by Tim O'Brien
"You may."
"Yeah. May. Ever vote Democrat?"
Dorothy glanced up. It was not the question she'd expected, but still it unnerved her. "Vote Democrat?" she said. "Maybe once. Maybe."
"May I guess?"
"You may, sure," Dorothy said, "and I've got this strange feeling that you can."
"'Sixty-eight primary. Gene McCarthy."
"Freddie, how do you know all this?"
"Sources. My ex-specialty."
"Fred!"
"Deal is, you're my best pal, my neighbor," he said, "so it's good to figure out what's what. One more question. Ever tell Ron? About—you know—the fall from grace? The pinko left-wing lapse?"
"You tell me, Freddie. Did I?"
His eyes brightened, impish. "No, sweetheart, I reckon you probably didn't. Not a bad place to start, though. Might clear the air about a whole bucketful of trouble. Second thoughts. Life cancer." Fred lay back in the grass, shading his eyes against the sun. He wore black boxer shorts, black socks, black tennis shoes. The skin on his shins and thighs looked mummified. "If it helps any ... Me, I was a Kennedy man. RFK. End the war, save the intestines."
Dorothy hunched forward, rocking, arms across her chest. She now felt the pressure of her nakedness. "I surrender," she said. "What's the point?"
"Points," Fred said lightly, "are mucho overrated. By the way, Ron's back. Patio. Binoculars."
"I can't look."
"Up to you. Anyhow, this harebrained Clean Gene business, I'm not gonna pry. Had your reasons. Maybe that college boy you almost ran off with. The one before Ron. What's his name?"
"Billy."
"Yeah, yeah. Billy. Left him in the lurch, I'd say. Cold, cold Winnipeg. Draft dodger, sure, and I don't truck with that, but even so it's gotta be tough gettin' dumped for your best friend. Good pals, weren't they? Ron and Billy? No fun. Figure it had to eat at you, too, the way you changed horses in midstream. Missed that flight to Canada. Went for handsome. Went for conservative. No-risk marriage, so to speak. And then all these years down the road, yikes, along comes cancer, eight nodes, enough to give a gal the middle-age willies. Certain what-ifs pop up. Roads not taken. Grass-might've-been-greener poppycock."
"That was decades ago," Dorothy said.
"You bet," he said. "Yesterday, huh?"
Dorothy tightened her lips, straightened up. "I need to put something on," she said. "This instant."
"Oh, boy."
"Hand me those pants, Fred. And I don't appreciate the snooping." She covered herself with his stained chinos, tied the pant legs behind her neck. "Not funny, not a joke. It's like you've been checking up on me. Had me followed or tracked or ... What's the word?"
"Tailed," he said.
"That's it. And we were friends."
Fred clenched his jaw. "We are, darlin'. Can't get friendlier. Fact-finding, that's probably more like it. Research, you could say."
"Whatever," Dorothy said. "Shame on you."
She began to rise, pushing hard, but it was as if her muscles had come loose from the bone. Too much lemonade, she reasoned, or too much stress, but either way she had the sensation of being fastened to the lawn by Fred Engelmann's water-clear gaze.
It was now 2:43 P.M., Saturday, July 19, 1997. Still hot, still sunny. A light breeze had come up. The two Volvos glistened in the driveway. Her left breast was gone. Her boys were at camp. Her gardener had vanished. Her husband was back on the patio, pacing, a very nice man. Dorothy Stier could not move and was not sure she wanted to.
"Yeah, shame on me," Fred Engelmann said. "Old habits."
"I'm shocked and I'm hurt," said Dorothy. She felt paralyzed. Speech was an effort. "You voted for a Kennedy?"
Fred nodded unhappily. "Don't tell Alice."
"Well, I won't, but you have to explain."
"RFK? The fella had this—"
"No," she said. "The spying. I mean, God, I tell you everything anyway."
"Not quite everything," he said, and his eyes crinkled. He seemed gleeful, plainly enjoying himself, but there was also a patient, expectant quality in the way he regarded her. After a second he motioned at his swimming pool. "What say we invite Ron over? Take a dip, pry Alice out of bed, grill up some burgers? Might file off the tension."
"I'm leaving him," said Dorothy. "Maybe you didn't stumble across that little fact in your research."
