Published Winter 2005
 
Hunter's Crossing
The neighborhood, Hunter's Crossing, is just a half-circle of twelve houses that used to be identical except color and even that was standardized, choices being light blue, light green, beige and yellow. The houses are small though designed to look ranch-like. They have nearly flat roofs that extend beyond their facades. Where the roofs end they're supported by beams, making front porches, which most of us having rocking chairs on. There are two windows downstairs, the door's in the center, and one short three-paned window that looks like it pushed up out of the roof, like one of those car headlights that, when turned on, rises from the vehicle's hood. In our house it's the window in my office, the only room upstairs, small and cave-like. My name's Brad; my wife's Wendy. We live at 212, second on the right, blue.
The roof collages started with the Simmons's house across the street. It was a perfect January day in the fifties, why Wendy and I decided to live in the South, and Jeff Simmons was on their roof nailing regular gray tiles that had swung loose back into place. I was at the computer in my office, watching through my window's filmy curtain. I saw Jen Simmons step into the front yard in pink spandex. Jen was always in workout gear. It was rumored she was sleeping with someone at the gym. Then she stood there, hands on her hips, surveying her husband's work. I watched her point, like, You missed one there, dear, then Jeff turn to respond. I was across the street, window closed, but could tell they got into a fight: Jen made wide arm gestures; Jeff squatted on the roof as though to pounce. Wendy yelled from the bottom of the stairs that it was lunchtime and I told her to come up, see. Things escalated. Jen lifted her tight tank top to flash her husband; Jeff tore the nearest tile off, flung it at his wife. I could hear Wendy's slow steps but by the time she made it to my office she'd missed it. Jen Simmons had sped off in her red Honda Civic. Jeff stayed squatting, staring, on the roof. I put my arm around Wendy's middle, told her what had happened. Wendy pushed the curtain aside to look at Jeff: his bald head shone with sweat and light. Wendy said, "How sad for the Simmonses." Wendy was five months pregnant.
After lunch, I went back up to work. I work from home as a financial planner. I checked on the Simmonses. Jen's car was still missing; Jeff was nailing again, hard. Instead of tiles, though, he was using Jen Simmons's underwear, pair after pair, sides touching like the hands of paper dolls. About three quarters of the way up he switched to bras that ranged from sexy black (one looked like it had holes where Jen's nipples would be) to the boxy athletic kind. By the end of the afternoon Jeff had covered their roof, up and over the office window hump with undergarments made of navy cotton, pink and purple lace, red satin. There were small snatches of animal prints I thought might be thongs.
Jen Simmons returned just before sunset, jumped out of her car and ran to the front door. But she didn't go in. She walked to the center of their small yard, where the sidewalk running the arc of Hunter's Crossing and the one leading to the Simmons's front door meet, and she sat down. She looked up at her husband's work. She stayed that way, cross-legged, until it was dark, streetlights clicked on, and Wendy called me down to dinner. The front room was lit in the Simmons's house, the one we made our living room, and I could see Jeff Simmons there, his outline. He was standing behind a curtain.
The next day Jen's undergarments were not down, Jeff and Jen were away, and Hunter's Crossing people began noticing. I saw Allie Burke run their terrier, Pepper, by, Steve Fuller walk past with a newspaper, June Anderson and the baby carriage. Each stopped, looked up then around, as if someone might be filming their startled reactions, then continued. The weather was perfect. Sun showcased Jen's bras and underpants that it looked like their yellow house was offering up—its nearly flat roof, a tray—to the sky.
That afternoon I met with Mrs. Holt. She lived with her daughter, Sharon's, family at the end of the street though I didn't get why. She was relatively young, in her late fifties like my mom, who I often thought of as having more of a life than me, with her tours of the Middle East and intramural tennis tournaments, but to hear Mrs. Holt you'd think she might keel over any day. I managed Mrs. Holt's portfolio. We were in my office, talking gift-able amounts, and she asked if I knew what happened.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She pointed at my covered window and her sleeve slid up to her elbow, revealing a porcelain white arm. I remember being surprised that Mrs. Holt didn't have freckles as she has this reddish hair. Maybe it was burnt orange once but had lightened, like someone had powdered it. She said, "Do you know what happened there, Brad? Across the street."
