Authors: Chris Adrian
The Great Night (25 page)
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Molly threw Ryan a party for his birthday. The planning was slightly complicated by the fact that he seemed to have no friends. She had lost a few herself, in the time that she had been dating him, overly sensitive types who thought silence could only indicate antipathy and who couldn't understand that when you were in love you were allowed to ignore everyone except for your beloved, at least until the honeymoon was over. And if the honeymoon seemed to go on forever, then they should just be happy for you. She didn't have enough friends to fill up his gigantic house, but when she included Salome and some Root and Relish co-workers, there were enough to make his garden look full, and even post a person here and there in the first- and second-floor balconies, ready to cast down handfuls of compostable Norwegian confetti of which Salome, in a spasm of generosity, had made Molly a gift. Ryan's peculiar sister, who looked and acted like his twin even though she was two years older than him, was there too. Arranging for her to come had felt like a coup, since she always seemed at least mildly disapproving of Molly, getting her to return a call or e-mail had been a challenge, and she had
reminded Molly three times during their negotiations that birthdays just weren't that important for their family. “But they're important to me,” Molly had replied, and not realized until much later how lame that must have sounded. She had meant they were important to
us
, though she understood that she was throwing the party as much to make that true as to demonstrate that it was true.
reminded Molly three times during their negotiations that birthdays just weren't that important for their family. “But they're important to me,” Molly had replied, and not realized until much later how lame that must have sounded. She had meant they were important to
us
, though she understood that she was throwing the party as much to make that true as to demonstrate that it was true.
“Where could he be?” Salome asked, when Ryan was only ten minutes late for his surprise. She thought tardiness was rude, and it was especially unforgivable to be late for your own party, even if you didn't know it was happening.
“I'm sure he's on his way,” Molly said, though he hadn't replied to the three texts she'd sent him so far. She had formulated a not-very-sophisticated ruse to get him home on timeâdinner with Salome, to whom he had taken an unexpected and persistent shine. He said he liked to listen to her because she made him forget about his own troubles. To Salome's delight, Molly had finally discovered that he was a troubled person (Now you're really getting to know him! she said). Part of the reason that it took so long was that he wasn't troubled in exactly the ordinary sense of the word. He had more money than he seemed to know what to do with, and a large strange and spooky house; he loved his family in what seemed like a very straightforward and uncomplicated way; and, remembering and reviewing her training in psychology, she couldn't really place him on any spectrum of disorder known to the DSM-IIIR. She had been trained in psychology only enough to recognize drastically maladjusted parishioners and to refer them for help if their problems were beyond her limited scope of impotent pastoral practice, but she certainly knew enough to recognize a lunatic, and Ryan wasn't a lunatic, for all that he sometimes had unusual things to say about the moon. When she evaluated him through the lens of her former profession,
she saw a person unable to find a home in his happiness. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate what he had, or feel lucky to have itâhe made it plain to her every few weeks or so how much he appreciated his house and his city and, yes, even his shiftless, mildly overweight girlfriendâbut she had the sense that none of this was quite enough.
she saw a person unable to find a home in his happiness. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate what he had, or feel lucky to have itâhe made it plain to her every few weeks or so how much he appreciated his house and his city and, yes, even his shiftless, mildly overweight girlfriendâbut she had the sense that none of this was quite enough.
He never actually said it in so many words, or even indicated it in so many actions, but here and there, month by month, he dropped a hint, and by the end of the year he had given her a lot to reflect on. Some of those hints were a little more concrete than others. “See the moon?” he asked her one night as they walked along the Embarcadero.
“Sure,” she said.
