"When the time comes," John says, "I don't want to profess my lifelong love for someone in a calculated way. I want to be overwhelmed, compelled." He looks out over the Schuylkill, the wind rippling his shirt.
"You're right. No veneer is best. Just the truth. Artie's veneer got him in trouble, actually. He knew how to fake a moment so he did, again and again, and those moments added up to a life of petty crimes."
John looks at me, confused.
"Small crimes against the heart." I shrug. "I don't know—maybe they even ended up accumulating into some kind of felony."
"What do you mean?" John asks, but I pretend I didn't hear him and head back to the car.
*
We head to Artie's favorite diner, Manilla's—a run-down place in St. David. We sit in a corner booth. "Artie liked this place. It's where he came to think," I tell John.
At first he's confused. "He had all of that money and he would come here to think?"
"This is the type of place where he felt comfortable," I explain.
We order all things diner—greasy, sugary, creamy. Our fingers and lips take on a shine.
While dipping my fries in a chocolate shake, I say, "Tell me something about your life."
"I grew up the way boys do—Boy Scouts, losing at Little League, people who refused to tip me on my paper route. Not much by way of ideal role models, all information about women and love and sex dredged up from all the wrong sources. My life was typical."
I realize now how cagey he's been about his own life— past and present. There have been any number of moments when it should just naturally pop up, but now that I think about it, his life stories never have. Instead of telling a story of his own, he asks a question about Artie, about me, about Artie and me together.
I try again. Maybe he's just being modest? "Tell me a story of your own childhood."
"Like what?"
"Something," I say, "anything."
He thinks a moment. "A story from my childhood. Anything. Something. Okay . . . Well, I have this one story about a man named Jed." And he recites the lyrics to the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies. I flash on Granny, Jed, Jethro, Elly May and that poor uptight banker and his austere secretary, and I wonder about the story that John's not telling me.
"I know," I say, and then I hum the part in the opening credits where they're rolling along in their old truck full of junk under all the palm trees.
"So you already know this story?" he asks, faking astonishment.
"It sounds vaguely familiar. Did you once take a three-hour tour on a tiny ship called the Minnow?"
"Yes, actually, and you should know that I didn't fall for Ginger. Mary Ann was the real catch all along."
"I think you can divide men into two categories—those who fall for Ginger and those who fall for Mary Ann."
"And those who fall for the Skipper," he adds. "That's a very specific type."
"True," I say. "Good point." I'm disappointed that John won't go quid pro quo. But I tell myself what matters is that he's going to stick to the plan. He's here to learn about his father's life. Why should I expect him to reveal anything about himself? That's not part of the deal. I don't press.
And how can I blame him really? I still find myself skipping over the most intimate details—like that first kiss in the Walk-through Heart. I'm not sure why. Does it feel like a betrayal to reveal too much? Or worse, I worry that I don't want John to see how soft I still am, how tender, toward Artie. And why is that? Because I'm not ready to show that softness, because I'm afraid I'll never be able to toughen up again? Or is it because I don't want John to know how much I still love Artie, and one of my greatest fears, that I'll never get over Artie? I know it's okay to think John is handsome, even charming. He is. It's a simple fact. But aren't I flirting with him (maybe in some instinctive way that's beyond my control) when I don't reveal how deep my love for Artie runs—flirting by omission?
And I also know I haven't been telling him the truth about Artie—the whole truth. He knows about Artie's betrayal by now—he's seen the Parade of Sweethearts—but he doesn't know my own story. This is a sin of omission, too.
I decide to get it over with, to come clean. I blurt, "Artie cheated on me. I left him. And then when I found out that he was so sick, I was still on the road. I'd been away for six months."
John doesn't hesitate. "I noticed that you seem set up in the guest bedroom," he says. "I figured something had happened."
"It makes things complicated," I say.
He stops, puts his elbows on the table, and leans forward, closer to me than I expect. "Human beings are complicated," he says softly, as if he's confessing to his own faults. His eyes have the beginnings of these beautiful creases, and he seems bigger at this close range—more muscular. And again I imagine him before things got so complicated. I imagine him in a jean jacket, just a high school kid, and I imagine myself then, too. What if we'd crossed paths? What if we'd known each other way back then? What would we have thought of each other? I lean back in the booth, distancing myself. I'm frustrated, frustrated that I've seen him in my mind like this again—like I've given in to some weakness.
"I think you should know this about him," I say. "You haven't settled down yet. You're, what? Thirty? And clearly you could have found someone by now and made a commitment. I mean, there have to have been women . . ." I'm stammering a bit. All of this is coming out harsher than I mean it to, but I don't stop. "I mean, you strike me as a charmer, like Artie a little in that way, and if—"
"And if what? If the nut doesn't fall far from the tree . . . What are you getting at? Maybe I just haven't found the right person. This goes under what category of the Tour d'Artie exactly?" He's annoyed.
"It's just that I want you to know his faults."
"So I don't repeat them."
I nod.
"Because I strike you as a charmer . . ."
