“This afternoon. Why?”
He knew my tone of voice; something was coming around a blind corner at him. I told him about Mom and David. It was news to him. He was uncharacteristically quiet on the other end.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked.
“I’m processing here. My motherboard is smoking. What the fuck. Was she serious?”
“As serious as antibiotic resistant TB.”
Antibiotic resistant TB? A simple plague would have sufficed.
“Antibiotic resistant TB?” he asked.
“Whatever. Jon wants to invite David to the wedding.”
Eric burst out laughing.
“Oh hell no. Fuck me. No. Tell Jon it’s never going to happen.”
“Do you still exchange Christmas cards?” I asked.
“Sure. They send a family picture. I put it front and center on the mantle when Asp comes over on Christmas Eve.”
“I knew it,” I said.
I told Jon no invite. He said it might come from the bride’s side of the family.
“I heard that,” said Eric. “Tell him no fucking way.”
I told Jon no ffing way. He just smiled.
“I heard him,” said Jon.
“He heard you,” I said. “Chance flinched in his basket. So you didn’t know?”
“Hell no. I bought the gay story. Didn’t make any sense, but what do I know?”
“Your daughter is gay.”
“Anna always knew. I just thought we’d succeeded in scaring her out of sex before marriage,” he said. “Did she sound embarrassed? Damn, his wife looks just like Mom.”
“She didn’t sound anything. She said they didn’t get married because David didn’t like her drinking. He didn’t mind banging her though.”
“He’d probably sleep with Asp on the side.”
“It doesn’t sound like Asp was a big factor,” I said.
I thought about Asp’s current husband.
“Do you think Jim is gay?” I asked.
“The way he was dancing with Chana at the wedding? I doubt it. Frustrated maybe.”
“He danced with Chana?”
Jon’s eyes slid my way.
“Adam handled it,” said Eric.
“What did Adam do?” I asked.
Jon smiled.
“He extricated her,” said Eric.
“Ah. Extricated her.” I said.
“I know Jon is listening. Just put me on speaker.”
I hit speaker.
“Hey, Eric,” said Jon. “So Jim was pawing my daughter?”
“Yeah. Same way he did Hannah.”
Jon’s eyes slid my way.
“He didn’t paw me,” I said. “He ran his finger down my tailbone and said that was the part he likes best. It was years ago. I was probably Chana’s age.”
“Yeah. You were going through your thong bikini phase,” he said. “Glad that’s behind us. You’d be singing a different song if his finger had slipped on that Brazilian oil you used to shine up your ass.”
Jon’s eyes were back on me. Jesus. A puritan frat boy.
“Okay,” I said. “What do we think?”
“We think Asp is a lesbian,” said Anna. “Hi, Jon.”
They’d had me on speaker the whole time.
“Hey, Anna. Have you seen the kids?” asked Jon.
“They were here over the weekend. They’re great,” said Anna.
“Can we please finish with Asp?” I asked. “What makes you think she’s a lesbian?”
“What else could it be when she marries two guys she claims are gay?” asked Eric.
“Maybe she’s not interested in them. She doesn’t have to be a lesbian not to be interested.”
They were all quiet thinking it over.
“Could be,” said Anna. “I don’t get the vibe. She always says her first husband was her golden boy cut down in his prime. Her true love. I’m surprised how often we run into that in my business. People feel compelled to remarry and torture the innocent. Nobody can compete with a myth.”
“She’s always putting down Mom,” I said. “Saying Daddy wasn’t really nice to her.”
“That’s bullshit,” said Eric.
“Asp wanted children,” I said.
“That’s a scary thought,” said Eric.
We all fell quiet again.
“And now she puts down Arthur, of all people,” I said. “I’m so glad she met him.”
“She’s looking a little worn out,” said Eric. “I don’t think her toilet paper wrap is registering with him.”
Anna was laughing.
“She said she slept with men over the years, married men,” I said. “At least one was the father of a friend of mine.”
“Yeah,” said Eric.
“You knew that?”
“She’s a grown woman,” said Eric.
“It’s the married men part that gets me,” I said. “Her husband had an affair and she turned around and did the same thing to other women.”
“She was drinking. Not exactly trustworthy. We wouldn’t have liked anyone drunk enough to stick around,” said Eric.
“So a string of married men servicing our mother spared me having an alcoholic stepfather?”
“Let’s not refer to her as being serviced and boinked,” said Eric.
“She was banging her brother-in-law,” I said.
“Not while he was married,” he said. “He’s probably the only single guy she slept with until Arthur.”
“I wonder if she did the toilet paper wrap when she was sleeping around,” said Anna.
“There’s not much sleeping with married guys,” said Jon.
Oh brother, he would know that. He smiled at me, clueless about what he’d just said.
“I’m going to bed,” I said. “Jon can tell you the plan for my trip. Night.”
Jon took over the phone and I staggered off to bed. I closed the bedroom door to Jon and Anna laughing, and Eric telling them to knock it off.
∞
Jon was against my back, breathing in my ear at 3:00 a.m. He didn’t feel asleep.
“Are you awake?” I whispered.
“Oiled your ass?”
