The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

A week later he called the apartment and told her she was welcome to come back, at least until she and Chad left for Vermont. He hadn’t hired anyone else, and if there was any possibility she might change her mind, he wouldn’t.

‘I miss you, Nora.’

She said nothing.

His voice dropped. ‘We could watch the tape again. Wouldn’t you like to do that? Wouldn’t you like to see it again, at least once?’

‘No,’ she said, and hung up. She started toward the kitchen to make tea, but then a wave of faintness came over her. She sat down in the corner of the living room and bent her head to her upraised knees. She waited for the faintness to pass. Eventually it did.

She got a job taking care of Mrs Reston. It was only twenty hours a week, and the pay was nothing like what she had been making as Reverend Winston’s employee, but money was no longer the issue, and the commute was easy – one flight of stairs. Best of all, Mrs Reston, who suffered from diabetes and mild cardiac problems, was a feather-brained sweetie. Sometimes, however – especially during her endless monologues concerning her late husband – Nora’s hand itched to reach out and slap her.

Chad kept his name on the sub list, but cut back on his hours. He set aside six of those newfound hours each weekend to work on Living with the Animals, and the pages began to mount up.

Once or twice he asked himself if the weekend pages were as good – as lively – as the work he had done before that day with the video camera, and told himself that the question had only occurred to him because some old and false notion of retribution was lodged in his mind. Like a kernel of popcorn between two back teeth.

Twelve days after the day in the park, there was a knock at the apartment door. When Nora opened it, a policeman was standing there.

‘Yes, Officer?’ she asked.

‘Are you Nora Callahan?’

She thought calmly: I will confess everything. And after the authorities have done to me whatever they do, I’ll go to that boy’s mother and stick out my face and say ‘Hit me with your best shot, Mama. You’ll be doing both of us a favor.’

‘Yes, I’m Mrs Callahan.’

‘Ma’am, I’m here at the request of the Walt Whitman branch of the Brooklyn Public Library? You have four library books that are almost two months overdue, and one of them is quite valuable. An art book, I believe? Limited circulation.’

She gawked at him, then burst out laughing. ‘You’re a library policeman?’

He tried to keep a straight face, but then he laughed too. ‘Today I guess I am. Do you have those books?’

‘Yes. I forgot all about them. Would you care to walk a lady to the library, Officer—’ She looked at his nametag. ‘Abromowitz?’

‘Happy to. Just bring your checkbook.’

‘Maybe they’ll take my Visa,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘Probably will,’ he said.

That night, in bed.

‘Hit me!’ As though it wasn’t lovemaking she had in mind but some nightmare blackjack game.

‘No.’

She was on top of him, which made it easy to reach down and smack him. The sound of her palm hitting the side of his face was like the report of an air gun.

‘Hit me, I said! Hit m—’

Chad slapped her back without thinking. She began to cry, but he was stiffening under her. Good.

‘Now do me.’

He did her. Outside, someone’s car alarm went off.

They went to Vermont in January. They went on the train. It was lovely, like a picture postcard. They saw a house they both liked about twenty miles outside of Montpelier. It was only the third one they looked at.

The real estate agent’s name was Jody Enders. She was very pleasant, but she kept looking at Nora’s right eye. Finally Nora said, with an embarrassed little laugh, ‘I slipped on a patch of ice while I was getting into a taxi. You should have seen me last week. I looked like a spouse-abuse ad.’

‘I can hardly see it,’ Jody Enders said. Then, shyly: ‘You’re very pretty.’

Chad put his arm around Nora’s shoulders. ‘I think so too.’

‘What do you do for a living, Mr Callahan?’

‘I’m a writer,’ he said.

They made a down payment on the house. On the loan agreement, Nora checked OWNER FINANCED. In the DETAILS box, she wrote simply: Savings.

One day in February, while they were packing for the move, Chad went into Manhattan to see a movie at the Angelika and have dinner with his agent. Officer Abromowitz had given Nora his card. She called him. He came over and they fucked in the mostly empty bedroom. It was good, but it would have been better if she could have persuaded him to hit her. She asked, but he wouldn’t.

‘What kind of crazy lady are you?’ he asked in that voice that people use when they mean I’m joking but not really.

‘I don’t know,’ Nora said. ‘I’m still finding out.’