Dana Spiotta - Lightning Field

“Lorene. I didn’t know you were here.”

Lorene waved at her, smiling.

“I’m playing hooky today, Lisa. Are these your children?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll take them home right now. I couldn’t geta sitter, so I brought them. I’ve never done that before, but I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. I should have checked with you. I’m so sorry.”

Lorene shrugged and looked at the children, mesmerized by her TV.

“It’s all right. They seem like well-behaved kids. What the hell. What are they, twins?”

“Yes. It’s OK? Are you sure?”

Lorene shrugged.

“Yeah, just go ahead and do your work. I’m going to have some coffee.” Lorene sat in her kitchen sipping coffee and watching Lisa do her routine. It was strange to watch a stranger clean your house. Lorene felt oddly fascinated. It was embarrassing, really, but in truth she found the company comforting. It distracted her from herself, and she didn’t mind sort of thinking about someone else.

“You do a good job, Lisa. You’re very thorough.” Lisa sprayed the oven with oven cleaner, then readied the bucket and mop for the floor.

“Thank you. Your house is pretty easy. It doesn’t seem like you even live here sometimes.”

“I guess you can tell a lot about someone from cleaning their house.”

Lisa scrubbed the countertops. She looked at Lorene in her silk kimono. Lorene finger-combed her blue-black hair, pushing the ends forward so the curl cut against her cheekbone. An inward glance at an old photo of Louise Brooks that Lorene had permanently etched in her brain inspired this early morning primping. Lisa shrugged a shoulder up to her cheek to move her hair out of her steamy face. When that didn’t suffice, she lifted one wet yellow-glove-clad hand and brushed her hairback with the peek of forearm where the glove stopped. Still it was in her way.

“I think there are these people who analyze these things— what a person’s trash says about them, their dirt, the kind of debris they create. I think it’s supposed to be quite telling,” Lorene said.

“Yes, I guess so. If you really think about it, but I’m not sure why someone would. Basic things. Whether they have kids or not. What they eat or don’t eat. Whether they entertain or not.”

“Come on, more than that. What music they listen to, what books they read — or if they read. What clothes they wear, and how much they spend on clothes.”

“You have a lot of beautiful clothes.”

Lorene nodded.

“So what do you think? I mean, you’ve cleaned my house for a couple of years now. What conclusions have you drawn?” Lorene hated herself for asking; she turned every situation into an exercise in self-contemplation. Her favorite subject, herself. Lisa looked at her oddly as she continued scrubbing.

“I don’t know. Do books and clothes really tell you all that much about a person? I wouldn’t know much from that. I think just talking to you now is more about you than all the stuff I clean in your house.”

“How so?”

“That you seem more like a person in a movie than any person I’ve ever met. Everything about you seems so — I don’t know. So arranged.”

Lorene smiled at this. “Yes, that’s true. Rehearsed for some performance.”

“And you are aware of this. It kind of pleases you, I can see.”

Lorene took out her first cigarette of the day. She caughtLisa glancing at it, and Lorene made a bit of a show of lighting it.

“Well, isn’t maturity about recognizing who you are and running full-throttle toward it?”

“You’re not messy.”

“It’s either maturity or glamour. I haven’t figured out which one yet.”

“That’s a pretty terrible thing to say. Cynical.”

“I’m glad to hear I’m not messy,” Lorene said. There was a pause and Lisa finished rinsing out the sink. She turned off the water. She looked at Lorene, who stubbed out her cigarette. A million half-finished cigarettes. What do you make of that. Lisa peeled off the gloves.

“Lisa.”

Lisa looked over at her again.

“Lisa, by the way, I’m not cynical.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just, you. .” Lisa glanced around the room and then looked directly at Lorene. “You have a lot of beautiful things. You have a peaceful, safe place to be. I don’t feel sorry for you.”

Lorene almost laughed. Women like Lisa used to really admire her. It was a given, an absolute certainty. What had happened?

“You’re sort of a smart cookie, huh? Fair enough. I asked, after all. And when I talk to you, I don’t ask you any questions about your life, do I?”

Lisa smiled at her, shrugging.

“I noticed that, too.”

“So what occupies you, if not some performance of yourself?”

“What occupies me? My family. My family, my family and, oh, yeah, my family.”

“Your kids?”

“That’s what I said, my family.”

“And their father?”

Lisa shrugged again.

“Their father is an unwilling participant.” She put the cleanser in the cupboard and shut it. “I have to clean your bedroom now.”

Lorene nodded over her coffee. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

Lorene could hear Lisa getting the vacuum cleaner from the hall closet and carrying it slowly up the stairs. Soon afterward she heard the sound of the vacuum running in the bedroom. Something almost crossed her mind about what it would be like to be Lisa instead of herself. Almost. She crossed her legs and her kimono opened loosely, revealing one white smooth knee and one hairless creamy thigh. She examined her leg, pushing her hand across her smooth skin, sitting alone in her pristine kitchen.

Mina walked the two miles to Vanity and Vexation. She had to break her date with Max, stop in and check on the other two restaurants, then return to V and V for a meeting with the designer, then make it home in time for dinner with David. She hadn’t read the postcard in her pocket. She knew it was another one from Michael. When she arrived at the Gentleman’s Club, she had phone messages to call her father, her mother, and Lorene. She ignored these. Then she received a phone call.

“Mina?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Scott.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t seem too happy to talk to me.”

“Well, I’m busy.”

“I’m in town.”

“But you were just here.”

“I know, but I need to talk to you.”

“I just saw you.”

“I have to see you.”

“I’m really busy. “

“But I really have to see you.”

“OK, OK. Not today, though. Sunday. Three o’clock.”

Mina walked back along Wilshire to Food Baroque.

When you ignore me, I feel as if I don’t exist.

The card was of two Indians holding corn. She folded it and put it away. She had to get to the restaurant and supervise the new reservationist. Allison, or maybe Alysyn. No, it was Ashley. Or Ashleigh.

Mina had followed Michael to her parents’ bedroom. Thanksgiving vacation, Michael’s first visit home from college. But it was “Michael,” now college-distanced, Michael 2.0, the latest version, the imposter. He took her hand and said he wanted to show her something. A secret. He actually looked over his shoulder stealthily. It felt for a moment as if they were not teenagers on the verge of dreaded adulthood, but kids again, on a covert, invented mission. She felt a momentary sort of relief. He went to their father’s antique rolltop desk and pulled out one of the drawers. He reached to the back of the drawer and pulled out a hand-sized box. It was inlaid wood with different-colored stain and a smooth satin finish with rounded edges. One of those horrible Santa Barbara craft shop boxes tourists buy, with secret smooth, airtight compartments obviously built for drug stashing. Michael slid open the main compartment. Inside were several small screw-top glass vials full of white powder, and a folded Ziploc bag full of emptygelatin capsules. Mina couldn’t hold back an audible gasp, which made Michael cover her mouth with his hand.