I told her I'd seen Jeff nailing things up, but I didn't get into neighborhood gossip, Jen screwing around, because Mrs. Holt felt like someone I had to watch what I said around. Wendy used to tell me I was terrible at reading people.
Wendy came upstairs then carrying a tray. There were three glasses and a pitcher of sun tea, which Wendy makes by leaving cold water with tea bags dangling in it by a window in the kitchen. She set the tray on the table in front of Mrs. Holt. Ice cubes clinked, lemon slices swirled. Wendy complimented Mrs. Holt's tan jumper. Mrs. Holt got up from the sofa and tried to hug Wendy, though she couldn't get her arms around. She said, "Look at you, dear. You're enormous. You two must be so excited."
Wendy was enormous. She'd gained sixty-five pounds, just a little over halfway to term, which is why she'd stopped work early. Wendy's the illustrator for a press in town. She's done drawings for a children's book called Herbert and His Wife, Hattie, about a train conductor and his wife's search for the ideal home. They too chose to live in the South. She drew a cat chef stirring Brunswick stew in a cauldron, then using a juice glass to cut biscuits for a civic group's Country Cat Cookbook. I didn't know though should have assumed, I guess, that Wendy had started sketching what she wanted our baby's nursery to look like. The due date was May 18th, a Wednesday. We thought she'd work until the beginning of May but Wendy was tired. The weight made it hard to sit at her desk. Our doctors said not to worry, sometimes this happens.
Wendy asked Mrs. Holt about her health and Mrs. Holt said the new blood pressure medicine gave her hives, so she was off it, worried about "the silent killer." When Mrs. Holt left, Wendy and I talked about her husband that purportedly left her for a much younger woman.
I said, "Mrs. Holt's not old, and she's attractive. But it's like she's thrown in the towel. I don't get it."
Wendy said, "He was probably her life, Brad, and he left her, alone. Life is over. It makes me sad."
For the next couple weeks things in Hunter's Crossing seemed about normal. The neighborhood had its regular pulse. Allie Burke ran around and around the block with their terrier, Pepper. Steve Fuller walked past a dozen times collecting newspapers. June Anderson was out there, always with the baby carriage. Jen Simmons's underwear stayed on the roof. Jeff and Jen didn't split. Rather, Jen still went out in workout gear; Jeff spent time on their yard.
One afternoon I came home from grocery shopping to find Wendy and Jen sitting on the sofa in the living room. On the table in front of them was the china tea set I remember Wendy adding to our registry, when we got married, though had never seen her really use. In the department store's china section Wendy had giggled like a young girl, she'd looked like a young girl as, with her thumb and forefinger, she'd lifted the thin white cup, painted with pink roses, to her lips. She was sweet and wonderful and beautiful and she was marrying me. It gave me chills.
The afternoon Jen Simmons was over I stopped, brown grocery sack in my arms, to say hello and also because I was a little surprised. I'd seen Wendy and Jen together at the neighborhood potluck but that was it. Moreover it seemed weird, having Jen in our house. It was like a character from a favorite TV show had walked off the set and into our world.
At first Jen didn't look at me, she had her head tilted forward, and then she did and I could see she was crying. Her long brown hair, normally pulled back in a ponytail, was stuck to her cheeks. She was wearing a shiny blue jacket and pants, white stripes down the sides. Wendy said, "Brad, I'll help you put that stuff away," then she covered Jen's hand with her own: "I'll be right back."
In the kitchen, Wendy sat in one of our table's side chairs, because it didn't have the arms that made it impossible for her to fit in the chairs at the end. She told me that Jen had just showed up, knocked on the door, and when she'd opened it she'd found Jen there, sobbing. Wendy told me that things were bad across the street. Jeff and Jen weren't speaking, Jen was sleeping in the guest room, Jen thought Jeff was cheating. Wendy said, "I don't think she has family or anyone to talk to, Brad. I feel sorry for her."
Later, after Jen had left, I asked Wendy if she'd said anything about the roof. I'd noticed more cars were passing through Hunter's Crossing, slowing down in front of the Simmonses, like theirs was the house with the overblown Christmas decorations people come to gawk at. I asked what she was doing in terms of underwear, "Did she buy all new?" which Wendy said was completely inappropriate. The roof subject hadn't come up. It was the beginning of February, weather perfect.
