Extreme Ghostbusters: If That's What You Want
Part 2
Probably best to keep it simple, Eduardo decided, as he stepped out of the subway train and onto the platform. "Kylie and I got married this morning." That would do. There was no point in trying to prepare for Carl's reaction. It could be more or less anything.
"Eduardo! Oh my God! Hi!"
The vaguely familiar voice dragged him out of the all too near future and back into the present. Standing at chin level was quite possibly the last person he had expected to see on that particular day. She didn't look very different from the last time he had seen her: thin, pale, red-haired and looking slightly embarrassed, as she always did.
"Bess, hi," he reacted, when he had finally accepted that it was her. At first he just couldn't believe the coincidence. "How are you?"
"Good," said Bess. "I'm good. I'm just taking a break from work." There was silence for a few long seconds. "Would you like to come with me to get a coffee?"
"Um." Eduardo wondered whether she wanted or expected him to accept her invitation or not. It was possible she was just being polite and wanted him to say no. But, he remembered, she wasn't really like that. Besides, anything to delay the inevitable and keep him away from Carl for a few minutes was not to be sneezed at. "Sure, why not?"
"So," said Bess, once they were sitting at opposite sides of a less than pristine café table and each was looking at the other over the rim of a steaming polystyrene cup. "How have you been?"
"Good," said Eduardo. "I, um, I got married today."
Bess raised her eyebrows. "Really? So why aren't you with her now?"
"I was on my way to tell Carlos about it. You know, to get it over with. He doesn't know yet."
"Oh." Bess didn't look surprised. She well remembered Eduardo's bizarre relationship with his brother. "I guess I needn't be offended about not being invited."
"No, no, don't be. It was just small – you know, with a few close friends."
"Sounds nice."
"Yeah, it was."
"Do I know her?" asked Bess.
"Who?" said Eduardo. "Oh, my… yes, actually, it's Kylie."
"Kylie?" That one surprised her. "I never knew you were interested in her."
Eduardo shrugged. "I guess I'd learnt to hide it well."
"Was she the one you dumped me for?"
"Yes," he said apologetically, "actually, she was."
"Oh well." Bess managed a smile. "No shame in going out to the eventual winner."
"So… how about you? Are you seeing anyone?"
"Not right now. There was someone after you I kinda liked… but that didn't work out. Then there was this other guy last year… jerk. I'm giving men a rest for a while. I thought I'd maybe try having a career or something."
"A career, huh?" Eduardo cocked an eyebrow. "So what are you doing now?"
"I'm working for Pizza Hut."
Eduardo blinked. "How is that a career?"
Bess laughed. "I'm a payroll administrator. One day in about five or ten or a billion years, maybe I'll be running the whole payroll department. But right now I just pay all the delivery boys and waiters and people like that. And I also have to deal with subsequent queries. Like, if they think their pay is wrong, they call the office and I have to explain about tax and stuff. It's as dull as ditchwater, but it pays the bills."
"Somebody's gotta do it," Eduardo pointed out.
"True."
"How long have you been working for Pizza Hut?"
"Getting on for two years."
"Weird. All those times I took my kids to Pizza Hut, and you were paying the guy who took our order."
Bess blinked in surprise. "You took your what to Pizza Hut?"
"My, um, kids. I got two little girls."
"Wow, really? Is Kylie their mother?"
Eduardo smiled slightly. "Of course Kylie's their mother."
"Sorry."
"It's ok."
"Aren't you going to show me a picture?"
"Sure, if you want me to."
Bess nodded. "Go for it."
Eduardo whipped his wallet out of his jean pocket and then riffled through the various pieces of paper in there until he came across a recent picture of his daughters.
"They're real pretty," said Bess, taking the photograph as he passed it across the table. "My God, the little one looks just like you!"
"That's Rose," said Eduardo, "and the older one is Conchita. They're five and two."
"Rose can't have been two when this was taken."
"She was. Just."
"No way."
"I'm not lying to you, Bess," Eduardo insisted. "She's small like her mom. Chita's normal sized."
"Like you."
"Yeah."
Bess handed back the photograph, and then spontaneously burst into tears. Eduardo froze, completely unable to react and wondering what he could possibly have said.
"I'm sorry," said Bess. She ran her hands over her eyes, and the tears disappeared as quickly as they had materialised. "I know how you feel about crying women."
"What's wrong?" Eduardo asked anxiously.
"Oh, nothing, really," mumbled Bess. "It's just… well, there's a chance I might not be able to have children."
"Oh. Wow. Bess, that's terrible. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, well, nothing's certain. And I've watched soap operas – being told you're barren doesn't mean anything." She choked out a dry laugh. "Anyway, I shouldn't cry about it. I've got no right – it's my fault anyway."
"How is it your fault?"
"Well, I had an abortion, and it turns out there were complications, and… well, you don't like hearing about that kind of stuff."
"I'm better at it than I used to be," said Eduardo. "I live with three women now."
"So you do." Thankfully she was smiling again. "You're doing the conventional bit already. Wife, two children… mortgage, maybe?"
"Only a small one." Steve Griffin had been a terrific source of financial help when they were moving home, besides which Eduardo and Kylie both had some inheritance from his father and her great-grandmother. "And my family isn't as conventional as you make it sound."
