The Widow’s Husband

by Sheila Evans

  “That’s funny.”

  “Of course Feldman found out who did it, and had Emmett suspended. But Emmett got him back, good.”

  “I hate to ask … tell me.”

  “Emmett found out where Feldman lived, and played that old trick, I was surprised Feldman went for it.”

  “What?”

  “You never heard this? Not very nice to talk about, but what the heck. Emmett filled a shopping bag with cow manure—he had a buddy who owned a dairy somewhere—”

  “That would be Tony Medeiros, I remember him.”

  “Emmett puts this shopping bag on Feldman’s front step, sets it on fire, rings the bell and takes off. Feldman rushes out and stomps on it, on that bag of shit, it’s all over him, all over everything—his steps, his porch. This steaming hot cow shit.”

  “The old trick.”

  “But that isn’t what got him expelled.”

  “Emmett was expelled?”

  “I’ve done it this time … you didn’t know?”

  “Listen, he’s gone, it’s over. Tell me.”

  “Here’s what I heard—I wasn’t there, but I believe it, knowing Emmett. The administration, the bigwigs, all the junior college mucky-mucks, they were celebrating getting the new auditorium built. Remember when they got that big bond issue passed? They built this beautiful new auditorium, perfect acoustics, velvet curtains, the whole nine yards. To celebrate the grand opening, to crow over this achievement, all the wheels who raised the money, plus Feldman, arranged a showing of Steve McQueen—”

  “Steve McQueen movies were bad luck for Emmett.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing … go on.”

  “Steve McQueen in Papillon. A grand opening preview for the grand opening of the auditorium. Remember that movie? McQueen’s serving a life term on Devil’s Island for picking his nose or for leaving the toilet seat up—something minor. This suspenseful scene where he’s escaping a horror of an existence, he’s floating out on the tide in the bay right under the noses of the guards. Silently slipping away without a ripple, absolutely not a sound to be heard, either in the movie or in the auditorium—you could have heard a pin drop. Well, right then, perfect timing, Emmett stood up in the dark of the back—see, the usher was his buddy, he’d let him in—and he gives out this blood-curdling shriek at the top of his lungs. Everybody in there literally jumped out of their skins, it gave them a collective heart attack—oops, sorry.”

  “That’s okay. What happened then?”

  “The dean called him in and canned him. Threw him out of school, let the Army get him.”

  “But he didn’t yell FIRE! He didn’t commit a crime. It was a joke.”

  “Technically, maybe. But see, the administration had it in for him, so when he ruined the party to show off that auditorium … they were out to get him, and they got him.”

  “He went to Vietnam.”

  “Have I shocked you? Let the cat out of the bag? Because he was just a kid, we all were. No worse than anybody else. He was just funnier about it, was all. You want some punch? Here, let me—”

  “Thanks. I appreciate you leveling with me. I knew he’d been rebellious, of course.” I stumble around with my words, at a loss, plate in one hand, cup of punch in the other. That Emmett, oh, that scamp. I want to tell Amy, amuse her with these yarns about her dad. Then again, another part of me is less than delighted with this cache of new stories.

  I knew he had the ability to hold a grudge. The poor teacher. Emmett probably made his life hell. But it had been innocent, hadn’t it? He’d just done what kids do, and it backfired, forced him out of whatever plans he’d had and into the Army. Still, it seemed a harsh sentence for a youthful antic.

  But Emmett had been tricky. He’d had a hollowness, something amiss. He’d not rung true at times, and at times I’d been frightened, had turned back from exploring the depths in him. For example, the wedding ring fiasco.

  A few months ago I took off my wedding ring, because I’ve lost weight and it was loose. A plain gold band, a twin to his, except mine was set with a single jewel, an emerald from his family’s meager store of riches. My ring was handsome, in a stark dramatic way. Anyone could have a diamond, I told myself, a mere molecular arrangement of carbon, one of the commonest elements on earth, extracted by slave labor controlled and manipulated by a few heartless consortiums. But I had an emerald; well, slave labor involved there, too, spawning social ills, devastated landscapes and all that, but not to the same extent. My pure emerald.

