Fearless (43 page)

She knew how to stop him from running. She knew what he needed. She didn’t even like to think about what she understood because it made so little sense to her outside of knowing Max and it was a mortal sin, against everything she had been taught and believed herself.

Well, whatever she decided she had to phone Manny.

Her husband answered on the first ring. “Hello?” Manny said in the slightly hushed and cautious tone of a child calling into a dark room. When she answered he came to. There was an angry snap to his tone. “Where are you!”

“I’m with Max.”

“What!”

“Listen to me—”

“You listen to me! You come—”

“Shut up, Manny, or I’m going to hang up on you,” she said in a calm but rapid tone. “Either I’ll come home tomorrow morning and I’ll be your wife or I won’t and you won’t have to see me ever again. But I owe him my time tonight. You can like it or not. If you don’t want me to come home tomorrow no matter what, tell me now.”

In the silence that followed her demanding question she heard him breathe through his nose. The inhalations and exhalations were fast and getting quicker as if he were blowing up a balloon. “You’re crazy,” he said abruptly and said no more.

“Manny, I need an answer. Do you want me to bother to come back or not?”

She heard him breathing fast again and then he made a sound that could have been a groan of disgust or a moan of pain. After that the line went dead.

Carla hung up angrily. She tossed the receiver onto the cradle. It made a racket and fell off. She replaced it carefully this time and then tiptoed to the bedroom to check on Max. He had rolled onto his back. His head was turned in her direction, but the eyes were shut. His mouth hung open in a mute plea. His right arm stretched across the bed onto the empty side. The hand reached into the air for help. His position reminded her of something but she couldn’t identify it. She returned to the sitting room. The furniture was big and heavy. Even the drapes that hung beside the glittering city views weighed a ton. The carpet was so thick it swallowed the curved feet of the chairs and coffee table. She felt alone. Not lonely. But isolated.

She dropped to her knees. They sank into the thick rug. She hadn’t prayed outside of church since she was a girl. And she prayed for something new. She prayed for Him to explain Himself.

There was no answer or comfort this time. The calm she was used to feeling afterwards—even for only a few seconds—didn’t descend. Rising, she was as alone as when she knelt.

“When you don’t feel He is with you,” Monsignor O’Boyle had said to her months ago, while she was in the dense fog of her grief, “then He is
in
you, waiting for you to bring Him forth. He wants you to choose Him.”

She hadn’t understood that. It sounded sneaky if true and she didn’t believe it anyway. While stuck in despair she knew He was there every minute. During her madness she believed He had killed her baby. After all, she had neglected Him once Bubble was born. For the two years of her baby’s life, filled by the happiness of being a mother, she had even forgotten He lived. She believed He had punished her for that sin; and she had hated Him for it. She went to Old Saint Pat’s in those days, she now realized, hoping to forgive
Him
—not to be granted forgiveness.

He had been merciful. He had sent Max, with his bravery and his love, to save her from madness.

But to do what?

Now where was He?

What game was He playing with Max?

Max had done His bidding, saving those He wanted saved. Was Max being humbled because his pride wouldn’t allow him to acknowledge the Lord? Or was this another part of Max’s saintliness—his martyrdom?

No. Max’s unhappiness was aimed at her. The Monsignor was right. Christ was hiding
in
her, behind these choices, ready to greet her if she chose correctly. And do what if she chose wrong?

Was she afraid of Him? Yes.

Was that what He wanted? Fear? Was that the purpose of the crash? Did He want her to be afraid?

She thought if Max believed in his family again then he would be all right. Of course Carla would lose him; even as merely a friend she would inevitably lose him once he was truly back with his family. Was that the point? Was that her lesson? That she had to return her angel or He would destroy Max? Just as He had destroyed Bubble because she had loved her baby too much?

She held her head with her hands and pressed as if she could squeeze these ideas out of her skull. It didn’t help. She moved to the cool glass of the window and watched the black park. It was infiltrated by the snaking headlights of cars, moving up and down its length and across its middle toward a city that was dark and alien.

She was afraid.

Afraid of sin? Afraid of love? No.

Afraid of God. That was His lesson.