"I don't doubt it. I remember how unconventional Kylie was. So much so that Wanda wanted to recruit her into our little magic club."
Eduardo winced. "Don't remind me of that."
"Yeah, I know – definitely best forgotten. So… you're happy, then?"
"Extremely."
"I'm glad."
"Thanks."
"Well." Bess glanced at her watch. "That was way too long for a coffee break – I have to get back to paying pizza delivery boys. And you have to go break the good news to Carl," she added brightly.
"Yeah," Eduardo said warily. "This ought to be interesting."
x x x
Conchita and Rose were looking through a pile of old family photograph albums in the middle of the floor. Kylie was nursing an open can of Diet Coke and looking expectantly at her father. Steve was clutching a cup of coffee with a stunned look on his face.
"You got what?" he said at last.
Kylie rolled her eyes. "Married."
"Why didn't you…?"
"Tell you?"
"Well. Yes."
"I'm telling you now," Kylie shrugged dismissively. "The wedding wasn't a big deal. It was just small."
"In front of a judge with two witnesses," Conchita added helpfully. "Not including Rosie and me."
"Who, um, who were the witnesses?" Steve asked carefully.
"Kevin," said Kylie, "and a friend of mine."
"Which friend?"
"No one you know."
"Leonard," offered Conchita.
"See? No one you know," Kylie said hurriedly. "Look, don't be offended – we didn't tell anyone. We didn't tell Eduardo's mom either."
"I wonder how she'll react."
"I expect she'll either be thrilled or furious."
"So are you happy?" asked Steve.
"I am happy, yes," said Kylie.
"I'm glad."
"You think it was a good move, then?"
"It doesn't matter what I think."
"No," Kylie agreed, "but tell me anyway."
"I just want you to be happy, honey," Steve told her.
"Well, I am."
"Good. I'm so pleased." He put down his coffee mug, scooted along the sofa and hugged her. "Congratulations."
"Garrett's grandmother says you're only supposed to congratulate the man," said Conchita.
"I hope you weren't taking that seriously, Chita," Kylie said sternly. Then she looked at Steve and asked, "Did you ever hear that one?"
"It sounds vaguely familiar," said Steve.
"Ooh!" Conchita exclaimed suddenly. "Wedding pictures!"
"Wedding pictures?" Kylie moved off the sofa, away from her father's arms, and knelt on the floor with her daughters and the photo albums. "Dad, you kept these? How morbid."
"Come on, Kylie, your grandfather paid six hundred dollars for the photographer," said Steve. "He demanded his wedding present back when we go divorced, so I figure I should keep those pictures on ice, just in case."
"She's pretty," Conchita remarked, examining the pictures of the grandmother she had met only once, as a very young baby.
"Six hundred dollars for a bunch of photos?" Kylie pulled a face. "How much did the whole wedding cost?"
"Um. I'm not telling you."
"What a complete and total and utter waste of money."
"Obviously it didn't work out in the end," reasoned Steve, "but it was a good day. We were happy then."
"Yeah. You married the woman you thought you loved and she got the big flashy wedding she was marrying you for."
"Kylie."
"What?"
"Things used to be different."
"So you say."
"You could have had a big wedding if you'd wanted to, you know," said Steve. "I would have found the money from somewhere. You only had to ask."
"Dad, I only ask you for money when it's important," said Kylie. "I mean, who needs all this?" She gestured towards the photographs: Jill; Jill and Steve; Jill and the bridesmaids; Jill holding her bouquet in her left hand; Jill holding her bouquet in her right hand; the makeup before it was on Jill's face; Jill's shoes in an artistic little pose (seriously). "Who wants all of this?"
"In my experience," said Steve, "almost everyone."
"Well, not me and not Eduardo. I never wanted a big wedding," said Kylie, suddenly losing her contemptuous tone. "Not even when I was a kid. Eddie and I got married without breaking the bank, because the wedding isn't the important part."
x x x
"You got what?" Carl's eyes were practically popping out on stalks.
"Married," Eduardo repeated calmly.
"Married. Right. And I suppose this was her idea?"
"Well… yeah."
"Of course it was." He put a hand to his forehead and began pacing the room. "Jesus, Eddie, how stupid are you? Think about this! Why would she suddenly decide to marry you after all this time? It makes no sense, unless she's planning to leave you."
Eduardo blinked. "How does that make sense?"
"Because now when she decides to go, she gets half of everything you own!"
"No," Eduardo said reasonably, "because that would mean she'd get three quarters of everything. Half of it is already hers."
"Right, right, but you'll still have to pay child support. If you weren't married you'd have no legal obligation towards those kids."
"And no parental rights at all, you told me. If we weren't married she could move away with them and not tell anyone her address, and I couldn't do anything about it."
"No," Carl agreed grudgingly, "you couldn't."
"But if we were married I'd have to have access. I could even fight her for custody."
"You'd never get custody, Eddie. Fathers don't get custody unless the mother is an unfit parent. And proving that in court wouldn't be easy, whether it's true or not."
Eduardo decided to let that one slide, saying dismissively, "Why are we even having this conversation? I don't think Kylie is planning on leaving me any time soon."
