Ed Gorman - Serpent's kiss

"Hi, Mom."

Her mother did not raise her eyes from the TV screen. "Hi." Then, "Those poor people."

"What is it today, Mom?"

"Lesbian incest victims."

"Oh."

"I didn't know there was so much of that going on."

"Neither did I."

The living room was done in Victorian furnishings, her mother having gone through an antique period not long after the death of her husband. There were some very nice pieces here, including a mahogany display cabinet with glazed doors and pagoda top and an oak framed tambour topped pedestal writing desk. Soft, pearl grey walls and beige carpeting set off the rest of the furnishings, which were an amalgam of modem set off with small, complementary period accoutrements. Whenever anybody visited Marie, the guest spent a mandatory amount of time oohing and aahing over the apartment. This wasn't the sort of place you expected to find in a modest middle class neighbourhood.

"I'm making pork chops for dinner, honey," her mother said, as Marie went to her room.

"Remember, Mom, it's a work night."

"Oh, dam." For the first time, her mother's attention left the TV set. "I'd forgotten. Honey, can't you call in sick or something?"

"Mom, they depend on me. You know that."

Marie's bookstore job had long been a point of contention at home. Hardly rich but not in dire need of money, Marie's mother saw no reason for Marie to work, especially in a used bookstore in a part of the city that was crumbling and was by most accounts dangerous.

"I thought you were going to quit," her mother said. In a lacy blouse and jeans, her dark hair pulled back with a festive pink barrette, her mother looked almost as young as she used to. Young, and quite pretty. Only the dark solemn gaze and the tight worry lines around her mouth revealed her age and her predilection to fret and stew.

Marie paused on her way back to her room. "I said I'd think about it, Mom. That's all I said. That I'd think about it."

"There was another killing near there last night. I don't know if you saw that on the news or not."

Marie smiled, hoping to lighten the mood. "Yes, but was anybody abducted by Venusians?"

"Very funny, young lady."

Marie paused in the centre of the hallway and stretched her arms out toward her mother.

Her mother took Marie's hands. "Honey, I wouldn't worry about you if I didn't love you."

"I know that, Mom."

"It's just that neighbourhood-"

"I know. But the people are so interesting, Mom. I just like it."

And that was true. The bookstore attracted all sorts of interesting people-not just the usual paperback browsers, either, but holdovers from the days of beatniks who looked through all the Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg books; smart and somewhat sarcastic science professors who bought science fiction novels and made tart comments on the authors they were purchasing; and intense, lonely men and women-women she liked to think would fit into her group at school-who talked of all kinds of books (everything from mysteries to eighteenth-century romances) with great smoking passion. Despite the shabbiness of the store itself, and the somewhat frightening neighbourhood surrounding it, Marie loved her hours in the store, feeling as if she belonged there. The people who came in there took note of her foot, of course, but somehow it didn't seem to matter much to them. She strongly suspected that each of them-in his or her own way-was a geek, too.

"Anyway," Marie said. She'd been going to tell her mother later, savouring the moment when she could actually say that she had something like a date. Not exactly a date, true; but something at least not unlike a date.

"Anyway, what?" her mother said.

"Anyway, I've got a ride to and from the store tonight."

"You do?"

"I do."

"With whom?"

Marie couldn't help herself then. She grinned like a little girl opening a birthday present. "Remember I told you about Richie Beck?"

"The cute one who sits at your table every day but doesn't say much?"

"Right."

"He's going to give you a ride to and from the bookstore?"

Marie nodded. "Isn't that great?"

But instead of answering directly, her mother did something wholly unexpected, reached out and brought her daughter to her, and held her tighter than she had in years.

"I'm really happy for you," her mother said.

And Marie knew her mother was crying. That was the oddest thing of all. Her mother crying.

Marie felt her mother's warm tears on the shoulder of her cotton blouse. "Mom, are you all right?"

"I'm just happy for you."

Marie grinned again as they separated. "Mom, I'm not getting married. He's just giving me a ride."

Her mother, still crying softly, said, "But don't you see what this means?"

"What what means?"

"Richie. You."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"A boy in your life, honey. It means you won't turn out like me. Some crazed old widow lady who keeps all the toilet bowls sparkling."

In the phrase about toilet bowls, Marie heard with real sorrow that her mother did indeed know the kind of woman she'd turned into. And didn't want her daughter to turn into. Marie had never liked and loved her mother more than she did right now.

"I was just afraid that with your foot, you'd become like me," her mother said.

Then she leaned forward and gave her daughter a tearstained kiss on the cheek.

Then her mother turned and started back for the living room. "I'd better get back there, hon. Who knows? Maybe Oprah herself will get abducted this afternoon."

Now it was Marie's turn to stand there and cry softly. Crazed as her mother sometimes was, she was still the sweetest person Marie had ever known.

"What the hell're you looking so smug about?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"C'mon, Holland, for Christ's sake tell me. Three hours ago you were sitting in my office crying."

"Maybe I got a phone call."

"Oh, yeah? What kind of phone call? A job offer?"

They were in the second-floor coffee room. She liked it up here because now, around five, there was never anybody up here and she could take her heels off and rub her feet and stare out the window at the silver river winding north three blocks away.

"Don't I wish," she said.

"Then if it wasn't a job offer, what kind of phone call could of made you so happy."

"Story."

"News story?"

She enjoyed keeping him in the dark. She liked seeing him sort of beg, like this big shaggy (and, all right, loveable) dog.

"Well if it's a news story phone call, don't you think you should be telling me about it?"

"Not necessarily."

"I just came up here to see how you were doing-being a pretty nice goddamned guy when you come right down to it-and now look."

"If it's anything, I'll tell you all about it."

He took his paper cup of coffee and went to the door. "Won't you even give me a hint?"

She decided to really get his motor running. "Let's just say it involves murder."

"Murder?" He sounded practically exultant. News directors always sounded practically exultant when you dropped the word 'murder.' Murders made great visuals. Great visuals.

"Several of them."

"Several of them?"

He looked as if he were going to jump on her and start strangling her until she gave him the whole story but just then a TV sales rep came in.

"Hey," the sleek rep said. "News guys up here on the second floor." He seemed stunned that such a thing could happen.

"Yeah," Chris Holland said to O'Sullivan. "Better call CBS and tell them all about it. How there are 'news guys' on the second floor."

Despite himself, O'Sullivan smiled.

And then had the good sense to leave.

Because she sure wasn't going to tell him any more. Not right now anyway.

At the door, O'Sullivan said, "Oh, yeah, I'm making some dinner tonight. Stop by."