Preston Falls

by David Gates

  “And I’ll tell you something else, that I firmly believe to this day. That story about Gid going off on a trail drive was a healing story. Not only at the time, but also later on when Dexter was old enough to know the truth, so called, and that it’s still like a deep structure for things that he’s always going to have in his mind.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m sorry, I know this makes you uncomfortable, talking about, you know, other realities.”

  “Oh, fine,” says Jean. “Let’s make this be about how uptight Jean is.”

  “No, I don’t mean it in a critical way,” Carol says. “You should be uncomfortable, because that’s who you are. See, this was sort of a long answer to your question. You say what should I tell Mel and Roger, but I hear you saying that you don’t really want to just tell them something. So I think you’ve already answered the question yourself. All this energy’s going into, you know, constructing cover stories. He’s here, he’s there, he’s off at Nonnie’s, la dee da dee da. Now, a four-year-old? Different thing. Daddy’s off on a cattle drive, and it’s not this huge, complicated story that has to hang together. But see, with Mel and Roger, the energy’s diverted off into … You know, like your appendix: this useless little thing that goes off into nowhere, and it’s like sooner or later the dam has to burst.”

  “So you’re saying I should just level with them,” says Jean.

  “You’re saying it to yourself. Look, it’s like you have a toothache—okay?—and deep down you know—”

  “Okay, thanks, I get it,” says Jean. “Look, you better drop me back at the station, so I can get the car and go pick up the kids. Do you remember what our waitress looked like?”

  The Millers live on Dogwood Lane, in one of those houses that seem to be all big wedge-shaped Andersen windows. Jean rings the lit-up doorbell; Rosellen Miller opens the door a crack, then closes it and opens it wide.

  “Jean, how are you doing, come on in. The girls are up in Erin’s room, and Roger’s downstairs, watching Cody work out.”

  “Have they been okay?” Jean steps into the foyer, and Rosellen puts the chain back on the door. She’s wearing a sweatshirt over leggings and really starting to show.

  “Oh fine,” Rosellen says. “Roger had a little flare-up at the dinner table, but these things happen. Here, let me take your jacket. You’ve got time for a drink, don’t you? I can’t have a drink drink, but I’ve been guzzling Cody’s Gatorade like it’s—oh, I shouldn’t say that, should I? He did try the one your husband makes.”

  “Thanks, but we really can’t stay. What happened at dinner?”

  Wayne Miller comes out of the kitchen, a screwdriver in his hand and screws sticking out of his mouth. He nods and grunts at Jean, then says to Rosellen, “You etter come in look fore I fashen it.”

  “He’s putting up a shelf for me in the laundry room,” Rosellen says. “This house has closets galore, but for some reason they gave very little thought to shelves. So I thought, maybe just above the machines. You know, to put your supplies.”

  “Royal painy ash,” says Wayne.

  “I’m sure it’s great,” Rosellen says.

  Wayne casts a theatrical look at the ceiling.

  “I better go inspect,” says Rosellen. “You know where Erin’s room is. If you want to try to start the prying-loose process.”

  Jean climbs the three steps up to where the Millers’ bedrooms are and heads for the music, some snarling young woman singer. She knocks on the last door on the right, and Erin sings out “Hi-ee” in that airy-fairy voice of hers that would drive you right up the wall.

  “Hi, Erin. It’s Melanie’s mom. She in there by any chance?” The music suddenly cuts off.

  “Mother, Erin says I can stay over. Can I?”

  “Can she, please, Mrs. Willis?”

  “Could one of you open the door?” says Jean.

  The door opens, and there’s poor moon-faced Erin in one of her loose-fitting hippie dresses. It must be awful to be twelve and already having such a struggle; it’s a wonder she hasn’t discovered vomiting. Assuming she hasn’t. Rosellen once told Jean—based on nothing but wishful thinking, as far as Jean could see—that Erin would “lean out” when she became a teenager. One look at bullnecked Cody, who plays JV football and who’s essentially Erin with a shaved head, and you can see it’s hopeless.

  “How are you doing, Erin?” says Jean. Using a normal in-breath to sniff for pot smoke is so routine she’s hardly aware she’s doing it. (Nothing.)

