SHUDDERVILLE FIVE

by Mia Zabrisky

  Will felt lost and hopeless. He waited until they were about ten feet away before he suddenly stood up.

  Charlotte gasped when she saw him. “Will? What are you doing here?”

  The boy smiled nervously at them.

  The snow made white scribbles in the air.

  He refused to pretend that everything was okay. He turned and loped away.

  “Will?” Charlotte cried. “Where are you going? Will?”

  *

  He got home late that night, stumbling drunkenly out of his car and tromping up the slick steps. The Ballards lived in a family-friendly Somerville neighborhood of melting snowmen’s bottoms. He went inside, kicked off his boots, draped his coat over the arm of a kitchen chair and stood in front of the refrigerator, which smelled of sour milk, and reached behind the turkey carcass. The meat was dry and stringy, clinging to a construction of gray bones. He slid a dark green beer bottle out of the six-pack, pried off the cap and drank. He strolled into the living room and said, “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

  She sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by wrapping paper and colorful holiday bows, and looked at him with her head tilted to one side. Frank Sinatra sang Silent Night in the background.

  “Well?” he said. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “Like what?” she said.

  “Like you’re sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “Oh come on. You might as well confess that you’re in love with him.”

  She gave him a piercing look. He loved the fleshy pinks and reds and golds of her. Her bone structure was so well-defined, she reminded him of a gazelle or a rare breed of cat. “You’re drunk. Stop drinking,” she said. “Have some coffee.”

  “I don’t want any coffee.” He went back into the kitchen, opened the fridge, grabbed the greasy platter and upended the turkey remains into the garbage, then wedged the platter into the dishwasher, dumped in some powder, banged the door shut and switched it on. It felt good to be slamming things around. “This student of yours? Owen? Are you fucking him?”

  “No,” she said from the doorway. She was pale. She was watching him.

  “Why should I believe you?”

  It was warm inside the house, snowing outside, bright white flakes covering the sidewalks and rooftops and swingsets next door. Too many kids in the neighborhood. Charlotte wanted kids eventually. He didn’t. She had grown up in Southern California, where she’d led a very active social life. She’d once been engaged to a handsome MBA surfer-type he only knew vague things about, like his effortless laugh. He hated the men in her past. He hated that she had any past at all. He wanted her life to begin and end with him. What was so bad about that?

  She heaved a disgusted sigh. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Will.”

  “I’m having trouble believing that.”

  “You need to grow up,” she said with an angry shrug.

  The dishwasher pulsed with a furry roar. He studied her face and wondered if she was as adulterous as he imagined. He suspected she’d had at least a handful of infidelities, or maybe the truth was far worse than anything he could conjure up? It made his stomach bubble and spit. It made his heart race. She was giving him an ulcer. He looked beyond her at the mess in the living room. She’d been wrapping Christmas presents for their long-planned trip west. Presents for her parents and presents for him. A sweater. A tie. Socks. The least romantic gifts you could imagine. He always got socks from Charlotte. He always got a tie. He always got a sweater. Maybe if he was lucky a book.

  “We stopped having sex,” he blurted angrily. “Two months ago. Why’d we stop having sex?”

  “Maybe because I’m not happy,” she countered.

  “Why aren’t you happy? What aren’t you getting from me besides my absolute attention and utter devotion?”

  “You’re always working. We never go out. You don’t like my friends. Half the time it feels like I’m stuck in the castle tower, just like Rapunzel.”

  “Like what?” he said sharply.

  “It’s a metaphor.”

  “I know what a metaphor is, Charlotte. Are you calling me an ogre? Do you think I’m holding you prisoner here in this beautiful house?”

  “You’re always working. We never see our friends. We don’t have—listen, Will, we don’t have a life.” She frowned, and he could see it in her eyes—the big question. How long? How much longer would she have to endure this punishment? When was her prince going to come and rescue her? Her knight in shining armor? How much longer would she have to suffer with her king-ogre-husband in the castle tower?

  He met her angry, impenetrable gaze. “If you leave, I’ll kill myself.”

  She seemed appalled by this admission. “Do you realize how disturbing and selfish and horrible that is?” She rubbed her temples. “It’s a form of emotional blackmail. You’re giving me a migraine.”

  “Well? Are you going to leave me?”

  “Why are we even having this conversation?”

  “Because, Charlotte, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking about leaving me. I knew it. I knew something was wrong. I’ve known about it for months now, but I didn’t want to admit it. And look—you’re not even contradicting me now.”

  “Only because I’m speechless.” She sighed heavily, as if she’d been holding her breath. “Why should I even bother talking to you?”

  “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “Really?” Charlotte retreated back into the living room, sat on the floor, raised her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged herself.

  Will landed drunkenly on the floor beside her and rested his bottle on the rug, twisting it into the weave to root it. Then he ran his hand over Charlotte’s shoulder. She shivered and twitched like a young colt beneath his loathsome touch. Her skin was the color of coffee mixed with cream.

  “What’s wrong with us goes deeper than me working late at the lab,” he said, his hand wandering up into her hair, his fingers playing with her auburn locks. She wore those tight-fitting, deep-pocketed jeans he loved and a black silk blouse. Sexy. She was so gorgeous tonight. He loved her crooked smile. He loved her small aristocratic nose and her fine-boned face.

