	RodMer Short Story Package MM The Queen of Jupiter
by Merike Lugus	for on-line reading now in your browser

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Here is Short Story Package MM, a short story by Merike Lugus.

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THE QUEEN OF JUPITER

Approximately 10,300 words

The morning went by like darts, fast and ending in poison. Jules was unhappy. In no time flat his irritation flew from job to home then zeroed in on Annie's spending habits. Annie had blown up. Her VISA was paid up; they lived, unnecessarily, like paupers, she said defensively. She'd be happy to go out and get a job. Working was a privilege, as far as she was concerned. "You stay home!" Always at this point Jules quieted down. He wanted her home for Karina and Jamie and for his own comfort and he didn't want to get bogged down in the topic of his wife's ambitions. "Thank you," said Annie quietly, furious that this simple logic had to be paraded at all.

"Don't forget Christmas is a month away. At least keep the VISA bills down--I mean, keep it under control." This last dart he threw at her just as he shut the door behind him. It carried a slow-release venom that would circulate in her for hours.

As she reached for the box of Cheerios it struck her: This is not about money. Sure, they differed in their priorities. Annie was a nest-builder, a lover of natural fibres: cotton, wool, silk pillows and throws. Quality clothing for herself and the kids, stuff that caressed the skin and gave pleasure right to the last thread. Jules could live with polyester as long as all his photography equipment was state-of-the-art. He complained how little time he had for his hobby because he had to work so hard. Which made it difficult to criticize the expensive equipment taking up space in the small guest room. Sure her spending habits were different, but it's been years since she acted irresponsibly. She still binges occasionally, but then she's content to live like a monk for another year. In the end, things balanced.

Reaching for the milk carton in the fridge, she froze for a moment. He's free while I'm left with the poison. It had indeed taken effect. Karina's and Jamie's chatter at breakfast reached her as if through a thick pane of glass, she on the other side swimming in murky waters. She waved to them through seaweed when she dropped them off at school.

The sticker says two thousand dollars. Annie takes three steps back to take in the complete effect of "The Moons of Jupiter", four circular masses of dark blue textured glass.

"It's from a studio in British Columbia," says the young woman who owns the gallery. "Too bad you missed the opening--the artists were all here." Linda leans elegantly against the archway that divides the gallery into two sections and smiles at Annie, who she's seen several times over the year, and who rarely leaves the place without a small purchase. A small bowl or vase in clay, or a hand-blown glass flower to put on her window sill. Nothing over thirty, forty dollars. She can't quite place Annie, who is dressed in blue jeans, black turtleneck and black coat, much like the artists in the area, but you can never tell who might actually have the money to buy this stuff.

"I've always loved glass," says Annie, turning greedily from object to object. "This work is amazing."

"They're really hot now, these four young artists," says Linda. They're getting an international reputation." She brings out a large glossy magazine that has eight pages of vibrant photos and text in French devoted to their work. Annie looks at it reverently. The work is bold cutting-edge stuff, rare in this city, rare at any price. Anyway, the outside world melts away. It's only Annie and Linda inside a cocoon of liquid glass. Annie's cheeks are hot with wanting.

The other objects are more functional, made to double as vessels for fruit or flowers. Colours fall seamlessly down from blue to green to yellow, gold leaf is rubbed into the interiors of knobby glass bowls on jet glass papyrus leaves. She moves slowly around the room, loosening herself from the gravity of budgets or memory of Christmas until she comes back to "The Moons of Jupiter".

"I'm going to buy something," she blurts out. "But I can't decide." What she means is she feels the tug of practicality, the only thing keeping her from the moons. But she can feel Linda's eyes on her as well as the excitement awaiting some artist three time zones away to learn he's sold his biggest piece a week before the show closed.

"It's from my great-grandfather, I think," she says, "this love of glass." Linda is obliged to pay attention now, but Annie doesn't explain. She's deep inside justification which is not Linda's business. "The Moons of Jupiter" would by-pass extravagance. It enters into family tradition, into history. The story goes that her great-grandfather, who had scarcely been freed from serfdom in nineteenth century Europe, had educated himself and got a respectable job as a school teacher. According to family legend he had painted the ceiling of his shack a dark blue and plotted the constellations and planets with nails. The shack, which Annie's mother had seen with her own eyes, had been full of books, maps, musical instruments, charts of the sky and a decent telescope. It was quite possible he had actually seen the moons of Jupiter. But the clincher is that he'd started a collection glass objects. He's up there somewhere smiling down at his great-grand-daughter.

"Now you can put the red sticker on," Annie says after the VISA part is done. She accepts Linda's warm admiration for her choice. The very phrase--the moons of Jupiter--thrills her. She feels vast, tumultuous, oceanic.

"It's all in how you display it," Annie would tell Jules when she brings the sculpture home once the show is over. On her way home she's oblivious to traffic jams as she plans the proper back-drop for it over the fire-place. Lights will be angled in a way that will make the moons glow mysteriously, will show off their depth and the many surprises the artist has imbedded. The one she likes best is a gash like an open wound with tiny jagged teeth. In another there are two little protrusions, like nipples, and in another the polar ice cap imbedded into it. One had to look for them. It was subtle. She would like to say to Jules the moon has teeth. She'd whisper it in his ear at some appropriately absurd moment. She can imagine that this could be a little private joke, the sort of nonsensical code she's witnessed between couples where a single word is like the light switch that illuminates the dark canals of their honeymoon in, say, Venice. But Jules wouldn't get it, wouldn't smile. It's not that he can't be subtle but there's more points to be made by refusing to look. Anyway, the moon has teeth isn't a real joke. So, no big deal.

