‘I can’t say it.’
‘You want to go.’
After a moment, Patrick nods.
‘I don’t know if the Vietnamese are really so terrible,’ he says, ‘or if Communism is terrible, or anything like that. You know, I don’t even read the newspaper, momma. I just . . . I want to experience something. I want to walk out the front door and see things I’ve never seen before and smell things I’ve never smelled before and . . . and maybe . . . maybe . . .’ He stops, embarrassed with himself, maybe even a little bit ashamed of himself. He closes his eyes, swallows, opens his eyes, and looks at his mom. ‘I’ll report tomorrow, but I’ll tell them you’re sick,’ he says. ‘Maybe they won’t make me go.’
‘No,’ mom says after a while. ‘You should go.’
‘But what about you?’
Mom smiles but it’s an ugly thing. Her lips are dry and white. Her teeth are yellow. But it’s a genuine smile, and it also lights up her eyes. It’s the first time Patrick has seen a genuine smile on her face in a long time. He’s not sure how something can be so ugly and beautiful at the same time, but there it is. Then, just as quickly, it’s gone, and that’s too bad; and Patrick will never know exactly what was going through her mind while that smile was in her eyes, and that’s too bad, too.
‘This isn’t about me,’ mom says.
‘But, you said—’
‘I was afraid. I’ve spent a long time being afraid. But you should go if that’s what you want. I’ve stolen enough of your life, I guess.’ And then she turns away, and simply looks at the far wall. She doesn’t turn back.
Patrick opens his mouth to protest – to tell his mom that he won’t go, that dad left them, and it hurt him in ways he can’t explain, that he just can’t do that to her – but stops before sound comes out. He stops because he thinks about what his life might be like if mom lives another ten years. Will he still be here, almost thirty, lifting her up and carrying her to the couch so that he can change her stinking sweat-stained sheets and apply salve to her bed sores? She’ll only be seventy-two then. Lots of people live longer. Even sick people. The thought terrifies him.
He tells himself that if someone says it’s all right, if someone says you should go, well, that’s not really leaving – is it?
He just – he doesn’t want to be here anymore.
‘Okay, momma,’ he says. ‘Okay.’
He turns and walks out of the room.
16
Diane and Larry stand at the living-room window, looking out at the girl sitting in the courtyard. She’s been sitting there for five minutes, just looking around. It must be cold out there. Diane wishes she’d get up and go inside. But more than that, she wishes Larry would stop lying to her.
‘It’s insulting,’ she says.
‘I’m not lying to you, Diane,’ Larry says. ‘You just want me to admit guilt because you’ve already convicted me in your head. You want me to admit guilt so you can say you knew it, you were right all along. Well, you’re not right, Diane. I’m sorry, but you’re not.’
Diane laughs, despite herself.
‘You manipulative son of a bitch,’ she says.
‘Well, tell me it’s not the truth, Diane.’
‘It’s not the truth, Larry,’ she says.
‘Then why don’t you explain it to me? What the fuck is going through your head?’
‘You want me to explain it to you?’
Larry nods. ‘Yeah. Explain it to me, Diane, since you seem to have it all figured out.’
‘You’re goddamn right I have it all figured out. That’s why I want you to admit guilt,’ she says. ‘I want you to admit guilt because when we had dinner with the Governses last week, Carol kept looking at me like she wanted to say something, like she felt sorry for me. Because you get home hours later than Thomas on bowling night. Because you don’t seem interested in me at all anymore. But mostly,’ she says, ‘I want you to admit guilt because I can smell it on you. I can smell her on you. Every time you walk through that door afterwards, I can smell her, Larry. And your refusal to just admit what you’ve been doing is infuriating.’
She goes silent and looks at his eyes for a response.
He looks back at her and then he looks away. He looks to the corner and stares. He stares as if the answer to this situation might seep up through the carpet and reveal itself to him. When it doesn’t, he turns back to Diane and looks at her silently.
She refuses to speak now. She’s said what she has to say. She won’t fill this silence for him, not even with the anger she is full of.
