Louise Read Free Page B

a baby?
    Claude is thinking that this has happened because he has bad luck. He is always wrecking cars and losing things. He got picked on in grade school, and is short. He has a string of ex-girlfriends who hate him.
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    Janet leaves the apartment to buy a vacuum cleaner. The carpet has a lot of sand in it from the beach. The building is on a steep dirt hill overlooking four lanes of speeding cars, and then there is the water and sand. The apartment is designed like a motel, with the bedroom window looking directly onto a walkway and the parking lot. In place of a curtain, Claude and Louise have pinned a large piece of tie-dyed fabric over the bedroom window. More privacy is needed.
    Janet gets off the freeway at Wagon Wheel Circle. She goes fast, around and around the wagon wheel, until she sees her exit. In the vacuum aisle of the superstore she talks to herself, observing the qualities of one device over another, and buys the best vacuum. What else would her daughter like? She picks up a little picture frame, a cinnamon candle.
    For dinner, Janet steams three artichokes and beats butter, eggs, and hot pepper sauce in a bowl. She warms the mixture over the tiny electric stove. Artichokes and hollandaise sauce has been Louise’s favorite meal since she was small. In Kansas, Janet is so busy that she mainly eats cereal and bananas, cold cuts and cheese, shrimp with cocktail sauce. But that is OK. This is the food she likes.
    Janet and Claude get Louise out of bed. The sedatives have made her spacey and somber. Janet and Claude work together quietly, pushing and pulling Louise gently. They act as a team. Janet thinks Claude is holding up well. He goes to the grocery store and picks up around the apartment. He wants to help Louise take a bath before they eat. She hasn’t been washed since the movie premiere—four days ago.
    They slide her off of the bed and her pants bunch, exposing her underwear. “Don’t look!” she says, and Janet almost laughs. The sheets are expensive looking, with large, purple flowers, a gift from Claude’s French mom. The mattress is just a few weeks old, one of Louise and Claude’s joint purchases. Now Louise clings to it. She doesn’t want to go anywhere, she says. Janet and Claude soothe her with promises of warm water and bubbles. Janet feels like she is assisting her grandmother at the nursing home, Louise is that lost, that scared.
    Janet waits on the balcony, watching the water and the cars. She wonders what Claude thinks of her beautiful baby now—helpless, naked, wall-eyed—
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    Claude tries to shave Louise’s legs but gives up after a few strokes. She keeps squirming, it is too dangerous. Although lighter in pounds, she is dead weight, he thinks. She is scaring him as she sits in the water with her deep slouch. He is embarrassed to see that her stomach has rolls. She has never smelled like this before, like an animal. She says she wantshim to wash her face, but cries when the cleanser hits. She covers her face. Her hair looks like a wig, stiff and rough. Claude spots moles on her body that he has never known about. He gently pushes her head back to get it wet. She resists. She keeps repeating for him to hurry, hurry. Her teeth chatter. Claude can find nowhere to put her but on the toilet seat. He wraps her hair in a towel and guides her into clean underwear, sweatpants, and his college T-shirt.
    At the dinner table, Claude and Janet dip artichoke leaves into yellow sauce and scrape them with their teeth. Louise eats slowly, moving the leaves to her mouth with her one good hand, not talking, concentrating. They eat on a card table Claude and Louise had bought in a box set from a furniture warehouse. The chairs are small and splintery. Claude remembers their first night in this apartment just over one month ago, when Louise arrived. They’d slept on the floor in sleeping bags, all of their boxes still packed around them, a young