Judith addressed Steve, “We had a trip planned. We decided to go ahead with that.”
“Understandable,” said Steve. “It sounds like things changed at the last minute.”
I could see he was tense, waiting for the next big reveal about the trucker. Judith looked at me. It was the same look she got when she was judging the value of leather, or linen, or a piece of jewelry. She was deciding.
“It doesn’t take much to change things in this family,” she said. “I heard having the hearse break down made it an eventful day for everyone.”
“It worked out,” I grabbed another fig. “Have you met Arthur?”
“Apparently it did,” she was holding on my eyes. “They were down for dinner last week with Bettina and Ted. He’s very tall, not fun like your father.”
“He is tall. Mom seems happy.”
“Her new wardrobe is a little tacky. Your sister’s a mess.”
“Yes. I hope she gets sober too.”
“Well, we’ll see how long it lasts with your mother,” she said. “Eric and Anna came by last week. I’m not sure what Eric sees in her, she has such English skin.”
English skin? I felt like screaming. I love my sister-in-law. She is one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. My brother loves her to the bottom of his feet. Her English skin is beautiful and young, unlike Aunt Judith’s. I hated that she talked about her like that. I felt hurt for her, even though she didn’t know she was being trashed. I’m sure Judith never said anything to her face; it would infuriate Eric. She wouldn’t risk that.
“They’ve been in love since they were sixteen,” I said.
“Yes, well. She never let him out of her sight long enough for him to see what else was out there.”
“They went to college on different coasts. He had a chance.”
They served us a light lunch. It was pleasant enough, if you consider waiting for the axe to fall pleasant. Judith’s husband is curious about everything. He had done some research on editing equipment so was prepared for a little tech talk with Steve.
“So you’re Jewish, Steve,” said Judith.
“I know,” said Steve.
Something in his voice had shifted; he wasn’t on the defensive anymore.
“My grandmother was Jewish, no one talks about it though,” she said. “She quit her religion when she married my grandfather. He was Catholic.”
“Did she convert to Catholicism?” asked Steve.
“No,” she said. “He quit the church.”
“Interesting solution,” he said.
“What do you expect Hannah to do?” she asked.
“Why do you ask, Judith?” he asked.
“Well I assume you two are talking about marriage,” she said.
“We aren’t,” I said.
“I see,” she smiled.
“We’ve only talked about having children so far,” said Steve.
“It would be like Hannah to do that,” she said. “Have children without getting married.”
“Hannah won’t have my children without being married,” he said. “What she decides about religion is up to her.”
“That’s good,” she said. “She won’t be left with a stray cat to raise like her mother.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Stray cat.”
“That’s what your grandmother called you,” she said. “Your mother could have probably found a new husband, but you weren’t a cute kitten anymore, you were a gangly cat. Men don’t sign on for that.”
“Grandma never said that,” I said.
“You didn’t really know her,” she said.
“We’ll keep you posted,” said Steve. He looked at me. “We should head back and get on the road before it gets any later.”
We were halfway back to the hotel before either of us spoke. I was still reeling from the idea that my grandmother had referred to me as a gangly cat. That I had been the reason my mother never found a new partner. I knew people had stopped inviting her to parties as soon as my father died. She was the young widow of a lively man, a threat in their world of couples. I wouldn’t put it past Judith to say it just to take my grandmother away from me.
“You think Judith’s soft?” he asked.
“I think she’s weak under all that,” I said. “Now you know why Eric and I call her Aunt Asp. I hate that she talks about me like I’m not sitting there. I wasn’t thrilled that you were doing it either.”
He smiled. “It was knee jerk. Her grandmother may have quit her religion, but she passed on everything else to Judith. My mother will love her. You could have waded in any time. You’re going to need to learn to fight on your feet if you’re going to survive in my family.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said.
I hate fighting. I’m no good at it. I just simmer then explode. We had a quiet drive home. He dropped me in front and I pulled out my overnight bag.
“Thanks for going,” I said.
“It was interesting,” he said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Karin and I met for our weekly breakfast the next morning. I hadn’t talked to her since the wrap party. They were hot into holiday preparations; the tree was up, the cookies were baked; her parents were arriving in a few days. She pushed her coffee aside and leaned in so she was close enough to talk without whispering.
“What part of this am I not getting? Steve goes to New York and bangs some lawyer just to make his mother happy. Then he comes back here, calls you a hooker and basically rapes you; and you feel like things are getting back to normal?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He didn’t rape me, and it was only once. He said the woman in New York means nothing. I was doing the same thing here.”
“First of all, you have no idea what it means to him, except he’s getting laid at both ends. And not safely I might add. What the hell was that all about? And right after being with her. Totally shitty. Second, you were having the best sex of your life with an honest man who, unless you didn’t tell me the truth, only played rape. He took care of you.”
“He’s upset that it was a truck driver,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I hate lawyers.”
“Steve is the right partner for me. We speak the same language. We’ll be fine.”