* * *
Wendy and I didn't have kids, it was our first we were expecting. But there was big stuff happening with the town's Board of Education. A proposal was forwarded that would contractually obligate teachers to work an average of forty hours a week, year-round. This in response to criticism about the teaching schedule, calling seven-hour days, ten months a year lax. Teachers were up in arms. The local paper was filled with letters to the editors about un-quantifiable time spent making lesson plans, grading papers. Dissatisfied parents rebutted with detailed accounts of how teachers failed their children, the lack of educational standards.
It was Monday. The proposal was being voted on in referendum Friday. Sara Fuller down the street teaches third grade. I was driving Wendy to her six-month checkup when we noticed three posters on the Fuller's roof: Vote No! Education is Not Hours. Respect Teaching. They were professionally made, shiny red, sized to cover the space. When we returned two hours later there was a banner running the length of the Anderson's roof, directly across from the Fuller's. In hot pink paint that was still dripping it said, Vote Yes! Teachers Need Grading! June and Neil Anderson have four kids, three in school, one still a baby. June often talks of home-schooling.
Wendy and I spent the rest of that day working on the nursery, the small room next to ours on the back of the house, because we were running out of time. Wendy had gained fifteen more pounds, bringing the total up to eighty. The doctor had recommended bed rest until delivery because Wendy's body, her bones and organs, they're tiny. We didn't talk much then, just about things I could make us to eat, logistics. I said I would carry her to the tub, walk her to the toilet, leave a bell by the bed so she could call me. Wendy was teary. I moved quickly on that room: assembling the crib, attaching the mobile, hanging the yellow curtains with circus animals on them we'd picked out three and a half months before, when it was safe to tell people we were pregnant.
In the month that followed I'd go back to those curtains, to how much Wendy loves the circus though according to her sketch, which I'd find in the nightstand by her side of the bed, it was to be just one of the room's themes.
That evening we got Wendy set up in our bedroom and I went upstairs to check on things. When I looked out my window, I saw we'd missed a flurry of activity: roof after roof down the street had something on it, though it was getting dark, I couldn't tell what. I went outside to see.
The Fullers and the Andersons had continued their roof debate. Handmade signs fluttered from the bottom of the Fuller's red placards; the Andersons had tacked up more banners done in pink paint. On the Fuller's it said: You try teaching! On the Anderson's: Are You Afraid of Clocks? On the Fuller's: I'm afraid of getting YOUR kids. Both houses were lit like lanterns and I imagined my neighbors in there, around kitchen tables, planning what next.
But that wasn't it. David Wilson, the openly gay resident of Hunter's Crossing, lives beside the Fullers in one of the houses that are green. On David's roof was a sign for a judge running for re-election in November. Rita Noon, the widow, lives left of us. She'd tacked up a yellow and white quilt, a For Sale sign in the middle. Allie Burke and her boyfriend, Gregor, both graduate students, live with Pepper, their terrier, in the tan house across the street. On their roof was a blown-up photo of a droopy-eyed basset hound with a phone number to call, suggesting we adopt homeless puppies. To the Burke's left are the Temples, Tammy and Jon. He's a botanist, she's president of the garden club. Their roof looked like the start of a parade float, half-covered with red, white and blue flowers. On the second half, the part left to be finished, there was what looked like clear netting. I learned later it was a watering system. Finally, on the Simmons's roof were, of course, Jen's undergarments but also two new signs. They were made on neon poster board. The yellow piece to the left of the office window said YES; the orange piece to the right, NO.
I walked the half-circle twice, taking it all in, wondering at the planning. The sun had set, streetlights clicked on, and I noticed Mrs. Holt at the end of the block, leaning against her daughter's mailbox. I walked down to join her.
Mrs. Holt said, "Evening, Bradley. I assume you watched this unfold."
I told her I hadn't been in my office all day to see it.
