Help Yourself

by Rachel Michael Arends

  “I brought back your sweet dog again,” she says, looking wonderful: windblown, fresh, happy, and full of life.

  “Thanks.”

  “How was your steak tonight?”

  “Phenomenal,” I say. “Truly.”

  Merry puts her hand on my arm. The warmth of it stirs something inside me. Like a lizard resting on a sunny rock, I feel myself start to come alive.

  “I’m glad y’all liked it. I just wanted to make sure Chaser made it back to you, safe and sound,” she says.

  She takes her hand away and turns to go.

  I don’t want her to.

  “Hey,” I say.

  She looks back and smiles.

  “I’d invite you in, but honestly, I’m ashamed of the state of this house,” I say.

  She shakes her head, like it can’t be that bad.

  “You wouldn’t want to come in. It smells,” I confess.

  “Really?”

  “I wish I wasn’t such a slob.”

  Her smile is gorgeous, but her skeptical frown is even better. What the hell did she put in my steak?

  Her smile fades. I see that she thinks I’m trying to get rid of her by using a lame excuse. Of course she doesn’t believe me because who would actually live the way I’m living?

  “What if we went out for drinks?” I hear someone say, and half a beat later I am horrified to know it was me. I feel a rush of adrenaline. It’s only partially excitement; the rest is panic.

  She double-whammies me with a skeptical frown followed by a big, beautiful smile.

  “I’ll need to get my purse and put some shoes on. How about you pick me up next door when you’re ready, in maybe fifteen minutes or so?”

  An hour later, I finally leave my house through the front door. I took a shower right after I watched Merry walk down the steps toward the beach. It was supposed to be a quick one to sober me because I felt punch-drunk.

  It was supposed to miraculously wake me up from the nightmare that began on October fifteenth. No, to transport me back further, to whenever it was that Katie began to be lost to me, so that I could change whatever needed changing, do whatever needed to be done. To keep her heart and mind connected to my heart and mind, and stop that first domino from falling that has led to this here and now instead of the one that should have been.

  I started to think, and before I knew it, I was racked with sobs. I’m not sure exactly what brought them on: fear, guilt, mental exhaustion? Probably those and more, I don’t know. If I knew my own head, I wouldn’t be here, and maybe Katie would.

  Christ, I’ll break down again if I keep thinking.

  I consider staying in. Calling Merry and making up an excuse. But the idea of doing that seems almost as hopeless as just going. I remember reading this line in one of my dad’s psych magazines when I was younger: “Do something life-affirming: Call your grandmother, or plant some flowers, or walk your dog.” I thought it was sage advice. How could it not be, set off in a square pink callout on a page that had an unshaven man in grayscale with his head in his hands? Now, trying to picture it, that man was a dead ringer for me.

  It seems like a step in the right direction to have a drink with Merry, a good addition to the life-affirming list. It doesn’t seem dangerous or evil. I don’t understand why my legs feel like they’re made of lead as I make my way across the driveway to my car. Logically, they should feel fine. I’m trying to affirm life here.

  This house doesn’t have a garage; instead, there are spaces under it to park. If Merry is watching out through her window, wondering why I’m so late, she can see me fill a plastic bag with debris from my small sports car. It’s not as disgustingly unkempt as the house, but only because I rarely drive anywhere. I toss away old coffee cups, fast-food sandwich containers, newspapers from various places I passed through on my way here, and a broken umbrella.

  I focus on the mechanics of getting into my car and driving next door.

  I ring the bell.

  Fritz opens up. “Finally,” he says with his eyebrows raised, like I’m five hours late for a formal engagement.

  “Hi, Fritz.” I shake his hand. I feel guilty for my self-protectively cold reception of him when I arrived on the island. “I’m really sorry about Claude. He was quite a guy.”

  “Thanks,” he says. We only fleetingly make eye contact, but it is enough to make his voice become strained. “I’m sorry about Katie, too. She was lovely.”

  I want to thank him back, but my throat constricts. She was lovely.

