Red Plaid Shirt

by Diane Schoemperlen

  DESCRIBE THE BALLPARK:

  The ballpark is just like any other, with a green wooden fence around the field and chicken wire around the dugouts, where the junior-high kids hide in the winter after school to smoke menthol cigarettes with their mitts on. Richard knows but has never examined the implications of the fact that this ballpark, where he first made love to a sixteen-year-old girl named Eileen who later became his wife, is now the Safeway store where they do their grocery shopping on Saturday afternoons.

  Richard is very comfortable in this city and everything about it is just fine with him. When the new shopping malls and suburbs go up, it seems to him that they’ve always been there. He believes in progress. A small businessman in a small city, he has never been accused of anything, least of all being parochial. Sometimes he feels flawless. Even his affair with Marilyn seems innocent. They’re not torturing anyone, not even themselves. They’re not like other cheaters. They are in love.

  They are driving in the snow past City Hall, a domed limestone building with pillars and coloured floodlights, a small fountain into which tourists and townspeople alike toss coins hopefully all summer long. Tonight the floodlights colour the falling snow red, blue, and green like some curtain poised to go up on a magic show. While they wait at the corner for the light to change, Richard gazes up at the dome with a great deep satisfaction, as if he’d built it with his own two hands.

  “Beautiful,” he says.

  They have passed this building a thousand times and every time he says just that. It is reassuring somehow. Marilyn pats his hand on the gear shift and lovingly agrees with him. Force of habit.

  Richard thinks that Marilyn doesn’t know that his wife used to work there as a file clerk in the very early years of their marriage, in the happier times.

  DESCRIBE THE HAPPIER TIMES:

  The kitchen of Richard and Eileen’s first apartment was always sun-splashed, the lemon light pouring in through frilly white curtains, running all over the black-and-white tile floor. There was no dust anywhere. Eileen was at the sink in her apron, the one with the enormous purple grapes embroidered around the hem. Her earrings sparkled and her painted fingernails flitted through the fragrant soapsuds like goldfish. She was always simmering something in a big black pot, spaghetti or chili—they weren’t well off yet, they were still struggling, stirring up gallons of something spicy with hamburger and tomato sauce that would go a long way. They were tired, they’d worked all day. Gliding past each other like skaters on the shiny kitchen floor, they touched unconsciously, sweet pats and slow circular rubs across weary shoulder blades.

  Over supper they talked about their friends, their jobs. She was still a file clerk, he was still a cook, frustrated and scheming, dreaming of owning his own restaurant someday. “Poor Richard,” she said. On Friday nights they had a bottle of red wine and made love on the living room floor in front of the tv, which flickered like a fireplace. Richard covered himself with her apron when he went to the kitchen to get the cigarettes. Sometimes they talked about having children but Eileen never got pregnant and, as the time for it passed, this was something they stopped discussing and just accepted, going on to other futures, other things.

  Marilyn knows about Eileen’s job at City Hall (although she doesn’t know how she knows or why it seems like such a sadistic secret between them) but she doesn’t know about the apron.

  Marilyn alternates between trying to be more like Eileen (after all, he married her, didn’t he?) and trying to be exactly the opposite. The stupid thing is: she has never met the woman, never hopes to, and yet she cannot buy a blouse without worrying that Eileen has one just like it, cannot make Richard a grilled cheese sandwich without worrying that Eileen does it better, just the way he likes it.

  Once Richard said, “You sound just like my wife.”

  They were talking about travelling, which Marilyn hates, Eileen too. Richard loves it. What Marilyn said was: “I hate living out of a suitcase and I get constipated in strange bathrooms.”

  So then she said, “Well, she can’t be that bad. You married her, didn’t you?” Which, aside from the obvious, also meant: You’ll never marry me, will you?

  Now she says, “I’m starving.”

  Richard says, “You’re wonderful, you’re always hungry, healthy,” and Marilyn imagines Eileen existing on clear soup and green salad, pushing the lettuce listlessly around with her fork, looking pale. Eileen is probably one of those people who says, “Oh my, I forgot to eat today.” Marilyn can eat a whole medium-sized pizza by herself.

