We Have Everything Before Us

by Esther Yin-Ling Spodek

  PHIL DRIVES ALONG a grid of tree-lined streets under a canopy of branches and leaves that block the sun, past large, century-old homes and groomed lawns. It is different from the sparse treescape and new homes that abut the cornfields where he lives. Eleanor is waiting on her porch steps wearing a blue sundress and sandals, holding her phone like she has been there some time. Her hair is against her shoulders, moving in the light wind. She rests her chin on the palm of her hand, her elbow propped on her knee, as she watches his car pull up under a tree in front of her house. For a moment, he thinks that he remembers her in this pose in high school. He remembers someone like this.

  “Hey!” he calls to her as he gets out of his car and reaches into the passenger side for the bouquet. He knows it seems ridiculous, but he feels tongue-tied. Eleanor is grinning as if she has just heard a sarcastic joke. He walks to her, throws his arms around her and squeezes tight. She gasps as she is released.

  “How was the drive?”

  “Fine.” He puts the flowers into her hands and her face turns to a deep pink. He sees that she is embarrassed. But she seems to catch herself and asks, “Can I help you bring in your bags?” He tells her no.

  At the door, a small black-and-white border collie greets him with a sniff and a low growl, baring her teeth before running away. Eleanor apologizes for the dog and takes him to the kitchen where they sit on stools at the island. She pours two glasses of iced tea. The house feels empty and quiet to Phil, and the iced tea is bitter. He wants to find an amusing, provocative way to ask her for sugar, some play with words, but all that comes out is, “Do you have sweetener?”

  Eleanor looks puzzled for a moment, and nods and climbs onto a stool to reach inside an upper cabinet for a paper sack of cooking sugar, then walks near the sink for a spoon. “Take this.”

  He smiles and mixes a spoonful of sugar into his tea.

  Eleanor is full of questions and Phil doesn’t know how to answer them and still appear as though he is not too serious. “Did your family seem upset that you were coming here alone? What did Linda say? You didn’t have to argue with her, did you?”

  He assumes she is asking because of the awkwardness he has told her about and his text about being late. But still, it seems strange, almost as if Linda has spoken to her. He shakes his head and looks into his glass. “No, really, in the end it was fine.” He smiles shyly, wanting to keep the conversation upbeat, positive.

  Eleanor takes Phil back to the front of the house where he discovers that her sons are at home, logged on to their computers. “I never would have known,” he says.

  “They sneak in and get online to play war games before I can say anything,” she says.

  Eugene and Liam look up as if wakened from a deep sleep. Phil puts out his hand to shake, and, one after the other, they take it with what seems like skepticism. Phil has seen this sort of behavior before, the stunned acceptance of an adult gesture. He laughs nervously, though he senses that Eleanor is more uncomfortable with their reluctance than he is.

  “Come on,” Eleanor says, and turns away. She picks up Phil’s bag near the front door and takes it upstairs. “I’ll show you your room.”

  They climb the stairs. In the small corridor of the second floor, Eleanor points to the closed doors. “That’s Liam’s room. The one there is Eugene’s. Then the bathroom you’ll use. I left towels on your bed.” She hesitates. “This is my room. I mean, my room with Frank. And next door, this,” she puts the bag inside the door, “is yours.”

  As Phil enters the room, the dog exits the master bedroom, stops, shows her teeth to Phil, and trots down the stairs. Phil pretends not to notice the dog. He stands for a moment next to one of the twin beds and puts his bag on top of the other while Eleanor steps into the doorframe. “Great!” he says, not referring to the dog, and waiting for Eleanor’s cue. When it doesn’t come, and he needs to fill the airspace, he says, “Could I have another glass of iced tea?”

  “Sure.”

  She turns quickly and heads down the stairs. Phil is put off by her aloofness, and yet it intrigues him. He follows her down the warm corridor.

  “Frank should be home any minute,” she mutters so that Phil can barely hear her.

  “I could help with dinner, if you want,” he calls after her, wondering if he has done something wrong and misinterpreted this visit, or if she is playing hard to get.

