The Fainting Room (10 page)

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Authors: Sarah Pemberton Strong

BOOK: The Fainting Room
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“We were separated,” she said, “and then three weeks ago he died. It was very sudden.” She crossed her arms and huddled inside her raincoat.
“Evelyn, I’m so sorry.” He didn’t know what he was feeling; it wasn’t sorry at all. “How terrible for you.”
“I came up here to give his ashes to his people,” she said, looking at the sidewalk. “And then I got kind of stuck here.” She looked up at him. “Why am I telling you this?”
“It sounds like you’ve had an awful time,” Ray said.
“Well—I should go.” She took a step away from him. “See you around.”
It was extraordinary, the feeling he was having. This afternoon he had become a man who went to the circus, who ate cotton candy, who was trying to pick up a redhead who worked in a beauty salon in the Combat Zone. He had the sense that he had stepped outside his life, and he was astonished to find he could breathe better here. He did not want her to go. It was as if when she left, the sense of freedom the afternoon had turned out to contain would disappear with her.
“Would you have dinner with me sometime?” He blurted it.
“Me?”
“You said you don’t know anyone here. I could show you the city a little, if you’d like.” His voice sounded unbearably foolish in his ears.
“Yes, I’d like.” She was laughing, now, he didn’t know why. “When?”
“Now,” he heard himself say.
“Seriously?”
What has come over me, he thought, but even as he wondered at himself, he took her arm. “The restaurant’s this way,” he said.
 
It was dark, it was French, there was a menu of nothing but wine. Evelyn hid her acid-washed jeans beneath the enormous white napkin and pointed at random to one of the indecipherable menu items.
At least my manicure’s French
, she thought.
Afterward, as they stood outside waiting for the taxi he’d called to take her home, he took her hand. His own hand was warm from the lined pocket of a good overcoat and she could not remember Joe Cullen ever taking her hand in this way, simply holding it as he stood beside her, in the whole twelve years of their marriage.
“I had fun with you tonight—” Ray began, and stopped. Cleared his throat. “Perhaps you’d like—” Stopped, ahem’d again.
He’s nervous, Evelyn realized. Because of me.
“Perhaps you’d let me cook you dinner next Saturday?”
At his house, that meant. He wanted to sleep with her, that meant. He had mistaken her for someone else, someone who hadn’t grown up in a circus, someone without a dead first husband whose death certificate said
Broken Neck,
someone whose body wasn’t covered in every known color of ink. But if she let him take off her clothes it would be all over because there was no way Ray would want a tattooed lady as a dinner guest. Never mind that she wasn’t a real tattooed lady—she had chickened out and refused to let Joe do anything below her knees and elbows or above her breastbone—it would be too much for Ray, this fancy architect who held the door open for her and ordered dinner in French.
When he found out about the tattoos that would be the end of it, yes, but she would let him cook her dinner first. Soak up the way he looked at her like a dry plant soaks up water. His eyes on hers as if he thought she was actually interesting. Or beautiful. Or good.
“Next Saturday—just consider it,” he said, opening the door of the taxi for her. “I’m an excellent cook.”
As if she could have said no. As if the cab, speeding back to her crummy rented room, were taking her anyplace else worth going.
 