  “We’re almost there now,” Richard assures her.

  The city and the streetlights end just past the new Ford dealership. They head north on the highway, singing along with the radio, thinking about how hungry they are, about having some wine when they get there. The restaurant is a new one in the next town where, hopefully, no one will know them.

  Because of the storm, there is little traffic on the highway. The headlights of the few cars which do pass them look secretive, urgent, or sinister. There is no ordinary reason to be out in this blizzard. Marilyn supposes that they must look suspicious too. Seen through the windshield, the snow appears to be coming and going in all directions at once, even up. It is narcotic and irresistible. She cannot help staring straight into it, as into a fire, until her eyes won’t focus and all the flakes are coming straight at her, the way the eyes in some pictures, the saddest, most dangerous pictures, are always looking right at you no matter what corner of the room you’re hiding in. She wants to go to sleep. Richard, driving steadily, seems fortunately immune to this hypnosis.

  Marilyn thinks lazily about driving one night through a snowstorm with her first lover, Luke, to the farmhouse where his best friends, Cheryl and Don, lived.

  DESCRIBE THE FARMHOUSE:

  Cheryl and Don had rented the farmhouse on Mapleward Road, fifteen miles north of town, for only twenty-five dollars a month as long as Don kept the place up. Luke’s car was falling apart, backfiring all the way, machine-gunning through the snow. Luke was smoking a joint and turning his head every two seconds to say something to Marilyn. He was one of those people who cannot talk to you without looking at you. Marilyn was frightened, waving him away, pointing at the road, which was indistinguishable now from the deep ditches on either side. She was angry too.

  “What the hell do you mean dragging me all the way out here in a blizzard?”

  It was something to do with money: Luke had some for Don or Don had some for him. Either way it was stupid and probably the result of something illegal they’d cooked up between them.

  The farmhouse was set back from the road on top of a hill. The car wouldn’t make it up the driveway so they left it down by the mailbox and trudged up the hill toward the old house, which was glowing like a lightbulb in an empty white room.

  Suddenly Marilyn wasn’t mad anymore. She threw herself down in the snow and made an angel, thinking of what a pretty and innocent gesture it was, something that Luke would remember for the rest of his life. They weren’t very happy together anymore and she supposed they were going to break up in a month or two but still: she wanted him to remember her fondly forever.

  Don was out in the driveway shovelling. Luke grabbed up the other shovel and pounded Don on the back till the snow sprinkled off him. Don stopped for a few minutes to say hello to Marilyn, stamping his feet and slapping his leather mitts together like a seal. Then they went to work.

  Inside, Marilyn and Cheryl played cribbage and listened to Janis Joplin over and over again. She was still alive then, not afraid of anything, they figured, showing few signs yet of letting them all down in the end. “Buried Alive in the Blues.” The only heat in the house came from the big black woodstove and they stayed close to it, except when they had to go out back to pee in the snow. Cheryl was wearing a ridiculous outfit that looked beautiful on her: a red cotton dress over a pair of Don’s long johns, a purple vest with mirrors on it, rubber boots, and a headband. Cheryl made Marilyn feel upt
ight and out of it in her jeans and new ski sweater.

  The men came in and dried their socks and mitts on the stove, drank coffee from metal mugs, made some plans for tomorrow night, nothing special: they’d all go out for a few beers somewhere downtown.

  On the way home it was still snowing but Marilyn felt calmer—you were more likely, she figured, to die going someplace else than you were heading home.

  A man stood on top of a snowbank waving something at them. They stopped. He had his pant leg in his hand and there was blood dripping from the meaty inside part of his left thigh.

  He struggled into the back seat and they drove off. He told them in an English accent over and over again the story of how he’d been just walking along minding his own business when a dog came running out of the trees, chewed off half his leg and kept on running. It was a black dog. It hadn’t even knocked him down. He was lucky. It was only one dog. They were said to be running in packs around here. He was just walking along a deserted country road in the middle of the night in the middle of the winter’s worst blizzard. Minding his own business.