  “I’ll get Merry,” he says, heading upstairs.

  I wonder who Fritz is in relation to Merry. From his irritation about my being late, I might guess that he is her brother. But they look completely different, and their accents couldn’t be further apart.

  “Hi, Jack!” Merry calls from above.

  She skips down the stairs toward me, in a flutter of color and motion, until she’s standing right in front of me. She smiles and I feel steadier.

  When we first get inside the car, I think that I can imagine she’s Katie, at least for the dark drive, if I put on some quiet music and we don’t speak.

  But Merry’s perfume is different than my wife’s, and she hums along with the music. She reaches over and pats my hand. “I’m glad y’all made it,” she says quietly.

  I can’t say it aloud because I don’t trust my voice, but even though this step is hard as hell, and I’m not sure how I’ll feel five minutes from now, for this one moment I think I’m glad I made it, too.

  Merry agrees to the first little island restaurant I point out as a possibility. It’s dark inside, sort of damp-feeling, and covered from floor to ceiling with wood paneling. She leads me to a booth near the jukebox and a small dance floor.

  There are a few fishermen seated at the bar, and two tables are filled with retirees. A young couple eats dinner in a booth across from us. Besides Merry and me, they all seem to be locals.

  Everyone looked up when we came in and stared until they had apparently put us in whatever category they thought we fit into: maybe investors considering opening a business on the island before high season starts, or vacation home buyers sampling the quaint local fare after a day of home tours, or travelers just passing through on their way to someplace else.

  Merry changed her clothes since she walked Chaser home to me. She has on high boots with her jeans tucked into them and a soft-looking long blue sweater.

  “I’ll have the Pale Ale,” Merry says brightly to the weary-looking waitress. She looks to me and asks, “Two?”

  I nod.

  I haven’t had a drink since Katie died. I stayed away from alcohol at first because I knew that I was near the edge. I have never been a teetotaler for this long, but I’ve thought it wise to keep my head as clear as possible. It has been too thickly fogged by sadness and confusion to add any complicating chemicals to the toxic mix.

  “I heard about your wife. I’m so sorry,” Merry says, as if Katie’s death is as valid a topic of conversation as the grease-stained menu.

  I nod dismissively.

  She looks at me fully for a minute.

  “Mind if I talk about me?” she asks. “I know that when you’re getting to know someone, you’re supposed to ask lots of questions and keep your mouth shut. But I feel like talking tonight, if y’all don’t mind.”

  I can tell she is doing this for me because I obviously don’t want to open up. I’m grateful to her, and relieved.

  “I’d love to hear all about y’all,” I say.

  Merry slaps my hand lightly for mimicking her accent. The beers come.

  “Then drink up and leave the conversation to me.”

  Merry is true to her word. I enjoy listening. I watch her mouth move and her expressions change. She talks with her hands, motioning often to embellish a story and clapping them together when she reaches the end.

  Each time she finishes telling me some little tale about her mountain town childhood and the characters from Peaksy Falls, she l
ooks for a signal as to whether she should keep talking.

  I want to keep listening, so I ask another question whenever she pauses. She obliges me by answering in her colorful, folksy, sweet way. I could listen to her accent all night long.

  Merry talks so much that she doesn’t have time to drink. Listening gives me plenty. I drink three beers before she finishes one.

  I missed the taste of beer, the attention of an attractive woman, and the light-headed optimism that comes with catching a buzz.

  I notice Merry finally finish her drink.

  “Would you like another one?” I ask.

  “No, sir. I’ll be the designated driver tonight.”

  “Can I ask how you’re related to Fritz?” I ask because it popped into my head.

  “We’re not related,” she says. “I like to pretend he’s my brother sometimes, but he’s not. It’s a long story. I don’t want to bore you with it,” she says.

  “I have all night.”

  I know I sound like the hopeless flirt I used to be, before I met Katie. We were married for five years and dated for two before that, so I am very out of practice with talking to another woman while enjoying a growing buzz.

