Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Brenda butted in (she was clinging to Anatole, or maybe holding him up), and Patrick went red, his eyes narrowing. ‘You always overdramatize, Patrick.’

‘By the way, Yvonne,’ I whispered, rubbing the little golden earring gently between my fingers (I’d just, averting my gaze from the resettling of poor Ros, caught a glimpse of Alison past the bent back of her husband: she’d also turned away and was now watching the tall police officer, Bob, scrape dried blood off the walls into little pillboxes, and I thought, captured once more by the illusion of pattern: What love shares with theater is the poetry of space …), ‘who’s that woman who came with Noble? I missed her name when—’

‘Who, Cynthia?’ Yvonne hollered out, and the whole room seemed to stiffen. ‘With that one-eyed pig? Come on , Gerry, give the lady credit — that’s my husband’s new mistress!’

‘Oh, I’m sorry—!’

‘Sorry? What’s to be sorry?’ What had Tania said earlier about Yvonne? I should have been listening. The earring seemed to be dissolving between my fingers like a melting coin. ‘I mean, what the hell, you can’t blame him — who wants to poke his little whangdoodle in me and catch a goddamn cancer?’ Her voice was breaking. ‘Right, Soapie?’

‘Right,’ replied Soapie absently, tipping his hat back and lighting up. ‘Okay, that looks terrific — don’t worry about the stockings, just leave them down like that, it’s a nice touch. So what do you think, Leonard?’

Yvonne burst into tears again, and Cynthia, holding her hand, cradled her head against her stomach. ‘I’m so goddamn miserable, Cynthia!’

‘I know. It’s okay …’

‘Reminds me of a sailor I once saw clapped in bilboo-boots,’ Lloyd Draper drawled, staring down his long lumpy nose from the foot of the couch.

‘Hey, Ger!’ Soapie called, arm outstretched. ‘Come over here a minute!’

‘Iris and me were in Singapore at the time, thought bilboos had gone out of fashion, but nothing does really. Let an idea come into the world and you’re stuck with it till the cows come home, seems like.’

‘You weren’t here! You didn’t see him! How do you know what he said?’ Patrick cried, becoming a bit hysterical as Brenda linked her plump fingers with Anatole’s and smiled icily back at him, grinding her jaws.

Soapie guided me around behind Ros’s body, then stepped back (something cracked under his sneakered foot, he kicked it aside: glass, it glittered) to peer at me through a frame made by his thumbs and index fingers: ‘That’s it, Ger, just — no, turn a little to the right, your right!’ While Soapie focused on me through his fingers (I tightened the ties on my rust-colored shirt which had fallen loose, the earring pressed to the hollow of my palm with two oily fingers), Leonard knelt behind my ankles shooting Ros’s profile against the lights. ‘Okay, good — now where’s your wife?’

Michelle, hands crossed at her shoulders and elbows tucked in, danced alone in the sunroom now, swaying trancelike to the whining nervous music. ‘I guess she’s gone back to the—’

‘That’s okay, never mind.’ Soapie pulled Alison away from her husband to stand beside me. ‘Just need a warm body.’ Her husband went over to watch Leonard, who was setting up a tripod about fifteen feet away, the tall cop complaining: ‘Somebody has stepped on my X-ray unit …!’ ‘I’m telling you, Patrick, I know. I was the one who sent that old lady to him! She’s a welfare client of mine.’ Brenda popped her gum, Patrick bit his lip; Anatole, looking confused, gazed through both of them, letting himself be fondled. ‘No, not like tin soldiers — relax, you two! More like you’re talking or joking about something!’

Woody started to slip away, but Soapie clutched his sleeve and guided him behind Alison, jostling her slightly, so that, having tried not to, we touched.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, clearing my throat, but Alison was looking the other way: yes, the left one was missing.

‘I feel so exposed,’ she muttered between her teeth, tugging at the green silk sash at her waist.

‘Hey, Doc—?’

‘I can see now why the old lady came away convinced that Roger had a goddamn screw loose!’ Brenda laughed behind us, and Patrick hissed: ‘That’s stupid!’

‘Well, he wasn’t stupid,’ Wilma said, ‘he certainly wasn’t.’

‘Somebody’s going to pay for this,’ the cop swore as he limped past us, and Anatole said: ‘Can I sit down again?’

Jim had come over and, directed by Soapie, had removed his jacket once more and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He plugged the stethoscope into his ears, knelt down in front of Ros: ‘Like this?’

‘You got it, Doc — but sit back so’s you don’t block the view! And here — let’s open her up in front like you’re listening to her heart or something.’

‘Jesus, Soapie! Do we need that?’

‘Leonard needs it. Flesh keeps him awake. Besides, how else will all her fans recognize her?’ Leonard pretended to doze off until the breasts appeared, then perked up and started fiddling with his camera with jerky speeded-up motions. ‘Barfo! What did they ram in there, a steam drill?’

‘It wasn’t that large before,’ said Jim, glaring up at Bob, who was back with a miniature vacuum cleaner, sucking dust samples up through little filter papers from cuffs, hems, pockets, shoes: I closed my fist around the golden earring. ‘ Someone’s made it worse .’ His gray hair lifted and fell as Bob’s vacuum sweeper passed over it.

I heard the thin rattle of applause again, as Soapie plumped up the shrunken breast by pulling the cloth tight under it: Michelle, alone in the sunroom, no longer danced but stood impaled as it were by her own trance, eyes closed, clutching her shoulders as though trying to hold herself in. ‘Okay, the rest of you people back there: step in closer, come on, crowd around—!’

‘What? Are we having our picture taken?’

‘Hey, leave a little room for ole Fats!’

‘You know, it’s curious,’ I murmured, ‘we’ve had that painting in the dining room hanging there for years, and only tonight did I notice for the first time that Susanna was wearing gold loops in her ears …’

Alison caught her breath, glanced up. ‘I’ve got to see you,’ she whispered, letting the hand between us curl around my thigh for a moment, as the others pushed up around us. I wanted to show her what I had in my hand (I was sure it was in there, though in fact I’d lost the feel of it), but we were ringed round with spectators. ‘As soon as this is over …’

‘I look such a fright,’ Wilma was protesting, primping nervously at my shoulder. ‘But then I guess that’s nothing new.’

Photos, Tania believed (Soapie had pulled the shades off some lamps, bent others up to aim the light at us, using Cynthia and Alison’s husband to hold the shades in position), did not preserve the past, they only distorted it. Memory, left alone, even as it purged and invented, was always right. Photography could only be defended, she felt (I understood this, recalling the collection of old postcards my grandmother used to let me play with as a child), as a fantastic art form.

‘Okay, we’re getting there!’ Soapie dropped his butt on the carpet, ground it out with his heel. ‘Why’s it getting so cold in here?’ Yvonne, left to herself, wanted to know. ‘Howard? Come out from behind those drapes! Don’t be shy, press up in there — say, what’s wrong with that kid?’

‘He’s not feeling so great, Soapie.’

‘Well, hold him up!’

‘This reminds me of the time Archie took me to one of his high school reunions,’ Wilma said.