“All of this makes a lot of sense,” said Melba slowly. “I don’t want us to kill each other, Randal.”
“We probably will, but that’s okay,” said Randal Hans. “I think it takes years of intimacy. As long as a couple doesn’t stay intimate for too long, there’s really no risk.”
He reached out, as though to put his hand on Melba’s skirt, but Melba rolled away, right to the edge of the plank, depositing her arm into the water. She was wet to the shoulder but not at all cold. It was a lovely night and the moonbeams made the water less terribly black than one might imagine given its dankness and turbidity. With her nose so close to the water’s surface, Melba detected a reassuring odor, fresh tar and fermented cabbage. The plank creaked as Randal Hans rolled after her. Melba felt the heat from his body warming her back.
“There might be a cure someday,” said Randal Hans, in frustration.
“Who would cure this kind of thing?” demanded Melba. “Not Dr. Buck!”
“Principal Benjamin was working on the cure for something,” said Randal Hans, leadingly. “In the basement of the school.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Melba and she heard Randal Hans huff, then felt his palms on her shoulders as he pushed off from her, widening the distance between them. They lay in silence, facing away from each other on opposite sides of the plank.
Even though it had seemed to her withholding and mean at the time, Melba was glad then that she had not given herself to Randal Hans when the opportunity had arisen in the unoccupied car of the funicular device. She loved Randal Hans and didn’t want their relationship to end in death or in non-intimacy, but what other options were there? Maybe Melba Zuzzo had a problem too, a problem just like Diana Joy’s. She wondered what she wanted with Randal Hans and she thought perhaps something like the muddled closeness one finds between a friendless brother and his friendless sister who live together in an old farmhouse and co-parent an orphan.
Now, Grady Help’s keen gaze nicked Melba’s reverie, and it rapidly deflated. Her whole head felt saggy and she hadn’t the least idea what she’d been thinking about.
“You’re wondering how I know your name, aren’t you, Melba?” said Grady Help. “I should hope I know your name, if you are the only person alive in Dan.”
“But I’m not,” protested Melba, weakly. “I never said everyone in Dan was dead, just Bev Hat,” but her voice dwindled and all that could be heard was the snapping of the black bag on its wire and the lower groan of the eyelets in brick.
“I’m not surprised that you’re playing favorites,” said Grady Help bitterly. “You think you’re special Melba, that you were made to enjoy extenuating circumstances.”
“No, Grady,” said Melba.
“Yes, Melba,” said Grady Help. “First Principal Benjamin, then Dr. Buck, then the bakery, and now Bev Hat. You’ve been given everything and you don’t even see it! You think there’s something else, something better, that’s owed to you … an apricot-colored poodle you can tie to your waist. You think Hal Drake should machine tiny bearings and attach wheels to your feet and an apricot-colored poodle should pull you all around Dan. You don’t even have a hobby, Melba. All you do is wait. I’ve watched it happen, the waiting. I don’t seem lithe, but I fit nicely in the cupboard beneath your sink and I’ve watched you stand there in your kitchen. Do you know what I’ve wanted to do? I’ve wanted to sprinkle the baking soda all around me and douse it with the white vinegar! Do you know what that does?”
“Of course I do, Grady,” said Melba.
“Of course I do,” echoed Grady Help. “Spoken like Dr. Benjamin’s hand puppet!”
Melba gasped. “How did you know about the hand puppet?” Dr. Benjamin had given Melba a hand puppet, a bear with slightly singed fur, one morning in the hall as a prize. But for what? Melba racked her brain. Could Grady Help be right? Maybe she had received prizes for no reason.
“Well I’ll tell you, Melba,” continued Grady Help. “Baking soda and vinegar makes a chemical reaction. It would blow Dan to Kingdom Come!”
The mention of Kingdom Come reassured Melba, who could see now that Grady Help was raving, that he was perhaps slightly cracked. He wasn’t a redheaded person, but he was a victim and as such had often been presented with pamphlets that promoted cult beliefs.
“The phone is ringing,” said Melba, “I suppose I should answer it. I know you think it’s all fun and games at the bakery, like it’s a theme park with lots of rides and attractions, and I spend the day just spinning and spinning in a measuring cup, or shooting weevils in a flour barrel, racking up points that I redeem for specialty goods no one else can get, but you’re wrong, completely wrong. It’s hard work at the bakery. Sometimes I cry! And when I go home I can’t sleep. You’re right I’m always waiting. It’s because I’m confused about what’s happening. Life can’t possibly be just what’s happening right now. Then you’d be right, it would just be the two of us in the cold street, talking. This would be the whole thing! It’s only waiting that makes it more than that. I’d say remembering too, but you can’t trust memories. Waiting isn’t something you can make up, not in the same way. You have no control over it. I’m glad I’m waiting because I don’t want life to be just the two of us. I don’t love you, Grady Help. Not because of your sores,” said Melba generously. “I have a carbuncle on my earlobe and I know I don’t have a figure, not like Bev Hat. I don’t love you because love is something you find in someone, you search and search, sometimes in the dark, or blindly, like a miner with a pickaxe or like a star-nosed mole, and you can search all you want in some people and you won’t find anything, and the problem might be with you, you’re not searching in the right place, but more often than not, there’s just no love to find. Some people have it and some people don’t. Maybe I have it,” whispered Melba. “I’ve always wished that I did.” She took a step closer to Grady Help.
“Do you love me?” asked Melba.
“Damn you,” croaked Grady Help and he lurched away from Melba.
Melba watched him go. Grady Help did have a certain dignity! She imagined he might have ascended to a noble profession, working as a male librarian or as a dog trainer, if only he hadn’t become a victim instead. The phone was still ringing inside the bakery and Melba scowled.
“Hold your horses!” she said shrilly. It was one of her favorite expressions. She felt the pressure of Dr. Buck’s moist, disapproving eyes every time she used it.
“Horses, horses, horses,” muttered Melba defiantly as the phone rang on and on. She didn’t want to fetch up her skirt and apron and dash to answer and why should she? She wasn’t just the bakery phone operator. She had other responsibilities. Melba cast about for something to do, something that fell within her purview as a bakery employee but that required application outside the bakery proper. The bakery needed a paint job, but she could hardly begin painting the bakery without rollers and paint. Soap the windows? Melba’s eyes lighted on the dough dumpster. Of course! She would drag the dough dumpster out of the street and restore it to its usual position on the rectangle of wet dirt in the weedy alley between the back of the bakery and back of the druggist’s. She hooked her fingers on the handle — a greasy metal dowel that deposited a smell in her palm, and a fatty film of the sort that extruded from a hard cheese left on the windowsill — and tugged. The dumpster was heavy but by tipping it onto its wheels, Melba moved it easily into the alley. She panted slightly as she released the handle and wiped her hands on her apron.