IGMS Issue 5 (5 page)

Or maybe I should have chosen my words better as he walked away that night. Probably would have, if I'd had more time. All I knew then was I had to speak up before he did. Jam my foot in the door.

"My brother thinks he's an angel," I'd said. "He thinks he can change anything in the world just by saying so. But that's crazy.
He can't do that.
"

Didn't know what else to say. Might have had a little too much what we used to call
english
on it, but I done what I could.

Lord, don't I wish I had a movie of you for the last half-hour or so, the way you've been looking at me. You'd get to keep
that
, anyway, even though there won't be nothing on your tape tomorrow, nor nothing in your memory. Couple of hours, you couldn't even find this house again, same as your editor won't ever remember giving out this assignment. Because nobody talks about my brother anymore. Nobody's talked about him in years. And it's a sad thing, some ways, because being Esau Robbins every night, everywhere, six o'clock ... that
mattered
to him. Being the Angel of Death, that
mattered
to him. They were the only things that ever filled him, you understand me? That's all he ever could do in his life, my poor damn brother -- get even with us, with people, for being alive. And I took all that away. Stole his birthright and shut down the life he built with it. That don't balance the scales, nor make up for all he did, but it's going to have to do.

Esau Robbins no longer exists. He's not dead. He's just ... gone. Maybe someday I'll go and look for him, like an older brother should, but right now gone is how it stays. Price of the pottage.

Thanks for the Blanton's, young man. Puts a smile on my face, and even though it isn't her drink Susie will certainly applaud your thoughtfulness.

You'll likely be finding a bonus in your next paycheck. Nobody in accounting will be able to explain why -- and you sure as hell won't, either -- but just you roll with it.

When we lived uptown in the big house with the whirlpool spa in the backyard, Father told me never to talk to strangers, that only criminals and rapists loitered in alleys. He still believed that, even after our fortunes changed and we had to move downtown.

I believed him too until we arrived in the tiny apartment. Our landlady, a woman with purple hair, and her son, a youth wearing a sky-blue skirt that swirled when he walked, welcomed us with a bonsai rosebush dotted with sunny, yellow blossoms. Its pot was painted purple and blue, like her hair and his skirt. I adored the flowers, but I was more cheered by the gesture of goodwill.

Father had been as wrong about the poor as he had been about everything else: Mother, the stock market, and the leniency of the IRS. After that, I became an ambassador, the go-between for the world outside and my family. Someone had to. My sister, Luella, shook with terror whenever she went out, afraid to look up, much less speak to anyone. And Father, when he wasn't pulling double shifts at the factory offices, shut himself in his room.

So it was natural for me, when I heard the music, to chase after it.

I found the musician hunkered in an alley. As alleys went, it was nice. Between a donut store and an all-night laundromat, the air was perfumed by fresh pastries and eau de dryer sheet. Even the graffiti was fanciful. In the middle of a gang logo, someone had painted a window overlooking a forest. And within that, the nearest tree trunk was splashed with street graffiti suggestive of another window, perhaps one overlooking an alley.

I approached with a friendly smile and my hands in view, because despite what Luella says, I'm not a fool. Still, at a yard away, I began having second thoughts. Sitting on the ground, the brim of his hat obscuring his face, his head came to my shoulders. Standing, he would tower over me.

His hat bobbed, and he blew a delicate trill on his instrument. It was a wooden recorder, big as a saxophone. I watched his fingers, remarkably dexterous for their size, skip over the holes. His skin was the darkest I'd ever seen, so black I couldn't tell where his wrist ended and the shadows of his coat sleeve began. His fingernails had a luminous quality, like they'd been glossed with liquid pearls.

"What kind of recorder is that?" I said.

His answer was a fluid scale that spanned astonishing octaves from soprano to bass.

"You're very good. How come you don't play on the corners where there's more traffic? You'd get more money."

A flurry of notes rose, wistful and amused. Conspicuously absent was either donation cup or hat.

"Don't you play for handouts?"

The music stopped, mid-stanza.

"I'm sorry if I offended you. I'll leave --"

"Don't go." His voice was a deep rumble, almost a growl. He moved faster than someone his size ought, and his fingers clamped my wrist. I knew better than to scream, because nothing frightens a man more than a screaming woman, but my heart galloped in my chest.

"Sure, okay. I've got nowhere I have to be. What's your name?"

He released me, and while I longed to bolt away, his legs looked to be twice as long as mine.

"Eloy."

"What tune were you playing, Eloy?" I used the cheerful tone reserved for unknown dogs and lunatics, and took a tentative step back.

"Beauty's Folly."

"That's the title?"

"You are Beauty?" His words were thick and broken, like English was a foreign tongue.

"My name's Annabel."

Despite my best efforts, I flinched when he moved, relaxing again when all he did was offer me his recorder. At a loss, I accepted it. It was lighter than it looked.

"Beauty's Folly," he said. "Play."

"I wasn't -- I can't play."

He waited. Not wanting to anger him, I set the mouthpiece to my lips. I'd never learned an instrument, although once I'd blown through a friend's harmonica. I expected something like the loud and unmelodic bray from that time. Instead, a single note sounded, sweet and clear.

