Nevada Barr - 13 1/2

“What do you have to live for anyway? Look at yourself. You are middle-aged and pathologically obese; you live in a sty that any self-respecting pig would be ashamed of. The people you know laugh at you. The people you don’t know laugh at you. The greatest emotion you inspire in others is disgust. You’re a drunk. Liver disease will probably kill you in the not-too-distant future. This is your chance to make your pathetic miserable life end with some spark of meaning. You don’t want to keep on living do you? Not a drunken slut selling blow jobs for five dollars a pop? Yes, I know about your little side business. You have made yourself a whore, and a cheap one at that. Let me take you out of this mess.”

He’d come back to her chair and now held out his hand to her. Tears were pouring down her face; she knew this because she felt the warm drops hitting her bare chest.

“Could you take off your glove?” she pleaded, her voice small and sweet, the way it had been when she was little, before she’d become a lump, then a lard, then a whore, and a cheap one at that. “Please? For just a second?”

If she could feel his flesh, hold his hand, it would be okay.

For a moment she thought he would refuse her but, in the end, he did care for her; he took his glove off and helped her to her feet. She staggered and would have fallen, but he steadied her with an arm around her waist.

We could be dancing, she thought. Her hand in his, moving gracefully around the floor, candlelight turning the world to gold, and him smiling down at her, holding her as if she were the most precious thing on earth.

When they stood in the middle of the plastic he’d spread, he looked around. “This should do it,” he said matter-of-factly. “There will be some spatter, but I think we’ve got it covered. I’ll do you with the blunt end of the axe and let you lay for a minute. If your blood isn’t circulating it will be neater.”

He wasn’t talking to her; he was talking to himself, so there was no need for her to listen, no need at all. She concentrated on not plopping as he helped her to sit on the floor.

Like a lady.

“I’m giving you a present,” she said and was proud that her words were clear.

“Yes, you are. A fine present. ’Tis a far, far better thing and so on.” He took up a towel that had somehow found its way into the living room. “Think of this as a blindfold,” he said as he dropped it over her head. “If I hit too hard, this should take care of any mess.”

“Please, I want to see your face,” she begged, but he made no move to take the towel off.

He wanted her to have the towel over her.

At first, she didn’t think he was going to answer, and she waited for the blow that would end her life.

“Okay, sure,” he said.

He cared about her.

She could feel him leaning close. His hands touched her head gently through the terrycloth. He folded the towel back so her face showed. The smell of his cologne brushed her senses. More than anything in life she wanted him to kiss her-not because she asked, but because she was necessary to him, because she was the Woman in Red and only she could give him whatever it was that meant so much to him, because he was the miracle around which she had formed her life.

He stood and surveyed her. “I think it will be fine. Leave it there, though.” He fetched the axe and came back. “This isn’t something I particularly enjoy. I’m not a lunatic for God’s sake. It has to be done to make things right; there’s no passion involved to speak of.”

He lifted the axe, turned it so the blunt end was down.

The last thing the Woman in Red heard was, “I guess that’s the difference between art and science.”

Danny set down his menu and waved as his sister-in-law swept into the Bluebird Cafe and settled with offhand grace. Tension pulled at the skin around her eyes; she looked as if she hadn’t slept.

But wasn’t that how brides were supposed to look? Danny doubted she had begged a meeting in order to regale him with the glories of married life. Neither spoke until the waitress, efficient as always, had taken their order, tucked the ticket between the salt and pepper shaker, and hustled away.

Then, “Tell me,” he said.

“I do love a direct man.” Polly’s usual twinkle was dulled, the half-hearted flirting merely habitual.

“Very well. Marshall is… ” Polly stopped and took a sip of the coffee the waitress had unobtrusively set on the table. “He is suffering and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. We had a wonderful time on our honeymoon in Venice. The girls adore him and he them. He and I haven’t had so much as a squabble. But things changed nearly the minute we returned. Marshall started staying at work until past nine. When he does come home, he takes a valium and goes to sleep-with his back to me more often than not. He’s distracted. He isolates himself from us and he won’t talk to me about it. Absurd as this sounds, I think he is frightened of something. Has he said anything to you?”

Danny chose not to answer. “On the phone you said something happened that made it worse.”

As her coffee grew cold, she told Danny the bizarre tale of her tarot reading. Her description of the reader as a “shattering racket of reds” made him smile, but he did not underestimate the impact the event had on her.

“I told Marshall about the reading. Danny, I swear that man turned to stone right then and there. It was as if, like Lott’s wife, he looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.”

“I am not surprised he was upset… ” he began in defense of his brother.

“Upset is not the half of it, sugar. He couldn’t eat. He could barely talk. He left the dinner table to rush upstairs. I found him standing in the upstairs bedroom staring down at the bed. He very nearly jumped out of his skin when I came in. You would think I had caught him in that bed with the entire Russian gymnastic team rather than woolgathering all alone. His face turned the color of old cigar ash, and he left. He was gone for over three hours.

“I was so worried… ” Tears welled up in Polly’s eyes. She covered this lapse of good manners with a shake of her head and touch of her napkin.

Danny appreciated it. “Any man might get a little sensitive if his wife told him she’d been to a tarot reader who told her that her husband was a fake, a liar, and, what’s more, she’s going to kill him. It doesn’t help matters any that you believe in that stuff,” he added pointedly.

Over the rim of his coffee cup, he watched his brand-new sister-in-law. She had to be in her late forties-with Southern women it was hard to tell and she wasn’t telling, at least not the truth-yet she was easily the most beautiful woman in the Bluebird Cafe. Not to mention the one with the fewest tattoos.

A lot of things about his brother’s wife appealed to him: the taper of her fingers, the manicured nails, the way she tilted her head and didn’t windmill her hands when she talked, that she walked as neat-footed as a cat. Beautiful women didn’t disturb his peace the way they did that of other men. He couldn’t imagine going through the emotional storms Marsh was weathering for a woman. Or a man, for that matter. Once, when he was too young to know, but old enough to care deeply, he’d thought he was gay. Over time, he’d realized he wasn’t. Having anyone in his life in that way would be too complicated. And dangerous. Life would have been a good deal easier if Marsh had shared that epiphany.

Thinking of his brother, he smiled and shook his head.

“I must say, I am having a difficult time seeing the humor in this,” Polly said, a hint of lemon in the natural honey of her voice.

Realizing he was not responding appropriately, Danny apologized. “Sorry,” he said sincerely. “I don’t know why you open yourself up to those so-called fortune-tellers. Most have day jobs as hookers or drug dealers.”