Hanging Time

21

The rusting yellow taxi came to a screeching halt sideways in the middle of Second Avenue, barely avoiding a nasty collision with the bicycle messenger who had cut it off without warning. Skidding into a pothole, the bike tipped over and the skinny, kinky-haired messenger with a number of gold earrings in both ears fell off it. Cars squealed to a stop around him as he got up, shaking his fist.

Out of the battered taxi lunged an Indian of some sort. He was wearing a turban on his head and making angry noises in a language that in no way approximated English. Frustrated drivers in blocked cars started honking their horns.

Milicia leaned forward across the table. “Camille, can you hear me? I can’t take this.”

Camille stared out of the coffee shop window at the two men arguing on the street. It reminded her of Bouck and the gun. One day Bouck was out with Puppy at night, just around here, on Fifty-fifth Street. A guy in a car cut another guy off. The guy cut off was so mad, he jumped out of his car, pulled a gun, and blew the other man away before either of them had a chance to exchange a word. Bouck said there was blood all over the street. Camille smiled, thinking about it, trying to get away from Milicia’s big mouth.

Finally, she was having a good day and Milicia had to turn up again, find her out on the street, and capture her.

Milicia was spying on her, watching everything she did, just like she used to. Camille stared out the window. When did Milicia have time to build those buildings of hers? There was a new one on Third Avenue, with colored panels on the outside. Milicia took her to see it last spring and told her it was hers.

Camille thought it was ugly. Bouck had offered to get the light fixtures for the whole building, but Milicia said someone had already gotten the bid for that. The bag moved. Camille put her hand on it.

Puppy was in the bag. Bouck had bought her a fancy carrier from Louis Vuitton that looked like a shoulder bag so Camille could take Puppy with her everywhere. Nobody in the coffee shop knew there was a dog on the seat beside her. Her mind shifted to that but her face didn’t smile. She could feel her face freezing as she tried to ignore her sister opposite her in the booth.

“What were you doing in that boutique?” For the last ten minutes Milicia kept asking her the same thing. The tuna salad Milicia had ordered didn’t meet her specifications, too much mayonnaise. Two scoops of it sat untouched on a sheaf of pale green iceberg lettuce.

Camille’s hands twitched in her lap. She didn’t answer. She wanted to eat the toasted cheese sandwich on her plate but couldn’t reach for it with Milicia there. She was thinking that Milicia probably poisoned it. Even if Milicia left, she couldn’t eat it now.

“I saw you, Camille. I saw you in the window. Camille, I know you’re crazy. I know you think this boutique thing is a way to get back at me, but you’ll be punished. Do you understand? Look at me.” Milicia’s voice dropped to a furious whisper. “You’ll be punished worse than ever before.”

Camille turned her head. Now she could see Milicia’s red mouth moving again. She wanted to put a stop to it.

“Why don’t you leave me alone?” Camille finally formed the words. She found the words and her lips moved.

“You know why.”

Camille shook her head. She didn’t know why. She was trying on a dress. Just trying on a dress. She liked to go shopping when she could. Today she could. The sun was burning a hole in the deep blue sky. There was not a single cloud anywhere. No possibility of rain. Camille didn’t like to sit in the sun or let it touch her too deeply, but she could walk in it. She had been having a good day. She’d moved from Bouck’s building out into the sun. A hat with a big brim hid her face from the dangerous rays. It was the hat Bouck liked best, straw with a lavender ribbon around the brim.

She remembered working on getting outside, sneaking away before Bouck could talk to her. Sometimes Bouck talked to her, bothered her, wanted her to do something. She couldn’t ever tell Bouck that she didn’t like that. He got mad at the tiniest things. She pressed her lips together to remind herself what would happen if too many words came out. Sometimes she sat in the basement, hiding all day, listening to the noises in the shop above, afraid to move. Sometimes she got in trouble with herself and didn’t know what she was doing. But today her head felt okay, clear enough to get out.

She had turned left on the street and headed north toward Bloomingdale’s. She passed Bloomingdale’s, though, couldn’t go in. It was too dangerous in there. She even turned her head away as she went by it. All that stuff and the black walls did bad things to her. In Bloomingdale’s sometimes she remembered her mother, stroking her head when she was little after something happened, and promising her everything would be all right. The memory gave her a headache. Other memories, too.

On Third Avenue and Sixty-first Street there was a shoe store. The boutique next to it had a dress in the window that attracted Camille. She wanted to try it on. Camille liked going into stores and trying things on. Bouck always gave her lots of money in hundred-dollar bills. She could have anything she wanted. She liked to think about the cash in her pocket. Sometimes she put her hand in her pocket, or the bag Puppy was in, to feel the money. The money, rolls of it, hidden in the house, shocked Milicia.

Milicia’s mouth was moving again. “Don’t you understand I’m trying to save you? Camille, you’re in terrible trouble. Do you understand that? I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

“Leave me alone.” Camille traced the words on the paper table mat: leave me alone.

“I want to help you.”

Camille shook her head. Milicia wanted to hurt her, had always wanted to hurt her. Milicia was there waiting to get her. Like today, when she was feeling better. Milicia came out of her office like a spider, looking for her, spying on her. Camille stared down at her knife on the table, imagined picking it up and driving it through Milicia’s hand.

Milicia followed her gaze. “Don’t even think about it,” she said.

Camille didn’t pick up the knife. It wasn’t the right kind of knife.

“You need help, Camille. Bouck can’t give you the kind of help you need. Only I can give you the help you need. I’m your sister. I’m the one in charge of your health.” Milicia’s eyes were slits.

“You don’t know what I can do,” Camille murmured.

“Yes, Camille. I know. I know very well what you’re capable of doing, and believe me, I won’t let this go on.”

Milicia’s voice was a razor, cutting deep with every word. Camille saw the razor at her throat.

“I know how you feel,” Milicia continued. “I know what you’re thinking. I know why you like Bouck, but he can’t protect you from punishment this time.”

“You’re afraid of him.” Camille found some more words, picked them out of the air, where they drifted around her mouth like the smoke from the cigarettes at the next table. Clouds of it hovered for a few seconds and then rose, dissipating in the air.

“I’m not afraid of him. He can’t hurt me.”

Milicia said it with her big red mouth, but Camille knew Milicia came to the house only when she thought Bouck was out of town. Last time she left as soon as she found out he wasn’t in Westchester after all. He was upstairs all the time. So Milicia couldn’t look for the money.

“I have to get back to work,” Milicia said, checking her watch.

Camille recognized the watch even though she hadn’t seen it in years. It had been their mother’s. Small rubies and diamonds surrounded the pretty face, and the band was a gold bracelet. Milicia told her it had been destroyed. She said their mother had been wearing it the day their father drove the car off the road. Milicia told her the car flipped over and crashed in a deep, deep ravine. Their bodies were burned in the fire and there was nothing left of them. Camille’s eyes hardened. Milicia took whatever she could get, no matter whose it was.

“Are you all right?” Milicia asked suddenly.

Camille’s expression changed. She could see Milicia was afraid to walk back with her. Milicia was afraid of Bouck. Camille said nothing.

Milicia paid the bill, shaking her head. “I hate this. You’re all I have, and I don’t know how to reach you. What am I supposed to do? I don’t want you to be punished, Cammy. I really don’t.”

Camille could see there were tears in Milicia’s eyes, but they were fake tears. The bag moved by her side, almost tipping over. It was time to take Puppy outside.