Help Yourself

by Rachel Michael Arends

  Back at Jack’s house, Chaser cries at the patio door and I let her out while he lights some candles. Chaser races down the steps to the beach. She dances there, running up to meet the waves and running back again when they soak her feet. Her joy reminds me of the first night I felt the ocean water, when I couldn’t help twirling in the moonlight because I was just so happy to be here. Chaser’s golden blond hair shows through the darkness. So do the waves, breaking white and frothy as they reach up to cover a little more sand each time. The tide is coming in.

  The beach is like life, I suppose: it never stays the same for too long at a stretch.

  Chaser runs back up to meet me. I open the door just enough to ask Jack for a towel so I can dry her feet off before I let her in. Jack brings one out and sits down in a chair to wipe Chaser down. He takes my hand and we go back into the house, where he has poured out two glasses of Malbec.

  “I forgot to mention that your hair looks nice,” I say.

  It’s cut short and neat. I liked him disheveled, but I like him even more now.

  “Thanks,” he says, smiling. He crouches in front of the fire, fixing to light it.

  “Can I help?” I ask.

  He reaches back to me for a second and pats my leg. He has a wonderful touch.

  “Have a seat and drink your wine,” he says.

  I sit on the couch across from the fireplace so I can watch him. Chaser circles a few times before she lies on the floor beside me. She puts her head onto her front legs, stretched way out. She sighs a big, contented sigh.

  Jack joins me on the couch once the fire catches.

  He eases down with his back in the corner, resting on the arm, facing me. He pats his chest and opens his arms.

  I lean back onto him. It feels amazing and natural, like this isn’t our second date but our hundredth.

  We watch the fire and sip our wine. Neither of us talk. I think we’re all talked out.

  We sit for a long time. When I see that our glasses are empty, I take them into the kitchen and refresh them.

  I planned to sit back down in the same spot, to lean on him again, with the dog lying on the wooden floor beside us, while the waves make a peaceful soundtrack to our night.

  But when I look into Jack’s eyes, I change my plans. I set our wineglasses on a side table and smile.

  He reaches out and takes my hands.

  I bend down and kiss him.

  We adjust ourselves until we lay next to each other.

  I have pined for guys before. I followed at their heels, begging for scraps of attention. Often these have been my bosses. Cooks or, as I progressed, head chefs in restaurants where I worked. When they finally showed interest, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been worth it.

  One smelled of garlic. I guess it isn’t surprising, since it was an important ingredient in our most popular dishes. But when we kissed, woo wee; it was like he chewed garlic cloves instead of gum. Another was an instant groper. He had been the hardest to interest, but as soon as he decided to give me the time of day, he threw everything into it: his hands, arms, mouth, tongue, teeth, legs.

  Phil and I had a more complicated history because we practically grew up together in the same small schools and all. But I sought him out like the other guys, and he was the one in charge. I loved Phil in my own way. He was familiar and convenient, but he didn’t ever make me feel sentimental and tender just by looking at me.

  The way Jack does.

  “You feel so good. So soft and warm,” he whispers in my ear.

  He kisses my neck, sending shivers up my spine.

  My whole body feels alive with electricity. I run my fingers through Jack’s short hair. I know it tends to curl when it’s longer, and it’s thick and soft. His cheek is just the tiniest bit rough. It feels like heaven. So do his lips.

  I put my hand under his chin and raise it up so I can kiss him on the mouth again.

  Chaser barks at the patio door, startling us both. I giggle. I feel like we’re teenagers on his parent’s couch, about to get busted.

  “Shhh, girl,” he says.

  She barks again.

  He sighs. I make room for him to get up. We’re both flushed and disheveled. We share a smile. He picks up my hand and kisses it.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says. He gives me my wine glass from the side table. Chaser dances excitedly as he opens the deck door.

  The wind rushes in. It feels colder. Jack closes the door.

  I sip my wine and curl up to erase the chill.

  In a minute, he opens the door and pokes his head in.

