by John Muncie
Over coffee the next morning, Joel, who’d been suspicious about the previous night’s story, interrogated him about his real Limespring summer. In less than five minutes, Tug confessed that he’d lied, and he told Joel the whole Alyssa story.
“I’m crazy in love with this woman, Joel,” he said, summing up. “And I don’t know what to do. She’s there; I’m here. She’s got a farm; I’ve got a city. She’s married. I’m . . . I don’t know what.”
Joel shook his head. “I wish I had some wise words, my friend. Just be careful is all I can say. This husband isn’t going to come after you with a shotgun, is he?”
“I doubt it. He studies bacteria or something.”
“Would she really divorce him for you? Where would you two live? And what about her kid?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know.” Tug rubbed his face with his hands. “And meanwhile I’ve got Margaux on my tail.”
“You can’t just leave her hanging.”
“I know, I know. But all I can think about right now is Alyssa. And for all I know, this whole thing is a ridiculous pipe dream. She’s never promised me anything. Not once has she said anything about us after this summer.”
“Tug, you gotta tell Margaux something. Just call her. Tell her we were up half the night and you couldn’t come by. Tell her it’s going to be that way for the next few days because the show’s a fucking shambles. At least that part’s the truth. And it’ll give you time to figure out what to do.”
Tug, eager to put off the Margaux confrontation as long as possible, agreed. And it turned out that his excuses were true. The logistics for “Clean Up Your Room” were even more formidable than Joel and Tug had anticipated. At night, they got less than four hours’ sleep. During the day, they were so busy that they barely had time to think. They survived on take-out food and lattes.
The frenetic pace of preparations and negotiations was only temporarily jarring to Tug. By the second day he felt plugged back into the art world’s energy grid. He was surprised to find that, if his two months in the quiet of the country had done anything, it was to sharpen his dull edges. “Clean Up Your Room” was creating a buzz. A reporter from Artworld magazine called asking for details, and there was excited speculation about a piece in the New York Times Magazine. Tug was buzzing right along with it. It wasn’t until 2 A.M. on his fourth night back, when gallery owner Scott Ungstead started suggesting changes in the show’s layout, that he finally left Joel to handle things and dragged himself off to his own apartment.
Six hours later the doorbell rang. Tug was so groggy that at first he thought it was the apartment’s fire alarm. He staggered out of his bedroom to answer it.
“Why isn’t your phone working?” Joel walked in carrying take-out coffee and a breakfast croissant filled with scrambled eggs and mushrooms.
“What?” said Tug, still dazed. “Oh, I had it turned off while I was away. What’s up? I told you I’d be back at the gallery around eleven.”
“Here, I brought this for you.” Joel handed Tug the food. “You’re going to need it for the drive.”
“What? What drive?”
“I went back to my place early this morning and there was a message on my phone for you. From Abbi. There’s some kind of emergency down at Limespring. It’s that married woman you’re in love with. Alicia? She’s been in an accident. You’re supposed to call.”
One call and forty-five minutes later, Tug was heading south on the New Jersey Turnpike.
CHAPTER 56
The hospital ward was bustling when Tug arrived. Patients, leaning on walkers, made tentative laps around the nurses’ station; friends and relatives spilled out of the rooms; doctors banged in and out of swinging double doors.
Tug carried gift-shop flowers and a large packet. He walked around the central station looking for No. 813, which turned out to be a corner room. Its door was ajar and its curtains partly open. Tug saw that Alyssa had company. Standing around her bed were Abbi, Marius, and a pale young woman with short hair. For a second he thought the young woman was a new Limey he hadn’t met. But when she leaned over and kissed Alyssa on the cheek, he realized it must be Roz.
He backed up a few steps. He didn’t want to meet her. Not this way. It seemed unsavory, even cruel. He was hesitating by the nurses’ station, trying to decide if he should come back later, when Abbi glanced up and caught his eye. He put a finger to his lips and motioned for her to meet him outside the room.
“What’s the matter? Why don’t you go in?” Abbi asked as Tug pulled her around a corner out of view.
