|
SUDS IN THE BUCKET Elizabeth Zelvin Ella In my day,
it was Disney. Disney said some day my prince would come. I got over that pretty
quick once Otis started courting me. Otis was a hard worker and a good provider. He always
took his work boots off at the door so he wouldn't track manure in the house. He'd say,
"Ella, I'm a one-woman man." My David was no prince either.
He married his high school sweetheart. The pair of them were cross-eyed in love like Romeo
and Juliet. Only their tragedy was a string of miscarriages. But Sandy was stubborn. She
put it all into trying to conceive and had no more success than a mule until finally, when
she was forty and ready to give up, along came Janey. Our Janey was as stubborn
as her ma and then some. She never had a lick of common sense. She fell for the some day
her prince thing hook, line, and sinker. By that time, Disney had a slew of modern princesses
of different skin colors who went on adventures on their own and rowed canoes and carried
swords. But Janey loved the originals, the kind that spent half the story fast asleep.
Sleeping Beauty. Snow White. From the time she was little, she'd say, "Look, Gran, I'm
sleeping! I'm waiting for my prince to come wake me up!" When I pointed out
that her prince better not catch her napping, or she might miss him, she said, "Don't worry,
Gran, if it's my destiny, I'll know." When Janey graduated from Disney to country music, nothing changed.
Those songs are full of beer and whiskey, cheatin', broken promises, and broken hearts.
Call it alcoholism, adultery, and domestic violence, it's not so pretty. They can sing
about pickup trucks and lonesome trains all they want. But singin' lies so sweet that young
girls believe them is somethin' else. Men who are sorry for real. Women whose forgiveness
is rewarded. Men who actually stop losin' their temper and usin' their fists when they
get mad. Men who give up booze for the love of a woman. Men who come back years after a
one-night stand to take care of the woman and their baby. "Real life don't work
that way, Janey," I'd say. "Besides, you know all the boys around here. Where do you think
your prince is going to come from?" "Away, Gran," Janey
would tell me. "Ride
up on his white horse and carry you away, huh?" I would ask, foolishly hoping
this time she'd see how ridiculous the whole thing was. "You know better, Gran," she'd say. "White pickup truck." It was from her favorite song, a No.
1 hit for some singer who'd impressed Janey double by being on Dancing with the Stars on TV on top of her music career. Janey was a born
believer. Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, any tale you cared to spin. "It's a story,
Janey," I would say. "It's Cinderella all over again, only some songwriter fixed it up
for country music. What have we told you your whole life about getting in a car
with strangers?" "But
what if it's your destiny, Gran? We're
talking about Prince Charming, not some pervert luring me into his clutches with candy.
I tell you what," she'd say, humoring me. "If he offers me so much as a Snickers bar, I
won't get in the truck." "How about candy or no candy, if he invites you in his truck, you invite him
in the house to meet your ma and pa and grandma instead. That'll take the measure of
him right quick." "Oh, Gran, you don't have one speck of romance in you. Don't you ever feel sorry
for what you've missed?" # Anna Sue “Suds in the bucket,” Anna Sue said. "There oughta be a law." “Excuse me?”
the police chief said. “Suds in the bucket.” Anna Sue dabbed at the trickle of sweat on
her forehead with a faded blue bandanna that matched her eyes. "Oh, I forgot, you're Not
From Around Here. New York, right?" Anna Sue couldn't help it sounding
like, "Not from Our Planet. Outer Space, right?" She felt sorry for that. The new chief
wasn't stupid and surely must be better at policing than at understanding the simplest
conversation Around Here. From the big O’s of their eyes and the bigger O’s
of their mouths, the others letting their breakfast go cold at the diner weren't so sure. "You don't
like country music?" Lily Ann said in her kittens and ice cream voice. That was
simply mean. Lily Ann should mind her own business, which was waitressing and keeping hot
coffee coming. “It's
a song,” Anna Sue said. “The kind of fairy tale song that turns the heads
of young girls like my Maylene. The girl's in the yard hangin' up the wash, hopin' her
prince will come along. And he does! They got no business putting that crap on the
radio." She gave a robust snort. "Life ain't like that, right?" "Not in my experience," Chief Neller
said. "Maylene is your daughter?" "Granddaughter," Anna Sue said. "I'm bringin' her up because—well, because."
Some things you don't say right out, even if everyone knew them. "You got a
girl yourself, don't you? Bringin' her up alone in that big house since Old Man Neller
died?" "Ruthie's
only thirteen," the chief said. "So far, so good." “Maylene sings
that bucket song all the time," Anna Sue said. "Waitin' for a looker in a white pickup
truck to come along and whisk her away to Vegas. Only good thing about it is she's willin'
to do outside chores. Never was before. They got castles in Vegas? I never been.” “I know
they've got the Brooklyn Bridge,” Chief Neller said, “and the Eiffel Tower and
Venice.” “Naw,
Maylene don’t care about none a them,” Anna Sue said. “A nice McMansion
where some farmer smart enough to get out sold a couple cornfields, that's what I call
a castle, and so I told her. Can't kid her out of it, neither. My Maylene’s got about
as much sense a humor as a fence post. Gets it from her grandpa's side. The
Garveys never could tell a joke from gospel from an outright lie, not a one a them. Hangin'
out the clothes in bitty shorts and a halter top and paintin’ on her toenails so
she can put her bare feet up on the dashboard like in the song." "Out the
window," Lily Ann said. "The song says, 'out the window,' not 'on the dashboard.'" "I told Maylene,"
Anna Sue said loudly, interrupting Lily Ann, "any man worth a damn will be lookin’
at the road while he drives, not at your toes no matter how you prink ’em up—nor
sniffin’ at your cleavage no matter what fancy perfume you spray down it.” She glared at
Lily Ann, who hovered over them with the coffee pot, until the waitress sniffed and stalked
away. “Ms
Garvey,” Chief Neller said, “is there something in particular you'd like to
tell me?” Anna
Sue's face crumpled. The chief had to lean in close to hear her murmur, "I'm not sure.
