The Lake Shore Limited

by Sue Miller

“Not so much. Lauren thinks it makes her speech worse, plus she’s on some med for depression, which means, I guess, that she’s really not supposed to.” He had another sip of scotch. “But tonight is different. Let’s get wrecked.”

  “I am wrecked, whether I drink or not. But yes, let’s have a few. Let’s get blotto.”

  He set the table while she mashed the potatoes. She put the food on the table and went back to the living room to restack the records. They ate, listening to the music, and then it stopped. They talked in a desultory way, always about Lauren, about the disease. Grace wanted to help. She spoke of coming for a week or so each month, once Lauren needed her. She seemed, so quickly, to have taken it in, to have accepted it.

  But as they stood side by side, doing the dishes, she stopped and turned to him. “How will I go on living, after she dies?”

  He couldn’t think of an answer. He just stood there, and then he shook his head, and she went back to the dishes.

  Later, they danced a little, and then he helped her pack up the records—Lauren had said she wanted them.

  In the night, he heard Tim Holloran plowing the driveway, he saw the headlights of his truck rake the ceiling. When he woke again, to a muted light, his mouth was dry, and he had a headache. Aspirin, and then coffee helped.

  He packed the car. Grace had more stuff for him to take than he’d counted on. The cat would have to ride in his carrier in the front seat. He took two bananas and left without eating breakfast. Maybe the roads would be plowed, maybe they wouldn’t, but he couldn’t bear to stay any longer in the emptied house with this flattened, silent version of Grace. And he thought it was likely that she wanted him to go, that she needed to be alone.

  As he turned at the bottom of the long driveway, he saw that she was still standing where he’d left her, watching him out of sight.

  The first preview performance had only a few glitches. Annie, the actress playing Emily, dropped her glass of fake bourbon and it broke, and Bob—Alex—flubbed a line but covered for it nicely. Rafe felt he gave an off-kilter emphasis to “Elizabeth,” his last line—the play’s last line. It seemed to him, just after he’d said it, that it sounded as though he didn’t recognize his own wife.

  No one was interested to discuss this with him at the bar afterward, where most of the cast and some of the crew had gathered for a celebratory drink. A few spouses were there.

  He talked to Billy. Just as she was about to turn away, she asked him, “Hey, where’s your wife, to whom you’re so very married?”

  “I told you, she goes to bed early.”

  “Every single night?”

  “She’s an invalid, actually. She’s not well.”

  Her face fell. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re sorry, too.”

  “But I’m sorry also because I was sort of … teasing you, and that’s, that’s just … inappropriate.”

  He knew what she was saying—that she’d been flirting, that she’d been teasing him sexually. “Ah, it’s okay. I miss being teased.”

  “I suppose one would.”

  “One does.”

  Later, as things were breaking up, he found her. “Want some help walking your dog?” he asked.

  “You can come along if you like. My dog actually mostly walks himself. And it’s a quick walk at night. Strictly business, as it were.”

  They went halfway into Union Park and up the steps of one of its grand brick bowfronts. She let them into the front hallway where a staircase rose splendidly and vanished into the upper reaches of the house. She opened one of the double doors into what once must have been the town house’s parlor.

  A black shape bounded forward out of the dark toward her. The dog was enormous. As she spoke to it enthusiastically, it rose on its hind legs and rested its front paws briefly on her shoulders. Its head was almost at the height of hers. Its tail was wagging frantically. They seemed to be smiling at each other.

  The dog dropped and then came to Rafe and poked him with his nose once, approximately in the groin.

  He asked her what the breed was, and she said she’d been told a mix between a Newfoundland and something else maybe even bigger. “Though what that could be, I don’t know.”

  “He is unbelievably huge,” Rafe said.

  “Yes. I thought I’d get the least appropriate dog for a person my size that I could find.” She turned away. “Let’s get your leash,” she said conversationally to the dog.

  She stepped into the dark room, and Rafe and the dog followed. The parlor was vast, high-ceilinged. He saw double pocket doors, partially pushed back, and beyond them another room and windows.

