Lorrie Moore - The Collected Stories of Lorrie Moore

You must feel you're caught up in some vicious cycle. His voice sounds kind, sympathetic. At least I know I do, he is saying.

Cycle? I feel sarcasm flying up into my throat, shrill and inarticulate as a blue jay. Vicious cycle? I shout again. Hey. Listen. You should see my ten-speed.

i grow incomprehensible.

easter. We try not to make too much of it. Jeffrey finds all the jelly-beans, saves me the purple ones. The air's warming, it's hard to sleep, and caterpillars sound like wind munching, denuding the spring trees. The days smell like a hamster cage, leaf bits littering the walks.

I long for you, I short for you, I wear shorts for you.

Jeffrey eats all his dinner tonight. He has been sweet all day, brought me a potato print of what he calls the limpbirdie bell. Before bed I read him a story about a Mexican boy and a pinata, and Jeffrey says: Am I gonna do that, too, Mom? Smash my horse pinata? And I say that his horse pinata is different, it's a gift from Mr. Fernandez, and it's supposed to just hang there and not be broken. He yawns and stumbles off to plunk and deedle-dee, his sound words — where has he gotten this other stuff from?

Is God a giant like Hercules? asks Jeffrey just before drifting off. And I sit at the bed's edge and say God's a giant like the sun or like the sky, a huge blanket that all the planets are swimming in.

Could Hercules kill a gorilla? asks Jeffrey.

i slather heavy peach makeup over the rash by my mouth and go to see Mr. Fernandez at the lunch hour again. He insists Jeffrey is fine, although I'm still worried about his language. I sit next to Mr. Fernandez at a low, made-for-kids table, watching Jeffrey and the others play. He notices I am glum and places his hand on mine, says nothing.

Mr. Fernandez, I ask him finally. Are you happy?

He looks straight ahead for a minute.

Riva, he says, at last. You're not asking the right questions.

What's a right question?

Ah, he says mysteriously.

Ah? I ask. It sounds like tonsilitis. He nods, grins through his beard.

A little girl with short hair pale as the inside of a lemon rind runs up and places her cheek against Mr. Fernandez's knee. She has wet brown cookie remnants at the corner of her mouth. Can I have some juice now, please? she asks, running her fingers up and down the corduroy grooves of his thigh. She stops and looks up at me quizzically. A tiny cookie bit falls from her mouth. What kind of juice do you like? I ask her, solicitous, false-friendly, ridiculous.

She looks at me, knits her brows, takes Mr. Fernandez's hand, and turns away, pulling him toward the refrigerator at the far end of the room. He looks at me and shrugs and I shrug back. Not asking the right questions.

things seem tense at work. People are wooden, scarcely polite, their eyes like fruit pits.

in bed with tom. He holds me. I am sorry, he says. I love you. I love Jeffrey, I love that kid.

So do I, I say carefully.

There's a long moment before he says: What should we do? Do you want a divorce?

You are my husband, I say with difficulty, like a stroke victim, my tongue plugged in my throat like a scarf or a handbag.

i'm thinking of writing an herb book, says the woman in the health food store. Her hair lies in unwashed strings on the shoulders of her pink-gray sweater and against the pink-gray slope of her face.

It's good to have a project, I say, trying to sound cheerful, encouraging. Something to live with, something to always return to.

Something you love, she says, and holds up a green sprig of something, looks at me, smiles weakly.

today i did a thousand dollars.

Things. Sometimes you just have to do them.

what do you want to be when you grow up, Jeffrey? I ask, chopping squash, squashing chops.

A car driver.

A car driver?

Yeah, you drive cars, he says and starts to zoom around the kitchen, three-point turning into cupboards.

Jeffrey, come and stir this brownie mix for me.

Okay, he says obediently, and we sit next to each other on stools at the counter. He is fidgety, restless. I push his hair back out of his face with my one clean hand. I can cradle his whole head with it, it seems.

What do you want me to be when I grow up? he asks, stirring, licking a fingertip.

I want you to be good.

I'm good at potato prints, he says, my earnest little potato prince.

No, I don't mean good at something, I mean just plain good. Being just plain good.

I'm good, he says.

You're good, I smile, mussing up his hair and smoothing it down again.

He reaches up, plays with my earring. I like it when you get dressed up, Mommy, he says.

i step out of the bathroom with nothing on.

Well, Tom, Sergeant, babydollbaby. Do I get into a prone position? A provolone position? I lumber into bed like a mammoth cheese.

Tom reaches under the covers and clasps my hand. Riva, I'm worried about you. Everything's a joke. You're always flip-flopping words, only listening to the edge of things. It's like you're always, constantly, on the edge.

Life is a pun, I say. It's something that sounds like one thing but also sounds like even means like something else.

Riva, what you just said. It's empty. It doesn't mean anything. He says this with a sort of tender reluctance, as if it were the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

It doesn't? I ask, suddenly embarrassed, confused, thinking that there is so much sanity in the insurance business. I slide down into the bed, press my face into his ribs, his strong ribs, the health food lady, I think, should have these ribs against her Velcro lips for a night, just a night, and then it occurs to me that maybe she already has.

i have brought my mother roses and a Tolkien trilogy. She smiles weakly, then lays them aside. Now, what was his name again? she asks, pouring ice water into a glass.

in the leigenbaum's employees' ladies' room, someone has written: I'm a virgin what is wrong with me? Beneath that, other people have written a string of feminist graffiti to reassure her, and underneath that, someone else has written in huge red letters: I don't care if I'm a fish, I still want a bicycle.

By the scarves, a woman asks me skeptically about designer names. I go into my rap about differences in French and Italian mills and also about supporting living working artists.

Do you think it really matters if you get laid in a Pucci scarf rather than one by somebody else? she asks.

I stare at her nose, tough as a root. You get laid in scarves? I say.

there are problems with these receipts, says the district manager, who is in for the day, on an official visit. Amahara is sitting next to him, not looking at me, her face blank as a window shade. I have just been called into the office.

I'm not sure what you mean, I say.

I think you are, he says. We could get into accusations here of gross negligence or outright criminal behavior. But the outcome would be the same. I don't know what sort of stress you've been under, but, Riva, you are fired. Without severance pay. You can pack your stuff and leave this afternoon.

Excuse me? I ask, not at all the right question, for he gets up and leaves without answering, Amahara close behind.

a smoky, hot pretzel smell in the city of blubbery love. A woman with jam on her plastic arm is attracting bees in Rittenhouse Square. Steam jostles the manhole covers, traffic resetting them, flat, flush, a regular metallic thud. The dusty burn of subway wafts up from concrete descents, and a peddler with a hint of mange at the hairline shouts fourteen carat, twenty at Bonwit's we'll give it to you for ten. Music grows loud and near, then fades and is gone, a casual invasion, hasty imprint and flight like the path of a bullet. I wander the streets frowsy and bloated, a W. C. Fields in drag, my mascara smeared like coal around my eyes, in store windows it is hard to recognize myself. I walk into places and flip through the racks, then leave, not really seeing too much, people spinning through doors, buzzing by me. They have drunk too much coffee. Caterpillars crawl the edge of the sidewalks like chromosomes. Looking for food, I roam slowly.