by Jeff Gomez
“Gary, my man, good to see you. It’s been a while.”
“Don’t you guys hang out?” Mark says.
“Not like we used to,” Gary says. “Not like the old days.”
“But we have recently.”
After Steve says this, Gary shoots him a look.
“Anyway, we’re back together,” Steve says. “Bottlecap. I never would have thought.”
“Guys,” Gary says. “I hate to break up this warm and fuzzy moment, but we’re not Bottlecap until we play some music. Right now we’re just three middle-aged dudes standing around. What do you say we plug in and get started?”
Mark and Steve nod. Gary grabs his battered Fender Jazz bass from a stand and straps it on. Steve moves behind the drums. As Mark gets his Mustang out of its case, he says to Steve, “Do you still play much?”
“In the garage. When I have time.” He does a few fills and rolls. The sound ricochets throughout the room. Mark’s ears already hurt. “But at home all I have are electronic drums. I play with headphones on.”
Mark turns on the amp and plugs in his guitar. A huge electric crackle, as loud as thunder, fills the room. He’s been practicing the songs back in his apartment on an acoustic guitar. He hasn’t played his electric—through an amp—in a long time.
Mark tunes up, plays a few notes, then moves on to chords. Across the room, Gary’s fiddling with his bass.
“Sorry, guys. This thing won’t stay in tune. Give me another minute.”
Mark turns to Steve.
“So, you sell cars now?”
Steve blushes.
“It’s my brother’s dealership. Do you remember him?”
Mark thinks.
“Phil, right?”
“That’s him.”
“He was a good guy. Played in bands, too.”
“Yeah, but he stopped a long time ago. He bought the dealership from a guy when it was going under and turned it around. He offered me a part-time job about ten years ago, and I’ve been there ever since. I’m now senior salesman. It’s a nice gig.” Steve finally looks up from his drums. “You got a car?”
“In Manhattan? No. But if I ever need one, I’ll make sure I come see you.”
“I bet the publicity’s been good for you,” Gary says, still tuning up. The notes rattle the wires underneath the snare drum. “I saw the dealership mentioned in the paper.”
Steve blushes again. Mark doesn’t remember him blushing this much.
“It doesn’t hurt, I admit. Maybe it’ll mean a spike at the end of the month. It’s always tough to meet sales goals.”
Mark nods and then goes back to warming up. Steve plays various beats, pausing to rearrange the placement of the drums—moving the snare in closer, making the crash a little higher. Gary finishes tuning up and turns to Steve and Mark.
“All set,” Gary says. “I’ve got all our songs on my iPod in case we need to remember any of the parts. Otherwise, let’s start with a slow one and work our way up to the faster stuff. Sound good?”
Mark and Steve both nod.
“Okay, then,” Gary says. “‘Parisian Broke’?”
Mark and Steve nod again. Then there’s just silence.
“Steve,” Gary says. “Count us off. Remember?”
“Oh, right. Sorry.”
Steve raises his drumsticks, hits them together and says, not much above a whisper, “One-two-three-four.”
The parking lot’s full of minivans, station wagons, SUVs. No sports cars, no convertibles. Ashley can’t see a motorcycle anywhere. As she gets out of her car and walks towards the entrance to Babies R Us, she peeks into various vehicles and sees car seats, toys, bottles. Crumbs litter every surface and, in every car, especially Cheerios. So many Cheerios. She holds her breath as she approaches the double doors.
I can do this.
Ashley walks through the store, aisles on either side stretching out into different sections—diapers, bath stuff, cribs, slides for the backyard. Her plan had been to run in and grab the first thing she saw, but since it’s barely eleven she has time before meeting Craig at noon.
She’s wearing a black skirt, burgundy sweater set, and black high heels. As she walks, her shoes click loudly against the shiny floors. The noise can be heard even above the children’s music they’re piping in from the ceiling speakers. No one else is wearing heels. Or a skirt. Or makeup. Ashley looks like the “before” picture and everyone else looks like the “after.”