  “Chaser ran after someone with a flashlight way down the beach.” He reaches inside and takes her leash from a hook. “I’ve got to go after her. Please stay right there; I’ll be back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A minute after Jack goes, I’m startled by a knock on the door. I peek outside and can’t hardly believe my eyes.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask Phil.

  “I came to ask you to marry me again,” he says, holding out a velvet ring box.

  “How did you find me?” I ask, completely dumbfounded and frazzled.

  “Your mom gave me the address, and that guy you ran off with said I could find you here. So what do you say, Merry?” he kneels in front of the fire.

  A cold wind blows in. Jack shuts the door and stares at us.

  Phil stays kneeling, the big oaf!

  “Who the hell are you?” Jack demands.

  “I’m Merry’s new fiancé.”

  “Oh, no you’re not!” I say. I am torn between laughing and crying.

  “Come on, Merry. You know what we’ve been through together. I love you, and we make beautiful meals together.”

  Jack grabs Phil by the arm and hefts him to standing. He turns his arm behind his back.

  Phil kicks backward at him. “You son of a bitch, get your hands off me!”

  Jack doesn’t seem to hear; he tightens his grip and marches Phil to the door. I run ahead and open it.

  “Go next door, Phil. I will talk to you there,” I say.

  Phil turns on Jack as soon as his arm is free, but I stand between them. “Go next door!” I holler. Phil finally saunters off, with the little ring box still in his hand.

  “You said you two weren’t dating anymore,” Jack says in a very jealous, very possessive way.

  “We’re not,” I say.

  “Then how do you explain his proposal?” Jack yells.

  I stare at him a minute, hoping he’ll cool down. I touch his arm, but he shakes my hand off.

  “Listen to me,” I say. “I never lied to you. I never cheated on you or anyone else. I have been honest from the get-go.”

  “How can I believe you?” he says. He seems less angry now, more confused.

  “I guess you have to trust me,” I say softly.

  “Trust you?” he asks. He slumps down on the sofa and puts his head in his hands.

  I kneel down and try to hug him. He won’t let me; he turns away.

  I wait a few minutes, hoping that he’ll come out of his haze, that he’ll look at me, and speak to me. But it doesn’t happen.

  I pour my wine down the sink on my way out the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  IN WHICH JACK TASTES BLOOD

  As told by Jack, who comes to a decision, perhaps too late

  I don’t know how to explain my behavior last night. It may be as easy, or as complicated, as saying that I was jealous when I walked in on Merry’s surprise proposal in my living room last night. I’m not sure what the appropriate reaction would have been for that occasion—I doubt that Emily Post ever took it on—but I realize now that mine was unfair.

  With a day’s hindsight, I could tell Merry that I know I was wrong, that I shouldn’t have gotten angry with her. I could promise that I’ll never be jealous again.

  It might be easy enough to say that. It’s only a series of words, after all. I was able to explain the general facts of my sordid h
istory to her yesterday. Those were far worse, and I just laid them out straight.

  I could assure Merry that I’m ready to move on. I could promise that she can trust me to act reasonably, and that I’ll never again assume she’s lying just because my wife did.

  I feel like I’m standing in a doorway. On one side is my history with Katie, which I thought was wonderful, but the facts tell me otherwise, and my friendship with Martin, which was one of the solid truths of my life, until it was revealed to be a lie.

  On the other side is the future, with the possibility of happiness and discovery, sadness, and love. Merry is standing on that side.

  I don’t know if I’m capable of passing from one to the other.

  Last night I felt trapped in that metaphorical doorway. I wasn’t wholly in the realm of the past, nor was I able to take another step toward the future. I was an unhappy spirit, condemned to walk between the worlds of the living and the dead, unable to fully commune with either one.

  The phone rings.

  “We need to talk,” Martin says on the line.

  “Will you please stop calling me? Jesus Christ! Don’t you have any shame at all?”

