The Broom of the System (56 page)

Lenore slowly reached for the open can and poured some more wine into her Road Runner glass. She hunched forward in the white burlap chair until her face was right over the table. She could see some of Lang in the top of her wine, erratic and shimmery, with mint eyes, in the yellow.

“And for his more or less ordering me not to tell you, either,” Lang was saying. He looked at the side of Lenore’s face. “The thing is, Lenore, he more or less ordered me not to tell you, which is why I didn’t tell you.”

Lenore shook the glass a little, rattled the bottom against the tabletop. The wine in the glass sloshed; Lang was broken into pieces that didn’t fit.

“Which means I’m afraid I need to ask you maybe to promise not to tell R.V. I told you, for fear of my job and all,” he said.

“Just like you yourself apparently promised Rick not to tell.”

Lang took his shoe off the table and leaned forward too, so his head was alongside Lenore‘s, a big curl of her hair hanging in the air between them. Lang looked at the curl. “I guess that promise has to get chalked up to what you might call strategic misrepresentation,” he said, very quietly.

“Strategic misrepresentation.”

“Yes. ‘Cause I made it before I ever got exposed to your good qualities and began to care about you as a person.” Lang set his glass of wine down and slowly took hold of some of Lenore’s curl and twisted it this way and that, all very gently.

“I see.”

“Not entirely sure you do, here, Lenore.”

“Oh, I think I do,” Lenore said, getting up and gently getting her hair out of the reach of Lang’s fingers. She walked over to the window and looked out at the houses across the Tissaws’ dark street. All the houses seemed to have their lights on.

“Well then maybe I should ask what do you think,” Lang said from back at the couch, where Lenore could see in the window he’d recrossed his legs and picked up his wine again. “What do you think about it, then,” he said.

“I don’t know,” Lenore said after a minute, breathing on the cold window. She watched how what she said made it hard to see out. “I don’t know what to think, old Wang-Dang Lang. Tell me what to think, please, and then I’ll think that way about it.”

“Well now that’s no way to talk, Lenore.”

Lenore didn’t say anything.

“And you should call me Andy,” said Lang. “You shouldn’t call me anything but Andy, I don’t think.”

“There, that’s what we need,” Lenore said, nodding, with her eyes closed. “We need it explicit. We need this control thing made explicit. No more games. People tell me what to do and think and say and call them, and I do it. It’ll all be simple. Then everybody can stop whispering when I’m asleep, and hiring each other behind my back, and wearing gas masks. They can just start making sense.” Lenore turned around. “So let’s really do it, OK? How are you supposed to be mixed up with my great-grandmother?”

“Now let’s just hold up here a second, Lenore,” said Lang. He put down his glass and came over to within a few feet of where Lenore was standing, at the window. On one side of them was the television screen; behind Lang was the way to the door. “Whoa there,” Lang was saying. “I don’t know anything about any great-grandmother mix-ups. And all‘I got to do with your family is basically you.” He shook his head. “Far as I know there’s nobody sneaking around about you and me.”

Lenore looked at the floor and put one of her curls behind her ear and crossed her arms. Lang was between her and the door. Her eyes began to get big and hot, and she felt as if there was wood in her voice box. She looked at Lang, who had his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his pants.

“Then how come I feel like the whole universe is playing pimp for me with you?” she said quietly. She thought she felt herself beginning to cry.

Lang looked at her. “Hey now please don’t cry,” he said.

“When I didn’t ask for it at
all?”
Lenore said. “When I didn’t even like you? I didn’t want you.” She looked past Lang at the door and began to sob, felt her shoulders curl down over her chest.

Then there was Lang, and her face was in Lang’s shirt, and a Kleenex got pressed into her hand from out of nowhere, and the wood in her throat seemed to break apart and go in all different directions, hurting.

Lang was making a soft rhythmic sound with his mouth into Lenore’s hair.

“I
hated
you,” Lenore said into his shirt, talking to his chest. “You came in that time, and terrorized us, and were drunk, and that guy’s stupid bottom, and Sue Shaw was so
scared.
”

“It’s OK,” Lang was saying softly. “It’s OK. We were all just kids. We were just kids. That’s all it was.”

