Next To You

by Sandra Antonelli

  ‘Nothing. And I have nothing to say to you either.’ She cut across his path and stepped off the curb, hurrying between parked cars to cross the street.

  Alex yanked her backwards. She slammed against a parked SUV instead of being struck by the oncoming Ford she had failed to see.

  The book plunged to the ground. One red spiked heel flew off and into the gutter. Her purse cushioned the impact when her head clunked into the SUV’s bumper, her knee cracking into the pavement, splitting the skin into a ruby-welling crescent moon.

  ‘You trying to kill yourself again, Caroline?’ Alex picked up her shoe and moved to haul her upright.

  She slapped his hands away. ‘Get the hell away from me.’ She stood and snatched the shoe from his grasp. Her right stocking dropped down around her ankle. She made to pull it up and whipped the shoe at his head.

  Alex caught it. ‘I’m trying to be nice! Jesus, you nearly got creamed by a car! I think yo—’

  Alex lurched. Something a heavy had struck him in the back. He turned. A teenage boy with braces wound up his backpack to swing it again. A plump woman gripped an umbrella, and threatened to use it like a policeman’s club as she shouted, ‘You piece of shit, you leave her alone!’

  ‘Hey, hey, hey! Now wait a minute here. I was only talking to her! I never touched her. I didn’t lay a finger on her,’ he backed away, ‘I was only trying to tell her something …’

  The boy and his mother inserted themselves between her and Alex, and Caroline hollered, ‘So tell me and go away!’

  Grim-faced, Alex took a breath. ‘My dad died.’

  Caroline’s hands went stiff and clammy. ‘What?’

  ‘My dad died. Did you know that?’

  ‘When?’ she said, a chill rushing down her neck and spine, all the way to her hips.

  ‘Eight months ago.’

  She was cold all over. ‘Is that what you’ve wanted to tell me all this time?’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t sure if you knew.’ He handed her the shoe. ‘He left a bequest to you in his will. The lawyer needs to contact you about it. I don’t know your address or phone number.’

  Caroline stared at him, not wanting to believe, but believing. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about your father,’ she muttered, and moved between the boy and his mother to grab her shoe. Hobbling, she took off the other slingback. Strings of blood twined around her shin and ankle. She trudged off barefoot, leaving him standing in the street with the lady, the boy and the book she hadn’t finished reading.

  Frigid desolation seeped in, rattling her bones as she walked. William made jokes about how he’d been feeling old. She understood that feeling now. The news that Gus has died kicked her into feeble, prehistorically decrepit, strung with cobwebs like the old lady in Great Expectations.

  Only yesterday, Uncle Reg had called Gus a ‘poor bastard,’ and he’d meant that in a kind way, because her father-in-law had always been a kind-hearted man. While Drew was dying, her relationship with Gus had remained close, even affectionate, but his hateful, pyroclastic wife incinerated him into a pall of smoke not unlike the cancerous cloud constantly encircling her head.

  Caroline saw Gus fade, saw him grow thin. He’d called her and wrote to her a few times. There had been the clandestine visits he’d made while she was at Linden Oaks, the times he’d come with her uncle. Gus had tried to give her money and joked that they could take off together. Then, four months before her release, he’d stopped visiting, stopped calling, stopped writing. Uncle Reg had no explanation; he said Gus stopped calling him too.

  Now she knew why.

  Hollow, she let herself into the building’s small foyer and ignored the mail poking out of the top of her postbox. She opened the internal staircase door and limped upstairs, knee throbbing.

  William’s door was ajar. She heard him singing about ‘Sundown’ creeping around on the back stairs. She heard Batman too, scratching and whining on the other side of the door she couldn’t get open. She wrestled with the lock, her stiff, clammy hands unable to turn key.

  ‘I thought I heard you come upstairs.’

  He was so quiet. Always so quiet. She stopped fumbling with the lock and exhaled.

  ‘Caroline?’ he said. ‘What happened to your stocking?’ His voice was deep and soft, and she turned to him. William looked her up and down, from the stocking wilted around her ankle, her leg smeared with blood, to her frozen face. ‘Ouch. Having a bad day, huh? How about we clean that up?’