  LATER, PHIL, ELEANOR, and Frank are in the kitchen. Phil smiles artificially—he knows it—trying to keep the mood upbeat as he gently tears lettuce leaves from a colander to put into the salad bowl. Eleanor is at the sink washing dishes, and Frank is trying to put marinated chicken pieces from a plastic container onto a platter to take outside. “You don’t think you over-marinated the meat, El?” There is a puddle of teriyaki sauce on the counter around the plate. He steps back and turns to Phil, smiling as if he is setting up camaraderie between the two men.

  Trying to think up good conversation, Phil asks, “How far are you from the beach?”

  “Two miles,” Frank says. Eleanor doesn’t turn around.

  “Do you go much?”

  Eleanor shrugs her shoulders. “She used to take the boys when they were young,” Frank says. “But they went in opposite directions and she spent all of her time running after them.” He has his teriyaki hands in one of the utensil drawers shuffling things around.

  “Frank, wash your hands,” Eleanor says.

  He laughs and continues to talk. “It used to be sort of fun in those days. Chasing them around.”

  “When I was stationed in Southern California,” Phil says, “we were at the beach all the time. I loved open water swimming.”

  Eleanor turns to look Phil in the eye, as though she is impressed, or thinks that he is crazy. Phil can’t tell. “Well,” she says, “this isn’t the ocean.”

  Phil’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He takes it out and, after a second, he recognizes Sarayu’s number. His phone is always on vibrate in case his daughters should call him, but the strangeness of this particular call shocks him. He completely loses his place in the conversation and doesn’t know what to do. Suddenly, for a moment, he feels as though he is emptied out. Should he leave and find a private place to take the call? He decides to wait and call back but knows that he will be able to think of little else.

  “Anyone good?” Frank asks.

  “Naw,” Phil answers. He looks to Eleanor, who turns from the sink toward the men. He doesn’t catch her eye, or she won’t look at him. Maybe she thinks Linda is checking up.

  “Come with me,” she says to Phil. He follows her to the basement to carry folding chairs up to the patio in the backyard. Like someone uncoordinated, he stumbles as he thinks over what is happening. “Watch out,” Eleanor says, and it embarrasses him. He is here to see one woman, and another from his past is calling him. Sarayu must hate him now, that must be why she is calling. There is a buzz on his phone to indicate that she has left a message. He can’t imagine what it might be, but now he needs to know.

  To try to think about something else, he asks Eleanor who else is coming, and remarks about the calmness of the weather, the warmth, how dinner outside is such a good idea, and again he asks who is coming. He helps Eleanor to set up a large folding table where the guests will sit. They cover it with a floral tablecloth and put citronella candles on top. There is a warm wind in the backyard. He draws his hand across his forehead involuntarily. Eleanor smiles at him. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” But he feels pangs of anxiety. How could Sarayu call right now? Right now? He needs to know what she has to say to him. Maybe she isn’t as angry as he thinks she should be. He can’t make a judgment until he hears her message, though he is making all sorts of things up in his head, that she forgives him, that she wants to see him, that she wants him dead. He looks over the mangled vegetation around the edge of the yard and garden. Annie, Eleanor’s dog, tramples it, back and forth, barking at something on the other side of the fence, and inside his head he hear
s himself explaining things to Sarayu. It was the only thing to do, to break up. He has a wife. Daughters. What other choice was there? He looks up, feels flushed. Frank is coming out the back door and Eleanor is going inside to boil potatoes. She says so as she walks toward the stairs to the door, with one provocative look back at Phil. He follows her just as Frank asks him if he wants a beer from the cooler on the patio. “I need to check my calls first,” Phil says, and goes inside. He can wait no longer. And Eleanor can wait.

  In his room upstairs, he listens to Sarayu’s message. “I thought I would check to see how you are,” is all that she says. Strangely, he is only a few miles away from her Andersonville apartment. She could have sent a text, but he recalls that she hates texting. Once again, the feeling of heat overcomes him. He sits on the bed. These coincidences are something out of a movie or a cheap novel. He tries to compose himself for the dinner party. He needs to be on his best behavior. He needs to impress Eleanor. He remembers this feeling, the physical sensation of alertness, he felt it when he was about to see Eleanor for the first time in years. But with Sarayu, it is different. He knows that he has hurt her deeply.

