Killing Time in Crystal City (9 page)

“I hope you don't mind. I found this in that bathroom cupboard. My clothes disgusted me by the time I got back to them.”

Not sure how my voice is going to perform, so I just wave the knife around in what I hope is a recognizable, no-problem manner.

“Well, as far as knife-wielding shower slashers go, I don't think you'll be giving me any nightmares.”

“Ha,” I say, and that one syllable sounds reliably me enough to go for speech. “I'm making you a little something. . . .”

“Oh,” she says, “that is so kind. I think, though, that I'm not going to be able to eat anything before I sleep. I just can't . . .”

“Oh, that's fine,” I say. “I'll just keep it in the fridge for you.”

She shakes her head at me, smiling warmly. “If this is your freakery, boy, you do some pretty fine freakery.”

“Watch it now,” I say, menacing her with the knife in an unmenacing way.

I lead her to my sofa-bedroom. “That shower was the best, best thing that ever happened to me, Kiki. Thank you. I think I might want to take another one when I wake up.”

I see on the way past that her Molly mound is still on the bathroom floor.

“I can throw your things in the wash if you like,” I say.

She sits down on my bed, then lies down, all fluid motion and purr.

“You want to keep me company?” she says.

“Oh,” I say. “Oh, I would love . . . I think, though, that maybe you should . . .”

“You just, if you don't mind, if you could be quick about it because I'm really exhausted and everything.”

“What? No. What? No. I wouldn't . . .”

“It's only fair,” she says calmly. “You don't want to?”

Oh dear God, I do.

“No,” I say, “I don't.”

She is puzzled, and quite rightly, too.

“Why? What's wrong?”

This
is wrong.

“Nothing's wrong. It's just, I want you to know that everybody's not like that. I'm not like those other guys.”

I am, though. I am, damn. I am.

“Sure you are,” she says, smiling and nestling down catlike deep into the covers. “But that's okay, it's not your fault. You can't help it.”

“I'm not.” I am. “You're wrong.” She's right. “Now, sleep.”

I walk briskly toward the door.

“Aren't you going to read me a poem?” she calls.

Hell shit anyway. Almost got away.

“You know,” she says in a voice sleepier by the second, “the poetry book. That your father wrote.”

“Yeah, ah, about that . . .”

“The book that you invented as a ploy to get me to your creepy lair, and the basement bulkhead of screams and all that?”

I almost prefer to tell her that she's got it exactly right and I did all that vile stuff, rather than confess that my father's book is here, and if I read from it, I could well burst into tears. She would probably find this endearing and I would be further mortified and humiliated and not at all the man I wanted to be when I arrived in this life, thus destroying everything. He's between those covers, hiding inside to trap me. I haven't been able to open the thing, never mind
read out loud from it to a girl.
Kiki cannot do that.

“I'll be right back,” I say, and walk the long mile to the living room and coffee table and book, then the long, long mile back again. By the time I return to my room I still haven't cracked
Mind Monkeys
open to even the title page, and I swear I can feel the binding actually buzzing in my hand.

“Right, Molly, here's the thing,” I say, and look across my room to find her sleeping soundly. Way to go, poetry, the one art form that can put you to sleep before it even enters the room. I lay the book down next to the bed, and slip back out again.

I feel kind of parental as I go quietly about and collect Molly's things from the bathroom floor, but parental has me all conflicted again so I'll just think of myself as the help for now. I empty out the pockets of her cutoff jeans and dump the contents on the top of the washer. Cell phone, Halls Mentho-Lyptus extra-strong throat lozenges, only two remaining. Enough small-change coinage that if she went out swimming she would sink and her petite self would never be found.

I stuff the stuff into the washer, throw in some powder, and set it off to the races.

I
am
a good guy. I
can
think about somebody else for a change. So there, Jasper, you missed it. I did all that despite nobody even watching. And I didn't do anything else, either, no overhandling the girly merchandise or any of that kinkster malarkey, despite nobody even watching.

