by Tim O'Brien
"Ex," he said.
"And?"
"Probably."
"Certain times," Johnny Ever said, "you gotta bite the bullet. Take your medicine, hope for the worst. Ask my opinion, Dave, them Irish folks got the right idea. Expect the world to break your heart. Somebody burps, begs your pardon, it's a sunny day in Tipperary."
David Todd closed his eyes, let the drugs carry him off. Quiet, he thought. This is church.
Johnny chuckled.
"Bet your sweet soul, it's church. So listen up, I got this riddle for you. What came first, chicken or the egg? Answer: The old man sneezed. Tried that once on Robespierre, fella just blinked at me. But you get the point, I hope. No point. Like with that lost colony at Roanoke, the one that up an' vanished into thin air. Bunch of change-the-world dreamers, sixties all over again, everybody full of spit and vinegar: 'Hey, let's start a commune!' Next thing you know, bam, they're the lost generation. Ring a bell? I mean, come on, take a good look at things. Brand-new millennium. Now you got cable. Twenty-four-hour chitchat, the Desperation Channel, all the Joyce Brothers you can stomach. New world, huh? And what about Thorazine? Didn't even exist back then. Chat rooms. 1-800-SABBATH. Tape your own porno. Plenty of sweet new potions to ease the soul, help shake off them late-night losties. Progress, hey? You bet! No need to dwell on that lost-love hooey. She's passé, Dave. Old hat." Johnny's voice softened a little. "Believe me, man. I'm an angel. She'll crush you all over again."
Dorothy Stier drove the half mile to campus, parked on Grand Avenue, and hurried into a neighborhood drugstore to look for the perfume Billy used to like. The brand name eluded her. Adoration, Amour. Something cheap as dirt. She spent a few minutes sniffing the wares, studying bottles, and then asked a bald, natty-looking pharmacist if he had any ideas. "Something with an A," she said.
"Allure?" the man said.
"No. It's ancient. Adoration, I think."
"Adoration?" He clicked his tongue. "Don't know it. We got Allure. We got that Anai's Anai's junk, smells like my brother."
"Maybe Amour," said Dorothy.
"Never heard of it. Anai's Anai's, though—take a whiff of my brother, you'll know what I mean." The pharmacist pushed his glasses up over his small, bald, perfectly round head. "If you want, I can check in back. Something A, you said?"
Abruptly, the man turned and went through a door. Dorothy looked at her watch. It was six minutes to three. A dumb idea, she thought. Perfume, for crying out loud, what was wrong with her? Then she wagged her head and looked up at a big black-and-white poster behind the counter: TEN WAYS TO PREVENT BREAST CANCER.
A great deal of time went by before the pharmacist returned.
"No luck," the man said. "Allure, Anai's Anai's, that's it. Take my advice, stay away from Anai's Anai's. Allure, I don't mind."
"Nothing, then," said Dorothy. "I'll pass."
"Good choice."
The man studied her pensively, boring in, and then he seemed to smile without moving his lips.
"Anyhow," he said, "perfume won't do it."
15. HALF GONE
ON A BALMY, sunlit afternoon in midsummer of 1997, a Saturday, nine and a half months after her surgery, Dorothy Stier removed her shirt, removed her bra, adjusted her wig, slipped into a pair of sandals, finished off a glass of lemonade, cursed, muttered to herself—"Enough of this!'" —threw open the back door, passed through it, marched across the patio and down a slate sidewalk that led to the driveway at the side of the house, where her husband Ron, a senior vice president at Cargill, had just finished washing and waxing his two prized Volvos. The twins, he called them. Inanely, Dorothy thought. One was an aqua-blue station wagon, the other a boxy, oversize, much-gadgeted silver sedan. Since acquiring the vehicles a few weeks back, in what he too cleverly, too repetitively called a "package steal," Ron had lavished upon his new automobiles a preposterous mix of time and labor and paternal love. Which struck Dorothy as perverse. The man was already father to two spiffy boys. Not twins, perhaps, but well polished and mechanically sound. And he had a wife, too. A terrific wife. A wife, for that matter, who herself had once been awfully damned sporty, awfully sleek, a vintage Bentley amid a fleet of utilitarian SUV housewives.
