Eighteen

Sure, the age-old complaint.

By the time she suggested an evening walk, I was more than willing to get some fresh air. I anticipated a stroll through the nearby park; maybe a chance to run into a friendly neighbor. But as I made the turn outside the door of our building, Cindy tugged at me so hard I nearly lost my balance.

“Oh no you don’t, Alex. I know what you’re up to. Well, we’re not going to the park. Not this evening.”

Well, okay, I admit it-there was a good-looking gal who often took a run through the park about that time of day, and she and I had exchanged some tender looks of longing. But it never went any further-how could it, with Cindy never more than two feet away from me?

I guess Cindy picked up on even my most momentary lack of attention to her and her needs.

I was soon distracted from all thought of the park. Cindy was, as usual, directing me in rude and abrupt tones. “Left, Alex.” “Right, Alex.” It was humiliating, being treated more as an errant child than as her partner.

I suddenly realized that this was what she envisioned every day of our life to be like. She would never trust me completely. She would depend on me, but not as a trustworthy companion. Not someone to really love. Knowing that I wasn’t trained for anything that would allow me to live as well as I did with her, she meant to use me shamelessly. She would rely on me to guide her from corner to corner, to keep her from bumping into things, to listen to her, to sleep beside her. But my own needs-to be treated with dignity, to be loved-those were of no consequence to her. She was in control.

“Slow down, Alex!”

All of these commands! I thought angrily. Couldn’t you think of some gentler way to let me know what you want?

She started whistling again. If it had been real whistling, real honest-to-God whistling, I think I could have lived with it. But there we were, walking toward the intersection, and she was doing it, whistling through her teeth. A tuneless, maddening sucking in and out of breath. I wanted to howl from the irritation of it.

It was just at that moment that she insisted on crossing the street. There was a van coming. I saw it, knew she was unaware of it. Knew without a doubt that the young driver was too intent on beating the light to pay attention to anything but the color of the signal.

Cindy tugged at me.

I stopped to scratch.

She lost her balance, losing her grip on me as she stumbled off the curb.

I let her go.

It’s going to be hard to find work again. Maybe you can explain to them that I won’t fail next time. Tell them, if you would be so kind, one other thing: please don’t give me a whistler.

News Item:

BLIND WOMAN KILLED

A young blind woman was killed by a hit-and-run driver yesterday evening at the corner of Madison and Oak. Police report that Cynthia Farnsworth, 24, was struck by a blue van driven by a white male youth.

Farnsworth, who had a guide dog with her, stepped off the curb just as the light was changing. James and Lois Church, who witnessed the accident, said the dog refused to cross the street, but did not attempt to prevent Farnsworth from doing so. One other witness, who asked that her name be withheld, claimed Farnsworth was thrown off balance and into the path of the van when the dog stopped to scratch his ear.

Guide dog trainers refused to speculate about the dog’s behavior, saying only that the dog’s training and fitness will be evaluated.

The dog was unharmed.

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award Wi

Best Short Story of 1994

Macavity Award Wi

The Muse

The jet black pantyhose were calling to him. The feet of the pantyhose, to be precise. He knew he shouldn’t look. Knew it would only encourage her. But he folded the edge of the newspaper down, giving in that much.

“Bee-yoll.” Her voice was childlike, crooning. Her puppeteer voice.

“I’m not in the mood for this, Ellie,” Bill said.

“Oh, Beeeeee-yoll.”

Her hands were all he could see of her, and not really much of her hands. The makeshift pantyhose puppets were “looking” at each other.

“He’s very angry with you,” the right hand admonished the left.

“No, he’s not,” the left answered, then they both looked at Bill.

“I’m not angry,” Bill said to the hands, giving in a little more. Addressing the puppets now. “Not really angry. Just tired.”

“Quit distracting him. He’s on an important deadline, and he has writer’s block,” the right said.

“He never has writer’s block,” the left replied. “He’s upset about Mir.”

“The prospect of a visit from Miriam is an unpleasant one,” he agreed.

Ellie’s head emerged above the edge of the breakfast table. He saw that she had cut the crotch out of the pantyhose, and was wearing them over her head.

“You are the strangest woman I know,” he said, causing her to smile. Ellie considered this a grand endearment. Bill knew that.

Her head tilted a little to one side, as if studying him for a portrait. “It’s fine now. Not even my evil twin can stop you.”

“She is your younger sister, not your twin,” he said, but she was leaving the table, pulling the pantyhose off.

Ellie was right, as always. Not about the twin business, of course, but about the novel he was working on. He got up from the table feeling invigorated, and went straight to the computer. He had a new slant on a passage he had considered unworkable until a moment ago. This was the effect she had on him. Ellie was his Muse.

He had known she would be from the moment he first saw her. Seven years ago, well past three o’clock in the morning on a hot summer’s night, at a gas station on Westwood Boulevard. Bill supposed he would forget his own name before he forgot that night.

He had been uneasy, at loose ends. It wasn’t insomnia: it’s only insomnia when you’re trying to sleep. He had been trying to write. It was his best kept secret then, his writing. None of his professors at UCLA, who knew him as a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, would have ever guessed it. Well-written papers and a flair for creative problem-solving didn’t make him stand out as more than a good student. His friends, although from varied backgrounds and majors, held the same prejudices as the few women he had dated: they assumed that engineers were unlikely to read novels, let alone write them. His father, who expected him to come to work for the family company in September, was also unaware of Bill’s literary aspirations.

In those days, Bill thought that was for the best. If he was going to fail, he preferred not to advertise it. And while he had faith in the basic idea for his novel, he had to admit it wasn’t working out. Frustrated when he stalled in that place in the manuscript where he had stalled no fewer than ten times before-where the boy ought to get the girl back again-he stood up and stretched. He needed some fresh air, he decided. At least, the freshest he could find in L.A..

And so he had restlessly made his way down to Westwood Boulevard, head down, his hands shoved down into his pockets, his long-legged gait taking him quickly past record stores and restaurants. He glanced up just to keep from ru

A lithe young woman was tugging on one of the water hoses most people would use for filling radiators. She was using it to wash a gold Rolls-Royce.

He came to a halt on the wide sidewalk, fascinated. She looked up over the hood, used the back of her hand to move her bowl-cut, thick, dark hair away from her eyes. Big brown eyes.