"Oh, I did, I did," Fred said.
"Then you know. He won't come near me. Hideous, repulsive, freaky wife." She paused. "Is he watching?"
"Appears so, unless he's asleep behind those binoculars." Fred pulled off his shirt and tennis shoes and socks. "Come on now, let's you and me hop in the pool. If I got this doped out right, Ron'll be showing up pronto."
"I can't move."
"Sure you can."
Fred did his winking thing and took her by the wrist and helped her stand. She seemed to glide the ten or fifteen yards over to his pool.
"My pants," he said, and removed the chinos from her chest. "Expensive fuckers, no need to ruin 'em."
"Who are you?"
He chuckled and said, "Name's Freddie. USMC, retired."
The water was warm and lovely. Highland Park was a new place. Fred swam a few laps, Dorothy floated, and then the man paddled up beside her and said, "Eight nodes, that's a killer. Some gals make it. Not you, I'm afraid. I'll give it five years. Five years, two months, handful of days. Can't nail it down any tighter."
"Five?" Dorothy said.
"And two months."
"You seem sure."
"I am. Awful darn sure."
"One more time. Who are you?"
He grinned and said, "Neighbor."
Dorothy looked at the bright suburban sky. She was on her back in the middle of the pool, pleased to be wet, pleased to be floating. Her wig floated beside her.
"We're talkin' five real good years," Fred said. "Way I see it, you won't be heading for Hong Kong. Not Duluth. Not Winnipeg, either. Two super kids, one fairly rock-ribbed husband. What I'd recommend, though, I'd recommend you take what you took. Went the comfy route. Nice house, nice cars. Not so terrible." The man started to swim away, but then turned and treaded water. "No need to feel guilty, either. That old boyfriend you're dreamin' about. Billy. He's fine. He made it too."
"Sources?" said Dorothy.
"Roger that. Here comes Ron."
Dorothy Stier took a breath, went under, came up again. It was July 19, 1997, but no longer seemed to be. Dorothy hit the water with the heel of her hand. "Five years, what a pile of bull," she said. "Stick around, Freddie. I'll make it. Wait and see."
"Will do," he said.
16. CLASS OF '69
A FEW MINUTES before 3 P.M. on Saturday, July 8, 2000, more than two hundred members of the class of '69 gathered in the Darton Hall chapel to celebrate the abridged lives of Harmon Osterberg and Karen Burns. The service was scheduled to begin at any moment, but the PA system had gone faulty, and now repairs were under way. The crowd of mourners had turned garrulous and lighthearted. A gallon of home-brewed spirits made its bumpy passage from pew to pew. At the rear of the chapel someone was blowing into a tuba, unmusically but with vigor, and others clapped and kept time, and up on the altar three dozen flower arrangements surrendered to the scent of dope. Marv Bertel, who sat next to Spook Spinelli, lunched on a Devil Dog and a thermos of martinis. One more bite, Marv told himself. Maybe polish off the martinis, maybe prime rib this evening, and then nothing but saltines and water. Drop ninety pounds. Get his ass divorced. Sell the mop factory and see what Spook was up to for the next twenty years or so.
Spook was on her cell phone. She leaned against Marv, waiting, sucking her thumb. The two husbands exhausted her. She exhausted herself. A few minutes ago, feeling blue and underappreciated, she'd put in a call to her ex-keyboardist out in L.A. At the moment she was on hold.
The tuba player, who had gotten into the spirit of things, notched up the volume and pumped out "Personality."
Directly beh
ind Marv and Spook, Dorothy Stier had exchanged sharp words with Billy McMann, whose grudge was apparently lifelong and who had just muttered a creative obscenity and marched off to join David Todd and Marla Dempsey in a front pew.
Billy was ready to head home. He was ashamed of himself.
He'd come here to get revenge, to inject grief into Dorothy Stier's iron heart, but as it turned out, he'd only hurt himself and Spook Spinelli. He felt like an idiot. A manipulator, too. All that rage, all those wasted years. "Look, if you want to screw Spook, that's fine," Dorothy had said. "Have a ball, join the crowd, but why brag about it? Especially to me. I'm a married woman, Billy. I don't get jealous."
