Courting Death

by Paul Heald

  “You know, my parents used to send me on long walks whenever I did something stupid.”

  She smiled and drew up a wet handful of sand to plop in Maria’s bucket. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Maybe we could spend some time alone this evening and talk a bit?”

  “Sure! Maybe we could go on that beach walk? Maria seems comfortable with everybody now.” And so the day passed smoothly until after the Thanksgiving feasting was over.

  The holiday host, Jack Ramsey, arrived early in the afternoon with a bag of Idaho potatoes, a marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole, and a huge turkey, already stuffed and ready to put in the oven. He apologized for bringing store-bought pies for dessert, but redeemed himself by pouring everybody glasses of a superb Oregon Pinot Noir. The group spent an increasingly tipsy afternoon coaxing the legal equivalent of war stories out of him and answering his questions about the current state of affairs in Clarkston.

  * * *

  Suzanne had never met Jack Ramsey before, so she appreciated the fact that he included Maria in the conversation around the large glass dining room table, never talking down to her and eagerly showing her pictures of his numerous grandchildren. He was a natural with kids, much like Arthur was. As dinner wound down, she watched Arthur excuse himself to make coffee in the kitchen, and she decided to push his morning bout of jealousy to the back of her mind. He was such a nice guy. Handsome, intelligent, a considerate lover, and very sweet with Maria. He couldn’t have known what a red button he had pushed.

  “Hey,” asked Titus Grover to the group as he stood up, “does anyone want to drive with me to the Magic Mark-Up on a wine run? We’re about out.”

  Although leery of traveling alone with the famous lothario, Suzanne was out of tampons, and she knew that she shouldn’t be driving herself anywhere on four large glasses of wine.

  “Sure,” she said, hoping someone else would join in, “I’ve got to pick up something.”

  Looking in vain for others willing to take Grover up on his offer, she saw April and Jack crawling on the floor with Maria, looking for a toy that she had dropped under the table. Her first impulse was to take her daughter with her, but that would mean moving the kid’s clunky car seat. And, as cocksure as Grover pretended to be, he was just a ladies’ man, not a rapist.

  “Hey, can you guys watch Maria for fifteen minutes?”

  They nodded happily and began to play, so she grabbed her purse from a hook by the front door and left the beach house alone with Grover.

  * * *

  After the gut-busting dinner, Arthur poured himself a cup of coffee and wandered down to the beach to catch the sunset. After taking several strides in the soft white sand, he heard the door open behind him and a small voice cry out, “Lemme come too!”

  A moment later, April appeared behind Maria who wrenched her hand away from the young lawyer with a determined frown.

  “It’s okay!” Arthur said. “She can come with me.”

  April looked doubtfully at the pounding surf. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “We’ll just play in the sand like we did this morning.”

  With that, Maria ran down the steps, grabbed his hand, and held it all the way to the beach where she noticed a gnarly piece of driftwood sticking out of the sand and stopped to investigate. He sat in a lawn chair dragged down by someone earlier in the day and breathed a contented sigh as the molten glow of the sun’s pigment pot poured slowly across the Gulf sky.

  Before too long, his reverie was interrupted by Maria filling his lap with treasures revealed by the receding tide, and by the time darkness had fallen, he was in possession of a large pile of shells and the front of his pants was soaked. Gathering the debris up in his shirt, he and the weary little girl headed back to the house, stopping underneath it to store a dozen of the best shells in a corroded stainless steel sink. Arthur led her up the stairs to clean up.

  A perfect opportunity to practice inner serenity arose when Glenn informed him that Suzanne and Grover had left to replenish the depleted stock of wine and were due back any minute. He was proud of his self-control. His expression never changed, and only the briefest twinge of jealousy knotted his stomach. If he were capable of a serious relationship, something that Julia had declared impossible on more than one occasion, he would have to anchor his well-being in something other than knowing the exact whereabouts of honorable, trustworthy people.

