Good Things I Wish You: A Novel

by A. Manette Ansay

  The manuscript was due on August eleventh, two weeks after I came back from Germany.

  “May I call you back?” I said, glancing at Heidi, who was busy unrolling a strip of butcher paper over the craft table. This weekend belonged to Cal as well. He was late, so I’d been distracting us both with stamps, stickers, finger paint. Last year, he’d taken a job at a private school in Lakeland, two hours to the north. Perhaps there’d been an accident and he was caught in a jam on I-95. Perhaps he’d gotten a late start. Perhaps he was about to pull into the driveway. “We’re waiting for my daughter’s dad to pick her up.”

  “Sure, sure,” Hart said. “I suppose after that you have plans?”

  His accent was more pronounced than I remembered. It sounded like disappointment.

  “I’m meeting a friend for dinner,” I said. “I haven’t really thought beyond that.”

  “He gets his weekends with her, I suppose,” Hart said, and it took me a moment to realize he was talking about Cal.

  “Alternating. Same with holidays.”

  “My daughter lives in Paris. I saw her in London last week.”

  “Your ten-year-old,” I said, pleased to display one of America’s scant facts. “What was she doing in London?”

  “Friederike is sixteen,” Hart said. “Did those stupid people tell you ten? How hard can it be to get these things right?”

  “I’m ready to paint,” Heidi announced.

  “Oh well,” he said, relenting, “ten years, twenty, what does it matter? Perhaps she comes to the U.S. to study. In New York City. Have you been to New York City?”

  “Mommy?”

  What I said to Heidi: “Mommy is on the phone.”

  What I said to Hart: “I used to live there. I wish I still did.”

  “You could move back.”

  “No, it’s too expensive, and besides, Cal’s here, in Lakeland, and I have this tenured job—” Heidi had managed to open the green; she plunged in both thumbs. I trapped the phone between my jaw and collarbone, reached for a paper towel. “Look, I really can’t talk right now. Sweetie, let me help with that, okay?”

  “Your ex-husband is always late, I suppose. To bug you. It’s the way these things go. Do you want to come flying with me tomorrow?”

  “I—can I call you back? I need to think about it.”

  “You know the Starbucks off PGA? I can pick you up at eight.”

  “In the morning?”

  “I will bring good muffins. From the Whole Foods. And fruit.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You are not liking fruit?”

  “I’m not liking flying. I mean, I just don’t know, I’ve never—”

  “A lit-tle before eight, perhaps?” he said.

  “Eight,” I said firmly. “Let’s have coffee together. Then we’ll see.”

  “Okay, okay. Ciao.”

  I hung up, attempted to concentrate on the task at hand: red stars, a fat yellow moon.

  “What color do you want the sky?” I asked Heidi, who was hard at work making fat blades of grass.

  “Not blue,” she said, “and not green.”

  I dumped out a little puddle of green, added a dollop of shining blue. She wiped her hands on a paper towel, hesitated.

  “Can you do it?” she said.

  I made small circles with my index finger, working the color over the page. The surface of the craft table was the same yellow as the moon, so when I finished, the moon looked like an absence, an overlooked space. I wanted to color it red, to match the stars, but Heidi disliked this idea.

  “I want it to be lonely,” she said.

  Lonely: the word she still uses to mean different.

  It was after eight by the time Cal arrived. While I packed up a juice box and crackers, he opened the refrigerator, the way he would have done when we were married. He took the jar of peanut butter, scooped, swallowed thickly. He considered the open bottle of Chardonnay in the door. There were leftover meatballs on a plate; he popped one into his mouth. Everything about the way he stood was daring me to tell him not to do this.

  “I don’t want to go with Daddy,” Heidi said, though she did. And didn’t. I knew exactly how she felt.

  “I’ll be right here when you get back,” I said, pulling her into my arms for a kiss.

  Her bags were packed. She was dressed. She wore shoes. Still, Cal was standing before the open fridge as if caught in the light of a shrine. Another meatball. A paper-thin slice of lox. A handful of blueberries. How could I ever have filled such emptiness?

  “Calvin?” I said. “We’re ready, okay? Take her, okay? Please.”

  17.

  AT SCHOOL, HEIDI SPENT an entire day working on a drawing of her family. Her teacher labeled each stick figure according to Heidi’s directions: Grandma Joan, Granny Hobbins, cousin Kayla, cousin Ray. Fourteen stick figures in all, each of them smiling, even the one named Heidi. All except one, the largest of the figures, positioned at the center of the page.

  This figure is frowning. Her frown is colored brown.

  “How do you spell ‘Mom’?” Heidi had asked.

  Then she’d labeled me in her own unsteady hand.

  “Why is your mommy frowning?” the teacher had wanted to know.

  (She’d tell me about this later, in a parent-teacher conference.)

  “Because she is lonely,” Heidi said. “My mommy likes to be lonely.”

