David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

“Of course, of course,” said the Director. He rose with some difficulty because of his weight. “If there’s any way I can be of assistance…” He tried to suggest the wide range of assistance he would be willing to offer her without giving offense. Women were so touchy these days. But she looked like she’d be a hot number, there was something in the eyes that suggested abandon. The husband is probably a drunk, he thought. That was what usually brought them to this place-family problems, general unemployability, desperation. This one didn’t look desperate, however. Nor unemployable. Which usually meant troubles at home, a recent separation. A woman like that was frequently amenable to extracurricular comforts, of course. The Director wanted to let her know he had a very understanding nature.

“There is something,” Dee said.

“Yes?”

“I wonder if there are any shopping malls close by,” she said.

“These days, there’s always a mall close by,” he said, and then he told her how to find it.

With her purchases in a bag on her lap. Dee settled into a chair at the food pavilion. Her feet hurt and she had a mild headache. The day had been taxing but filled with optimism. The first days of a new leaf always were. She would behave herself this time, she would devote herself to her work and to Ash and really sink some roots. Most of all, she would stay on her medicine.

She took a pill from her purse and lifted her coffee to wash it down. There was a twinge inside her as something leaped up. It felt like the first bubble of something just beginning to simmer. Dee savored the feeling; she knew the pill would kill it. She waited to see if it was still there, the pill and coffee both suspended before her mouth.

It came again, a little tug like a distant voice calling for her to come and play. If she took the pill, it would go away. It wouldn’t trouble her, she wouldn’t be sad anymore. Nor happy, either.

The feeling came again, bubbling up through sense and caution, something lighter than air that could not be suppressed. This time she thought of it as the first tentative pant of laughter of a schoolgirl trying not to giggle behind her hand. She wanted to laugh inside. She was just exploring the possibility, seeing if there was any interest in merriment in the rest of her. Dee knew that if she let it, the laughter would come full force. She would ring and peal and roar with laughter. And they wanted her to stifle it. Ash wanted her to, the doctors all wanted her to. But what did they know about it? They were gray, drab, dull people who had never known this kind of laughter. And they all wanted her to feel it, deep in their hypocritical hearts they did, because they loved it when she entertained them. They, too, were drawn up a bit by her levitation; she made the world better for all. And it was always her they expected to do it. Always Dee they waited on to infuse them with her energy and her enthusiasm. They never complained when she leaped to her feet to lead the dance. She was the dance, the music, the twirling lights, all the elements in herself. She always had been. Even when she was on their medicine she knew she was the life, not only of the party, but the world.

She continued to pause, pill suspended. The tickle inside her wanted so badly to expand.

And then she heard the boys. They were laughing out loud just as she was inside and the sound rang through the mall like bird song in the spring.

Dee turned and saw them, angel boys, cherubs taken straight from Italian frescoes and put in baseball caps and jeans.

Perfect boys. Young and funny and sweet. As jolted with energy as young cubs frisking outside the den, as innocent as seraphim.

Perhaps one of these wonderful boys was hers.

Dee put the pill back in her purse.

Ash knew there was trouble as soon as he saw the box of plastic gloves on her bedside table. He held them up and looked at her in wordless reproach.

“I have to handle wastes at work,” she said.

“You promised.”

“You don’t want me catching AIDS or hepatitis or something, do you?… Well, do you?”

“No.”

“All right then.” Dee took the box from his hand and shoved it into the night table drawer.

“You promised,” he repeated.

“I put them away. See? All gone.”

Ash continued to look at her reproachfully.

“Case closed,” she said. She dusted her hands and tried to look serious, but the merriment inside her could not be contained.

“You are such a worry wart,” she said, laughing now. “Haven’t I been good lately? Haven’t I?”

Ash watched her narrowly. She had been good for several days. But several days was not long enough.

“Haven’t I gone to work every day? Haven’t I? Yoo-hoo, Ash, I’m talking to you?… Haven’t I gone to work every day?”

“Yes,” said Ash.

“Haven’t I been sitting home with you when I wasn’t at work? Haven’t I?”

“Yes.”

She was moving ceaselessly around the room now. Ash stood in the middle and slowly pivoted to keep her in his view. She was not pacing, there was nothing frantic about her movements. Indeed, she seemed to have a purpose at all times, straightening the bed, adjusting the curtains, picking his socks from the floor and putting them into the laundry bag. But she never stopped moving.

“Well, then?” she demanded. She put her face close to his, grinning, shaking it in front of him. “We-ell?”

Ash looked down the front of her blouse. She caught him at it, of course. Dee waggled a finger at him, clasping a hand to her chest.

“Peeking? I am shocked. I am stunned. What kind of a man are you?”

Dee pulled the coverlet from the bed and held it in front of her. “What sort of a man am I locked in this room with?” she declaimed in mock horror. “A peeping Tom?… Or, gasp, worse?”

She tugged his arm, urging him to respond. Ash never understood what she wanted. He did not know the games.

“What sort of a man are you?” she cried.

“I don’t know,” Ash said.

She threw her forearm across her brow like a heroine in a melodrama.

“What shall become of me now? Who will save me? Who? Oh, will no one take care of me? Will no one protect me from this monster of lust?”

“I’ll protect you,” Ash said.

“No, Ash, you’re the villain. You can’t protect me.”

“Yes, I can. I always take good care of you.”

“Alas, trapped with a sex fiend who will have his way with me! I am at your mercy, sir, I must submit.”

“I’ll protect you, I will,” said Ash.

With a sigh. Dee dropped the coverlet and the game at the same time.

“Never mind. Ash,” she said. She sounded weary, but not angry.

“I’ll play,” said Ash. “I’m playing, I am playing.”

“Never mind.” She pulled the bedclothes taut with brisk efficiency, squaring the hospital corners the maid could not match.

There was something Ash was going to ask her that he had forgotten now. The confusion of her role-playing had driven it from his mind.

“Never mind,” Dee said, touching his arm. “It will come to you.”

Ash looked at her in wonder. How had she known he was trying to remember? As always, it gave him a creepy yet exciting feeling to know that she could see right inside his head.

Dee was at the door. “Come on, stud. It’s time for dinner before I go to work.”

“Can we have Chinese?” Ash asked.

“I don’t know if there’s a Chinese place there,” she said. “I didn’t notice.”

“There’s a Chinese,” Ash said.

“Are you sure?”

“I think,” Ash said. He wrinkled his brow in concentration. It was hard to tell one place from another since they moved so often.

“That’s close enough,” Dee said. “Bring the laundry. You’ll have time to do it before I have to leave for work.” Laundry was Ash’s chore. He enjoyed putting the quarters in the slots, he liked measuring out the soap. Dee said she couldn’t stand the sitting around and waiting, but Ash didn’t mind the waiting at all. It gave him a feeling of pride to bring home the laundry, still warm from the dryer, carefully folded as she had taught him, smelling fresh from the fabric softener sheet. Because of the special handling they required. Dee took her dresses to be cleaned and starched at the cleaners, but Ash took care of the clothes they wore every day.