  Batman yipped and scratched on the other side of the door. Caroline ignored him. She took a single step forward and rested her cheek on William’s wide chest. She slipped her arms inside his jacket, clutched his waist, and held on to the one solid thing she knew would keep her buoyant.

  Will didn’t hesitate. His fingers moved over her hair and down her back, and he swayed gently as he held her. She was cold. Her face, her back, her hands all pressed that cold through his shirt. They stood that way for a few minutes, not speaking until her popsicle hands warmed against his body. ‘Come on, let’s go inside,’ he said.

  The keys were in the lock where she’d left them. Will unlocked the door and pushed it open. Batman rushed out, his head lowered, ears flattened, growling, baring his teeth.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Get inside, Batman!’ Caroline grumbled.

  The dog ran inside, spinning in anxious circles, whimpering and yawning.

  Will chuckled softly. ‘Dogs are the best barometers for moods, aren’t they? I think he knew you were hurt before I did. He was out on the terrace going a little berserk. He kept going in and out of your apartment, barking like mad. I guess that’s how I knew something was up and came out here. Where’s your antiseptic?’

  ‘It’s okay, William. I can do it.’

  ‘But you’re going to let me do it, aren’t you?’

  ‘Okay. The stuff’s in the bathroom.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The bedroom.’

  Will followed her down the hallway, through the dining room, into her bedroom. They moved around the edge of her double bed. The wedding picture he saw once in the living room sat on the bedside table. Shitty Alex smiled out at them from the silver frame. Will wanted to accidentally knock the photo off the nightstand.

  And step on it.

  Instead, he went into the bathroom after her, and switched on the overhead light. A sunny glare bounced off the white tiles, the brightness washing out features in the room. Instantly, his vision diminished and he squinted in discomfort, his hand covering his eyes. ‘Caroline, it’s too bright in here for me to see.’

  ‘You put on the heat lamps.’ She reached around him, flipped off the twin suns, and turned on the smaller, less painful, less vision-interfering row of soft lights above the pedestal sink.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and he waited for his sight to return to normal. ‘Antiseptic?’

  She sat on the toilet lid. ‘The stuff’s in the cabinet above the sink.’

  Will opened the mirrored medicine chest, found a box of bandages, cotton balls, and a nearly empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide. ‘I’ve got more of this in my medicine cabinet if we need it. How did you bang your knee?’ He found a clean pink towel hanging on a rail beside the sink. Once he’d moistened the towel with water, he handed her peroxide and crouched down to wipe her knee with the damp cloth.

  ‘Alex … Alex was …’

  ‘Alex did this?’ Will like to think he was a master at keeping emotions in check. He rarely lost his temper or raised his voice, but this injury, an injury caused by a violent not quite yet ex-husband, raised a spiny kind of provocation that twisted in his gut. A sharp blast of disgust escaped through his nose. ‘Did he do this to you?’

  ‘No. I fell.’

  ‘You fell?’ Isn’t that the excuse you typically hear to cover abuse? I ran into the door, I tripped and fell. Damn him.

  ‘He told me my father-in-law had died. He died. Gus is dead and I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I loved Gus. He was a good man
. I was so upset I almost walked out into traffic. If Alex hadn’t grabbed me … Poor Gus.’ Tears ballooned in her eyes and she swiped hard, angrily, at the ones that sat on her lower lashes.

  ‘Alex.’ Will felt absolutely useless. He wanted to point out all the reasons she should not be with Alex. He wanted to ask her if she had ever read or even looked at the all the pamphlets on domestic abuse he’d been shoving in her mailbox. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t healthy to hold on. He wanted to tell her to give up and start over again because she deserved better, more, something extraordinary instead of the humiliation and malicious torment that kept her chained to a scraggly post of sinewy flesh that passed for a man.

  But he didn’t.

  She was distressed enough, and didn’t need to hear a presentation of dire facts when she was already upset. Will suppressed his ire, cloaked it behind his expert equanimity, and said, ‘Would you like me to call your uncle?’ He put his hand on her shoulder.

  Nose red, but dry-eyed, Caroline looked at him. ‘I’m so glad you live next door.’

  ‘Me too. Shall I call Reg?’ He lifted his hand and rose.

  ‘No. He and Gus got pretty chummy after my parents died. I wonder why he didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t know either.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t.’