  I am learning to understand Johannes’s rare and beautiful character better every day. There is something so fresh and so soothing about him; he is often so childlike and then again so full of the finest feelings…And as a musician he is still more wonderful. He gives me as much pleasure as he possibly can…and he does this with a perseverance that is really touching…

  —Clara, in a letter to Joachim, 1854*

  He told me much about himself, which half fills me with admiration for him, half troubles me…Will not those who understand him be few in number?

  —Clara, in her journal, 1854†

  18.

  ELLEN IS OLDER THAN I am, dark-eyed and reckless, with a grin that suggests all kinds of good mischief. After her last marriage ended, she moved to Florida to be closer to her sister; now she manages investments for high-end clients at a private bank. As I hopped up onto the high stool beside her at the bar, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that we might be poster children for the maxim opposites attract. She sparkled in a white silk blouse, pink lipstick; I wore my usual jeans. At the bottom of my purse was the Chap Stick with sunscreen—sandy from my last trip to the beach—I’d remembered to swipe across my lips before getting out of the car.

  “Got any plans for the weekend?” she said, leaning over for a kiss.

  She’d already ordered wine for us both, gotten our names on the waiting list. The buzzer rested between us, red eye blinking, an old man’s wink.

  “Actually,” I said, “remember the German entrepreneur?”

  Ellen raised one shapely brow. “The one who says men and women can’t be friends?”

  “He just called me.”

  “So where’s he been all this time?”

  I shrugged. “He asked me to go flying with him tomorrow.”

  To my surprise, Ellen laughed. “Of course he did. Every other guy I’ve been out with lately either has his pilot’s license or wants his pilot’s license.”

  “I thought he was being original.”

  “Men and women can’t be friends. That’s original, all right.”

  The waiter brought our wine; I took a sip, leaned back. The bar was under a pavilion overlooking the intracoastal, which looked pretty the way an artificial Christmas tree can look pretty sometimes, despite the garish tinsel, the overreflected light. It was a pleasant place to sit and talk, to admire passing boats. On the opposite side of the seawall, ibis roosted in the trees, readying themselves for the night.

  “Of course,” Ellen said. “It’s also the truth.”

  “Oh, God. Not you, too.”
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  “Wait till I tell you my latest online success story. Are you writing these things down? This stuff is too good to waste.”

  “You mean Ketchup Man?” Ellen had met Ketchup Man on eHarmony.com. They’d e-mailed for weeks before agreeing to meet at a Subway, where—his suggestion—they’d ordered sandwiches to go. “Do you like ketchup?” he asked, leading her across the parking lot to Publix, where he purchased a family-size bottle. “They never give you enough ketchup on these things.” Ellen confessed she did not like ketchup. “More for me!” Ketchup Man said. By the time they’d finished eating, sitting in his car, the bottle was almost empty.

  In between squirts, he’d licked the cap.

  “Not Ketchup Man,” she said. “Dancing Man. Who, by the way, was a certified flight instructor.”

  “When he wasn’t dancing.”

  “Or cheating on his wife.”

  I looked at her and saw she wasn’t smiling. “What happened?”

  “I met him a couple of months ago. Remember I told you I signed up for this dance class? Actually, we signed up together.”

  “Did you tell me about him and I just forgot?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t want to jinx it. I mean, we had so much fun. And he seemed—well, we’d go out for dinner, dancing, whatever, and then we’d say good night and go home. But this past weekend was our last dance class, and there was a contest that, of course, we won. So afterward, we’ve got this ridiculously huge trophy, and I say, Where should we keep it? And he says—wink, wink—Your place or mine? Well, it’s the first time that this has come up, and it’s perfect, it’s just right, so I tell him, Your place, because mine’s a mess, and we jump in our cars and off we go. As soon as we’re in the door, he’s pulling me toward the bedroom, fine, but I really have to pee, so I twist away into the bathroom and I’m sitting on the toilet when I see—hello?—a box of tampons by the wastepaper basket. He’s outside tapping on the door, and I’m like, Just a minute, but by now I’m opening drawers, and there’s all this makeup, hair ties, nail polish, and that’s when I find the birth control pills. Prescribed to a woman named Linda. Coincidentally, they have the same last name.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “So then I look in the laundry hamper and, I kid you not, there’s this lacy scrap of a nightgown in there. I think about putting it on, but in the end I just throw it over my shoulders like a goddamn boa and open the door. He sees it—I mean, you can’t miss it—but still he’s ready to go. So I say, Are you married? And you should have seen his face. He turns bone white, and get this, he says, he says—”

  She was laughing now, despite herself—

  “He says, How did you know?”

  “Jesus,” I began, but Ellen said, “No,” and picked up her glass of wine. “Don’t say anything, okay? Just write it down.”

  She looked past me into the darkness. A sport fisher passed too fast along the intracoastal, disregarding the no-wake zone, and all the little runabouts tied along the pier bumped roughly against each other. Suddenly, I was wishing I’d answered L—’s e-mail, wondering if it was too late to do so. I wanted to ask him if it ever got easier: this dating, this dodging, this longing for love. The second marriage. The second time. I simply could not imagine it.

  When the buzzer went off, it startled us both. A waiter appeared to help carry our wine.

