When I pulled the plug, the drain made the sound my heart would have made if it could have made a sound when I found them. I deliberately dripped water all over Beth’s shiny parquet floors while pouring myself a half a glass of wine, a daytime luxury as uncommon as the bubble bath had been. I sat my wet ass on her expensive office chair, a black, springy contraption, and logged into our email account, remembering our dead laptop at the bottom of the kitchen sink. Even if Beth had wanted to muck with the account or warn Marcus, she’d have difficulty finding the time to go into town.
Dear Marcus, I just want to confirm tomorrow night, 7 P.M. Hope we’re still on. If something comes up, call this number. It’s not a local cell. Belongs to a friend. Long story.
I threw the robe around me and stretched across the couch and closed my eyes for what I thought was a second, only to jerk awake to the sound of a faraway doorbell, and to a sun that had dimmed considerably. I had had a nap, my first in several years. During those few seconds between sleep and full alertness, I had the sudden understanding that my kids were far away, which explained the hollow thudding in my chest. The boys would be bracketing the supper table by now, I thought. Beau would probably linger in town after work, stopping in at Lucy and Leo’s, perhaps, or at Earl’s to eat and watch whatever was playing on the giant TV. Who would he talk to? Who would he tell about what he did? Lou knew, but Lou had a preternatural ability to forgive any transgressions.
Beau also wasn’t the vengeful type, which is what I loved about him. I also loved his hands and arms, and how he’d wrap them tight around his torso and scratch himself awake in the kitchen, pajama bottoms sagging around his bony hips, one hand still scratching as he dopily pinballed from the coffeepot on the counter to the sugar pot on the table to the cream in the fridge, his yawns smelling exactly like the pond. I remembered knowing we were young in the beginning. But after the kids I don’t remember when it was that we got old. And so fast too. Was it awful to be in love with the fact that, with Beau, I didn’t feel the need to talk about every little thing? I had talked to neighbors, to Beth, and the boys. I talked to Lou, and Sam’s doctors. I talked to Lucy, even to Leo. I picked Beau because I thought his body had already contained all my unsaid words. He knew me. He knew Lou, my sister, our past. And I thought he had extra room under his skin to store more unsaid words, the ones we’d gather over the years we’d be married. That’s what made him mine. My prize. But Beau was Beau. He was just a man, who, given the opportunity to get away with having sex with someone other than his wife, would take it and run with it. Even if it was with his wife’s sister. Where I thought he was solid and steady, he turned out to be tippy and hollow, like the rest of us.
The noise of the city twelve stories below sounded like an enormous outdoor party, the honking traffic an awful sort of jazz band providing the music. And I was invited. I stretched and realized I had all weekend and good maps. I had money and Beth’s backup closet. I had a date with a handsome lawyer tomorrow night, and I seemed to have finished crying. The tiny ding-dong sound that had woke me from the nap was actually Marcus’s email reply. He wrote, “U bet. Can’t w8.”
chapter twelve
AND THAT’S ALL it took to send me out the door. I covered my sad-faced body with my best pants, cream-colored corduroys, knowing nothing in Beth’s closet could come close to covering up my hips and ass. Even her tops, dresses, and blouses had the cut and consistency of tattered flags, each seemingly festooned with some kind of string or wrap, requiring fussy little buttons and hooks. I managed to find a pretty orange tunic that fit, with tasteful embroidery framing the V-neck. I pulled it over my head and tucked it in, then untucked it, then tucked it in, then finally untucked it in the elevator down. I passed Jonathan wearing my first genuine smile of the day.
“Good color on you, Peachy,” he said.
“Thanks, Jonathan, I think so too.”
“You got a map?”
I slapped my purse and nodded.
“Where are you off to now, then?”
“I don’t know. But not far, really. Just around the neighborhood. See some sights?”
He scribbled a number on a piece of paper and gave it to me.
“Call me if there’s trouble,” he said, and I thanked him, thinking, Lou would love you. I love you.
