Love in the Present Tense

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Every now and then some barrier would break away or break down, and she would reward me with a moment smacking of something like romance. And all I had to do was run a couple of thousand miles and swim an ocean or two to get it.

  The rain-mottled light from above was good enough to allow me to see her mouth, which so defined her, and a trace of the laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. I loved them, but had long since given up saying so. Or trying to touch them. Though I wanted to, badly. I couldn’t really see colors, though, so the impact from her eyes got lost. She has fabulous eyes, Barb. So dark blue they’re almost navy. And hair moving from dark blond to gray in a natural, unimpeded progression.

  This was all very important, you see, because it was part of a process by which I memorized these visuals, to hold me over until she next came back to see me.

  She tucked her face against my neck, and I could feel the warmth of her breath between my neck and collarbone. The moment continued.

  “Don’t go home tonight,” I said. “Stay with me.”

  I’m a suicide bomber when it comes to love.

  I could feel her sigh. Feel the air on my neck, and her chest expand against mine. Her back rise and fall under my hands. I could feel my ankle throb.

  “Oh, Mitchell,” she said. “Why do you always want the one thing you know I can’t give you?”

  “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

  Amazingly, we both managed.

  It was such an intense moment that the lines blurred between pain and pleasure, and I’d begun to think my ankle had become an erogenous zone. Every bit of friction seemed to radiate into that ache and radiate back as a desirable feeling.

  I heard the scratchy breathing, but it never occurred to me that it didn’t belong. The room was full of every kind of breathing, anyway. No sound could really surprise me.

  Then I felt that little hand touch my shoulder, and I jumped. And Barb jumped. And we ended up side by side, on our backs, the sheet pulled up under our chins.

  “Leonard,” I said. “What are you doing up?” No answer. Just that catchy breathing. I wasn’t putting two and two together right. I thought it was an emotional thing, like crying. “Leonard, you need to go back to bed. Come on. I’ll take you back to bed. Well, in a minute. Give me a minute, I’ll tuck you in.”

  “Mitchell,” Barb said. “He can’t breathe.”

  “Oh, my God.” She was right of course. Everybody knew these basic things except me. “Leonard, buddy. Where’s your inhaler?”

  He shrugged desperately, an apparent pantomime for “Help!”

  I shot out of bed. Grabbed him up and threw him under my arm. I was uncomfortable with being naked around him (his mother thinks maybe I molest little boys), but I didn’t feel like that was important now. Or, at least, I was not willing to prioritize that over his oxygen supply. I navigated the treacherous ladderlike steps from my loft to the downstairs, favoring my twisted ankle but still using it in a way I probably could not have without the adrenaline.

  I put him down, turned on the light, and looked around. He was right. It was nowhere.

  I panicked. Threw couch cushions around. Shook blankets. Threw magazines off the coffee table.

  A minute later I felt Barb’s hand on my back and I turned around. She was wearing my khaki shirt, which came down almost to her knees. She pointed to the birdcage. Pebbles had the inhaler. Holding it in one monstrous talon, using her beak to try to separate the tan plastic from the shiny metal cartridge. The prize.

  “Goddamn it, Pebbles,” I said. I ran at her with such panic and intensity that she dropped the damn thing and backed into the corner of the cage. And Pebbles was afraid of nothing. I grabbed it up, but it was filthy. I couldn’t give it to him in that condition.

  “Shit,” I said. “Shit, goddamn it, this has bird shit on it. He can’t put this in his mouth. Shit.” This from the man who said “language” in a conservative tone every time one of my employees swore in front of Leonard.

  Barb grabbed it out of my hand. “Go sit with him,” she said. “Talk to him.” She gave me a little push.

  I sat down on the couch with him. He’d been sitting with his arms wrapped around himself. Like he was holding himself until I could get there. I pulled him up onto my knees. He was wearing a T-shirt I’d given him to sleep in. A floor-length dress to him. But at least one of us wasn’t naked. I took over for him, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight. “We gotcha covered, buddy,” I said. “We’re just about to work this out.”

