Glimmering

There followed a lengthy list of attending international celebrities, musical entertainments, fashion models, sports and religious figures and CEOs from across the globe, as well as both units of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus (incorporating Cirque du Soleil, the Moscow Circus, and the Mongolian Entertainers Alliance). The only persons who it appeared would not be at the Pyramid on New Year’s Eve were the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and John “Jack” Finnegan, if he chose not to go.

Only, it appeared that he had decided to go. He closed his eyes and pressed the invitation against his forehead. Larry Muso’s sloe eyes shimmered in front of him; he felt again that brisk electricity when their hands had touched, a scent of chypre…

VERY MUCH want to see you again! All best & warm wishes, Larry M.

He shook his head: Larry M. might get his warm wish. Jack set the invitation back upon the table and stood to go. As he did, his hand passed through a shaft of light falling from the window. Emerald brilliance glanced off his palm, bright enough to catch his eye; bright enough to ignite within the whorled and crosshatched flesh the ghostly holographic image of a gryphon rampant, clasping a pyramid within its claws.

A week later, Mrs. Iverson told him the blond girl was pregnant.

“WHAT?”

“She is. She won’t talk about it, but it won’t go away. She has to eat better.” The housekeeper funneled powdered milk into a plastic jug. “Can you imagine? That tiny thing—”

“Are you sure? How can she—”

“She is. She says she was with a boy in March. She won’t say who, not that it would do any good.”

“But her family! There must be someone—”

Mrs. Iverson turned scolding blue eyes on him. “But there’s not. She’s been with us all this while, she won’t say who she belongs to, she won’t go back—we’ll have to care for her, Jack. And the baby; and barely enough as it is.” She sighed. “But I guess you’ll be getting your million dollars soon enough. We’ll just keep our fingers crossed, that’s all.”

She filled the jug with water and shook it into an unappetizing white froth. Jack gazed despairingly at the ceiling.

“I don’t believe it! Does Keeley know? She hasn’t even seen a doctor! I mean, this is just medieval—we’ll be boiling water and tearing up fucking bedsheets—”

“Oh, hush your language, Jack.” Mrs. Iverson glared. “Babies get born all the time without your help. If she needs a doctor, we’ll bring her to Saint Joseph’s.”

“But folic acid—you’re supposed to take things—”

Mrs. Iverson rolled her eyes. “What would you know from taking things for babies? You and your friends… That poor little girl, all this time and she didn’t even know. I think she pretended not to know. Your grandmother saw her in the bath Sunday and called me in. Poor little girl—just a stick with a big belly. But you could feel it kicking. She’ll be all right.”

“March…” Jack did the math in his head: almost five months. “I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. You wouldn’t be a one to know about girls. But just as well, everything considered; she doesn’t need any more trouble with boys.” With a sigh the housekeeper turned to go. “But it would be nice if you’d go and talk to her sometimes, Jack. She likes you—”

“She does?”

“—and she’s lonely. Ah God, that poor girl…”

She went upstairs. Jack went out onto the porch and leaned on the balcony above a scraggy patch of hydrangeas.

A baby! It was medieval. Worse than that—crudely archaic, like one of those awful engravings from the time of the Black Death, crazy-eyed monks, strangers turning up like stray animals to drop their young on the floor. He ran his hands through thinning hair, too long, when had he cut it last? Over a year. He must look medieval, himself. We all must.

He began to laugh. Thinking how impossible, how ridiculously apocalyptic this all would have seemed, just three years ago: the sky in flames, coyotes in the South Bronx, oceans rising and burning. People fondling old issues of Vanity Fair and Vogue as though they were rare Victorian pornography. Daffodils blooming black. The world dismantling Lazyland, plucking at the water supply and electricity, plundering floorboards, foundation giving way because somewhere down the long slope to the Hudson a tree had fallen; because somewhere within the basement another tree was starting to grow. Because we forgot to buy end-of-the-world insurance. Because we forgot other things.

And still the flowers bloom, he thought, gazing down at the hydrangeas. A brave, sickly show. But blooming. See?

He grazed the wilted flowers with his fingertips. The blossoms felt damp and cankered, like moldering fungi. He wrinkled his nose, trying to find their scent in air that smelled of burning; leaned down until he could cup them beneath his palms. To his shock, the corrupted flower head moved beneath his hand. He reared back, clutching at the rotten balustrade, cautiously looked down again.