by Alon Preiss
Later that night, lying in bed, the waves roaring outside. His arm around her, Harriet falling asleep the way she always used to, in little starts and stops, hesitantly.
“Sometimes I imagine things,” he said, and she said nothing back, and he knew that she was asleep.
Somewhere out on the ocean, a boat passed the island, the buzz of its motor skimming over the water’s surface.
He started whispering to her, so quietly he couldn’t hear himself speak, his words little tickles of air on her skin. This wasn’t his fantasy — “cheating” on Alice, having an affair, and whatnot. Doing something bad to someone who’d been so good to him. He began spilling out his real dream, a reverie of a world in which he and Alice had never met, the year 2000, or 2010, he and Harriet having lived their lives out together, a world of absolute familiarity, of utter boredom, smiling boredom. Each of them knowing the other’s every ache. He imagined their heads filled up with memories of years spent together — how they had celebrated New Year’s Eve in 1970, and 1980, and at the turn of the Millennium, and so on — how they’d gone to a party in 1974 at the home of friends they’d met in 1969, with whom they’d lost touch and whom they hadn’t seen since 1983; about that big fight they’d had in 1978 that they would both never forget, about their first child’s graduation from high school and college, and the photographs lining their front hallway, each one with a little, boring memory attached. He looked over at Harriet’s face, muscles relaxed, flaccid, sinking down into the pillow, her mouth slightly open. An almost invisible line of spittle stretching from her upper to her lower lip, her mouth curled into a caricature of utter stupidity. A silly sight, but Maurow reveled in the humanity her sleep revealed. His realization, so many decades ago, that Harriet was imperfect created in him the hope that she might someday love, deep in her heart, the flawed and weak man he was then and which, he was certain, he would always be. “You are a dream come to life, Harriet,” he whispered, almost inaudibly, and then a few more sentences of impossible romantic clichés, and she smiled, and she stretched, and then she made some intensely unpleasant guttural noises, sounds that he had not recalled since their divorce, and which now made him smile fondly and nostalgically. Harriet flipped over, and she turned her back to her first husband.
Almost asleep, Maurow remembered a day, he and Harriet in their station wagon, and a little boy in the back seat, and a picnic they took up in the mountains on a warm spring afternoon. He remembered the drive up, and looking in the rear view mirror at the little boy, tuft of hair just visible in front of the rear window, and he even remembered jokes told during the day. He remembered the food they brought: fried chicken (his recipe) and potato salad (her recipe), corn on the cob (messy to eat) and cookies and orange juice and a little bit of white wine for Harriet and him. When the day began darkening, they couldn’t believe that hours had passed. Most of all, he could remember being in bed with Harriet at night, and a conversation they’d had, Harriet snuggled close to him. This, young Blake had said, was a perfect day, and it worries me, to have the perfect day, and his wife had just laughed at him and told him that he worried too much, that she’d never heard of anyone else worrying about being too happy, and that there would be other perfect days, and he’d said that he supposed that she was right. She’d sounded so certain that she’d made Blake feel better. He fell asleep.
At five in the morning, the sound of a boat very nearby roused Maurow from sleep. At first the noise just annoyed him. Then, the unexpected nature of the visit worried him, even frightened him. He pulled on a pair of pants, grabbed his gun, came out of the bedroom and looked out the window at the young man tying his boat up to the dock. Maurow did not recognize the man, but he thought he recognized the boat.
“Who is it?” Maurow called.
“I am Carlo’s son,” the young man said. In the porch light, he did resemble the older man.
“You’re Claudio,” Maurow said.
“Yeah. I have an urgent message for Mrs. Pointer.”
He held an envelope in his left hand.
Harriet came out of the bedroom, tying her robe. In a worried voice: “Tell him to wait.”
