“A reliable source,” Vivian said, leaning across the table now.
“He was walking by the call room on Seven East when he heard some groaning inside, or crying, so he stood by the door and listened. There was another groan, and he was about to knock when he heard the groan again, and understood that it wasn’t a groan of distress. It was the other sort of groan.”
“A groan of undress,” said Vivian. If he drowned, if he got strangled by an octopus, if he got bitten by a poisonous child — if anything happened, it had been given to her to fix it. So was it so unreasonable to think that she could fix, or that they could fix together, or avoid altogether, the more subtle injuries of marriage? Her brother would say no, but she was thinking maybe, maybe, and maybe. Rob had become used to her saying no to him, but had not given up asking. “Marry me,” he’d say, just as they were falling asleep, and first thing in the morning she’d tell him, “No.”
“Exactly. He would have kept walking, except he heard something else. There were two voices, male and female, and now the male voice said, Oh Darling, shit on me!”
“No way.”
“No shit,” Rob said. “But yes, shit! It went on and on while he listened. I’m going to shit! and I’m shitting! and Now—you shit on me!” Jemma’s imagination, recognizing an opportunity to be perverse, drew the couple for her while Rob and Vivian laughed hysterically, each of them embellishing the story that Jemma was forced to watch. The faceless heads on the couple in the call room popped off easily enough, and were replaced, at first, with Dr. Sasscock’s head, and then with her head and Rob’s head, and she watched the whole thing, not too shocked and not too intrigued, and asked herself the inevitable question — could she, could she — and decided, while Rob and Vivian had rolled themselves to the floor, and Vivian had finally forgotten her anxiety, that if you loved someone enough to eat their poop, then you surely loved them enough to marry them.
“And the last thing he heard,” Rob said, laughing and gasping, “before he ran away, was the man’s voice saying, I hope that’s not a peanut — I have an allergy!” They had both raised themselves back to their seats when he said this. Now they fell back down, Vivian dragging a cupcake after her that stuck against the side of her head. She and Rob were further transported into raptures of hilarity, but Jemma sat calmly, remembering the oath she took with her brother fifteen years before. “Swear!” he’d said, as serious and spooky as Hamlet’s ghost. Swear! I will never get married like them, they’d said together. If you knew him, she thought, you’d release me. On the subject of the baby she was quiet, because she knew that would only infuriate him more, and though he’d never made her swear not to reproduce, nor conducted any rituals to compromise her fertility, she had always understood that it was an even greater sin than marriage, to have a baby and fill it up with all your regrets and failures.
“Oh, that’s funny,” said Vivian, when they’d recovered again and lifted themselves back to the table. She took a bite from the cupcake that fell on her, and wiped the icing from her hair with a napkin. “Isn’t it funny, Jemma? Why aren’t you laughing?”
“I’ve heard it before,” she said, though she hadn’t, and she knew Rob had made it up just for the occasion of Vivian’s anxiety. Vivian seemed released by all the laughing. She ate another cupcake, and some pretzels, and two pieces of cheesecake, while they all repeated fish stories, Vivian the only one among them to have seen a whale.
When Rob’s watch alarmed they left the conference room and went down to the lobby, where Father Jane announced the election results. She named the members of the Council first. There were not many surprises. It would look much like the Committee, except for the absence of those who’d run for Universal Friend. Jemma moved closer to Rob and took his hand as Father Jane went on, starting with the runner-up positions. Monserrat would be Third Friend. There was cheering and applause. Far away Jemma could see the tamale lady jumping up and down as graciously as that could be done.
“Hey,” she said, close to Rob’s ear. “Let’s do it.”
“Huh?” he said, over the noise.
“Let’s do it,” she said. Father Jane announced that Vivian would be Second Friend. She handled the news as well as any beauty-contest runner-up. She waved her hands and clapped back at the people applauding her, but the muscles of her jaw were bunched up in knots.
“Let’s get married,” she said to Rob, but he was leaning over toward Vivian, hugging her with one arm while Jemma pulled on his other one.
“The office of First Friend will be held by… Ishmael!” Jemma pulled harder on Rob’s arm.
“Hey,” she said. “Listen to me.” She was almost all intent on getting him to hear her, though a part of her mind was suddenly anxious at the prospect of living under Dr. Sundae’s penitent reign of terror, or becoming a citizen of Dr. Snood’s Republic of Smarm. “I want to get married,” she said again. “I changed my mind.” This time he heard her, and his face became entirely blank before he smiled and abandoned poor, disappointed Vivian. He grabbed her ears with both hands and pulled her face to his face for a kiss, and neither was listening when Father Jane made the last announcement, so the news that Jemma had been elected to the office of Universal Friend had to be repeated for both of them.
41
Snow is falling all over Severna Forest, from the brown brick gates to the steps of the clubhouse, from Beach Road to the top of Waste-Not Hill, settling on the rotted ruin of Calvin’s old tree fort down by the river, and outside Jemma’s window, collecting silently, layer on layer upon her sill while she sleeps. She’s been dreaming all night of snow — it began to fall just as she settled into bed, while she raised her bottom in the air and pushed her face into her pillow, burrowing into the blankets until they were twisted just right and the pillow heaped up in pleasing mounds on either side of her head. Turned toward the window she could see it striking against the glass, and as she fell asleep she saw the usual red darkness behind her eyes broken up with bright white motes. She was a cold princess riding a swan made of ice, a liberated snowman who went campaigning all over the country to free other snowmen from static servitude, and she was the snow itself, cast high over Severna Forest and settling forever over every house and person.
It is almost something that we can do together, to become the snow. Or rather, we can do it at the same time — I am as invisible to the dream Jemma as I am to the waking one and you cannot see me behind her and above her and beside you. We are settling along the sloping green roof of Mr. Duffy’s store, and along the railings of the clubhouse porch; all over the golf course, up on the hills and down in the dells and over the traps full of cold sand, we are draped as a blanket. Over the Nottingham’s house, over their oblivious dog in the yard, over Rachel’s house and her new bicycle — with her birthday so close to Christmas she usually never gets good presents but this year was an exception — with its fancy pink banana seat with the lambskin cover that Rachel forgot to remove for the night and the long, luxurious handlebar tassels that stream like glory when she flies down a hill. It’s so much better than your bike, but she has forgotten it outside, and you are free now to cover it up and muffle its brilliance. She will be lucky to find it before the next thaw.
Down beyond the fifth hole, where the railroad tracks run right by the river, we settle gently on the tracks, and over the teenagers playing a new game — they lie between the tracks and let the train pass over them. We muffle their shouting, and after the train passes they keep staring up into the sky, and they get a different feeling, looking into the heart of the storm. Instead of the usual strange exalted sadness that comes after the train passes they feel an unusual peace and in a fit of vulnerable, sentimental foolishness they think it is the spirit of Christmas gently attacking them just when they thought they had become forever immune to its treacly power, but really it is just the wonder that comes of staring into the heart of an angel and a girl.