"Then why marry you now, huh? Huh?"
"Because she's ready now."
"She's ready now. You let that woman walk all over you, Eddie. She has double standards."
"She has what?"
"Double standards, Eddie, double standards! If you try telling her what to do, you're chauvinistic, because she's her own person. But you're not your own person, are you! I'll bet she makes you take your feet off the coffee table, doesn't she!"
"No."
"But she makes all the decisions. She decided you were going to live in my house after you knocked her up. She decided you weren't going to get married. She decided you were going to move. She decided you were going to have another child. She decided you were going to get married. You're her slave, Eddie!"
"She has a name, Carlos. And I'm just trying to make her happy."
"Right, right," Carl said again, with a dismissive wave of the hand. "And she is happy, because she gets everything her own way! You know what? I take it all back. She's not going anywhere. Your marriage will be a complete and total success because my brother's a doormat!"
Eduardo scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You wanna know the secret to a successful marriage, Eddie? One partner has to be prepared to be completely subservient. Otherwise you've got no chance."
"Oh come on, that's not true."
"Sure it is. Look at you and your wife. You're still together because you're happy to let her walk all over you. And Mom and Dad – she hardly even talked when he was around, and when she did it was only to ask him if he wanted anything. And me and Beth! Beth has been completely subservient for the past twenty-one years, and we were together for all that time! And then what happened? She finally snapped, and now she's not prepared to do it anymore! And my marriage is a failure!"
"What the hell are you talking about, Carlos?"
"Beth's gone, Eddie! She's left me!"
"What?" He couldn't have heard right, surely. "When the hell did this happen?"
"This morning. Probably round about the same time you were getting married."
"I got married at eleven."
"Oh. Beth left around ten."
Eduardo looked at the ground. Kevin had been in his apartment at ten.
"Does Kevin know?"
Carl shook his head. "He's been out all day. I don't know what he's been doing. Damn kid never tells me anything."
Eduardo bit his lip. Then, quite suddenly, his brother seemed to fall to pieces before his very eyes. Carl's frown melted down into a hangdog expression; he collapsed onto the nearest armchair, and began to weep openly.
Eduardo froze. He hadn't expected this. He didn't like tears at the best of times, and this completely threw him. He could cope with crying children, but that was where he drew the line. Crying women were bad enough (and he'd had one of those already). Men that one might reasonably expect to cry were too much. But Carl… hell, Eduardo couldn't even remember Carl shedding a tear when their father had died.
"What am I going to, Eddie?" bawled the older brother. "You gotta help me!"
"What? How?" squeaked Eduardo, in panicked tones.
"I don't know." Carl sniffed, and wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve. "You're with a strong independent woman who isn't prepared to cook your dinner every night. How do you make her stay?"
"I… I… don't know."
"Eddie, for God's sake, you must know!"
"Well, I… I don't 'make her stay'. I just… you know… I treat her right."
"But how, Eddie?" pressed Carl, sniffing again. "How do you do that?"
"Well, y'know, Kylie isn't Beth," Eduardo faltered. "What Kylie wants isn't necessarily what Beth wants. Women aren't all the same."
Carl snorted. "So they say."
"Well, it's true."
"You know what?" Carl, thankfully, was no longer in tears. He seemed to be completely himself again as he stood up to his full impressive height. "This is all your wife's fault."
Eduardo frowned. "What?"
"She's been filling Beth's head with all of her feminist shit."
"Feminism isn't shit. All feminism means is that women should have all the same rights as men."
"Hey, look, I'm all for women's lib. But some people take it too far. Your wife thinks that just because she wouldn't be happy staying home looking after the place while you earn all the money, everybody else should think the same way she does."
"Carlos," Eduardo said scathingly. "Beth can think for herself."
"Don't give me your lip, Eddie! This never would have happened if it hadn't been for your wife!"
"Stop calling her that! She's not just my wife – she's a person in her own right."
"Beautiful," drawled Carl. "She's brainwashing my entire family!"
"Marriages don't break from the outside, Carlos."
"Is that another one of your wife's little expressions?"
"I'm going home."
"No, Eddie, wait!"
Eduardo stopped in his tracks, beginning to panic now. "What?" he asked warily.
"You gotta help me, Eddie!"
"I… how?"
"Well," Carl said desperately, "you could talk to her for me."
"What good would that do?"
"She listens to you!"
"She does?"
"Sure she does!"
"Dude, calm down," said Eduardo. "I don't even know where she is."
Carl sniffed. "Neither do I."
"Oh. Well, I… I'm sure she'll get in touch when she's had time to, to… you know, cool off or something."
"And then what?" pressed Carl. "What do I say to her to make her come back?"
"Carlos, I don't know!" Eduardo returned heatedly. "It's your marriage!"
For the first time ever, or at least as far as Eduardo could remember, Carl was speechless. He blinked a few times, and then suddenly a faint glimmer of hope swept over his face as the front door clicked open. However it disappeared moments later when Kevin strolled into the room.
"Hi," he said brightly.
"Hello, son," Carl answered limply. "Guess what Eddie did today."
Kevin looked uncomfortable. "Um…"
"He got married."