  Marilyn watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was sweating and talking, bleeding all over the upholstery and apologizing. It was probably ketchup. He was probably going to kill them and steal the car. He was probably going to rape her and then kill them and steal the car. Luke was driving wildly and trying to think of everything he knew about mad dogs and Englishmen besides that Joe Cocker album. He knew they were supposed to come out in the midday sun. The men laughed at this and Marilyn kept her eyes squeezed shut till she could hear the blood in her ears.

  When they dropped the Englishman off at the hospital emergency entrance, he gave Luke a ten-dollar bill and wouldn’t hear of them coming in.

  Without knowing why it was his fault or what she really meant, Marilyn said to Luke, “One of these days you’ll get us both killed.” By the spring, Cheryl was pregnant and she and Don had taken an apartment in the Franklin Block downtown. After Luke and Marilyn split up, she and Cheryl became good friends. Marilyn often went over to the apartment where Cheryl sat in the La-Z-Boy with her swollen feet up, eating Vanilla Wafers out of the box, watching TV all day in her housecoat. Sometimes she would get sick and come out of the bathroom wiping her mouth and groaning. In the kitchen, she cursed and slammed cupboard doors, craving Corn Flakes. But all the dishes were stacked in the sink, dirty there for days, because washing them made her even more nauseated. So Marilyn would do them, also the vacuuming and the laundry. Cheryl would sit there eating, licking her lips and her fingers, burping occasionally, cradling her stomach in her hands.

  One day Don came home from work early and Marilyn was still at the sink, rinsing and wiping and putting away. Cheryl was asleep with her mouth open. Don came into the kitchen and took the dishtowel out of Marilyn’s hands. He put his arms around her waist and said, “Thanks. I should have married you instead.”

  Now Marilyn is deciding to tell this whole story to Richard because it just might make him see that there are things about her he doesn’t know yet, things he will never understand, is not meant to. He likes to say that he knows her better than anyone else ever will. Sometimes she lets this go by, other times she says, “Don’t be too sure,” or “Oh, you think you’re so smart,” which hurts him and he leaves her alone for a while. But the truth is: he is smart, he is handsome, he is a good lover, and if he hadn’t gone ahead and married somebody else first, he might have been the man of her dreams.

  DESCRIBE THE MAN:

  Richard is wearing a brown leather bomber jacket and a multicoloured scarf which Marilyn knit him last winter to show there were no hard feelings when he took his wife on a ski trip to Banff. She tried not to think of strangling him with the wool or poking the needles up his nose and, sure enough, the scarf turned out perfectly.

  Richard owns a bar and pizza place downtown called Poor Richard’s. It is not a sleazy place — it has red-and-white chequered tablecloths and tacky Italian statues with missing arms and fig leaves, yes, but the cook doesn’t wander around with tomato sauce splattered all over his apron and they don’t deliver. They have an extensive wine list. They feature live entertainment on weekends which always draws a good crowd.

  The waitresses wear tasteful black and red uniforms and do not chew gum, their pencils, or their fingernails. Marilyn has been a waitress there for three years. She likes the uniform because it saves her clothes which will then be in good shape for occasions in her “real life”—which hasn’t arrived yet, but it will. As a woman, she doesn’t think of herself as a waitress per se. She never intended to work at the pizza place for this long. She still has a sense of waiting for something better to come along. She does enjoy the job though, working with the public, chatting with the regular customers who tell her their stories a piece or a drink at a time. Take Curtis, for instance. He owns racehorses. You’d think he was a stable boy the way he comes bow-legged into the restaurant in cowboy boots and those tight jeans. Sometimes she thinks she catches a whiff coming off him of sweat and manure, some kind of liniment. He talks to her about odds, purses, jockeys, his lonely ranch. He has been telling her the story for a week now of how his wife walked out on him five years ago.

  All Marilyn’s customers have something about themselves that they’ve always been wanting to tell. She listens and gives advice when they ask for it. They say hello to her on the street. She is always a little surprised (but proud) that they recognize her out of uniform and without a tray in her hand.

