by Dan Pope
* * *
THE NEXT DAY Benjamin got up late. It was a cold, gray Sunday, a few days before Halloween. He felt sluggish, as if hungover. Perhaps he was—a sex hangover, all that ecstatic effort expended on Audrey Martin, and her sudden meltdown afterward. It didn’t help waking to an empty house, with no sounds of life but the boiler growling in the basement. There had been a certain comfort in coming down to a warm kitchen, even if it was only his father, making toast and eggs.
True, Leonard had seemed more like himself yesterday. But he’d grown tired so quickly, his face assuming that stricken, baffled expression. Without his false teeth, his cheeks seemed sunken. Benjamin hadn’t even realized his father had false teeth, not until he saw him lying in the hospital bed, this aged, toothless version of Leonard.
Cruel, how the body changed, failed, the inexorable march toward deterioration. He’d had a vision of his father in his mind for so long—his golden self, a man in his forties, tossing Benjamin footballs. How had he failed to notice his father’s changing face? His mother was gone nearly two years now, and his father was going, it seemed. Benjamin himself had been lucky to avoid illness, to reach forty-four without a hitch. A few of his friends had already succumbed to cancer and other diseases in their prime, victims of some cruel cosmic crapshoot. Was that all he could expect of life, a falling away of everything that had once made up happiness? A slow decline? Putting loved ones in the ground, watching children drift away? The Greeks had a saying, Benjamin had learned from the History Channel: Count no man happy until his death, for no one knows what the gods have in store for him.
He headed out into the morning with Yukon, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his head. Somewhere on the next street, someone was bouncing a basketball in a driveway; there was the solitary sound of the ball and the occasional thud against the backboard. A wonderful, lonely sound. Otherwise the street was quiet, the houses still, a ghostly morning.
Back when he was young, there had been packs of boys and girls running around the neighborhood—playing kickball in summertime, touch football in autumn, sledding in winter. Then, an only child had been rare, a condition worthy of pity and suspicion. Now it seemed like almost all the kids who lived on Apple Hill Road were only children. What joy was there in shooting baskets by yourself?
Yukon veered on the Pearlmans’ lawn, sniffing and marking their rhododendrons. Well, Benjamin still thought of the house as the Pearlmans’, but the place had been bought and sold twice since they’d lived there. Benjamin knew none of the “new” families on the street: nameless couples glimpsed now and then in their driveways, unloading baby seats from the backs of vans or SUVs. A generation had passed since his boyhood, like an ocean liner making slow distance into the horizon.
The white-brick house at the top of the street had once been, some 150 years ago, the house of the orchard keeper, who oversaw the terraced rows of apple trees rising up the hillside toward the mountain beyond, green, lush in season, inviolate. The farmhouse at the bottom of the hill had been the only other dwelling, then, before the tractors came to plow and dig for the coming subdivision, sometime in the early 1950s. If Benjamin closed his eyes he could summon the street the way it had been in his youth.
From those days, only Betty Amato and Franky DiLorenzo remained. Everyone else had moved away or died. Betty Amato kept Benjamin up-to-date with the news of her kids. His old friend Timmy was a bachelor who taught literature at a community college in New Jersey. He’d published a thin collection of short stories, available in paperback only, which Benjamin had seen selling online for ten cents. Benjamin and Timmy had been inseparable as kids, but they’d gone to different high schools and grown apart. Now, for some reason, Benjamin always felt awkward around Timmy when he saw him over holidays, even if they only spoke for a moment. Odd, that awkwardness. He didn’t know where it came from, because as kids, he and Timmy had spent nearly every day together, usually just the two of them, playing basketball in the driveway or listening to records in his room, as silent as monks.
He wondered what his old-time neighbors might say about him. How did Benjamin Mandelbaum appear to the local gossips? They would say that he’d screwed up his marriage, that he’d moved back home with his dad because he had no place else to go, that he was selling his father’s Cadillacs, as they’d always known he would. Everyone had known how Benjamin Mandelbaum would turn out—everyone but himself. Photographer, he’d said in high school whenever anyone asked what he wanted to do with his life or, more embarrassingly, deep-sea diver, even though he’d only taken a single course one spring holiday in Florida. Deep-sea diver! How absurd that notion seemed to him now, when Mandelbaum Motors had been his destiny from the beginning. Was it foolish to fight against the course of his life, now that it was half-gone, to break from the inevitabilities he had come to accept as his own?
He headed back inside. All those images from his childhood were as clear in his mind as the afternoon sky, but they were nothing. Shades and specters, misremembered, half-forgotten. His youth was gone, the people who had meant everything to him then had been usurped, replaced, removed. He’d known this, of course; he’d kept track of the passing years, registering the comings and goings of the calendar, like anyone else. But somehow it hadn’t sunk in. He’d made a mistake, he felt now, moving back into his childhood home, unearthing these memories. The past, like a grave, was better left undisturbed. Here he was, forty-four years old, back in the house where he’d grown up, alone on the spinning earth.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, while driving down his street, Benjamin saw Audrey Martin in her driveway, getting into her car. A girl stood by the passenger side with a backpack slung over her shoulder, waiting for Audrey to unlock the door. As he drove past, the girl turned and squinted at him. Then she raised her right hand and gave him the finger. Benjamin glanced away from her, shocked. Did she do that to every passing car?
