The Sharp Time Part 5

CONSIDER THE CAKES.

Morning has broken like the first morning and all that, but I try not to be happy about Bradley in bed next to me; I try to accept and surrender to a bitter brand of dirty-nursing-home loneliness. I do not want to be bamboozled by flashes of happiness; I must be inured to the world, I must accept the here and now so that I am not perpetually shocked that my mother is never here to snuggle my back, to vex me with a cheery "Fie, slugabed!"

Still, I feel some small satisfaction as I think of Catherine Bennett's broken window, of some tired rookie officer dispatched to her lonely ranch house, how he will go home to his house, kiss his wife and children and be grateful for the bounty that is his life. And I feel the fluted edge of joy as I look over at Bradley, who, like a celibate bridegroom, sleeps on top of the covers in his T-shirt and jeans. His slate-colored oxford shirt is folded carefully on the chair next to the bed; his shoes are lined up next to my bedroom door. Tucked around his shoulders is the red and black quilt my mother made out of an old Halloween ladybug costume. He snores lightly now, the French horn packed away. It seems as if he snores thoughtfully, actually, a certain shushing Masterpiece Theatre yes yes yes I see yes yes yes yes as his breath rises and falls.

It is eight-thirty. My fourth day out. Usually, if your mom-or you-doesn't phone in your absence by noon the school secretary will call, scolding and grinchy: Could we all be a little more considerate? Could we all remember that the teachers need time to fill out missing a.s.signment sheets? But I guess no one is really all that concerned about the timely completion of my biology homework. I guess the jig is pretty much up.

"Doctor," Bradley shouts, his eyes closed. He flails his hands around, chopping up dust motes over his head. The wild dust is lit by the sun shining between the pulled shade and the window. Before he says anything else, the dust shimmies and re-forms into the same glittering gray plank.

"Doctor, I was dreaming that I woke up next to a beautiful woman in a room that smelled of lavender."

This makes my throat catch. The embroidered sachets in my underwear drawer were made by my mother-squares from old pillowcases stuffed with organic lavender and st.i.tched up. She made a big deal of the fact that her sachets were all-organic. As if I were going to eat them or smoke them.

"Doctor," Bradley says softly, opening his eyes wide, and grimacing at me in mock horror. "I had all my clothes on, so I can't say for sure: I think-Mother of G.o.d, don't let it be true!-I think ... she may have taken advantage of me!"

And so he gives any potential awkwardness the boot and the day starts with laughter. And I think how nice it was to spend the night with a boy when we were both fully clothed. Given both the physical and mental residual weirdness of s.e.x, the Buddy Overnight is far superior. Even leaving out the Science-Fair-from-h.e.l.l freak-show quality of s.e.x, there is a calm and certain purity in doing things this way. Maybe the monks have it right.

Bradley and I get out of bed together and say "Mornin', honey!" as if we are a.s.swipes in a Kellogg's commercial. And he doesn't gawk at my room: not at the dust that settles over everything like sugar snow, or the posters or the photographs pinned here and there, or the framed cross-st.i.tch sampler on the wall. He merely asks if he can take a shower.

But then the peace of Christ or whomever flies the coop and I worry about the football stadium-quality cleanliness of the bathroom. I haven't really done much scrubbing since my mother died, and not before then, either. My mother did most of the household ch.o.r.es while I watched TV or wrote in my journal or Web-stalked boys who had done any minor thing to interest me: Matt MacGregor's sublime research paper on F. Scott Fitzgerald led me on a fruitless Google journey that ended at his aunt Amy's Facebook page, filled with status updates about her miniature dachshunds.

