You Have the Wrong Man
Also by
MARIA FLOOK
Family Night
Open Water
Copyright © 1996 by Maria Flook
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Many of the stories in this collection were originally published in the following: Agni Review:
“Rhode Island Fish Company” ·
Bomb Magazine:
“Riders to the Sea” (also reprinted in
The Pushcart Prize Anthology
, 1995) ·
Michigan Quarterly Review:
“Asbestos” ·
Northwest Review:
“Lane” ·
Playgirl:
“You Are Here” (originally published under title “Clean”) ·
Ploughshares:
“Exchange Street” (originally published under title “Cheaters’ Club”) ·
Triquarterly:
“Prince of Motown”
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material: Jobete Music Co., Inc.:
Excerpt from “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby,” words and music by Barrett Strong, Norman Whitfield, and Janie Bradford, copyright © 1966 by Jobete Music Co., Inc. Reprinted by permission of Jobete Music Co., Inc. ·
Jobete Music Co., Inc., and Stone Diamond Music Corporation:
Excerpt from “Let’s Get It On,” words and music by Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend, copyright © 1973 by Jobete Music Co., Inc., and Stone Diamond Music Corporation. Reprinted by permission of Jobete Music Co., Inc., and Stone Diamond Music Corporation. ·
Hal Leonard Corporation:
Excerpt from “Sexual Healing,” words and music by Marvin Gaye and Dell Brown, copyright © 1982 by EMI April Music Inc., Bug Pie Music Publishing and EMI Blackwood Music Inc. All rights for Bug Pie Music Publishing controlled and administered by EMI April Music Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation. ·
Melody Trails, Inc.:
Excerpt from “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season),” words from the Book of Ecclesiastes, adaptation and music by Pete Seeger, TRO—copyright © 1962 (Renewed) by Melody Trails, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Melody Trails, Inc., New York, N.Y.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Flook, Maria.
You Have the Wrong Man : stories by Maria Flook.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-83162-0
I. Title.
PS3556.L583R48 1996
813′.54—dc20 95-26156
v3.1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSMy thanks to friends who have encouraged me in the writing of these stories: to Kim Witherspoon and John Hoberg, to Claudine O’Hearn, to Lou Papineau, to Kate Flook, for lending me her copy of J. M. Synge, and for her confidence, and to Judith Grossman, for her kinship and faith. My full gratitude to Daniel Frank, my editor, who opened essential windows in this text, from which I saw deeper and deeper.
for John Skoyles
NORMA
I want the coffin to be white.
And I want it specially lined with satin. White, or deep pink.
She picks up the shawl to make up her mind about the color. From under the shawl flops down a dead arm. Gillis stares and recoils a little. It is like a child’s arm, only black and hairy.
NORMA
Maybe red, bright flaming red.
Gay. Let’s make it gay.
Gillis edges closer and glances down. Under the shawl he sees the sad, bearded face of a dead chimpanzee.
Norma drops back the shawl.
NORMA
How much will it be? I warn you—
don’t give me a fancy price just
because I’m rich.
GILLIS
Lady, you’ve got the wrong man.
—
Sunset Boulevard
Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D. M. Marshman, Jr.
CONTENTS RHODE ISLAND FISH COMPANYI
have been losing sleep because of a fish truck parked outside my bedroom window. The cooling unit on top of the cab makes a constant hum. The hum itself isn’t too bad, I could have adjusted to that, but the pulse of the freon varies in tone. Low gurgles and sudden surges, an almost moody mechanical tempo that is ruining my nights. It’s important to me to keep on top of my fatigue. My twenty-year-old niece has come to live with me for a semester. I’m happy to have someone in the house again. I might have sold it after the dust settled and my husband moved to Denver. My sons were grown. I stayed because I have always liked our street, which crests College Hill. Living on a hill is lucky; I look down at the city and see the
metallicized glass and rosy granites of the New Providence. I still like the ashy façades of the old buildings, the chalky dome of the State House upon its brilliant marble plinths. The light here is constant; it enters the house early, arcs across, and in the evening it’s on the other side with nothing to obstruct it.
My sleepless nights worry me because I need to be fresh in order to remain level. I wanted to maintain my initial “openness,” which my niece seemed to appreciate from the start. I have grown to enjoy her company, although she is mercurial, unpredictable, dewy, then full of bile. I try to comfort her, but sometimes I cross a line and I can’t tell until I’m over it and she has already retreated.
I enjoy opening my closet so she might have something “on loan,” and I’m never shaken if she’s slow to return it. My boyfriend, Garland, insists it’s vanity itself that I encourage Pamela to wear my clothes and give her carte blanche with my hundred-dollar shoes. He says I
put
her in my wardrobe as proof to all that I have kept my figure. He is right. I am pleased that at thirty years her senior, my pinstripe Capri pants, my kitschy pearled sweaters, and a gorgeous rubbed-silk Italian jacket fit Pamela as if she were me. We are similarly svelte, narrow-waisted. My curves have held up. Pam sometimes rifles through my lingerie drawer since we are the same cup size. Not overly buxom, but lord knows, not flat. I found her in my bedroom and we shared the tight oval of the antique pedestal mirror. Reflected there, we discussed what we thought was the sublime optimum. What was perfection? We made our lists and briskly concurred—the ideal was early Loren.
“She’s completely drenched, you remember? Her shirt
is clinging,” Pamela said. “She walks out of the water onto the beach in that scene from
Boy on a Dolphin
.”