Stacey first caught Ralph’s eye when he was looking at schools for Melvyn. He watched her for some time. He thought she would be good with Melvyn, who was a shy, clingy boy.
She was a very thin, pretty woman with thick blond curls, but she was edgy. Her eyes flitted and she slouched. Stacey was young, at least ten years younger than Ralph’s thirty-six and was slightly in awe of him, but also wary of him, looking up to him, but uncertain of his reactions. He was an overbearing man. She had rotten luck with men, especially the last one whose bullying escalated to hitting. She hoped Ralph would be different. He was handsome and could be affectionate, and he was older with a good, steady job and a young son. Melvyn grew up calling her Mom.
His favourite thing to do with her was make masks. She had a boxful of childish treasures: intriguing buttons, feathers, sequins, rhinestones and pearls, bright ribbon, silver and gold paper, raffia, myriad stickers, and, best of all, vibrant markers in many, many colours. She bought plain white masks, which he decorated lavishly. They cut holes in paper bags. He liked these because he could attach all kinds of hair from the Hallowe’en wigs Stacey found. Sometimes, if Stacey was in a mood to cope with the mess, he moulded a face out of papier mâché.
He loved putting on these masks and staring into a mirror. When he did this, he created an elaborate fantasy for the character he was portraying, a character far removed from himself. Like the red wizard with the ruby eyes and bright, full lips. He entered a world of power and magic whereby he could create new beings and make others vanish. The wizard had a mother, a shining queen in a pink and silver gown who smiled and sang instead of talking and caressed him and brought him gifts. When he put on his queen mask, he was beautiful.
He surrounded himself with other children who would do his bidding.
Ralph wanted Stacey to go back to work when Melvyn was in school, but she refused. She said she would need to upgrade her skills. So she sat in a big armchair reading all day long, smoking cigarettes. At first she only drank when Ralph got home, but then she began to pour something in the afternoon and by the time Melvyn got home from school, she was drunk.
Alice’s birth sobered Stacey up, at least for a couple of years. It was then that Melvyn discovered how the happy loving innocence of a baby, how her little arms about his neck made him feel whole. Stacey taught him essential baby care and he became a big help to her. When he changed Alice, he was fascinated by her bottom, its minute, intricate, perfect folds. He would probe the tiny vagina with a baby-oiled finger.
His favourite thing was dressing Alice in the pretty, lacy pink clothes Stacey bought for her. Sometimes he and his stepmother would take the baby for a walk in her carriage. Melvyn thought this was what a family must feel like. Sometimes he would imagine having a daughter of his own one day.
But by his senior year, Stacey had relapsed and he’d arrive at the house to find Alice asleep or crying in the playpen and he had to take over a lot of her care. He was working toward a scholarship to get into a nearby college and he resented having her on his hands. And Alice was entering the terrible twos. She was no longer a pliable, responsive doll, but a defiant, tantrum-throwing toddler with huge needs he felt incapable of filling. The only way he had any control over her was to read to her, all the books Stacey had read to him.
And bathing her at night, it seemed right that he repeat his stepmother’s acts. Everything about her body, pink from the hot water, seemed receptive. Except Alice wasn’t. She flailed and cried. Why hadn’t he? Maybe he had and he didn’t remember because it became so routine. He took to giving her Double Bubble or cherry lollipops to quiet her. Once Stacey came in and caught him and she punched and pounded and kicked him almost senseless, screaming at him that he was filthy and disgusting and a pervert. He stopped giving Alice baths, after that. But he didn’t stop wanting to do things to her, to her pale, smooth inviting little body. He found ways. Mostly he found he could sneak into Alice’s room after Stacey had passed out in bed, the way she had to him. By the time he was near to finishing college, he was penetrating Alice, calling her “Sweetie,” telling her she was his own “good, good little angel-girl.” And reading to her. And buying her sweet pink dresses.
On this now menacingly hot July morning, Melvyn exits his house, already feeling excited and impatient for what is ahead. He hasn’t questioned his motivation. What compels him is pure attraction, the enticing idea that Lizbett wants him. He is sure she does. Her girlishly scintillating reactions to his overtures have convinced him.
He has some time so he decides to sit in his park for a bit and watch the children, most of whom he knows and who know him. He feels this will calm him. He is always jumpy before one of his encounters. He plans them so carefully, but anything could go wrong. He’d phoned the Warnes yesterday and asked to talk to Lizbett, simply to make sure she’d be coming today, but she hadn’t been in. He didn’t identify himself. This will be Lizbett’s third Monday. Her routine doesn’t usually vary. She walks to the museum alone and then walks home. He feels pretty certain today will be the same.
He wonders if what he feels for Lizbett is love, if he knows what love is. Certainly, what he feels is powerful and he has the sensation she affects his heart. She does not make it beat faster; she makes it swell until it is painful. He wants to pound his chest for the pain. He longs to be with her, to take her in his arms. That’s it, really, he wants to overtake her, to incorporate her existence into his. Not obliterate her, but possess her with every fibre of his being. If that is love, he loves her past comprehension. And he will have her.
Though it is some distance, he decides he will walk to the museum. In fact, he will walk through the university campus. It is an old, traditional university, featuring gothic stone buildings with ornate spires enclosing green quadrangles. There is a path that passes the music building and in the summer, when the windows are open, you can hear the students practising.
But bad weather threatens. Rain is imminent. So he decides to go back and get his car, after all. It will make what he is planning easier.
At 4:00 p.m. he will exit the building by the basement service entrance as quickly after Lizbett leaves as he can. It is a door that is little used, mostly deserted. Pete, the security guard, is an old and trusted employee, an alcoholic who sometimes drinks on the job and often sleeps in his small booth. Melvyn is counting on that. Then he will drive to the intersection where he is hoping to find her, just down from the museum. He may catch her a little farther along the street. No matter. He will offer her a ride because of the weather and he feels sure she’ll accept. In fact, he’s convinced she’ll be flattered to be asked, to be alone with him. He knows she cares for him. They will go for a drive. They will talk about masks. They will talk about each other. He will be so happy and so will she. He will see to it.
He isn’t sure why he has chosen today. He is aware of an urgency within him to establish close, separate contact with her. It has been growing since the beginning when he was so surprised and delighted to have Lizbett in the class. But there, it’s as if she belongs to everyone, so keen are her campmates to associate with her. And she responds avidly to each, making him or her think she could be a best friend. She does this genuinely because though she is an extrovert, she is a sensitive and considerate one. She treats everyone equitably. In this way, she spreads herself thinly, but not noticeably, at least not to the kids. But she exhibits a special regard toward him. If she were older, he would consider her flirtatious, but instead she has a curious ingenuousness, a real desire to share his knowledge. He suspects it is her love of theatre. At the end of the week, when each person in the group “charges” his or her mask, Lizbett is the one who most understands the intimate duality of the mask. It is her grasp of that subtle and complex profundity that has so endeared her to him. She becomes her mask brilliantly, impulsively, spontaneously, allowing the mask to take her over. And her mask comes alive. He finds it thrilling just to think about it.
Today the class will be creating life masks: plaster casts made right on their own faces. He will choose Lizbett to be one of the first. It seems appropriate that on such a momentous day, a day of ritual, she will leave her real face behind.
2
The Same Monday Morning