  “Okay. I can lend her some clothes for tomorrow, Mrs. Willis. I’ve got stuff that’s too small for me.”

  “Can I, Mother?” says Mel.

  “Not on a school night.”

  “But, Mother—”

  “Besides, I feel like I’ve hardly had time to see you, and tomorrow I have to fly to Atlanta. It’s just for a day, but I’d sort of like us to hang out a little tonight.”

  “How come you have to go to Atlanta?” Mel says.

  “To look at that new office space. You remember, I was telling you?”

  Mel shrugs. It’s true, Jean does get this self-righteous tone when she talks to Mel about her work, as if she’s doing it on feminist principle. Which she is, partly. Poor Mel was so bored when she brought her into the office on what Willis called Teach Our Daughters to Buy Into the Shit Day.

  “Listen,” she says, “we really need to get Roger to bed. It would help tremendously if you got your things together and you were all ready to go, okay? And I’ll try to get him moving.”

  She goes down into the kitchen, opens the door to the basement and calls hello. No answer; she clomps coming down the stairs, to give additional warning. Roger’s sitting on the black leather sofa they have down there, and she sees him quickly slip a magazine between the arm and the seat cushion. Beside him she sees a copy of Soldier of Fortune. Good God. So what was he reading that’s even worse?

  “ ’Sup,” Cody Miller calls, from the seat of some machine with weights and cables. He’s wearing shorts and a soaked-through tank top, his broad face and bulging shoulders beaded with sweat. He bares his teeth, a vein bulges out in his forehead and tendons stiffen in his neck; he grunts, and twin stacks of black weights inch up on their cables.

  “Hello, Cody,” she says. She turns to Roger. “And how’s my guy?”

  Roger says nothing.

  “What are you reading?” she says. Useless with Cody here, but how can she not try?

  “Nothing.”

  She lets the silence go on for a few beats to let him know he’s not fooling her, then says, “We have to get going, dear. Say goodbye to Cody? Cody, thanks for looking after Roger.”

  Cody, gasping, can only nod.

  “Would you get your things together, please?” she says.

  “They’re upstairs,” says Roger.

  “So in that case …” She points her thumb up.

  “O-kay,” he says, and starts trudging up the steps. He hasn’t, in fact, said goodbye to Cody. She walks over to the sofa and pulls out the magazine. It’s some bodybuilding thing: color pictures of men with ugly oiled muscles and, apparently, no penises. Is this what Mel was talking about the other night? Maybe she’d better search his room. She sets the bodybuilding magazine on top of Soldier of Fortune, just to put Cody on notice. Well, Roger won’t be coming back here—and if that’s a wrong attitude, fine. So is this what all the push-ups and stuff are about? But what’s she supposed to do now—confiscate his hand weights?

  Upstairs in the foyer, Mel’s pulling on her sweatshirt and lifting her long hair up out of the neck hole as Erin whispers to her. Rosellen Miller appears in the kitchen doorway, waving a bottle of Martini & Rossi vermouth. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you?” She must have grabbed a bottle at random from the liquor cabinet to illustrate the idea of a drink.

  “We really can’t,” says Jean. “Can I call you later, though? I still want to hear about what we were starting to discuss.” She nods toward Roger, who’s shoulderin
g his backpack.

  “Oh, that,” says Rosellen. “Really, it wasn’t anything. But sure, if you want. We’re usually up right through Letterman. It’s so funny: with my other two I’d be out like a light at ten. But this time I have all this energy? So weird. It’s driving Wayne out of his mind, because I’m finding all these projects around the house? You know how wives used to send their husbands out for pistachio ice cream in the middle of the night? I’m always sending Wayne to Home Depot. He doesn’t know this yet, but the next thing I want him to do is put a peephole. I mean, we have a chain but no peephole.”

  Jean shakes her head to show sympathy. “Listen,” she says, “thanks so much for doing this. Thank Wayne for me too, would you?”

  “Don’t even think about it,” says Rosellen. “If you ever need help, Mel and Roger are always welcome.”

  “That’s really nice of you.” Jean should say she’d be glad to return the favor, but the fact is.