  “The truth,” she whispered. “The truth is you don’t know how to love anyone.”

  He drew back as if he’d been burned. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re in love with the idea of me,” she said forcefully. “You love ideas and theories, Will. You don’t really know how to love another human being. A flesh-and-blood person with flaws and mixed emotions and moods. It’s too messy for you. It’s not elegant enough, like your precious equations.”

  He touched the lip of the bottle to his front teeth and gazed out the window at the moonlit icicles hanging from the neighbor’s rooftop. “I’ll come home early from now on,” he said.

  She burst out laughing. Her eyes were threaded with tiny red veins, as if she’d been crying. “Right. Like that’s going to happen,” she said.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No. You always say you’ll come home early. And you never do.”

  “Always, Charlotte? I always say that? Never, Charlotte? I never change? I’m incapable of change?” he said defensively.

  She gave him a punishing look and stormed out of the room.

  He closed his eyes and listened to the snow landing on the roof. It barely made a sound—just the whispering of ice crystals. It was like some beautiful, smothering dream you couldn’t wake up from. Charlotte was right, he didn’t understand anything about her—she was a stranger with violent mood swings and body issues and secret crushes on scruffy-looking love-struck boys, and a whole lot of baggage from the other side of the country. Will didn’t understand a thing.

  He had managed to wish this moment into being over and over again. He and Charlotte had had this very same argument a dozen times now. Only she didn’t know it. For her it was always unique. For him, it was just ano
ther chance to get it right. But he seemed to botch everything. He would have to do it all over again. Tobias had warned him not to subject himself to the prototype again. They didn’t know what kinds of effects it would have on a human body over time. They were guinea pigs, the two of them. But Will had to fix things. He was determined to get it right.

  He’d almost forgotten the most important question. He went to the bottom of the stairs, put his hand on the railing and said, “Charlotte? What flight did you book?”

  *

  On the plane, Will was belligerently, unapologetically cheerful.

  “Coffee, please,” he told the perky flight attendant.

  “Black? Cream?”

  “Sugar.”

  “One okay?”

  “Three. Four.”

  “Wow. You like it sweet.”

  “Sure do.” He blew on the surface of his coffee, wanting the coldness out of his body. It was overcast and gray outside. They were halfway across the country, heading for Santa Barbara wine country. Spending Christmas with the in-laws. Horseback-riding and golf. He’d exchanged their tickets for a flight that wouldn’t crash.

  “Will?” Her hand snaked toward him in the dark. “Let’s start over. Okay?”

  “A fresh start?”

  “Yes. Okay?”

  “Yeah, we could do that.” He smiled and squeezed her warm hand.

  There was a rosy glow to her face. She kissed him and leaned her head against his shoulder, and he could feel her long, sad sigh in her body. “If you don’t know that I love you, first and foremost, then there’s nothing more to say,” she whispered in his ear.

  Things went pretty much as planned. Will had his breakthrough on the plane. He asked the stewardess for a napkin, wrote it all down and put it in his pocket. They didn’t argue. The plane didn’t crash. The Coke didn’t spill.

  They spent a week in California wine country with the in-laws. They drove up to Solvang, bought a bottle of burgundy, got drunk and made love. They had a good time. Will began to relax. He began to believe she really loved him.

  When they got home from their trip to Santa Barbara, Will immediately went to work with Tobias on their project. He didn’t keep his promise. Soon, he was working late every night.

  Months passed. Every week, it got harder to pretend that things were okay. He suspected Charlotte of sneaking around behind his back. He suspected her of having an affair with one of her students—maybe Owen, maybe someone else. He spied on her as she went about her daily tasks—grading papers, giving lectures, counseling students, applying for grants. He observed her getting ready for bed at night and wondered why she was taking more time with her appearance lately. The only time they made love was when he asked her. He had to ask. She never initiated sex on her own.

  In March, Charlotte started getting sick in the mornings. She would leap out of bed and run for the bathroom. One day she went to see her doctor, and when Will got home from work that night, she told him she was pregnant. She looked excited and flushed, but he was apprehensive about it. He asked a few too many questions, and she went to bed angry. That night he had a nightmare that the baby wasn’t his. He woke up and accused her of infidelity. When she protested, he accused her of lying.

  The following morning, he apologized. He tried to pretend that he was excited about the prospect of having children, but his forced smile stretched the skin of his face. Over breakfast, he caught his wife looking at him like he was a monster.

  He went to work, and that night when he came home, she was gone. She had packed her bags and left him.

  There was a note.

  Will, I don’t know why expected you to be happy about the baby, but I did. What I didn’t expect was your sulky silence, and then your paranoid-sounding questions, and then this morning your baseless accusations. How can I let my child be raised in an atmosphere of constant suspicion? The answer is—I can’t.

  Since you refuse to listen, maybe this will explain things? Remember our worst fight ever? Just the two of us in the car on the highway in the pouring rain last fall? The wipers didn’t work, and the icy rain was almost blinding, and you could barely see out the windshield, and we couldn’t stop screaming at each other.

