Lorrie Moore - A Gate at the Stairs

What did it mean to have the shyest vinca in the world? It seemed sad but perhaps necessary, like the retirement of an aged ballerina.

Bonnie began to shift in her seat and even her expressionlessness began to recede into the distance so that yet greater expressionlessness could take its place.

“Bonnie, do you have any questions?”

Then the sudden attention to her, which she had earlier seemed to want, startled her. Her face went red with heat. Perhaps there was in fact a chemical found in nature that could prevent eye cancer, cancer of the tear ducts, though I doubted it. I could see her eyes start to redden as well, and soon bright water was shining across them like sunlight with no sun. Her hands moved slowly to her hair. The full force of what she was doing was slowly coming to her once again.

“I am only a hospital aide right now.” She did not say the word bedpan , but she didn’t have to. “I would like to go back to school.”

“We can help you with that,” said Sarah.

“Uh, actually, that’s not allowed in this state,” said Roberta. “But certain smaller gifts might be.”

“I mean, we could help — in other ways. Advice and things.” Sarah was both pathetic and game. You had to hand it to her.

“I just want the best for my little girl,” Bonnie said firmly. “Will you raise her Catholic?”

“Of course,” lied Sarah, who leaned in generously to pat Bonnie’s hand. Because I was closer, I threw my arms around Bonnie. I don’t know what came over me. But it seemed we all were a team. A team of rescuers and destroyers both, and I was in on it and had to do my part. Bonnie briefly went to bury her face in my shoulder, then pulled herself together and sat back up. Sarah gave us an astonished look.

“Well, Bonnie,” said Roberta, “shall you and I go back into my office and discuss things?”

“Yes,” said Bonnie. They got up and closed the inner door behind them, leaving the three of us standing with Suzanne, who added, “I’ve seen a lot of heavy stuff in this room,” and then busied herself with file folders.

“If this wallpaper could speak,” said Edward. He studied it quizzically. “Or maybe it already can.”

“This wallpaper wouldn’t speak,” Suzanne said, glancing up at it. “It would bite.”

We sat back down and flipped through magazines. Adoption Choice, The Adopted Child , and Sports Illustrated. One for the dads. I looked at an article in Time about baby boomers and their lonely work habits and aging pets.

In ten minutes Roberta and Bonnie reemerged. “I have some wonderful news!” said Roberta. “Bonnie has decided she would like you to be the parents of her baby.”

This ceremony of approval was a charade — everything had been decided before we got here — and as with all charades it was wanly ebullient, necessary, and thin.

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” said Sarah, and she rushed forward and put her arms around Bonnie. This threw Bonnie off balance a little, and she grabbed the back of the sofa to steady herself. Edward as well stepped forward and gave Bonnie a hug, to which she responded stiffly. But then Bonnie turned to me, and by this time she may have warmed to the idea of hugging, or to the idea of me, because she stepped forward and threw herself upon me again, her silent tears dampening my shoulder. Her back heaved slightly — just once — and then she stood straight.

“Well, we’ll be in touch, I suppose,” said Bonnie hopefully, while her face wore a look of devastation and dashed vanity. Her moment in the spotlight was coming to a close — the spotlight itself was dimming and she was slowly stepping backwards.

“The annual Christmas card,” said Sarah. “I’ll send you one every Christmas with all the news.”

“And pictures,” said Bonnie in a low, stern voice she hadn’t spoken in before. “I want pictures of her.”

Sarah said, “Of course. I’ll send photos.” She gave Bonnie a final hug and murmured loudly enough for us to hear, “Be happy.”

“Yes,” said Bonnie tonelessly. She turned toward me one last time and I then, too, gave her a final hug. Bonnie whispered in my ear, “ You be happy.”

And then she seemed to be disappearing like an apparition. Through the darkening afternoon window one could hear the scrape of a plow outside in the street, but inside was where it was snowing. It was snowing in here in this room and it was all piled up around Bonnie, falling on her head, piled up on her shoulders. Of course it was only a bluff, the large, imposing dirigible of her, and now she had just spluttered to nothing. She was something flat and far and stuck to the wall. I wanted to take her with me, to go to her and lead her out with us. Where would she go? What home could she possibly have? Suddenly we were all going our separate ways. We were to meet Roberta tomorrow at the foster home and there meet the child. I waved to Bonnie, a kind of queen’s wave I hoped she’d construe as friendship, but no movement came from her at all.

A kind of stunned trio, Sarah, Edward, and I stepped outside into this town of … what? A tundra of closing mills, pro ball, anxious Catholicism. The late-afternoon air of our exhalations hung in brief clouds before us. The thought balloon of my own breath said, How have I found myself here? It was not a theological question. It was one of transportation and neurology.

“Let’s go seek a fish fry,” said Sarah, and happily took Edward’s arm.

“Let’s do,” said Edward, sounding to my ear like a southern gent in a corny old film.

We piled into the Ford Escort, no longer by the black car and with only one small silver scratch, and drove around a little haphazardly, passing the stadium, whereupon Sarah said, “So here’s where all the Catholics gather and pray for the Packers to win.” We wound up at a supper club called Lombardino’s, which over the bar had a sign that read BETTER TO OUTLIVE AN ELF THAN OUTDRINK A DWARF. There were drawings of Vince Lombardi on the napkins and placemats and even the teacups; to my surprise, I had to tell Sarah and Edward what a supper club even was.

“We’re from the East,” said Edward. “They don’t have them out there.”

“They don’t?” This seemed unimaginable to me.

“I mean, there are steak houses, but they’re not the same. We love supper clubs but without really knowing what constitutes one. We kind of get it, but we always like to hear the exact definition from someone who grew up out here,” said Sarah.

Always. Out here. So this was a thing they did, a tourist’s game. “Well, a supper club is just, well, it’s got these carrots and radishes in a glass of ice like this,” I began lamely, with no words coming, just a sense of the obvious. It was like describing my arms. “And there’s always steak, and fish on Fridays, and fried potatoes of some sort. There’s whiskey sours and Bloody Marys and Chubby Marys, and supper, but there’s no real club. I mean, there aren’t members or anything.”

“What’s a Chubby Mary?” This was Edward and Sarah practically simultaneously.

“It’s a Bloody Mary with a chub sticking out of it.”

“A chub?”

“A fish. It’s dead. It’s small. At first you see its head just poking up through the ice cubes, but believe me, the whole thing is there.”

Edward and Sarah were sitting across the table from me, grinning as if I were the most adorable child. My face heated up in response to what I felt was mockery. For a second I wanted to stab myself.

“They’re probably in the back, giving everything a quick parboil then tanning it with a torch,” said Sarah.

“Sarah thinks nothing is really cooked anymore, just toned with a butane lighter.”