She said she'd pulled a lawn chair to the sidewalk. She explained how the Fuller-Anderson fight went down: "June Anderson had her kids out there, reading the Fuller signs then running inside, reporting. Steve Fuller walked away around noon, paper tucked under his arm. I haven't seen him come back." She told me the Temples were like a machine, assembling their parade float roof: "Jon rolled wheelbarrows full of plants from the greenhouse out back to the front, then stood on a ladder while Tammy handed green pots up." Mrs. Holt said Jen Simmons went on their roof around three with the yellow YES; she saw Jeff Simmons up there around four-thirty with his orange NO.
As she went on and on I thought I'd never seen Mrs. Holt so energetic. She gestured wildly with her arms, laughed, "I've never experienced anything like this." Her red hair, which looked darker than usual, was pinned back off her forehead with a pink glitter clip I guessed might be her granddaughter's, it was that youthful. We stood in a puddle of streetlight.
I said, "You look great, Mrs. Holt. How are you feeling?"
She smiled and said, "Never better. Bradley, I've been painting."
I said that was great, and that I needed to get home to Wendy, who Mrs. Holt asked about.
I said, "She's fine," but I wanted to tell her everything. About the weight and the doctor and the bed rest and was this going to be OK, Mrs. Holt? I was terrified. I thought if I just told her she might do something, like hug me, or say, "It's just a matter of changing her diet,?and that somehow the weight gain would stop. Wendy would be fine, the baby would be fine. I don't know what made me think this.
Mrs. Holt was smiling, watching as one of the Anderson boys leaned half his body out the front door, looked left then right. I said, "Mrs. Holt, can I ask you something?"
Mrs. Holt looked at me. She said, "Of course, Bradley."
I said, "When you were pregnant, did you put on much weight?"
Mrs. Holt squeezed my arm. She laughed a little and said, "Oh Bradley, yes. Most women do. But don't worry. Wendy will lose that weight, quick. Breast-feeding helps. She's breast-feeding right? Oh she'll be fine, Bradley. Back in her cute clothes in no time. And then the two of you will have a little one and there won't be time to worry about weight. You'll be worried about not sleeping."
I tried to smile, to laugh. I said, "I'm not worried. Wendy's always been the good looking one." I reached over and raised the red flag on Mrs. Holt's daughter's mailbox. Then Mrs. Holt and I stood there for a few minutes, watching as the Anderson boy climbed through their top window onto the roof. He was tiny. I thought half the size of me as he scuttled on hands and knees to near the top, where there was not yet an anti-teacher banner. Under his arm was rolled up paper. In his mouth, a child-sized hammer. June Anderson was leaning out of the window, waving a bare arm. I thought I heard her say, "Over more, Junior. Yes, that's it.
When I got home I tried to explain to Wendy what had happened out there, to Hunter's Crossing, but her mind was elsewhere, clearly. She looked through me. I climbed in bed with Wendy, lay my arm over her chest and said, "We're going to be all right. I know it. Everything will be OK." But Wendy was not moving. She was holding her breath and then she exhaled, long and choppy.
The next day Hunter's Crossing was on the local news. I was in the bedroom with Wendy, watching Allie Burke in a blue Humane Society T-shirt being interviewed. Behind her, Gregor was on the roof, straightening what looked like an African tapestry. Pepper, their terrier, ran in and out of frame. Our doorbell rang. I stood up to answer it, thinking why would reporters try and talk to us. Wendy whispered, "I don't want to see anyone."
It was Jen Simmons on our front porch. Sobbing so her shoulders were shaking, she could hardly speak: "Jeff... cheating... can I come in, please...." I said of course but Jen didn't hear me. It had suddenly gotten loud because a news chopper had dropped low in the sky, was swinging the arc of the street. I put my hand on Jen's arm to pull her inside but she must have thought I was going to hug her because she ended up with her face on my chest, then she clasped her arms around me and was shivering, there in our hall, squeezing. I didn't know what to do. I closed the door. I patted Jen's back. Jen's hair smelled musky. I wondered if Jeff was behind his filmy curtain, or on his front porch, watching. I thought of Wendy.
"Wendy's not feeling well," I said. "She's not really available."
Jen didn't let go, rather her grip seemed to tighten. Her arms, though thin, are all muscle.
