Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 19 Read online

  D.J. Sparkle is working the lights. The corners of the room go darker and there is a heightened glimmer to Lady P.'s gown. For the first time Robert really surveys the room. A group of Japanese businessmen is gathered at a table in the far corner. Several young men are lounging on the Pouf, arms laced around shoulders and draped over thighs. Robert is only a few years older than them, but he has never felt as young as they look. A table of straight couples sits near the entrance, in front of a sign which reads No Shoes No Shirt No Gaff No Service. One of them is a nervous-looking cowboy type. He is trying not to notice the cowboy couple across the room, one of whom has his hands in the other's jeans pockets. Robert remembers what desire felt like—what a surprise it always was to him that she wanted him. His eyes wander back to the Pouf. He has always been too old.

  Lady P. continues. “The next morning Thomasina slipped like a lisp from her bed and out into the pasture before it could be filled. The cows descended like swans floating downstream. Girl, they were as graceful as Vivien Leigh descending a staircase. But something had changed. Their eyes never met Thomasina's but she could feel that they were aware of her presence in a new way. The change was slight and Thomasina was hesitant to wonder whether it was a change in her attitude or theirs. They were just as beautiful, but more aware. When she returned to the house everyone was just waking.

  "Honey, that day tragedy struck. The three boys were sent to gather wood as they always were with the onset of autumn. Near evening Alexander and Ferdinand returned in a panic. Graham was hurt, they panted, Graham was struck. Thomasina's father followed the boys out into the clearing where they had left Graham. The axe-head had slipped, said Alex, and Ferdinand swore that it had chopped a second and third time of its own accord. But in the clearing Father found nothing but a rustle of leaves and the accursed axe, dipped with blood. Graham was nowhere to be found.

  "Girl, the night was a long and quiet vigil spent in the company of family, with Alex and Ferdinand whispering about witchery and blood in between their salvaged islands of sleep, and Father and Mother contemplating the fire soberly, silently, and Thomasina all the night wide-eyed, her mind drifting west to east, sunset to sunrise. How was it that the bed was so full yet suddenly so empty? The two boys filled the space; in some ways it was as if Graham had never been there."

  Robert leans over to Gecko. “Why did you bring me here?” he says. It is less an accusation than a suspicion that Gecko understands more than he lets on.

  "And so days went on and Graham never returned; and he was not forgotten but not mourned. His life was a space which he might or might not come back to fill. And eventually Thomasina realized that weeks had slipped by since Graham's death, and one day she too would die or disappear, victim of a magic axe.

  "And so the next morning she slipped like a lisp from between the blankets and through the cold house out onto the doorstep in her bare feet. And the cows had already poured into the valley, Mack trucks on ballerina limbs, and had begun grazing.

  "Having missed their arrival Thomasina thought it prudent to witness their departure, and they floated out of the valley and into the forest with the early morning mist, in the same direction from which they came. The last cow to leave regarded Thomasina dolefully, with Mary Astor eyes, before it turned tail and wafted away. Nothing was left to look at but the mirror lake.

  "Honey, you can only keep children in the house for so long, and that day the two boys were sent to gather water, as the season was coming upon them when the nearby creek would become clotted with ice. Near evening Ferdinand returned crying. He had dared Alexander to climb up and fill his bucket from the small falls in the middle of the creek. Alexander had climbed up the narrow slate ledge and held his bucket under the icy water. The rocks shifted; Alex slipped, and in falling cracked his head against a boulder and went under. Girl, at this point the current rose with such fervor that, try as he might to follow, Ferdinand could not catch up to the drifting body of his brother. At last, after following for miles, he had begun the long trek home.

  "And Father went to the site at which Alexander had fallen, but the blood had been washed from the boulder by the running water and there was not a sign of him anywhere.

  "That evening there was no talk of witchery, but a deep and stunning silence in the firelight by which Thomasina's mother and father regarded each other, with the expressions of two whose mourning had been expended. How was it that the bed was so full and so empty? Ferdinand filled the space. And Thomasina's mind drifted west to east, sunset to sunrise as she watched the shadows flitting across the rafters."

  Lady P. pauses. She takes her glasses off and regards the photo mural of the Parthenon as if it means something. The club is silent. “In the following weeks Thomasina was expected to pick up some of the chores that Alexander and Graham had left, and, involved in drudgery and physical labor, began to think of the gray mill where she would eventually spend her days with less distaste than before. Honey, her Cinderella complex kicked in. And she had a vision of herself as Alex being carried away downstream, unable to break the glassy surface forming between herself and her family. And she remembered her cows.

  "So the next morning she slipped like a lisp from between the blankets and through the cold house, and the cows were already settling into the valley, tinkling their bells. Something had changed, honey. Perhaps it had become performance, and performance had yet to become reality. Girl, Thomasina began to wonder what they were thinking, and where they came from, and why bells and why cows? And sooner than she could think these thoughts they were leaving.

  "The last two cows to leave stared back at Thomasina from the other side of the mirror lake, absorbing her with their huge brown eyes before wafting away.

