Alice Fantastic (19 page)

“This is my sister, Tess,” Billy said then.

Shit,
I thought.

“And my nephew Trevor,” Billy indicated the child. “I wanted to show them Woodstock.”

“Right,” I said. I had no idea how to proceed.

“Is everything okay?” Billy asked as the sister smiled pleasantly and the child looked all around.

“Not really.”

This wasn't the answer he was hoping for. He looked uncomfortable.

“My mother is dying of cancer and you screwed my baby sister.”

“Uh …” Billy looked nervously at his own sister. Then at the kid. “What?”

“Eloise. My sister. Cute tiny girl with dark-brown hair? You met her in Central Park?”

“Uh … what?” Billy Rotten squinted.

“You don't remember?” I was just about screaming. Billy's sister had hustled her child a few feet away to look into a shop window.

“I … I'm confused,” said Billy, glancing to see where his sister had gone, or maybe to take in the fact that the tension in our bodies was inciting passersby to stare.

“You had a one-night stand with Eloise, my little sister. Before having several-nights stands with me.” With every fiber of my being, I was resisting telling him Eloise was pregnant. She had decided the guy was too much of a lout to be told and I didn't want to give him the opportunity to prove her wrong. I loathed him for making me feel things I was unaccustomed to feeling and then leaving me high and dry.

“Eloise is your sister?”

“Yes.”

“What are the odds of that?”

“It's not funny, Billy, William, whoever the fuck you are.”

“But it
is
strange.”

“You're a flaming asshole.”

“I've been told that.”

I wanted to bash his skull in with a lead pipe.

“Alice,” he said in an oily voice, “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“All of it,” he said, making a big helpless gesture. “You and me. Your sister. I didn't mean any harm.”

“Oh, please.”

“You scared me. I ran. Same, ironically, with your sister.”

“That's ironic all right.”

“What do you want me to say here?”

“I don't want you to say anything. I just thought you should know. You fucked me and you fucked my sister and we were both fucked up by it. Have a nice day.” I turned and walked toward the van.

“Alice!” he called. Some tiny, idiotic part of me felt hopeful. Like he would come running to explain some unruly set of emotional problems that had led to his not calling me. I had, I realized, been hoping he was married, that this explained his disappearance. It was too harrowing to consider that after all my years of carefully selecting men who couldn't possibly hurt me, I had been duped, had fallen for someone who sat by laughing as I tumbled into the void.

“What?” I turned back for a second.

“I'm sorry.”

“Big deal,” I said, and then kept walking.

I sat clutching the steering wheel, choking the thing. Ira had jumped into the front passenger seat with Candy and Carlos. He licked me and, in his enthusiasm, bumped me hard in the chin.

“Away, beast.”

“Where were you?” Eloise demanded when the dogs and I tumbled in through Mom's kitchen door. “I was worried.”

“Went to the store.”

I deposited the grocery bags on the kitchen table. After sitting in the van trying to breathe for close to forty-five minutes, I had finally snapped out of my stupor and driven to the grocery store.

“What's the matter with you? You look ashen,” my sister said.

“I'm upset about Mom.”

“It's about time.”

“What's with you, Eloise?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why so snarky and vindictive?”

“Vindictive? Me?”

“Never mind.” I didn't want a fight.

“Don't
never mind
the situation. What are you saying?”

“It's just …” I sighed.

“It's just what, Alice?”

“It's just that everyone experiences pain differently. Reacts to it differently. I realize you don't believe I actually have feelings and the concordant pain, but I do, Eloise. I don't appreciate your being judgmental about how I'm dealing with my grief.”

I didn't look at her. Had taken a seat at the cheerful kitchen table and was gazing down at my hands that suddenly fascinated me.

“I'm sorry,” I heard my sister say in a small voice.

I glanced up and saw how sheepish she was looking, how tiny and wounded, like a stabbed dove.

“It's okay,” I said, reaching over and patting her hand.

