Snap, p.20
Snap, page 20
Ida had answered no, she couldn’t, and stalked off bearing her tray. Now she meant to make it up to him. But Mitch was not in sight. Behind the bar she went, with her tray of empty glasses, a tray so large that she could see neither her feet nor the floor ahead of her, and so did not see the trap door open in the floor, from which stairs dropped precipitously into the basement.
So, down she went.
It was a funny thing, falling.
For the instant that it took, Ida did not think of what was happening.
Simply, the floor was no longer beneath her, and a strange orange darkness had taken its place. There was a rushing all around, and she did not inhale or exhale. Later, she remembered how she seemed to have no body, no physical constraints, and no cause for worry. Perhaps she blacked out, for when she found herself sprawled at the base of the stairs with her feet splayed on the steps above and her head resting on the cold cement floor, it was with refreshing nonchalance, as if she’d just wakened from a brief, surprising sleep. How she lay there looking up and around, and how the noise of the crash stayed with her although now there was only silence. The big tray lay in her lap, where she clutched it with both hands. There were hundreds of glass shards all around, and ice cubes, too, so you couldn’t tell the glass from the ice.
For a moment Ida lay there unmoving, wondering if it all were true. The basement was murky, naked orange bulbs blurring in its recesses.
Then she heard footsteps and raised her head to see Mitch rushing from the shadows of the cellar, carrying a crate of tonic. He crouched above her exclaiming, a hand here and there sweeping glass from her clothing, her collar, her hair.
Ida smiled to say she was fine, an invisible smile. Mitch didn’t see it. He fussed and fussed. Ida found she could not actually speak. She was aware of herself murmuring deep inside, as if the sounds were being made by obscure parts of her body and then escaping through her pores. Low, meaningless vowels, like a lullaby. Good night, good night, Ida thought. Then Mitch took the tray away and helped her to stand. Ida blinked around as if she were on a new planet where she didn’t understand what physical laws applied. She did not want to go upstairs, did not intend to. The very notion of climbing was impossible. She found she was shaking, her legs and arms. Mitch picked her right up and carried her like a baby. At the top was a sudden bright clatter of guests, all clustered round the untended bar, rattling ice in their glasses, mixing their own drinks. Tongs in the bucket, whiskey sloshing out of bottles, glug-glug-glug. Then Martha ran over. “Where have you been?” Saw the glass in Ida’s hair, the open trap door, Mitch’s look.
“My goodness. She fell in?”
“I haven’t really checked her over yet. I don’t see any blood. All the glasses broke around her. She doesn’t hurt, I don’t think. I think she’s all right.”
“You are?” said Martha.
Ida nodded, an invisible nod. Mitch stuck her in a chair in the sun room adjacent to the library, where it was almost quiet. Outside there was plenty of sunlight, but none fell in the room at this hour, mercifully. Ida gazed at the small square panes of glass — a world outside, another world inside, in which she sat at a table. Martha told her to lay her head on the table, which Ida did, and to shut her eyes, which Ida did not. Mitch examined her. There was a speck of blood on her stocking, but no glass that he could discern. He poured her a shot glass of Grand Marnier, and then Martha left the room.
“I’ll be back later to check,” Martha said. “Don’t let her get up.”
“I can’t sit here forever,” said Ida. It was the first thing she said. After that she apologized for the broken glass. Mitch said it didn’t matter. He spoke nearly in a whisper; he seemed to be in awe. He sat across from her at the tiny table, so their elbows touched. Ida thought, If I lift my glass, he’ll sip from it.
Then Mitch said, “I suppose I ought to propose, damn it.”
“What?” said Ida.
“I want to get married, already,” said Mitch.
Later, Mitch supposed that perhaps he ought not to have been so direct. He had intended only to test the waters, and to see what Ida felt about the whole situation. He should have been a little vague about it, asked a few leading questions, cajoled her. Did Martha talk about him when he wasn’t around? What did she say? How did she say it? Did Martha talk about the future, ever? Did Martha love him, did Ida think?
