Gibbon's Decline and Fall (37 page)

“Hey, gorgeous,” he called. “Did I leave my coffee cup in there?”

“I'll bring it,” she told him, rising to do so. “You sure you don't want any more?”

“Oh, maybe half a cup.” Humming now. Full of music, this man was. Full of crap. Besides, Luce liked measurable things. He wanted things quantified. “Luce, you never …,” she would say. “How many times don't I?” That was his kind of question. “How many times don't I …”

She passed him the cup across the counter, then perched on one of the kitchen stools. “Luce?”

“Yes, ma'am. You want another cup?”

“I want to talk.”

“So talk. You're the psychologist, so tell me about these old ladies, why they're burning the shoe stores and stuff.”

“That's not what I want to talk about. I want to … to ask why. You know, we haven't made love lately.”

He looked up, suddenly alert, hands quiet, eyes searching her face. “Not for a while, no.”

“Why is that?” She took a sip of coffee to soothe a suddenly dry throat.

He looked puzzled. “You haven't given me the signal,” he said at last. “Not lately. I figured you were preoccupied.”

“The signal?”

“You know, the go-ahead. The flag. The starting gun. The bell for round one.”

“I didn't know I ever … gave a signal.”

“Sure you do,” he said, shaking his head. “I think. It's the
way you … look, I guess. Or smell. Hell, I don't know. Something that sets me off.”

“And lately I haven't done it?”

“Not lately. I figured it was the new job. They can be pretty demanding—new bosses, new projects. I know. I've had enough of them.”

She was staring into the coffee, as though into a crystal ball. “Luce, I thought you were the one who gave the signal.”

“Me? I always tried not to. You know, being considerate. Dad told me that when I was fourteen: He said it was better than the Scout motto. Not ‘Be prepared,' but ‘Be considerate.' ” He dried his hands on a paper towel, threw it into the trash, and took her hand to lead her back into the living room. “Hey, it's nothing about us. I mean, Stace, I'm in love with you. Like forever. Whatever's bothering you—me, us—it doesn't even touch how I feel about you.”

He drew her down on the couch and cuddled her, his arms tight around her, and she waited for the signal, from him, from herself, searching memory, searching sensation. Something. Sound. Smell. Feeling. Something. They were warm and cozy and pleasant and loving, but the other thing, whatever it was, didn't happen, even though they were both thinking about it.

About it. But finding it hard even to remember. Stace could remember what they'd done, what they'd said, but the actual feeling …

He was fondling her breasts, stroking them. “Your bra's all stretched,” he said. “It's loose.”

“It's a new one,” she said, sitting up, adjusting the straps.

“Take off your shirt,” he said.

She peeled it off, let him kiss her shoulder, run his hands down her back. She loved his hands. They stroked easily under the straps of the bra. Easily.

“It's the same size I always buy,” she whispered.

“You're … smaller,” he said.

She went into his bedroom, took off the bra, looked at herself in his mirror. She didn't usually look at herself undressed—no real reason to—but she
was
smaller. She was almost flat-chested. Just breasty enough so people would know she was a girl. Like a twelve-year-old, maybe. Or a ballerina.

He came in behind her, took her in his arms.

“I'm shrinking,” she whispered. “The incredible shrinking boob! What shall I do?”

“Darling, I don't know,” he said.

Faye had finished the figure of Fecundity, had paid Petra off and bade her farewell, only to have her call a few weeks later asking if she could bring Narcisso, her boyfriend, by to see the statue.

“The maquette,” Faye corrected. “If you want to, Pet. Not for long, though. I've got a lot of work laid on this week.”

She was deeply immersed in the transformation of Mercury and the three Graces, but when Petra and Cisso arrived, Faye propped the door open and went out onto the balcony so Petra could show off alone.

“That's you, huh?” The boy's voice was soft, much softer than Faye had expected. “Nice. Lookit all the little kids. We used to go swimmin' like that, me'n my brothers, skinny-dippin'.”

Faye turned slightly, so she could observe them without seeming to watch. Was this the same young man she had seen before? It was the same car, no question of that. There couldn't be more than one. But the young man himself seemed different. Her sculptor's eye saw a change in his stance and the way he held his head. Softness. His shoulders were softer, sloped and relaxed instead of raised and stiff, the difference between ballet and flamenco. There was something almost demure in the stance.

“Y'think I look, you know, sexy?” Petra asked him.

“You? Oh, sure. Sure you do. Real sexy. But it's okay. The face isn't that much you, you know. You worried about your Dad seein' it, he'd never know it was you.”

They came out. “I need to talk to her for a minute,” said Petra. “You go on. I'll be right there.”

As he went down the stairs, the girl stood, hunched a bit, warming herself. She looked frozen, as though she'd been out in the chill of the night. The heat was on in the studio, and Faye drew her back inside.

“All right, Pet child. What's eating on you?”

The girl looked up, her face strained with woe and doubt. “Narcisso,” she whispered. “He don't … he's not takin' me to bed anymore.”

And a very good thing, too, Faye told herself. “Good for him,” she said.

“It's not good,” the girl cried in anguish. “ ‘Cause I don't know why!”

“Maybe he got smart. Maybe he doesn't want you pregnant.”

She shook her head. “He use to say he want me to have his baby. Even when I don't want to, he hits me and says I should be a woman and have his baby.”

“Hits you?”

“Yeah, you know. Not too bad. Just enough to show me, like he says, who's boss. But he don't hit me now, and he don't take me to bed.”

“Maybe he thinks you should be married first.”

The girl looked up, her expression changing. “You think?”

“If he's in love with you. Yes.”

