Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman (23 page)

I imagined Gordon saying, “Fuzzy thinking,”

“It had to happen,” said Stephen, “and it also couldn't happen. Most events have just one of those characteristics.”

The phone rang, and we were distracted. Then we ate. Stephen told me a long story about the woman who supervised him at work. It took a while, because he wanted to complain but also to be scrupulously fair. I tried to care. After lunch we went out to the backyard—a bit of untended grass with bushes around it—and he dragged two plastic chairs into a shady corner. (If I show him what I'm writing, he'll read this. Last night he phoned and again asked to read it. But, Stephen, don't be offended, because the point is not that you were a loser but that I was. And you were brilliant. I'd forgotten about our initial conversation, but you hadn't. He hadn't.) After a pause, during which I felt sorry for myself just for being where I was instead of with Gordon, someplace else—how different Queens is from Manhattan!—Stephen said, “When I cut up a bagel, I could do it or not do it. No big deal, either way. We could eat the bagel, or decide to go for dim sum instead. I considered that. There are great Chinese restaurants in Flushing. It's all Chinese now, did you know that?”

“No.”

“Some things, the whole universe cooperates in making them happen. You visit here, you leave. I don't mean I'm eager for you to go, but your whole life prepares you to go back home, and mine prepares me to show you to the door.”

“But?” I said. I plucked blades of grass.

“But a killing—when somebody kills someone else, or kills himself, or herself—”

Which was when I realized he was thinking of his old girlfriend, the suicide.

“Herself—then everything is keeping it from happening—this is not natural—but also, everything has to cooperate to make it happen. It's so unnatural, how could it take place otherwise? It's a different kind of action.”

“Is that why I want to think about murder? Explain me, Stephen. You hang around art all week. You must have learned wisdom.”

“I hang around reproductions of art, in that store, but, yes. I think you are interested in a kind of choice, a very intense kind of choice that makes such a difference, that's so risky, that nobody could do it—except people do. And when they do, they don't seem to choose at all, it seems to happen. When Michaela died—”

“Yes?”

“When Michaela died, I was positive it wasn't going to happen, because it just couldn't happen. Certain things just can't happen, or that's what I thought when I was a boy.”

“Did you know, Stephen?” He'd told the police, over and over, that he knew nothing.

“Oh, she'd been talking about it for weeks. I was so ashamed, when she really did it. I had no idea people could actually do such a thing.”

“Do you mean, when I doubted you, I had guessed
right
?” I wrote and rewrote that piece, again and again and again, explaining those doubts.

“I didn't kill her.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “But it wasn't the way you said it was.”

“No,” he said. He paused. “Michaela's been dead almost forty years,” he said. “I've been in therapy. I've talked about the truth, finally—not much to Marlene. She's sick of it. This woman who died years before I met her, who had the same first initial. I don't blame her.”

“Then my argument didn't make sense,” I said.

“It made sense. It was based on a mistake, but it made sense.”

I didn't answer. Then he said, “People who die young miss a lot of days.”

“Maybe you'd still be together if she'd lived.”

“Oh, probably not.”

“It's true,” I said then. “Killing is so definite. Like stuffing an heirloom into a garbage can. What I do for a living.”

Marlene arrived then, as Stephen laughed, and we spoke of other subjects. Stephen hadn't asked me why I was in New York. He wanted to drive me back to the subway, but this time I insisted. I thanked him and hugged them both, then called a cab and settled into its backseat. The driver didn't speak.

 

B
y the time I paid my fare and climbed out at Grand Central Station, I was convinced that Gordon had invented the woman with the abortion, that he'd left to spend time in bed with still another woman or, likelier, simply left because he found me boring and stupid, me with my penchant for earthy community dramatics. I considered renting a car. I couldn't think of anything that might make me feel better except fast driving, but there I was at the train station, where a train was departing for New Haven in fifteen minutes.

It was starting to fill up, and I walked past one car, in which every window seat was taken. I wanted to sit alone if possible. The next car looked less crowded, so I entered and made my way down the aisle. “What are
you
doing here?” came an insistent voice, and I looked down into Muriel's still face, lit now by passing amusement at seeing me here.

She was sitting in a window seat. On one side of a Metro-North car, there are seats for two; on the other, seats for three. Muriel was sitting in a seat for two, and she had a dilapidated tote bag with red handles next to her and a purse on her lap. She was in jeans as usual, but she wore a denim blazer with a white T-shirt visible under it. She stared up at me as if I was a tourist attraction, her hair sticking out in all directions. After her initial smile vanished, she looked alert, with that look of hers that resembled anger. “Been having a good time in the city?”

“I went to visit my brother,” I said evenly.

“Lucky you.”

“What did
you
do?” I said.

“I saw my mom in Brooklyn.”

“I forgot your mother lives in Brooklyn.” I stood in the aisle, my purse and overnight bag hanging awkwardly at my side. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend almost two hours alone with Muriel, but I couldn't endure one more dismissal. “May I sit here?”

“Of course.” She pointed up, and I took the tote bag, put it on the overhead rack, put my own bag there as well, and sat down.

“I didn't know you were waiting for an engraved invitation,” said Muriel.

“Polite people don't keep their luggage on the seat,” I countered. We sounded like Thea and Dora, and I was tempted to tell her the story of my weekend, just to hear her defend the play.

