“I asked Donna to be Elvis's godmother,” one of the girls said.
“Elvis?” another answered. “I thought you were going to name him Pilot.”
“I was, but then I thought, what if he's born afraid of heights? That would suck for him.”
Trixie dipped a french fry into a pool of ketchup. It looked weak
and watery, like blood. She wondered how many hours it had been since she'd talked out loud. If you didn't use your voice, ever, would it eventually shrivel up and dry away? Was there a natural selection involved in not speaking up?
"Trixie.
She looked up to see Zephyr sliding into the seat across from her. Trixie couldn't contain her relief - if Zephyr had come over here, she couldn't be mad anymore, could she? “God, I'm glad to see you,” Trixie said. She wanted to make a joke, to let Zephyr know it was okay to treat her like she wasn't a freak, but she couldn't think of a single thing to say.
“I would have called,” Zephyr said, “but I've sort of been grounded until I'm forty.”
Trixie nodded. It was enough, really, that Zephyr was sitting here now.
“So . . . you're okay, right?”
“Yeah,” Trixie said. She tried to remember what her father had said that morning: If you think you're fine, you'll start to believe it. “Your hair...”
She ran her palm over her head and smiled nervously. “Crazy, isn't it?”
Zephyr leaned forward, shifting uncomfortably. “Look, what you did ... well, it worked. No questionyou got Jason back.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You wanted payback for getting dumped, and you got it. But Trixie ... it's one thing to teach someone a lesson ... and a whole different thing to get him arrested. Don't you think you can stop now?”
“You think...” Trixie's scalp tightened. “You think I made this up?”
“Trix, everyone knows you wanted to hook up with him again. It's kind of hard to rape someone who's willing.”
“You're the one who came up with the plan! You said I should make him jealous! But I never expected ... I didn't. . .” Trixie's voice was as thin as a wire, vibrating. “He raped me.” A shadow fell across the table as Moss approached. Zephyr looked up at him and shrugged. “I tried,” she said. He pulled Zephyr out of her chair. “Come on.” Trixie stood up, too. “We've been friends since kindergarten. How could you believe him over me?”
Something in Zephyr's eyes changed, but before she could speak, Moss slid an arm around her shoulders, anchoring her to his side. So, Trixie thought. It's like that.
“Nice hair, G.I. Ho,” Moss said as they walked off. It had gotten so quiet in the cafeteria that even the lunch ladies seemed to be watching. Trixie sank down into her seat again, trying not to notice the way that everyone was staring at her. There was a one-year-old she used to babysit for who liked to play a game: He'd cover his face with his hands and you'd say,
“Where's Josh?” She wished it was that simple: Close your eyes, and you'd disappear.
Next to her, one of the Heater Hos cracked her bubble gum. “I wish Jason Underhill would rape me,” she said.
* * *
Daniel had made coffee for Laura.
Even after what she had done, even after all the words that fell between them like a rain of arrows, he had still done this for her. It might not have been anything more than habit, but it brought her to the verge of tears.
She stared at the carafe, its swollen belly steaming with French roast. It occurred to Laura that in all the years they had been married, she could literally not remember it being the other way around: Daniel had been a student of her likes and dislikes; in return, Laura had never even signed up for the proverbial course. Was it complacency that had made her restless enough to have an affair? Or was it because she hadn't wanted to admit that even had she applied herself, she would not be as good a wife as Daniel was a husband?
She had come into the kitchen to sit down at the table, spread out her notes, prepare for her afternoon class. Today, thank God, was a lecture, an impersonal group where she got to do all the talking, not a smaller class where she might have to face the questions of students again. In her hands was a book, open to the famous Dore illustration for Canto 29, where VirgilDante's guide through hellberated his curiosity. But now that Laura could smell the grounds, inhale that aromatic steam, she couldn't for the life of her remember what she was going to say about this drawing to her students.
Explaining hell took on a whole new meaning when you'd been recently living smack in the middle of it, and Laura envisioned her own face on the sketch, instead of Dante's. She took a sip of her coffee and imagined drinking from the River Lethe, which ran back to its source, taking all your sins with it.
There was a fine line between love and hate, you heard that cliche all the time. But no one told you that the moment you crossed it would be the one you least expected. You'd fall in love and crack open a secret door to let your soul mate in. You just never expected such closeness, one day, to feel like an intrusion. Laura stared down at the picture. With the exception of Dante, nobody chose to go willingly to hell. And even Dante would have lost his way if he hadn't found a guide who'd already been through hell and come out the other side.
Reaching up to the cabinet, Laura took out a second mug and poured another cup of coffee. In all honesty, she had no idea if Daniel took it with milk or sugar or both. She added a little of each, the way she liked to drink it.
She hoped that was a start.
* * *
In the latest issue of Wizard magazine, on the list of top ten comic book artists, Daniel was ranked number nine. His picture was there, eight notches below Jim Lee's number one smiling face. Last month, Daniel had been number ten; it was the growing anticipation for The Tenth Circle that was fueling his fame.
It was actually Laura who had told Daniel when he was becoming famous. They'd gone to a Christmas party at Marvel in New York, and when they entered the room, they were separated in the crush. Later, she told him that as he walked through the crowd, she could hear everyone talking in his wake. Daniel, she had said, people definitely know you.
When he'd first been given a test story to draw, years ago - a godawful piece that took place inside a cramped airplane - he'd worried about things that he never would have given a second thought to now: having F lead in his pencil instead of something too soft, testing the geometry of arches, mapping the feel of a ruler in his hand. If anything, he had drawn more from the gut when he was starting out - emotional art, instead of cerebral. The first time he'd penciled Batman for DC Comics, for example, he'd had to reimagine the hero. Daniel's rendition had a certain length ear and a certain width belt that had little to do with the historical progression of art on that character and far more to do with poring over the comic as a kid, and remembering how Batman had looked at his coolest.
Today, though, drawing wasn't bringing him any joy or relief. He kept thinking about Trixie and where she would be at this hour of the day and if it was a good thing or a bad thing that she hadn't called him yet to say how it was going. Ordinarily, if Daniel was restless, he'd get up and walk around the house, or even take a run to jog his brain and recover his lost muse. But Laura was home - she had no
classes until this afternoon - and that was enough to keep him holed up in his office. It was easier to face down a blank page than to pull from thin air the right words to rebuild a marriage. His task today was to draw a series of panels in hell with adultery demons - sinners who had lusted for each other in life, and in death couldn't be separated from each other. The irony of having to draw this, given his own situation, had not been lost on Daniel. He imagined a male and a female torso, each growing out of the same root of a body. He pictured one wing on each of their backs. He saw claws that would reach in to steal a hero's heart, because that was exactly how it felt.