Leave It to Me - Bharati Mukherjee [73]
I am crying because the woman is crying. I can hear long, low sobs again, smell vomit again, press my face deep into Mommy’s lap again. Daddy shouts, Shut her up or I’ll do it myself. Mommy giggles. I want for us both to get back in the car again. I want for us to drive home. I don’t want to listen for the grass to absorb a body’s clumsy fall. This is not the first time I’ve buried my head in Mommy’s lap so I shan’t have to see or hear or know. Callused hands grip my throat. The world wraps itself in blackness.
Better that I had been the fetus Jess aborted. “Ham,” I murmured, “why didn’t you ask Jess to marry you?”
“The times, love. Marriage and commitment were for the bourgeois.” He tucked his shirt back into his pants.
“You should have married her.” I kicked Ham’s shoes and socks across the floor. The kick was harder than I’d intended. One shoe thudded against the base of the counter. A bowl of olives crashed to the floor. They were the big, green, deli kind, an almond jammed into each of them. I didn’t make a move to clean up.
“But then we’d never have met.” Ham ripped lengths of paper towel. The bowl was a fifties stoneware ugly, the kind that shows up in decor magazines. The chipped pieces and china flakes were easy to pick off wetted paper towel. The olives left a dull smear on the polished wood floor. He tossed the clunky, squishy garbage and raised his paper cup of wine. “To roads not taken!”
“You’d have spared me my … my violent propensities.”
“Propensities?” He laughed. “I like your violent propensities. Sounds like a designer perfume. Pro-pen-sity by Devi Dee! Propensity. Give me a break!” He ambled over to where the other running shoe had scudded to rest. “Anyway, what’s my old life with Jess got to do with you?”
“Everything.”
He was on his hands and knees, fumbling for socks, when we both heard the footsteps out on the deck. One pair of shoes with hard leather soles that slapped wood. Ham scrambled to his feet. Not Jess’s sandals, definitely not Jess’s power-walker stride. I couldn’t tell from his face if he was anxious or if he was relieved. “She couldn’t have been in a car crash, Dr. Watson,” he said. “That doesn’t sound like cop feet bringing bad news.”
Romeo cheetah-walked in on us. I don’t know what fabric his vanilla suit was made of. No stain, no crease, undermined its elegance. Only his eyes had a jailbird glower. He said, those eyes on Ham standing awkwardly with socks in his hands, “We had our chat, little Devi. Very satisfactory.”
“Ham Cohan.” He balled up a sock, dropped it, held out a hand. “Hey, man, where’s Jess?”
No match for Bio-Dad. Poor Ham, caught in one of fate’s sting operations. I wouldn’t let him end up expendable.
“In the car.” Romeo thrust out a hand. A sapphire cuff link winked in lamplight.
“She shouldn’t have trouble parking.” Ham gave the killer hand a quick, polite shake. “There were lots of spaces when I came back from the store. Anyway, can I get you a drink?” He shuffled to the galley, stretched for a wineglass. A real one, not a plastic cup.
Romeo joined Ham, reached across the butcher-block counter of the galley and picked up the opened bottle.
I felt woozy at the coziness of it all. “What’s Jess doing in the car?”
“None of this sissy sweet stuff,” Romeo said. “I need a real drink.”
“What’s she doing?” I repeated.
“How about a beer?”
Romeo swiveled his torso a half dozen times. A workout freak warming up for action. “Practicing breathing, little Devi.” He laughed.
“What?” Ham stuck his face in Romeo’s. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Who do you want me to be, Mr. Movie Man?” Romeo batted Ham’s face away with his palm. “And she isn’t doing a very good job of the breathing thing, Movie Man.”
Ham grabbed