  Two hours later, he sat alone on the upper deck, unable to listen to any more speculation from Glenn, April, and Jack about where Suzanne and Grover could possibly be. He escaped by offering to put Maria to bed, an unenviable task given her mother’s absence. He helped her find her toothbrush and stood over her while she cleaned with deliberate if clumsy strokes. He washed her hands and stood her in the tub while he pushed up the legs of her pajama bottoms and sprayed the sand off her feet.

  “That tickles!” She cried as she stamped her feet to avoid the cold water. After he wiped her off, she put her arms around his neck, and he lifted her out of the tub. She hugged him tightly and laid her head on his shoulder. Realizing with a start that losing Suzanne would mean losing Maria too, he hugged her back and laid her down gently in the bed. She grinned up at him.

  “I get ten stories before I go to sleep!” He nodded and picked through Maria’s Dr. Seuss collection and read until he was hoarse. Remembering a trick Suzanne had told him, he waited until the little girl started to nod off a little and then gave her a big picture book to study while he went to get her a cup of water. When he stuck his head in her room five minutes later, she was fast asleep. He turned on the closet light, diffusing its intensity by cracking the door, and then flipped off the overhead light. He tucked her in and carefully shut the door.

  He had been out on the deck nursing depressing thoughts for about thirty minutes when a pair of headlights suddenly backlit the sand dunes. Moments later, two car doors slammed, and a giggle could be heard momentarily above the breeze. A muffled cheer then drifted up from below as the wine-bearing prodigals were welcomed by the thirsty crowd.

  A couple of minutes later, Suzanne came upstairs. She found Arthur, the very picture of relaxation, with his legs propped up on the deck rail, contentedly sipping the last of the initial supply of white wine.

  “Sorry I’m late! We—”

  Arthur cut her off, not wanting to hear excuses or explanations for her three-hour absence. “Maria and I collected some shells and had a great time.”

  “How did you get her to sleep?”

  “I just read to her. She wanted you, but the sandman won out in the end.”

  “You know,” she replied, “you could have let her stay up. It’s only ten thirty.”

  “I’m sorry.” Could she hear his insincerity? “You normally put her down about eight thirty. I guess I screwed up.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I really appreciate it.”

  Rather than turn to face her, he continued to look out into the dark.

  “I’m just surprised you could do it.”

  He said nothing more, hoping that their relationship could just smoothly and without fuss devolve from lovers back to landlord-tenant. Nonetheless, his imagination served up vivid images of what must have transpired during her time with Grover. He took a deep breath. Suzanne had seen his bad side that morning, but she would see the stoic version this evening.

  “You said this morning that you wanted to talk.” Her inflection gave no indication that she would leave him alone to the consolation of starlight and murmuring surf.

  “I did, but it’s not important now … I just wanted to apologize again for being so stupid.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m a big boy … I’ll get over it.”

  “Get over what?” A hint of exasperation colored her voice. For the first time, he turned and met her eyes, wondering why she wanted to pursue this.

  “What do you think?” A hint of annoyance crept into his voice, and he for
ced himself to look out at the ocean. “Just let it be, okay? You’ve got nothing to apologize for, and I don’t want any apologies anyway.”

  “You’re right. I’ve got nothing to apologize for, unless spending two and a half hours digging Grover’s car out of the sand requires one.” She waited for him to challenge her story. He glanced at her. She looked absolutely ravishing—or possibly just ravished—with her hair running riot over head, eyes flashing, and flawless skin glowing in the moonlight.

  “Well, that would explain the sand on your back.”

  “Are you saying—”

  “I’m not saying anything!” He swallowed his frustration at the fact she thought he was a fool. “And I’m not angry. I’m sitting here quietly, drinking a glass of wine and listening to the surf. Just what is it precisely that you want me to do?”

  She paused before responding. “How about go straight to hell?”

