Though conversation was nearly nonexistent, Stu looked comfortable enough. He was the type who could make smoking seem like an all-engaging occupation. “What have you been up to, Stu?” Richard inquired. “You’re looking fit.”
“Feeling good. I’ve hooked my exercise bike up to a computer and now I get a reading of pulse, heart rate, and everything. I keep monthly printouts of my progress. Keeps you motivated.”
“I bet.” Richard wished Cheryl would haul her ass back in. How long could it take to make coffee?
Just as he considered calling her, she appeared carrying a tray of coffee mugs. She trudged back to the kitchen for the cake, then stood there flustered. Serving food already was rushing it. But as long as she had started, he tried to help. “Forks,” he prompted.
“Ahh.” Her shoulders sagged imperceptibly—except to Richard.
He watched her trudge back to the kitchen. Damn it, he wanted to scream after her, don’t act defeated. There is absolutely nothing to be defeated about. You have the stronger husband.
When they finished eating the cake, Stu handed Cheryl the package. “Something June made for you.”
She slit the tape, then slid off the wrapping paper with exaggerated care. Richard gave her an encouraging look. “Hurry up,” he said mischievously. What he meant was: show a tiny bit of enthusiasm if you possibly can. He thought she tried. When she lifted the wicker basket filled with silk purple flowers, she exclaimed, “Oh, how pretty.”
“Look underneath,” June instructed.
Cheryl pulled out a handful of handmade place mats. Just as she was about to mumble something appreciative, June gazed at the rose-covered seats on their living room chairs and wailed, “They don’t match. I should have called you about colors.”
“We always eat in the kitchen,” Richard bubbled. “They’ll look great in there.”
June’s flowers proved to be indestructible. Right after the Freedmans left, Cheryl hurled the basket against the refrigerator, but it landed handle-up with its cargo of spring blossoms undamaged.
“Why don’t you put them away? Give them to your mother when she moves from the motel.”
“I don’t need your advice.” Then she added, accusingly, “You didn’t have to be so lovey-dovey to her.”
“They were our guests. We were both polite.”
She did not answer. Instead she began to gather the plates and saucers. She rinsed them and dropped them into the dishwasher as if she wanted to rid the house of all evidences of Stu and June’s visit.
He watched her. When an appropriate moment came, he would try and comfort her.
Finally she noticed him. “I’m sorry,” she said coldly. “You need help getting undressed. Don’t you?”
“No hurry.”
She dried her hands, walked into the living room, pulled the comforter off the bed, and tossed it onto the couch. “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
She put her knee between his and hooked her right arm around him. They moved gracefully like a pair of figure skaters. Under her gentle guidance he stood and removed the shirt, then dropped onto the bed. But then she became another Vernice barking orders. “Lift up.” He raised his arm when she handed him a bedgown and put his hand on her breast.
“Richard,” she yelped. But she did not move away.
“Get yourself a gown.”
“What?” Finally she understood. “I don’t know. Maybe we should wait.” She gave him an anxious look before going into the downstairs bathroom to change. He didn’t know why she had to be so damn modest; they were married.
She appeared in the light blue gown. “Are you sure you’re able?”
He ignored her. “Sit here, right beside me. You take off my gown and I’ll take off yours.”
She did as she was told. But her hands were clammy, and it took a while to get the sash of his gown undone. He had no trouble with hers. It was as easy as unveiling a painting. But God, what a lot of woman. No wonder she was moody. What an abundance of hormones it must have taken to create these mounds and valleys. As he moved his hand down her body, her chest turned a flaming scarlet as if it, too, had been sunburnt. She remained silent, except for once whispering, “Oh, Richard. Oh, Richard”—as if he had given her an expensive, unexpected present.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Al pulled the boy in the plaid Levi’s shirt to the front of the bus. There were no empty spots, so he told a pony-tailed first-grader to move to the boy’s vacated seat. She tightened her grasp on a Strawberry Shortcake lunch box but did not move. He gently tugged on her free arm, then escorted her three rows back.