  “Is this it?” I said.

  “Do you want it to be?” you shouted.

  “I don’t know! Do you?”

  “So it’s over?”

  “Do you want it to be over?”

  We stared at each other.

  It felt like the end of everything.

  We pulled into a gas station and sat in the pouring rain, numb and miserable. Then the conversation turned deadly cold.

  “Should I find a lawyer?”

  “Go ahead,” you said.

  I waited for the longest time for you to say something else. Meet me halfway.

  But you didn’t.

  I remember the sound of the rain enveloping us, and the wind shaking the car. I remember being cold and shivering, the kind of cold that burrowed deep and got into your bones. Our creation, our marriage was dead. It was unbelievable. Jaw-dropping.

  We made up later on, but that fight left me with one question. Can you ever truly love somebody after you’ve hated them so much? Do these wounds ever heal? Is it possible? We were once so unbelievably close. My entire world revolved around you. And now, what’s left of us? Can you tell me that?

  Charlotte

  He remembered the fight. It was awful. How had they gotten to such a low point in their marriage—talk of divorce? But they’d managed to survive a succession of quarrels and arguments during the eight years of their marriage, primarily because they loved one another and didn’t want to split up. He couldn’t imagine ever fighting that viciously with her again. He wouldn’t allow it. But now it was too late. He sat rubbing the back of his head with his hands, nursing imagined wounds.

  In a state of shock, he went upstairs to the master bedroom and rummaged through his wife’s bureau drawers. She had packed in a hurry and had left a few things behind—all gifts from him. Sexy sweaters, a lacy red bra-and-panties set, a pair of gold earrings and several expensive necklaces. Most hurtful of all was her wedding ring on the bedside table.

  On the wall above the bed was an expensively framed photograph of the two of them on their wedding day, looking crazy-in-love. Had he ever been that young? Had she ever looked more beautiful?

  He began a methodical room-by-room search, his heart ticking at the base of his throat. The living room was full of walnut furniture, legs and back rails covered in ornate scrollwork featuring vines and acorns. There were a lot of throw pillows and colorful fabrics. Charlotte had picked out the drapes herself, made of a thick rich fabric. She didn’t like the sun. She preferred rainy days. Gloomy overcast days. “It diffuses the light,” she once told him. But that was just an excuse.

  She liked curling up with a good book. She liked wrapping herself in a blanket. She liked the cold and the gloom, because it made her feel cozy and happy. She wanted to nest—he could see that now. It was evident in the cushiony armchairs and the pastel hues and the sunny kitchen full of brand new appliances. She had tried to create a nest for them to have a family in, but he’d ruined it with his outbursts. He’d blown it all to pieces.

  Will sat on the Haitian-cotton sofa and gazed out the wide windows, feeling desperate and alienated, suddenly understanding why his wife preferred the dark. Dusk created a dark blue velvet backdrop for the diamond stars and opal moon. He sat on the sofa and rubbed his hands back and forth over the fabric. He didn’t know what to do. He glanced around and noticed that the door to her office was open. He went inside and tossed her things around until he found what he was looking for.

  *

  The following morning, Will drove to the university and sat in the back of Owen Landry’s art history class. The professor had thick glasses and stringy brown hair that hung down over his narrow face. There was a stale weariness to the lecture, a gray gravity that put everyone to sleep.

  When cla
ss was over, Will waited in back of the lecture hall while the students filed out. He recognized the boy—tall, athletic, good-looking. He wore a jacket with the hood drawn tightly around his face, and there were dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. As soon as he saw Will, he bolted.

  Will chased the kid out of the building and down the sidewalk past the other students. He grabbed the boy and flung him around, and they both tumbled hard onto the snowy ground.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” the boy shouted.

  Will gave him a tormented look. “You fucked my wife, didn’t you? Admit it.”

  “Are you sick?” he cried defiantly.

  Will dug his hands into his coat pockets, pulled out dozens of crumpled pieces of paper and dropped them in the snow. He wondered once again if Charlotte had left them there on purpose. Did she want to hurt him? Did she want him to find them? “Did you write these?” he asked.

  The boy nodded, his face a lacework of conflicting emotions.

  “Are you in love with her?”

  Again, the boy nodded.

  “Were the two of you…?” He couldn’t say it.

  “No,” the boy croaked.

  Will’s pulse was running slower now. He looked around wildly. He couldn’t seem to swallow.

  “She told me she was leaving you,” the boy said defensively.

  Will plopped down beside him on the campus lawn. A single thought looped through his head—this boy had meant something to her. Something significant. He felt a pressure on his chest. “Well, congratulations. She did leave me,” he said.

  The boy nodded. “Me, too.” He began to cry. “I’m tired of feeling shitty all the time.”

  Will grabbed him in a bear hug. “It’s okay,” he said softly. The boy’s hair smelled like wet wool.

  “Every day I wake up and she’s not there, it sucks.”

  “I know.” Will felt like a wild animal. Not a human being. More like a primitive beast. He felt nothing for this boy, and yet he understood what had driven him. He grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it in Owen Landry’s face.