Point Pleasant

by Wood, Jen Archer

  You were so sad, Ben.

  Raziel, however horrifying, made Ben feel something that he still could not articulate. But it was gone now, and Ben felt like the last few granules of coffee at the bottom of the tin. He thought of his dead mother on the kitchen floor with her eyes open.

  You’ll find it, Ben.

  Had he found it only to have it disappear like everything else? The warmth of fulfillment had edged his periphery, but it had been snatched away before he could fully understand or accept the feeling.

  Ben was happy for Raziel; he was home. He got what he wanted, what he needed. Ben was home as well—if he could call Point Pleasant home.

  Point Pleasant did not feel like home, though. Then again, neither did Boston or any of the other places he had blown through in the last thirteen years. Gnome Chomsky had been spectacularly kitsch, but he had only reinforced Ben’s longing for something that he would probably never be able to hold in his hands for longer than it would take for palmfuls of water to trickle through the cracks between his fingers.

  Home was not simply a place, of course. Home was where people wanted you, where they were happy you were there, where they greeted you like a long lost friend.

  Raziel’s homecoming had been joyous. Ben had experienced it, though he still could not understand how. Ben’s homecoming had been fraught with volatile emotions since the moment he drove past the cheerful ‘Welcome to Point Pleasant! We’re Mighty Pleased to Have You!’ sign on the outskirts of Main Street.

  Ben wanted to go back to sleep and not wake up for a week. However, it was Monday night, and Kate would arrive Wednesday morning, possibly with David in tow. Ben realized for the first time that Kate had not mentioned her boyfriend during their recent exchanges. He berated himself for having neglected to ask if David would be flying down with her. And for neglecting to find out what needed to be done for the funeral on Friday. Get your shit together, Benji.

  He stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. His old bedroom was empty, but Nicholas had dropped Ben’s bags in the doorway. Ben was thankful to have a few more moments alone as he dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He felt the need to pull on a suit and hide himself under layers of professionalism and smile his very best and-who-should-I-make-this-out-to? smile, but Nicholas was in jeans, and Ben followed his example.

  Nic, though, Ben thought as he tugged on a t-shirt. Nic is happy you came back. Nic wants you to stay.

  Ben ran a hand through his damp hair to straighten it and headed downstairs. Nicholas was in the living room and inspecting the photographs on the mantle.

  “Hey.”

  Nicholas spun around and smiled. “Ready?”

  “Sure.”

  Nicholas tilted his head and regarded Ben with concern. “You okay?”

  “Sure,” Ben repeated.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know, Nic,” Ben said, bowing his head to avoid meeting Nicholas’ gaze. “Nothing. Everything.”

  Nicholas stepped closer, keeping a foot of distance between them as if he knew Ben needed space. He said nothing, but he did not seem to expect Ben to go on. Ben realized that Nicholas just wanted him to know he was there.

  When Ben was finally able to look at Nicholas, desperation jolted through him like a snap of lightning. “I came here chasing some fucking mystery like maybe I’d get a new book out of it. Now? It’s over. Mystery solved. Only not really, because it opened up about twelve thousand new ones. Angels fucking exist. Apparently God exists.”

  Nicholas kept quiet as Ben began to pace.

  “My dad is dead. I’m pacing around this room in his house. He’ll never park his SUV in the driveway, prune the cherry trees, trim the hedges, or put a new coat of paint on the house after a hard winter. He’ll never make another cup of his stupidly strong coffee in that fucking machine of his ever again. And that’s what I’m left with after the big mystery. It’s over, and I feel like I’m only just now getting it, really getting it. My dad is dead.”

  “A lot has happened in the last few days—”

  “No shit,” Ben said, snorting as he glanced to the photograph of Princess Katie and Benji Skywalker. “Kate will be here day after tomorrow.”

  “She will. She’ll need you,” Nicholas said, and he closed the distance between them to place a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. “Nothing, really.”

  “There must be something,” Nicholas insisted.

  “You make it so much harder.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” Ben said. “What am I supposed to do after Friday?”