Reading the message, her face first showed relief, then anger. She shot Maurow an accusatory glance. To the young man: “Wait a moment. I need a ride back to land.” She turned and walked in the direction of the bedroom. “I need to dress and pack up a couple of things. I’ll be back in five minutes.” Maurow shrugged with a little embarrassment in Claudio’s direction, turned and followed Harriet into the room.
Harriet was throwing her clothes into her bag roughly, making a little smack noise as each item hit leather.
“It doesn’t seem to be something sad,” Maurow said. “It’s something that makes you mad. Something that makes you mad at me.”
“Are you trying to be funny?” Harriet asked. “Why don’t you just ask me what it is?”
“Why don’t you just tell me what it is?” Maurow asked.
“Why don’t you just ask me?”
“I thought I just did.” Though Maurow didn’t raise his voice, Harriet grew louder and more irritated with each sentence.
“You didn’t ask me what was wrong,” Harriet explained angrily. “You asked me why I wasn’t already telling you what was wrong.” She hit the wall with her fist. “Are you trying to get my goat, Maurow?”
“Why don’t you wait until morning?” Maurow said. “We can go back together. Wash up. Have some food. Whatever it is, you know. Please don’t run off.”
Holding the message crumpled in her right hand, Harriet shouted, “Your little friend Carly Barrows is backing out on our deal. We’ve held off on burning her, and now she’s backed out while I’m down here with you. I suppose she’s spending this breather breast-feeding orphans in Guatemala.”
Grimacing, Maurow said softly, “I knew nothing about this, Harriet. You must realize that.”
The couple came out of the bedroom together, and Maurow put a hand on Claudio’s shoulder. “We’re getting a breath of air. Give us ten minutes, okay?” He slipped a twenty into the young man’s hand. “Sorry for all the trouble. Waking up in the middle of the night, and all of that.”
“You’re angry,” he said, “and I’m not angry. Let me explain why the roles should be reversed.” Just within a thin stretch of forest, they sat together on a small stone bench.
“Go ahead.”
“Carly Barrows is a crazed, foul-mouthed person,” Maurow explained. “Drunk most of the time, and unbearably sanctimoniously sober the rest of the time. Greedy, selfish, needy. All of that. Desperately unlovable and desperate to be loved.”
“Okay. So what? Hurry up. I’ll miss my boat.”
“You won’t miss your boat,” Maurow scoffed. “Listen. Number one: I was quite happily living without any contact with Carly Barrows. I was the big shot who recruited her to make her feel important. After that, I avoided phone calls with her. The only reason I was involved in these negotiations was that a pushy lawyer demanded that I be involved. Demanded. So you pulled the volcanic Carly Barrows into my tranquil little life. Number two: I have just been stabbed in the back by Carly Barrows. She made this decision without lifting a finger to tell me first. My idea to lure Carly Barrows to my company will be one of the disasters of the decade. Number three: After being stabbed in the back by someone I’ve bent over backwards to help, my ex-wife accuses me of some sort of skillful intrigue, luring her to a tropical island as a ruse to get her out of town. You know I wouldn’t do that. It’s not even worth my energy, Harriet.”
“That’s not what I was saying,” Harriet insisted, not even sure herself. “I am angry because you don’t understand the importance of this issue. I am angry because I thought you of all people would be my ally on this.” Clenching her hands together: “And I am angry because our government killed babies in Vietnam, and you didn’t take to the streets.”
“You are making yourself angry at me, trying to invent scenarios to replace the one that yo
u know to be true but that you find unbelievable: that we are here together because we want to be here together.”
“Maurow,” Harriet said. “Look. This has thrown a wrench into everything. I have so much work to do now. Your little friend has just — “
“Don’t change the subject,” he continued. “You said: If Blake Maurow is not the point man on this, the union — or the human rights group, or whatever it’s pretending to be — will crush Carly without pausing to breathe. You pulled me into this. You put yourself next to me. You have to ask yourself why.”
Harriet Pointer stood up. “God only knows,” she sighed. “I wanted you in negotiations because I thought I could get a good deal from you. I know the way you think. I know how to make you do what I want you to do. But it wasn’t worth it.”
