Skinny Legs and All (43 page)

She smiled again and looked him over. She had acquaintances (at that point in her life she really had no friends) who would complain that he was
ongepotchket
, if they could define or pronounce it, but the artist in her approved of sartorial excess, and the woman in her saw past it. Still smiling, she said, “I’ll be right back.”

In her closet, she put on the shoes. And took off the kimono.

Her worry that Spike might be flustered, shocked, even repulsed, proved groundless. In the thirty years since his wife had decamped, he’d lain only with prostitutes, Upper West Side call girls, to be exact, so when Ellen Cherry appeared in the bedroom doorway naked—"nekkid,” rather—except for the Kenneth Cole shoes, he responded in a direct, systematic, and no-nonsense manner. Well, there was some nonsense, but it came later. And for the moment, she was completely content to dispense with conversation and foreplay. They just weren’t necessary.

With the same fluid motions with which he was said by Abu to serve a tennis ball and then backhand its return, Spike removed his clothing, every last
ongepotchket
of it. Then he led her to the bed, laid her down, spread her legs (to which the pink pumps were still affixed), and gracefully mounted her.

The cries of her initial orgasm resounded in the room almost immediately. In her underwear drawer, the panties tittered knowingly and teased Master Daruma, who rejoined with sagacity, “On hairy caterpillar there are
many
beads of dew.”

In the comparative lull that followed her second climax, a time when he was stoking her with slow but by no means dispassionate efficiency, and when, coasting, she was studying the dawn light reflected in the perspiration on his seesawing shoulder blades, she experienced a jab of guilt. Considering events of the past two years, it was absurdly irrational; yet there it was, a southern feminine conditioned reflex, handicapping her emotions and tarnishing the shine of her physical joy. Ah, but then she happened to remember that Ultima was flying to Jerusalem on Monday, and she returned to the fuck with renewed zeal.

She clasped his buttocks in her hands and pushed against him, not to force him into her more deeply—he was already in so deep she could almost taste him—but to give him more of
her
, to grant him as much of her pussy as was anatomically possible, without reservation, privacy, or shame. Great sea mammal sounds began to issue from them both: a groaning against the heavy pressure of the ocean, a squirty opening of mollusk shells, a slapping of wet flippers, an exhalation of salty and humid vapors, a blubberous explosion of moby dick.

Did she recoil when he withdrew to rub himself against her feet?
Au contraire
. Nor did she flinch when she felt the hot trickle between her toes or complain that he had transformed one of her chic new shoes into a gravy boat. No, Ellen Cherry in time would have some unusual requirements of her own, and she could tell that dear Spike Cohen was just the man to fulfill them.

She awoke at noon feeling that her luck had changed. Undoubtedly, it was a matter of attitude. When a person accepts a broader definition of reality, a broader net is cast upon the waters of fortune.

Sure enough, around one that afternoon, after she and Spike had taken another dolphin ride, the day doorman came to her apartment with an envelope that had been delivered by messenger. There was a check inside, and a note scribbled on rose paper with violet ink:

Forgot to mention last night (rather, this morning) that your remaining picture sold. To a Corning collector this time. My dear, they love you in the provinces! Upon my return from ghastly Jerusalem, you simply must fetch me over some new work.

“Maybe I will, Ultima baby,” said Ellen Cherry, scratching her bottom with simian luxury. “Maybe I will.”

Spike departed to meet Abu for tennis, whistling like a parakeet in a marijuana field, and she fell back asleep to dream of whitecapped waves. Probably they were sexual rather than creative waves, but later she recalled that just before she woke, a brush in her brain added a touch of naples yellow (patron saint of Neapolitan chain-smokers) to keep the whites from being stark.

Serpent à sonnettes. Rattelslang. Culebra de cascabel. Skallerorm. Klapperschlange
. Rattlesnake.

Walking past the makeshift bandstand on her way to the kitchen to hang up her light jacket (she wasn’t about to repeat the chilly mistake of the previous night), Ellen Cherry’s foot accidentally brushed against Salome’s tambourine. It jingled and whirred, causing her instinctively to jump to one side, as if she had transgressed upon one of those vipers that vibrate their tails when disturbed. Abu witnessed this and laughed aloud.

