Missing Mr. Wingfield

by E. Christopher Clark

  It was, Tracy happened to know, one of Michael’s favorite places on earth.

  The front of the campus presented to bustling South Main Street, and to the rest of the world beyond it, the façade of academia, a trio of harmonious buildings built in the classical style, all Doric columns and red brick, each of them flanking the “sacred sod” of the front lawn, on which you were not to tread until your commencement.

  But the rest of the campus, beginning with the modern-looking library, all windows and gray concrete, stood in stark contrast. It was the many faces of Kimball that Michael loved, however: so much history, and yet so much of the here and now.

  As the story went, they had crossed half of the campus before his mind wandered back to the girl at his side. Jenna was so bundled up that only a sliver of her face was visible, just between where her purple wool hat ended and her thick green scarf began. Her enormous winter coat added so much bulk to her frame that she more resembled a middle linebacker than a prima ballerina.

  He smirked behind his own scarf. She would have beaten him silly had he made that comparison out loud. She was not, she told people early and often, when discussions of her dancing came up, a ballerina. She danced modern, and though she’d never say it out loud, her eyes would always add, “and please don’t make that mistake again.”

  She didn’t have the body of a ballerina, she was quick to point out. Her shoulders were too broad, her bust too big, her hips far too wide. Her legs were long enough, sure, but her neck was too short. And her technique—well, that was a whole other story. Her turnout had always been poor, her flexibility was mediocre at best, she couldn’t do pointe at all, and she had the worst feet in the entire company. Once, when they’d been sitting around the living room floor of their townhouse, she’d caught Michael flexing his foot and simply marveled at his form, his arches, the way his first three toes were almost all the same length. “I’d kill for your feet,” she’d said.

  But he’d always taken her criticisms of her body the same way others seemed to take his criticisms of his paintings—they were both too close to their art to have any kind of perspective on it. Her body, in his humble opinion, was quite alright. She was what his grandfather would have called a “substantial” woman, not nearly as substantial as Grammy, but certainly a “healthy young lady,” a compliment Grampy could never have paid to Robin.

  As they passed over the footbridge, Michael cast a sideways glance over the railing down at the icy pond. The first time he’d brought Robin up here, to show her around, he’d tried to convince her to come up to school here instead of down in Boston, at Berklee. She’d be the star of the program, rather than just another voice in a chorus, just another guitarist in a school full of them. And she’d smiled at that, in that way that she always did, like his mother did whenever his father said something stupid, a sort “Yes, dear” smirk that was meant to end the conversation. But he, like his father, was never good at picking up on that particular brand of smile, at least not until reflecting on it later, and he’d asked her, as they’d walked over this same bridge: “Berklee doesn’t have a pond in the middle of campus now, does it?” And she’d nodded along, saying “No, I guess not.” But Berklee is where she went anyway.

  He hadn’t said anything after that, but he’d wanted to. And what he would’ve said, what he said to her in his head, planning the conversation that he would have with her if the opportunity ever presented itself again, was, “Look around you! Listen! Breathe! There’s no clutter here, no buildings all hunched together. There’s no exhaust filling your lungs, just fresh air. There’s no honking, no swearing at the guy in front of you because he doesn’t know how to make a right turn on red—if you want to move fast here, there’s plenty of room to go around. I’m peaceful here. I can hear myself think. I know who I am here. How could you love me and not love this place?”

  “Has she fessed up yet?” Jenna asked him, her voice still muffled by her scarf.

  They passed underneath the glow of the floodlights that hung alongside a dorm as Michael searched for an answer to her question.

  “I suppose she wouldn’t, would she?” Jenna added.

  “Maybe the Runt didn’t see what he thinks he saw. He and my cousin don’t exactly have a happy marriage.”

  “I don’t think he’d have even bothered to call you if he wasn’t sure.”

  The patch of his scarf right in front of his mouth was wet with saliva, and it chafed against his lips as he said, “I suppose.”

