“This is beyond lovely,” she whispered as the doorman slipped out. “Charlie, this is a dream. I know it’s just a room, but it’s such a sweet room. You’re very thoughtful to arrange this. It means the world to me.”
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “What’s the view like?”
“Come here,” she said and took his hand and led him out.
The grounds swept away from them. Fog made the early evening darker, but here and there she spotted beds of azaleas and rhododendrons. And peonies. She had never seen so many peonies, nor so many varieties and colors, and they saturated the lingering fog and pierced the grayness with muted tones. Charlie put his arm around her. Gradually, shade by shade, she felt evening win over the day and calmness settle over the grounds. She slid deeper under Charlie’s arm.
“How do you know to do these things?” she asked. “Most men don’t, you know?”
“Don’t they?”
“No,” she said, her eyes watching the light fail on the gardens, “they don’t. It’s not their fault. Most women don’t know, either. I certainly don’t. But you . . . you see how things might be and you aren’t afraid to risk something to have it. I admire that.”
“Well, if it’s worked these last few days, then I’m grateful. My father taught me some of it. I guess it was my father, if I understand what you are saying. He called it living with flair, but he didn’t mean it in a boasting way. He always said you could make something festive and pretty nearly as easily as boring and normal. He had a knack and he made things fun. I never really thought about it much, but I guess he made things nice for my mom. I remember one time as a kid he created a drive-in movie in our backyard. It was a date for my mom and he took her out and he made us promise to let them have some privacy . . . anyway, I remember looking out in our backyard and there was our old Dodge Dakota pickup and mom and dad sat in the front seat looking out at an old movie screen. It was Iowa, so we didn’t really have drive-ins nearby, heck, by then they were mostly gone anyway, but Dad pulled it off. Mom used to laugh and tell him he was a kook—that was her big word—but he did things anyway and she liked it deep down. I remember seeing moths flash back and forth in the light of the projector. I haven’t thought about that in years. . . .”
She turned and kissed him. It was a different kiss than any of the others that came before it. It was a kiss of gratitude and understanding and something else Margaret couldn’t name. It had something to do with the quiet night, the gentle crickets, the memory of bright flowers drifting down a hillside wrapped in layers of drifting fog.
* * *
With his window cracked, Gordon heard the spring peepers calling from the fire pond beyond the barn. It was early still and he did not feel sleepy, but Grandpa Ben had read him a story and turned out the lights and so it was time to rest. Secretly Gordon thought Grandpa Ben needed sleep: that was what adults did. They took their own moods or needs and projected them onto kids. Gordon didn’t have words for these concepts, but he understood why he was in bed and why it was still twilight outside.
He danced the saw-chuck guy across his stomach and let him begin a fight with the meerkat. But the fight felt halfhearted. The saw-chuck guy paused once or twice, then decided to ride on the meerkat’s shoulder. Lately they had become friends, although occasionally the meerkat still posed a threat—he was wild and unpredictable, like King Kong, Gordon thought—and the saw-chuck guy needed to be vigilant. But they walked around the bed a little bit, coming close to the edge and nearly falling off, then climbing back to the safety of his stomach with the soldier happily whispering into the meerkat’s ear.
Then for a while Gordon puzzled over the spring peepers. What he wondered about, particularly, was the idea of frogs watching him. They were peepers, after all, and the notion of hundreds of frogs resting in the pond grass, their eyes trained on the house, weirded him out. Why would they watch? The only reason to watch, Gordon figured, was to plan an attack. But he couldn’t quite get his mind around the idea of frogs marching on a house, so as he listened he involuntarily moved the saw-chuck soldier into a defensive position, getting him ready for karate chops if the peepers sprang into action.
In small pulses, sleep stole up on him. He heard his grandfather’s radio, the broadcast from Fenway Park, and he listened as Grandpa Ben cleared his throat. An empty spot existed where his mother’s sounds should be, but that was okay. She would be home tomorrow, he reminded himself. He did not think of her arrival with anything resembling clarity. His mother represented warmth and comfort, and his blood grew quieter remembering her. A breeze came off the pond and he smelled cows and mud and water. Then the curtains lifted and waved good night, and the saw-chuck guy slid from his hand and landed at the meerkat’s feet. The meerkat had a chance to devour the saw-chuck guy at last, but the larger animal ignored him. In the tall grass the peepers called for mates, their tiny clouds of vaporous breath on the cool evening setting around the house.
* * *
Charlie sat on the terrace and smoked a cigar. It was a small luxury to smoke a cigar, one he did not indulge in often. He liked the weight of the cigar in his hand, the sweetness of the smoke as it curled and rose to the night’s heavy moisture. He had asked Margaret if she minded, and she had answered by lighting the cigar for him, her leg suggestively draped over his for a moment, then calling room service for two good scotches. She was still waiting for it while he smoked, and he didn’t mind the moment alone, the chance to clear his head and consider the next day.
