* * *
Dezzy didn’t come to school on Friday, so Tovah e-mailed Mr. Gautier to make sure the date, or the job, rather, was still on. He did not respond all day.
Sweet Apple exhausted her. Her boys — Ewen, Juanito, Medgar, and Shalom — had been hanging all over her, begging her read to them or play airplane or lie on the carpet as a launchpad. Tovah wasn’t sure if she had deactivated their predator wiring. It was hard to tell when they were such relentless puppies. She fell asleep on the train home and nearly missed her stop. She’d need some quality rest to handle Dezzy tomorrow, if that was still her destiny.
The call finally came as she finished her radicchio.
“You e-mail me?”
“Yes. About tomorrow.”
“It’s better to just call me. I don’t check e-mail much. But I see your e-mail in my browser. It scared me. I didn’t open it. Does it say you’re not coming? Don’t tell me you’re not coming. Jesus fucking Christ. I counted on you. I put my neck on the chopping block convincing Connie that you weren’t just some tight little piece of … well, whatever, but a real—”
“I’m coming, Randy Goat!” Tovah cried.
“Huh?”
“I mean, I just e-mailed to confirm. I’m certainly planning on coming to watch Dezzy, so you and your wife shouldn’t worry about a—”
“My wife?”
“Yes, I met her at the home visit.”
“Connie’s my sister. That’s who you saw. She’s always trying to horn in on the raising of Dezzy. I guess I let her. It’s easier that way. Dezzy’s adopted. She was my goddaughter, and her parents were killed. Okay, what the hell are we doing? Are we phone buddies or something?”
“No,” Tovah said.
“You bet your ass we aren’t. I’ll see you tomorrow at eleven.”
“You said noon.”
“Stay flexible, Tovah.”
A few minutes before eleven the next morning Tovah waited outside the building. She wore a dress that was maybe too chic, especially given the bleached-out T-shirts she favored at school, but after Dezzy went to bed, there’d be some spare hours to relax in a beautiful apartment. She thought she’d do it in style.
She knew she’d never be back after today. Since the phone call, she’d been mortified by her matrimonial fantasy. You think you know yourself, the world. You believe you’ve got a bead on everybody else’s bullshit, but what about your own? She’d had delusions of using this man because he somehow deserved it. Now she wondered if she even deserved to watch Dezzy. At eleven she pushed the buzzer. The elevator, just as Tovah remembered, opened into the plum-colored foyer.
* * *
She felt the hand on her shoulder even while asleep, and the whole day whizzed through her, all the games and snacks, the walk to the park, the Winnie-the-Pooh books, the TV programs full of anxious furry creatures, the sudsy bath, the creamy noodles, Dezzy’s kissy snuggle at tuck-in. Tovah had come to the study afterward to read. The leather Eames had pulled her into sleep better than a pill. She blinked up at Mr. Gautier. He smiled, and his eyes looked fogged. His bow tie hung limp around his collar. His tuxedo took on a rumpled sheen in the lamplight.
“Wake up, little Toh-Va, wake up,” he sang.
“Mr. Gautier.” Her voice sounded deeper, liquored, in her ears. Her ears seemed stuffed with silk.
“How was your evening?” he asked. He sat on the coffee table beside her.
“It was perfect. How was your evening with the muckety-mucks?”
“Actually, I lied about the event. I don’t know why. My older son got married today. Evan. He’s a lawyer, she’s a doctor. They will be very happy or something.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“No. They’ll thrive. It’s just been a long, emotional day.”
“Was your ex-wife there?”
“Like I said, an emotional day.”
Mr. Gautier stood.
“Drink?”
“I should go.”
“You should have a drink with a sad old man first.”
Mr. Gautier fetched Scotches from the kitchen, handed her one, and lowered himself on the arm of her chair.
“Is that comfortable?”
“It’s an Eames ream,” he said, laughed, stroked the back of Tovah’s neck.
“What are you doing?”
“Tovah, let’s be realistic. You’re not the high school babysitter. I don’t play bridge with your father. We’re grown up and broken, just like everybody else. Stop acting like a precious flower.”
Tovah set her drink down on the coffee table, rose, squeezed past Randy Gautier. She walked over to the bookshelf and stared out the window at the lights of the avenue, the darkness of the park. She pictured wolves, packs of them, leaping the gates.
“You know,” she said, gathered herself. “It’s very hard. Here. In America. In the world. For women. It’s a fucking nightmare. Our choices are no choice. Everybody has a goddamn opinion, but nobody ever wants to help. The politicians, the culture, they push the idea of family, the importance of the mother, and they also push the idea of opportunities for women, but they screw us all on the stuff that counts, that will make it real. We are alone and suicidal or we have children and are suicidal. The only women who escape this are the rich. All the accomplished women in history had servants. I’m convinced of that. Even if it’s not true. It certainly feels fucking true. I’m sorry. I’m babbling. Why am I going on about this? It’s stupid. I’m just cranky. Must be getting my period, right? That what you think? Well, fuck you, and of course I am. But that’s not it. Maybe I wasn’t ready to wake up just now. Maybe I’m tired of waking up. Nothing changes when I do. Nothing ever suddenly … Christ, I’m sorry. I should just go. Maybe I should just…”
Tovah turned and saw that Mr. Gautier had tugged his penis out of his tuxedo pants. He gave a shrug and, like a loved boy, beamed.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m listening.”
the DUNGEON MASTER
The Dungeon Master has detention. We wait at his house by the county road. The Dungeon Master’s little brother, Marco, puts out corn chips and cola.
Marco is a paladin. He fights for the glory of Christ. Marco has been many paladins since winter break. They are all named Valentine, and the Dungeon Master makes certain they die with the least amount of dignity.
It’s painful enough when he rolls the dice, announces that a drunken orc has unspooled some Valentine’s guts for sport. Worse are the silly accidents. One Valentine tripped on a floor plank and cracked his head on a mead bucket. He died of trauma in the stable.
“Take it!” the Dungeon Master said that time from behind his laminated cardboard screen. Spit sprayed over the top of it. “Eat your fate,” he said. “Your thread just got the snippo!”
The Dungeon Master has a secret language we don’t quite understand. They say he’s been treated for it.
Whenever the Dungeon Master kills a Valentine, Marco runs off and cries to their father. Doctor Varelli nudges his son back into the study, sticks his bushy head in the door, says, “Play nice, my beautiful puppies.”
“Father,” the Dungeon Master will say, “stay the fuck out of my mind realm.”
“I honor your wish, my beauty.”
Doctor Varelli speaks like that. It’s not a secret language, just an embarrassing one. Maybe that’s why his wife left him, left Marco and the Dungeon Master, too. It’s not a decent reason to leave, but as the Dungeon Master hopes to teach us, the world is not a decent place to live.
* * *
Now we sit with our chips.
“If they didn’t say corn, I wouldn’t think of them as corn,” says Brendan.
He’s a third-level wizard.
“Detention?” Cherninsky says. He stands, squats, sits, stands. He’s got black bangs and freckles, suffers from that disease where you can’t stay in your chair.