“That's not the moon,” he said. “There's another moonâa
better
moonâbehind that one.” It was bloodred and pumped up grotesquely, just coming up over the bay, so she thought he meant there was a regular moon, calmer and prettier and looking less like it should shine over a battlefield, but that wasn't what he meant. “It shines on a whole different world, where you can do things you can't do here.” They were both pretty drunkâor at least she was; no matter how much Ryan drank he never slurred or stumbledâbut their conversations often got weirder after he had been drinking. So she was content not to know what he was talking about and just guess at his meaning. Whenever this happened, whenever he talked in a way that only appeared to invite a reply from her, she thought how nice it was still to be with him, how handsome he looked when he was wistful, or how his eyes sparkled when he looked like he was about to cry, though he never did cry. It was easy to distract herself that way when she was drunk, and when she was sober she never dwelled on these conversations until it was too late to extract a useful lesson from them about the character of her boyfriend. “Do you know what I mean?” he asked.
better
moonâbehind that one.” It was bloodred and pumped up grotesquely, just coming up over the bay, so she thought he meant there was a regular moon, calmer and prettier and looking less like it should shine over a battlefield, but that wasn't what he meant. “It shines on a whole different world, where you can do things you can't do here.” They were both pretty drunkâor at least she was; no matter how much Ryan drank he never slurred or stumbledâbut their conversations often got weirder after he had been drinking. So she was content not to know what he was talking about and just guess at his meaning. Whenever this happened, whenever he talked in a way that only appeared to invite a reply from her, she thought how nice it was still to be with him, how handsome he looked when he was wistful, or how his eyes sparkled when he looked like he was about to cry, though he never did cry. It was easy to distract herself that way when she was drunk, and when she was sober she never dwelled on these conversations until it was too late to extract a useful lesson from them about the character of her boyfriend. “Do you know what I mean?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
He sighed. “The other moon shines on the better world.”
“And on the better people?” she asked.
“Exactly,” he said. She tried to imagine that better world, that better stretch of the Embarcadero and the better Ryan and Molly who inhabited it. Ryan was not so different, but she imagined herself as someone who didn't have to flee her profession, and imagined the different, better past that had shaped her.
Then there was the physical evidence, less what he said and more what he made or did. It didn't always substantiate her theory that she was somehow not
enough
; more often it was only evidence that he was kind of weird, but sometimes the weirdness was part of a general tendency to lay his attention in strange places, and this was a process in which she never could participate, because he did it secretly, or at least he thought that he did. She found notes scattered around the house, pieces of paper torn from notebooks or scraps torn from cereal boxes, the blank side covered with a list of flowers and fruit:
Buttercup, Radish, Acorn
. There was a door in the cluttered basement that he told her led to a room where he kept his “art projects,” but when she looked inside one day when he was gone she only found one picture, drawn in chalk on the stone floor, of a round wooden door, meticulously detailed down to the shining highlights on its brass doorknob, the whole thing stamped on and smeared as if he'd been angry at it. She woke sometimes to find him missing from the bed, and looking out the window she watched him standing naked in the garden, staring up at the moon, or peeing on the plants, and once leaning with one arm against the gold and silver tree while he used his free hand to masturbate. He had a tendency to hop every now and then as they walked, even in the absence of any obstacle, and she never totally understood what he was doing until she saw him one night in the garden doing the same thing, step-step-hopping from one end of the
garden to the other, throwing up his arms with the hop and arching his back, andârecognizing the motion from her own dreamsâshe realized he was trying to fly.
enough
; more often it was only evidence that he was kind of weird, but sometimes the weirdness was part of a general tendency to lay his attention in strange places, and this was a process in which she never could participate, because he did it secretly, or at least he thought that he did. She found notes scattered around the house, pieces of paper torn from notebooks or scraps torn from cereal boxes, the blank side covered with a list of flowers and fruit:
Buttercup, Radish, Acorn
. There was a door in the cluttered basement that he told her led to a room where he kept his “art projects,” but when she looked inside one day when he was gone she only found one picture, drawn in chalk on the stone floor, of a round wooden door, meticulously detailed down to the shining highlights on its brass doorknob, the whole thing stamped on and smeared as if he'd been angry at it. She woke sometimes to find him missing from the bed, and looking out the window she watched him standing naked in the garden, staring up at the moon, or peeing on the plants, and once leaning with one arm against the gold and silver tree while he used his free hand to masturbate. He had a tendency to hop every now and then as they walked, even in the absence of any obstacle, and she never totally understood what he was doing until she saw him one night in the garden doing the same thing, step-step-hopping from one end of the
garden to the other, throwing up his arms with the hop and arching his back, andârecognizing the motion from her own dreamsâshe realized he was trying to fly.
