Double Happiness (14 page)

Waiting for the elevator he wondered if she'd become distracted now. Get herself tangled up in old griefs. Start messing
things up. Of course, he'd had tough times himself. He hated to think about all that. But now she'd triggered a bleak image: Friendly's. His parents, each in their own separate sport vehicles, arriving on alternate weekends at school to take him to brunch. The really great thing about Megan? She'd never even lost a tooth. She had only happy, healthy relatives and tonight they were coming for dinner. He stopped by Kamal's for his cheapest bouquet.

Where's the little princess? Kamal asked.

Working, said Raymond, digging in his pocket for some coins.

You don't think so?

Of course I think so. What's it to you?

She's a good girl. You know, she lives here a long time, right there, Kamal nodded toward some blue scaffolding. Since she was a little child. I know the whole family, from before, you know. The mother was a kind woman, still no one can believe what happened, if you hear me. Kamal waited, then handed Raymond the cone of flowers. The girl tries very hard for you, that's what I'm saying, makes sacrifices.

These are the ugliest flowers you've ever sold me.

No, sir, Kamal laughed with what sounded like admiration. For you, I have much worse, believe me.

Raymond laughed, too. The flowers stank like something scooped out of a compost heap. But Megan knew how to deal with bouquets. She had tricks and remedies.

* * *

The next day Helena's little things—her personal stapler, her emergency cardigan, her bluish lip gloss—were gone. And Raymond got the message and was surprised how painless it was. Freeing, he told himself. But a few weeks later he saw her tucked inside Kamal's little storefront between the tinned biscuits and the Miracle-Gro. She was talking so softly he only overheard a single word: irreplaceable. Then Helena looked up with a radiant expression. Worshipful, in fact. And he felt himself drifting toward her, entranced as well, until Kamal poked him hard in the ribs. Out, please, sir. Nothing for you here today.

Even from the sidewalk, her face seemed to say: There's no one and nothing I'd rather see than you. And he thought, it's true, there's no replacing that. Then Kamal was shoving and stepping on his good shoes. Blowing sour disapproving breath all over the place. Watch it, bud, Raymond said, and Kamal said, Just let her be, please. I'm begging now.

But an hour later, there she was, back on his brown tweed sofa. Tiptoed in and picked up some folders like nothing had ever happened.

I have news, she said.

Can't it wait? he asked, fingering the pretty ridge of her hip bone.

Not for very long.

Thinking back, he'd misunderstood her meaning. He assumed she meant: Let's fool around and then I'll hint, urgently,
at some feeling best kept under wraps. But it turned out she was talking about something else. During their period of estrangement, Helena had gained a minor victory. A new journal,
Heron's Flap Quarterly
, was about to publish a personal essay documenting her apprenticeship to Raymond. Apprenticeship? Had he agreed to this? Maybe it was better he hadn't? Sometimes, he believed, Helena exaggerated his goodness.

But no sooner had the honor dawned then a hand-painted sandwich board appeared outside Kamal's shopfront accosting all pedestrians. A deceptively prim head shot of Helena wearing a turtleneck and a schoolgirl smile was laminated to both sides. She smirked at all comers. Many paused to consider her expression, then shelled out good money for galleys xeroxed on wax paper wrapped around a bunch of rotting rosebuds. Twenty pages detailing Raymond's career philosophy. The title?
Dead-head: Every Bud a Weed to Crush and Kill Me
.

Raymond spoke to Kamal, man to man. Reminded him of their long fruitful association. But Kamal said, It's a free country! The little girl can speak her mind.

Raymond tried once more. He told Kamal about Helena's
problems
. He made a circling gesture in the crotch region to indicate something fairly horrible.

Kamal refused to listen. Out, he said. Don't come back, please.

On the sidewalk Kamal straightened the sandwich board so Helena's malevolent mug dared him to say another word. And
Raymond was forced to do the only responsible thing, should have done it ages ago. He called the number posted pretty much everywhere and reported the funny looking people drinking poisonous coffee in the shadows of Kamal's establishment.