‘I’m sorry.’ He swallows.
‘You’re sorry?’
Larry nods.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for?’
‘You know what for.’ He licks his lips. ‘Are you really gonna make me say it?’
Diane nods.
‘You did it,’ she says. ‘You can damn well say it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he begins, and he does seem to be having a hard time getting it out. ‘I’m sorry that I cheated on you, Diane. I’m so sorry,’ he says, and now tears are standing out in his eyes, but it’s too late for that. She’s shut off the part of herself capable of feeling sympathy for him. What she feels now is rage and coldness.
‘Who is she?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it matters,’ she says. ‘Of course it matters.’
‘But it doesn’t, Diane. It doesn’t matter. It was a mistake.’
‘A mistake? You left her bed an hour ago.’
Larry doesn’t respond. He stands silently, looking at her, and then he drops his gaze.
‘How long has it been going on?’
‘Jesus, Diane,’ he says, ‘I don’t—’
‘How fucking long?’
Larry looks to the corner again.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Six months, maybe.’
Diane clenches her jaw and says through gritted teeth, ‘You son of a bitch.’
She looks around for something to throw or hit or something and what her hand falls upon is a porcelain horse – a stupid fucking porcelain horse – another gift from Larry’s senile old bag of a mother; she must just sit around all day looking at catalogs and ordering useless crap, which she then pawns off on relatives. Larry must know what’s going to happen next because he backs away quickly and shields himself. Diane raises the porcelain horse above her head and lets it fly. She throws it as hard as she can. It shoots straight through the air, spinning as it goes, head first, then tail, then head, in a straight line, no arc at all, aimed right for Larry’s cheating fucking face, but he ducks, and it shatters on the wall behind him, scarring the paint, exploding, a few pieces of the porcelain embedding themselves in the plaster.
‘Six months isn’t a mistake,’ she shouts. ‘One time is a mistake. Six months is a relationship!’
‘I’m sorry,’ Larry says again, in a tone that makes Diane want to throw something else. And this time she wouldn’t miss. She doesn’t throw anything, though. She only speaks.
‘That’s not good enough,’ she says.
Then she turns away, silently, and walks down the hallway toward the bedroom. She had hoped when she laid out all her suspicions that he would somehow have an explanation that she couldn’t think of, an explanation that evaporated all her suspicions and worries and fears. Even till the last second she hoped that. But once it was out of her mouth and she saw the look on his face she knew. She’d been right and there was no harmless explanation, no matter how badly she wanted for there to be one. There was only the truth.
‘Where are you going?’ Larry says.
‘To pack my things.’
17
Peter sits on the couch beside his wife. Bettie sits on the other side of Anne, swishing white wine around in a red wine glass and watching it. Then she puts the glass to her mouth and swallows the last of it, leaving a film of lipstick on the rim.
Ron stands at the living-roo
m window, looking out. Peter wonders what Anne would do if he decided to leave her for Bettie. He wonders what Ron would do. Ron is the kind of man who claims he wouldn’t be upset by such a thing – if a woman decides to leave, well, that’s just the way it is; there are others – but Peter suspects his feelings are a bit more complex than that. He wonders if Bettie would consider leaving Ron. There were moments they shared that seemed like more than just sex to him, that seemed important somehow.
He wonders if anyone would notice him missing if he left for just a couple minutes so he could clean the whiskey out of the carpet.
‘She’s just sitting there,’ Ron says. ‘She might be hurt. I think I see blood. Maybe we should call the police.’
Anne says, ‘I’m sure someone already has. We shouldn’t tie up the lines.’
Peter can see half a dozen faces in their windows from where he’s sitting on the couch – silhouettes looking out into the night, looking past the night and into other people’s apartments like he’s looking into theirs – and he imagines that Anne is right.
Ron must, too, because he says, ‘True enough.’
So, Peter thinks, at least that’s settled.
Ron wanders to the kitchen. ‘I’m gonna fix myself a drink,’ he says. ‘Vodka tonic. Anyone else want anything?’