While Bradley showers, I wash out a cereal bowl that has been in the dishwasher for days, for weeks, Cocoa Krispies turned to chocolate pebbles with papier-mache. I put English m.u.f.fins on the counter with a jar of peanut b.u.t.ter, a jar of honey that I did not buy. The unheralded world of groceries is my own little BC and AD: I think of how the jar of honey was once in my mother's palm at the farmers' market: Oh, honey, yes, I think we need honey. Sandinista loves honey on her toast. I open the cabinet a final time to check for any other breakfast delicacies for Bradley. I stare at the Trappist jam for a moment-there's just a skin of red fruit left at the bottom of the mason jar-and think of my mother spooning it on her sourdough toast. I take it out and put it next to the jar of honey. The digital clock on the microwave oven says 9:13. If I were at school, I would be in Mrs. Bennett's cla.s.s.

I hope Alecia Hardaway has the flu. I will her to have some mild bug, visualizing her on the family-room couch eating toast and watching cartoons, her nice mother puttering around in the kitchen. I shower while Bradley eats breakfast. I keep the water as boiling hot as I can stand it, so that my skin is roasting, porcine. When I step out of the shower, I towel off the fogged mirror and look at my body. I can count all my ribs.

And the bruise on my ribs where my desk slammed against me is changing colors: it's not so dark now, the outline of Italy is fading into a greenish, blurred boot.

When I look out the bathroom window, I see that Bradley has gone into the backyard to smoke. He's also checking his cell phone and looking up at the sky carefully, as if praying or searching for s.p.a.cecraft. I study him until it feels bad, like I'm spying, and then I blow-dry my hair.

I drive Bradley to work, and when he gets out of the car, he offers up a guttural "Baby, that was terrific. I'll give you a call sometime." And so there is more laughter and the day lights up, clear sunshine and still some snow on the ground, the air fresh as spearmint. But the second he's gone into the Pale Circus-why did Henry Charbonneau give me a day off, the last thing I need is a day off-and I'm idling in my car on Thirty-Eighth Street, I start feeling my feelings, as my mother always advised me to do.

My feelings are not so hot.

My feelings are that Catherine Bennett has won at some crazy game that I didn't realize I was going to have to play. My feelings are that a granite toad tossed through a window is a lame-a.s.s gesture that barely const.i.tutes revenge. My feelings are that Jesus himself would not be all turn-the-other-cheekesque about Catherine Bennett, that he'd kick it like: Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me, so don't be so lame and let Alecia Hardaway s-u-u-ffer....

I cannot shake this off.

But what else is there to do except drive home with these bad feelings and attend to the business of the day?

Back at home, I do the breakfast dishes. I cannot remember to buy the soap pellets or the little liquid gel-packs for the dishwasher, so I take all the dishes out of the dishwasher and wash them campfire-style, sans stars, sans s'mores, just water and the pan and the bubbles. I sweep the kitchen floor and come away with dustpans full of fluff and detritus. I sc.r.a.pe the last of the Trappist jam out of the jar with a spoon and slam it into the trash. I eat an Almond Joy.

I find my social security check in an avalanche of mail and then drive to Target, where I cash it at the in-store bank and buy tampons, dental floss, toothpaste, Monistat for my recurring yeast infection, and toilet paper: all the products that used to magically appear on the bathroom shelves. Well, what had I thought? That tampons were a perpetually replicating species, packed cotton peeking out from the slit end of the plastic applicator, coquettish and looking for a suitable mate?

While driving back home I realize I have forgotten my cell phone at Target. Of course I have, because I'm not paying attention. This could be far worse; I could have left, say, my gun at Target, resting on a display of Brawny paper towels. But no, it's safely tucked away in my glove box and of course I didn't take the gun in the store with me, but attention deficit disorder makes all things possible and I make a mental note to be careful about where I take it, where I leave it. (The gun isn't loaded, of course-I have no idea how to insert the bullets.) And so then I drive back and customer service does have my phone, some kind soul has turned it in, and so I'm a little buzzed on the good luck of that, but I come home to no new messages on my machine.

I stand in the living room holding my Target bags, reeling from no call no love no nada zilcherino from the school. I'm wondering how much longer I will be able to take my mother's absence and my chest feels like it is stuffed with bricks.

