Leap Year (17 page)

“And they’ll do it? They’ll have a funeral for sandbags?”

“If you pay them enough, they’ll have a funeral for a piece of dog shit.”

Amanda stood up and began pacing the room. She drew aside a curtain and looked down on Madison Avenue. The first limos and taxis had arrived. A black-clad crowd milled. It looked a little like the East Village. “It’s her friends,” Amanda announced. “Her voodoo friends. They’ve stolen her body, for their sicko voodoo rituals. It’s probably in Haiti by now. I’m sure there is nothing for us to worry about.”

“Did you see the paper? They mentioned Leonora in the obit.”

“I saw that,” said Amanda. She tried to access the bar. “How did they know? I thought no one knew they were related?”

“Nobody did. Except for our friends at the
Times.
Apparently they know everything.”

“Well, I don’t see the problem there. I never understood why we had to pretend Leonora was an Italian journalist, anyway.”

“Because witnesses that stand to inherit a couple million are not always best believed.”

“I don’t understand that either.” Amanda abandoned her attack on the recalcitrant bar. “They were only half-sisters. Why should she inherit anything? Anyway, baby, you worry too much. The secret is not to worry.”

“I’m worried now,” said Anton. “I think we’ve fucked up.”

“Darling,” said Amanda, “I never fuck up. It’s not in my vocabulary. It’s beyond my ken. It’s—”

“I wish you’d be quiet,” said Anton. They were both silent a moment, and then Anton said, “I can’t believe we can’t even bury her without hassles.”

Amanda reseated herself. “Baby,” she said, “listen: She’s dead. Who cares where her body is? Let them make potpourri from her fingernails and hair! Let them roast her on a spit and dance around it! Let them perform their vile deeds. It’s over, darling. It’s all, all over. I promise you.”

Anton looked at her.

“Kiss me,” said Amanda, kissing him.

The door opened. Mr. Carlisle stood at attention. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Shawangunk,” he said. “It’s time to begin.”

“Here’s one for you,” said Judith. “Southeast Asia River. Six letters. The first letter is M.”

“Mekong,” suggested Henry.

Judith and Henry were sitting up in bed doing the Sunday
Times
crossword. Actually, Judith was doing it, and Henry was watching. His vocabulary was quite good, but it was ill-suited to the intricacies of Eugene Maleska. This was fine with Judith, who was territorial where crosswords were concerned. It was the bane of her marriage: She and Leonard were constantly fighting over who got first crack. It was heaven to have it all to yourself.

“M-E-K-O-N-G,” said Judith, writing it in. “Of course. Thank you.”

Henry beamed, and lay back in bed.

They had established the pattern of their relationship. They met every Saturday evening at the upper tiers of the New York State Theater, from which they watched the brightly colored spectacle of opera combust far below them. They had dinner and took the A train up to Judith’s. They spent the night on the waterbed. Sunday morning began with the crossword, followed by breakfast, after which Henry made his complicated way back to Queens, from which he would call Judith midweek, wondering if she wished to get together again? Yes, she would say, that would be nice.

They took nothing for granted. Each week Henry sweated while dialing Judith’s phone number, which he had taken the liberty of memorizing. He repeated it to himself at odd times, mantralike. But when it came time to call her, he would think, This time she will say no. And each week Judith waited for his call, an anticipation that gave answering the phone a sexual thrill she hadn’t experienced in years. Decades.

A six-letter word for malodorous. Smelly, thought Judith. Putrid. Rancid. This litany was interrupted by the caw of her door buzzer.

“Is that your buzzer?” asked Henry.

“It must be a mistake,” said Judith. “I’m expecting no one. What time is it?”

Henry leaned out of bed and fished his watch from the floor. Judith admired the taut brown boyish skin of his back. She kissed his spine. “Nine-thirty,” he said.

“They pushed the wrong buzzer, I’m sure. It often happens.” Judith returned to the puzzle, but the buzzer persisted. She got out of bed and gave the puzzle to Henry. “Finish this up,” she said.

In the kitchen she pushed the
TALK
button. “Who is it?” she asked.

She pressed
LISTEN.
First she heard a roar of traffic and static, and then she heard a voice quite clearly. It was a voice from her past. A voice she knew well. It said, “Judith? It’s Leonard.”

A
FTER A MOMENT OF PURE
shock, Judith recovered sufficiently to press the
TALK
button. “Leonard?” she croaked.