“That’s Roz, isn’t it? I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right,” said Tug.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Abbi said. She looked at her watch. “Just as well. Darryl’s due back at six and that would be awkward. But he’s not staying for long—he told Liss he’s got a dinner meeting. And Marius is just about to take Roz to get something to eat. So just hang out awhile in the coffee shop, I’ll come get you when the coast is clear.” She pointed to the packet sandwiched under his arm. “What’s that?”
“A present, some drawings,” he said.
“Great, Alyssa could use some cheering up. How about if I bring it to her now? That way you don’t have to schlep it all over the hospital. Besides, she could use a nice surprise. Believe me, she needs it. It’s been hell.”
Tug handed Abbi the packet. “But she’s okay, right? Jackie said everything went fine.”
“Fine, as far as lacerating your liver goes,” Abbi said. “It could’ve been worse, believe me. I thought she was dying. She thought so, too. Anyhow, vamoose. I don’t think it’d be a great idea if Darryl saw you here. That’s all Alyssa needs. I’ll be down in the coffee shop in a little while.”
When Abbi returned to Alyssa’s room, Marius and Roz were thumbing through the Yellow Pages for a restaurant, a nurse had just come in to draw blood, and the phone rang. No one noticed as she slid Tug’s packet under a stack of magazines on the windowsill.
“So Red, Hot and Blue it will be,” Marius said, escorting his young charge out the door. To Alyssa he said, “Your daughter has a hankering for barbecue. And as you know,” he said, slipping into his genie accent, “her wish is my command.”
The nurse finally left, but Alyssa was still on the phone. “A friend from D.C.,” she mouthed. Abbi sat by the bed flipping through that week’s People magazine. Just when she got to the part about Jennifer Anniston hating her jawline, Darryl walked in.
“Thank God,” Abbi said to him, who looked at her like she was crazy. She pointed to the magazine. “You spared me from reading more about Jennifer’s body flaws. Anyway, Liss just had her blood drawn and I’m off for coffee.”
As she left the room she said to Alyssa, “I’ll be back in about thirty minutes.”
CHAPTER 57
Alyssa hung up the phone. “That was Carol,” she said to Darryl. “The Shrike just fired the girls’ soccer coach, three weeks before school starts, and enrollment’s so far down the board’s thinking about closing the high school.”
He sat on the chair where Abbi had just been sitting. “In other words, business as usual at Emerson. I told you to start sending out résumés the minute I met that woman.”
“I know, I know. I should have. Anyway, how’s everything at home?”
“Just like you’d imagine. Musty. I opened all the windows but I closed them before I left. Supposed to pour. It was already drizzling on the way over.”
“That’ll be good for the azaleas,” Alyssa said. “How’re they doing? Is Woody watering them enough?”
“They’re fine. They look great, so does the lawn. He’s been doing a good job.”
Alyssa and Darryl spent a few more sentences on Woody Fuller, a neighbor kid, and his college plans. Dartmouth, possibly Yale. Then they fell silent. They’d run out of conversation. Earlier that day, they’d already gone through the checklist of topics for two people who hadn’t seen each other in a month: things
at the farm (the roof still leaked); things in California (the resistant bacteria were more resistant than expected); things about their Washington home (they’d definitely need a new furnace); and things about Roz. Their conversation had been most animated when they’d talked about their daughter, who’d regaled them with stories of her summer and showed off the architectural drawings of James Brighton’s now-famous cabinets.
Darryl picked up the People magazine Abbi had tossed on the table, but Alyssa wanted to fill the empty space with talk. She’d woken up this morning with Roz by her side, so soothed by her presence that she hadn’t thought about Tug. It was in the disconnected hours that followed—a haze of fitful sleep, visitors, nurses, the first tentative meals—that she started thinking about him. She missed his touch and their long, meandering conversations. She missed hearing his pencil scratching against the drawing paper; she missed falling asleep nudged up against him.