  She took the cloth from him, wiped her face, and moved to sit on the side of the bathtub. She began to pull off her stockings. The right elasticized stocking came off easily because it was bunched up around her ankle. The left stocking wasn’t so cooperative. Fine nylon fibers were caked with coagulated blood and embedded in her skin. Caroline hissed through her teeth as she pulled at them, ‘That fucking hurts.’

  Will took a seat on the toilet lid as she swore. Was it immoral to punish someone like Alex with the same kind of abuse he meted out?

  She ran water from the bathtub faucet over her knee, rinsing away the messiest, stickiest bits, yet the nylon threads remained implanted in her flesh. ‘The nylon’s still stuck in there,’ she said. ‘Can you help me? There are tweezers in the cabinet if you need them, which I think you will.’ She stood inside the bath and hitched up her dress, resting her foot on the edge of the tub.

  Will got the tweezers and tried to help. He put on his glasses. He was as gentle as possible. His fingers brushed along the warm skin of her knee and thigh, but quite suddenly, the caged animal aggression that had mustered over Alex turned into something much more pleasant, and wholly inappropriate.

  He lifted his hands away.

  ‘I’ve got to be honest here,’ he said. ‘I’m no good at this. My eyes don’t work well at this distance. I can’t see this way. I can’t really discern the fine image to pull threads out.’ He wasn’t lying. He lacked visual acuity at close range, even with reading glasses, because he couldn’t focus this close. If he’d cocked his head and looked slightly sideways, like when he was reading, what he was gazing at would come into view, the way graphs or columns of numbers did when he moved them around. He couldn’t exactly turn Caroline the way he did a book or newspaper. He couldn’t possibly pull the threads from her skin.

  Instead, he smiled at her gently, said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and yanked the nylon down in one clean jerk.

  She let out a yelp, and Batman tore into the bathroom. The dog launched himself into Will’s calves, biting the back of his pants, nipping his ankles.

  Twenty minutes later, Will canceled dinner with Yvonne.

  Thirty minutes later, the opening credits of the Tom Hanks feature The Green Mile began to play on his TV screen. Will’s jacket lay draped over the arm of the couch, his shoes on the rug where Batman laid curled up. Will took his seat on the L-shaped sofa, stretching out his legs. The icepack crinkled on Caroline’s knee when she moved to lean against his shoulder.

  ‘Did you ever read this book?’ he said, thinking he needed an icepack to alleviate the scorched fury that remained in his chest.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I don’t mind reading Stephen King, but I like this movie more than the book. Usually it’s the other way around. This time, I think because of Tom Hanks, I prefer the movie.’

  Will took some popcorn and then passed her the bowl. ‘Tom’s always so good, isn’t he? Even in his early TV days on Bosom Buddies, and early movies like Bachelor Party, you could see he was going to be amazing in a Henry Fonda-Jimmy Stewart way.’

  ‘I think Tom is sort of like the modern day version of Jimmy Stewart.’ Caroline grabbed a handful of popcorn. ‘He’s the believable everyman faced with dour situations, like in Castaway, or protecting his child in The Road to Perdition. Kevin Costner is kind of like that too sometimes. He plays the stand up kind of guy in love his wife, like in the Untouchables and Field of Dreams. He has all this integrity, a very Tom Hanks trait, except Kevin always got the sex scenes that poor Tom never did.’

  ‘Tom and Bonnie Hunt do it in this movie.’

  ‘Yes, okay, we hear them, but we don’t get to see Tom in action. We don’t see naked Tom like we see naked Kevin.’ She crunched a few kernels and said, ‘We never get Hanks’ ass. Tom never really makes out with Meg Ryan, not even in Joe Versus the Volcano. He’s not allowed to get with any of his female co-stars on screen. But you put Kevin Costner in the same role instead of Tom, he’d say something sincere and Bull Durham-ish about kissing for three days, there’d be a shot of perfectly toned Costner ass while he controls his desire and satisfies his girlfriend first.’

  ‘Isn’t that what real men do?’

  She launched a piece of popcorn at him. He caught it in his mouth and took another handful from the bowl on her lap.

