Broken for You (11 page)

The next phase of the dream begins with a weather change. At other times it's been snow. Hail. A plague of frogs. This time, it starts to mist. Mottled, bruised-looking clouds crowd around them, obscuring their view of the landscape below. Stephen scowls, the way some people do in an effort to improve their vision. Margaret shivers.

"Are you cold, Danny?" Margaret asks.

Daniel looks at her and laughs. "Hey, Mom! You have a mustache!"

"What? I do?" Margaret asks, wiping her hand across her upper lip. She looks down to see a smear of bright magenta staining her skin from the forearm to the index finger. She looks up at Daniel. "Did I get it?"

"No. Not quite."

Margaret swipes her other hand across her face.

"How about now?"

Daniel laughs again. It is a musical sound, a cascading parade of notes that reminds Margaret of a xylophone. "You're a mess!"

Margaret laughs. "I am?" She looks over the top of Daniel's head to Stephen. "Stephen! Look at me! I'm a mess!"

"We're out of juice," Stephen says, still staring straight ahead. Margaret notices that he's now holding a lit cigarette.

"Here, Mom." Daniel offers Margaret his empty box of Bugles and the Orange Crush bottle. "I'm done."

Margaret reaches out. A sudden gust of wind tears the box from Daniel's hand and sends it somersaulting violently into the clouds. As Margaret makes to grab the bottle, she fumbles it; there is a loud, dull thwack as it drops, still intact, to the saucer floor. Before Margaret can retrieve the bottle, it scuttles off the edge of the saucer. Margaret looks over the rim. Below them is a swirling cauldron of clouds; they are dense now, and vividly green.
HA!
Margaret thinks giddily,
Pea soup!
It is several seconds before she hears the faint crash of the bottle breaking far beneath them.

"It certainly is a long way down," she remarks, sagely. "I'd say about fifteen thousand square feet."

When Margaret looks up again, she notices a small crack in the saucer where the bottle hit. As she watches, the crack begins to lengthen in two directions, snaking its way across the saucer in a jagged line that separates her from Daniel and Stephen.

"I'm still thirsty," Daniel says. "Can I have some of that, Mom?" "Sure, honey," Margaret says, and hands Daniel her bowl of beet juice. "Are you sure you don't want a sweater? I'm cold."

The crack has made its way to the outer edges of the saucer. Margaret watches, vaguely alarmed now, as the saucer breaks in two and Daniel and Stephen's section of the saucer begins to float away.

The mist turns to rain.

"Hey!" Margaret calls. "Where are you guys going? Can I come too?" She reaches down to undo her seat belt, but there doesn't seem to be a clasp anywhere.

"To the gas station, Margaret," Stephen answers. The distance between them is growing, and a fierce, steady wind begins to kick up. Stephen has to shout. "WE'RE ALL OUT OF JUICE!"

The wind smells odd, Margaret notice
s. Vaguely medicinal, like bour
bon. The rain is being driven down hard and fast now; the raindrops feel like pinpricks.
This must be what it feels like to get a tattoo,
Margaret thinks. She continues to try and free herself from the seat belt; it seems to be tightening.

"I'll get you a sweater, honey! Wait!" she calls out, but the wind is

whipping with such intensity that she can't be sure Daniel hears her.

Daniel turns and waves at her.

"See you soon, Mom," he shouts. "I'll bring something back for you." Daniel takes a sip from the bowl of beet juice. When he looks up again,

his face, still smiling, is covered in blood. His mouth begins to move; he

is trying to say something.

"WHAT, HONEY?" Margaret screams, frantic and terrified now. She thrashes wildly against the grip of the seat belt. "WHAT IS IT, DANNY?
WHAT?!"
As he drifts away, Margaret can see Daniel's mouth still moving, but his voice is drowned out by the roaring wind.

Stephen takes a long drag on his cigarette and then puts it out on the saucer floor. He looks up and—exhaling a gray, fetid cloud of smoke— blows Margaret a kiss.

Suddenly, Stephen and Daniel's part of the saucer explodes into a thousand pieces.

Margaret screams. There is blackness. The dream is over. There is one other thing about the dream that never changes: When it is over and Margaret wakes up, she is always sobbing.

Down the hall, Wanda is dreaming about making love with Peter. They are in their loft apartment in Manhattan. Outside, beneath their window, a winged Charlie Parker stands under a lit street lamp and plays '"Round Midnight" on an Irish tin whistle.

And several miles northwest of the Hughes mansion in the Olympic View Apartments (B-
101
), a man with an extensive collection of
H
awaiian shirts is wide awake. Insomniac by nature, he resists sleep
b
ecause he fears the iconography of his dreams: When peopled, they
f
eature characters from his past; when he is alone, he roams the rooms
o
f
a huge house in which, somewhere, a woman is crying. He can never
f
ind her.

He is trying to read a Dashiell Hammett novel on loan from the
C
entral Branch of the Seattle Public L
ibrary. But his eyes keep strayi
ng to a framed black-and-white photograph which rests on the table
n
ext to his bed.

Usually, when he looks at this photograph—which is quite often—
h
e pays scant attention to the other people in it. They are out of focus,
a
nd have a ghostlike, slightly dematerialized look that doesn't command
v
isual attention. Their only purpose is to provide background interest or the central subject of the photograph—a woman bowling—in the
s
ame way that a chorus line of nondescript, leggy dancers provide deco
r
ation for a Broadway star.