Perhaps he might phone Ida now, from the Laundromat, where he had just put his things in the dryer, and ask how she was feeling and amend himself.
Because what she had done was to ask that he leave her alone, which he did at once. He returned to his station at the bar, concocted several bloody marys, including one for himself, heavy on the Tabasco, and wondered why Ida had wanted him out of the room. He decided he had been too precipitous, and that Ida had felt taken advantage of. This made him feel bad. He returned to the sun room to find her gone. The shot glass of Grand Marnier, nearly empty, was perched on a windowsill. Both chairs were pushed back from the table. Mitch straightened them but left the shot glass sitting where it was. He felt terribly impatient, and thought he was getting old. He never did things right anymore.
So, in the Laundromat, he did phone Ida, but no one answered. Listening to the ring, Mitch felt reprimanded and stupid. He retrieved his dime and phoned Martha instead, and asked if Ida was there.
“No,” Martha said. “And I’m worried. She just walked right out of there. Didn’t you see? I’m afraid she might have conked out, she might have fallen into that absurd little goldfish pond. Do you think she could be suffering a concussion? We have to go and look for her. Will you meet me at her house, then?”
Ida was asleep in the pizza parlor. Of course, a good sleep was not what she had intended, but neither was a pizza, she discovered when she had one in front of her. So she pushed it away and laid her head on the table, so the cool, nicked wood was flush against her forehead. The table was in back, out of sight behind the juke box, where the music bounced and echoed. It was the bass that lulled Ida to sleep, not a concussion, for she did not have one. She was only a little bit tired and bruised, but mostly bewildered. Undone. She would have to quit Martha’s at once. She could never face Martha again, or Mitch.
Except she would have to tell him. It was only polite.
“No,” she would say. “I will not marry you.”
But why should she say anything, really? It was only a stupid mistake. In time, Mitch would recognize that, wouldn’t he?
Yes, because he was reasonable and kind. He was a wonderful man, really.
At which point Ida fell asleep, her hands in her smock pockets, the fingers of one curled loosely around a ribbon of paper. It was Audrey’s fortune cookie slip, WATCH FOR THE APPEARANCE OF A MAN IN YOUR LIFE, but Ida didn’t know that.
Audrey would say, much much later, “You didn’t know you knew it, but you really did. I knew, too, or I would have if I’d been thinking about it.”
When no one answered the door at Ida’s apartment, Mitch jimmied the lock with a credit card. This maneuver was unnecessary, as Ida’s door was unlocked to begin with. In fact, Mitch’s credit card pushed the bolt into place, and several minutes went by before he managed to push it open again. Not a lot of time, those several minutes, but Martha was pressing him on. She felt a little guilty for not having worried over Ida earlier, when something could have been done, and for relaxing all evening after the reception, alone in her kitchen with her feet up, apronless, listening to John Barleycorn and smoking her cigars, already planning her next big meal. When Mitch phoned, Martha supposed it was Ida apologizing for having walked out on the reception, but when it wasn’t Ida, Martha began to wonder, and to dread. Now it seemed to her that Ida might be anywhere, unconscious and in need of help.
The door suddenly swung open, so Mitch and Martha stood together for a second at its threshold before stepping inside to search. On the floor across the room lay a mattress, and on the mattress a pile of flannel blankets and pillows, which Martha picked through gently, thinking that Ida might be among them. In the tiny bathroom, which smelled of Ivory soap, Mitch looked twice into the porcelain tub before satisfying himself it was empty, and then in the hallway pulled open the closet door, gingerly. There, he rummaged through Ida’s row of soft, unironed smocks. He thought of Ida as a scared wild animal who might crawl behind her smocks to die of her concussion. However, there was only a shelf of folded blue jeans and T-shirts, and on the floor a mess of clogs, sandals, boots and slippers. He found Ida’s top hat and held on to it, not able to bring himself to put it down again once he’d picked it up.
In the main room, Martha, who was nearly in tears, demanded that Mitch explain why he had left the trap door open, as if he’d done so with the express purpose of injuring Ida, and then why he hadn’t rushed her to the hospital at once to have her looked over properly “by someone who knows what they’re doing.”