The girl was beautiful, like her mother, but in a wholly different way: tall, dark hair, full in the chest. She was how old—seventeen? If he didn’t know better, he would have guessed she was in college, or older still. She had large, dark eyes, a wildness in her expression.
At the stop sign, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her, still, hand raised, pointing her middle finger at him like a knife as he drove off.
* * *
THAT EVENING he stopped for dinner at Max Baxter’s Fish Bar. He sat at the bar, eating a cheeseburger and watching football highlights: the New York Giants and some blue and red team he didn’t recognize. At one time he could name every starting backfield in the NFL. Now he didn’t even know who coached the Giants. The NFL had gone on without him, like everything else, although the old Giants players remained in his mind as vivid as the screen above the bar: Spider Lockhart, as nimble as a thief; Pete Athas, with his long hair flowing from the back of his helmet; Ron Johnson, exploding out of the backfield, knees pumping high; and most of all, Fran Tarkenton, scrambling away from lumbering defensive ends, changing directions as quick as a dog. Recently Benjamin had seen the man on a late-night infomercial hawking rug cleaner, the great Tarkenton, looking like a retired accountant.
Before long the bar started to fill up with the evening crowd—stylish women in their thirties or forties, traveling in packs of two or three, eyes scanning the room. Hair in supermarket shades of brown, red, and blond, streaked and straw-like. Was this the type of place Judy would come to now, in search of his replacement?
“Brian, dear,” one of the women said to the bartender, “an appletini, please.”
“Check, please,” Benjamin said to the bartender.
He felt off-kilter, after the way Audrey had left that night. He didn’t know if he was supposed to wait for her to summon him, or if she expected him to make the next move. On the way home he decided, What the hell, and got out his phone. He wanted to see her; he might as well tell her so.
She answered in
a formal voice he hadn’t heard before: “Hold on a second, please.”
Was her husband sitting next to her, chomping a steak? Benjamin had never had an affair with a married woman, never had to worry about these things. But he was half-drunk and not overly concerned with discretion.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
“Is this a bad time?”
“Sort of. I grounded my daughter, like you suggested. So now I have to deal with her. She’s always been something of a spy. A watcher and a listener.”
“Where are you?”
“In my bathroom.”
He got out a cigarette and lit up, something he did only when he drank. Judy used to complain about the smell. She would throw out his cigarettes whenever she found a pack and make him shower and wash his clothes before getting into bed. “I want to see you,” he said.
“After the other night, you still want to see me?”
“That was my fault. I said the wrong thing—”
“Let’s not talk about that anymore, okay?”
“Yes. It’s settled. Good.”
“Good,” she said.
He took a long drag on his cigarette. He said, “I believe I’m a little bit addicted to you, Audrey Martin.”
“To having sex with me, you mean?”
“Yes,” he agreed, although he hadn’t meant that—not only that.
“Why do you always call me Audrey Martin?”
“Because that’s your name.”
“Most people just use the first.”
“I’d never think of using only the first. Audrey Martin is a totality. A concept that existed before it was given a title.”
“You sound like Michel Foucault tonight.”
“Who’s she?”
She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are,” she said. “So you want to see me?”
“Yes. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow isn’t possible.”
“What about the day after?”
“That’s Halloween,” she said. “Little goblins everywhere. Maybe the day after that.”
He had trouble sleeping, thinking about her. On Halloween, every time some kid rang the doorbell, he jumped, thinking it might be her.
The following morning at the dealership, he found it difficult to concentrate. Pussy brain, the salesmen called it. When you can think of nothing else. He phoned her in the afternoon to see if they were on. Yes, she said, they were.
At home he lit the fireplace and poured the wine and prowled the empty rooms. She was late again. Did she do this to torture him? Or had he scared her away? His understanding had always been that women wanted to be wanted, but if you wanted them too badly you became creepy or a stalker. (Judy’s words, again.) You had to express the proper amount of desire, but not too much. A game for daters. At forty-four, he didn’t know how to play, or rather, he couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t want to dance around; he’d thought he and Audrey were on the same page there.
But maybe, he figured, she wasn’t toying with him. Maybe she was having problems getting out of the house. Finally, he couldn’t wait any longer and called her.
“Where are you?”
“Getting ready.”
“You always keep me waiting.”
“We said eight.”
“Did we? I thought seven.” He checked the clock. It was a quarter of. “Come now.”
“Patience . . .”
Ten minutes later the doorbell rang.
“Where’s your dog?” he said.
In response she tugged him down the hallway by his belt buckle. Later, this was the night he would remember most clearly, the way she’d stepped out of her dress to reveal the fishnet stockings and garter belt. They started on the rug in front of the fireplace. He was aware of Yukon in the doorway, watching with his head cocked to one side, like a ruffian at the ballet. Go away, Benjamin gestured with his hand. Instead, the dog padded into the room and stood beside them, panting.
