Everyday People

by Stewart O'Nan

  “What’s the community center again?”

  “Day care and after-school programs for single working mothers. Your bill.”

  “And funding’s done when—fiscal ninety-nine?”

  “First of the year.”

  He would still officially be in office then, for three more weeks. He thought of Armstrong’s transition team moving new furniture into the cleaned-out suite, the troughs left in the rug from the cherry file cabinets, Sylvia’s desk, and he could feel the hotel danish from this morning knifing upward, its jagged tip lodged just under his heart. Thirty-six years of public service. And it was his own fault, that was the sad thing. Stepped on his own dick, that was the phrase they used on the hill. He imagined it felt about the same, but with the crucial difference that at some point you stepped back off it. He patted his jacket for his roll of Tums, but it was gone.

  Magically Sylvia offered him one from her bag. The orange-flavored, his favorite. She thumbed one out for herself, a habit she’d taken up recently and for which he felt responsible.

  “Do we get lunch?” he asked.

  “At the center. Sudanese cuisine by the sixth-graders.”

  “Peanut-squash soup again.”

  “I brought the Maalox.” She flashed him just the top of the bottle—the mint.

  “What would I do without you?” he said, with too much truth in it, but she just shrugged it off. It was one reason he loved her: She refused to be sentimental. He could keep her on as his personal assistant, they both knew, but it would be a different life (as if this was exciting). And Muriel didn’t want anyone around. He was unsure if retirement held anything for him other than boredom and then, mercifully, death. The idea of writing his memoirs offended him as it would his father, a man with no patience for vanity. He supposed he would be in the same demand as now, the congressman emeritus, the gray eminence, but without the funding or the clout the position seemed untenable, pathetic, like Hall of Fame ballplayers buttoning up their uniforms to run around potbellied and wheezing on old-timers day. Muriel expected them to travel—Europe, Africa, the Far East. Ten years ago she’d left the rubber-chicken circuit unceremoniously, simply refusing to attend another fund-raiser. The society pages made a fuss for one season, speculated about her health, and then she was free, at home with her roses and her bridge club (bid whist, really), visiting Terrence and the girls without him, becoming, unopposed, the true representative of the family. When, he wondered, had he begun to envy her?

  Ahead, a single photographer lurked outside the community center, a low bunkerlike cube of raw concrete the rain turned the color of a shopping bag, and with a shame not quite equal to an earlier pride Martin read his own name engraved above the front doors. The driver rolled up slowly, giving the photographer time to plant himself in an opportune spot, setting his bag down on the wet sidewalk between his feet as if someone might steal it. Martin prepared to smile heartily, tonguing his upper bridge in place. He imagined the captions that would run under this shot for the next few months. ROBINSON SAVES FACE, QUITS.

  “Are you quitting?” his father would say when he went silent in the face of his criticism, when the boy he’d been looked at his shoes, at the tendrils and leaves curling repeatedly in the pastoral world of the rug. “Or do you have something else? If you have something else, then I would be very interested to hear it.”

  By then he would be seeing the room through a wavy curtain of tears, some falling on the carpet like raindrops, darkening the suede uppers of his shoes in spots. “No sir. I have more.”

  “All right, let’s hear it then.”

  And this time he would get it right, or more of it, so they would be forced to go through the same routine again—five, ten times, his father pretending to be reasonable, even patient with him—to the end of Demosthenes’ defense of Athenian freedom, Roosevelt’s New Deal speech.

  He had nothing more now. His own feasibility study of the busway had given the city the means of shoving it up his ass. That they’d doctored their own environmental impact studies of the other two (white, middle-class) sites was a moot point. He should have buried his or simply aborted it. How it got out he wasn’t sure, and that only hurt worse. Like Sylvia said, it’s one thing to be ignorant, another to be dumb. The pundits implied he was senile, though they were careful not to use the word.

  He tongued his bridge again and checked his pocket for today’s remarks—brief, and actually written by him (though, of course, for another occasion; it was an all-purpose piece, plug-and-chug).

  “The name of the director,” Sylvia tested.

  “Mrs. Lane.”

