The valentine I know wasn’t meant to be a valentine. The poet didn’t mean it to be a valentine; he never meant it to be in such service, yet I call it a valentine. “Why should this flower delay so long to show its tremulous plumes?” Good question, don’t you think? Asked of the chrysanthemums, all the late bloomers, but you know, chrysants don’t have plumes. Plumes grow on hats. A palm remained raised in greeting or surrender. “Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,” she sort of sang, and very softly and slowly, too, as if remembering the lines as she went along, “when flowers are in their tombs.” Actually, I’ve been alone my whole life, she said then in a normal tone. That “bloom” rhymes with “tomb” is very fortunate for the poet, wouldn’t you say? “It … the flower … must have felt that fervid call although it took no heed”—well, I didn’t need a dower did I? great saving there. I went from womb to tomb … hee-hee … no stops in between. Alone in my stone tomb my whole life. I speak every day — and sometimes night — with the dead. There is a wonderful rhyme coming up. “Took no heed,” yes, “waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall, and saps all retrocede.” Don’t you love that? I know a valentine when I read it. When the world ends the word will write on … wordulating. Yes, I know a valentine, heart of yours, heart of mine. On this project I can see we shall achieve some savings, too. A fine sentiment, Joseph said, thinking she was finished, but she shushed him with a look. “Too late its beauty, lonely thing, the season’s shine is spent.” Oh dear, Joseph thought, oh dear. “The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones,” she hummed, but rather loudly, and then conducted with a forefinger the line to its conclusion, “tones ravishment, or ravishment is sweet if human souls did never kiss and greet.” That kind of repetition has a name, but I’ve forgotten what it is, Miss Moss went on in a different register. The valentine is in the kiss and greet part. Oh, dear, I think I’m in another poem. Have you ever been lost like that? “Nothing remains for it but shivering in tempests turbulent.” An arrow through the heart is a perfect emblem … well … for everything … She was still and silent then as if appreciating a memory and remained so until her raised finger fell.
The plastic that will subsequently be our friend is presently our enemy. Miss Moss kept her thumb over the spaces that stated her age and weight. Your eyes are — open, open’um up, dear — brown would you say? well, mine are hazel it says here, so we’ll leave HAZ alone, hazel can be anything, and no one cares about eyes, they never check. The photo won’t show but a whistle of what color they are anyway. You can open a checking account now. Establish some credit, don’t they say? we must all die in debt. Height has to go up to what? 508 from 506? that’s easy, but see — she ran a nail across the card — this coating won’t let us get at your vitals … so … we’ll alter … you know … mine. We’ll duplicate it and remake the copy. So you needn’t protest. My card will stay clean of any crime, okay? You are such a silly … Sweet, yes … But a bit silly … I don’t write checks myself, never have. I like to pay in person. Then I know. I know a valentine. Miss Moss studied the situation. “Swell to a green pulp” is a coarse expression, don’t you agree? “Pulp” is a poor word, Joseph, just remember. Weight? you have a weight there? Not much more than mine. You don’t amount to much, dear, do you? Oh, dear. “Green pulp” is from that other poem, the one I got lost in. Miss Moss’s head shook from side to side in a regret that was as slow as a lover’s good-bye. I know I don’t amount. Did once. Around here. But not after the twenty days.
Joseph made a sound that could have meant anything.
Got to squeeze your innocent face into that lower corner … tape over my signature with something the color of dirty dairy cream … to give you a nice blank space to sign. She tapped her index finger on the spot: Name and address are the difficult deal. Numbers, did you ever notice? if not, notice now. They lend themselves to defacements: the 1 to a 7, the 7 to a 9, the 9 to an 8 or a 3, whichever, or a 6 to an 8, alterations as easy as a sleeve’s. I’s into T’s, or O’s into A’s aren’t hard, like adding lobes to ears, but letters, on the whole, aren’t agreeable. We’ll remove and re-do them, pretend we can type. She gestured toward an ancient Underwood portable that stood in melancholy disuse upon a small metal stand in a corner facing the door.
While Miss Moss pondered the problems that attended these criminal proceedings, Joseph looked about, now with renewed interest. Everything seemed borrowed, nothing new. He felt a bit borrowed himself. On the edge of a very scarred old library table two vises — one small, one huge — were tightly clamped. They appeared to have been there a long time because the jaws bore patches of bare metal and there were dark dents where their present grips had bitten the wood. Between glue and paste pots, brushes, threads, and needles, pools of remaining varnish still glistened. He saw several weights retired from their grocery scale days, erasers sitting among grains of gum, a dry stamp pad, pens, inks, fat rubber bands, scissors in several sizes, a tweezers, too, as well as place-mark ribbons, rolls of Scotch and masking tape, a few scrappy endpaper pieces, and a teakettle clearly meant only for steam.
Miss Moss gently edged Joseph aside to remove two developer trays. She positioned his license next to hers on a sheet of bright white paper that nevertheless looked much used. Finding himself a chair length farther along, he counted a couple of clothespins that had been concealed by miscellaneous tubes and tins. At the table’s end, a number of Miss Moss’s ubiquitous rags had collected round a rather large roll of butcher’s paper. There a slightly nicked magnifying glass lay buried near a pair of once-white cloth gloves. At her request he rescued it from beneath a coil of navy-blue velvet ropes full of what he guessed, as he hefted them, were grains of rice. Or beans. Perhaps beans. I always know where everything is, she said as if reading disapproval like a headline from his impassive face. Those are pythons. You know, snakes. So soft. So Mus-cular. They keep your book gently open. Dis-tribute their weight. Joseph read the label of a tube of stuff meant for cleaning suede shoes.
His expression had meant to mask the bewilderment of ignorance, but he was also immensely reassured by what he took to be the residues of creativity: the way pots pans and dirtied spoons signified a whirl of mixing and a busy chef’s surety of measurement and touch. Miss Moss just needed someone to control and calm the fuss she made over the way Joey cleaned up after her. His mind traveled over lines noted down from recent books: all these happenstance arrangements needed a brisk dose of ship’s shape, bit of spiff and polish, weight upon the waters. Nevertheless, he had to admit, the place was spooky. At one corner of the ceiling a small cloud of cobweb had gathered. There was little natural light and what there was looked weary, as though it had traveled a great distance only to die on a cluttered bench.
I do miss riding the bus though, Joseph ventured.