"Oh… wow," Kevin said shakily. "Congratulations. That's really… Oh, screw this. Dad, I was there."
"You were what?"
"I was there. Eduardo invited me to the wedding."
"We needed two witnesses," Eduardo explained, after a few seconds had passed, unnerved by his brother's silence. "Ky and I invited one each."
"Jesus, Eddie, she can't even get married like a normal person."
"Dad, does it bother you that I was there?" Kevin asked nervously.
Carl shrugged. "I hardly see that it matters."
"Oh," said Kevin. "Good. Dad, I…" – he took a very deep breath. "I'm going to travel for a little while on the inheritance your father left me. And I'm not going to become an auxiliary cop. And I'm not going to the police academy in four years."
"WHAT?" bellowed Carl. Eduardo and Kevin both shrank back instinctively. "Why the hell not?"
"I don't want to be a cop," Kevin replied simply.
"Oh, you don't wanna be a cop," retorted Carl. "So what do you wanna be? A slacker? A bum? A Ghostbuster?"
"Dad, Jesus, there are plenty of other jobs out there," Kevin said defensively. "And I don't have to decide right now."
"So instead," bristled Carl, "you're going to squander all the money you do have on 'travelling'! Where the hell are you going to go to, Kevin, huh? Jesus Christ, my father left you that money for your future!"
Eduardo had a strong suspicion that he would be dragged into this argument if he stuck around, so he stole quietly out of the room, hoping that Carl was too blinded by rage to notice. Once he was safely through the door and in the hallway, he realised that he needed to use the bathroom anyway, so he went upstairs.
When Eduardo emerged two minutes later, Kevin was walking across the landing, looking rather red in the face. Eduardo was surprised; he had expected that argument to last for hours.
"Are you ok?" he asked.
Kevin simply shrugged.
"Was that the news you didn't want to tell me?"
"Yeah," Kevin confessed. "I'm sorry, I just - "
"Don't apologise, Kev. I think it's a great idea."
Kevin blinked. "You do?"
"Sure I do. You're eighteen, you've got a few thousand dollars to spare and you're probably never going to have an opportunity to do it again. Go for it, I say."
"But don't you mind?" asked Kevin. "I mean, it's your dad's money."
"No, it's your money."
"Well… thanks."
"No problem."
"So anyway," said Kevin, glancing at his surroundings as he suddenly seemed to realise that something was missing. "Where's Mom?"
x x x
"Hi, how was your day? Wow, you look really… weird."
"Thanks," said Bess, falling into the welcoming embrace of the sofa. She wasn't really in the mood for her roommate of nine years right now, but was too polite to say so. "I just got yelled at by a pizza delivery boy. These people seem to think that we deliberately keep money from them. I mean, what do they think we do with it?"
"People are total numbskulls," Wanda said sagely.
"Yeah." Oh, what the hell? She might as well tell her. "Guess who I ran into on my coffee break."
"Who?"
"Eduardo."
"Your ex-boyfriend Eduardo?" Wanda pulled a face. "Bad luck."
"It was fine," said Bess. "We had coffee and he told me what he did today. Guess what that was."
"Cracked onto some girl who wasn't interested, bedded her best friend and then dropped her like a hot brick?"
"No. He married Kylie."
"Kylie?" Wanda ceased standing over Bess, instead sitting down next to her. "Well, I like the cheek of that!"
"Why?"
"Well. I mean, Kylie! Why Kylie? He was never interested in Kylie before. She's not even pretty. And she's short."
"Perhaps he likes a woman who makes him feel tall."
"Seriously, Bess. What does she have that you don't have?"
"Ha!" Bess laughed dryly. "His children."
Wanda leapt to her feet as though she had received an electric shock. "What?"
"They've got two little girls. The older one is five. She must have been an accident, mustn't she, because they still would have been at college when she got pregnant."
"Ah, well." Wanda sat down again. "That explains it."
"No, no." Bess shook her head. "There must be, you know, some depth to it. They got married today."
"So he had coffee with you on the same day he married her. God, what a prick. He never could keep his fly zipped, of course."
"But Wanda, he did keep his fly zipped."
"This time."
Bess raised her eyebrows. "You think he wants to have an affair with me?"
"I don't doubt it for a minute. And any other bit of skirt he can get his hands on."
"You're too hard on him. He dumped me because there wasn't any future in it, but obviously he and Kylie really have something."
"Bess. He knocked her up."
"Yeah." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "He's not the kind of guy who'd just up and leave his pregnant girlfriend. You've got to give him that."
"Well, move over Saint Francis of Assisi," Wanda said acidly. "Bess, come on, it's obvious. She trapped him by getting pregnant, she made him marry her today and now he's venting his frustrations by starting an affair with you. You know as well as I do he thinks with his dick, just like the rest of his shit-faced gender."
"Wanda," said Bess. "Do you know what you are?"
"No, Elizabeth, what am I?"
"You're a female chauvinist."
x x x
"There you are. Finally," said Kylie, as Eduardo entered the apartment. She was on the sofa, reading a book with her cat Pagan purring on her lap. "Beth's here."
"Beth's what?"
