Wildwood

by Drusilla Campbell

  The night before she had been awake until after three A.M. Unable to sleep, her mind full of Liz’s revelation, their argument and the problem of Adam Weed, she’d found a bottle of pinot noir in the liquor cabinet and taken it into the little study where the TV was. Sometime after midnight she watched a movie about a woman terrorized by a mysterious hitchhiker who kept appearing at the edge of the road. Bluegang was like that hitchhiker. Lately it seemed to be waiting for her around the curves of every conversation. It and James. Why had she been mean to Liz when she knew so well what happened to unwanted children? When he was born abortions had been hard to come by, dangerous, and tainted with shame. In any case, Jeanne had never considered having one. She was a married woman. She and Teddy were starting the family she had thought they both wanted.

  She called up Adam’s file and typed in what Edith White had told her. At the top of the file was the number where Simon Weed was staying through the month. She lifted the telephone receiver and was halfway through the number when Teddy came through the door talking.

  “I guess I’m going to just go out and buy myself a new pen.” He stretched out on the leather couch under the window, hands folded behind his head. “I thought I was rather inspirational this morning, didn’t you? I would have made a good preacher. There’s a feeling I get—” He sat up. “You’re not listening to me.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Adam Weed.”

  “Christ, that brat.” He lay down again.

  Jeanne laughed a little. “The cussing’s got to stop if you want to be a preacher.”

  “There was a time when I could have been anything I wanted.”

  Jeanne waited. He sat up again.

  “You know, before I met you, before I transferred to Stanford, I was going to be an actor.”

  “I saw you do Lysander at Montalvo, remember?”

  “And I was good, wasn’t I? The silly little bitch playing Hermia was an embarrassment but I was damn good. Onstage I had presence. You can’t learn that kind of thing. You’ve got to be born with it.”

  He stood, his legs slightly spread, rocking back on his heels. The applause of two hundred and fifty boys gave him an amphetamine buzz. “I had it all, Jeanne. Talent. Looks. Mom always said I never went through an awkward stage like most kids. Like my brothers. Thank God. Mom wanted me to be an actor but my father said he’d die first.” He turned his back to Jeanne and stared out across the driveway toward the rose cloister. “The old bastard never wanted me to do anything or be anything that wasn’t absolutely ordinary and exactly like everyone else.”

  It was the thousandth variation on a theme she knew by heart. She had always listened dutifully and made sympathetic noises because that was their contract, hers and Teddy’s. Teddy gazed out the window at the sunny day, rocking on the heels of his Italian shoes. “When I was talking to the boys this morning, I got the old feeling I used to have onstage when I knew I had the audience where I wanted it. Here.” He turned and thrust out his fisted hand. As suddenly his hand dropped to his side and he sagged at the middle. “I gave up a lot for this school.”

  What would happen if she lost her temper? An exquisite orgasm of pent-up rage and then sweet sleep? She asked the question and she knew the answer. If she got really mad at Teddy she would lose the moral high ground self-control gave her. She smiled a little and raised an eyebrow.

  “No one ever starts out wanting to be a teacher, Jeanne. Teaching is always something you end up doing. I only went to Columbia grad school because it was the closest I could get to Broadway.”

  “You went to Columbia because Harvard and Chicago turned you down.”

  He stared at her then laughed. “Your memory’s unusually sharp this morning.”

  “I was accepted at all three schools. You were accepted at Columbia. Period. Chicago offered me a full ride and that’s where I wanted to go. But you said you wanted us to go to grad school together. You painted a picture of what it would be like, how we’d curl up on the couch and study, share the same desk . . .” Jeanne paused and held her breath for as long as it took for something to release in her. She stood up, lightheaded.

  “If you didn’t want to be a teacher, you could have gone off and been Laurence Olivier and I wouldn’t have minded. I loved you, Teddy. You could have danced naked down Broadway, and I would have found a way to accept it. If we’re going to talk about sacrifice, why don’t I start listing the things I’ve given up?”