As soon as I sat down, I was sorry. I could have greeted her cheerfully and gone to the next car, where I'd have been alone. Just to make myself feel even worse, I'd bought a novel that seemed to be about love with a bad ending, and I could have been indulging in that misery, shutting out the glaring fluorescent lights and the conductor's repetitive announcements. Now we'd have to talk for almost two hours. I was uncomfortable with Muriel's apparent bad mood. Maybe she also would rather read a book than talk. I felt what I hadn't felt before with Muriel—that because she was black, I was too nervously conscious of what I was doing, and that my nervous consciousness, which made it impossible to know what might feel natural, was racist. And of course it was. Race wasn't an issue when we were inside that blue dress, but somehow on Metro-North it was.

At first, we talked about the play. “We haven't figured out enough,” she said.

“You want a meaning, like Jonah? I don't think that makes sense,” I said, too quickly.

“No. It's just, how long is this play?” she said. “I think someone putting on a play should know how long it is. Are we at the intermission yet?”

“You mean we don't know what we're doing,” I said, laughing. “Yeah, a friend of mine was pointing that out to me yesterday.”

“A friend in the city? You didn't just see your brother.”

“That's right.”

“An old friend from your single days? Well, I don't have a problem with
that,
” she said, and I didn't set her straight. I didn't want to ask how much of my story she'd intuited from the slope of my shoulders and the way my eyes looked, but I rested for a moment, silently, in her scrutiny.

“What's your mother like?” I said then.

“She was never a nice lady, and she's not one now,” said Muriel. “But she's glad to have me come and take her out for lunch on a Sunday.”

“Are you an only child?”

“I have a brother. I had a sister, but she died.”

“I'm sorry.”

“A long time ago.” Muriel was silent for a while. “A long time ago, but my mom's still angry that she lost her little churchgoer, and kept her little whore.”

“Oh, is that how it goes?” I said.

Her big, serious head turned in my direction, and suddenly there came from her a laugh like a bark, startling enough that someone in the seat in front of us glanced behind him. “I am still suffering from those early days you find so interesting,” Muriel said, in a voice that sounded subdued, more refined than Muriel usually sounded, as if she'd picked up, that afternoon, delicacy from her churchgoing mother, who perhaps knew how to murmur. “I am still suffering for the way I lived, and I can tell you that you may think I'm cool, making whore dolls and giving speeches, talking on the radio, but my mother and my brother do not think it's so cool.”

“They want you to keep it a secret?”

“They believe I should pray over my shame in private. And just now it's especially bad. And maybe I've said enough. Did you bring a book?”

So I stood and took the novel I'd bought from my overnight case. “Do you want anything from your bag?” I said.

“No, thank you. I might take a nap. That might be quite welcome.” Muriel tilted her big head against the window and slept, breathing quietly like a girl, and I tried to concentrate on my book. Eventually we arrived at Stamford, the first stop after 125th Street in New York. After that the stops come frequently, and the announcers give repetitious instructions for each station. “Southport next. The head three cars will have to walk back. The head three cars will not platform at Southport.”

At Bridgeport, Muriel woke up. “My niece,” she said then, as if there'd been no interruption. “My niece, my brother's daughter, is an unusually beautiful and bright child, with brown eyes like candles. She is my darling, but the last time I saw her—six months ago—she was dead in the eyes. Do you know what I mean?”

“How old is she?”

“Seventeen. Honor student until a few months ago. Now they can't control her. They hear stories in the neighborhood, the teacher calls. Daisy, I spent the entire afternoon arguing with my mother and my brother—he came over—to let me see LaShonda, and they will not let me near her because I am not a respectable person. My brother is sorry he
ever
let her get near me. He blames me. She used to stay with me, sometimes. She is a bright child, a lovely child.”

And as I said, “Oh, Muriel, Muriel, that's so bad,” my friend snatched at my arm, my shoulder—as if she was suddenly blinded and couldn't find them—and then lowered her head and cried in-audibly, her shoulders shaking, into her own crossed arms. I couldn't move or speak, watching her cry. “Is there anything I can do?” I said at last.

“Like call up my brother and tell him I'm hanging around with a crazy white lady in a big blue dress? No, thank you.”

“Is that my trouble? I'm crazy?”

“No, you're not crazy. I'm all right.”

I offered to share a taxi when we reached New Haven, but Muriel was being picked up by her son, and she insisted they'd drop me off. We waited a few minutes outside the train station, and a big, dark car drew up. I got into the backseat while Muriel got in front and said to the driver, “Hello from Grandma. Who wonders is she ever going to see you again.”

“Why, she dying?”

“No sign of that.”

“Then I'll wait a couple of weeks,” said the son, whom she now introduced to me. His name was Howard, and he turned and smiled at me, then reached over the backseat to shake hands. “Your friend don't recognize me,” he said to his mother.

I couldn't see his face clearly in the dim car—it was twilight—but he didn't look familiar. He pulled away from the curb, and I began to tell him where I lived. “I know where you live,” he said, and laughed. “Should I make you guess? I am your substitute mail carrier. Last week you told me your dog did not bite, and I told you I'd been told that before.”

“Oh, my goodness, you're right, I'm sorry,” I said. One more failure. I pointed out to myself that I'd seen him only once. But as far as I knew, he'd seen me only once. Now I remembered a mailman who made a joke about Arthur when I happened to come out as he sorted mail on our steps. I'd gone home in the middle of the day to get my bathing suit, just in case, though in the end I didn't need it that day. I'd had my red suit crushed in my hand, and my keys in my other hand. Embarrassed, I stuffed the bathing suit into my bag and took the mail. Arthur barked from the house.

“Thanks, Howard. I'll remember you next time,” I said when he drew to the curb. I hoped it was true. I felt guilty and racist and silly, too self-involved to pay attention when someone spoke to me. I squeezed Muriel's shoulder as I climbed awkwardly out of the car, bumping myself with my bag. She had said nothing from the time she'd introduced me, as if that act of civility had used up the last of her will.