Close to the Bone

by William G. Tapply

  “No,” I said. “I’d never see you if you went to Montana.”

  “Unless you came with me. Then we’d see each other all the time, no matter where we were.” She laid her head on my shoulder. “I want you to do what you want to do.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “I just hate to see you stuck.”

  I thought of Paul Cizek. He’d felt stuck. A lot of men my age got stuck. Some of them stayed stuck all their lives. Some of them managed to get unstuck. And some of them tried to unstick themselves and failed to survive the process.

  I spotted Gloria standing back from the crowd at the baggage claim area at the United terminal. I took Alex’s hand. “Come on,” I said to her.

  Gloria saw us coming and smiled. I hugged her and she kissed my cheek.

  “Gloria,” I said, “this is Alex.”

  They shook hands. “I’ve read your stuff in the Globe,” Gloria said. “You’re very good.”

  “Thanks,” said Alex. “Brady’s showed me some of your photographs. I like them a lot.”

  The two of them smiled at each other, and the next thing I knew they were standing there chattering in soft voices, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that they were comparing notes on my various idiosyncracies and shortcomings.

  I kept looking for Joey, and when he appeared I didn’t recognize him for an instant. His hair was longer and his tan was deeper than I’d ever seen. When he’d left for California a year earlier, he was a boy. Now he looked like an adult.

  “Hey, Dad,” he said. He held out his hand. I shook it. We hesitated, then I gave him a hug. “I was hoping you’d be here,” he added.

  “It was your mother’s idea.”

  “I tried to call,” he said. “Got your machine.”

  “You didn’t leave a message.”

  “I was calling collect.” He smiled. “I was at Billy’s. I didn’t want to stick him with the cost.”

  Joey gathered his bags and we found a coffee shop in the terminal. Joey told us about his year at Stanford and his visit with his brother in Idaho, and after ten or fifteen minutes he abruptly turned to Gloria and said, “We gotta get going. I told Debbie I’d be there by midnight.”

  “You have a date?” I said. “At midnight?”

  “I haven’t seen her in almost a year, Pop.”

  You haven’t seen me for a year, either, I thought. But I just nodded. “That’s a long time.”

  “Neither of us has been going out,” he said. “You know how it is.”

  “I can imagine,” I said.

  The four of us walked to the parking garage. We stopped at Gloria’s car. I shook hands with Joey. “Let me know when you have a day off,” I said. “We’ll come down and go fishing or something.”

  “That’d be great,” he said.

  Alex exchanged kisses with Joey and Gloria. I gave Gloria a hug. Then I took Alex’s hand and we went looking for my car.

  “Oh, I like her,” said Alex as we prowled the aisles of parked cars.

  “Gloria?”

  “Yes. I can see why you married her.”

  “Can you see why I divorced her?”

  She squeezed my arm. “No. But I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  “We both did.”

  When we found my car and got in, Alex leaned toward me, put her arms around my neck, and kissed my ear. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  “Me? Sure. Why?”

  “Joey was pretty itchy to leave.”

  “I remember how it was.”

  “Kids grow up,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “We all do, eventually.”

  13

  THE NEXT MORNING ALEX and I took the fat Sunday Globe and mugs of coffee out to the balcony. A few puffy white clouds floated in a clear blue sky. The breeze carved whitecaps on the blue water six stories below. White gulls wheeled in the sunlight. Another beautiful blue-and-white June day.

  “You don’t want to go lie on a beach or something, do you?” I said to Alex.

  She was wearing jogging shorts and one of my big, baggy T-shirts. Her long, smooth legs were stretched out in front of her with her heels up on the railing. “God, no,” she said. “All that sand and sweat, all those people with bad bodies in skimpy bathing suits throwing Frisbees and playing rap music on their boom boxes and making out on blankets. Are you kidding?”

  “Actually, I was.”

  “You probably want to go fishing.”

  “Sure. I’d like to go fishing. But I’m not going to.”

  “You’re thinking about Paul Cizek.”