I gasped. "Did I do that?"

Eloy rumbled, deep in his throat -- a chuckle. "Roses. Your folly."

"What? I don't --"

He held out his hand, and I gave back the recorder. The brim of his hat shifted to reveal the shadowy curve of his chin. The line of his mouth emerged beneath a tangle of inky hair that poured in a mane around his face. His lips were thin and pale, and his face sloped back like a wolf's muzzle. When I saw his eyes, I made a noise. They had no whites, no change in color between iris and pupil. They were a pair of liquid orbs too big for his head. Utterly inhuman.

"Marry me?" he rumbled.

I fled, expecting to hear chasing footsteps or to feel his weight smash into me. I reached the end of the alley with only my panting breath loud in my ears. I glanced back once; Eloy was gone.

Back home, I told my family about my encounter. Luella, predictably, was terrified.

"He could have been a rapist," she said. "What were you thinking, approaching him like a streetwalker?"

Father peered from the ledger in his hands. "It's wonderful how you get along with everyone, Annabel, but you should be more careful. I don't like you chatting with crazies."

My indignant reply was lost when the doorbell rang. The grating buzz was so different from the chimes of our last home.

A delivery man stood at the door, his arms overflowing with red roses.

"You Annabel?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Delivery for you."

I stared at the basket of long-stemmed beauties. "They can't be."

He squinted at the number on our door and the card in his hand. "Address on the card matches. Says 'For Annabel.'"

He thrust the roses at me, and I staggered into the apartment with the basket, a confused "thank you" halfway out. Only he wasn't done. He stuck a box into my arms stuffed with rose-colored silk -- yards and yards of tiered evening gown, complete with train. Next came a satin bag that held a crystal vial of rose-scented perfume, the expensive kind sold in posh boutiques uptown. And finally, he tossed a little velvet box on top of the pile. Luella helped me juggle dress, perfume, and roses so I could open it. An antique ring nestled in the box, set with rubies and diamonds. The gems sparkled from a traditional rose cut, framed by curlicues of gold rosettes.

"I didn't order any of this," I said. "I can't afford --"

"Everything's paid up," the man said. "Sign here."

Father stood with eyes glazed and wide. He stumbled over the dress, his face becoming by turns white then flushed. "Who sent this?"

The delivery man shrugged. "Card doesn't say. Maybe you won a sweepstakes or something." He tapped his clipboard.

I signed. What else could I do?

I closed the door after him, leaving me to face the alarm and accusations of my family.

"Annabel," Father said, "when Luella suggested you were playing the tease with strange men, I never once believed her."

"I'm not --"

"But these expensive gifts are the kind a man buys for his mistress." His face crumpled, and his voice broke. "Do you miss all the extravagance we used to have so much?"

"Daddy, no! I swear, whatever you think I've done, I haven't."

"I hope not."

Luella helped me lug my mysterious windfall into the bedroom we shared.

"I'm sorry," she whispered when we were alone. "I know you wouldn't, aren't . . . I didn't mean to make Daddy so upset."

I scowled and pushed the dress to the back of the closet.

"I worry about your reputation. I wish you would too." She took an appreciative sniff from the crystal vial before setting it on our dresser. "And I'm afraid you'll trust someone you shouldn't."

"I worry about you too, y'know." I tucked the velvet ring box in the bottom of my drawer. "I wish you would go out and meet people. If you gave them a chance, you might find someone you like."

Luella grinned. "Now wouldn't that give Daddy a heart attack?"

We giggled, little girls sharing a secret.

There was no space to put the roses in our bedroom, so they clustered around the window beside their bonsai cousin. Father ignored them, and when he was home, Luella followed his lead. But when he was away, she often drifted over to inhale their perfume, sometimes reaching out to stroke their delicate petals.

Days passed, and the roses wilted and died. I threw them out, and our lives settled back into their routines. I ran errands and did the shopping, doing temp work as retailer and receptionist when the agency called me, while Father worked long hours in the factory. Luella kept our apartment tidy and acquainted herself with the moods of the temperamental stove.

Sometimes, when I passed the donut shop, I thought I heard recorder music, but I never ventured into the alley again.

One day, I came home after an afternoon of answering phones and alphabetizing files to find Father already there, with Luella both excited and dismayed. He paced our living room, his eyes alight.

"I'm flying to New York tomorrow," he announced. "One of the factory accounts belongs to an old business associate. He's split from his old partner and looking to expand. I called him up and asked if he'd hear my pitch, and he wants me to give it in person."

"Daddy, that's great!" I said. "And so generous of him to fly you up."

Father lowered his eyes. "He's not."

"Then how did you book the flight?" Credit cards were another indulgence the IRS had appropriated from us, leaving us with only a household debit card for emergencies. Our account balance was nowhere near enough to afford plane fare to New York.

"I'm so sorry, Pumpkin. I should have asked you first, but there was such a rush."

"My ring." His hangdog expression told me before his ashamed nod that I'd guessed right. "You pawned it."

I struggled against the surge of outrage that made me want to scream and stamp my feet. It was childish; I hadn't even worn it. But it had been mine. The thought of it, safe in my drawer, had reassured me -- a pretty, gold safety net.