THE CLAMORING PLACE
Rachel awoke on the couch feeling sticky and hungry. The summer light had not yet faded outside; it was almost nine P.M. When is this day going to be over? She turned off the stereo and went into the kitchen. The only things in the fridge were some Diet Cokes; she plucked an ice cube from the freezer and wiped it across her forehead. Rubbing the dwindling ice cube into her face, she walked down the hall towards the first-floor bathroom.
When she flicked on the light she saw something dart across the floor -even though the cockroach could not have been more than a half inch long it seemed to her to be a six-footer. She gasped when she saw it, then broke out laughing.
Join the club. Pulling a Post-it Note from her pocket, she scrawled across it in magic marker: ROACH CALL EXTERMINATOR/BUY RAID. She stuck this just under the light switch. She turned on the shower, and the water came out in staccato bursts, rusty brown until she'd let it run for a few minutes. It smelled of rotten eggs. The pipes squealed and coughed, but finally ran clear water. Her clothes seemed to have attached themselves to her skin; peeling off the painter's pants was like skinning herself. The water was spraying out of the white tub-there was no shower curtain, another essential she had forgotten along with toilet paper. She hoped that she still had the small package of Kleenex in her purse. Rachel stepped into the shower, and as she did this she noticed the small window. It was above the toilet and across the room from the tub and shower, but it had no shade and she wondered if anyone could see in from the outside. The cloud-filtered sunlight was flat and made the empty red buildings across the alley look like cardboard cutouts. She glanced down at her feet-the drain was clogged, and water was backing up. She bent over and scraped her fingers across the drain wondering if it was hair, but it was plaster dust, and it seemed that no matter how much she scraped away, there was more and the tub was filling up to her ankles. The water was coughing out rust colored again, and her hands went to the spigots. She turned off the water feeling dirtier than when she'd stepped under the shower.
Of course, no towel. She shook herself off. It was warm enough and she didn't mind the feeling of water on her skin. She had the sense of someone in the doorway, someone staring at her. When she turned, expecting Hugh, she saw the cat. It was a puffy Himalayan with a dark face but with a streak of peach and orange across its nose. It looked up at her with no curiosity, just empty blue orbs. Something dark and shiny wriggled against the cat's whiskers just as it registered on Rachel's brain what this thing was that the cat was playing with. A roach, gross. The cat swallowed the insect with a moist crackle, the kind of noise that Hugh made when he ate bean sprouts.
Rachel gasped, and the cat darted off down the hall. But, on the practical side, as mom would say, just think of what this animal could save on exterminator bills.
Rachel knew this must be the infamous Ramona from downstairs who vomited hairballs as omens. How did she get up here? The first thought in her mind: Hugh. Hugh was home, finally, waiting in the living room with his bad news and depressing apologies. He had accidentally left the downstairs door open, or the French doors to the patio. The cat got past him.
Stamping a wet foot pattern across the bleached wood floor, Rachel went out to the living room. She realized at the last second she was naked and would be crossing by those French doors, but tried streaking through in case anyone was watching. No one was. There was also no Hugh in evidence, and Ramona was lying in front of the fireplace cleaning herself carefully. She rolled over onto her back, paws splayed in the air, gazing up at Rachel with patient eyes. Her belly was enormous.
"Even you can get pregnant." She reached over, petting the cat. "Now, if you'll excuse me a minute." Rachel sneezed, wiping her eyes -her allergy to cats always seemed to explode in her face like gunpowder in spite of the fact that she loved animals. "I've got to go put some clothes on."
Upstairs, Rachel rummaged through one of the boxes in the bedroom and found a summer dress her mother had given her years ago. She never liked what her mother gave her to wear, it was never anything she would've chosen for herself, but for some reason those gift clothes were always on hand in an emergency. They were dresses and skirts and blouses to be worn on moving days and when her other skirt was at the cleaners, or when she spilled ketchup on a blouse and needed another in a hurry. She felt like a little girl in them, and for some reason the clothes her mother bought her (like this dress she bunched up and pulled over her head, getting lost in a sea of wildflower print) were always two sizes too large. Her mother no doubt expected her to gain twenty or thirty pounds, and perhaps one day she would. Yes, and then she'd have a complete wardrobe provided by mom. But right now she felt about twelve years old, which was probably right where her mother would've liked to keep her.
She came back downstairs expecting the cat to have run off somewhere, however the hell it had gotten in, but Ramona still lay in the same place, stretching lazily. Rachel bunched up the mumu around her waist and kneeled by the cat. Her sinuses were driving her crazy, but the cat was so adorable and furry. “You know you're cute, don't you? But don't expect a kiss after wolfing that roach down." She rubbed Ramona just beneath the chin and the cat let out an almost birdlike mew accompanied by a thrumming purr of satisfaction. A speck of dirt seemed to leap from the cat's fur onto Rachel's hand.