She was thrilled. Doubt left her. The fear was keen, but she wasn’t cowed.

All her life she had relied on others to teach her, to explain what was right and wrong. She could fight them or could obey—she had never solved a mystery for herself.

She undressed in front of the window, a slice of cold cutting her thighs, her head warmed by the radiator blowing hot air.

Once she was naked she felt strong. She went to the sleeping Max and lay beside him, curving into the curl of his body.

Still asleep he embraced her. His clothes were cool but his face was hot. His soft hands moved slowly and lightly down her back as if they were creating, not feeling, her shape. She kissed his cheek. The eye she could see opened. The pale blue circle focused on her; her legs tingled in response. His eye was smart and cold and wary. She kissed nearer to his mouth. His lips parted. They were dry. She dabbed them with her own moist lips. Max’s hands molded her arched back, skimming her skin, beginning to form her buttocks. The whisper of his touch brought each nerve alive.

“I’m thirsty,” he whispered.

She slid up onto the pillows and brought his head to her neck. She pushed him down. His mouth closed on her nipple. He was so gentle the touch could hardly be felt at first. A hot wet drop—his tongue—circled the nipple until it hardened. Then he sucked steadily and evenly with the patient greed of a baby.

She cupped the back of his head and gradually turned him onto his back, keeping her breast at his mouth. She peered down at him and saw he looked blissful. All of her came awake, her skin stretching into life. She moved his head to the crook of her arm, unbuttoned his shirt and then edged down to open his pants. Max broke off feeding and kissed her underarm, her shoulder, burrowed into her neck, insistent and loving. She reached below and took hold of his yearning penis.

I’ve fed this big baby, Carla said to God, and now I’m going to take the man into my womb.

22

Max woke alone. He heard the shower running in the bathroom. He yawned and dominated the bed, stretching his arms and legs until he nearly reached all four corners. Outside it was a bright sunny morning and his body had a conviction that he was young again.

They had made love twice, after their nap and then after their late dinner—a romantic meal served in their sitting room. Max drank more than half a bottle of wine and it didn’t make him draggy or gloomy. In fact, he felt more vigorous. When they went to bed again he explored Carla’s lean supple body thoroughly, wishing to memorize every detail, because she had told him, over coffee, that it would be their last time together.

She had an exciting body, and not only because of her figure; it had energy and tension even when she lay perfectly still. Her physical responses were the same as her emotional responses—direct and passionate.

She had been blunt about why this would be their final time together. “You have a family, Max. They need you. I have a husband. He needs me.”

Max felt simple. He wondered aloud, “How do you know?”

“Anyone can tell that a wife and son would miss someone like you, Max,” she said. They were having strawberries and cream for dessert. Max had tasted one of the strawberries, but he left it unfinished because it wasn’t sweet enough. Carla ate them as though they were delicious. She cocked her head back and sucked the berry in most of the way before biting off a piece. “And Jeff’s children. They need you.”

“Jeff’s boys?” Max didn’t know why she thought of them; he didn’t think he had even mentioned them to her once.

“I know it isn’t fair, Max, but you gotta take care of them too. He was your partner. And you loved him.”

Max hesitated at her saying he loved Jeff. He had been about to dismiss her directive to take care of Jeff’s children when she said it. Max heard Jeff’s hurt tone answer him at the airport, “
We’re not second-rate, Max
.” And what had he added? “
At least you’re not, Max
.”

“You loved him, Max,” Carla said again. “And you miss him.”

This made him feel grief. He thought of his partner’s greyhound head, buying cheap tickets and worrying about the security of his wife and sons. He remembered his own pleasure at informing Jeff that they were going to die. He covered his face and wept into his hands.

She left the strawberries, pulled his hands away, and dried his tears with her kisses.

After that, they went to bed again. He had watched her skin meticulously—peering at every pore—desperate to memorize her forever.

When Carla came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel Max was still stretched out on the bed like Christ crucified. Her long black hair was flat against her head and down her neck, painted onto her shoulders. He had expected the morning would make her less beautiful, but she looked prettier than ever to him in the Plaza towel, rubbing at her drowned hair, and smiling with those big white teeth.

