The Ninth Wife (15 page)

“She doesn’t seem traumatized,” says Bess, remembering the evening over a month ago she found Stella at Cricket’s door. “And she was with me, remember? But I still don’t understand why someone would just leave her at your door.”

“That’s Claus. He’d leave his mother at a whorehouse to finish a game of pool, the lecherous louse.” Stella, who’s been watching Cricket, returns to licking her loo-loo.

Bess leans back in her chair. “Who’s Claus again?”

“Childhood acquaintance. I was running late; he was the only one who would pick her up from the kennel with such short notice.” He looks askance at Bess, laying on the guilt.

“Hey, don’t give me a hard time,” says Bess. “I’d just met Rory then.”

Cricket nibbles on the animal cracker that came with his coffee. “So how is the lucky leprechaun?”

“Good. Great. He’s great.” She brushes her forefinger over her lips. “You know that’s the first time you’ve asked me about him in a long time, since you came back from your trip, that mysterious trip you won’t talk about.”

Cricket turns his head to the street. Bess can’t tell where he’s looking because of his sunglasses, but she suspects he’s not looking at anything, more that he’s looking away from some unwanted thought or emotion, and if she didn’t know Cricket as well as she does, his looking away might go unnoticed, but she does know him well, knows there is a vast world behind his shtick.

“You’re delusional,” he says. “I know everything there is to know about your blip boys.” Cricket came up with the phrase
blip boy
a while ago to describe the men who come and go in Bess’s life, like blips on her life’s radar.

“Rory is
not
a blip boy,” she says. “Is that why you’ve been afraid to ask?”

“I assure you the only thing I fear are gay Republicans.” The waitress serves their waffle and bagel and refills their water. “So, all right,” says Cricket, giving her his full attention. “I’ve bought my movie ticket. Let’s roll the film.
Montage
me,” he says, fanning his fingers out around his face.

She spreads Nutella on her waffle. “Let’s see,” she says, swallowing a mouthful. “There would have to be Irish music in the background. And then you’d see us, maybe playing a game of darts, and mine hits the wall next to the board, and he makes a show of whistling and looking around, you know, so that no one will notice when he moves my dart to the bull’s-eye and we start laughing and then . . . we’re at a soccer game and we pop up out of our seats to cheer when D.C. United scores their only goal and he gives me a big bear hug that makes us both pause and look into each other’s eyes and kiss even though everyone else has sat back down . . .”

“Enough!” Cricket makes a grand gesture of covering his ears. “Please stop. I need a vomitorium immediately.”

“I told you I’m not as good at montaging as you are.”

“Clearly. Honey, your movie’s going straight to video.” He extends his chubby paw to Bess’s plate and steals a strawberry. “And since when do you like soccer?”

“I like soccer. I mean, it’s okay. He likes it. And I’m open to new things.” She licks Nutella off her fork. “I was just trying to show that we’ve been having fun, getting to know each other. I can skip to the sex if you want.”

“
LA LA LA
, I can’t hear you suddenly. Terrible traffic noise.” He takes off his sunglasses. “Bess,” he says more quietly, looking at her under the shadow of his curled lashes. “Have you two done anything that
you’ve
suggested? What’s
your
music playing in the background?”

“My music?” Bess pushes away her plate. A polished black sports car with a fat elbow resting out the side window blares loud hip-hop and succeeds in turning heads as it drives past. Bess asks the waitress for the bill. “We’ve done stuff I like. He’s going to a concert with me tonight, Bolivian music, at the Kennedy Center.”

“Well, good then. I’m very happy for you. You deserve it, enjoy it while—” and here he stops.

“While it lasts? Is that what you were going to say?”

“While the big asteroid headed for earth is still far, far away.” He pulls from his carry bag a small plastic bag of cheddar cheese Goldfish and proceeds to eat them one at a time. “Look, Bess darling, what do you really know about this man?”

“I know he’s forty-six, single, no kids, and is one of the most romantic guys I have ever met.” Bess recognizes by the way Cricket pulls back that she has raised her voice, that her neck is stretched high, her hands clenched into fists. She leans back and breathes deeply. “Okay, so we don’t know everything about each other, but it’s only been a month and we’re not in our twenties, you know?” Bess puts her napkin down over her plate. “There’s still a lot to learn about him, but I will. I’m not worried.”