We fell silent then. Awkward, embarrassed by having such a direct conversation.

“The dogs,” I said, standing up, “I have to get the gimpy ones out.”

“Oh, I did that already,” Eloise shrugged.

I stopped in mid-stride. Unsure what to do now.

“Mom's at Joe's?” I asked, just for something to say.

“Yeah.”

“When are you going back to Ava's?”

“I dunno. I thought I'd spend the night here. Be close to Mom in case anything comes up.”

“Oh.”

“Alice?” Eloise said then, which was weird, her using my name like that, making sure I paid close attention even though, obviously, I had to since I was standing right there.

“Yeah?” I was nervous, wondering if she somehow knew I had seen Billy.

“When are you going to see Clayton?” my sister asked.

“Clayton?” I was confused. “I don't know, why?”

“I think you should go see Clayton.”

I tilted my head. “Why?”

“You just should.” She didn't seem to want to elaborate.

I frowned at her for a few seconds, then started unpacking the groceries.

I showed the guard my driver's license and expected some sort of grief or request for more identification. I'd come armed with four pieces of ID, and had stripped my person of all metal objects, including my watch and any change in my pockets, doing whatever I could think to not set off any alarms or be forbidden from seeing Clayton after schlepping on the Rikers bus and waiting in a cold, fluorescent-lit room packed with broken, desperate people. My license was evidently enough and I was permitted to remove my shoes and go through the metal detector. I didn't set it off but was patted down anyway. Then sent to another room to wait. This second room was a bit smaller and brighter but not exactly cheerful. People, mostly black and Latina women with children, sat in molded plastic chairs, some striking up conversations with each other, some keeping to themselves. There was one other white person in the waiting room, a thin old man with a scar on his face who looked like he'd done time. A lot of time.

I'd wanted to come see Clayton without any fanfare, to just drop by unannounced, but discovered that not only did he have to put my name on a list of visitors he'd accept, but I had to figure out the visiting schedule that went according to the first letter of the inmate's last name. The M day was Thursday, so here I was. In a molded plastic chair. Feeling incredibly conspicuous with my straw-colored hair and the elegant blue pantsuit I'd donned for the occasion. Other women were looking at me resentfully, like I was some sort of slumming princess, which admittedly was how I felt even though it was probably the first time in my life I'd felt like anything resembling a princess.

My ass was beginning to throb from the chair's hardness when Clayton's name was finally called and I was permitted to walk through yet another door and into a big, cavernous room filled with little tables with more molded plastic chairs. It wasn't hard to pick Clayton out, between the bright orange jumpsuit and his whiteness. There was only one other white guy and he was short and squat with no hair.

My stomach churned when I first laid eyes on my big, jumpsuited oaf. Not in apprehension or revulsion. I was excited, almost exhilarated to see him. He looked beautiful to me and this was so startling that I stopped short before reaching the table he was sitting in front of.

He was looking up at me with no expression at all. He'd cut his hair into a crew cut about an inch long. It suited his big features. His dark eyes, which were so good at looking hurt, were immense and, in that moment, incredibly inviting. Except he wasn't looking at me invitingly. He was just staring, barely seeming to register that I was there.

I felt like I was walking in slow motion, every step taking several minutes. My chest constricted. The poor bastard, I thought. He's in prison. It hadn't really registered till this moment, just as Mom's rapidly approaching death hadn't fully registered until I realized I'd never watch her get old.

“Hi,” I said, taking the chair opposite his at the table.

“Hi, Alice,” he responded in that low, sad voice of his.

“You okay?” I asked, peering at him as if I'd never studied his face before, which, in fact, I probably hadn't. He'd always been a vague impression, an indistinct blur of man.

“I'm in prison, Alice,” he said softly.

He looked at me for a second then looked back down at the table.

“I'm sorry about all this, Clayton.”

“I got off pretty easy in the grand scheme of things.”

“What's it like?” I asked, motioning around me.

“It's prison, Alice, what do you think it's like?”