  “Belva Amos. Ms. Mrs. Lane’s with the city now.”

  “Like everyone else,” he said.

  When he stepped out into the wind, he smiled and gave a little wave past the photographer. There was no crowd there to greet him, but he knew from experience that he would look better in the paper, more authoritative, the center of attention. Sylvia had turned it into a joke: the invisible majority. Lately they were all he had left.

  Inside, Belva Amos was waiting with the children, all of them swaddled in Kente cloth. A boy and girl had been deputized to wrap him in it as well, as if he were royalty. He smiled as the photographer lined up another shot, shook Ms. Amos’s hand with a solid but not steely grip (flash, poof), and followed her into the gym for the dance program, Sylvia by his side.

  A good crowd had turned out, the bleachers filled with young mothers dandling babies on their laps, a few older folks still wearing their jackets despite the heat. A percussion ensemble warmed up at half-court, the children in their Kente outfits finding their assigned spots on the floor. Beneath the sharp smell of sweat and floor polish, he could make out a touch of cardamon from the hall, a bite of curry powder, and the danish leaned on his heart like an iceberg.

  Sylvia saw him wince and gave him a concerned look, and now it was his turn to shrug her off. The Tums would kick in, give it a minute.

  The drums thunked and flammed, and the children went into their dance, flinging their arms above their heads like pitchers, doing energetic kung fu kicks. He was sweating up by his hairline, and above his lip.

  “This is an ancient harvest dance called Capeoira-Angola,” Ms. Amos confided, and he nodded. He recalled seeing a dance of the same name during a trip to Zaire years ago, but it didn’t resemble this. The children seemed to be enjoying themselves though, and the crowd was bouncing along, mothers clapping their babies’ hands together. It had taken him so long to enjoy moments like these, always worrying about what needed to be done back at the office, that now they struck him with an odd melancholy, as if he’d wasted the richest part of his life. He was too serious, too caught up in his job. It was an accusation Elise, his first wife, had leveled at him and that he, at the time, accepted with pride. When she left him, he delighted in proving her wrong by becoming addicted to Percocet and gin and making a fool of himself with any pretty woman within his vision, not a small number.

  Watching the dancers whirl, he thought of detox, the generosity of his constituency, the twin miracles of Muriel and Sylvia. Another chance. He would always be saved by a woman, something his mother had never done for him, though he could see her love of quiet in himself, her wish for a sane and elegant world in which to live her days. But overwhelmingly he was his father’s son. That turned out to be the answer to so many questions, like today’s. Why was he here? Why did he insist on completing his term? What did he think he could accomplish? Everything went back to those afternoons in his father’s study, the lesson being not simply diction but never quitting, never giving up, no matter what the cost. He’d learned well.

  The drums stopped, and almost simultaneously the dancers. Applause, whistling. He stood, and so everyone else around him did too. The photographer decided it wasn’t a shot, went back to dig in his bag for another lens.

  Next was lunch, his words of encouragement (“You know they’re screwing me. Good luck getting any funding from that bastard
Armstrong!”), then a tour of the classrooms, and finally a chance to talk with some of the children. Congressman Robinson’s schedule was tight, Sylvia reminded Ms. Amos, so they all hustled out into the hall and headed for the cafeteria, into the heavy scent of boiled squash and cardamon, the crowd bunching up behind them.

  The tables they sat at were designed for schoolchildren, and he hunched over his soup. It was thick and hot, not as spicy as the real thing, but still the first bite landed in his stomach like a shot of scotch. He looked to Sylvia, who knew.

  “It’s very good,” he said earnestly, taking another spoonful to prove it, following it with water. It was filling at least, and after half a bowl he could plead that he was stuffed. Lots of stops, had to travel light.

  He was looking over his remarks—an actor’s trick, rereading them constantly so the words were closer to you, more concrete, less likely to confuse you with their meaning—when a woman materialized behind him. She was younger than Sylvia, pretty but with a hardness about her mouth. A cold wave and lipstick. Beside her stood a young mother in braids, obviously her daughter, hefting a baby in a blue jacket.

