Sometime later she opened her eyes and smiled up at him. “Thank you, Beloved.”
“Good vibes?”
“Just what Eunice needed. At times like this I’m convinced that you’re Michelangelo.”
He shook his head. “Not old Mike. Boys his jolly. Picasso maybe.”
She hugged him. “Anyone you want to be, darling, as long as you go on being mine. All right. I’ll pose now, and eat at the breaks.”
“Forgot. Letter from Mama. Read?”
“Certainly, darling. Let me up and find it.”
He fetched it, still unopened. She sat up and glanced through it to see how much editing it would require. Uh huh, just as you expected, dearie, the periodic threat to come pay us “a nice long visit.” Well, she knew how to deal with that. Out! Because Joe did not know how to refuse his mother anything. That one visit had been one too many—yet that had been when they had had two rooms, before she had found this wonderful one-big-everything studio room for Joe. Let that clinging old bag move in? No more jolly romps on the floor? No, Mama Branca, I will not let you ruin our happy nest with your smothering presence. You stay where you are and live on Welfare…and I’ll send you a check from time to time and let you think it’s a present from Joe. But that’s all!
“Anything?”
“The usual, dearest. Her stomach still bothers her but the priest sent her to another doctor and she’s doing better, she says. But let me start at the beginning. ‘My darling Baby Boy, Not much news since last time Mama wrote but if I don’t write I don’t never get a letter back. Tell Eunice to write a longer letter this time and tell me everything that’s happened to you; a mother worries so. Eunice is a very nice girl even though I do think you would be better off with a nice girl of your own religion—’”
“Enough.”
“Be tolerant, Joe. She’s your mother. I don’t mind and I will take time—tomorrow—to write her a long letter. I’ll send it by Mercury in the company pouch so that she will be sure to get it; Boss doesn’t mind. All right, I’ll skip the rest of that; we know what she thinks of Protestants. Or ex-Protestants. I wonder what she would think if she heard us chanting ‘Om Mani Padme—’”
“Kark her drawers.”
“Oh, Joe!” She skipped, including the self-invitation. “‘Angela is going to have another baby. The Visitor is sore at her but I gave the. Visitor a piece of my mind and I guess that learned her not to mistreat decent people. I can’t see why they can’t just leave us alone. What’s wrong with having a baby?’ Which of your sisters is Angela, Joe?”
“Third one. Visitor’s right. Mama’s wrong. Don’t read all, Tits. Just read and tell.”
“Yes, dear. Nothing more, really, just gossip about neighbors, remarks about the weather. The actual news is that your mother’s stomach is better and Angela is pregnant. Give me a moment to shower this red and black off—Boss liked the combo, by the way—and I’ll be ready to be painted or to pose or whatever. You can flash a pizza for me while I get clean and I’ll gnaw it between times. And, dear? I shouldn’t pose later than midnight and I’d be awfully pleased if you would get up when I do tomorrow—rather early, I’m afraid. But you can go back to bed.”
“So?”
“For Boss, dearest. To cheer him up.” She explained her idea of full-paint costume alternated with erotic styles.
He shrugged. “Glad to. Why gee-string? Silly. Old man dying, let him look. Can’t hurt.”
“Because, dear. Boss prides himself on being ‘modern’ and ‘keeping up with the times.’ But the truth is he formed his ideas so long ago that nakedness wasn’t just uncommon1 it was a sin. He thinks I’m a nice girl from so far back in the cornstalks that I’ve never been touched by changes. As long as I wear a minimum-gee—and paint and shoes—I’m dressed, not naked. By his ‘modern’ standards, I mean. A nice girl pretending to be naughty to amuse him. Which he likes.”