She’d thought they have the rest of August together and then say their good-byes. But the doctors told her she couldn’t go back to the farm alone. She’d need help getting around for at least the next three weeks.
And now Tug was in New York. She wouldn’t even get a chance to say good-bye. Maybe it was just as well.
“Boy,” she said, trying to sound perkier than she felt. “I’ve never seen Roz so excited about anything. You were right about letting her go to Chicago this summer.”
Darryl looked up from the pages. “Ron told me she’s the best intern he’s ever had. Of course, he’s somewhat prejudiced. She is his niece, after all. But still, she’s accomplished quite a bit for someone her age. Where’d she go, anyway? Out with friends?”
“No, Marius took her to dinner.”
“Oh, great,” Darryl said. “He’ll be salivating all over her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He wouldn’t do that with her. Plus it’s just an act, anyway.” She switched the topic back to Roz’s work.
“That cabinet design is really interesting. Where’d she come up with an idea like that, suspending them from the ceiling with high-tensile aluminum?”
“I don’t think they were suspended. I think they were mounted to look that way. Hold on a second, let’s look at her drawings. I think that’s them, on the windowsill.”
Darryl walked over to the pile of magazines. There was the sound of rustling and then a long pause. Alyssa looked over. Darryl was standing, back to her, studying something on the windowsill.
“Darryl?”
“‘Shenandoah Summer. For Alyssa,’” Darryl read aloud.
“What?” Alyssa said.
Darryl repeated it louder. “‘Shenandoah Summer. For Alyssa.’ Well, I see somebody’s been busy. Let me guess, more drawings from your co-star in the Follies?” He exaggerated the word “co-star,” making it sound lascivious. “Tug, right? Did he bring them by last night while I was on the plane rushing to get here?”
Alyssa was confused. Could Tug have been here last night? She closed her eyes and tried to remember the images from the night before. All she could remember was the red-haired woman and people in green masks.
She opened her eyes. Darryl was now standing in front of her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “Did he bring what by last night? You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m not making any sense? Then what’s this?” Darryl shoved the packet in front of Alyssa. She saw a book of sketches sandwiched by two pieces of white posterboard tied together on one side with orange baling twine. She recognized Tug’s handwriting.
“I . . . I . . . I’ve never seen that before,” Alyssa started. “I don’t know how it got here. Maybe someone brought it.”
But Darryl wasn’t listening. He was pulling the sketches out of the book and tossing them, one by one, on Alyssa’s bed, each toss accompanied by a sarcastic description.
“Ah, the beautiful barn. The quaint manure spreader. The lovely fields.”
“Darryl, stop it now,” Alyssa said. She reached for the packet, but he pulled it away.
He continued his diatribe, blanketing Alyssa with Tug’s drawings. “Oh, your favorite horse in the morning sun. The herb garden. The hill out back. Roz’s tea room. The babbling creek. What’s he been doing, living at the farm?”
Alyssa tried to sit up and gather the drawings in a pile, but she was too tired. She slumped back against the pillows. “He’s just an artist looking for things to draw, that’s all. Just stop it, okay?”
Suddenly Darryl did stop. He held up one of the sketches, then turned it around so Alyssa could see. It was her own portrait. In it, a slight smile teased the corners of her mouth, her expression lay somewhere between welcoming and hopeful. She seemed vulnerable, wanting. It was an expression Darryl had never seen before on his wife’s face.
“It’s just a drawing,” Alyssa said.
“Right, ‘just a drawing.’ Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ve had it with the drawings. I’ve had it with Limespring.”
“Darryl, I can’t fight about this now.”
“Fine,” he said, slamming his hand against the door as he left.
CHAPTER 58
“Does Margaux have any idea why you left New York?” Abbi asked Tug.
They were sitting at a table in the coffee shop. He’d been telling her about the “Clean Up Your Room” debacle and the Margaux situation.
“Doubt it,” Tug said, sipping some lukewarm coffee. “Joel’s the only one who knows, and he’s probably avoiding her.”