This was all okay with her. Eventually, she came to think it had been too okay. She ought to have called down to ask him what he was doing when he appeared to be having sex with his tree. She ought to have asked where he was trying to get to through the door in the floor, and asked what was so special about the word
Doorknob
that he should feel compelled to write it down a hundred times on the blank side of a torn-up cereal box. But it didn't seem like her business yet, to pry out all his secrets when he wasn't yet inclined to volunteer them to her, especially since he had secrets that were as hidden to him as they were to her. Never mind that she already felt like she had volunteered all of hers. She didn't imagine that such confidences, beyond the easy ones, were currency to trade with each other in achieving intimacy. And anyway, mysterious drawings and list-making and even semi-public nocturnal emissions were all clues that pointed someplace strange but not disgusting, weird but not illegal. She hadn't found a limb in the basement, or a pair of bloody panties under the mattress, or even stray traces of lipstick on his collar.
Doorknob
that he should feel compelled to write it down a hundred times on the blank side of a torn-up cereal box. But it didn't seem like her business yet, to pry out all his secrets when he wasn't yet inclined to volunteer them to her, especially since he had secrets that were as hidden to him as they were to her. Never mind that she already felt like she had volunteered all of hers. She didn't imagine that such confidences, beyond the easy ones, were currency to trade with each other in achieving intimacy. And anyway, mysterious drawings and list-making and even semi-public nocturnal emissions were all clues that pointed someplace strange but not disgusting, weird but not illegal. She hadn't found a limb in the basement, or a pair of bloody panties under the mattress, or even stray traces of lipstick on his collar.
And she hoped, anyway, that he would come to find what she had found, and feel what she felt, which was that there were always going to be intimations from the world that there was more to be had, something different and something better, beyond what they were sharing together. It was his loveliest gift to her, and one she was trying as hard as she could to give back to him, the special and certain knowledge that those intimations were just life trying to fake you out again, when in fact it didn't get any better than this. It didn't get any better than the two of them.
Waiting to surprise him, she thought,
This is going to be the
first day of the rest of your life
, and that was the real surprise, not the fact that your sister and Salome and a few friends and a few more acquaintances were lurking in your garden waiting to shout at you. Surprise! Everything is actually okay. Surprise! You can stop looking for more. Surprise! I love you so much. That was the biggest surprise of all, the depth of inexhaustible feeling for him that she had in her, and when he walked in the door and she looked at him she would have that feeling she had every day, of being perpetually startled by it.
This is going to be the
first day of the rest of your life
, and that was the real surprise, not the fact that your sister and Salome and a few friends and a few more acquaintances were lurking in your garden waiting to shout at you. Surprise! Everything is actually okay. Surprise! You can stop looking for more. Surprise! I love you so much. That was the biggest surprise of all, the depth of inexhaustible feeling for him that she had in her, and when he walked in the door and she looked at him she would have that feeling she had every day, of being perpetually startled by it.