With any luck Jules will opt for a pedantic kind of humour. Sometimes he can't resist even if it works against him. He just might decide to say: Jupiter has twelve known moons, and all you get for your two thousand bucks are four? Once he gets into this line of attack she'll win. These are the four that Galileo discovered, she'll say. These are the four her great-grandfather had probably seen a hundred years ago. Once they get going into Galileo's battles with the Inquisition, it'll be a while before he gets back on course and by then his admiration for Galileo will have softened him. They might even make love. She thinks back on the tenderness they once had--would get back to, some day. When Jules was more relaxed.

At midnight while Jules is fussing and muttering in his sleep, she's still wide awake. The irresponsibility of what she's done--how it will look to Jules--suddenly hits her. Her mind drags her back to reality and into a cul-de-sac of guilt and once there she can't find the space to turn around. This goes beyond guilt--this goes under character defect. Staring up at the ceiling, she outlines her options as if preparing for a term paper :

1. Phone gallery, say she made a mistake. The reasons against this option are: a) she wants the moons; b) she could never face Linda again, which means she'd lose access to her favourite gallery.

2. Cover up, no matter how; absorb the cost--say she loaned the money to a needy friend. The problem here is that it's doubly dishonest and unpredictable besides: her needy friend might actually need money soon.

3. Make a full confession of her thoughtless greed, put herself at Jules's mercy. The downside here is that she'll sound pathetic trying to explain the wanting, the irresistible force inside her. It takes squirming to get off the hook. Besides, she's taken a serious vow to be mature, and a confession seems self-serving. A mature person does not speak from their wounds. She'd read that in Elle or Cosmopolitan--advice on keeping peace in a marriage. There's one other objection she has to this strategy: throwing herself at his mercy gives him a power that, deep down, she feels he does not deserve. She stops to puzzle over this.

4. Penance. This one makes sense: promise to get a little job selling socks somewhere until the money is paid off. This sounds mature, but turns out to be manipulative because she knows Jules will talk her out of it. He will point out that the cost of baby-sitters and transportation will nullify her income. And that's not counting finding someone to give Jamie the care he needs now that his "special problem" has been diagnosed. Well, that's another story. The chaos that follows Jamie like a small tornado is being treated as a learning disability. Annie figures the problem had to come through her. Being a mother keeps her focused, but sometimes she feels like a house of cards that has fallen into a jumbled heap. Sometimes she'd like to just lie back and let someone's capable hands collect all the cards and integrate them into a neat pack.

5. What else? Offer divorce? This option is unattractive at many levels. She remembers reading about a man who'd come up against a grizzly bear and had offered his bare neck as a last ditch gesture of submission. Now that is real risk. She knows Jules won't bite. Good lord, is there any way that does not require manipulation?

6. Well then, everything points to suicide. Suppose it were not a hypothetical option. Suppose she valued honour above all else. There's the movie where some character is locked in a room with a pistol, is given one hour to do the honourable thing and save his comrades the trouble. He'd crawled the walls like a trapped weasel. The downside here is that she'd actually have to do it--and without warning in order for it not to be manipulative.

What was I thinking! She can't wiggle out of the guilt. And worse, she's walked right into Julian's set-up, whatever it is. She decides she must talk it through with Molly, her best friend and neighbour. She'll see Molly the next evening because they're going to the same party. She'll introduce the topic when they find themselves alone in a corner, as they invariably do at parties. That's when they discuss the subscript to all that is going on--the reason behind Felicia's sudden trip to Los Angeles, why Harold's looking good and Evelyn's depressed.

The hostess is in a glittering mood, takes their coats and drags Jules by the arm through the hallway towards the kitchen. Annie follows, the guilt-noose around her neck momentarily at a slack. Shelly is new in the neighbourhood and anxious to show off her kitchen. She and Gerald have bought the largest house two streets over. It's twice the size of Annie's. Annie spies Molly through the living room doors near the fireplace. Her long knitted dress with black and maroon stripes rounds softly over her breasts. Her dark blonde hair has been touched up with the gold highlights they had fantasized over the last time together. Annie can't get over that Molly calls herself ugly. She looks like a vision tonight. But then, Molly has ways that take getting used to--ways that Annie is trying to get the hang of.

In the kitchen a group of guests is standing around the state-of-the-art gas oven. They make coveting sounds. Shelly complains there's something wrong with it--it takes fifteen minutes to heat a pot of water. Annie turns around to admire the latest built-in fridge. Shelly warns her it looks good but it's a high maintenance nightmare. The guests aren't sure if they should admire anything else. Annie peeks inside the fridge just enough to make out a row of tidy compartments. For the price of a few chunks of glass Annie figures she could probably have bought this marvel. The moons of Jupiter now seem in memory like four bottoms of grotesquely over-sized glass bottles. How hard could that be to make? Moons of Jupiter, my ass, Jules would say. Anyone in the room would say it. As she looks around from face to face she feels that something fragile, something transcendental is under fire and she sprouts a third leg, her stubbornness leg. She'll weather the storm, stand by her moons.

A wood fire is burning in the living room. The Christmas tree is so heavily decorated that scarcely a green branch is visible. Stockings are hung up--the ones she'd admired at the mall, made of old fashioned brocades with velvet cuffs and lace trim--although there is no evidence of children in the house. A crystal bowl of mulled wine glows close to the fire-place. Guests are ladling it into round glass cups. One of the guests whispers, "I thought they were Jewish." Another guest seems to think that Gerald is, or perhaps Shelly, but not both. It's decided it must be Gerald because it seems to be more Shelly's party.

Gerald is in the hallway wearing a red cardigan which fits like a hammock to his paunch. He steers more guests in the right direction then steers the conversation to real estate. His good luck--Anyone can do it--booms the length of the hall while he waves a cigar through the air to draw attention to the size of the house. Shelly rushes in from the kitchen and tells him to take the stink outside.