It may be nothing." "What aren't you sure about, Ms Garvey?" "Aw, call me Anna Sue,
not Miz Garvey. I may be a granny, but I'm only sixty-one. It's not like I make her tell
me where she is every moment." "Does she drive?" "She hasn't
got her license. She won't turn sixteen till next month. And the car's there. She can't
have got far." "But
you're worried." "She
was just hangin' out the clothes." "How old is Maylene, Anna Sue?" "Sixteen.
What scares me is she might think she's gone
off with someone nice, but she still might've been taken." "I understand," Chief Neller
said. "You're
a mother," Anna Sue said, "so I reckon you do." # Donna Donna thought
she'd been stupidly slow to pick up on Anna Sue Garvey's cry for help. At least the conversation
in the diner hadn't stopped dead when she walked in. Being the town's first female police
chief was one strike against her. Living as a widowed single mom in Kevin's grandpa's house,
an ex-NYPD alien from New York, was strike two. Not finding Maylene Garvey, preferably
alive and well, would be strike three. She started
with those who'd known Maylene, which turned out to be every soul in the town. She rode
along on every interview. She didn't want any detail overlooked because a potential suspect
had been the interviewing officer's babysitter or Little League coach. She used every trick
in the book to get each high school junior and senior away from the supervising parent
long enough to ask what she really wanted to know. Maylene wasn't sexually active. She
was kind of old-fashioned that way. Saving herself for Mr Right, according to her best
friend Bette Jo. Maylene was kind, according to Tim, the boy next door. He'd been trying
to work up the courage to ask her out. Would a kid too shy to ask a girl for a date have
the guts to hurt her? Kidnap? Rape? Murder? Donna talked to the faculty and staff of the high school on her
own. Ms Pierce, the principal, said Maylene wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. "In
fact, the whole chandelier could use a good polishing and a set of replacement lights,"
she said. "The occasional sparkle invariably comes from away, like your daughter, Chief
Neller. The home product is lackluster by definition. That said, Maylene Garvey is one
of the dimmer bulbs. She'd be manipulated easily, but it would be like shooting a rabbit.
Let me rephrase that: a mesmerized bunny." "Would your teachers tell you,"
Donna asked, "if they suspected anything bad were going on at home?" "You mean
abuse?" Ms Pierce tossed her ably coiffed head, flicking hairpins to her shoulders and
thence, bouncing, to the floor. "Domestic violence? Impossible. Not in general. I'm not
such a fool as to deny it wholesale, but in Maylene's case, the family dotes on her. The
father is a fine man." Bending to retrieve her hairpins, she said, "He has contributed
generously to our building fund—we hope to have enough for a new, modern gym in two
years—but that is irrelevant to my commendation. I speak as I find." Donna took that with a grain
of salt. Might a passionate heart beat within Ms Pierce's cameo-pinned breast? Might Maylene
have seen something she shouldn't? She'd dig deeper with Mr Garvey. She'd interview all
the teachers, ask them about relations with their students. A nice ambiguous word, "relations."
It would be interesting to see who got defensive when she used it. In Manhattan, stranger
murders made sense. Most encounters of any kind were stranger encounters. Here, she couldn't
help viewing the town as one big dysfunctional family. How could they help it, rubbing
up against each other day after day from cradle to grave? If they wanted to see strangers,
they had to drive to the nearest mall, ten miles away. No wonder Maylene dreamed of Prince
Charming driving up to her door. After Kevin was killed in the
line of duty, Ruthie had been glad when Donna quit the Job. She hadn't made a fuss about
leaving New York, and Donna made sure her daughter had as much counseling as they could
afford before they moved. Donna knew that she mustn't make Ruthie into a little adult to
meet her own emotional needs. Ruthie thought that was crap. "Mom, I understand about
boundaries," she said. "But I'm thirteen! I'm supposed to want
to want to grow up as fast as I can. Talk to me." "Oh, yeah? About what?" "This
case. Are you getting anywhere?" "I can't discuss the case," Donna said. "Everybody else is,"
Ruthie said. "Maylene Garvey going missing is all they talk about at school. C'mon, Mom.
If a serial killer is targeting teens, it is my business." "We don't
know Maylene has been killed. And she's the only person missing. So there is no serial
killer." "Thanks,
Mom." "Dammit,
Ruthie." "Who else
have you got to talk to? I bet everyone who works for you is no more than two degrees of
separation from Maylene. Pretend I'm Dad. You always talked with each other about your
cases. I miss Dad so much. Don't you?" "Yes, lovey, all the time," Donna said. "Come here." She held out
her arms, and they took what the New York therapist called a grief break, crying some and
murmuring things like I miss him and It's okay to cry to each other. "Everyone in town has an alibi,"
Donna said, blowing her nose. "No one in town saw anything. So far, the police are baffled." "Dad would
say alibis can be broken," Ruthie said, "and people lie all the time. Mom, do you think
that Maylene's dead?" "I don't know, lovey," Donna said. "I'm trying to get her back before that
happens. Her grandma thinks someone driving by lured her away." "A hot guy in a pickup truck, I suppose,"
Ruthie said. "It's all this country music they listen to." "That's what her grandmother
says," Donna said. # And maybe not There were
other possibilities. Maylene could have crossed the path of a sex trafficker or a pedophile
operating on the Internet. Romantic fantasies aside, she was still a child. If Donna were
still in New York, she'd have a vast network of experts at her disposal. She'd sent Maylene's
laptop away for analysis. The family hadn't objected "Any clue must be good,
right?" Anna Sue said. The Garveys realized by now that Maylene might be dead. But when Donna asked
about chat rooms she might have visited, they had no idea how such things worked and couldn't
tell her anything about Maylene's Internet use. Sex education at school? Information
about how to deal with online sexual predators? Mr Garvey was on the school board and a
deacon at the church, and if any such thing were suggested, he'd be the first to vote it
down. Donna hoped she'd never find a "clue" in the form of Maylene's image on a porn site. If she had a
body, she could ask the state police, who did have resources, to take over the investigation.