There, I went and did it now. Thinking about what I didn't do. Girly merchandise. I should go to the bathroom now if I'm going to congratulate myself any further.

•   •   •

I'm catching a few badly needed winks myself, sitting in Syd's wingback reading chair with my feet up on the ottoman, when I hear the alarm beep saying the clothes are dry. There has been no sign, through washing and drying cycles, that Molly is stirring at all. I go out to the kitchen, take the things out, along with a couple of kitchen towels that had already been sitting in there.

Would a gentleman fold? Which would be more noble? To be manhandling her things by folding? Or to hand them over all balled up, which sounds bad but preserves modesty?

I realize the reason I even have the clothes is that she shed them right there in front of me. Somehow it doesn't help me decide. Doesn't help me form thoughts at all, in fact.

Molly's phone goes off, making me jump and drop the white blouse on the floor before I can do anything with it. Her ring tone is “Ave Maria,”
and lying on top of the washer's metal skin, it reverberates like a washer-dryer-size phone, rumbly. I snap it up to quiet it and see on the screen that the call is from Stacey.

Should be fun.

“Hello,” I whisper, partly out of respect for the sleeper, and partly to be all deceptive and sultry.

“You were not at church, bitch,” she says. “And you didn't come home last night, which means you needed church all the more.”

“God?” I say. “Is that you, God? How did you find me here? Right, it was the omnipotence thing again, wasn't it?”

Stacey's voice drops two octaves and about forty degrees. “Who is this? Is Molly all right? Where is she? Cocksucker, if you did anything to harm that girl, I'm gonna slice your—”

“Stacey, Stacey,” I say, in a little bit of hysterics and a lot of fear, “it's me. Kiki.”

There is a pause that is long enough to make me think we've lost the connection. Then her voice comes back just about the same depth and temperature as before. “She was with
you
last night?”

“Well, that's not exactly what . . . hey. Was that shock I just heard? How come you said it like that? Like her being with
me
was such a bizarre idea?”

“Well, ah. You know . . .”

She doesn't have a ready answer. Stacey doesn't have a smart-ass, hard-boiled retort to stop me in my tracks there and I am not pleased about it. Am I that bad?

“So, I'm that bad.”

“No, no, you're not. Not at all. I didn't mean anything like . . . wait a minute. Did you do the God thing? Oh, for shit's sake, Kiki, tell me, please, tell me you did not do the God thing just to make this happen.”

That sounds so truly awful. I didn't even do it and I feel like a scumbag just for making it into the conversation.

“Should I be offended, Stacey?”

“I would hope so.”

“Well, I am offended.”

“Oh, thank God. You are the good one, aren't you, Kiki?”

“Now I'm unoffended. I like that. Not even
one-of-the-good-ones,
but
t
he
. . .”

“Oh, too right. You are the only one. If you are.”

“Harsh.”

“Yup. So where's our girl?”

“Right now, she's in my bed.”

There's that dead air again.

“Hello? Stace—”

“What's she doing there if you didn't God-up,
Vandeweghe
?”

Yikes. It's only a phone call and still I feel in physical jeopardy.

“She's sleeping,
Dimbleby
.” I figure she has to respect my standing up to her that much.

“Tell me you didn't really believe my actual name was Anastasia Dimbleby.”

I should probably just take the Fifth on this one.

“That answers that, then. So tell me, what are you doing, while the princess slumbers?”

“I . . . well, if you must know, I was doing her laundry.”

“Her lau . . . ? Are you lying?”

“Why would I lie about that?”

“So you did take her home, you slithery male serpent, you. But then you did her laundry.”

I give that statement a quick once-over and decide it is sufficiently factual-based that I can sign off on it without elaboration or detraction and it will do my reputation no harm whatsoever on all counts.

“That is correct,” I say, trying to sound like this is just another day at the office for me.

“Well,” she says, “now I'm not sure whether to slice you up from 'nads to neckline, or find a way to clone your strange ol' self.”

“Do I get a vote?” I say.

