Karen Fowler - Black Glass

Dave lowers his voice. “You want to know his class load? This is the absolute truth. He’s got music for teachers, math for teachers, and volleyball.”

“Is he going to be a teacher?” Linda asks.

“God help us. We spent all yesterday listening to him learn to sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ by numbers. I don’t know if it was music or math. Today, at breakfast, he demonstrates the theory of the conservation of milk.”

“The what?”

“How you can pour one large glass of milk into two small ones with no resulting loss of volume. Then he asks me to correct a paper he’s working on. The assignment is for two pages; he’s done ten. I can’t say I was enthusiastic, but I wouldn’t want it said that I discourage initiative. So I look at it. He’s hovering by my elbow, all nervous, because it’s his first college paper and I’m a seasoned junior. Eight pages are a direct quote. Out of one book. I tell him, ‘You can’t do that,’ but he says it’s exactly what he wants to say.”

“How are your own classes?” Linda asks. “Did you get into MacPherson’s?”

“I did, but I had to lie about my major. And you didn’t tell me he threw chalk.”

“Only when he’s provoked. It’s no fun if you’re not surprised. Did he throw it at you? ”

“No, but I jumped about a foot out of my chair anyway.” Dr. MacPherson teaches Economic History and is one of Linda’s favorite professors. He can tell you about the Black Plague so that you feel you’re actually there. If you are momentarily overcome, however, and he thinks your attention is wandering, he sends a piece of chalk singing past your ear.

The teapot whistles asthmatically. Dave gets out the instant coffee, makes himself a cup in a green enamel mug, and puts the coffee jar away. They tiptoe past Fred, who groans for their benefit and crumples another piece of paper. They sit on the living room couch at a respectable distance apart. No one’s leg touches anyone else’s. “You said you had a problem,” Linda hints. Please, please don’t let it be Suzette.

“Yeah,” says Dave. He blows on his steaming cup. “I do. It’s Mrs. Kirk up in the penthouse. She hates me. She started hating me Tuesday morning and she refuses to stop. It’s because of the sign I had in our window. Maybe you saw it?” Linda shakes her head. “Well, I’d spent a bad night because a number of our neighborhood cats were out looking for each other. And I made this small and tasteful sign for our window. It said THE ONLY GOOD CAT IS A DEAD CAT.”

Dave blows on his coffee again and takes a quick sip. Linda remembers how silly she always thought it was, as a child, the habit grown-ups had of making drinks so hot they couldn’t drink them and then having to wait until they cooled. Sometimes they waited too long and had to heat the drink all over again. A bad system.

“How can you drink that?” she asks. “Thirty seconds ago it was boiling.”

“You blow right next to the side,” Dave says, “and then you only drink the part you’ve blown on. I could teach you, but when would you use it? Tea? Do you drink tea?” Linda shakes her head. “No, you hate tea. Am I right?”

Linda smiles and watches Dave blow and take another sip. It’s a larger sip. She thinks he’s showing off.

“It was a small and tasteful sign,” Dave repeats. “A very restrained response considering the night I’d just been through. You probably heard them, too?”

Linda shakes her head again.

“Well, I can’t explain that,” Dave says. “You must be a very sound sleeper. So Mrs. Kirk thinks my sign was aimed at her particular cats who are, apparently, too well-bred to yowl all night. She’s called the manager and she’s threatening to call the SPCA. The manager asked me to go and smooth it over with her, since she’s an old and valued tenant, in contrast to myself. And I did try. I’m not proud. She won’t even open the door to me. She thinks I’m only pretending to be sorry in order to gain access to her apartment and bludgeon her cats. She told me she just wished we lived in England where they know how to deal with people like me, whatever the hell that means.”

“So what do you want from me?”

Dave smiles ingenuously. “You’re very popular, Linda. Did you know that? I can’t find a single person who doesn’t like you. I bet even Mrs. Kirk likes you. Couldn’t you go up and tell her you and I were having this casual conversation about cats and I just happened to mention what models of catdom her cats are? Invite her to the party. Invite her cats.”

Linda doesn’t respond. She is too surprised by the assertion that she is popular. She is liked by other women; she always has been. In high school she had seen clearly that girls who were popular were almost always those not liked by other girls; this was, in fact, the most reliable indication of popularity, the dislike others of your own sex had for you. It was believed to be the price a woman paid for being beautiful, although Linda knew beautiful women who were not popular and Linda knew also of women who were not so beautiful, but insisted other women hated them in an attempt to fool men into thinking they were. Men were instantly sympathetic to this. Sometimes Linda had even seen this work. Surely being popular has nothing to do with Mrs. Kirk’s opinion.

“Please,” says Dave. “It’s a small favor.”

“No, it’s not,” Linda informs him. Mrs. Kirk is the ex-wife of a state senator. He has been married twice since and although he is now free as a bird again, his interest in sending her alimony checks on schedule has dwindled. Six months ago, shortly after the dissolution of his last marriage, he was picked up for drunk driving. A small newspaper article reported the event. Page 29. Mrs. Kirk cut it out and posted it in the elevator in case anyone had missed it. She added her own caption: Would you vote for this man? But Mrs. Kirk is a bit of a drinker herself. Any visit to the penthouse is an occasion for Bloody Marys and long discussions on the inadvisability of giving your heart and the best years of your life to swine. It is not the conversation Linda wishes to avoid, however. It is the drinks. Linda can hardly face tomato juice alone; add liquor and it becomes a nightmare. And there is no way to refuse a drink from Mrs. Kirk. Linda looks at Dave’s hands. “But I’ll do it anyway,” she says.

Fred slams a book closed. “Could you be a little quieter?” he calls from the kitchen. “I really have to concentrate.”

“Don’t respond,” Dave warns her. “Don’t say anything. He’s fishing for help. He’s dying to tell you what his assignment is.”

They sit quietly for a moment. The sun has moved down the wall to Linda’s face; on the opposite wall the painted sun illuminates the knight’s helmet in the Rembrandt and never moves. Dave shifts closer to Linda on the couch but still does not touch her.

Linda focuses on the painting. She feels very warm, but she tells herself it is the sun. “We’ll make a deal,” says Dave. He has lowered his voice, but his tone is nothing more than friendly. “You go talk to Mrs. Kirk for me and I’ll get Dudley’s fingerprints for you at the party. Then we’ll be even. Are your roommates coming?”

“Yes,” says Linda. But she is lying. They have no intention of attending and they all told her so last night.

She goes home and tries to persuade them again. “I don’t think I can lose fifteen pounds by Friday,” says Julie. “I can’t have fun at a party if I’m fat.”

“Sorry. Bill and I are going to a movie,” says Lauren. “If we can agree on something. Dutchman is on campus, but he wants to see the new Joey Heatherton epic in the city.”

“It’s about Vietnam,” says Julie. “Give the man a break. I’m sure his interests are political.”