—Lenore read science fiction? I asked. I rose to make the tea. There was a fine bone-china teapot on the stove, which was meticulously clean, the burners lined with foil.
—Yes, Lenny snapped. Lenore was a great reader. A varied reader. Do you think a man like me could have been with someone who didn’t read?
—How do you feel with the drugs?
—It’ll take several weeks before they’re metabolized into my system, before we’ll see results. He walked to the couch and sat down. He looked like he needed to be rehydrated, like a dried sorrel. I might pump some oily water into him and suddenly he would be able to jump on trampolines again.
—You’re fond of that dress, aren’t you?
I brought Lenny his tea. He blew across its brown surface.
The white mug shook in his hand. He had a collection of those as well. I would never have a collection of anything. I had only one coffee cup. It said MY SAFE WORD IS WINE in loopy print. Vic had bought it for me on a family vacation to Napa Valley. He also brought back several bottles from his favorite vineyards. Everywhere he went, something reminded him of me. I drank the most expensive bottle—a silky grenache—one Monday while I was preparing to see Big Sky. I was delirious that evening with fear and excitement. I was so turned on that sitting on a bicycle seat would have made me come.
—Leonard, I said, to endear him to me.
—Yes?
—May I ask you a question? Why did you never have children?
—Why didn’t you? he replied.
Something cracked inside my skull.
—It’s not too late for me, I said.
—It’s not too late for me, either, he said.
I looked at him and smiled like he was irrelevant and half dead.
—We wanted to, Leonard said finally. Lenore wasn’t barren. But she was. Challenged.
—How do you know it wasn’t you?
I noticed that he was shaking all over, so I picked up the throw from his couch and draped it around his shoulders.
—Goddamn Parkinson’s, he said. Of all fucking things, Parkinson’s. I’d have been fine with cancer. The all-over kind.
—I didn’t mean to be coarse, I said.
—Of course you did, dear. It’s all right. I know it isn’t easy for you. The past is all over your face.
He rose and the throw fell from his shoulders. I picked it up as he crossed the short room. He turned to see if I was looking, but I pretended to have my eyes on the blanket as I folded it. I watched him quickly open a small black door in the wall and even more quickly toggle a combination lock. Then I heard a click, a jingle, and the little door shut. He turned back to me nervously.
—I have a taste in my mouth, he said. He walked back to the couch. I noticed what I had already guessed would be true—the watch was gone from his wrist.
—A bad one?
—Like. Copper.
—Decomposition? I asked sweetly.
—I wish I didn’t like cruel women.
—Perhaps you’d like a mint.
—It’s no use. I’m sorry you lost your parents too young.
—Thank you, Lenny.
—I like it better when you call me Leonard. But that’s another sad, old story.
—Lenny, I said, thank you.
13
I DREAMED, THAT NIGHT, OF the Poconos. I didn’t dream; that’s not accurate. I closed my eyes and played the reels that couldn’t exist in daytime.
My parents and I were out to dinner with a couple and their adolescent son, the Ciccones. We dined with this family often when we were in the Poconos—they had a home near ours, larger though tacky, with shiny black furniture and gold accents—but there was one night I remembered in particular.
The boy’s name was Joseph Jr. and he was about my age though there was nothing romantic or even friendly between us. He was the type to sling cats down stairwells. Whenever I’ve wondered what rapists were like as children, I think of Joseph Jr., his black fleck eyes across a table from me.
Joseph’s mother, Evelyn, was plump, with very dark, big hair. Her husband, Joseph Sr., was an oral surgeon. He, too, had inky hair, plus a long, swollen chin and a sexuality that has always stayed with me. We begin to form our opinions of sex very young, and for me, Joseph Sr. maintains a looming post.
I suppose it was on account of my mother, Pia, who had an inner tube of extra skin around her waist from her cesarean section but otherwise dripped with sex. Her breasts, I’ve mentioned before, were audaciously large and white.
We were sitting down at a Shaker-style table between the bar and the fireplace. A broomstick hung from the brick wall beside the fireplace alongside family pictures of the owners. Over the mantel was that reproduction of the bull. It had frightened me until just that summer.
My parents didn’t drink much. My mother generally had a light beer with dinner and my father drank red wine but never more than a glass or two. Sometimes he had a Bloody Mary with a plate of raw clams. Joe and Evelyn, on the other hand, drank vodka cocktails. I remember Evelyn’s big fingers sliding pimiento-stuffed olives off of toothpicks. They both had rumbling laughs. All four adults smoked cigarettes and the men would light the women’s, whichever woman was closest.
This night I was seated next to my mother, and Joseph Sr. was on her other side. My father sat across from me, with Evelyn beside him and Joe Jr. beside her. I was always beside my mother. It was imperative that I could smell her and taste her food at will.
She was wearing a salmon-colored sundress with a belt of tiny tin leaves. A natural brunette, she dyed her hair blond and curled it twice a week so it was golden and spiraled. She wore these huge red-rimmed eyeglasses and a pretty shade of coral