If she had two bodies, she wouldn't have a choice. She did what she could. She sent her
officers to the mall ten miles away to show Maylene's picture to every person who worked
there and everyone they could find who admitted to being there within two weeks of the
girl's disappearance. She had them check every security camera they could find within a
thirty mile radius for anything suspicious, anything at all. She gave a speech at the high
school assembly and another at the community board meeting appealing to the whole
community to contact the police if they thought of anything, however small, that might
help them find Maylene. If they knew of any other girl being away from home, even if nobody
thought she was missing. If they heard anyone talking about meeting or getting to know
a stranger. "He'd
probably be somebody kind of interesting," Donna said at the grownup meeting. "He might
not even be that much of a stranger. Maybe just Not From Around Here. Like me." That got a
laugh, so the evening wasn't wasted in terms of community relations, even if it didn't
help her investigation. # Sharon Rose "Good
mornin', miss." Who
was this guy leaning his elbows against the fence all casual? He was a bit old but
plenty hot. He wore a white cowboy hat tipped over his eyes and a fancy pair of cowboy
boots that looked like they'd never done a lick of work around cows. His long legs knew
how to fill out a pair of jeans. "Hey,"
she said. "Those
wet duvet covers look heavy," he said. "Want a hand with them?" "No, thank
you." "Why
don't you take a break, come talk to me a while?" "My mama told me never talk to strangers." "Once we
have a conversation," he said, "we won't be strangers. What's that book you're reading?
Say, I've read that book. Which sister would you rather be? I bet you've thought about
it. Any girl would, 'specially if she was smart and pretty
and sometimes made a bit a mischief too." "You've really read it?" He thought
she was pretty! She hoped she wasn't blushing. "Sure
thing, miss—what's your name? Now we're in the same book club, it's only fair to
tell me." She couldn't
help laughing. "Sharon
Rose." "Sharon
Rose! Now isn't that the prettiest name! Miss Sharon Rose, are you blushing?
Aren't you somethin' else! I've got a book I bet you'd like. If you think your mama
wouldn't mind, I'd be pleased to lend it to you. Let's knock on that door and ask your
mama's permission right now before I say another blessed word about it." "No, that's all right." Talking
about books like that, he didn't seem like a stranger. He would never have offered to meet
her mama if he meant her any harm. Anyhow, she wouldn't get into the truck. "Let's see this book of yours." # Donna They found
Maylene's body and those of two other girls in a gravel pit forty miles away. Donna took
off for the scene the moment she heard, her most experienced deputy in the passenger seat.
Will Bradley could handle the sight of dead young girls and tolerate what Kevin used to
call her crisis driving better than the rest. "Do we really need the siren,
Chief?" Will asked as the speedometer edged toward eighty. "They'll still be dead when
we get there." "In
ancient Greece," Donna said, "they used to hire women to tear their hair and moan at funerals.
Rip their clothes and howl." "Feel like that about it, do you?" Will said. "Hmm. I reckon I do
myself." It took
a while to identify the other two girls, Jane Lessing and Sharon Rose Marcus.
While all three had lived within a forty-mile radius of the gravel pit, each of them came
from a different county. Different jurisdictions. Similar devastated families. Same taste
in music. "Mind if
I turn on the siren?" Donna asked Will as they started back. "As hired mourners go, she's
got a lot of heart. And I can't stomach country radio right now." Of course the
state police took over, now they had a serial killer with cases in three counties. Except
they didn't have this serial killer, and Donna couldn't stop thinking about him. He wasn't stupid.
Clever enough to look for a girl hanging out the clothes. Hanging laundry was boring. It
took time, one clothespin at a time. If she was hanging sheets, a fellow who stopped to
say good morning would be hidden from the windows of the house. He might even offer to
help. "Suds in the Bucket" might have given him the idea. But he wouldn't be fool enough
to use the same white pickup truck every time. He'd vary the color. He'd change the license
plates. He'd use plates with different numbers, plates from different states. Next time,
he might not even be driving. And he'd be
smart enough to stay far away from where he'd been before. Most likely, he'd already left
the state. If he ever came back, she'd be ready for him. She'd have micro spy cameras strung
up on every clothes line in town and a GPS tracker down every teenage girl's bra. # Smooth-talking son of a gun "Kick those shoes off, darlin'," I said. "Put your pretty little feet up."
