Hart & Boot & Other Stories (11 page)

“No,” Zara said. “I won’t do it.” The spotlight found Nikki again.

Nikki sighed. There was no fake blood on her clothes, though she’d been sitting in a pool of it. “You don’t have any choice—”

“There is always a choice,” the regal Fury said. “We forgave Orestes. We were the benevolent ones, for a time.”

“Yeah,” Zara said. “I can be benevolent.”

Nikki pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, as if fighting a headache. “This isn’t the way we meant things to go.”

Zara slapped Nikki, hard, leaving a bloody smear across her cheek. The Chorus gasped and murmured. Nikki stared at her, eyes wide.

“This isn’t a
play
,” Zara said, suddenly overcome by the pressures of the past few days—Doug, the Chorus, rehearsal, and now
this
. “You aren’t my director. I’m not going to say the lines you wrote. You need to learn to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not, or you’re going to be in for a hard time.” She turned to the Furies and snapped her fingers. The light on them went out. “Go on,” she said. “Show’s over. You’re forgiven.”

Nikki rubbed her bloody cheek. “What, you think you saved them? They’ll just get old and die like normal people, now.”

“That’s better than me killing them because of something
you
tricked them into doing,” Zara said.

Shaking her head, Nikki smiled. “Oh, Zara. We’re going to have a great time watching you. You’re going to cut a swath, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want the part,” Zara said.

“Sure,” Nikki said. “Whatever you say. I’ve got to be going. You might want to pick up the children and go on with your lines—time’s going to come flooding back in here in a moment. You can finish your little play, take your bows, and then move on to more important things. I’ll see you around—but you won’t see me.” Nikki stepped out of the spotlight again, and when Zara mentally shifted the light to follow her, it illuminated only the bloody stage. Nikki, and the ladies, were gone.

Zara sank back down to her knees and gathered the children toward her.

Getting back into the role of Medea for this last scene was going to be hell.

Zara begged off from the cast party, saying she didn’t feel well, and after she’d cleaned up and changed into her street clothes, she left the theater by the side entrance. She had a lot of thinking to do. She didn’t
feel
any different, didn’t feel brimming with power. Maybe her life didn’t have to change. Maybe she could just go on the way she’d always—

“Bitch,” Doug said, stepping from behind a rusty trash container. “You called my office. You fucked with my life.”

Zara moved toward him, fists clenched. “And what do you think you did to
my
life, you brainless prick?” she shouted.

Doug stumbled back, startled—clearly he’d run this scenario through in his head a few times, and it hadn’t involved Zara being loud and aggressive. He rallied, though, and came toward her again. “I just wanted what you
owed
me. I paid you to perform a service, and you thought you could just stop, any time you wanted?”

“Yes, Doug, you moron. It was a
job
. I
quit
.”

“But we had a real connection,” he said, sounding hurt now. “I could tell by the way you acted with me that our sessions meant something to you, to both of us, by the way we synched up perfectly, anticipated one another’s—”

“No,” she said, not shouting now, just speaking quietly, and Doug fell silent. “No. I was acting. I’m an actress. It’s not my fault if you can’t tell the difference between a real connection and playing pretend.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “But you’re lying to yourself. I’ll make you understand.” He reached into his pocket, and came out with a knife, a fancy one with a shining blade and a skeletal-frame steel hilt.

Zara narrowed her eyes. This was so... fucking...
melodramatic
.

A spotlight illuminated Doug, and he squeezed his eyes shut in the sudden brilliance. “What?” he said, bewildered, shading his face and looking up toward the source of the blinding white light—it was coming from the empty air.

Zara knew what to say. The words were there, in her head; the perfect words, the natural words, the ones that didn’t feel like prepared lines at all. She wondered whether Nikki and her friends the producers had driven Doug crazy, set him on this path in order to bring about this confrontation, for their own entertainment.

Maybe so. But Doug was still an asshole, and he still had a lesson to learn. She wouldn’t kill him, but there were other punishments. “You need to learn to recognize what’s real, Doug,” she said, her voice almost sad. “From now on, your life will be bathed in light and clarity. You’ll never believe anything untrue again, and you’ll never be able to tell untruths of your own, either. If you go to the movies, it will just be noise and flashing lights. If you go to the theater, it will just be people standing on a stage talking. Novels will be words on a page. You don’t deserve to experience stories, Doug, because you can’t handle the responsibility that stories involve.” She waved her hand, and the spotlight went out.

