Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman (28 page)

But sometimes one is given a little extra breath, and that time, air filled my lungs. “Of course,” I said, and we grabbed each other. I ran upstairs and dressed quickly. Leaving the breakfast things on the table, though I knew Arthur would nose them for crumbs, possibly until they fell and shattered, we went outside, avoiding the pickets, and got into my car (I wasn't going to be a passenger, even now) and drove—mostly silently—to Pekko's office on Whalley Avenue. I passed it, looking for a parking place, and saw three men walking back and forth outside, clutching hand-lettered poster board. slumlord read their placards. A few people had stopped to look at the men. We parked a block away and walked back. “Will Henrietta be there?” I asked. His secretary often opened the office.

“I called her last night and told her to take the day off.”

I hadn't been in Pekko's storefront realty office for a long time and noticed that it had been improved, with plants in the windows. Most of his income-producing business was in renting low- to middle-rent apartments owned and managed by others. He also managed several buildings. The ones he owned, though they seemed to receive most of his attention, didn't take up most of his time. Only now did I think about the harm Daphne and her buddies could do him. People in the neighborhood would think he was preying on the poor. Landlords would be less likely to list with him, tenants less likely to inquire. He could lose management contracts. Pekko served on the boards of a soup kitchen and a drug treatment facility. He was what Charlotte once called “a noble businessman.” He snarled when praised for charity of any sort, but he valued his good reputation.

Now he ignored the pickets and ignored the stir that occurred when he took his keys from his pocket and picked up the newspaper. We opened the building. It was cool inside, cooler than outdoors—it was one of those September days that would become warmer and warmer, until the afternoon was pretty hot. Indoors, you'd want a long-sleeved shirt all day. “What are we going to do?” I said.

“There's plenty. I thought maybe you'd answer the phone.”

“So you want to act as if those people aren't there?”

“What else could I do?”

“We could talk to them. We could negotiate. We could call up the press and give our side. We could arrange for repairs.”

“I've got a schedule for repairs. I get to them when I can.”

“And if they put you out of business?”

“There are other businesses. People who know me, know what I'm like.”

“You're just talking tough,” I said. “You're not going to like what happens. You wouldn't have asked me to come if you didn't want me to make a difference. If I'm going to be here, I want work that will make some difference.”

Pekko shrugged. He had sat down at his desk and was looking at a paper on it. He didn't seem to have heard me. Then he said, “Do whatever you want.”

So I started making phone calls, which is what I like. I called everybody I could think of. I called Gordon. “This is Daisy.”

“Yes.”

“What would you do if you wanted a favorable newspaper story?”

“What does this have to do with?”

“Pekko's business.”

“Such as it is. I'd do something that could be photographed.” The pickets were doing that already. The buildings themselves could be photographed. I tried to stop myself from thinking about “such as it is.” I was glad I'd called him because what he said was smart, but I was sorry I called because it wasn't helpful, and I'd taken a risk.

I called Charlotte at work. “Are you speaking to me?”

“Of course! Wait.” She could be heard excusing herself. “What is it?”

I told her the story, and she was aghast to hear of picket lines. “He's not a slumlord. This is idiotic.” I didn't tell her I couldn't summon quite so much loyalty as that. She'd scold again. She offered to put together a second line of positive pickets. “Do whatever you want,” I said, repeating Pekko's words. But she couldn't do it for a day or two.

I went on calling friends and acquaintances, almost anyone at all. In between calls I watered the plants and picked off withered leaves. Then I'd think of someone else to call and do that. Everyone was interested, but nobody made an offer except Charlotte, who couldn't help right away.

“How long can you last without rent?” I said at one point.

“I need it to pay the mortgages,” Pekko said. “I don't have money lying around.”

I did answer a few calls that morning, but of course I didn't know what to say, so I'd immediately put Pekko on the line. What I most wanted to do—invite the pickets inside, find out exactly what they were demanding, and figure out how to do some of it—was not allowed.

I know what I'm like when I'm not accomplishing anything, and after an hour I began to recognize that woman—Daisy Pointless, she was called. It was too early to offer to go for sandwiches. Pekko stayed on the phone, giving orders having to do with garbage pickup, somebody's check, and a maintenance man's days off. “Pretty good,” he said over and over—his invariable answer to “How are you?”

I couldn't think. I'd never worked in a storefront office, and I'd have felt exposed to the street even if pickets condemning my husband—the same three bored-looking gentlemen—had not been walking back and forth on the sidewalk. They ignored us, but passersby looked in curiously. Pekko was obviously used to scratching his nose and hitching up his pants in public.

Pekko's and Henrietta's desks faced the street on either side of the room, while several chairs, against each side wall, made up an informal waiting room. Behind the desks were file cabinets and odds and ends that I supposed came from houses Pekko owned or cared for: a lawn mower, a battered bank of mailboxes, several ladders and paint rollers. I'd been here, meeting Pekko or stopping with him to get something, but I'd never spent time here. I walked to the back of the building. A narrow corridor in the middle of the back wall led to a small bathroom, a closet full of leases, receipt forms, and other papers, and then a storeroom at the back. In the storeroom was some dilapidated furniture—a few kitchen chairs, a TV stand—and I sat down. A back window looked out on a Dumpster.

I was sure I could feel Pekko's relief when I left the room. The air in the building circulated more freely. Would he be better off without me, altogether? I had continued to love and want Pekko all spring and summer—I hadn't wanted to leave him—and I didn't that morning either. But I thought maybe I ought to. I speculated whether this rent strike was just some large expression of sexual tension between him and Daphne, and I tried to decide whether the solution was simply for them to crawl into a bed somewhere.