Not a speck, a flea.
"Shit." She pinched the flea between her thumbnails until it popped.
"Let's get you back home before you contaminate the house. Roaches, fleas, mice, what other crawling things do we have around here?" Gently, she lifted Ramona up, careful not to let the cat's belly sag.
"Lots of little lumpkins in there."
“You've found the beast!" Penelope Deerfield shouted as she opened her door. She seemed even shorter than she had when they'd first met. Her eyes were just about level with Rachel's chest. Perhaps it's true that you shrink as you get older. Her yellow hair was done up with gold plastic combs, reminding Rachel of haystacks in a damp field. She wore a more conservative outfit than the last time they'd met: almost a suit, although mismatched, probably from a thrift shop. The overall effect of the dress and light jacket was of someone who didn't care what anyone thought of her.
Again, a momism, because Rachel herself found this aspect of Mrs. Deerfield's personality utterly charming. Mrs. Deerfield's eyebrows curled apprehensively around her blue eyes as she grabbed the cat up beneath its front shoulders. "Naughty little Ramona running off from Nanny Deerfield!"
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Rachel said, peering around the open doorway without meaning to -there were two other women sitting at the day bed and the loveseat. They'd been speaking in whispers, and as soon as they saw Rachel their faces suddenly blossomed pleasant smiles as if Rachel were the last person on earth they expected to walk through that door, and wasn't this a nicer surprise than whomever they expected.
"Not interrupting at all, dear, come in, come in, this must be moving day." Mrs. Deerfield flung the door open; it hit the back of the wall with a thunking shudder. Mrs. Deerfield was mildly drunk, Rachel guessed. "We've been gossiping and pickling." Yes, Rachel thought, and getting pickled. The room was redolent of vinegar and spices and the purest whiff of alcohol she'd smelled since she'd been in the hospital after the miscarriage. "Today seems to be lasting forever."
"As well it should, it's the summer solstice -this is the longest day of the year. Somewhere Druids are dancing." As she pulled Rachel in, tugging like an eager child at her arm, Mrs. Deerfield murmured an aside. "We won't even go into the fertility rites involved, at least not with this group." Her breath was laced with sherry. Then back to her stage voice: "My friends, this is my landlady, Rachel Adair, and Rachel, this is Betty Kellogg, and Annie Ralph -she runs the Ralph-Westford Gallery in Mount Pleasant." Betty Kellogg and Annie Ralph were both in their mid-fifties to early sixties, and looked more uptown than Mrs. Deerfield. Betty looked as if she could be fascinated by the smallest mind, her eyes wide as if the lids were held back with tiny hooks, their pupils jiggling rapidly as if she were deep in REM sleep and wide awake. Her mouth was frozen in an apparently constant O of surprise and interest; her hair was dyed platinum and permed-it seemed an effervescent fizz above her slightly wrinkled, china-doll face. She was chubby-everything about her was round and getting rounder as she balanced her weight first on one hip and then On the other, creasing the royal blue fabric of her cocktail dress. "So young to own a house. Len and I were in our mid-thirties before we were owners."
"Your Len would've lived in a tent if you hadn't forced him to get that place in Chevy Chase." Annie Ralph cast the words out of her mouth like they tasted bad, and she snapped her fingers at Mrs. Deerfield (making Rachel feel suddenly protective of her tenant). "Honey, get Rachel a sherry, and honey," she added, the second honey intended for Rachel,
“You sit down and make yourself comfy-cozy, cause moving day's always a bitch." Annie Ralph looked vaguely bohemian in a peach peasant blouse and wide gray skirt, although Rachel thought she'd seen this outfit in one of the more chic boutiques in Georgetown. It was what Hugh referred to as the artsy-fartsy look. Rachel had been in the Ralph-Westford Gallery once and its owner was a perfect enough match: the gallery was full of the kind of art that only interior decorators got excited about, lots of bright squiggly colors on plain white canvases. Annie Ralph herself looked like a squiggly smudge of a woman, stretched and framed and bearing an expensive price tag. She looked like she would go with any room, any sofa-loveseat combination, any color scheme. Although the ages were all roughly equivalent among the ladies, Rachel could not imagine what they were doing with poor Mrs. Deerfield -they looked like rich Georgetown women. And if first impressions mean anything, I don't like them one bit.
"No thanks on the sherry," Rachel said, stepping backwards to the doorway again. But Mrs. Deerfield's grasp was firm and she tugged her into the small living room.
"Penelope's told us such nice things about you," Betty cooed, sipping daintily from the sherry glass, not realizing she was dripping the liquid down the front of her dress.
"Don't believe a word of it, dear." Penelope went over to the kitchenette. "I grouse about everything in creation. I don't have a kind bone in my body. Are you hungry?