She moved in the direction of the house. Maurow quickly stood up and blocked her way. He didn’t know what to say, so he said silly things. He told her that she couldn’t leave until she stopped lying to herself. He repeated some psychological stuff that he’d heard on the radio one day, sitting on the back seat of some car, on the way to work. It made Harriet sneer. Harriet had worked on her sneer over the last few decades, apparently. “You sneer at that,” he said stupidly, “because you know that it’s true.” Then he shot some personal insults at her, observations meant to be honest and revealing and maybe shake her free from her illusions, things about her age, about being all alone in life, about refusing to admit how she really feels, about refusing to admit this and that, and some other things, and he could see true rage boiling up in her eyes.
Maurow was really going, insult quickly following insult mixed in with tender sentiments that were nearly lost in the avalanche of bile. His tongue was falling all over itself, and each syllable spilled out of his mouth at least twice.
Then Harriet hauled off and punched him. Right in the jaw. His head jerked to the side, and he lost his balance, smashing against the stone bench. He flipped backwards, his legs shooting straight up, and he crashed with a muffled thud on the ground, looked up and saw Harriet hurling herself through the air. He shut his eyes tightly. She landed on his chest, pinning him solidly against the rocks and dirt.
“Why did you say those things!” she shouted. “How could you say those things?”
With a burst of energy, Maurow flipped, and came back down on top of his ex-wife, his knees against Harriet’s upper legs, his hands holding her arms in place. Harriet was breathing heavily. He was so close to her red face. She smelled like anger and warm sweat.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked. “I’ll scream, and Claudio will come, and you’ll be arrested.”
She smiled at this idea.
“Claudio will do nothing to me,” he said. “He won’t help you. He and Carlo are loyal to me. I can keep you here forever if I want.”
This statement had seemed sensible to him in his head — threatening, and angry and logical. But once the words were in the air, he could feel the blood rushing to his face. Harriet stared at him for a moment, baffled, but then she just laughed, and laughed some more, staring up into his eyes.
“What did you say, McGill?” she asked.
“Umm,” Maurow stammered.
“You thinking of keeping me here prisoner? A sex slave, or something? And Claudio will keep mum?”
“Hypothetically, I mean.”
He got up. Sat back down on the bench.
“I’m surprised that you hit me,” he said quietly.
She walked back to the house. Maurow just sat there on the cold stone bench. A while later, he saw Harriet and Claudio walking across the beach, the young man carrying her bag. Then, when they were out of view, he heard a motor catch, growl as the boat cut into the waves, then fade away into the night.
Sitting with Claudio in the boat, Harriet watched the island grow smaller, the lights on the home she had just shared with Blake Maurow grow dimmer. Then the blackness of the night snuffed everything out, and they were alone together in a dark void.
“Stop,” she said suddenly. “I want to go back.”
“What?”
“I want to go back to him,” Harriet Pointer said.
Claudio idled the boat’s engine.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She waited. Water lapped against the boat. A patch of fog lifted, and the lights of the mainland glowed on the shore. She bit her lower lip.
“No,” she whispered. “Continue on. I’m sorry.”
“Do you still have the picture that you took of my penis?” Ewell asked.
Alice shook her head. “No. Don’t be offended. I got married. I smiled at the memory, and I ripped it up and threw it away.”
“Oh.”
His face fell; an abashed mope. Alice actually felt guilty, as though she should have kept the picture, cherished some little happy moment of their week together.
“Sorry,” she said. “I should have sent you a copy. It turned out good.”
“Oh well,” he shrugged. “What would I have done with a copy of that? I can look at my own little fellow whenever I want.”
“Okay. Lost to the ages, I suppose.”
He didn’t understand what this meant.