But the night before, Pekko had wanted me, not Daphne, in the house and in the room with him. He had asked me not to walk Arthur, to stay. And this morning, he'd asked me to come with him. I just needed to know what I was supposed to do for him now. The room I was in had a back door as well, and I opened it and stepped outside into the warm air. There was nothing to do behind a Whalley Avenue building surrounded by similar backs of buildings. I walked back and forth, now thinking not of Pekko but of Gordon, who had sniffed at the idea that Pekko had a business at all. When I thought of Pekko again, I wondered if what I owed him was a confession, and I almost laughed at that idea. The last thing he needed was the pain of learning what I'd done and hoped to continue to do. You need to be a lot purer than I to achieve anything by confessing. I decided at last that all I could do for Pekko was to be present—that was what he'd requested—and it was an odd decision for me. I assume I'm useless as I am but useful for what I do. Pekko seemed to need me to be useful as I am.

I returned the way I'd come, locking the door. Pekko looked up and looked down again when I came in. I began making phone calls having to do with my own work. I'd just do it there. An hour passed, a peaceful hour in its way. Then a woman came in, asking about an apartment. She didn't notice or didn't care about the pickets. Pekko wanted to take her to see the apartment, so I said, “I'll drive you both to your car,” and the three of us locked up the office and departed. The woman talked about her own problems as we drove. I pulled up to the curb as soon as I turned the corner onto our street. I could see the pickets in the middle of the block, but we wouldn't have to encounter them. Pekko's car was near the corner, and I parked behind it. Pekko and I kissed lightly as he and the woman got out. Then I left my keys in the ignition and ran after him. I seized him around the waist, and he turned. Then we had the longest nonsexual hug of our life together. He kissed me heartily, and I kissed him back. “It'll work out,” I said. What a wife would say.

“Oh, I know,” he said and stolidly led his new tenant to his car, while I didn't immediately return to mine but walked the other way, to say, a bit hysterically, to Daphne, “You're half right, but so what?”

“I don't mean anything personal, Daisy,” she called, “especially to you.”

I got into my car and drove to Gordon's office, stopping to pick up a sandwich.

“What did you mean ‘such as it is'?” I said.

“I assume Pekko's business is not entirely legitimate,” Gordon said.

“You think he's a crook?”

“I've always thought Pekko Roberts was a crook.”

“Well, he's not.”

“I admire your loyalty.” I sat down in the archive to figure out what to think, what to say, and the phone rang. While I spoke, he waved and left. It was all I could do not to drop the receiver and chase him. He—or he and I—had brought me to a sense of powerlessness such as I do not remember experiencing before in my life. “I'm sorry, I'll call you back,” I said to the person on the line and hung up, then sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall with my arms around my knees, the way Denise used to sit in rehearsals, when she seemed to want to keep herself quiet. I prevented myself from doing the only thing I knew how to do—following Gordon, running and grabbing someone who'd prefer to be left alone. When I let myself stand up, I could no longer think of anything important to do.

 

T
he next day, September 11, terrorists flew three hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and a fourth hijacked plane crashed before reaching a target. Pekko and I found out when we turned on the news to see if he was on it. There hadn't been anything about the rent strike the night before, and now there never would be. We watched for hours, seeing repeated films of the planes striking the towers, the towers falling. Once or twice, Pekko cried.

The
New Haven Register
ran a short piece about the rent strike that morning (quite short, because the big news in New Haven that day was supposed to be a mayoral primary). By September 12 nobody was thinking of Pekko the alleged slumlord. The Wednesday rehearsal was canceled—Katya said she couldn't do it—and I assumed, in those early days in which nothing seemed to be as it had been, that we'd cancel the play. Guiltily, I felt some relief. With guilty relief as well, I discovered as this public catastrophe claimed my attention that Gordon no longer could hurt me; I didn't care whether we continued our affair.

When the cast gathered on Sunday, everyone but me insisted the play should take place as planned. Denise said, “The president says we should lead our regular lives.” David said, “We can't let those criminals stop us.” I felt like saying, “Better to cancel,” but didn't. We spent more time that night discussing September 11 than the life of TheaDora. When Muriel called me the next morning, she and I discussed September 11 for another twenty minutes. Finally, Muriel asked if I had any money around that might pay for TheaDora's bridal gown. We'd gone over budget. Katya had suggested a bedsheet. “A bedsheet will look like a bedsheet,” Muriel said.

I said I'd pay. Neither of us felt like making a wedding dress, but we agreed to meet at Horowitz Brothers a few days later. In the meantime, days were passing, and on some of them I spent time at Gordon's office—more time than usual, because the conference was approaching. I had trouble believing that in a few weeks people would be thinking of murder in small cities instead of world terrorism, but I'd accepted money to put on this conference, and put it on I would. And my fall rush was delayed. When the weather turns cool, people decide it's time to straighten up, but not in the fall of 2001, or not for a few weeks. It seemed irrelevant to sit in Gordon's office, contemplating individual murders. Our criminals—I now felt oddly protective, almost indulgent, of the murderers our conference would consider—had believed what they did was momentous, and society had corroborated that belief.

I told Gordon I was afraid of nuclear war, but he scoffed. “You think you're the only person who doesn't want obliteration?” he said. “Or maybe you do want it. All this professional throwing away you do. All this snooping about killing.”

He said that in bed. My indifference to our affair lasted less than a week. The first time I worked in his office after September 11, Gordon was absent. The next time he was there, and he was the first person I saw with whom I didn't immediately have a conversation about what had happened. He had questions about the conference, which he wanted answered as soon as he saw me. Then he came from his office into my room and put his hands on my breasts. I put mine on top of his and moved his.