“Oh,” I said, sheepish. “What can I do?”

“What do you mean, what can you do?”

“To make the next ten months a bit more bearable.”

“Nothing,” he said with a shrug.

“Are you pissed at me, Clayton?”

“No.” He still wouldn't look at me. “You're not really talking to me.”

“What do you want to talk about, Alice?” Now he
was
looking at me. “You've jerked my chain for months and I wouldn't be in prison if it weren't for you. I don't want to talk. In fact, I almost didn't put your name on the visitor's list.”

I stared at him. “I'm sorry, Clayton, I'm fucked up. But I'm trying not to be.”

“That's supposed to make it okay? You're sorry? I'm in prison and you're sorry?”

I said nothing and looked down at my lap. At the cool cotton of my dark-blue suit pants. I thought of the nice cream lace panties I was wearing. Not that I'd thought there'd be a chance to show them to Clayton, just that I wanted to feel like a woman wearing nice underwear. From the looks of it, Clayton had no interest in ever seeing my underwear again. As I realized this, I felt my stomach knot up.
I love this guy
, I thought. And there wasn't a second thought, a second voice inside me kicking in to volubly ridicule this notion.

I sat absorbing the shock of it. Then I looked up at Clayton with his head hanging down toward his chest, his stubble of brown hair, his big shoulders hunched in the prison-issue orange jumpsuit.

“I love you, Clayton,” I said.

His head snapped up and he narrowed his eyes. He didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then: “What was it you said when I told you I loved you? Something like
Shut up
or
What the fuck are you saying?”

“I was wrong. I was reacting to you as if you were all the ones who came before you,” I said quietly.

At the table next to us, a woman was reaching across to touch her orange-jumpsuited man. She started putting her fingers in his mouth. A guard came over. “No touching,” he said. The woman sat back a few inches.

“I don't know why you're saying these things now, Alice, but it's no use. You killed whatever was there. Killed it dead.” He shrugged again, then looked back down at his hands. “Anyway,” he added, “I'm getting back with Becky. She's been coming to see me.”

“Who?”

“My ex-wife. Becky. When I get out of here I'm moving in with her.”

“The one who ran off with a plumber?”

“Yeah,” Clayton lifted his chin a little, “I made her do it.”

“You made your ex-wife run off with a plumber?”

“I kept going camping.”

“Come again?”

“I kept going camping. Every weekend I'd go camping. Becky hated camping.”

“Ah,” I said. I'd never known camping to be a relationship crime.

“Now she says she doesn't mind. Whatever I need to do to keep my head on straight. She doesn't mind.”

“Well, that's big of her.”

“Don't be a fucking smart-ass.”

“What do you want me to be?”

“Nothing.”

“I guess that says it all.” I went to push my molded plastic chair back. Then realized it was bolted to the floor. I stood up. I waited for Clayton to protest.

“Alice,” he said in a quiet but firm voice. “Sit down.”

I sat.

“Don't walk out of here hating me. I don't need that. I don't deserve it. I tried with you.”

I looked at him. Waited for more. But that was it.

He was so handsome.

I stood up again. I walked away without turning back.

“What, you wanted to wait around for the inevitable bitterness and disappointment to set in? I expect better of you.” Arthur hadn't deigned to look up from his notes when I'd told him that I'd seen, and been blown off by, my jailbird paramour the day before.

We were at Belmont, in box seats Arthur had inherited for the afternoon. I'd called him up the day before, after getting off the Rikers bus. I'd planned to spend one night at home in Queens then head back up to Woodstock the next morning. But the whole Clayton episode had flattened me so much that I had to do something to feel like myself again—as opposed to some trampled, dejected
thing
. On the phone, Arthur hadn't asked how I was or what I was doing, had just told me what box he'd be in at Belmont the next day and that he expected to see me there around noon.

“I'm not myself, Arthur,” I said now.

“You don't want me to actually believe you cared about this lumberjack, do you?”