The Outside Lands

by Hannah Kohler

  Dorothy stared. A sticky sweat filmed Jeannie’s upper lip. Dorothy raised the muffin to her mouth and took a bite, chewed, then touched her mouth with her napkin. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said.

  They listened to the snip of the wall clock, to Charlie spinning his car across the hallway. Dorothy dragged her eyes over Jeannie—the wet hair, the makeup-smirched eyes, the unbuttoned cuff resting on the table—until she drew blood to Jeannie’s face. A smile toughened the older woman’s mouth. She folded her napkin and pushed her plate aside, the knife slithering off the china and landing jammily on the eyelet tablecloth.

  “Your generation,” she said. “You think you’re the first to taste the world. But we saw it all—saw all the life and death of it. Your mother shielded you, raised you in a nice house with a backyard and barbecues and milk and cookies. And now you’re out into real life, and you act like you discovered it.”

  In the time they had known each other, Dorothy had never mentioned Jeannie’s mom, never asked a question about her—not through unkindness, it seemed, but through a kind of brisk respect. Jeannie had been grateful for this, perhaps more than anything because she knew her mom would have liked Dorothy, admired her, even. They had their beauty in common, their love of men and style. Dorothy’s allusion to Jeannie’s mom stung, and Jeannie recognized it as an opening shot.

  “Genevieve,” said Dorothy; and Jeannie felt a small grasp of hope that this was about Tom, about something she could explain. “I asked you not to see Leonora Walker.”

  Jeannie nodded. She smelled the sweetness of the jelly, heard the saliva in Dorothy’s throat. “She was just minding Charlie for me,” she said, stale-mouthed. She took a sip of tea, felt the tannin film her palate.

  Dorothy’s smile tightened. “When Leonora was born,” she said, “her mother cried for a year. I couldn’t understand it. Babies are so—enchanting; and Leonora was a good baby—quiet, watchful. Just like Charlie was.” Dorothy gave Jeannie a look that was thick with significance. “It’s been that way ever since. The tears Virginia has shed over that girl. And after everything with her brother.” Dorothy shook her head. “She’s a vicious thing.”

  Jeannie cleared her throat. She still hoped this was all this was: a lecture about the company she kept; she hoped the figure at the doorway had seen nothing, that it hadn’t been Dorothy but Fanny, that she’d been returning towels to the bathroom to dry and hadn’t paused to look in the room. “Lee’s just a little lost,” she said, holding her voice steady.

  “She is.” Dorothy nodded, rocking back and forth. “She wanted to be lost.” The older woman stilled, her body pitched forward over the table; she studied Jeannie, her face a show of calm—but there was a tremble in her little finger as she placed her palms on the tablecloth. “So did you.”

  Jeannie’s heart clambered. “So did I?”

  “You wanted to get lost.” Dorothy leaned across the table, slid her palms toward Jeannie, as though to touch her hands; but her fingers stopped inches short, her nails blanching against the linen. “When William told me about you, of course I was worried. I didn’t want him to chain his life to an accident.” Jeannie heard the insult, but Dorothy’s tone was neutral. “But you were sweet, and he couldn’t take his eyes off you, and the day you got married was so—happy.”

  That day pushed into Jeannie’s mind—the hot, stiff dress, Kip’s clinginess, the wetness of Billy’s hands as they exchanged vows.

  “Of all the things I feared for him,” said Dorothy, “that he’d be bored, or tied down, or unfulfilled—I never thought you could hurt him like this.”

  “Dorothy, listen—”

  “It’s disgusting.” Dorothy picked over each syllable of the word, her beautiful face sucking sour. “You’re disgusting.” She drew her hands into fists and straightened in her chair. “She’s a child, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “You could go to jail.”

  Fanny appeared at the doorway. Jeannie and Dorothy turned their heads toward her; Fanny, reading the look on Dorothy’s face, murmured and disappeared.

  Jeannie’s hand went to her throat. The neck of her dress was too tight. “Dorothy, this is silly.”

  “They’ll take Charlie away from you.” The words struck Jeannie like a blade. Dorothy’s mouth curled. “They’ll give him to me. And if you think that silly, selfish girl will protect you, you’re more naïve than I thought.”