  After a little more prompting, Merry tells me the story of how she came to know Fritz and how he brought her to the island to claim her inheritance.

  “You’re making that up!” I say.

  She assures me she isn’t, but she laughs along with me. She lets her leg rest lightly against mine.

  “So you knew my father and I didn’t. How crazy is that?” she says.

  “Pretty crazy,” I agree.

  I realize I have lost track of which beer I’m on. I know from experience that’s never a good sign. They taste good, though, and I’m having fun for the first time since October fifteenth. Was that only a few months ago? Or yesterday? Or another lifetime?

  I look down at my hands for a moment. I can still see the faint line where my wedding band used to be. It’s been lost for months; I don’t remember taking it off, and I haven’t been able to find it anywhere. I’m on the brink of putting my head down on the table for a short cry.

  Merry takes my hand, with its faint line. She holds it lightly and brings my attention back up to her face.

  She tells me another story and I laugh. Maybe too loud.

  When she tells me about her estranged boyfriend, I become jealous. That’s another indication that maybe I’m getting drunk.

  I excuse myself to use the bathroom. My tipsy walk down the long, narrow hall confirms my suspicion.

  I tell myself that I shouldn’t have gotten drunk, but I don’t really believe it. I give a shitfaced grin to the mirror. I feel different than my normal self, and I was so sick of my normal self that I decide I’ll never get sober again.

  I return from the bathroom to find Merry choosing a song on the jukebox.

  “Dance with me,” I say.

  She gives me her skeptical frown.

  “Come on,” I cajole. “Everyone has left but us.” I put my arms around her, and we sway.

  I like the music she chose. I don’t recognize it, probably because Merry is younger than me by at least a few years, and Katie and I had been in a musical rut for a long time. Katie had a rapid style of speaking. She was also very thin and small-chested, a marathoner. It has been a long, long time since I’ve held a woman who is softer.

  Katie’s hair was long. She complained about it all the time, put it into a ponytail as soon as she got home from work, and always wore it back on weekends. Merry’s hair is short and incredibly silky. I love the feel of it against my cheek.

  I keep reminding myself to keep a respectable distance, but her body feels so good next to mine. I pull her closer; she’s so warm and soft.

  I stumble a little.

  “Alrighty now,” she says. “It’s time to go home.”

  I begin to argue, but I hear my words slur so I stop. I let Merry lead me out after I pay for the drinks. She tries to pick up the tab, but I insist, or “inshist,” I’m afraid.

  She tucks me into the passenger seat of my car.

  It’s only a ten-minute ride back to my place, but Merry has to wake me up in my driveway. I know I should feel very guilty, but she tells me it’s OK so convincingly that I forget to be ashamed. She leads me out of the car and up the stairs, which keep moving.

  I try to put my key in the lock, but it doesn’t fit. I realize it’s the car key and let out a comedic scream.

  She takes the keys from my hand and opens the door for me. She leads me inside, but the rug shifts unexpectedly.

  There’s a certain passage in David Copperfield when Dickens (as David) describes being in a drunken state. It floors me every time. It’s so funny, so absolutely hysterical…I laugh just thinking about it.

  I have slurred my way through the passage several times over the years as I’ve tried to read it to inebriated companions. The first time I was fifteen and tried to read it to Martin. I whispered so that my parents wouldn’t know we’d stolen a pint of Sloe Gin from their liquor cabinet before we’d gone to Janet Sturgeon’s party down the street.

  I ponder that Dickensian passage and my loyal old pal, drunken David.

  “It was myself!” I snicker at one of my favorite lines.

  I must not be telling it right because Merry doesn’t laugh along with me. She’s being a stick-in-the-mud, so I turn away from her.

  “Only my hair looks drunk!” I tell my reflection in a window before doubling over.

  I must read the passage to Merry. I know I’m not doing it justice by relating it in snatches. But when I look for the book, I can’t find it.

  Even the bookshelves are gone. Everything is different.

