Waiting for a flight in the Atlanta airport on Christmas Eve, he'd looked up from his newspaper and glimpsed her thirty yards away. He raced to catch the woman, never thinking for a moment that she wouldn't be Rene.
Then in the spring, he received a birthday card, which finally caught up with him two weeks later and was delivered to his table tucked in the cleavage of a Hyatt cocktail waitress, whom he vaguely remembered sleeping with.
The next month at a bookstore in Charlotte, he ran into an old Duke alumnus. Rene, the friend said, was teaching at a college in South Carolina and was married to a pharmaceutical salesman. Another year passed. He received a second card. There was no mention of her separation from her husband, Joshua, but a postscript noted that she could soon be reached at the return address, her new apartment. He ran his fingers over the carefully formed letters on the card, folded it and tucked it inside his jacket.
Giles called the police from his car, then waited, watching the digital minutes pass. He met the uniformed officer at the apartment door, but didn't go inside again. He pointed toward his car, said he'd wait there. Arriving without blue lights or sirens, three more cars parked out front. Officers smoked outside her apartment door and talked in low voices. The neighbors slept.
At four o'clock, Giles watched as a policeman and a man in a dark suit and tie helped Joshua, Rene's husband, walk from the apartment, supporting him at his elbows. His hands covered his eyes. He bent forward like a very old man with his hands covering his face. His legs had buckled, as if he might fold.
Giles wanted to drive away as soon as the officer took his name and told him he was free to leave. But he sat alone, knowing that he must hold to the covenant of not looking, that it was the only act of love left to him. He could not drive away.
Giles looked down from his window, down at the new, bright yellow paint that cleanly marked each parking space on the wet, black asphalt, and he thought of the men who painted them, men who spent their lives painting clean, straight lines.
By the time he parked outside his Myrtle Beach hotel, the sky had become a bruised pink wash. The gulls glided low over the smooth, calm, gray water. Inside, the doorman, a young man who wore an earring and kept his long red hair tucked under his cap, recognized him. “Morning, sir,” he said, giving Giles a conspiratorial wink. “Vampire's life is hell, ain't it?” the young man said, grinning in collusion.
Giles Carter stepped into the elevator and reached absently for his room key, then turned to face the stainless steel doors closing silently before his eyes.
Giles sat through four bourbons at the Dallas airport that night long ago, thinking of phoning and not phoning. Then calling, only to get Rene’s machine. Then hanging up when Joshua answered. Then after another bourbon, he called again.
She and Josh had just come in from dinner at a cafeteria, Rene told him. “There was this woman with her son,” she said. “They were in front of us in the line. And the little boy put his arm around the woman and said, 'I love you, Mamma.' The woman pushed him away, saying, 'No, no, no.’ And the boy put his hand up to the woman's face, and she rapped him hard on his head. I couldn't watch it.”
Rene took a deep breath. “And then you could tell that the boy was retarded. He put his arms around his mother, holding her so tight that she couldn't step forward in line to get their food. She pushed him away, but he kept pawing at her, and you knew that he just never stopped, and the whole time he kept saying in his small voice, 'I love you. I love you.' And he did. And she had to live with that every day. He really did love her. You could see it. I'm not saying this right.”
In the silence, Giles realized how many miles lay between her voice and his.
“Just as she reached the trays, the boy said, 'I have to go to the bathroom, Mamma.' The woman had tears in her eyes. The two moved back past us. And you could tell this was her life. The boy put his arms around her, stopping her. He held her tight and smiled up at her. 'Happy Halloween, Mamma,' he said. 'Happy Halloween, Arnie,' his mother said.”
For a time neither of them spoke. The silence traveled two thousand miles, turned, and traveled back. Then Rene was quietly sobbing. And he knew, holding the booth to steady himself, that he would never find the words to ask her, or to tell her. And it was in that way that it ended.
