“Yes. Gladdy Prinster found me her address on the world wide web.”
“And what did you say to her?” I ask.
“That you two need to come to Jesus and fix your rift. That marriage is blessed by God, and as such, it’s meant to last forever. But you know that already, Armand. I know you already know that.”
As I unpack my suitcase, I try to banish several things from my brain: hurting Gwendolyn’s feelings with the stupid crack about her painting skills, worrying that Trey is mad I hired Josie, and wondering if my mother will ever accept reality. If I could only delete one image from my mind, though, I know which one I’d pick: Gladdy Prinster Googling me.
Chapter Fourteen
Smith
“It’s not like ‘Scar Face’ can chase her down and hit her on the head like a caveman,” my brother Jones sagely says. “He’d be too slow to catch her, and he’d need both hands to drag her back to the cave.”
Overly generous guffawing by my obnoxious family brings happy tears of mirth to many eyes. Mine included, and I’m only slightly ashamed to admit it. So what if our humor isn’t the most refined in the world? It’s all in good fun, doled out equally, and has its basis in love. That has always been enough for me. Within our family, joking about hardship has always been a shared coping mechanism.
“Are you sure you want to marry into this nonsense?” I ask Carmen, the bride-to-be, who’s sporting her jazzy new diamond. I recently consented to be Taylor’s best man, and tonight’s dinner is in honor of their engagement.
“I can’t wait!” she says, beaming.
“Just ask her on a date, Uncle Smith!” my four-year-old nephew says.
“That would be way too easy,” his father, my brother Siler, butts in. “Uncle Smith likes to take his time in matters of love. He’s on the hundred year plan with Ms. Golden.”
My family teasing me about Gwen makes me feel like I’m in high school again. As I did then, I try to keep my feelings to myself. In a large and close-knit family, though, there’s no surer way to make it loud dinner table conversation.
We’re dining at Siler’s tonight. His wife Janet seems to have the highest tolerance for Walkers, so she often hosts the “extra” dinners. Unfortunately Siler and Janet have kept up the confounding convention of using last names as first names that my parents began. Their children are Miller, Gibbs, and Crane. I wish I was kidding, or that they had at least spared their daughter.
“Pwease pass the buttah, Unca Scow Face,” Crane sweetly lisps from my left. Jones snickers beside her and I know he put her up to it. I try to scare her by growling viciously but she just giggles. I pass the butter.
My family has been using my tabloid nickname tonight, apparently in a concerted effort to take away the power of the insult. I think overall the approach works well. When you hear people say them with love, otherwise harsh words begin to take on a new tone, until maybe they don’t sting quite so much. My mom and Taylor haven’t addressed me as Scar Face; apparently they’re more squeamish than three-year-old Crane.
The dinner table banter thankfully shifts from my prospects with Gwen, to my mom’s senior community romance. Though my dad has been dead for ten years, my mother’s new boyfriend Caleb seems to be a constant source of wonder and befuddlement to the entire clan. She blushes when Siler teases her about him.
Janet encouraged me to invite Gwen tonight, but there were several reasons why I didn’t. First, whenever I observe the table manners of my assembled kin, which I try to avoid doing as much as possible to preserve my appetite, I simply can’t imagine bringing her to a family dinner. Second, today was her moving day.
I sent my handyman Steve over there this morning with the things sent from the Scenic house that I have been storing for Gwen. Steve told me about the circuslike atmosphere he found, so I went myself with lunch around noon. That brings up the biggest reason why I didn’t ask Gwen to come here for dinner tonight—she has important plans. She’s taping an interview with the reporter who helped Armand Leopold skewer her two weeks ago.
Gwen told me about the interview only after she’d already agreed to do it. She said she doesn’t have a choice in the matter. I wanted to talk her out of it, but I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.
The plan had been to tape the interview at the local television station. But today Gwen told me that now it’s going to be at her new house. Shelly Simon got the idea when she went there this morning to ask Gwen some preliminary questions.
