FICTION

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Georgia told no one about her plans to cheat on Tooey except for her sister, Beth.
    "Got anyone in mind? Has anything happened? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" Beth asked.
    Beth was drunk when Georgia called, which had more to do with the fact that Beth had been frequently drinking than with the fact that Georgia frequently phoned.
    "No. Haven't got that far." This was a tricky prospect in a small town. Tooey and Georgia knew everyone. Plus, she had married the only person she had ever really wanted to fuck. So far. "I'm waiting 'til summer. I'll find a little tourist dude, maybe. Or maybe some punk they hire at the marina. Someone kind of just passing through."
    "And you think this will help? With Jake and everything?"
    "Help? No. I'm kind of hoping it will hurt," Georgia said, breaking out into a black giggle, hoping to appeal to the perverted part of her sister she rarely courted.
    Georgia hadn't often noticed when Beth was drunk, but when she did, she didn't mind, didn't mention it. She was just happy to lord over her the fact that, despite their financial disparity, she was always the one to call. Stay close, their dad said. Beth's your only real friend. Even if you hate her.
    "I think I'm a little bombed right now," Beth said, acting surprised, like, hey, how did this happen? "Plus," her voice lowering, "the Leprechaun's still here."
    Unlike Georgia, Beth was swarthy, black eyes and hair, and skin she smeared with as pale a base she could get away with without looking like she'd been held by the feet and dipped in bleached flour. Consequently, she always had a thing for genetic opposites, for near-albino frat boys, like the Leprechaun, whom Beth met at a party. He was her type: white eyelashes, a bratty squint and freckles. She once said these guys were easy pickings having probably been so badly ignored when they were young, when girls were smitten with the Fonz and Menudo. Her theory was that redheads grew up to be grateful for any female attention.
     "I thought you were going to get rid of the Leprechaun."
    "Trying to. But he really likes me for some reason. It's like if you treat men like shit, they'll offer to fix your shower

"Jake's just learning how to count," said Georgia,"and maybe I don't want him to use Auntie Bethy's effs as practice."

or stuff. Guy brought takeout. Wish I had learned this when I was younger."
    "Hey tell me something, Beth. How many guys you slept with?"
    "Why? Did you call to lecture me?"
    "Nono. Just wondering."
     Georgia gathered information from Beth the way little birds tugged shiny string out of bushes. But Beth felt her confessions only served to pad Georgia's smug nest. Jake suddenly appeared, pulling on Georgia's shirt. He was four and as anxious as a mother cat.
    "Jake, stop it. Get back to bed. Go to sleep." she said, muffling the phone.
    "What do you mean, slept with?" Beth was talking over sirens, the soundtrack of living seven doors down from a West Village fire hall. "Slept as in sleep with, or slept with as in fucked? There's a difference."
    Georgia could hear Beth light a cigarette. She could hear the clack of a wine bottle against a sturdy glass.
    "Go . . . to . . . bed . . . NOW, Jake!"
    "Why do you suddenly want to know the exact number?"
    "Don't know. I lost track. What does the leprechaun put you at?"
    "Why are you asking me this shit? How're things with Too, may I ask?"
    "They're good. Okay. You know, we're having troubles. Nothing big. Just being married is hard is all, you know? And now Sammy."
    That was a lie. Georgia hadn't been having "troubles." Their marriage wasn't hard. It was ridiculously sound. Tooey's sister Lucy's marriage, however, was hard. To hear Lucy talk about it made the whole institution sound like Ireland, a paradise ruined by too many children, too much drinking and religion.
    For reasons that had more to do with accuracy than Beth would ever fully admit, she finally let the number "fifty" fall from wine-stained lips.
    "Fifty. Fifty what?" Georgia whispered, distracted by Jake. "Get the HELL to bed now, beforeIkillyouandIwillkillyou. You just said fifty?"
    "Yeah."
    "Fucking hell. What's the Leprechaun? Fifty, or fifty-one? "
    "Good question. Shh."
    "Shush you. You rounding up or down now?"
    "Are you whispering?"
    "I am. Jake's just learning how to count, and maybe I don't want him to use Auntie Bethy's effs as practice." She uncovered the phone. "Jake, go to bed please and now."
    Jake was lying under the glass coffee table at his mother's slippered feet. He had the phone's curly cord wrapped around a weirdly muscular forearm, tugging at it like a confident fisherman. Georgia long gave up on the cordless deals, too often finding the receiver in the toilet or smashed to bits after the boys took it up to the treehouse.
    "Can I talk to Auntie Beth? I want to, peeeze?"

"Tell him about your leprechaun, Beth," said Georgia.

    "Wait. Beth, here's Jakey. He wants to talk to you. Talk to Jakey so he can go to bed, okay? Jake, you say hi and then you have to go to bed or I will kill you in your sleep, hear?"
    People who put their children on the phone are like magicians who think they have the act nailed, Beth thought. But the doves never fly. The safe won't open. The joke doesn't kill. But they persist, hoping for what? That their child will voice the poetic truth that they cannot. Such as you are someone I do not know how to talk to anymore, so let's let the innocent make a connection between us. Let's let him give us something to bond over, which is our inability to bond anymore.
    "Fine. Put him on."
     (Wrestle, muffle, threats, bang.)
    "Talk nice. Then bed. Here. I'll go on the extension," Georgia said.
    "Hi Auntie Bethy."
    "Hi Jake, honey. Why aren't you in bed, little man? Like your mumma says you should be?'
    "I nono. Mumma says that you know a lepakan, Auntie Bethy."
    "A what, honey?" Georgia asked, prompting her son to pry.
    "A lepakan. I heard yous."
    "You mean the Leprechaun that's still in Auntie Bethy's apartment. Tell him about your leprechaun, Beth." Georgia poured a glass of tap water.
    "Does he got green pants?" Jake was breathless.
    "Um. Sometimes, honey, sure. But green doesn't go so well with red hair, so sometimes leprechauns wear colors

more flattering, like smart black Dior jackets and excellent jeans which tend to cost a lot. About what your mumma makes in one week, honey. Quite possibly two, if she was super-honest."
    "But remember, Bunny," Georgia interrupted, "leprechauns sometimes tend to disappear, almost like they were never even there to begin with. Just like magic, right Beth?"
    "That's right, Georgia. But, thing is, Jakey, I really understand leprechauns in a way your mumma never got a chance to. And I really don't mind if they disappear. That's what leprechauns should do. More often."
    "An, um, where did you fine the lepakan, Auntie Beth. Unner a mushroom?"
    "Well, that's a good question, monkey. You can find them under mushrooms, sure. Or sometimes while you're on them, much like I did."
    "Auntie Beth, maybe the lepakan might give you a pot of gold?"
    Before Beth could reply, Georgia said, "Well, honey, a pot of gold is what some girls get. But Auntie Beth's leprechaun probably only gives her pearl necklaces."
    Who could argue with that, Beth thought, taking a hand to her smooth, shiny throat.  n°

From the forthcoming novel Lover's Spit, which will be published in 2006 by Simon & Schuster.