Dorothy was angry. Beyond anger, in fact. She had been contemplating departure. The "where" was irrelevant: Paris or Hong Kong or Duluth or even the frigid streets of Winnipeg. No matter. At that particular instant, which registered in the suburban heavens at just after 2 P.M., July 19, 1997—and which found Dorothy Stier twelve tipsy strides down the cement driveway, now bare to the waist, now committed, now pinned to the glaring present by the bewildered gaze of her gardener Jimmy—at that radiant, savage, remotely noble moment, Dorothy feared she might vomit. Her stomach wobbled. She was propelled down the driveway by four or five vodka lemonades. Not quite drunk, perhaps, but she'd done her best. To steady herself, Dorothy lifted a hand as if to grasp the summer air. She nodded briskly at Jimmy, who glanced down at his hedge clipper, inspected it, then looked back at her again. The man grinned but said nothing. Nor did Ron, whose attention was fastened on a sparkling hubcap and a pad of steel wool.
But on the adjoining lawn, behind a low, freshly painted picket fence, Dorothy's dear friend and next-door neighbor, Fred Engelmann, a retired Marine Corps colonel, had plainly taken notice. Only a moment earlier, Fred had raised his garden hose by way of greeting. He had started to say something, started to wave, but his jaw had locked midway through a curious smile. The hose shifted in his hands. He was watering his collie's doghouse.
"Freddie, darling!" cried Dorothy.
She released her grip on the air and fluttered fingers at the man: thoughtful neighbor, confidant, ex-assassin, domestic adviser. Cheerfully, in a magnified, somewhat slurry across-the-fence voice, Dorothy cried, "Gorgeous day!"
"Roger that," Fred said.
"Wet doghouse!"
"Affirmative again," he said, and redirected the hose. Crinkles formed at the man's eyes. He had decided, apparently, to treat this with humor. "Catching rays, I guess?"
"That I am!" said Dorothy.
"Good, then. Good for you."
"Goodie for me! One second, I'll pop right over."
"Do that for sure," said Fred.
All this had consumed little more than a few moments of Saturday, July 19. Ron had not yet turned to encounter his future. He knelt alongside the aqua-blue station wagon, his forehead puckered in concern over a scarred hubcap. Dorothy was six strides away, closing fast. Two or three elongated heartbeats elapsed: Jimmy pruning, Fred watering, a buzzing lawn mower, a child squealing, a radio playing Wagner, the two waxed Volvos gleaming like precious stones under a flagrant summer sun.
Ron pivoted on one knee.
He began to rise, stopped, squinted up at Dorothy. "What's this?" he said.
"A wife," said Dorothy. She was now two strides away, accelerating.
"Jesus Christ."
"Look at me," said Dorothy.
He glanced at her shins.
"Higher," she said. "Pretend I'm a Volvo."
She had braked directly in front of him, seven or eight inches away. Her smile was genuine, even dazzling in the July sunlight, but it was also a foolhardy, belligerent, challenging smile.
"Suck it up," she said. "One look."
"Honey," Ron said.
He rose to his feet, threw an arm around her.
"Come on," he said. "Inside."
"One look. Don't be afraid."
"What is this?" Ron said. "Lady Godiva? Some nude freak show?"
"Freak?"
"I didn't mean freak."
"You did. Very distinct. Freak."
"Dorth, you're drunk."
She spun out of his arms and stepped back to present a vista. Ron's gaze shifted into the summer distance, as though seeking a more easeful angle on the world, and then, with a hiss of dismay, more or less directly, he looked at her.
"Ghastly?" she said.
"No," he said. "It makes me want to cry."
"Touch me."
"We're in a driveway, honey. It's daylight."
"Go on. Touch."
"Don't do this," he said. He spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, as if the essential problem were one of volume. "I'm asking nice, Dorth. Let's please go inside. Fred and Jimmy, they're getting an eyeful."
"Half hill," said Dorothy.
"Half full. Touché. Can we go inside?"
"You haven't looked yet."
"What the hell am I doing right now?"
"Pretending," said Dorothy.
"I'm not pretending."
"Oh, you are, you are," she said, and then she went up on her toes, extending her arms like a ballerina, and executed a twirl in the driveway. Again her stomach wobbled. It occurred to her that the radio music was coming from the aqua-blue station wagon. She hadn't realized Ron liked Wagner. She hadn't realized, in fact, that he cared much for music.
