22. Zelda
ZELDA
“That crow is too fat.”
The boy points to the third book I have found for him. His father looks apologetic. I smile at him before he can tell his son to choose one and let me work.
“You’re sure it was a bicycle?” I ask.
The boy nods. This is his third visit. I have a list now: crow, bicycle, possibly a red hat. Definitely not a fat crow.
The fourth book has the hat but no bicycle. The fifth has both.
“Found it.” I open the book with more triumph than a grown woman should need from this. “Although the bicycle belongs to a badger.”
He looks disappointed in me.
“I can’t help what the badger owns.”
“The crow rides it.”
He takes the book, turns three pages, and shows me the correct drawing. I bow my head in defeat. He grins for the first time all afternoon.
My supervisor finds us examining the bicycle’s wheels. After they leave, she asks to see my list.
“We should have a board for these. Things people remember when they’ve lost the title.”
“Someone will write ‘blue cover.’”
“Then we’ll need a very big board.”
We pin the crow’s clues beside the children’s shelves. I keep looking over at them while I clear the returns cart. I want someone to ask me what they mean.
At home, there is room on the table for my supper if I move two books. The spare place has acquired a stack of them since I moved in. I eat with my feet on the opposite chair, which is something Jeremiah always said would tip it over.
It does tip a little. I catch it with my heel and carry on reading.
Later I find myself smiling at a sentence with no one to show it to. I mark the page. By bedtime I have forgotten which sentence it was, but I have read forty pages and the dishes can wait until morning.
On Sunday I go to Suri’s.
She has invited a few friends before Dax’s parents come for dinner. She says she understands if I don’t want to be around him. I almost say no, then spend ten minutes thinking about an afternoon with people who aren’t expecting me to answer questions about a book.
When I arrive, Dax is moving a table beneath the back windows.
“Tell him,” Suri says. “Six inches. Can people get past if it comes out six inches?”
“Sideways.” I look at my stomach. “Some of us won’t get past at all.”
He gives a short laugh and moves it back. He doesn’t come over to kiss my cheek. I’m glad he doesn’t try.
For the first few minutes I sit nearest the door with my bag on my lap. Then a woman from Suri’s building tells us about a job interview that became a discussion of the office fish. Apparently it had strong opinions about where its tank belonged.
“Did you get the job?” I ask.
“I’m waiting to hear from the fish.”
I laugh. My bag slides off my knees, and I leave it by the chair.
Suri brings cake in its bakery paper and claims to have made it. We refuse to believe her. She says none of us deserves any, then cuts slices so large I have to take mine in both hands.
Someone asks about work. I tell them about the crow and show them the picture on my phone.
“That is the face of a municipal inspector,” Suri says.
“He’s stealing a bicycle.”
“He could be checking its brakes.”
Otto kicks hard enough to stop me mid-sentence. I put a hand against my side.
“All right?” she asks.
“He objects to your defense of the crow.”
“He hasn’t read it.”
“Neither have you.”
We go on arguing. Nobody asks whether I’m getting upset. When my tea goes cold, I ask for another cup.
Before I leave, Suri catches me in the kitchen.
“I’m sorry about my Christmas party.”
I set down my cup as she continues.
“You kept asking him to listen. I kept wanting everybody to calm down and eat. I should have asked what you needed.”
Through the doorway I can hear Dax talking about his parents’ train. I watch Suri, waiting for her to say how difficult it was for everyone.
She doesn’t.
“At my anniversary, you said what you saw,” I tell her. “I was glad you were there.”
“I should have done more at mine.”
“Yes.”
She takes that without looking away. I draw a finger through a ring of tea on the counter.
“I want to keep coming to things,” I say. “But if Candace is invited, tell me before I get here.”
“I will.”
“Even if you think I won’t come.”
“Especially then.”
I pick up the cup again. My hand is steadier.
Suri tells me the woman from the January supper canceled her March anniversary booking with Candace. Two more people asked whether the story was true. Suri told them what she had seen.
What she hadn’t seen, because it hadn’t happened.
For one hot, ugly second I am pleased. Candace will have had to open that message. She will have had to read why.
Then I remember bringing her breakfast after her first paying job. She had place cards spread over every surface and a streak of glue on her wrist. She was so proud she couldn’t sit down to eat.
I rub at the tea ring until Suri passes me a cloth.
“Have you spoken to her?” I ask.
“A little. I haven’t asked her to help here since Christmas.” She looks toward the hall. “I don’t know what’s left of that friendship. But I won’t make it a surprise for you.”
“Keep that promise.”
“I will.”
Suri wraps a piece of cake for me. I let her give me the corner with extra frosting. I don’t ask whether Candace cried when the booking was canceled.
Jeremiah calls at seven, while I am walking to the bus. We arranged the time earlier in the week. He has called when he said he would all month, sometimes with the noise of the street behind him instead of the plant.
I can’t forgive him. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I’m not ready to let him go yet. I need time, time to decide what I want.
I stop beneath an awning and answer.
“Good time?”
“I’m leaving Suri’s. She fed us cake.”
“That sounds better than my supper.”
“What did you have?”
“Something that looked considerably better on the box.”
I laugh. “A packaging complaint. You’ll know who to call.”
“I’m trying not to make work for myself after five.”
“Since when?”
“I’m changing a few things at the plant. My manager and I have been talking.” He pauses. “What kind of cake?”
I tell him, then tell him about the fish because I want to make him laugh. He does, a surprised laugh that I hear all the way down the phone.
“Did you tell her to send a follow-up to the tank?” he asks.
“I wish I had.”
“You can still take the credit.”
A bus turns into the street. It isn’t mine. I step farther under the awning and tell him about the crow too. He remembers the clues I mentioned last week. He asks whether the little boy got to take it home.
“He wouldn’t let his father hold it.”
“Sensible. The man might lend it to a crow.”
I am still smiling when my bus comes. I tell Jeremiah I have to go.
“All right. Enjoy the cake.”
On the bus, I open the box to make sure it hasn’t tipped. The frosting is intact. I want to tell him that too, which is ridiculous. I close the lid and look out at the wet lights.
At home I put the cake beside my book. I find the page I marked last night and start to read, looking forward to telling him about it if it is as funny as I remember.