by Brent, Cora
I drove away from them. From him. From the tired town layered with intricate lives and loves. From who I’d been afraid to become.
There was no reason to stop along the way. The gloomy weather stretched across the state and when I dully looked upon the Boston skyline the dreariness seemed fitting. My apartment didn’t seem to possess the same chirpy appeal of a few days prior and after I tiredly dumped my suitcase in the corner of the living room I sank onto the couch and cried until it hurt to breathe.
***
When the pale light of a rainy day began to recede and I could not bear another moment of my own company I called Lanie. She was already seated in the small diner several blocks from our office when I walked in. I must have been a sight because Lanie took one look at me and jumped to her feet, pulling me into a warm embrace.
“Thanks,” I sniffed. “I needed that.”
Lanie stirred her coffee, looking at me worriedly as I asked the waiter for a cup of tea.
“He asked about you today,” she finally said.
I was puzzled. “Who?”
Lanie stared me. “Brian of course.”
“Oh,” I nodded. “Brian.”
“Yeah, he seemed a tad out of sorts, definitely not his usual polished, unflappable self. Picture that cheesy bastard in wrinkled shirtsleeves with a case of chin pubes as if he spent a few days getting beaten down by his conscience. So he asked if you’d be for sure back to work tomorrow and what time you were going to get home today as if you and I were on cross-state walkie talkies or something and dammit Angela you are about four thousand miles away, aren’t you?” Lanie peered at me archly and sipped her coffee. “It’s not Brian, is it?” she asked gently.
I stared at the dull finish on the dining table. “No, it’s not Brian.” And with a painful sigh I spilled it all. How I’d been flustered enough by Friday’s humiliation to say fuck it all and walk on the dirty side. About the quick and ardent coupling in my bedroom underneath the ‘Class of ‘82’ banner. And all the times after which were good in a way that I’d never had good before, so much I’d thought my hair would catch on fire. I told Lanie about how he’d held me and said my name so tenderly that I thought maybe there was more to it. Then, finally, how I’d remembered that Cross Point Village was the past, not the future, and ended it all before he could.
Lanie listened, occasionally taking a sip of coffee. When I finished talking her face was thoughtful. She had already suffered one bad marriage and knew all about heartbreaks and mistakes.
“Easy enough to banish a man from your body. Hell you might wake up with that pounding want for a while but eventually it withers away or is replaced by something better. Extracting him from your heart, however…that’s a bitch, Angie.” She paused. “He’s not in your heart, is he?”
I didn’t answer.
“Shit,” she said softly.
Lanie sensed that I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. She dragged me to the nearest movie theater where we sat side by side in the dark and watched Field of Dreams. It was an inspiring story of hope and the magic of nostalgia and somehow it made me feel worse. But I managed to smile at my friend and bid her good night before returning to my lonely apartment.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Brian didn’t wait long before approaching me the following morning. I scarcely had time to stow my purse in my desk before he pounced as if he’d been lurking around the corner.
“Hey you,” he said, smiling and approaching me with quiet caution. I had taken casual notice that Tami was not at the front desk, although I wouldn’t have cared much either way. Apparently she had not returned since Friday.
I stared back at him stonily.
Brian drummed his knuckles on my desk, leaning forward and talking in a low voice. “I thought about driving out there to see you this weekend, but I ah, didn’t want to intrude.”
“It’s better that you didn’t.”
His hazel eyes regarded me carefully. “You free for lunch?”
“What difference does it make?”
Brian was visibly surprised by my cold response. But I wasn’t trying to be coy. I was no longer in the throes of a strong urge to make tire tracks over Brian Hannity’s face, but I didn’t particularly want to talk to him either. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and realized that frizzy-haired Carol from Accounting, she of the abused spreadsheets, was spying on the other side of the wall.