  She whipped around and made a clumsy attempt to slam the sticky sliding door as she stalked out. He watched the shrimp boats blink underneath the shimmering yellow moon. A sandpiper landed on the railing in front of him to snatch a crumb off an abandoned pie plate. It eyed him suspiciously, ready to fly off at the slightest movement. He sighed as it stared at him. “That went well, don’t you think?”

  Fifteen minutes later, he pasted a contented smile on his face and went down to the party. He leaned against the wet bar and sipped a glass of water and listened to Grover regale his audience with a story about a deposition gone horribly wrong. When he felt his presence fade to a sufficient level of inconspicuousness, he slipped miserably through the back door for a walk that he hoped would end long after everyone was in bed. As he strode barefoot down to the water, he heard the door open and shut.

  “Wait up!”

  He pretended not hear and strode up the beach at a steady clip. A minute later, Suzanne huffed up next to him.

  “Are you deaf or something?”

  He shrugged and let out a huge sigh before turning around.

  “I’m sorry that you had to watch Maria for three hours—”

  “Don’t apologize for that. I love spending time with her.”

  “No, I don’t mean it like that. Look, you invited me to the beach, and you’ve been wonderful with Maria. Then, I disappeared and yelled at you. I’m sorry for being so pissy.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

  “Just what is bugging you then?” The twinge of pleading in her tone made the question sound almost reasonable. Rather than dissemble again or say nothing, he decided to just lay it all out as calmly as possible.

  “Remember you asked for it.” He couldn’t look her in the eye. “When you ask questions about what’s going on inside my head, you may hear some adverse shit.”

  He took a deep breath. The moon flashed intermittedly on the tips of the whitecaps. “I was a little bit of a jerk last night, but the way Grover had his eyes glued permanently to your chest was a hell of a lot ruder … I understand why you didn’t run upstairs after me, but to reward him with a tête-à-tête until the wee hours of the morning is totally incomprehensible.” That seemed fair and balanced.

  “Then, on an evening when I ask to have a serious talk with you, you leave Maria with me so you can socialize with this same guy that you’ve already spent most of your time with during our vacation.” He took a step down the beach and she followed. He was finally getting his moonlit walk, but it was not quite as romantic as he had planned.

  “It was just supposed to be a fifteen-minute wine run.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard the story downstairs.” He picked up a shell, then tossed it ahead and crunched it with his heel. “Grover thought you had time to take a quick drive through the park before the sunset, and he made the mistake of driving on some soft sand.” He stopped and looked at her, making a helpless gesture with his hands, trying to convey that he could never really know the truth. “Whatever happened, you chose to take a romantic detour with a famous lecher while I babysat your child.

  “That’s what’s bugging me, and if it shows how shallow and petty I am then … well, just remind yourself that you’re the one who ran out here to ask.”

  Suzanne was looking at him, but it was a hard stare that did not invite reciprocation, so he looked down at the sand scrunching between his toes. A cool breeze whispered around them, a reminder that summer was over, even in Florida. She lifted his chin with her hand and forced his eyes to meet hers.

  “You know,” she said in a steely voice, “someone should really slap some sense into you.”

  He could not believe that she was sticking to her story.

  “But since I’m used to teaching toddlers, let me explain something to you. My husband was insanely jealous. He used to come home in the evening and push the redial button on the phone to see if he could catch me having called any of my imaginary boyfriends.” She snorted. “That gets old in a hurry. And guess what? I still can’t stand it.”

  She started down the beach once again, and this time he followed her. “If you play that game with me, I’m going to lash right back and maybe even accept some harmless attention.”

  He stopped in his tracks, body rigid.

  “Will you let me finish?” She turned and continued. “Whether you believe it or not, the thought of cheating on somebody makes me physically ill. After Bill died, one of my friends felt free to tell me that he had been sleeping with not just one, but two of his colleagues in Birmingham!”

