by Tom Perrotta
“What the hell are you doing here?”
True to her training, Meg remained silent. It would have been better if she had a cigarette in her hand, but neither one of them had been smoking when the car pulled up. That was Laurie’s fault, a lapse of supervision.
“Did you hear me?” Gary’s voice was louder now, as if he thought Meg might have developed a hearing problem. “I asked you a question.”
His companion gave him a puzzled look. “You know she can’t talk, right?”
“Oh, she can talk,” Gary said. “She used to talk my fucking ear off.”
Looking vaguely mortified, the young woman turned back to Meg. She was short and curvy, a bit unsteady on her stiletto heels. Laurie couldn’t help admiring her coat, a shimmery blue parka with fur-lined cuffs and hood. The fur was probably synthetic, but it looked really warm.
“I’m sorry,” the young woman told Meg. “I know this must be weird for you. Seeing us together.”
Laurie leaned to the left, trying to get a look at Meg’s face, but the angle wasn’t right.
“Don’t apologize to her,” Gary snapped. “She’s the one who should apologize.”
“It started two weeks ago,” the young woman continued, as if Meg had requested an explanation. “A bunch of us went to Massimo’s and drank a lot of red wine, and I was too drunk to drive home. So Gary offered me a lift.” She raised her eyebrows, as if the story told itself. “I’m not sure if it’s serious or anything. We’re just kinda hanging out together. For now.”
“Gina.” Gary’s voice was sharp with warning. “Don’t do this. It’s none of her business.”
Gina, Laurie thought. Meg’s cousin. One of the bridesmaids.
“Of course it’s her business,” Gina said. “You guys were together all those years. You were gonna get married.”
Gary studied Meg with a disgusted expression.
“Look at her. I don’t even know who that is.”
“She’s still Meg.” Gina spoke so softly that Laurie could barely hear the words. “Don’t be mean to her.”
“I’m not being mean.” Gary’s expression softened a little. “I just can’t stand to see her like this. Not today.”
He gave his ex-fiancée a wide berth as he headed toward the house, as if he thought she might try to attack him, or at least block his way. Gina hesitated just long enough to shrug an apology, then set off after him. Neither one of them paid the slightest attention to Laurie as they trudged up the front steps, not a word, not even a glance in her direction.
After Gary and Gina went inside, Laurie lit a cigarette and headed across the lawn to join Meg, who was still standing with her back to the house, staring at the Lexus as if she were thinking about buying it. Laurie held out the cigarette, and Meg took it, sniffling quietly as she brought it to her lips. Laurie wished she could say a few words—Nice going, or Good job—to let Meg know how proud she was. But all she did was pat her on the shoulder, just once, very gently. She hoped that was enough.
* * *
NORA HADN’T planned on going for a long ride. She was supposed to arrive at her mother’s between one and two in the afternoon, a timetable that only allowed for a fifteen- or twenty-mile spin, half her usual distance, but hopefully enough to clear her head and get her heart pumping, maybe even burn off a few calories before the big meal. Besides, it was freezing, only in the mid-twenties according to the thermometer outside her kitchen window, hardly ideal conditions for a strenuous workout.
But the cold turned out to be less of an impediment than she’d anticipated. The sun was out, the roads were clear—snow and ice were the real dealbreakers for winter riding—and the wind wasn’t all that stiff. She had high-tech gloves, neoprene shoe covers, and a polypropylene hood beneath her helmet. Only her face was exposed to the elements, and she could live with that.
She figured she’d turn around at the eight-mile mark, halfway out on the bike path, but when she got there she just kept going. It felt too good to be on the move, the pedals rising and falling beneath her feet, white vapor steaming from her mouth. So what if she was a little late to her mother’s? There would be a big crowd—all her siblings and their families, some aunts and uncles and cousins—and they wouldn’t even miss her. If anything, they’d be relieved. Without Nora around, they could laugh and open presents and compliment everyone else’s kids without wondering if they’d inadvertently said something to hurt her feelings, without giving her those sad, knowing glances or making those tragic little sighs.
That was what made the holidays so exhausting. Not the callousness of her relatives, their inability to acknowledge her suffering, but precisely the opposite—their inability to forget it for even a second. They were always tiptoeing around her, so careful and considerate, so painfully sympathetic, as if she were dying of cancer or afflicted with some disfiguring disease, like her mother’s aunt May—a pitiful figure from Nora’s own childhood—whose face had been paralyzed into a permanent crooked grimace by Bell’s palsy.
Be nice to Aunt May, her mother used to tell her. She’s not a monster.
The dicey stretch of path beyond Route 23 was nearly empty today, no creeps or stray dogs in sight, no animal sacrifices or criminal activity, just the occasional rider traveling in the opposite direction, tossing her a comradely wave as they passed. It would have been close to idyllic if she hadn’t had to pee so badly. During the warmer months, the county maintained a Porta-John at the end of the path—it was gross, barely tolerable in a pinch—but they took it away for the winter. Nora wasn’t a big fan of squatting in the woods, especially when there wasn’t a lot of greenery around to block the view, but there were days when you had no choice, and today was one of them. At least she found a Kleenex in the pocket of her windbreaker.
