Astonish Me. Maggie Shipstead

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ forcefully in through the windows, smelling of garbage and gasoline, and they recline in the warm air, saying little, worn out but also energized, their blood circulating smoothly, as though the performance had swept their veins clean. Joan is already too hot in her jeans and borrowed top. She envies the others’ little dresses even though their bare legs must be sticking to the grimy vinyl seat cover. The driver peeks in the mirror, the silver rim of his glasses catching red and green sparks from the traffic lights. He handles the wheel gently, cautiously, with his plump hands. Most cabbies flirt a bit when the dancers are out together, make some suggestion about where they should go, comment on how nice they all look, but he doesn’t. He takes his glances in the mirror, like someone peeping over a fence.

      The party is near Astor Place, in a brick building with peeling yellow paint and a fire escape made out of rust. It is not Elaine’s usual sort of glitzy, careening, pill-popping party but something else, just a party, a humid crowd of languid people gathered in a smoky apartment. Edith Piaf warbles from the stereo. Joan didn’t need to have worried about Yvette. The girl takes the French music as a sign of welcome and sets off for the table of bottles in the far corner, greeting strangers as she goes with little sideways bonjours.

      “Drink?” Elaine says.

      “No, I need to drop weight.”

      Elaine takes a pack of cigarettes from her purse. “Want one?”

      “No, thanks.”

      A knowingness hovers around Elaine’s pursed lips and raised eyebrows as she lights up.

      About Yvette, Joan says, “I don’t know why she still does this French act.”

      “She’s just French enough to pretend to be French. I don’t know—look at her. It works. I should think it’s obnoxious, but I don’t.”

      They look together through the people. At the makeshift bar, Yvette is smiling up at a tall and gorgeous black man. She cuts her eyes to the side, murmurs something out the corner of her mouth, making him lean in.

      “I’m going to get a drink,” Elaine says. “And hopefully a very tall man.”

      Joan grabs her arm. “No, don’t. I’ll never see you again. You’ll disappear.”

      “This place is tiny.”

      “You have a way.”

      “Come with, then. Five steps that way. We can rope ourselves together first if you want.”

      Joan follows. “How did you know about this party?”

      “I went home with the guy whose apartment this is a couple months ago, and then I ran into him the other night. He said he was having a thing. I wasn’t going to come, but then you … he’s—where is he?—oh, he’s that one.” She points through the crowd to a pale head with full pale lips and small pale eyes. The head, partially obscured by a woman’s red curls, nods in a courtly way, smiles slyly. It is the smile of a man who knows women like to think they are being amusing.

      “He’s handsome.”

      “Isn’t he? I thought so.” Elaine pours bourbon into a mug and offers the bottle. “You sure?”

      Joan shakes her head. “All your men are handsome.”

      “I would not call this guy one of my men. I would call him … Christopher? I’m not sure. I should have asked when I saw him again, but it seemed impolite. Maybe we can delicately find out from someone here.”

      “Except Mr. K. He’s not handsome.”

      “Mr. K doesn’t have to be handsome. He’s a genius. You should know. Arslan doesn’t have to be handsome either.”

      “Arslan is handsome.”

      “No, Arslan’s sexy. Anyway, he’s not a genius the way Mr. K is. Mr. K creates. Mr. K has changed everything.”

      “Please, tell me more about your boyfriend, your old, gay boyfriend.”

      Elaine taps her cigarette into an empty wine bottle, unflappable. “Labels are a waste of time. So is possessiveness. I know what he is.”

      “God,” Joan says on a long breath. “I can’t believe how liberating it is not to care anymore. I watched Arslan walk out the stage door with Ludmilla tonight and didn’t want to kill myself. Finally. I’m cured. It’s heaven.”

      “Hmm.” Elaine drags on her cigarette, drops it into the wine bottle. “I think you’re pregnant.”

      Joan smiles at the linoleum floor. She draws her toe across it in an arc. “Because of the waffles?”

      “Lately you seem like you’re saying good-bye all the time, like you’re about to go catch a bus.” Elaine studies her. “Have you told Jacob?”

      “No.” Joan watches the tentatively identified Christopher as he walks around with a jug of red wine, filling people’s glasses and mugs. This is the first time she has spoken about the pregnancy except with the doctor who gave her prenatal vitamins, and Jacob’s name is loaded with a heavy, sudden future.

      In high school, she had decided her mild sexual curiosity about Jacob was nothing more than a generic offshoot of her general sexual curiosity. He was younger, which was not sexy, and wore little wire-rimmed glasses, which had seemed to signify something important then, and he was transparently devoted to her, which was not sexy, and he was academically brilliant and a little insecure (not sexy, not sexy). Joan, however, had the mystique of ballet to trade on, her tininess and her suppleness, the grace that had been drilled into her until she was physically unable to be awkward. Lots of boys wanted to date her, and dating them was simple, while dating Jacob would not have been.

      But when they were sitting side by side at the movies or watching TV on the couch when her mother was out, not speaking and not looking at each other, he would stay so still that she sensed he was restraining himself, wary of any movement that would betray what he wanted, and some hidden sensory organ in her would rotate toward him, probing, considering.

      “Did you do it on purpose?” Elaine asks.

      “Of course not.”

      “You can’t do this if it’s only about running away from Arslan.”

      Since she got pregnant, the cattle prod jolt of Arslan’s name has worn off, become only a faint zap, two weak wires touched together. “It’s not. It’s really not. I might be running from everything else, but I have to go. I have to find something else. You’ll make it. I was never going to.”

      “You did it on purpose.”

      “I didn’t!”

      “It doesn’t matter. It’s done. But you don’t have to … you could, you know, just quit the company. Not have a baby. Get a job. Do something else.”

      Solemnly, Joan shakes her head. “I couldn’t just decide to stop. I thought about it. But I’m too much of a coward. I can’t stay in the city if I’m not dancing, and I wouldn’t know where else to go. Or what to do, generally.”

      “So you’re counting on Jacob to figure all that out СКАЧАТЬ