I turn on the computer and I surf the Web and I crank up one of my mom's old Clash CDs and do some deep breathing exercises. But I really can't take the house-the silence, the sadness-shriveled aloe plants in their terra cotta pots and ancient postcards on the fridge-GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU, a rueful Jack Kerouac cradling a black and white cat, Carson McCullers with her sad eyes and fetching bob. Mostly the silence of the phone means that I am out of here.

I work out some hippie philosophy: I will know where I'm going once I get there. I avoid the school-a feat that takes some kind of Zen-master stoicism-and I drive downtown.

I cruise aimlessly.

I am Miss Global Warming! Instead of a sash and crown, I will wear a clever smokestack beret and string empty gas cans into an avant-garde necklace. Because I crave motion: I need forward motion. When I drive down Thirty-Eighth Street I am both relieved and embarra.s.sed to see Bradley beneath the striped awning, inscrutable behind his vintage Ray-Bans. When he sees me, he breaks into a huge goofy smile. He walks out to meet me as I slow down and lower the pa.s.senger window.

"Sandinista!" He takes off his shades and squats down by the car door so we are eye level. "What are you doing here? Do you need some booze or chocolate?"

"I need neither booze nor chocolate, young man," I say, my voice dramatic as that of a 1940s heroine in a trim wool suit.

Bradley smiles. He points to St. Joseph's at the end of the street. "Do you have a boyfriend at the monastery? Or do you have some business at the p.a.w.nshop?" Bradley slips into a Deliverance accent. "Are you downtown fixing to p.a.w.n wedding rings to get ole Billy Joe John Jerry out of jail?"

"No, no, none of that. I'm checking up on you. Once a boy spends the night with me I turn into a total psycho stalker. Word to the wise."

Bradley smiles at an invisible TV camera somewhere in the distance, and in the jangly ba.s.s of a game-show host he says, "You'll always remember your first stalker: the letters, the calls, the restraining orders, the inevitable purchase of pepper spray and a pistol." He leans closer, resumes his regular voice. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm good. I just had some errands to run, and so, you know ..."

A glimmering black Cadillac Escalade pulls up in front of the Pale Circus. Three boys wearing black wool capes, dark lipstick and nail polish swoop out of the car.

Bradley smiles. "And I'm off to battle the suburban goths."

"Word to Count Dracula," I say.

As I pull away, he gives the trunk of my car a pat and heads back into the Pale Circus. I close the window and crank up the heat. As I'm lighting a cigarette I hear rap music, loud as sirens, flooding the street, and then a Volvo wagon parks in front of Erika's Erotic Confections. Two white college-age guys get out of the car, trailed by the sounds of Common and Kanye West: I got two kids and my baby mama late, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. They go into Erika's Erotic Confections, the car engine still running, the song still pumping-I did what I had to did cuz I had the kid, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh.

I cruise around the block. My cigarette is not even smoked halfway down when the guys walk out of the shop with a large rectangular white bakery box tied with peppermint-striped ribbon. They are laughing and jostling around so much that I have the visual image of the warning sign at every swimming pool, even the bold black letters, the no-nonsense exclamation point: NO HORSEPLAY! But the cake is not dropped. They gently set it in the back of the wagon and exchange a high five. Then a fist b.u.mp. The hems of their long wool coats swing out and kiss as they turn away from each other and get back into the front seat. There's the rev of the engine-in the Volvo it comes out as a controlled keening: ohhh, ohhh, ohhh-and they're off.

I crush out my cigarette in the ashtray and enjoy the after-effect: brisk nicotine air in the safety of my car. And then because I don't have anywhere else to go and I'm a little hungry for something sweet I decide to brave it: I park my car and make my own trip to Erika's Erotic Confections. The door is galvanized steel with an ominous peephole at eye level. But inside, the walls are painted a deep mango, the floors tiled in black and white squares like a tropical soda shoppe. The air smells sweetly of batter, but beneath it a chemical note: the smell of industrial cleanser, of freshly mopped hospital floors. And from behind the counter: Erika. Her Cloroxed flattop has grown into a bob, colored to a bright cherry cola. She wears false eyelashes and an emerald on a sliver hoop strung through her left nostril.

