“I’m taking you,” she said, feeling the relief of having handled the situation.
If she were honest with herself, it was probably best for Suzie to get to the house earlier, well before sunset and long before the adults moved on to their second or third beverage, but she found the sudden autonomy of her own progeny to be unsettling. Her daughter couldn’t ever know, but if she did, if a couple decades down the road she told Suzie everything, could she understand? She and Kevin had discrete encounters outside their marriage, according to rules that limited the length and intimacy of each engagement, but even having such a meticulous agreement meant that she was compelled to break it. There was nothing intimate anymore about Kevin’s permissive calm or the orchestrated order of their relationship. An affair was a way to knock the walls down and figure out where she was left standing.
The guests arrived when the sun straddled the hills, the rosy light fading behind the thick drifts of kudzu that would smother the land, strangling the nearby trees until the first frost reclaimed them. They parked their cars and rushed to the blue door as quickly as they could without losing dignity. For most folks, gone were the days of muggy stillness, trading niceties on the front porch, letting the moist air purge your skin, but the Wrights had brought back this piece of summer with their screened-in patio. Calvin asked Colleen for an ash tray and then settled into a plush wicker chair in the corner, puffing on a cigar and sipping from the Scotch he’d brought. Sarah, a willowy girl, actually a woman, but the kind who would always seem girlish, arrived alone and made small chat about the conference she went to for research on procrastination. “It’s really liberating,” she said, “to realize that I’m not lazy. I’m just too hard on myself. Things need to be perfect and then I get overwhelmed.” Calvin gave a grunt and a nod, then swiveled in his seat, scanning the patio for some other conversational thread to grasp.
Small cliques gathered, dragging chairs into pods. Awkward silence was soon lubricated by a growing table of BYOB offerings. When Calvin felt comfortable telling his merkin story — the one where a foreign exchange student brought the piece as a historical artifact, knowing that this was a niche research topic of Cal’s, and yet, how does one accept a merkin from a student? — Colleen knew the party was in full swing.
George arrived without Jamie. In the final hour, after she had already fixed her hair and carefully lined her eyes, she lost her grip on her mascara wand and smeared black goo across her lid and cheekbone. “I’ll have to start over,” she said, scouring her face clean. She had stared at George’s reflection in the mirror then and told him to go without her. It wasn’t worth the trouble, she said. He knew he should play the dutiful husband. Find a show to watch on TV and cradle her swollen feet in his lap, but he wanted to preserve this piece of separateness. It thrilled him to be alone at a party. It had been so long.
Colleen’s lips were a brilliant red, the only noticeable alter ation to her natural beauty. George wanted to see the crimson smeared across her face. He wanted to drag his thumbs through the waxy pigment and rub it out. She smiled at him across the room, and he wove his way through the crowd to her side.
“I like your lipstick.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Kevin says makeup is a form of lying.” It was a subtle way of suggesting distance between her and her husband, who was chatting with Holly the has-been actress — now head of a community theater troupe in a neighboring town — and she knew this minor confession of marital dissent increased the likelihood that a man (in this case George, but most men would feel the same way) would want to open up to her, to trade vulnerabilities.
“How’s Jamie?”
George avoided her eyes. “She needed a quiet night in.”
“When I was pregnant with Suzie, I wanted to hide on a desert island. A desert island with air-conditioning.”
“It’s hard to imagine you pregnant.” He immediately regretted the remark. It was too honest. He could only picture her as perfectly coiffed and immutable. He’d seen the way his wife’s body was contorting, the emergence of major arteries bulging beneath her fuzzy skin.
He tried to save himself. “I just meant, you don’t look like a mother.” He realized too late that he had dug himself deeper.
Colleen laughed, a forced trill. She could hear the tinny fakeness, but she was trying to keep things light. She didn’t care what George thought of her — that he objectified her, she knew — as long as she was made to feel put together in other people’s eyes.
Of course, George didn’t know about the abortion she’d had last year. No one knew, not even Kevin. Not even Zach. It had been an easy decision to make. As best they knew at the time, there was probably a fifty-fifty chance her baby would have suffered severe brain damage, the type of damage that would make any complex thought impossible, but the tests that would determine the damage could only be performed after the point of viability, at which point state law would forbid any termination that wasn’t meant to save the mother’s life. Even without the complicated issue of paternity, she could never embrace those odds. She made the appointment, and the nurse she spoke with at the clinic was effusive in her support. Colleen felt she was a woman whose choice had been made for her, by the virus, but the reality would creep into her thoughts late at night. She would recognize that she was relieved to have a justification that felt sympathetic, a reason that was in the daily headlines. Some of the more conservative states were easing abortion access now, worried by the burden of so many babies with little more than a brain stem. There was no point in telling anyone, she decided. She was saving Zach the added tragedy, and she was saving Kevin the drama. He was a pragmatic man with his own dalliances, she knew. What did she owe him, really?
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” she said, grazing George’s wrist with her freshly polished nails.
He blushed, and she was gratified. They stood for a moment, eyes shifting to others as they maintained a gentle head nod and polite smiles.