Serpent à sonnettes

Rattelslang

Culebra de cascabel

Skallerorm

Klapperschlange

Rattlesnake

Separately or all together: musical. A little poem.

By mutual consent, Ellen Cherry and Spike intended to conceal the fresh facet that the diamond cutters of destiny had cleaved into their relationship. They studiously avoided giving each other meaningful glances, nor did they touch or smile when they passed. To further avert suspicion, Ellen Cherry planned to pay extra attention to Abu that evening whenever opportunity allowed. The attack by the tambourine gave her the first excuse. Patsy’s phone call gave her the second.

Since there still wasn’t a phone in her Ansonia apartment, Ellen Cherry’s parents called her, sometimes as often as once a week, at Isaac & Ishmael’s. Out of consideration for customers (in the past, that had been wishful thinking, if not a joke), they usually phoned early, just as she was beginning her shift.

“Mercy me,
you’re
sounding bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

“I am?” Ellen Cherry was disappointed that her supposedly secret glee was so blatantly evident.

“Lord, yes, you are, honey. Now tell me: couldn’t be ol’ Boomer’s back in town, could it?”

“Why, no, mama, he’s not. Where’d you get that idea?”

“It wasn’t any idea. Just a stab in the dark, that’s all. Wondering what’d tipped your giggle box on its side. Leave it to ol’ prefeminist Patsy to think there was a blessed man involved.” Patsy paused. “Actually, I was kinda hoping Boomer was back over here. For more reasons than one.”

“And why is that?” Ellen Cherry asked, mainly to be polite. For the first time in many months, attracting that idiot welder to her side was not a top priority for her.

“’Cause,” said Patsy. “’Cause your uncle Buddy, as you’ve always known him, is fixing to go to Jerusalem. Leaving on Monday. Honey, I think he’s getting ready to pull off that deal he was talking ’bout at Christmas time. You know, that, uh, Dome of the Rock deal?”

“Yes, mama, I know what you’re speaking of. Mr. Hadee says it would touch off a world war.”

“I don’t know about that, but Bud told your daddy that he wants to strike at the mosque during some big religious festival that’s coming up, I believe, next month. He said that the Temple Mount would be really crowded then, so his ’strike’ would have more of an impact.”

“More people killed or hurt is how that translates. Makes my blood boil.”

“I wasn’t intending to spoil your good mood. I know you and Bud have fussed over this before. I just thought maybe you should get hold of Boomer someway, and, uh, I guess talk some sense to him or something, ’cause I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that Bud’s fixing to try to get Boomer mixed up in it.”

“I can’t imagine Boomer getting involved. He can be a jerk, but he’s not vicious. He’s not quite the redneck he pretends to be.”

“Well, just the same . . .”

“I’ll think about it, mama. I’ll give it some serious thought. How’re you? How’s Daddy? Aside from consorting with Baptist terrorists.”

“Oh, we’re pretty fine. Verlin’s back’s bothering him. Claimed he strained it frogging the other night, but I think it’s from always setting in front of that blessed television watching ball games. Sets all scrunched down in his chair, like a hound dog passing peach pits. I’ve tried to get him to work out with me once in a while, but he just snorts. If he saw it was a Jane Fonda tape I was working out to, he’d holler real good. He says women exercising is just like women wearing makeup, they only do it to seduce men. Huh! I had plans of being a professional dancer once.” Patsy sighed. “Then that got all shot to pieces.” She sighed again.

“Mama, don’t. Please don’t get misty on me.”

“I gave up my dancing ’cause a man loved me so much he didn’t want me to dance. My daughter gives up her painting ’cause a man—I ought to shut my big mouth. I don’t rightly know why you gave up your painting—”

“I don’t either.”

“—but I wish you’d get back to it.”

“I may do that. I truly may. And you could resume dancing, too. No, I’m serious, mama. You could. You’re only a little past forty, in good shape. Sure, they say that dancing’s only for young women, but, hey, that’s somebody else’s rules, not yours. One thing the eye game has taught me, and I guess Boomer also contributed, is that you’ve got to toss your own salad or else eat with the masses from their narrow trough.”

“Then why don’t you come down here and help me toss? We could all use us a different set of rules ’round Colonial Pines. It’s lovely, though. You remember how lovely Virginia is in the spring.”