"Here. She's playing with the girls in their room. Did Carl tell you she left?"
"Yes."
"Isn't that great?"
"What?"
Typically Beth chose that moment to walk in, led by Conchita and Rose. "Eduardo, hi!" said the former, forcing a smile, as the girls crossed the room to greet their father (he hadn't got much further than the front door yet).
"Hi," said Eduardo, stooping to hug his small daughters. "Hi, you two. Beth, I, um, just saw Kevin."
Beth's synthetic smile vanished. "Is he ok?"
"He had a fight with Carlos. And then I had to tell him you'd… you know… left."
"Oh no." Beth sat down heavily next to Kylie. "Perhaps I should go home."
"No!" exclaimed Kylie, making Pagan jump out of his skin. "Er, I mean… I said you can stay for as long as you want. And Kevin's eighteen – he can cope without you."
"Kylie." Eduardo, who was still crouching, rose to his full height. "Can I please have a word?"
"All right," said Kylie. She pushed Pagan off her lap, stood up and let Eduardo shepherd her into their bedroom, because there were no secrets between the living room and the kitchen.
"What the hell are you playing at?" he demanded in a stage whisper.
"She needs somewhere to stay," Kylie said defensively.
"She wants to go home."
"If she goes home now, Carl will sucker her back in. She needs to stay away."
"Why?" asked Eduardo, desperately trying to understand Kylie's reasoning. "If she goes home, they can kiss and make up and everything will be fine."
"Everything will not be fine," retorted Kylie. "Carl will go back to treating her like a doormat and she'll be miserable."
"She's miserable now."
"She's just worried about Kevin, but that'll pass. She can't go back to Carl – she's doing the right thing here."
"Says you," snapped Eduardo. "Kylie, you can't encourage her to leave him for good, ok? You just can't. They're getting back together."
Kylie frowned. "They are not!"
"Yes, they are. I've known her since I was three years old. She married Carlos when I was five. She loves him and he loves her. End of story."
"She doesn't love him anymore. She's leaving him."
"No she's not. She's going home and they are going to work it out."
"Home?" squeaked Kylie. "Home to that dictator husband of hers? No way – I won't let her."
For a moment, Eduardo didn't know what to say. A few of Carl's earlier assertions flitted through his mind like grasshoppers: Kylie thought her way of thinking was the only way; she had been influencing Beth; it was her fault Beth had decided to leave…
"This is stupid," Eduardo said at last. "She'll figure it out for herself."
Kylie's eyes dropped slightly. "Right."
"And if she wants to go home, you mustn't discourage her."
"Fine. But if she wants to stay, you mustn't discourage her."
"Of course."
"Ok." Kylie raised her eyes to look at him, and placed her hands on his elbows. "Why don't you give Chita her bath while I organise the girls' dinner?"
Eduardo's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why don't you give Chita her bath while I organise the girls' dinner?"
"Because I've been with her all day and you haven't. Come on, Eddie – what am I going to say to Beth with Rose there?"
"She's not coming with me?"
"She had a bath this morning," Kylie reminded him.
"All right," Eduardo conceded. "Hey."
"What?"
"I love you."
He grabbed her by the waist and kissed her, squeezing her behind in an overtly sexual gesture. It was getting towards their wedding night, after all. So far the day hadn't been quite how Eduardo had imagined it would be. Nor Kylie, for that matter, and she didn't know the half of it.
"Wow," she said, looking slightly flustered, when he broke the embrace.
"Mmm." He dropped a kiss on her forehead. "I'll go start that bath."
x x x
It had all started off so innocently. Constantine, then aged seven, had found a loose floorboard in her father's precious wine cellar. So, being a child and having found a loose floorboard she assumed no one else knew about, she had desperately wanted something – anything – to hide. But she didn't have anything worth hiding. All she had ever possessed in her life were dolls, dresses and all the ingredients required to make an aesthetically pleasing little cross-stitch pattern.
In the end she'd had no choice (or so it seemed to her at the time) but to hide the doll that would be most missed. She quickly decided on one of the ones that had been hand-stitched by her domestic goddess of a grandmother. Her mother, Constantine knew, would be devastated if one of those went missing. She chose the last one her grandmother had made before she died. That doll, unlike most of them, meant something to her, and she wasn't sure about hiding it. But she'd know where it was.
After that, Constantine took to hiding needles and thread down there as well, when she realised what a futile hobby sewing was. She wasn't even mending anything that was broken – just creating clumsy little pictures of things she didn't even like. The first few times it happened, her nanny wrote it off as carelessness. But, inevitably, the seventh or eighth time a needle went missing, Constantine was (quite rightly) accused of hiding them. And she took a severe beating for every absent needle.
One day Constantine went down to the wine cellar, picked up the little doll that her mother had finally given up crying over and imagined it was her nanny. She bashed its head against the wall, stamped on it a few times and then, with an impressive grasp of poetic justice, she had stuck all of her hidden needles into various parts of the unfortunate little doll's anatomy.
To this day, Constantine was not quite convinced that she had been responsible for her nanny's untimely death at the hands, or rather the hooves, of a spooked horse. The perfect timing could just have been an incredible coincidence. But the coincidence had spooked her as a child, and she had never touched the doll again.
