"I hope, ah ," Mickey began, and then stopped.
"You hope what?"
"I hope what happened with Elliot Joseph, and back there at Deh-Ta's I hope you're not starting to think that I'm some kind of psycho."
She smiled and shook her head. "I can understand why you lost your temper. I think I might have done the same."
"You? I can't imagine you angry."
"Oh, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
"What would you do?" asked Mickey. "Turn green and throw a bus at me?"
"No. I'd stop reading your lips, that's all."
"Whoo. That would shut me up, wouldn't it?"
"As far asI'mconcerned, totally."
Mickey reached out and gently fingered her hair. "This isn't an easy thing to say. I mean, however I put it, it's going to sound patronizing."
"Go on," she encouraged him.
"The whole thing is I like you, Holly. I really like you for who you are. It's no good me trying to pretend that it doesn't matter, you being deaf. Like, it's part of the reason I like you so much: the fact that you're deaf and yet, the way that you deal with it."
He clenched his fist and knocked himself twice on the forehead. "Shit, that came out wrong."
Holly smiled. "I like you, too, Mickey."
"But what?"
"I didn't saybut. It's just that I don't know you very well. After this evening, less than I thought."
"But you still like me?"
She hesitated, and then she kissed him on the cheek.
Daisy Sulks
Friday was Marcella's evening off, so Holly went down to Torrefazione downstairs and brought up pepperoni pizza with extra black olives. It was fresh and hot, but Daisy ate only one slice of hers and then prodded at the rest with her fork, swinging one leg under the table.
Holly watched her for a while and then said, "You don't like it? I could get you something else instead. Maybe some linguine?"
Daisy shrugged and continued prodding and swinging.
"Now you're not talking to me? What? You're annoyed that I'm going away for the weekend?"
Another shrug. Holly finished her mouthful and said, "Listen, I haven't had a break for over a year. I deserve a break, quite frankly. And you don't mind spending the weekend with Gillian, do you? If you do, why didn't you say so before I made the arrangement?"
"I don't mind spending the weekend with Gillian, okay?"
"So what's wrong? Tell me, I'm your mother."
"It's nothing."
"It'snothing?So why are you behaving like a ballet dancer with a sore butt?"
Daisy glowered at her from under her eyebrows but didn't answer.
"You all finished, then?" Holly asked her. "You're excused from the table. You can wash your plate and put it away and then you can go pack for tomorrow. And don't take that yellow skirt with the frills: It's too small for you and it makes you look like a human daffodil."
Daisy sulked off into the kitchen. Holly sat at the dining table alone, trying to finish her pizza, but she didn't have the appetite for it anymore. She pushed her plate away and poured herself another glass of wine. Under her breath she sang,"What is your one-o? Green grow the rushes-o. One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so."She could hear it in her head but she couldn't hear her own voice.
Tears at Bedtime
Holly packed the smart green weekend bag that Tyrone had bought her at the Columbia Sportswear Company, and then she went to see how Daisy was managing. Daisy was sitting on the end of her bed with a heap of clothes strewn all over it, and only a Princess Barbie and two pairs of panties in her case.
"Come on, I'll help you," said Holly.
"I can do it."
"Okay, but if you're going to do it, do it. I want you to get an early night tonight."
She waited, but Daisy made no effort to finish her packing. In the end she sat down beside her and said, "What's wrong? Come on, pumpkin, you can tell me what it is, whatever it is."
Daisy looked at her and her eyes were filling up with tears. "I miss my daddy," she said.
Holly put her arm around her and hugged her. Daisy was so outspoken and sure of herself that sometimes she forgot how young she was, how vulnerable. "I know you do, pumpkin. I miss him too."
"Do you have to go to Mirror Lake with Katie and Doug? Couldn't you go someplace else?"
"You don't want me to go to Mirror Lake? Is that what this is all about?"
"I don't want you to go with Ned."
"But why? You don't even know Ned. Neither do I."
"I just don't like the sound of him. Ned. He sounds like a horse."
"He's probably okay. Katie thinks I'm really going to like him."
"That's the trouble."
Holly reached over to Daisy's nightstand and plucked out a Kleenex. She dabbed at Daisy's eyes and then said, "Blow. That's better. Now are you going to tell me why you don't want me to go with Ned?"
"Because of Uncle Mickey. If you like Ned, then you won't go out with Uncle Mickey anymore."
"I see. You really like Uncle Mickey, huh?"
Daisy flushed and nodded.
"I like Uncle Mickey too. But we're not dating or anything like that. We work together, that's all, and I like to think that we're friends, but that's about as far as it goes."
"You don't have to marry him or anything."
"Oh, thanks."
Daisy was almost hurting with the effort to explain what she meant. "It's just that he reminds me of dad. I mean, he doesn'tlooklike dad, but when he's here- when he came to supper and told me that story-hefeltlike dad."
To her surprise, Holly suddenly found that she had tears in her eyes too. She stroked Daisy's forehead and said, "Yes. Yes, I know what you're saying."
A Night Visitor
There was no moon that night and the apartment was intensely dark. Holly lay awake until nearly two-thirty in the morning, watching the red numbers on her bedside alarm clock counting away her life. She had promised Daisy that she would do everything humanly possible not to like Ned, and that even if she did, she would still invite Uncle Mickey round for supper and let him stay to tell her bedtime stories.
She heard a ship hooting mournfully on the river, and then another, as if they were whales mating.
She remembered waking up one morning to find David sitting in the white-painted rocker by the bedroom window, his eyes narrowed, looking through the two-inch gap between the blind and the windowsill. He seemed to be waiting.
"David?" she had asked him. At that instant he had whipped his head sideways, his eyes tightly shut, as if something were flying directly toward his face.
Six days later he was dead. She often wondered if he had experienced a premonition of what was going to happen to him.
The bedside clock flicked to 2:33. Holly turned onto her back and stared up into the darkness. This is what it must be like, being blind.
As she lay there, however, she became aware that there was an even darker darkness, and it appeared to be hovering right over her. It kept shifting its shape, but it looked as if it had outspread wings and was steadying itself in some unfelt updraft.