  I knew that if Pearl were here she’d say, “Okay. Leonard can’t stay here anymore. I’ve decided it’s not okay.” She would have no patience with my poor skills in crisis.

  Barb came back out of the kitchen, drying the now clean inhaler with a dish towel. She sat on the coffee table, her bare knees bumping up against mine. Held it up for Leonard to take.

  “Know how to take it from here?” she asked him. She sounded calm; how did she do that?

  Leonard nodded. Took the inhaler in both hands, held it facing himself. I could see the dents Pebbles had made in it with her beak. I could feel the jump of his tiny back as he gasped it in. I waited, but he still didn’t seem to be breathing.

  Barb must’ve read my mind. “It takes a minute,” she said. She put her hand on my arm. Her left hand. I looked down at it. I could see a tan line where the ring had been. “Mitchell,” she said, to pull my attention back. “Don’t hold him so tightly.”

  “What?”

  “You’re holding too tight around his chest.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “If you panic, he’ll panic,” she said. “Breathe.” I thought she meant Leonard. I thought that was callous advice. If he could, he would. “Mitchell,” she said. “Breathe.”

  I pulled a deep chestful of air. I hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t been breathing. I loosened my grip on Leonard’s chest.

  Barb turned her attention down to Leonard’s little face. She held up one finger. “Grab hold of this,” she said, and he did. “Pebbles took your inhaler. Bad Pebbles, huh?”

  Leonard nodded. Tried to say something. Tried to say “Yuh,” I think, but it came out sounding like a needle pulled across an old phonograph record.

  “What kind of noise does Pebbles make, Leonard? Do you know?”

  He nodded again. Didn’t try to talk. But she had his undivided attention. His attempts at breathing had grown less gaspy, more shallow.

  “Mooo. Is that what Pebbles says?”

  A funny sound came out of him, and I felt his little body shake. I thought he was in some kind of pain or spasm. Then I realized he was giggling. “Nah,” he said, and I could make the word out.

  “Quack quack.”

  More giggling, deeper and happier this time. “Nah.”

  “What does she say, then?”

  “Squawk!” His breathing had morphed into that of a runner at the finish line of a marathon. Normal but depleted. Taking in air, but with a serious debt to repay.

  “Sounds right to me,” she said, and she ruffled one hand through his hair.

  I set my chin down on Leonard’s shoulder and just watched her. How did she learn all this? What the hell would I have done if I’d been here alone?

  She looked up and caught my eye. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “It makes me nervous.”

  In a rare display of acting in my own best interests, I didn’t ask her to define “like that.”

  “Why don’t you go put some pants on?” she said.

  LEONARD, age 5: the first perfect moment

  Mitch carried me up to his loft, piggyback. He’d put on a pair of sweatpants but his back was still bare. I couldn’t really wrap my legs around him because that big T-shirt came all the way down to my ankles. So I just sort of held on and dangled there. I was actually fine by then and he knew it. He just gave me the lift to be friendly and nice.

  He lit a candle, because I was funny about him turning off the lights. Usually I wasn’t all that sc
ared of the dark. But I think I was still a little weird from waking up in a new place, and it had been dark, and I couldn’t find my inhaler.

  Mitch was lying in his bed with me. Barb came up and she was wearing a big long shirt that I think was Mitch’s. She started picking up her clothes.

  “Oh, no,” Mitch said. “You’re leaving? Don’t leave.” He begged her to stay for just a few minutes. “We’ll just talk,” he said.

  She pulled back the covers and got in beside Mitch. I had my hands clasped behind my head, looking up at the ceiling. Watching that candlelight dance around on the beams and plaster. I wiggled my head back and forth to play with the light, and I could feel the elastic strap of my glasses slip back and forth.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Barb had her hand on Mitch’s chest. And Mitch had his hand on my chest. It was nice.

  “Okay,” Barb said. “What should we talk about?”