Brian decided on a different tactic, taking my limp hand in his smooth one and examining my palm. “I’m sorry, okay?” He sighed. “You know, I’ve done a lot of thinking this weekend and it’s really time for me to stop screwing around. My folks want to see me get serious and I think it would be good for me to make a commitment. I like you, Angela, and at the end of the day you’re the sort of girl I could bring home.”
As he concluded his self-involved little speech Brian grinned at me beatifically, as if he’d just recited the romantic equivalent of The Gettysburg Address. He nodded with encouragement, as if he knew it was just what I’d always wanted to hear from a guy just like him.
I withdrew my hand from his sweaty grasp. “That’s nice Brian. But see, unfortunately you’re not the sort of guy I could bring home. So fuck off.”
And with that I swiveled in my chair and turned on my monitor. I heard snickering nearby and realized we’d had quite an audience. Brian lingered for a moment, then muttered something obscene under his breath and stalked away.
I couldn’t concentrate. I stared at the screen until the green numbers melted together and started to fade into the black background. Bert Heinman, a balding forty year old who had the same position as I did and took it not at all seriously, sauntered by with a wink.
“You’re better off,” he said as he dropped a folder on my desk filled with a stack of data. I knew it wasn’t a romantic overture; Bert had been married for twenty years one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen up close. But I appreciated his words.
“I know,” I said. I stood up slightly and motioned to some noise coming from Cranston’s office. A man was shouting in an Eliza Doolittle pre-makeover accent. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that.” Bert crossed his arms, laughing. “That is the future dinner theater rendition of Hamlet. Apparently it’s the cherry on Cranston’s sundae, the pinnacle of his aspirations which will surely bring all the motion picture bigwigs crawling out of the woodwork.”
I tapped a few keys, trying to unfreeze my screen. “Good for him, I guess.”
Bert leaned over and pressed a few keys simultaneously, freeing up the screen. He smiled at me. “Well,” he said, “we’ve all got dreams, don’t we?”
My fist clenched involuntarily. “Yes,” I agreed. “We do.”
I made it through the last few days of the week going through the motions. I stared at my unhappy face in the bathroom mirror and consoled myself that things would improve. They had to. Food would stop tasting like sawdust. The light would stop hurting my eyes. I would stop being randomly struck by the memory of his body and his smile.
“Come out with me,” Lanie begged as we packed up on Friday evening.
“Nah,” I sighed. “I’m just so tired.”
“Hell you are.” She took my elbow firmly. “You’re going to sit at home and remember what his dick felt like and other sad thoughts before you roll over into your pillow of tears.”
“No,” I argued. “I’m going to watch Peyton Place on VHS, consume a tub of Breyer’s ice cream and then roll over into my pillow of tears.”
She squeezed my arm. “You could call him.”
“No, I can’t.”
Lanie walked me to my car and gave me one final brief hug. “Angie. It gets better.”
I stared at the phone for perhaps an hour before dialing Information and getting the number of a certain bar in Cross Point Village, Massachusetts. I closed my eyes as a series of clicks made the connection and then the other end began ringing. After four rings, the receiver was picked up.
>
“The Cave. Hello?” It was ten pm on a Friday night and the bar was evidently packed. I heard the muffled din of the patrons and over that The Beach Boys were belting out of the old jukebox. “Hello, anyone there?”
I felt nauseous as I forced myself to speak. “Marco.”
“Nope, it’s Damien. Who’s this?” A woman cackled close by.
I was becoming lightheaded. “Hi Damien. It’s Angie. Angie Durant.”
There was a long pause on the other end. Either Damien was struggling to remember who the hell I was or else Marco had told him a thing or two. “Angie,” he eventually said and his voice had grown warmer. “Yeah, I remember you. I’m just up here for the weekend with the reopening and all. Anyway, Marco had to make a supply run. We’re having a bit of a crisis.”
“Oh,” I squeaked out in a small voice, not really caring about the bar’s supply.
