The Night Before

by David Fulmer

  Tonight she had chosen well and came up with something like a Dickens character, with a blouse, vest, pedal-pushers, knee socks, saddle shoes, and a cute hat.

  They were jumping up and down, eager to leave. Betsy had come up with the idea of starting the kids’ party early and letting them burn off their energies and wind down to TV and games in the basement in time for the parents to arrive for the grown-up fun.

  Mariel let them bolt, then watched as they skittered down the walk and into the street, the snow now packed by passing cars. They left an echoing silence in their wake and she stood still for a while, lost in her thoughts.

  During the drive home, Joe mulled strategies for presenting the Epiphany Star and the news of the book option. He settled on laying a sweet trap. Instead of just handing her the gift, he’d leave it with the copy of the check and the crumpled slip from the ATM and then hide to watch as she made the discovery.

  Like a thief casing a joint, he plotted the house in his head and settled on the kitchen table. He could wait in the darkness of the dining room for the delicious instant when she realized that her loser of a husband had just knocked one out of the park. If he staged it correctly, her face would be cast in the light of the hanging lamp, an image he’d hold in his mind forever.

  Would she believe her eyes when she happened upon the zebrawood box? Would she even remember that long-ago visit to Brosman’s?

  Of course she would; Mariel forgot nothing. Over the years, she had counted his failures like beads, recording every one of them, though to her credit this was not out of spite. He knew the mental list was a shield against expecting too much and having her discontent sour into resentment.

  Even so, in his most honest moments, he guessed if it wasn’t for his parenting, she would have set him adrift years ago. She valued that. It was also true that she had once admired his refusal to give up on his books, never lording it over him that she was the primary breadwinner. Those sands had shifted over time, too. With the sales of the first novel dead (how that was about to change!) and the other two unable to earn back even their modest advances in spite of great reviews, her respect for his craft had worn thin. Now and then, he caught her watching him work with her brow stitched with petulant lines, as if broadcasting her impatience with his silliness. When he proffered some word of blind hope about one of the books, she would respond with a roll of her eyes and a sigh, just as she did when she was exasperated with one of the kids.

  Joe decided he would accept her apology, verbal or unspoken, graciously.

  Hannah and Christian would hear the incredible news come morning, to go with the presents their parents would wrap during the wee hours as they polished off the pricey bottle of pinot. The thought reminded him of the first night that they had slept together and he wondered if his good luck meant some of that magic would be revived, too.

  Turning on to his street, he saw sliding, tumbling, snow-crusted children in front of every house and slowed to a crawl. The looks on their ruddy faces and their joyous laughter as they went careening through the clouds of fluttering white brought a small throb in his chest. Brosman was right: this was how Christmas was supposed to be. Given the state of the climate, it might not happen again while these kids were young.

  His next-door neighbor Don was in his driveway, fiddling with his snow blower. God forbid a few flakes marred the beauty of his newly-resealed macadam. He straightened as Joe pulled into the garage, offering a wave and his customary frown. Don owned two vehicles, a Lexus and some SUV thing the size of a tour bus, and was perpetually offended by Joe’s rundown import.

  Well, fuck you and your gas hogs, Joe muttered. Old Don was in for a surprise, too. Not that Joe had ever cared what he thought.

  He found Mariel dashing about in dizzy circles, her cell phone on and off her ear as she hurried from room to room, getting ready for their Christmas Eve and morning. Her greeting was a small, blank smile cast in his general direction. He took a bottle of water from the fridge and watched for her a few moments. She was still a handsome woman, though in the last couple years she had gone a little hard around the edges in both her looks and her temperament. They had been an odd match, something like the princess and the stable boy; and yet he could fairly say that he still loved her, and guessed that they spent more time engaged in carnal acts than most couples who had been married as long.

  She ended her call, snapped the cover of her phone closed, and looked his way. “So?”