I gave
her my patented sideways grin and cut in in front of a poky eighteen wheeler, slick as
can be. She flirted those dewy eyes at me. Probably practiced in front of the mirror at
home. No books for this one. "Now isn't that more comfortable?" I shivered with anticipation. Those bare
feet got me every time. "Where are we going, milady?" She threw her head back
when she laughed. Probably practiced that too when no one was looking. Smooth little throat,
slim little neck. "Gee, I don't know. I get to pick? Gosh, how'll I choose?" Adorable. Old
enough to run away with Prince Charming, too young to cuss. "Pick someplace you've never been." "I've never been to Vegas." She
flirted her eyes at me again. "Vegas it is." I passed another slowpoke truck, this
one packed tight with battery chickens. She was thinking wedding chapels
and wondering if I remembered that was the second best known business in Las Vegas. We
wouldn't get within two states of Vegas. But it's best to let them feel as if they're in
control at first. So many dreaming girls. So many clotheslines. So much suds in the bucket. ###
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT YOU by Elizabeth Zelvin "I love to watch you eat," he said. I sat naked on the bed, devouring a hero from Faicco's
in the Village. He lay propped up on one elbow admiring me. We had just made love. A drop of golden olive oil escaped the sandwich
and dribbled down my breast. He leaned forward to lick it off. "You eat
like a longshoreman," he said. "And you look amazing." I took a big bite of crusty soft bread piled
high with spicy deli meats and cheeses, roasted peppers, lettuce and tomato, and dressing.
I moaned with pleasure. I managed not to swat away the hand he put on my thigh at the same
moment. "Do you
want to go again?" he said. I managed
not to snarl, I'm eating! "Maybe after I finish
my hero." "You're going to eat the
whole thing?" He chuckled. I suppressed a growl and chewed
faster. Sometimes
sex will dissipate the anger. "What do
you love best about me?" I asked as we lay side by side
in the aftermath. Say: my wit. My irrepressible
energy. My virtuosity with a computer keyboard. Don't make me make allowances. "I love the way you can eat and never gain
an ounce," he said. "You must have the metabolism of a hummingbird." "What if my metabolism stopped working?" I said. "What if I started
gaining weight?" "That's ridiculous," he
said. "Your metabolism can't change. Could it?" "Did you ever fall for a fat girl? Hook up
with one, even?" "Don't be ridiculous. There's
nobody but you." "Before
me," I insisted. "Ever. Could you love a fat girl?"
"Of course not," he said.
"What a disgusting thought." So, fat girls are disgusting, and a rapid metabolism is lovable. You
are dancing on the edge of the abyss, buddy. "Do you know what bulimia is?" I
asked. "Yeah, isn't it that sick
thing that girls do where they pig out and throw up like the ancient Roman emperors?" "What do you think of bulimics?"
The question came out smooth as ice cream going down. "I'm supposed to have an opinion?" he
said. "I don't know. They're sick, I guess, and kind of pathetic." "Why
do you think they do it?" I asked. "I don't know," he said. "I don't
know any bulimics. Why are we talking about this?" "Never
mind," I said. "I made us dessert. Brownies for me and
blondies for you, because you don't eat chocolate." That's right, I knew all along it was going to
end like this. It always does. I could have watched as he ate the blondies laced with rat
poison, but the brownies were calling my name. It's complicated. Bulimia is two addictions:
compulsive eating, and compulsive vomiting. They say addiction has no Why?. But
there is a Why?. We keep hoping if we're
thin, maybe we'll be loved.
PERFECT Elizabeth
Zelvin Judy now Judy looked down
at Gary for the last time. He looked unfamiliar, as if they hadn’t been growing into
their lived-in faces day by day for forty years. The best embalmer money could buy couldn’t
limn that quirky character on a corpse. She was glad he’d never dreamed he wasn’t
the love of her life. She was glad now that she’d come back after that perfect weekend
in the English countryside with Charles, glad she hadn’t taken the unthinkable step
of leaving not only Gary but her precious little Danny, who was now a man of thirty-five
with children of his own. In those days, mothers almost always got the children in a divorce,
but Gary would never have let her take Danny out of the country. She’d have lost
him, and the whole world would have condemned her. Even for a perfect love, it wasn’t
quite enough. When she realized she couldn’t bear to let Gary touch her, she
thought briefly of killing herself. But then Danny would lose his mother. She considered
killing Gary. But you couldn’t look up poisons or buy a gun on the Internet in those
days. So she endured. And in the end, she got over it. In real life, a passion that never
dies doesn’t last forever, not unless it’s nourished. Charles never answered
her letters. He never called. No email, no texting, no Skype or FaceTime back then. No
social media. She couldn’t even stalk him. In the end, she stopped pursuing him.
In time, the pain faded, and she got on with her life. She got used to Gary again, almost
forgot that she’d stopped loving him. But that weekend still glowed in her memory
as perfect. **** Judy
then The Cavendishes
lived in a country house, like the ones in all those English novels. They were friends
of Charles’s parents. He’d known Phoebe since they were both in nappies. Diapers
to Judy, who was endlessly delighted by the British words she’d only encountered
in books until that weekend. Judy had flown to London as a courier for Gary’s firm.
She had begged for the job as a breath of air, a brief respite from her mommy role. Charles,
whom she and Gary had met in the South of France on vacation, holiday to Charles, when
they were trying to get pregnant, invited her down for the weekend. What do you do during an English
country house weekend when there is no murder? Judy asked herself. The answer was obvious. You fall in love. Of course Judy fell in love with Charles. He had just
finished art college and was already an immensely gifted painter. He’d started late,
because he had a child, a little boy one year older than Danny. There was something wrong
with the mother. Judy guessed it must be drugs or mental illness. With authentic British
reserve, they never quite came out with it. But Charles fought for custody of George when
he could have walked away. His sense of responsibility was part of his perfection, along
with his intelligence, his talent, his breathtaking good looks, and the way he tucked his
prepositions neatly in at the end of the sentence. George was living at the Cavendishes’ as well
as Charles. He was a lovely child with perfect manners for his age and that enchanting
British accent. In a way, George was one of the biggest reasons Judy didn’t stay.