“Maybe you should give him a call,” Salome said, but he didn't answer when she called, then or in the seven times she called in the following hour, and he didn't come home until after the last guest was long gone, even his sister and the unexpectedly faithful Salome, who stayed and worried with her after Carolina took her casual leave from them, saying, “He's a flake, and birthdays aren't important in our family. Don't take it personal.” Salome drank so much white wine that she departed at last as well, curling up beneath the picnic table Molly had rented for the party and placed underneath the golden oak. Molly sat with her head in her hands, eventually not worrying anymore about whether or not Ryan was safe, and not caring anymore about all the wasted expense of food and alcohol and premium confetti, and feeling almost, by the time Ryan finally came home, walking through the gate wheeling his bicycle at his side, like she didn't care about anything at all, like if he had been just five minutes later, she would never have cared about him, or be hurt by what he did or didn't do, again.
“What did I miss?” he asked, looking around at the food on the table and the balloons on the banisters and the ribbons in the tree, and Molly burst into tears.
W
ill was starting to enjoy being lost, or at least he was starting to get so used to it that it didn't really bother him. He found that he could enjoy the continuous surprises more than he worried about them. The farther he ran, the less he felt pursued, and at last it was more the pressure of his mission to find a sapling for Carolina's garden that drove him forward than fear of the monster who was chasing him, and as he penetrated into the deeper chambers of wonder beneath the hill, be began to take time to look around. His drunkenness served both to insulate him from the strangeness and to sharpen his appreciation of it. And the drunkenness brought tears of concern for his lost erstwhile comrades, lovely Molly and handsome Henry and the three dear horrible little elves, but the tears were intermittent, and sometimes he wept with awe instead of sadness.
ill was starting to enjoy being lost, or at least he was starting to get so used to it that it didn't really bother him. He found that he could enjoy the continuous surprises more than he worried about them. The farther he ran, the less he felt pursued, and at last it was more the pressure of his mission to find a sapling for Carolina's garden that drove him forward than fear of the monster who was chasing him, and as he penetrated into the deeper chambers of wonder beneath the hill, be began to take time to look around. His drunkenness served both to insulate him from the strangeness and to sharpen his appreciation of it. And the drunkenness brought tears of concern for his lost erstwhile comrades, lovely Molly and handsome Henry and the three dear horrible little elves, but the tears were intermittent, and sometimes he wept with awe instead of sadness.
He went through rooms he named as he discovered them, and which he hardly had time to appreciate before he'd flung open a door at the far end and plunged throughâthe Sparkling Gullet and the Panda Market and the Jade Toilet and the Mushroom Cathedral, he paused in each one only long
enough to verify that they were empty of trees of any size or age, and then his mission pushed him onward. But at the Warm Frozen Waterfall he slowed, and in the Hall of a Hundred Little Windmills he paused, and in the Library of All the Same Book he actually stopped to examine a few of the volumes, all titled
Various
, that lined the shelves. He thought they were translations of the same book into countless languagesânone of which he recognizedâuntil he found seven in a row in English, but none of them had the same first sentence. He half expected to read
then Will picked up a book in the curious library and began to read
or
Make a wish, Bastien!
but they were ordinary sentences about animals setting off on an adventure, a mole in one and a badger in another and in yet another a girl-pig named Davida. He kept that one, a souvenir for Molly to add to the others he had gathered for her. Molly! he thought. That wasn't who he meant at all, and it seemed a worse crime than kissing her to imagine, even if only fleetingly and mistakenly, giving her the gifts that were meant for Carolina. He paused to imagine, firmly and concretely, Carolina's face when he came to her with a little box containing the little tree.
enough to verify that they were empty of trees of any size or age, and then his mission pushed him onward. But at the Warm Frozen Waterfall he slowed, and in the Hall of a Hundred Little Windmills he paused, and in the Library of All the Same Book he actually stopped to examine a few of the volumes, all titled
Various
, that lined the shelves. He thought they were translations of the same book into countless languagesânone of which he recognizedâuntil he found seven in a row in English, but none of them had the same first sentence. He half expected to read
then Will picked up a book in the curious library and began to read
or
Make a wish, Bastien!
but they were ordinary sentences about animals setting off on an adventure, a mole in one and a badger in another and in yet another a girl-pig named Davida. He kept that one, a souvenir for Molly to add to the others he had gathered for her. Molly! he thought. That wasn't who he meant at all, and it seemed a worse crime than kissing her to imagine, even if only fleetingly and mistakenly, giving her the gifts that were meant for Carolina. He paused to imagine, firmly and concretely, Carolina's face when he came to her with a little box containing the little tree.