  “What do you think?” Ellen asked him, as if he’d been part of the conversation all along. “Can men and women ever be friends?”

  He was somewhere in his early thirties: tall, dark, and handsome. His teeth shone like something you could spend.

  “When a woman asks that question,” he said, eyeing Ellen’s full chest pleasantly, “there is only one answer a man can give.”

  Date: Friday, May 26 11:56 PM

  To: LMJPROF@que.edu

  Hey there—

  Sorry I didn’t write back sooner, but you asked how I was doing, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to answer. Maybe the old joke sums it up best:

  Q: Why do people pay so much for a divorce?

  A: Because it’s worth it.

  Congratulations on your new marriage—what is that like? I wish you both the best.

  Take care,

  Jeanette

  Date: Saturday, May 27 12:02 AM

  To: Jeanie88@comster.com

  Oh, no, Jeanie, are you cynical now? Be careful with yourself. Heartlessness comes next. Write me a real letter if you can, when you can, and let me know (really) how you’re doing.

  You have always been special to me.

  L—

  Perhaps a primary reason that women are often so shallow and senseless is exactly their superior talent for the external. One sees with what comical verisimilitude little girls play brides, wives and mothers…. Many grown women experience romance and carry it off with a convincing show of sincerity, but in fact it is nothing more than a reiteration of their children’s games…until in their imaginations it is as if they have really felt passion…

  —from Brahms’s notebook; copied from Friedrich Sallet’s

  Contrasts and Paradoxes*

  19.

  HART WAS ALREADY IN front of the Starbucks, idling in his Mercedes, by the time I pulled up beside him in my Volvo with its Cheerios décor: a high-backed car seat, Winnie-the-Pooh sunshade, Styrofoam noodles, and a half-inflated dolphin pool toy filling the back hatch. A couple of sagging helium balloons trailed me out the door, but I saw them in time, beat them back with my sneakers as Hart opened his own door to greet me. He wore a cloth hat, long pants covered with pockets, and a long-sleeved flannel shirt, despite the sun, which was hotter than you’d think possible at a quarter after eight in the morning. There was a funny moment when we looked at each other, and I saw that we were both disappointed. Regardless, we shook hands like proper Germans, and he said, “Did you bring a hat?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “And sunscreen.”

  “I always wear sunscreen,” I said, but he was studying my tank top, my bare arms and shoulders.

  “It is better to wear a shirt. What about your eyes?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stepped forward, peered impersonally, clinically, into my eyes. His own eyes were close-set, somewhere between gray and green. A few wiry hairs escaped the arch of his brows. I wanted to touch the faint scar on his forehead. I wanted to push him away. Again, all of this seemed familiar, as if we’d stood like this before, scrutinizing each other too closely, looking for something we were not going to find.

  Ellen was right: too much didn’t add up. Why had he waited this long to call? And then why these last-minute plans?

  “You should be wearing sunglasses,” he said.

  I stepped back. “So should you.”

  “I have seen many cases of melanoma.”

  “In your research, I suppose.”

  “I no longer involve myself in research. Your eyes, by the way, look good. Based on what I can see. Which isn’t much. You should have them checked.”

  And why were we still in the parking lot? Something was off between us, out of step. We’d have a fluffy coffee, and then I’d send him on his way. Get my laptop from the car. Spend the morning doing what I should be doing: writing to the sound of the baristas. Maybe today would be the day an overlooked detail would open a door into a room yet unimagined. Into my passion for these people, this story I had loved for almost thirty years.

  “So what do you…involve yourself in these days?” I asked. “Your business, I suppose. Is Viso-Tech a large company?”

  “Sure, sure, I am the rich businessman. We can talk while I am driving.” He nodded toward the car. “It is a long way to get there.”

  “I thought we were going to have coffee first.”

  “I bought lattes.” He opened his door and there they were between the seats: whitecapped soldiers in wraparound jackets. The sight of them unnerved me. In the back, there was a fat padded cooler, a half-zipped satchel st
uffed with papers and books, a neatly folded blanket. Everything set to go. It occured to me that this time the voice in my head crying warnings might be right. Why hadn’t I left his phone number with Ellen? Why hadn’t I thought to make certain Viso-Tech really existed?

  “I never even asked which airport,” I said.

  Hart got into his car. “Glider port. It is west of Orlando.”

  “But that’s over three hours away!”

  He looked up at me inquiringly. “You must be back by a certain time?”

  The Mercedes ran so quietly I didn’t even realize he’d turned the key until I felt the first cool puff of air-conditioning. “Look,” I said, taking a few steps back. “I don’t even know you. It’s too far. It’s too much.”

  Hart did not say anything.

  “Even if I did come along for the ride, I don’t think I could fly. I’d be too afraid. I mean, I am afraid. Of everything, these days.” I made myself look into his face as I said this. “Not just you. Not just this.”

  He said, without missing a beat, “I do not find, since I am living here, so many people I can talk to. I was thinking that perhaps we are two people who can have a conversation.”

  “So call me sometime. We can talk on the phone. Get to know each other better.”