This Is Not A Love Story
George and Rita Scarborough
I'm not sure what shelf you might put this one on, but it's definitely not a love story. It turns out all wrong for a love story. Love stories leave you feeling that what you’re missing inside still has a residence in there someplace—a tidy room with open windows and sunshine, crisp sheets on the bed, pictures of ripe fruit on the wall. Love stories make you hold your breath near the end. And if tears come to your eyes, you're thankful to have them. Don't expect any of that from this story. Expect disappointment.
You'll find no throbbing hearts or other parts here, no reconciliation. If you think you're going to witness a beautiful, young woman who discovers a long-lost love letter from her once-betrothed who died in the war, forget it. Just in case you were hoping to read about some old codger whose estranged daughter returns after ten years with a crinkled black-and-white and a cheap cassette of the two of them singing Jesus Loves Me when the girl was three, prepare yourself to writhe and wretch when he's done with his lemonade. You've been warned.
Just so you’ll know, I’m beginning with about the fourth or fifth tender moment in a conversation that started earlier in the day, a conversation that itself was about something else. This part starts with me and my wife in my pickup, traveling at 55 miles an hour, on our way to the church. It starts, as you might expect, with my wife.
“If I could crank that chain saw, I'd feed you to the hogs.”
“And just where do you see a chain saw, Rita?” She was sitting like a statue, her back stiff, her eyes straight ahead, talking to the windshield.
“I know where you keep it, too,” she said. “I know right where it is. It's out in the shop. It's hanging on a nail where I can reach it. The directions for cranking it are right there on the motor.”
“If you took some reading lessons, I'd be in trouble, wouldn't I?”
“You're in trouble now, big boy, you're in deep doo-doo as we speak. If I was a little stronger, you'd be bacon next week.”
With some people, anger brings on age. They look tired and worn. Not Rita. Her face was flush, her eyes clear and bright. Under different circumstances I’d have teased her, whispered that I’d seen that look before.
“Well, hell, Rita, why don't you just join that aerobics group at church, build up a muscle or two. Maybe the preacher'd take you off the line, make a running back out of you.”
“You hateful thing,” she said.
I told her I'd quit if she'd just take back what she’d said, the thing that wasn’t true. She didn't speak.
“You started it this time,” I said. She wouldn’t look at me. After a minute I began singing, “I love you, a bushel and a peck—.”
“I hate your guts,” she said.
Like I said, you might not call this a love story.
Sometimes I think the only thing Rita is capable of loving is softball. When she was young, she played third base. I’ve never seen a woman who could play the game—or fill out a uniform—like Rita. She's got twenty-year-old trophies out the ying-yang. They line the top of the bookcase in our den. Softball's what brought us together.
We met the summer we were fifteen, when she'd come from town to help the Stricklands put in tobacco. She learned to drive the harvesting machine the first day on the job. Rita is not a woman without determination.
During those six weeks that summer we fell into the pile of dung called love. It all began on the same church league softball field we were driving to during the chainsaw conversation.
I’d watch only her through the whole game—while she was on the field or on the bench, and especially at bat. She had a stance at the plate that I wish I had a picture of. Seve
n innings wasn’t enough of her that summer.
Most nights after the last out of the seventh, I'd hurry across the bridge that connected Miss Brantley's yard and foul territory behind third base. Miss Brantley, who was old even then, donated a soybean field to the church for the diamond and paid the electric bill each month. When she came to the door, I'd ask her to please leave the lights on and offer her five dollars of my tobacco money. By the end of that summer, she'd be standing at the door when I came up to the porch. She’d smile, nod, and refuse to take my money.
I'd hit Rita grounders for an hour or more—one-hoppers down the line, soft miss-cues like bunts, line drives, choppers, hard shots to her left and right. She was errorless, that young, lean girl.
When we'd both had enough, we sat on the bench and she made shapes in the sand with her spikes as we talked. Maybe an hour or more, just the two us, alone. I knew, sitting there beside her, that by the end of the summer she'd be as tanned as a butternut squash. I came to know the smell of her sweat.