  A cluster of townhouses loomed in front of them now, huddled around their snowy common lawn like so many vagrants around a flaming garbage can—unapologetically too close for comfort. Their house, the last one on the right, was dark. Their housemates must’ve been saving their energy for tomorrow’s opening night party, for that was the way the rest of them, as non-artists, found a way to share in the whole event.

  Michael scowled behind his scarf, recalling Robin’s laughter upon first sight of these delightfully derelict buildings, at how they stuck out, even back here on the weirder, non-traditional side of campus. Yes, they were too angular, too seventies in their design. And yes, they were gradually sinking into the mucky New England soil. But they were charming, nevertheless, and oh, how he’d hated Robin that night. He’d taken her right back to the car, driven her home, and promised himself he would never bring her back. But the memories haunted him still, enveloped him in their irksome embrace.

  In fact, they so enveloped him that he didn’t notice the snowball careening towards his head that evening until it was too late. It hit the side of his head with a splat, the wet and cold seeping right through his hat and into his ear. Jenna was running down the path in front of him, laughing hysterically. He reached down into a towering bank and hurled a clump of snow at her, taking no time to ball it up, but she was out of range, already at their doorstep with her key in hand.

  “What do you think I should do?” he asked her as they sat at the dining room table, sipping from mugs of steaming hot chocolate, their coats and scarves and hats draped over the other chairs.

  “I’ve told you,” she said, picking at the dried paint that covered his hands and forearms, piling up the flakes on the table in a neat stack. “You should dump her so that you and I can finally, you know, get it over with.”

  Michael winced as she plucked a huge chunk from his wrist, a clump of hair coming along with it.

  “Sorry,” she said, frowning for a moment before going back to work.

  “What about your boyfriend?” he asked her.

  She sighed, rubbing the edge of her thumbnail along a particularly stubborn piece of paint.

  Michael ran his free hand along the top of his head, trying to smooth out the hair he could feel sprouting outward in a dozen different directions. He chuckled. “I love how you put it—we need to ‘get it over with.’”

  She kicked him lightly underneath the table. “I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

  He grabbed hold of her foot before she could steal it back. When he began to knead at her naked arch with his thumb, she let go of the hand she’d been holding and leaned back in her chair, unclenching.

  She moaned, “Mmm. That is sooooo nice…”

  Michael shook his head and groaned, “Damn.”

  “You think too much,” she said, flexing her foot in his hand as he stopped rubbing.

  “You know what,” he said. “I do. I do think too much. But never about the important things. At least not until lately. Now I can’t stop thinking about all the stupid stuff she’s put me through.”

  “Like her going and cheating on you,” Jenna said, pulling her foot back from him.

  “Like her going and cheating on me,” Michael said, nodding.

  Jenna leaned over the table and smiled at him. “Listen, could you maybe drop her for tonight?” And then, pausing for a moment, she added, “Or maybe for the rest of your life.”

  He picked up his hot chocolate and sipped from it.

  “She w
as high school and now it’s college. I went through the same thing.” She held her mug up to her lips and tilted her head back, then set it down on the table, a frown on her face. She’d begun to rub a foot up under the cuff of his jeans, along his calf. “We’ve wasted too much of our time here,” she said, picking up her mug again and tipping it upside down. “Everyone in this house came to college with a significant other, but they all came to their senses a long time ago. Now it’s time for us to see the lights.”

  “You mean, ‘the light,’ singular, right?”

  “Whatever,” she said, reaching across the table for his mug, then sipping from it.

  Michael laughed. “I just can’t believe that a girl like you, a girl so talented, so beauti—”

  “Oh, stop it,” she said, handing him back his mug, her foot disappearing from his leg. “You’re taking me out of the mood.”

  “You’re the only girl I know who gets turned off by compliments about her appearance.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s that I get annoyed when you don’t give yourself enough credit. You do it with me. You do it with your art.” She paused, seeming to consider whether she should really say what she wanted to say next and then, said, “You do it with everything.”