When I hit the city air, I suddenly felt starving from the hurry of the morning and dizzy from the mouthful of afternoon wine and the nap. But it made Manhattan seem all the more Technicolor and amazing. I found myself looking up at people’s houses, the high stoops, the lack of privacy but utter mystery each building seemed to contain; the strange color paint jobs (Who paints a living room red?), the gorgeously ornate ceilings and cornices of the imposing brownstones, stacked as they were, side by side like orderly tombs. Sometimes, I could see the tops of paintings or high bookshelves. I didn’t go so far as to climb the stoops, to peer right into the windows, right into the beautiful homes, right at the beautiful people inside, but I wanted to. What stopped me was Beth’s imaginary scolding, her snobbery, which would have surely accompanied us on all our jaunts had she been with me.
“Jesus Christ, Peach, you’re like the phantom of the fucking opera. Get down from there!” I could imagine Beth saying. “You’re embarrassing me.”
But Beth wasn’t here. She was in Belle River sorting my laundry, fingering my stained bras, my worn T-shirts, Beau’s sweat-stiffened work socks, and, hopefully, she’d be close to fainting by now over the fact that little boys and grown men seem to leave behind an astonishing amount of skid marks in their underpants.
But though I was in her city and wearing her clothes, I was nothing like Beth. Because unlike Beth, I ducked inside the first restaurant I found, careful to keep her building within my view, lest I become lost and permanently forgotten. Where I was terrified, Beth was fearless, throwing herself into this cauldron of a city at the age of eighteen, just to see what would stick. And it all stuck. I thought how brave she must have been, how scared and yet how brave. I couldn’t imagine being tossed into a city this big, loud, and fast, and blithely rising to the top as Beth had. I would have curled into a ball at the first sound of sirens, remaining that way until Lou came to get me.
In the diner I ordered dinner: a hamburger, a Diet Coke, and a side salad. Later, I asked for fries, too, which I ate slowly, one by one, avoiding all eye contact with strangers and regretting that I hadn’t brought anything to read. In my head I toasted to an imaginary Beth sitting across from me.
“Here’s to my first big weekend away from everyone but you.”
By the time my hamburger arrived, my hunger had been replaced by heavy sadness. While I sat alone, an unremarkable woman eating an unremarkable meal in an unremarkable diner, Beth was, at that moment, surrounded by my beloved boys, and at least one of the two troubled men I lived with. Lou would be keeping one eye on Beth’s awkward caretaking, the other on filling in the gaps: finding the other sock, counting out pills for Sam, digging out Jake’s favorite story book, which he kept tucked under his arm for at least an hour before bedtime. Beau wouldn’t be there, of that I was certain. He’d stay away as much as possible that weekend without alarming the boys or overburdening Beth and Lou. He’d probably eat at the tavern or stay late at the shop, slouched over a work bench, slowly chewing take-out fries and staring into the middle distance. His head would be running a looped argument with himself, his internal voice by turns reproaching and defensive, giving him the demeanor of a man watching a boxing match on a tiny TV. A new and awful uncertainty had crept into our marriage, something I hadn’t felt since Nell died and something Beau hadn’t known since a childhood spent tiptoeing around a volatile stepdad. He was in anguish, and I didn’t care. I wanted to yell, You did this! You brought this on! You, you jackass! Not me. But his own self-loathing would be nothing compared to Beth’s hatred for him. If there was animosity between them before, now there was war. They might hiss at each other over the kitchen island, or curse in the carport over cigar
ettes, out of earshot of the boys and away from Lou, the standby referee. Beau would blame her for taking advantage of his dopey vulnerability. Beth would blame him for being too stupid to realize that she was too drunk to know any better.
I could see Sam sitting at the head of the table, poking at something unfamiliar that Beth likely made for supper. Despite my warnings that he wouldn’t eat anything weird, Beth probably whipped up something like risotto or sushi, something involving weird mushrooms, booze, and fire. Then she’d wonder why a shy kid with a bad brain would balk at eating it.
“Don’t want to try it, honey?” she’d ask, eyebrow arched, trying to hide her disappointment. This would be Lou’s cue to wordlessly slap together a cheese sandwich for Sam, after which he’d plop himself down in front of the TV with a bowl of green grapes and the remote. Sam would know, too, that something was wrong with the way the weekend unfolded. He had picked up more than enough information during my dramatic departure to be wary of Beth and any of her awkward affections. So if he rejected her meal it would have more to do with loyalty than loss of appetite—a thought that triggered both pride and shame in me.
