Martin Sloane (6 page)

That’s sweet, said Molly.

But I’m banned from Toronto, I said.

You’re not banned.

He’s always telling me what I wouldn’t like about Toronto. His apartment has no bathtub. The city is cold.

In the winter, you mean?

No, said Martin. Well, yes, but what I mean is the people aren’t as friendly up there.

I wouldn’t be going to accept the key to the city.

He stared hard at me. His expression said, Any reason why you’re doing this right
now?

Just because, I said out loud.

Fine, he said. I come here because I love getting away from a place I hate being in to one I love being in. And it isn’t true the other way around: you love Bloomington, you’d hate Toronto, and there’s nothing to do up there. So I come here. I go to all the
trouble
of coming here.

I
want
to come to Toronto.

Fine, he said, raising his arms a little off the armrests. You’ll come, then.

I pulled my head back a little, astonished. When? I turned to Molly. You’re my witness.

I don’t think I better get —

Whenever you want, said Martin.

I jumped up and made him shake hands. You heard him, Molly. He said
whenever
. You heard him, right? I leaned down to him. Remember, you just said
whenever
.

I heard him, said Molly, draining her drink. I’ll be back in a second. She got up and went back into the house. We watched her go in through the sliding door. She’d seemed a little put off.

Are you even
drinking?
Martin asked me.

I sat down on his lap. A little.

She doesn’t need to see this nonsense. You’re making her uncomfortable.

She can take it, I said. She’s Molly. Water off a goose.

A duck.

A duck, you’re right.

Well, quit it. She came a long way to see you and you’re behaving very spoiled.

Can I really come?

Sure, Jo. I don’t want to fight about it anymore.

No! Don’t give in! Tell me I can come because you
want
me to come.

I do. I want you to come.

Yayyy!

But if you come, no complaining about how dull it is.

If I’m bad, maybe you’ll have to spank me.

Shush, he said. Molly was coming back out and she was in a smallish yellow bikini. We both stared for a moment, gobsmacked, before making a show of getting out of our chair and gathering things up, as if we’d fallen behind in an agenda only she recalled.

Let’s find somewhere to go swimming, she said. Okay? It’s too hot.

Sure, sure, I said. I’d forgotten how beautiful she was, gorgeous sleek black hair, and her long, generous body. I picked the beer cans out of the grass as she stood between us, towel folded over her arm.

So that’s your workspace, huh? she said to Martin. Will you show me later?

Actually, I said, Martin doesn’t let anyone in there. Not even me.

Okay.

She gets to come in once in a while just to keep the peace, Martin said, but it’s really a mess. He leaned in toward her and laid his hand on a bare shoulder. It’s nothing personal, he said.

Molly smiled at him. No offence taken.

He stood there, touching her, a circuit or two blown. When you’re finished fondling my oldest friend, I said, why don’t we go for a swim.

They both laughed and Molly stepped away from him. A swim, he said. Good idea. And you’re coming to the opening tonight, aren’t you?

That’s why I’m here! Molly said.
By invitation only!

Then you’ll see a few of the new things then.

Excellent. He began walking into the house.

I watched him vanish through the door. I’m
sorry
, I said when he was out of earshot. We’re being obnoxious.

Nonsense, said Molly. It’s great to see you guys.

Well, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, I said.

Martin reappeared with my bathing suit and a couple more towels.

You know what I was just thinking, Molly said to him. I was thinking about this one thing you made Jo. I’d love to see it again. I don’t remember exactly what it was … a hornet’s nest, or a honeycomb, she said. And there was one little hole, that if you looked in it, you could see in the middle a tiny doll wearing a crown. I always wondered how you did that, how it got it in there.

I don’t remember that, I said.

Well, I cut the nest open, said Martin. Along a line of cells so the cut would be invisible. And I hollowed it out a little and built a platform inside out of balsa, pinned the little queen there, and then I closed it up. And that was it. Pushed little pinholes through certain cells so the doll would be lit right, and hollowed one out to look down.

The hornet’s nest? He nodded at me. The hornet’s nest. I
know
that piece, Martin.

Okay.

I stared at him a moment. I’m not going to get it.