  “Point taken,” he said. “And I guess… baseball teams do carry a personal masseuse, so, even though I wouldn’t be on a team in your league, so to speak, I could conceivably become an employee of the league.”

  She chuckled at him. “You need to learn when to shut up.”

  “It’s genetic.”

  Jenna stood and gathered up her things. “I’m going upstairs,” she said. “Kate is gone for the night. So…” She paused and smiled. “Good night.”

  “G’night,” he said, waving a little wave.

  He watched her ascend the stairs until she’d rounded the corner to her room, then looked down the flight of stairs that led to his own bedroom. He tapped at his wallet again, and then pulled it out. He leafed through the photos he kept inside, past his cousin Matt, his sister Ashley, past Veronica and Tracy, past the miniature copy of the poem “Footprints” that his mother had bought for him after Grampy’s funeral. The last picture was of Michael and Robin, from senior year, up on stage at the talent show, singing into the same microphone. They had sounded perfect, or so the stories went, so perfect as they sang, in harmony, “You can go your own way.” He ran his fingers along the edges of her face, then closed his wallet and put it away.

  And this was where Michael broke the fourth wall. Without looking at Tracy, he said, “This is the moment you’ve been working me up to, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Tracy.

  “And are you going to let me have it?”

  “Of course,” said Tracy. “You need to have this moment. Or else the rest of it won’t hurt as much.”

  Michael stood, then climbed the stairs.

  Jenna took her time in answering his knock. She was wearing a longish t-shirt that fell down to her hips. “Are you sure?” she asked him. “Because I don’t want to force you.”

  “I’m sure,” he said.

  She opened the door wider, took him by the hand, and pulled him in.

  Up on the judge’s bench, as all light went out, Tracy banged her gavel down three times. Below, torches in hand, the Gunslinger and Swordswoman stood waiting.

  Tracy looked off in the direction where the ghost of Jenna’s door still blurred her vision. She closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to regain her bearings, her focus and purpose. But, in the dark of her own mind, she could now hear the faintest sounds of lovemaking in the distance.

  No, she thought. Fucking! It’s fucking. What they’re doing is cheating, not love. He doesn’t even know how to—

  She opened her eyes, focused on the guards. “We will adjourn for a brief recess,” she told the two of them, “I need a moment.”

  24

  Seven Men at Perfect Height, Seven Noses Pink

  Up in the house and unaware of what was going down in her barn, Veronica dreamed herself and her wife into the bed of Christy Turlington. They were tangled together under a thin white sheet, underneath the canopy of an enormous four-poster, a gentle breeze playing with the curtains by the window and the curtains of the bed. Veronica had an arm around each woman, their heads resting on her chest, their foreheads nearly touching but not quite. And while Veronica ran her fingers through their hair, they watched Pretty Woman on a thirteen-inch TV with a VCR built into the bottom of it. It was perched precariously on the end of the bed and threatened to topple off the pillowed top of the mattress at any moment. Only the feet of Christy and Desiree held it in place.

  Why is the TV so small? Veronica wondered. Surely a supermodel can afford something grander than this. And a VCR in 2011?

  That was when she woke, the logic of the dream crumbling like a leaning tower of Jenga blocks that you’ve stared at for too long, the mash-up of sexual fantasy and old childhood memory giving her a shiver that woke her from her slumber. She turned from her side to see if Desiree was awake, if there was someone she could share this pleasant but curious vision with, but Des wasn’t in bed.

  Veronica sat up, rubbing at her eyes, and found her wife perched in the rocking chair by the window, staring out the old dormer and into the night. By the light of the moon, Veronica could see that Des was biting her thumb.

  “What?” said Veronica.

  “That space bastard,” she said, “he killed my pine.”

  Space bastard? thought Veronica. Was she still dreaming, she wondered.