While the parents with kids all look exhausted, the pregnant women all look smug. They walk with one hand on their bellies, as if already holding their precious babies. Ashley stares at one woman for an uncomfortably long time, trying to see movement—to see the baby kick—but the woman gets spooked and leaves the aisle, disappearing to find her husband.
As she makes her way through the store—feeling stared at by all of those babies’ faces on the packages—Ashley can’t help but think of Charlottesville. It’s been so long, and she’s blocked so much of it out of her mind, that the only things that come back to her are vague images and sensations.
Getting lost on the way to the clinic.
The lobby.
The receptionist who wouldn’t look her in the eye.
A metal tray.
That sucking sound.
Tears, pain, and almost instant regret.
She remembers how, as she lay in the recovery room, she realized her relationship with Craig was over. Even though they’d made the decision together, Ashley knew she’d always hold it against him. There could be no future if she was always going to be angry about the past. After they stayed the night in Charlottesville—it was Craig’s idea to not do the procedure close to home, in an attempt to spare her pain and memories—they returned to Kitty and tried to act like nothing had happened. Tried to go back to the way their lives used to be. But after a few weeks, Ashley asked Craig to move out.
Ashley stayed until the lease ran out, and then got her own place on the other side of town. She dated for a couple of years, a few nice guys here and there, but none of them turned into anything serious. She ran into Andrew shortly after her thirty-fifth birthday. She hadn’t seen him since the nineties, since she’d been with Craig. Andrew assumed they were still together. “Where’s Craig?” is the first thing Andrew said when he spotted her in line for the bathroom at a party being thrown by a mutual acquaintance. Ashley just laughed, threw back her head, and said, “How should I know?” They began dating that week.
After that, they had a few nice years. They had a beautiful wedding and fun honeymoon. Every few years they took a vacation. They both liked their jobs. Life seemed ahead of them, and they were excited to be facing it together. They spooned each other in the morning, kissed each other good night, and said “I love you” at the end of phone calls, and meant it.
Early on in the relationship, they both agreed they didn’t want kids. By then, all of their friends had kids. One kid, two kids, and sometimes—though Ashley couldn’t figure out why—a third. But when Ashley was about to turn forty, that began to change. She broached the subject with Andrew, and found that he was having the same thoughts. She was overjoyed. They hugged and kissed and began planning the future, suggesting names and figuring out which room in the house would be the nursery.
On Ashley’s forty-first birthday, they tried to get pregnant. At first all this entailed was going off the pill and making appointments to have sex. Nothing happened. She then began buying ovulation kits and keeping track of her cycles with NASA-like precision. This went on for a few years, always with the same results. By the time she and Andrew finally decided to go to a fertility specialist, they were told it was too late for any affordable options. Ashley broke down when she received the news.
After that, she drifted away from her friends who were parents. Ashley couldn’t stand to hear about children, nor continue to fake a smile as they showed her photos of grinning or sleeping babies on their iPhones. This meant withdrawing from pretty much every
one she knew, but she felt she had to do it. She even started avoiding her parents because all they wanted to know was when she and Andrew were going to give them grandchildren. She hated that that’s all they wanted from her. She hated even more that her only response to the question was “never.”
Now, wandering aisle after aisle at Babies R Us—she sees all the tired but happy couples shuffling with their overstuffed diaper bags and carts loaded with toys—she can’t believe how dumb she’d been. She and her stupid friends. Taking the pill, using condoms, doing everything they could to avoid having kids, then waking up one day and wanting the opposite. It was like something out of 1984.
Six months ago Ashley saw a young disabled girl at the mall. Down syndrome. Ashley cried. She wept. She hated the thoughts she had. I’ll even take that. Just to say I was a parent. Just to watch someone grow up. I don’t mind. God,—she never talked to God, didn’t believe in God, had grown to hate God—just give me something. Anything. To love. But even that didn’t happen.
“Will this be all for you?”
Ashley looks up, startled.