How could she abandon her own son to bring up someone else’s? Not that Charles asked
her. But surely he would have if she’d given him enough encouragement rather than
pouring out everything she felt, including her ambivalence, because such a consuming love
must include perfect trust. All the Cavendishes were there, because the grandfather, Sir Henry Cavendish,
was dying. He was a knight, not a baronet, they explained to Judy, which was why
Phoebe’s father, Mr Cavendish, was not Sir Julian. I’m in a fairytale,
Judy thought. Then she scolded herself for thoughts that were inappropriate at a time when
the whole family had gathered to attend Grandfather on his deathbed—Cavendish aunts
and uncles and Phoebe’s older sisters, who were all married with husbands and children
in tow. It was moving to see the loving family
rally around the patriarch, the wellbred English behaving just as they were supposed
to. It filled her heart to bursting with love for them all. **** Charles The weekend was
a disaster from start to finish. He should never have invited Judy down. But she’d
made it so evident she was longing to be asked. He’d never been any good at saying
no. There was too much going on to play the good host properly, with George to mind, Sir
Henry dying, and Charles himself under pressure to make decisions that would affect his
whole life. Now he’d finished art college, won all the prizes, done all he could
to please them, he was ready to stop faffing about and be a painter. Instead, thanks to
one of his own family’s ghastly financial messes, they wanted him to be a teacher.
Once in, he knew he’d never break away. He’d become one of those Sunday painters
his most idolized mentor despised. He was expected to comfort Phoebe, who was in a twit
about how poor Sir Henry was lingering. Charles kept reassuring her that he felt no pain,
his best guess at what she wanted to hear. He always tried not to disappoint people, though
his good intentions often fell short. Phoebe wanted to go up to London, get a flat, and
write. Unlike him, she wisely had told no one else of her ambition. All the world knew
he had to paint or die, and they all had an opinion. He couldn’t sponge off the Cavendishes forever. Phoebe, as a girl,
could live at home until she married. He suspected that was why both families were so keen
to prod him into supporting himself. They’d made that match when he and Phoebe were
in their cradles. They had always been like brother and sister, but everyone would
be so pleased. George missed
his mother. He expressed it in night terrors and anal retention. This made it awkward to
be attentive to Judy during the night. The moon was full, the curtains were blowing, the
soft night breezes carried the scent of roses in from the garden. And he couldn’t
tell her that the tender scenario she imagined turned to farce when he heard George’s
cries from the other end of the house and found his son red-faced and howling, stuck firmly
on the potty. Judy must have thought the cries were an owl or a fox. George took a long
time to soothe. Judy was asleep when Charles returned. He didn’t tell her what had
happened. He barely thought of her at all. She was going back to America and not important
in the overwhelming scheme of things. On Sunday afternoon, after seeing an effervescent Judy off on the train,
he sent off the teacher certification papers. He submitted to the unendurable congratulations,
rigid with misery. Old Sir Henry finally expired, and the rattling of documents, the
will being the most crucial, succeeded the death rattle. Even Phoebe started joking about
their children, his and hers. To escape from the hubbub, he went up to the attic, which
had a high sloped ceiling and good north light. Here, he felt at peace. His latest painting,
finished shortly before the American arrived, stood on the easel. It was dry now. He took
a long, critical look. Did it need a touch of white here? A couple of shorter brushstrokes
there? No. It was perfect. **** Phoebe
It wasn’t done
to say that Grandfather was an unconscionable time a-dying, but everybody thought it. The
weekend was the last straw, with everybody scheming and bullying poor Charles and making
plans for his future. She felt sorry for the American girl. She heard Papa say crossly,
“Charles, why couldn’t you take her to a hotel?” more loudly than his
deafness would excuse. The poor thing was obviously besotted with Charles. It would do
her no good. Phoebe would get him in the end. But first, she would do exactly as she wished.
Gramps had promised. He had shown her his will a week before he had his last stroke. So
during the morning, while everyone was fussing over breakfast or taking the dogs out or
being polite as the American said her goodbyes, because whatever one thought, one
never forgot one’s manners, Phoebe went upstairs and put a pillow over Sir Henry’s
patrician nose. The girl who sat with him was in the loo, so no one saw her. It was the
perfect murder. ####
EXPERIMENT by
Elizabeth Zelvin poet and painter, after forty years of silence exchange memories, disentangle
old mistakes walk barefoot a few steps on ancient embers I’ve set up one of my paintings, he says in a dark room, lit by a
single candle before you leave, he says, you must look at it then write a
poem describing what you see in my poems, she says, the description
is the setup the heart of the poem is the feeling it evokes I
don't want a poem about feelings, he says he says, seek
images as you would in clouds ignore the shadows, focus on the light the candlelight
limns space around bold splashes of indigo, violet, and saffron.
she looks, and after
a moment, the shape of things emerges
NIBLING by
Elizabeth Zelvin At 61 my favorite niece becomes my nibling my
ex's brother's eldest, the one I got in the divorce the blind hang
glider and Appalachian Trail hiker who's been an actuary and a
ballerina and hates being called an inspiration. Non-binary,
okay, but why Andre? I never
fit in with the schmoozing women laughing
and talking a mile a minute I
thought it was because I was blind. Now they're a guy, people
treat them differently they get a friendly buffet on
the arm instead of having to avoid sly brushing, rubbing they
get to take up more space. when my ex dies, at the Zoom
memorial service my son says, Hi, Andre,
my nephew says, Hi, bro their sister and all the cousins
say, Hi, Andre only their mother peers at the
screen and, puzzled, says Who's Andre?