A few years later, she started to read about witchcraft (presented from the point of view of those who thought it was bad, evil and wrong), and stumbled across a short passage explaining the use of dolls to inflict curses on people. She was just into her teens then, and no longer frightened by her possible strange power, but rather she was fascinated by it. All she could think then was that the doll in the wine cellar was something to bear in mind, should she ever need it again.
Constantine pulled away the loose floorboard and fumbled around in the darkness. She winced as she caught her fingers on a few of the needles down there, which still seemed to be in near-perfect condition. She didn't hold out much hope for the doll, though. Still, she felt around in the cold earth until her hand fell upon what felt like a scrap of fabric.
The doll, astonishingly, was still in one piece. It was a bit ragged around the edges and it had lost its colour, but it was still smiling. Constantine stared in amazement. She hadn't really expected it to survive eleven-odd years down there. She could only think that maybe it really did have some magical property to it. And if it did, she decided, she was going to use it again. If it had worked the last time, it had to work this. She hated Sally more than she had ever hated that goddamn nanny.
Constantine bent forward slightly and probed the ground carefully, looking for one of those needles that had stabbed her. However she stopped and jumped to her feet, still clutching the doll, when she heard the ominous sound of the door creaking open.
x x x
Eduardo wandered into the bedroom, having just helped Beth to settle on the sofa with some pillows and a blanket. He found Kylie in the process of wrapping herself up in her towelling robe.
"You'll never guess who I ran into before I went to see Carlos," said Eduardo.
Kylie raised her eyebrows. "Who?"
"Bess."
"Huh? Oh, Bess! Sorry – it's a bit confusing with Beth in the other room."
Eduardo smiled crookedly. "Yeah."
"Bess? Really? Wow, that's a coincidence, seeing as you were just talking about her this morning."
"I know."
"So… what happened?"
"I realised I never should have let her go and made mad, passionate love to her behind a dumpster."
"You're hilarious today, aren't you?" Kylie said dryly.
"We spent a few minutes drinking coffee and caught up."
"So how is she?"
"I'm not sure. She seemed ok, I guess."
"Did you tell her you married me?"
"Of course I did."
"Just wondered," said Kylie. "So… nothing happened?"
"Like what?" asked Eduardo.
"Like, she didn't say she was still in love with you or anything?"
"No. She's not still in love with me."
"Good." She touched his arm lightly as she walked past him. "I'll be back in a few minutes, babe, ok?"
Kylie was on her way to the bathroom, but decided to pop in on Beth first.
"Hi," she said. "Are you comfortable? I know it's not exactly a bed, but…"
"It's fine, thank you," said Beth. She forced a smile, which quickly vanished. "Kylie, what am I going to do next?"
"I don't know." Kylie approached and gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. "Sleep on it, huh? We can talk about it tomorrow. If that's what you want."
Kylie then went to the bathroom, cleaned her teeth and stood under the shower for a few minutes. When she returned to Eduardo she found him sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, catatonic and with a blank expression on his face.
"Are you ok, babe?" asked Kylie.
"Hmm?" Eduardo looked up in surprise. "Oh, hi. She had an abortion."
"What?"
"Bess told me she had an abortion. I was just wondering if it was mine."
"Oh." At first Kylie didn't know quite what to say. She perched on the edge of the bed next to him and asked, "She didn't mention dates, or…?"
"No, nothing like that. She did say there were two other guys after I finished with her. It's as likely to be one of them as me, I guess."
"You could ask her."
"Well, even if I was going to see her again, I think I'd rather not know."
"Fair enough. Y'know, if I had an abortion without even telling the guy I was pregnant, I don't think I'd then tell him about it eight-and-a-half years later."
"That's a good point," said Eduardo. "Anyway, it doesn't matter now, I suppose."
"I suppose not."
Kylie waited a few moments, thinking it appropriate to exercise a little decorum, given what had just been said. Then, when she thought an appropriate amount of time had elapsed, she sidled up next to him and began to kiss him hungrily, climbing onto his lap until she was straddling him.
"Um, Kylie," said Eduardo, jerking his head back. "I… can't."
Kylie frowned. "What do you mean you 'can't'?"
"I can't… do that… with Beth here," Eduardo said weakly.
Kylie cocked an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"
"Absolutely."
"It never bothered you when we were living in Carl's house."
"That was different."
"How?"
"Um. I was younger then… there was a whole bathroom between us… I don't know. I'm sorry – please don't give me a hard time."
"All right." Kylie dismounted, and sat a chaste few inches away from him. "Wow, it's actually true – you really do stop having sex after you get married."
"I'm sorry," Eduardo said again.
"Don't sweat it. Wow. I wonder how long she'll stay."
"I think," said Eduardo, "that depends on whether she goes back to Carlos or not."
Kylie narrowed her eyes on his face. "This isn't some kind of protest to discourage me from butting in, is it? The sooner she goes back to Carl the sooner you'll start screwing me again?"
"Kylie. I wouldn't do that."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't. Well." She craned her neck and kissed him again. "'Night. I love you."
"I love you too, babe."