Annie's brought a delightful cheesecake, only we're all complaining from diets."
"That’s right," Annie said archly. "This is even diet sherry we're guzzling."
"No, I’ve got to get back, my husband might call." Bringing a slice of cheesecake out to the living area, Mrs. Deerfield said, "She's got such a lovely husband, ladies, when these two have children we will have a clan of beauties above us."
"We can ask my Len if he knows." But as soon as Betty Kellogg said this, she acted as if she'd just wet her pants. She squirmed uncomfortably, tugging at the edges of her dress, her face turning red.
"She'll think we've all gone to the moon," Annie Ralph said, shooting Betty a nasty look. "And she may be right on that count." Then to Rachel: "Honey, Len is her husband."
"Was my husband."
Mrs. Deerfield studied Rachel's face for a reaction, but there was none. "He died in '78, dear. Heart attack -Betty had been dreaming for ten years that he would go that way."
"But," Annie added, "of course, Betty never told Len about her dreams, probably because she was afraid he would take steps to prevent it. I believe she fed him a steady diet of butter, fatty red meat, and grease -"
"She's joking," Betty said, shaking her head from side to side. Annie giggled almost charmingly and said, "Of course, Rachel, you don't know me, but I am joking."
"But not about communicating with his spirit through -"
"She'll think we're batty, Betty." Annie seemed to like this turn of phrase. She repeated it: "Batty-Betty, Batty-Betty, that's a good one."
"We are batty," Mrs. Deerfield said, and the steadiness of her voice momentarily silenced the other two women. She looked Rachel directly in the eyes, and her gaze was so pure and unclouded that Rachel had to resist flinching. But then the kind, overly made-up face of a retired nanny returned, softening her glance. Mrs. Deerfield said, "Rachel, we talk to dead people."
Rachel helped Mrs. Deerfield with the card table. They unfolded its legs above a trap door. "This is the center of the house, you see."
"A cold spot," Betty Kellogg said as if she were translating a foreign phrase for Rachel. "The clamoring place." Mrs. Deerfield tapped the trap door with the heel of her shoe. "In the old days, they called it a crib -I guess it kept the babies cool. I'm joking, dear, I imagine it was for perishables of various and sundry sorts. It's quite chilly down there, the house holds in the night. It's where I keep my jams and pickles, dear."
"And honey, you must try her pickles."
"Bread and butter."
"She's got jars this big full of jellies." Annie Ralph held her hands out as wide as her hips.
"Ladies, pull your chairs up."
“You called it the clamoring place?" Rachel felt like Alice in Wonderland; she wondered if they were all making fun of her, or if they really took this seriously. Right at that moment she was wishing that Sassy was there with her to witness this. She sat down with the ladies, setting the china plate with cheesecake in front of her on the table.
"It's a cartefour, dear, a crossroads of sorts. This is where the spirits cross on their journeys. You find it hard to swallow, I see." Mrs. Deerfield smiled pleasantly. "But Annie's cheesecake, on the other hand, is a bit easier to swallow. How is it?" Rachel nodded as she took a bite, her mouth full.
"Is an old ladies' game, honey."
"Yes. When you see death up ahead, in the next ten, twenty years -" Betty let her voice die mid-sentence. "Len was taken when he was only fifty-one. They clamor here, can't you hear them?"
"We're giving her the creeps, really. They are just passing through, honey, like wind through an old house."
"Where are they going?" Rachel wished she hadn't asked; she wished she'd just gotten up from the table and gone back upstairs or gone out for a walk down to DuPont Circle for some ice cream or to see if Hugh was in one of the bars down there. Where are you, Hugh? Don't you know that I love you even If you don't have a job right at the moment, don't you know that? Don't you know things like this make me mad, but I still love you anyway? She felt slightly dizzy, but was getting a heady sugar rush from the cheesecake, which was not half bad.
"It's really only an old ladies' game, dear." Mrs. Deerfield seemed to sense her discomfort.
"We can't have all the answers. Even they don't have the answers. How is my cheesecake, honey?"
"It's delicious."
"I only use Philadelphia brand cream cheese. It's very simple to make."
"Don't give her the recipe," Betty said with a hint of sarcasm. "It's so hard to follow, and then it never comes out the way she does it because she always leaves something -"
"Betty Kellogg, you make it sound intentional. What I do is I forget to put something in."
"Recipe?" Mrs. Deerfield buffed. "My dear, she got it off the package of cream cheese."
"Bitch. Menopausal bitch."
They were all momentarily silent. Rachel felt itchily uncomfortable, just as if she were surrounded by mosquitoes. Or those fleas of Ramona's. She made a slight move back in her fold-out chair; it scraped the floor and her knee hit the underside of the card table.
