Wait For Me Jack

by Addison Jones

  And now, this terse little message on a Christmas card of Santa hohoho-ing across the snowy sky. He almost wrote back to her, saying: Hell no, that is not fair – you got to keep writing! Whenever he thought of Ivy, his syntax went straight back to childish grammar. No more letters from Ivy? Life was just one annoying tragedy after another. He hadn’t realised how much space Ivy took up. What on earth would he do about it? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, he pondered Ivy.

  Everything was dropping away.

  His sailboat, Sweet Epiphany, had been sold last year (or was it the year before?) to that whippersnapper with new money who couldn’t even sail. He’d felt guilty, because he’d never quite given Sweet Epiphany the attention she deserved, and now it was too late.

  Then his beautiful Dulcinea Press, finally declared dead once and for all at the board meeting last spring. It was easy to blame Amazon and discount deals at the big chains, but the truth was he’d simply misjudged too many writers, and over-estimated the reading public’s good taste. He’d been planning on selling the business anyway; he was eighty years old for heaven’s sake. But still. Those daily ferry boat commutes, that third-floor office on Columbus. Last time he locked up, it was spotless and empty as if Dulcinea had never existed. He had not been able to throw the key away, or return it. It sat in his desk drawer along with his father’s watch, the one he’d received for thirty years of handling the Buena Vista wine barrels. Which, as Jack had been told countless times, was an art. There were right ways to empty barrels, fill them again, settle the wine, do the lees stirring and bung checking. Funny, Jack hadn’t had any respect for his father at the time, but now as he humbly bowed out of his own business, a belated appreciation filled him. Life came round and bit you on the ass sometimes.

  Jack and Milly lived on less now: luxuries like vacations, cashmere sweaters, oysters – all out the window. He’d noticed the house looking shabbier – as if it, too, was giving up. Hardwood floors that needed sanding and re-varnishing. Window frames that needed replacing. His old ten speed and his newer mountain bike, covered with cobwebs. His tools still neatly arranged, but rusty. And today, looking at the shelves of new books lining their hallway, they suddenly seemed not so new. Teetering towers of proof copies and manuscripts still lined the floor of their bedroom, but they were softly padded at the base with dog hair.

  Everything was dropping away or getting stale. They hadn’t even bothered getting a Christmas tree this year.

  After lunch, Jack announced:

  ‘The rain’s stopped. I’m off for a walk. Might pop by to see August, he said he’d be staying with his mom this week.’ In an overloud, defiantly jovial voice, as he was putting on his jacket.

  Milly asked, after a minute of marshalling her thoughts then forgetting to keep them inside her head:

  ‘Should I be worried?’

  Jack froze, then pulled his jacket tighter and gave her shoulders a quick squeeze. Amazing how her radar still worked.

  ‘No idea what you mean, honey pie, but of course you don’t need to worry.’

  ‘Oh, I know. We agreed about that, didn’t we. Tell August…tell him I love him!’

  ‘He loves you too.’ It was true, thought Jack. Who would have thought that could happen?

  ‘Take the dogs, they need a walk too.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hate the dogs.’

  ‘No you don’t. You just think you do.’

  He put on his new shoes, desert boots that were identical to the desert boots he’d worn fifty years ago. They’d stopped making them, so it was a happy day, spotting these in a shoe store window again. When he looked down at his feet, there was nothing visible to say he was not his younger self. Then Milly pulled his face down and kissed him three times. Quick, dry pecks on his lips. And off he went with Jaspy and King pulling on their leashes, down the road to Colette. His son August might or might not be there, but Colette would make him a martini, and a decent one at that. There’d been a time when he’d woken every day salivating for Colette’s martinis.

