IGMS Issue 46 Page 7

"No," said Greta, adjusting her Sunday-best bonnet -- goodness knows what she thought she'd get out of it; Greta is sixty if she's a day and they say she keeps a spare husband in a box up in her attic. She savored the expectant looks for a moment, then went on: "He was born in Summersdale, eighteen years ago to the day. They hushed it up from the papers, but I've got an ear in the county regional there. He's been raised abroad."

  There was an appreciative silence as we digested that tidbit. A little foreign flavor for the exotic new dish. Ooh, the ad copy for the dimestore novel practically writes itself, doesn't it?

  "I think --" Lori started to say, but Berzel hissed her silent.

  "There he is!"

  We looked and saw, and oh, those golden curls, those cheekbones; that little croissant of a mouth. The live boy was everything we'd ever heard and more. His eyes were wide and liquid-dark, like red wine or molten chocolate, and he seemed like he was always on the verge of laughing. He wasn't afraid at all, but strolled in through the doors as natural as could be, gave us a jaunty wave, and headed back toward the canned goods.

  "Well!"

  I don't know which of us said it. It might as well have been all of us. No one could think of anything more to add.

  Then Josephine came around the corner, and her husband's bright little marble-eyes turned toward us, its white, flat teeth parted ever so slightly so you could just see a slit of darkness between them and a hint of its black and shriveled tongue inside, and the silence washed over us like it was sprayed from a hose.

  Josephine, dressed in her severe black skirts and blouse like always, didn't smile, exactly, but you could see the glee in the set of her jaw and the way her gaze raked right past us. Her husband stared at us all the way out of the store, turning its head right round to do it, eyes gleaming. But they do stare, and it doesn't mean anything when they do.

  The little group broke up after Jo had gone. Greta muttered something in German, but I didn't catch it. No one else said anything. I tugged Lori's arm by the elbow and we went outside to the parking lot. We hadn't done our shopping, but neither of us seemed to mind.

  "I think he was waving at you," I began gaily, trying to get back some of the giddiness. A live boy, after all!

  Lori wasn't having any. She was downright glum. She watched Jo and her husband leave in their long black station wagon -- we called it the Hearse, when we were sure no one's husband was around to hear -- and her mouth seemed like it wouldn't ever smile again. I stifled an urge to stroke her hair; she looked so very sad. "What difference does it make?" she said.

  "I don't know that I follow you, Lori dear."

  "Live boy, dead husband; what difference does it make?"

  "Darling," I started, and stopped. "Why . . . why, just look at him. Wouldn't it be so much nicer to have met a live boy once upon a time, when we were both still young coquettes?"

  Lori didn't say anything and wouldn't look up at me. Not even a hint of a smile.

  "I mean, I won't say a word against my husband, Lord knows," I went on. I was nattering, I knew, and treading on dangerous ground. "But surely . . . well, surely it would be different, wouldn't it?"

  We'd almost reached the far end of the parking lot by then, clean past both of our station wagons. The grass along the edge of the asphalt was brown and patchy. There was broken glass and a discolored patch of rusty brown amid the weeds.

  "Look," Lori said, pointing.

  The live boy was coming outside, trailing a comet-tail of women who were trying desperately to look like they'd coincidentally ended up at the front of the store just at that moment, all glancing sidelong at him. Two or three hundred years ago and they'd all have been snapping open their fans and whispering furiously behind them.

  The live boy didn't seem to notice, or didn't care. He carried his one little paper bag of groceries out and tucked it into the basket of a bicycle -- an honest-to-goodness pedal-powered adorable little red bike! -- that was chained to a no-parking sign just beside the entrance. He jingled his bell as he rode away, and I found myself raising my hand to wave enthusiastically back to him.

  "I'd never seen one before," said Lori, and her voice was so flat I nearly stumbled over myself, so quick it brought me down. "I thought that once I did . . . I don't know." She sighed. "Why did we get married, Bonnie?"

  I reached out and took her hand in mine. "What else could we have done?" I said, patting the back of it comfortingly.

