A Reunion of Ghosts. Judith Mitchell Claire
grin.
As she gawked at the pristine desk, the absence of clutter felt like a rebuke. Other than the noisy brass clock, every item on its surface was new: a leather blotter, a set of unimaginative but shiny Cross pens, a deluxe version of Galileo’s Pendulum, blond wood and steel balls.
And there was more. On the wall above his credenza, the diplomas documenting his unadventurous education—NYU undergrad, NYU College of Dentistry—had been framed and hung. On a nearby shelf, photographs, once propped against books, their edges curling, had also been framed and arranged in ascending height order, like a Rockettes kick line.
The smallest of these photos was of the dentist and his golden retriever Beef, a sweet aging dog that Lady had, at various times, taken to the vet’s or groomer’s. Next there was a slightly larger shot of Beef alone, a professional portrait in which Beef’s mouth was open and his pink tongue lolling, so he looked as though he were smiling, although he was probably just panting from the heat of the photographer’s lights.
Next, larger still: the dentist and his wife under a chuppah. Beef was in this one, too, sitting alongside one of the chuppah bearers, both the bearer and Beef in paisley vests and bow ties. Then there were two new additions, each one Beef-free. There was an eight-by-ten, just dentist and wife squinting into the sun on their honeymoon. There was a nine-by-twelve, dentist and wife aboard a sailboat that Lady hadn’t known he owned but could see was named The Tooth Ferry.
And on the credenza itself, a small piece of white card stock tented over like a place card at a dinner party. Surprise!! it said. Lady opened it. Happy Anniversary!! it said. Love!! Patty, it said. And along with the exclamation points—not deliberately silly and facetious exclamation points like Lady’s bunny ears and wide bunny eyes, but conventionally employed and rather hysterical exclamation points—were Patty’s hearts and x’s and o’s.
Lady returned the card to the credenza. She took the professional photo of Beef, the one with the tongue. She held the frame with both hands, looked into the dog’s brown eyes. She dropped it, frame and all, into her purse.
Leaving, she made sure to close the door to the dentist’s office, to punch in the alarm code, to secure the outside locks—to do everything methodically and correctly so nothing would let on she’d been here. Once outside, she hurried past the Terminal Bar, jetéd over the Puddle Styx, trundled up the metal staircase, and caught the Broadway local, which was shimmying on the platform, waiting to take her home.
The blade of the acid-green screwdriver didn’t come close to fitting into the grooves of the screw. Lady looked at the tip of the blade and realized the thing she’d purchased wasn’t a screwdriver at all. Oh, sure, it looked like a screwdriver, but it was something else, a screwdriver’s stepbrother, a bastard screwdriver, the tip shaped like a crucifix.
She was so disappointed in herself, felt so inept, so useless, she couldn’t help it; she, who never cried, began to weep. She had to give herself another little lecture, tell herself that it wasn’t a big deal, that she’d simply return to the store and exchange the screwdriver-like tool for an actual screwdriver. How hard would that be? She knew she could alternatively stick the impostor screwdriver into a drawer, then go out and buy a replacement within blocks of her apartment. It wasn’t as if the aggregate cost of the almost-screwdriver and a genuine screwdriver both was going to break her. But if she did that, then she would have to live with a screwdriver-like device that made her feel stupid. She might as well have invited Joe Hopper back.
She wiped her eyes with a nearby dish towel and got a grip. The truth was, she needed to go back to Riverdale anyway. She not only had to return the goddamn screwdriver, she had to return the photo of Beef. How stupid to give in to the impulse to swipe it. How baffling the impulse itself. Had she imagined that the dentist, when he surveyed his new and improved office, wouldn’t notice its absence?
Of course he’d notice its absence. A professional portrait, scheduled, paid for. He’d ask the wife if she had deaccessioned the photo; the wife would say no. Then one of two things would occur. He’d accuse the wife of lying. He’d tell her he’d always known she didn’t love Beef. He’d say that this, her stealthy elimination of his dog’s portrait, was the first step in removing Beef from his life. He’d add that mauve was no color for a man’s office. A fight, then a divorce, would ensue. He’d tell Lady he’d been a fool.
Or he’d figure out at once that it was Lady who took the picture in what, he’d conclude, was some sort of statement, some sort of expression of Lady’s attachment to him, of her never expressed but clearly out-of-control desire for him, of her persistent if wrongheaded conviction that they had a relationship. Or maybe he’d think it was some kind of threat—admit we have a relationship or you’ll never see your dog again—when all it was, really, was an irresistible urge to screw with the wife’s prissy and predictable sense of interior design, to violate the rigid order of the photographs.
But he’d never get it, would never see the verve, the art, the sly humor in what she’d done, and so, when she went back to the hardware store later that same day to return the acid-green piece of useless crap she’d bought, the photograph was still in her purse so she could return it too.
She should have realized the hardware store would close early on the Saturday of a long Fourth of July weekend, but she hadn’t, which is why, at two o’clock, she found herself standing on the street looking at the half-lowered security gate sprayed with graffiti: gang symbols, swastikas, the names of lovers in hearts.
One of the brothers who owned the place came outside, crouching to avoid hitting his head on the gate. He was wearing dark blue work pants and a malodorous short-sleeved dress shirt. On his head he’d plopped, of all things on this sultry afternoon, a felt homburg. The hat appeared to possess gravity-defying properties, remaining atop his head even as he exited the store in this half-bent position, as if he were dancing the limbo upside down. He was sweating oceans, of course. Each of the large pores of his purple fleshy nose was ringed with gray moisture. He stood, looked briefly at Lady, then turned his back on her.
This was what courage looked like for Lady: she didn’t immediately retreat. Instead she pulled the screwdriver from her purse, explained her problem, told him the whole sad saga.
“Forget it, lady,” he said when she was done. He still hadn’t turned to face her. “I ain’t taking that back.”
She looked around, as if for support, as if there might be some neutral observer stepping up to assist her. But it was the Saturday of the long Fourth of July weekend. It was New York. The street was empty.
She tried explaining again. Right screw, wrong blade.
He spun around. For a moment she thought he might hit her, that’s how angry he seemed. She thought his anger might have something to do with his heavy accent. Perhaps he didn’t understand English all that well, perhaps he’d misunderstood her, thought she’d said something rude or belittling. But it turned out she was the one who didn’t get it.
“It’s a Phillips head, lady,” he said with disgust.
Over the course of her twenty-six years on this earth, Lady had become extremely adroit at distinguishing the proper from the common noun. Still, his repeating her name, even unwittingly, was disquieting.
“But it didn’t work,” she said. “And I only bought it this morning.” She could hear her voice, the high pitch, the way it fluttered with nerves. “And I have the receipt. Look. It says right here your return policy is seven days.”
“We have a no returns policy for people who don’t know their asses from their elbows,” he said, and then he was back to struggling with the gate. It had gone off its tracks, was the problem. He shook it back and forth, jiggled it, jostled it. She saw that her presence was distracting him, exacerbating his struggle. She took a step back.
He mumbled something, but she didn’t try to make sense of it. She was still caught on what he’d said just before, his verbal addenda to the store’s return policy. She wondered if she’d possibly misheard him. His accent was so thick, after all, that she’d had to stare at his lips to