Mother and daughter exchanged commentaries on the weather, and then Ellen Cherry excused herself. She had to report for duty. Patsy’s cheerful nature had resurfaced by the time they hung up, although it worried her that her daughter was once again referring to some funny business regarding a spoon.

Ellen Cherry cracked the kitchen door open and peeked out. Nine or ten men were sitting in the bar watching a Yankees game on the futuristic TV. The dining room was empty. The place probably wouldn’t get busy until after eight. Entertainment started at nine. She let the door swing shut and crossed the kitchen to the sinks, where Abu was fiddling with a balky faucet.

“Mr. Hadee, do you think men like Buddy Winkler are actually dangerous?”

Concentrating on the plumbing—he wanted to get it repaired before their incompetent dishwasher arrived—Abu didn’t immediately respond. Eventually, though, he looked up and said this: “Anyone who maintains absolute standards of good and evil is dangerous. As dangerous as a maniac with a loaded revolver. In fact, the person who maintains absolute standards of good and evil usually
is
the maniac with the revolver.”

His attention refocused on the faucet. The tap swiveled at about the same speed as Turn Around Norman. Abu managed to expose its threads. Then he straightened up to hunt for some machine oil. “Nabila, by the way, saw Reverend Winkler on TV last night. He gave the invocation at the big Republican rally at Madison Square Garden. Evidently, when he was introduced he received an ovation.”

Ellen Cherry shook her curls in disgust, then checked to see if any stray hairs had landed in the
falafel
. “Suppose he was exposed as the leader—one of the leaders—of a plot that could destroy famous property and kill innocent victims?”

“So?”

“Well, then everybody would turn against him, right?”

With a paper towel, Abu wiped off excess oil from the faucet neck. His laugh was as dry and scratchy as a roadrunner’s toenails. “I would not count on that,” he said. “That would depend. If it is committed in the name of God or country, there is no crime so heinous that the public will not forgive it.”

By nine o’clock, the I & I was, well, if not jumping, if not rocking, at least hopping like Boomer Petway on one whole foot. Many of Friday night’s customers had returned, and some had brought friends along. If the restaurant wasn’t occupied to capacity, it held, nevertheless, its largest crowd since Super Bowl Sunday, and there was something of the Super Bowl air of high expectation in the room. As the hour of ten approached, men were on their feet as if awaiting a kickoff. But what they were waiting for was a sixteen-year-old girl whom the bandleader would reluctantly introduce as “Salome.”

She appeared without warning and with a minimum of fanfare, dressed in a filmy harem pajama of flaring chiffon over which she wore a considerably more opaque two-piece meta-costume consisting of a brief halter-top and girdle, brocaded in silver and gold and spangled with tinkly disks and flowers. Riding low upon her hips, the girdle afforded an optimum view of belly skin, although her navel was masked by an isolated rosette of brocade, a stylized chestnut burr whose quills protected something round and sweet and altogether fertile, some Mesopotamian seed-nut not yet sprouted. Circling her wrists were alabaster and metal aerodromes housing buzzing squadrons of unseen bees; circling her ankles were beads and bells; while her neck was ringed by a reef of paste jewels from whose nadir was suspended a larger island of gold.

In Ellen Cherry’s opinion, the costume was
ongepotchket
—and old-fashioned and corny to boot. However, nobody present was interested in Ellen Cherry’s opinion, not even Spike. Here, it should be noted that Salome was barefoot.

From her painted toenails to her head of short, black ringlets, she measured five-three or five-four. Generally speaking, her body was slender and serpentine: her breasts were small and appeared to be still developing, but she swelled at the hips, presenting a pelvis fully capable of accommodating childbirth. Despite rather bushy eyebrows, her face was gorgeous. She had the complexion of a night-blooming lily, dense lips that might have been molded from the meat of muskmelons, a longish nose that in its curl and grace resembled the scroll of a small violin, cheeks and chin whose juxtaposition of delicate bone to carefree baby fat combined the elegance of a race-horse with the robustness of a mule; and mammoth liquid brown eyes, whose luster and latent heat could convince a chemist that chocolate, if not a living organism, was at least a fossil fuel.