“Sit,” he commanded the boy. The kid slunk down, then pulled a wide-tooth comb from his pocket and proceeded to examine it. Damn him, Al thought. He could at least pretend to be scared. He gave the unobserving boy a stern look, then walked back to check on the boy who had been punched. The tubby, freckled victim was sitting hunched forward in the seat over the radiator with Al’s handkerchief wrapped around his nose.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
He knew better than to rely on what the boy said. Children always insisted they were all right. Several times, pale, quivering glassy-eyed kids had told him they were perfectly fine; moments later, they were puking into the aisle. Now he relied on his own instincts. He pulled the handkerchief away and examined the boy’s nose. It did not look broken and the bleeding had stopped. He patted the kid’s damp shoulder. “Sit back—and try to stay quiet,” he advised.
Returning to his own seat, he noticed the bully’s blue-plaid shirt was ripped on one shoulder. Had he done that when separating them? He hoped not. If he had, there would be hell to pay. The brat’s parents might sue. It was a crazy world. You weren’t even supposed to help out at a car accident anymore because somebody you assisted might sue you later.
The little girl with the lunch pail generally gave him a shy wave after she left the bus. But today she marched in front of it without even a sideways glance. He just couldn’t win with women anymore.
Even Richard’s dog wasn’t grateful. He always fed her as soon as he got home. But she never admitted to being hungry. She paid no attention as he spooned the canned food into the silver pie plate—though he knew she would gobble it up as soon as he went back in the house. Tonight he looked at Heinz’s pale, proud head and said, “Don’t act so offended. Your dinner is just as good as mine.”
It was true. All he ever ate were TV dinners and canned food. In some mysterious way Rose had robbed him of his cooking ability. Before they were married he had been an accomplished, if uninspired, cook. But now even a scrambled egg was beyond him, so he bought cans of hash, beef stew, and pork and beans, and large-portion TV dinners. His nightly couple of beers had turned into a couple of six-packs or better. He blamed Rose for that, too.
She should not have deserted him. Women were supposed to hang around when you were giving them the silent treatment, find out why, then make it up to you. To pack up right after his mother’s death had been unforgivable, but dragging him up to Cranberry Lake had been the worst thing she had ever done. Richard was his friend and needed him. His going away practically guaranteed that Richard would end up in a nursing home. The fact that everything was ending up differently didn’t matter.
He ripped the tab off his third can of beer and dumped a can of hash into a Teflon frying pan. The composition did resemble the dog’s dinner. He knew Heinz had finished her food by now. She just waited until he wasn’t watching. To admit hunger would require gratitude. Heinz wasn’t going to do that. She was sneaky—exactly the way Rose had been.
Rose never let him see her with wet hair or without makeup. Aside from some sex in the dark, he didn’t know her any better than he had known his second-grade teacher. Once in a while he would see her rubbing her neck and taking aspirin. She must have had arthritis, but she never admitted it to him. Wasn’t it the knowing of all those details that made a couple really married? Now when he caught a glimpse of her
at school, he thought what a stranger she was.
She had given nothing. Instead she had robbed him of his cooking ability and made living alone unpleasant for him. He smelled the burning hash and ran to the stove. He noticed, as he plopped it onto a plate, that the bottom edge had turned black and crusty.
Heinz interrupted his meal by whining at the front door. He opened the door and she streaked by him. “Got too cold for you?” he asked, just to hear his own voice. He had lived alone for most of his adult life, but now it felt peculiar. He flipped on the TV on his way back to the kitchen. Lately he just about always had the TV or radio on—trying to kid himself into believing he wasn’t alone.
He finished his hash, opened another beer, and thought about calling Rose. She ought to know the harm she had done. He stalked toward the phone, rehearsing what he would say. “You gave me nothing. You never let us be married. You …” He picked up the phone and dialed one digit. Then he remembered the few times he had attempted to discuss something important with her. She could never just listen. She always had to be doing something else—scrubbing the counter, flipping through the paper, or filling the teakettle. Nothing he could say was important enough to occupy her completely. Even if they started talking now, she would probably interrupt his train of thought and ask if she had any mail. He slammed the phone down. “Bitch,” he hissed.