  “Hello,” he said, searching for Sylvia, who had just as suddenly vanished.

  The woman snaked out her hand for him to take. “I don’t know if you remember me. My name is Ruth Owens.”

  He waited, leery of answering.

  “We dated a little, way back in the eighties.”

  A bad time, he wanted to say. “That is way back.”

  “This is my daughter, Vanessa, and her son, Rashaan.”

  “Hello.”

  “I know this is going to sound crazy,” she said, her daughter swaying beside her with the child, “but,” and though this had never happened to him or anyone he’d ever known, he knew exactly what Ruth Owens was going to say. He was beginning to remember, in the same way his father’s house came back to him, the face she wore beneath this one, her muscular back, the scent of her breasts. It had not been a bad time but a strange one, full of places he’d never be again, nights that ended well into morning, cabbies paid with hundred-dollar bills, the change too complicated, stuffed uncounted into his pockets. One day he woke up in his closet, a dozen suits pulled over him like a quilt.

  “I was wondering,” she said, “if maybe we could speak privately.”

  “Not today,” he said, checking on Ms. Belva Amos, still spooning her soup.

  “I wrote down my number. I figured you’re in town until Sunday. We would really appreciate it if you could call.”

  “Thank you.” He slipped it in his jacket. We.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d ever do this.”

  Sylvia was coming back, apparently from the ladies’ room, because she had her bag. Ruth Owens stood above him, waiting for an answer. The daughter looked at him with contempt, gave him the side of her face as if disinterested. The boy played with her braids.

  “We’ll talk,” he said.

  Sylvia took her seat and immediately sensed trouble from them. “Can I help you with something?” she asked. “I’m the congressman’s press secretary.”

  “No thank you,” Ruth Owens said, and led her daughter away, only the little boy looking back over her shoulder.

  “Who was that crew?” Sylvia asked.

  “An old friend of Elise,” he said—sufficient cover because the subject was off-limits, as if it had happened to someone else, a respected, dead friend.

  Throughout dessert, a yam tart bursting with brown sugar, he contemplated what it would mean if she really was his daughter, what it would mean to Muriel and their plans. Up at the lectern, it was impossible not to pick them out of the crowd—her, really. Pretty, and strong, capable of shutting him out. He tested her face, her head, for any resemblance, but found none. Not that he would call Ruth Owens a liar. At that time of his life he was capable of anything. Not murder perhaps, but certainly the worst, most reckless negligence. This would be it.

  He could not remember her name, and, prematurely, it shamed him. He could not recall a specific night with her mother, a room with a bed, music with supper, how they’d met; there was just the memory of her face beneath his, her skin smooth under his fingers. Ruth, a name he liked. She had been beautiful, he knew; you could still see it. Too late, too late —wasn’t that how the poem went?

  The applause for him was polite, though no one stood. He was hot in his suit, a result of the lights, but also the surprise. Ms. Amos came on and thanked everyone for coming, and when they made their tour of the rooms, he strained to find the three faces, for the boy would be in a sense his grandson. Would be his grandson. They were gone, and not waiting for him outside by the limo. It was still spitting; the photographer had disappeared at some point, flown off to a more important story. He waved anyway, smiled for Ms. Amos and the children.

  Inside, as he sat with his belt cutting into his stomach, the danish seemed to have moved behind his heart, squeezing it forward against his ribs. The soup bubbled underneath it like a sea of lava, and he clutched his gut.

  “Want the Maalox?” Sylvia asked, already pulling it out.

  He twisted the cap, loosening a few threads of white crust, then tipped the mouth to his. Going down, it coated his organs like spilled paint, made the clog that much more solid. They were headed west on Highland, back toward the Sears.

  “What’s next?” he said apologetically. Forgetful. Maybe the pundits were right.

  “Goines.”

  “Ah, my friend.” It was hard to breathe, and he touched a button but the window refused to budge. He tried another, and a fleck of rain caught him on the cheek, the swish of the tires loud now. He thought he might vomit.

  “Martin,” Sylvia said, “are you okay?”