He had found the door on the other side of the library and was reaching for it when it opened forcefully, as if kicked, knocking books to the floor when it slammed against the shelves. Before he was quite aware of what he was doing, Will found himself trying to hide behind the book he was carrying, his terror of the pursuing monster suddenly as fresh as when he had first seen her in the park. He recovered his dignity enough to lower the book even before he heard the voice. “Are you?” it began, and then the little man to whom it belonged snorted. “No, I don't even have to taste you to know. Another mortal! Who let you all in?”
“A boy,” Will said, and then, “A little man,” which seemed like the wrong thing to say because of the bristling anger this
little man radiated and the outsized knife he carried. “A tree person.”
little man radiated and the outsized knife he carried. “A tree person.”
“Well, it's a fine night for tourists!” the little man said, punctuating the statement with a vigorous thrust of the knife toward Will's face. He was a good ten feet away, and five feet down, but Will still flinched.
“Would you like a drink?” Will asked him, holding out his bottle of wine and thinking it might help him be less angry and antagonistic.
“There's no time for
that
,” he said. “Is that how you're making yourself useful in this crisis? Where is that killjoy high-handed mortal seriousness when it might actually be appropriate? Eh? Eh?” He poked again with the knife, and Will said, “Hey, there. Settle down, little man. I'm on your side!” That made the tiny fellow howl and do a spastic dagger dance, swiping and stabbing at the air all around him. “Sorry! Sorry!” Will said, backing away.
that
,” he said. “Is that how you're making yourself useful in this crisis? Where is that killjoy high-handed mortal seriousness when it might actually be appropriate? Eh? Eh?” He poked again with the knife, and Will said, “Hey, there. Settle down, little man. I'm on your side!” That made the tiny fellow howl and do a spastic dagger dance, swiping and stabbing at the air all around him. “Sorry! Sorry!” Will said, backing away.
“Oh, but you will be sorry, you ridiculous
delay
, if I don't get this knife to my Lady in time. Now out of my way!”
delay
, if I don't get this knife to my Lady in time. Now out of my way!”
“I didn't meanâ” Will began, but the little man was already running by him, swiping at Will's feet as he passed. Will did a skip and a jump, and called after him, “Sorry!” and “I'm actually looking for the nursery!” but the angry creature was already gone. “A tree nursery,” he added softly, “not a baby nursery.” He cracked the door and peaked outside before he walked through it.
Will stayed longer at the Marble Pool (an Olympic-sized pool filled with marbles instead of water) and with the Singing Ferns, and then the fun part was over. He came to mildewed chambers that felt like they must be at the very bottom of the hill, because all the time he had been fleeing alone Will felt like he had been going down, and now there were no more carved pillars or mirrored ceilings or floors carpeted in tiny
flowers but just rough wet stone and moss and coarse grass and danger, at first no more seriously threatening than the little mannikin with the wooden knife, but deeper down, more significant. They were a totally different category of danger than the thing he was running from, more ordinary sorts of extraordinary that called to the brave parts of him instead of commanding the craven parts, and made him want to stand up and face them instead of shitting in his pants and crying and lying down and giving up on everything. He started to get the definite feeling that the way out of the hill was guarded by challenges, that a person needed to demonstrate some kind of fortitude in order to find it. He imagined, as he fought his way through the snake vines and then pushed past the mud people and waited patiently (finishing his wine) for the three-eyed watcher to take a nap, that he was blazing a trail for the others and making it easier for them by his effort. And he imagined, of course, that he was fighting his way back to Carolina, since the way out was the way back to her, and there was something in the attack of a mud person and the bite of a snake vine and the stinging, sleeping slap of a three-eyed watcher that felt like it imparted an earned virtue to him that he felt sure would be apparent to anyone who saw him when he eventually emerged, battered and bruised, from under the hill. Certainly Carolina would see it, and it did not boggle belief to think there might be, at the end of this winding, challenge-strewn path, which he ran with an intermittently waving sense of terror at his back, a little golden tree whose roots were carefully bound inside a burlap sack, waiting for him to take it back to the place that could be his home again.