I didn’t like the sound of it. I didn’t like the look of it either. Gwen’s house is empty, and I heard Ms. Simon say “riches to rags” to a cameraman.
I’ve been worried about Gwen since Armand’s interview aired. Her nerves have grown taut and fragile from the unfavorable attention. She can’t wholly avoid hearing what people say by living a hermit’s life, especially when her dad and sister keep telling her the worst of it. Gwen seems to think that tonight will bring an end to all the attention, but somehow I doubt that taping a national interview is the wisest step if your goal is to disappear.
I might’ve stayed around longer to see if there was any way to cancel the damn thing, but Walter Owens from the hotel showed up with a housewarming basket the size of Rhode Island. He told Gwen what a wonderful time he’d had the night before, and I suddenly wanted to get the hell out of there. I told her to call me if she needed anything.
After what happened the night of Armand’s interview, though, I won’t blame Gwen if she never calls me again.
I had wanted to comfort her, and since she wasn’t up to going out in public, I brought her home with me. I hadn’t stopped to worry or second guess myself. I drove us away from Gordy Golden’s condo feeling like I was rescuing her, from a father who was embarrassed not only for her but by her, from strangers who readily believed the negative things they had heard, from old acquaintances who might be glad to see the local celebrity brought down a few notches.
I felt like I was protecting Gwen; I felt strong. When I pulled into my driveway, I could tell she was impressed by my home. My garage has been adapted to make my life easy, so I got out of the car as smoothly as possible.
My housecleaner had been in earlier. Though I live in very little of the large house, and I spend most of my days working, Michelle comes in twice a week. She used to come every other week, and that was perfect. Then her husband Bryan was laid off from his construction job and Michelle asked if he could wash the windows and re-stain the decks, anything at all. I already struggle to keep my handyman Steve, a father of two, busy between my company’s commercial properties and my house. I couldn’t very well hire out the same work twice, even if Taylor does call me “the Rising Tide,” because he says I’m determined to raise all the boats around me. Whenever he calls me that, I remind him that he of all people shouldn’t complain.
“What can I get you?” I asked from the bar in the sunken living room after I’d settled Gwen on the built-in sofa. I switched on the lights in the back yard so that the wall of windows gave us something pretty to look at. Give her something, I should say, because I simply watched Gwen.
“What are you having?”
“How about wine?” I checked my watch to make sure it was okay. If I have a drink too close to when I need my pain pill I get an upset stomach. I had slipped on the ice a few days before, and I needed every dose allowable by law in order to keep cheerful and keep moving.
“Sounds wonderful.”
I opened a bottle and poured two glasses. I made my way around the bar and brought her glass to her before making a round trip to retrieve mine. She let me do this, and I found it refreshing, and respectful, too, if that doesn’t sound strange. Many people rush to help me, like they’d grab a child’s hand away from a hot stove, or thrust a napkin on an elderly relative who has become a messy eater. It felt good to be treated like a regular man.
She looked around with wide, interested eyes. “I’ve always wanted to see inside this house. The Fos
ters never put it on the architectural tour. I think they were shy.”
I smile. This house had been in the Foster family since it was built in 1929. The Fosters were reclusive and private to a degree some would call insane. I like that Gwen simply thought of them as “shy.” When Sophie Foster died five years ago and the house went on the market, people flocked here as if Geraldo were opening Al Capone’s vault. It turned out to be just an ordinary house, in pristine original condition. Homes in this small and exclusive neighborhood rarely become available. Within the small world of Riveredge, an address here means you have arrived. I had jumped at the chance to buy it.
“Want to take a walk around? You can go anywhere you like.”
“Yes, let’s!”
I noticed that she had kicked off her cowboy boots. Barefoot, she carried her glass with her as she pointed out small architectural details I’d never really noticed. I set my glass on a table and followed after her.
