— You only meant, you’re even afraid to say what you mean… she padded past him and bent over to pick up something, a hairpin? behind the radiator, — afraid it will devour you, that anything alive will devour you.
He stared at it gone upside down, lips parting, cleared his throat. — Are you using the typewriter?
— Am I using the typewriter. She straightened round, an arm akimbo and a breath that briefly exalted things to the disposition of calendar art. — Do I look like I’m using the typewriter?
— There’s something in it, he hastened round himself to turn the roller — I just didn’t know…
— Well take it out that’s right, throw it away, she came on, dispelling breath in a gesture that restored her homey disproportion fully dressed, — it’s probably just something of mine for the Foundation grant.
— They were dead on foot. They were helpless too, because they were dead on foot. Probably had an earthquake. When you come to red brick dust you know you’re coming to a house where the people are standing and the people died on foot…
— All right, I’ve read it.
— But what is it?
— What is it. What do you think it is, something of mine? It’s a composition of Nora’s what do you, don’t you dare throw that away.
— I wasn’t going to, I just…
— Just because you think it doesn’t show talent? You probably wonder how she can be your own daughter she has more talent in, where are you going?
— Finger, he muttered crossing the room.
— What?
— Are you done at the mirror?
— I can tell you what you’ll see there.
— It’s in, something in connection with my work.
— Your work. What, Whiteback told you to take a good look at yourself?
— No this job, the people I talked to in New York today about…
— Job. What job, you’re going to model?
— No it’s in the area of, in the management area, he said to the reflection over the droop of his own shoulder where she was blowing up the inflatable belt that now bridled her thighs. — Executive decision making in the…
— Before and after, you could model before.
— De, decision making, he said to one side, and the other, catching reflections of her exercise over each shoulder. — Role playing, the use of role playing in teaching de, de, the decision making…
— So you’re going to stand there all night and make faces at yourself in the mirror? she said, and dropped from sight.
— Mama what’s the matter!
— Go to bed Nora.
— Daddy what’s Mama doing on the floor with that…
— I said go to bed! She sat up. — It’s like Grand Central station. Can’t you go in and use the bathroom mirror?
— It stinks in there Mama. Daddy can you come plug Donny in?
— Go to bed I said! My God, roll play… She got the belt off and mounted her bed. — Roll play.
He stared into the mirror and then turned slowly to her seated bolt upright, knees yawning as she brought her feet up soles together. — But you, you see what I mean about them seeing things, they…
— Seeing things! She nested her heels, — it’s about time they saw things, you and your roll playing it’s about time they saw some of that. She thinks sex is bumblebees spraying dandelines…
— But she’s only…
— Only going to grow up as dumb as I was when I met you about things you’re even dumber about, where do you want her to learn on the bathroom wall? And do you think you could stop that for a while? I can’t do my breathing with you making faces out of the corner of my eye.
On another face, his grimace might have signaled the decision to raze Carthage, turning from the mirror to find under her emptied brassiere Role Therapy and the Decision Making Process, huddled marking a margin and erasing that to mark one elsewhere already roughened by erasure, sheltering, once undressed, covert expressions of command, disdain, appeal and magnanimity by turn behind a knee raised underneath the blanket, with now and then among them one of quite candid stealth to where in hard-nippled profile she sat bolt upright with no sign of breathing whatsoever, as she was next morning when he sprawled for the alarm, no sign she’d closed her eyes or moved at all but the pillowslip smudged freely with mascara, disdain, command and magnanimity freed to flee cheaply framed above the spattered basin where he coursed them, shaved and wiped them fresh in the bathroom mirror to pursue their shuddering fragments in the rear view oval while he warmed the car and abandon them there with its halt at the Post Office, where the door banged behind him.
— Hi Mister di look out hey, holy…
— He didn’t even see me boy did you see that hey?
— What you spilled both of ours? holy…
— What do you mean I spilled them he smashed right into me.