  The heat left Jeannie’s body. Dorothy’s lips drew back, the threat held in her teeth. Jeannie’s fear sharpened, and she found her fight. She leaned to put her hands over Dorothy’s, felt their loose skin. “Be careful, Dorothy,” she said.

  Dorothy’s hands twitched. “All he’s done is care for you,” she said. “Provide for you, love you. You could live a dozen lifetimes and not deserve him.”

  “I didn’t say I deserved him.”

  “You got the prize, Jeannie,” said Dorothy, taking her hands from under Jeannie’s, spit showing on her lips. “What else was waiting for you? A little job, an unremarkable husband, a sad little house? A girl like you.” It was Dorothy’s turn to blush, her cheeks mottling under the powder. “You took the brass ring, and you’re not happy? Is marriage too difficult for you?” Dorothy’s voice rose; Jeannie realized that Charlie had fallen silent in the hallway. “It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s about tenacity. It’s about grit. Women used to have that, but you girls . . .” She fidgeted in her seat. She had lost control of the conversation; and she touched her hair to correct herself. Jeannie breathed slow to tamp her adrenaline.

  “I’m telling William,” said Dorothy.

  “He won’t believe you,” said Jeannie; but as she said it, she realized this wasn’t true. Billy would believe it, he would believe that Jeannie had betrayed him; because, like a cheap lining to good fabric, Jeannie’s love for him had never matched his for her, and they both knew it. In the small intimacies and sacrifices of married life, Jeannie’s reluctance with her husband had been as stubborn and discountable as grit on an eyeball. “It would hurt him,” she said.

  “He would survive it,” said Dorothy.

  “He won’t leave me,” said Jeannie; but she saw the triumph in Dorothy’s face, and doubt moved. She imagined it—Billy with a straining suitcase, his body stiff with hurt and anger, Dorothy waiting outside in the car—and mixed with the sadness and disgrace there was something else, a strange, dead feeling, as though the scene belonged to someone else’s story, as though it were a loss that, after it was all played out, could be put away, and survived. Dorothy was watching her, a hard, expectant look on her face, and Jeannie realized she was waiting.

  “What do you want, Dorothy?”

  Dorothy smiled, a real smile. “I want you to stop helping your brother. I want you to terminate Chapman and Macht’s involvement in his case.”

  “But Kip’s court-martial is next week.”

  “Then he’ll have to make other arrangements.”

  “This is his chance, Dorothy.”

  “Herb Chapman told me they’re not making a lot of progress, anyhow.”

  “A good defense could make the difference of fifteen years in his sentence.”

  “The whole thing is nasty and degrading.”

  “Chapman’s firm has been handling the case for weeks. What difference can it make to you now?”

  Dorothy spread her fingers on the table, as though showing a hand of cards. Spite lit her face. This wasn’t about ethics, or reputation, or money—it was about punishment.

  “It’s up to you, Jeannie.”

  The phrase seized Jeannie, like a hand grabbing her on a busy street. She thought of the choices she’d made, who to save, who to lose. Thought of Kip, the star of his own stupid movie, emptying his life away in a jail cell, giving his lawyers the runaround while he pretended the ax that was about to fall wasn’t real. Thought of Tom, the bulk and strength of him, confined to his bed, his defaced, amputated body; his strange c
harisma, which mixed power and yearning; his loneliness. Kip had done it; she’d come to understand that in those dark, vivid hours at Tom’s bedside. As Tom had come into focus, Kip had blurred and then re-formed, rendered in small, cold relief. He had done it, not because he was bad or crazy but because, as Tom told her and her dad before that, he was so damn stupid. His punishment would be to live with it; and it was Tom’s punishment too—needless, undeserved—that he would have to go on. Jeannie felt a sharp pain in her chest, as fine and conclusive as a skewer. She couldn’t save Kip from what was coming next; and her feet had continued to carry her to Tom’s bedside long after this realization made its first incision. Kip would have to tell his own story.