  “You do what you need to,” Nicholas said, tightening his grip on Ben’s shoulder even as he shifted from one foot to the other.

  “And what if I don’t know what I need to do?”

  “Then you do what Abernathy said. You take the time you need to figure it out.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “I can make it simpler.”

  “Can you?”

  “You could stay. Here. With me.” Nicholas smiled, though it was as melancholic as the one he had given Ben the night in the square when he divulged, ‘I kept waiting for you to come back.’

  “It’s that easy?” Ben asked in a hushed tone.

  “It could be,” Nicholas replied. “If you let it be.”

  “I wish I could, Nic.”

  Nicholas seemed to take a moment to digest the words before he dropped his hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said, casting his gaze to his feet. “I don’t know if I’d be a good dinner guest tonight.”

  “That’s okay,” Nicholas said. He sounded quiet—numb, even. When Ben looked up, Nicholas was staring off at the mantle once more.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Ben said.

  “I get it.”

  “It’s just a lot,” Ben said. Grief twisted at Ben’s stomach when Nicholas pocketed his hands as if to still the desire to reach out and touch Ben again.

  “I can’t make up your mind for you,” Nicholas said, taking a deep breath. His expression was earnest and open when he finally turned to Ben. “But I can tell you I’m here. Because I am. I wasn’t before. I left you standing out there like an asshole,” he paused to gesture toward the bay window that looked onto the front yard. “I left you, and that night has always been the biggest regret of my life. Because you left. And I don’t blame you for that. I would have left too, probably. If you leave now, I won’t stop you, but I won’t be the one walking away this time.”

  Ben could not find the words he needed to speak in that moment. Some fucking writer. Nicholas held up a hand to stop him from speaking out in response anyway.

  “Please let me finish. Please. I would understand that too, Ben. Because I get it. I get how much I hurt you. I went home last night, and I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t even try. And you know, your book, it was still on my kitchen table. I sat up all night reading through it again, and I get it.”

  Ben rubbed his forehead. He was not prepared to talk about the ghost of The Blue Tulip with its flesh and blood inspiration. Not at all.

  “When I first read it a few years ago, all I could think was how much you would like it,” Nicholas said, huffing out a bitter laugh. “I wished I could call you up and tell you to read it because it was just so you.”

  A brief, sardonic smile played at the edge of Ben’s lips.

  “I’m really sorry, okay?” Nicholas said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you about it.”

  “You absolutely should have!”

  “It’s not all you, Nic,” Ben said, feeling like the exposed wooden flooring under the dingy carpet you ripped out when remodeling an old house; the boards were dirty and scuffed, and you understood why the previous owners had opted to cover it rather than bear witness to the marks of its age. “There’s other stuff in there too.”

  “Don’t try to pacify me, Ben. I was an a
sshole.”

  “Nic, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not. But I want to make it okay, Ben. I want you to know I’m here. I’m not walking away this time. If you want to, if you need to, then I get it. I’ll still be here. But if you stay, if you want to stay, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make up every second of the time you were gone.”

  “I don’t want that,” Ben said suddenly. Nicholas eyes widened in wounded surprise. “I mean I don’t want you feeling like you owe me anything. Like you have to grovel or plead because you think you owe me something. What would that even make us?”

  Nicholas regarded Ben as if dissecting his words with all the attention paid to fanning out the wings of a moth on minuten for museum display.

  “If I did stay,” Ben continued, “it can’t be like that. It just can’t. I don’t want it that way, and you wouldn’t either. We’d end up hating each other. I’d resent you, you’d resent me, and it’d be a fucking disaster.”

  “Fair enough,” Nicholas said. “But my point remains. I want you to know—to really know—that you don’t have to be reluctant, Ben. You don’t have to because I’m here. I’m not walking away again. You put yourself out there before, and I left. Well, I’m putting myself out there now. I’m here, I will always be here. Even if you have to leave, I’ll be here. I’m looking at you right now, Ben. I see you. And I’m not going to disappear.”

