Broken for You (5 page)

Margaret answered in her odd, emotionless manner. "It's won where found."

"What does that mean?"

"There are two general categories of clay. Primary or residual clay is 'won'—retrieved—from the same place on earth where it was formed, thousands of years ago."

"And that's an advantage?"

"Primary clay—like china, from which porcelain is made—has never been transported from its original site, so it's very pure. Some people value that sort of thing."

They had arrived at the end of the tour and were on the third-floor ballroom, where a vast collection of ornate candleholders was exhibited.

"What's the other category ?" Wanda was less interested in clay at this point than in Margaret's manner of response. How could she know so much about this stuff and care so little?

"Secondary or sedimentary clays. They travel." Finally Margaret stopped sounding like a bad recording of a boring textbook. "For centuries, they travel. Carried along by wind, rain, ice. They're won thousands of miles from where they were initially formed."

"So they're less pure."

"Yes. But because they've been buffeted about for such a long time, they're composed of smaller particles."

"And that's good because—?"

"Smaller particle size means greater plasticity. On the other hand, china clay—being composed of large particles—is more rigid, harder to work with."

"Ah. It suffers no fools." Wanda meant it as a joke, but Margaret looked so startled and tense that she feared she'd offended her.

Margaret turned away. "That's it, then. That's the whole house." She began moving through the ballroom, turning off the chandeliers and wall sconces. Her footsteps were heavy on the oak planks of the ballroom floor, their returning echoes even heavier. "Let's go downstairs."

Wanda asked no further questions, certainly not the one which had been at the forefront of her mind:
Fifteen thousand square feet? Eleven bedrooms? And you live here alone?

Wanda took another sip of cold coffee and studied her city map and bus schedules. Getting to Margaret's by bus was not going to be easy or quick; she'd have to walk several blocks to catch the first of two buses, transfer to the second bus, and hike another quarter of a mile to the top of the hill. It would take at least forty-five minutes to get there. She had just enough time to pack her small inventory of possessions, settle her account with the good people of the Young Women's Christian Association, and be on her way. She grabbed her backpack and a small cardboard box from under her cot. Into the backpack went:

1
. Clothes: functional, tasteful, casual; a stage manager's wardrobe, which meant nothing too feminine or suggestive—Wanda had learned long ago that women of a small build, if they want to command any kind of authority, can't look too girly—but nothing too slouchy either. Pants and shirts, slightly tailored. Jeans, tees, and sweats for Mondays off. A black dress for opening nights. No jewelry.

2. Shoes: a pair of hiking boots, a pair of tennis shoes, and a pair of really brazen, really expensive fuck-me pumps to go with the opening night dress. Once in a while it was okay to look girly.

Into the cardboard box went:

1
. Papers: Wanda's resumes, the city map, the bus schedules, legal papers, bank statements, letters of recommendation, old journals,

Aunt Maureen routinely forwarded Wanda's mail. There was no special mention of the postcard in Maureen's accompanying letter, and Wanda almost didn't find it; it was squeezed between a credit card solicitation and Wanda's Northwestern University alumnae magazine.

Even though the postcard bore no message or return address, and the sender had obviously made an effort to disguise his handwriting, Wanda knew it was from Peter.

Within two days, she had given up the loft and located someone who needed a New York-to-Seattle drive-away—a nice Manhattan programmer who'd been hired by Microsoft. She loaded her backpack and cardboard box into the backseat. She clipped the postcard to the visor and consulted her cross-country map: I-80 west and turn right at Cheyenne. What could be simpler?

At first, she was confident. It was so like Peter—to tell her in this indirect way where he was, even though he said he wanted to be alone. To express his need for her without words. To m
ake no overt
demands.
He might not even know why he sent the postcard,
Wanda thought, serenely navigating Interstate 80 as it caressed the Appalachian Mountains.
He might not realize how much he needs me. He probably still thinks he wants to be alone. He's probably that delusional.

She inched through traffic jams and construction slowdowns in Illinois, not stopping in Chicago to see her relatives. They weren't expecting her; and besides, there wasn't enough time.

Maybe he thinks he's doing me a favor by leaving me. Maybe he worries that loving him is too hard. Doesn't he thin
k
I know he's troubled? Doesn't he thin
k
I’ve
taken that into consideration? I've had my eyes open. I'm no fool. I can take it.

She drove the length of the Nebraska panhandle without seeing another living soul. She started chewing her fingernails and developed a hair-pulling habit.

On the other hand, maybe he really does want to be alone. Maybe he doesn’t want to be found.

She drank truck stop coffee. She listened to CDs of Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Earl Hines, Rassan Roland Kirk.

Fuck,
she thought by the time she crossed the Rockies
, I
have no idea what he's thinking.

But it was too late to turn back. After Wanda merged onto I-90, she drove the last twenty-four hours nonstop, making the trip from New York to Seattle in only five days.

Wanda stuffed the morning paper and the now-empty coffee cup into the trash can. She left Mickey and Minnie where they lay. She pulled Peter's name off the wall, crushed it into a ball, and then tucked it into her jeans pocket. She was almost done.