At this they decided to call the area hospitals and inquire. Mitch found the phone in the kitchen alcove, next to a pot of too-blue icing sitting on a hot plate. On a sheet of waxed paper was a too-blue icing doily, cool to the touch.
“This is her kitchen!” Martha exclaimed. She dipped a finger in the icing, tasted and grimaced. “She cooks in here!”
“Shhh,” whispered Mitch, who had phoned the police already and explained the situation. Next he phoned the hospitals. No luck.
Martha put her hands on his shoulders and let her fingers slide down along the straps of his overalls.
“I feel like a parent,” she said.
“I don’t ever want to have children,” Mitch said in the jeep. He still held Ida’s top hat in his lap. They had decided it made sense just to drive around aimlessly, the way Ida might walk while suffering a long spell of dizziness. But it was dusky outside, and the sidewalks were nearly abandoned.
“Suppose Ida has a life we don’t know about,” Martha suggested. “Where would she go?”
So they drove toward the river, and parked near Shockoe Slip, where the nightlife was just getting under way. Neither of them had been to Shockoe Slip before. The recobbled streets, narrow and lit with tall lanterns, had about them an air of desperate romanticism, nostalgia and hope. Mitch commented that if he and Martha weren’t so concerned about Ida, they might fall in love. He placed Ida’s top hat on Martha’s head and wrapped one arm seriously around her as they peered through windows, past the leafy tendrils of hanging plants, into bars and restaurants. Martha said she thought they were already in love, but what a time to be discussing it. She said she thought that was what the last few weeks had been about — him wanting to tell her he loved her and not knowing how.
“Close,” Mitch said.
“You wanted to ask me if I love you.’
“That’s not exactly it, either.”
“Well, I’d marry you in a minute if only you’d get up the nerve to ask,” Martha said. “But don’t do it now. Ida sometimes goes for a pizza after work, come to think of it. She’s not here, I can feel it. This isn’t Ida.”
“No,” said Mitch.
They walked back over the cobbles, then drove to Martha’s house, where Martha flipped through a phone book in search of Ida’s pizza place. Then off they went. It wasn’t far, in a shopping center around a corner from the high school. At this hour the lot had a vacant pallor. The window of the pizza place was strung with small white bulbs, and a plastic pizza hung inside. Neither Mitch nor Martha wanted to go in. The place looked like the end of the world, as if, if Ida wasn’t there, they’d have to give up looking. Then the door opened and Ruby Mack stepped out, balancing a pizza on the palm of his hand.
Ordinarily, Ruby wouldn’t stop and talk with someone in a parking lot, because he always felt he had to get in his car and drive to wherever he was going. But Ruby wanted to talk to Mitch because he wanted to know if Mitch’s girlfriend had agreed to get married. If she hadn’t, then Ruby intended to get to know her. The plan caused Ruby no guilt on account of Mitch, because if Mitch’s girlfriend had agreed to get married, then Ruby knew that he, Ruby, would be genuinely happy. At least he knew he could act happy, if need be. Ruby thought he almost liked feeling this way, suspended between emotions, waiting for one to take hold. He felt so utterly bored, tonight, that the boredom was practically interesting, like being dead. He had already missed the TV news, so he wouldn’t be seeing Sasha Foo. His plan was to go home and try to eat his pizza before falling asleep.
“I’m getting married,” Mitch announced. “At least, I think I am.”
“You certainly are,” said Martha, who had come up from behind, her bug-eyes bright under the satiny brim of Ida’s top hat.
“Where is she?” Ruby asked, suddenly alert.
“We don’t know. There’s no place left to look. She might be totally knocked out. And if she isn’t, we have to tell her,” said Mitch, all in a rush.
“You haven’t told her yet?” said Ruby.
At that moment, Ida walked out of the pizza parlor.
“Told her what?” she said, joking.