As Annie makes her way to the fireplace and the punch bowl, she spies Jules and Molly in a corner next to the Christmas tree, two wine glasses between them. Then Molly leans towards Jules and rubs her nose against his. It's unmistakably so, and if she'd been uncertain of what she'd seen, Jules then rubs his nose against Molly's. Moods change in the presence of a fire place, Annie thinks. It makes people warm and generous. With so much mulled wine everyone is hugging everyone, dragging someone under the mistletoe. Annie has already been kissed by two complete strangers. She reaches for one of the punch cups. It sits like a little nest in the palms of her hands. She could crush it if she wanted. Jules shifts, turn his back on the room, on her, partially blocking Molly from view. Perspective, thinks Annie. In photographs a man can look as if a tree is sprouting from his head when it's really a hundred yards away. Now Molly has disappeared altogether. Jules's square back envelops her. This is not an optical illusion. She knows there is a full-sized woman between him and the wall.

On the other hand she knows that Molly is her best friend. So she goes over to them and starts to say something. "Hi gorgeous!" says Molly. "What's up?"

"You tell me," says Annie, then smiles and looks down at the nest of punch between her hands. This is a recent thing, now that she thinks of it, this calling her gorgeous and herself ugly. At first it was embarrassing, now she's annoyed at the way it suggests that Molly is somehow at a disadvantage, as if she's entitled to some sort of compensation. Later when she and Molly find themselves together at one side of the living room, Annie finds she can't make the little nudge of suspicion go away . It sets her off course just enough to make her feel a bit wobbly, and so she decides not to ask for Molly's advice, or even to mention the moons of Jupiter.

The following Friday is a day of complicated arrangements. Annie finds herself in a small coffee shop in a part of the city she's not familiar with. She'd been on her way to pick up the Moons before her history class, but the store windows here had looked inviting as she had driven past. She orders a cappuccino and one of the decorated cookies because it reminds her of the time she was alone in Vienna close to Christmas time. She'd gone for her uncle August's funeral to represent the North American contingent of the family. It was uncle August who'd told her about his grandfather, the astronomer and glass collector. Every store window along Kärntnerstrasse had been like a child's dream of what Christmas should be, like a scene from a lavish production of The Nutcracker Suite. Yet the city had felt strangely childless. There'd been jokes about old people who terrorized the children with canes and sharp tongues, and with the next breath switched to the famous Viennese charm. For whom, then, were all the marzipan and chocolate pigs? Annie had bought several to take home to Karina and Jamie and ate half of them on the airplane.

She had felt an indescribable longing while in that city where, once the funeral was over, she hadn't known a soul. Snow had begun to fall, lazy lopsided flakes that would take all night to blanket the city. Already dark, the streets had flowed with people returning home from work. The eerie part had been the silence: the only sound made by the hurrying crowds had been the clip-clop and creak of leather shoes on the sidewalk. The store windows they hurried past were bursting with their golden lights; laughter and Gemütlichkeit was crammed inside them and scarcely spilled out when a door opened, except for the occasional auf Wiedersehen that got halfway out before it was choked off by a closing door.

It's now she realizes she has entered into her wandering phase. It happens periodically. She drives out to some part of the city, parks on some obscure street and makes her way to the shopping area with no particular goal in mind, looking into store windows, watching the faces of people passing by, feeling as though she were a ghost and no one could see her. Her friends say they do the same thing so she just calls it people-watching. But very occasionally she spots a stranger coming towards her whose ethereal, drifting quality seems to express more precisely what she herself is feeling. Like the woman last summer who had floated towards her dressed in a white tennis outfit, one with a mini skirt--and this downtown where the sun doesn't shine between the towers and everyone wears suits. She had shiny black hair cut to square with her chin, and bangs that formed a peak between her eyebrows. She was straight, tall, regal looking. Cleopatra, thought Annie. At least, a Hollywood version of her. All that was missing was a gold cobra set low on her forehead. The white form had floated straight to her. Here comes the Queen of the Nile. The woman had touched her lightly on the arm, just enough to get her attention. Annie had thought she would ask for the time, or the way out of the maze of buildings.

Instead, the woman had looked at her in a tentative way. "Some days I get up and I get dressed for tennis," she had said, "and then as the day goes by I discover I've made a mistake." She'd hung on to Annie's eyes as if hoping for permission to tell her more. Annie had only stared, and finally murmured that some days she felt the same way. Politely she had tried to disengage herself.

The woman persisted. "Just this morning," she said, "I thought I knew exactly who I was, and now--" Her gesture indicated a confusion of cosmic size.

Ever since that summer day, from time to time Annie finds herself thinking of this woman and feels ashamed that she had not thought of anything to say, had no comfort to offer. Drinking her cappuccino on this particular Friday afternoon the woman comes to mind again. Why, she now wonders, did this woman, this stranger whom she had encountered for no more than two minutes, refuse to go away? On this Friday afternoon the answer is obvious. Only a ghost would recognize another ghost.

A couple of months later she'd been at Carlevale's reading over her essay before her history class, when a man about her own age, dressed in a fine camel hair coat had sat next to her and stared glumly into his coffee cup. A tension had been created between them. He drummed his fingers on the table. She had thought he was showing off his Rolex watch. He turned towards her several times as if to say something and then changed his mind. When he finally caught her eye she noticed the disheveled hair and dark hollows under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept or washed for days.

"I keep coming back here as if I had a life," he had said. Annie cringes, thinking of her response. Jules worries that she's naive and could easily fall prey to some man's line, so for some reason she chose that moment to show him that she could handle herself. In fact, it's so embarrassing to her now she doesn't want to remember what she said--something self-righteous and cold. He died without a whimper--she holds the memory of the sad, meek look he had given her. Not long after, articles on downsizing started to appear regularly in newspapers. The plight of the redundant.

