Ursula Pflug - Seeds and Other Stories

Phoebe would come to Carlos’s too. She always sat alone, a shadow in shadowy corners, drumming her hands impatiently on the table, scowling at anyone who tried to join her. Sometimes he thought she’d melt, disappear, and sometimes she did: disappear for an hour, come back darker, more shadowy still. He’d pay for her beer without knowing why. She’d make cat eyes at him. He’d wonder what she was thinking. With Rickie always reading his thoughts he’d come to think of communication that way: fluid, easy. But Phoebe was the other kind of girl. You didn’t know, and she didn’t tell. It made you want to know. It was her game. He’d be angry, and then he’d remember. All his games, and bring her a second beer so she wouldn’t have to ask. Rickie always spent her breaks sitting with her, happy she’d come. He couldn’t figure it.

She worked in a St. Mark’s Place vintage clothing store, making minimum wage. This wreaked havoc with her newly acquired Rainbow Bridge hours, and, she confessed she sometimes took naps on the old blue velvet couch that was part of the store’s decor, on slow afternoons. He wondered she wasn’t fired when she told him that, but Rickie said her window displays were the best, and he had to admit they were darkly hip.

Every so often, if it was promising to be a lame night at Carlos’s, and neither Rickie nor Joey had work they stayed home instead, talking into the early hours.

Somehow long detailed conversations required the presence of all three: they never happened otherwise. Once when Phoebe went out, visiting friends she said, Joey finally asked.

“You never mentioned her before she showed up.”

Rickie swigged her Coors, sorted seeds, stared at him. “Mention me one good friend you told me about.”

“Of mine?” He was flabbergasted. “I don’t have any. I pissed them all away.”

“So make one out of her.”

“She’s not like you. She’s not together. She has no drive, no passion.”

“She cooks and cleans,” Rickie said. “She’s an amazing cook.” He shrugged, wondering why Rickie suddenly thought these were important; she lived on take-out and dry-cleaning.

“We never used to stay in and talk till she came. I didn’t even know you. You just lived here, and we played music together.”

“We’re not friends?” he asked, astonished. He thought they’d been so close.

“Of course we are.” She gave him her signature comradely hug, said, “but people have different qualities. Why shouldn’t I have a friend who isn’t brilliant, talented? She starts the conversations about life, feelings. Something you and I never bother to do.”

“We don’t have to,” he said. “We have music.”

“Don’t ever let her know you think she’s nothing. Talking is communication too. We’re just not very good at it.”

“No,” he said, “we’re musicians, naturally telepathic.”

“Right,” Rickie said. “Remember you telling me once why Sally said she left you. Something about no talking? Maybe we should learn. Maybe Phoebe will teach us.”

“She doesn’t talk to me. It’s only when we’re all three together.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“S’pose not,” he said, relenting. But he thought, you don’t know what she’s really like. And then: but you took me in, and you weren’t wrong. At least not yet.

It was all right when Rickie was there, making a bridge between them. But when he was alone with Phoebe they prowled around one another; those were the times the one bedroom felt too small. Phoebe would do her nails yet again, a new shade of green, and answer in monosyllables when Joey tried to make conversation, draw her out. She’d laugh, as if it was pointless, the effort at talking. He asked her once what she wanted from life and she said, “I like it, I like my job, I know it doesn’t pay well but I like old clothes.”

“What else?” he asked.

“I used to really like math.”

“What else d’you like?”

“I like music.”

“You don’t want to play, though?”

“Not everyone plays. I don’t have talent.” She glared at him, sneered at his monster. Who’d want talent, she was thinking. He could tell.

“The years’ll go by, you have to have something you care about, some way to get ahead, make progress.”

“I like my life,” she said. “What’s wrong with just living?” She stared at him as if she thought he was very very old to have forgotten this. She looked at her watch. “Time to go to the club. You’ll be late. The others are expecting you.” She scooped his creature off the floor, handed it to him. It looked like a winged rat, but he was grateful it was small tonight. She looked spiteful. “Forgetting something?” And it was true, he’d rather leave it home, if it were only possible. It was embarrassing having it sit next to him on stage, so ugly.

She shrugged too much. He should’ve known. You only shrug that much if there’s a payoff: the secret comfort, the thing that matters, makes the other things not matter. Shruggable.

Carlos’s, being private, got away with a unisex john and that was the night Joey saw the needle imperfectly hidden under damp paper towels in the waste basket under the sink. He confronted her. And she stared at him, her eyes huge, purple shadowed. “Big deal,” she said. “It wasn’t mine.” And he left it at that, having no proof.

He wasn’t sleeping with either of the women. Sally was years over by now, and while there’d been women since, none of them had been real. If he got involved with Rickie, it would have to be real, she’d stand for nothing less. And if he got involved with Phoebe, it wouldn’t be real, and he’d chance blowing his friendship with Rickie.

He smiled at himself: the things you knew at forty you hadn’t at thirty. If only he’d been so circumspect with Sally. And now he was living with two women, and not doing either of them. Hard to figure. In time he’d even stopped being hopelessly aroused by their long sexy if unshaven legs propped on the coffee table, balancing coffee cups. He wondered if they’d known.

He wasn’t in love with either of them. It was more as if he was in love with their life, and it was something about being three: just one and he knew the inevitable outcome. Two were safer. When they weren’t working or at Carlos’s, they spent their time watching old black and white movies on television at two am, eating Phoebe’s incredible sandwiches, doing crossword puzzles or reading in the big perpetually messy bed. He’d never had female roommates before, not without being romantically involved. It was like a revelation to him, what girls were like when they lived together. He got to listen to them talk about clothes and make-up; Rickie’d never revealed that side to him.

Sometimes he woke in the morning with a strange, sickly, unfamiliar sensation. At first blink he’d figure it for a hangover and then he’d realize it was hope. Joey felt he’d been given a reprieve. He was forty-two, and the girls were in their late twenties, even Carlos only thirty-one. One day, he suspected, it would be over and he’d have to reassume his real age. Plodding towards middle-aged failure.

He wanted to warn Rickie, protect her. So few made it, in spite of talent or hard work, or even an animal, and she hadn’t one yet, not one that he’d seen. Why not?

Why was it taking her so long to grow a creature? They were the only true solace; they made everything possible. His, for instance, was busy pulling the stuffing out of their only armchair, spreading it over the carpet in an even unvacuumable static coating.

“Have a back-up,” he said. “Not cocktailing, even if you’re in a good place, the tips are good. Go to school for something more practical than music, more worthwhile than waitressing. Have continuity, friendships or partners that last for years and years.”