  “No. I don’t have any shame, or pride, or anything,” he says.

  Something about his tone pulls at my gut.

  Katie’s casket was closed during the wake. They couldn’t make her presentable, not even for a family viewing. Martin was the only one, besides the semi driver, the paramedics, and the presiding emergency room doctors and nurses, to have seen her broken. I try not to acknowledge, even to myself, that this is his tragedy, too.

  “You have to forgive me, Jack. I can’t live like this.”

  I feel incredibly weary all of the sudden. I sit down on the floor with my back against the wall, my elbows on my knees.

  “I forgive you,” I say, because I want him to stop doing this.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I just said I did.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “No, I don’t!” I yell.

  I take a deep breath and let it out. I try to speak more calmly.

  “Continuing to torture yourself is bad for business. It’s bad for my parents. And it annoys the living shit right out of me. Would you please stop now?”

  “I keep thinking that if Katie hadn’t come to my place that night, she wouldn’t be dead. If she hadn’t agreed to help me train for the marathon, we wouldn’t have started the affair. I loved her so much, Jack. Oh my God, I still can’t believe that she’s gone…”

  He dissolves into racking sobs.

  I sometimes believed that I wanted to know what had happened. How and when I had lost her, and him, in order to try and understand this terrible tragedy. I have an analytical mind. I thought I wanted to break it down and study it.

  I realize that I don’t. That I can’t.

  It’s over, and no amount of dissection and analysis will change the bottom line: she’s gone. We’re here. Sometimes I envy Katie, my beautiful, strong, cheating, warm, haunting, vibrant, dead, young wife.

  I try to push away memories of the late nights Katie said she spent working. Her proud expression as she crossed a finish line. I try to let the ocean drown out the sound of Martin’s tears.

  And mine.

  I watch rain lash against the windows. It’s wild out there today. It looks beckoningly cold.

  “I know you hate me, but it can’t be as much as I hate myself. Katie’s gone. I can’t believe she’s gone…”

  His voice rises to a wail.

  I hang up the phone and put my hands over my ears to drown out the echo of Martin’s voice, pressing so hard that I hear the blood pumping in my body: my own inner rhythm like the ocean that calls to me.

  When I cleaned the house, I hosed off my wetsuit and hung it in my shower to dry. I take off my clothes now and put it on.

  Through the window, I see the sky is gray again. It could be noon, maybe later; I don’t know or care. The ocean is a chaotic storm, mirroring my mind. I want to plunge into the cold water and feel its energy. I want to let it overtake my thoughts and emotions until I’m completely exhausted by it, with nothing left to feel or think. I grab my surfboard from the outdoor wooden shower on the landing and head down to the water.

  The wind lashes me and pulls at my surfboard, like it’s trying to wrench it free and hurl it out of my hands into the dune.

  I hold it tight.

  I walk into the water, which seeps inside my suit. I know it will eventually warm to my body temperature and protect me from the elements, but first it chills me to the core. I welcome the raw cutting edge of its pure frigidity.

  Currents rush and whorl around my ankles with a force that pulls and warns me at once, from every direction.

  I keep walking.

  I feel pressure on my calves, then my thighs, then my waist. I throw myself onto my board and paddle with my hands out to deeper water.

  I don’t argue with myself today, or with any ghosts, or memories of what was and what wasn’t. I need all my mental and physical energy. For breathing, and for getting to the surface when I’m thrown under the freezing chaos of water, which rushes in every direction to create a force I’ve never known.

  Its violence staggers and exhausts me.

  My muscles burn and ache with the overburdened effort of keeping my body upright, my head above the hostile surface that seems determined to bury me.

  I gasp for breath each time my head clears the water, but I take in as much sea as air. The waves and currents are unpredictable and unforgiving.

  I find myself at the decision point that always comes.

  Do I fight to drag myself toward shore? Or do I let the ocean carry me wherever it may?

  A seabird soars close by, screaming. I look up and watch it fly toward shore, up past Merry’s deck.