  I looked straight at that candle flame and I knew everything was okay. It was like…Pearl.

  It was my first perfect moment.

  “Tell Barb about the dog,” Mitch said.

  “The one that gets walked down our street in the morning?”

  “No. The one on the TV.”

  “Oh, yuh,” I said. “You should have seen it, Bar. It was totally cool. This guy was walking his dog and the water got high and the dog was like dangling under this helicopter and I thought the guy was gonna drop him. Twice we saw it. I covered my eyes both times, just to be safe. I know I didn’t really have to. It was just to be safe.”

  “Yeah, you can’t be too careful,” she said.

  Then we were quiet for a long time. I closed my eyes. I was looking at the light from the candle through my eyelids, and even that was sort of still like Pearl. But then after a while I know Mitch thought I was asleep, because he took off my glasses and set them on the bedside table. It started to rain again, and I could hear it on the skylight over my head, and the rain was sort of like Pearl, too.

  It was a really perfect moment.

  LEONARD, age 17: the first perfect moment

  Question: How many angels can dance in the flame of a lighted candle? Answer: Only one but that’s enough.

  Some things I remember bizarrely well about that night. Little scraps of seemingly unimportant moments that will never go away. They are permanently engraved, a part of me now. Lots of other whole segments are gone. But certain things I remember. Only, maybe I don’t remember the actual events anymore. Maybe I just remember remembering.

  Then again, whatever.

  Here’s all that matters: I looked straight at that candle flame and I knew Pearl was with me in that light. It was my first perfect moment.

  Then, after they thought I was asleep, they started to talk quietly, and I knew they thought I was sleeping, and I let them think that. Not that I wanted to snoop so much. I think I was at that age where it was hard for me to understand that the world kept going while I was sleeping. It was like cheating sleep—hearing what I’d missed every single night of my life.

  Barb said, “Know what they call that guy dangling from the cable?”

  Mitch said, “What who calls him?”

  “Rescue personnel, dispatchers, police. It’s kind of an inside language.”

  “I give up,” Mitch said. “What do they call him?”

  “Either a tea bag or a dope on a rope. Depending on how charitable they’re feeling.”

  “Why is he a dope? Because he wasn’t supposed to be walking his dog in a flood basin?”

  “We’re talking two different things,” she said. “You’re talking about the rescuee. I’m talking about the rescuer.”

  “Now I’m really confused,” Mitch said. “Why is he a dope?”

  “Because he’s out there risking his life for some idiot who should never have been walking his dog in a flood basin to begin with. I’m telling you, Mitchell. Most people who need rescuing need it because they were doing something any fool should know better than to do in the first place. The older you get the more you see that. They’re going to bill that guy for his own rescue. You watch.”

  “I really feel sorry for the dog,” Mitch said. “He’s just along for the ride and it’s so completely out of his control.”

  They didn’t talk for a minute and then Barb said, “It doesn’t pay to be the dog, Mitchell.”

  I’ve thought a lot about what she meant by that, both then and since. It could be taken at face value, but that’s not the way she said it. It didn’t feel like a toss-off comment. It sounded like she was trying to teach him something, but I’m not sure what, because if you’re the dog you just are, and nothing you learn will ever change that.

  Then after a while I heard some sounds that I think might have been a kiss, but I didn’t open my eyes. But I heard little soft breaths, and that wet noise like mouths coming together and then apart again.

  “Oh, God,” Mitch said, and he was whispering. “Don’t get me started.”

  I didn’t know at the time what he meant by that but I could feel his hunger. It felt needy and straining, like a tree that reaches over to get water or sun even though a tree can barely move. It felt strange that he should be lying right next to me feeling so much hunger when I was so content and so full. I couldn’t understand how he could need so much and not see how perfect everything was.

  Then after a while I heard Barb moving around and I knew she was getting dressed to go. And when she left I could tell that she took part of Mitch with her. I could feel it go, and I could feel how different he was without it.

