Part 12 (1/2)
Lenore slipped a clean dress over her head. ”When does this night to remember begin?”
Candy looked at the clock just as it clicked and buzzed a new minute. ”Any time now. I'm just going to go over to his place for dinner, then I imagine we'll mate like animals for hours and hours and hours.”
”A real romantic,” said Lenore. ”Jesus wept, Vlad the Impaler. The sins of the fathers. I shall not want.”
”Jesus shall not want.”
”Attaboy.”
”I'm still waiting to hear about Rick, you know, mating-wise.” Candy called from back in her room. ”It's been months, after all, and if he's as super as you say ... I'm waiting for minute anatomical tale-telling. Otherwise you'll just force me to find out for myself.”
”Yes, well, ummm.” Lenore put on clean socks.
”Just kidding. But really, we are partners in crime after all. And describing one can make you feel closer to it. I mean him. Really. Angles and bends and birthmarks and everything. It makes you intimater.” Candy came in, in a pale old violet cotton dress that had been Lenore's for a long time, and was just perfectly too small for Candy, and clung to the not insignificant swell of her hips. She knelt at the window in the shadow and put mascara on, looking at her reflection in the black lower rectangle of the clear gla.s.s pane. Outside, crickets were starting.
”Making me come. Me as a person,” said Vlad the Impaler. ”Where is that ditzy b.i.t.c.h?”
”Sorry about that.”
”May I please have a ride to Rick's? I left my car at the Building.” Lenore finished tying her shoes and brushed out the curves of her hair. ”I think Vlad the Impaler's going to be OK food-wise. He must not be eating much.”
”Yes you may have a ride. Listen, you going to water that plant, or what?”
”It's like an experiment.”
”The sins of the feathers!” screamed Vlad the Impaler. ”Who has the book?”
”What book?” Lenore asked Candy.
”Search moi. Listen, I'm late. Shall we.”
”Yes. Good night, Vlad the Impaler.”
”Love has no meaning. Love is a meaningless word to me.”
”Maybe we could get him on 'Real People.' ”
” 'Real Birds.' ”
”Thanks again for this dress. It may get tom, I'm warning you now.”
”People should have wedding nights like your breakups.”
”Women need s.p.a.ce, need s.p.a.ce!”
”Are you bothered by speculations about whether it bothers me that you never tell me you love me?”
”Maybe sometimes.”
”Well you shouldn't be. I know you do, deep down. Deep down I know it. And I love you, fiercely and completely-you do believe that.”
”Yes.”
”And you love me.”
”It's not a problem. I know you do. Please don't let it bother you.”
”Thank you for telling me the Grandmother news. I apologize for being a pain in the a.s.s at dinner. I apologize for Norman.”
”Well, G.o.d, I wanted to tell you. Except I don't really even feel like it's telling. You tell facts, you tell things. These weren't things, they're just a collection of weirdnesses.”
”Even so. Are you bothered by the book being gone, too?”
”The book is a problem, Lenore. The book is your problem, in my opinion. Hasn't Jay said you're simply investing an outside thing with an efficacy to hurt and help and possess meaning that can really come only from inside you? That your life is inside you, not in some book that makes an old woman's nightie sag?”
”How do you know what Jay's told me?”
”I know what I'd tell you in his place.”
”Be legitimately concerned about a relative who'll turn up with a Mediterranean tan and a terse explanation from your father, Lenore. Is all.”
”You fill me up, Rick, you know. You turn me inside out.”
”Pardon me?”
”You turn me inside out. When we .. you know. What we just did.”
”I fill you up?”
”You do.”
”Well thank you.”
”A story, please.”
”A story.”
”Please. Did you get any today?”
”Oh, yes.”