Tonight, though, the man's eyes keep catching on one of the back
g
round figures: a little girl, barely visible over the top of the scorekeeper's able.

Goddammit,
the man is thinking.
Her eyes.

And then he does something he's never done before. He turns the
p
icture facedown on the bedside table and refocuses his attention on his
b
ook, which is, after all, a helluva good one.

Her eyes—
goddammit
—are as big as saucers.

Eight

Going into
Tex

Wanda was lounging against the kitchen counter, already reading the morning paper. Margaret immediately noticed an airiness, an ease in Wanda's body that she had not seen before.

She certainly looks like she slept well,
Margaret thought.

She looks
like she got
laid,
said Margaret's mother.

It was nearly eight-thirty, and Margaret was still in her bathrobe. She felt achy and disoriented, as if she'd been beaten. The dream had that effect on her, always.

"Good morning," Margaret mumbled, bleary-eyed.

Wanda startled. "I didn't hear you come in. Good morning." She put the paper down and filled her coffeemaker with hot water.

Oh good,
Margaret thought.
I'm not too late for The Ritual.

Since Wanda's arrival, Margaret had had many opportunities to watch her make coffee. She did not use the Mr. Coffee that was kept in one of the more remote kitchen cupboards. Instead, she measured several tablespoons of grounds and two teaspoons of cinnamon into a large glass carafe, filled it with not-quite-boiling water, stirred it with a wooden spoon, and let the concoction steep for exactly four minutes. Then she affixed an odd-looking lid to the carafe; it had a small hole in the center with a steel rod running through it. The rod was part of a plungerlike
gizmo which had a black plastic attachment at one end—it was the approximate size and shape of a Mallomar cookie—and a larger steel-mesh circle at the other. Wanda applied the flat of her palm to the cookie and pressed it downward, quite slowly, till the steel circle met the floor of the carafe.

This process—which was conducted with great solemnity—had a calming, mesmerizing effect on Margaret. It was like watching the slow, graceful descent of a hotel elevator, from the mezzanine to the lobby, through one of those glass-walled tubes. Margaret populated the elevator with partygoing coffee beans wearing formal evening dress. They resembled the singing raisins in those television commercials. Once arrived, the Bean Creatures passed magically through the glass and proceeded to mill around the kitchen counter with great elan, engaging in sparkling conversation, drinking champagne, and dancing the tango.

Wanda's process of coffeemaking, or The Ritual as Margaret had come to call it, produced a beverage that was black and murky-looking. "French press," it was called. Margaret had never been to France, not even to French-speaking Canada—even though she spoke French fluently. Maybe the French really did prefer their coffee this way. Maybe drinking something as sedimented as river water was their way of paying homage to the Seine. Still—although she tremendously enjoyed watching Wanda make her special coffee—Margaret couldn't imagine how anyone, of
any
nationality, could drink something that looked, and surely tasted, like a petroleum by-product. The smell was nice, though.

"Can I pour you some?" Wanda made this offer every morning.

"No, thank you."

Wanda filled her cup and took a sip. Closing her eyes and holding the liquid on her tongue for a lingering moment, she looked exactly like a connoisseur savoring a vintage wine. "Mmmm," she purred. "That's good. That's really good."

Margaret shuffled into the pantry. There were sparklers of light in the periphery of her vision—unmistakable heralds of both an incipient headache and a visitation from her mother.

Wanda continued, "I won't be here much this week. My show is going into techs."

"Texas?" Margaret pulled a box of cereal from the pantry. "I didn't realize it was a touring play. Will you be gone long?"

"What?" Wanda said, and then gave a revelatory, "OOOH!" and laughed. Margaret couldn't remember hearing Wanda laugh before; it was a soft, resonant, thrumming sound, and for some reason it made her think of the small wooden building blocks that children play with. "I like that. That's funny." Wanda bit into a slice of jelly toast and went on, "No, not Texas. Techs. We're going into techs."

"Into Tex?" Margaret was still baffled. Her mind was rapidly projecting a series of rugged, outdoorsy images: cowboys, horses, boots, campfires, cattle, sides of beef. . . . She could almost smell the singed meat and the barbecue sauce. She felt slightly nauseous and had to grip the counter edge momentarily.

Wanda gave her a concentrated, level look and enunciated: "Technical rehearsals."

"Ah," Margaret said, and th
en reached for a bowl and began
shaking cereal into it. She felt stupid again, and embarrassed.
Am I
going
de
af, too, on top of everything else?

Wanda went to the fridge, pulled out a carton of milk, and started filling Margaret's bowl. "It's when we work out all the technical elements—lights, costumes, set changes, and so on. It can be stressful, but usually it's pretty fun. It's one time when stage managers get to play God."

"Oh." Margaret seemed incapable of anything more than monosyllabic speech.
It's so hard to break habits,
she thought.
Why is that? I wonder. Why can't I just talk?

"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I won't be around much. Most nights I'll be getting home pretty late. Especially Thursday and Friday: I'll be gone from around nine until two in the morning."

"My."

"Okay then. I'm gonna brush my teeth and head out. Have a good day."

"Would you like to borrow my car?" Margaret heard herself say.

Wanda turned around. "Sorry. What was that?"

Are you insane?
Margaret's mother spoke up.
What are you thinking?

"Would you like to borrow my car?" Margaret repeated, emphatically.

"Oh, no, Margaret, that's very kind of you, but really . . ."

What in God's name are you doing, Margaret?I'm breaking a habit, Mother. Be quiet.