Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [115]
1978
1
Cinderella was dancing with the Prince, nestled in his brown felt arms, gliding across the walnut desk in somebody’s father’s study. Over her head, blue satin swoops hung from the folding wooden stage. There was a scrim at the rear that didn’t entirely conceal the puppeteers, but the audience was too entranced to notice. It was a very young audience—mostly four-year-olds. The birthday child wore a gilt paper crown that resembled the Prince’s.
“Mercy,” Cinderella said, “it must be getting late. I’m sure it’s nearly midnight.”
“Midnight? So what?” the Prince asked in his gruff, rasping voice. “We’ll dance till dawn. We’ll dance all the next day!”
“Um, well, but you see, Your Majesty …” They were stalling for time. Where was the clock? “The clock!” Emily whispered. Gina was off in a trance again, holding the cassette recorder just beyond Emily’s reach and gazing dreamily at the audience. Joshua, who was supposed to be in Gina’s care, was creeping under the desk. He gurgled to himself and dribbled on a nest of extension cords.
“Ding, ding!” Emily called in desperation. “Ding, ding, ding …”
Somewhere in there she lost count, but she trusted that the audience wouldn’t catch it. She could hardly wait to whisk Cinderella off the stage so she could rescue the baby. The instant the curtain was lowered, she snatched him up. He wore only a grayish diaper. His solid little trunk, barrel-shaped, was faintly sticky, and he trailed a silvery, cool thread of spit down the back of Emily’s hand.
“Gina, honey,” Emily said, “I thought you were going to watch him for me. ‘Oh, I can manage both,’ you told me, ‘mind Josh and do the props too …’ ”
Morgan, meanwhile, was digging through a pile of objects on the floor. “Fireplace, fireplace,” he muttered. “What’s happened to the fireplace?”
“Gina had it last.”
But Gina was busy with thoughts of her own. Eleven years old, tall and secretive, languorous from half a summer of lolling about in the heat, she sat on a leather chair with her knees cocked and hummed the waltz that Cinderella had been dancing to. “Here we are,” Morgan said. He straightened, puffing, and held up the cardboard fireplace. Joshua reached for it, but Morgan was too quick for him. He set the fireplace in one corner of the stage. “Now, where’s the stepmother?” he asked Emily. “Where are the sisters?”
“Gina? Take Josh for me, will you?”
Gina unfolded herself with a sigh and accepted the baby. He grabbed at her shiny hair clasp. He grabbed at Morgan’s sailor cap, in passing, but was borne away to the leather chair. “Tra la la,” Gina sang, rocking him too hard.
Out front, the audience grew hushed and expectant. Emily slipped off Cinderella’s ballgown, exposing her burlap rags. She held her up, ready to go, and smiled at Morgan. He nodded and raised the curtain.
2
“You know that Kate’s home,” Bonny said.
“Oh, really?” said Emily. “I hadn’t heard.” She switched the receiver to her other ear. She was trying to stir a stew and talk on the phone simultaneously. “Has something happened?” she asked.
Instead of answering, Bonny let out a long, thin breath. All of a sudden, this late in her life, Bonny had taken up smoking. She didn’t smoke very competently and always seemed to be inhaling or exhaling at exactly the wrong moment, leaving her listeners suspended. She had also developed other new habits. She continually joined strange philosophical societies and women’s groups, began unpromising jobs and then resigned almost at once, and telephoned Emily at any hour she pleased. Although she never mentioned Morgan without biting his name off, she seemed not to blame Emily at all. This was a relief, of course, but it was also a little insulting. (It implied that Emily was powerless, without a will of her own.) When Bonny paused for one of her cigarette breaths, Emily pictured the humming wires that linked them. Bonny was knotted into her line, knotted into her whole existence. Even if Emily were to hang up, Bonny’s phone would still connect hers because Bonny was the one who’d placed the call.
“She has this