“Good morning,” she said as if it were a joke.

“How do you know Manny needs you?” Max said, resuming the previous night’s argument. He wasn’t ready to give her up.

“You don’t know him,” she said. She stopped smiling and moved toward her clothes, draped on an ugly wing chair by the window.

“They might be happier without us,” Max said, rising to his elbows.

“Maybe,” Carla said. She had picked up her red panties. She dropped the towel and quickly put them on, with hasty modesty. “But we won’t.”

Max tried to remember what had already been concealed: her whitest skin, the cheeks of her taut ass; the deep silky black V of her groin; the flat tender skin of her belly. While he made that effort more was lost. She had put her stockings on; her bra; her pale blue blouse.

“I can be happy with you, Carla,” Max argued.

“No, Max,” she said. “Think about it. You almost went crazy when you tried to run off with me. You want to be free and brave, Max, but you can’t be free of your duty to your people. Every time you try to get free of people you just get stuck to another. Like that kid you saved on the plane. Or that blond woman who came to that meeting—on a plane for Chrissake—just ’cause she might meet you.” She had finished dressing. She looked small—a young pretty Catholic girl—a stranger. “Or me.” She smiled and moved her feet together, coming to attention. “You ain’t never gonna be free of the people who love you. I’ll come see you from time to time. But no more of this good stuff.” She nodded at the bed and grinned for a second. “I got to go home now. I won’t be talking to you for a while. And don’t call me, okay? I got to make peace with my husband.”

“Wait.” Max scrambled out of bed. The looseness and strength in his body wasn’t an illusion. She had healed him somehow.

“No, no,” she pushed at his chest with both hands. They felt little and cool. “Don’t make me cry. I’m happy,” she said and he saw tears begin to well. “I don’t want to cry. Let’s say goodbye like it isn’t goodbye.”

Max saw she was determined. Nevertheless, he insisted, “I don’t want to.”

“Yes.” She touched his chest with her index finger where she imagined his heart was. “In there you do. Come on,” she moved off, almost skipping out, “say goodbye like it means nothing.” She left the room. Her voice called back. “Bye, Max. See you.”

He didn’t answer. He refused to acknowledge her going. The room felt empty. It looked ugly. She had opened the drapes before taking a shower and he could see all of the leafless park, a huge artificial rectangle of dead brown things.

“Please, Max,” she called from the sitting room. “Be nice.”

“Goodbye, Carla,” he said quickly, but not quickly enough. His voice caught on the last syllable of her name and they could both hear the choked noise of his loss as she shut the door behind her.

Carla walked home, despite the cold gray weather. She wanted to be outside and see all the people and stores and buildings. She went down Fifth Avenue, dignified and wealthy at midtown, seedier below Forty-second, and a mess south of Twenty-third because of repairs on something that had exploded underneath the street. She cried—or rather her eyes teared—for part of the journey. But although her heart was sad, it was also an easy load to carry. She didn’t feel she had lost Max; at least not the angel who had saved her. She had lied, of course, about them being able to talk eventually. If what she had done was right, if she had solved His mystery, then Max would be well again and soon forget her. That was not a loss: she had regained herself and what Max had given her she would always have.

When she reached Mulberry she went into Old Saint Pat’s and lit a candle for Bubble. She would never go to confession to be absolved for last night’s sin—that would have broken the agreement with Him. Instead she knelt and prayed to Him to allow her to conceive another child.

The Monsignor happened by and waited for her by the door. He looked at her curiously and said, “Hello, Carla. You’re looking very fit.”

“Hello, Monsignor. Did you get my message? I wanted to find out if I could volunteer for work at the Foundling Hospital.”

“I already gave them your name and phone number.” He chuckled. “You’re certainly going to be hearing from them.” He followed her down the steps to the street; she watched him negotiate the steps warily. “Did you hear the news about Pierre Toussaint? He’s a candidate for sainthood. The committee’s going to exhume his body next month. Cardinal O’Conner himself will preside. He’s going to bless the grave and dig the first shovelful. It’s very exciting. Toussaint is the first black candidate for sainthood in America.”