  Teddy grinned and winked. “There’s still fire in the old girl, huh? Reminds me of before. You were a hot little ticket. I would have said and done anything to get in your pants.”

  She knew this must be the way he talked to his girlfriends.

  He walked across the room and stood behind her. His hands on her waist were warm through her blouse.

  “Go away, Teddy. You wear me out.”

  “You should have listened more closely to my talk this morning. You wouldn’t be so crabby.” He touched her shoulder and she shoved his hand away. He reached around and slipped his other hand down the front of her blouse. “Nipples are hard. You know what that means.”

  “It means I’m angry!” she cried, turning, shoving her hands against his chest, pushing him backwards into the credenza. “Don’t you get it? I’ve had it with you. There’s a limit! Even for me there’s a goddamn fucking limit.”

  When Liz heard Hannah’s car start and knew she was alone in the house, she got out of bed and went down to the kitchen. As she read the note left for her, Cherokee shoved her cold nose under Liz’s hand, demanding attention. Liz knelt beside her and pressed her face into the dog’s silken throat. Cherokee pulled back and licked her face.

  “At least you love me.”

  She made a cup of coffee and left the kitchen, crossed the dining room and opened the double doors onto the patio. The morning was bright and warm. Liz took off her dressing gown and sat in the sun with the hem of her nightie pulled up above her knees, her feet stretched out in front of her and her head tilted back. After a while she fell asleep. The ringing of the phone awakened her. The message machine clicked on and she heard Dan’s voice.

  “You there, Liz? Pick up, will you?”

  She ran into the kitchen and answered, breathless. “I was outside.”

  “Hannah gone?”

  “She’s at Resurrection House.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  She recalled the overheard conversation and believed she knew why he was calling.

  “I’m at the hospital now. How ‘bout if I swing by the house on my way back to the office. Give me twenty minutes.”

  “What’s this about, Dan?” She wanted to hear that he was planning a surprise party for Hannah or that he needed her to help him pick out a special gift for her.

  “Twenty minutes, half hour max.”

  Liz had met Dan Tarwater in the fall of her senior year. For weeks in advance Hannah had been calling from Palo Alto to rave about him. Palo Alto to San Jose was a toll call but Hannah said screw the bill and her giggle came down the line like bubbly. “He’s fabulous, Liz. I’ve found the perfect man.”

  What a surprise to meet him at last and discover that perfection was tall and skinny and kind of shy, with an off-center nose and hair that needed trimming.

  “Don’t you just love him?” It was half-time of Big Game; the stadium quaked under their feet as they climbed the bleachers on their way to the bathroom. “Isn’t he absolutely fabulous?”

  Hannah’s shining eyes, the electricity in her hair, the flash of her straight white teeth in the sharp autumn light—Liz remembered these.

  “Just wait,” Hannah had said with a certainty that filled Liz with envy. “Years from now when we’re all ancient and haggard, you’ll look at me and say in your croaky old voice, ‘Hannah, that Dan Tarwater is a fabulous man.’ ”

  Turned out she was right.

  Thirty minutes after his call as they sat facing each other on kitchen stools she told him what Hannah had said that day.


  Dan blushed like a boy. “Fabulous. Like something out of a fable?”

  “An honest-to-goodness Prince Charming. Last of an endangered species.”

  “I’d rather be a magician or a wizard.” His eyes widened and his expression became open and wounded. “I could do with a little magic right now. A crystal ball maybe.” He spoke about Hannah. “Menopause is a complicated biological process. Some women sail right through and others have a hard time. It’s not always the chemicals by themselves, medicine can deal with that.”

  “She’s always been emotional, Dan.” She wanted him to laugh. “She cried at Coca-Cola commercials.”

  “It’s getting worse and when I bring it up, when I ask what’s bothering her, she either looks at me like I’m hallucinating or says I’m trying to make her miserable.”

  “I told her I thought she was depressed.”

  “Bet she loved hearing that. What did she say?”

  “She denied it, of course.”

  “I thought you might know . . .”