flowers but just rough wet stone and moss and coarse grass and danger, at first no more seriously threatening than the little mannikin with the wooden knife, but deeper down, more significant. They were a totally different category of danger than the thing he was running from, more ordinary sorts of extraordinary that called to the brave parts of him instead of commanding the craven parts, and made him want to stand up and face them instead of shitting in his pants and crying and lying down and giving up on everything. He started to get the definite feeling that the way out of the hill was guarded by challenges, that a person needed to demonstrate some kind of fortitude in order to find it. He imagined, as he fought his way through the snake vines and then pushed past the mud people and waited patiently (finishing his wine) for the three-eyed watcher to take a nap, that he was blazing a trail for the others and making it easier for them by his effort. And he imagined, of course, that he was fighting his way back to Carolina, since the way out was the way back to her, and there was something in the attack of a mud person and the bite of a snake vine and the stinging, sleeping slap of a three-eyed watcher that felt like it imparted an earned virtue to him that he felt sure would be apparent to anyone who saw him when he eventually emerged, battered and bruised, from under the hill. Certainly Carolina would see it, and it did not boggle belief to think there might be, at the end of this winding, challenge-strewn path, which he ran with an intermittently waving sense of terror at his back, a little golden tree whose roots were carefully bound inside a burlap sack, waiting for him to take it back to the place that could be his home again.
He had the sense, too, as the challenges intensified, that he was getting closer to the exit, and when he came to the last rock chamber, and his internal bathymeter told him he had gone as low as he could go, he felt ready to face a dragon,
though he was armed only with a salt shaker and a book and an empty bottle and a very small knife. But what he saw in the chamber looked like a waving sea of thick flesh-colored anemones, until they got close enoughâas soon as he entered the chamber they started hobbling toward himâfor him to see it was a sea of disembodied penises, softly shambling toward him on variously sized testicle feet. He was drunk enough and not drunk enough to be afraid of them; they were less uncanny than they would have been if he was sober, and yet he was sober enough to remember how awful the thing chasing him was, and realize that they were comparatively innocuous. They nuzzled around his ankles, and he waited apprehensively for them to become erect and monstrous as they rubbed against him and each other, but they were as harmless as a roiling basket of puppies. He didn't know what the challenge in them might be, unless it was to avoid stepping on one, and he was thinking that the hill was giving him an odd sort of goodbye present. He wondered if he might dare put one in his pocket for Carolina, since despite the awkwardness involved in making her a present of a detached penis the gift would prove beyond any doubt the truth of his story, when he heard a rustling far above his head, followed by a noise that put him in mind of a yawning cat, a stretched-out mewling that faded to a breathy sigh. He looked up to see a swarm of bats that were not bats. He never got a really proper look at them, but the situation told him it must be a swarming flock of vaginas that flew all around his head, biting him toothlessly on his ears and his cheeks and his neck. He ran then, heedless of the gentle sluglike cocks that he squashed, and felt blindly along the opposite end of the cave for the way out. It was there: a tunnel only a little taller than him, that narrowed as he went, so he had to stoop and then crawl, a flapping vagina harassing his bottom until the passage became so narrow that he had to
crawl on his belly and it could only bump at his feet. His panic was rising again when he felt a little air move on his face, and he started to slither in champion haste when he caught sight of a light at the end of his tunnel. He wondered if it could be dawn already, and then he was sliding the last few feet and tumbling out into the lushly appointed wreck of a room. Molly sat weeping on a ruined bed not twenty feet away.