“Let me ask you something else,” he went on. “The police detective in Murder on the Web, the lanky blond gent with a laugh that is, as you wrote it, ‘so exuberant and startling that it scared away city-hardened pigeons.’ ” Reciting her writing word-for-word as though it were a Shakespeare sonnet. “Is he me?” Ewell asked. “I mean, a character based on me?”
Alice tried to think. “I can’t remember anymore. He’s taken on a life of his own, and I can’t remember what went through my mind when I first created him. If it makes you happy to be a character in literature then, sure, go ahead and believe that he’s based on you.”
They walked along together in silence, Eden hovering a few yards behind.
“Let’s sit,” Ewell said.
“Okay,” Alice said, and she dropped to the sand with an aggressive lack of enthusiasm.
“We can sit down and stare at the water,” Ewell said, “like the water with the peacocks on the other side, all walking around, on a cool ocean night like this one.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She meant her tone of voice to border on disgust. Ewell had interrupted what seemed to be shaping up into an important moment in her first and, she presumed, probably her only lesbian love affair, and that sort of thing doesn’t come along very often.
“Peacocks!” Ewell shouted. “We watched peacocks! They were beautiful. Don’t you remember?” He could not and did not believe that she had forgotten the peacocks.
“Okay,” Alice said. “If it means a lot to you, I’ll say I remember.”
Ewell tried to smile. His teeth looked very big and threatening in the dark. “I’m so happy to see you again, Alice!” he said.
“Well, okay,” Alice said.
“I’ve brought you something.”
“I don’t want you to give me anything.” She wondered what it could be. Some article of clothing she had left behind, some little nostalgic knick-knack she had long forgotten. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cassette tape.
“I’ve been collecting different versions of Frank Mills,” he said. “Versions in all different languages. All different styles. I’ve taped them for you.”
She didn’t look at him. “I don’t want it. That’s not my favorite song anymore.”
He hesitated. “Here,” he said, and he prodded her with the tape.
“I don’t want it. I won’t take it.”
“I’ll just put it here.” He put one hand on her left leg to steady himself, and he reached over her and dropped it on the sand beside her.
“I won’t take it,” Alice said. “I’ll leave it here when we go.”
“Then you can come back tomorrow and get it, after I’ve gone.”
“I won’t want to.”
“If you change your mi
nd,” he said, “it will be sitting here on the sand, waiting for you.”
“I won’t change my mind,” Alice insisted.
“If you unexpectedly change your mind,” Ewell suggested.
A gust of wind whistled over the ocean. Alice remained silent. Ewell would have the last word whatever she did.
“Alice,” Ewell said. “I have something to say that I’ve waited a long time to tell you.”
She thought she knew what he was going to say.
“Stop,” she said. “Don’t say anything to me that’s important to you at all, okay, Ewell?”
“Alice, you must hear me out.”
“And I am telling you again. Stop right now. I’ll talk about how I’ve been. I’ll reminisce about the peacocks. I’ll even fake a polite smile. That’s the deal. But I won’t listen to you tell me something that you’ve waited a long time to say.”
He tried again to stammer out his important statement, but again Alice stopped him. Once more he spoke, and protested, but she held up a hand, and when he tried to talk anyway she shouted him down.
Ewell sat there on the sand, not moving, dejected.
“Why is it,” he asked, “that you’re so different?”
Alice tried to talk slowly, to use simple words, so that he could understand her, but he just gazed at her, uncomprehending.
“Okay, here’s an analogy,” she said. “You know what I mean by that? A thing that isn’t the exact thing, but is sort of like the thing. So if you understand the other thing, you’ll understand this thing. That’s an analogy.”
“I know what an analogy is.”
“If this was television,” she told Ewell, “there would be some sort of neat explanation for this. You’d jinx me. Right? It would be really funny, actually. Every time you were around, I’d fall in a manhole, or get caught in the rain and slip in the mud, or whatever. So I’d tell you that you jinx me, and we can’t be together. I think I saw that on Phyllis one time, when I was a kid. Back in the 1970s, did you get Phyllis in your country?”