“Hannah, that is such pure bullshit. You’re completely forgetting what it was like before all this. The impaling. You weren’t speaking any language. I would hardly call you partners. A week ago you said you knew it wasn’t right. That’s why you ended up with Stroud in the first place.”
“Did I tell you my father had an affair, right before he died. I just found out.”
She was looking at me. “What’s that have to do with anything?”
“I always thought he was a saint.”
“So now you know he wasn’t. Like everyone else on the planet except Mother Teresa.”
“Steve’s been good to me.”
“Not lately.”
“We were okay. We’ve done a lot together.”
“Then why are you hurting each other with other people?”
“It feels like this has caused a break through. I don’t want to go backwards either.”
“I’m not going to argue with you about it. I hope you’re right,” she said. “Let’s have dessert, something that doesn’t have red and green sprinkles.”
We didn’t talk about it anymore. Karin can be pretty hardcore when it comes to relationships. She always said she’d kick Oscar to the curb if he stepped out of line. But our situation was not as clear-cut as that; we’d both stepped out of line.
I went home, pulled out my suitcase and started packing for Hawaii. It doesn’t require much. I was looking forward to sleep-read-float. Steve hadn’t said anything more about Baja so, despite telling Karin that things were better, I really didn’t know what he planned. He called and asked if he could come over.
I had a fire going while I listened to slack key and made piles for the trip. He swam and then took a shower. He ca
me out of the bathroom in a robe, poured a glass of port and watched me pack.
“I’m going to Maui,” he said. “Come with me.”
“I’ve already committed to the place. I don’t want to lose my money.”
“I’ll cover it. It’s no big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me, it’s half a month’s pay. Why don’t you come to Kauai? The place isn’t as big, but it looks funky and fun. It’s right on the beach.”
“I like Maui, there’s more going on. I thought you’d like the pool.”
“If there’s ocean I don’t care about a pool. What about Baja?”
“She was going anyway, she has friends there. I thought we put that behind us.”
“Are you staying tonight?”
“I plan to.”
We got in bed to just the firelight.
“I wish you’d come to Kauai,” I said.
“Just come to Maui. Let’s get back to some kind of normal before we both leave.”
“Okay,” I said.
We started out slowly; it had a lot more heat than the last few nights. There was that out-of-the-blue chemical buzz that comes around, Mother Nature’s trick.
“Can I be on top?” I asked.
“Be my guest.”
I was relieved to find the sweet spot with Steve. I had a wonderful time there. He didn’t complain. On the contrary, he enjoyed the ride. It was fun and felt totally uncomplicated. When it was over I buried my head in his neck.
“That was nice,” I said. “You want to do that again?”
He didn’t say anything. I pulled away and was smiling when I looked at his face. He was looking at me like I was a stranger he knew. It was the same look he’d given me that night in Musso’s. I rolled off him and lay on my back. I looked at the ceiling and wondered how long it would be, what it would take, to exorcise the ghosts. I wasn’t the only one who had been out there. I felt humiliated to be there and apparently coming up short. My wild hair felt crazy on my head.
“This is stupid. You should go to Baja, that’s what you really want.”
“This has nothing to do with her.”
“What then?”
“Maybe you’re like your father except he died.”
I was so shocked I didn’t react at first.
“What did you say?”
He rolled over on top of me and held my arms. “Maybe it was just the first time.”
I shoved him off me like he was an assailant. I had to kick at him to get him far enough away. He tried to fend me off, catch my legs, while he said my name over and over, like I was just upset, but I got away.
I went in the closet and got dressed, then threw open the front door. He was laying with his arm under his head looking at me.
“You need to leave.”
“Come on, Hannah, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No. It’s perfect. It’s clear. It’s so clear. You need to get out of here. I want to kill you.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”
“Do not dramatic me. This isn’t a movie. I don’t know where you think you are, but you’re not here. You keep saying you want to start over then you go backwards on me.”
I stood at the door waiting; he took his time getting dressed. Cold air rushed in. The flames of the fire retreated into hot blue ridges to conserve energy for their unfinished work. The temperature in the room dropped thirty degrees. I waited; it was my house. I stood aside while he walked out the door.
He turned back. “Call me when you come to your senses.”
“I just came to them. You’re okay as long as I’m not.”
I slammed the door in his face, threw the lock and pressed my back into it. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it banging through my feet on the stone floor. I could see my mother hugging him and smiling as she invited him back. I could see handsome Arthur shaking his hand, man-to-man niceness. I could see Eric and Anna, candlelit faces laughing with him over the memory of their chicken feet dinner and volatile Russian cab driver. I could see my father, bent over his workbench whistling and glancing down at me with a smile, as he fixed the broken wing on my Chinese bird kite.
I’d only brushed up against that once, when I was throwing my husband out. I shouldn’t have married him. But I was sick of having the earth pulled out from under me every six months. I wasn’t half as angry then as I was now and he had dropped to his knees in the face of it.