It was coming to an end. That was clear. It was not something he wanted or desired, but he felt powerless to change what was inevitable. He squinted against the smoke and reminded himself that he had known it all at the outset. It did no good to pretend otherwise. She had not misled him nor had she pretended to be anything but what she was: a devoted wife. He understood how difficult these couple days had been for Margaret. She was not prissy or prudish—quite the contrary—but she had a genuine decency and he knew she felt troubled going against her innate sense of fairness. Ultimately, it was not even about Thomas any longer. She answered to something deeper, something foundational in her nature, and she could not escape those moral considerations. It reminded him of a Shakespearean tragedy, a character born with a fatal flaw, except in Margaret’s instance it was not a flaw but an unassailable strength. But the strength was the wounding flaw, and vice versa, and he let the thought go as he blew a large circle of smoke into the air and watched it drift and settle away from the building.
But time would tell. He did not mean to be cunning, nor to plan too well, but he was willing to wait to see what would happen. He loved her, he realized. He understood it with a brutal simplicity, with a pure, painful comprehension. He wondered if most men didn’t reach toward love faster than they truly understood it. Yet it was here now. He loved Margaret and wanted her for his own. He did not delude himself that he couldn’t live without her. That was the damnable thing: people could always live without one another. The movies pretended otherwise, but it simply wasn’t so. Life moved on and one went with it. It might have been easier, frankly, if it had been some crazy affair. He might have let that go and moved on without too much pain, but with Margaret it was different. He knew he had discovered something solid and honest and he knew unquestionably that he could live beside her for the rest of his life. He did not have to think twice about that, and as he rolled his cigar ash gently on the edge of the table, letting the white flakes fall to the stone floor, he saw what a wonder it was to know without doubt that he had met the woman he had searched for all his life. No, that made it sound too grand, he decided. But she was the one. That was as simple as he could frame it in his mind, and he took a tiny whiff of smoke into his lungs and coughed gently, the smoke mixing with the scent of flowers and the rich earth and the mossy sky above.
What now, he thought. Did they wake up tomorrow and say good-bye? One final night in bed t
ogether? He knew he wouldn’t—he couldn’t, was more accurate—pursue her in Maine unless she permitted it and he doubted she would. It would make things too hard, and so they would go apart when everything he understood about the world told them to stay together. He could take on Gordon, it would be an honor, and they could come with him overseas, and they would live together as they had these past days and life would be simple and beautiful. That could be done and the only thing standing in the way of it was not Thomas but Margaret.
He blew another cloud of smoke, a thin, hot stream that rubbed his lip as it left his mouth, and a moment later she appeared on the terrace with their drinks. She smiled, obviously pleased. She swung her leg over his and reached back and put one drink down on the small table. She sat on his lap, facing him. She gave him a small sip of scotch and took a small sip herself, then kissed him deeply.
“Oh, Charlie,” she whispered, her body and breath close, “I’m so happy right now.”
“I am, too.”
“I like you out here and I like coming out to you. And I like that you have a cigar now and then . . . not many, for your health, I mean, but I like it. My father smoked a cigar once in a great while and I always knew he was happy when he did it just as I knew you were happy out here.”
He kissed her again. He started to pull back, but she tucked closer to him and kissed him hard. She put her lips next to his ear.
“I had been sleepwalking when I met you, Charlie. I had. I know I’ve told you some of this already, but it’s true. You woke me up. You’re my Prince Charming.”
“I get to keep you, then, and to live happily ever after.”
She kissed his neck, his cheek, his lips. The cigar smoke licked across the side of the chair and drifted across the lawn.
“People go to sleep all the time and don’t even know it,” she said. “That’s what you taught me.”
“You weren’t asleep, really, Margaret. You have your son and the farm work and your husband. You had too much to do to be asleep.”
“I love the farm, it’s true. But deep down I was numb in a way I didn’t realize. I had given up on having small joys like these. Not all the way, not completely, but I had given a big shrug to everything. But I see now it was wrong to do that. You have to keep trying, don’t you? That’s the whole game, to keep trying. I see that with you.”
He took a deep breath and reached around her to put the cigar away. She started to get up, perhaps thinking she was too heavy on his legs, but he gathered her closer. She reached over and put the glass on the table and curled into him. He smelled the earth and watched the sun sink through the trees.
Chapter Twenty-three
From the shower, Margaret peeked out to watch Charlie shave. He stood in the foggy bathroom, his chin poked forward, his hand dragging a razor over his cheek. How quickly, she thought, they had become intimate. They could share a bathroom, sleep beside each other, navigate a trip. They had made love every day, discovering new, pleasurable things, each of them growing bolder with practice. Margaret realized again that she had missed living with a man. It seemed a peculiar yearning to her, living as she did with two men, but that was different. She liked the thumps and heavy footsteps a man made; she liked the cigar and the scotch and the firm way Charlie handled the doorman. She liked his strength, his force, his steadiness. It felt as if she were a slightly tippy canoe that now had an outrigger.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, his eyes crinkling a little to see her through the fog.
“You, Charlie. Is it strange that this feels so easy?”
“Yes, a little bit.”
“I can’t believe how it is between us.”
“Should we have a fight? An experimental fight just to sample the waters?”
