Leave It to Me - Bharati Mukherjee [40]
“Life’s a bitch,” Fred muttered beside me, “and I know her.” He signaled a waitress.
He must have had something going with Jess. I felt sorrier for the waitress. Satin shorts and a halter top, and probably two kids eating cold pizza at home. Life’s a bastard, too.
Fred ordered rum. He didn’t ask me what I might want. “An investigator is put on this earth to dig up dirt, right? It’s in his genes. Everybody’s got something hidden. I lift the rock. It’s a mission. You know about missions, Devi. Everyfuckingbody has slime tucked away.”
I didn’t hear Jess walk up behind me until she stuck a finger between my shoulder blades. “I’m really very boring,” she said. It sounded like a warning.
“We weren’t talking about you,” said Fred. He reached for her hand and got fingertips. “Wanna give me a chance?”
“And have you find all those bodies? No thanks.” Jess slipped out of Fred’s range. We watched her head back to the dance floor. The way she moved she had to know we were watching. Ham was on the outer edges, sweating out a salsa number with a Latina in pink knit. She cut in on Pink Knit.
There are moments when I can’t tell the difference between lunacy and luminosity. The Creator passes off riddles as meanings. Invisible weights pin me. One of those moments came on as I watched Fred watching Ham and Jess hugging. Crisscrossing destinies. I was part of the tableau, but I didn’t know how or why.
“Let it go, Fred,” I pleaded.
“Shit!”
“The center’s a zero, Fred. Work the peripheries.”
The Hat-Wearer suddenly came out of her coma. “Whoa, that’s deep, that’s so otherworldly. Did you just get back from Dharmasala?”
I risked a laugh. It came out hoarse, mean. “Not in this life,” I mumbled.
The Hat-Wearer concentrated her stare on my chin. Her eyes were so pale they seemed flesh colored. “The universe is doughnut shaped,” she said.
“That’s good,” Fred snapped. “So why not write fortunes for fortune cookies?”
I felt the pressure of Fred’s palm on my thigh. I glanced up, but his sad eyes were on Jess and Ham on the dance floor. Remake of the Frankie/Ovidia/Debby Triangle, starring middle-aged whitebread. Debby’d burned Frankie’s house down, and possibly killed a rival. Devi was more mature, but you wouldn’t dis her and get away with it.
Fred played his misery low-key. “Say goodnight for us to everybody,” he told the Hat-Wearer. “I’m driving Devi home.” I let him hustle me out of the booth. Nothing wrong with some private time with Fred. a bonus, in fact. “Ciao!” I said.
Somewhere on Geary, Fred said out of the blue, “She tried to leap off the bridge, I know.”
“Who? The weirdo in the hat?” But I knew he was talking about Jess.
“She tried to kill herself.”
“She looks so …”
“Teflon?”
“So … so buff, Fred.”
“Her second try.”
“A long time ago?”
“Not long enough.”
I kept my finger on the release button of the seat belt, chin angled down. “Looks like we’ve both been abandoned, doesn’t it?”
“Go with the flow, as we used to say.” He touched the top of my head with his lips. It didn’t feel like a lover’s gesture.
Loco Larry was smoking on the stoop in his combat fatigues.
“Will you be okay?” Fred asked.
I nodded. “It’s a two-melatonin night.”
“Sweet dreams,” Larry snickered from the dark stoop.
That night, and the next night, and the next, I dreamed of Jess DuPree’s leap. I dove into a rough, vast sky of implacable indigo. The dream sky thickened and roiled, like oceans churned by typhoons. I hit the sea-sky headfirst, heard the clumsy crack of bone, felt the cozy warmth of blood, tasted the sandy grit of earth, saw fluttery shadows of leaves in a tiny circle of light.
Loco Larry must have heard me pacing. He had the room below mine. On my third insomniac night, he knocked on the door. “You at war with yourself, babe?” He never waited for answers. “You know the worst part? The worst part of that war is things.”
I didn’t mind listening; he had Seconal and Mandrax to sell as well as custom-painted signs. Better Larry make money off my nightmare than a shrink.
Things meant wadded,