“And I say I don’t want you, that I’m mad, and have a right to be, and everybody just winks, and nudges, and gets a tone, and pushes, pushes, pushes.” Lang’s shirt was getting wet. “I’ve just felt so dirty. So out of control.”

Lang pushed her away a bit and dried her eyes with his sleeve. Lenore looked into his eyes for a second and thought for no reason of mint, lima beans, tired grass. His eyes were totally unbloodshot. “Lenore,” he was saying, “it’s OK. Just believe I don’t want to push you, OK? Just believe it,” he said, “OK? You can believe that, ‘cause it’s true. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, one bit.” He rubbed at his perfect eye and Lenore went back to smelling his chest. It was true that even while she was crying she had been able to feel him through his clothes, and her clothes.

“Lenore?” Lang said after he’d let her breathe into his shirt for a while. “Hey, Lenore?” He bent and cupped his hands around her ear and made as if he were talking into a bullhorn.
“Lenore Beadsman.”

Lenore laughed a convulsive laugh and brought the Kleenex up to her face. It was hot, and wet, and little bits of it were all over her hand.

“I’ll just say it, Lenore,” Lang said. “I sure don’t want to control you at all. Believe that. But I’ll just go ahead and say that I think the one’s maybe trying to do more controlling than’s good for anybody is old R.V.”

For no reason Lenore looked up past Lang at Misty’s ceiling, her own floor.

“Lenore,” said Lang. He stroked the white sleeve of Lenore’s dress with a big warm hand, and through Lenore’s body from the hand went heat.

“Lenore,” he said quietly, “R.V. sat there in that plane, with his little feet dangling and all, sweating like a freaking pig”—he put his hand through his hair—“and just flat out told me you were his, and said I had to promise not to even try to take you away from him.” He looked down at her. “I just thought you should know that.”

Lenore took Lang’s hand from her sleeve and held it while her eyes dried. She could smell herself.

“Like you were his car, or a TV,” Lang was saying, shaking his head. “He wanted me to promise to like respect his ownership of you, or some such.”

His arm brought Lenore into his chest again. She felt something pressing against her stomach, and didn’t even think what it was until later.

“How does he think something like that’s going to make us feel?” Lang was saying into her hair. “Where’s what’s fair in that?”

“Just sorry, is all.”

“....”

“If such is appropriate.”

“....”

“Which I rather think it is.”

“Ricky that’s silly, don’t be sorry. There’s no need to be sorry.”

“....”

“The situation, the way it turns out we are, sorry doesn’t enter into it at all.”

“As it were.”

“What?”

“....”

“You’re probably just all tense and worried, Rick. Being tense and worried is world-famous for doing this.”

“Look, even if I weren’t tense and worried, you wouldn’t have been able to tell. Is that not clear?”

“You’re probably just tense and worried about your fiancée being in the arms of my husband right now. God knows I’m not exactly thrilled myself.”

“Not after tomorrow I’m not upset. Tomorrow is the end.”

“End of what?”

“Tomorrow Lenore and I are going to melt into the blackness, united in discipline and negation.”

“Discipline?”

“.....”

“Negation?”

“All so to speak.”

“You’re just going to go out and buy admission tickets to Andy’s desert and look for Lenore’s grandmother climbing some dune. I know all about what you’re supposed to do tomorrow.”

“Why on earth does Lenore tell you things like this?”

“....”

“Lenore never tells me anything, really.”

“Rick, I don’t know how long I’ll be around, I mean I’m pretty sure I’ll have to go to Atlanta at some point in time, if you know what I mean, but while I’m here I think you’ll find I can do all kinds of things she can’t. Or won’t.”

“I think it is always can’t. It now occurs to me that there has probably never been a bona fide won’t.”

“You know Andy’s had your ex-wife, too, don’t you? I’m almost positive. I’ve seen him coming out of your house.”

“She is a good person, it occurs to me.”