  “Yes. And Olivia.”

  “You could worry about them while you’re fishing, couldn't you?”

  “I couldn’t worry properly. The trout would keep interfering. On the other hand, the worrying would interfere with the fishing. So I think I’ll stick close to the phone.”

  We sipped coffee and kept swapping sections of the newspaper. After a while, Alex took our mugs in for refills, and when she came back she asked for the real estate section. She poked her glasses onto her nose and began studying it with a felt-tipped pen in her hand.

  Precisely at noon, she took the real estate pages inside. I remained on the balcony. I could hear Alex talking on the phone. After a while, I wandered inside. She was seated at the kitchen table with the real estate ads spread out in front of her. She had marked them up with her pen, and she was writing notes on a yellow legal pad. The phone was wedged against her ear. She looked up at me, smiled quickly, then dropped her eyes and resumed her conversation.

  I refilled my mug and went back out to the balcony.

  She was really going to do it.

  That evening, Alex and I drove out of the city to David’s Bistro in Acton. It was a quiet, intimate little country place where there were no city noises or city people. We parked out back, and when we got out of the car, Alex started for the door but I held her arm. “Wait,” I said. “Sniff the air.”

  She tipped up her head and snuffled loudly. Then she turned to me. “What?”

  “A little trout stream flows not far from here. Nashoba Brook. It was one of the places I used to come to on opening day of the fishing season. A long time ago, when I was a kid. Can’t you smell it?”

  “I guess I don’t know what a trout stream is supposed to smell like.”

  “It smells a lot like the absence of automobile exhaust and hot pavement and electricity,” I said. “It smells of cold wet gravel and sun-warmed rocks and mayfly wings.”

  She sniffed again. “Okay,” she said. “Sure. I got it now.” She turned and put her arms around my neck. “I’m learning, huh?”

  I kissed her forehead. “We’re both learning,” I said.

  The pretty young hostess led us to our favorite corner table. She brought a bourbon old-fashioned for me and a gin and tonic for Alex. We declined appetizers. Alex went for the duckling and I ordered the pork tenderloin.

  We touched glasses. “To mayfly wings,” said Alex.

  We sipped our drinks and Alex started telling me about her latest conversation with her agent, when she abruptly stopped and lifted her eyes. “Hello,” she said.

  I half turned. Glen Falconer was standing behind my shoulder. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I saw you come in. Wanted to say hi.”

  He held out his hand and I took it. “Hi, Glen,” I said.

  Alex extended her hand toward him. “I’m Alex Shaw,” she said.

  He shook her hand. “I know,” he said. “And I know you know me, too. You covered my trial.”

  Alex glanced up at Glen, then looked at me.

  I frowned at her and mouthed the word “no,” but she pretended not to notice. “Won’t you sit with us for a minute?” she said.

  “Well, sure,” said Glen. “Thanks. Just for a minute.” He pulled over a chair from an adjacent table and sat down. He had an empty highball glass in his hand. He craned his neck, caught a waitress’s attention, and held up his glass. Then he turned to me.
“I never thanked you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For getting Paul Cizek for me. He saved my ass. Pardon me, Miss Shaw,” he said to Alex.

  “Brady talks that way all the time,” she said.

  “That Cizek,” said Glen expansively. “Some lawyer. Did a number on dear old Dad, all right.” He chuckled. “Did a number on everybody. Witnesses, jury, judge. Reporters, too.” He glanced at Alex. “You know what I mean, Miss?”

  Alex did not smile. “Sure. I know what you mean.”

  “I should have gone to prison,” said Glen. “And I didn’t. How ’bout that?”

  “That makes you a lucky guy, I guess,” I said. Glen, I realized, had already had a few drinks. His eyes glittered and his movements seemed slow and studied, as if he had to plan them out before making them.

  “Anyhow,” he continued, “I quit driving.”

  “Way to go,” I said. “Congratulations.”