Other women I had brought home in the past, the pre-accident past, had been impressed with the house. It’s considered to be a local architectural treasure, designed as it was by a man Frank Lloyd Wright referred to as his “spiritual son.” Gwen was impressed by the home as an artist herself, as well as a woman who’d grown up near enough to see its chimney from her bedroom window. It felt odd to be the one to invite her inside for the first time. I never guessed I’d be able to unlock a door that had been previously closed to Gwen Golden.
Unlike other women, though, Gwen clearly didn’t attribute any of the charm of my house’s architecture to me just because I currently owned the building. She appreciated the lines and the setting; I was beside the point. When I realized that, it made sense to me. Gwen sees things differently than I do, and that’s part of why I find her so intriguing. It’s part habit, part the way she sees the world.
It took me ten minutes to follow her across the sunken living room, through the kitchen, and past the library where she stopped outside the master suite. I pointed inside, indicating that she should enter first, but she just smiled and folded her arms.
“After all the effort I expended getting here, you don’t want to go in?” I asked like I was disappointed. I was careful to give her my good side.
“And here I thought you were a gentleman,” she said. I tried to read her eyes, but the lighting in the hall was dim. I had done more walking that day than usual, and after my recent fall I’d been in a lot of pain.
Certain events seem like they should be immune from real world considerations. Like an astronaut circling the earth, or me standing outside my bedroom bantering with Gwen Golden. Some moments are so important, so otherworldly, that normal human concerns shouldn’t rightly apply. But if the astronaut has a stomach bug, that colors his experience. My leg throbbed and it affected my ability to read Gwen’s eyes.
“It looks pretty,” she said as she peeked past me into the master bedroom. I saw her face redden and wondered if it was the glass of wine she’d finished that colored her cheeks, and hoped it wasn’t.
“Hold up a minute. I want to show you something,” I told her. It took me a while, but eventually I returned.
“You’re kidding,” she said, when I was halfway to her and she saw what I held carefully. She crossed to me and took the sheet of thick drawing paper on which she’d sketched the two of us at Riveredge Park.
“You mean you kept this?”
“Of course I did.”
“For ten years? And then you were able to find it that quickly?”
“I keep it in a drawer, close at hand.”
“If you like it so well, why do you keep it in a drawer?” she asked.
“I suppose I’ve been selfish.”
She stayed at my side as we made our way back to the bar at the far end of the living room. I paused on the way to put her picture in the center of the mantle.
I poured us each another glass of wine. Though I knew I shouldn’t have one, I wanted to pretend I was just a regular guy in a regular body. I sat close to where she sat with her bare feet tucked under her. She smiled and toasted:
“To old friends.”
I clinked her glass. “To old friends made new again.”
That’s the moment when Jessie, bless her dingbat brain, rang the doorbell. The long walk from where I was sharing a cozy moment with Gwen to the front door nearly did me in.
“I forgot to have you sign the contract on the Eastman Road building, and it needs to go out first thing in the morning. You won’t be in until after your physical therapy session, right?”
“Do you know how to use a telephone, Jessie?” I felt weary suddenly, like standing was just too much. I felt a cold line of sweat forming at my hairline.
“You look terrible, Smith,” Jessie said before she looked up to see Gwen.
“Oh my God! You’re Gwendolyn Golden!”
Gwen nodded and tried to smile but didn’t quite pull it off.
“I saw the interview on television tonight. Are you angry with your husband? He’s really handsome, isn’t he?”
Jessie was positively giddy and I wondered, not for the first time, if her mother had dropped her on her head when she was a baby, or if perhaps a high fever had baked off some critical brain cells along the way. If she were a true member of my family and not just a cousin-in-law, we certainly would have come up with many more theories over loud dinners, and it’s probably very good for Jessie that she’s not wholly one of ours.
I had to grip the console table to steady myself. Jessie seemed torn for a moment, between fawning over Gwen and helping me, before my damn leg buckled and I leaned against the table to keep standing.