The lost strangers are regulars inside her head. They are a bit like stray cats sidling up to her, hoping they'd be taken in. Perhaps her life with Jules, come to think of it--she knows there is something about her that disturbs him--could be looked at in this way: she is the stray cat and he has taken her in. Is this the worry then, that she's only passing through, as strays sometimes do? On the other hand, she doesn't feel as though he has really taken her in. If he had let her in whole-heartedly, would she be feeling lost again? And if she is lost, what will keep her from sidling up to a stranger some day? If that's what worries him, why doesn't he just take her in and feed her properly, hell, pamper her, make her purr. It occurs to her that it suits Jules to keep her off balance--he loves her, he loves her not. And it could even be that it suits her as well, because then she is free to wander. One thought is chasing the tail of another, around and around.

This sort of arrangement goes against all her theories of what a marriage should be, so she tries to find her way back to the reassurances: the tenderness she feels, for example, in the simple act of folding laundry--his socks, his underpants--sorting such intimate stuff into neat piles. I love him, I love him not... She's stacking those piles now against the pull of some ancient need to wander.

Odd to think how many times she's found herself in a strange city alone. Well, anyone who likes to travel ends up in unfamiliar cafés or at the end of a pier staring out at the ocean. Even in her married life she had managed to go alone--well, big deal, Jules was always too busy, too behind in everything. She never used the expression to find myself because it sounded self-indulgent, so, there had always been a reason, a dying aunt or friend, real or invented. Odd to think that Jules never questioned her. Whenever she feels herself chafing against his need for her to be someone else, she reminds herself of this space that he has never denied her.

That time in Vienna--she'd arrived there on the Orient Express traveling from Paris. It was when getting close to Germany that the real purpose of the trip had revealed itself. Indeed, she'd been skirting around Germany as she'd skirted around the witch of her childhood, never going into the cellar, never stepping on cracks or bringing attention to herself. She'd arranged for a private compartment, had bought herself a bottle of wine, a chunk of Camembert and a baguette to prepare for the moment of crossing the German border, where she knew there'd be a demand for passports and who knew what else. She was told the entry would not be until six in the morning.

She'd slept badly, anticipating sharp knocks at the door and strangers demanding documents that she didn't have. Unable to sleep, she'd tossed herself into a frenzy, expecting to be challenged on every question on the declaration papers, to be cross-examined, to have every item of clothing checked for made in France labels, which in her fever she thought pointed to some inexcusable decadence, like rot inside her. She ripped out every label from every piece of clothing, then couldn't decide what to do with them, eventually jammed them into the toes of her shoes. That's the first place they'll look. She removed them, considered swallowing them, burning them, then remembered the windows. But the windows didn't open. Suicides verboten, she thought. There must have been a few so that this precaution was necessary. Suddenly she craved fresh air--she would gag without it. After pounding and prying she discovered the windows could be opened from the top, but just a crack. She let loose the fistful of price tags and made in France labels, then regretted it: there might be hidden cameras; they might gather up the pieces and bring them back as evidence against her. She was only passing through, she would explain in high school German. I have a real life now.

The rhythm of the train had eventually worked like a lullaby and she'd drifted off, only to wake up an hour later drenched in sweat. She had dreamed of rivers and rivers of gray people, men, women, children, all with gaunt, haunted faces. She was small and lost among them, was being swept away by the currents, unnoticed, unable to make her mother see her or hear her. She could feel the coarse wool of strangers' coats scratching against her face. She could smell the unwashed bodies, the sour fear around her. The dream had frightened her so much that she'd taken out her journal to calm herself. Again she asked herself what was wrong with her. While in Paris, she had scarcely managed to find her way back to the hotel. Frequently and inexplicably she had sat down and wept.

When was it? Just last month. She'd been sitting in Molly's kitchen when Molly put on a new tape, something so beautiful it had transported Annie to that other world. A piece from Von Flotow's Martha. The theme was the same as that of an old folk song that Annie's mother used to sing in her mother tongue. It made her feel tender and closer to the Molly who liked such beautiful, soulful music. She had mouthed the words her mother had sung in her own language: when you come, love, bring me flowers...

She had glanced over at Molly, who stared into a space between them, her eyes unfocused. Her mouth looked fuller, more beautiful when relaxed like this. Molly may say she's not beautiful, but she doesn't sell herself short either. She seems confident, even when putting herself down. My nose isn't that great but my legs were good enough to catch me a doctor, she'd told her once. Well, not far off. George is a chiropractor. Annie had filled up with the goodness of the music and wanted to tell her she was beautiful through and through. Molly glanced her way and seeing Annie smiling at her, looked down.

"Ooh, Molly, this music! It's like hearing from an old friend. I've known this music all my life but never knew where it came from."

And then, "I would love to tape this. Could I please borrow it?" They often shared tapes and records and made copies for themselves.

Molly's expression had changed back to the usual one of contained amusement. The one that kept people on edge, expecting a sharp quip.

"No-o," she said.

Annie had assumed she was joking and waited for a punch line or for the usual just kidding! But then, after considerable silence, she felt as though Molly were playing with her, giving her a little poke to see what she would do. And of course she didn't know how to respond. It wasn't as though Molly wouldn't know the effect she had. She seemed almost to enjoy the silence. Annie had opened up a new mental file in their friendship: unexplained.

Well, there had to be boundaries, even in close friendships. She would never wear Molly's perfume, for instance, even though she liked it. Diorella was hers--no contest. Nor would she buy the same table cloth or curtains, even if they had the same taste in house decor, which they don't. The same tea kettle was all right, or anything mechanical, like TVs or VCRs. But music? How could anyone stake a claim to an operetta? A single piece of music can't make for an identity--it would take a whole idiosyncratic collection. But perhaps Molly had felt encroached upon, as if Annie were climbing aboard with intentions to share her soul. Or perhaps just the opposite was true: Molly had seen inside her mind--had seen that Annie thought the music belonged more rightfully to her--that Annie was intending not to share, but to steal something from her, as if the music could have only one rightful owner. In which case what Molly had meant, quite rightly, was: fuck you. Annie had backed off, her hands up as if to say I'm neither thief nor soul mate. But then of course, she had thought that they were soul mates.