She’s in the checkout line. She doesn’t remember picking an item, or approaching a cashier, but here she is.
The people who shop at Babies R Us might be parents or soon-to-be-parents, but the people who work there are kids. First jobs for awkward teenagers. This girl, BRITTANY according to her nametag, has flawless skin and a wonderful smile. Teeth as white as the paint job of a brand-new car.
Somehow Ashley manages to pull out and hand over her credit card. The young girl, somewhat spooked—her bright eyes now not-so-bright—looks down, embarrassed. She quickly scans the three-pack of onesies and slides Ashley’s credit card through the machine. Ashley signs with an X, ripping the paper as she does so. She grabs the bag and walks out of the store.
She gets into her Prius, throws the Babies R Us bag into the backseat, grabs her purse and fishes around for her bottle of Protraxanon. When she finds it, it makes a noise just like the rattles she saw back in the store. She swallows a pill dry.
Ashley drives across town in a daze.
Walking up to the restaurant, from the sidewalk, she sees Craig sitting at a table near the window. She thought he would be sitting in the back, in a booth half-hidden in shadows. Ashley takes a deep breath and enters the restaurant.
Nolan’s is crowded, most of the tables filled. Conversation drowns out the music playing in the background. A hostess approaches carrying a stack of menus. She has a spring in her step and her light-brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail that moves behind her like a windshield wiper when she walks. Ashley usually wants to kill young, pretty girls like this. But right now, her mind is too clouded to be jealous.
“Hi there, welcome to Nolan’s. How can I help you?”
Craig had emailed to let her know he’d made a reservation, but Ashley can’t bear to say his name. So instead she says, “I’m just meeting a friend. I think he’s here already.”
The hostess steps aside to let her by.
As Ashley walks through the dining room, she tries to surreptitiously glance at the crowd to see if there’s anyone she recognizes, friends of hers, people who know her—anyone who might later tell Andrew they saw her here with Craig.
As she approaches him from behind, Ashley can see how much hair he’s lost. He has a bald spot on the top of his head and—on the sides and the back—the hair is thin and wispy, like cotton candy. His scalp is red and freckled.
The skin on his neck, leading into a pressed blue Oxford shirt, is freckled and flaky. That body used to lie next to her, do things to her, but it means nothing to her now. She sees a book on the table. A Faulkner paperback that looks vaguely familiar.
Craig senses her presence and rises, turning toward her. They lock eyes. Neither of them speaks. A busboy comes by and clears the plates from the table next to theirs. Finally, Craig smiles and speaks.
“Hi.”
He reaches out his hand; Ashley awkwardly takes it.
“Hi.”
Craig’s hand is clammy, his grip loose.
She can’t believe how old he looks. His teeth are yellow, his hair’s mostly gone, and his chin sags into his open shirt. She looks for the younger version of him in the face he has now—pudgy, reddened, spots on his nose—but it’s gone. That Craig no longer exists. Two words enter her head that never really have before.
Middle age.
Craig says, “Can you believe this?”
After he says this, he grins. Ashley discovers there’s still some charm in his smile. It reminds her of why she fell for him in the first place.
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Steve leans forward on the drums. He’s sweating profusely and breathing heavily, his bulging belly disappears and returns with each breath.
“Seriously, Gary. I can’t go on.”
They’ve been playing all morning, and it’s finally starting to sound good. They’re playing “Parisian Broke” and “Bad Skin Day” pretty well, and “Birthday Ache” is coming along nicely. One or two more tries and they’ll all know their parts. Another hour and they’ll sound like a band again.
“Seriously.” Steve, out of breath, pauses before saying more. “Let’s … take a break.”
“Fine,” Gary says. “But a quick one.”
Mark pulls out his phone. “Jesus, it’s noon. Why don’t we go out and get a bite?”
“I … I,” Steve says, still breathing heavily. “I brought … a little something … for us.”
Gary and Mark glance at each other before turning to Steve.
“You packed a lunch?”