  He felt her hand on his arm and leaned toward the cool air, the bones in his shoulder burning. For a moment he couldn’t see, nothing but an electric checkerboard glowing like a test pattern, a flashbulb’s dazzle. A spike of lightning shot up one biceps and landed in his chest, spread like fire. And then, like fog lifting, it stopped, dissipated like rain, his skin chilly. Sylvia still had his arm.

  “I’m all right,” Martin said. “Just a little heartburn.”

  “Where’s the nearest hospital?” Sylvia asked the intercom, and the driver told her. “Take us there.”

  “I’m fine now.”

  “You lost consciousness, Martin.”

  There was no use arguing with her when she was right. He leaned back in the seat. He felt like jelly, spineless (hadn’t Armstrong called him that after the busway debacle?). They were going by Spofford, speeding, but even at fifty he could see there was nothing left, that the only place he could retreat to was his memory. The front hall with its marbletopped table, his father’s natty houndstooth hat doubled in the mirror. His father, his mother—everything he loved was gone. Now East Liberty.

  He was tired and closed his eyes. The danish stayed there, butted up against his heart, throbbing like a rotten tooth. It would not be such a bad thing to die here, where he’d come from.

  But he couldn’t die now, he thought; he was a father, he had responsibilities, a new grandson to take care of. Violet, the girl’s name was. Ruth Owens. He needed to call her, the number was in his pocket.

  He tried to say this out loud, reaching for it, and Sylvia stared at him in terror.

  The pressure knotted around his heart and twisted again, making him take a deep breath.

  “Martin,” Sylvia called, far away. And then it was like his memories of the nights he’d forgotten, when he’d become a man even he despised, let alone the ghost of his father. It could have been Ruth Owens, it could have been anyone. Midnight, and someone trying to break through the numb armor of his drunkenness, the Percocet sealing him in like ice. Like now, he could sense her hands on him but he couldn’t feel anything. And both times—this was a new admission, after all his talk of selflessness, his indefensible principles—he really didn’t care if he did die. The job was all he was,
like the speeches that appeased his father.

  The fist clenching his heart eased, and he could see again. Sylvia’s face was inches from his, her fingers in his mouth, then gone, nothing but the ceiling. Somehow he was lying across the seat, trees flying in the windows, telephone lines. He was someone’s father, someone he didn’t know, someone he’d never shown love.

  “Help me,” he said.

  O HAPPY DAY

  THEY WOULD HAVE understood if she didn’t want to sing at the thing. Friday night Jackie could feel the other sopranos timidly seeking her out when they practiced their three numbers, listening to see if she’d learned her parts. She’d have to be an idiot not to after so long.

  No, she didn’t mean this; she wasn’t angry with them, only their well-meaning pity. They were her friends.

  They’d practiced every night this week, and tomorrow they were doing a full dress rehearsal at the dedication site. Some of them seemed surprised she was still with them, every practice expected her to be missing, as if her presence at the ceremony would be an affront, bad manners after what had happened there.

  Most of those who wondered about her were younger, girls just beginning their families. Women closer to her age understood: Tragedies would come and go, only faith stayed the same. This was the one time each week she could call her own, the time she felt closest to her true self. It was a time for forgetting the rest of the world, even and especially her worst troubles. Sunday wasn’t quite like this—only the altar and the nave lit, the rest of the church dark, pews running back into blackness, saints looking down like stony ghosts from their niches, and when Sister Turner had them stop in midnote, their voices echoed, caught in the vaulted dark. There was peace in singing, in being alone in God’s house, and she needed it now.

  And strength, Lord. Tomorrow she would be seeing the spot for the first time, and she knew these same people would be watching her, checking for the littlest sign of grief, waiting for her to give way. She’d glimpsed the bridge in passing, riding in the van, or from the bus on her way to work, but she hadn’t walked down the freshly lined exit ramp and stood there looking up, imagining that night—the rain and then the flashing lights of the ambulance. She knew that Eugene had, and understood just as keenly that Harold didn’t dare. In that, at least, they were the same. Parents. Helpless. Tomorrow she would be there without him, in her robe, as if on a lone pilgrimage.