  An emerald? No, said the jeweler that I took it to for sizing. A nice piece of glass, but no emerald. I’d been shocked, angry; I’d felt cheated—until I realized that Emmett’s deception had been due to a deep-seated sense of his own lack of consequence. In the end, it affected me, made me feel more warmly toward him than if the stone had been real.

  But there’d been other incidents highlighting his less-than-redeeming qualities. Once he’d Crazy-glued a fifty-cent piece down on the sidewalk and laughed when the paperboy stopped on his route, got off his bike, and tried to pry it up. Once he’d stolen two-by-fours from a building site, rationalizing his theft by saying anyone dumb enough to leave good wood out that close to the street deserved to lose it.

  The bubble gum caper. He stuffed a wad of gum into the keyhole of a car he judged had been parked out front too long. It had a FOR SALE on it, and for someone to leave it there day in, day out, riled him. This was at the apartment complex where we lived before buying the house, thank goodness, because the sun melted the gum into a horrible mess, and the incident had caused a ruckus with the cops coming out and quizzing everybody.

  So I knew Emmett had not always displayed a sterling character, but now I wonder, again, if I’d really known him. Ed says, “I’ve shocked you. Lemme counterbalance with something else that Emmett did. We, Emmett and I, we worked once on a building project, or reclamation project, whatever. This was years ago, right after he got home from ’Nam—you were probably dating him then. At least he wasn’t married yet.”

  “Building project.”

  “Yeah, see, he was kinda mixed up, trying to find himself, but you probably know that, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So we were involved in this program, to help people out, volunteering. What happened was this family’s house burned down, they had four kids, no insurance, lost everything, so me and Emmett helped them rebuild. Worked day and night, never took a day off, or a cent of money from anybody—materials all donated, for the PR, you know. But we did the physical labor.”

  “Yes, non-profit.” I’m remembering those lonely stretches when he left me pining by the phone. Poor me; poor Emmett, good Emmett.

  “See, Peg, he was quite a guy. You want some more of this cheese? Another cracker?”

  “No, I—”

  Vi pushes through the swinging kitchen doors and lays a hand on Ed’s arm. He’s needed. While we talked, the tide has ebbed in the punchbowl, and Vi leads him off to replenish it. I’m alone, looking around. I need to go somewhere and examine these new stories about Emmett. I need to file them away under Unfinished Business, or maybe Old Business. The bathroom. Grab my purse, for cover, and head toward where I know it’s located from my days of Molly Maid-ism. Once there, in an echoing high-ceilinged room done in small octagonal tiles, I contemplate myself in a little mirror on a retractable arm next to the medicine cabinet. I want to talk to someone … Amy? No, I really want to talk to Emmett, who has escaped me.

  Back in the party flow, feeling terribly alone, and still longing to talk, I look around. Where’s Helen? Where are Bruce and Izzie? Who do I know here? I make a circuit of the buffet, I could always eat, but I’m not hungry. At my elbow appears a youngish woman, a tiny thing with crimped, flyaway hair. She says, “I love your earrings, those pinecones are cute.” I thank her, and she goes on, “Your whole outfit, the dress, the stockings, really nice. Those metallic nylons … but on me, well, I can’t wear a thing like that. Too flashy.”
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br />   Her remark puzzles me, but I say they’re not metallic, just extra shiny. I tell her that wearing them is tricky, because, I add, as a joke on me—last year at this time, I’d been chunky—they could make your legs look fat. I tell her I like her outfit, too, although I’m not sure about that. It’s a pale pink flowered print, and for my taste, it’s overkill with too many bows and gathers and ruffles, sort of like Princess Di used to wear.

  I spot Helen’s two-piece blue sashaying into the formal Christmas tree room, and I’m about to head off when a man at my elbow says, “You must be a cable person, from Vi’s side of the party.” He’s loading his plate with ham rollups. “At least I know you’re not a Native Son of the Golden West, from Ed’s.”