  Nicholas’ sincerity was bewildering. Ben had spent much of his adult life deflecting the intimacy of partners because of a certainty that the relationships would end with him left standing alone with his feelings bared because of a singular event from one humid summer evening. He had lost his best friend that night and never really recovered from his rejection.

  Nicholas was offering himself now—heart and all—just as Ben had done so long ago. For a brief moment, the joy of Raziel’s homecoming echoed through Ben.

  “Nic,” Ben started, but his words were cut when Nicholas stepped forward and kissed him. It was not frantic or insistent, yet it made Ben feel as if he had broken into a thousand tiny pieces. It was gentle, sincere, and full of every affirmation of love that Nicholas had made since Ben’s return to Point Pleasant.

  “I should go,” Nicholas said, pulling away. “My parents are waiting. Are you sure you won’t come? I’d really like you to.”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Nicholas considered Ben in silence for a long moment, but he seemed to understand. “Call you later?”

  “Okay.”

  “If you change your mind,” Nicholas said, brushing the knuckles of his right hand against Ben’s cheek.

  The rough texture of his skin was so tangible and there that Ben wanted to lean into the touch. Instead, he managed only a weak smile.

  “Bye, Nic.”

  “Bye, Ben.”

  Nicholas walked out of the room, and Ben sank onto the edge of the coffee table when he heard the front door open and close. He could still taste Nicholas on his lips as he listened for the sound of the cruiser to start and drive away.

  Ben realized that if Carmine had ever looked toward the kitchen window, this was what the narrator would have felt: stupefied happiness, regardless of what came next.

  “The fuck am I doing?” he asked the empty living room.

  His keys were still on the floor in the entry hall. He ignored his muddy coat, made a mental note to throw it into the washing machine when he got home, and hurried out of the house. Ben turned right rather than left toward Main Street and walked to the end of Cardinal where he made another right onto Whaley Drive, following the familiar route that he could have once ridden blind on his bicycle.

  I bet I still could if I tried, he mused.

  Nicholas’ cruiser was parked outside the two-story Victorian that Ben remembered so fondly from his childhood and adolescence. The house was still painted the same shade of dark indigo that inspired thoughts of hot summer skies and Sunday afternoon barbecues.

  The lights were on downstairs. Ben crossed the street and let himself in through the picketed gate. He climbed the front steps to the porch and knocked on the door. A gust of chilly wind blew, and his bare arms prickled with goosebumps as he rocked on his heels. A muffled female voice rose from the other side of the door before it opened.

  “Ben Wisehart!” Leslie shouted in surprise.

  Ben found himself pulled into an embrace before he had a chance to greet her in response. He returned the hug immediately, noting that the scent of tea roses clung to the fabric of her blouse.

  “Hi Leslie,” Ben said with a smile, and she withdrew to tug him into the house.

  “Get in here, you’re freezing,” she said, closing the door behind them. “Nicholas said you weren’t feeling well. Let’s have a look at you.”

  Ben glanced behind her and saw Nicholas in the doorway that lead into the living room. The grin that spread across the other man’s face was enough to make Ben forget about the chill of the walk over.

  “Look at you,” she said and waved over at her son. “Nicholas, look at him!”

  “I see him,” Nicholas said, his voice soft.

  “Look at you,” Ben said, turning to Leslie. “Lovely as ever.”

  Leslie’s honey-colored hair was lined with strands of gray, but her eyes were a testament to her youthfulness. They shone like little pools of deep blue and were as warm and welcoming as ever.

  Much like Andrew, Ben had cried only once when Caroline died, and that had been in Leslie’s sole company. Her comforting gaze had been the only thing to wrench him from the desperate sobs that had taken hold of him when he was hit with the reality that he would never again walk in on his mother humming along to Dylan or admire the way warm sunlight made her hair shine like spun gold.

  “Hush, you,” Leslie said, slapping his arm with gentle affection. She hugged him once more, and Ben smiled to Nicholas over her shoulder.

  “I thought I’d come after all,” Ben said. “If that’s okay.”