While she sips her cappuccino and nibbles at the sugary Christmas cookie, Annie is peering into the unexplained file. In the shadow there, Jules's back is turned to her as two noses rub against each other. She wonders now if perhaps the no had been a hint: Not while I'm screwing your husband. That would be Molly's way of putting things. She can hear the words ringing in the air as a punch line to some grotesque joke. About someone else. Annie can't take the thought any further...she's already short of breath.

She takes out her Christmas shopping list and writes: Martha--von Flotow. She'd probably have to go downtown for it..

What else is in that file?

Last summer. Badminton. An inexplicable display of aggression on the part of Molly. Or was it just fun? Even when it was over and things returned to normal, Annie couldn't forget a certain look in Molly's eyes.

Annie tended to shy away from competition. In her experience it only caused hard feelings. She'd been a natural athlete all her life, accustomed to winning and it didn't mean much, though she didn't handicap herself in order to lose either. Games with Molly were for the exercise, strenuous, but friendly. They never kept score but she'd always assumed, on average, that she would have been ahead.

Then one day Molly said she wanted to keep score. Oh yes, Annie had felt something in the wind at that moment. She'd protested but Molly insisted. The game sped up. Their aim became more deadly, especially Molly's. She began to place her shots into back corners. She specialized in light taps just tipping the bird over the net sending Annie scrambling to the front. Annie was puzzled by the ferocious glee behind the spikes Molly delivered. She became more strategic herself. At first she didn't enjoy the points she made, and longed for the relaxed volleys back and forth. But Molly showed no inclination to return to their earlier speed. They played feverishly as if something momentous were at stake, and whatever it was, Annie didn't take the chance that it didn't involve her. She had to admit that the game had become more exhilarating, and perhaps the fury was justified on those grounds. She was everywhere on the court at once, stretching herself to the limit, returning the lobs and spikes into the corners. Every so often she caught a look in Molly's eyes, which, if she didn't know better, she would have described as pure hatred. Well, the killer instinct was something you were born with, she figured. She'd seen it before between close friends and didn't think it was personal.

When September came and the kids went back to school, the games stopped. Much of their lives revolved around the children, taking turns driving them to their various lessons, keeping them overnight. Their coffee sessions resumed and they picked up their friendship as though all summer they had not battled like enemies. What was that all about? Annie had wondered once comfortably back in Molly's kitchen. Molly poured coffee and smiled like a cat.

Without Molly the weeks could be unbearable. They had both moved into the new housing development just two years ago and had shared the dismay over too much cement, too few trees, the dust and noise and muddy sites down the road where houses were still being built. They found each other in their adjacent backyards watering the freshly rolled out sod and the wilting honey locusts. In any case, their children had already discovered each other and were forging ahead with plans that would have involved them eventually.

Molly was everything she was not. It seemed that whatever came into her head came out of her mouth. She was complaining all the time about her fate, but in a funny way, without malice. At their first getting-to-know-you Sunday afternoon Annie had noticed how Molly and George bickered between themselves. George's favourite opener: "If you'd done it my way," followed by a stream of reminders and corrections. George made Annie think of a painting of Napoleon--or was it a photograph of Marlon Brando?-- his thinning dark hair flattened over his forehead, his right hand absent-mindedly stroking his stomach, scratching his armpit. He scowled as if aware he had just missed out on being handsome--his chin receded mercilessly, undermining the look of authority he was striving for.

Molly had found an advantage in letting George do things his own way and eventually settled back in her chair ordering him to perform. George didn't seem to mind. Annie looked on in amazement as he took over the cooking, the bartending, the music selection and even the monitoring of the kids' games. "Isn't this great," said Molly from her chair, her feet in motion like windshield wipers. Annie stood around not knowing whether to help or to sit down and have the fun she was ordered to have.

Molly sat and held court. She introduced herself as the Queen of Bitches-- which opened her options right up. Her complaints had full range, from the pain in the neck which her children bestowed upon her, to the length of her nose, which she threatened to have bobbed, to the length of George's penis, which, she confided, needed no bobbing. At this last remark she looked at Annie mischievously. "I was put on earth to keep George humble." Annie looked over at Jules to see if he thought this was funny. She wanted him to like Molly, wanted him to like her future friend. Jules was smiling, but begrudgingly.

Molly seemed at home in her world. She had a name for each of the forces that worked against her--her mother, the pricks of the world, gravity and so on--and a name for her personal allies-- Karma, for example, or her phenomenal intuition, or her "bod". Annie studied Molly's free style and hoped she would absorb some of it. When the two of them were alone she was progressing quite well. She and Molly laughed and bitched together. It was with Jules that things got awkward. Molly was just a little too liberated for his taste. Selfish was the word he used. Whenever he came within earshot, Annie dulled herself down.

What Molly saw in her, of that Annie was not too sure. Maybe she appreciated her concern for her future. She sometimes forced Molly to look ahead. What she saw in Molly's sarcasm was a neophyte bitterness which would surely grow if Molly did nothing to intervene--and Molly did not seem disposed to do so, for her talent lay in giving it expression. Annie coaxed her to see the larger picture, make a plan--maybe become a yoga teacher--and when circumstances allowed, to take steps in that direction, even if they were only baby steps.

More recently Molly had smiled at her in a mysterious way. Annie would push her to visualize some sort of future and Molly would give her that smile. It had made Annie uneasy, as if Molly already had a plan but was not sharing it.

Cleopatra in her tennis outfit came wandering into Annie's mind. She froze into a regal pose. The short tennis skirt changed into a long white robe. In the proper setting she might rule the universe, but here on earth she was a stranger. Annie saw her on a barge floating down the Nile. The barge was tippy, and there were crocodiles sidling up to it, yet the only thing she knew how to do was to stand there in her long white robe and be gracious.