  Jack felt naughty, though he’d not philandered for at least ten years, not since Tracey from the beach predicted correctly that he was a Leo and invited him to look at her vacation snapshots and they’d ended up on her ancient waterbed. Not a proud moment. Not his style, to sink as low as someone who believed in astrology, and water beds were so passé. He remembered Colette laughing over that episode, but also agreeing that it was humiliating. Then she’d told him about herself and the furnace maintenance guy, an equally undignified tale. They’d both agreed the only redeeming outcome was the relief of telling the stories to each other. And not telling another soul. They were confidantes. He was pretty sure they’d not been confidantes when they were sleeping together. Maybe the two kinds of intimacy didn’t mix.

  It was a good half-hour walk to Colette’s, but the day was warm, or as warm as mid-winter could get here. Mid-fifties. Jack loved sunny winter days after rain. They made him feel young, energetic. Everything was rain-washed; his street glowed. The dogs stopped to sniff and dribble pee every few minutes, making Jack want to do the same. He knew more about prostates now than he cared to. Not a sexy subject. Sex, sex, sex. He reminded himself that not leaving Milly cancelled out all those old infidelities, but he still felt like Bad Jack MacAlister, walking to Colette’s house. That Bad Jack, Poor Dear Milly’s husband. So unfair that no one ever thought of him as Poor Dear Jack. Did they think it was easy being married to someone who took ten minutes to walk from the front door to the car? There he was, trapped in a house with a crippled wife who often made him feel cranky, sulky and sneaky. The Jack that Colette knew was light-hearted, affectionate, funny. Sexy, as well. Well, as sexy as an eighty-year-old man had a right to be. Colette knew the real Jack was a rat-pack kind of guy.

  Both dogs decided to poop at the corner. There was bunch of dead buckeyes already there and the poops blended in. Jack had a quick look around at the empty street, then continued walking slowly, swaggering rat-pack-ishly.

  He imagined a novel in which every chapter was the same man walking to the same woman, over three decades. Weather – that would be the thing to hang chapters on. The way even the air smelled completely different, month by month. Times of day had different smells too. Sometimes he felt like he was drinking the air, that it was entering his lungs through his stomach, that he breathed deeply sometimes because he was thirsty. He supposed breathing wasn’t so very different to drinking, not really. Moods, as well as economies and planes in the air and boats at sea, could be affected by air pressure and moisture content. Air, since he read Storm by George Stewart back in ’52, had never been just air. Maybe he’d begin writing that novel when he got home. Yes, now was the time. He had a good feeling about this one. The others had never felt this right at the beginning.

  Jack took the long way, because thinking about this potential masterpiece distracted him, and he forgot his mission. In any case, the rhythm of putting his feet one in front of the other, of feeling the dogs pull on the leash, was soothing him in the old way. He took several slow walks around these streets every day. Since retiring, he found the house claustrophobic after a few hours. Each house he passed, he told himself a potted version of the history. Blonde kids with stingray bikes. German family, wife had hair to her waist. Cocktail hour always included wieners tooth-picked to chunks of pineapple.

  Then he came to 10 Bay View, Ernie and Bernice’s house. He sighed, not because Ernie was dead (he wasn’t), but because Ernie always reminded him of his own youth and that made him nostalgic. He thought of their Saturday walks to the Sebastiani Theatre for the double feature, that summer before they’d started high school. They’d talked about girls and sung snatches of random songs, or walked in an easy silence, their muscles loose, their arms and legs swinging, the sun hot on their heads. An exquisite sense of anticipation all that summer. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever been as aware of sheer potential since.

  Ah, youth!r />
  Then Jack passed two other houses that used to contain friends, and he saw them sitting on their deck chairs, lighting cigarettes, or pulling tabs on a Coors while tending the barbecue, or throwing Frisbees for the dog – God, all those Frisbees, and the never-ending fun of buying new ones. They moved, they smiled, they opened their mouths in recognition of Jack, and by the look in their eyes were about to say something slightly sarcastic, slightly funny and irreverent. They’d been his buddies, after all. They moved their mouths but nothing ever came out.

  At the end of the street, there was Colette’s third dead husband, opening his mouth to reveal his terrible teeth and cackling lewdly as if to say: Jack, you checking out my wife again? You old dog!