Steve would never drop to his knees. He had never needed it the way my husband had. I could not remember ever being in touch with this place. My indignation was so fierce it jack hammered through the stone floors and bored into the earth’s crust, deeper than any Manzanita root could ever dream of going.
SEVEN
The airport shuttle came at 7:00 a.m. I kicked my bag ahead of me through security, surrounded by festive families headed for a Hawaiian Christmas. They’d all come home with crushed and browning leis. But at least they wouldn’t be wearing those stupid fringed sombreros people wear coming out of Mexico. Well, Steve never would.
My eyes were light sensitive after twenty-four hours of crying with fury and self-loathing over my willingness to keep taking not enough just to have something.
Therapy might give you the words to put to your shit. Beyond that, I don’t know what good it does. My last therapist said I was done: cooked, stick a fork in me. To just call if I needed a reminder of who I was. I never called; I had no idea what she was talking about. She must have mistaken me for a burned up Manzanita bush. She’d joked that I’d have to buy my own subscription to People. Screw that. I had hoped for a brain transplant. I wanted to walk out her door whole, not some confused combo of half-understood ideas and addicted to a magazine that made me feel either superior or hopelessly behind, depending on my state of mind. I know, I know, a magazine can’t make me feel anything. That one still had the power.
I boarded through first class, past men with scripts and their wives in resort wear wafting Beverly Hills perfume and reading Town & Country or Marie Claire. My last minute planning had landed me in the middle seat, in the last row of coach. It wouldn’t even go back a few inches.
I was sandwiched between other ticket lottery losers. On the aisle was a young mother with an extra-fat crying baby. She was laid out on the tray table and needed a clean diaper.
Slouched in the window seat I coveted was a surly kid who looked like he’d been buckshot then plugged with rings and studs, and then covered with tattoos for good measure. What a mess. People who are going to decorate themselves should hire a good designer. Enough of the winging it people; make a plan. Hell, you can find out how to trick-up your pick-up on half a dozen cable channels. Isn’t your body just as important? It’s supposed to be our temple.
I wasn’t opposed to tattoos; I’d even considered getting one. Karin had a tramp stamp on her tailbone that I thought looked hot. But so far I hadn’t been drunk enough to submit to the buzzing needle on the same day I thought it was a good idea. Never mind deciding on a design for all time.
Maybe I’d pitch a new show when I got back. Trick-up Your Temple. Embellish Your Belly, though that restricted the canvas. Maybe, Design Your Shrine. I could design personal tattoos. Whole families could get them, like micro-chipping their dog. I could call them Clan Brands. Even the dog could get one. We’d zap everybody at the same time. It would be a wholesome family show. I could take back the cowboy code that had been co-opted by gangbanger do-rags and taggers; families could “ride for the brand” again. Lovers may come and lovers may go, but families seem to stick like honey on your elbow. Obviously there were some things that needed to be worked out; like the divorce rate, and our obsession with the individual.
The kid who needed my show ignored the request to turn off all electronic devices. He blurped and grunted an alien dialect into his cell phone until the flight attendant threatened to take it away from him. He was wearing a nose clobbering aftershave, with not even fuzz in sight. Even with the dirty di
aper and his whatever, I could already smell the phone booth sized bathroom. What a medley, and we’d barely left the ground. We would spend the flight with people standing next to our seats, smiling idly. I chose to ignore the fact that I’d gotten the worst of the worst seats and focused instead on having a superior People flight. In my defense, I’d spent enough time in Alanon to know I’d pay for being a snob before I died, probably before the day was out.
The plane left behind the brown and green foothills smelling of chemicals, cow shit and burned bacon. Stroud and Leeann were married and making plans for the baby. Steve would be getting his passport out of the bottom drawer of his desk and packing for Mexico and for a woman who fit his picture. I got out of my seat and stood in the galley bent over looking out the window.
We crossed the margin of the continent with its lines of white water eroding the shoreline. The solid rock would resist as long as possible, but would eventually give itself over to become pebbles, then grains of sand, then dust. I’d listened to a scientist on NPR during the shuttle ride to the airport. He claimed that if all the space between all the atoms making up all the people on earth were squeezed out, the entire population of the planet would compress down to something smaller than a cube of sugar. I saw millions of joyful little Matisse people dancing in a conga line on every grain of sand. The plane swept over dark water, farther out to sea.
I climbed back in my seat, which was a big production for the young mother. By way of apology, I bounced her Mama Cass on my hip while she used the toilet, then fetched her a coke. I picked at a box lunch of non-food items and talked to the baby in a normal voice while she gummed Cheerios. I’m not sure her mother appreciated me recounting the escapades of Vampire Chick. I gave her the PG version. I figured the sooner she knew to keep her sex life off camera, the better. She took a swig of cold water from a sippy cup, turned slightly blue, and then coughed a cold slime Cheerio ball into my face and hair. Fortunately my mouth was closed. The kid next to me snarked; I accidentally elbowed him. I held the coke and steadied the baby while the mother dug out wipes for everyone. I guess that falls under the heading no good deed goes unpunished.
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights Page 12