John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

“Nonie, hey, please. Let’s like, get away for a minute and talk.”

On the screen, the wall paintings appeared to tremble. Behind her the wife’s talk took on an edge, c’mon honey, the slide. Nonie got hold of her skirt, pinching the Inca trim.

“This poor man. When Alden told me about him, all I could think was, the whole thing’s corrupt. It’s like some unstoppable force in history, every time you think you’ve got a nice setup, that’s exactly what kills you. Alden told me that first, the man’s marriage fell apart. And then he tried to lose himself in his work, like your work is supposed to be a nice setup, right? Your work is supposedly something you can fall back on. But everybody at work was whispering—“

The screen burst white, then black. Something crashed, someone shouted. “Stop! Just please stop!”

Nonie took a poke, one of the kids. She humped round the space heater, the grate scratched her goosebumps. And when she caught her breath her nose was full of dust. In the sudden dark the floor draft seemed colder. Still Nonie was happy, she was delirious, she choked but had to laugh. There were shoots of fresh nerve up through her temples, too alive to be kept down any longer. This time Stanley wouldn’t be the only one to tumble. Also she’d take down this troop who’d forced her to play the handmaiden. Sick family, sick house. First they had to fall, then they would fly. Already the scene appeared all flakes and trails, coated with smoke — she was blinking, fighting for air while her eyes adjusted. The kids tussled, the little girl crying and flailing away with her open stamp box. The projector had been knocked off the coffee table and the table itself had gone over. Lucy was on hands and knees, going after the white blots of spilled slides. The father stumbled past the fallen furniture. He came for Nonie.

“Are you crazy?” he said. “Stop! Just stop!”

Her skirt in her fist, she braced herself for what she had to say next. She’d scream if she had to. It was the word that would set off the permanent upsuck, the truth that would liberate them all at last: her and Alden in the Model Motel on 99W. They called Sunset to make sure they had a free hour. They fed quarters to the TV so they could find a soundtrack.

But—“Easy babe, easy.” Stanley was the first one to her. The cold had gotten to his hands, but his breath was still sour with coffee.

“Nonie, baby, please. We really have to talk. It isn’t like you think.”

What was he doing here? Stanley should be fading from her life by now. He should be cringing before the truth, pulling together a raft of tough-guy dressup and getting set to ride off on the shock waves. Nonie felt something under her haunch, one of Posey’s stamps, and she pinched it against the floor deliberately. The pain would help her concentrate. Plus Anthony Marcella stood over her. His liquor glass was iron in this light, and he was still trying to push them around: Tell her I didn’t come out to the damn woods to hear this shit.

“I want my Mommy! I want my Mommy!”

Posey. The screams were so loud they echoed up the heater’s chimney-pipe. The girl had broken free of her brother and sat bawling in the middle of the floor. Lucy was coming for her, crawling, murmuring. But Posey shot to her feet and backed into the entryway.

“Not you, not you . I want my real Mommy.”

“Now, darling—“

“Don’t you call me darling! Only my real, true Mommy can call me darling!”

The loudest yet. The girl swayed in the entryway with arms bent up for a hug, her lips huge and strange again. Over her empty hands the street lights fluttered in the door’s ornamental window, twisted brown butterflies. Her hoarse outcry was too much for a body so small.

“Only my real true Mommy! My real true Mommy!”

The father went down on his knees. He left his glass behind, it rolled weightless into Nonie’s toes. Poor little lost princess baby…Nonie didn’t catch the rest. She dropped her chin, her face was burning.

“Your Papa hasn’t seen his babies in three months, Posey princess girl. Your Papa was just so nervous about seeing his babies again.”

“Now darling,” Lucy said. “Don’t make yourself crazy.”

The father didn’t respond. The good father: in his arms the girl was shrinking already. Alcohol, what a freakish mix. It roughed up the man’s talk but warmed his embrace. Lucy kept trying: it was good for the kids to see the whole story, they should know about the rough stuff. Anthony wasn’t even looking. He waved for the boy to join him and Posey, big elbow-and-shoulder gestures across the entryway. Tonto had gone for cover behind the screen. Nonie’s face was burning, it was singing.

“Nonie, Stanley.” Lucy got a light beside the couch. “Guys, I mean — you two have seen worse, right? Like Nonie said, you’ve seen a lot worse. It’s just you didn’t know how that gossip can get to Anthony.”

Stanley let go of Nonie’s hand. She hid it in her lap.

“I mean, that gossip.” Lucy shook her head. “You guys picked up on how nervous we were, right? Every time I laughed, I about made myself crazy.”

Stanley. The way he hooked his elbows round his knees left his shoulders perfectly level. Whatever Lucy and Anthony were doing here, he said, it was cool with him. Nonie frowned and kept blinking, she was red-faced. She squirmed against the toy under her butt. But the table that faced her — it wasn’t going anywhere. The same false oak she’d known since childhood, same dull crisscross of notches and scars. The projector’s tinker-toy engine still whirred. Somebody had saved the guacamole and set it in the corner of the sofa. Only the slides had gone far.

She had a toy under her brains , that was the problem. She’d actually believed in the game.

Lucy was still smiling, though her tone had changed. “Well hold on, we’re not just having some fling in the woods. Anthony left his wife for me.”

Nonie stood. In the blood-rush the people at her feet turned to sketches and dust, the fallen slides multiplied like infection. Nothing she couldn’t handle: she’d been high for centuries. She focussed on the doorway. The huddle there was too big to get around, the father had both kids now. She tried to muster some excuse: I’m sorry…

“Oh, don’t be too hard on yourself,” Lucy said.

There was something complicated in the woman’s shrug, something like pulling rank. But Nonie couldn’t get caught up in the geisha thing again. Stanley clambered to his feet beside her. Saying yeah, Nonie. Yeah, I think I need a breather too. And he tottered once he was up. It shook the floor, he was still in his biker boots. Judging from his eyes, he couldn’t even make it to Main Street. But then what had the man ever had to give away except lies? He served up such stories you didn’t notice the meal had grown cold; he designed holding patterns for two. She’d mistaken that skill for strength; he was fifteen years older.

God, God — what was Nonie doing feeling sorry? Feeling sympathy for the man, feeling warmth. It couldn’t be real. All the worst of today’s tricks had come from within.

“Nones, a little talk. Please.” He was whispering now. “It’s not like you think.”

“Oh you don’t have to go,” Lucy said. “Honestly, we’ll all be fine if you just stay away from the gossip.”

Nonie was backing off, nudging round the space heater. She spread her other hand against Stanley’s ribs. A little talk would only be more of the same. She’d been bouncing off the walls of his talk for centuries. Stanley bent his head closer, his pretty furred head. The spider again.