Park Lane South, Queens

The nearer Claire got to her block, the more those spider webs were noticeable. The old Queen Ann houses looked, in the overcast, almost vaporous. If she shot with a breath-steamed lens it would look downright enchanted. She finished the whole roll of film standing there by the mailbox. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it, the romanticism of her reality. Finding beauty right where it was. No more robbing the East … no more hupla onto a plane to go look for legendary sights: … the faceless Buddhas of Bāmiān … or the islands of the Maldives, sprouting up like jade mushrooms in a perfect turquoise sea. How many other photographers had shot those jewels before and after her? And what had they become, exquisite cigarette placards? No, this—this was it right here. It would have to be. It was, after all, what she wanted. Hers. No one else’s. As for her blubbery middle, there were a variety of steps she could take. She could stop eating altogether. But then of course she’d smoke nonstop. No, she’d have to find a more gymnastic approach. Swimming? Swimming would be ideal except that she had no car to carry her to and from the beach. And the thought of swimming in an indoor pool left her limp with apprehension. No, swimming was out. Tennis was too expensive. What did one do without money? One jogged. Claire quickened her pace with a breast-rattling jiggle. It was not the most difficult of sports. She checked an impulse to light a cigarette as she walked along figuring all this out. It wouldn’t hurt to be fit. She’d been postponing it so long now that she wondered if she was convinced she’d fail. Nonsense. She wasn’t a child. Or had she turned back into one when she’d come home? She certainly had reverted to her adolescent messy self. Just look at her unmade bed and the lump of clothing she’d left on the floor.

She would change. She would change everything about herself. She wasn’t doing anyone any good in this suspended state of trying not to worry about things. If one wanted to worry, one should get on with it so as to go on from there. What was it Swamiji used to say? “Curl up inside fear to find surrender. Then defend your right to overcome.” Claire smiled to herself. Perhaps it would work out after all.

“Hi,” she said as she came in the back door. “What’s the matter?” Mrs. Dixon and her mother sat morosely at the kitchen table. Zinnie, just home from her midnight shift, hung over the counter with a tall glass of iced coffee and a case of bloodshot eyes.

“It’s the Mayor,” said Zinnie. “He’s grounded.”

Claire looked at the dog on the floor. He raised his brown eyes to her and gave a minor salutory flick of his tail.

“He got a ticket,” said Mrs. Dixon.

“For doing it on von Lillienfeld’s front lawn,” sighed Mary.

“A hundred bucks,” said Zinnie. “Wait till Dad finds out.”

“The thing was,” Mary sulked, “that we were warned. I mean, that’s what your father will say. Everyone knows you’re not allowed out without your pooper scooper or a good brown paper bag and a leash. It’s just that the Mayor is so used to being out on his own. Poor pooch.”

“Poor Pop,” Zinnie said. “A hundred clams.”

“And there’s nothing to be done,” said Mrs. Dixon as she hurled yet another sugar rock into her coffee sludge, “It’s territorial, you know. You can’t stop that in dumb animals. He lusts after her poodle.”

“I saw the officer out there,” Mary shook her head and laid each finger on her breast. “I saw him and I thought, oh boy, somebody’s going to get a ticket. But I thought it would be for parking. You know how they slink about checking for outdated registrations and too many inches from the indiscernible curb. Sure, that’s their bread and butter.”

“Traffic,” snarled Zinnie. “Regular cops wouldn’t be bothered. They’d just give you a warning.”

“I was out in the yard hanging Michaelaen’s clean laundry—”

“Where is Michaelaen?” asked Claire.

“Down at the store with your father. I was out in the yard watching this officer and not even thinking about the Mayor. Well, if the truth be known, I did sorta see ’im outa the corner of me eye like. But I thought he’d take off toward the trestle the way he normally does. Don’t ask me why he chose to come lumbering back to me this particular mornin’. You know the way he is, he’s got no use for me unless it’s five and he’s droolin’ after his dinner. He never notices me in the mornin’ as a rule. But wouldn’t you know the officer comes marching over, as efficient as you please, and says, ‘That your dog, ma’am?’ Now what was I to say?”

“You could have said no and gone into the house,” Zinnie said.

Mary shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t deny my own dog. Sure that would be denying one of your own.”

They all turned silently to look at the Mayor. Clearly penitent, he sighed with them in unison.

“Anyway,” Mary’s tone changed, “I did try to sneak into the house, but the dog came wollypoggely up to me, happy as good-all to see me.”

“I tried to help her out of it,” Mrs. Dixon said. “I came running over, didn’t I?”

“That you did.”

“Did you tell him that Zinnie was on the job?” Claire asked.

“Sure, Mrs. Dixon told him that. He didn’t care, though. Heartless man. And not at all proud of his uniform! Ice pop stains all over his front. Grape, no less. And we, law-abiding citizens in every other respect. Oh, wait till your father hears this one.”

“It was von Lillienfeld who went and reported the dog, you mark my words,” Mrs. Dixon scraped her chair along Mary’s good linoleum. “Nobody else has that much brass. She’s a bad one. Shut up in there like some old witch.”

“Now,” Mary wailed, “he won’t be able to go out at all without his leash. Come to think of it, I don’t even know where we’ve put the old thing, it’s been so long since he’s had it on. And haven’t I better things to do with my day than to have to go traipsing here and there after a dog who’s used to being everywhere at once?”

“Well, I’m not walkin’ ’im,” Zinnie said firmly. “He won’t walk anyhow. He just sniffs in one spot if you’ve got him on a leash.”

“And how would you know that?” Mary doubled her chin. “As if you’ve ever walked him!”

“I passed by the church,” Claire changed the subject. “The funeral for that little boy was going on.”

“No fooling? Already? That must have been mobbed. Did you go in?”

“Uh-uh. I just caught them coming out onto the steps. It was really awful.”

Mrs. Dixon stood up heavily. She didn’t want to talk about that again. “I think I’ll be off,” she said.

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