  Joe stifled the grin that was lurking behind his eyes and came up with a vague shrug. “I got most of the things on the list,” he said. “But I’m going back out. A couple more stores and then I’ll go grab a drink with Billy.”

  “Of course. What’s Christmas without boozing with Billy?”

  It came out a little snide, but Joe was in too good a mood to let it bother him and just laughed. Mariel responded with a smile that was not unkind. “So I can expect you when?”

  “I don’t know. Eight, maybe. Not before.”

  “I’ve got an errand to run, but I’ll be back by then,” she said. “I made the antipasto, so we can just go.” She was turning away when he touched her shoulder and planted a quiet kiss on her mouth. “Well,” she said, blinking. The sudden affection had caught her off guard.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” he said.

  He did catch up with Billy. That much of what he told Mariel was correct. Her claim that no holiday was the same without his old friend’s barroom cheer was also true. Though she did not mean it as a compliment.

  Billy Alden was the type girls adored when they were young, single, and wild and dismissed or despised forever after. He was a first-class maniac and true gypsy, and so he remained the kind of magnetic force who could tempt even the most stalwart husband into delinquency. More than a few of the women in their social circle had waited out his clownish impositions, steaming in private until the rings were on their fingers so they could say, “All right, get rid of him.”

  Some of the husbands did just that. Joe stood firm. He had known Billy since grade school and loved him like an errant brother. For her part, Mariel had resigned herself to his presence, though she hadn’t allowed him around the house since the night he made a drunken pass at her mother. She told Joe she found it ridiculous that a man well into middle age went by “Billy.” What was he, seven? A circus midget? That was as far as her nagging went. The man was like an old car that got towed from one garage to the next, never running quite right, an eyesore but a harmless hobby.

  Joe found the eyesore hunkered down in a booth at the Delaware Tavern, his home away from home. Melinda, the pretty red-haired waitress that Billy lusted after, came out from behind the bar.

  “Joe,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”

  “I’ll have a gimlet,” Joe said. “And make it with Grey Goose.” Melinda murmured her surprise. Joe glanced Billy’s way. “And my friend will have?”

  Billy raised an eyebrow. “You still got that bottle of single-malt? Lag… Laga…”

  “Lagavulin?” Melinda said. “That’s forty-five dollars a pour.”

  Joe flicked one of his hundreds onto Melinda’s tray. “And have something for yourself,” he said.

  The barmaid stared at the crisp bill. “You win the lottery?”

  “Let’s just say it’s my lucky night.” Joe slid into the booth. He allowed a moment of silent drama before producing the zebrawood box, a sleight-of-hand artist presenting a dove from a hat.

  Billy studied the pendant and said, “I really wanted the ’67 Telecaster from that vintage store in Philly. But thanks. I love you, too.” His red face opened into the impish grin that women had once found irresistible. “Is that it, man? Really?”

  “Still there, after twelve years. And that ain’t all.” He laid a copy of the check alongside it.

  “That’s his signature?” Billy said.

  “His manager’s,” Joe explained. “These guys don’t sign the checks. But it’s the real deal. The money’s in the bank.�
� He spent another few dumbstruck seconds mulling the proof of what had transpired in the last weeks. Sensing the weight of the moment, Billy refrained from grabbing the pendant in one of his paws or making a crude joke. A muted flash of envy for Joe’s happy ending crossed his green eyes and then went away, replaced by deep kindness.

  “Merry Christmas. You deserve it, bro.” He shook his head over the pendant nestled in the little box and the copy of the check and said, “Man, she is going to fuck you blind.”

  Once the kids were gone and the presents wrapped and arranged under the tree, Mariel treated herself to another drink. The Junghaus on the dining room wall chimed twice for the half-hour. She studied the face of the clock, musing about all the time it had marked since they received it as a wedding present from Joe’s father, who had brought it back from Germany.