  Laughing, she said, ‘Even with that kind of Costner sexual consideration, I prefer Tom. I saw this interview once where Pierce Brosnan was talking about James Bond, saying women would choose to sleep with James Bond instead of Tom Hanks, but you know what? If I had to choose, out of the three of them, Tom, Kevin, or James Bond, I’d go for Tom. I like that ordinary, realistic, average quality he has. I find that comfort in his own skin quality very sexy.’

  ‘I think Mr. Hanks would be thrilled to know you’d like to sleep with him.’

  Mouth pursed, Caroline looked at him, one eye narrowed. ‘Is this where you tell me you know Tom Hanks from your porno movie-making days??’

  ‘Well …’ Will raised an eyebrow. ‘No, but I wrote him a letter when he was making The Da Vinci Code.’

  She snorted. ‘Oh, Frosty, you’re hilarious.’

  ‘Did you know I’m also comfortable in my own skin?’

  ‘That’s because it fits you so well.’

  ‘Mm-hm, all over like a big white glove.’

  ‘Why did you write to Tom Hanks?’

  ‘What’s the last movie you can recall seeing where there’s an albino character?’

  ‘Well, there was that seventies porno movie my friend of mine did …’

  He threw popcorn at her. The dog gobbled it as soon as it rolled off the sofa.

  ‘I guess,’ she said, ‘I’d say that Goldie Hawn/Chevy Chase movie Foul Play and … The Da Vinci Code. Tom was in The Da Vinci Code.’

  ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ he nodded, and grabbed more popcorn. ‘A dissemination of all sorts of myths and a fine example of how the stereotype is perpetuated. In either of those movies, were my kind portrayed as a James Bond type or even in an appropriately Tom Hanks or Kevin Costner everyman fashion?’

  ‘No. The albinos were the bad guys.’

  The popcorn paused at his lips, his frown deep. ‘That’s what they do. We all have red eyes that glow with evil, pasty skin that looks dead, and we’re constantly trying to kill someone. We’re always the bad guys.’

  ‘The albino cop in The Heat was a good guy.’

  ‘Okay, we’re usually always the bad guy.’

  ‘And you’re always the good guy, William.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve always wanted to embrace my inner James Bond, but I should really emb
race my inner Tom Hanks.’

  Caroline set the popcorn aside, shifted, and put her arm around Will’s neck, hugging him. ‘Thanks for being my Tom Hanks good guy good friend and putting up with my snot all over your James Bondian Tom Ford suit today.’

  With a shrug, he hugged her back. When she settled against his shoulder again he chuckled. ‘You know, Tom feels up Elizabeth Perkins in Big. His hands are all over her boobs. The camera lingers on Tom’s amazement over feeling her breasts.’

  ‘And in this movie Tom gets felt up by Michael Clarke Duncan.’

  ‘You gotta spoil my boob-feeling image fun, don’t you?’

  Caroline chuckled, and turned to watch the screen. Will nodded off just after Tom Hanks’ character had his balls in Michael Clarke Duncan’s character’s hand.

  The TV screen was blue when he opened his eyes. Slouched comfortably against the back corner of the couch, Will had pillow under his neck, his legs stretched out along one length. Caroline rested the other direction.

  She was fast asleep with her head on his stomach.

  Will unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, loosened his tie, pulling it free as he collected his racing, competing thoughts about her marital circumstances—and present position. He wanted to slip alongside her and have the glory of her body resting against his, but his only option was clear. He took a breath, prepared to do the proper gentlemanly thing, and began to ease himself from her sleeping form.

  Batman’s head snapped up. From the rug in front of the TV, ears sharply pointed, the dog looked at Will, quizzically, until Caroline rolled sideways, her nose nestling into Will’s armpit.

  The dog settled his face back onto his paws, and Will decided he wasn’t going anywhere. He was comfortable right where he was. So was Caroline, and he liked having her there.

  He was also hedonistic … and lazy, too lazy to get up and go through the hassle of undressing and, well, too lazy to move to another room.

  But mostly, he was too lazy to stop enjoying sleeping beside a woman with soft perfume and soft hair.

  Will was well in touch with his hedonism, but lazy … he’d never realized exactly how lazy he was. He’d told himself he was comfortable, told himself he liked uncomplicated, but he finally worked out that his comfort and the lack of complication in his life added up to nothing more than his being lazy.