  ——

  It’s started raining: the flagstone walk gleams in the lantern’s light, and sharp little drops sting their faces on their way to the Cherokee.

  “Aren’t we going to flip for shotgun?” says Roger.

  “Let’s just get in first.” Jean starts the Cherokee and gets the blower going before clicking on the map light and finding a quarter in her change purse. This rain or whatever is ticking against the roof and bouncing off the windshield. Mel wins the toss; Roger says “Crap”— borderline permissible—and climbs into the back seat. The headlight beams pick out slants of what Jean hopes isn’t actual sleet. She pulls the lever to go into four-wheel, and the thing lights up that reads PART TIME. The words always seem to have a bad meaning that she can’t quite pin down. (Now, what could that be?)

  Sounds like Rosellen Miller knows something’s up. Did she worm it out of the kids directly, or did it come from Mel by way of Erin? And from Rosellen to the rest of the world. (Or is that unfair?) God, this is just what Carol was talking about: all this energy poured into maintaining the silence. But tonight really isn’t the time to tell them. They’re about to go to bed—then tomorrow she has to be away, and this is obviously not a thing you can just dump on them and merrily traipse off somewhere. Jerry did say it would be okay to skip this if there was a problem, but it would be stupid to think he meant it was okay for there to be a problem.

  “So,” says Jean, turning left from Dogwood onto Lochbourne. “What did you guys have for dinner?”

  “Tacos,” says Mel.

  “That sounds good,” says Jean. “I heard there was some kind of a problem, though? At dinner? What was that about?” She glances in the mirror: Roger’s staring straight ahead. Oncoming headlights whiten his face; then it goes dark again.

  Mel says, “Well, Erin’s mom—”

  “You better shut up,” says Roger.

  “Then suppose you tell me what happened,” says Jean.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he says.

  “It wasn’t Roger’s fault,” says Mel.

  “I said shut up.”

  “Roger, let your sister talk. It sounds like she’s on your side, right?”

  “You better not, Mel,” he says.

  “Roger, enough,” says Jean. “Mel?”

  “Okay, Erin’s mom was asking Roger all this stuff about Daddy?” Jean checks the mirror again. Roger has his eyes closed. “What kind of stuff?”

  “I don’t know,” says Mel. “Like when did we go up to the country the last time, and she’s like, Well, you talk to him on the phone, don’t you? Kind of like she was picking on Roger. Or not picking on him but trying to get him to say stuff?”

  “Is that how you felt, Rog?” says Jean. “That she was questioning you?”

  Roger says nothing.

  “She was,” says Mel. “Roger’s sitting there going, I don’t know, I don’t know—you know, the way he does? And she’s like, You don’t know if you talk to him on the phone, Roger? And so Erin’s dad finally goes, Leave the poor kid alone. To Erin’s mom. But by now Roger’s like really upset, and he calls Erin’s dad a bad word. Not her mom. I would’ve called her the word.”

  “So would I,” says Jean. “Is that pretty much what happened, Rog?”

  “No.”

  “But Roger, it is,” Mel says.

  “Is there something she said that you want to disagree with?” says Jean.

  “No.”

  “I see. Well, from what Mel’s saying, it sounds to me like Mrs. Miller was out of line. You were out of line for using bad language, but I can understand why you were upset. It’s a really uncomfortable thing, telling a grownup that you don’t feel like talking about something. But for the future, it’s perfectly okay not to answer things you think are too personal. You can just say, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t feel like talking about that.’ Okay?”

  No answer.

  The light at the corner of Main Street turns yellow, then red, and Jean pulls up behind a Grand Cherokee. Roger has been complaining because they only have a regular Cherokee; at least he’s too preoccupied now to get into that. (Mel, on the other hand, hates all sports-utility vehicles because they waste fuel.)

  “So, Rog?” says Jean. “Dare I ask exactly what you said to Mr. Miller?”

  No answer.

  Mel says, “He called him a fat f-word. Just like …”

  “Like what?” says Jean.

  “I don’t know,” Mel says. “Sort of like what a kid at school said one time.”

  Jean looks at Roger in the mirror. “Is that true, Roger?”