Better to be the Queen of Bitches.

All those afternoons spent with Molly, in alternating kitchens, discussing husbands, drinking coffee after coffee while their carefully chosen music played in the background, music that had fueled their passions before marriage or children... Joni Mitchell, Melanie, Leonard Cohen, Joe Cocker, Nazareth...New names were discovered and shared. Sometimes they'd stop the conversation and listen as the tension built up, slowly, relentlessly, to the primal scream. They groaned with pleasure.

Imperceptibly, deliciously, their klatches had darkened. They goaded each other on to reveal the fissures in their marriages. Molly went into detail about life with a control-freak. George went out of his way to join the groups that she joined. This was done in the name of sharing and togetherness. When Molly joined a discussion group on Eastern Religion, for example, George studied up and got himself invited to be the fucking guest guru. "How was I supposed to continue?"

"It's like he wants to prove he can live your life better than you!"

"He appropriates my flow. He makes me feel unnecessary."

Molly had looked at Annie helplessly. Annie noticed that the expression in her friend's face never changed. Even with red eyes and tears budding at the corners, Molly looked as though she might burst out laughing.

"Jules is stingy," Annie volunteered, but it seemed like a lightweight complaint. "He can't see paying an extra twenty dollars for a pair of shoes just because they've got stitched leather soles." Annie points out that they last twice as long. Jules holds up his mother as the model consumer. Molly puts two fingers into her gaping mouth, makes a gagging sound the way the kids do--spill, don't tell your feelings-- but then leans forward: this revelation is chicken feed. She wants the real dope.

"The thing I can't understand is Jules's insecurity." Really? "He thinks I'm Fannie what's-her-name! I can't look at another man without him thinking there's something going on. He says women have affairs only if they're unhappy whereas men have them because they're men."

"Ha ha."

"I can't stand being grilled all the time."

There! She'd gotten it off her chest. But Molly had kept staring at her.

"There is something else," Annie had said quietly, not sure she should continue. "There is a change in the way he makes love to me." In her mind she can scarcely call it making love, but she sticks with the word. "There's something primitive--" She checks herself. She's never made love to anyone else and is reluctant to expose what might be naive impressions.

"Well don't stop now," Molly exclaimed, pulling back, giving space.

"Well, that's about all there is to say. I mean, there was a time when we were both involved--of course I'm still involved, but--in a way not really because he's so...aggressive, somehow." As much as she wished it did, she didn't think it had to do with passion.

"Ooo stop, you're making me all wet!"

Annie looked up at Molly, who wasn't smiling. Never in a thousand years could she say something like that. Molly's eyes were on her as if she meant to devour her. For a split second Annie saw her as a predator.

"Well, that's all there is to say."

"So what you mean is that he's using you just for sex."

There it was. Annie willed her body to betray no impact although the humiliation burned and her impulse was to protest, to backtrack and deny what she had just said. Instead, she pretended the thought was not new, that any reasonable person would arrive at the same conclusion. She felt also curiously enlightened that Molly made the distinction between sex and love. Not that it wasn't an obvious one--it's just that it hadn't occurred to Annie to make the distinction within a marriage.

"Yes, sometimes that's how it feels," she said evenly.

"So why don't you say something to him?"

Another blank. "It's complicated," she said. A silent universe was swirling about out there, so alien that she didn't know what words to use, what questions to ask. She simply assumed that women like Molly knew their way around in it. She felt immature and vulnerable, as if she were playing at being a woman.

They sat in silence for a while, checking their watches to make sure they'd be in time to pick up their kids from school. They listened to Melanie's pained lament in the background--what shall I do with the leftover wine...

"The thing is," said Annie, "sometimes I feel I have so much more to give. I think I'm giving it all to Jules, but he doesn't seem to notice. Sometimes I feel I could just burst with giving but there's no one there to take it." She felt like a small candle. How could the head beam of a speeding train notice the glow of a single candle? The image swept across her mind, momentarily illuminating and threatening. If the metaphor were true then it was a question of unequal passion: Jules had it all. But then, what was it that was gathering inside her, threatening to rip apart the world she knew?

"It's not anything to do with the kids, she added as an afterthought. " I don't think they're missing out on anything. Honestly, if it weren't for them..." She couldn't finish the sentence because the conclusion split her in two. Her children were her life. She lived for them. And yet, without them, she wouldn't have the life she was struggling with.

"I know what you mean," said Molly. They fell silent. The music told them that love is large and complex. The music told them that appetites, too, are large and complex. If they sat quietly now, love was still in the picture. There was no need to construct the syllogisms that would prove irrevocably whether or not there was love in their lives. Melanie wailed in the background about her overflowing heart.

Annie pays for the coffee and drifts down the street. Today, after she picks up the Moons, she has an important history class and Jules has tons of work to catch up with at the office. Karina and Jamie are staying overnight at Molly's. Thank god for that. Jules had sounded particularly edgy that morning. He'd asked her three times what time she was getting home from her class. About eleven. Maybe eleven thirty. Annie had offered to be late for her class if he wanted dinner out, but he said he'd be too busy.

So many store windows are now devoted to Christmas decorations. She finds herself staring at a doll in a window, the most beautiful doll she's ever seen. A perfectly painted porcelain face, long golden ringlets, a blue velvet coat over a frilly smock, black patent shoes with gold buckles. She had never played with dolls as a girl. Such dolls as this one were not even to be imagined. She goes inside the store, where other dolls like it are placed strategically at eye level. Created by a woman named Annabelle. Each one is different. Each one has its own name. Lucille, Scarlett, Georgina. They have been reduced to half price, from two hundred dollars to one. She's about to leave when she spots one other, in a powder blue dress, dark curly hair. This one's upper lip protrudes over the lower one, and unlike the others, she wears a simple dress with a sweater--the poor sister. A thin stream of shiny glaze falls from the bottom of each eye and disappears into the corners of her lips. She is inconsolable. The label reads The Original Annabelle. Annie can't take her eyes off her. She imagines it in her house. On the mantle piece? In her bedroom? She'd never hear the end of it, neither from Jules nor Karina. She tears herself away from it, away from the wanting, aware of the saleslady watching her. She's a woman with thin gray hair and soft watery eyes. They smile at each other.

