Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,32
if attached to the rest of her by a spring. “Can you open this for me, dear?”
The cork came out black.
“Here you go,” said Alice.
“Would you like some?”
Alice returned to her counter, filled two jam jars halfway, and brought them back to where Anna continued to stand faintly quivering just inside her door. Her robe, made of a faded daisy print, had a brown stain shaped like Florida on its lapel. Anna accepted the glass of wine warily, with both hands, suggesting it had been some time since she’d drunk anything standing up.
“My nephew killed himself today.”
Alice lowered her glass.
“. . . So I needed some wine.”
“I don’t blame you,” Alice said softly. “How old was he?”
“What?”
“How—”
“Fifty.”
“Was he sick?”
“No.”
“Did he have any children?”
“What?”
“Did he have any—”
“No.”
Neither of them had taken a sip, but even so Anna was looking down at her drink as if wondering when it was going to work.
“Did you vote today?” Alice asked.
“What?”
“Did you vote? For the president?”
“Did I float?”
Alice shook her head.
“Tell me . . . ,” Anna began.
“Alice.”
“I know. Do you live here alone?”
Alice nodded.
“And you don’t get lonely?”
Alice shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Anna peered past her now, down the hall to where Alice’s reading light was on and The Fall of Baghdad lay facedown on her bed. The radio on her dresser could be heard quietly calling New York for Kerry and Nebraska for Bush. “But you have a boyfriend, don’t you dear? Someone special in your life?” Her jam jar of wine, which she continued to hold in two hands like a priest’s chalice, tipped another degree toward the floor.
Alice smiled a little sadly. “I might.”
CALLER ID BLOCKED.
SATURDAY
21
MAY
SATURDAY
18
JUNE
SATURDAY
2
JULY
A car door slammed.
“Sorry folks!” he called out from the kitchen window. “Your reservation is for tomorrow!”
Ignoring him, the children hopped jauntily up the flagstone path, the boy weaving a toy police boat through the air and the girl trailing fairy wings that glittered amethyst under the high summer sun. Holding the screen door open for them, Ezra resembled a butler to elves. “Olivia! You’ve grown wings!” Kyle’s hopping continued all the way up the steps and into the living room, where he collapsed upside down on Ezra’s ottoman and, hair sweeping the floorboards, announced, “Olivia has a loose tooth!”
“Is that right, Olivia?”
Sitting on the very edge of the sofa cushion so as not to crush her wings, Olivia nodded.
“How loose?”
“Weally loose!” said Kyle.
Sneaking a look at Ezra, Olivia blushed.
Over lunch:
“Ezra?”
“Yes sweetheart.”
“How’d you get to be so sophisticated?”
Ezra lowered his pickle. “How am I sophisticated?”
Olivia shrugged. “You wear nice shirts. And you know the president.”
A grape rolled off Kyle’s plate toward the edge of the table. “Uh-oh!” said Alice, lunging to catch it. “Runaway grape.”
“Wunaway gwape!”
“I’m not that sophisticated,” concluded Ezra.
“Ezra works hard,” said Edwin, pulling a shard of potato chip out of his daughter’s hair. “If you work hard and do well in school then maybe one day you’ll be able to afford nice shirts, too.”
“And meet the president?”
“And become the president,” said Eileen.
“That’s right,” said Ezra. “President Wu. Madam President Wu. You’d already be better than the one we’ve got now.”
Olivia spooned mint-chocolate-chip ice cream into her mouth and worked her jaw slowly, meditatively, as though it contained a foreign object. Sitting on Alice’s lap, Kyle farted.
“Whoops,” said Alice.
“Whoops,” said Kyle, giggling into his spoon.
In the pool, he wore lobster-print swimming trunks and his sister a too-big one-piece that drooped to reveal her pale, penny-flat nipples. “Look,” Olivia commanded, while her mother vigorously rubbed sunblock into her arms; flanked by four chocolate-filled molars, the loose tooth teetered steeply back and forth under her finger like a drunk.
“Wow,” said Alice. “That is loose.”
It was a warm day, cloudy but close, yet Ezra sat in his deck chair wearing trousers, a long-sleeved button-down shirt, and laced-up Oxfords tied in double bows. The Perpetual Orgy lay bookmarked in his lap and his Penn State Altoona cap was perched so lightly on his head its letters caved in a little. “Now, remember, boys and girls. I have this chemical I put in the pool that makes urine turn red. Bright red! The second someone pees in the pool, it’s going to turn bright red.” Kyle shot a furtive, furrowed glance to his wake.
“Marco,” said Alice.
“Polo!” screamed the children.
“Marco.”
“Polo!”
“Marco!”
“POLO!”
“MARCO!”
“POLOAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”
Ezra put up a hand. “Excuse me, but does anyone here actually know who Marco Polo was?”
Kyle and Olivia halted, bobbing in place and blowing water from their noses and lips; then Olivia turned to Alice and asked sweetly, “Will you take me to