AFTERNOON ON THE BEACH by
Elizabeth Zelvin I thought the swim would be the main event August water finally warm,
the current benign today indolent surf, high tide poised to ebb I
came prepared for perfection not for jellyfish small as seed pearls inviting me to
bathe in tapioca reading on the beach, I surfaced
from my book to cries of Whale!
a plume of spray a waving flipper whiter than a sail a vast gray cetacean body
heaving halfway out of the swell. As far as humans know, whales breach because
they can. The humpback flings itself aloft for sheer
delight for half an hour this showoff swam parallel to its audience on the shore the
bright flipper rose and fell, the tail flirted the great body glided back
and forth I didn’t blink or look away
I couldn’t stop smiling they say to meditate is
to aspire to exist in the moment, with long practice to approach it for a trickle
of time to achieve it for a matter of breaths I
can live in the moment only in the ocean sailing weightless over the rollers cool silky water
caressing my limbs but ah, the whale! there’s
a creature of the now no anxiety, no regret, a vast serenity in
the greater vastness of the sea singing while we moan about how to fix it all swimming parallel
to our troubled world
DON’T THINK TWICE by
Elizabeth Zelvin It was no use, he sang, gazing at
me soulfully over the top of his guitar, to wonder why. I did
wonder why. I wondered why for the third time this month I
was sitting on the unmade bed of some guy I hardly knew in Cambridge listening to him sing
that fucking Dylan song. No, we didn't use that word. I remember being shocked when I heard
a girl a year younger than me say it. In fact, “ain’t no use” made me wince. But
they all wanted to be Bob Dylan. And they expected us to be impressed. Jewish girls like
me got over boys like little Bobby Zimmerman in junior high. We didn't expect them to change
their name, write songs that made them famous, and win the Nobel Prize. The
song was right. If I didn't know by now, it didn't matter
anyhow. I did know. The guy hasn't even unsnapped
my bra, and he's singing me a manifesto. He'll be gone by morning. No, I’ll be gone.
I’m the one that has to pay for a taxi and sneak into my dorm at three in the morning.
Commitment is as off the table as breakfast. He calls me babe not because it's cool,
but so he doesn't have to remember my name. And he tells me it's all right. All right for
him. Because the Sixties came before the
women's movement, and the love-hungry young girl I was didn't think twice. She did it anyway. Back
then, we talked about one-night stands, not hooking up. And we
didn’t even pretend we weren’t hoping for love every single time. The Sixties
were as cool as they sound if you were a guy. Or if you were a girl with long straight
hair and thin thighs and a cool boyfriend. Otherwise, you had to fake it. And wonder why.
Dylan didn’t have any answers for girls like me. So I found my own. I don’t remember
anymore how many times I was disappointed and humiliated
before I decided I was not going to listen to that damn song one more time. But one night
I had had enough. The self-absorbed asshole of the moment was singing his heart out. I
listened to the words. And I did think twice. “I’ll just be a minute,”
I said. I
locked myself in the bathroom and rummaged around until I found a
razor blade. Then I went back out there, climbed up on the bed where he was still strumming
the guitar, knelt behind him, put my arms around him, and slit his throat. Then I washed
the blade off, put it back in his safety razor, wiped down everything else I'd touched,
and booked, as we said back then. I didn't think twice, and it's been all right for sixty
years. Why
wasn’t I suspected? He'd picked me up outside a folk club in Cambridge.
Now, what was it we used to call the dropouts who hung out in Harvard Square flashing green
cloth bookbags along with their guitars, hoping everyone would think they went to Harvard?
I can’t remember after all this time. But they all looked alike. Sexy long hair.
No one wanted to look like Dylan. Blue work shirt. Faded jeans. No one ever even
knew I knew him. ###
RETROUVAILLE Elizabeth Zelvin Tina eased
the apartment door shut behind her. The corridor was empty. She hiked her bag, an ancient
leather mail pouch, onto her hip as she hurried toward the elevator. It was heavy, although
she was taking almost nothing: a change of underwear, a cashmere turtleneck she'd had since
her teens. She could buy a toothbrush at JFK or at the San Francisco airport. But she couldn't
leave the glass jar filled with rocks, the green and blue and ochre and gray stones that
had gleamed as if they'd been polished when she and Gilles had collected them from the
tide pools at Point Reyes all those years ago. It was then
he'd taught her that sweet and wistful word, retrouvaille. When people joked about
French being the language of love, they thought of sex. They had smutty minds. Idiots. "It's more than a reunion," Gilles had said. His English was excellent after
four years at Berkeley. But the charming French accent kept his mouth in perpetual motion,
made his lips irresistibly kissable. "Le retrouvaille, c'est...lovers,
perhaps, two people coming together after a long separation, a deeply emotional reunion,
an unexpected meeting." "Does it have to be unexpected?" Tina asked. From the moment at that little
place on the water at Sausalito when she'd realized she loved him, she'd been pushing
away the fact that in a week he would be going home to a fiancée in Lyon of whom his parents
approved. And she would be going back to Hugo. "Of course
not." He'd put his arm around her shoulders and kissed the nape of her neck—la nuque, an erogenous zone that the French had evidently discovered centuries
ago and that most American men had no idea existed. "We can plan our retrouvaille right now, my Tina. I will place an ad in the Village Voice when we are old and gray, and we will meet in Sausalito." "You
mean when I'm old and gray," Tina said. She had ten years on Gilles, though when they were
together, it didn't seem to matter. Unless Hugo kills me first.
