Chapter 13
Thirteen
When Tana turned up at the door of Arthur’s apartment the following Sunday afternoon, she had a pizza and something in a brown
paper bag, and she was wearing the Biko hoodie. It was two sizes too big for her and she swam inside it. Looking at her in
it now, Arthur never would’ve guessed she was pregnant.
He stood aside to let her carry the pizza down the hall to the kitchen. He hadn’t had much appetite since looting the Special
Collection—aka the treasure room—at the library, but a good-smelling steam was trickling around the lid of the box, a savory
odor of melted cheese and sauce.
“Van here?” she asked.
Arthur shook his head. He found it difficult to speak. His throat had closed up with emotion the moment he opened the door
and saw her standing there.
“Too bad,” she said. “I get a sense that’s one kid hates to miss out on a free meal. We’ll just have to eat it without him.
Something to wash it down?”
She took a six of Michelob out of the brown paper bag and put it on the table, next to White Fang and The Compleat Angler. She popped a can and handed it to him, popped another and had a swig. He didn’t tell her pregnant women weren’t supposed
to drink.
“Sorry my sister ruined your Halloween,” Tana said. “I’m sorry about the whole fucked-up mess.”
He waited to feel something and found he didn’t. He wasn’t grateful for her apology. He wasn’t angry or despairing either.
He had discovered what waited beyond anger and despair: numbness. Un-feeling.
“That’s my mom’s Biko sweatshirt,” he said, gesturing to it with his can of beer.
In a remote, disinterested sort of way, he thought his whole life had hinged on one act, which at the time he had thought was simple decency.
If he had not offered her the hoodie then he would not be a thief now, and there would not be eight thousand dollars’ worth of rare books sitting on the kitchen table next to the pizza.
She looked down at it. “Oh. Yeah. Here. You want it back?”
As she pulled the hoodie off over her head, her T-shirt rode up with it, rising to reveal the tender pink swell of her stomach.
Arthur saw she had the top button of her jeans undone, could see the satin black-and-pink lace strap of her panties.
Tana saw him staring and smiled. There was a kind of bemused curiosity in that smile, which just touched the corners of her
lips. After a moment she pulled the T-shirt the rest of the way off and dropped it on the table, covering the books. She stood
in front of him in her bra and jeans.
He looked her over, feeling something at last. It was a sharp click of desire, but it wasn’t just desire; it was mingled with something that felt almost like grief. He felt bad about himself for looking at her while she
was half undressed. He felt bad about himself for wanting to reach out and tug down her denims.
“Did Jayne tell you to do this? Throw me a little something to keep me in line?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” She had her thumbs in the loops of her jeans and was smiling just a little and rocking her hips from side
to side, letting him look her over.
Arthur wanted it to matter. He wanted to be the kind of person to whom such a thing would matter. Maybe he even had been that kind of person,
a few months ago.
But he wasn’t that kind of person anymore. He reached for the waistband of her jeans and pulled her toward him.
At some point they made their way to one of the beanbags in his bedroom—the beanbag Gwen had sat in, on Halloween night.
When they were done, he rolled off her and sat on the floor.
She stretched out with her ankles crossed.
She was still wearing her socks, but nothing else, had left her jeans in the hall and her panties on the threshold to his room.
It was now dark and the streetlight threw the shadows of raindrops against the far wall.
He wondered how many men Jayne Nighswander had made her sister sleep with and if he was now one of them. He had been assaulted,
threatened, and blackmailed, and after all that, it felt like he deserved something for himself. So he had taken Tana because
he could, and now he worried he was no better than Jayne or Ronnie. He had hated them for months. Now he could hate himself
too.
“Have you really had to sleep with people because your sister owes them money?”
“Among other things,” she said.
They didn’t look at each other. He got up and went naked into the kitchen for their beers and came back.
“Is that why we did this?” He couldn’t leave it alone, needed to know one way or another.
“What do you think?” she asked, taking her can when he held it out for her. Then she said, “I hope it’s not a girl.” It took
him a moment to realize she was talking about her baby. “I’d run away from Jayne, but I don’t know how we’d live. I can’t
make rent by delivering pizzas, and Jayne takes the money anyway. Most of it. I’ve got a little tucked away.” She had a swallow
of beer and sighed. “Sometimes I think it’ll be okay. Sometimes I think someone will kill Jayne and make it okay. Someone
she owes money to. Or someone will stick her up for drugs and things will go bad. When I’m feeling down, I remind myself it
could end at any time. Someone could kill her or she could kill me.”
“What if you went to the police?” he asked.
She laughed—a dry, caustic sound—and did not dignify this question with a reply.
“So you don’t want a girl?” he asked.
“No,” Tana said. “I don’t want to have a girl and have my sister let guys fuck her when she’s eleven. A boy would be better. Jayne would have a harder time figuring out how to make money off a little boy.”
“Is the father going to help out?” Arthur asked.
“Not sure who it is,” she said. “I’ll have to see if the kid is Black. That’ll narrow it down.” She laughed. There was no
humor or happiness in it. “I hope it’s a boy and he does something good with his life. Someone who rescues cats from trees
instead of swerving to hit them. Ronnie does that. He keeps score on his dashboard. Two points for a cat, four for a dog.”
The rain ticked on the windows.
“If you get ahold of Gwen Underfoot,” Tana said suddenly, “you want to make sure she don’t wriggle free. That year the two
of us worked at Dunkin’, she was my Secret Santa. She gave me a new pair of sneakers. Best gift I ever got. Everyone else
got joke presents or five-dollar gift cards. Me, I unwrap brand-new Reeboks. She had noticed my old sneaks were held together
with duct tape. I know you’ll probably be tempted to find someone else—some college girl, someone who spends the summer down
the Cape and listens to James Taylor and doesn’t get her hair done at Supercuts—but take it from me. She’s the best you’re
going to find.”
“You might be right,” he said. “But do you think I’m the best she’s going to find?”
“No,” Tana said. “I’m sure she can do better.”
He was too.
They sat together in the gloom listening to the rain, and at some point he took her hand. He even kissed her knuckles. She
laughed.
“For what it’s worth, Arthur,” she said, “you aren’t a completely shitty lay.”
It was his turn to laugh. “You want a slice of that pizza? It might not be cold yet.”
“Okay,” she said. “That would be all right.”
He stood and glanced back at her. The shadows of raindrops trickled down her bare stomach, over her breasts, down one side of her face.
With her head turned toward him, she looked older, had the fatigued beauty of a young and harried woman in her mid-thirties.
It was the first he ever really noticed that she was beautiful, with her freckles and tired eyes.
“Hey, Arthur. You could make both our lives easier and kill my sister yourself.” She stared idly at the ceiling, watching
shadows trickle across the plaster. “Something to think about.”