Marie-Helene Bertino - 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

Ben is calf-deep in water. “How is Bill these days?”

“He’s good, yes.”

“Working?”

“Oh no,” she says.

“No,” Ben says.

“It’s tough.”

“I know.”

“Of course you do. Bless you.” She nods at Sarina. If she is surprised to see two adults wading through fountain water on a bitter night she doesn’t show it. “Bless you both.”

“Tell Bill hello,” Ben says.

“I will.” The woman wrenches something out of her bag, a wrapper or a slip of paper, beelines for a trash can where she reconsiders. She calls out, “He’ll be thrilled!”

They watch her leave the square.

“Bill Evans,” Ben says. He pretends to notice his pant legs. “Good heavens, I’m drenched!”

Sarina giggles.

Ben hurdles the wall of the fountain. He takes Sarina’s hand and helps her climb out. For a moment they are two people holding hands. He lets go.

“We can’t stand here cold and wet,” he says. “We should go somewhere and dry off.”

“And get a drink,” she adds, slipping into her shoes.

“I know just the place.”

“Good-bye!” Sarina calls to the pinwheel man.

“Good luck,” he says.

“Tell me about the girl with lice,” Ben says, as they walk out of the park onto Pine Street.

Pine Street maintains a long-standing race: how many apartments, houses, and stores can one street hold? There are no zoning restrictions: go! When each stoop or store window has a lamp on, the effect is akin to the afterhours daylight of a nuclear power plant. Sarina and Ben walk through this unnatural sunshine as she details the singing, the principal, Clare Kelly, the apples, the lice, the punch, the expulsion. She does not look at him while she talks. She already knows what she will see, so what’s the point? An open, happy mouth. Hazy, engaged eyes. Big deal.

Ben does not look at Sarina. He already knows what he will see. The line around her mouth that appears when she is intent on exposing injustice: the cockamamie price of pinwheels or unfairness toward one of her students. A girl in constant negotiation with her bangs. She giggled when he said, “Someone has drenched my pant leg!” Her laugh has always been the only ungoverned thing about her. He tries to elicit it as much as he can.

A bookstore on the corner is open. They hear tinkling music inside.

“Should we go in?” Ben says.

“Let’s.”

Inside, whatever is not wreathed is tinseled. A knitting older woman behind the counter regards them through reading glasses. “It’s right there,” she says, pointing to a display table stacked with books. On the cover, a dragon gives a thumbs-up. Sunshine the Dragon Joins the Circus! “You’re here for the launch, right?”

“We couldn’t wait,” Ben says.

“You and everybody else.” The woman motions behind them. Sarina and Ben turn around. No one is in the doorway.

“Would it bother you if we browsed?” Ben says.

“Very little bothers me.” The woman returns to her knitting.

The bookstore has three large rooms separated by archways. Sarina waits until Ben has chosen a book to sneak a glance at him; he does not like the edition and returns it, stalks through the archway to the other room and picks up another book, then, faking an errand to his right, sneaks a glance at Sarina.

“We’re closing soon,” the woman says.

“Give us a preview,” Ben says. “What’s the dragon do in this one?”

“No previews,” she says. The needles make plastic thwacking sounds.

“Scarf?” Ben guesses.

“Sweater,” she says. “For my cat.”

“Lucky cat,” Ben says.

“He runs away with the circus.”

“Your cat?” says Sarina.

“Sunshine the Dragon.”

“He does not,” Ben says.

“What would be my motivation to shit you? He sells popcorn and funnel cake. His dream is to become a trapeze artist but he’s a dragon so he’s too heavy. His weight would snap the trapeze.”

“Can’t he fly?” Ben says.

The woman approves. “Now you’re using your noggin.”

Ben produces his wallet. “Ring us up for one, please.”

They return to the street.

“Do you think Sunshine the Dragon will learn trapeze?” Sarina says.

“I have a feeling everything is going to be fine.” Ben winks.

Sarina’s blush swells from her neck into her cheeks. They reach the place he knows, a cigar bar in the basement of a restaurant. She no longer cares about the train. She will take a cab. Or sleep in a stairwell on a pile of rats.

“What is going to happen to that little girl?” Ben says.

Sarina knows he means Madeleine, who she hopes is home, sleeping under a heavy blanket. She speaks with an optimism she doesn’t feel. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Mark Altimari stands in the doorway of Madeleine’s bedroom, watching her sleep. Her fists are clenched beneath her chin as if even in dreams she must protect herself against foes.

Corrine, Madeleine’s mother, is in the kitchen, making one of their simple dinners. Mark can hear her distracted singing. Madeleine is three.

Mark wants to drink wine and dance to his new record. He wants to palm his wife’s full rump. He wants to order pizza. But Corrine believes in saving money, in slow meals and something to eat while you’re cooking them. She cuts slices out of a peach while the sauce simmers. Billie Holiday plays. Mark flips through his record collection to select the next album.

They are good at being together. Leaving space. Leaving notes. Bringing home slabs of Locatelli, her favorite cheese. His tangy smell.

They were in the first wave of young couples to settle near Ninth Street, bringing new energy to the Old World market. Mark would have preferred a house in the country but Corrine said the city would be their daughter’s best teacher. They bought a shop and Mark sold handmade cheeses. Corrine manned the cash register and worked at The Courtland Avenue Club at night. They were respectful of the other shop owners, who in some cases had been there for fifty years. Their business grew so Mark bought another shop, across town. Then another. Walking home every night, a wedge of Locatelli or a fistful of lavender tucked into his apron pocket, he tried to shake the dread fortune produced.

Corrine’s knife stills, as if she has detected a kink in the air. “What’s that sound?” she says.

Mark places his nose in the space where her shoulder meets her neck. Steals a slice from the cutting board. “No sound, dear.”

“Listen,” she insists.

Billie Holiday’s voice has been twinned. He looks to the record player for explanation.

“You don’t think,” she says, but interrupts herself to place her finger over her lips. He lowers the volume. Billie’s voice recedes. The other gets louder. It is coming from Madeleine’s bedroom, but it couldn’t be their daughter, who has yet to say her first word. She doesn’t seem interested in talking and trails kids her age in verbal skills.

I hear music, mighty fine music …

A gust of air, a sudden shove. As if all of the house’s atoms had been paused on the brink of propulsion and this is their cue. The silverware drawer bursts out of its track. The forks and spoons rise into the air. The plate lifts, each peach slice orbiting it like a private solar system.

Corrine releases her grip on the knife. It stays in the air. She turns her shocked eyes to Mark.

The singing is unworried and clear. The saucepan lurches, in fits and starts leaving its heated place, skirts the stovetop, and falls to the ground. Corrine lunges to catch it but misses. The sauce ruins itself over her arms. She squeaks and plunges them under the faucet’s cold water.