The phone rang shrilly. He jumped guiltily and his heart began to pound. She had heard him! He must have communicated through distance in a way that was never possible when living in the same house with her. He picked up the phone, ready to hear Rose say, “How dare you call me that!”
But the voice on the phone was pleasant, deep, and definitely masculine. “Hi! How are you?”
“Okay.” It took him a moment to associate this strong, cheerful voice with Richard. Anticipating the purpose of the call, he said, “Heinz is a little homesick. But she’s eating well. I built her a pen so she can be out when I’m gone.”
“Good. How are you doing?”
“Okay.” Al realized he was feeling his fourth beer. He was then doubly glad he hadn’t phoned Rose. He would have stuttered and stammered and given her another reason to feel superior.
Richard became more specific. “What’s happening there?”
He tried to think of something noteworthy and/or harmless but couldn’t. “Nothing really. There was a fight on the bus. I guess I just wasn’t quick enough. One of the kids got a bloody nose. And I’m afraid the other kid’s parents will sue me for pulling him away.”
“That’s not likely.
“It could happen.”
“If it does, we’ll get you a good lawyer.”
The we comforted Al. It sounded as if he had some powerful force backing him. He had an urge to tell someone how he felt: tired, drunk, scared, and dangerously angry. “I don’t know, Rich, good buddy. Lately I’ve just been so pissed off I think I could really hurt somebody. Yesterday some woman pushed in front of me in the checkout line and for a second I thought I might haul off and belt her.”
“It’s grief that makes you feel that way. You should get more sleep.”
“Na. I sleep all the time. All I do anymore is sleep, watch TV, and eat.” Al blushed and silently cursed himself for saying such a stupid thing to Richard, who never left the house.
“That’s good,” Richard commiserated. “Sleep is very good for grief. It’s healing. In the hospital I slept all the time.”
Of course, he was grieving. Hadn’t he just lost a mother and a wife? Everything sounded so logical when Richard said it. He sometimes wondered if it was because Richard’s statements were wise or merely because they were uttered with so much confidence.
As soon as they bade each other good night, Al stripped and got into bed. His friend had told him sleep was what he needed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Cheryl sat in the back of the church. Going to Holy Communion was out of the question because she had not been to Mass since her wedding. But she was content to sit there and watch the people file by on their way to the altar.
Richard was spending the day with Al. They had left early, as if they had plans to go fishing or hunting. But she suspected they were just going to eat, drink beer, and play with the dog. And Richard would love it. Any variation in the daily routine pleased him.
He even enjoyed going to the mailbox. Yesterday he put the tiny key under his right thigh, then gave her a little wave as if he were off on a journey. Their box was four rows up in the metal structure, and Richard had to reach way up to fit the key in.
As he was pulling out the lone, white envelope, an elderly woman with rouged cheeks and a bright pink raincoat appeared. She pulled keys from her coat and gave Richard a flirtatious smile. “Don’t they always give the highest mailboxes to the shortest people?” she asked.
Richard more than agreed. He nodded, flashed her his sweet smile, and said, “That’s the truth.”
My God! Cheryl thought. Her husband was six foot three. How could he have been so pleasant to that tiny woman?
Organ music, combined with untrained, quavering voices, always left her feeling raw and emotional. She gazed up at the altar and watched as a gray-haired woman in a belted raincoat exactly like her mother’s received communion. When the woman turned, Cheryl realized it was her mother. Rose had let her hair go gray and had gotten it cut very short. But the effect wasn’t severe. In fact, Cheryl had never seen her mother look so feminine and fragile. She continued staring, trying to decide what besides the hair was different. Rose, with head bowed, entered a side pew, five in front of Cheryl’s. It was her posture, Cheryl decided, that had changed. Her ramrod straightness was gone. She wasn’t stoop-shouldered, but she no longer had the look of a woman who knew exactly where she was going.