I didn’t suggest you do.

I can’t fucking believe this, I said, and I ran into the house and went into my closet. I never threw anything out that he gave me; the artworks I kept safe, or put on display, but the mounds of detritus that he also gave me — little love tokens, things I thought maybe one day he’d ask after — remained in storage. In a minute, I’d found the nest and ran back out with it, and turned it in my hands, looking for a peephole.

You’re lying, I said.

That’s the one, said Molly. I saw light coming out of it one day when I passed the shelf everything was on. I convinced her to put all those things you made in a common room so everyone could enjoy them.

I don’t believe this. I couldn’t find any so-called peephole. You
are
lying, I said. Martin took it from me and held it out at arm’s length. Then turned it slowly one way at eye level until, suddenly, a gold light burst from one of the cells. He passed it back to me. I looked into the glowing hole, and sitting in a nimbus of pale afternoon sunlight was the thing I’d never seen.

A tiny doll the size of a thumb, papery wings on her back, sitting alone with a crown on her head in the middle of the hive. I stared at her, rapt. Finally, I passed it to Molly and looked over at him, my mouth open in disbelief. How is it possible … you must have thought I
hated
it.

I knew you hadn’t found her.

I would
never
have found her.

Yes, you would have. There was going to be a day when somehow she’d have been revealed to you.

I forgot you had wings! Molly said. She lowered the nest, her eyes shining. Martin took it back from her and started walking to the shed with it.

I might clean it up a bit though, he said.

Oh! said Molly, following him. Can I peek?

Molly!

Sure, he said. You can peek. He unlocked the door and leaned in to put the honeycomb on a shelf for later. Molly stood back, peering over his shoulder.

Looks all jumbly in there, she said.

It’s a pigsty, he said. That’s the real reason I don’t let a soul inside. He closed the door and came back across the lawn toward me. He was trying to contain a stupid grin.

Look at you, I said. You’re so proud of yourself.

Took you three years.

Were you
ever
going to tell me?

These things come together for their own good reasons, he said. I don’t want to push them.

Push them! What else is in those boxes in my closet? They’re sitting in the
dark
covered in
dust
.

They’ll let themselves be seen when it’s time, he said, and raised his chin at me.

I’m coming to Toronto
next week
. I need to keep a closer eye on you, mister.

Molly was still standing in the grass, watching us expressionlessly, her towel over her belly. So … swimming? she said.

We loaded some beers and a watermelon into my car and headed down 28 to a gravel road that led to the quarry pits. It was now late in the day, and the sun had baked into the stone — a weft of hot air rose from the road. Molly dropped her hand out the window, sighing.

You should be careful you don’t burn, I said.

You know me, she said, batting her eyelashes. I just smoulder.

Most of the locals had stopped going to the quarries in September, so we had them to ourselves, and I directed Martin to the smallest one, farthest away from the rest. He pulled over and Molly got out and quickly laid out a towel on the flat rock that led to the edge of the quarry. I started changing behind a tree. Martin sat by Molly with a cap over his eyes and peered down into the glassy water, more than forty feet below.

Which of us hasn’t seen you naked? Molly called to me.

She does this at home too, Martin said. Runs outside and changes in the trees.

I could see them, fragments of skin and colour, through the branches and the leaves. I’m not changing in front of you both, I said. You know, the two of you seeing each other seeing me naked.

He wouldn’t care if we both skinny-dipped. She turned to him. I’m assuming.

There’s no sunblock.

Sunblock wasn’t actually the topic.

He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked at her. I’m another generation, he said. I’m not with-it enough to look at a naked woman I don’t know that well and act nonchalant. He paused a moment. Not to say I wouldn’t mind
stumbling
upon such a scene.

Molly laughed. I came out in my one-piece and hauled her up to standing. You’re not coming in? she asked as I pulled her toward the edge.

He doesn’t do water, I said.

We stood and looked down. Long-ago industry had carved out these pits and left them to fill with water. It was like looking through a window onto one of the summer skies of your childhood. I was a bit buzzed from the beers and the sun, or I would never have considered jumping. Molly took my hand and we counted to three and leapt. We gulped air, a delicious moment of death, and then the cold, cold plunge. I came up gasping and blinking, the water so cold, so piercing. I could feel it leaching the sun from me, the baked-in heat of the day dissolving.