  She took in Dorothy, pulled-together and hungry for the show. “It’s not difficult,” said Dorothy, licking her lower lip. “You give up on a lost cause, or you lose your nice, comfortable life with my son.”

  The walls of the Noe apartment were narrow, and the rooms grew dark after noon. Jeannie thought of Billy, drab-faced and soft-bellied, coming through the door like he’d been in a war; long, gray Sundays sitting in the living room, rolling die-cast toy cars around Charlie’s toes. Dorothy’s lips parted, showing the thick, creamy edges of her teeth; she was waiting for Jeannie to submit.

  Jeannie stood and brushed the crumbs from her dress. “Fire the lawyers, tell your son, do what you want,” she said. Dorothy’s eyes widened; and in the momentary nakedness of her mother-in-law’s bewilderment, Jeannie saw the imprint of Billy’s astonished face, and her gratification smeared with unease. She dropped her napkin on her plate and stepped from the table.

  “Where the hell are you going?” said Dorothy, her chair scraping, her voice rising to a holler.

  But Jeannie was already out of the room. “Let’s go, Charlie,” she said, pulling him from the floor, his body lengthening reluctantly like a cat’s as she lifted him. She closed the door behind them, and turned away from the house, down Spruce, Charlie’s hand in hers, their shadows alone and bright on the dim, wet sidewalk.

  Tom / August 1968

  She returned when the hospital was handing over to night: pills dispensed, lights turned low. She switched on the overhead light. There was a kid in her arms. When it turned its face to him, he felt a sense of uncanniness and reprieve—the features were Jeannie’s, no other face forcing its presence there.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  She walked to his bed, the kid hanging like a primate, watching. She touched the raw part of his face. “It’s getting better,” she said.

  “I’m leaving in the morning,” he said. Her face was blank. “For the apartment.” She smiled; but there was something off in it, some stowaway emotion. “What happened?”

  She placed her keen eyes on him. In the dead light, he saw the early lines in her face, the tautness of her skin over her skull. She was skin and flesh and bone: he could see her heat, her muscle and frailty. There was death and life in every shadow and swell of her; and as he looked at her, he felt once again, with the force of the obvious, that here was the truth of things—not in the sad bodies filling the beds around him, not in the scale and brilliance of combat, but here: a beautiful girl in his room. For all his damage, she was here for him; and alongside everything else that was waiting for him beyond his bed, alongside the shame and the struggle and the disability payments, there might be this.

  He felt the question in his mouth, as hard and slippery as a marble.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  Jeannie / August 1968

  He sat, gripping the rails of his bed. She imagined his heart muscling inside his body; sensed his mind beating, like a bird; felt her own blood thrum. She felt Tom’s loneliness as her own, imagined the two of them, consigned to their separate lives in their separate, muted apartments, and something inside her went dark.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Tom / August 1968

  The next morning, he dressed himself, enlisting the Mexican orderly to help with the pants, knotting the leg at the stump. Buttoned his shirt, and smoothed it over his chest. Put a comb to his hair—too long in back; he would get it cut. Heaved himself into his wheelchair, and wheeled himself into the corridor, out of the building, across the courtyard, and into the main building, taking the wide corridors until he was in the main lobby. He saw the sunlight smoke through the entrance, felt the sun’s hot stripe over the floor, the bad breath of the hospital at his back. He pushed himself out, into the city, its smell of heat, asphalt, the ocean.

  He was relieved to see her sitting on the curb outside the apartment. She was sitting next to her son, and they were playing a clapping game. When she saw the cab draw up, her hands dropped. She watched as the cabdriver helped him out, into his chair, as if he were a stranger. But when the cab drew away, she stood and picked up the large bag at her feet, an uncertainty in her face that he hoped was anticipation. The keys jangled in his hand, and the three of them said nothing as he let them into the lobby, and into Apartment 1. The place smelled of dust and newspaper. The living room overlooked the street through half-opened drapes, and was sparsely furnished: a table, four chairs, a couch. A few bits of old wood were scattered under the table; the kid crawled between the chairs and stacked the pieces.