“Just what I always wanted,” said Audrey. “A threesome.”
* * *
AFTER, they stared at the flames, both of them naked and glistening with sweat. They sipped at the wine until it was gone.
“More?” he asked.
“I’m perfect,” she said sleepily, snuggling back against him.
“I saw you and your daughter on my way to work the other day,” he said.
“Where?”
“In your driveway. She sort of glared at me.”
“The patented Emily look.”
“Then she flipped me off.”
Audrey laughed.
“What’s funny about that?”
“It’s so Emily.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I have no idea. You can’t explain Emily. She takes sudden likes or dislikes to people and things. She doesn’t like the word lugubrious, she told me once. She said it doesn’t sound like what it means.”
He forced a laugh. Then he realized he was feeling too good—his arm wrapped around her, his face buried in her hair—to play the phony. “Actually,” he began, “I don’t know what that means.”
“Lugubrious? Oh, sorry. It means gloomy, but in an over-the-top way, like Dark Shadows.”
“I can’t believe you remember Dark Shadows.”
“I saw it in reruns when I was a kid. I always loved the name Barnabas Collins.”
“That other word, too, you called me.”
“Hmm?”
“You said I was . . . ecclesiastic? No. Not that.” He laughed at himself. “Something like that.”
She turned and kissed him. “I think I said eclectic. Someone who knows a lot of different things.”
“Compared to you, I know nothing.”
She moved onto her elbows and stretched, a yoga-like movement. “You know how to make a woman feel good. That’s something, believe me.”
“Why wouldn’t she like me?”
“Who?”
“Your daughter.”
“Stop obsessing about that. It was your car, probably. She hates SUVs, because of the carbon footprint. With Hummers, she goes berserk. She even threw a tennis ball at one once.”
“You drive an SUV.”
“The mini-model.”
The flames rose from the fire, the wood crackling. It made him sleepy and slow-witted. “Is she still giving you the silent treatment?”
“Yes. She’s really good at holding a grudge. It’s as quiet as a tomb in that house.”
“She’s a beautiful girl. That can complicate things. It certainly did for my daughter. Boys and all.”
“Emily’s always been complicated. This is just her latest phase,” she said, finishing her stretch and settling onto her stomach.
He said, “Maybe it’s normal, in a way. Kids don’t consider us as anything but parents. We’re these people who live with them and provide things for them—money, a place to sleep, stuff they want. They don’t really think about us until something goes wrong.”
“It was the opposite with Emily.”
“What was?”
Audrey didn’t answer.
He leaned over to admire her. “God, I love your ass. Did I ever tell you that?”
In this light she looked like a woman in her late twenties. Petite girls like Audrey had the advantage in the long run, he decided, over the bombshells, the showstoppers at sixteen. He’d seen one of the Wendys at the dealership some years ago when she came in to buy a station wagon, and even then, in her mid-thirties, she was overweight, her high school face barely recognizable amid the jowly cheeks and garish makeup.
He squeezed her thighs. “Do you work out?”
“Yoga,” she said. “Years and years of yoga. Before that, aerobics, Pilates, Nau
tilus. Push-ups to start the day, crunches in front of the TV at night. The great accomplishment of my life. All my education and ambition, and here you have it.”
“Hey, don’t be sarcastic. You look amazing. You’ve got the body of a twenty-something. Plus, you’re smarter than anyone I know. You’re talented. You’re—”
“Okay, enough,” she said. “You’ll give me a complex.”
Complex, too, he almost added, but he figured he better stay away from her complexity, after the other night.
In the silence that followed he felt himself starting to doze. He heard her gather her clothes, felt her brush against his leg. He intended to get up and show her out, but the next thing he knew he was asleep, the dog curled up against him where Audrey had been.
* * *
LEONARD COULDN’T GET the remote control to work. He could change the channels, but there was no sound. Terri Funkhouser knew how to work the thing, but she hadn’t come. She usually showed up after breakfast, but today lunch had come and gone and still no sign of her.
He pressed the buzzer for the nurse, as he’d done many times already, without luck. They came on their own time when they were good and ready, and they did their poking and prodding, taking his blood pressure, twisting and turning him. If he asked a question or made a complaint, they smiled at him as if he were a simpleton. Even the nice nurse, the heavyset gal with the curly red hair, even she didn’t answer his questions. He could understand why, with all the senile folks wandering the halls, talking to themselves, but shouldn’t they be able to tell the difference between them and him?
When the door opened, Leonard pushed himself up in bed. “Terri, where have you been?”
“I had some errands. Did you miss me?”
“Miss you? I’ve been buzzing for two hours.”
She set her handbag on the table and placed a large shopping bag on the floor. “What’s wrong? You’re not ill, are you?” She put her hand to his forehead. “Cool as a cucumber.”
“I can’t get the TV to work.” He held out the remote control. She took it, and a moment later the sound came blaring at full volume.
“You had the mute on, Len. This little button here.”