“My wife made it … for all of us. It’s just some sandwiches … and chips. Coleslaw.” He gets up from behind the drums, still panting. His sweatshirt is soaked through. “Fruit salad … and cheese. Be right back.”
As Steve leaves the room, Gary and Mark put down their guitars. Steve returns a minute later with a wicker basket and sets it down. He opens it up and pulls out plastic plates, handing one to Mark and another to Gary.
“Wow,” Mark says. “She’s a regular Martha Stewart.”
Steve unpacks the rest of the food, placing everything on top of Mark’s amp.
Gary, chewing, says, “You should see her, Mark. Spokesmodel category all the way. But nice. Smart, too. Steve, what was she before you knocked her up?”
Mark says, “You have kids?”
“Yeah, three. Two girls and a boy. Eight, six, and four.” Steve turns to Gary. “She was a lawyer and will be again someday, once the kids are a little older.”
“Jesus. Three kids.”
“What?” Gary says. “You thought he drove a minivan to carry around his electronic drums?”
As he eats his lunch, Mark begins to feel clammy as the sweat turns cool on his skin.
“How about you?” Steve says.
“Me?” Mark says. “No kids.” He takes a big bite of his sandwich, hoping the question will blow over.
“Married?”
“No.”
“Dating anyone?”
“No.”
To get the spotlight off of him, Mark turns to Gary. “So, you still play in bands?”
“Three,” Gary says proudly. “One’s kind of a home recording project, but the other two play shows.”
“Steve, they any good?”
“What are you asking him for? You think he gets out anymore?”
“Gary’s right.” Steve picks raspberries out of a Tupperware container with a plastic fork. “With the kids and the dealership, it doesn’t leave time for much else.”
Mark tries to remember Steve all those years ago. He acted like such a punk when they got the deal and went to LA. It’s not that Mark thought Steve would never grow up; it’s that he never thought he’d have to.
“I’ll give you my latest cassette,” Gary says.
“Cassette?” Mark says.
“Guys, I’m telling you, cassettes are making a
comeback.” Gary takes a swig from a bottle of water on the floor and then checks his silver combination watch and digital calculator. “Speaking of which, so are we. Let’s get back to work.”
His mouth full of food, Steve says, “I’m still eating.”
“Swallow,” Gary says. “Chewing is optional. Let’s go.”
Craig motions to the chair with its back to the window. As she sits down, he notices she’s wearing a skirt and heels. He’s glad he wore the blazer. He sits down after she does.
Ashley reaches for the book and picks it up. It’s A Fable by William Faulkner. It’s how they met.
“It’s my original copy. Do you remember?”
She turns it over and over in her hands. The cover is worn, the pages—many of them dog-eared—are yellow.
“Yes. I was looking at a copy in the college bookstore when you approached me. You said something about ‘Count No Count’ and I was impressed. I shouldn’t have been. I thought you liked Faulkner. Looking back on it now, you were just hitting on me.”
He grins.
“Do you blame me?”
“I do, in a way.”
Craig’s face falls.
“I mean, I wish I’d known that at the time,” she says. “When you invited me for coffee to talk about the book, I thought you actually wanted to talk about the book.”
A waiter appears, introduces himself, and offers to get each of them a drink. He’s young and good-looking and Craig instantly hates him. He lets Ashley order first and is glad she asks for a glass of wine. He orders one, too. For a moment he considers suggesting they get a bottle, but doesn’t want to push his luck. When the waiter leaves, Ashley puts down the book and picks up the menu.
While she’s trying to decide what to order, Craig pretends he’s looking at his menu but really he’s looking at Ashley. She’s heavier than he remembers and has wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. Craig can tell that the excessive makeup around her eyes is less to accentuate them than it is to cover up dark circles underneath them.
He tries to remember life with Ashley—sleeping with her, kissing her, even just talking to her. Almost nothing comes back. He has vague sensations and memories, but after all this time they’re just fuzzy snapshots. He can barely reconcile those memories with the person sitting in front of him now. This could be a business lunch. He could be meeting her for the first time.