  “Phil?”

  Eleanor is calling from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Right there in a moment.” He breathes in deeply and heads toward the kitchen. “Calls from my girls.” He smiles awkwardly. Lying is still easiest.

  13

  “YOU READY TO help me fire up the grill?” Frank asks. He hands Phil one of two cookie sheets that contain marinated chicken pieces. They move toward the back door, which Frank pushes unsteadily open, and down the steps to the patio. Outside the air is moist, and Phil can smell the grass clippings from the newly mowed lawn next door. He follows Frank and puts his tray on a metal table near the cooker. Frank opens the lid and takes out a steel brush to clean the grill.

  “We’ll just heat this barbecue up.”

  Frank reaches into a cooler and hands Phil a beer. “Twist-off,” he says as he opens his own.

  “Thanks.”

  “So, you are in town to visit your daughter at Northwestern tomorrow?”

  “Yes. It was nice of you and your wife to let me stay over.”

  “What is she majoring in?”

  Phil laughs. “History. Not sure what she will do with it.”

  Frank nods. “Like English. Eleanor did nothing with it. She had babies.”

  “That worked out, didn’t it?”

  “Tell me something,” Frank says. “Do you really remember details from high school?”

  Phil feels the blood hot in his face. He drinks and laughs nervously. “Sure.”

  “I remember almost nothing. Eleanor says she remembers what I was wearing when we met.”

  “I remember Eleanor. She was a nice person.”

  Frank’s smile flattens. He sips his beer. “That’s not a detail. That’s a generalization.” Then he pauses and slaps Phil on the shoulder. Phil loses his balance before straightening. For a moment he wonders what he is doing here, other than on the way to see Jilly. He remembers the anger in his almost-ex-wife’s voice as he left their house. “I was going out with someone else then, for a couple of years,” Phil tells him, feeling self-conscious.

  Frank nods and runs the flat of his hand inches above the slats of the grill. “That’s what Eleanor said.” He smiles. “She would never have gone out with someone like you. Not then. She was too shy.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, what is it you do?”

  “I have a leasing and service company for copiers and computers. But things are slow right now. I have time to visit my kid.”

  Eleanor is still preparing food in the kitchen. Phil hears voices from the other side of the screen door, lilting first greetings, and he sees the shadow before a tall blonde woman appears in the doorway. She stops to take in the scene. Phil remembers her from his daughter’s concert, the police detective. She walks straight toward him with her right hand outstretched, and Phil takes it. A shorter man with a large belly follows her, carrying a plate of raw vegetables and dips. “Hello again,” she says to Phil. “Kaye? I met you at the concert?”

  “And I’m the one with the funny accent. I’m Eric. I go with her.”

  “How’s the force?” Phil asks Kaye.

  “That,” she says, almost whispering. “Fine. Not much excitement right now. Summer isn’t quite here.”

  “My ex-wife seemed to enjoy talking to you.”

  Kaye looks at him. Her mouth is open. “I thought you weren’t divorced yet.”

  “Only a matter of semantics.”

  Kaye rolls her eyes and reaches into the cooler. “You want another?” Phil holds out his hand and she gives him a beer. “So, you aren’t driving home tonight?”

  “No. I am staying over and seeing my daughter in the morning. The one who played the concert.”

  “What did you do this afternoon?” she asks him. “Did Eleanor take you to the lake? It was a nice day for that sort of thing.”

  Phil looks toward Frank as he steps away from the grill. He and Eric are drinking beer and talking about something that is making them laugh. Phil feels ill at ease, and he is still distracted by Sarayu’s phone call, wondering what she meant by it. Then he looks at Kaye. “The waterfront? No. Only seen it from the car closer to the university. When I come here, I see my daughter and I don’t stay long.”

  “Really. Do you sail? The university has boat rentals.”

  “I did in California. When I was first married.”