  Without warning, Lori lifted my hand and kissed my fingers, like a knight bidding adieu to his lady-love.

  "Good-bye, Bonnie," she said. She took off for her car, then, her long legs swinging.

  I never could keep up with her when she was in a rush. Even when we were girls together, chugging through the woods with stick-swords in hand or plotting a scheme in one of our bedrooms, it was always Lori in the lead and roly-poly Bonnie bringing up the caboose.

  I didn't say anything, but only stood there, rubbing my knuckles like I'd been slapped with Sister Veruca's ruler. I don't think it would have made a difference if I'd called out to her, but I suppose there are some things we'll never know.

  It didn't mean much, I told myself.

  I didn't see Lori for a few days after that, and definitely didn't see the live boy. My husband gets fidgety if I leave the house too often. I caught up on my chores -- chores breed like rats, it seems, if you give them half a chance.

  At night, after my husband had done what he was going to do, I lay curled up on my side under the blanket, facing the nightstand, and tried not to picture it lying next to me atop the covers, stiff as a board, its bright eyes open and staring up at the ceiling, grinning away, its teeth pale and luminous in the dark.

  The next time I got out for a stretch and a stroll, I noticed Lori's husband was standing at their big picture window in the living room. I always thought my husband was the better-looking one, honestly; Lori's husband wasn't nearly as thin and straight as mine, and it still had little wisps of black hair clinging to the top of its head that made it look like a very small octopus trying to keep hold of an ostrich egg. Lori's husband was staring right at me, its smile just as wide as ever, but somehow looking more like a grimace.

  I forced the corners of my own lips up as far as I could and managed a little wave. It didn't respond, of course. They generally don't. I hurried up my pace.

  It wasn't until I reached the corner that I realized Lori's station wagon wasn't parked in their driveway. Surely she hadn't gone out shopping without calling me and letting me know?

  I'd meant just to get down to the little park and its dusty playground equipment and back, but something spurred me on further that day. I paused at the park entrance, then climbed over the padlocked gate and headed into the woods.

  There was a little creek in there where Lori and I'd played as girls, and a huge old log making a bridge across it. We'd caught frogs there, sometimes, and tossed stones and flower petals and all manner of things into the water, hoping for wishes. I hadn't thought of the place in years, and I decided I'd pay it a little visit, for nostalgia's sake. I skirted the edge of the park, where it brushes against Route 39, and I almost didn't recognize Lori's station wagon, pulled off to the side of the road like she was changing a tire, except she was nowhere to be found. Not there, anyway.

  The swings were almost rusted in place when I passed. I nudged one, and it squealed so horribly I just let it lie. The slide was covered in leaves and dirt. There was a bird nest at the top.

  Past the playground and into the woods, where the faint trails still showed as lighter patches of growth. And footprints in the soft loam. Two sets.

  I more or less knew what I'd see before I got there. I can't think why it still filled me up with cold anger, like a tumbler of ice water. Lori's sandy brown head, bobbing a good twelve inches higher than the shining bronze of the live boy's curls, both of them sitting on a log. The old log. Our old log.

  I think it's to my credit that I didn't scream. And if I slung a little handful of mud
on Lori's windshield on my way back out, well, those as park on a public street take their chances, don't they?

  For the next two days, I stewed. I gave my husband its breakfast, had its dinner and paper ready for evenings, and endured its business in our bed, but my heart wasn't in things. I think it might have noticed, but it didn't say anything, and its grin was as wide as ever.

  Of course, it wasn't any of my business, that I could see, but that's never stopped me before. Though really. If Lori wanted to throw away what she had for some frippery, some flash-in-the-pan of a roving wastrel, well . . . well. Well. It was her decision. Her marriage. What her poor husband would do is anyone's guess. They don't deal well outside of matrimony.

  That Friday, I went to the sewing circle. Normally Lori and I drove together, but I couldn't bring myself to call her. She wasn't there when I arrived. I don't know if she came later. The first person I saw was Josephine, holding court like Greta usually did. Everyone was huddled around her as though she was a roaring fireplace and it was colder than an empty grave outside. They all looked up when I came in, and I could see from the angle of Josephine's lips they'd been talking about Lori. Lori and the live boy.

