Xhenet Aliu - Brass

She slapped her palms down on the table. “Just, god. When are you going to come out with it?”

I shrugged. There was no point in denying anything, it was why we had her over in the first place, to come out with it all. But I didn’t come out with anything. It oozed out of me somehow, but I couldn’t come out and say it.

“I mean, I guess at this point you’re having it, right?” Mamie said.

“Yes,” Bashkim said. His voice was confident again, his again. “We are having it.”

“What?” Greta said. “You mean keeping it? You told me you took care of this weeks ago.”

“We did take care of it. We decided to have it,” I said.

Greta stood up from the table and stomped toward the door. “You’re a liar, Elsie,” she said and slammed the screen door behind her. “A stupid liar. Have fun, is all I have to say. I’m not going to be helping you out in nine months, if that’s what you think.”

“Nine months?” Mamie said. She finally lit up that Basic. “Six months, if you’re lucky. Isn’t that about right?”

“I don’t know,” I said. My face stung as if she’d slapped it, but she was sitting there perfectly calm, her crossed leg bouncing over the other the only sign of what was bubbling inside. “I haven’t gone to the doctor yet.”

She laughed as she exhaled. “Perfect.”

“Well, nothing’s been wrong yet. I haven’t had to breathe any secondhand smoke yet,” I said, swatting her Basic stream away from my nose. Finally I looked up, and Bashkim was smoking, too, blowing perfect rings of Marlboro wisps that floated like tilted halos over our heads. “He usually goes outside for that,” I said.

“I do, yes. Tonight, no. Tonight I will smoke here, because this is my home, and I decided that I would like to do it in here,” he said.

“It’s only your home so long as you don’t run off and leave her alone in it,” Mamie said.

“Mamie, it’s not going to be like that. Not every guy is like that.”

“Even then, it would still be my home,” Bashkim said.

Mamie smiled a little and stubbed out her cigarette only halfway through it. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll take some cake now, Elsie. And some coffee if you got it.”

I looked at her but didn’t move, thinking I’d be walking into a booby trap.

“Go ahead. Better get used to serving people,” she said.

“I will have some, too,” Bashkim said, looking at Mamie.

It was definitely a booby trap, then, but I stood up anyway and walked to the counter, where it at least felt safer. I waited for it to start, it being Mamie crashing the empty bottle of wine over Bashkim’s head, it being Bashkim pushing Mamie to the door, still in her chair, as if she were a patient and he the orderly, it being the ultimatum: it’s him/her or me. But they only watched each other, Mamie’s hands folded under her chin, her head cradled in there like a hammock; Bashkim’s arms folded over his chest, his biceps round like ripe fruit. I dropped saucers of cake off in front of both of them and drew back, scooped spoonfuls of coffee onto the counter because I couldn’t stop watching them. They took delicate bites, as if at a tea party.

“Will you not be getting married then?” Mamie asked. “Elsie, coffee?”

“It’s coming,” I said. I swept the grinds into a filter, my shaking hands not even steadied by the counter. I shook my head at Bashkim, begging him not to tell her, but he hadn’t really looked at me all night.

“No,” he said. “Getting married would not make things any different.”

“Of course it would make things different. It would make it harder for Elsie to get out when she has to. If she has to, I mean.”

“Getting married does not make someone stay. You should know that,” he said.

“If that was supposed to hurt,” Mamie said.

Bashkim shook his head. “If I wanted to hurt you, there would be no confusion about it. We did not have you here to hurt you. Elsie is not having a baby to hurt people. This is right, Elsie?”

I nodded, for no reason since neither looked over at me.

“Then why is she having a baby?”

“Because she loves me. This is right, Elsie?”

I didn’t bother nodding this time, and instead walked to the door. It was still hot out there, but not like inside, which was just a few degrees away from ignition. I breathed in deep and leaned against the railing, which gave a couple of inches under my weight. We were twenty feet or so up, not enough for certain death if the railing gave way, but there would be plenty of broken bones, and almost certainly a blank image on a sonogram. The doctors would say they were sorry for my loss, the way they were trained to, but they probably wouldn’t be, just like plenty of people wouldn’t be. Mamie wouldn’t be, Greta wouldn’t be, Yllka, Aggie, wherever she was, whatever she knew. I would be. Of course I would be. I’d be drugged up and broken and sorry, somewhere deep underneath all that gauze. I’d get all the plastic cups of apple juice I asked for. Magazines, balloons, The Price Is Right on Channel 3, whatever it took to make me unsorry.

“What do you want?” Greta said. She was crouched in the corner of the porch, invisible under shadow.

“Jesus Christ, you scared me,” I said. I pulled my weight away from the railing and felt woozy when I looked back at the twenty-foot drop. Suddenly it was cold out there. I shivered.

“You’ve got bigger things to be scared about, if you ask me,” she said.

“I’m not asking you,” I said.

“I know.”

“I’m not asking anybody, in fact.”

“They’re telling you anyway.”

I stopped to listen to Mamie and Bashkim, but all I heard was fork scraping against plate, like they thought more cake was buried underneath the surface. It was going better than I’d thought it would. No screaming, nothing shattered. It made me nervous, though, knowing all that fuel was inside just waiting for a spark.

The screen door popped open, nearly whacked me in the face, and slapped back against the frame. Mamie stepped out, a little unsteady on her feet, and held her purse in tight against her as if she thought we might rob her.

“You should get a spring for that door. Greta, you’re driving. Elsie, coffee’s ready. I decided I didn’t want it after all.” She looked me up and down, nodded toward the stairs. “You want I can toss you down those. It’s not too late.”

“I’m good,” I said.

“Score one for the kid, I guess.” She leaned on the rail, didn’t even notice it was loose. “Just so you know, not killing a baby isn’t even close to giving it any kind of life.”

“It’s not an it, it’s a someone,” I said.

“Even worse,” she said and began walking down the stairs, taking one step at a time. “Good night and good luck, sweetheart.”

She called people sweetheart sometimes instead of asshole, so I didn’t bother echoing her goodbye. I looked instead at Greta, who ignored me and squeezed past.

“I’ll call you,” I said to her.

“Save your dime. You’ll need them,” she said, and then she was gone, too.

Inside, Bashkim still sat at the table, the haze of smoke around him making him look like a dream sequence, or a low-budget version of heaven. That’s what I’d call his biography, I thought: A Low-Budget Version of Heaven, and then realized it said more about me than about him. What kind of heaven did I want? It took him an hour’s work to pay for that bottle of Blue Nun. One whole hour of his life sitting in the bottom of Mamie’s belly, and he didn’t complain once. And he had all kinds of money on the way, he said. And was a good-looking guy, underneath the ugly clothes that were either Communist issue or Salvation Army castoffs. He’d taken off his short-sleeve button-up, and look at how nice he filled out that undershirt. Strong, not just the muscles. I stepped back inside and walked over to him and kissed the top of his head.