  As a twenty-seven-year-old woman, she doesn’t like to think of herself as aimless but sometimes, depressed, she has to admit that that’s a good word for it.

  DESCRIBE THE WOMAN:

  Under her fur coat, Marilyn is wearing a shiny red dress she has been saving for months. It has silver buttons down the front and a black fringe at the yoke. She also has new black boots. Tonight is one of those real-life occasions she has been waiting for and she expects to feel satisfied and convinced by the time she gets home. She will not let herself consider the fact that she will be sleeping alone and Richard will be sleeping with his wife. Sometimes when they are together, she cannot enjoy herself at all for worrying toward that moment when he will look at his watch and say, “I have to get home.” How does he say it? Afterwards, she can never be sure.

  Because of Richard’s irregular hours and his being in charge of setting up the work schedule, their rendezvous have never been difficult to arrange. Once in a blue moon, his wife decides to go to Poor Richard’s with some of her girlfriends and then Marilyn gets an unexpected evening off. She sits at home in her housecoat, exploring this side of the “other woman” role, crying fitfully if she feels like it, imagining herself getting all dolled up and going down to Poor Richard’s and sitting at Eileen’s table, introducing herself, buying her a drink, a pizza, a dish of spumoni ice cream, imagining herself pouring a drink over Eileen’s head, laughing in her face, telling her that she can have her stupid husband back, he’s not that great, she never really wanted him anyway, imagining herself putting her head down on the table or in Eileen’s lap (ample, she pictures it, aproned) and going to sleep. But more often lately, Marilyn ends up having a long bubble bath, reading and sipping white wine in the tub, admiring her legs as she shaves them, going to bed early and feeling obscurely pleased with herself. Then, in bed alone, she allows herself the short pleasure of fantasizing about Curtis.

  DESCRIBE THE FANTASIES:

  She and Curtis are at the racetrack in the clubhouse which is the exclusive area where the owners and the high rollers sit. He is wearing a white cowboy hat and rings on all his fingers. She is wearing a white dress and sunglasses. They are sipping tall

  frosted drinks with fruit in them. All of his horses are winning. He wants to buy her a red Porsche.

  Or:

  She has just impressed Curtis with a sumptuous supper and is piling the dishes in the sink. There is a saxophone on the radio. The steam from the hot water makes her hair curl p
rettily. Curtis comes up behind her and puts his arms around her waist. He kisses her ear and begins to turn her around slowly, gracefully …

  The fantasies are abbreviated and unconsummated, to keep the guilt at bay. She is, after all, supposed to be dreaming of Richard and the day he will leave his wife and become forever hers. So she does. All the quirks have been worked out of this fantasy by now, everybody knows their lines and everything fits, including all of his belongings into her little apartment.

  Now Richard parks the car a couple of blocks away from the restaurant—a knee-jerk kind of subterfuge. Walking away from it, they hold hands and duck their heads down in the wind.

  DESCRIBE THE RESTAURANT:

  Decorated in the country style, with rustic furniture, old barn wood nailed imaginatively to the walls, quilted gingham placemats and kerosene lamps on the tables, the restaurant is called The Square Dance Room. It is empty tonight, because of the storm, they hope, not the food. Marilyn is still shaking the snow out of her dark hair, thinking that she looks artless and adorable, when the waitress fairly jumps at their table.

  Richard says, “You look like a drowned rat,” to Marilyn and, “Slow night, eh?” to the waitress, who is wearing a square dance dress the same gingham as the placemats. The skirt sits straight out around her on layers of starched crinoline and bumps into everything: the table, the lamp, Marilyn’s arm like a cobweb, as the girl bends to put down the menus and smile sweetly at Richard. Marilyn thinks meanly of a toy clown she once had, the kind with the weighted bottom that bobs and flops drunkenly around at all angles but never falls over on its fat red lips.

  They order a litre of house wine and the waitress do-si-does away.

  Richard makes a toast. “Here’s to our celebration.”

  DESCRIBE THE CELEBRATION:

  Tonight is the second anniversary of their affair. They aren’t sure if they should be talking about their past (they’ve had their ups and downs) or their future together (they don’t know what to expect).