Lorrie Moore - Like Life

“Really?” Evan was beaming. “Oh, Zoë. I have something to tell you. Charlie and I are getting married.”

“Really.” Zoë felt confused.

“I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Yes, well, I guess the part about fuzzy football misled me a little.”

“I was hoping you’d be my maid of honor,” said Evan, waiting. “Aren’t you happy for me?”

“Yes,” said Zoë, and she began to tell Evan a story about an award-winning violinist at Hilldale-Versailles, how the violinist had come home from a competition in Europe and taken up with a local man, who made her go to all his summer softball games, made her cheer for him from the stands, with the wives, until she later killed herself. But when she got halfway through, to the part about cheering at the softball games, Zoë stopped.

“What?” said Evan. “So what happened?”

“Actually, nothing,” said Zoë lightly. “She just really got into softball. I mean, really. You should have seen her.”

ZOË DECIDED to go to a late-afternoon movie, leaving Evan to chores she needed to do before the party— I have to do them alone , she’d said, a little tense after the violinist story. Zoë thought about going to an art museum, but women alone in art museums had to look good. They always did. Chic and serious, moving languidly, with a great handbag. Instead, she walked over and down through Kips Bay, past an earring boutique called Stick It in Your Ear, past a beauty salon called Dorian Gray’s. That was the funny thing about beauty , thought Zoë. Look it up in the yellow pages, and you found a hundred entries, hostile with wit, cutesy with warning. But look up truth —ha! There was nothing at all.

Zoë thought about Evan getting married. Would Evan turn into Peter Pumpkin Eater’s wife? Mrs. Eater? At the wedding would she make Zoë wear some flouncy lavender dress, identical with the other maids’? Zoë hated uniforms, had even, in the first grade, refused to join Elf Girls, because she didn’t want to wear the same dress as everyone else. Now she might have to. But maybe she could distinguish it. Hitch it up on one side with a clothespin. Wear surgical gauze at the waist. Clip to her bodice one of those pins that said in loud letters, SHIT HAPPENS.

At the movie— Death by Number —she bought strands of red licorice to tug and chew. She took a seat off to one side in the theater. She felt strangely self-conscious sitting alone and hoped for the place to darken fast. When it did, and the coming attractions came on, she reached inside her purse for her glasses. They were in a Baggie. Her Kleenex was also in a Baggie. So were her pen and her aspirin and her mints. Everything was in Baggies. This was what she’d become: a woman alone at the movies with everything in a Baggie.

AT THE HALLOWEEN PARTY, there were about two dozen people. There were people with ape heads and large hairy hands. There was someone dressed as a leprechaun. There was someone dressed as a frozen dinner. Some man had brought his two small daughters: a ballerina and a ballerina’s sister, also dressed as a ballerina. There was a gaggle of sexy witches — women dressed entirely in black, beautifully made up and jeweled. “I hate those sexy witches. It’s not in the spirit of Halloween,” said Evan. Evan had abandoned the moon mask and dolled herself up as a hausfrau, in curlers and an apron, a decision she now regretted. Charlie, because he liked fish, because he owned fish, collected fish, had decided to go as a fish. He had fins and eyes on the side of his head. “Zoë! How are you! I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you first arrived!” He spent the rest of his time chatting up the sexy witches.

“Isn’t there something I can help you with here?” Zoë asked her sister. “You’ve been running yourself ragged.” She rubbed her sister’s arm, gently, as if she wished they were alone.

“Oh, God, not at all,” said Evan, arranging stuffed mushrooms on a plate. The timer went off, and she pulled another sheetful out of the oven. “Actually, you know what you can do?”

“What?” Zoë put on her bonehead.

“Meet Earl. He’s the guy I had in mind for you. When he gets here, just talk to him a little. He’s nice. He’s fun. He’s going through a divorce.”

“I’ll try.” Zoë groaned. “OK? I’ll try.” She looked at her watch.

When Earl arrived, he was dressed as a naked woman, steel wool glued strategically to a body stocking, and large rubber breasts protruding like hams.

“Zoë, this is Earl,” said Evan.

“Good to meet you,” said Earl, circling Evan to shake Zoë’s hand. He stared at the top of Zoë’s head. “Great bone.”

Zoë nodded. “Great tits,” she said. She looked past him, out the window at the city thrown glitteringly up against the sky; people were saying the usual things: how it looked like jewels, like bracelets and necklaces unstrung. You could see Grand Central station, the clock of the Con Ed building, the red-and-gold-capped Empire State, the Chrysler like a rocket ship dreamed up in a depression. Far west you could glimpse the Astor Plaza, its flying white roof like a nun’s habit. “There’s beer out on the balcony, Earl — can I get you one?” Zoë asked.

“Sure, uh, I’ll come along. Hey, Charlie, how’s it going?”

Charlie grinned and whistled. People turned to look. “Hey,

Earl,” someone called, from across the room. “Va-va-va-voom.”

They squeezed their way past the other guests, past the apes and the sexy witches. The suction of the sliding door gave way in a whoosh, and Zoë and Earl stepped out onto the balcony, a bonehead and a naked woman, the night air roaring and smoky cool. Another couple was out here, too, murmuring privately. They were not wearing costumes. They smiled at Zoë and Earl. “Hi,” said Zoë. She found the plastic-foam cooler, dug into it, and retrieved two beers.

“Thanks,” said Earl. His rubber breasts folded inward, dimpled and dented, as he twisted open the bottle.

“Well,” sighed Zoë anxiously. She had to learn not to be afraid of a man, the way, in your childhood, you learned not to be afraid of an earthworm or a bug. Often, when she spoke to men at parties, she rushed things in her mind. As the man politely blathered on, she would fall in love, marry, then find herself in a bitter custody battle with him for the kids and hoping for a reconciliation, so that despite all his betrayals she might no longer despise him, and in the few minutes remaining, learn, perhaps, what his last name was and what he did for a living, though probably there was already too much history between them. She would nod, blush, turn away.

“Evan tells me you’re a professor. Where do you teach?”

“Just over the Indiana border into Illinois.”

He looked a little shocked. “I guess Evan didn’t tell me that part.”

“She didn’t?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s Evan for you. When we were kids we both had speech impediments.”

“That can be tough,” said Earl. One of his breasts was hidden behind his drinking arm, but the other shone low and pink, full as a strawberry moon.

“Yes, well, it wasn’t a total loss. We used to go to what we called peach pearapy. For about ten years of my life I had to map out every sentence in my mind, way ahead, before I said it. That was the only way I could get a coherent sentence out.”

Earl drank from his beer. “How did you do that? I mean, how did you get through?”

“I told a lot of jokes. Jokes you know the lines to already — you can just say them. I love jokes. Jokes and songs.”

Earl smiled. He had on lipstick, a deep shade of red, but it was wearing off from the beer. “What’s your favorite joke?”