  “Of course it is,” Leslie said, stepping back. “Nate! Ben’s here!”

  “I heard,” called a deep voice from the kitchen. “But your pot roast is in imminent danger of catching flame!”

  “Take it out, then!” Leslie replied, and she threw her hands in the air. “He’s useless in his old age. Ran a whole town for almost twenty years, but good Lord save us all if you leave him alone in the kitchen.”

  Ben laughed as Nicholas snorted from behind her.

  “You be quiet,” Leslie shot over her shoulder. “I trained you better. In the kitchen at least.”

  “Ben can vouch for that, actually,” Nicholas said.

  “I hope he’s been hospitable,” Leslie said, furrowing her brow.

  “He has,” Ben said, hiding a smirk. “He even gave me a personal tour of the station.”

  Nicholas straightened and mouthed the word ‘Wiseass.’

  Leslie remained unaware of her son’s mock indignation as she brushed a stray lock of hair from Ben’s forehead in a gesture as gentle as the way Nicholas had touched Ben’s cheek. “You look so much like Carrie,” she said, and her cheery countenance faded. “I’m so sorry about Andy, Ben.”

  Ben offered a stunted nod in acknowledgement of her condolences just as Nate finally joined them. His beard was flecked with silver, and he wore glasses now, but he still bore the easy, friendly demeanor of the man who had once let Ben and Nicholas flip the switch for the siren on his cruiser when they were children.

  “Ben,” Nate said, striding forward. He put out a hand, and Ben shook it, keeping his grip firm. “You’re old, son!”

  “Hello, sir. I guess I am.”

  “I was just telling Ben how sorry we are about Andy,” Leslie said.

  “Mighty sorry,” Nate said, losing his smile. “I can’t believe it. The town seems to have gone to hell since we’ve been away.”

  Nicholas cleared his throat from behind them. From the way he shifted from one foot to the other, Ben knew Nicholas’ thoughts were on the events
of the factory and how close Nate’s words were to reality. “Ben, let’s go to the dining room.”

  “Well, it’d be rude to not mention it, Nicholas!” Nate said.

  “It’s fine,” Ben said. “Thank you. It was a big shock.”

  “The funeral is Friday?” Leslie asked while regarding Ben with a closeness that made Ben long for the safety of a suit and sweater vest to hide behind.

  He nodded in confirmation and slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

  “Is Kate coming home too?” Nate asked.

  “Yeah, she gets in on Wednesday.”

  “Were you here already when it happened or did you come down after?” Leslie asked, brushing that same rogue lock of hair from Ben’s eyes when it fell out of place.

  “I was here,” Ben said.

  “That’s good,” Nate said, and he patted Ben’s left shoulder. “It’s real good he got to see you. He missed you a lot. I’m sure he never said it, though.”

  “Let him sit down,” Nicholas said, saving Ben from fumbling for an awkward response. “Or are we gonna have dinner in the hallway?”

  “Yes, of course,” Leslie replied. “Nicky, see Ben to the table.”

  “Mom,” Nicholas said, his tone full of all the rebuke Marietta used whenever Ben blasphemed.

  “Nicky,” Leslie repeated, shooting an indomitable glare as if to dare anyone in the entry hall to speak a word against the nickname she still used for her only son, sheriff badge or not.

  “Come on, Ben,” Nicholas said, leading them to the dining room.

  “Thanks, Nicky,” Ben said under his breath when Nicholas slid out a chair for him.

  “Stow it, Wiseass,” Nicholas said. A secretive smile crossed his lips, and he took the seat next to Ben. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

  “Me too.”

  Nate entered with a bottle of wine. “I’d say the occasion demands something special. Do you like red?”

  “I love red,” Ben replied.

  Nate gave a thumbs up in approval, uncorked the bottle, and poured four glasses. Nicholas held up a hand when his glass was a third of the way full.

  “I’m driving.”

  “You could always walk home,” Nate said with the same dry indifference Ben had heard Nicholas employ more than once.