“That never stop him before. Maybe he's got AIDS,” the girl whispered. “That's what I think.”

Which could be true. “Have you asked him?”

She shook her head miserably. “We don't talk about that stuff.”

Of course not. Do it ceaselessly, sequentially, serially, even promiscuously; hear it discussed ad lib, ad nauseam on every channel; but do not speak of it applying to oneself. Taboo. Taboo.

“What can I do?”

“Ask him.” She examined the girl's face. “Do you still want him? Maybe if he doesn't ever make love to you, do you want him anyhow?”

“He got me all mixed up. He won't take me to bed, but he takes me to the store, and he never use to. He don't hit me no more, but he's nicer than he use to be. We have more fun, you know? An' I can't figure it out.”

Faye could understand her disbelief; what she couldn't understand was the change in Narcisso.

“Why don't you just enjoy it, Petra? Can't you do that?”

“I guess.” She didn't look at all convinced as she went down the steps with her eyes fixed on her feet. The boy came to meet her, putting his hand affectionately on her shoulder as he helped her into the car.

The graveled road was faceted with sun as the car turned and went away, not too fast. An enigma. Something totally unexpected.

And nothing she could figure out at the moment! One of
the many things she had no time for! She stalked purposefully into the studio, put the covers over the maquette, and returned to her work. Botticelli's Mercury was to be transformed into a composite Noah-Dionysus-St. Francis, savior of wild animals, surrounded by the animals themselves, ones that had gone extinct in Europe. Wild boar. Forest bison. Elk. A bear—not a teddy type, but one with wildness implicit, nose down, teeth showing, paw scooping up a flapping fish.

She hadn't decided on a replacement for the central figure of Venus Genetrix yet, but she would replace the three Graces with three avatars of nature, exemplars of what Carolyn called the covenant: shepherdess, gardener, dryad.

“You'd know about that,” she said to Sophy, who stood naked in the corner. The wreath and drapery had been put away, in a locked cabinet. Now Sophy simply stood there, reaching out, her arm sagging under the huge, invisible weight it held. Looking at her own hands, Faye said, “You'd know about forests and animals and birds and all that.”

“They are the teachers,” Sophy replied. “When the first women studied what the world was like, they learned from birds and animals. When I was in the desert, I learned from them, too.…”

Faye looked up from the clay. She couldn't remember Sophy ever talking about the desert. The form stood there unmoving, and yet she had heard Sophy's voice, very clearly, talking about the desert!

Had the statue spoken to her? Had she remembered Sophy speaking, or had she remembered someone quoting something Sophy had said?

Probably a bit of all three. Memory of Sophy, memory of someone speaking of Sophy, and the sculpture itself speaking, the bronze talking to its creator.

S
IMON WAS AT THE DESK
in the study when Ophy got home from Misery late Friday afternoon, the surface before him littered with untidy piles of paper scraps, different colors and sizes, all scratched over in Simon's spiky hand.

“What are you doing?” Ophy asked, dropping her bag and coat onto a chair near the door. “It looks like you've been here all day.”

“Sorting notes for a story,” he said. “I realized this morning that I've already got a lot of stuff on this plague of yours. I've been covering it without knowing it. If my editor won't assign me, I'll do it freelance. Look at this.” He picked up one pile. “These are notes I took in France.
Elle
magazine. You know?”

She nodded. “Fashions, isn't it? Like
Vogue
?”

“Sort of a glamour mag. I met one of the editors at a cocktail party. He was crying a blue streak over business. Subscriptions were off, down by twenty, twenty-five percent. He couldn't figure it out.

“At the time it meant very little, though I made notes of what he said. You know me: I always make notes. So after our talk last night, I got to thinking about the old women's riots here, you know, and today I started digging about.
Gentlemen's Quarterly. Womenswear Daily. Vogue
. I got a snarky idea, so I included Victoria's Secret, Frederick's. I made some phone
calls. Doing a feature piece, sez I. How's business? Now, if business was good, they'd have crowed about it. Instead they say this, they say that, they ask why do I want to know.”

“Why those particular magazines?”

“Depression is an ego problem, isn't it? Fashion is ego related.”

She dropped into the chair across from him. “You're trying to verify the depression epidemic?”

“I thought of the different kinds of ego stuff. Cars, maybe. For women it's clothing, and maybe that ties into what these old biddies are doing. Cosmetics, maybe? My theory is, if there's an epidemic of fear or depression, the first things to nose-dive will be stuff like clothes and cars.”

“How can you quantify this? You didn't get any numbers from these people you talked to.”

“Thus speaks the scientific mind. No, love, no numbers. Just a lot of uncomfortable silences.”

“How would we get some real data? The people from CDC, they're dying for something real, Simon. Are you planning on writing something now?”

“Of course not now. I don't have a story yet. I have a dozen or so phone calls that produced only negative information. ‘Fashion Biggies Touchy About Sales' is not a story. No, I'm just digging. I thought maybe you'd join me for a night on the town.”

“Where? What's up your sleeve?”

“Well, the car dealerships are closed at night, so I thought Frederick's, maybe.” He grinned and ran his fingers through already untidy hair. “We could look around, maybe have supper out.”

“Wandering around at night? How safe is it?”

“The town seems pretty quiet to me. Early in the evening should be okay. We'll pick up a security team if you like.”

“I guess we should. No point taking chances, even though the town does seem quiet. Things have simmered down lately.”

Quiet or not, Ophy dressed down. Solid low-heeled shoes, dark trousers, loose sweater under a looser coat. No jewelry. No scent. Her HoloID in a zippered inside pocket. The face that looked back at her from the mirror looked anemic and hollow-cheeked.