Jake, however, would try anything. Last year, Beth made osso bucco on a visit home, and he sucked the bone like a Viking, refusing to toss it to Scoots. If he was thrilled by her attention, he was thoroughly delighted by his ability to please Beth. He was a boy whose love of girls and women had never been subtle, even as a toddler. So I had no trouble picturing Jake with his legs swinging off the cracked vinyl chairs, hands under his thighs, grinning mouth covered in the stained remains of something exotic: curried goat, lamb stew, goddamn paella, Beth mussing his hair in deep appreciation. Somebody loves me, she’d be thinking. Somebody from my sister’s home doesn’t want me gone for good.
I paid my bill and left a too-large tip and headed to the small park across the street, still keeping the top of Beth’s building within my sights. It felt enlivening to be jostling with other people probably heading home from work. But I admit I was a little disappointed that there were no weirdos, no punks with high hair, no crazy-looking hookers, no gay men dressed as circus performers. The crowds looked mostly normal, like people strolling a mall, or exiting a church, just more of them. I watched a young couple clutching hands on a park bench, their hair still damp from showers or sex. The man said something. The woman whipped her head to look at him. He looked away smirking as she stared moonfully into the side of his head, then down at his shoes as though contemplating her good fortune, or his good taste.
Even though it was just down the street from her apartment, Beth had probably never been in this park, let alone noticed it. I couldn’t imagine her purposelessly sitting anywhere, for that matter. Or if she was, she’d be nose-deep in a newspaper, carefully avoiding wrinkles, a woman you’d never see sporting tennis shoes, then changing into heels at work. No, Beth always said if you can’t afford the kind of heels that can survive the city sidewalks, stick to bloody Birkenstocks.
Still it was romantic (if not a little creepy) watching this couple squeeze in a few intimate minutes in public, neither one of them distracted by the traffic or the children buzzing around them. I watched great gulps of people coming in and out of the subway entrance, up and down a staircase in the ground. If I lived here, I would love having a subway, I thought. I would never drive. I would always take the subway to work. I would carry a Metrocard and I would memorize the routes like a pro. I hoped to muster the courage to ride it at least once while I was here, despite the way the map made me gasp. How do the cars not crash into each other? How does someone descend down into that underground labyrinth and not get lost? And though I didn’t miss my imaginary career, I would have loved the idea of going to work, of moving along with other commuters in the morning, of having some place to be. Even the drive to the city for an appointment with Sam’s doctors was a welcome meditation. As I left the farm, I used to feel as though I was unraveling a spool of thin worry that would run out halfway to the hospital. At which point I would take up the strings of the efficient medical system, severing one set of concerns, then clutching another.
The cell-phone ring jangled me out of my trance, flashing a number I didn’t recognize. It was Kate. She was in the lobby of Beth’s apartment.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m just across the street. Not far.”
“We’re going to Jeb and Nadia’s for dinner, remember? It’s in your honor. Come, come, come, come, come. Please?”
“But I ate.”
In my honor. I pictured myself on a throne, wearing a funny hat at the foot of a long table, fielding questions about Beth’s absence, knowing they all knew by now.
“You ate already? It’s only seven-thirty. Anyway, you can eat again. Wait. That didn’t come out right.”
I was too exhausted to fight her, plus too curious about Jeb and Nadia’s place (and marriage) to say no. I wanted inside some of these buildings, to see how people here lived, where they stored their tampons and toilet paper and what kinds of pets they kept. I told her to give me a minute and I ambled across the street. Then I skipped toward the silhouette of Beth’s building like an anxious kid who’d strayed too far from her minder’s sight.
* * *
JEB AND NADIA lived near a bridge in Brooklyn, in an old building that, from the dark street, looked terribly menacing. It was plain, square, and flat, with mismatched brick around the lower, newer, windows. I felt nervous to go in, not just because it was my first dinner party, in my honor no less, but the area looked poor and dangerous.
“Does everyone know why Beth’s not with me?” I asked Kate, suddenly feeling ashamed. But what had I done wrong?
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re just here on a little break and Beth got delayed. That’s all.”
When the freight elevator deposited us onto their floor, things didn’t improve. The hallway was dim and cavernous. I had driven by projects in Detroit that had more charm. And good parking. Surely they both made money, I thought, feeling grateful that Beth lived in a place that was recognizable from magazines or TV shows. So when Kate said, “You’re going to die when you see this place,” I began to wonder if she was being serious.