There's something about sitting on the bench of a softball field, with the lights on, late at night when there are no sounds, feeling a cool summer breeze, watching bugs hurling themselves like lunatics around the lights in the outfield. The light is brighter than day, the dark darker than night. There are clean lines around everything. Everything’s in your eyes. Nothing really makes sense, or needs to. It was on one of these late nights that summer when we were fifteen that Rita gave me her ring.
And it was on that same field I lost it. I mean really lost it. I mean looked every square inch of the infield for it, covered that same ground with a yard rake lost it. Then after three afternoons alone combing the field, I reached down for no known reason, sifted my fingers through the warm, loose sand and found it in front of the bench where we'd sat those nights. I slid it back onto my little finger.
Two weeks later, at the end of tobacco season, after the barbecue dinner and the last of the little brown envelopes that held our pay, when she was about to go back to town for the last time, I told her about losing the ring and finding it. She said it was destiny. And she never gave up until I said I'd marry her.
Now—as you can see—there's maybe more lemon than sugar in our tea. But the power of habit, even between people who can't stand the sight of each other, is a powerful thing. So I drive Rita to all the games. They are her only happiness.
From June to August, that's where you'll find us. Saturday nights, there are at least two games. The women play first. Rita sits with her knees up to her chin and the tips of her fingers pressed into her mouth. She watches every pitch, knows the possible consequences of every play. She doesn't talk or even look at me. But when the score is close in the late innings, she'll sometimes reach for my hand and squeeze it. And once in a while when I've left unnoticed and returned unnoticed from the concession stand with a cold drink, I'll touch her leg. She'll look over at me, see the drink I'm offering, and smile with eyes so bright you'd never understand.
But now we were driving to the field.
I turned on my blinker, as required by law, steered into the church lot, and parked across from old Miss Brantley's shed.
“And just why, pray tell, are you parking way back here?” Rita said.
“Cause when the game's over I want to get home lickety-split, comprendez?”
She just huffed, surveyed the distance to the playing field and back, then looked over at me, like I was supposed to mind-read her calculations.
“You're just being mean.”
I waited for her to open the door, then hit the starter. She pulled the door to, looking ahead like the Queen of the Hill. I parked right behind the backstop, where a foul ball might find our windshield. And she knew it. She glared over at me with a look of school-teacher scorn.
“We'll be the last ones out,” I said. “Just think, you and me, alone, here in the truck. It could take hours.”
She slammed the door behind her.
“Take it back, Rita,” I shouted as she was walking away. “All you got to do it take it back. You don't have to say you're sorry.” She didn’t even break stride. “Sometimes winning ain’t winning,” I said to the backside of her. “Just say you didn't mean it.”
By the bottom of the second with two outs, she was her old self again, following every pitch, plotting every move. She leaned my way, not taking her eyes from the game, nodded toward the batter who was digging in, and whispered, “If she's got sense enough to hit it to the opposite field, she'll score the runner on second.” When the batter took first base on four straight balls, she pulled her knees in tight against her chest. “It's situations like this,” she said, trailing off. “It's times like these, in the early innings sometimes—” she whispered. “They don't know it, but tomorrow or next week they'll look back and see that it was won or lost right here, right now.”
With the bases loaded and three balls and no strikes, the batter swung at a pitch outside the strike zone and hit a soft liner to third. It was all over. Rita brought her hands up to her face, took a deep breath, and went back to the game.
In the top of the fourth a wave of cool air hushed the crowd, and between innings raindrops the size of quarters dotted the infield.
“Let's go to the truck,” I said, lifting my cushion. Rita put hers over her head.
“I'll give it a minute,” she said.
Before I could shut the truck door behind me, the world was gray. I reached over to the other door and pushed it open when I saw the outline of Rita running toward me. We watched the rain as it came down on the infield, making blooming spikes of the water that already covered the playing area. I watched as Rita slowly turned and tilted her head, sopping her hair with a thin, red scarf from her big straw handbag, her brown, high cheek bones beaded with rain, her full lips wet. The cold rain wet the skin through her thin blouse. If I had known what to say, I would have said it.