Doug sat down in the alley. He whimpered. “I—I—” He fell silent, and dropped his knife, and covered his face with his hands, desperately trying to put the scales back on his eyes.

Zara walked out of the alley. Perhaps this was a role she could play after all. The Furies had lived to punish those who murdered their loved ones—that was the circumstance of their birth, after all. But Zara had gained her powers because some people couldn’t tell the difference between what was real and what was only a story, and
those
were the kind of people she would punish. The world wasn’t a stage, no matter what Shakespeare thought, no matter what Nikki and her producers believed. Zara wouldn’t play the part they had in mind for her. She was going off book. She was going to
improvise
.

“Oh, Nikki,” she said, and felt the night air tremble. “You fucked up, sister. It’s my show, now.”

As Zara walked out of the alley, a light, unseasonable rain began to fall. Once she was gone, the Greek Chorus emerged from behind garbage cans and piled boxes, to stand around Doug, who lay curled on the wet pavement.

“And so night fell,” the Chorus said, “and the sky above the mountain of the gods was rent by a great light, and those above who penned the destiny of Earth and Heaven felt their hands tremble, and watched as blotted ink spread across the parchment in their hands, and wept to see their work undone.” Then the Chorus stood, mouths half-open, as if unsure what to say next.

Their white make-up began to smear and run in the falling rain.

Romanticore

Fucked half a hundred times by love, and still I look for more. I don’t know why, but since I was fifteen I’m not happy—or don’t even call it happy, I’m not
functional
, I’m not
awake
—if I’m not pursuing, or being pursued, or in the midst of an affair.

So this thing I’m going to tell you about, remember it’s a love story, despite the lions and the murder and the jazz music; all that’s important, but it doesn’t detract from the essence of the thing. A love story. It’s very important to me that I have one good love story, one where love conquers something, or saves someone, and I think this is it. Everything else, all the other times, might have been bullshit and wilting flowers, but this was real.

And while it’s probably not the bloodiest love story you’ve ever heard, what with Shakespeare and all, I bet it ranks up there.

***

It all started two days after things finally disintegrated totally with Susie. (Even her name makes me curl my lip in disgust now; so infantile, so cutesy, such a conscious oxymoron sort of name for a woman with four silver rings in her face, slash-dyed black-and-henna hair, combat boots, eyeliner so heavy it almost makes a domino mask.) We broke up because she was cheating on me, which is pretty hilarious, really, since we had an open relationship. She could fuck anybody she wanted, date other people, I didn’t care, I’ve never been the jealous type (unlike Martin, but we’ll get to him, oh, boy, will we ever get to him). We only had two rules: have
safe
sex, and if you’re fucking somebody else, tell me about it. That’s all; precautions and disclosure.

So she starts sleeping with my best friend, and they don’t tell me about it, because they think I’ll be mad. Jesus. I would’ve been
happy
to hear she was screwing Nick. At least I
like
him, he’s a definite cut above the usual buzz-cut muscle-shirt troglodytes she hooks up with, god knows why those guys want to sleep with her, when the closest she’s ever come to a gym is standing outside of one smoking a cigarette while waiting for a bus. But Nick and Susie thought I’d fly into a rage, that they’d be stepping on some weird territorial taboo, so they snuck around behind my back until one day I came home early because the coffee shop where I usually work was being fumigated and I found them in my bed. And at first I was like, “Whoops, guys, I’ll go grab a bagel and come back in a little bit,” but they totally freaked out and then it was true confessions time, they’d been doing this for two months now, every chance they get, and they’re so sorry and the secrecy is driving them crazy. Oh, and we’re like totally in love, Susie says; and we’re gonna make a go of it; and I’m moving in with Nick; and we’re gonna be monogamous, because this open-relationship thing is just too stressful; and we’re really sorry, Ray.

I don’t know if they had safe sex or not, but it’s not like I’ve never been in bed with Nick (I’ve been in like ten threesomes and one out-and-out orgy with the guy, we go way back) so it doesn’t worry me too much.