  "Bonnie!" said Vicki, brittle and false as a glass apple. "How are you?"

  No one asked where Lori was. Not for the entire twenty minutes I was there, which was all I could stand, with Josephine smirking at me and Greta avoiding meeting my eyes. Trading stories about live boys, stories that had been old back in secondary school. What live boys looked like. Where live boys came from. What happened if you kissed a live boy. What live boys did to the girls they lured away with their wiles. And every glance at me, every joke made with hooded eyes and crooked lips. I babbled something about laundry and fled. I ran straight home and picked up the phone, not even caring that my husband was staring right at me, teeth bared.

  "Lori?" I said. "Lori, you've got to stop. That live boy --"

  "George."

  "What?"

  "His name is George. He's very nice." Lori sounded vague and distant, as though there was something wrong with the phone line. "But he's not any different. Not really."

  "Lori . . ."

  "He's told me a lot about how things are where he's from, and no, he's not from Summersdale, you can tell Greta that from me."

  "Lori?" I didn't like the way her voice sounded, all tinny and watery.

  "I'm not having an affair, whatever those old baggages think. You can let them go on thinking it, if you like. I don't mind. But really, I just couldn't have. It's banal."

  "Lori!"

  "Good-bye, Bonnie," she said, and hung up. My knuckles tingled.

  I turned and nearly screamed. My husband had come up behind me while I spoke and was grinning past the top of my head to the wall-mount where the phone usually rested. It probably just wanted to chew on the phone again, now that I'd reminded it about the stupid thing. But I folded it in a hug, anyway, squeezed the sticks of its body against me and tried hard to pretend. I don't think it looked down at me the whole time. Just stared at the phone on the wall.

  Doesn't mean much.

  I'm ashamed to admit that my first thought when I heard Lori had disappeared was that she really had run off with the live boy, George or whoever, for all she'd said she hadn't, couldn't, never would. I'd say I should have thought better of her, but I like to think now that it might have been wishful thinking. If Lori had run off, at least then I'd know Lori was still out there, somewhere.

  They eventually fished Lori's body out of the river, pallid and boneless as a dead frog. She'd thrown herself in. They said she'd been drinking. Her husband went dormant, of course, the way they do. But I swear I've seen it standing at the picture window now and again, a shadowy form behind the curtains. It doesn't grin anymore. Its mouth is so small.

  I don't know what happened to the live boy. Once, when I was at the Fresh Market, Vicki told me between sidelong glances that Josephine supposedly ran off with him, or he ran off with her, or they made off with each other, a suitcase full of black skirts all the same and a jolly red bicycle filling the back of the Hearse. I hope they're happy, wherever they are. He seemed like a nice boy, and Josephine might as well get what she wants, if she's willing to take it. I've never been that brave.

  As for me, I've taken to sitting with my husband while it pretends to read the paper. I pretend to watch the television, to show willing. At night, after it does what it needs to do, we both lie stiff and straight on top of the covers, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. I stretch my mouth open wide and bare my little rounded teeth. Sometimes I think I've almost got the hang of it, the grinning. The trick is to know it doesn't mean much.

  Our eyes are bright in the dark, and our teeth are very white.

  The Machine in My Mind

  by James Maxey

  Artwork by Nick Greenwood

  * * *

  "Daddy, did you ever live with Mommy?"

  I fix my eyes on the road and ponder what brought on the question. Kayla's in first grade and noticing that many of her classmates have mothers and fathers that live together.

  "No," I say. "We worked together, but never lived together."

  "Mommy was a fireman?"

  "No. She worked at the university. I was a teaching assistant back then."

  "Oh," she says. "Did you ever live with Daniel's mommy?"

