I had all the windows open and the sky was getting light. If I were to have an accident now, the last thing I’d hear would be Johnny Cash’s voice. Would I hear it forever, the deep dark sound of it, all that pain bundled up inside? I was eight years older than my mother had been at the time when it happened, her age and mine combined. Now when I thought of her she seemed so young, almost as though she were the daughter, gone off to a celebration on a January night, her pale hair freshly washed, her hopeful blue scarf, ready for life. I was the little old lady left on the porch, the witch stomping her feet on the ice. 80
When I got to the orchard I parked and got out, then reached into the backseat. I’d brought the frozen bouquet of flowers with me, packed with ice in a plastic bag. It was a test, of course. I was anxious to see how he’d do. Did he really know me, or had the choice of red roses been pure chance?
It was still early but Lazarus Jones was awake. He’d heard the car, peered out the window, opened the door, and now stood looking out. The door was half open, half shut. The paint was peeling off the porch railings. Out in the field there were half a dozen men working. A few looked over in our direction, but I doubted they could see anything. The sunlight, after all, was blinding. It made sunspots appear in front of your eyes.
Lazarus was wearing old jeans and a button-down blue shirt; his hair was wet from a shower. It was broiling hot already. I thought I had never seen such a beautiful man in all my life. Everything seemed unreal — the white oranges, the sound of trucks in the fields, the way he was looking at me.
“I guess I have a visitor,” he said.
“You must have wanted one. I figured this was an invitation.” I held out the flowers, ice covering the petals, stems black with cold. “I never got roses from anyone.”
He opened the screen door wider. “I guess I passed the test,” he said. “I knew what you wanted.”
He wasn’t the kind of man I would ever end up with. He was the sort some gorgeous woman snagged for her own; perhaps they’d been high school sweethearts, they’d been true to each other since the day they’d met. Two beautiful people, meant for each other. My left side was crooked, my hair patchy, my skin blotchy; I was ten years too old for him. But I was here at the door. I was the one he’d sent roses to.
We went into the house and stood in the front hall. There was an umbrella stand and a rack laden with jackets and hats. There was a wooden bench where a person could sit and pull on his boots. The hallway was dark, dusty. Everything was. The windows hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. Once you were in the house you couldn’t tell what the weather was outside. It had its own atmosphere, apart from the rest of the world. There was a dull thrumming, an evenness, almost a deadness to the air, which I guessed might have been caused by Lazarus. The survivors in my group swore he could affect almost anything.
Why did I stay? Because for once there was something louder than the continuous clicking in my head. Because he’d opened the door. I was startled by how consumed with desire I was. I was thinking the kind of thoughts I hadn’t had before. So this was it. The thing that made people do stupid, ridiculous things; this was everything, here in the dark hall.
We went on into the kitchen. His breakfast was on the table: a glass of ice water, a bowl of cold cereal, a napkin, a spoon. I realized the flowers were melting, so I put them in the sink.
“The worst of my effects is my inability to see red. I miss it and I never even liked it. Just my luck.”
“You have bad luck? I’ll bet there’s more wrong with me than there is with you.” Lazarus held his hand over the spoon on the table. It lurched forward. Spun in a circle. When it stopped there was a clanging noise.
“That’s a trick,” I said.
“Electromagnetic something or other. Let’s just say it’s a disorder.” “What else can you do?” My stomach was lurching around. I was falling into something. Hard. If I stayed, my bones would shatter; I’d break into pieces at his feet. Stupid girl. Stupid me. I hadn’t turned to ice for nothing, for this, a stranger who wasn’t right for me in any way. It would take minutes to run down the hall and get into my car; driving over the speed limit, I could be back in Orlon in under an hour. But I already knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
“You think I’m a magician?” He said it with contempt. As though he was used to having people look down on him, ready and waiting for that.
I tilted my chin up. Faced him straight on. “Maybe.”
“You have some children you want me to entertain at a birthday party — is that it? Me and a pony and some rabbits. You’d have to pay and I’m not cheap.”
“I don’t like children,” I said.
He laughed, surprised.
“And I don’t have anyone.”
He understood. There was no one in my life.
“Then I’ll just entertain you.”
He went to the table and picked up a napkin. For an in
stant I thought he was about to show me a party trick. Just to get back at me. Out of pride. A rabbit made out of paper; a toy bird that would spin and flutter in the air. Instead, he held the paper to his mouth and breathed out.
The faucet in the sink dripped; the sound overpowered the clicking in my head. I watched as the paper ignited. The flame was so hot it was blue. When it rose too high and his fingers were being singed, Lazarus let the burning paper fall into the bowl of cereal, where it burned to ash. I’d never known fire had a sound, like a gasp, a sigh, something alive.
“Do you have anything that can beat that?” he said.
I could make a wish and turn it into blood and bones. What was that worth? I had ice in my veins; I was colder and more distant than a dark, sunless planet. If that’s what he wanted, then I might just be the perfect woman for him. I went to the table and took the glass of ice water. I filled my mouth with ice. A woman who stood in one place, who forever looked at the sky, motionless, frozen solid. If that’s what he wanted, that’s what he’d get. I kissed him, mouth open. I could feel the heat from inside him melting through, but I kept at it. It was why I was here, I knew that now. I couldn’t stop kissing him. I heard myself, my desire, and I couldn’t believe it was me. I was moaning. I sounded like the fire had, a gasp, a sigh. The riddle inside me: How do you melt ice? How can you move when you’re frozen inside?
When the ice cubes inside my mouth had turned to water, and the water was nearly boiling, I pulled away. I went to the sink to spit out before I burned myself. Quite suddenly I knew what the myth of people struck by lightning becoming more sexual was made of. It was simply this: We knew we could be gone at any time. Standing by the window, up on the roof, playing golf, on the phone. The possibility of being blown out like a match made us burn.
“Well.” Lazarus looked surprised at what he’d wound up with. “You do have some tricks.”
I was drawn to him, a sparrow to a hawk, a hawk to a sparrow. There was no logic when I followed him down the hall to the bathroom. There was no reason for me to do the things I did. Except that I felt something. I didn’t think that was possible for me anymore. Not now, not ever. That I did seemed enough to excuse almost anything.
He filled the tub with water. All I could hear was the sound of the tap. I understood that it was the only way we could be together — the elements most drawn to each other are the ones that destroy each other. I leaned down and put one hand in the tub, splashed back and forth. The water felt like ice. I could feel it down my spine. Lazarus said it was nothing compared with the bath of ice they’d put him in at the hospital, when he was burning up alive and they needed to lower his temperature, keep his heart going. It had probably kept him alive. Pure ice. Now he craved it. A cold woman like me. I think he’d been dreaming of me and then I was there, in my red dress.