The thought was too ugly to share. Gilles knew she was married, but this time they
had together was time out. Sacred time. The computer
revolution was still to come. Who knew the Village
Voice wouldn't last forever. Who knew social media would replace print classified ads
as the way the long lost found each other? In the meantime, Tina stored the jar of colored
stones from Point Reyes in a dark corner of her closet and her memory of the week in California
with Gilles in a bright corner of her heart. Over the years, Hugo became colder and more
controlling. But she had a good job and good friends. She told herself that it was normal
for couples to grow apart in long marriages, and that his bursts of temper, his increasing
obsessiveness about their finances, and his intolerance for entertaining and social outings
were merely symptoms of male menopause. Only when the pandemic struck,
coinciding with her retirement and his transition to working remotely anyway, did she realize
she was penned up in their apartment with a husband who had become dominating and secretive
as well as inclined to snipe at her with sarcastic and belittling remarks. Most of their
money went directly into his account, to which she had no access. The bills were paid
automatically. She was cut off from her friends, whom she now realized she had socialized
with only at work for the past few years. Age and isolation made him more irritable. He began nudging, shoving, and slapping her, always
pretending it was accidental. Whom would she tell? Who would notice a bruise, with the
whole city sheltering in place and going masked even to the corner mailbox or the grocery
store? She sought refuge on the
Internet, where various sites assured her, "You don't have to live with domestic violence."
Fine words, but in times like these, where could she go? To whom could she bear to admit
her humiliating situation? There was no way out. Or was there? She began to search the
Internet for news of Gilles. People were
traveling again, and most still wore masks, but sheer chaos reigned in the airports by
the time Tina made her plans. The doorman was on the phone, his back to the bank of elevators,
as she drifted through the lobby. She plunged down the subway steps, used cash to buy a
MetroCard that would cover the cost of the AirTrain to JFK, and sat with her eyes cast
down above her mask as the E train racketed toward Jamaica. She would sleep on the plane
and use Google maps to make her way from SFO to Sausalito, where Gilles would be waiting. Ahead of her,
the longed-for retrouvaille. Behind her,
in the apartment, Hugo lay as if sleeping, the vertical creases worn by chronic discontent
at the sides of his thin lips smoothed out at last. Tina had washed the glass that held
the extra heart medication, dried it, and returned it to its place on the shelf before
she left. Was there a special word in French for a longed-for farewell? ###
CHERISH Elizabeth
Zelvin let's cherish each other, you and I two septuagenarian straight Jewish feminists poets of the Second Wave who grew up in
Queens so many
of us are gone Second Wave! I studied you in Herstory
101 an awed
young non-binary tells me we went
through our phases, struck our poses I
told everyone I was an anarchist you called yourself a First Amendment purist earned a living writing porn now you ask how I make my forty-year marriage
work, keep writing,
and stay alive the secrets are good genes and lowered expectations excising
should from my vocabulary and laughing only at myself you’re
the friend who remembers my first kiss from a boy it
assuaged my fear of sweet sixteen and never been after, I fell not into his arms but yours we laughed
and laughed poetry baffled me until I read modern women poets but as
an epitaph, give me Chaucer's line I am mine owen woman, wel at ese WHO I AM Elizabeth Zelvin I am not my
mother though
I have her nose, her passion for the ocean and late in
life, her fierceness my mother never
told the truth about her age hugged
a nun, a cop, a prostitute or let someone board a bus ahead
of her she
graduated law school a hundred years ago was baffled
when I became a therapist Why would you care about strangers’ problems? died too young
at ninety-six to be stumped when I started
writing mysteries at sixty-four I sit down more
than my mother who
never owned a camera, would have hated Facebook I take photos
on my iPhone constantly delight
in connecting with the world this way I started saying seventy-five six months before my birthday tried to make
myself believe it, hoped others wouldn't I
no longer whoop and run into the cold Atlantic once I’m in,
I dive and soar the way we used to still exhilarated
by over under over so proud that I still come out
on my feet but
stumble on the sand to hands and knees and
say exactly what my mother said at ninety to anxious
lifeguards when a small wave tumbled her I’m embarrassed nothing has turned out as I expected the world’s
a worse place than we thought we’d made it but at seven I
wanted to be a writer, at seventy-nine I am one I have granddaughters, I know
who I am I am happy
MIKE'S 80TH BIRTHDAY Elizabeth Zelvin we were eleven, he was my
first crush the best-looking boy in seventh grade his
father was a fireman exotic in the eyes of Jewish kids by
twelve or thirteen, all the girls were taller we were budding into women
all the boys could think about was baseball fifty years later, when we all meet again he confesses he was bewildered by the girls’ advances What do they want? he asked his mom grown up, Mike’s the quintessential family man good at making money, been in therapy deep as the Ohio River flowing past his door from his stoop he can see the Great
American Ball Park beyond the river on the Cincinnati shore the
Reds are playing but he still hears Brooklyn in the thwack of bat on ball hitting homers high as dreams he shuts out Kentucky every time he
goes inside turns
on a symphony or opera very loud he's got work to do, books to read, places to
fly a
lot of people to keep happy he does it well, as he does everything when Big Mike turns 80, five birthday
parties can barely contain the festivities so
many people want to celebrate now a great-grandpa, white-haired and portly he leans on a cane, well-lubricated as he spins his stories and gets a born raconteur's laughs how cool is it to be 80 myself and sassy no agonies of shyness, no regrets Hey, Mike! I say, you were my very
first crush, and you're still adorable
ORCHESTRA CLASS Elizabeth Zelvin rich
and dark and gleaming they
seem to surround me each
tier's apex a velvet throat hidden
in the depths, the rows of jaws yawn
wide as if about to snap on
this twelve-year-old girl on
the stage of Carnegie Hall my classmates
from Queens and I know
that we're too young to be here the
others are all older, high school kids who
have "precticed, precticed, precticed" to
