Джоан Силбер - Improvement

“Sometimes the audience yells,” he said. “That’s a good audience.”

“That guy was so stupid!”

“People think they’re so smart and then they’re not,” he said. “That’s the plot of all funny movies, right there. Don’t you think?”

Darisse thought her own life fit this story line but she kept this notion to herself. Tonight he was wearing a navy blue shirt with a texture of stripes in the fabric. She never would’ve guessed he was any kind of dresser, and he’d picked this out from his closet for the date with her.

What kind of money did nurses make? Decent but medium, right? You’d think Silas had more, from the way his apartment was. When he turned on the light she saw a big shining dining room table and a whole field of orchids along a window. He liked orchids. But she wasn’t there to admire the furnishings. He brought her a glass of water from the kitchen and she drank it while she was still standing up. “Delicious water,” she said, and then he moved toward her.

What surprised her was the way they just fell into it. She would’ve said (had said to Frances) that they were both hesitant, still making up their minds, so now she was startled by the lush fever of it. Unexpected too were the signs he gave of being tickled to death about what was happening, about the good news of her; he sighed and kept lapsing into sexy chuckles. Well, that was nice.

By the time they got to the bedroom, there was a surge of happiness in her to be doing all this again. This was the next phase of her life; here it was already. I’m landing on my feet , she thought, all the while they were actually having sex, this was sex. He showed off a little and then he paid attention; she could feel him guessing about her. They did very well together, through most of it.

In the morning when the alarm rang she thought she was in jail—she’d never been in jail, but the sound was so jarring she dreamed herself there. When she woke again, Silas was in his scrubs and had brought her a toaster waffle on a plate with butter and syrup, and a mug of coffee. “This is the life,” she said—she liked waffles—and kissed his neck, but what she really wanted was to get home fast and change for work. The bedroom seemed very big and too full of bright light and too arranged, with its surfaces of tan and brown and bamboo. On a dresser were the photos of his kids, a girl and a boy, smiling with their bicycles.

She might’ve stolen something, if she were a person who stole things. Of course, at work she was in houses stocked with much more expensive things than this one. But it struck her, as she was getting herself together in the bathroom, that he trusted her, without that much to go on.

She got a better look at his street when they went out to his car. He lived in a big apartment complex, a brick strip with white columns, a few blocks from the river in what was still called Tobacco Row, even if tobacco companies had been out for thirty years. “You think people still get rich from tobacco?” she said.

“Some do,” he said. “They don’t feel bad about it either.”

Darisse thought she’d heard of an executive who repented and crusaded against cigarettes after his wife died of emphysema. But maybe that was just one of those stories.

“Lot of stories in the world,” Silas said.

He looked handsome when he said that, one eyebrow raised, and they had a long, solid embrace when they said goodbye in front of her apartment. No, she didn’t want him to drive her to work once she got her uniform on—how would she get home without her car? Probably he was in a hurry to get to work too; probably he was just as glad to have the rest of the ride to himself.

Everyone thought she’d fallen into the pie. Frances said, “I’ll take him, you don’t want him.” Her grandmother said, “I like that one; you know I don’t say that for nothing.” Even Amanda at work (whom she shouldn’t have said a thing to) said, “Cute and nice. Big advance over. Your other choices. Just from. What you told me.”

Amanda’s husband had rigged up a sloping lap desk with a light on it so she could do crossword puzzles while she was lying in bed. The puzzles now just made her sleepy. She wasn’t looking at email either, despite the stand her husband had set up with the tablet clamped to it so she couldn’t knock it over. The tablet was loaded with a very long playlist of music he was sure she’d like, and sometimes she did like it. He kept wanting to do things.

Everybody thought it was so great that Darisse got phone calls from Silas at least twice a week. Not like Claude’s constant texting (the man had had free time), but Silas was good to talk to; she could go on to him about her grandmother’s peculiarities and he would listen.

“Can’t expect the same things with each guy,” she told Frances. “They all got their own rules.”

At her grandmother’s house, Darisse hardly went into the kitchen, but Silas liked her to cook with him, with his nice modern appliances. And Jeshauna, although she was cranky and shy at first, took to Silas after he fed her one of those waffles. After that she was hanging on to him whatever he did. “Hey, girl,” he would say, “you going to let me move?” She’d have his knee in an arm-lock, but he looked pleased.

His apartment, which wasn’t as big as Darisse had thought at first, had that gush of orchids in one window and piles of books about trees (who’d want to read about a tree?), shelves of mystery writers he liked, and a standing keyboard he only played when she wasn’t there. He did have music coming at them from speakers a lot of the time, everything from Lil’ Kim to Little Richard singing “Hokey Pokey” for Jeshauna. Put your right foot in .

Darisse would have gotten word from someone by now if Claude had ever shown himself anywhere in Richmond. There was a chance he and the boys were going to another city (maybe Norfolk?) where somebody was giving them a better deal on cartons of cigarettes; it wouldn’t have been Claude who figured that out either. And he hadn’t wanted to go to the trouble of telling her, just wanted to leave it the way it was. Just let it go.

She understood she hadn’t really known Claude that well. She already knew Silas better. Silas talked more. He made fun of vampire movies, he thought Jesus was some kind of good Communist, he still liked Obama, he rehearsed with his friends every single Thursday night, no exceptions. He didn’t mind being an “amateur” musician but his ex-wife had looked down on him for that. Every month he drove four and a half hours to see his kids and sometimes he had them in the summer but not this year. He thought Jeshauna should be in daycare, she needed to be with other kids.

“I could suggest it,” Darisse said.

Silas said, “Aren’t you the mother?”

Darisse didn’t look up from the bowl of cereal she was eating. None of his fucking business. He had no idea.

“I’m just saying,” he said.

He had a friend who was a social worker who might be able to make sure she had her rights. Darisse knew plenty of social workers and she wasn’t always impressed with them. But maybe.

“When you’re ready,” he said.

Amanda had long bouts of coughing so heavy it sounded like sobbing. “Fuck this,” she’d rasp, when she could speak. She was keeping her personality, at least. She had to be helped onto the commode; she had trouble swallowing. These humiliations caused a look of indignant defeat on her face. “Don’t tell Fred. I. Threw up,” she’d say.

Fred, the husband, was cutting back on his work hours, coming home earlier. Darisse caught herself starting to wonder how he’d be after Amanda was gone. What would he do with himself, how long would he mourn, would he ever take up with someone else? He would. Men did. Because they could; she didn’t blame them.