Nadia hauled open the creaky barn door using what looked like her full weight and welcomed me with drama.
“PEE-chee! Everybody, Peachy’s here!”
A mild “yay” emanated from behind her. Some weak clapping. I felt thoroughly sick. But the place was enormous and more beautiful than anything I could have expected from the street. In fact, it was the opposite of the street, despite its alley-type features; brick walls and the ceiling exposed to all the inner workings of the apartment’s heat and hydro. It was rich-looking in the strangest kind of way, like Jeb and Nadia lived in a tastefully furnished factory, lit by fat candles and warm lamps.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s so beautiful.”
Nadia clutched me to her bosom like Nana Beecher might have, had she had a bosom.
“You are much prettier dan your sister,” she said. “Much.”
Nadia was a big blond Polish woman. Not fat, not at all. Large, wide-shouldered, a woman who possessed the presence of an entire room of people. I followed her into the kitchen, where Jeb stood wearing an apron that said KISS THE COCK.
“Peachy. So good to meet you finally,” he said, holding my face firmly and planting two kisses, one on each side. He whispered, “Sorry Beth couldn’t make it.”
A thin man with strange glasses sitting at the island coughed “whore” into his fist. The room exploded with laughter. Not uncomfortable laughter, the real kind born of a real joke.
Nadia shot him a dirty look. Kate told him to “fuck off” in a singsongy warning kind of way.
“Kidding! Kidding! Sorry,” the thin man said, smiling, holding up his hands in surrender and offering me one. “I’m Anthony and I’m kidding. I love Beth. So nice to meet you.”
I shook his hand, and Nadia guided me over to a group
of people in the living room area who seemed to be in the middle of a conversation about Cuba.
“We should be there. We should be investing. We should be putting up infrastructure. We should be developing hotels. We should be passing out free Coke.”
“Cocaine coke? Or Coca-Cola coke?”
“Both, fuck.”
“Dis is Peachy. Beth’s sister. On a little visit from Canada,” Nadia said, her hands framing my shoulders. It was hard to take all of their faces in at once.
“Hi, Beth’s sister,” a couple of them intoned in my general direction. I flipped up a hand and slapped it back against my thigh.
“Anthony you met. You know Kate and Jeb. Me, of course,” she continued. “And dis is Louis, Frieda, and Stacey.”
The names were familiar from Beth’s stories, but the only things that stood out were the seedy bits, the stories I’d laughed at, and lived off, frankly. For instance, Louis and Anthony used to date until Louis insisted on being bisexual in case he met a rich woman and could retire. In fact, he had recently found out that he had a kid with a woman from college, a one-night stand, and that he resented paying child support, not because he didn’t make enough money on Wall Street, but because the kid was unattractive. Years earlier, I remembered that Frieda had flashed a bouncer to get the lot of them into a club. And that she shaved five years off her online dating profile. Stacey once sued a Ukrainian woman who burnt her vagina during a Brazilian wax job. She got $265,000, which she now considered her “entrance” fee, in that any man who made less than that had no chance of getting in. There were so many other places I wanted to be just then: a darkened bathroom suffocating under a horse blanket in the tub, lying down in the back of a pickup truck that was careening over a cliff, stuffed in a cannon about to be shot into a boiling lake. I almost prayed for Beth to pop in, to shelter me from having to make conversation with people to whom I had nothing to say. This was Beth’s kind of room, these were her people, arch and fierce, funny at the expense of others. I stood there hands clasped in front of me looking like a kid about to give a boring speech about Ancient Egypt or the awful business of wearing braces. Ladies, gentlemen, esteemed judges … Beth would have swanned in, wiggled herself down between two of the meanest ones here, interrupted their conversation and demanded a cigarette. Even better, they would have loved her for it. After which, she would have joined their conversation about Cuba like a fast car merging into loose traffic. Blah blah blah embargo, blah blah blah black market, all just run-on sentences until Beth would provide the punctuation, the joke, the final word, and when the subject was exhausted, she’d change it into something better. These thoughts didn’t make me jealous. They made me miss her. I realized why it had always been so wonderfully easy to go places with Beth. She cleared the path, made the entrance, laid the groundwork, did all the hard work of elevating the evening. I just carried the train.
The Almost Archer Sisters Page 17