Part 21 (1/2)

I hear the rustle of bills, and then my mother says, ”Rose Mae will call when she's ready. Shall I turn the cards for you while we wait?”

The tall, milky one laughs, high and nervous, as I come creeping down the stairs. Shovel Face says, ”Why not.”

Halfway down, I can peer between the ceiling and the banister and see the two men sitting at the far end of the room at her reading table. Their backs are to me. My mother is across from them, eyes on the cards, shuffling. She has not lit her white sage candles. She is pale, and I can tell from the set of her mouth that she is more afraid than I am.

My mother says, ”What's your name?”

”John Smith,” says the hard case.

At the same time, the one who doesn't matter says, ”Jamie.”

I am four steps from the bottom now. I train my sights on the back of the hard one's head. My mother looks up from the cards and sees me over his shoulder. Her face flashes relief. She flips a card and says, ”Well, John Smith, I've turned the nine of syphilis.” She flips another. ”Now I've crossed it with the four of herpes. The cards suggest that you stop s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g wh.o.r.es.”

”You b.i.t.c.h,” Shovel Face says, and his chair sc.r.a.pes back as he stands.

”I'm ready for you, John Smith,” I say, sweet-voiced, and he wheels around to face me. He sees the gun, and when he looks into its round, black eyehole, it becomes all he can see. I am colors and vague shapes behind it. I could take my s.h.i.+rt off, and he would not address my prescient nipples now. The gun is the whole of me, and it has his complete attention.

I hear my mother say in a steady, even voice, ”Jamie, who is Gloria?”

Jamie is staring at the gun, too, mouth open, eyes completely round, sitting with his hands resting on the table where I can see them. When my mother speaks, he blinks like he is waking up and says, ”What?”

”Gloria,” my mother says, steady and so calm. ”Who is she?”

”My little sister?” Jamie says, confused.

”Does your baby sister want you out with 'John Smith'? Would she like to know you are paying to use broken young women in such an ugly way, catching their sad diseases?” My mother's voice is the voice of every mother, and Jamie can't look at her or even me. Not even the gun can keep his gaze off the floor.

Jamie mumbles, ”How do you know her name?”

”I'm psychic, you moron,” my mother says, cool, and then, ”Now her phone number is forming... I see a seven. I see... a six? No. A nine.”

Jamie gasps, but I speak only to the hard one: ”I think it's time for you boys to go.”

John Smith is still staring at the gun, but his mouth sets and he says, ”Fine. Give us our money back, you b.i.t.c.hes.”

My mother starts to reach for it, but I smile and say, ”She read the cards exactly right, honey. You got what you paid for.”

My mother stills.

John Smith's initial fear is fading. Now he is calculating odds. He's measuring his brawn and his training against the s.p.a.ce between his body and mine, his body's speed against my steady hands, wrapped around the old revolver. He hasn't a prayer, but he may well be doing the math wrong. He does not know Rose Mae Lolley.

”Or stay,” I say in Rose Mae's voice, and c.o.c.k the pistol. The s.h.i.+ft and click of the metal draws out her pleased and creamy smile. ”Please stay. I'd love for you to stay.”

I am fervent, sincere, and John Smith is suddenly all done here.

They head to the door, Mr. Smith first and Jamie shuffling shamefaced after. I keep the high ground on the stairs, Pawpy's gun trained steady on John Smith's whitewalled head until they pa.s.s me and file outside. The door closes behind them, and my mother runs across the room to draw the dead bolt. Then the gun gets heavy and points itself down, aiming at the floor between my socks. My mother leans her face against the door, sides heaving. I unc.o.c.k the revolver, and at the sound she whirls to face me.

”Are you stupid?” she says.

At the same time I say, ”What was that?”

”That,” she says, ”is not uncommon. More than half the signs for readers are a front for wh.o.r.es. When I I answer the door, johns know this is not a cathouse. But you, three b.u.t.tons on your blouse open, your hair all mussed, you look like an ice cream. When I tell you to get upstairs before a reading, then Rose Mae, you get upstairs.” answer the door, johns know this is not a cathouse. But you, three b.u.t.tons on your blouse open, your hair all mussed, you look like an ice cream. When I tell you to get upstairs before a reading, then Rose Mae, you get upstairs.”