Cricket finishes eating his cheese fish and wipes his fingertips with his napkin. He opens a tiny hand-held mirror and checks his teeth. The basic contents of Cricket’s man purse hardly ever change: mirror, tushy wipes, cheese Goldfish, playing cards, dog treats, poop bags, travel-sized Lysol, cell phone if he remembers. Things like keys and a wallet don’t seem high on his priority list, as he often forgets them.

“His friends tease him about wanting to be married and he just takes it in stride. That’s a good sign, don’t you think?”

“I do. I do, I do, I do,” Cricket intones, putting his sunglasses back on. “Oh, the life-sucking sounds of wedding vows.”

There is something in his delivery that betrays a certain sadness or fatigue—an extra exhalation maybe, the dropped shoulders, a slight head shake, a look-down-admit-defeat frown—that makes Bess think it is not of the moment but of the memory. The orchestra of his humor is slightly flat sometimes and she often wonders: Does he speak more often from experience than from mere observation and cantankerous opinions? Aren’t old queens supposed to be gushing and maudlin about their past? How is it she ended up with one as tight-lipped as a CIA agent?

“Hi,” says a little boy who has approached their table. He stands in place fiddling with the metal buttons of his red overalls, his eyes roving the nooks and crannies of Cricket’s exterior.

Cricket notices the boy’s curiosity and places his hand on his heart. “How unnerving,” he says, pulling Stella closer to his side.

The boy presses his forefinger to his teeth and sways. “Is that your dog?”

“Yes. He bites, you don’t want to touch him.”

The boy points to Cricket’s belly. “What do you have in there?”

“Small children. I ate two this morning with a side of bacon and I’m suddenly very hungry again.”

The boy stares into Cricket’s eyes and takes a small step back. He puts his arms inside his overalls and sways again. “My mother says being fat is bad for your heart.”

“Yes, well,” says Cricket, looking away, “mine’s already broken, so what.”

The boy takes his hands out of his overalls and places them on his hips with his thumbs in front like an old man. “If you laugh a lot,” he says, “it’s like exercising, and you’d forget about eating and you wouldn’t be so fat.”

“Very enlightening. Now run along to your mama and throw a tantrum or whatever you beasts do to pass the time.”

The boy stays where he is. Bess laughs. “He’s a smart kid.”

“Listen,” he says to the boy, pointing to Bess, “go pick on her. She’s very lonely, you know.”

The boy turns his face first, then his eyes, which have been glued to Cricket all this time. Now he stares at Bess. He pokes his tongue into his cheek. “Why are you lonely?”

“I’m not,” she says. It
is
unnerving how long a child can stare into your eyes.

He thinks for a moment. “My mom has a camera. She can take a picture of you after she says cheese and after you smile and then, and then you could keep the picture, and then you could look at the picture and not be lonely.”

Wow
, thinks Bess.

“Luis!” yells a woman with a black ponytail like a horse’s mane and large hoop earrings. She bends down to grab the boy’s hand and pull him away. “I’m sorry if he was bothering you,” she says. “Luis, come eat your bagel.”

“That’s okay, he’s very cute,” says Bess, as she waves good-bye to the boy.

“Adorable,” says Cricket, spraying Lysol in the space the boy was occupying.

“C’mon,” says Bess. “Let’s go.”

T
he sun feels hot without the late morning breeze. Bess loves springtime in D.C., though it is fleeting and always defeated by the insipid sauna of summer. “Come with me to Eastern Market,” she says to Cricket as they leave the café and cross the street. “I’m meeting Gaia.”

“Who’s Gaia?”

“The woman whose water broke in my bed. Remember?” She’d seen Gaia a few times over the last month, though finding her to begin with was nearly impossible. The hospital had no record of a “Gaia,” as she must have used a different name, and the administrator at the front desk would not give out any personal information though Bess described Gaia down to the last freckle. It was finally the nice mama-bear nurse who succumbed to the sad story of Gaia’s boyfriend leaving her at the critical moment and how women like them should stick together.

“Why do I need to go to Eastern Market?” says Cricket, unlocking his car door. “I’m very busy.”

“Because you need fresh produce. Just come.”

Stella revels in the wind, her rubbery cheeks flapping out the back window as Cricket drives them down through the city to Capitol Hill. On a warm spring weekend Eastern Market is abuzz with shoppers. Outside near the main building, local farmers slice off pieces of pears, holding them out for passersby. Farther down are local artisans selling jewelry, vintage maps, light switch plates, handmade paper.

