Petit Four

...a middle-aged couple and their tomato-cheeked son, the boy who fussed his way out of the stroller two blocks ago, now seeing the ribbons and chocolates in the window screaming “mommy daddy” pushes the door open with his whole body and a little bell rings and the white balloon at the end of his string brushes against it, and it rings again. Mom and dad tug the stroller in behind them, a beast of gray and blue plastic, for fear of Left Bank predators who fuel black market stroller operations (they've heard stories) so you never know. Their boy is five steps ahead, eyes glistening, nose running, the display glass below the counter blitzed with cleaning agent but not wiped so it makes rainbows, and the boy's hands smear the glass. The chef appears behind the counter, slowly walks out from behind it like magician into the audience from the stage, then bends down, one corner of his mouth a mischievous line. Mom and dad hang back near the door, watch a decorative plate lowered in front of the boy who seems to forget the other treasures behind the glass. Reflected in his wide eyes are small presents lacquered in green marzipan, rectangles drenched in impossible layers of filo and raisins, a few pink sponges with narrow lines of yellow buttercream and heavy tarts with sharp smears of jelly at their center, pillows on a Las Vegas honeymoon bed with ribbons on their upper edge, and the quilt pulled so tightly around its edges that it gleams against the light from the table lamps, and Bub comes in naked from the shower, eyes on the bed, water dripping on the white carpet, wondering how he can fuck it up because it looks too cheesy, the colored pillows arranged like a girly tea party, so boom! in a violent sweep the pillows erupt like a startled flock with complimentary chocolates flying after them, then Cindy walks in wrapped in a towel while he stands there laughing she says What the fuck asshole but he doesn't answer only walks into her with his dick throbbing in time with his pulse, and his hands move down her wet freckled back, pushing down the towel so their wet skin is flush, his ribs pressing into her tits, and she gives a sharp snort like she just remembered a bad joke, whispers up into his ear You got it ready you freak? he says Yeah baby I got it covered, Get on the bed bitch. Cindy snorts again and reaches over and picks a pillow up off the floor and tosses it against the backboard, then flings her body onto the mattress so the old boxspring farts and she nestles her head up into the pillow, her body dripping over the velvet comforter. From the dresser he brings their wooden box and the camping stove from REI and a knot of piss yellow rubber tubing. Bub perches and concentrates on the sharp edge of the heart-bed, his back to her and the stove hissing and she feels herself getting flushed and shaking with anticipation. When he wraps the tube around her arm she looks up smiling, tears nestling in her eyes, to the ceiling with its little spotlights aiming to the watercolor landscape prints bordered in gold-painted wood and the patterned burgundy wallpaper. When the tourniquet drops to the carpet, the feeling explodes through her like a slow heavy street sweeper, and Bub's on top of her now and inside her, grunting and sliding, a horse giving birth, teeth bared at the moon through a crack in the barn, hooves splayed out on the hay, surrounded in a half circle by three men in plaid and a woman in overalls beside a leather satchel. Inside are forceps and scissors and a vacuum sucker which Aggie hopes she won't have to use, because Clareta is prone to remember and she'll never let anyone ride her again, or maybe that's irrational, stop it Aggie! one step at a time, let them know you can do this. Now, Aggie! says her father. Another sound, barely equine, and the men hold the mare firmly. Their hands caress Clareta's chocolate flank and Aggie reaches in and pulls on the suckling's little fetlocks, with a kind of juggling of glove and forceps, pulling and pulling, for an age she pulls until the foal lay squirming on the hay in a puddle of amniotic fluid, its sweet mouth opening and closing to some invisible music, an audience around her in a crowded half-circle, in metal folding chairs, watching her mouth move, sound barely escaping, the piano marking the silence with hesitant staccato punctuation and the violin barely breathing high up in some kind of harmonic stratosphere. The singer's voice pulls down a register and the German melody spills out of her in a burble, and the octaves bang down the piano and the fiddle shakes and laughs again, because it really is a fiddle, Marcy thinks from the first row: he's playing like he's at a County Fair, not a rehearsal room, not at a university. Never mind the other two; she can't take her eyes off him, his salt and pepper afro and turquoise pocket square. She scans for his name in the program, its paper edges soft and wrinkled like tissue, then squints for a wedding ring through the darkness of the hall, wondering if he removes it for performances. During the recapitulation she thinks clearly through the noise: you and I are going to get married, mister, and I'm gonna have your baby, buddy. The piano flies back into the last run as she erupts with a short laugh that no one hears under the crescendo, signalling her thought like an invisible flag, the mezzo holding a shrill line above it with her hands twirling in small fretful gestures. Marcy can envision the scale as it lifts, candy on a scale, the black and white checkerboard, a long walk, an avenue, a boulevard, shops on their left, a husband and wife with their boy stomping ahead with a single balloon trailing behind…