“We’re getting married,” Martha said. “Mitch and I. We looked for you in Shockoe Slip, and in your apartment, but you weren’t there. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Ida. She was looking at Ruby, who was staring at her. On his wrist was a sweatband, still sweaty from tennis. From Ruby’s belt loop hung a ring of bright keys.
“Really?” Martha insisted, but hung on to Mitch. It was clear they wanted to be alone, suddenly.
“I’m just hungry,” Ida said. “I fell asleep in there.’
“She fell through a trap door,” Mitch said to Ruby.
“Mitch made her fall through,” Martha said. “He says he didn’t, but that’s what it comes to.”
“She said she was all right,” Mitch said, kissing Martha on the cheek.
“I know, but you’re not supposed to let them run off like that, when they land on their heads. But I’ll forgive you,” Martha said, and pressed up against him.
“I will, too,” said Ida.
“Me, too,” said Ruby, who felt he could agree to anything at that moment. But how to get this lady into his car with him that’s what he wanted to know.
“Even if you didn’t have a concussion you shouldn’t be riding your bike at this hour,” Martha said to Ida. “We’ll put the bik! in the jeep. We’ll give you a lift home.”
“No, you won’t. He will,” said Ida, and reached for Ruby’ hand. Ruby looked bewildered. Then he told her his name.
3
ALL OF WHICH Ruby remembers.
Somehow it’s Ida’s part that he remembers most clearly, as if her life in those days had happened to him, too. Mitch and Martha left Richmond soon after that night in the pizza parlor parking lot, and now when they write, from their inn in Vermont, it is Ruby who, reading Martha’s slant-typed pages, recalls her infinite shopping lists, and Ruby who in detail answers Mitch’s earnest queries. Ida scrawls “Hello, great summer, cakes doing fine,” below Ruby’s signature, as if she’d never quite gotten to know Mitch and Martha herself. If Ruby sees a bottle of Grand Marnier, it’s Ida’s fall down the steps that he thinks of, and how she sat at that table with the shot glass in her hand, a small bloody hole in the ankle of her stocking as she listened to Mitch’s confession. Then he sees the shot glass half empty on the windowsill, where she left it when she ran from the sun room, and he sees her in her short black catering skirt, pedaling her bike all the way to the pizza parlor.
It was Ruby who discovered Audrey’s fortune in Ida’s smock pocket, much later that very same night. They were kissing, and he slid his hand down her belly till it stopped in her pocket and his fingertips closed around the tiny slip of paper. He pulled it out and held it up beyond her shoulder to be read aloud between kisses, because that’s how close they were already, close enough to read each other’s mail. Amazing.
“Watch …”
Kiss.
“for the appearance.
Kiss.
“of a man in your life.’
Kiss, but Ida couldn’t stop laughing. She buried her face in his neck, wrapped her arms around tight and pulled herself up until her feet in their high-top sneakers dangled above his toes.
Ida wore high-top sneakers, pantyhose, her short black catering skirt and a yellow smock over a cute white button-down blouse. The edges of the buttons were sharp as glass, but the domed insides were smooth. Eight buttons, and underneath, no underwear at all. Ida still laughed.
“My cousin Audrey,” she giggled.
“What?”
“Sent that to me.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
The bed, her bed, was too lumpy, too thin, too close to the floor. No springs. From the windowsill above, a coleus dropped burgundy leaves onto the too-soft pillow.
Ruby counted six papery leaves before Ida stopped laughing. Her lips stayed open on his neck, sucking and playing, while her fingers found his nipples under his tennis shirt. She pinched them gently, licked his shoulder and closed her teeth around another vulnerable spot on his neck.
Ruby thought: I haven’t had a hickey in years. I’m not used to a skirt, either. Do I pull it up or down? Should I leave it on? What are we doing? Should we be doing this yet, already?
Yes.
Ida was never quite naked. She wore a crab claw around her neck on a short length of fishing line. The line had no knot, no kink, no clasp, no sign at all that it had ever made anything other than an unblemished circle. The claw was speckled, hollow and sharp. As Ida moved above Ruby’s body, the claw’s barbed end traced figure eights on his chest.