  Her thoughts drifted on and she had to stop and remind herself why she’d been looking at the damn thing in the first place. She returned to the front window and within a few minutes, saw two bundled figures on the driveway next door: Caroline and her daughter Kimberly heading for the party. Of course, Caroline was going early to help Betsy. It was the kind of thing she did, the perpetual volunteer. Mariel sipped her drink and gazed out on the street. She had just drained the last drops when she heard a knock at the back door.

  After another half-hour, another gimlet, and a crazy-ass argument about how best to spend his “movie money,” Joe left Billy lying in wait for some lonely woman looking to collect a stray to warm her bed on this special night.

  Outside, the sky had darkened to a wine purple that was dappled with faint early stars. Joe laid his gloves on the dashboard and listened to an acapella choir chanting Bach as he waited for the engine to warm. He experienced another few seconds of minor alarm when he couldn’t find the zebrawood box amidst the folds of his coat. Then he located it, tucked snugly in an inside pocket.

  He drove out of the lot to find that the busy activity on the streets had slowed to a trickle, leaving only stragglers. He stopped at the State Store for a bottle and drove the rest of the way home reviewing the choreography of what was to be a miraculous evening.

  The dance began with him drifting to the curb on Birch Lane, one street over from their house. Pulling up the hood of his jacket, he hopped out and cut between the houses and across the yards to the rear door of the garage, the one they rarely used.

  He had unlocked it earlier and now the latch slid back with the tiniest click. He pushed it open just wide enough to sidle through and closed it behind him, muffling the sound with the weight of his body. He took a step, bumped directly into the fender of Mariel’s Beemer, and stood in the darkness, confused. Hadn’t she said she was going out somewhere? He couldn’t remember anything about catching a ride with one of her friends, but it was not unlikely. Or maybe her plans had changed. If she was at home, he’d have to arrange for the surprise later.

  Creeping around the sedan, he stepped into the laundry room and closed the door behind him. From somewhere in the house, he heard a voice down low and guessed that Mariel or one of the kids had left a radio on. When he moved into the pantry, he caught an odd scrabbling sound, and wondered if their dog Peanut had gotten into something. With the zebrawood box clutched tight in one hand and the copy of the check and the ATM slip in the other, he inched his way into the kitchen. The urgent sounds were now louder and he guessed they were coming from the TV; except there was no blue light from the main room. He crept across the kitchen to the dining room archway and stopped.

  Mariel was bent over the table with her dress hiked above her waist. The buttons of her blouse were undone and one strap of her brassiere hung loose to the side. Her head was bent down and her eyes drawn tight as if in the throes of a ferocious prayer and she moaned a kind of slow music.

  Don, the one with the riding mower and snow blower, gripped her shoulders as he shoved his pelvis against her in a slow grind, his eyes closed tighter than hers. Their movements were as one, and among the jumble that came roaring through Joe’s brain was the thought that this wasn’t the first time they’d done this.

  Though he hadn’t moved or made a sound, Mariel sensed his presence, because she pulled out of her swoon in a sudden second and gasped, “Don? Don!” She cast her eyes about and saw Joe, or at least his shape, a specter looming in the darkness, and the groan that came from her throat tore her last gasp of passion neatly in half.

  In the next second, Don saw him, too, and yelped out a curse, jumped back, and launched into a clumsy jig, grabbing his trousers to keep them from falling with one hand while flapping the other in the air as if to wave Joe into invisibility. Mariel’s arms trembled as she pushed her skirt down and clutched her blouse. Her mouth was a jagged slash and fear and tears were springing from her eyes.

  Joe stood petrified in sick fascination as he watched this slapstick. His mind went blank, even as he felt his heart crack into fragments and sink through his chest. He staggered under the rage that rose up in a black wave, but in the next moment, it was gone, sucked out of him, and he turned away and made a stumbling retreat, through the kitchen and garage and into the December night, leaving a vacuum of shock in his wake.

  The snow was coming down in random swirls, riding the cold wind. What had fallen during the day was packed and Joe slipped and stumbled in a crazy zigzag through the Hamblin’s yard.