  "Yes." Daniel's her older brother. I've already dropped him off at Beth's house after taking both my kid's trick or treating. Daniel's eleven; he announced as he left the car in his Superman costume that he thought he'd be too old to trick or treat next year. I hope he's wrong. On almost every other big holiday, my ex-wives' trips out of town conspire to keep me from spending time with both my kids at once. Luckily, it's always worked out that I can take both of them trick or treating.

  "When did you stop living with Daniel's mommy?" Kayla asks, wadding up the edge of her Supergirl cape.

  "A while ago," I say. Six years ago is the precise answer, and maybe the answer she's digging for.

  "Before I was born?"

  "Before you were born."

  "Why didn't you ever live with Mommy?"

  "We . . . weren't compatible."

  She frowns, unsatisfied by the answer. Coward that I am, as much as I cherish each second I spend with my kids, I'm relieved as I pull into Sabrina's driveway. There's a flickering light from the living room, but her porch light is off. Sabrina's not really into Halloween. Handing out candy isn't part of her ritual for the night.

  I hold Kayla's hand as we walk onto her porch. In her other hand she clutches her plastic pumpkin full of sugary swag.

  Sabrina opens the door as we approach. She eyes the candy.

  "I'll be the one dealing with her bouncing off the walls," she grumbles.

  "Kayla can stay at my place if that would help you out," I offer. "I can get her to school and have my mom pick her up in the afternoon."

  Kayla's face lights up. She likes the idea, but I know I've made a mistake. She's about to get her hopes crushed.

  "I don't think it would be good for Kayla to have her schedule disrupted," Sabrina says, crossing her arms. The message is loud and clear. I get my court-mandated visitation, nothing more.

  We talk for a few minutes about Kayla's school. Sabrina's answers are short, perfunctory. When they both go inside, I turn away feeling defeated. Sabrina doesn't switch on the porch light to make it easier for me to get back to my car.

  I drive home aching. I love both my kids, they love me, and mostly love each other. But neither of their mothers, Beth or Sabrina, would pee on me if I were on fire. Of course, as a fire-fighting professional, I wouldn't recommend such action anyway.

  For the millionth time, I think back over all the moments where I could have done things different. Saying "no" the time a professor fifteen years my senior attempted to seduce me would have been a good start. Telling Beth I was sorry and sounding like I meant it might have been another good move.

  I squeez
e the steering wheel hard, fighting back the flood of "what ifs." There are a thousand moments that leave me guessing what might have been. What if I'd stayed in school, instead of dropping out the first time to support Beth, or messing things up the second time by getting into an affair with a crazy woman?

  Who knows? If I'd kept studying physics, maybe by now I'd have built that damned time-machine I always daydream about. Maybe run some tests to figure out if I could have made smarter choices.

  I pull into my driveway. For a moment I study my eyes in the rearview mirror. The lines around them grow deeper each day. I try to remember a time when I could look into mirrors and see eyes not filled with doubt. I try to remember a time when I didn't find myself staring at the eyes of the man who haunts me, the man I might have been if I'd used my brain at pivotal junctures in my life instead of my groin.

  I open the car door with a sigh. I cross my leaf-covered deck to the back door. Inside I flick on the lights and head for the fridge. Putting my phone on the kitchen island, I retrieve a beer, then head for the living room.

  I freeze. There's a man standing in front of me. Everything about him is familiar. He could be my identical twin, if I had an identical twin. Only our haircuts are different; mine's trimmed close on the side and back with the top a little spiky. His long wavy hair is slicked back with what looks like Vaseline. Our facial structures . . . they're a perfect match. I stare into eyes precisely the same color as my own.

  His face is so unsettling it takes me a second to realize he has a pistol aimed right at my chest.

  "Welcome home, Gordon," he says. Even his voice is curiously familiar.

  "Who the hell are you?" I ask.

  "I'll be the one asking questions." He motions toward the couch with his non-gun hand. I notice he's wearing gloves, even though it's not cold outside. "Sit."

  "What do you want?"

  "I want you to sit," he says coolly. "I'm going to ask you questions. This doesn't need to be complicated."

  "Questions?"

  "Sit!"