After they said their piece I told them to fuck off, and they had enough respect for me to do so with a minimum of fuss, and fifteen minutes later I was sitting in my little apartment over the scary convenience store, smoking a cigarette and ashing into a beer can, wondering what happened. That morning I had a girlfriend, admittedly one who sulked a lot and borrowed money all the time, but still, a girlfriend, and I had a best friend to shoot pool and walk around downtown with and pick up chicks with, and now maybe I didn’t have either one. So I put on some bitter emo-indie-punk music—Agent Ink, this band from down south somewhere, I think it was—and lay back on my futon staring at the ceiling with its totally appropriate nasty waterspots. Hello, squalor, my old friend.

I took a nap. Didn’t get any work done, but none of my deadlines were exactly looming. I’m a writer, and I actually make a living that way (if you call this living, ha ha), with a lot of hustle. I do music reviews for one of the local papers, and anything else I can scrounge up, textbook articles, advertising copy, the occasional feature article. I fill in with proofreading and when things get really rough I work the door at a club a friend of mine owns, or run sound or lights somewhere. It’s a pretty hand-to-mouth living, but I went to college on a scholarship and I’ve never even had a credit card, so I don’t have the sort of debt most of my friends do. Don’t own a car. I ghost along.

So that night I mostly moped and slept, tried to decide if I’d really miss Susie, knowing I’d really miss Nick, because he’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t be cool with hanging out with me after this. Slept badly, but slept. The next day I went to the coffee shop (which still smelled like bug spray) with my laptop and snagged a table in the one corner that the sun never hits all day long, and I drank cup after cup of black coffee and typed my fingers to the bone, like I do most every day. An article about the discovery of radium for a high school science book. Another about the battle of the Thames for a different book. Proofreading some boring-ass article about mixing boards for a music magazine. All of it good for keeping me from thinking about Susie and Nick, from wondering what they were doing that morning, probably having sex at Nick’s place, which wouldn’t bother me except I’ll never be in bed with either of them again.

After work I went home, plugged in the laptop, and sent off the work I did to the interested parties. With luck checks would appear in my mailbox soon. Writing can be a bitch like that; the checks come whenever, usually about two days after you absolutely positively
must
have the money. When I think about how much my rent costs, I automatically tack on the extra $25 I get charged for paying late, since I can’t remember the last time I managed to pay it on time. Then I puttered around online a little, looking for writing jobs, didn’t find anything, looked at some porn, didn’t get turned on, checked my e-mail, didn’t have anything interesting. I decided to go out and get drunk because I’ve just been jilted by my girl for my best friend, and damn, that’s a reason to get drunk, innit?

I went to Black Glass, which is dim and smoky and has Bikini Kill and Sparklehorse on the jukebox and live music lots of nights. I sat at one of the discus-sized tables and ordered a pint of Guinness, because I hadn’t had dinner, and I’d heard you could live off Guinness if you didn’t mind getting scurvy in the process. I figured I’d soften myself up with a few pints, then start ordering hi-test vodka to finish myself off. I could stagger home from Black Glass no matter how drunk I got; it was only three and a half blocks.

Halfway through my second pint, with Neutral Milk Hotel wailing on the jukebox, a bunch of college kids came in, dressed in full faux-punk regalia, clothes bought from expensive stores in the mall, meant to look like clothes scrounged out of the bin at the Salvation Army. They took the table next to mine and started babbling and braying and drowning out the music, bumping into my chair, generally being shits—and this was
before
they’d even started drinking. I gave them as baleful a stare as I could manage, glaring hard enough you’d think they’d turn to stone, but they didn’t even notice me. So I slumped, defeated, and picked up my glass and relocated to the bar, where there were three empty stools. I sat on the middle one and felt pleasantly insulated from the cruel world. I drained my beer and looked at the smudged-up mirror behind the bar. (No, I’m not gonna take this staring-in-the-mirror-moment opportunity to describe my face. It’s just a fucking ordinary guy’s face.)

I looked in the mirror and saw
her
, down at the other end of the bar. Ash-blonde, probably in her late thirties but looking good, a face that was both pretty and
comfortable
, if you know what I mean; she wasn’t caked up with make-up or hiding behind her hair or anything, just a nice pleasant face, looked like somebody you could talk to, and maybe more than talk to. She had her eyes closed, but not like she was sleeping; like she was listening. Her dress was loose and black, satiny-reflective. I must’ve been looking at her for two minutes at least before she opened her eyes, not blinking sleepily but
snap
, right open, and she looked right at me, my face in the mirror, my eyes.

Her eyes were as black and reflective as her dress, a solid dark gleam, without white or iris.