If it weren't for the Moons, perhaps she would buy it. She considers how foolish it had been in a moment of excitement to buy something so costly and now she couldn't act on a whim for another year. What a lack of foresight. She wants everything. Fear grips her too. In the back of her mind she knows the moment will come when she has to confess to Jules about the moons.

The sun goes down rapidly at this time of year and between entering and leaving the store it has grown dark. She feels hopelessly sentimental and wishes she were going home to her little family. She waits at a corner for the light to change when she notices the phone booth next to her. She'll call Jules at the office and tell him about the strange effect the doll has made on her. How lonely she is feeling. Depending on how the conversation goes, he might get it for her for Christmas if he hadn't already thought of something. By now it's six o'clock and he might be eating the extra sandwich she'd packed for him. Maybe they should abandon work and classes this one time and go out for dinner anyway.

The answering service comes on. No point in leaving a message--he's probably in the washroom. She waits a few minutes and calls again. This time his colleague answers. Why no, Jules isn't there. He'd seen him pack up his things just a while ago. Annie hangs on to the phone while the operator instructs her to insert a card or coin. She needs urgently to hear a familiar voice, someone who could hold back the chaos swarming around her like bees. So she puts in another coin and dials. George answers. No, Molly isn't home.

"I thought the two of you were getting together for a bite to eat before the bridge game."

"Oh. She must have meant someone else. I don't play bridge."

"Yeah, well, sorry, I've been so busy. The kids are doing just fine. You want to talk to Karina?"

She tells Karina about the doll she'd seen. You're weird, mom! She likes it when Karina sees her from the perspective of her own life. She likes the certainty with which she does this. It gives her a place to stand. Karina is anxious to get back to Amanda's Barbie dolls. She tells Karina she loves her, hangs up then leans against the glass booth for a while.

The ground seems more distant under her feet. She finds herself in front of Bruno's Delicatessen looking at the advent calendars and marzipan Santas and gold boxes of imported chocolates. Through the window she watches as a woman in a white coat works the slicing apparatus. The chunk of ham flows smoothly back and forth just touching the blade and pink slices fall onto the woman's hand. She admires the skill with which the woman wraps each order first in wax paper and then in a rougher pink paper, slips a rubber band over the package and writes down the price. She is envious of those hands which are so practised, so useful. When she enters the store a little bell tinkles to announce her arrival. The friendly smells of fresh bread, smoked hams, gingerbread, cardamom, intermingle in the warm air. The store is crowded with people and she feels lost, realizing she had already done her shopping the day before. What she really wants to do is watch as the woman in the white coat, round and pink as a milkmaid in some old Dutch painting, goes about her business. She clearly enjoys her work, jokes with the customers, tirelessly drags out salamis and cheeses and offers a little taste to break through indecision. There is grace in each transaction, in each please and thank you. Annie is close to crying for the life she wants. A simple life, whole and good and nourishing.

Red numbers flash on a screen and Annie is aware of people watching her. Someone is smiling and pointing to the ticket dispenser. Annie should take a number. She makes a gesture of forgetfulness and the bell tinkles again when she abruptly leaves the store. By now it's completely dark outside and the snow that had been forecasted for two days is at last starting to fall. She pulls up her collar and fastens the button under her chin for a moment not sure where to go next.

Suddenly decisive she turns and walks briskly back to the store with all the decorations. She goes in and immediately finds the Annabelle doll, moves her head to catch the glint of the tears streaming down its cheek. The doll affects her exactly as before.

"Come back, have you?" says the woman with the watery eyes. Annie notices her red tartan skirt with the oversized safety pin on it. "She is lovely. Have you got a daughter, then?"

Annie nods, her heart thumping inside her. "I keep thinking about her," she says, meaning the doll, "and what a shame it would be if I came back next week and she was gone. So-o, I guess I'll just have to buy her." She feels happy, feels as if the saleslady is happy for her too. While the saleslady carefully removes the doll and looks for a box, Annie studies one of the sister dolls. Lucille is a little taller, a little more expensive, and looks far more confident. Her eyes are blue with little crystalline spikes in them, and her mouth is slightly open as though she is about to sing. One hand is raised in greeting, the other is set to shake hands. The dress, the brocade coat over it, the lace trim, everything is exquisitely constructed.

As the woman is laying Annabelle down in a manger of red tissue paper, Annie announces that Annabelle must have her sister. How can she take her without her sister? The woman looks up from the wrapping and says, "Oh, you are a dear. You must love your daughter very much."

The dolls are heavier and more cumbersome than she expected, so she trudges up the street to her parked car and locks them in the trunk, then slowly returns to the street with the stores. Her heart is like a wedge between her ribs. At least Annabelle and Lucille are safely in the trunk each in its dark box. Their eyes would be closed, one still in tears, the other unsinkable.

She wanders up and down the street looking into every store window. At the back of her mind she knows she'll miss her class tonight. She can't remember why she'd told Jules it was an important one. The stores with dresses and bags and shoes go by in a blur. Any window with brightly coloured glass and Christmas decorations is like a magnet. In one she buys several sets of little stars that light up. In another she buys a family of teddy bears, mama, papa and baby all dressed in sweaters and scarves. Further down the street she finds a little rocking chair for the baby.