  Jack didn’t feel sad. He passed these houses too often, and the nostalgia was too familiar. He felt flat. But now for no particular reason (what had changed?) he felt his heart pumping quicker, and his steps felt less effortful. Thank God, he thought, here it comes again, that old renewal. He had two seconds’ worry about his heart, then remembered the magic pacemaker in his chest, keeping tabs on things. And the stent. He was all loaded up with metallic magic. He wished he was still a smoker. This was a lighting-up moment.

  ‘Jack!’

  She stood in her doorway, a cell phone in one hand, wearing a paint-stained apron over jeans. Looking, with every atom, mid-stream some engrossing activity. Jack shivered with the thrill of being unimportant to a woman. And an ex-lover who had become unattractive! Colette was stripped down to the bones of her personality: sharp cheekbones, burning blue eyes, pale skin transparent as cling film. Even her protruding abdomen seemed angular somehow. She’d reinvented herself as a Room Improver, and resided entirely in her eyes and her brush-wielding hands. Her body existed to support these parts, and the rooms in her house were continually changing colour.

  ‘Come in, man! Look at you, in shorts in the middle of winter. Merry Christmas!’

  ‘It’s not Christmas,’ he said, untangling the leashes.

  ‘Pretty damn near. Christmas Eve.’ She gestured behind her, to the artificial tree with twinkling blue lights.

  ‘No! Is it?’ Jack laughed, a short barking sound. Time! He had to take his hat off to Time – what a sneak, what a scoundrel. It was exactly as Waugh had described it in Jenny Kissed Me. And it was so satisfying when Time didn’t catch him out. He pictured the present he’d bought for Milly, wrapped and hidden under his socks. A watch. Her old watch was not broken, but she loved watches.

  ‘Yes, of course, it’s Christmas Eve, you silly old man. You know it is.’ Then she squinted at him. ‘How are you?’

  Pause.

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Okay. Tell me everything.’

  He noticed the wrinkles around her pursed mouth. They reminded him of something distasteful, but he didn’t want to think what. Regardless, he had an urge to kiss her right there on the doorstep, out of sheer gratitude for inviting him to speak his mind. A loud wet kiss. Colette sidestepped him, and almost skipped into the kitchen to get Jaspy and King a bowl of water. Light-footed and saucy, a bit like Ivy, actually. All his crush women were versions of his big sister, come to think of it. Including Lizbeth? Especially Lizbeth. Who may not even be alive, for all he knew.

  ‘Is August around? He mentioned he’d be here for Christmas.’

  ‘He’ll be here tomorrow. Sit down Jack. I’ve got some news about August.’

  ‘Not again.’

  It was as if their son had entered the room anyway, with that look, half sheepish, half proud. Jack used to love that about August. Colette made their martinis and came to sit next to him on the sofa.

  Meanwhile, Milly was sitting on the window seat she claimed for her own about five years ago. Like Goldilocks, she’d tried other seats, but this one fitted the best. She could look out of the window and see the path leading to the front door, as well as the main rooms of the house. She could watch television if she chose; the remote was on the table next to her. There was also a magazine nearby, ready to hold should Jack reappear. She tried not to gaze vacantly into space in his presence; she was too vain for that, and besides, he inhibited her space-gazing. Jack had never caught her picking her nose. That she knew of.

  The mention of August, and therefore Colette, was still hanging in the air. She absent-mindedly turned on the television and clicked through dozens of commercials. ‘Jingle Bells’ and ecstatic children ripping paper. Somehow Christmas was here again, but she was prepared even if the Christmas ornament box remained in the basement. She’d ordered gifts by phone weeks ago, wrapped them and hidden them in her closet. She had not told Jack – not because he liked surprises or hated Christmas, but because she thought Christmas should be full of secrets. She had bought Jack a grey cashmere pullover from Brooks Brothers. Yes, they were living more frugally now, but she refused to consider lambswool.