Paulette Haslo waited in a doorway for Ellie Abbott; Ellie was in the ladies' room, applying mascara, composing herself. Harmon was drowned. And Ellie, too, felt the lake in her lungs. She'd had no idea secrecy could be such a killer.
In a middle pew, sitting by themselves, Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner took turns nipping from a depleted flask of vodka. Amy was studying the service program. "'Abridged lives,'" she said, "is not exactly how I'd phrase it. I might go for the word 'dead.' Maybe 'slain.' Maybe 'drowned.' Dead's dead, isn't it?"
Jan Huebner nodded. "Believe so, babe. Except the word's right there in black and white. 'Abridged,' it says. It also says 'celebrate.'"
"It does indeed."
"There you are," Jan said. "We're here to celebrate an abridgment, no more, no less. Done deal."
"You're right," said Amy, "and celebrate we shall. Remind me this evening. Light on the vodka, heavy on the romance." She looked at Billy McMann. "Which leads us to one other crucial subject. Have you ever gone the group route?"
"Threesome, we're talking?"
"Threesome. Foursome. Yes or no?"
"Sadly, I have not," said Jan. "Cheers."
"Bad idea, probably."
"Impeccably bad," Jan said. She bent down, took a bracer from the flask, wiped her mouth, sat up again. "Anyway, have some respect. Karen's blushing in her grave. Let's face it, she was shy."
"Shy and sly," Amy said. "Never gave up. Always a crush on somebody."
"Also getting crushed," said Jan. "That sociology professor—what was his name? Some color."
"Brown," said Amy.
"Brown, that's it. And hurt-me-till-I-scream Karen, she kept writing the guy these long, elaborate love letters. Stapled them to essays, turned them in like homework."
"I don't recall that," Amy said.
"Factual."
Amy sighed. "What happened?"
"What you think happened? Karen gets an A in the guy's course, decides he's in love with her. All those Karen fantasies. Next thing you know she's an orangutan. Back to the psycho ward."
"She was sweet, though," Amy said.
"Sweet as can be."
"Too heavy, of course."
"Way too heavy," said Jan. She yawned and looked around the chapel. "This group thing. Have you?"
Spook was still on hold. A brusque, ill-mannered male secretary had seemed dubious when she'd asked to speak to a famous keyboardist for an even more famous rock band. "We'll see," the secretary had said, after which there was a click, and now Spook sat swaying to one of the keyboardist's best-known tunes. Years ago, in a smoky studio off Wilshire, she'd been present at the song's creation: sexy, stoned, impossibly young, lime-eyed and tanned, rich with joys just around the corner, as upbeat and mindless as the song itself. Presently it struck her that she had nothing to say to her aging keyboardist. All she wanted was to fly off somewhere, or drink from a fire extinguisher, or find one crummy thing to love about herself.
Paulette Haslo led Ellie Abbott into the chapel, saying, "You can do it."
Minnesota's lieutenant governor introduced his new wife to Darton Hall's dean of students. The three of them clasped hands as a school photographer snapped their picture. A few feet away, the lieutenant governor's ex-fiancée laughed hard—almost shrieked—at a Harmon Osterberg story someone had just told.
The inspired tuba player segued into the sixties, and people got up to dance, among them a physician and a former basketball star, now a mother of three. Outside, the temperature hit ninety-eight degrees, closing in on triple digits. Ellie Abbott feared she might pass out: the sadness and the loons and the awful secrecy combined to make heat waves in her head. Harmon Osterberg had gone to the bottom. Karen Burns had been murdered. America was at peace. Still, this was an abridgment, so the class of '69 sang about the rising sun—all of them, even Spook, even Dorothy Stier and Marv Bertel and Billy McMann—and at the rear of the chapel the exuberant tuba player disgorged adrenaline. A distinguished physician, who three decades ago had been voted Most Arrogant Bastard on campus, made Tom Jones moves and crooned to a former basketball star.
The temperature rose a full degree. Heavy rain fell over the far Dakotas. There were high winds in northeastern Colorado, tornados in Nebraska.
***
"I must ask about something," Jan Huebner said.
"Shoot," said Amy.
"This heat, girl. Why in God's name—pardon me, we're in church—but what's up with this hell-hot reunion? Why July?"
"You haven't heard?" Amy said.
"Heard what?"