  I opened my eyes and I could almost see the skylight and I could hear the rain on the skylight, but without my glasses I couldn’t see any rain. I had to imagine what it might look like. I had to know in my gut it was still Pearl.

  Then Mitch blew out the candle but it was okay. She didn’t go away.

  It was perfect.

  I know I was only five, and I know I’m not supposed to remember so much so clearly. But it was a real moment, the start of something, and it’s etched in. I don’t even care whether anyone believes I could remember so much, because I know I do. Maybe the words or details changed in the remembering, but I don’t see that it matters, because the words and the details aren’t what’s important, and what’s important didn’t change.

  MITCH, age 25: what pearl left behind

  I pitched into the following morning underslept, over-stressed, underlaid, and really in no mood for Cahill.

  He showed up at ten after nine. Took one look at me hobbling around on my taped-up ankle and howled with laughter. Cahill was always good for a laugh at my expense.

  “Oh, geez, not again,” he said. “Another rough night on the battlefield of love? I swear one day I’m going to have to bury you after that woman is done with you. That little size four commando. Geez, Doc.”

  Conversationally, he was getting harder and harder on Barb, heading for a line I was not about to let him cross. I didn’t know exactly where it was, but somewhere near; we could both feel it approaching. The day previous he had called her “Mrs. Stealer,” and when I corrected him and said it was Stoller, he said it was merely a matter of tense. I’d almost jumped in his shit right then, but that wasn’t quite the line. Just close.

  “Jump off it, Cahill.”

  He picked up on a tone.

  “Ooh. My mistake. Maybe somebody didn’t get laid after all.” It irritated me that both of his supposed shots in the dark had fallen right on target. “So, why is Leonard still here?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Hannah chugged in at nine-twenty, still halfway doing her hair. “Morning, Doc,” she said. “Morning, Cahill. Morning, Leonard. Wait. Leonard?”

  She didn’t ask if he had come early or stayed late because he was still in his little couch bed, in my T-shirt, with his glasses off, stretching and rubbing his eyes.

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  Graff rolled in significantly after ten. Like this was news.<
br />
  “Graff,” I said. “You’re late. Even for you.”

  He sighed, rolled his eyes. Hopeless is the best word I can use to describe Graff. “Got a fucking ticket.”

  “Language,” I said.

  “Oh. Sorry, Leonard.”

  “Speeding again?”

  “California stop. You know. Rolling stop at a stop sign?”

  Cahill’s head came up. He rarely paid attention to Graff except to tease or express irritation. “We know what it is, Graff. Hey. Here’s a thought. Maybe Doc can get that ticket fixed for you. He’s got an in at city hall. Or is that a bad choice of phrasing, Doc?”

  Graff, with his usual aplomb, said, “Huh?”

  “Graff, Graff, Graff,” Cahill said. “Are you so blissfully, eternally out of the loop that you actually don’t realize that Doc is boffing the mayor’s wife?”

  Hannah caught my eye and then looked away. Leonard was tucked safely—and, I hoped, out of earshot—in the far corner playing a computer game. It was designed for first graders, but he was a smart kid. I hoped he was concentrating hard.

  Graff said, “Oh.” He looked a little confused. “Nobody ever tells me anything.” Another painful silence. Then he said, “Oh, yeah. She was in here a while back. Nice-looking woman.”

  “Yeah, she’s a real catch,” Cahill said. “If you happen to have a hard-on for your grandmother.”

  Ah. The line.

  I walked over to Cahill’s chair. Spun him by both shoulders until he was sitting facing me with a look of mild surprise. I took two good fistfuls of his shirt and pushed his chair back until his head hit the glass of his monitor with a solid thunk.

  “Ow,” he said, reaching back with one hand to rub the spot.

  “We’re friends here, Cahill.” The flat coolness of my voice surprised even me.

  “Right,” he said. “We are.”

  I still had him by the shirt, a point clearly not lost on him. “Do I treat you with respect?”