  “Back to the Future,” Desiree explained. “When Marty first ends up in 1955 and he runs over one of Old Man Peabody’s saplings in the DeLorean.”

  Veronica was confused. “There’s a DeLorean out there?” she asked, scooting out of bed. “And a space bastard?” she asked as she knelt down behind Desiree and wrapped her arms around her.

  “Tracy’s date,” said Desiree, pointing at a now-disheveled hedgerow near the edge of their property. “He hit it as he peeled out of here.”

  Veronica nuzzled her wife’s neck, then her ear. “Baby,” she said, “how long have you been up?”

  Desiree took hold of one of Veronica’s hands and brought it to her lips. Then she sighed and leaned into her wife’s embrace. “Too long,” she said.

  “And what did you see?” asked Veronica.

  “The kids parking their car down by the beach,” she began, “then them creeping up into the barn.”

  “Tana and Tori were with her?” asked Veronica.

  Desiree nodded.

  “I love those girls,” said Veronica. “Reminds me of us,” she said, nipping at Des’ earlobe, “when we were their age.”

  “A long time ago,” said Desiree. “In a galaxy far, far away.”

  Veronica nudged her wife. “So, what happened next, Uatu?”

  “Uatu?” said Desiree.

  “The Watcher,” Veronica explained. “From the comic books? He’s a space bastard with a big head,” she said. “He watches things.”

  Desiree smiled and kissed Veronica’s hand again. With her eyes still fixed on the window, she continued. “The date, he ran back to his car for something. But then everything was quiet for a couple of hours. By the time I heard the front door creak open downstairs, the porch steps groaning under someone’s weight, I was about to nod off. I looked down and saw that it was Michael, headphones in, going for a stroll. And where do you think he strolled to?”

  “Shut up,” said Veronica, slapping Des on the shoulder.

  “Yep,” said Desiree. “He went straight for the barn. Couple minutes later, Tana, Tori, and the date come racing out of there—the date tripping over his half-buckled jeans, I might add—and they all make for the car.”

  “And Michael and Trace,” said Veronica, pointing toward the barn, “they’ve been in there ever since?”

  Desiree nodded.

  “How long?” said Veronica.

  “A w
hile,” said Desiree. “Just before you woke up, I was thinking of going down there.”

  Veronica pulled out of their embrace and shimmied on her knees until she’d rounded the chair and was facing Des. “You can’t do that,” she told her wife. “You need to let them work it out on their own.”

  “But you didn’t see how mad she was at him,” said Desiree, taking Veronica’s face into her hands. “Not the half of it. I caught her upstairs after the show last night and she… she’s really pissed, Vern. I don’t know why exactly, but—”

  “It’s between them,” said Veronica, taking hold of Desiree’s hands and lacing their fingers together. “Father and daughter stuff,” she said.

  “He’s not her father,” said Desiree.

  “He’s the closest thing she has to one,” said Veronica.

  “But,” Desiree began, but whatever she was about to say was cut off by the sound of a door slamming open outside.

  Veronica spun on the spot as Desiree leaned forward, and the two of them peered out the dormer window to see what was happening. As they did, Tracy came storming out of the barn in a huff. Hands on her hips, she paced the length of the barn as they watched.

  “That’s a cute top she’s wearing,” said Veronica. “A hand-me-down from you?”

  Desiree nodded, frowning. “It’s on backwards.”

  Down below, as if she’d heard them, Tracy quit her pacing and stared up at the window for a moment. Veronica thought to duck, but Tracy was moving again just as quickly as she’d come to a halt. She shook her head and looked to be mumbling something to herself.

  “You think she saw us?” said Veronica.

  “I think we should go down there,” said Desiree. “That’s what I think. Or maybe wake Jenna and send her out, if what you’re worried about is us being overbearing.”

  “She’s 18,” said Veronica, looking back at Des over her shoulder. “This is the part of the story where she figures things out on her own.”