Under Wanda's pillow were the last two things to go into the box:

The Book put forth the theory that what a person envisions is what a person attracts, so that if you envision loss, despair, loneliness, etc., that is indeed what will befall you. The Book also claimed that all of
us lie to ourselves all the time, so why not
tell positive
lies—known as "affirmations"—instead of negative ones?

For example, if Wanda felt like writing, "Nobody will ever love me again," which, according to the book's author, was a lie, she wrote instead, "A loving relationship awaits me." If Wanda felt like writing, "All men are fucked-up dickwads who deserve to die," she forced her hand into a steady calmness and wrote instead, "There are good men in the world, somewhere." If she felt like writing, "Fuck the survival of the species. The world would be better off if humans became extinct," she wrote, "Save the whales." And if she felt her spooks coming on, those familiar voices that said, "You're going to die alone. People started leaving you when you were six years old and they're going to keep on leaving you, so why bother?" she would print, as if she were competing for a penmanship prize, "I love myself. I. Love. Myself. I do not need another person's love to make me whole"; and she would think,
What a load of bullshit,
and watch the clear, precise lines of her script blur and melt into unrecognizable watery blobs.

If all else failed, she would copy the affirmation that was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of all affirmations: "This, or something better, will manifest for me for the highest good of the universe."

She called this affirmation the New Age Hail Mary. Lately, she'd had to use it a lot.

Wanda checked out of the YWCA, strode to the bus stop, and made the next bus with time to spare. Putting the cardboard box under her seat and the backpack in her lap, she settled in and began studying the other passengers, row by row, face by face, looking for Peter. One couldn't be too careful; he probably knew Wanda had come looking for him and would avoid her if he could. Furthermore, he was probably wearing a disguise.

After the first few stops, Wanda noticed a large woman getting on the bus. Her hairdo was suspicious; it looked like a Gabor sisters wig. Her broad hands were gloved. She wore dark glasses. Wanda thought she could detect a faint, smudgy shadow over her upper lip.

True, she seemed to have expansive, unmistakably feminine hips, and her pendulous breasts responded naturally to the swaying motion of the
bus, but so what? Wanda had once stage-managed a play where one of the actresses thought her character ought to have big tits; the costumer had engineered a beautiful, natural-looking, 38D chest out of muslin and filled it with birdseed. Peter knew how to sew. And he was a sculptor, for God's sake. Anything was possible.

Wanda placed a hand on the center of her 30 A chest and tried to quiet her heart. She would have to be tricky if she was going to find him. But maybe she could beat him at his own game. She knew about disguises too, after all. She had plenty of experience watching actors disappear into other characters, become unrecognizable behind layers of padding and clothes and wigs and makeup.

What kind of character would be most unlike her? What kind of person would Peter least expect? She wiggled her face around and tried out a few new expressions. She imagined speaking with a lower, more resonant voice. She hummed an old Peggy Lee song. She arched an eyebrow. She cocked her head.

Yeah, sure. She could do this. He'd never even see her coming.

If you'd asked her, Wanda would not have been able to tell you why Peter's departure had driven her to these extremes of emotion and action. Before he left, she had no idea that she was capable of such a dramatic, Old Testament style of grieving. Not that she'd ever read the Old Testament; she hadn't. But the point is, no one was more surprised by these excesses of behavior than Wanda herself.

They met when Wanda was stage-managing
Uncle Vanya
and the theatre borrowed a sideboard from the store where Peter did restorations. Refusing help from Wanda and her crew, he steered the massive piece onstage himself; once it was in place, he smoothed his big boxer's hands over it with a palpable and sensual reverence that gave Wanda an unusual empathy for Victorian furnishings. His pores released a hot yeasty smell that was tinged with citrus. Who knew why—a person can't explain these things—but in that moment, Wanda was finally arrow-struck by the mythical purblind boy.

Peter was older than the actors she'd bedded, and heavier, both in body and spirit. The bloom was off this rose, that was sure. But he had breadth and depth of experience, he'd struggled with depression, and—what a relief!—he could talk about something besides his resume: jazz, God, poetry. Instead of investing his energies in the transitory rewards of applause, good press, and self-promotion, he
restored
things,
made
things, brought forth the pentimento hidden deep in ancient wood. His sculptures were stationed around the loft where he lived and worked. After Wanda moved in, she felt protected by them, assured by their weight. Peter's angels may have had wings, but they weren't going anywhere. Yes, he was troubled, he drank too much, he was certifiably bipolar, but he was such a gentle drunk, so sweet in bed when he was soused. After years of improvising with volatile children, his slowness and steadiness was a balm, his somnolence after they made love a haven.

But he didn't love you enough,
Wanda reminded herself.
He left you. He went awa
y. Does he really warrant this ki
nd of behavior? Is it worth going nuts over the man?

The answer didn't really matter. Affirmations couldn't save her. Wanda had faced the fact that she would have to keep cracking up, little by little, like a windshield, until she found him. She just didn't seem to have a choice.

The woman on the bus turned out to be exactly who she seemed—a horsy matron with a postmenopausal mustache. So did the six other people Wanda felt bore certain suspicious resemblances to Peter, either in build or in manner, or in, well, aura.