though he was armed only with a salt shaker and a book and an empty bottle and a very small knife. But what he saw in the chamber looked like a waving sea of thick flesh-colored anemones, until they got close enoughâas soon as he entered the chamber they started hobbling toward himâfor him to see it was a sea of disembodied penises, softly shambling toward him on variously sized testicle feet. He was drunk enough and not drunk enough to be afraid of them; they were less uncanny than they would have been if he was sober, and yet he was sober enough to remember how awful the thing chasing him was, and realize that they were comparatively innocuous. They nuzzled around his ankles, and he waited apprehensively for them to become erect and monstrous as they rubbed against him and each other, but they were as harmless as a roiling basket of puppies. He didn't know what the challenge in them might be, unless it was to avoid stepping on one, and he was thinking that the hill was giving him an odd sort of goodbye present. He wondered if he might dare put one in his pocket for Carolina, since despite the awkwardness involved in making her a present of a detached penis the gift would prove beyond any doubt the truth of his story, when he heard a rustling far above his head, followed by a noise that put him in mind of a yawning cat, a stretched-out mewling that faded to a breathy sigh. He looked up to see a swarm of bats that were not bats. He never got a really proper look at them, but the situation told him it must be a swarming flock of vaginas that flew all around his head, biting him toothlessly on his ears and his cheeks and his neck. He ran then, heedless of the gentle sluglike cocks that he squashed, and felt blindly along the opposite end of the cave for the way out. It was there: a tunnel only a little taller than him, that narrowed as he went, so he had to stoop and then crawl, a flapping vagina harassing his bottom until the passage became so narrow that he had to
crawl on his belly and it could only bump at his feet. His panic was rising again when he felt a little air move on his face, and he started to slither in champion haste when he caught sight of a light at the end of his tunnel. He wondered if it could be dawn already, and then he was sliding the last few feet and tumbling out into the lushly appointed wreck of a room. Molly sat weeping on a ruined bed not twenty feet away.
Â
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Mrs. Perkins lived in a big pink house in Russian Hill with a garden out back. She was a familiar type among Will's clients, though not a common one: a lady whose great wealth made her eccentric instead of crazy. She became interested in her garden for a period of a few weeks once or twice a year and kept Will occupied moving plants and trees to make room for a pond or a little temple to her first husband that had to go just here or there. In the intervening months Will would make his regular visits, but only see her from a window, and it was her current husband, much younger but still a little pickled-looking, who brought Will his check. But when she was interested she was very interested, so it wasn't unusual when she came out while Will was working. Usually she stood around with her hands over her eyes or pressed against her forehead, her two poses of active imagination in which she made rearrangements in her head before she commanded Will to execute them, but that dayâwhich Will marked later as the beginning of the end of his relationship with Carolinaâshe sat down near him in a redwood chaise, flipping languidly through a book with a joint hanging out of her mouth.
“Mmm?” she said, which he knew from experience meant she was offering him a drag off the joint.
“No, thanks,” he said. “Might make me water something
too much.” She threw back her head and laughed. She was wearing a fancy muumuu and a turban, with a crystal dangling above her eyes. The crystal sparkled when she tossed her head and then bonked on her forehead in a way that looked quite painful, though her smile didn't falter at all. Will had never hated her beforeâshe was a harmless lady who took good care of her plants and whose only crime was being obscenely wealthyâbut just then there was something about her laugh and the way she tossed her head and the ridiculous turban that made him want to hit her in the face with his shovel. He leaned on it instead, and sighed, deciding he was a bad person for thinking such a thing, and considered that there must be something wrong with him, a thought that had been occurring and recurring to him, in yards and gardens all over the city, for the past few months. He might not actually be a terrible person, but there was certainly something wrong with him. He thought he ought to be able to describe it to himself better, but when he tried all he could do was make lists in his head of episodes of real and imaginary bad behavior: he wanted to hit harmless Mrs. Perkins in the face with a shovel; he was cruel to his clients' plants and actually hurt a lemon tree in Bernal Heights, pruning at it furiously and unnecessarily until it was reduced to such a violated nubbin that he moved a fern in front of it to hide it from the owner. And just that morning he had looked up at Carolina at breakfast and found her not very attractive.