"There," Ron said. "I've looked."
"Barely. And you haven't touched."
He frowned and said, "Stop this."
"Not in four months," she said. "It's breast cancer, Ron. It's not the flu, you can't catch it."
"I realize that."
"No lookie, no nookie."
"Lay off," he said. "I know."
Dorothy felt a gust of sickness go through her. Stupidly, she giggled. She cupped her hands and called out across the picket fence: "One sec, Freddie!"
"Jesus," Ron said.
Fred waved a hand. Generously, the man kept his back to them, aiming his hose at a patch of giant sunflowers.
"Nice guy," said Dorothy.
"He sure is. Are we finished here?"
"I guess we are." She wanted to be held and loved, wanted to return these things, but she also wanted to notch up the hurt. She flicked her head at his shiny Volvos. "How're the twins?"
"They're good."
"Praise God. Huge load off my mind."
"You're jealous of cars?"
"Gosh, I don't even know," Dorothy said. "Am I jealous? Am I? Too tough to call. Hot cars, obviously."
Ron took a step toward the house. "I've had it. Gone. Out of here."
"Bye, then."
"Yeah, bye," he said. "I'm not begging."
He didn't move.
Dorothy leaned back against the station wagon, tipped up her head, and let the sunlight strike her straight on. She was forty-nine years old. She was a Reagan Republican, mother of two, chemo chick, loser of a left breast, out of kilter, terrified, stomach-sick, head-sick, co-chair with Fred Engelmann of the Highland Park Neighborhood Watch Committee.
Also, at the moment, she was a woman in need of redefinition.
She looked at her husband. The anger was mostly gone now, replaced by a powerful, much more frightening weariness. "No sweat," she said. "Go watch a ball game. I'm fine right here."
"Dorth, this isn't fair."
"Just go. Give me a minute."
Ron made a frustrated choking sound under his breath. He swung around, stalked up the driveway, crossed the patio, and went into the house.
Sad thing, Dorothy thought.
For an instant she considered chasing after him. Put her shirt on. Blame it on the lemonade. After all, he was a miracle of a husband. Wonderful father, wonderful partner. Reliable as a Volvo. Back in 1969, three months out of college, she'd married him for his looks, which were boyish and lean and almond-eyed, a beautiful man, still drop-dead delicious even in middle age. But over twenty-eight years of marriage, Dorothy had come to appreciate him for what seemed, in theory, more substantial reasons. His good nature. His corny, old-fashioned ethics. The uncomplicated pleasure he took in providing for his family: an elegant home, expensive cars, a gardener named Jimmy, memberships in two ritzy country clubs. True, he came off stiff in the personality department—"Anal Andy," the boys called him—but at heart, in soul and spirit, he was a virtuous, honorable, suitably solid man. Through the whole cancer nightmare, he'd breathed courage and confidence into her, citing survival statistics, clipping articles, calling her attention to recent advances in drug therapy. His relentless, can-do solicitude, in fact, had almost killed her. Always the cheerleader. Rah-rahing the oncologists, rooting for the cure, clapping his hands and purring, "Atta girl," as she puked out the chemo poisons.
Couldn't blame him, Dorothy thought. Funny thing about breasts: husbands expect two of them. "Freak" was the word. And in truth Dorothy herself wasn't all that crazy about mirrors or negligees. Still, it seemed a pity that she'd been robbed of a husband and a decent sex life along with the killer breast.
Dorothy gave the station wagon a slap, switched off the radio, and joined Fred in his sunflower patch. "Freddie, Freddie," she said, and kissed the man's leathery cheek. "I've had a drink or two, maybe seven, probably eight, so cut me some slack." She put her hands on her hips. She hid nothing. "Amazing flowers, lovely day. How's Alice? I haven't got a shirt on."
Fred chuckled and said, "Guess you don't."
"I actually don't," said Dorothy. "Apologies."
"No need," Fred said. "Case closed. Over 'n' out."
"I'll go put a shirt on."
"No need for that either."