  He either ignored or didn’t get my sarcasm. “Thanks. I feel good about it. I’ve got a bicycle, so I can drink all I want, and if I drive drunk, at least the only person I’ll hurt will be myself for a while.”

  “For a while?” I said.

  “Oh, I’ll climb back behind the wheel one of these days. You can’t keep a good man down, huh? But for now it’s the bike. That’s how I got here. On my bike.”

  “You pedaled here from Lincoln?” asked Alex.

  “Yes, ma’am. Still living with my daddy, riding my bike around town.”

  “That’s a long bike ride, isn’t it?” she said. “All the way from Lincoln?”

  “I haven’t got anything else to do,” he said. “I ride the bike everywhere. It passes the time.”

  The waitress sidled up to the table and placed a fresh highball in front of Glen. She hesitated, then said to me, “Shall I hold your salads for a few minutes?”

  “No,” I said. “We’re starved.”

  “Another drink, Mr. Coyne? Miss Shaw?”

  Alex shook her head. “We’re fine, thanks,” I said.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” said Glen. “I just wanted to say hello.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Take it easy.”

  Glen picked up his drink and took a swallow. “I liked your editorial, by the way,” he said to Alex.

  “Editorial?” she said.

  “The one you wrote the day after the trial. The one saying I should’ve been thrown in prison.”

  “That was unsigned,” she said. “It represented the editorial position of the paper.”

  He nodded and smiled. “Sure. But you wrote it. It’s okay. It was good. Maybe they should have found me guilty.” He looked down at the table. “Sometimes I wish they had.”

  “You’ve got to live with it,” I said.

  “It’s hard.”

  “The booze helps, huh?”

  He looked up at me. “I can’t quit drinking, Brady. So I quit driving cars. I figure if I kill myself, who cares? My life is ruined anyway.”

  “I think our salads are coming,” I said.

  Glen frowned at me. “Huh? Oh. Sorry. I’ll get back to my table.” He stood up, then reached hastily for his chair, which threatened to topple over. “Nice to see you folks. Sorry to interrupt your dinner. I’ll just get back to my table now.”

  With studied precision, Glen turned his chair around and slid it back into its place at the next table. Then he picked up his highball and held it aloft. “Thank you both again,” he said solemnly. “Thank you very much.”

  Alex and I watched him pick his way carefully across the dining room to a table against the far wall.

  “He’s eating alone,” said Alex.

  “Don’t even think of it.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t,” she said. “Still, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him.”

  “Don’t,” I said. “He doesn’t deserve your sympathy. Did you hear him? His life is ruined? Like he didn’t ruin the lives of that woman and her family?”

  She smiled. “You’re a hard man, Brady Coyne.”

  “He should’ve gone to prison. Did you hear him? He admits he can’t quit drinking, and he’s looking forward to climbing back behind the wheel.”

  “I know,” she said. “You’re right.”

  “I didn’t hear anything like remorse out of him,” I said. “Just self-pity. Anyway, he’s drinking. He’s all set. And one of these days he’ll get into a car and smash into somebody else.”

  Our waitress brought our salads and ground some black pepper onto them. “Anything else, folks?”

  “Let’s have some wine,” said Alex.

  “Not me,” I said.

  “We are not drunks,” she said.

  I looked at her. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I glanced at the card on the table listing David’s recommended wines. “The sauvignon blanc?”

  “Yes,” said Alex.

  After our waitress left, I reached for Alex’s hand. “Did I misbehave?”

  “No. You were rude to Glen, but he deserved it.”

  “I didn’t embarrass you?”

  “You never embarrass me.”

  “I embarrass myself sometimes.”

  “That’s another thing I love about you,” she said. “You’re such a sensitive guy.”

  “Oh, shit,” I mumbled. “Anything but that.”

  We ate our salads in silence, and then Alex patted her mouth with her napkin and said, “Brady?”

  “Um?”

  “We’ve got to talk about what we’re going to do.”

  “What I’m going to do when you move, you mean.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Now?”