  I admit that I’m not a Native Son, and he proceeds to tell a joke, one I’ve heard before. The visitor to the barnyard asks the farmer why one pig has a wooden leg. The farmer relates the pig’s heroics, how it scared off bandits, saved the daughter from drowning, rescued the family from the burning house, and so on. “But why the wooden leg?” asks the visitor. The farmer: “Such a good pig, we couldn’t eat him all at once.” I laugh dutifully while he polishes off a ham rollup. His wife appears—I guess she’s his wife—she snags him, leads him away to bestow a wifely smack on his cheek under the mistletoe. I gaze out at the deck, wonder where Bruce and Izzie are, and then go back to milling around the table, grazing.

  I eavesdrop on a couple of men discussing local politics, a trio of women their hairdressers. The CD of Christmas music is halted, and someone uncorks a sparkling piano piece in the formal tree room. I’m about to wander off toward it when the swinging doors to the kitchen open and Bruce comes out with a platter.

  “There you are! What are you doing?” I cry out gaily.

  “I’m slicing the roast for Vi,” he growls, “because you’re monopolizing her husband, who was supposed to do it. What are you up to!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You told my daughter her legs look fat.”

  “What the hell! I don’t even know your daughter!”

  “That’s her in the pink, right there,” and he motions at the frizzy-haired woman in the Princess Di knockoff.

  “Listen, I didn’t say that at all. If she heard that I said her legs were fat, that’s her problem.” I shake off his hand and stomp down the hall. Glance into the formal living room, see a woman playing the piano, Helen leaning over her. Then swing into the green tree room, navigate toward an empty space on a bone and ivory brocaded couch. Apart from the couch, it’s a warm friendly room done in needlepoint and books. Across from me, a pair of women discusses cookbooks; at a library table two men are looking up something in an atlas. I overhear Dubrovnik. One of them is going to vacation on the Adriatic Sea, has rented a villa for the month of July. How nice, I think, to get away. Just then the fellow next to me, a young guy with longish curly hair and an earring, says, “You work with Tiff, right?”

  “Tiff, yeah, I’m from the cable office. Peg Malone.” I hold out my hand, which is cold from cradling the punch cup, now empty.

  “Jason West. I live with Tiffany. She’s a controlling bitch, isn’t she. You don’t need to answer, but you could if you wanted to. She’s off smoking a joint with the new kid, this candy-ass jerk who’s got them buffaloed. Sure as shit she’ll rat him out, like she did Zack.”

  Our new gofer, that sweet innocent kid—out smoking a joint! And it was Tiffany who blew the whistle on Zack. While I ponder that, he tells his story, unfolding it before me like a length of cloth, a table runner. “See, I’m alone, or was alone, me and my two kids. My wife left, just took off. I was going down the tube when I met Tiffany. Little Melody was three, Justin eighteen months, and there I was, I didn’t know which end to feed, which to diaper. Talk about desperation … you have no idea.

  “Then I met Tiff, it was at the Saturday market, I was trying to buy some tomatoes. Just buy tomatoes! Put some goddamned tomatoes in a sack and pay for them while juggling the kids around in this double stroller thing. I couldn’t even do that! Well, Tiffany steps out of the blue and offers to help me. So you see, the last couple of years she’d been doing it, baggin’ up my life. Organizing me and the kids. I’d be dead without her.”

  He turns to look at me and I see the raw panic in his eyes. “But sometimes I just want to tell her to fuck off. She must be hell on wheels to work with. She must be the bossiest bitch. She comes across so cool, all that punk junk. But I tell you she’s razorblades and knives inside. Watch your back, she’ll stab you. Take it from me—I live with her—but I can’t get by without her.

  “What I really needed, what I wanted was someone I could connect with. Someone who’d take time to stop and smell the roses with me, you know what I mean?” He becomes exercised and begins to jiggle his knee, drumming his fingers on his jumping leg.

  I’m tempted to say there, there, and pat his head. Instead I mutter, “What happened to your wife? I mean, with you and her?”

  “She met this guy, she took off.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “How the hell should I know. I tell you, you can really screw up, you know what I mean?”

  I sit there wondering if Emmett would have come to this same conclusion if he’d had the chance to leave, and if he would have wanted to come back. Probably not. We had no little children to consider; only one big one who irked him.