Fred turned off his hose, took her by the elbow, and in his firm, courtly way escorted her into the shade of an ornate iron rose trellis. They sat on the lawn. For ten years, almost eleven, she and Fred Engelmann had been the closest of friends, trading gossip, trading Clinton jokes, co-purveyors of Nuke the Liberals bumper stickers. Together they had joyfully maligned the modern age. They agreed on certain bedrock principles—less is more in affairs of state, prayer in the schools, the indisputable un-Americanism of so-called affirmative action. With mutual good humor, mutual horror, they had grieved over what seemed a vast ice age of turpitude and moral amnesia. They laughed a good deal. They enjoyed each other. More than that, Fred seemed to understand her exactly as Dorothy most wanted to be understood. On occasion, especially after a few backyard cocktails, it was as if the man had unlocked the code of her personal history, developed a dossier on her dreams: certain regrets and longings. Forks in the road. Missed opportunities. Years ago as a Marine in Vietnam, Fred had been affiliated in some cryptic way with the Phoenix program, which, as he sketchily described it, had to do with terminal solutions. "Find 'em, fry 'em," he'd say, then his eyes would twinkle and he'd gaze at her—gaze through her—and wink and say, "Ghost work. Simple as pie once you get the hang of it."
She'd never pressed him. But it was sometimes spooky. Nothing obvious, nothing conclusive, just that wink of his. The way he'd stare whenever she exaggerated or fibbed or put a little self-advertising spin on the world.
Now, for instance.
As she lay back on his lawn. As she kicked off her sandals and said, "No big deal, Freddie. Woman problems."
Dorothy felt the man studying her.
"The midlife follies," she said, too quickly. "My topless phase."
Fred smiled, cleared his throat, waited, stayed silent, kept smiling, gave her time to consider corrections and modifiers.
"I'm leaving him," she said.
"Gotcha. Ron trouble?"
Dorothy squinted at him. "Don't act like you didn't know."
"Okay, I'm pinned down." The smile didn't change. His eyes were like clean, fresh water. "Maybe I noticed a couple things. One plus one. Did the math, figured out a wee bit."
"Not wee and not maybe," said Dorothy. "You notice everything. But even if I wanted to, which for the record I definitely do not want—and forgive me, Freddie, I'm stinko, totally lemonaded, just psycho-sicko shitfaced. Anyway, even if I actually decided to stick around, let's face it, how the heck could I? After this." She gestured at her chest. "God help the one-boobed nymphs. Down with the queen. This Highland Park crowd—me included, you included—they don't go in for risqué. Right now, I'll bet a couple hundred phones are ringing. Bet I'm on their naked-lady watch list."
"You're on mine," Fred said.
"Yeah, thanks. What about Alice?"
The man studied her chest, not coldly, not indifferently, but as if concentrating on some intricate endgame. Then he sighed and said, "Lock 'n' load. Old Fred's dyin' to hear this."
"I should really go put something on."
"Negative, let 'er rip," he said.
Dorothy could think of little to say. Words came to her—grotesque, rather be dead, how could this happen?—but it all sounded so banal, so routinely and ridiculously human. After a few garbled sentences, she stopped and stared up at the brilliant July sky. "It's not all Ron's fault. I don't like touching me either. Hate showers. Hate bedtime."
"Oh, yes?" Fred said.
"Very true. Hate. And I don't mean this chopped-liver mess up here. Not just the breast."
"Right," he said. "You don't mean that."
Dorothy nodded. "It's worse. Like my whole life's got cancer."
"Exactly," he said.
"And I'm not—" She exhaled. "What the heck was that, Fred?"
"What was what, darlin'?"
"That word. 'Exactly,' you said."
"Did I?"
"You did. It's my screwed-up life—how could you know?"
Fred gave her a pained, persecuted look, as though the question were unneighborly. "Not born yesterday," he said. He grunted, satisfied. "Mind if I take off my trousers? I'm an old bastard. Nothing to worry about."
"You're not old, Freddie."
"Yeah, well, older than you think. Ex-leatherneck, ex-widow maker. Hell, we're all old."
He peeled off his pants, tossed them aside, looked across the picket fence, then waved and saluted. Ron stood watching from the patio. He seemed lost and angry. He did not salute back. After a few moments he turned and went inside.
"Upset husband," Fred said mildly.
"Who isn't?"
"Good point. But if I was in your naked-lady shoes, I'd probably trot back to the drawin' board, start to rethink my tactics. Not too late. Except, of course, this problem we've got here, it's not just Ron, right?" He winked at her. "Can I ask something?"