"I shouldn't say."
"You sure shouldn't. Talk till I say stop."
Amy scanned the chapel. "Marla. You know about her problem, right?"
"I do not know."
"Oh, my. I feel catty."
"You are catty. What problem?"
"Depression," Amy said. "Spiritual crisis. Lost marbles, basically. Class secretary, she's supposed to arrange the whole deal. Banquets, reservations, all that. Ends up in the Mayo."
"Marla?"
"Six weeks."
"Jeez," Jan said.
They glanced over at Marla Dempsey.
"Love problems," Amy said.
"Sorry?"
"You know."
"Do I?"
"Sure you do. She adores David—crazy about him—but the girl won't let herself believe it. Thinks she can't love anybody."
"Oh, that," said Jan.
"Nothing changes," said Amy.
"Zilch," said Jan.
Billy McMann sat chatting with David Todd and Marla Dempsey, whose calm, easy company he enjoyed. But Billy's thoughts were on Spook Spinelli. In a minute, he told himself, he would excuse himself and go over to Spook and apologize. He'd been drunk and stupid. His brains had come down with his zipper. If Dorothy happened to overhear, so what?
Almost an hour late, the sound system issued a fearsome squeal, succeeded by a hum, and Paulette Haslo rose and moved to the pulpit and asked people to settle down. There was applause, some whistling. Thirty-one years ago Paulette had been a long-legged, busty, powerfully attractive college student, a hurdler, a swimmer, and the years had been merciful to her. Now, even in a plain white blouse and gray skirt, Paulette elicited whoops from a row of gone-to-fat jocks. No one in the chapel, including Paulette herself, understood why she'd never married.
She adjusted the microphone, smiled once in the direction of Ellie Abbott.
"Harmon Osterberg," Paulette said, "loved every one of you. Karen Burns, too. They loved like crazy. Way too much, it turns out. Let's all settle down and spend a lousy half hour loving them back."
Marv Bertel moved his fingers along Spook's thigh. He ignored the uneven thump in his chest.
Now or never, he thought.
"Thirty-one years ago," Paulette said, "Harmon and Karen believed in miracles. Didn't you?"
Spook looked up at Marv, stroked his cheek, punched the off button on her cell phone, and allowed herself the thought that Paulette might soon be saying sweet and beautiful things about Spook Spinelli. Almost a certainty. Yes, loving things. Spectacular, glamorous, memorial things.
"I'm talking about real miracles," Paulette said. "Every one of us. We were young. It was 1969. Man on the moon, those amazing Mets. We had to believe."
***
Marla took David's hand
and gripped it in her lap. She understood the consequences. His love frightened her—its durability, its ferocity—but at the same time he was the most decent human being Marla had ever known. She couldn't promise much, only that she was ready to be forgiven.
Dorothy Stier had no tolerance for nostalgia. She tuned out after the word "miracle." Her left breast was gone, which sometimes made her feel asymmetric and unwomanly, other times proud. A hard decision, but in the end she'd done the intelligent thing. She always had. For a moment or two, Dorothy wondered how the world might've been different in Winnipeg, but again, now, she did the smart thing and locked away the past and congratulated herself on a good life, a good husband, and her own willingness to undergo radical surgery.
"It's tough to remember," Paulette said, "but back in those golden-oldie days we had faith. No more funerals, no more toothaches. Undo the wrongs, erase the pain, grow younger every day, fall in love forever. So dumb, so quixotic. But we did believe. And then we became America. Peddlers, cynics, nesters, practical as the Puritans, cold as the North Pole." Paulette ran a hand across her eyes, looked again at Ellie Abbott. "I don't exclude myself. I'm lost right now, I'll admit that. Having my own trouble with this belief business. Truth is, if there's a God, only God knows. But I will suggest this: Harmon Osterberg and Karen Burns were among the pitiful few who never abandoned themselves. Harmon and his Project Smile, hauling those drills and braces off to Africa. Karen watching after the elderly. Maybe they never had time to drop the dream. Maybe in a few years they would've turned into you and me. But right now, if we close our eyes, Harmon and Karen are here with us. They're alive. They're twenty-one. They're kicking a soccer ball and rushing off to class and falling in love and falling out, and I guess that's miracle enough. Just to remember."