The Wonders of the Invisible World Read Online Free

I said. I laid a slice on his plate and a slice on mine.
    “God, that looks splendid,” he said. “At any rate. Full disclosure.” He cut off a corner and speared it with his fork. “I’m assuming we still care about that.”
    “I think we do.” What else was I to say?
    “Good.” He put the corner in his mouth. “Mmm. Surpassed yourself.”
    “I’m glad you like it,” I said, not meaning it to sound that dismal.
    “In the interest of even fuller disclosure,” he said, “I must further confess to you that I nipped a bit at the cognac while you were out this afternoon. I don’t actually know why. Except that it was like, I really wasn’t craving a cigarette and
that
freaked me out. It was like nothing was wrong, you know? And that made me suspicious that something was
really
wrong that I didn’t even dare bring to consciousness, so I thought I’d better drink to sort of preempt it. Does that make any sense at all?”
    “Absolutely,” I said. I wasn’t paying attention. How could he not have noticed that so much was gone out of that goddamn bottle? And now what? Try to keep him out of the kitchen and pour out some of what you just poured in?
    We ate.
    He took a second slice.
    Half of a third.
    Now he was talking about names for the baby. Lately he’d been liking Margaret. Did I know that was the same as Pearl?
    “The same in what sense?” I said, getting up to clear the table.
    “You know, etymologically,” he said. He stood up too, and reached for the platter with the remains of the stuffed bread loaf.
    “Sit,” I said. “I’ll take care of it. I think you’ve had a hard day.”
    “Only in my head.” He carried the platter and the salad bowl out to the kitchen; I set the plates and glasses on the counter next to the sink. “Tinfoil be the best thing?” he said, pulling open the drawer.
    “Why don’t you just let me take
care
of it?” I said. I snatched the foil out of his hands. “Just go and sit and relax. Actually, you know what would be lovely? If you would put on some music, I’ll take care of this stuff and then bring our desserts out to the living room. How would that be?”
    “Now you’re talkin’,” he said. He took down a brandy snifter.
    “What are you doing?” I said. “I’ll get that for you. Go and sit
down.
”
    “I can get it.” He opened the cupboard door, took out the bottle of Rémy, looked at it and said, “What the
hell
?”
    He looked at me. Then I saw his eyes go down to my hands and get big. I looked down, too. I was sawing the saw thing on the aluminum-foil box across the thumbprint part of my thumb. There was blood on the front of me.
    “You’ve been drinking,” he said.
    “Obviously,” I said. I couldn’t feel the pain yet. I had a picture in my head of a bad person in shame.
    “You’re pregnant and you’re drunk?” he said. “Don’t you know what that can do? Do you
care
? How could you
do
it? What the hell is going on in your mind?”
    “I’m
not
drunk,” I said.
    “You’re a whore,” he said. “Where did you go this afternoon?”
    I wasn’t angry. Or frightened, really, even though I cringed to appease him. He would never be a hitter. That fist he was raising at me would wham into the cupboard door, hurtingonly himself. I saw it all happening, then it really
did
happen. But I didn’t understand the whore thing. Why was he confusing the drinking with the other? Then I got it. Obvious. It was all mixed up for him, all the same thing: the drinking, the other, anything that could make a woman free.

STAR BABY
    W hen Billy gets home, his nephew’s playing with that thing where marbles roll down slanting wooden rails and drop through holes onto the rail below. It takes a supposedly entertainingly long time for a marble to make it all the way down. This was Billy’s toy when he was a kid; Deke found it in a box in the basement.
    “Hey, tiger. How was
your
day?” He sets the
Times
on the dusty Baldwin spinet and nods at Mrs.