This smallest quarry had been nicknamed the Elephant Graveyard because there were two Volkswagen bugs at the bottom, one green, one blue. People had spread a story about a nighttime drag race and a dark burst over the edge. The green one was closer to the other side: the winner. No one believed it, but it was hard not to conjure the bodies of two boys in their cars below us, their hair moving back and forth in the water like ferns. The tingle of picturing a hand on your ankle. The two bugs were unreachable without airtanks, and no one, as far as I knew, had ever gone down there. The cars swayed in the distant light like treetops.

Molly was groaning with happiness, floating on her back. This place is incredible. If you want to swim in New York, you join a health club, or risk herpes from the public pools.

Yuck.

We both floated on our backs and looked up. The yellow walls rose at perfect right angles to the water. Martin looked tiny at the very top. The bickering was very cute, she said.

I don’t get a lot of opportunity to see him squirm.

Or me.

Right.

She swept her arms back and forth through the water slowly. Mmm, she said. This is perfect.

Isn’t it.

So you’re happy, aren’t you?

I am. Yes. We drifted a little, the sky unblemished to all horizons. What about you? I said. You keep getting cut off with the Martin and Jolene show.

Oh, you know. It’s the same old story. Men like to conquer me and I let them, but I scare the shit out of them. Too smart, too beautiful.

I’m supposed to say that part.

There might be someone, I don’t know. He keeps kissing me on the cheek.

That’s gallant.

It’s just as well. This is the good part, you know? Nothing’s gone wrong yet.

Since when do you have such a bad attitude? I said, but before she could answer, I pushed off her with my feet and arced over backwards under the water. The bugs glowed in their dead light below me.

— unlucky, she was saying when I came up. Huh? It doesn’t matter. She gave a strong slow pull underwater and drifted away a little, then swung her arm back and forth through the air. Wave, Jo. He’s waving.

I looked up to the top of the stone wall, where shafts of sunlight were pouring down, and waved to him.

I didn’t upset you this afternoon, did I? she said.

No, I said, although I’d been deeply embarrassed. How did you know about it, though? How did you remember?

I just remembered it from the house. It was one of my favourite things.

I didn’t know you even looked at them.

I did.

I tilted my head into the sun, squinted at her. Do you want it? I said.

He made it for you, Jo. You can’t just give it away.

I know, but I’ve kind of lost my privileges, I’d think. We’ll ask him afterwards.

No, don’t, she said quickly. It’s not meant for me.

I nodded, treading water. Okay. She tipped her head back and rewet her hair, then submerged and swam toward the far wall, a lithe shadow under the surface.

That evening, we all dressed in good clothes and went to the Bergman ceremony. Martin was in his “openings” suit: I’d only seen him in it once before, in Washington, and more frightening than making him look his age, it made him look like a respectable man his age, which made us look especially suspect as a pair. Of the three of us, Molly was the one who seemed distracted: she fiddled with her glass and was uncharacteristically wordless after being introduced to various functionaries and friends.

We circulated in the crowd, nodding at the right times in conversations, nibbling the appetizers that went around. The small glass tables throughout the reception hall were littered with cellophane-wrapped toothpicks and empty champagne flutes. Martin had mentioned earlier that he was hoping for something subdued and tasteful. Is coconut shrimp and tamarind sauce with Tattinger’s lowbrow enough for you, my love?

Don’t rub it in, okay?

Two men in tails blew cornets to announce the ceremony was about to begin and everyone filed through a pair of doors to one of the larger galleries, where a hundred or so seats had been set up. Up at the front, Clark Johannson, the curator, was waiting for people to settle. He was a big Swede, with hands like paddles and long legs. You could always see him walking across campus, bright in his yellow ties and chinos, towering over those beside him. He’d come up to Martin and me a month earlier at a rally down by the student union. Some students had built a shantytown there to protest apartheid, and the field below the road had become the centre of the university’s social life during that spring. Johannson had recognized Martin from a show at Tufts two years earlier.