  Arthur walked down into the surf. He let the cold water quench the ridiculous hope that nothing had happened with Grover.

  “I saw the signs that he was having an affair, but ignored them, and finding out hurt as much as the accident. When he died, I lost the future we had planned. When I found out he had been sleeping around, I lost the past too.”

  Arthur stared out over the waves. It might have been easier if she had slapped him. The story of her marriage made for compelling listening, and he cringed at the comparison between his jealousy and her deceased husband’s. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out for this relationship stuff.

  “I couldn’t hurt someone that way.” She crept up behind him and rested her chin on his shoulder, circling her arms around his waist.

  She almost convinced him, but the lawyer kept looking for loopholes.

  “But we’re not married or engaged or even officially committed as I can tell.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Despite your idiocies, I can’t help but love you, and I don’t want to hurt you.” She squeezed him tighter, as if she were trying to force some common sense into him. “I’m a good person, Arthur.”

  The sudden joy of his belief swept through him like a sandstorm, scouring away all doubt.

  “I love you too.” He hugged her fiercely. “I never said it because … it just seems so inconsistent with me leaving in June.”

  She told him to shut up and kissed him.

  When lip fatigue finally set in, they opened their eyes and noticed the ghost crabs scuttling about them, picking the beach clean before the tide rolled in to make its nightly delivery of shells and jellyfish. They took each other’s hands and walked far down the beach, away from the lights of the houses. For a long while, they strolled silently along the shoreline until at the edge of the park they found a large piece of driftwood and sat down to rest.

  “So why did you and your ex-wife break up?”

  Arthur warmed to the twinge of worry in Suzanne’s voice. “It’s a long story,” he sighed dramatically, “but mostly because she caught me in bed with the neighbor’s fifteen-year-old daughter.”

  “You creep!” She pushed him off the log and kicked sand at him. “How come, really?”

  “Hmm … the real reason?” He eased himself back onto his perch. “Well, we argued all the time, so maybe we really didn’t have much in common.” He reached over and brushed some sand from her leg. He hadn’t talked about his marriage for months, and he was surprised at the perspective he had gained.

&n
bsp; “We were probably doomed before we even got married. If one of us had been able to swallow hard and call off the engagement, I’ll bet the other would have sighed with relief.” This rang true to him, although he had never said it aloud before. “But the inertia of a two-year engagement is really powerful. We went through with all of our fancy wedding plans, honeymooned in the Bahamas, and assumed we had a good relationship when all we did was live and sleep together.

  “I think the only reason it lasted three years was because we were so focused on other stuff. She had a great new job, and I had law school. We hardly ever saw each other.” He grimaced at the memory of her sixty-hour work weeks and increasingly indifferent shows of affection. “Things came to a head when I decided to clerk after graduation. She expected me to take a job in downtown Chicago like her, work hours like she did, and make a huge pile of money. She couldn’t understand my desire to work for a federal judge and flat out refused to move to Georgia, even for a year.”

  “So you chose the Judge over your marriage,” Suzanne teased. “You should mention that to him.”

  “In her mind, I did. In my mind, she became this materialistic bitch who was only interested in making vice president before thirty.” It was nice to finally be able to talk. “She thought that I was a lazy, romantic do-gooder who tricked her into supporting me during law school. We were both being unfair, but we had plenty of ammunition to kill off the relationship.”

  It was an accurate, but not quite complete, picture he painted for Suzanne. He did not tell her that Julia was so pretty that she made Melanie look like a wallflower. Nor did he tell her he was so depressed after the breakup that he missed two weeks of classes or that he had desperately tried to reconcile with her on the eve of the divorce even though she had long been seeing someone else. Suzanne wanted to judge what sort of husband he had been, so there was no reason to detail the power of his attraction to Julia, nor why he had felt like such an utter failure when the marriage was finally over. Editing the story was merely doing unto others—he had absolutely no desire to hear about the good parts of Suzanne’s relationship with her husband.