by Tobias Wolff
“Left you?” Robert scowled at his cigar. “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where—”
“I don’t know where he went. It’s been almost a year now.”
“Maybe he didn’t leave you. Maybe something happened to him.”
“He left me.”
“Tell me about him.”
She began haltingly. Then, seeing that the stories about her husband fascinated Robert, she went on, telling more and more. Though he laughed in a way she didn’t like, at least he laughed. So did she. Between stories, she said, “You’ve been married before, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “How did you know?”
“Alice told me. What was she like?”
“Who? Florence? I don’t know.” Robert stood and fumbled for his wallet. “I’ll get your coat. You want to go to the little girls’ room or anything?”
They did not speak again, except politely, until he pulled up in front of her apartment building. He put his arm over the back of the seat. She tried to relax against it. He had left the engine running and the windshield wipers on.
Robert kissed her. He kissed her for a long time, and in the middle of it she opened her eyes and saw that his eyes were wide and startled. They held each other for a while. “I was wondering,” Robert said softly.
“What?” She leaned back to look at him. “What were you wondering?”
“You think Crazylegs likes me?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I’ll bet sometimes he misses his dad.”
“Sometimes. A lot of the time.”
“A kid his age needs a father.” Robert moved abruptly, banging his elbow against the steering wheel. “You ever been up to Vancouver?”
“To Vancouver? No.”
“I was thinking maybe the two of us could go up there this weekend. Get to know each other.”
He bent toward Virginia until they were face to face. She looked at him and wondered what he saw when he looked at her, if he saw his life running out. He had stopped breathing, or so it seemed, he was so quiet. The windshield wipers went back and forth. “All right,” she said. “Sure. Why not?”
Their hotel was old and run down, but they had a big room with a fireplace. Virginia bounced on the bed and said how soft it was. She didn’t mean anything by it, but Robert blushed. He adjusted the blinds. Then he took his clothes out of his suitcase and refolded them and put them in the bureau. He talked about how expensive the room was this time compared to three years ago when he had come up with the Everett Rifle Club.
At dinner Robert drank a lot of wine, and whatever it was that seemed to be troubling him passed off for a while. He told Virginia about a hiking trip he had gone on that the boy might like to take sometime. She reached out and touched his hand. “You’re a good man,” she said.
He frowned.
“Is there anything the matter?” she asked.
“I suppose you want to go upstairs,” he said. He looked at Virginia.
“Not especially. Whatever you want.”
“I thought I’d have a drink at the bar. You don’t have to. You’re probably tired.”
“A little. A drink sounds nice, though.” Virginia thought that he wanted a nightcap, to settle him after the long drive. When he ordered his fourth whisky, she understood that he planned to make a night of it. She had the feeling that he wanted either to get rid of her or drink her under the table. Probably he had something on his mind. “I think I’ll run along to bed,” she said finally.
“Go on. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Virginia went upstairs and bathed and waited for Robert in bed. She had a travel alarm clock with luminous hands. She watched the hour change twice before she heard Robert’s key tumbling in the lock. He tiptoed over, carrying his shoes in his hand, and stood beside the bed, looking down at her. “Virginia?” he whispered.
She lay still. She did not reply, because she sensed he did not want her to.
Robert put his shoes under the bed and undressed quietly. He slipped between the sheets and curled up on the far side of the bed. Virginia wondered what she ought to do. Finally she decided to do nothing. He might get mad if he found out she was awake. Maybe he’d feel better in the morning. She wondered what she had done wrong.
Just after sunrise, Virginia started awake and felt Robert’s hand on her breast. He was squeezing her softly. It surprised her and she looked over at him. He lay on his side, facing her, eyes closed. He moved his hand to her other breast. He squeezed there for awhile, then he threw his arm around her and pulled her close.
“Robert.”
He didn’t answer. Still with his eyes closed, he began to kiss her on her shoulders and neck. She hoped he wouldn’t kiss her on the mouth. He rolled over on top of her and wedged his legs between hers. “Robert,” she said again, but he seemed not to hear her. He forced her legs apart.
It didn’t last long, and it hurt.
Robert rolled off and turned away. A few moments later he was sighing in sleep. At first Virginia wanted to kill him. After a while she decided she would settle for understanding him. She took a long bath. When she came out of the bathroom Robert was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, studying a map of Vancouver. He smiled at Virginia and stood up. “Good morning.”
She dipped her head in his direction and waited. After what had happened she expected him to say something.
Instead he dropped the map and pointed toward the bathroom. “You all through in there?”
“Yes.”
“You women.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know whether you were taking a bath or going for a swim.”
“If you wanted to get in you should have knocked.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He pecked her on the cheek as he went past her.
Robert didn’t come out until after she was dressed. “Boy, you look nice,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
Virginia could not look at him. “Just for you,” she said.
