Mira stepped away from him. She tried to imagine herself as the director of this scene. Or as its literary critic. Clark, the main character here, was far too agitated for this to be about his mother’s birthday, or even his bitterness about his wife’s work schedule.
“Why now?” she asked, attempting the dispassionate tone she took with students, with colleagues, although every nerve ending in her was vibrating with emotion. “Why are you going now? In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never once—”
“Because my fucking mother is turning seventy, for God’s sake. I don’t want to be like you, Mira, and just show up finally for the fucking funeral.”
Mira looked at her stinging hand to find that she had just slapped Clark hard on the side of his face without realizing it, without realizing that she was even capable of it.
Then she looked to up to see that he was reeling backward, swearing.
It took a few more heartbeats before she could focus enough on her surroundings again to understand that the twins, awakened from their nap in the other room by Clark’s shouting, had begun to scream and cry. And a few more heartbeats passed before Mira realized that there were tears streaking down her own face, that she was sobbing.
Clark had been the only person to whom she’d ever spoken of it, and it had been the hardest confession she’d ever made, and she remembered him cradling her head in his lap as she wept, years ago, when finally she’d told someone, and the relief that someone knew: “I didn’t go home when my father told me that my mother was dying because I was afraid I would flunk my exam…”
And the way he’d kissed and consoled her, and stroked her hair, and how he had kissed her tears—how she’d known then that she would marry him, that he was answer to all the prayers she’d never even said, the prayer for forgiveness.
The prayer for self-forgiveness.
“You were just a kid, Mira, really,” Clark had said. “How could you have known? You loved your mother. She knew that. She understood…”
Now Clark was holding a hand to his cheek, staring at her with narrowed eyes.
“Fuck you, Mira,” he said. “Fuck you.”
30
“Who’s there? Perry?”
Craig sat up in bed. He was still sleeping, wasn’t he? That was it. That was why someone was standing just outside his door, which was open a crack—a bare leg in the dark hallway, the fluttering of some airy material. A girl. This was a dream.
A girl.
She nudged the door open with her foot. A silver sandal. Toenails painted red.
It was going to be a sex dream.
How long since he’d had one of those?
Since long before—
She wrapped the fingers of one hand around the door. The fingers were elegant, long, unfamiliar. Her fingernails were also painted red.
“Who’s there?” he asked again, this time in a whisper.
A bit of the dress or gown or sheet she was wearing wafted in, and then back out, as if in answer, and then she stepped farther into the room, and Craig could feel his heart pounding in every pulse point—his chest, his wrists, his throat, his temples.
Her long dark hair was swept to one side and her eyes were closed. The lids were painted dark blue. Her lips were pale, but they glistened. He could see straight through the thing—the gown, yes, or drape. Her breasts were perfect globes with wide pink nipples, and he could see the dark triangle of pubic hair between her legs. She opened her eyes.
They were gray, or they were hidden in the shadows of her voluminous, shining hair.
She parted her lips and took a slow step, closer to him.
He would have moved—whether to approach her or to flee, he wasn’t sure—except that he couldn’t. He was in that paralysis part of a nightmare where you want to scream but have no voice, want to run but can’t move your limbs.
He managed, however, to whisper again: “What’s your name?”
Her voice was like air when she spoke. He was surprised he could even hear it. Or he’d read her lips, which formed the word I’m and then Alice.
“Alice,” he repeated.
She nodded as if there were a great weight on her back, as if the sound of her own name reminded her of it.
“Alice who?”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling then, and he could see them better in the overhead light. They were a blazing blue. Turquoise. Extraordinary. Especially against her white skin, her black hair.
“Meyers,” she said in that husky-nothing that was her voice. “Alice Meyers.”
“Alice Meyers?” Craig said. He knew the name, but had no idea where he knew it from. He said it again: “Alice Meyers.”
“Can I come in?”
At first he could say nothing, but then, knowing that it would be the best answer in a nightmare like this, Craig managed, “No.”
Suddenly she was screaming at the top of her lungs, a scream that sounded like a horse being beaten, or something worse, and he squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again she was gone, and he heard the front door of the apartment slam shut, and the sound of someone running down the hallway, and he was sitting up, screaming in the pitch black room, only a bit of moonlight slipping through the crack in the window shade. Help! Help! Help! Finally he managed to silence himself, put his face in the crook of his arm, squeezed his eyes shut, bit his lip until the silence became his own heartbeat, slowing, maybe, slowing down. Shit. Shit. Fuck. “Perry?” he finally managed to whimper into the darkness.
As Craig stumbled out of his room and crossed the hallway to Perry’s room, he was still in a state of panic, but also shame, turning on the lights as he went, trying not to whimper. (God, like going to find your Mommy in the middle of the night: I had a bad dream…)
But surely Perry had heard him, and would be wondering what the fuck—
He opened the door to Perry’s room and could see in the light from the hallway that there was no one in Perry’s bed.
“Perry?” he called toward the kitchen, the living room. But it was a tiny apartment—if Perry had been there, of course he would have heard him before this.
Hell, probably everybody in the apartment house had heard him.
Perry wasn’t there. Definitely not there.
So, where the hell was he? Sleeping over at some girl’s he hadn’t mentioned to Craig? (Maybe the Mystery Chick from freshman year—the one whose panties Craig had found on the floor at the foot of Perry’s bed? Perry had refused to acknowledge those, no matter how much Craig made fun of him.) Just because Perry didn’t seem to have a sex life didn’t mean he didn’t.
He was starting to calm down, to feel more pissed and jilted than terrified. He went to the front door and locked it, even hooked the chain. If fucking Perry came home that night, he could knock his ass off, and if Craig didn’t hear him, he could sleep in the hall.
And then he unhooked the chain, because that was stupid. Hell, Perry was entitled to a night out. Still, he thought, he’d have liked to have had Perry there—to laugh with, if nothing else, about the ridiculous dream.
I’m Alice Meyers. It would have been funny if—well, if it hadn’t scared the shit out of him. Craig was back in bed with the lights out and the blankets pulled up over his ear when he realized where he knew that name from.
Of course.