Ron is almost two inches taller than Peter, and though he’s a desk jockey same as Peter is, the man intimidates him. He looks like he can take a punch, doesn’t seem like he’d be helpless if his car broke down on the side of the road, probably enjoys fishing and hunting and camping.
‘There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge,’ Anne says. ‘I’d like a glass of that.’
‘Is that what I was drinking?’ Bettie asks.
Anne nods.
‘Me too,’ Bettie calls to her husband. ‘But I already have a glass.’
Peter stands.
‘I’ll take it in there. I could use a refill myself.’
He takes the glass from her, making sure he brushes his fingers across the back of her hand, and then he tries to grab his own tumbler from the cork coaster on the table, but the coaster sticks to bottom of the glass with a water bond, and he can’t shake the damned thing off.
Finally, smiling, Anne reaches forward and pulls the coaster off the glass and sets it back down on the table.
‘Thanks, hon’,’ Peter says, and heads to the kitchen with the wine glass and the tumbler.
When he gets there he finds Ron randomly opening and closing cupboards, looking for glasses, but finding spices, canned goods, pastas, cereals.
‘On the left,’ Peter says.
‘That’s where I was gonna check next,’ Ron says, opening the cupboard, pulling out two tumblers.
‘I still have my glass,’ Peter says.
Ron glances at him and says, ‘So you do,’ puts one tumbler back, and grabs a wine glass in its place. ‘For Anne.’
Peter walks to the freezer and gets out two handfuls of ice, dropping them in the tumblers.
There is a row of liquor laid out on the yellow tiled counter and Ron goes about mixing his vodka tonic and pouring Peter his whiskey. ‘Water?’
‘Yeah, about half.’
Ron nods.
‘How many times,’ Peter says, shutting the freezer and opening the fridge, ‘how many times have you and Bettie . . . uh . . .’
‘Swapped?’ Ron asks, raising a thick black eyebrow.
Peter nods, then goes about scanning the fridge for the white wine Anne claimed was in here, but he doesn’t see it.
‘I don’t know,’ Ron says. ‘Half a dozen or so.’
‘Honey,’ Peter calls.
‘It’s in the door, on the bottom shelf, by the ketchup,’ Anne calls back before Peter has a chance to ask his question.
He looks in the door, on the bottom shelf, by the ketchup, and there it is.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Did you ever fall for one of the girls,’ Peter says. ‘Did you ever fall for one of the girls you . . . you know?’
‘Fucked?’
‘Fucked,’ Peter says, feeling slightly embarrassed.
He pulls the cork from the wine bottle and splits what’s left between the two waiting glasses.
‘I love Bettie,’ Ron says. ‘Swapping doesn’t make me love her less. In a way,’ he says, ‘it makes me love her more. I mean, I’m not gonna lie to you, sex with other women is fun, it’s a nice change of pace, it’s exciting, but you know what’s really exciting? Making love with my wife afterwards. Knowing that even though another man has had her, she’s still mine. Proving she’s mine by . . .’ Ron smiles. ‘You’ve never had an orgasm like the one you’ll have with Anne once me and Bettie leave,’ Ron says. ‘I promise you that. There’s something about the sex right after . . .’ He shakes his head, still smiling. Then he hands Peter his whiskey. ‘Cheers,’ he says.
Peter raises his whiskey and they tap glasses.
‘Cheers.’
Peter drains his and pours himself another.
Ron laughs.
‘I guess you worked up a thirst.’
‘Something like that,’ Peter says.
Then each of them grabs a glass of white wine from the counter and they head out to the living room where their women await them.
Peter walks to the ladies sitting on the couch and hands a glass of wine to Bettie.
‘Here you go.’
‘Thank you,’ Bettie says, smiling.
But Ron isn’t smiling, not anymore. He stands in the middle of the living room, unmoving.
‘That was for Anne,’ he says.
‘There’s two glasses of wine,’ Peter says, realizing that he’s made a mistake – he knew he made a mistake, in fact, since the second he held the glass out to Bettie and saw Anne reach for it, then pull back, a hurt expression passing quickly across her face – but defending himself all the same, ‘does it matter who gets which?’