I don't want to agree, but I've just said these exact words and I nod again, reluctantly. Actually, I see John as someone who might fudge receipts or shuffle funds with a little light kiting, as we auditors put it—he's not an outright thief; I don't think he'd have the stomach for it. But he's capable of fraud—of the easily rationalized variety— nonetheless.
"I'm not anything like Artie Shoreman," he says. "I mean, I don't think you know me well enough to make that kind of leap." I've insulted him. I'm sure of it. We sit there in silence for a few minutes. He takes a few more bites of a BLT and then pushes it to the side. "Do you want to talk about what's going on now? With Artie?"
"What?"
"We've stuck to the past. We've stayed true to the Tour d'Artie. But, well, what I'm saying is that things are hard for you now. If you want to talk about that, it's okay. We can veer away from the official tour. You can take off your official badge. You know, stop pointing out the monuments for a little while."
"I don't have an official badge," I say, deflecting.
"Okay," he says. "That's fine, too. We can stick to the plan." He looks around the diner and then sighs and looks at me—really looks at me. He looks at me as if he's trying to memorize my face, here, in this diner, in this moment. I have no idea what I must look like. Confused, I suppose. Is there also a Generation of Confused Women? Am I part of it?
"I know why Artie liked this place," he says, and then he picks up a napkin and dabs something off my cheek— ketchup? Milkshake? How long has it been there? "This diner is art. It just doesn't know it."
"That's the best kind of art," I say.
And he nods.
Chapter Twenty-four
Are All Men Bastards?
It's become a habit that I find myself sitting in the armchair next to Artie's bed watching him sleep every night. And tonight is no different. I walk up the stairs in the quiet house once again.
I wish I could come here during the day, like any other nicely dressed ex-sweetheart, to praise him or to scream at him. But I'm as afraid of my own anger as I am the sudden turns of love I have
for Artie (and the sudden turns of weakness I have for John). It all makes me feel wildly out of control. But when Artie's sleeping, I can feel whatever I want. I can just let it wash over me. I don't have to decide how I feel. I don't have to decide what gentleness or anger Artie deserves at any one moment. I don't have to decide anything.
But on this night, after my day with John Bessom, my realization that I belong to the Generation of Confused Women, I stand over Artie, lying in bed, and he looks completely different. Two oxygen tubes now hang over his ears like a fake Santa mask, and two feeders are fitted under his nose. The tubes are connected to an oxygen tank on wheels purring in the corner. His head is turned toward the door, but it looks gray, slack. I want to save him from this new turn, this weakening of the body. I stumble and catch myself on the side of the bed.
He wakes up, turns, and finds me in the dark so quickly that I wonder if he knew, in his sleep, that I was there.
"You're here," he says.
And then there's a voice behind me. "Oh, Lucy, you're here!" It's Elspa. She's sitting in the armchair.
"What happened?"
"It was awful," Elspa says, looking worn out. She stands up and grabs my arm with a shaky hand.
"It wasn't awful," Artie says. "It was fine."
"Your mother left messages on your cell phone and a note on the door," Elspa says. "Did you see the note?"
I shake my head. "What happened? What went wrong?" I want to add: while I was gone, while I left you alone.
"This has been a long time coming," Artie says. "No surprise. All part of the process."
"The process," I repeat, under my breath. The truth is that Artie will die of congestive heart failure, in the end. He has an acute heart infection caused by the Coxsackie virus. I hate these details and have tried to avoid all cold clinical medical-speak, but I know that his heart has been compromised. The heart no longer contracts as it should, and so fluids build up. They make their way to his lungs, and eventually his heart will flood his chest, his lungs, and he'll no longer be able to breathe—despite the oxygen. He's taking morphine for the pain in his chest, but this is a losing proposition. It will make him feel less pain, but it will weaken him, too. Either he will die of a stroke in the night or he will drown inside his own body. This is the truth that I cannot bear.
"It's like being Michael Jackson, with his obsession for pure air, but minus the talent and his other perversions," Artie says.
"That's not funny," I say. "Nothing's funny."
"Or like an oxygen bar." He smiles. "Pretend we're in a bar."
I nod. "A bar." I look up at Elspa.
"I'll let you two have some time together."
"Is he stable now? Is everything okay?"
"He's fine now," she says. "The nurse is downstairs, too. He has a buzzer set up." She points to a knob with a red button clipped to the pillow.
"Thanks, Elspa," I say.
She smiles and walks out of the room.
"Why don't you come up and visit me during the day?" Artie asks. "We should talk more."
I sit down in the armchair, trying to act less startled. "You're a busy man. There's always a waiting room full of visitors."
"Only because you made it this way," he says. "Are you trying to avoid me?" His tone is all Artie. There's no real weakness in his voice.
I try to play my role, too. "I think so," I say.
There's a pause.
"I hear you're going to help Elspa get Rosie back. That's a very nice thing you're doing for her."
"Did she tell you?"
"She visits me—while I'm awake."
I don't respond.
"She's fragile," he adds. "I hope it works."
"She's tougher than you think."
The room is quiet, but it feels a little haunted by the sweethearts who've come and gone throughout the day. "What do they say to you in here?" I ask, pulling my knees to my chest.
"It's strange," he says.
