The Animal Hour Page 2

  She breathed in the air gratefully, her eyes wide. She glanced back in the other direction.

  The gargoyle had turned its head. It was grinning directly at her, its twisted face six inches from her own.

  “Yikes!”

  She pulled inside double quick. She backed away from the window, her hand to her chest. She could feel her heart fluttering against her fingers. Then she stopped. Her mouth open, she shook her head. She laughed.

  “Whoa,” she said aloud.

  What a weird thing to see! God! She felt her forehead with the back of her hand. Maybe she had a fever or something.

  “Jeepers,” she whispered.

  Well, then she went right back to that window. She stuck her head out again. For a second, she was half afraid the thing really would be staring at her.

  Or creeping toward her. Oooh, she thought.

  Luckily though, the creature was back in its proper place. Grinning down at the street below. Just as stationary as a piece of stone ought to be. She smiled at it.

  “Excuse me, may I help you!”

  The voice came suddenly from behind her and, bang, she started and cracked her head on the windowsill.

  “Yowch. Darn it,” she said. She wheeled back into the office, rubbing her scalp hard. There was a woman there now. She was standing in the office doorway.

  She was a black woman. Slim and busty. Fashionable in a bright red dress made vivid by her dark skin and her red lipstick. The woman was holding a folder under one arm. She was regarding Nancy with an expectant smile.

  For a moment, though, Nancy could only continue to rub her head. “Hi,” she said through her teeth. “Boy, that really smarted.”

  The black woman just hung there, her smile just hung there. “Is there something I can help you with?” she said.

  “Uh … no,” said Nancy, a little confused. “I don’t think so.” She dropped her hand to her side finally. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I … I mean, are you waiting for someone?” the black woman said.

  “Uh … no. No. I’m supposed to be here. You must be new. This is my office.”

  The black woman gave a puzzled little laugh at that. “Well, no it’s not, actually,” she said. “I think you’ve made a mistake.”

  Nancy gazed at her blankly.

  When you walk down the avenue …

  She blinked. “Uh … Excuse me? I’m sorry. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I think you’ve made a mistake,” the black woman said. “This is definitely not your office.”

  Slowly, Nancy glanced around her, surveyed the place. Had she wandered into the wrong cubicle? “I’m … pretty sure this is the place,” she said more slowly. “Isn’t this Nancy Kincaid’s office?”

  I just can’t believe it’s you …

  The black woman stared at her for a long moment. The stare seemed dark. Deep. Empty.

  Oh, it all seems wrong somehow …

  “Well … yes,” the black woman said after a long moment. “Yes, it is Nancy Kincaid’s office.” And then she shook her head. Once. Slowly.

  “But you’re not Nancy Kincaid.”

  The phone rang. The baby started crying. The Shithead started pounding on the door.

  For a moment, Avis did not know which way to turn. She stood in the center of the bare white living room, a small, paralyzed figure under the ceiling’s naked bulb. Her hands were in the air, her fingers splayed. Her sweet, pale face seemed frozen.

  The phone rang again and again. The baby kept crying for her. The Shithead hammered the door hard and now he was shouting too.

  “Avis! Avis, I know you’re in there! Open the goddamned door, Avis! You’re my fucking wife, now open the goddamned door!”

  Avis put her hands to her hair—short curls of dirty-blonde hair. She blinked once behind the huge, square frames of her glasses.

  “Avis! I’m telling you! I know you’re there!”

  The baby’s crying, she thought. Get the baby.

  She could hear the rhythmic wails from the bedroom: “Aah! Aah! Aah!”

  The kitchenette phone shrilled in between. And wham! wham! wham! went the Shithead’s fist.

  “It’s my baby too, Avis! You can’t keep me away from my own goddamned baby!”

  But Avis stood there, stunned, yet another moment. It had all happened too quickly for her.