“No. But I'm sure I'll have it figured out one way or the other by the time I see you.”

“Oh good. That's a relief.”

“Is she really sleeping?” Stacey asks.

“I'm pretty sure. I could check in.”

“Yeah, you probably should. If she misses any more curfews she's gonna lose her place here and be back out on the street. And also I don't know how I would last here in Godtown without Molly to draw all their repent-and-be-saved fire.”

I walk toward my bedroom, still whispering.

“Well, Sister Stacey, she's feeling much better and she's got her uniform all washed and nice for school again.”

“Did you remember to use fabric softener?”

“Actually, I did.”

“Of course you did, weirdo. Good thing. That outfit was getting kinda rank.”

“Not as rank as the cast, though.”

“Arggh, I know. I think she was supposed to get it off something like three weeks ago, but she's got some kind of peculiar mental emotional attachment to it. We'll work on it somehow.”

“Good,” I say, gently pushing open my door.

“Did you just tell me I'm good?” Molly says, looking up all dewey-eyed at me. She appears sincere in her question. She also seems sincere with the tears welling up.

“Absolutely,” I say to Molly.

“Absolutely what?” Stacey says.

“Absolutely, Molly is good,” I say. “And she is awake.”

I hand the phone to Molly. She is all sniffles as she takes it and then shushes me away sternly.

“Listen to this, Stacey,” she says, the bubbles rising in her voice and falling from her eyes as she starts to read.

Christ. The poems.

•   •   •

When Molly finally comes out of
her
room, she's wearing the white fluffy bathrobe and great, puffy, sore, saucer eyes.

“You all right?” I say.

“Sure. Just crying.”

“Stacey, right? She can be tough. Don't take it so hard. She nearly made me cry just before you—”

“Stacey didn't make me cry. I made
her
cry if you wanna know the truth.”

“Stacey?”

“Stacey.”

“You. Made Stacey. Cry. Stacey?”

“Stacey. Except it wasn't me, really. It was your dad.”

“Aw shit,” I say, and jump back as she draws the poetry book out of the bathrobe. “He's toxic. Like ammonia mixed with whatever it is you're not supposed to mix ammonia with. He makes everybody cry.”

“You don't have to be such a
guy
about it,” she says, eventually laying the book on top of the washer-dryer. “They're stunning. I read every one. Such a soft soul. They have great spirituality, really. Do you have a favorite? You must have.”

“Ah, yeah, the one that goes, ‘There once were three twins from Toledo . . .'”

She goes into full scold now, with the wagging finger and everything. “That is just sad and pathetic, that you have to hide behind jokes instead of allowing yourself to really feel.”

I can only guess from her response to the literature that Dad has slipped some more recent, more serious offerings in there among the goofy rhymes he made up for us when we were three, and seven, and ten, and twelve, and fifteen.

“Sorry, Molly. Didn't mean to be hiding.” Except that I did. “Emotion and feelings and stuff can be hard, y'know?”

She points at me, and smiles a smile of one who truly believes she has the answer to the question.

“You should come to church with me, Kiki. It helps, it really does, to unlock a person, and open them up to . . .”

She trails off when she sees my own smile and, I suppose, my jackass back-of-class body language.

“Did I say something funny?” she says, grim as God.

“Well . . . yeah, come on, Molly. Jesus saves? Please. Jesus, just save it, is what I feel like telling him. You believe all that stuff, do you? You feel as if you are
saved,
yes? Got yourself all sorted out, have you?”

There is nothing cute about her great big eyes narrowed at me right now.

“Are those my clothes?” she asks without gesture.

“Yup,” I say too brightly. “Here you go, ma'am.”

She comes up to take her clean clothes out of my hands. I hang on to them tightly. As if we are playing. She tries for a couple of seconds to tug them away but then refuses to play.

“At least Jesus isn't an asshole,” she says.

“Well, the jury is still out on—”

“Shut
up
,” she snaps. “Just because you are proud to be emotionally retarded, that does not give you the right to trash my beliefs.”