Alligator - Lisa Moore [54]
Nothing is going to stand in my way, she said. Frank thought he could leave the mall now, the Russians had probably forgotten him.
I don’t want a wet bar, Frank said.
You should go to school, she said. You look smart enough. You don’t know anything about me, Frank said. The girl blew another bubble and it got big and sagged and clung to her chin. She took the gum out of her mouth and peeled it off her face.
I can see when people got potential, she said. She slapped the bar twice and turned her back on him and sauntered down the aisle running her hand over the stacks of towels.
MADELEINE
WHAT SHE MISSES is convention. She misses security and not having to explain to people she’s just meeting. She misses the way he sometimes held her at night when her heart was racing with anxiety. When she is afraid of having a heart attack, alone, dying alone, she misses him then.
Marty’s mother and father had nine children, and his siblings were either domineering and wild-eyed or acutely shy. They were either Irish-looking with big blue eyes and black hair or they had a Spanish look, dark-eyed and vixenish. One of his sisters was a ballerina with a small company in Boston, another owned a consulting firm that assessed the environmental impact of new industry and was known to be impartial and thorough. There was a nurse who taught prenatal classes, having helped deliver hundreds of babies early in her career. She was cheerful and fresh-faced and had a deformed hip that gave her a strange gait and she told stories of women on their knees in elevators, and husbands fainting at the sight of blood.
Martin’s sisters were good-looking, skinny, and energetic. The brothers were intellectual, three of them teaching at the university, two in politics. At family gatherings they were loud and drank as much wine as they could. Fights erupted easily. They were storytellers and fought each other for a chance to hold forth and slapped the table laughing.
The ballerina especially had a squawking laugh that turned her face red and made her gasp for breath. The table was always set formally and the men did not enter the kitchen. Madeleine loved being in the midst of them.
She loved the noise, the swish and grind of the labouring dishwasher, clatter of cutlery, laughter, and when the lids came off the steaming casserole dishes. But it wasn’t a life she could imitate; it was too clean and big. Once she went in the kitchen and three of his sisters were whispering and she knew they had said something about her.
She demanded, What is it?
The ballerina said, You let him push you around. You’ll never get what you want. Don’t you have any ambition of your own?
Later he was furious and got on the phone. He made calls. She could hear him behind the closed door.
They had been best together when they were alone. Being in Rome with Marty: if she could do that again before she dies she would be satisfied. What would Rome be like now? They’d eaten at an expensive restaurant in Rome. There were chandeliers and evening gowns and the portions were small. Ostrich in truffle gravy, oysters and scallops, grapefruit champagne sorbet, a chocolate dessert that had seven layers, a bottle of red and they left without paying. They strolled out the lobby and the porter held the door for them. Madeleine bent to pat a miniature poodle in a tartan coat on the leash held by a woman draped in shawls. She patted the poodle, they walked around the corner, and they ran for all they were worth. They ran down laneways, took two twisting stone staircases, and caught their breath leaning on a stone wall that looked out over all of Rome. Then they heard the slapping shoes of two waiters in black tuxedo pants and white shirts and bow ties and they ducked and the waiters ran past.
She could not stand anyone who slept in. It was slothful, joyless behaviour, choosing, essentially,