  The dog stood patiently while she hooked the leash to his collar, and they went outside. They strolled down to the corner, where patrons still lingered in the glass box of a ground-floor restaurant, and then they walked slowly back. The dog must have lifted his leg twelve times.

  She asked him if he’d like to come in for a drink.

  “I’ve had a few.”

  “One more, then.”

  He hesitated. “Sure,” he said. “Sure. Why not?”

  “That’s what I like,” she said. “Unbridled enthusiasm.” She was unlocking the front door.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Inside, she turned on a lamp and disappeared into a galley kitchen off the parlor. She brought out two glasses and a bottle of wine. “If you’d open it,” she said, handing him the corkscrew, “I’ll put some music on.”

  While he peeled the casing off the bottle and twisted the corkscrew in, she squatted by a wide console and loaded some CDs into a player. Piano music, jazz, suddenly blared in the room, too loud.

  “Oops,” she said, and turned it down. He didn’t recognize the tune or the player.

  She came and sat at the other end of the long couch. She put her feet on the scarred coffee table. It was round, it looked like an old oak dining room table someone had cut down. Books and magazines were arranged in piles on it.

  He handed her a glass and lifted his own. “Cheers,” he said.

  “To us,” she said. “To the first real performance.”

  After one sip, he set his glass down. He really didn’t want any more. “Weren’t you intimidated, writing about 9/11?” he asked.

  “Well, of course, it’s not 9/11, it’s the Lake Shore Limited.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. He leaned back. “I happen to know it’s 9/11. I got it straight from the playwright.”

  She smiled at him, tilting her head. “Yeah, you did.” She breathed in, loudly. “The thing is,” she said, “I have great creds.”

  “Nine-eleven creds?”

  “Ah-huh. I’m a kind of almost widow.” She looked over at him. “A lover died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I appreciate that.” She sat silently for a moment. Then she smiled, a little bitterly, he thought. “But it gives me impeccable authority. Almost as good as Rudy Giuliani’s.”

  He laughed. “And are you thinking of running for president, too?”

  “I have a life that’s as close as I want to get to a public one. And after 9/11, it was too public, for a while.”

  “Were you beleaguered?”

  She looked at him sharply for a second. “Nice word. That would be apt. I was, briefly. They quoted me in his little Times piece—my name, that I lived in Boston—and after that, for a while, I got calls whenever they wanted a statement, a response from, you know, a bereaved relative, or quasi-spouse. Fiancée, I was called, officially. Though that wasn’t true. But that came from his sister, so I didn’t correct it. And then his sister, of whom I’m very fond, she wanted me to be with her at various functions. Memorial things. It was hard to say no, so I didn’t say no. And I had to talk to other people on those occasions, too. His sister actually wanted me to have some of the money when it came.” She sighed deeply.

  “People think they know what you’re feeling.” Her voice was softer, suddenly. “What you must be feeling.
And because it’s easier not to expose yourself, what you’re truly feeling, you don’t disabuse them. You go through the motions for them. That’s why, I think, I wanted to write the play—about a man who doesn’t feel what he’s supposed to. Who has an entirely too-confused response to it for lots and lots of reasons. So he can’t show … anything, almost.”

  “Well, that helps me, actually. Thinking about a couple of things in it.”

  “Good. Anything that helps.”

  They sat, listening to the music. Or he was listening to the music. He looked at her. “But what were you feeling, that you weren’t supposed to?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just didn’t feel … It’s not important, really. I was … It’s just, there’s this set of things everyone expects of you. That’s all.”

  They sat silent for a moment. Rafe felt strained, a bit. He asked, “What was he like? Your, almost fiancé?”

  “He was … good. He was sweet.”

  Rafe made a face.

  “I know. But he was. He was kind, sweet. He was a little younger than I was.” She swung her knees up sideways onto the couch and turned so she was facing him. “He was a prep school English teacher. I went to the memorial service at his school, and to a boy, to a girl, his students were weeping. Straight through it. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, except for me.” She laughed, lightly. “I was always more than a little aware of my great unworthiness around him.”