When he phoned the
Heron's Flap Quarterly
, they were delirious just to hear the sound of his voice. So modest, they said, so unassuming. They'd take care of it immediately. A much better experience than the dysfunctional anonymous city hotline.

And that was the end. Helena came to his office the one final time. The day of all the contradictory weeping. He thought only colicky babies could cry so hard. No one knew where Kamal was being kept!

Kept? Raymond said. He's traveling! Maybe he's gone home to Beirut. Raymond shook his head. Don't worry. You worry too much. And it will only get in your way.

Soon the flowers died in earnest in the little storefront. A latch and padlock were installed. Strips of yellow police tape crisscrossed the door. The sandwich board was tossed inside, but if he pressed his face to the window at dusk he could see Helena's picture, just the eyes smiling and the letters “Crush” in a Gothic script like a love note she'd left behind.

Just thinking about her made his nostrils sting. His toes and fingers went numb, his inner ears itched, and his eyelids swelled. Some cheap toxic economy-class cleaning fluids emitted nearly visible waves that would probably blind him. And
Megan was no doubt off getting a foot massage from the stewardesses. It seemed just yesterday when the good news she hurried to deliver was that she'd finagled a way to upgrade
him. He
needed rest, he needed to be on top of things. She used to take pleasure in making things go well. But six weeks of pregnancy and she was hustling for herself alone. Raymond shook his head but that only increased the vertigo. And if he had to sit one more minute with the fidgeting guy, he'd shoot someone.

Though of course he didn't have a gun. He didn't even own a gun, didn't believe in them. Once, after Friendly's, his father had taken him hunting near his boarding school. It was all winter white out in the woods. Raymond was on magic mushrooms like nearly everyone in his senior class all that last semester. When his father made a direct hit to the doe's abdomen and the blood spattered so red on the snow, Raymond burst into tears and could only be soothed by a priest in the local Catholic church. Up until then, Raymond's family didn't even know any Catholics. But now his father had to buy a pew. And he still hadn't quite forgiven Raymond. At least that's what Raymond always says when he tells the story: This is how a boy becomes a man in America. And he always gets a laugh of recognition, of understanding. Except, of course, from Helena, who had fairly insane ideas about priests—she was raised by Vatican II zealots—and deer, she thought deer were endangered. Look, he'd told her, it's a story about me, forget the priest, forget the fucking deer.

But Helena was unconvinced. Again. She heard the hunting trip as a story of sexual enticement and animal torture. The priest had only cradled his head, Raymond insisted. His father was in the room the entire time. Helena could believe what she wanted. What she believed, apparently, was that he was turned on by dead deer and old head-holding priests. No, no, no, he'd told her, he was high on
mushrooms
.

Thinking back on that conversation, he understood that if it hadn't been for her face, none of it would have mattered. If he hadn't seen that look of hers, he wouldn't care if she couldn't understand a simple story he'd told a dozen times before, in front of audiences who got it completely and applauded. Sometimes on their feet, sometimes with tears in their eyes. Most exuberantly of all at the alumni reunion of his boarding school. But he always waved away the adulation, didn't he? He'd say, No, no, come on, now, his irony and self-effacement completely apparent. Helena was blind. And her face, that come-hither-no-prisoners face of hers was distorted by a vision only she could see.

He hoped. He hoped only she could see it. And though he was fairly certain that was true, he started dropping little hints about her credibility to open ears here and there. In a precautionary way. And it was gratifying how quickly the innuendos, the half thoughts took on a life of their own.

Now and then people still asked, What ever happened to her? He heard she was sick for a while. But now she'd pitched
up in Rome of all places, looking healthy, except for all the skittering back. What to make of that? He tried to recapture her expression just as she left the café. She wasn't laughing, was she? Probably crying. Whatever she was doing, he realized, he
finally
realized, it was making him kind of furious.

Yes, they'd had talks about men and women, and deer and priests, some of them good, some of them ludicrous. But the chief thing to understand about Helena was that she was enraging. He felt that rage pumping in a pleasant, familiar, enlivening way across his chest, opening up his sinuses. He felt sharp and alert for the first time in forever and blinked open his eyes to see the least attractive stewardess charging down the aisle right for him. Now the fidgeter was bouncing in his seat, swatting at the back of his pants.