"Hey there, you," she calls out, as if genuinely happy to see me.

Me?

"Oh, hey," I say.

Erika stands at a long wooden table, surrounded by pastry bags, bowls of frosting and a huge cake.

"How's it goin'?" She has a pastry bag in hand, its metal tip sprouting a flourish of sea-foam-green icing.

"Not too bad, not too bad at all," I say, my voice bizarre with exaggerated casualness. Going closer, my heels striking the pretty tile like a teacup poodle tap tap tapping across the room, I can see what Erika is working on: a cake of a nude woman who has the body of a Playboy centerfold.

"I'll be with you in just one second." Erika squints and puts both hands around the pastry bag.

At first I think she's frosting ankle socks on the naked cake. But really, my eyes adjusting as if to bright sunshine, I see now that Erika is icing on a pair of sea-foam-green panties pulled down to the cake's ankles.

Jesus, I think, what company makes that cake pan? I feel my face warm and redden and know that I am the lamest of the lame: a cake is making me blush.

"There." Erika puts the pastry bag down. "Can I help you, hon?"

Her tone is sweet, as if she knows I am not here to gawk at the erect marzipan p.e.n.i.s standing sentry next to the cash register, nor to flip through the photo alb.u.m of graphic gateaux on the counter.

"Um ... well, I'm just looking around a little."

"You are?" Erika widens her eyes and smiles.

"Well, I had a chocolate from here one time ... it was really excellent."

"Oh! Thanks for telling me."

I try to train my eyes away from the marzipan p.e.n.i.s, but Erika sees me stealing a quick look.

"My next project is to make a marzipan p.e.n.i.s that e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es money."

I snort out a real laugh. "Coins or bills?"

Erika smiles. "The fountain effect of gold coins showering down would be pleasing, but rolled bills would be easier, architecturally.

"I'm Erika." She holds out her hand, and we shake. I don't know why I'm surprised that she has a mother's hand, a palm with the flaking roughness of someone who washes dishes.

"I'm Sandinista."

Erika nods, resolute. "Well, of course you are. Sandinista! Who else would you ever be?" She stares off for a moment. "G.o.d, that's a good alb.u.m: Sandinista!"

She walks to the front cooler and pulls out a tray of triangular dark chocolates dusted with a yellow veneer of crystal sugar. "Names are funny, right? How they reveal a thing or two about your lineage? I have a friend named Flannery. Are her parents retired English professors?" Erika smacks one hand to her forehead, feigning shock. "Why, yes, they are."

She holds out the tray.

"Oh, they're so gorgeous!"

"Banana curry robed in fair-trade Venezuelan chocolate." Erika rolls her eyes. "I'm working on my website. Trying to stop whoring myself out with the t.i.ttie cakes. Try one! On the house."

"Thanks," I say. I pop one in my mouth and it's warm and sweet and savory, comforting but also interesting, like you hope the world will be.

"Wow ... my G.o.d ... these ... are ... just ..." I tear up a little, thinking of my mother telling me how we would eat nothing but chocolate when we traveled through Switzerland on our big trip: Fondues! Ingots! Bricks and bars of chocolate! We would drink only chocolate, too: hot, with shots of espresso.

"Thanks." Erika gives me a curious, concerned look, and then walks behind the counter with the tray, takes three chocolates from the plate and arranges them in a little white bakery box. She bothers to tie it up with a peppermint-striped ribbon before handing it to me.

As I reach for my purse, Erika makes a disgusted click sound with her tongue. Cllllllk! "Jesus, I can't really expect you to pay for something you didn't ask for, Miss Sandinista."