“Yes,” said Leonard. “Let me in.”

“Who is Leonard?”

Judith turned to see Henry standing in the bedroom doorway. The realization that he did not know Leonard was her husband startled her. “Leonard?” she said into the grill.

“Yes, it’s me. Let me in!” His patience seemed to be waning.

“I’ll be right down,” Judith found herself saying. “Stay there.”

By cleverly not pushing the
LISTEN
button she managed to avoid hearing Leonard’s response to this order. But Henry was repeating his unnerving question. She found it was time to lie.

“Leonard is my cousin,” she said. “I’ll go down and see what he wants.”

“Why don’t you let him up?”

“Because…because, well, look at us: We aren’t dressed. It wouldn’t be decent, you know. Leonard is something of a prude, you see, and this being Sunday…” Judith found lying to Henry almost impossible. The look on his face told her he believed none of what she was saying, yet he listened with a maddening politeness. What does it mean, thought Judith, that I can’t lie to him? She had always managed to lie (when absolutely necessary) to Leonard.

This thought was interrupted by an insistent buzzing. “Leonard,” she shouted, “I’ll be right down!”

“Who’s up there with you?” Leonard shouted back.

“No one,” Judith lied.

“I heard him,” said Leonard. “ ‘Who is Leonard? Who is Leonard?’ ”

“Oh,” said Judith, “it’s just a friend. I’ll be right down.”

“Do me no favors,” Leonard said.

Before she could respond to this suggestion, Henry was standing beside her, fully dressed. “I think Leonard must be your husband,” he said.

“Yes,” admitted Judith, “he is. But I don’t know what he’s doing here now. He’s supposed to be in India.”

“Well, maybe there is something bad happened. I think you should let him up, and I will go.” He reached his hand toward her face. For a moment Judith thought he was going to touch her cheek in some tender gesture, but his hand kept moving. He pressed the
DOOR
button. “You can call me, maybe, when this gets discovered, the reason of Leonard being here, and so forth. I will go now.” He opened the door.

“I’m sorry,” said Judith. “I don’t know …I mean, yes, I’ll call you. I’m sure it’s …well, I’ll call you, I promise.”

Henry bowed his head in farewell, and then disappeared down the hall. She heard him descend the stairs, avoiding the elevator. She stood in the open doorway, frozen and confused, waiting for her husband’s appearance.

But the elevator was suspiciously quiet. Where could he be? She returned to the intercom and paged him, but Leonard no longer seemed to be in the lobby. Her mind began to fill with wild thoughts: maybe he had intercepted Henry, and had caused a scene. She immediately pictured a fist fight in her tranquil lobby. Forgetting her keys, she vacated the apartment and followed Henry’s trail down the stairs, only to find the lobby empty. She ventured timidly out onto Bennett Avenue, but found it was as still as a diorama: there was no sign of Leonard, no sign of Henry.

Judith was perfectly alone. She stood there for a moment, trying to make sense of what had just happened. She then tried to think of what she should do next. At this, too, she failed.

“Do you know what an experiment is?” Loren asked Kate. They were having breakfast at Aggie’s.

“Yes,” said Kate. “We did an experiment at daycare. With Miss Coco.”

“What did you do?”

“We cut a worm in half. It was supposed to grow two worms but it didn’t.”

“Oh,” said Loren. “Well, what happened?”

“It died,” said Kate.

“Well, that wasn’t a very successful experiment. Miss Coco should have known better.”

“Known what better?”

“That it’s not smart to cut worms in half. Perhaps some worms you can do that with, but not all.”

“We cut a leg off Jiffy to see if it growed back.”

“Who’s Jiffy?”

“Our hamster,” said Kate.

Loren shuddered. “Well, that was very cruel and naughty,” she managed to say. “Did Miss Coco know you did that?”

“Yes,” said Kate.

“Well, I hope she saved Jiffy.”

“No,” said Kate. “We had to sacrifice him.”

Miss Coco has gone too far, thought Loren. She made a mental note to pursue the matter at work on Monday. Or perhaps a phone call as soon as she got home. “Well,” she said to Kate, “that is what is known as an unsuccessful experiment.”

“What?”

“The experiment didn’t work, did it?”

“No,” said Kate.

“So you learned something from it.”

“I don’t know,” said Kate.