When the storm let up a little, the engines started and we watched as drivers cleared the inside of their windshield with their sleeve, their wipers going flippity-flop like a fast-motion movie. Everybody looked like teenagers, their wet hair down, their suntanned faces shiny, their eyes alert and excited because something unexpected had made them scramble and laugh at one another in their clumsy attempts to beat the summer rain.
The jaggedly parked cars began to slowly turn, turn again, and then creep like a slow train toward the highway. The bright field looked like a smoke cloud.
I slid the key into the ignition.
“And just what are you doing?” Rita said, looking at me for the first time.
“W-E-L-L,” I said, “Let's make this a game. You get three guesses.”
She reached over and shut off the engine, pulled out the key.
“It might stop in a minute.”
“Did you bring your ball and glove, Rita? Cause just in case you haven't noticed, there ain't going to be anybody but you and me to play when the tide goes out, sweet pea.”
Rita's eyes scoured the field, studying it, considering all the possibilities. The last car pulled out of the church drive.
And then the rain stopped. As suddenly and unexpectedly as the shower had come, it was gone. We sat there without a word. In a matter of seconds it was over, no random drops, no lingering mist, gone.
I looked at her again, the rain on her face, her eyes the color of blue metal against her deep tan. The thin, soaked blouse.
“What you said, it's not true, Rita.”
She looked over at me as if I'd woke her from sleep.
“Oh, shut up,” she said. “Shut up.”
“It's a lie.”
She reached for the door.” You're so stubborn, all you really care about is being right—even when you know you’re wrong.” She was about to speak, but I cut her off. “Why did you say what you did?” She answered my question by hurling the door shut. She was crossing home plate by the time I got out of the truck, and headed for center field by the time I was within calling distance. Thunder vib
rated the ground.
“If you think I never loved you, you are wrong, you hard-head.” She was still walking, near the outfield grass now. “Besides, what makes you think you're so high and mighty that you could ever make me do anything I didn't want to do. Give me one example of that over the past twenty years, just one.” She shouted something I couldn't make out over the rumble, yelling toward deep-center, picking up her pace a little. I was at the mound. “I’d never have married you if I didn't love you.” She didn't look back. “It's been twenty years, Rita.” She said something that I just know was cussing, but I couldn't tell which combination of words. “Well aren't we full of ourselves!” I yelled back. I'd made it to the edge of the grass. “So where do you think you're going, Miss Power Queen!”
Now she stopped, turned and waited for me to make up a few steps.
“I'm going home,” she said in a nearly normal voice. Her hair was down to her eyes, and her blouse stuck like cellophane. Rita summoned all her strength.
“Well, I'm sure as hell not walking. You can walk by yourself.”
“Fine,” she said, turning. She took maybe three steps, then stopped cold. She looked down into her hand, then up at me. “Here,” she yelled, suddenly throwing my keys as hard as she could. I saw the keys arch, then fall between us. Rita turned and marched toward the center field fence.
“This ought to be good,” I yelled, trailing again. “I can't wait to see this,” I shouted. “This is gonna be priceless.” I looked over at the spot where the keys had landed. “Let's see Miss-know-it-all-I-am-never-wrong clear the wall like the queen of women's prison making her great escape. Better get a good running start there, sugar pie.”
I stopped and watched as she neared the fence.
“I can do things you never even dreamed I could do.”
She reached for the top of the fence with both hands, pulled, and pushed up hard with both legs. She threw one elbow over the lip of the fence, pulled and nearly hooked the other elbow, banging the wall, then caught the top again with her free hand. Her feet dangled, thumped the wooden fence. She hung still and silent for a second. This wasn't funny. Then with a grunt she threw up her right leg, clearing the fence with her heel. She again pressed hard with her left elbow, hung there horizontally suspended, then came down on her back with a jarring splash.
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