  I see her there.

  She’s far away, but I can tell by her posture that she’s watching closely, that she’s anxious.

  I remember how warm and soft she felt, leaning on me in front of the fire. How sweet her mouth tasted.

  A wave crashes over my head, burying me in icy water.

  I want to go to shore.

  I want to be with Merry, to feel her body next to mine, thawing me. To see her smile.

  I surface again. I look for her on the deck, but I only see Fritz and Claude. I remember Claude is dead, though… Maybe my decision was made for me. Maybe I’m gone, too.

  A wall of churning sea encompasses me. I overcome it to see Merry rushing down the stairs toward the beach.

  Another wave hits, and this time my head smacks my board. I taste blood.

  I push toward shore. It feels very, very far away. Too far.

  I hear Merry yell out.

  “Ja-ack!”

  She runs across the beach as fast as the sand allows. Her voice gets closer. I try to help close the distance, but it’s so hard. Impossibly hard. I realize with a sudden horror that I am growing weaker and weaker.

  “Ja-ack! Ja-ack!”

  Chaser barks and runs to the water’s edge. I touch my face and see blood on my hand before the ocean carries it off.

  I don’t feel specific pain; the water is so cold that I just feel a generalized, numb ache throughout my body. My lungs struggle for air.

  I’m in shallow enough water now to stand. I manage, though it’s difficult.

  I wave to Merry.

  She looks horrified; I put my hand up to my face again. There is so much blood… I feel my teeth; though my hands are numb and my mouth is numb, I can tell there are no gaps. Maybe my nose is broken.

  I struggle for breath as I try to wave again, to reassure Merry.

  She screams.

  It pierces me and I freeze.

  I feel, rather than see, an enormous wave bearing down on me from behind. It cracks me like a hundred baseball bats. I fall forward to connect again with my surfboard.

  I hear Merry scream again before everything goes black.

  C
hapter Twenty

  IN WHICH MERRY ANSWERS THE MILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION

  As told by Merry, who couldn’t have done it without Fritz

  A fisherman lifts Jack in his arms like he’s a child who might’ve just fallen asleep on the couch watching a television show. Instead of loose popcorn falling on a family room carpet, though, blood drips from Jack’s open gash and disappears into the swirling water.

  Fritz runs toward us, catching up to help form a sorrowful parade across the sand. The breaking waves provide the music for our slow, hard shuffle. The fisherman walks silently. I sob and Fritz rambles. Jack won’t wake up.

  When we reach the stairs, the fisherman lays Jack across the walkway. I support his head on my lap.

  Fritz throws off his own jacket and removes his white button-front shirt. He rolls it up and wraps it tightly around Jack’s head wound.

  Blood blooms through before they can even pick him up again. The fisherman carries Jack’s arms, and Fritz carries his legs up the wooden staircase.

  “Straight to the driveway,” Fritz says. I open the gate for them to cross over the dune. “Call an ambulance.”

  Inside Jack’s house, I speak calmly enough to convince the emergency operator that we need medical help. That she needs to send somebody quickly. Please.

  Chaser is at the door. I let her in and towel her off. She has blood all down the side of her golden coat. Jack’s blood, which had poured from his handsome head.

  I hug her. She pants and whines. I give her fresh food and water. I try to focus on being useful. I see Jack’s wallet on the counter and grab it on my way out the front door, where Fritz hovers over Jack’s quiet body in the driveway.

  The ambulance screams its way up the street.

  I give the wallet to one of the paramedics before Jack is lifted on a gurney and pushed through the open back doors. I want to ride in the ambulance, but they say they need room to attend to Jack.

  We watch the ambulance drive away, until even the sound is gone, and the silence is broken only by our breathing.

  “Let’s follow them,” I say.

  “Wash the blood off yourself first. Put on dry clothes and shoes,” Fritz says, taking charge. “I’ll clean up, too, and drive us to the hospital. I know exactly where it is.”