  There were also commercials about haemorrhoids and erectile dysfunction, enlarged prostates and incontinence pads and cures for arthritis. She smiled at the long list of dire side effects, intoned as if they were pleasant little nothings, like freckles occurring from prolonged exposure to the sun. She was never going to be as old as these people. Never so stupid as to get that old and sick. She stopped clicking when she came to one of those new reality programs, some kind of talent show. Ideally, she’d now open a pack of Junior Mints. She relaxed into the naughtiness of watching daytime junk alone, but after a while, the program seemed familiar in an unhappy way. All those vulnerable faces, those fevered eyes, those songs and dances they poured their hearts into. At least one of them cried every five minutes, unrehearsed, raw. It was hard to watch, and hard to turn off. It reminded of phase of her marriage. That same cruel pause before the verdict. Would he betray her? Leave her? Love her? Carry them to the next round? She’d tried so hard, but was it hard enough?

  While a mile away Jack tasted a dry martini in silence because that honoured Colette’s martini-making skill, Milly turned off the television, and her thoughts rolled this way and that. The windows looked out on trees, leafless and winter black. If a monitor was measuring her heartbeat, it would register mild fluctuations as the distant past threaded into the recent past. Today her thoughts all contained Jack, in one incarnation or another. She had been cursed by the fates, and married her true love. Her face was slack, but she was still a beautiful woman. She had a clear jaw line, and her neck had loosened but not turned to crepe. Her skin was moist and delicate. Her blonde hair had faded to white, not grey, since she’d stopped dyeing it. She would like to leave the chair, leave the house like Jack, of course she would, but just imagining the process was wearying enough. If she wanted to go out, she needed assistance getting down the gravel path. Then the complex manoeuvring into the car. Dropping down into the car seat, then lifting her left leg with her right hand as if it belonged to someone else. Hazards every inch of the way. Last time she went out she fell, despite the stupid cane. Elisabeth kept mentioning walking aids. Get a Zimmer frame, Mom, it’ll make your life much easier.

  ‘Forget it!’ she said right now out loud, as if her daughter was present. Mild enough words, but in a venomous, determined tone. Know-it-all child, that Elisabeth. Anyway, she was not going to fall any more. She was not, darn it. Falling was very…irritating. There was pain of course, but worse was the humiliation of lying on the floor, sometimes with her skirt up to her underpants. Once she lay all afternoon in the backyard, by the leeks. Darn near froze to death. If only she’d been more careful driving Sam to the hospital forty thousand years ago. If only.

  No, it was not worth going out. There was enough to deal with here, without taking extra risks. Every impulse, from picking up a dropped sock to a trip to the bathroom, was enacted in slow motion, with much strategic thinking. If, for instance, the kitchen phone rang and she was in the hall, she thought, twelve rings. It will be twelve rings before I can get to it. If the phone rang and she was in the bedroom, she said, ‘Oh, nuts.’

  No, this seat was fine, a
nd she’d stop wanting things she couldn’t have, like legs that worked and a faithful husband. She used to pray for things, but when she got them, they nearly always backfired so what was the point? She’d stopped trusting herself to know what she really needed decades ago. Now she was just grateful things were not worse.

  Jack was grateful that Colette had finally stopped talking about August’s child maintenance issues with his ex, but now she was talking about her latest plan to transform the guest bathroom. She could never just say paint the bathroom, it always had to be a metamorphosis or transformation. It was much more fun when they talked about life in general terms, or about his own past triumphs and travels. Why couldn’t she ask him again about the time Dulcinea won Best Small Publisher of the Year? Or when his star writer came out of the closet? Why could they never refer, even obliquely, to the times they tore each other’s clothes off? My God, had visiting Colette become boring? Another thing that had slipped away. He watched her puckered mouth move, and her words had a soporific effect. The gin and vermouth in his blood had begun dissipating, and he knew she’d not pour more. He roused the dogs and reattached the leashes. Apologised for their stink, and not for the first time expressed his wish that they would die soon.