get here, as the old joke says my
fingers tremble as I rosin my bow tune
my A string one last time grip
my cello with my knees as
if it were a horse that might bolt and get away from me before the conductor raises his baton
so we can leave the starting gate bound together by
puberty and music we
are thirty boys and girls, told at eleven we
are talented and smart told to choose an
instrument told
we'll be together till thirteen IQ
130 and up, junior high two years, not three the Special
Progress orchestra class of 1957 Nina chooses oboe,
voice of the duck in Peter and the Wolf constantly moistening
a reed between her lips and
wiping clammy fingers on a handkerchief so
they won't slip on the keys Naomi chooses violin,
her dad knew Einstein played
string quartets with him at Princeton a
serious girl, she wears rimless glasses reads
even more than the rest of us Pete, the orchestra
teacher's son, plays French horn sits
in the back row of the classroom one
hand resting on its baroque curves the
other hidden in the golden bell with
secrets in its throaty voice we
will understand when we are older we all adore his dad the teacher with
the booming laugh the
jokes that make us blush the
patience with our skritches, squeaks, and growls the way he sends thirty twelve-year olds to play with older kids on
the stage at Carnegie Hall saying,
I don't care that you're not ready I want you to have the experience
THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER METTLE Elizabeth
Zelvin don't call her senior
citizen or crone this
aging woman holds reserves of fire lava
rumbles in her belly, rises in her gorge, blisters as it brims upon her lips and trickles down
her thighs a radical who once
vaulted over subway turnstiles she
now ducks under them, invisible as
old ladies are, to the grandsons of the cops who
once arrested her, or if they notice they'll
only smile and turn away they
don't know she's still incendiary if
you look past the silver hair the ravines of time and laughter on her
face the
billows cradling chin and upper arms she's
still all volcano underneath
AUNT
HILDA AFTER UNCLE BUD Elizabeth
Zelvin they were adorable together the love of each
other’s lives she shocked her family by marrying out not Jewish? it wasn’t
done his
were bluebloods who thought he married down his
sisters never spoke to him again no
one expected robust, handsome Bud exotic
as a lumberjack in our flock of
New York Jewish intellectuals to
go in his sixties. But life goes on Aunt Hilda travels with other widows joins a health club, takes up
tennis at
eighty she acquires a boyfriend crazy
about her but not the family’s style he
keeps mentioning his Lexus when she drops a glass, he makes fun of her in Yiddish two strikes against
him she
doesn’t want his presence interfering with
her foursome for doubles or her women’s group he says, I want a wife who
will take care of me strike three and he's out at ninety-two Hilda finds love again she an old Commie, he a Quaker both tried to make
the world a better place she
lives with disappointment, he with hope he
takes her dancing I can’t help
asking, So do you make love? and she says, Sometimes they're
still playing doubles on her hundredth birthday with another long-lived couple Any special rules? I ask Just one—no one runs for the ball pressed to choose
one trait to which she attributes a
long and happy life, she says a sense of
humor at
101 she tops it with resilience
JACK'S FUNERAL Elizabeth
Zelvin we get up early, drive to Danbury, Connecticut to say goodbye to
Jack hugging
Marian, whom I've known all our lives I
say You had so many wonderful years together add, and she says
it with me It doesn't help grief takes its own damn time Jack's eightieth birthday would have been
two
weeks after mine coming up in a few days at
heart, milestones don't count for much the
point is love, what missing him will feel like sons who look exactly like him rooms overflowing
with his friends when the rabbi asks
the congregation to
call out words that make them think of Jack along
with kindness, home, and art family
and unstinting care for others they
mention cowboy boots and turquoise jewelry I say
Adventurous! remembering the time we met them in Hawaii we'd seen
all we could on Maui whales,
volcanoes, sunsets, everything but the
legendary road to Hana one
narrow lane, 59 bridges, 619 hairpin turns precipitous
plunge on one side mountainside
teeming with waterfalls on the other I
hated to miss it but didn't dare then
Jack arrived—his kind of road he
took the wheel and drove us all to Hana like
a maniac, joyful, fearless, and immortal
ONCE UPON
A TIME Elizabeth
Zelvin once upon a time I walked through Timbuktu city of sand, its hushed
streets sifted fine, its buildings rounded like sandcastles shaped by tidal winds peopled by Tuareg draped in indigo I watched them drift beside their camels toward the desert, the stone well and leather bucket the salt mines that lie beyond the sunset once upon a time I spent a week in Lahaina wearing a white tuberose lei, hearing laughter the breeze carrying music and the scent of food sunset tinting the water, slate blue mountains
rising not
far from shore, humpback whales and their young once upon a time I climbed the tower of Nôtre Dame my young knees making nothing
of the winding stair or if I breathed a little faster at the top it was worth it to say salut to the gargoyles and stick out my tongue at Paris once upon a time in Côte
d'Ivoire, in Bouaké when independence was long fought for, newly won before the civil war, before the hate
and anger when
nobody had a television and the nights were for drinking and dancing, oh, the dancing for two years I always fell asleep at night to talking drums in every courtyard all across the city chanting
lullaby it's not looking like much of a happily ever after this grumbling planet is
exhausted me, I'm glad I had my once upon a time now
I'd like to ask for a generation longer until my granddaughters have had their time squeezed joy to the last sweet drop embraced love and laughter
and adventure why is it so hard to hold on to the fire and flood that's been baying for release
since they were born
Elizabeth Zelvin is the author
of two books of poetry, I Am the Daughter (1981) and Gifts and Secrets (1999), and recipient of a CAPS
award from the New York State Council on the Arts. During the Second Wave of
the women's movement, her work was widely published in such journals as 13th Moon, Heresies, and
the anthology Sarah's Daughters Sing. Recent poems have appeared in Yellow
Mama as well as in anthologies of work about COVID and in support of
Ukraine. Liz also writes short and long form fiction, including the Bruce
Kohler Mysteries and the Mendoza Family Saga. Elizabeth Zelvin, multiple Derringer & Agatha
awards nominee The Bruce Kohler Mysteries The Mendoza Family Saga http://elizabethzelvin.com
|