“That’s not so easy with Margaux. She’s not the kind of person who likes—” She stopped in midsentence and stared over Tug’s shoulder.
“Who likes what? Abbi?” Tug waved his hand in front of her face. “Hey. You still there?”
Abbi lowered her eyes and her voice. “Uh-oh,” she said.
Before Tug could ask what she meant, Darryl was standing by the table.
He hunched down between them, propping himself on the brown Formica with his fists. The knuckles on his hands were white. The zipper of his jacket clinked against the salt shaker. His face, just a couple feet away, looked as big as a billboard to Tug.
“Stay away from my wife,” he said, squeezing the words through clenched jaws. His voice had a strangled, high-pitched tone. “Do you understand what that means or do I need to draw you a picture?”
The blood rushed to Tug’s face. He didn’t know what to say. “Who are you?” he finally blurted out, though he knew exactly who it was. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ll tell you who I am,” Darryl said, louder. People at nearby tables looked over at them. “I’m Alyssa Brown’s husband. You do remember Alyssa, don’t you? The woman you’ve been drawing, or should I use another word besides ‘drawing’?”
Darryl moved his face closer to Tug’s. “And I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. I’m talking about wanting to beat your fucking head in.”
Tug glanced down for a second, forcing himself to stay expressionless. “It’s Darryl, right?” he said, pretending he hadn’t heard the man’s last words. “I know you’re upset about the accident and all, but you’re making a mistake. I’m just one of the Limespring fellows, that’s all. Sure I’ve been drawing your farm and I’ve drawn Alyssa. But I’ve been drawing a lot of things. That’s why I’m at Limespring—to practice drawing. That’s all there is to it. Really.” Tug made a half-shrug, putting his palms up, as if to show he was unarmed.
Darryl continued to glare at Tug. Then he straightened up; his fists no longer rested on the tabletop. “Well, practice on something else and stay the hell away from my farm.”
He turned and started to walk away, but stopped. “You know, she’ll never leave me for you, or anyone else,” he said. “She’ll never leave the farm. As far as she’s concerned our daughter’s still there.”
“Roz?” said Tug, completely confused. “I thought Roz was in Chicago this summer.”
A mean smile turned the corners of Darryl’s mouth. “You mean she hasn’t told you
about Julie? Well maybe I was wrong. Maybe you are just another pretentious Limespring asshole.”
CHAPTER 59
Julie? Who the hell was Julie? Tug rushed up to Alyssa’s room, Darryl’s words looping through his mind like a stuck song. The door to room 813 was closed. He knocked softly. When there was no answer, he opened it and peered in.
He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Alyssa looked small and pale, swallowed up by the hospital bed’s mechanical arms and nearby gadgetry. Her head was to the side, her eyes were closed; tubes ran in and out of her. Her arms lay loosely on top of a thin blanket; one rested on a pile of his drawings.
He remembered his father lying in a hospital bed just a year ago. He’d had to hold himself back from running up, pulling out all the tubes, and cradling his father in his arms. He felt the same way now. But, as he had done with his father, he just walked to the chair by the bed and sat down. For a while he watched her breathe and listened to the rhythmic beeping of the monitors. Eventually he put his hand lightly on top of hers.
Her eyelids fluttered and then opened halfway. “Dar—” she started, then she opened her eyes fully and saw Tug. Still fogged by sleep and painkillers, she tried to make sense of the man sitting by her bed.
“Alyssa, are you okay? I was so worried about you.” Tug leaned close and tried to kiss her but she turned her head away and pulled her hand back.
“Don’t,” she said. “The nurses will see.”
“So?” The sting of her rejection caught him off guard and the word came out louder than he’d intended.
“Tug, I’m Mrs. Brown here, and Darryl’s around someplace.” She pressed a button on the bed, raising the back until she was in a half-sitting position.
“Not anymore,” Tug said. “He left, after he threatened to punch my fucking head in. ”
“Oh God,” she groaned. “How . . . I mean, where? Where were you?”
“In the coffee shop, with Abbi. Did he see my drawings? Is that what set him off?”