  Just thirty seconds ago, she had been sitting in the empty room quietly. She had been perched on the canvas chair before the folding card table. She had been resting her hands on the keys of her portable Olivetti, staring at the page peeling off the roller. It was the last page of her report on Thirty Below, a thriller novel set here in New York City. She wrote reports like this for a living. She read novels and wrote synopses of them. Then she wrote her opinion on whether or not the novels’ plots would make good movies. She sent these reports to the office of Victory Pictures, so that the Victory executives could pretend that they had read the novels and had opinions. She was paid sixty dollars for each report.

  On this report, on this page, she had just typed: “This exciting urban thriller—reminiscent of Marathon Man—could be a good vehicle for Dustin Hoffman.” She had been sitting in the canvas chair, staring at that sentence.

  Dustin Hoffman, she had been thinking. A good vehicle for Dustin Hoffman. I don’t know how I’m going to pay my rent next month, and I’m writing about vehicles for Dustin Hoffman. How am I going to buy diapers for my baby, Dustin Hoffman? Tell me that, you stupid millionaire sitting by your pool someplace drinking champagne! My little baby doesn’t have good clothes to wear, Mr. Dusty, Mr. Dust-man, and if he were on fucking fire YOU WOULDN’T PISS ON HIM TO PUT HIM OUT AND MY LIFE IS SHIT, YOU MOVIE STAR ASSHOLE! What am I going to do?

  That is what she had been thinking. And her glasses had been beginning to fog with tears. And she had been thinking about how, if she hadn’t married the Shithead, she would have graduated from Kenyon this past year. And she would’ve come to New York and been a set designer instead of the wife of a starving actor. And she would not have allowed herself to get pregnant before her husband had even landed a paying role. And she would never have known what it felt like for a nice girl from Cleveland, Ohio, to lie curled on the kitchenette floor, trying to protect her womb with her arms while her husband punched her head again and again and again because it was her fault, all her fault, all of it, all of it …

  A good vehicle for Dustin Hoffman, she had been thinking. Well, hot shit.

  And then the phone had started ringing. The baby woke up and started to cry. The Shithead started pounding on the door.

  “When I get in there, Avis, you are going to be one sorry girl, you understand me? If you don’t open this door right this second …”

  Now, finally, her paralysis broke. She started for the bedroom, for the baby.

  “Get the hell out of here, Randall,” she shouted over her shoulder. “You can’t come in here. Just go away.”

  “Avis! Goddamnit!” He hit the door hard—with his shoulder it sounded like. The chain lock bounced and rattled.

  The phone kept ringing.

  “Aah! Aah! Aah!” the baby cried.

  “I’m coming, sweetheart.” Avis pushed open the connecting door and ran into the bedroom.

  It was just like The Wizard of Oz. Stepping from the living room into the bedroom: it was just like the scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy steps from her black-and-white Kansas house into the colorful world of Munchkinland. The living room was Kansas. The peeling white walls, the faded parquet floor; the card table, the chair, the bare bulb in the ceiling. The bedroom—the nursery—that was Oz, or Munchkinland or whatever. There was a riot of color and decoration here. The walls were plastered with Mickeys and Goofys and Kermit the Frogs. The floors were lined with toys and cushions, unicorns and rainbows. And so many dangling mobiles—elephant mobiles, lamb mobiles, airplane mobiles—that Avis had to push them out of her way as she ran to the crib by the bright window.


  My apartment, she thought frantically. A good vehicle for Judy Garland. She reached the side of the crib.

  The baby was waiting for her there, standing, gripping the crib’s top rail. He was a sturdy ten-month-old boy with sandy hair and blue eyes. He had pushed aside his handsewn quilt and was jumping up and down amid his embroidered pillows. The moment he saw her, he stopped crying. His puckered face smoothed and cleared. He broke into his huge, half-toothless, baby grin.

  “Gee-ee-ee,” he said.

  “Oh!” Avis breathed. “It’s da baby! Did da baby come to say hello? Hello to da baby!”

  “Agga agga agga agga,” the baby said.

  “This is bullshit, Avis!” She could still hear the Shithead screaming through the other room. “You cannot keep me out! This is not legal!” And—wham! It sounded like he hit the door with his whole body this time.