I stood in the hall patting Jen's back, listening to her sobs which, with time, got longer and less insistent. The churning of the helicopter was gone, our clock chimed briefly because it was a quarter after the hour and then it was silent. Jen let go, stepped back and looked at me. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just had to get out of there. I didn't know where to go." Jen put fingers in the corners of her eyes, like she was trying to plug the tear ducts.
I picked up the duffel bag Jen had dropped by her feet. "Why don't you sit in the living room. You'll be more comfortable." I led her to the sofa, then brought her a box of Kleenex, a glass of water. I went to check on Wendy.
The TV in the bedroom was still on but it was showing a commercial for a local car dealer. I stood in the doorway and looked at Wendy whose eyes were closed. The sun shone in through the window beside the bed, back lighting her body that looked as if someone had inflated it. I thought, which systems were doing this? Can Wendy's veins support the weight?
Wendy opened her eyes and I could see that they were slick, that she was crying. I went to Wendy and kneeled, put my head on the bed beside her.
Wendy whispered, "I'm worried about doing anything, moving, swallowing. I think I'm going to lose him. I'm so scared."
I took Wendy's hand and kissed her palm again and again. Jesus Christ I was scared. Why was this happening? When we met Wendy was a freshman in college and I was a sophomore. We were in science class together, Natural Resources, and I'd noticed her, had started trying to sit behind her. I was so nervous when I asked her out because she was beautiful, long blonde hair, out of my league, but Wendy said yes. I made us a picnic that we ended up having to eat on my dorm floor because it was raining. That Valentine's Day I gave her a rock I'd found as a kid. It's shaped like a heart. As an eight-year-old I'd thought to save that rock for the woman I'd marry. I knew it was Wendy.
She'd been sad before, of course. Her dad had died, a friend was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but we'd survived, I'd helped. I had taken care of Wendy, I take care of Wendy, and I didn't know what to do. I said, "I'll get you water," then rushed off to the kitchen. I was useless.
* * *
Jen Simmons moved in. The day she showed up on our doorstep she told me she'd come home from the gym, where she works as a kickboxing instructor, to find all the framed pictures of Jeff and her hidden in the drawer under the TV. There were two wine glasses in the sink, one with lipstick marks. I'd told Jen she could spend the night in my office if she needed a place. We were up there. Jen was sitting cross-legged on the sofa with a fleece blanket Wendy had made spread across her knees. I was at my desk.
"We weren't speaking," she said, "but we hadn't agreed to end things, to see other people."
I suggested that Jeff had planted the glasses to raise her suspicions, which started Jen on a giggling fit. She buried her face in a pillow picturing Jeff applying her lipstick then trying to figure out whether his male lip marks would pass as female. I told Jen about my cross-gender experience. One Halloween Wendy and I went as a dentist-hygienist team: I was a female hygienist, Wendy a male dentist. I said, "I wore pantyhose and everything." Jen nodded: "Itchy aren't they?" I pulled a picture from a desk drawer of me in a white dress, standing profile beside Wendy, showing off balloon breasts. Wendy was wearing a white lab coat, holding up shiny pliers. I told Jen other stories. About the dance classes Wendy and I had taken to get ready for our wedding, and Wendy's crazy cross-eyed boss. "He checks Wendy's drawings like this," I said, rubbing a client's W4 over my face. Jen bit the pillow, she was laughing so hard.
Over the course of the next month, the roofs in Hunter's Crossing continued to develop. Someone had added to the Hunter's Crossing sign at the entrance of the neighborhood, Home of the Roof Collages. Cars passed through constantly. I walked the half-circle evenings, checking out that day's additions.
Some were conscientious of space, like the O'Tooles, who didn't let their blown-up family portrait—all four of them in Redskins sweatshirts, right arms raised, hands fisted—overlap with the family tree they'd painted on a white tablecloth. Others put item on top of item in a seemingly haphazard way, namely Jeff Simmons. You couldn't hardly see Jen's undergarments anymore through the sweaters and jeans, pink beanbag, pink towels, flowered bedspread and other items. It was obvious Jeff was moving Jen's things out as he found them, but Jen didn't talk about this, nor did I ever definitely see her looking.