”Ivy,” I say, but with no conviction.

My mother looks from my feet to the gun I've aimed between them to my eyes to the fever I can feel on my cheeks. My heartbeat booms away inside me like the drums of war.

”Ivy,” my mother scoffs. ”Look at you. You are only what you are, Rose Mae.”

I scoff right back, ”Then there must be only Lolley women in the room here, Claire Claire.”

”Don't miss my point,” she says, her voice blade sharp. She stalks slowly toward me, coming up three stairs. She puts her hands over mine on the gun. I cling to it, and we freeze there. ”Look at you,” she says. ”Look at you. Why is your husband still breathing, if you have all this fight in you?”

I shake my head. I have no answer. I tried to shoot him and I failed. Ro tried to live in peace with him and failed. Even now, if it was his head in the crosshairs instead of Mr. Smith's, my hands would not have been so steady. Even now, if he pulled his Thom-suit back on over the monster, showed up with flowers, said, ”Ro, baby, come home...”

I would not go. But I would feel the tug.

My grip weakens as her hands get more insistent. I let her slide Pawpy's gun out of my fingers. She turns away, and I sink down to sit on the stairs.

”What the h.e.l.l is wrong with you?” she asks the gun. There's no safety, so she breaks it expertly into its separate pieces.

”The pin broke,” I say.

”I mean what's wrong with you, all you young women.” She is pacing up and down her parlor, one chunk of gun in each of her waving, angry hands. ”My friend's daughter, she cuts open her own skin to let the bad out. She's a child, barely in high school. What bad can she have in her? Half her little friends are starving themselves, or puking up all their food. It's the same thing, but the starvers say, 'Oh, I could never cut myself like that,' and the cutters say, 'I'd never marry a man who hit me,' but it's all the same thing. You are all killing your stupid, stupid selves.”

I stay slumped on the stairs with no answer for her. I am so tired now. She is still ranting, her voice shaking with anger, as righteous as Ezekiel.

”My ten o'clock today? Bette? You saw her. She can't be more than twenty-five, and she's wider than most walls. She brought cookies with her, for me, she says, and sets the plate between us. She never took a whole cookie, but she sat there pinching bits off one cookie till it was gone, then another, pinch by pinch, until half the plate had been moused away.

”Then she points through the window, to Lilah mooning on the fence outside, and says, 'I don't understand how she can go back to him when he beats her. She might as well put a gun to her own head.' Meanwhile, Bette is so trapped and hemmed by all the fat on her that she can't breathe. She's killing herself, same as my friend's daughter with her razors. Same as Lilah.” She pauses to point at me with one accusing finger, the rest of her hand wrapped around the barrel. ”Same as you.”

I stand up, grabbing the banister and hauling myself to my feet. ”You are no different.”

She snorts in rude denial. ”I earned my new name, Rose.”

”Please,” I say. ”Then how come you can't keep your eyes-or your hands-off that crumpled bit of sc.r.a.p paper I brought over from Alabama?” I am gratified to see how immediately her eyes go to my daddy's note. ”The one true princess of Zen, afraid to read a note.”

”I am not afraid,” she says, but now her righteous indignation has a crack in it.

The doorbell chimes again.

We freeze, then she makes a noise that's halfway between a laugh and a gasp and says, ”That's just Lisa, my next appointment. I'll turn the sign off. You need to-”

”I know the drill,” I say, and head upstairs to my room on shaking legs. I go inside, and the walls seem to have crept in closer to each other while I was downstairs. The furniture in its familiar configuration grates at me. I need to be someplace where there is more air. I turn around and around in my room, panting like Gretel.

I can't stay in here, because this room is full to the roof with the knowledge that my mother is right: I can say that I am Ivy, but I am only what I am. But I also cannot go outside. I feel it in the bones of me. Not because of her rules, or even because the two angry sailors may still be near; my mother's constant warnings must be getting to me. I can't go out, but I can't stand to be trapped in this room with myself just now.