  "And that day, in the midst of work, Thomasina though about the river and the mirror lake. And she began to wonder whether she would ever be sent off to live in the gray mill, now that two of the boys were gone, and now that she was doing half of the workload, and she began to think about those two spaces which had somehow been filled but still somehow existed. And she began to think about her parents, who now had two less children to work, as well as two less to feed.

  "Honey, I don't have to tell you what happened next. Ferdinand did not come back when he was sent to check the traps, and Father went out searching but returned with empty hands. That evening Thomasina's mind raced from west to east, sunset to sunrise, and she fell into a dream.

  "In the dream she saw the gray mill and the pale boy—the miller's son—looking out the window. The boy's face looked like an expiring star. She stood on a distant plain watching him. Behind her was the forest, and on the other side of it her parents’ house. And she was unable to move between the two. As night descended the forest fell away and became a black space—blacker, blacker still—until it was swallowed by stars. She looked to the mill, gray and forbidding in the rosy effusiveness of the sunrise.

  "She woke up vexed at having such a dream, but was not daunted. She slipped like a lisp from between the blankets and through the cold house, past the room where her parents had expired of sorrow during the night, and out onto the porch just as the cows were leaving.

  "Three of the cows were waiting at the shore for her. And so, as if it had never even occurred to her to do such a thing, she walked across the surface of the mirror lake and followed them up the misty slope and out of the valley. And the cows entered the forest at the top of the slope with Thomasina among them, traveling west to east, sunset to sunrise as the sky darkened black, blacker, blacker still and they all took their places with the stars."

  Lady P. takes off her glasses. Her sequins blink like a thousand waking eyes.

  Robert leans in to Gecko. “Is it true?” he says. But he is not sure what he is asking.

  * * * *

  The story is over. The club has closed. Men and boys have gone home to each others’ apartments to fill each others’ beds. Somewhere Leslie the La La Girl is sleeping on satin sheets. Robert has gone back to his
apartment where a flashing red light indicates a single unanswered message. He thinks it may be her, but he does not play it. In the morning things will seem less intense, less tinged with sadness. Shadows will be banished in the flat West Hollywood sunlight.

  On the boulevard the traffic has slowed to a trickle. It is quiet as the back door to the club opens. An old man comes out into the darkness. He looks like nothing special. He gets into his car. He adjusts the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of his tired eyes. He lifts a hand to wipe a smear of green eye shadow away. Then he starts the car and pulls out onto Santa Monica Boulevard, heading eastwards to an empty apartment.

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  The Slime: A Love Story

  Anna Tambour

  At a time of life when the slime was mature but not brittle, it fell in love—a dangerous sentiment and an alien one, but when has love cared? From being a blob of sturdy equanimity throughout, love changed the slime so that it softened to runny on the inside, crusty on the out.

  Alarmed, the slime begged for advice, but all the dust in the room, lint balls on the furniture, scrap paper, crumbs, rubber bands, and even the odd bent paperclips, were useless or worse.

  Shocked, the slime fled.

  After almost falling victim three times, it found in a place undisturbed for many years, a book with a brittle fossil of glue clinging to the spine. At the slime's touch, the pages fell to

  The Art of Correspondence: Love Letters

  The slime followed all of the chapter's advice. It copied all the sample letters from one side of the affair, only changing names and omitting certain phrases, like “dear girl".

  My dear Miss Searles, the slime wrote. I can no longer restrain myself from writing to you, dearest and best. I love you so much that I cannot find words. My heart has long been yours, as I will own. Just send one kind word to Your sincere adorer.

  The slime signed the letters Cedric W. McCrae and addressed the envelopes to Miss Viola Searles. A love letter, the slime had learnt, must have proper names for the ‘to’ and ‘from'. Cedric cheered it, and Viola suited its love.

  When the whole pile's-worth in the chapter had been written, answering every permutation of reply, expressing every occasion for sentiment including a death in the family, the time came to post them. But though the slime had carefully copied the addresses in the book, the preposterousness of the project suddenly glared, brighter than clean paper.

  The object of the slime's love, the slime suddenly remembered, not only could not read, but most probably had no dear friends, nor useful advisors. The object of the slime's love would never know it cared.

  The slime fled yet again, looking for answers to its state of love. It found sympathy from a piece of amber on a deserted beach, but no answers. It shadowed a shoe, actually the something stuck to the bottom of it, but the slime missed the moment when the shoe scraped the something off. The slime then wasted a lot of time shadowing the shoe for nothing.

  The slime was possessed by love. It never stopped thinking of love, though one day when the slime cried “Viola!", as it was wont to do, and someone asked, “Viola who?", as ones often did, the slime could not remember who, nor even what. All the slime could remember was love, not the object of its love.

  But love wrought yet more changes, this dangerous love did. The slime's outside crust now extended so far to the inside that the runny part was just a tiny dot. Then the crusty part began to crack, and that hurt more than love.

  Love caused this change, the slime ah-ha'd, and began to hate its love.

  The slime warmed to hate, and soon hated with a heat so hot that the crusty part melted from the inside out till one day the slime was equanimity again, with nary a crusty bit. The slime moved this way and that, felt smooth throughout, and resiliated in joy.

