She wasn’t playing anything up for them, performing. She was simply there, moving without music, hardly looking at them as she swayed and twirled and pushed out her hips, her chest. I kept myself far enough from the window to remain hidden. I could hardly bear to watch the scene, much less allow it to go on. And yet each time Sunny turned my way I stepped back and quieted myself and hoped the darkness would camouflage me.
I had never seen her move in such a way. I knew what her body was like, of course, from when she was a young girl, and later, too, when she’d swim or sunbathe at the house in a bikini, which was hardly a covering at all. She was always lithe and strong and sturdy-limbed, never too skinny or too softly feminine. I saw her as I believe any good father would, with pride and wonder and the most innocent (if impossible) measure of longing, an aching hope that she stay forever pristine, unsoiled.
But to gaze upon her like this. She was running her hands over herself, pressing across the skimpy shirting and down her naked thighs and up again. The two men were laughing still, but there was a new attention in their faces; they were sitting up a bit more, as if riding higher on the worn carpeting. The man I assumed was Gizzi was watching her intently, enough so that he picked up the mirror without looking and, wiping it with his finger, rubbed the stuff all over his mouth and gums. I could see the foul light of his teeth. The other man was nursing his beer, his face mostly hidden beneath the brim of his hat. But I could tell he was stirred now, too, his fingers anxiously tapping at the bottle. Gizzi was calling her names like baby and sugar and sweet thing, though she didn’t respond, she didn’t look or smile or even acknowledge him. But there was no coldness from her, either, no front of unwelcoming or remonstrance. I didn’t wish to think that it was she who had initiated this moment but there was nothing to indicate otherwise. They weren’t forcing her, or even goading her, or doing anything to coerce. She was moving and dancing with every suggestion, and then finally she was touching herself in places no decent woman would wish men to think about, much less see.
The other man finished his beer and let it fall to the side. He pushed off his hat and pulled off his shirt and approached her on his knees, his fluffy Afro matted in a ring. He took Sunny by the hips and with a palpable and surprising gentleness kissed her on the belly. She ceased her moving. She stroked his hair and pulled him tightly against her by his neck. Jimmy Gizzi was watching them, too, and he was already unbuckling his belt as he stumbled up toward them. Jimmy Gizzi said something and they ignored him, and when he tried to touch her the man reached and held him roughly by the shoulder and neck and said, “You sit awhile, okay, Giz?”
“All right, man, all right…” Jimmy mumbled weakly, a pained wince on his haggard face.
The man half-threw him back toward the bed, though Jimmy didn’t lose his feet. He didn’t look in the least shocked or upset. Instead he crouched down on the floor and cleaned up the mirror with his hand, licking and mouthing his fingers and palm.
“She’s all yours, Linc. Eat her up, man,” Jimmy Gizzi said, grinning and nodding. “Eat her up.”
They ignored him again, and the man called Linc resumed kissing Sunny on the belly and down her sides, to the points of her lips. He was kissing her steadily, completely, as if he were simply there to mark her, above all else. Her body seemed tense, expectant. And then she leaned into him, hard, pressing herself into his face and hair. He bent and lifted her from the thighs, Sunny holding a standing position. She rose up as if nothing. He buried his face in the dip of her legs. Jimmy Gizzi had undone his pants and begun lazily stroking himself, and Sunny began laughing at him, first in chortles and then maniacally, in a dusky tone that seemed as illiberal and vile as what he was compelling on himself. And it was then that I wished she were just another girl or woman to me, no longer my kin or my daughter or even my charge, and I made no sound as I grimly descended, my blood already trying to forget, growing cold.
7
IT IS THE MORNING of my leaving and who should arrive to pick me up, bouqueted with lilies, but my friend and realtor and the likely future executor of my estate, Ms. Olivia Crawford, C.R.S. She tells me someone from the hospital left a message on her machine last night, to alert her that I was to be discharged today. She is almost certain that Renny Banerjee was the caller, though of course working through a third party, some nurse or assistant with a crowingly high-pitched nasal voice.
I don’t inform Liv that it was in fact I who asked that someone to call — that someone being Nurse Dolly, who is one of those people who can seem insulted by any query whatsoever, and is thus naturally excellent at keeping secrets — not because I’m bashful for having requested her help, but because Liv herself looks deliciously intrigued by the idea that Renny Banerjee might be coming around again, perhaps finally regretting his decision to change every last one of his door locks. I don’t wish to dissuade her from this suspicion, as Renny himself, stopping in on his way home last night, all but admitted to me that he’s been driving by Liv’s office at odd hours, as well as her condominium, to check whether someone else’s car might regularly be there.
Matchmaker I’m not, and yet it gives me a shimmering, pearly gleam of joy to think of the two of them together again. Renny with his flashing, wicked grin and disarming bouts of tenderness, and Liv, of course, just being herself, a one-woman corporation and salvage crew and instant remodeling service, all in one.
“Now, Doc,” she says, setting the immense bouquet on the rolling tray at the foot of the bed. “I brought this up solely for the purpose of letting everyone know how completely recovered you are. I don’t believe in flowers only when you enter the hospital. You need even more lovely arrangements on getting out.”
“From the grand looks of that bouquet, it may seem that I am ‘getting out’ forever.”
“Doc!” she gasps, as if the idea were some awful, blaspheming joke. “You’re always making it seem that I want you gone. Really. You’re so awful these days! And cruel.”
“It’s the hospital, I think.”
“Well, it’s great timing, then, that I’ve come for you.” As she flutters about like a hotel maid, and not looking the least bit odd in her slimming Italian blazer and silk scarf with the stirrup pattern, I realize what it is about her that I have always revered. Liv Crawford is helplessly, perhaps even morbidly industrious. She has already tidied up the room and made the bed, placing my hospital gowns in the plastic hamper in the bathroom and wiping down the surfaces with the used towels. All this because it is there to do, the same way she entered the ruined family room of my house and saw what was needed and lighted up the touchpad of her cellular phone, to call forth restorative good order. She’s come with pictures of the renovations, all disarmingly, exactingly right. In a few minutes she will escort me out and drive me back swiftly to Bedley Run and show me the door to my prime vintage home, every last tint and scent of offending smoke steam-cleaned from the carpets, from the drapes, from the antiqued upholstery of the chairs, the place in showcase, immaculate, pristine and classic condition, appearing just as though I have not lived there every day for the last thirty years of my life.