  Something happened to Hannah a long time ago. To all of us, really, but to her most of all.

  A story like Bluegang had life in it. If Liz revealed it to Dan it would eventually burrow up in the middle of a conversation like one of those tropical worms that entered the body in one place and emerged months or years later in another. Hannah had to realize for herself that the incident at Bluegang had warped the trajectory of her life, that it had damaged her as it had damaged them all.

  A boy died because Hannah pushed him onto some rocks. She didn’t mean to but she killed him and she’s never really faced it.

  Saturday night after the party Hannah had taken the first steps toward freeing the secret held so long and so close. In time she would find whatever courage she needed to tell Dan the story. But if Liz told him, Hannah would never forgive her. Their friendship could withstand almost anything, but maybe not that.

  Dan said, “And there’s this Resurrection House thing, it’s like an obsession for her now. She wants to adopt this baby, Angel, she’s been working with. Yours too. Jesus God, Liz. Hannah wants us to start all over again.”

  “She’s a rescuer.”

  “Yeah, well maybe, once upon a time, but it’s gone beyond that now. She’s got this thing about Eddie. Sometimes I think she actually dislikes him.” He dragged his hand across his mouth. “I want her to see a therapist.”

  Liz laughed. Dan looked at her sharply and then he laughed too.

  “Talk to her. Please.”

  “She won’t listen to me. She’s angry with me because of the abortion.”

  “Try anyway.” Dan glanced at his watch and headed for the front door. “Maybe there’s nothing you can do. Or me. I don’t know. I think I just needed to talk. After last night . . .” He stopped. His chest lifted in a great sigh.

  She said what she didn’t quite believe. “It’ll be okay, Dan.”

  From his expression she knew that he didn’t quite believe it either.

  “Hannah says Gerard’s asked you to marry him.”

  Liz nodded.

  “Do it.”

  “I’m not built for the long haul, Dan. Eventually, I cut and run.”

  “Says who?”

  “I always do. I always have.”

  “Not here you haven’t.” He came back inside and put his arms around her, kissed her on each cheek in the European fashion and then held her at arm’s length, his eyes all kindness. “No one could ask for a more faithful friend, Liz. I don’t know why you came back. We both know you could have had the procedure in Florida. It doesn’t matter why, I’m just glad you did.”

  When he was gone Liz made another cup of coffee and sat on the patio looking down toward the barn. For the first time she could remember she examined the assumption on which she had based her whole adult life: I’m not built for the long haul . . . A quitter . . . I cut and run. What was the proof of this? Bluegang. She had been faithful to her friends, to Gerard and his family. To her own aged parents she had shown only care and consideration. Editors admired her reliability and every author she collaborated with praised her willingness to work until the translation was perfect. But long ago she had abandoned Billy Phillips when she knew better. She had cut and run from Bluegang. And that single incident had shaped her choices for more than thirty years. She could see that this was illogical, made no sense; but when you examine it, what in life did?

  Eddie came home when Liz was watering the bedraggled nicotiana gangling in pots by the kitchen door.

  “You’re early,” she said and followed him into the kitchen. “I was about to go over to Jeanne’s but I thought I’d recycle the rinse water first.” She opened the refrigerator. “Want a snack? There’s leftover lasagna.”

  Eddie dropped his backpack in the middle of the kitchen tiles and sank onto a stool at the counter.

  “I got cut.”

  “Where? Show me.”

  He turned away from her, disdainful of her ignorance. “Football. Coach said I should bulk up over the year then try again if I want.” He sneered. “Prob’ly wants me to shoot steroids for good old Rinconada High.” He mimed pumping a hypo into his arm.

  “Don’t even pretend.”

  “Who cares anyway? I never did want to play football.” He grabbed an apple from the basket on the counter and bit into it.

  “Your mom told me you liked it.”

  “What does she know?”

  “You should do something you like.”

  “Oh, yeah.” His upper lip curled like a tough guy in a B movie. “What I like.”

  “Why’d you start football in the first place if you don’t like it?”