Bess wouldn’t say she and Gaia are bonding like fast friends, but Bess enjoys her company. Gaia’s strange ideas and calm ways are sometimes infuriating, but mostly cathartic to Bess, who feels a sense of responsibility to check up on her and baby Pearl.

She usually meets Gaia and the baby for a walk in Rock Creek Park. This time, Bess had suggested to Gaia that they meet at the market instead; the park had become too distracting. Bess would try to be in tune to the rustling of leaves, the texture of bark, the feel of roots on the arch of her foot. But that’s as far as she’d get. Rats, dog piss, teenage couples’ carvings of declarations—they are what drew Gaia’s comforting arms to their trunks.
You’re like the ultimate tree hugger
, Bess once joked, but Gaia had no humor in the shade.

“Listen,” says Bess, as Cricket attempts to parallel park, “don’t mention Sonny when you see Gaia. She still hasn’t heard from him so . . . bad subject, okay?”

Cricket is breathing heavily from his parking efforts. “Not a word, I promise.”

“I’m serious, Cricket . . . I know you. No
It’s so SUNNY out
or
I love your SUNNY disposition
. Don’t be clever, okay?”

“I don’t know why you’re saying that, I’m a gentleman to the core. Where is she living now?”

“With her mom in Leesburg.”

“Poor girl. I told you he was yillied.”

They find Gaia on a park bench, humming, gently rolling the stroller back and forth. She has on jeans and a peasant shirt, her long red hair pulled back in twine. She’s lost much of her weight from pregnancy, but is still curved and voluptuous. She hugs Bess hello, rubs her shoulders, fingers Bess’s ponytail. She smells vaguely of Patchouli. “I like when you have your hair away from your face, Bess. You have such pretty eyes and cheekbones.”

“Thanks,” says Bess, never sure how to react to Gaia’s compliments. Bess adjusts her knapsack so it rests on both shoulders. “Gaia, you remember Cricket, don’t you? And this is Stella.”

“Nice to see you both,” says Gaia warmly, but she reaches out only to the dog. Does she instinctively know that Cricket wouldn’t shake hands?

Bess leans over the stroller to examine the cherubic Pearl. Pearl stares at her the way the little boy did in the café, wide and unflinchingly. Bess smiles and strokes the feathery hairs on Pearl’s head. “How’s my happy little girl today?” She addresses Gaia as the three of them stroll toward the market. “So how is she really? She was a little colicky last week.”

“She’s fine now. Sleeping well, has a hearty appetite. She’s my angel.”

Gaia stops at several small leafy plants arranged in a patch of dirt at the edge of the sidewalk, a block from the market. She bends down and touches their stems, then pulls from the bottom part of her stroller a pair of scissors and a full watering can. She attends to the plants with surprising efficiency.

“Doesn’t the city or these stores take care of that or something?” Bess asks.

“I don’t know,” says Gaia, returning her equipment to the stroller. “I like taking care of them. Keeps me out of my mother’s house.” Bess asks how it’s going, living with her mom with Pearl there, and Gaia tells her it’s okay for now, though she can do without the constant Dustbusting of curtains, fluffing of pillows, and polishing of countertops, not to mention the shouts of her mother’s private trainer who comes to the house every other morning and circles around her and her Nautilus machine like a buzzard, then joins her for chocolate martinis. Daughters are either just like their mothers or completely opposite, Bess once concluded. It’s not hard to see which way Gaia went. “Let’s go this way,” says Gaia, touching Cricket’s elbow to emphasize the direction. It’s interesting that Cricket doesn’t flinch at the touch.

Suddenly a man calls out to Cricket from the corner where the market begins. He is hard to see through the crowd, but he’s loud and getting louder as he approaches. Once in view, he appears short and squat and so pale as to look albino. “Cricket!” he is yelling. “Cricket!”

“Oh my God!” Cricket screeches. He does an about-face and quickly pulls Stella around the corner, up a set of stairs, and into the Wife of Bath’s apparel shop.

“Cricket, stop!” yells the man. “Call my sister, will you? For Christ’s sake, just call her!” He slows and then stops, shrugs and shakes his head, and gives up, swallowed by the undertow of market browsers who crisscross in front of him and carry him back into the depths of consumer shopping.