Damien’s voice grew closer as if he were cupping the receiver to drown out the noise of the unruly crowd. “Hey Angie, I know he’ll want to talk to you. Let me grab a pen here. Shannon, toss me that pen. What’s your number?”
I could tell from his voice that Marco had told him about me all right. “No Damien, that’s okay. You see, I don’t have a phone.” I hung up before Marco’s brother could say anything else. I rested my head against the cool refrigerator and listened to its steady hum.
The weather was uncommonly wet and dreary for July but I didn’t mind. In fact I scarcely noticed. I went to work on the days I was expected to be at work. There, I dutifully performed the tasks required of me and retreated to Beacon Hill at the end of the day. I was tired and lethargic, often crawling into bed shortly after the evening news. I even lied to myself, blaming the gloomy sky and humid air.
My dreams were vivid and intense. Sometimes I was a child being pursued through streets which were so heavy with an odd mist I could not discern exactly where I was. I would pause from the chase and my eyes would dart around in a panic, knowing my surroundings should be glaringly familiar but yet I was unable to recognize the disguised shapes. Sometimes I was trapped in the empty, echoing hallways of Cross Point Village High as I searched in vain for a door, a way out. But the dreams of Marco were the most jarring. As real as any true memory, I would awaken with a gasp, my hand between my legs, trying to soothe the crushing ache.
My mother phoned several times and our conversations were short and pleasant and carefully devoid of any mention of Marco. I was grateful for that. My father and I hadn’t spoken since the morning of our awkward goodbye at the curb. After three weeks he phoned early on a Sunday morning. I hadn’t even found my way out of bed yet. Actually the ringing phone interrupted a truly terrifying nightmare. I was standing in the middle of my father’s rose garden, my hands full of pernicious weeds, when the black soil began to give way under my feet. As I began to sink into the dirt I screamed. Marco emerged casually from the side door of my house and I reached for him.
“Help me!”
He looked exactly as he had the day of the block party. He grinned at me. “Your father’s right, Angela. Roses are difficult to grow.” Then he turned on the garden hose and aimed the nozzle at me, laughing as the water puddled around me and I sank deeper. A scream ripped out of my throat.
At the sound of the first ring I lurched blindly out of bed, groping out of the bedroom and grabbing for the phone in the narrow hallway.
“Angela,” came my father’s usual mild voice. “I hope I didn’t wake you, kid.”
I sat down on the floor, my heart still thrashing around in my chest as I tried to blink away the vivid horror of the dream. “No, Dad. I was just enjoying a quiet morning.” I coughed, looking out the window at the lightly falling rain. “Too wet to go anywhere.”
Alan Durant seemed to be engaged in a rare struggle for words. I imagined him pacing in the hallway with the old rotary phone receiver to his ear, the long black cord tangled in his hand. “Some rain we’ve been getting,” he finally managed to say.
“Some rain,” I agreed.
“Did you know this is the wettest summer since 1892? Farmer’s Almanac predicted it but no one listens to the old timers anymore.”
“Yeah, wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age.” It was a petty dig. I knew it, but I couldn’t shake off my grumpiness. On top of that my stomach was rolling around in a rather unsettling way.
My father ignored the crack. “Hell of a storm rolled through here the other night. Lost the biggest limb of the old maple tree.”
“Our maple tree?”
“Yes.”
“Is the tree going to have to come down?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t look good. I’ll be damn sorry to see that lady go. Your mother and I planted her the week we moved in you know.”
“I know.” The thought of losing the maple tree caused a wave of sadness to wash over me. Funny, because I hadn’t really thought too much about that tree. It was simply there. The touchstone in various neighborhood games, the backdrop of a hundred front yard photos, the place where I discovered caterpillar dens. I’d tried to run a nail through it when I was ten and figured I’d find maple syrup if I could pierce a few inches. The idea of the Durant front yard without the wide maple tree was upsetting.
My father cleared his throat. “The rain stopped for a few hours yesterday afternoon. Marco was over here.”