His lips were on my ear. So there you have it. Apparently the thought of an oiled ass in a thong wasn’t as abhorrent to frat boy as it was to my husband, who’d lost interest in his wife.
∞
We woke again at 7:00 with Meggie between us. I trusted she had joined us after 3:05. Frat boys are fast. I hadn’t even rolled over.
I peeked at Chance. He was awake and thinking things over, so I took him out to the beach. Jon came out a few minutes later and sat down. I scooped out a seat for Chance and laid him in the cool sand. He watched his parents watch the sea. We watched until the screen door slammed and Chop squealed. A new day had begun.
“Ed’s coming for breakfast, then a walk if you want,” he said.
He scooped up Chance, helped me to my feet and kissed the top of my head. We headed back to the house. I wanted to ask about the sex but something about his body language didn’t want the question. We’d talked once, against our better judgment and fueled by too much wine, about our dream fantasies. I’d said that I dreamt about Jon mostly, and old boyfriends. He dreamt about strangers and doing it in dicey situations. He’d treated me like a stranger at 3:00 a.m.
I heard Ed in the kitchen, as I got dressed. He looked up when I came in. Trouble flickered across his face. I touched my fuzzy head.
“I really cut it off this time,” I said.
“You look beautiful,” he said. “Alive.”
“There is that,” I said.
We hugged for a long time.
“Where’re you going for breakfast?” asked Jon.
“I thought we’d go to Grinds,” said Ed.
“We’re going out?” I asked.
“Will you stop at Ace, H?” asked Jon. “I need WD-40 for Meg’s trike. Get two.”
I looked back and forth at them; they wer
e a study in casual. I felt a surge of panic at the idea of leaving home. Wow. They knew.
“Is Jimmy coming tonight?” I asked.
“For dinner. Jimmy and Keith, Ed and Nancy,” said Jon. “Take a nap.”
I went to the kitchen desk to get my purse off the back of the chair. I didn’t have a purse anymore.
“Do you know where my wallet is?” I asked.
“I have your drivers license and some credit cards. Everything else was toast,” said Jon. “Buy a wallet while you’re out. Maybe they have them at the drug store.”
I went in the bedroom, dug around in my bottom drawer and pulled out a big nylon travel purse I used for work. It would hold a smaller purse, laptop, book, toothbrush, clean underwear, and dozens of other travel necessities. It was from a different life. I could almost smell India on it.
Jon had a checkbook put together for me with my license, cards, and some cash. It disappeared into the bowels of the collapsed bag. I threw in the lip gloss, swallowed by the abyss. Jon handed me my cell phone, the black hole of Calcutta swallowed that too. The scraps of my little life disappeared into a former life that had been big and jammed with creative challenges and a sense of accomplishment. I needed to fill it up again. I looked at Jon. He was smiling.
“Have fun,” he said.
“Have fun, Mama,” said Meggie.
“You too, Angel. Be a good girl while I’m gone.”
I immediately regretted bringing up the idea of good girl, or being gone. Ed was holding the kitchen door open. I looked back in the kitchen to see them a last time, and then realized what a crazy thought that was. We were just going to have breakfast and buy WD-40.
“I love you guys,” I said.
“We’re right here,” said Jon.
We made the long journey down the ramp and into the car. I hadn’t been in a car; I hadn’t even been out the kitchen door since I came home from the hospital.
“Scared?” asked Ed.
“How could you tell?”
“You’re clutching the armrest like you did when that hack pilot in India tried to kill us. I’ll get us there okay.”
“I hate to say this, Ed, but you drive like a New Yorker.”
“I am a New Yorker. I haven’t gone over a cliff yet.”
“Touché.”
∞
He got us there and we ordered coffee. My hand shook when I drank.
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“Not bad. It’s just. I haven’t been away from home. It’s kind of overwhelming. My therapist mentioned PTSD, but she doesn’t think I have it. Not bad.”
“I had it after Vietnam. They called it all fucked up from the war.”
“Was that the official diagnosis?”
“Close. Guys going through plate glass windows and hiding under tables over firecrackers. Putting a chokehold on their wife over the kitchen sink. Gouging eyes over the last bar stool. All fucked up from the war.”
“I thought you flew bombers.”
“It wasn’t any easier to figure out what to bomb from the air than it was who to shoot on the ground. Innocent people died.”
“I’m sorry, Ed.”
“Not your fault, Sweetheart. You weren’t even born yet. You’ll get through this.”
“Have you? You were just following orders.”
“I walled it off. Most guys do if they’re lucky. The unlucky ones drink. Drugs now.”
“Did Margaret know?”
“I had nightmares for a while. Did some crying over what I’d seen. What I’d seen myself do.”
“Do you still think about it?”
“Almost never.”
“Really?”
“Once a day maybe. I don’t dwell. Jon said you crashed because you didn’t want an innocent person coming the other way to get hurt.”
“Probably stupid in hindsight. It wasn’t like I really thought about it. There wasn’t time. Nobody else thinks it was a good plan.”
“They admire it, Sweetheart. Everyone admires the right action.”
“I don’t know about Jon. We lost a baby.”