They walked around Vancouver all morning. Robert read things to her from a tourist booklet. “It’s better exercise than going on one of those busses,” he explained, “and we won’t have to put up with a bunch of people from God knows where.” They ate lunch in a cafeteria he had noticed earlier in the day, and then they went to a movie. Virginia had never been to a movie in the daytime, not since she was a little kid anyway, and it made her uneasy. Most of the people in the theater were older men.
After he’d finished his popcorn Robert reached over and pressed Virginia’s hand. Then he started to stroke the inside of her thigh.
“Please, Robert,” she whispered. “Not here.”
He pulled away from her. “What?”
Virginia had the idea that Robert was prepared to deny that he’d touched her. She shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.
“Too bad old Crazylegs isn’t with us.” Robert took a sip of his Pepsi. “He’d get a kick out of this movie.”
“Let’s go, Robert.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I want to go.” She stood and walked up the aisle. She waited for him in the lobby. Robert bought another popcorn on the way out and offered some to her. She shook her head. Outside they walked up the street in the direction of a logging museum.
At dinner that night Virginia asked Robert about his marriage. She had told him more about her husband on the drive up, and he had laughed about her husband’s idea of style, the high life, his own possibilities. Virginia had discovered what it was she didn’t like about Robert’s laughter. It was superior. Her husband had been ridiculous, but not much more ridiculous than most people. Anyway, Robert had enjoyed a certain freedom with her past and she wanted something back.
But Robert kept talking about his old girlfriends instead. “I hope it doesn’t bother you,” he said. “It’s ancient history.” They’d been nuts about him, he said, but he’d had to cut them loose because it ju
st didn’t feel right. Most of them came from rich, classy backgrounds—daughters of colonels and district attorneys. “You can’t sell yourself cheap,” he told Virginia. “You’ve got to hold out for Miss Right. Or Mr. Right.” He smiled. “As the case may be.”
She said, “Tell me about your wife.”
Robert turned his mouth down and stared into his glass. “Florence was a whore.”
“What do you mean, Robert?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t. Did she actually go out and sell herself to men? For money?”
Robert shrugged. “She was an amateur. She had to give it away.” He almost smiled at his own joke. “I should have listened to my aunt,” he went on. “She saw through Florence the first time they met.”
“Then why did you marry her?” Virginia hoped that he would tell her that he had married out of love.
“Had to.” He grinned. “You know how it is.”
“Then you have a child!”
He shook his head. “Miscarriage.”
“Where is Florence now?”
“I don’t know. Still in Detroit, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Is she alone?”
“No. She managed to get this guy to marry her. Don’t ask me how.”
“What guy?”
“The guy she was fooling around with.”
“There was just one? One man?”
“One that I know of.”
“But you called her a whore.”
Robert’s nostrils flared and his brows crept together. He panted softly. “You women,” he said.
Virginia was afraid—not that Robert would hit her, but afraid.
“How come we started talking about Florence, anyway?” Robert said. “The hell with her.” He stood. “Come on, let’s go have a drink.”
“I don’t want any more to drink. You go ahead if you want.”
He walked her to the lobby, and they waited for the elevator without speaking. He moved towards her a little, his eyes on her face, and she thought he wanted to kiss her. He looked unhappy. Maybe his wife had been a whore. Virginia wanted to believe that. She moved forward slightly, ready to receive his kiss, but he suddenly looked down and rummaged in his pocket.
“Here’s the key,” he said.
She could feel the color on her cheeks. She took the key.
“See you later,” he said, and shuffled toward the bar, his arms dangling.
Virginia was sleeping when Robert came in. She only became aware of him when he slid on top of her. At first she didn’t know where she was or what was happening. She sat up and pushed him away. She didn’t remember screaming, but she might have, because Robert leaped out of bed and started looking around. “Jesus,” he said, “what’s wrong?”
“Oh, Robert.” She rubbed her eyes, trying not to cry. “Please don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Oh, God.” She covered her face.
Robert sat on the bed. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“Sure I do. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I don’t mean like that. I mean in bed.”
She looked at him, hunched against the cold of the night. “No. Not that way. Not when I’m asleep.”
He nodded grimly. “Whatever you say,” he muttered.
Neither of them slept well. Virginia could feel Robert’s misery. She softened. In the morning she reached out to him and began rubbing his back. She had to do this. She rubbed his back, his neck, his shoulders. When she touched his legs he tensed. Then he pushed her hands away and rolled over. “Okay,” he said. He reached out for her.
“No, Robert. It’s over. I want to go home.”
They said little during the drive back, until they crested a hill and saw a lake far below. “Boy,” Robert said, “that’s really something.”
“It sure is.”
“When I used to see things like that,” he went on, “I used to wish I had someone to see it with me.” He looked at Virginia and laughed.
She saw that he was in some pain. She touched his hand. “I know what you mean. It’s bad, sometimes, being alone.”
“Not to complain,” he said. “I do all right. It’s different with men and women. The minute a woman gets alone she starts looking for someone.”
“So do men.”
Robert moved his hand away from Virginia’s. “Some men,” he said.