  “Well.” He nodded several times. He was thinking of his own unworthiness, of the variety of ways, daily, that he failed Lauren.

  As if she’d read his thought, she asked, “And your wife? What’s she like?”

  He shrugged. “She was wired. Funny. Lively.” He shrugged again. “Great legs.”

  “You’re using the past tense.”

  “Yeah, I am. Even the legs are a little …” He thought of them—white, flaccid. “They’ve lost what I’ve learned to call tonus.”

  She was silent for a moment. “You seem very distant from her.”

  He thought she sounded sad about this, perhaps compassionate. At any rate, not judgmental. He had a sudden sense of relaxing with her. “I am, of necessity, very distant from her. She really is … her real intimacy, at this point, is with the illness. And I, to keep going, I have to more or less ignore the illness. We’re at cross purposes. I think she feels … that I’ve left her alone with it. And I suppose I have.”

  “And the illness is?”

  “Lou Gehrig’s disease. Stephen Hawking,” he said. He smiled. “Or, as she calls him, Fucking Stephen Hawking.

  “She’s writing about it, you know.” He nodded. “Yep. A memoir. She’s got some elaborate voice-activated software. I’ve seen a bit of it here and there. I think she’d like me to want to read it. And I don’t. It’s the last thing on earth I want to read. While she’s alive. Maybe I will after she’s dead. I’ll read it and weep, as they say. For now …” He shook his head. “Yeah, I keep my distance.”

  The CD had changed. The piano was slow now. Some old Fats Waller tune, he thought. Probably he and Lauren had the original version on one of Gracie’s 78s.

  “But you love her.”

  “I loved her. And because of that, I love her. Yes.”

  She looked at him, her head tilted. “You must be very lonely.”

  He laughed, quickly. “I need to get a dog, I guess.”

  She smiled. “It works, you know. A dog. To a degree.”

  “We have a cat. Though he’s more my wife’s companion.”

  They sat quietly for a few minutes. Then she said, “Would you like to make love? Since you can’t have a dog.” She was smiling, her lips slightly parted.

  “I would,” he said. He looked directly at her. “I’m not sure I can.” He smiled, too, but ruefully. “This hasn’t been the most erotic lead-in I could imagine.”

  “You never know,” she said, and leaned forward to set her glass down on the table.

  He followed her back to the two pocket doors. As he stepped into the darker room, she spoke to the dog, who had started to follow, too. “Stay, Reuben.”

  He dropped instantly and laid his head on his front paws. A worried moan escaped from him.

  “Get real,” she said.

  She slid the doors shut. They were in a smaller room, maybe half the size of the living room. It would have been the back parlor before the house was divided. Tall windows opened onto a closed-in space behind the house, some sort of yard. There were nineteenth-century gas lamps dimly glowing through the branches of the trees, and their faint light fell into the room. There was a bed against the wall, made up, with a patchwork quilt on top.

  They undressed on opposite sides of it, like a couple who’ve been married for years. She lifted the covers and got in on her side, moving to the middle of the bed, turned toward him. Her face was in shadow, but he could feel her eyes on him.

  He slid in toward her, and they were touching. Her body was small—so much smaller than Lauren’s—and tensed, muscular. He moved his hands over her limbs, her buttocks, her breasts in a kind of astonishment. Everywhere she was quick and alive, responsive. Her muscles jumped under his touch; her tendons were like tight wires. She radiated heat, energy.

  He could have wept.

  He was hard, almost right away. “I don’t have anything,” he said. His breathing was audible, quickened. “A condom. I don’t have one.”

  “I do,” she answered. She rolled away from him and reached out to the bedside table. He heard the drawer open. She turned back and moved over him, swinging a leg up, then straddling him. He could see in the dim light that her breasts were surprisingly plump. She settled herself on his thighs, and tore the condom package open. She was expert with it, stroking him with warm hands while she also unrolled the sheath down over him. He moaned in pleasure.