Cheryl flipped through her missalette. She read the aftercommunion prayers, but her concentration wasn’t the greatest. She should have called. She should have told me where she was staying. I shouldn’t have learned it from Al. Then she slammed the missalette shut. Always when she thought of her mother, it was because of some omission: wasn’t there.… Didn’t love me enough. At least in church, she ought to focus on something positive.
Cheryl and Rose smiled at each other, but out of reverence for their surroundings and because of the thunderous organ recital, they did not speak until they had passed the marble holy water fonts and were on the concrete steps outside. Then Cheryl gazed up at the sky, which had turned grayish black. “It was a dumb day to walk to church,” she said.
“My car’s down the street. Can I give you a lift?”
Cheryl followed her mother to the Buick sedan. As she was settling herself on the velour seat, Rose leaned over and kissed her cheek. It happened so quickly that by the time Cheryl turned, Rose was starting the car.
“How’s Richard?”
“He’s fine,” Cheryl answered automatically. She didn’t wish to get dragged into an exchange of pleasantries. Instead she wanted to think about that kiss. Last night her husband had loved her and now her mother was saying she loved her, too. It was too much to comprehend. She felt her eyes water up again. It was her day for feeling sentimental and acting sappy.
Rain began to pelt against the windshield. “Lucky I found you or I would have gotten drenched.” Cheryl set her purse on the floor. The plastic car mats were immaculate—no pebbles, no dust, no sand. She bet one of the first things her mother had packed up when leaving Al was the cordless vacuum. She had such a phobia about dirt. Cheryl suddenly remembered her mother trying to scrub up oil and rust stains from the concrete driveway of their big house. No doubt it was George Farrell’s Cadillac rather than visitors’ cars that had leaked oil and rusted the driveway. It occurred to her that her father, who was always so neat at his office, used to create stains and clutter on purpose at home.
“You must be in a hurry to get back to Richard.”
“No. He’s not home.” Cheryl paused, not sure if she should mention Al. But she decided she had no
choice. Richard didn’t have that many friends. “He’s off with Al. That’s why I don’t have a car. Al borrowed it. It’s too hard for Richard to get in and out of the truck.”
Rose appeared to be only half listening. “If you don’t have plans,” she asked hesitantly, “would you like to go to the Dairy Bar with me for breakfast?”
Cheryl calculated how much money she had in her purse. She had cashed Richard’s monthly Social Security check on Friday. There was money for something fancier than a diner or the Dairy Bar.
Rose took her silence for a refusal. “I bet you want to go home and just be by yourself for a while.”
“No. No.” Cheryl shook her head vigorously. She felt like celebrating. “Let’s go to the Inn. My treat.”
“That’s pretty steep.”
“I didn’t do anything for Mother’s Day. Let’s make up for it today.” She also wanted to make up for the impersonal, expensive guest soaps she had used as gifts for her mother over the last decade.
“Okay. I’m getting sick of the Dairy. Maybe it’s the low ceilings, but the people in there always sound as if they’re screaming at one another.”
It was Cheryl’s first visit to the Squantz Pond Inn, a favorite of New Yorkers. To her surprise the place seemed absolutely decrepit. She took her mother’s arm as they climbed the rickety front steps. Inside the humped gleaming hardwood floors struck her as treacherous and she kept a tight hold on Rose. The gray hair didn’t exactly make Rose look old, but it did give her a fragile quality. Rose had always been thin, but now she looked as if her bones might be made of glass.
Inside, a blackboard listed the brunch specials, though not the prices. The two women shed their raincoats and were led to a table in front of a nonfunctioning fireplace.
Rose fingered the peach tablecloth and glanced at the single white rose in the silver vase. “Gosh,” she said, “this is posh.”
The Way It Happens In Novels Page 13