Geek Love by Katherine Dunn Page B

her own, just before Thomas R. Lick, her father. They are both buried in microfilm. I go up another two flights to the periodical room and stake out a viewing machine in the most obscure corner. I camp there with a stack of film reels of old newspapers.
    There she is, not smiling, in the society columns. A younger Mary Lick is not smiling at the Hunt Club Opera Benefit. Mary Lick is trapped gloomily between two vivacious gargoyles at the City Club. Mary Lick, standing uncomfortably next to the deep V neckline of a Rose Princess, frowns at the crowning of the Rose Festival Queen. A much younger Mary Lick stands glumly, behind a bald and furious-faced man billed in the caption as Thomas R. Lick, at the ribbon cutting for the Thomas R. Lick Swimming Pool at the TAG Club.
    The text skates over guest lists, wardrobes, and buffet menus. There is no comment on Mary's wardrobe, which is the same in all cases, a dark featureless business suit.
    Thomas R. is referred to variously as the Lickety Split Food king, mogul, or tycoon. The grimmest and most recent photo of Mary Lick shows her staring moodily at a Salvation Army truck loaded with cardboard boxes. “24 Lickety Split Thanksgiving Dinners.” The caption calls Mary “The Lickety Split Food Heiress,” suggesting that Thomas R. has passed on to the obituary page, probably with a “Lick Splits” headline.
    There she is. The old man is spread out on the worm buffet and Daughter Mary is dumping hundreds of Lickety Split dinners into socially unacceptable hands. The seven-year-old item comments that this is the first contribution in the history of the Lickety Split Corporation, but says, coyly, that it might “signify a new role for the company in the future.”
    I cram the copies into my bag and chug home. There's a note under my door. A pencil smear from Miranda. “Come up and let me draw you.”
    When I knock, her door explodes inward, her huge frame surrounded by light. “Finally.” Reaching for me.
    “I can't today. I have some work to do.” Her face falls into conventions masking disappointment. My chest lurches.
    “But how did it go with that woman, about your tail?”
    She flickers for the connection. Not thinking about it.
    “Oh, there's no hurry. She says it's fine to wait until the semester ends.”
    “To decide?”
    “No. To do it. Have it done.”
    “You decided.”
    “What the hell. It's silly not to.”
    Her insolent look. The careless smirk. She is punishing me for being unavailable. I turn away, sick, and feel my way back down the hall.
    She calls after me.
    “When can you sit for me again? Tomorrow? The afternoon? Miss McGurk?”
    I wave and go downstairs to my room and shut the door behind me and lock it.
    Pacing and grinding my teeth. Throwing my wig on the floor and stamping. Why does she make me so angry? My rage terrifies me. I am a monster. I would rip her to shreds. I would swing her up by her round pink heels and snap her long body until that bright, hairy head smashed against the wall. Falling on my knees, shaking. Tangling my hands to keep from breaking something. Sudden gratitude for the nuns, realizing that if she had stayed with me all the years of her growing up I would have murdered her the arrogant, imbecile bitch, my baby, beautiful Miranda.
    I end up curled on the floor, blubbering and gasping. No one comes to comfort me. I lie there until I'm bored and embarrassed at having dried snot streaks crackling on my cheeks. I get angry so rarely. Now twice in two days at Miranda.
    I take a shower, get into a flannel nightgown, make instant coffee with hot water from the sink, and push the window up so I can see through. The streak of sky visible above the alley is heavy. I sit on the sill drinking death's-head brew and watching the shadow creep higher on the blind wall of the warehouse across the way. I can hear the pigeons fuddling in the eaves. Rain begins to splat a shine over the puddle on the garage roof below me.
    Downstairs the phone