“Of course you did. You learned not to cut legs off hamsters. That’s bad.”

“But it was good to sacrifice it.”

“No. Sacrificing things is naughty. I hope you know that.”

“It brings good to the world,” said Kate.

“No it doesn’t. Miss Coco is wrong about that!” Loren paused for a moment, trying to think of a way to return the conversation to the matter at hand. Kate picked at her eggs. “What’s the matter?” Loren asked. “Don’t you like your eggs?”

“They taste funny.”

“Here, let me taste.” Loren forked a bite of Kate’s omelet. “They taste good, honey. That’s basil. You said you liked basil. Remember we had it at Lillian’s house in the country?”

“No,” said Kate.

“Well, we did. With tomatoes, remember?”

“There’s Grandpa.”

“Where?”

“Outside. He was walking.”

“Grandpa’s in India, honey. You know that. Now eat your eggs.”

“I don’t like them.”

“Do you want mine? We can switch. Mine has nice cheese in it.”

“What kind?”

“Goat cheese. You like goat cheese.”

“No, I don’t. Can I have a muffin?”

“Eat some of your eggs first. Eat five bites.”

“Four.”

“No,” said Loren. “Five. And then you can have a muffin.”

“Do they have chocolate chip?”

“No. They have blueberry. Anyway, so you know what an experiment is?”

“Yes,” said Kate.

“What is it?”

“It’s where you cut something off.”

“No. It’s when you try something, to see if it works. I mean, cutting the hamster’s leg off was an experiment in a way, but it was a cruel experiment. It was a naughty thing to do, you see: You hurt the hamster, and that isn’t nice.”

Kate was frowning down at her omelet.

“But the idea is the same,” Loren continued, more gently. “You wanted to see if the hamster would grow another leg, so you cut it off. And you found out he wouldn’t.”

“Couldn’t, not wouldn’t,” said Kate.

“You’re right: couldn’t. He would if he could, I’m sure. Anyway—two more bites; I’m counting—Daddy and I did an experiment. When we decided to live together again. We wanted to see what would happen. If it would make us happy.”

“You should cut Daddy’s leg off.”

“No I shouldn’t. Stop being silly. We thought we knew how the experiment would end. We thought it would make us happy to live together. But we were wrong. Just like Miss Coco was wrong about the worm and Skippy.”

“Who?”

“The hamster.”

“Jiffy,” said Kate.

“Oh, yes, Jiffy. Poor Jiffy. But it’s good to do experiments, if they’re not cruel and stupid ones like Miss Coco’s, because you learn things from them, even if they don’t work out the way you thought they would. In fact, that’s how you learn, when things don’t work out.”

“I had five,” said Kate.

“I know.”

“Are you crying?”

“No,” said Loren.

“You look like you are.”

“I’m just a little sad,” said Loren.

“Can I have a muffin now?”

“Yes,” said Loren. “Of course you can.”

INTER-OFFICE MEMORANDUM

TO:
Esther Ploth

DATE:
October 3, 1988

FROM:
Loren Connor

RE:
Voodoo at Daycare

My daughter, Kate, recently told me a rather alarming story about activities that were taking place at the NYBW daycare center. According to Kate, a hamster by the name of Jiffy (possibly Skippy) was mutilated in the guise of an “experiment” by Miss Coco. Kate claimed Miss Coco cut a leg off the hamster with the purpose of seeing if it would “grow back.” When the leg showed no signs of reappearing, the animal was (according to Kate) “sacrificed.”

While I believe that the dissection of certain already dead animals can be a valid educational experience, I think such experiments, even if properly conducted, are inappropriate at the daycare level, to say nothing of what was in effect a vivisection. Kate seems to have taken this grotesque event in stride, but I was not pleased to hear about it and think an end should be put to such activities. I confronted Miss Coco (is Coco her first or last name? I don’t see her listed in the employment directory), who denied Kate’s entire story. She told me Kate was a troubled child with a vivid imagination and that perhaps “her head should be shrunk.” (I found that remark threatening and unprofessional.) I do not believe Kate was lying. I believe Miss Coco, or whatever her name is, was. I asked to see the hamster—assuming if it had not been sacrificed it would still be inhabiting the Habitrail. Miss Coco showed me a gerbil, claiming it was a hamster. Esther, I know a gerbil when I see one, and this animal was most certainly a gerbil. Miss Coco continued to insist it was a hamster.