“Who?”

“Do you think of yourself as a good person, Mindy? When you think of yourself, do you think of yourself as good?”

“Well of course, silly. Where are you if you don’t think of yourself as good?”

“....”

“Then you can’t even like yourself, and then where are you?” “....”

“This is the Christian Broadcasting Network. Stay tuned for the Reverend Hart Lee Sykes, please.”

“What about my son?”

“What?”

“Vance, my son.”

“I think Andy’s pretty much left Vance alone. I don’t think you have to worry about Vance.”

“I mean have you seen him. Does he come home, ever. Do you see him around the neighborhood.”

“Remember when Vance would be out kicking footballs all day long? Honestly, I never could see how anybody could just kick a ball for hours and hours, over and over. And remember Daddy would spend the whole time looking out the window, making sure the ball never hit our lawn, and if it did he’d run out with a screwdriver and let all the air out of the ball?”

“....”

“I haven’t seen Vance for years, Rick. I don’t think I’ve seen Vance since I got out of school. Where is he now?”

“He’s in the city. He’s at Fordham. At least I certainly pay tuition to Fordham. ”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Nor have I.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Certainly not your fault.”

“....”

“....”

“Look, you can take it off, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your beret. You can take it off, you know. I like a spot. Daddy has a simply humongous spot, now.”

“Great.”

“Anyway, don’t be sorry, is what I want to say.”

“Thank you, Mindy.”

“But roll over.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I think I can help you out if you’ll roll over.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

“What are you doing?”

“This is ... going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Is that what I should say, Rick?”

“Good Lord. What on earth have you been told?”

“Daddy used to say I knew ... everything from the ... beginning ... of time. A ... witch in a tartan skirt, is ... what he said.”

“Jesus.”

“Now this is definitely cuddling,” Lenore said. “Am I right? I think I know cuddling when I see it, and this is it.”

Lang laughed.

Lenore and Wang-Dang Lang were on Lang’s bed, on their sides, facing each other, amid shirts and socks in their plastic wrappers. Lenore had on her bra and panties and socks; Lang had on just his chinos and belt. Lenore’s legs were together, and Lang had one of his legs thrown over her hip. Lang was looking at Lenore’s breasts, in her bra. Being on her side was pressing them together, and they were pushing partway over the bra, which Lang obviously liked. He looked at Lenore, and touched her. He rubbed the back of her neck for her. And from time to time he would trace lines on her body with his finger. He would trace a line down the center of her lips, her chin, her throat, and down the line where her breasts pressed together, and over the bottom of the bra, and onto her stomach, where his hand would spread out and cover her, making Lenore need to blink, every time. He would also shift a bit and trace the line where her legs pressed together, from the bottom of her panties to the tops of her knees. He would press his finger deep into the line between her legs, and Lenore knew her legs felt soft and hot to him, from being pressed together. Lang had an erection in his slacks, Lenore could tell.

As for doing anything much more than they were doing, though, Lenore had said she needed time to think it over carefully, and to think about absolutely everything having to do with Rick, before anything like that could even be possible.

“I couldn’t have intercourse with you without coming to an understanding with Rick first,” she’d said. “Not the way things are now. I have to talk with him. That’s just the way I feel.”

Lang had traced a line. “I don’t think I agree that we owe R.V. anything, but I’ll respect your decision for now.”

“Thank you.”

Lang laughed. “You’re welcome.” He was very smooth: Lenore ran her hand over his arm and part of his back. It was really smooth. His chest had a fine covering of yellow hairs that were hard to see in the bright line of the overhead fixture. There was more hair on his stomach, in a line.

“And you shouldn’t say ‘intercourse.’ You should say something else. ‘Intercourse’ sounds like you saw it in a manual.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well don’t be sorry,” Lang laughed, touching Lenore’s lip with his lip. “I was just making a point is all. Intercourse is what people have when they’re married, and about maybe sixty, and they’ve been married for years, and have kids and all.”

“What would we be having, then, do you think?”

“Something very much else, believe you me. You just trust me and you’ll see.”