  “Come,” said Tom, dropping the keys on the table and pushing the chair through the apartment: a galley kitchen, a bathroom, a storage room with a pullout bed, a master bedroom overlooking a backyard. He rolled the chair to the bed in the master bedroom, hoisted himself to sit on the mattress, and watched her. She stood in the center of the room, turning her body as she took in the scratched closet, the dated wallpaper, the silvered mirror, the muscles in her calves undulating as she turned. He felt his heart beating in his throat, and held out his arm to her. “Here,” he said. He heard the kid’s tower fall.

  Her heels echoed off the wood. She crouched in front of him and closed her eyes. Her lips opened, showing her teeth, her pink tongue. His cock felt warm and heavy in his lap.

  She sighed, a soft, full sigh. Her breath was damp on his face. His own breath emptied out. “Jeannie,” he said.

  She leaned in and kissed him.

  Jeannie / August 1968

  Jeannie tasted the cool wetness of his mouth, smelled the lotion on his face. She swallowed down her spit, and gripped the edge of the bed as he pushed against her, her footing unsteady. She sat back on her heels, and he moved with her, leaning forward, his hand locking the back of her head. She could feel the press of his severed fingers in her hair, the knot of fabric at his thigh. She stood, her hand palming his face, easing him away.

  “Jeannie,” he said, rough-voiced; and she gave a smile that felt phony on her mouth.

  “Charlie—” she said, and went to peer around the doorframe. Charlie was kneeling, the back of his head still with concentration. She shut the door.

  “Here,” he said.

  She steeled herself, and turned. He was sitting on the bed, his body pitched forward, desire smearing his face. She sat on the bed beside him, felt his heat, felt the stiff reluctance of her own body. He put his face into the crook of her neck; she felt the smoothness of his burns, the uneven bristle on his jaw. She knew that this was what she’d promised him, that this was part of their unspoken exchange, for his confidence, his refuge. She thought of Billy, how it had been an act of will with him, too; but whether it was the rawness of Tom’s need, the awkward abbreviations of his body, or the noise of Charlie playing in the next room, this was more difficult. She took a breath—breathed in Tom’s sick, musky smell—and knew that if she couldn’t save Kip, she could do his penance.

  Tom / August 1968

  Her tongue was soft and light. She tasted of peppermint. He felt the ridge of her teeth against his tongue, the hard roof of her mouth. He pushed his hand into her hair, heard his sigh come in a long hum. He felt her swallow, felt her fingers, warm on his face. His hands went to her breasts, felt their round denseness; he found the zipper at the back of her dress,
and eased it down. He pushed her dress to her waist, took in her slim white stomach. She pulled away, her eyes squeezed shut; hooked her leg so that she was straddling him, her cunt pressing against his cock. She was arched over him, her hair falling against his face, her eyes still closed, her face solemn as a Madonna’s. He encircled her with his arm, released the fastening at her back, and her breasts spilled free. He pushed his face to them, felt their cool weight, let one fill his mouth. She made a strange, heavy noise.

  He looked up at her; her teeth pressed her lower lip. He leaned back, strutted himself on his elbow, and, with his good hand, loosened his zipper. Freed his cock, felt the warmth of her cunt against it, the cotton of her panties; put his hand to the small of her back and pressed her to him. She moved her hips, and—

  Jeannie / August 1968

  “No.” She slipped from his lap onto the mattress, her legs folded, her dress shambled, the air cold on her skin. She saw the surprise in his face, the scald of humiliation at his jaw. She didn’t look at his groin; fixed her eyes on the crawl of a house spider across the mattress.

  “I’m an idiot,” he said, and hurried to fasten his pants, his hands fumbling with the task, his shoulder angling to stop her seeing his nakedness.

  She covered herself with her dress. “You’re not. I just—”

  “It was wrong of me. I’m sorry.”

  “I want to,” she said. She wanted to bring him close. And she could do it—she could close her eyes and her mind, and give him what he wanted. But it would be a cheap intimacy, a betrayal too far. He turned to look at her, his face open and unsure. She couldn’t give herself to him if he didn’t know who she was. She watched the spider clamber over the edge of the mattress, heard the subdued knock of wood in the other room.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”