Evelyn finished vacuuming the broken glass in the study and drew the curtains to hide the garbage bags taped over the broken window. The guest room, its almost-matching yellows bravely pretending to be the same shade, was ready for Ingrid’s arrival. Now there was the downstairs to tackle, dinner to think of. She was running the ElectroLux in the living room when Ray came home, early for once. She shut off the machine to greet him.
“My God,” he said, “it’s even more sparkling in here than usual. I take it Liz Luce didn’t reach you.” He kissed her forehead and she realized how sweaty she was.
“Did she call? I can’t hear anything when the vacuum’s running.”
“She got me at work. She’s busy with commencement and whatnot, so she asked if we’d pick Ingrid up at her dorm at 4:00—which was five minutes ago.”
Once again, Ingrid was arriving before she was prepared.
“Would you get her yourself, Ray? I’m a sweaty mess, and I still haven’t cleaned the guest bathroom.”
“You’re going to clean an already clean bathroom for a teenager who wears jeans held together with safety pins?”
“I’m cleaning because a guest should be welcomed into a clean house.”
“Okay, Emily Post,” Ray said, and then, lest she take the joke as a barb, bent to kiss her again.
When he had gone, Evelyn spritzed the bathroom mirror, scrubbed the tub, folded and refolded the towels. She knew she should stop if she wanted time for a shower, but she checked the guest bedroom again, smoothed the chenille spread, pulled a dust bunny from under the radiator, noticed she had hung one of the curtains wrong side out, turned it around and there was Ray’s Saab pulling into the driveway. Evelyn leaned against the window, sweat running down between her breasts, and watched as Ray and Ingrid each took a cardboard box from the back of the car. Today Ingrid’s hair stuck up from her head in a series of points, like a cross between the Statue of Liberty’s crown and a spike helmet. Evelyn wondered how she’d gotten it to do that—Elmer’s glue, maybe? She’d been stalling on the shower, she realized, because she didn’t want to be the one to bring Ingrid inside, help her unpack, show her the bedroom—what if Ingrid didn’t like it? Evelyn went into the master bathroom and locked the door, slowly peeled off her clothes.
You’re scared of her, you chicken. You’re scared of a sixteen-year-old kid.
 