She struggles with shopping bags back towards the street where she'd parked her car. On the way she passes the store with the dolls and looks in the window again. Scarlett stares back at her from the window. The gray haired woman recognizes her as she enters and smiles as she stomps the snow from her boots.

"You've been out there a long time, haven't you dear." She looks down at her shopping bags and invites her to set them down. "Look around, take your time, no rush, dear."

"I wanted to have another look at that one," Annie says pointing to Scarlett in the window. The woman brings it out and places it at eye level on the counter. Annie stands in front of it seeing nothing because her eyes are blurred.

"Here, dear, why don't you just sit down and look from over here." The woman pulls out a chair and places it behind her. Annie sinks into it and tears begin to stream down her cheeks. The woman goes over to the door and flips over the cardboard sign that says back in fifteen minutes. "I doubt that I'd sell out the store in the next fifteen minutes," she chuckles. Why don't I get you a nice cup of tea, dear?"

Annie produces a sound that is more like a mewl than a thank you. Hands limp in her lap, she waits until she feels a warm cup touching on them.

"Christmas can be a difficult times," the woman says, sitting down opposite her. "Sometimes things can seem worse than they really are."

"And sometimes they're really worse than they seem," says Annie trying to sound brave, meaning to be funny, though her nose is runny and she doesn't have a tissue. She tries to snuffle back the stream.

"Yes. Yes, sometimes they are," the woman nods, handing her a tissue.

"Just this morning," says Annie, "I thought I knew exactly who I was, and now--" she shakes her head in disbelief. She feels the warm tea seeping into her and starts to look around the store, embarrassed to have taken up the time of this kind woman. "Actually," she says, I was thinking that Annabelle should have all her sisters."

Now there is Annabelle, Lucille, Georgina and Scarlett all locked up in the trunk of her car. Suddenly she remembers she was to pick up the Moons of Jupiter and drives deeper downtown towards the gallery, hoping it won't close before she gets there. For the time being she has a sense of purpose. She chats with Linda and admires the moons which are still up on the wall. Linda removes them carefully, then covers them in layers of paper and lays them in a large cardboard box.

She sees Molly's house first as she rounds the corner Every window is lit up. She can visualize Karina and Amanda playing in the rec room downstairs. Jamie and Sammy should be in bed by now. Molly is pretty good about such rules, but Molly...oh, Molly!

Her own house next door is somber, dark. It takes her three trips to bring everything from the trunk to the porch and into the kitchen. For a moment she hesitates. There is a faint scent in the air, something she knows well, but can't identify at the moment. She fills the kettle and grinds a bit of coffee. In the mornings she muffles the grating noise of the grinder with towels so as not to wake anyone, but now she wants noise to fill the house. As the coffee drips through the filter she looks around her, amazed by all the things she and Jules have accumulated over the years. She takes out Annabelle from her confinement and places her on the table. What does one do with such a doll?

It's not often she finds herself at home alone, so she turns on the stereo and puts on Martha. She can turn it on as loud as she wants, and if it makes her cry, so be it: she feels like weeping but can't seem to produce actual tears. She takes out the other dolls and arranges them next to Annabelle in a line, making sure that their hands touch. Her eyes closed, she lets the music float over her. Suddenly she needs to go to the bathroom.

On the way down the hall she trips over a shoe. Not just any shoe, but Molly's shoe, one of the fake leopard pair she had recently bought at Holt's and had shown off to Annie. The downstairs bathroom is directly below the one in the bedroom upstairs. Just before she flushes she hears something above her head, like the sound of the other shoe dropping. It startles her. She waits. Someone whispers Shhh... She's noticed before how the sounds from upstairs carry down to this bathroom. Something to do with the plumbing, most likely.

She goes back to the kitchen where she stands for a while. She knows the fragrance now. Diorella, of course, Molly's exclusive. Gorgeous music swells in the background. Annie stands tall and straight, for a moment feeling herself every inch a tragic queen. Her face is burning but her teeth chatter. The chills wash over her in waves. She sits down by the telephone and collects herself.

"Hi George, is Molly back yet?"

"Oh hi Annie, I saw your car. Is everything ok?"

"I just had to drop something off. Are the kids all right?"

"The kids are doing fine. The boys are in bed--did you want to speak--"

"No, no thank you. I...there's something I have to do. Just send them over in the morning. Thank you. Thank you very much."

She tiptoes back to the bathroom. There are no more sounds. She stands for a while staring up at the ceiling as if something might materialize there. Then she stands by the staircase leading up to the bedrooms. What went up will come down, eventually.

In the kitchen she unpacks the Moons of Jupiter and carefully lays them on the beige carpet at the foot of the stairs. She arranges the star lights around them, finds an extension cord and plugs it in. Some touch on the edges of the moons, giving them a dark glow. In front of the moons and stars she places the family of teddy bears, baby in his rocking chair. Then very carefully, she transfers the line of Annabelle, Lucille, Scarlett, and Georgina to stand in front of the bears.

She puts on her coat and hat, takes her car keys, turns off the music and all the lights except for the stars and slams the door behind her. She's not sure where she'll go, but she needs time to think. Oh Jules! Oh Molly! The preview of her grief is quick and blinding. It's building up behind the barriers she puts up, bigger than anything she's ever known. Just as she's about to turn the corner and head down Bayview, she slams on the brakes. There is nothing more to think about. There are no more strange cities she wishes to visit. This is my life. This is her home.

Abruptly she makes a U-turn, turns left then right and parks the car on the street behind her house. There is a small shortcut to her backyard and she feels for the key to the back door and slips in quietly. The house is still dark but there are sounds upstairs, hurried whispers. Through the kitchen, she tiptoes to the living room, carries a chair over to the kingdom of moons and stars and dolls and bears and sits down behind them. This is my life. The floor upstairs creaks. Annie sits on her throne, the Queen of Jupiter. Ice crust and molten core.