  Then it dawns on me that none of my books are here. They’re all back in Katie’s and my Chicago apartment, neatly stacked and categorized.

  Gathering dust.

  I look around, confused, feeling like I’ve never seen this place before. I’m alarmed and saddened by how dirty it is. Katie will be angry.

  Then I remember that Katie is no more. She is gone.

  Gathering dust.

  I look at Merry and realize that I shouldn’t have let her in here at all. My vision blurs, and I feel tears streaking down my face.

  Now Merry seems to have gone away, too. I am sitting alone in the kitchen, slumped forward with my head on the table.

  Merry is beside me again. I feel her hand on my shoulder.

  “Come on, big guy. I found your room, and I’ll help you get there.”

  I trip over Chaser and apologize profusely. Merry helps me navigate around the furniture, which is harder than it might sound because it keeps moving.

  She helps me get through a doorway that has become alarmingly narrow. She pushes me down to sit on the bed. She takes my shoes off and removes my coat.

  “I see what you’re about,” I say, suddenly very amorous. I’m confused regarding where I am for a moment and even who I am.

  Merry smiles and I remember.

  “No, sir,” she says. “You need some sleep now.”

  I put my arms around her waist and lean back onto the bed, less gracefully than I meant. She lands on top of me.

  I don’t want to let go. I just want to feel the warmth of her.

  I want to feel her breathing.

  Chapter Sixteen

  IN WHICH FRITZ WEEPS ACROSS THE OCEAN

  As told by a very homesick Mr. Forth

  I am tired, weary, beleaguered, and acutely aware of the clock slowly ticking off the seconds. My sleep machine can no longer muffle the ocean outside, let alone my myriad thoughts. It’s the middle of the night here on this lonely island, morning in London. I wasn’t able to reach Victor before he went off to his gig last night. Though I’m afraid I’ll wake him up, I need, quite desperately, to hear his voice.

  “Hello?”

  Oh bloody hell, that’s not V. I don’t know how I could have reached the wrong number—he’s at the top of my most frequently
called list for heaven’s sake; that shouldn’t leave any room for error.

  “Sorry,” I mumble. I hang up and try again.

  “Who is this?” the voice that isn’t Victor’s demands.

  “I’m sorry, my phone must be wrong. I was calling for Victor Mercier.”

  “No, you’re right then. This is his flat.”

  “Then who the hell is this?” I ask.

  The most banished, supremely unwanted memory of my life floods back to me. I had just begun to see Victor. I was slowly getting used to the idea of dating a man openly, trying to negotiate the line between the formal, traditional manner in which I was raised and the overwhelmingly complex feeling of falling head-over-heels in love for the first time. Victor had been in love before. In fact, he was still in the process of breaking it off with his long-term beau.

  He was performing at a club in Paris on a Friday night. He tried to talk me into taking the day off and going with him, but I had a hundred reasons why it was impossible. When he’d gone, though, I found that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else but him.

  I decided to surprise him in Paris. I am not an impulsive man, so the whole enterprise was a new experience for me. I found it exhilarating.

  I wrapped up work early enough to make it to the end of the show. It had felt wonderful, sort of freewheeling and luxurious, to leave town with an overnight bag to meet my lead singer boyfriend after a performance.

  When I arrived at the venue, which happened to be a small and smoky pub, I noticed Victor’s old boyfriend, Michel. I knew Michel from many pictures in the photo album screensaver on V’s computer. He was sitting in the audience, right at the front. I saw Victor sing to him. From my vantage point, I saw enough to break my heart.

  I understand from books and films that there is sometimes a sort of limbo in between relationships, when one hasn’t quite cooled down enough to put it away safely, but the new one hasn’t heated up enough to warrant full and constant attention. That must have been the phenomenon I witnessed.

  After the show, Victor saw me. His face lit up in proportion to Michel’s face turning dark.

  V and I enjoyed a wonderful night together, and we spent the next day in the lovely city before traveling back to London.