“I can’t imagine fighting with you right now.”
“Give it time. Now, why don’t you pull back the shower curtain and let me see you naked?”
“You’re a horrible man.”
But he turned and stepped across the tub. She ducked back into the stream of water, squealing a little as she went. A second later he had stepped out of his boxer shorts and climbed in with her. A little shaving cream ran off his cheek. He kissed her. His lips still tasted of cigar and scotch.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, still holding her in his arms.
“You have to say that. We’re in the shower.”
“I’m going to buy you a really big steak or a lamb chop or something that requires a bib.”
“I’m starving.”
“Then we’ll go for an evening walk like proper ladies and gentlemen.”
“I’d love to go for a walk. All right, you finish here and let me dress,” she said. “I’m showered out.”
She kissed him again and stepped out of the tub. Steam covered the bathroom. She wrapped her hair in a towel, wrapped a larger towel over her body, then walked outside. The change in temperature between the two rooms made her slightly light-headed. She lifted her small suitcase onto the bed and tried to think of something new to wear. But the cupboard was bare, she admitted, and Charlie would have to be satisfied with a variation on the same old outfits.
Before she could decide what to wear, her cell phone rang. It took her a moment to find it among the jumble of clothes and odds and ends scattered around the room. She glanced at the incoming number—Blake—and almost let it ring unanswered. But then she thought about Gordon, and she thought about Blake herself, and she flipped it open and said, “Hello?”
Nothing came back to her except the strangled breath of a sob.
“Blake?” Margaret asked, stopping everything to listen. “Blake, what is it?”
But Blake couldn’t speak. Behind her, Margaret heard Charlie turn off the shower. Margaret took a step outside and snatched her scotch glass off the table.
“What is it, honey?” Margaret asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Donny,” Blake said, but Margaret could tell there was more.
“What about Donny? He isn’t hurt, is he?”
“No,” Blake answered, her breath stuttering and punching holes in the next thing she said. “He wants a divorce.”
“Oh, Blake, I’m so sorry.”
“He said,” Blake said, and Margaret pictured her friend squaring her shoulders, slowly getting control of herself, “that he doesn’t have any feelings for me. None. He said we were just roommates.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Blake.”
“He said he wants to be free to pursue other options. Those were his words. ‘Other options.’”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the car in the driveway. I didn’t want to talk around Phillip.”
“And where is Donny?”
“He left.”
“For good?”
“I don’t know. He took a bag and drove off.”
“Do you think he’s seeing someone?”
“That was the first thing that came to mind. Donny’s too lazy to fend for himself without a woman. Do you know what I mean? He’s not going to live in a motel and go to a Laundromat and do all of that. He needs a woman. He wouldn’t have the guts to leave unless he had another situation lined up.”
“Do you have any suspicions?”
“No, not one.”
“Well, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, should we? It’s all raw and new. Give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.”
Margaret saw Charlie step out of the bathroom. For an instant her eyes fell on his leg, the mechanical foot. She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said, Blake. Charlie nodded and started to dress. Margaret sat on a chair near the door to the terrace. Water dripped out of her hair onto her shoulders.
“Is he right there?” Blake said. “I’m sorry. I’ll let you go.”
“No, you
will not, Blake. Charlie’s going to go to the bar and have a nice big scotch and wait for me. Or maybe he’ll sit out on the terrace and finish his cigar. And I’m going to talk to you as long as you need me to talk to you.”
“He smokes cigars?” Blake asked, her voice slightly brighter.
“Yes, it turns out he does.”
“I like cigar smoke at ball games.”
“I do, too.”
“I’m sorry to bother you with all this. It just took me by surprise. I mean, I knew we weren’t Ozzie and Harriet, but I didn’t think we were on the edge of a divorce. I don’t know what I thought. Maybe Donny is smarter than I am. Maybe he’s more willing to see it clearly.”
“Little by little, Blake. Just take a deep breath. There’s nothing you can do right now. He’s not going to leave his business.”
“No, he likes that too much. He likes building it. That’s one good thing about him.”
“And he’s going to continue being a dad to Phillip.”
“Yes, when it’s easy for him.”
“Okay.”
“I could kill him right now, you know that? I could. Then in the next instant I think I love him so much it’s going to kill me. I’m all turned around.”
“What did he say exactly? How did it happen?”
“He came in early. From work. He didn’t look as dirty as he usually does and it’s not like him to knock off early at this time of year. This time of year he’s going flat-out. Maybe he was trying to get home before Phillip. I figured he had just stopped in for a second on his way out to someplace else. Back in the day he would do that just to say hello. But he sat at the kitchen table and he announced that he needed a change. Simple as that. No big preamble. He said he didn’t feel the same way about me. . . .”
Blake broke off and started to cry. Charlie stepped over, leaned down, and kissed the side of Margaret’s neck, and she reached with her hand and touched his cheek. He nodded, understanding, then he went outside onto the terrace. Margaret leaned forward and saw him light a match and puff at his cigar. She smiled, but then turned her attention back to Blake.
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