"How?"
"There is this one thing that comes up over and over. It wears different hats, but it's kind of the same thing each time." He thinks for a moment. "What do they call it? Variations on a theme?"
"What's the theme?"
"Well, if they don't completely hate me, the theme is that I tried to save them, to cure them, of something. Some heartache. And that despite my betraying them, I helped them. Their lives were better for having known me even if I made them worse for a while in the process."
"And if they hate you?"
"Well, they say I tried to fix them or change them and that I made a promise to them, and the promise is what would make their lives better. The promises made them feel, well, safe, for example. And when I failed them or betrayed them, they ended up with two problems instead of one, or I made the one problem worse. It's always complicated."
"You made the problem worse how?"
"You know."
"Worse how? I don't know."
"Well, I didn't exactly help anyone get over their belief that no man can be trusted. There was a variation on that theme: all men are bastards. If you taped all the women, you could play it as a chorus."
I stand up before I even know it. "And is that what you thought when you married me? That there was something wrong with me? That I could be some project for you—a lifelong one? That you could save me?"
The room goes completely silent, aside from the oxygen tank. I don't move and neither does he. I can barely see his face in the dim light. "No," he says, his voice cracking as if he's shouting, but he's speaking in barely a whisper. "I thought that maybe you could be the one to save me."
I'm not sure what to say to this. It breaks my heart, but hardens it, too. I never signed up to save Artie Shoreman from himself. He never told me he needed saving. It seems unfair to throw this at me now—after the fact. "How could I save you when you were making a mockery of our marriage? Haven't you given me good cause to really believe that all men are bastards?"
"I have. I know. I'm sorry . . . I just want to—"
I raise up one hand. "Stop," I say. "Don't." I sink into the armchair, cover my face with my hands, and take a moment to regain my composure.
"When are you going to get Elspa's daughter? Soon, I hear."
"I can't go away now." I sit up.
"You have to."
"No, I don't. I wasn't here when you needed me. I'm supposed to be here."
"I know you better than you think," he whispers.
"What do you mean?"
"I know how your brain works. From a bad situation, you want to make something good. You want to make something that will last. That's why you want to help Elspa. Am I right?" He pauses only a moment. "Don't tell me. I know I'm right. It's that thing inside of you that got my son here." He smiles. "I'm right. I know I am."
"Elspa has waited this long. She can wait a little longer," I tell him, refusing to give him credit for reading me so closely. I wonder what else he knows about me. Does he know things that I don't?
But then his voice goes rigid. "No," he says, almost as if he's afraid of something. "No."
"What? No what?"
He lets his face tilt toward me. "It means too much to her. It means too much to you. Your way is the right way. Make something good from something bad. Turn the thing with the ending into the thing that will last."
"Okay," I tell him. He looks like he might cry.
"Promise me," he says.
"I promise."
"Go and get some real sleep," he says.
"I don't think I should . . ."
"I'm a man on my deathbed. That carries some weight. Go. Get some sleep. You're weary."
I am weary. I stand up unsteadily and move to the door.
"Next time you come in at night, wake me up," he says. "First thing . . . please."
"I'll try to."
"Thanks for bringing me my son," he says. "I'll never be able to repay you for that."
And, once again, there is an enormous shift. Artie is indebted to me?
Artie is indebted to me. I can't bear to say You're welcome. I'm afraid I'll start to cry and that once I start, I won't be able to stop. I slip out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs. I pause for a moment in the hallway, but suddenly it doesn't feel like my hallway. It doesn't feel like my house. I grab my car keys and walk out the front door. I turn and see the note that my mother has written me, taped to the door. I don't read it. I don't take it down. I walk quickly to my car. The night is cool.
By the time I've pulled out of the driveway, I am crying, and I was right, I can't seem to stop.
Chapter Twenty-five
The Ability to Pretend Is a Life Skill
I'm standing at the front door of Bessom's Bedding Boutique. I can see John through the plate glass storefront windows—the jutting angle of his shoulders as he sleeps in one of the showroom beds. I knock on the door, watch him rustle, sit up, rub his head. When he sees me there on the other side of the door, he rears for a moment. I've frightened him. But then it registers that it's me. He stands up quickly and rushes down the aisle, works the series of locks, and opens the door.
"You scared me. I thought you were a polite burglar," he says, but then quickly he sees that my face is red and wet with tears. "What is it?" he asks. "What's wrong?"
"We've got this all wrong," I say in jagged breaths. "He's dying. He's dying now."
John reaches out and holds me—my arms are folded to my chest. He doesn't say anything. He smells like fresh sheets and sleep. He leads me into the store and sits me down on a bunk-bed display with a baseball motif.
"I can tell you about the past as much as you want, but it doesn't matter," I say. "It doesn't matter because he's dying now, and when he's gone, it'll all be gone. I don't want it to all be gone."
He still has his arm around me. He rocks me a little, just a soft sway. "Tell me anyway," he says. "Tell me about the past."
I look up at him. "But it doesn't matter."
"But what if it does?"
I take a deep breath and blow it out toward the ceiling.
My Husband's Sweethearts Page 15