too much.” She threw back her head and laughed. She was wearing a fancy muumuu and a turban, with a crystal dangling above her eyes. The crystal sparkled when she tossed her head and then bonked on her forehead in a way that looked quite painful, though her smile didn't falter at all. Will had never hated her beforeâshe was a harmless lady who took good care of her plants and whose only crime was being obscenely wealthyâbut just then there was something about her laugh and the way she tossed her head and the ridiculous turban that made him want to hit her in the face with his shovel. He leaned on it instead, and sighed, deciding he was a bad person for thinking such a thing, and considered that there must be something wrong with him, a thought that had been occurring and recurring to him, in yards and gardens all over the city, for the past few months. He might not actually be a terrible person, but there was certainly something wrong with him. He thought he ought to be able to describe it to himself better, but when he tried all he could do was make lists in his head of episodes of real and imaginary bad behavior: he wanted to hit harmless Mrs. Perkins in the face with a shovel; he was cruel to his clients' plants and actually hurt a lemon tree in Bernal Heights, pruning at it furiously and unnecessarily until it was reduced to such a violated nubbin that he moved a fern in front of it to hide it from the owner. And just that morning he had looked up at Carolina at breakfast and found her not very attractive.
That was a surprise every time it happened, though it happened more frequently all the time. It felt like a crime to find her unattractive, or at least like some sort of aberrationâhe was aware, even as he looked at her, that
other
men would find her quite attractive, in that moment when he could take her or leave her. Something always snapped back into place and then she was as lovely as ever, and his return to his senses was
usually marked by the special boner he had only ever gotten for her, an entity he wasn't sure he had ever actually convinced her was real, but it was true that there was a different quality about it when he was with her, which went beyond ordinary stiffness. “A hard-on is a hard-on is a hard-on,” she'd said to him when he first told her about it, though she said later, not entirely jokingly, that it was the first time she had ever been touched emotionally by a penis. He wanted to ask her what was wrong with him now, but she was the last person in the world he could talk to about it.
other
men would find her quite attractive, in that moment when he could take her or leave her. Something always snapped back into place and then she was as lovely as ever, and his return to his senses was
usually marked by the special boner he had only ever gotten for her, an entity he wasn't sure he had ever actually convinced her was real, but it was true that there was a different quality about it when he was with her, which went beyond ordinary stiffness. “A hard-on is a hard-on is a hard-on,” she'd said to him when he first told her about it, though she said later, not entirely jokingly, that it was the first time she had ever been touched emotionally by a penis. He wanted to ask her what was wrong with him now, but she was the last person in the world he could talk to about it.
Mrs. Perkins toked ostentatiously and made satisfied noises while Will worked, and neglected to offer any opinions about the garden. Will was waiting for her to say something, and was getting preemptively angry at her uninformed opinions and her inability to make up her mind, but she remained quiet. He continued working, escalating his imaginary argument with her until he couldn't stand the silence he would ordinarily have appreciated. He turned toward her chaise and saw that she was reading a book.
“Have you read this one?” she asked, showing him the cover. It was his collection of short stories.
“I heard it wasn't very good,” he said.
“It's written to a particular taste,” she said. “But I wouldn't say it's bad.” She closed the book and rubbed it against her cheek, a weird gesture, and one that Will always thought should have inspired him to flee from the garden and Mrs. Perkins's orbit and influence. But he only leaned on his shovel and stared at her. “I had no idea you were an artist,” she said. “You ought to come to my salon.”
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