Good Christ, said Raymond.

The stewardess leaned into their space and the guy shouted, There are fleas in my seat!

Now, sir, calm yourself, she said. And Raymond sat far back and closed his eyes. Raymond was afraid of fleas. Nothing he could do about it. As his neighbor climbed over him, all outer-wear and wriggle, Raymond clamped his mouth shut and commanded himself not to scream. No screaming. No screaming, it was his own kind of mantra, and he'd discovered it worked in a variety of situations. And now it was helping already.

The stewardess hustled the man to the restroom while Raymond quickly determined, from certain clues, that the
problem was all in the guy's head. One, nothing leaped up and down in the window seat. And two, wouldn't he, who was so susceptible, be the first one bitten? Without moving his head, he kept a tight surveillance on the mash of nuts and pretzels.

The one truth he'd actually been able to teach Helena, very early on, when she first came to work for him, before all the trouble began and she became such a deep and incurable pest, was this: Stone hard, unrelenting confrontation rewards itself.

What do you mean? she'd said, that gentle, open face not fooling him for an instant.

People call you a louse and a pretender, just stare them down until they evaporate.

Raymond?

That's right.

Raymond,
no one
thinks you're a pretender. Sometimes, it's a little nutty in there. She pressed a small finger to his temple. Then she was tossing aside the throw pillow and standing up. The rough tweed of the sofa had left red imprints along the tops of her thighs like he'd branded her. See what I did? he said, rubbing his fist across her skin.

I'm dehydrated, she said, twisting to look, frowning down. She slumped into the bathroom and slammed the door. A second later the sink started pounding. He listened, then thought,
What?

Hey! he was up and shouting through the locked door, What do you mean,
No one thinks I'm a pretender?
Who have you been talking to?

The water boomed away until finally she was back in the room wearing a stretchy black miniskirt and a lavender blouse with torn ruffles. There were big water splotches down her front. Her shampoo smelled like burning asbestos.

Answer me. What have you been saying about me?

She rubbed his only hand towel in her wet hair. Her eyes took on an expression best used for viewing newborn kittens. That you're beautiful, she smiled.

I'm serious. Who, what, and where, right now, tell me.

Raymond, don't be silly, I adore you! She dropped the towel on the floor and sat next to him on the edge of the sofa. She wore the prim smile that would soon gross out the neighborhood from a sandwich board.

He wouldn't look at her, she didn't deserve that kind of courtesy. But then again, why not stare her down? Who the hell was she?

Raymond? Raymond. Everyone I know thinks you're
amazing
. I've been in awe of you since the day I was born. Before, in fact! My mom used to listen to
Why Me?
on tape when I was in utero! And when I was little? She read me the sad childhood parts of
Only Genius
. How the low IQs of your siblings isolated you? In my case, it was, you know, an actual death. So the IQ part wasn't as pressing. But the loneliness was the same. And I could
get through somehow, just because of you and your essays. The worst, most impossible things became bearable. Kind of.

She seemed compelled to display those impossible things now. Curling her mouth, filling up her eyes with chaos. I know you understand because you understand everything. Just try, just a little, please?

Try? He should
try
? Fuck her. He bolted off the sofa and commandeered the bathroom. Flooded as usual. He waited, seated on the lip of the tub, feet on the toilet, eye on the lock, for her next move. It was a long wait. Then he heard the quiet click of the front door closing. A bad sound by any reckoning. And next thing his head was in his hands and he felt like crying. He'd been working too hard. And now some dopey chit was out testing the market on his success. Telling him horror stories to boot. Megan never messed with him in this way. He let out a shuddering sigh, he couldn't possibly detest Helena more. But then she did something even worse. She came back. Three light taps on the hollow door, Hey! I got us some coffee. Please, come out. I'm an idiot.

No news there. But he'd withstood a lot more than some baby succubus in a wet blouse.