Finally, George spoke, “This is a bit awkward, but the Clarks gave me their permission list for after-school pickup this fall, and you’re not on it.”
This was the moment at which Colleen knew, rather than mildly suspected, that Mindy had learned about her and Zach. She could feel George scanning her face, and she tried to project placidity. She pulled on her shiny smile and said, “Mindy probably just updated the list and forgot that I’m usually on it.”
“Well, it has been a long summer,” he said. “Do you want me to ask her about it?”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll probably see her tomorrow anyway,” Colleen said. “She has so much on her plate, bless her heart, I’m sure it’s easy to forget the little things. Thanks for letting me know.”
“That makes sense,” George said, but he knew he had identified a rift between neighbors, and he had his suspicions. The girls were close as could be, and even if they had had a falling out, there would be no need to revoke carpool permissions.
“The girls always ride together,” Colleen said. “They’re like sisters.”
At the end of last semester, when school had let out for the summer, Colleen had dropped Bella off with her bags of locker belongings. She had helped the girls carry the piles of books, projects, and magazine cutouts to the door. Mindy was still at the yoga studio where she worked part-time as a receptionist and instructor. After Bella unlocked the door, Colleen took the liberty of carrying what she could to the living room table, where she found Zach sitting in his motorized chair, watching TV.
There’s a surge of constricted emotion that lodges firmly in the back of your throat when you see the object of your love after a long absence. Colleen could not speak at first. She stared, and he raised his eyes to hers. What would she feel in his place? She felt a compartmentalized desire suddenly creeping out of its box to drive to a faraway cabin where they would strategize how to return as a couple. Alone, they would delude themselves into thinking that they could do this thing and still keep the unadulterated
love of their children, still keep the intensity of illicit moments. His illness would fade, the affair would fade. If strangers met them on vacation, they would assume all their adult years had been spent together, in wholesome continuity.
But it was different for Zach. His wife loved him. She looked to him like a map to all of her future. Kevin loved Colleen in his own way, she knew, but her absence would never derail him. She was like the parmesan he’d buy to smother his Tuesday pasta: he loved it, but if the cheese were ever left out, the meal went on, by the clock, all the same.
Zach lowered his chin, a shaky head nod. She smiled back, trying to project how much she still cared.
“I’m going to leave your things on this table,” she told Bella as the girl gave her dad a quick peck on the top of his head.
“Thanks.” Bella snatched the remote and settled into the couch. “You wanna hang out?” she asked Suzie, who promptly plopped down beside her.
Suzie said, “You mind taking my things home with you, Mom?”
“Sure, Sweetie,” she said, bristling at the way the girls were unthinkingly ruining everything.
“So good to see you, Zach,” she said.
His eyes were as alert as ever, but his face had changed. Although the paralysis was most likely temporary, no one knew for sure how long it would last. It had already been nearly a year — long enough for his muscles to atrophy and for his strong features to turn gaunt. She couldn’t say that she’d recognize him on the street if he had suddenly appeared like this, without the gradual metamorphosis. None of it mattered, she had decided. He wouldn’t stay like this forever.
He smiled, a pulling of the lips to one side, and said slowly, so that she had to walk right up to his chair to hear him, “So good, Colleen.”
That was all he said. It was harmless. She had imbued his words with all the possible subtexts that would validate her feelings.
The girls had looked listless when she told them goodbye, a strange cartoon with long-limbed characters of indecipherable identity — neither animals nor people — blaring from the screen. As she left, she had asked Bella, “Are you sure your father wants to watch this?” The girl had glared back. “He’s fine,” she said. “Dad, isn’t this okay?”
“Okay,” Zach said.
And so Colleen left.
Did Bella know even then? How could she have? But the girls weren’t just girls anymore. They picked up on things. Did Suzie know? She could feel her mind spiraling down to a pinpoint of obsessive worry when Kevin appeared.
Kevin was the type of man who owned his space, never clutching himself too tightly, never hunching over or shift ing diminutively. He strode up to them now, slinging one arm across Colleen’s shoulders as he clinked glasses with George.
“How are things at the school?” Kevin kneaded Colleen’s skin.
“There’s a lot of automation happening, actually,” George said. “Some people are happy to have less prep, but a lot of the students and faculty feel a bit isolated, I think. It’s just summer school now, but in the fall, I bet a lot of people will have strong opinions.”
“Sounds tough.” Kevin nodded.
“Is Suzie doing well?” Colleen said.
“She always does. Although Ms. Smith said that she’s been glaring at her.”
“I’m sure Suzie’s just paying attention,” Kevin said. “Where should she be looking? The clock?”
“Sure, sure,” George said. “I’m keeping an eye on the situation.”
“I’m sure you are,” he said.
It was at this moment that Calvin bellowed, and then Sarah screamed. She leapt onto her chair and scanned the room wildly, the whites of her eyes flaring. Calvin knocked his wicker chair over and charged for the door. “Mosquito, mosquito!” he cried. The entire party disintegrated as people shuffled and shoved their way indoors with swiftly fading decorum. A deviled egg platter that had been in Colleen’s family for generations shattered. An abandoned glass of wine toppled, leaving a ruby stain on the jute rug.