  I begin squirming to get out of the deep couch. “Excuse me … uh, you want anything? Can I bring you something, uh, Jason?”

  “Nah. I’m okay, thanks. Nice talking to you.”

  Where to now, I wonder. Just then the pink print outfit appears, and Izzie puts her hand on my arm. “Peg, now I know who you are—you’re my daddy’s new one. His project.”

  “What? His project?” I bristle, but then think, no, I’ve got this wrong.

  “He’s been telling me about this woman he’s bringing around. How injured she is. He’s good at that, at helping lost souls, orphans. Can we go outside and talk? We started out on the wrong foot.”

  I follow her out the French doors to the fire pit outside. “Let’s sit here for a minute, okay? I want to tell you how sorry I am that I misunderstood you. How sorry that my dad scolded you on account of me. My dad, well, he’s totally loyal and protective. You have to understand that about him.”

  “Oh, really? I have to?” I feel my cheeks burn.

  “First of all, you should know that he still pines for my mom; they had one of the all-time great love stories, a classic, perfect in every way. But my mom, she went through a bad patch and things fell apart.”

  “She’s remarried.”

  “That’s true, but it isn’t working out, and me and my brother Todd, well, we’re hoping that Mom and Dad will get back together. Given time I think that might happen.”

  “So you want me out of the picture.”

  She laughs. “I can’t put it like that. My dad is a great guy, but he’s naïve. I can’t believe that he knows yet what he wants.”

  “It’s been four years. Time he found out.”

  Now she frowns. “That’s exactly the kind of mean attitude I was afraid you’d have. You need to work with my dad, and I don’t mean at Mountain Valley Cable. I mean cooperate with him while he figures out which way is best for him.”

  “For him? What if I decide that I’m the best for him, or what if he decides that? He’s an adult.”

  “That’s true, but then the guilt would be on you, for breaking up a family. We used to be a close family, and everything was just perfect. For example, did he tell you that he bought that truck just so we could get a twelve-foot Christmas tree, one that would touch the ceiling? Because, see, that was what we wanted. Mom would make thermoses of hot chocolate, and we’d go up to the Mother Lode, pick out the perfect tree, then eat pizza at Sutter Creek … did he tell you that?”

  “As a matter of fact, he did. What do you want me to do, Isabel? Disappear from his life?”

  “That’s entirely up to y
ou, but I just wanted you to know that my dad is not alone, he’s got a whole family, a whole history that you’d be taking on with him.”

  I sit there, staring at this frilly frizzy girl, with the shadow of the monkey puzzle tree on her face. She pats my hand, mutters about how we understand each other, let’s go in, join the party.

  I am numb. There is something dead inside me, and I am glad it’s dead because otherwise I’d be raving with anger, this little snip! I enter the dining room, gulp a cup of punch. I have never been so thirsty. I mingle. I flow with quicksilver ease, fluid with grace while the talk swirls around my silver dress, my bouncy new haircut. I am fine. Such a good party, now that I’ve got my bearings. Either that, or I’m heading out to sea on a life raft.

  Later, in a sort of benediction—the party’s winding down—a group forms around the piano, and we sing carols. Bruce and Izzie have disappeared, thank goodness, and I am in a rare good mood. I finish out the last chorus of Deck the Halls following Emmett’s maxim: if you don’t know the words, hum. Emmett had been a Pogo fan, had memorized and could sing with great gusto about decking us in Boston Charlie, and Nora’s freezin’ on the trolley, WallaWalla Wash and Kalamazoo, but not the real words. Typically, he could master the joke, but not the serious. I will consider this aspect, this judgement, as soon as I’m allowed to go home and mull over my Emmett stories.

  Then in the dark of Helen’s car on the way home, I make small talk, dissecting the party, all the while wishing for silence. Silence to assemble my pride—that damned Bruce—but more importantly, my collage of Emmetts culled from this evening. A design of good and evil? No, that’s too dramatic, too black-or-white. What I have, instead, is a collection of grays, whites, and reds. Maybe some blue, because Emmett couldn’t have been happy with the way his junior college capers had played out. He must have been affected by his expulsion, by the end of his career dreams, whatever they’d been.