  She cocked her head and smiled. “No. Not now. Let’s just have a nice meal. Now I want you to tell me all about what it was like when you were a little boy on opening day of the fishing season.”

  “It always rained,” I said.

  A string quartet was playing on the PBS radio station as we drove back to the city, and we listened to it without talking. After a while, Alex murmured, “Brady?”

  “Hm?”

  “I don’t mean to pressure you.”

  “You aren’t, are you?”

  “Not intentionally. Do you feel pressured?”

  “Sometimes a man needs a nudge,” I said.

  “There’s plenty of time,” she said. “Just try to figure out what you really want.”

  “Easier said than done.” After a minute, I said, “You know what I really want?”

  She reached over and squeezed my leg. I heard her chuckle. “Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

  14

  I BEAT JULIE TO the office on Monday and had the coffee all brewed for her. We sat in my office while I recounted the events of the weekend—my late-night phone call from Olivia Cizek, the people I had talked to in Newburyport, my Thomas Gall sighting, my encounter with the drunken Glen Falconer.

  When I told her that Alex and I had met Joey’s plane, and that Gloria had been there, Julie’s eyebrows went up. “How did it go?”

  “Go?”

  “You know. How’d Gloria react?”

  “It was Gloria’s idea,” I said. “She reacted fine. They both did. Everybody did.”

  “Sometimes,” said Julie, “I don’t get it.”

  “Gloria and I have been divorced for a long time,” I said gently.

  She was shaking her head. “I know. Still…”

  “Things change. You move on.”

  “I always thought—”

  “That Gloria and I would get back together. I know. I used to think that sometimes. But we’re not going to.”

  “You love Alex.”

  “Yes. I like Gloria. I care about her. I think she likes me, too. We’ve become friends. But I love Alex, and I think Gloria approves.”

  Julie reached across my desk and put her hand on my cheek. “I do, too,” she said. “You’ve been happy with Alex.”

  I thought of Alex moving to Vermont or Maine, and I wondered if I�
�d still be happy then. I decided not to discuss it with Julie. Not yet. I had to decide what I was going to do first.

  I cleared my throat. “Not to change the subject,” I said, “but I think we better get to work. First off, let’s draw up a standard retainer contract for Olivia Cizek.”

  “That poor woman,” said Julie.

  I nodded.

  “She must be feeling terribly guilty.”

  “Guilty?”

  “The marriage failed. He left her. And now…”

  “If she’d been a better wife it never would’ve happened,” I said. “Is that what you mean?”

  “It’s what she’d think.”

  “It’s not as if she abandoned him,” I said. “It was the other way around. Why should she feel guilty?”

  “It’s how women are, Brady.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Cizek already have an agreement with us, you know,” she said. “Do you think a separate one with her is necessary?”

  “Not really. But it’s what she wants.”

  “Okay. Can do.” Julie stood up and smoothed her skirt against the sides of her legs. “Check your In box, Brady.” She started for the door, then turned. “I’m glad Gloria is okay,” she said.

  “She is,” I said. “I promise.”

  Julie went out to her desk and I sat behind mine. My In box, as usual, was piled with papers that needed pushing.

  So I pushed them around for a while. My mind kept wandering to Olivia and Paul. I called Olivia at home. Her machine invited me to leave a message. “It’s Brady,” I told it. “Monday morning. I’ll try your office.”

  Olivia was unable to come to the phone, her secretary told me. I left my name and number, emphasized that it was not urgent, and asked to have her return my call.

  Then I called the Newburyport police. Lieutenant Kirschenbaum was on another line. I agreed to hold. I waited for the length of time it took me to smoke a cigarette before he growled, “Kirschenbaum.”

  “It’s Brady Coyne, Lieutenant,” I said. “I’m—”

  “I remember you,” he said. “The Cizek thing. What’s up?”

  “I wondered if you had any news.”

  “No.”

  “They haven’t found Paul’s body, then.”

  “I guess that would qualify as news, Mr. Coyne, don’t you think?”