  Still nothing.

  “Roger. Either you answer when I ask you a question, or no television for a week.”

  “I guess so,” says Roger.

  “Thank you,” she says. “When we get home, you’ll sit down and write a note apologizing to Mr. Miller. Doesn’t have to be long—just say you’re sorry you got upset and said something rude, okay? He’ll get the point. And we’ll mail it on the way to school in the morning. Right?”

  Roger says nothing, pushing it right to the edge. But is it worth following through on her threat just because he’s too proud to make some submissive noise when she says Right?

  “Okay, you heard me,” she says. “End of subject.” The light turns green; the Grand Cherokee goes straight through, and Jean takes a left on Main. “So,” she says. “How was school?”

  It’s 7:51 by the dashboard clock when they get home. Carol’s door is shut; she’s probably meditating. Rathbone seems to want to be walked, Mel and Roger both need baths, plus Roger has to write his note and hasn’t done his homework. (Mel claims she and Erin did theirs together; Jean decides to believe her.) Another reason to be furious at Rosellen Miller: the woman doesn’t even ask, on a school night, if a fourth grader has homework? She sends Mel up to take her shower and tells Roger if he can write his note and finish his homework in forty-five minutes, they can read another ten pages of The Lord of the Rings and he can shower in the morning.

  Roger makes his mouth drop open by way of protest, and Jean puts a finger to her lips. “That’s the carrot,” she says. “And if I hear one word of whining, it’ll be zero pages. That’s the stick.” Though it’s not a stick, she realizes. She’s gotten so sloppy and permissive that her only stick is the withholding of carrots.

  “But you don’t know how much she gave us,” says Roger. “And I don’t know what I’m supposed to write.” He’s starting to pant.

  “And that,” Jean says, “is a borderline whine. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste any of my forty-five minutes. I told you what to write.”

  “But I forgot.” Full-fledged panting.

  “So go up to your room and start remembering.” Jean makes two fingers walk in air. “I’m going to take Rathbone out, and then I’ll be up to check. The note first, then your homework. And I don’t want you to spend more than five minutes on the note. Time yourself.” She looks around for the leash. This, she knows in her heart, is just round one.

  But so much for knowing in y
our heart: when she and Rathbone come back in, Roger’s downstairs waiting. “Here,” he says, and shoves a piece of paper at her:

  Dear Mr. Miller,

  I am sorry I was upset. I didn’t mean to say a bad

  word but it just came out. I get upset some times.

  From,

  Roger Willis

  “Perfect.” Jean reaches to pat him on the head; his body stiffens, but he allows it. “Good for you. I’ll find an envelope and a stamp—or if we get an early enough start tomorrow, maybe we can just drive by and drop it in their mailbox. Okay? Now: homework.” She points to the stairs.

  So perhaps a firm hand really is the ticket. By nine o’clock Roger’s finished with his homework, in his pajamas, teeth brushed, face washed. Mel has her nightie on and her hair dried. And Carol materializes to sit on the sofa with the three of them. Jean feels blessed.

  “You know something?” says Jean, opening The Fellowship of the Ring at the dog-eared page. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day, just being together.” No response. Which is okay too. “So where did you guys get up to?”

  “Right to here,” says Carol, pointing to a line space. “They just got done picking the people that get to go with Frodo. Elrond didn’t want Merry and Pippin to go, but Gandalf talked him into it.”

  “Right, right,” says Jean. “Okay, everybody comfortable?” Roger gives a little wriggle that’s sort of like actual snuggling. Jean takes a breath, lets it out, takes another breath and begins. “The Sword of Elendil was forged anew by elvish smiths, and on its blade was traced a device of seven stars set between the crescent Moon and the rayed Sun, and about them were written many runes; for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor. Very bright was that sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, and the light of the moon shone cold, and its edge was hard and keen. And Aragorn gave it a new name and—”

  “What?” says Roger. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” says Jean. “I’m sorry. Something just popped into my head.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing; it was just stupid. I must be totally exhausted. You know, on second thought—Carol, would you mind doing the honors? And I’ll just sort of cuddle up with you guys and listen?”