Everyone hurried inside except Colleen. She lingered, curious as to how the tiny interloper had buzzed his way into her patio. She could hear the faint whine of its little wings. George tapped on the sliding glass door and motioned for her to come inside. Instead, she ran her hands along the screen fabric that enclosed the space. Maybe it looked stupid or brave, but she’d already been exposed to the virus. She’d slept with Zach before they’d known a mosquito had infected him. It was after the lawn games had wound down. Holly and Kevin had long since withdrawn into the casita to admire his collection of first editions. Zach had asked her to join him for a walk on the reclaimed railroad, now paved into a cycling trail.
They had found the singular train car that remained in the overgrowth beyond the tracks. Abandoned and rusted, the metal box was covered in graffiti and vines and full of the acrid scent of delinquent urine. She didn’t care. He led her into the shadows, wordless. She remembered the pollen sifting through the sun’s rays. The feeling of mutual need, visceral and urgent, overwhelmed her, and for those brief moments, she focused on touching him like worship, thinking if she could anoint his skin in kisses, she would feel something pure. They would both feel it, and there would be goodness between them. She had convinced herself that they could have a timeless moment and that would be enough to steady her as she settled into this older phase of life, but she had worshipped beyond reason, stolen too many moments with him over the span of months, and the scent of his scalp lingered, a phantom smell on her pillow even though he’d never laid his head there. A week after that party, she had come down with chills and a three-day headache, but she recovered and Zach fell ill.
She found the hole, a singed circle near the fallen wicker chair. Calvin probably burnt through it with his cigar. It would be easy to seal, but no one would trust coming outside again.
People were losing interest in Colleen’s investigation and talking in clusters, but George hesitated to leave. She just stood there, staring at the screen and the dark garden beyond. He liked the way her wavy hair cloaked her face like a hood. George tapped on the glass again.
“She’s fine,” Kevin said, sipping his whiskey.
Kevin hollered to Calvin then, “Pick a record and put some jazz on, will you?”
Kevin threw back the rest of his drink. “I’m going to grab more booze from the kitchen. Need anything?”
“Shouldn’t she come inside first?” George asked.
Kevin leaned down. “She’s infected, George.”
He said it like he was being kind. George couldn’t understand it, this man, this husband, telling this news about his wife to another man.
“Are you sure?”
“They have a test now,” Kevin said. “It’s not worth the risk.”
George felt embarrassment flushing his face. He told himself it was just a crush he’d been nursing. A harmless diversion that would never amount to anything. He still loved Jamie, but all of their conversations had turned to the baby, or the virus and how it could affect the baby, or to the Walmart shopping list. He told himself it was temporary — both his fantasizing and this banal phase of nesting. He certainly didn’t mean to be so shamefully obvious. He added, “I’d never.”
“Sorry,” Kevin laughed, slapping George on the back. “My sick sense of humor.” Kevin shook his glass back and forth. “You want some, don’t you?”
George had only admired Colleen from afar. He barely spoke to her, never had experiences that belonged to just them as a twosome, alone. George watched her exit the screened-in patio. She drifted into the shadows, toward the twinkling lights of the gazebo. He envied her immunity, wandering in the cooler air of evening. Her ability to walk fearlessly into the night secured her place in his mythology of her — a woman who was both welcoming and untouchable.
Kevin was looking down on him.
“I’m going to be a father soon,” George said.
“Yes, I saw Jamie at the Walmart. Any day now, isn’t it?” He thumped Georg
e on the shoulder, like a brotherly sign of affection at a tailgate with a dash of some unspoken aggression.
Kevin motioned George along and wove his way through the crowd to the corner of the living room that served as a bar, a sleek kitchenette with mirror-backed shelving.
“Are you ready?” Kevin asked, handing George a steep pour of bourbon.
“As much as one can be.” He politely took a sip. He usually drank amaretto sours or seasonal Abita in the evenings as he read the newspaper or his backcountry magazine. He used to go camping with his fraternity brothers, the type of camping where you prioritize beer and flame-torched meat, but he’d always wanted to go on one of those multiday hiking trips where you survive on the scantest supply possible and emerge reinvigorated, a self-sufficient animal. It wouldn’t happen now. At least not for years, not until his child had grown beyond helplessness, and definitely not before they’d found a way to eradicate the virus, or mosquitoes, or both. Here he was, neither a survivalist nor a whiskey drinker, about to be a father.
Kevin swallowed his drink and poured another, topping George’s off even though he’d barely depleted its contents. “Here’s the important thing,” Kevin said, leaning heavily on George’s shoulder, “you can’t expect her to be everything for you. It’s going to get messy, and you’re going to have to let it fucking implode and still hang on, shrapnel and all. It’s a fucking mess.”
Kevin raised his glass at George, then downed another shot’s worth. George felt the pressure of his stare and suppressed an urge to wince as he took a large swallow of his drink.
“It’s already hard enough,” George said, aiming for neutral agreement.
“These are hard times,” Kevin said. “You just have to figure out what works.”
“With all due respect, you don’t know what I’m going through. You had Suzie before any of this, and she turned out fine.”
What Makes You Think You're Awake? Page 12