  His breath shot out before him as if he had eaten fire, his heart felt like a clenched fist, his teeth chattered, and his vision had gone blurry. Reeling into a swing set, he was treated to a surreal slide show: Mariel folded over with her blouse hanging open; her horrified face and Don’s gape of fear; the pendulum of the wall clock tick-tocking solemn time above the three characters posing in rigid alarm.

  Just as he reached the street, tires crunched on ice and he stopped and swung around with his jaw set for Mariel and fists clenched in case it was Don. No matter that he had lost every fight in his life except one twenty years before. He was ready to slug it out. But the car, a Saturn wagon, rolled by and neither one of the villains appeared out of the drifting flakes, mobile or on foot.

  He slowed his steps and the wall collapsed. Another set of images of the two of them fastened together, back to front, brought a churn in his gut that tasted of bile, and then a spike in his heart so sharp that it buckled his knees. For a few seconds, he verged on going down in a crumpled mess to melt the fallen snow with his own hot tears. His next thought was of the kids. He saw before him their faces alight with the delights of the season and wanted to cry. At that instant, they were having a terrific time at Betsy’s party, unaware that their parents’ marriage had just tumbled into a sinkhole.

  The moment of crushing heartache passed. He caught his breath and plodded back to his car. The zebrawood box jumped to mind, twelve hundred bucks in gems and gold, and he performed a frantic mime, slapping his pockets with his right hand until he realized that the box was still clasped in his left, so tightly that one corner had torn a hole in the palm of his glove.

  This relief was caught short when he couldn’t find his car keys and realized that he had dropped them somewhere, inside the house or outside in the snow. Either way, there was no going back for them. So he walked on.

  The windows of the houses that he passed were cast in shades of cheery white, gold, and green, with multicolored coronas of lights and the Jolly St. Nicks and Nativities arrayed before frosted panes of glass that framed glittering trees. Parties were in full holiday tilt at several of the houses, and he wondered blankly what betrayals were taking place inside those warm walls.

  The two of them had done it before. He knew this to be true. He had witnessed their ease, old hands who knew each other’s fleshly contours. For how long had it been going on? Months? Years? Since she decided that her husband was never going to be a true provider, meaning a real man like Don?

  Yes, Don was that sort, the kind of breadwinner who owned a 54-inch television set, hired people to landscape his lawn, and treated the fam
ily to Mexico Beach for not one but two weeks in the summer. Every year, they invited Joe and Mariel to bring the kids down for a weekend, but it had never worked out. Joe suspected that Don was most interested in seeing Mariel in a bikini. An unfounded suspicion, as it turned out. He laughed sourly into the silent night. Don wouldn’t care about a glimpse of Mariel’s bare flesh. He’d seen all he wanted in their dining room and who knew what other parts of the house?

  Joe wondered if Don’s wife Caroline had any inkling. Maybe it would be his pleasure to tell her.

  Breathless with exertion and heartache, he stopped and looked around. He had reached High Street. If he kept on, he’d be hiking over Hanover Street and arrive on the banks of the river. The last thing he needed was to be alone with his thoughts, swinging in a wild arc between despair and murderous anger, a blue swirl of sorrow followed by dreams of homicide. So he stomped in a circle, yelling curses into the starlit night, in such a state that he didn’t notice the pickup until the lights were on him. The truck pulled to a stop and the window rolled down.

  “You okay?” The driver’s red face was too jolly.

  Joe said, “Yeah, okay,” and waved him away.

  “All right, then. Merry Christmas.” The window slid up and the truck started forward. “Merry fuck you,” Joe snarled.

  The truck stopped and the window rolled down once more. The driver poked his head out. The jolly had disappeared. “What’d you say?”

  “What did you say?” Joe was barking at the moon. “I said ‘Merry Christmas.’”

  Joe shook his head as if trying to loose it from his neck. “Yeah, whatever…”

  The driver said, “You need to go home, pal.” The truck started off again. “Hey, wait a minute!” Joe hollered.