One night from the street I thought I saw her silhouette through my office curtain. I looked at the Simmons's place and saw what I thought was Jeff's outline in the living room window. But when I looked at our house again, all lights were out.
I spent most of my time downstairs, near Wendy. When Jen wasn't working she'd be down there too but she chose to sit in the bedroom, to read to Wendy from what she called "classics she was catching up on." They'd just gotten through Huck Finn and were started on Ethan Frome. I knew Wendy appreciated the company. She'd stopped talking but I could see it in her eyes. I appreciated Jen because she was upbeat, pacing and sometimes dancing around Wendy in bed, waving her arms and doing Huck and Jim's accents. She made a lot of noise, which was nice, because the house could be pretty quiet.
I'd become obsessed with the nursery. I thought of it as my roof collage, inside, and combed all our town's stores for anything circus-related. When I found clown blankets and human cannonball lampshades I bought them, brought them home to show Wendy and Jen, then carefully placed or assembled them in the nursery. I thought Wendy's hearing me hammering and moving around in there might help. I reported on progress, like when I'd attached a wire high up and caddy corner across the room that a stuffed bear on a unicycle peddled back and forth across. I told Wendy our baby would dream of bears and Jen ran to the nursery to see. When she came back into the bedroom, I was in the rocking chair, rocking and going on about the nursery plans and Jen said, "It's so cool in there! It's like under the big top."
I got the idea to paint the ceiling. I spent one day on a ladder marking foot-wide bands. The next day I painted them red.
Mrs. Holt showed up in the middle of this project, a surprise, as I hadn't seen her since our talk by the mailbox. As she walked into the house I thought she looked amazing, younger. Her hair was dark red, nearly brown and pulled up loosely with pieces falling out like it wasn't going to stay. I noticed that the pins had things attached to them: dice, a button, a green and black rock. I commented on these hair decorations and she said she'd made them, roof collages had inspired her and now she was "walking art." Then she laughed this lovely light laugh which felt so carefree.
We went together to see Wendy, who, at seeing Mrs. Holt, tried to smile. Mrs. Holt didn't seem shocked at all about Jen Simmons being there, or at Wendy's size. I guessed she'd heard about the bed rest and the Simmonses. She just said, "Hello dear," to Jen as she breezed past. Then she was beside Wendy. I stood in the doorway and watched Mrs. Holt stroke Wendy's face, so big now she seemed not to have features. She'd kept gaining. God knows how much. Mrs. Holt talked about her pregnancies, how she'd just wished those babies out. She said, "Think of this summer, dear. The three of you, on the beach." I looked at Jen who was grinning, nodding. A tear stood on Wendy's cheek.
Afterwards I showed Mrs. Holt the nursery. I was proud of that room. In addition to the high wire bear I'd found a tumbling acrobat border and a series of Barnum & Bailey posters. I'd wired stuffed elephants around the top of the crib leaving a space in the front for us to lift out the baby. There were clown toys everywhere and the half-finished ceiling. Mrs. Holt said, "You've really done some work. I hope your baby's not like me, though, afraid of clowns." She laughed.
We went upstairs to my office, which, though Jen folded the sheets and blankets, stacking them in the closet daily still smelled like her, musky. Mrs. Holt sat in a chair beside my desk. We talked a little about Hunter's Crossing people. Tammy and Jon Temple had won the garden club's March prize for their spring-themed roof, a hyacinth rendition of Easter eggs. Mrs. Holt thought the award specious: "She is the president." She told me Allie and Gregor had taken a roommate, Ginger, who'd added candles to the roof that she lights each night, then sits on the lawn watching burn down. I said that must happen later than my short walks and Mrs. Holt said, "She does it around midnight. It's pretty but a real fire hazard." She asked if I'd heard about the Fullers, which I hadn't. They're divorcing.
Mrs. Holt said, "It happened the week of the Board of Education vote. Steve Fuller walked away in the middle of the Fuller-Anderson fight, newspaper under his arm. He never came back. Poof! Goodbye Sara and life and Hunter's Crossing. She got divorce papers the other day, poor girl, but he's given her everything, says he doesn't want it, which is nice, but what timing. The teachers lose the vote and Sara loses Steve. Same week."