“It’s natural, Robert, really. All of it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
He looked at her with sudden panic and she knew that he was deciding at that moment always to be alone. She started out of herself, became enormous in her pity for him. “Don’t give up, Robert. Not just because it didn’t work with me.” She wanted to say more but he had left her, gone back to his injury. She exercised her pity on him. The road slipped under the tires. Virginia stared greedily ahead.
Poor Robert, she thought.
Passengers
Glen left Depoe Bay a couple of hours before sunup to beat the traffic and found himself in a heavy fog; he had to lean forward and keep the windshield wipers going to see the road at all. Before long the constant effort and the lulling rhythm of the wipers made him drowsy, and he pulled into a gas station to throw some water in his face and buy coffee.
He was topping off the tank, listening to the invisible waves growl on the beach across the road, when a girl came out of the station and began to wash the windshield. She had streaked hair and wore knee-length, high-heeled boots over her blue jeans. Glen could not see her face clearly.
“Lousy morning for a drive,” she said, leaning over the hood. Her blue jeans had studs poking through in different patterns and when she moved they blinked in the light of the sputtering yellow tubes overhead. She threw the squeegee into a bucket and asked Glen what kind of mileage he got.
He tried to remember what Martin had told him. “Around twenty-five per,” he said.
She whistled and looked the car up and down as if she were thinking of buying it from him.
Glen held out Martin’s credit card but the girl laughed and said she didn’t work there.
“Actually,” she said, “I was kind of wondering which way you were headed.”
“North,” Glen said. “Seattle.”
“Hey,” she said. “What a coincidence. I mean that’s where I’m going, too.”
Glen nodded but he didn’t say anything. He had promised not to pick up any hitchhikers; Martin said it was dangerous and socially irresponsible, like feeding stray cats. Also Glen was a little browned off about the way the girl had come up to him all buddy-buddy, when really she just wanted something.
“Forget it,” she said. “Drive alone if you want. It’s your car, right?” She smiled and went back into the station office.
After Glen paid the attendant he thought things over. The girl was not dangerous—he could tell by how tight her jeans were that she wasn’t carrying a gun. And if he had someone to talk to there wouldn’t be any chance of dozing off.
The girl did not seem particularly surprised or particularly happy that Glen had changed his mind. “Okay,” she said, “just a sec.” She stowed her bags in the trunk, a guitar case and a laundry sack tied at the neck like a balloon, then cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Sunshine! Sunshine!” A big hairy dog ran out of nowhere and jumped up on the girl, leaving spots of mud all over the front of her white shirt. She clouted him on the head until he got down and then pushed him into the car. “In back!” she said. He jumped onto the back seat and sat there with his tongue hanging out.
“I’m Bonnie,” the girl said when they were on the road. She took a brush out of her purse and pulled it through her hair with a soft ripping noise.
Glen handed her one of his business cards. “I’m Glen,” he said.
She held it close to her face and read it out loud. “Rayburn Marine Supply. Are you Rayburn?”
“No. Rayburn is my employer.” Glen did not mention that Martin Rayburn was a
lso his roommate and the owner of the car.
“Oh,” she said, “I see, here’s your name in the corner. Marine Supply,” she repeated. “What are you, some kind of defense contractors?”
“No,” Glen said. “We sell boating supplies.”
“That’s good to hear,” Bonnie said. “I don’t accept rides from defense contractors.”
“Well, I’m not one,” Glen said. “Mostly we deal in life jackets, caps, and deck furniture.” He named the towns along the coast where he did business, and when he mentioned Eureka, Bonnie slapped her knee.
“All right!” she said. She said that California was her old stomping grounds. Bolinas and San Francisco.
When she said San Francisco Glen thought of a high-ceilinged room with sunlight coming in through stained glass windows, and a lot of naked people on the floor flopping all over each other like seals. “We don’t go that far south,” he said. “Mendocino is as far as we go.” He cracked the window a couple of inches; the dog smelled like a sweater just out of mothballs.
“I’m really beat,” Bonnie said. “I don’t think I slept five straight minutes last night. This truck driver gave me a ride up from Port Orford and I think he must have been a foreigner. Roman fingers and Russian hands, ha ha.” She yawned. “What the hell, at least he wasn’t out napalming babies.”
The fog kept rolling in across the road. Headlights from passing cars and trucks were yellow and flat as buttons until they were close; then the beams swept across them and lit up their faces. The dog hung his head over the back of the seat and sighed heavily. Then he put his paws up alongside his ears. The next time Glen looked over at him the dog was hanging by its belly, half in front and half in back. Glen told Bonnie that he liked dogs but considered it unsafe to have one in the front seat. He told her that he’d read a story in the paper where a dog jumped onto an accelerator and ran a whole family off a cliff.
She put her hand over the dog’s muzzle and shoved hard. He tumbled into the back seat and began noisily to clean himself. “If everybody got killed,” Bonnie said, “how did they find out what happened?”