  She rose up onto her knees and moved forward. He watched what her hands were doing, holding his stiff penis, easing it into herself. When she was fully lowered onto him, when he was completely inside her, she arched her back and began to move herself slowly up and down. Her buttocks and her thighs tightened rhythmically with her motion.

  He held her hips and helped her move faster. Her breasts jounced. He was wild with excitement. He started to come, much too soon, too fast. As he pushed into her harder, longer, she answered him with her body, and she rode him steadily until he was through, until they both slowed, and then he stopped. She sat, panting for a minute. Then she laughed, a short exhalation. They stayed like this, breathing hard. Billy was still moving, a gentle rocking.

  He slipped out of her, finally. She lay down on him then, closing her thighs around him, moving her hips a little from side to side. Their breathing evened out. They rested for a bit, and then she moved up on his body. She kissed him. He held her. Her legs were open across him. He could feel her knees pressed in on either side of his rib cage and her warm dampness on his belly. A little while later, she slid off him, and they lay next to each other.

  He turned on his side to look at her, to touch her. Her eyes were black in the dark room. How small she was under his hands, and perfect. And yet the full breasts, the thick dark bush. His fingers brushed over her nipples, and they stiffened.

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you,” he said. His voice was hoarse.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “No, I like your play. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” She laughed. “It’s close to everything.”

  “I’m glad I got around to saying it then.” He was touching her everywhere now—her breasts, her nipples, her hips, her abdomen. He couldn’t get enough of the way she felt.

  “Strange, then, that an act of sex is what loosed your tongue.” Her voice was dreamy.

  He slid his hand down her belly and pushed two fingers through her thick curly hair into the slick warmth of her. Her eyes had closed. He found her clit with his thumb and began a circling motion on it. Now she opened her eyes. She was breathing faster. “It must b
e that the fabulousness of … same, reminded you.”

  “No doubt.” He played with her for a while, spreading her wetness with his fingers to make everything slippery, everything easy.

  He slid down on the bed. He spread her legs wide apart, opening her for himself with his fingers, putting his face down onto her, onto her taste, her smell, using his mouth, his tongue. Her hips began to move, pressing up against him. He moved his fingers over her clitoris, he held it pushed up so he could pull on it with his whole mouth. She moaned. He thrust his fingers in and out of her.

  She cried out sharply over and over when she came, raising her hips off the bed, pushing herself convulsively against his mouth, his face. As she finished, her motion ebbed, and finally she lay still. He turned his face to the side, feeling the soft fur, wet now, on his cheek. He kept his fingers in her, moving them slowly in and out. “Oh,” she said. “This is so sweet.”

  He laughed lightly. After a little while, he moved up so that he was lying next to her. He helped her pull the covers over both of them. He slept for a while. He woke. The clock’s red numerals said 2:12.

  When he got up to leave, she stirred and got up, too. He’d thought she was asleep. She pulled on the robe that had been hanging on the door to the bathroom and came out with him into the parlor. The dog rose when the doors opened and stood, alert, waiting to see what would happen next.

  She crossed to the hall door with Rafe. “This was so lovely,” she said. She was almost whispering.

  “It was.” He kissed her, bending down to meet her tipped-up face. He’d forgotten again how small she was.

  “I love your mouth,” she said. “Thank you for your mouth. Among all the rest of your very nice things.”

  He didn’t know what to say.

  She stepped back from him. “Are you going to be worried about this?” she asked gently.

  He didn’t answer. His shoulders rose a little.

  “Rafe, this was two lonely people consoling each other. I was lonely. I feel wonderfully consoled. That’s what I hope you feel.”

  He nodded. He spoke. “Yes. Yes, I do. Indeed I do.”

  “Please, please don’t worry about this. You strike me as a worrier. Don’t … let me—or this—become a worry. I won’t be. I’m not. It’s not. It was just for now, just for us. Our one-night stand. Just a wonderful onetime event. Wonderful for me, at any rate.”