And I'm thinking how that's not always the case, when she says, "My treat. You work at the Pale Circus, right?"

"Yes. I'm new."

She smiles. "I know. I saw you filling out your job application on the bench Monday morning. And smoking under the awning with Bradley on Tuesday. You went into Arne's shop after work that day. Wednesday, Henry Charbonneau came into work; you and Bradley went to lunch."

"You're right!"

And then she reads my mind.

"No, I'm not a stalker. Most people just come to Thirty-Eighth Street for liquor, p.o.r.no sweets, p.a.w.ned jewelry, pretty vintage clothes, jam, or Jesus. So a new person taking a job on this street is pretty notable here."

"Sure!"

She smiles. "I sort of work at the Pale Circus, too. As their chocolatier. Henry gave me my first order back when I opened up a few years ago."

"Of course! The candy next to the cash register. Your chocolates are so gorgeous.... They don't last long. People are so delighted by them."

"Thanks. They're all-organic. I usually bring them in first thing every morning. I don't make the circus peanuts. Henry buys them by the case at Costco. Cheap b.a.s.t.a.r.d." She winks at me and picks up her pastry bag. "Back to work!"

"Thanks so much for the candy." I turn to leave and notice that Erika sells the jams from the monastery. There they are in a pyramid on the counter, achingly red jams and jellies in mason jars: chokecherry, raspberry, b.u.mbleberry and strawberry. Their gift tags display a crucified Jesus and the words LOVE AND PRAYERS TO YOU FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT ST. JOSEPH'S MONASTERY. Next to the jams is a display of chocolate b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Juxtaposition, I think, my brain pleased to have floated out a fat, smart word, but shouldn't I be in school learning some others?

I wave good-bye to Erika, but when I have one hand on the door, she waves me back in.

"One more thing." She c.o.c.ks her head and squints down at the cake, the rows of perfect sea-foam rosettes that create the pulled-down panties.

"Isn't this absurd, Sandinista?" She waves her hands over the cake, the large vanilla b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the frosted pink nipples as big as mini-m.u.f.fins. "What pa.s.ses for high humor at the frat parties these days. Hoo-hoo-hoo! So funny."

I nod, sympathetic-Right?-as if I have ever been to a fraternity or bachelor party, as if I am some feminist sister in the know.

Erika is squinting her eyes, as if observing me from a great distance. "Want to see something, Sandinista?"

Uh-oh. Right away I can tell I do not want to see anything at all. I'm no fan of the awkward social encounter, but what can I do?

And so my own big smile is pure propriety, as is my starling chirp: "I sure would!"

Erika reaches to a shelf underneath the table and pulls out a can of Comet. She shakes the cleanser over a bowl of frosting next to the cake. Nothing. She frowns, and then pats the can with her palm. A cloud of dust puffs out, and then granules of pale green cleanser shower into the bowl. Erika coughs. And next there is the comforting whirr of the hand mixer, the seconds where talking would be futile. Uh-oh. When she turns off the mixer, she tilts the bowl so I can see: the frosting has turned a more saturated shade of pale sea-foam green.

"Wow," I say.

She smiles. "Cool, right?"

I match her brightness: "Well ... yeah! Very!"

"I use a s.h.i.tload of Splenda in the frosting; it covers any taste. Artificial sweeteners are pure magic. Though they might give us cancer. Just use sugar in your coffee drinks if you like them sweet, okay?"

I nod. "That's what I use. Just sugar."

Her brow furrows while she works, whipping a spatula through the frosting. I'm thinking that the Comet might be a more immediate concern than the whole, um, cancer thing. Erica seems pretty crazy, but what's a gal to do, what's a gal to do. I know not. I can pay attention and that's it, that's all I can do.... I can study Erika and her poisoned icing until Catherine Bennett floats into the shop, shouting, What does this cake taste like to you, Alecia? What flavor is in the cake? Yoo-hoo, Alecia! Are you paying attention?