I said how sad it was, and that I'd expected it of the Simmonses, not the Fullers. But as I was saying this I thought of the tattered pro-teacher banners Sara Fuller hadn't bothered to take down. I'd just assumed she'd left them up there as a gesture, a "you won but I'm right," like people with Gore-Lieberman bumper stickers still on their cars. I leaned close to Mrs. Holt and said, "Every day, as Jeff nails Jen's personal effects up there I expect something. Some reaction. Jen running over there and screaming at Jeff, or sneaking over there when he's away to take down her things. Or for Jen to call a lawyer. Or for Jeff to."
Mrs. Holt said, "The Simmonses are solid, Bradley," then she leaned even closer, so I could smell her breath, which was sweet, like jam. "You do know that this isn't the first time Jen's moved on the street. Last year she spent two months with Allie and Gregor."
I hadn't before noticed that Mrs. Holt has grass green eyes, perhaps contacts. She was scanning my face. I'm sure I looked surprised.
"Bradley, rumor has it they sort of get off on this. Ginger swears that when she's sitting in the yard watching her candles she sees them, naked in windows, looking across the street at one another."
I was shaking my head.
Mrs. Holt said, "Of course it's more elaborate this time. It was the same window thing when Jen stayed at Allie and Gregor's. But then the roof collages came along. They changed our patterns."
How did Mrs. Holt know?
Mrs. Holt said, "We all think it's terrible that they're doing this now, and here. We heard about Wendy and..." and I cut her off. I put my hands on her cheeks which were crisp, like tissue paper.
"Stop. Please. It's enough."
Mrs. Holt tried to apologize. She didn't mean to upset me and I told her I wasn't upset. I didn't know what I was and I don't still. Whatever Jen's reasons for being at our house, in my office and window, she'd spent time with Wendy and it's that I come back to.
Jen moved home the following week. She said goodbye, and thank you. Mrs. Holt left for New York. It's what she'd really stopped by to tell me. She called it "the city." She said, "I've been painting and reading and learning so much but I need more, the immediate, and it's there, I know it." She'd come to cash in her retirement account, not caring what she'd pay in fees. Two days later she was gone.
Mrs. Holt left behind art, on the roof. A giant canvas divided into different sized rectangles. In one there were three young faces I guessed were her kids. In another, rows of tulips covered with jam jars. In a third, in shades of gray was a casket. In a fourth, butterflies. And in the largest square, the one on the bottom right, there was what was undoubtedly female genitalia: soft pink folds topped with auburn pubic hair. Young legs open like wings.
Sharon, Mrs. Holt's daughter, had the canvas down the next day but I won't forget.
It feels like everything's screaming to an end and I haven't mentioned Wendy's box of souvenirs from the circus. As a girl she'd gone every year with her parents. And they'd bought her things: a flashlight with a plastic brush at the end; a necklace that glows green; a horn that's long and sounds, when blown, like an elephant. Just after we'd gotten married, when we were in the process of moving in together, Wendy was standing on a chair in the closet in our bedroom and I was handing her things, to be put up top—a box marked Purses and one marked Belts—and I got to one marked Circus and I made fun of Wendy. I said, "I didn't know I married such a packrat.
I wasn't wrong, thinking to make the nursery the way I did, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Our baby died sometime in the eighth month. I'd called the doctor to come see Wendy, she was barely eating and yet so swollen. When he pressed his stethoscope against her stomach for a heartbeat there wasn't one. He panicked, called an ambulance, but it was too late. They performed a C-section on Wendy to find our baby dead. Rotting.
Wendy's healthy. With her mother. She can't stand being here, I can't hardly either. It was that nursery, its vibrant circus. A person shouldn't have to live with that kind of reminder in the house so I took it all to the roof, piece by piece. I started with the ringleader announcement sign, a lawn decoration I'd been planning to put on the roof, I did intend a roof decoration. The ringleader's on an upside down tub, holding a bullhorn and there's a space to write the baby's name, gender and weight. It's blank, of course, pointed toward separated crib pieces. The curtains are up there too. The mobile blankets diapers tiny outfits. It's all up there, cooking in the sun and I've peeled off the border, tried painting over the red stripes, but they just keep bleeding through. |
