Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [36]
“She just needed a place to crash, that’s all,” Daria said around the Marlboro’s filter. “And you’re a pervert.”
“Mmm-hmmm,” he purred and dumped three heaping scoops of the beans into their cheap little Regal grinder, held the button down with his thumb and the machine whirred its gritty racket. The noise of the grinder alone was enough to help some, drawing her further out of her head, away from the dream that was already beginning to blur and fade around the edges.
“Marry me,” she said. “Please?”
“Darlin’, you know I’m strictly mistress material,” and he opened the grinder, poured the fresh and fragrant grounds into the drip basket of the Proctor Silex Morning-Maker. It had recently replaced Daria’s battered old Mr. Coffee, one of Claude’s mysterious and welcomed windfalls. Soon, the apartment would fill with the pun-gence of fine Colombian dark roast; Daria, good Pavlovian pup, felt a gentle flush of saliva, cleansing away the sticky taste of her uneasy sleep.
Niki moaned softly, sat up, and blinked her dark eyes.
“What time is it?” she asked, groggy, slightest rasp, and she squinted into the dazzling shaft coming in through the apartment’s only window, wide and smudgy sash looking west. There were no curtains, no blinds, and the dirty glass did little to mute the fiery November sunset.
Daria glanced at the digital clock radio on the card table. “Almost four,” she said. “Three fifty-seven.”
“Shit. I gotta see about my car.”
Claude was taking mismatched mugs down from the cabinet above the sink. He turned around and waved with his free hand.
“Hi.”
Niki blinked again. “Hi,” she replied.
“Niki Ky,” Daria said, “this is my roommate, Jobless Claude. He’s a pervert and a layabout and an angel of mercy. Jobless Claude, this here’s Niki Ky. She’s on her way to find Jesus in Cullman County.”
“Hi, Claude,” Niki said.
“Cream and sugar?” he asked; he’d turned his back to them again and was busy wiping at the inside of one of the mugs with a gingham dish towel.
“Huh?”
“Cof-fee,” Daria said, exaggerating the syllables, slow speak for the deaf or foreign or half asleep.
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” and then Niki added quickly, “Lots of both.”
“Good girl,” and Claude, apparently satisfied that the offending cup was clean, or clean enough, went back to the Frigidaire, set a pink carton of half-and-half next to the row of mugs.
Daria stretched, toes and fingers pointing, and offered Niki one of the Marlboros.
“No thanks. I don’t smoke cigarettes.”
Daria shrugged and dropped the pack back into the clutter.
The coffeemaker gurgled, rheumy wet sound, and began to drain into the glass pot. When it had finished, Claude filled each cup, added generous spoonfuls of sugar to his and Niki’s, fat dollops of cream; Daria’s he left pure and black.
Niki rubbed her eyes, something little girl in the gesture, and covered her mouth when she yawned.
“Thanks again,” she said, “for putting me up.”
“No problem at all,” and Daria sucked a final drag from her cigarette and stabbed it out in a large cut-glass ashtray, oasis of butts and ash in the middle of the card table’s chaos.
Caught there in the last glory of the day, Niki’s skin seemed to radiate its own light, perfect silken complexion, balanced somewhere lustrous between almond and ginger. Daria knew her own skin was as unremarkable as her face, not pale enough for goth, despite her vampire’s hours, but certainly no color to speak of. A few poorly placed freckles scattered beneath her eyes, and she still got zits on the days before her periods. Niki was wearing a ratty Cure T-shirt she’d pulled out of her bubblegum-colored gym bag, frayed sleeves cut off at the shoulders and the collar stretched shapeless, and she still looked exotic.
Daria accepted the coffee Claude held out to her, white mug and the molecular formula for caffeine printed on one side. The handle had broken off a long time ago, and so she held it cradled in both palms, which