“Do you need medication?”
It was such a sexy thing to bring up, when five minutes before I’d been attempting to stoke up and rekindle Gwen’s and my old flame.
“For God’s sake Jessie, I’m not an invalid!”
The word hung in the air.
Jessie got my folding wheelchair from the hall closet, opened it, and pushed me down into it before I could protest. I don’t know if I would have argued much, though I hated the situation. She wheeled me to my room, avoiding the sunken living room and its steps, and asked where my pills were. I let her get them for me and took them.
“Is this a date?” Jessie whispered, motioning toward the door.
“Do I look like a guy who’ll get a date, Jess?”
I instantly regretted asking. She teared up, and it wasn’t because I’d hurt her feelings. If I hadn’t felt nauseous I would have wanted to break something.
“You’d be a great catch for any woman, Smith Walker. You’re a bully and a baby, but you’re one of the best men I know.”
I nodded slightly and motioned to the door to indicate she was dismissed.
“I didn’t see a car. Should I drive her home?”
“Yes,” I made myself say. “Thanks, Jessie.”
There was a knock on my door a minute later. I was still sitting in the damn wheelchair I rarely use anymore, only when I have overexerted myself or I’m ill. If I could have, I would have stepped right out of it then.
“Come in.”
Gwen smiled without sympathy in her eyes, just regret, and I wished I had the energy and confidence to tell her to come close enough to kiss me. I thought of an ill astronaut again, waiting all his life for one moment, only to have his body betray him.
“I knew I could get you to come in here if I played my cards right.”
She smiled. “I’m sorry you’re feeling low. Can I help you get into bed?”
I almost made another joke, but I didn’t. Sometimes even humor can’t help.
“I’ll be fine once my pain medicine kicks in. I overdid it today. This rarely happens.”
“Thanks for tonight. You made me feel so much better.”
“Like a knight in shining armor,” I said, patting a chrome wheel with contempt.
“Yes, exactly,” she said.
Ba
ck out of my head and back to dinner with the family, I feel a rough nudge from Siler on my right. He offers me brownies. I take one and set the pan down beside me on the long table with bench seating for twenty.
“Say goodnight to Uncle Smith, and I’ll get you set up with a DVD,” Janet says to Miller, Gibbs, and Crane. Each races up and gives me a giant bear hug, as if I’m as robust as any uncle out there.
“I think yo willy handsome,” Crane whispers in my ear. She runs after her brothers, and blows me a kiss from the bottom step. I blow one back.
I always wanted to have a big family of my own, and I hate the fact that it’s unlikely I’ll ever fill my house with a wife and kids. Two of my brothers are married but don’t have children yet. Cooper’s wife is pregnant and due in a few months, and I’ve been told that Jones and his wife are “trying.” I doubt Taylor and Carmen will be too far behind once the wedding turns into a framed portrait on the wall. This is a family-oriented family.
Everyone else is finished eating and many hands are making light work of clearing the table, washing the counters and pans, sweeping the floor, and loading the dishwasher.
Siler leans over to me. “A woman came by the station to ask some questions,” he says in a confidential tone. Siler is a policeman.
“About what?” I ask.
“About your accident,” he says.
“Who was it?”
“Her name was Shelley something. It was about that interview Gwendolyn’s doing. I think she was just turning over as much ground as she could, to see if there were any worms worth digging up. You and Gwendolyn are together a lot, so apparently she’s checking you out.”
“Did she learn anything?”
“Nothing to learn,” Siler says. That’s another attribute of this family—loyalty.
Taylor, always solicitous and protective of me, sometimes to the point where I’d like to smack him upside the head, has come over and eavesdropped. He looks far more worried than Siler, and I’m inclined to agree. Gwen doesn’t know the whole truth about the accident, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let some brazen interviewer blindside her with it for ratings points or whatever nonsense drives those people.
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