As she leaned over to switch off the lamp on her side of the bed, Kylie realised that she was tired anyway, as well she might be. If she was too tired to read she was probably too tired to consummate her marriage with any degree of concentration.
It was unusual for Eduardo not to want to make love. He was usually as keen as she was, or keener, and this was the first time he had claimed that circumstances were hindering his sex drive. But Kylie decided it was no real cause for concern. She knew she couldn't do it if her father was in the apartment, and Eduardo's relationship with Beth was probably closer than that.
Sharing a bed had its problems in August. Kylie wriggled out of her towelling robe and kicked her half of the thin cotton sheet onto Eduardo, who shifted slightly and then threw the sheet off the bed altogether. Kylie, as she lay drifting into the first stage of sleep, tried to remember how they had got around that problem eight Junes ago, the first time they had slept together.
It was a nice memory, and it made her smile. As far as Kylie could recall she had not been put off by the hot weather, or even noticed it (she didn't know about him). She didn't know quite what she had expected from taking Eduardo into her bed, but whatever it was, the reality was something different. At first she had felt a strange combination of never wanting it to end, and being too nervous to want to continue.
Clichéd as it sounds, however, it felt right. As they kissed and touched each other, Eduardo's unhurried manner encouraged Kylie to relax and she quickly found that she hated the idea of stopping this. And, as it transpired, she wasn't disappointed, though not quite in the way of an idealised Hollywood movie. It wasn't like that. There was no miraculous connection that told him exactly where to touch her and vice-versa. Rather she was pleasantly surprised by the way he treated her, especially when he acknowledged his ignorance and whispered, "Tell me what you want."
She was touched more than anything else. On the few occasions that she had done this in the past, the guy had always been arrogant enough to assume he knew exactly what he was doing, as though her body was exactly the same as every other female body he had ever encountered. She had tried giving them some guidance a couple of times, but they hated that, so after a while she took to just lying back and hoping they might be lucky enough to hit one or two of the right spots. And if not, well, she would lie back and think of England. She hadn't liked being so passive, but now that she was actually being asked, and by someone she really wanted this to work with…
"Oh," said Kylie, utterly embarrassed by the mere thought of articulating what she wanted him to do to her. "I don't know."
She was further impressed when he didn't push but simply carried on doing what he'd been doing, going slowly, watching and listening and feeling for her responses. They met a few snags on the way, and Pagan jumped on top of them at one point, but they had laughed it off (Kylie was glad he could do that – it helped her to relax) and carried on. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than she had ever dared to hope (and she'd thought about it more often than she would care to admit).
Another Hollywood myth was dispelled when they happened to wake together in the night, drifted into each other's arms and started kissing. Things were just hotting up again when Kylie realised that she really needed to pee, and had to excuse herself.
"Sorry," she whispered, not wanting to break the mood with too much sound, as she climbed back into bed afterwards.
"It's ok," said Eduardo. "I have to go too."
When he returned they made love for the second time, and it was better. And nowadays, Kylie reflected, it was better still. They pretty much had it down pat. Kylie lay there, still not quite managing to fall asleep, and congratulated herself on marrying a considerate lover. And this train of thought, strangely enough, led her back to Carl. Beth had implied in their earlier conversation, while Eduardo was with Carl, that bad sex was one of the ways in which Carl had proved to be a disappointing husband. She couldn't talk about it explicitly, though. Bless her.
Kylie rolled over, and watched Eduardo's shape through the darkness. She remembered all the "conditions" she had thrown at him shortly after he accepted her proposal some two months earlier: no trying to take charge; no offloading all of the domestic tasks onto her; no expecting her just to perform in bed… Basically, Kylie realised, she had been warning him not to turn into a mediocre version of Carl. Like he would ever do that.
Smiling, she reached out and touched his hand lightly. His fingers were twitching slightly, while the rest of his body was apparently under total paralysis. Kylie knew something about the stages of sleep, and she could imagine his eyelids fluttering. He was dreaming already.
x x x
Monday 28th August 2006: 11.00 a.m.
Eduardo pushed open his front door, kicked off his shoes and trudged into his home on hot, throbbing feet. He threw himself onto the sofa and, right on cue, his wife appeared in the doorway that led through to the kitchen.
"Hi, honey." As ever, he spoke first.
"Hello, darling. I was just starting lunch. Does roast beef sound good?"
"Yeah, great."
"How was your shift at work?"
"Oh, you know, the usual."
"Can I get you anything?"
"I could murder a beer."
"Ok, baby."
She spun on her heel and trotted back to the kitchen, from whence she had come. Where, quite frankly, she spent most of her life. She returned moments later with a cold beer in her hand and the same old perky smile on her face.
"Thanks, toots." Eduardo took the beer. "Hey." He grabbed her hand as she made to leave. "Kiss me."
She did.
"Where's Nico?" asked Eduardo.
"He's in his room."
"Fetch him down here for me, will you?"
"Ok, honey."
She trotted off once again, and quickly returned at the heels of a lanky dark-haired boy of about eight years. Eduardo smiled at his son. He loved Nico like crazy, and was quietly relieved to have done what Carlos did and sired a son his late father would be proud of. Nico was growing up to be confident, assertive and independent: everything a man ought to be.