‘No,’ Ron says.
‘All right, then.’
‘Except why wouldn’t you hand it to your wife?’
‘Bettie was closer.’
‘They’re sitting right next to each other!’
‘Why are you making a thing out of this?’
‘Because,’ Ron says, ‘it just dawned on me what you were saying in the kitchen.’
Anne looks from Ron to Peter, her eyes shining with questions, but she doesn’t ask Peter anything. Instead, she turns back to Ron.
‘What,’ she says, ‘was he saying in the kitchen?’
‘Honey,’ Peter says.
‘I’d like to know, too,’ Bettie says before sipping her wine.
Peter looks from Ron to Anne to Bettie. He feels trapped. How did this happen? All he did was hand a glass of wine to the wrong person.
‘I didn’t say anything,’ he says.
‘Apparently you did,’ Anne says.
‘You’re not in love with my wife,’ Ron says.
‘You told him you were in love with Bettie?’
‘No.’
‘Peter,’ Ron says, ‘you’re not.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Peter.’
‘I . . .’
He feels lost.
‘Trust me,’ Ron says.
‘I . . .’
‘How long have you and Anne been together?’
Peter is too flustered to answer. He still doesn’t know how this happened. Forty-five minutes ago he was thinking this was one of the best nights of his life, and now he’s standing here surrounded – feeling surrounded, anyway – thinking the night might well be going in the opposite direction, thinking it’s well on its way.
‘Ten years,’ Anne says. Then she looks to Peter. ‘We’ve been together for ten years.’
‘I . . .’ He looks at Anne. ‘I know that,’ he says, finally able to get words out in sentence form. ‘I know we’ve been together for ten years. We met on Valentine’s Day, 1954. I know that.’
But
Anne only looks away.
‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ she says. ‘I don’t know why I let you talk me into it.’
‘Ten years,’ Ron says. ‘And how long was it before you knew you loved her?’
‘Why are you interrogating me?’
‘I’m not. I’m trying to make a point.’
‘Then make your fucking point and stop asking me questions.’
‘I’m almost there. How long before you knew you loved Anne?’
‘I don’t know,’ Peter says. ‘Four or five months.’
‘You’ve known me, what,’ Ron says, ‘a year? You talked to Bettie twice in that time, both times at work functions. You don’t fall in love with someone like that.’
Peter looks to Anne. Her eyes are welling with tears, welling and about to overflow with them, and goddamn it, he does not want to see that.
‘Anne,’ he says, ‘I didn’t tell Ron I was in love with Bettie.’
‘Sex can confuse people,’ Ron says.
‘I didn’t tell Ron that I was in love with Bettie,’ he says again, as if that will be enough to make everything better.
‘But you’re not saying you’re not,’ Anne says, and the tears finally overflow and roll down her cheeks.
Peter only looks back at her, not knowing what to say. He does not want to see this. He does not want this to be happening.
‘Peter?’ Anne says.
‘Sex can make people think things that aren’t true,’ Ron says. ‘Don’t let this confuse things between you and your wife.’
‘Will you shut the fuck up? This was your fucking idea,’ Peter says, turning and glaring at Ron. ‘It was your fucking idea.’
‘I thought you could handle it.’
‘You wanted to fuck my wife,’ Peter says. ‘That’s what you thought. You saw my wife and you thought, I’d like to fuck her. That’s all there was to it. You thought I could handle it? Fuck you.’
‘And you didn’t want to fuck my wife?’
‘Say you’re not in love with Bettie,’ Anne says. ‘Just say it, Peter.’
Peter swallows. ‘I’m sorry, Anne. It’s just . . . and I’m sorry, Ron . . . it’s, Bettie and I, we . . . we shared . . .’
‘Peter,’ Bettie says.
‘What?’
He turns to look at her, feeling his stomach drop with fear, suddenly remembering that another person is here who has a say in this – whatever this is.
Good Neighbors Page 8