  Hate, you did this, the slime cried out. Hate, you blessedly restored me. After that, the slime travelled the land extolling the virtues of hate.

  "Hate for what?” others asked. The slime looked too youthful to be wise, too healthy to be stupid.

  "For love!” the slime always answered, which sounded so wise that no-one dared question that.

  The slime felt so smooth and firm and confident and full of thanks for its lesson learnt that it travelled now only the high road, to adventure and extol. You might have seen it then. You might have heard it.

  The slime completely forgot its love. Its fame grew. One day when it was delivering one of its six set speeches—this one had made crowds roar oh, hundreds of times ... brrrrrr! Talking hate is dangerous. Cool words. The slime suddenly felt itself all over—cold and brittle as a marble slab. It stopped its speech and went on its way again. The slime renounced the word. Deed only, became its life. Hate constant, pure and true. And by hating with such a heat, the slime became its own true self again, youthfully soft, and even softer. You might have seen it then, this silent traveller on the high road.

  And so one shimmering midday when the road felt only one traveller, the slime hating constant, pure and truer than ever melted altogether, not to be seen nor heard again.

  That brittle winter, the road felt something tight. Something pulling on its body in a certain place. It looked there and saw nothing, but the thing still pulled. So the road bent its body just so, and back again. And sure enough, the pulling thing flaked off.

  The pulling thing was the frozen slime, now broken into bits.

  Oddly, or maybe it was fate, next to the pieces was the thing that had been scraped off the shoe so long ago.

  A gust of wind, or possibly something else moved the thing that had been scraped off the shoe, and then moved it some more, so that the thing moved like a broom round the bits of slime till they were all one pile. A pile of frozen slime bits.

  And then the thing that had been scraped off the shoe fell upon the pile of frozen slime bits. And though winter was brittle, the thing was resilience itself.

  Come spring, it melted the slime again. It melted the slime so much, they made a whole together.

  That was a long time ago. But unless I've heard wrong, they are still together.

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  Sliding

  D.M. Gordon

  Shadows slip down driveways—bears wandering at night, disappearing behind stop signs, moaning, silver-tipped visions rocking paw to paw.

  All the world is sliding—rain on green mountainsides, soft shoulders of old women, the sloping arms of pine, vanishing laps, birth canals and old age, those worn wet trails. I too slip down sluices of wet moss.

  There goes an old millworks. Sliding.

  A row of neat houses, a museum, a parliament.

  A blind boy slides on his bedroom door, equipped with the latest paraphernalia, air tanks and dry rations. There are omens he has seen in sudden clearings.

  Here's a yellow grizzly standing broadside in our way, wet-tufted and musty. The boy banks and vanishes. I prepare to crash.

  Here is a glass door, a brown bear on the other side, dressed in a pin stripe suit with waistcoat.

  I open the door for him, and he tips his bowler hat as he pads upright on soft bear feet across a marble floor, to my great relief, for last night I heard the banshees sing, and I thought, for a moment, they were singing for this world.

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  Such a Woman, Or, Sixties Rant

  Carol Emshwiller

  A woman is a field upon which to play out the general malaise of the times, a field upon which to act out one's disillusionment with self, a microcosm where the larger issues of the day can be divined and clarified, where courses about to be charted across vast wastelands can be played out in miniature, a retreat where one can brush up on tactics or blow off steam, whichever is most necessary at any given moment. A woman is, in other words, a playing field, a sort of Mayan ball court where games of incredible significance, both mystical and religious, take place, sometimes several times a week. (Healthy self-conceptions are dependent on it.)

 
But not just any woman will do. Many women can be left to go on with their lives any way they see fit, it is of no importance. As long as they don't stop traffic or trains or disrupt shipping lanes, they can be left to their own devices.

  But these other women.... They must be singularly suited to the job, and dressed for it, not only all their waking hours, but while sleeping also and perhaps even at those very private moments of actual penetration, hair spread out over the pillow, gown in studied disarray.... It goes without saying that such a woman should be eager to be of service to her county through her countrymen: senators, executives, and bureaucrats ... that she should yearn to “take part” through her boss, her pilot, her instructor, her dean, and sometimes her landlord, though she must understand (and usually does, though not always), that there are no special citations or awards connected with it.

  Such a woman should be self-possessed only in as much as she defines and contains the “other” within herself so that when she looks into a mirror ... (which she frequently does—has to do, in fact, in order to make herself ready for her task) ... when she does, it is not only to assess her own image, but to imagine herself beyond herself as the “other,” imagine herself to be the very one who will possess her. How will he see her? How will he judge her? She counts on his first mpresssion. She counts on his: “What I see is what I long for,” at any given moment (or, preferably, at every moment.) She is wondering what, then, about her can make him look up staring? Startled? Will he see her as she has prepared herself to be seen? And, if not, can she face him anyway? And will she be able to read the tell-tale signs on his face well enough to program her next move? Therefore she comes either from the shower or the flower shop with the same questioning look, eyes wide, and searching for the expression she needs in order to know and to outguess the “other.” She must know him well if she would not deny him anything, wanting, as she does, to outshine all other women in his life (and most especially his mother) yet fearful that this may not be so.