  “My husband, Eric, is building a boat. The guy over there. The joker.” She points with her beer bottle. “He wants to call his boat the God of Thunder.”

  “Don’t boats usually have female names?”

  “There you go,” Kaye says sarcastically. “It’s a Viking boat. The kind Erik the Red sailed from Scandinavia. Supposedly. Eric the Grey here will sail a Viking boat around Lake Michigan. And when it is in the water and I am sitting there with him, people will stare at us as we try to sail the damned thing out of the harbor.”

  “Is he Scandinavian? I’m Scandinavian.”

  “Are you now? I never would have guessed. You don’t have an accent. No, he’s from Scotland.”

  “I mean my great grandparents came from Scandinavia.”

  “Kaye,” Eric says to his wife, “Go and find out where the hostess is. We’re hungry!”

  Phil listens to Frank talking to Eric about a recent golf game. He smiles when he thinks it’s appropriate, and when Frank asks, he says that he is not much of a golfer. “Why not?” Frank says. “You look so goddamned athletic.”

  “Did you come with someone, Phil?” Eric asks, as though he has missed something.

  “Phil’s divorced!” Frank says. “He is an old high school friend of my wife’s, right Phil?”

  “Another beer?” Eric asks, holding out a newly opened bottle to Phil.

  “Sure.”

  “And his daughter is a student at Northwestern,” Frank offers. “He’s just visiting for the night.”

  Eric winks and drinks from his beer.

  “I’m seeing her tomorrow,” Phil says. “I met your wife when she came to my daughter’s concert a couple of weeks ago.”

  “You did?” Eric raises his eyebrows. “She sure gets around, that woman does.” Frank and Eric laugh and Phil tries to as well. Then Eric laughs harder. He must have a private joke with Frank to which Phil doesn’t have access.

  “Your wife told me about being a police detective,” Phil says. “In the vice squad.”

  Eric stops drinking. He is silent. Then he bursts into hilarious laughter. “Are we talking about the same woman?”

  “Is that what she told you?” Frank is also enjoying the joke.

  “OH! LORD!” Eric says. He slaps his knee, then Frank’s back, as though he needs to hit things. “Not again!”

  Phil is embarrassed. As if to be sympathetic, Frank reaches into the cabinet below the grill and pulls out a bottle and small bathroom-sized Dixie
cups with the Muppets pictured on the sides. “Here.” He pours and laughs and shakes his head, handing Phil a cup of whisky. “I think you need this after hanging out with Kaye.”

  KAYE ENTERS THE kitchen through the back door. “Where the hell have you been? We are out there making conversation with your fifth wheel.”

  Eleanor is putting things on a tray to bring outside. She doesn’t stop puttering to answer.

  “You’re nervous, aren’t you,” Kaye says.

  Eleanor looks up at her friend. “No.”

  “I saw him today at the florist. He is a huge flirt. He was hitting on the girl working there. She is Clara’s age.” Kaye is exaggerating, she knows, but she wants to give Eleanor a warning of some kind. She doesn’t like or trust Phil.

  “How do you know how old the girl at the florist is?”

  “I can tell.”

  “Let him have his fun. It doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Doesn’t he flirt with you? Isn’t that what this whole thing is?”

  “No.” Eleanor’s voice is firm.

  Kaye is taken aback. She recalls the time, maybe seven years ago, when she tried to tell a friend that she thought her husband was drunk when he drove to pick up his daughter from a playdate. Her friend told her to mind her own business. And somehow, Kaye felt that she had done the right thing. Here, she feels it’s right to warn Eleanor, in case she and Phil were having ideas about each other. He had, after all, driven an hour and a half to visit.

  Eleanor looks at Kaye. “Oh Christ, Kaye. It’s only dinner.”

  ELEANOR AND KAYE come out carrying trays of chips and condiments, wine and glasses. They set these things on the table, and Eleanor goes inside for more.

  “Can I help?” Phil takes the opportunity to leave Eric and Frank, desperate to find a place where he cannot hear them giggling like schoolgirls, and where he doesn’t have to answer questions or be the butt of their jokes.