Madeleine is dreaming. Her apartment is a funeral parlor/nightclub/coffee shop, and also the waiting room at her doctor’s office. Her mother lies in a casket filled with apples. Onstage, Billie Holiday sings into a microphone. Her head is a caramel apple.
After announcing her intention to do so, Madeleine walks from the dream kitchen to the dream bedroom to find a roach the size of a fist smoking one of her menthols at a café table on her bureau.
She runs for a can of bug spray, but the cabinet is empty.
“I’ve already taken it,” the roach says. “Along with your paper towels, napkins, and shoes.” A yawn scrabbles his multiple sets of legs. “It appears we are on equal footing.”
The hair on Madeleine’s arms rises. “Are you the roach I killed today?”
“I’m the roach you thought you killed today. I’m Clarence and I’d like to have a chat.” His legs reflect in the mirror behind him, making it seem like there are two of him, one carrying on a conversation with her, and one carrying on a conversation with her reflection. “You are one friendless Susie Q.”
Madeleine says she has plenty of friends and Clarence pshaws. “Like who?”
“Like Pedro.”
“Pedro!” Puffs of angry smoke. “Who you put on a leash!” A shiver runs through his antennae. “Toots, it’s sadsville around here. You’ve been crying all night with that thing on your nose. What is there to be so miserable about?”
Madeleine’s hand covers her clothespin. “I got yelled at by everyone today,” she says. “I want to sing and no one will let me.”
A sound like a clarinet reverberates from what she assumes to be his head, a jeering, mocking sound. “Where do you think I would be if I listened to every ‘Get out of here’ or ‘Call the Realtor, we’re moving.’ You’re just a human being. Pathetic, stiff. Not one of you is worth even the tiniest grain of rice. It’s time to grow a set of balls. Learn how to say, ‘fuck it.’ Otherwise, you’re never going to leave the house, like Old Mr. So and So …” He hitches a foot toward her father’s room. “You don’t want that, do you?”
Madeleine says no.
He glowers. “It used to be fun here. Music all the time and singing.”
“My mother died.”
Clarence sighs. “Just because your mother is dead doesn’t give you the right to suck.”
“How do you know Pedro?” she says.
He shrugs several shoulders. Madeleine shrugs, too.
“Everyone knows Pedro.” He extinguishes his cigarette on the top of Madeleine’s bureau and, with a sound like a paper tearing, dives into a crack in the wall.
10:06 P.M
Certainly, however (an older couple asks, is this Spruce Street?), Sarina thinks, he didn’t have to (Sarina says yes) say my name. He could have called out an unaddressed (Spruce Street, they ask, not Spruce Road?) salutation in the night. Every night (Sarina says yes, there is no such thing as Spruce Road) hundreds of people call out good night to no one. (Thank you, the couple says, have a good night!) Good morning! Good afternoon! The word Sarina was a choice. Good night, Sarina. Good night.
Sarina walks to the station. She will process the party only when she has secured a seat on the train. In the relief of her home, she will throw her keys into a bowl, gather her hair into an elastic, and eat ice cream and cherries while watching the news. His lucky scarf. How his neck bears a freckle the shape of Florida that specifies his neck as his. The years had clarified his handsomeness, hadn’t they? When he said good night he sounded regretful, didn’t he?
Outside the store, bucketed roses grin under heat lamps. The man behind the counter tosses her the cigarettes without looking up from his newspaper.
Two teenagers shuffle up and down the aisles. “It’s my mom’s boyfriend,” one of them says, “and I work for him. But I said, ‘You tell me what to do on-site, you can’t tell me what to do at home.’ ”
“Matches?” says the man behind the counter.
“Please,” Sarina says.
“It’s cold out,” he says. “Do you enjoy the winter?”
“I prefer the hot.” She organizes the coins in her coin purse, the bills in the billfold.
“I did too when I was young.” He goes back to his paper.
“I wish I’d hit him with that pipe,” says the teenager whose mother dates his boss. “But then I’d be in jail, I guess.” They sidle up behind her and their talk ceases. This means they are sizing up her ass. She turns to catch them, but they are engrossed in a comic book. No one is admiring her ass.
Outside, Sarina considers buying a sleeve of roses. She evaluates each bunch then walks to the station.
There is time before the next train, so she has a cigarette on the platform. She can see the brick homes of Olde City. The dumb scratch of moon. When the train heaves and pumps into the station, Sarina realizes she has forgotten her wallet at the store with the roses and teenagers. She runs. Her low heels thwack against the pavement.
Ben, frowning over a pack of Camel Reds, looks at the girl who has entered, a beautiful girl who is flushed from running, she is familiar, it is Sarina: he is still frowning, so Sarina pauses in the doorway thinking he is upset with her until a smile he could not have planned opens on his face.
He raises his hands in mock penance. “I needed a cigarette.”
“I forgot my wallet,” she says.
Ben pays. Sarina wants the store owner to wink or refer to their previous exchange so Ben thinks she has charming conversations throughout the night with whomever, whenever. The store owner does not participate.
Outside, the teenagers read the comic book under a streetlight.
Sarina nods toward them. “Those guys are trouble.”
Ben considers them. He lights her cigarette before his own. “I’ll walk you to the train.”
Sarina wants to walk with Ben to the train more than she wants peaceful old age. “No, thank you,” she says. “It’s only a few blocks.”
“I can either stand here and have this cigarette or walk. It’s all the same.”
“Then walk me,” she says.
They walk.
“Parrots live in this neighborhood,” he says. “I saw one a few weeks ago. Honest-to-God parrots.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Annie didn’t believe me either. But still, they’re there. Someone must be feeding them.”
“Right there?” She points to a tree. As if on command, no parrots appear. Ben takes a drag of his cigarette.
Sarina takes a drag of hers. “Michael’s singing is getting better.”
“Yes, let’s talk about Michael’s singing.”
Is he drunk or just being silly? Sarina plays along. “He reaches notes only dogs can hear.”
“He came over last week and sang at my house,” he says. “When he left, my clocks were two hours slow.”
“His tone sends helicopters off course.”
“But his delivery is perfect.”
“Flawless,” Sarina says. A limo slinks by, the shouts of a bridal party. “I have a special fondness for Michael. He was my only dance at senior prom, you realize.”
Ben winces. “I know.”
They reach the station and extinguish the hope of their cigarettes. Ben collects both and deposits them into a nearby trash can. That was a careless thing to do, she thinks, bringing up the prom. If he wants to talk more, she will talk. Even though that means she will miss the 10:30 and have to wait for the 11:00.
Saying good-bye to Ben is Sarina’s least favorite activity. So sad the number of times she’s had to do it. Ball games, recitals, the homes of friends, rented shore houses, through car windows after dropping off some forgotten camera to Annie. Good-bye. See you later. Nice seeing you. She has mastered it: A dismissive peck on the cheek. A hug like an afterthought. Telling herself, Do not watch him walk away. Watching him walk away. Watching him drive away. Watching him descend the stairs to the subway. How many times have they said good-bye to each other? Already tonight, twice.