  “She wanted me to.”

  “You mean Hannah?”

  “Who’d you think I meant?” He glared at Liz. She stepped back and threw up her hands in defense.

  “Hey, kid, don’t aim your guns at me. I’m Liz. Your godmother. No blood kin at all.” Thank God. “Just an innocent civilian.”

  “You don’t know what she’s like. All the time talking about how it was when she was in high school, how much fun you all had at the games—”

  “She’s only making conversation, looking for something you can have in common. It’s hard on a mom when her boy isn’t little anymore.” How did she know this? His expression of hurt and defiance touched her heart and she felt a click somewhere inside, like tumblers in a lock. “In some ways you’re a stranger to her.”

  “And she likes it that way.”

  “Oooh, that’s cold.”

  “So? Forget I ever even said it.” He eyed the kitchen sink and shot the apple core into it. “What do I know?”

  “She loves you, honey.”

  He scratched a pimple on his chin and examined his fingernails. Like an ad for teenage despair, he dug in behind a bunker of resentment and picked his face. Hostile and hurt, defended and vulnerable: Eddie was all these at once and Liz was a soldier ducking grenades, dodging land mines, fired on by snipers.

  Welcome to parenting, she thought. Battlefield Tarwater.

  “Try to imagine how it is for her: one day you’re three years old and you’re the center of the world for each other. When she looks in your eyes she sees herself reflected. Next thing she knows you’re fifteen, five feet ten and all the things she did best for you, you don’t want.” He stared off into the distance. Liz put her hand on his cheek. Under her palm, she felt his terrible skin but she didn’t pull back. He resisted and then submitted to the pressure of her hand. How long since anyone had touched him there, in that way? He turned his troubled face to her.

  “This is a hard time for her too, Eddie, but it’ll pass. I promise you.”

  He jerked away and headed for the hall.

  She called after him. “What would you like to talk about, Eddie? What interests you?”

  He stopped. From the set of his shoulders, she read his indecision. He turned back to her and said, with a note of challenge, “I collect football cards. Maybe
that makes me a nerd compared to all those guys on the team, but I don’t care. I’m not a head-banger. I think you gotta be an idiot to do that shit for free.”

  “Tell me about your card collection.”

  “I got more than ten thousand cards since back when I was in elementary school.” His tone dared Liz to be interested. “And my fantasy football team’s beating out Sean’s, big-time. I won seven bucks off him yesterday.”

  She recalled that the day before when Liz and Hannah returned from lunch Eddie and Sean were watching football on the den television, switching channels every few minutes, hooting and cheering.

  “Tell Hannah. Show her your card collection.”

  “Great.” He polished another apple on his Levi’s.

  “Just say you want to talk. She loves you, Eddie. She’ll listen.”

  “No way.” He fired the words. “If I was to tell her I don’t want to play football, she’d go all serious and say something like how if I quit I’ll miss out on So. Much. Fun.” A barrage of mockery backed up his anger. “She’d tell me about the time Mario Bacci ran for three hundred yards and what a great night that was and how no one’ll ever forget it. Then she’d look at the clock and tell me she’s going to Erection House and I should do my homework and don’t forget my chores and have a nice life whoever you are.” He exhaled a deep breath and stared at his half-eaten apple. “Oh, yeah, she’d ask me if I washed my hair. She asks me every day. She knows I do. I can’t help it, I got oily hair.” Eddie was a killing field of emotions.

  “You’re making yourself miserable, honey, and you don’t have to. Tell her she has to listen to you. We all want to be needed, Eddie. We all want to be important to other human beings.”

  He listened, fidgeting and making so-what faces but standing in one place.

  “If you don’t tell her, the time’ll pass and you’ll be left with a big old scar in the middle of your gut and it’ll never go away. It’ll be there whenever you want to love someone or trust or . . . you know.”

  She took the apple core from his hand, eyed the sink, and dished it in over her left shoulder. Surprised by herself, she laughed and raised her hand to Eddie. Their palms slapped together.