It was mostly Leon's doing, their success. He still grumbled any time they had a show, but the fact was that from the start he knew exactly what was needed: dignified, eccentric little characters (no more squeaky voices) and plenty of audience participation. His heroes were always dropping things and wondering where they were, so that the children went wild trying to tell them; always overlooking the obvious and having to have it explained. Emily, on the other hand, cared more for the puppets themselves. She liked the designing and the sewing and the scrabbling for stray parts. She loved the moment when a puppet seemed to come to life-usually just after she'd sewed the eyes on. Once made, a puppet had Ms own distinct personality, she found. It couldn't be altered or submerged, and it couldn't be duplicated. If he was irreparably damaged-or stolen, which sometimes happened-she could only make a new one to fill his role; she couldn't make the same one over again.
That was ridiculous, Leon said.
She imagined the world split in two: makers and doers. She was a maker and Leon was a doer. She sat home and put together puppets and Leon sprang onstage with them, all flair and action. It was only a matter of circumstance that she also had to be the voices for the heroines.
Victor was neither maker nor doer, or he was both, or somewhere in between, or… What was the matter with Victor? First he grew so quiet, and paused before answering anything she said, as if having to reel Ms mind in from more important matters. He moped around the apartment; he stared at Emily sadly while he stroked his wisp of a mustache. When Emily asked him what Ms trouble was, he told her he'd been born in the wrong year. "How can that be?" she asked him. She supposed he'd taken up some kind of astrology. "What difference does the year make?"
"It doesn't bother you?"
"Why should it bother me?" He nodded, swallowing.
That night at supper he put down his plate of baked beans and stood up and said, "There's something I have to say." They still had no furniture, and he'd been eating on the windowsill. He stood in front of the window, framed by an orange sunset so they had to squint at him from their places on the floor. He laced his fingers together and bent them back so the knuckles cracked. "I have never been a sneaky person," he said, "Leon, I'd like to announce that I'm in love with Emily." Leon said, "Huh?"
"I won't beat around the bush: I think you're wrong for her. You're such a grouch. You're always so angry and she's so… un-angry. You think her puppets are nothing, a chore, something forced on you till you get to your real thing, acting. But if you're an actor, why don't you act? You think there's no theatre groups in this city? I know why: you had a fight with that guy Bronson, Branson, what's-his-name, when you went to try out. You've had a fight with everyone around. You can't try out for the Chekhov play because Barry May's in that and he'll tell all the others what you're like. But still you say you're an actor and you're so disadvantaged, so held back, wasting your talents here when there's other things you could be doing. What other things?" Leon had stopped chewing. Emily felt her chest tightening up. Victor was smaller than Leon, and so young and meek he would never hit back. She imagined him cowering against the window, shielding his head with his arms, but she didn't know how to step in and stop this.
"I realize I'm not as old as Emily," Victor said, "but I could take much better care of her. I would treat her better; I'd appreciate her; I'd sit admiring her all day long, if you want to know. We'd live a real life, not like this, with her ducked over her sewing machine and you off brooding in some corner, paying her no attention, holding some grudge that no one can guess at… Well, I'll say it right out: I want to take Emily away with me." Leon turned and looked at Emily. She saw that he wasn't angry at all. He was relaxed and amused, smiling a tolerant, kindly smile. "Well, Emily?" he said. "Do you want to go away with Victor?" She felt suddenly flattened.
'Thank you, Victor," she said, pressing her palms together. "It's nice of you, but I'm fine as I am, thank you."
"Oh," said Victor.
"I appreciate the thought."
"Well," Victor said, "I didn't want to sneak around about it." Then he sat back down on the windowsill and picked up his plate of beans.
The next morning he was gone-Victor and his tangle of blankets and his canvas backpack and his cardboard carton of LP records. He hadn't even said goodbye to Mrs. Apple. Well, it was a relief, in a way. How could they act natural after that? And she and Leon did need to be on their own. They were a married couple; it began to seem that they really were married. She was starting to think about a baby. Leon didn't want one, but in time he would come around. They could use Victor's room for a workshop now, and then for the baby later on. It was lucky Victor had left, in fact. But she hated how his woodsy, brown boy-smell hung in the empty room for days after he had gone.
Several times in Emily's life, similar things had happened. Men had seemed to affix themselves to her- but not to her personally, she thought. What they liked was their idea of her. She remembered a boy in her logic class who used to write her notes asking if she would take down her hair for him. Her hair: a bunch of dead cells that had nothing to do with her. "Think of it as longer, thinner fingernails," she had written back coolly. She disliked being seen from outside that way- as someone with blond hair, someone with an old-fashioned face. Once, in New York, a man had started eating every day at the restaurant where she worked, and any time she so much as passed his table he would tell her about his ex-wife, who had also worn braids on top of her head. It was a continuing story: Emily would bring his rolls and he would say, "On our second date we went to the zoo." She'd refill his coffee cup and he would say, "I'm pretty certain she loved me to begin with." After a couple of weeks he went away, but Emily couldn't forget the ex-wife. She was Emily's other self; they would have understood each other, but she had slipped off and left Emily to take the blame. Now, with Victor, Emily wondered who he'd had in mind. Not Emily, she was sure-poking around in her linty old clothes, hunting up noses for her puppets. It must have been someone else who looked like Emily but had the capacity for a greater number of people in her life. Poor Victor! It was a pity, Emily thought. She was surprised at how much she missed him. She could not imagine loving anyone but Leon, but when she'd put a puppet together and longed for someone to try him out on, she thought of Victor and their squeaky-voiced duets. She remembered Beauty's sisters clowning around at that first birthday party while Leon paced the floor. It wasn't so easy to clown around with Leon.
She dressed Gina in a T-shirt, pink corduroy overalls, and a snowsuit. She budded her little red shoes on her feet. Gina was impatient to get going. "Can we swing on the swings?" she asked.