  The phone shrilled again, insistent.

  “Agga agga agga agga!” said the baby.

  “Oh, da baby.” Avis hoisted him quickly out of the crib, held him against her shoulder.

  “I’m gonna break this fucking door down, Avis, I mean it!”

  He hit it hard again. The phone rang.

  “Oh God,” Avis whispered.

  She held her baby’s head gently as she rushed out of Oz, back into the living room. She blinked hard as her tears made the bare Kansas walls blur. She ran toward the kitchenette, toward the phone on the wall.

  “Avis!” He was now hammering rapidly against the door with his fist: bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang without stopping. “A-vis!”

  “I’m going to call the police, Randall!” she called out, crying. “I’m serious!”

  “Go ahead!” The fist kept hammering. ‘They’ll agree with me! You know they will! Go ahead!”

  The baby made a small, frightened noise against her shoulder. She patted his head as she ran. “It’s all right,” she whispered breathlessly.

  “Avis!” Bang-bang-bang.

  The phone on the wall rang again just as she reached it. She snatched it up. Held it to her ear.

  There was nothing. Then a dial tone. The caller had finally hung up.

  “Oh shit!”

  She slammed the phone down. The Shithead flung himself against the door so hard, so loudly, that she spun to face it. He did it again. The door seemed to bulge inward. She backed against the wall and stared at it. Where the fuck was Dustin Hoffman now?

  “You hear me, Avis?”

  The baby was starting to whimper, afraid.

  “Ssh,” Avis said. She stroked him. She bit her lip as the tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Randall slammed into the door. She gasped. She thought she heard the wood cracking.

  “Avis, goddamn it!”

  “All right!” she shouted. And now the baby started crying. She stroked him, jogged him up and down. “All right, that’s it!” she screamed.

  The Shithead pounded wildly. The door cracked and jumped in its frame.

  “Avis!”

  “That’s it!” she screamed. “Stop it right now, I swear to God, or that’s it, that’s it! I’m calling Perkins.”

  On the instant, the pounding stopped. The screaming stopped. The room went silent except for the baby’s tentative cries. Avis held the boy against her shoulder, bounced him up and down. “Ssh,” she whispered. “It’s all right now. Ssh.” She sniffled. She took a quick swipe at her nose with her knuckles. More loudly, she said, “Do you hear me, Randall?”

  The silence went on for another second. Then: “Damn it, Avis,” he said. But he did not shout now. He said it quietly. “Damn it.”

  “I’m serious,” Avis said, jogging her baby. “I mean it. I’m going to call him. I’m going to call him right now.”

  “Goddamn it,” came the voice—the suddenly little voice—from behind the door. “Look …” And then: “Goddamn it … Goddamn it, Avis, what do you have to pull shit like that for?”

  “I mean it,” Avis called back. “I’m picking up the phone. Just go away, Randall. I’m picking up the phone right this minute.”

  “A-vis,” the Shithead whined. “Come on. Come on, I mean it. Don’t do stuff like this. I mean it.”

  “I’m dialing him. I’m dialing Perkins right now.”

  The baby had lifted his head from her shoulder. He was looking around with wide-eyed interest. “Pah?” he wondered softly. The baby liked Perkins.

  “Listen, Avis, could we just talk?” said Randall through the door.

  She gritted her teeth. She hated this, the way he sounded now, the humiliation in his voice. She wanted it to stop. She wanted to leave him some pride. Maybe she could let him in, she thought. Even if he was a Shithead. Maybe they could just talk, just through the chain maybe. Just for a minute. She closed her eyes, took a breath. She forced herself to go through with it. “The phone is ringing, Randall,” she called.

  “Shit,” he said softly through the door. But he tried one more time. “You know, I’m going to call my lawyer, Avis. I am. I’m gonna call my lawyer on this right now, today, as soon as I get home.”

