Love Invents Us - Amy Bloom [51]
He woke up to find Elizabeth in his mother’s pale blue velvet cloche and the pale blue wool peplum jacket she’d worn to demonstrate sobriety, and a withered white garter belt, with its rusty metal clasps swinging back and forth over Elizabeth’s cotton panties. She wore her own basketball sneakers and white socks.
“Nice, huh?”
“Very. Interesting. Who are you?”
“Your mother? I couldn’t get into the skirt. She must have been tiny.”
“She was small. You’re quite a bit taller. Bigger-boned, I’d say.” He might be old, he might be dying, he might be every kind of fool, as his history demonstrated, but he had never told a woman she was fatter than another woman.
“I didn’t know you had all these women’s clothes. Fetish?” Elizabeth perched on the end of the couch.
“I guess. I never wanted to throw out all my mother’s stuff, so I just threw it into my footlocker and took it with me. I don’t think I’ve opened it in twenty years.”
“How’d she die?”
“Cirrhosis. A very ugly way to die, I hear. I wasn’t there.”
Elizabeth put the back of her hand to her forehead, staggered around the couch, and collapsed in front of Max.
“I think I would have made a great Camille.”
“Probably. Except for your robust good health. And your sneakers.”
“I do love you. Was your mother kind of a party girl?”
“She liked a good time. She drank quite a bit, she had a lot of boyfriends between husbands. Or so it seemed to me, when I was a boy. Was there anything you wanted in there?”
Elizabeth pulled out a crumbling straw hat with chipped flocked velvet cherries on the brim.
“Hey, a come-fuck-me hat. There have to be shoes to match.”
Max closed his eyes.
“Did I offend you? I’m sorry.”
“You meant to offend me. This isn’t much of a sport, sweetheart. Getting at me is shooting fish in a barrel.”
“But if you really want the fish shot, what better arrangement?” She took off the cloche and the jacket and put on the hat. She took off her sneakers and socks. She put a wide elastic belt, a cluster of plastic cherries concealing the clasp, around her waist and kicked off her underpants.
“What do you want from me?” he said.
“I don’t know. You don’t have any money, what with Greta’s house and Greta’s shrink and Danny’s darkroom and Marc’s whatever. Why do we send Marc money?”
“Because he is getting a small design business off the ground in Lyons and he needs some start-up capital.”
Elizabeth lay down on the floor beside the couch, her breasts brushing Max’s fingertips. He pulled his hand up to his chest.
“Yeah. And because you feel guilty.”
“And because I feel guilty.”
“Don’t you feel guilty toward me?”
“You know I do.”
“This is a pretty funny apology, right? Come nurse me through this illness and let me try to make it up to you.”
“I am sorry, Elizabeth. You were very kind to come take care of me. I know I loved you too much and too soon.”
“The fuck you did.” Elizabeth took his hand and pressed his palm over her breast. She sat up over him, her knees on either side of his chest.
“Touch me. Touch me now.”
Max put his hands down, resting them on her cold heels.
“Now you don’t want to?”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re scared.”
“I’m scared because I don’t know what you want. You can’t want me.”
“Why not? And if I don’t really want you—I mean, you’re right, I don’t—maybe I want something from you.”
“I’m really tired.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Louisa.”
“Call me Louisa. Touch me there and call me Louisa.”
Max didn’t say no (he was not as scared as Elizabeth wanted him to be, but he was uncomfortable and he was angry; he’s dying, for Christ’s sake). He closed his eyes. Soft, matted hair brushed his nose and lips. He smelled her.
“Is this necessary?”
“It’s hard to say. Was I necessary for you?”
“Oh, sweetheart, why don’t you just leave? You don’t have to take care of me. Take the hat, take my passbook, and just go.”
“I don’t want to go. I want to stay here and be Louisa, that sweet little thing. Do you think having an alcoholic slut for a mother is what made you chase little girls?”
He