At the mention of his name my eyes automatically closed and my stomach turned a complete flip. “Oh yeah? You guys buddies now?”
“It wasn’t like that. He has a chainsaw and he’s young. I had half a tree in my yard and I’m old.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what my dad was about, bringing Marco up. I sat on the floor, my knees pulled up to my chest, saying nothing.
“Angela, we should talk.”
“We are talking, Dad.”
“You and I were always close, Angie. Now there’s this thing between us and I don’t know how to fix it. Would it help if I said I was sorry again? Would it help if I told you that you were always my shining star, the one piece of success I could point to and say ah, yes…all these other troubles; the store, the town, your brother, become smaller pills of bitterness when I consider the proud, independent young woman I raised. But my pain is my problem. You’ve got to find your own way.”
The floor was cold and I shivered. “I have, Dad.”
“Really? Are you happy, Angela?”
It was the same question I’d asked Krista the day of the block party. But I’d only meant it in a glib, backbiting way. I remembered arguing with Marco when he’d called me ‘one unhappy chick’.
“You said your pain is your problem, Dad. Well, I’ve got to manage mine too. I mean really, what the hell have I got to complain about? I’m an educated, prosperous member of society who has been given every opportunity to excel. I have a bright future and I’ll figure things out. You don’t need to worry about me or moon over the grudge you believe I’m nursing.”
A sigh on the other end of the state. “He kept waiting for me to say something about you.”
I didn’t need to ask who. “And did you?”
“No.”
“He’ll get over it. Shit, he probably already has. I mean, it’s Marco freaking Bendetti for god’s sake.”
“People change, Angela.”
Now I was getting angry. “So first you were appalled that he dared to come anywhere near me. Now you’re lecturing me on what a changed man he is. What is it you expect me to do at the end of this conversation?”
His voice was miserable. “I don’t know.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “I didn’t leave because of you, Dad. You weren’t right about everything, but you were right about a few things. I don’t want to be Krista or Tom Hennessy or any of the other bewildered people still wandering around Cross Point.”
Another thick sigh. “Angie, I’m sorry.”
“I know, Daddy. I’ve got to go now. Love to Mom.” I hung up the phone before he could answer. It was becoming a
habit of mine.
I sat on the floor in my apartment for a good long time with my arms wrapped around my body. My stomach was threatening to erupt if I moved. Indeed, lately my entire body seemed to be constructing its own private revolt. I felt sick and tired. My breasts were tender and hot. A vague headache was always threatening to punch through and sleeping hours were more tumultuous than restful.
Heartsickness could manifest physical symptoms. I knew that. But I also knew something else. My body had operated like clockwork since I was thirteen and awoke one morning to the troubling sight of blood on the sheets.
And now my period was a week late.
***
The conversation with my father had rattled me. I brooded for the rest of the day, staring at nothing out the window. Occasionally I heard the sound of passing voices. They made me furious. For surely that laughing woman outside my window had a neat, logical life and could never understand my pathetic troubles. I knew it wasn’t a fair thought.
I was lonely. I was confused. And I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I wasn’t quite ready to confide in Lanie things which I couldn’t yet admit to myself.
It was a strange impulse which led me to drag out the address book at the back of the kitchen drawer. Grace had passed his number along some time ago, figuring I might need to get ahold of him in an emergency. I’d never even considered calling him before. There didn’t seem to be much point.
Actually I wasn’t sure if the number was even still good. The line kept ringing and I was about to hang up when I heard a click on the other end.
“Yeah?”
“Tony? Is that you?”
“Who the hell else would be answering my phone?”
I took a deep breath. It was strange hearing my brother’s voice again.
“Tony, it’s me, Angela.”
“Angie?” His voice registered confusion, then wariness. “Something happen?”
“No, I mean, Mom and Dad are fine. In fact I was just home a few weeks ago. Block party, Fourth of July, you remember the works. It’s all still there, all still the same.” I forced a laugh.