  She pressed her lips together, almost overwhelmed with pity. She knew Randall didn’t have any lawyer. She knew it was just something he said whenever he felt helpless and weak. The tears that had pooled in her glasses spilled out now in little streams. And still, she made herself go on. “It’s ringing, Randall. It’s ringing right … Hello! Perkins? Hi, it’s me, Avis.”

  “All right, all right,” Randall said quickly. She could hear him moving away from the door now. She could hear his voice growing fainter. “All right, but I’m serious, Avis. You’re gonna hear from my lawyer on this. You can’t just do this. I got rights. I got rights, you know.”

  But then there were his footsteps on the stairs. Tumbling down the stairs quickly. Practically running. She could imagine Randall shooting a terrified glance back over his shoulder as he skittered past Perkins’s door on the landing below.

  “Pah?” said the baby, looking around with his big eyes.

  Avis held him away from her so she could look in his face. He stared at her, wondering.

  “Pah!” she said, blowing on him.

  The baby thought that was hilarious and let out a loud laugh, kicking his legs.

  Right beside them, the phone rang loudly. Avis jumped. The baby thought that was hilarious too. The phone rang again. Avis let her breath out, shook her head. The baby laughed some more.

  “Ah ha ha!”

  “Very funny,” Avis told him.

  She caught up the phone as it rang a third time. She wedged the handset between her chin and shoulder. She held the baby out in the air. Made a face at him through her tears. He wriggled happily.

  “Hello,” she said. She sniffled.

  “Oh, Avis,” came the voice on the other end, an old woman’s voice, quavering. “Oh, Avis. Thank heavens. You’re finally there. It’s Ollie’s Nana, dear. I need him. I’m desperate. There’s been a catastrophe.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said. She laughed. “I’m not Nancy Kincaid—what does that mean? Who am I then? Am I supposed to guess?”

  But the black woman in the doorway did not laugh. She was not even smiling anymore. She simply stood there, poised and stylish. Her folder under her arm. Her hip jutting a little in her red dress. Her gaze still empty, still unfathomable. Nancy (because she was sure that she was, in fact, Nancy Kincaid) found herself shifting nervously under that gaze. Her weight went from foot to foot. Her hand flicked to her hair.

  “Come on,” she said. “Seriously. What is the problem here?”

  The black woman raised one hand: a mature, professional gesture. “Look,” she said. “You can’t be in here without permission. All right? That’s all I know. If you want to wait outside in the reception area, maybe when Nancy comes in you can discuss it with her, otherwise—”

  “But I am Nancy. This is my office. Christ. I mean, I think I know who I am.”

  “Well—I’m sorry. But whoeve
r you are, you can’t stay in here.” The black woman did not waver. Her gaze did not waver. “You’ll have to go out into the waiting room. Please.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Open-mouthed, Nancy looked around for support. Through the glass partitions, she could see down the row of offices. She could see an older woman hanging up her coat on a stand. A man in shirtsleeves opening his briefcase on his desk. People were going about their business, getting down to work. Only she, of all God’s children, was being persecuted here by the Demon Secretary of Warren Street. She turned back to the black woman. “You know,” she said, as the idea dawned on her, “I don’t think I know you. Do you work here?”

  “Miss, I don’t have time for this right now. If you want to—”

  “Do you work here?” Nancy said. “I mean, this is ridiculous. Why are you bothering me?”

  “Albert.” The woman had turned, had called the name down the corridor. Nancy glanced to her left and saw the man in shirtsleeves look up at the call. He was a young man with coiffed brown hair. He was wearing a blue-striped shirt with a red tie and jolly red suspenders.

  “Is that you calling, Martha, my love?” he said.

  “Albert, could you come in here for a moment?”

  Jesus. This woman won’t give up, Nancy thought. But she was annoyed to feel a little clutch of fear in her stomach. As if she were a high school kid standing up to a teacher. “Look, can I just get to work now please?” she said, a little desperately. “I mean, this is ridiculous. I would like to have my office to my—”

  “Albert.” The young man had joined the black woman in the doorway. The black woman—Martha—was indicating Nancy with one red fingernail.