Half an hour later, in fresh clothes and makeup, Evelyn was nearly ready when the sound of hammering made her forget about drying her hair. She went down the hall to investigate. The door to the guest room was open, and Ingrid was standing in the middle of the bed, hoisting above the headboard an enormous stuffed white owl mounted on a wooden plaque.
“Um, hi,” said Ingrid, a little gaspy from the weight of the plaque. She managed to get it hooked over the nail she had just hammered, with a hammer that now lay on the bedspread. Evelyn stared.
Ingrid dropped to her knees on the bed.
“I was just hanging up my owl,” she said. “Ray said to just put up my own stuff if I wanted.”
“Ray did?” Evelyn looked around, trying to take in what had happened. The curtains were gone. Ingrid had threaded the curtain rods through the arms of four tee shirts instead, two per window. One tee shirt had a silkscreen print of Reagan’s head with a cartoon balloon over it that said, “The bombing begins in five minutes
.
” The brand new bedspread was nowhere to be seen, and the bed was already unmade. One pillow had disappeared, and the other pillow had books lying on it. Evelyn turned her head sideways and read the titles:
Farewell, My Lovely; In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer; Orienteering for Beginners; Silent Spring
. There was a huge terrarium that appeared to be full of sand parked on top of the dresser; more books and piles of clothes lay scattered across the floor.
Ingrid cleared her throat. “It’s kind of a mess in here, I know,” she said. “It’ll take me a while to get everything set up.”
“I can see that. Where are the curtains?”
“Oh, I folded them up and put them in the bottom drawer. I um, I didn’t want them to get dirty or anything.”
But the curtains were nice
, Evelyn wanted to protest. Her eyes fell on the missing pillow—on the floor between the bed and the nightstand—and she bent to retrieve it, composing in her head how she would phrase her complaints to Ray. But as she patted the pillow back in place she became aware of a sensation that had sprung up alongside her annoyance: something other than mess had transpired.
She straightened up and looked around the room again. Yes, there was no denying it. In the space of half an hour, Ingrid had done what Evelyn had not managed in over a year: she had made a part of Ray’s house utterly and unalterably hers.
Ingrid’s,
the room said. She had marked it: even the smell was different. Evelyn breathed in old cotton, tobacco, and—from the owl, she supposed—mothballs.
Ingrid was looking at her.
“Is there anything you need?” Evelyn said, just to be saying something. She hoped her tone of voice conveyed her disapproval of the mess, and not her admiration of the room’s metamorphosis.
“Everything’s great,” said Ingrid, oblivious to both. “It’s nice to have my own room for a change—I had a roommate at school.”
I want my own room
, Evelyn thought. A silly thing to think when she had a whole house. This was her house, not only Ray’s but hers too, and yet Ingrid had just come right in and made herself feel at home. As if it were so easy.
“Well, I’ll bring you some fresh towels,” Evelyn said. “Your bathroom is down the hall on the—Oh!”
Right beside her on the dresser, in the terrarium she had thought was empty, lay a large mottled lizard. A head like a turtle’s, a pouch at the neck like a pelican’s. Dinosaur spines running from its head to the tip of its tail, snake markings. An exotic animal in a cage. Before Evelyn knew what she was saying, she had asked, “Can I take him out?”
Ingrid blinked in surprise.
Evelyn felt the fluttering panic of error stir in her chest, but before she could think of how to backpedal, Ingrid recovered herself, said, “Yeah, sure,” so Evelyn lifted the screen off the terrarium.
“Move slowly, and support his tail,” Ingrid instructed. Evelyn raised the lizard close to her face and breathed on him gently.
“Hey, how do you know that’s what he likes?” Ingrid asked.
“I—oh,
is
this what he likes?” Evelyn laughed, uncomfortable.
“Most people are scared to touch him,” Ingrid said. “Have you held a bearded dragon before?”
Bearded dragon. It sounded like one of her tattoos.
“No, never.” Pythons, tigers, an alligator—yes. But no bearded dragon.
“His name is Melvin,” Ingrid offered. “After my hometown. Look, he likes you—see, his eyes are rolling up in his head.”
“Like a snake’s.”
“You know about animals, huh?”
There was something like admiration in Ingrid’s voice, and Evelyn felt herself warm to it. “A little,” she said.
“I’m so relieved,” said Ingrid. “I thought you might be the type who freaks out at lizards.”
No, Evelyn thought wearily, I am not the type who freaks out at lizards. I am the type who is a freak.
Oh, why couldn’t Ingrid have been just a little more normal? Why couldn’t she have regular hair instead of that badly-dyed, spiky bird’s nest? Why couldn’t she at least like the curtains? Evelyn deposited the lizard back in his cage and replaced the screen. When she looked up again, she saw Ingrid was staring at her. Was some edge of tattoo showing? She glanced down and tugged reflexively on her sleeves. But Ingrid was looking at her scar. Evelyn’s own eyes went involuntarily to the thin line of white that began in the middle of her forearm and extended straight down over the back of her hand to where it ended between her first and second knuckle. She put her hands behind her back and said: “We’re dining at seven.”
“You mean you guys are going out?”
Evelyn pressed her lips together. “No, I mean that’s what time we’re eating dinner—here, downstairs. At seven.”
“Can I help with anything?” Ingrid asked.
“Just get your stuff put away,” Evelyn said. It came out sounding bitchy. “I mean,” she added, “take your time, get yourself settled in.”
Ingrid looked chastened. “Um, okay, thanks. For letting me stay here, I mean. I—I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” Evelyn said, and went down the hall. Thinking: Jesus, Evie Lynne, you’re the one invited her here. So how about act nice.
6.
 
The Shepards sat opposite each other with Ingrid between them, all three of them clinking silverware and glasses with the awkwardness of people on a blind date. Evelyn’s ham, decorated with canned pineapple slices and maraschino cherries stuck into it with toothpicks, would have been more at home on the cover of the women’s magazine where she had found the recipe; sitting on Ray’s grandmother’s Spode serving platter, surrounded by a wreath of sugar-glazed carrots, it looked out of place.
Evelyn made the first attempt: “We can’t let Ingrid sit around here bored all summer. Maybe she’d like to go to the mall with me tomorrow? I have some things to return.” The curtains, she was thinking, which were the wrong yellow anyway.
“The mall?” Ingrid looked up from her ham. The mall was where girls like Linda’s daughter Melanie went to sit on indoor benches next to fake plants, drink Diet Coke from McDonald’s and giggle when boys walked by. “Um, no thanks.”

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