“Especially Jon.”
Our breakfast arrived and we spent quiet time eating in each other’s company. We’d eaten so many meals over the years, it was better than family. I listened in on the conversation at the table next to us. The couple wasn’t having a good relationship day. A waitress flipped off the back of a lousy tipper, then asked another waitress, “What’s a penny tip mean again?” A busboy dropped a load of silverware on the floor, then sorted it right back into the bins. I looked at my fork, clean enough. Ed watched me watch.
“Feel good to be out?” he asked.
“Yes. You want to hear a great story?”
I told him about Mom and pre-uncle, post-uncle David. He laughed out loud when I got to Jon’s idea for a wedding invitation.
“Can you just see it?” I asked. “Total disaster. I can’t believe Jon even thought it.”
“He bought the cat plaque.”
“Yeah, that whole cat thing. Mom was a cat the whole time, she didn’t have any trouble finding men.”
“She didn’t find one who stuck, until Arthur,” he said.
“There is that. But she got sober. You remember my men with two names phase?”
“I’ll never forget the drug runner with the investment banker cover,” he said. “He had some great suits.”
“Yeah, he cleaned up good. I was always looking for a bad boy Mom would like. Turns out I married one.”
I told him about Jon painting the guy and sending him to the airport. He thought it was a light sentence.
“How’s Meggie after the incident?” he asked.
“She seems fine. She loves being home with a personal attendant. Have you and Nancy been having a good time?”
“Great time. Lots of golf. She collects Christmas ornaments. She enjoys looking for those.”
Collects Christmas ornaments in Hawaii? Ed was watching my face.
“It’s okay, Sweetheart,” he said. “I enjoy her company.”
“I think it’s great,” I said.
“Margaret and I always said the biggest compliment we could give each other would be to find someone right away. I waited too long. I hope she’s not insulted.”
“She’s a hard act to follow.”
“Comparing is deadly. Nancy is a lovely lady.”
“Do you love her?”
“It’s different, but I do. It’s good.”
“Do the kids like her?”
“Everyone gets along fine.”
“Marty liked her,” I said.
I told him about lunch in milk soaked clothes. I went straight into the cemetery story. He’d heard many stories like that over the years. He was laughing flat out when I described cleaning and buffing headstones.
“It sounds just like you and Margaret when you got going,” he said. “Nothing could stop you in pursuit of your vision. She would be so proud of the way you’re raising the kids.”
“I wish she lived to meet them. She didn’t think I could do it.”
“She knew. Let’s run our errands.”
We walked over to the drugstore.
“You go ahead and get what you need,” he said. “I’ll go get the WD-40.”
∞
The drug store was like a mini-Walmart. I wandered up and down aisles feeling overwhelmed by it all. All they had were stiff plastic wallets with Hawaii in gold plastic letters stuck to the front. I grabbed one.
I’d checked out before I remembered I was going to look for tattoo strips for Meggie. I wanted to take her a treat like a normal day. I approached a young woman who was on the floor sorting and refilling the area with the super cheap cosmetics. Make-up people love the cheap stuff. It sticks. I felt a surge of normalcy just thinking about work on top of breakfast with Ed.
“I used to work with professionals who swore by the dollar lipstick,” I said to the young woman’s back.
She twisted around to lo
ok up at me. She’d used the products to excess. Her eyes were so heavily lined and shadowed it was hard to see her eyes. I knew a woman in Alanon who wore her make up like that to cover the black eyes her husband gave her. The young girl’s eyes slid away under black hoods. It was Sandy, the helper from the preschool.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“I got fired,” she said.
“Of course you did. You hit a child.”
She stayed on her knees, head turned away. I stood over her.
“Why are you wearing so much make up?” I asked.
“I like it this way,” she said.
“Well, you have a beautiful face without it,” I said.
A bruise was yellowing on her cheekbone. I didn’t have a clue what the protocol was for the situation.
“I was looking for some of those tattoo strips for Margaret.”
She nodded and led me back to the area by the wallets and other low-end tourist crap. She slid a pile of strips off a hook and got the last one, it was whales. She handed it to me without making eye contact.
“She likes pink whales,” she said.
Her overdeveloped jaw was locked from not talking, my throat closed up over her pain.
“You can talk to the counselor at school,” I said. “She can help you.”
“You need anything else?” she asked.
“No.”
She shrugged and walked away. I was too drained to go through the check out line again. I slid the tattoos back on the rack, then wished I hadn’t when I saw her watching me. I knew she’d hit Meggie, but I still felt the urge to hug her, take her home and wash her face.
∞
I walked outside. Ed wasn’t there. I stepped clear of the door and stood still, disoriented. I leaned against the wall. I was spinning. He finally appeared with a bag and we started home. I called Jon.
“Sandy from the preschool works at the drugstore now,” I said.
“They better lock up the drugs,” he said. “Did she give you any shit?”
Ed looked at me with concern.
“No. Not at all. She knew Meggie likes whales.”
“Then she knows she’s crazy for trikes.”
“It looked like she had a black eye. It was hard to tell under all the make-up, she never wore make-up.”
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon Page 23