"I should -"
"We're a rough pack of cards," Penelope Deerfield said, reaching over to squeeze Rachel's hand. "We're being rude -my goodness, dear, your hand is so warm. You’re not running a fever are you?" Rachel did feel warm suddenly, as if something had just been let into the room, some wild animal with its fur burning. She felt dizzy. She was sitting there with three versions of her own mother, at different ages: when her mother was thirty, when she was forty-five, and then in her sixties. Her mother in her sixties pressed down on her hand and said, "Get her a cup of tea, "and then it was no longer her mother, but a black man holding her hand. His skull seemed to be pressing outward against his coffee-colored skin, his large dark eyes sinking back into holes, becoming cracks, and then his eyes were sealed up completely -his lips dried like a riverbed. And emerging were ridged yellow teeth covered with a dripping scum, growing in size as they came towards her, his nose swimming in the dark flesh that gradually filled up her vision. The teeth parted, flying up, and she was looking down into his throat, his enormous purple tongue slapping just in front of her face, his pulpy uvula flapping like torn skin -and a blast of heat from his gut rising up through his throat -heat and something else, something sweet and sour, vinegary, reminding her of a biology class, of dissecting a frog when she was fifteen, and then she felt freezing come and it was over.
"How long does it take you to pour tea, Annie?" Mrs. Deerfield's face was turned away from Rachel's, but her hand was still clutching Rachel's wrist.
"She's coming down," Betty said. Rachel coughed, wrenching her hand from Mrs. Deerfield's. "I'm sorry."
"Those who clamor," Annie Ralph said, balancing the tea cup as she came back from the kitchenette, “They've spoken through you, honey."
"It was the sugar shock," Penelope said. "That damn cheesecake of yours. You must be exhausted, dear. You’ll run a fever if we don't get you upstairs for a rest."
"Did they speak through me?" Rachel lay down on the sofa in her own living room. She felt drained and weak and wasn't sure if she was dreaming.
Mrs. Deerfield stood above her, gazing down at her with concern.
"What?"
"Annie said it was those spirits. She said they spoke through me. You told me I was sensitive. Is that what it means?"
"Annie Ralph would believe anything. I say just because it happens doesn't make it real. You started saying some jumbled words, it was gibberish." Mrs. Deerfield felt Rachel's forehead. “You don't seem too feverish, but it's probably the humidity, too. Can I turn up the air conditioner?"
Rachel nodded dreamily. Mrs. Deerfield went over to the thermostat and switched it on, adjusting the temperature.
"Did I say something bad? They looked scared."
"Those old birds are frightened of their shadows. But Rachel, you see I knew it, you're open to spiritual influence."
"It doesn't frighten you? Jesus, I was terrified and I don't even believe in it."
"One never knows what to believe in this world. Nothing's really out there telling us what to believe, is it? But we all muddle through and sometimes the patterns reveal themselves to us. You obviously have a talent that way, dear, perhaps untapped, but still there. But who knows what to make of it all?"
"But you believe in ghosts."
"The child in me believes, dear, the child in me believes. And the grown-up in me believes in letting that child out now and then, sometimes just to run amok in the garden and track mud across my quiet life. But one mustn't confuse things: a ghost is a remnant of a life, while a spirit is simply a life without flesh. I believe in spirits and their influence. But it is just a pastime for a little old lady like myself, nothing for a pretty young girl to worry about."
“You've been very sweet, Mrs. Deerfield -I'm sorry for wilting like that with your friends."
"It was the sugar, Rachel, the way your face went from peach to white and then red when you came to -it was only a second. What have you eaten today?" Mrs. Deerfield returned to the couch; Rachel scooted over a bit to allow her to sit on the edge.
"Oh. A Diet Coke and I guess that was it until the cheesecake."
"Sugar can do nasty things to you if you're not careful. I try not to use much in my jams and jellies -as we all get older we must watch what we put in our tummies. When I worked as a nanny I saw what sugar can do to children."
"You must've been a very good nanny."
"Not so good." She rose from beside the couch. “You sure you'll be all right? I can sit here awhile longer."
"No, thank you, though. I'm just sleepy."
"When Mr. Adair gets home have him make you a good dinner."
"When Mr. Adair gets home he'll be lucky if I'm still asleep." Mrs. Deerfield wagged a finger at her. "Naughty girl." It was dark out when she felt a kiss on her forehead, waking her, and smelled a brewery pressed against her. She remembered the man's mouth in Mrs. Deerfield's Clamoring Place, and tried to scream, but the mouth sucked greedily at her lips. When Rachel opened her eyes, pushing the man away from her, screaming, he switched a light on and it was Hugh, his tan suit stained and filthy, his hair brushed in opposing directions, his eyes half lidded, his shirt opened almost to his navel.
"I didn't think you'd scream," he said, shaking his head aimlessly.
"Where the fuck have you been!" she barked.