Eduardo was glad that his and Carl's influence seemed to be rubbing off on Nico, and the boy's mother's touchy-feely methods didn't seem to be having too much of an effect on him. The brothers had been getting on a lot better since Eduardo got married. Carlos had taken it as a good sign that she had dropped out of college to marry. It was a sign of a dedicated wife, apparently.
Of course, Eduardo knew she had done it for the baby rather than for him. He hadn't told his family it was a shotgun wedding; they seemed to assume Nico had been conceived on the wedding night, or thereabouts. Fortunately for that little deceit, he had been born a few weeks late (early, Eduardo's extended family believed, though not as early as he might have been). In fact the labour had been induced, as the pregnancy was perceived to be getting dangerously past its expiration date.
On the day of the scheduled induction Eduardo had stood by his wife, feeling extremely awkward, not having been at all thoroughly prepared for this. "You just have to hold her hand through it," his mother had said breezily. "She's the one who has to do all the hard work. Don't you worry about it." But he was worried. When his wife was given the hormone to kick-start the contractions, they came on very strong very quickly, and Eduardo wished he knew what to do and/or say when she was squeezing the life out of his hand and begging for stronger pain relief.
The midwife, who had beads in her hair and had never had a baby, was reluctant to fetch an anaesthetist with a needle full of epidural. It was Eduardo who finally persuaded her. After the midwife broke her waters and the contractions came even stronger, his wife was obviously in unbearable pain and he was beginning to feel guilty for making her pregnant in the first place. So the epidural arrived and Eduardo felt a strong sense of relief when, twenty minutes later, his wife announced in hugely grateful tones that she was blissfully numb below the waist.
The next few hours were uncomfortable. Eduardo didn't really know what to say. His wife, no longer having to try and get herself through the ordeal of that ridiculously intense pain, didn't know what to say either. Or perhaps she did, but as a rule she only spoke when spoken to. Eduardo felt compelled to look away when the midwife was "examining" her, as she so tactfully put it, which was bizarre. It wasn't as though he hadn't "examined" her himself on several occasions.
And then, finally, "Ok, you're ten centimetres dilated. You can start pushing."
The couple looked at each other, and registered the fear in each other's faces. A baby. Shit. He was totally unprepared for this.
She was hooked up to a monitor that showed a little green line, which fluctuated whenever a contraction came on. Husband, wife and midwife all stared at the contraption. Each time the green line began to fold in on itself, the midwife exclaimed, "Push!" Eduardo just stood back and watched his wife as she screwed up her face and seemed to be trying to push all the little veins out of her head.
He remembered some more of his mother's sage advice. "Don't worry about what to do with the baby when it comes. That's woman's work. You just worry about when it's grown up a bit. If it's a boy, you have to teach him how to be a man. If it's a girl… well, then you just have to love her. Her mother and I will teach her everything she needs to know."
As the baby's head started to appear, and Eduardo almost felt like fainting, he began to hope it was a boy. He wasn't sure he wanted a child whose upbringing he would have no real part of, and in this city he didn't fancy the chances of a girl who had been raised by someone with his mother's standards, inspired by a culture so far in space and time from late twentieth century New York. She might end up like –
"It's a boy!"
"Oh my God!" Tears came to the new mother's eyes as her baby boy, still coated in blood and a few other unpleasant substances, was placed in her arms. Eduardo was stunned. He had assumed the baby would be taken away and cleaned up. "Hey, little guy! I'm your mommy!"
As though in a trance, Eduardo crossed the room and stared down at his son. His son. He couldn't quite believe it.
"Mr. Rivera," said the midwife, handing him a dangerously sharp looking double-handled object. "Would you like to cut the cord?"
The baby, Eduardo now realised, was still attached to his mother. The midwife pinched the cord in two places, and Eduardo cut the part between her fingers. He and his wife then gazed lovingly into the eyes of their totally bewildered son while the midwife got on with the unpleasant business of delivering the placenta. Eduardo looked at his wife, and thought she was probably pretending that nothing was going on down there. The epidural was most likely still in effect, he realised.
"Hold him," she offered.
Eduardo had had some experience with babies. Well, one baby, but he hadn't been allowed to hold Kevin very often, or for very long periods of time, when he was nine and ten. Still he took his son, very awkwardly, and stared at him in utter amazement, barely noticing the detritus rubbing off on his clothes. It was incredible. He hadn't expected to love him so much. He had never felt anything quite like this before. He didn't feel so much love even for –
"Hey." At last Eduardo found his voice. "Hey there, little guy."
"Hey, Dad," beamed Nico.
"Hey, chico," Eduardo greeted his son with a smile. "What are you doing inside on a day like this? You should be out there enjoying what's left of the summer."
"I was making a start on my homework," said Nico.
"Making a start?" echoed his mother, her eyes widening.
"Nico," said Eduardo, "homework is for geeks. I never did homework, and it never did me any harm. You got a problem?" he added, looking at his wife as he caught her pained expression.
She hung her head. "No."
Eduardo turned his attention back to his son. "What say you and me go kick a ball around while your mom fixes lunch?"
"Ok, Dad."
He threw back his head and downed the rest of his beer. "Good boy."
To be continued…