This is the sort of thing he needs you for: to help him with his box. Kneel down beside him. Show him how one of the drawers is off its runner. Show him how to pull it out just so far. He smiles and thanks you in his berserk King Kaspar voice: "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" He begins his aria again: "'This is my box. This is my box. I never travel without my box.'"
All singing is, says Moss, is sculpted howling.
Say, "Bye." Wheel the TV into the kitchen. Watch MacNeil-Lehrer. Worry about Congress.
Listen to the goose-call of trains, all night, trundling by your house.
12/4. sometimes the phone rings, but then the caller hangs up.
12/5. your cat now sticks her paws right in the water dish while she drinks, then steps out from her short wade and licks them, washes her face with them, repeatedly, over the ears and down, like an itch. Take to observing her. On her feet the gray and pink configurations of pads and fur look like tiny baboon faces. She sees you watching, freezes, blinks at you, then busies herself again, her face in her belly, one leg up at a time, an intent ballerina in a hairy body stocking. And yet she's growing so quickly, she's clumsy. She'll walk along and suddenly her hip will fly out of whack and she'll stop and look at it, not comprehending. Or her feet will stumble, or it's difficult for her to move her new bulk along the edges of furniture, her body pushing itself out into the world before she's really ready. It puts a dent in her confidence. She looks at you inquiringly: What is happening to me? She rubs against your ankles and bleats. You pick her up, tuck her under your chin, your teeth clenched in love, your voice cooey, gooey with maternity, you say things like, "How's my little dirt-nose, my little fuzz-face, my little honey-head?"
"Jesus, Trudy," Moss yells from the next room. "Listen to how you talk to that cat."
12/6. though the Christmas shopping season is under way, the store you work at downtown, Owonta Flair, is not doing well. "The malls," groans Morgan, your boss. "Every Christmas the malls! We're doomed. These candy cane slippers. What am I gonna do with these?"
Tell her to put one slipper from each pair in the window along with a mammoth sign that says, mates inside. "People only see the sign. Thorn McAn did it once. They got hordes."
"You're depressed," says Morgan.
12/7. you and moss invite the principals, except Amahl, over to dinner one night before a rehearsal. You also invite Bob. Three kings, Amahl's unwed mother, you, and Bob: this way four people can tell cranky anecdotes about the production, and two people can listen.
"This really is a trashy opera," says Sonia, who plays Amahl's mother. "Sentimental as all get-out." Sonia is everything you've always wanted to be: smart, Jewish, friendly, full-haired as Easter basket grass. She speaks with a mouthful of your spinach pie. She says she likes it. When she has swallowed, a piece of spinach remains behind, wrapped like a gap around one of her front teeth. Other than that she is very beautiful. Nobody says anything about the spinach on her tooth.
Two rooms away the cat is playing with a marble in the empty bathtub. This is one of her favorite games. She bats the marble and it speeds around the porcelain like a stock car. The noise is rattley, continuous.
"What is that weird noise?" asks Sonia.
"It's the beast," says Moss. "We should put her outside, Trudy." He pours Sonia more wine, and she murmurs, "Thanks."
Jump up. Say: "I'll go take the marble away."
Behind you you can hear Bob: "She used to be mine. Her name is Stardust Sweetheart. I got allergic."
Melchior shouts after you: "Aw, leave the cat alone, Trudy. Let her have some fun." But you go into the bathroom and take the marble away anyhow. Your cat looks up at you from the tub, her head cocked to one side, sweet and puzzled as a child movie star. Then she turns and bats drips from the faucet. Scratch the scruff of her neck. Close the door when you leave. Put the marble in your pocket.
You can hear Balthazar making jokes about the opera. He calls it Amyl and the Nitrates.
"I've always found Menotti insipid," Melchior is saying when you return to the dining room.
"Written for NBC, what can you expect," Sonia says. Soon she is off raving about La Bohème and other operas. She uses words like verismo, messa di voce, Montserrat Caballe. She smiles. "An opera should be like contraception: about sex, not children."
Start clearing the plates. Tell people to keep their forks for dessert. Tell them that no matter what anyone says, you think Amahl is a beautiful opera and that the ending, when the mother sends her son off with the kings, always makes you cry. Moss gives you a wink. Get brave. Give your head a toss. Add: "Papageno, Papagena — to me, La Bohème's just a lot of scarves."
There is some gulping of wine.
Only Bob looks at you and smiles. "Here. I'll help you with the plates," he says.
Moss stands and makes a diversionary announcement: "Sonia, you've got a piece of spinach on your tooth."
"Christ," she says, and her tongue tunnels beneath her lip like an elegant gopher.
12/8. sometimes still Moss likes to take candlelight showers with you. You usually have ten minutes before the hot water runs out.
Soap his back, the wide moguls of his shoulders registering in you like a hunger. Press yourself against him. Whisper: "I really do like La Bohème, you know."
"It's okay," Moss says, all forgiveness. He turns and grabs your buttocks.
"It's just that your friends make me nervous. Maybe it's work, Morgan that forty-watt hysteric making me crazy." Actually you like Morgan.
Begin to hum a Dionne Warwick song, then grow self-conscious and stop. Moss doesn't like to sing in the shower. He has his operas, his church jobs, his weddings and bar mitzvahs — in the shower he is strictly off-duty. Say: "I mean, it could be Morgan."
Moss raises his head up under the spray, beatific, absent. His hair slicks back, like a baby's or a gangster's, dark with water, shiny as a record album. "Does Bob make you nervous?" he asks.
"Bob? Bob suffers from terminal sweetness. I like Bob."
"So do I. He's a real gem."
Say: "Yeah, he's a real chum."
"I said gem," says Moss. "Not chum" Things fall quiet. Lately you've been mishearing each other. Last night in bed you said, "Moss, I usually don't like discussing sex, but—" And he said, "I don't like disgusting sex either." And then he fell asleep, his snores scratching in the dark like zombies.
Take turns rinsing. Don't tell him he's hogging the water. Ask finally, "Do you think Bob's gay?"
"Of course he's gay."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, I don't know. He hangs out at Sammy's in the mall."
"Is that a gay bar?"
"Bit of everything." Moss shrugs.
Think: Bit of everything. Just like a mall. "Have you ever been there?" Scrub vigorously between your breasts.
"A few times," says Moss, the water growing cooler.
Say: "Oh." Then turn off the faucet, step out onto the bath mat. Hand Moss a towel. "I guess because I work trying to revive our poor struggling downtown I don't get out to these places much."
"I guess not," says Moss, candle shadows wobbling on the shower curtain.
12/9. two years ago when Moss first moved in, there was something exciting about getting up in the morning. You would rise, dress, and, knowing your lover was asleep in your bed, drive out into the early morning office and factory traffic, feeling that you possessed all things, Your Man, like a Tammy Wynette song, at home beneath your covers, pumping blood through your day like a heart.