I jumped or something, I think. She glanced down, sort of secretly smiling at her drink, then looked back up at me, kind of coyly, but not in a bullshit way. I don’t think I’d ever met a girl before who could look coy without also looking manipulative. Her eyes weren’t black anymore, just normal eyes, though I couldn’t tell what color in the dimness. That glimpse of blackness was just the bad light, I figured, or her face reflecting on a dirty part of the mirror, or just me being drunk. I didn’t think about her black eyes again until much, much later.

We kept looking at each other in the mirror, her sort of smiling, me—I don’t know what. Thinking she looked even better with her eyes open, probably. I wanted to go over and talk to her, sure, but more than that I wanted
her
to come talk to
me
. Then there’d be no chance that I was misinterpreting her look; I mean, maybe she wasn’t looking at me at all. Hard to tell what’s what, in a mirror.

Then she gave me a bigger smile, shrugged a little, put some money on the bar, and stood up, pulling her purse strap over her shoulder.

I looked down into my beer. Just a swallow left. I could stay here and get bombed out of my skull, to make a match for my bombed-out heart... or I could do something else.

I was just drunk enough to do something else. If I hadn’t... but hell. That’s an idiot’s game, playing what-might’ve-been. You always lose that game. So I’ll just tell you what
was
.

I followed her. She went out the door, and I came after her and said, “Hey.”

She stopped by the curb and looked at me. “Hey yourself,” she said, and her voice was sibilant, smoky, a voice you could listen to for hours, a voice that would go down like good whiskey goes down, smooth and warm.

I held out my hand. “I’m Ray.”

She shook my hand, briefly. “Lily.”

And then we were looking at each other again, just like before, and I had no idea what to say, still, so I said, “Um, I wondered, I wanted to buy you a drink, but you left, so...” I shrugged. “What can I do instead?”

“Do you like jazz?”

“That depends. New Orleans, Traditional, Bop, Chicago style, Dixieland, ragtime, fusion...? I don’t get into fusion much.”

She cocked her head. I had the feeling I’d passed a test. “Pretty traditional. Five piece. Sax, drums, clarinet, trumpet, and upright bass. Called the Blue Rock Quintet. They’re playing at a little place downtown, the Spiral Down club.”

I waited for her to go on, but she didn’t. “Is that an invitation?” I said.

“It’s information. That’s where I’m going, though.”

I smiled. “Want to share a cab?”

***

Before two hours were gone, I knew I was in it again, that I wanted to know this woman. The Blue Rock Quintet was an all-female jazz group, a pretty rare thing, and they were good, really well-balanced, though the sax player was the best of them, a tall woman with short black hair, wearing a tux with tails. She was hot, and the music she played made her even hotter, but there was no one but Lily for me then, it was all about the way she lost herself in the music, the way she looked at me, the way she leaned in close to talk between songs.

Was Lily just a rebound? Shit, in my vocabulary, the only thing “rebound” means is the bounce off a backboard in basketball. I’ve been going from woman to woman my whole life, it’s less a rebound and more like a skipped stone, or chain-smoking. Lily was there, and she was it, and she made me wonder why I’d spent so much time with Susie, that bundle of eye make-up and neuroses; when there was someone like Lily, so comfortable in her skin, making me so comfortable, too.

The Spiral Down was tiny, the tables right up against the stage, but the effect was cozy rather than claustrophobic. After listening to two sets, Lily leaned in close to my ear and said, “Let’s go someplace we can talk.” I nodded, and followed her out. We walked down the block, chatting about the music, until we got to a mostly deserted café, nobody inside but a guy with a shaved head scribbling furiously in a black notebook, and a yuppie wearing headphones working at a laptop. We ordered drinks (she got coffee, just coffee, and I did likewise; a match made in heaven) and sat down in a corner, beneath a dangling mobile, crescents of steel, only shiny on the edges, hanging on wires.

“So,” she said, looking at me appraisingly, half a smile hanging around her lips.

“So?” My left foot was tapping on the floor, seemingly of its own volition, and with an effort I stopped it. I felt jittery, really keyed up, and wondered if ordering coffee was such a good idea.

“Having fun?”

“Hell, yes. I didn’t expect to have fun tonight.”

She nodded. “Think you’ll keep having fun if you keep seeing me?”

I tried to keep my big goofy grin under wraps, and only partly succeeded. “The current evidence seems to suggest that I will.”