Before getting back on her bike, she dialed Karen’s cell phone and was relieved to be sent straight to voice mail. Like a kid playing hooky, she coughed once or twice, then spoke in an artificially congested voice. She said she was feeling a little worse than before and didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave the house, especially since whatever she had might be catching.
“I’m gonna make some tea and get back into bed,” she said. “Tell everybody Merry Christmas for me.”
The roads beyond the bike path were semirural, winding past isolated houses and the occasional small farm, corn stubble poking up from the frozen fields like the hairs on a leg that needed shaving. Nora didn’t know where she was going, but she didn’t mind getting lost. Now that she was off the hook for Christmas dinner, she didn’t care if the ride lasted all day.
She wanted to be thinking about her kids, but for some reason, her mind kept returning to poor Aunt May. She’d been dead a long time, but Nora could still picture her with strange clarity. She used to sit quietly at family gatherings, her mouth slanted at a weird angle, her eyes swimming with desperation behind thick glasses. Every now and then she tried to talk, but nobody could understand a word she said. Nora remembered being coaxed into hugging her, and then given a piece of candy as a reward.
Is that who I am? she wondered. Am I the new Aunt May?
She rode for sixty-seven miles in all. When she finally got home, there were five messages blinking on her answering machine, but she figured they could wait. She headed upstairs, stripped off her clammy clothes—she was suddenly shivery—and took a long hot bath. While she soaked, she kept contorting her mouth so that the left side hung lower than the right, and trying to imagine how it would feel to live like that, your face permanently frozen, your voice garbled, everyone trying to be extra nice so you wouldn’t feel like a monster.
* * *
THERE WAS something pathetic about watching It’s a Wonderful Life all by yourself, but Kevin couldn’t think of anything else to do. The Carpe Diem was closed; Pete and Steve were busy with their families. He gave a fleeting thought to phoning Melissa Hulbert, but decided it was a bad idea. She probably wouldn’t be too thrilled to receive a halfhearted booty call on Chr
istmas Day, especially since he hadn’t tried to get in touch with her since their last ill-fated encounter, the night she’d spit on the Watcher.
The girls had left about an hour ago. The abruptness of their departure had startled him—they got a text and they were gone—but he couldn’t say he blamed them for wanting to spend some time with their friends. They’d hung out with him all morning and most of the afternoon, and it had been a lot of fun. After they finished with the presents, Aimee had made chocolate chip pancakes and then they’d gone for a long walk around the lake. When they got home, they played three games of Yahtzee. So, really, he had nothing to complain about.
Except here he was, with the rest of the afternoon and all of the evening stretched out ahead of him, a vast expanse of solitude. It was incomprehensible how his once-crowded life had dwindled down to this, his marriage over, his son lost to the world, both his parents gone, his siblings scattered—brother in California, sister in Canada. A few relatives remained in the immediate area—Uncle Jack and Aunt Marie, a handful of cousins—but everybody just did their own thing. The Garvey clan was like the old Soviet Union, a once mighty power that had dissolved into a bunch of weak and cranky units.
This must be Kyrgyzstan, he thought.
On top of everything, he wasn’t loving the movie. Maybe he’d seen it too many times, but the story seemed so labored, all that effort just to remind a good man that he was good. Or maybe Kevin was just feeling a little too much like George Bailey himself, with no guardian angel in sight. He kept flipping channels, searching for something else to watch and ending up right back where he started, repeating the cycle over and over until the doorbell rang, three harsh buzzes so sudden and thrilling that he rose a little too quickly from the couch and almost fainted. Before he could greet his visitors, he had to stop and close his eyes, giving himself a moment to absorb the shock of being upright.
* * *
FOR A minute or two, Laurie couldn’t think of anything except how good it felt to be out of the cold. Slowly, though, as her body warmed, the strangeness of being back home began to settle in. This was her house! It was so big and lovingly furnished, nicer than she’d allowed herself to remember. This soft couch she was sitting on—she’d picked it out at Elegant Interiors, anguishing for days over the swatches, trying to decide whether the gray-green worked better with the rug than the brick red. And that wide-screen LCD HD-TV—It’s a Wonderful Life was on, of all things—they’d bought that at Costco a couple of months before the Rapture, thrilled by the lifelike clarity of its picture. They’d watched reports of the catastrophe on that very screen, the anchors visibly freaked out by what they were saying, the footage of traffic accidents and bewildered eyewitnesses playing over and over in a mind-numbing loop. And this man standing in front of them, grinning nervously, that was her husband.
“Wow,” he was saying. “This is quite a surprise.”
Kevin had seemed a bit flustered to find them standing on the front porch, but he’d recovered quickly, ushering them into the house as if they were invited guests, hugging Laurie in the hallway—she tried to avoid it, but it was impossible in that narrow space—and shaking Meg’s hand, telling her how pleased he was to make her acquaintance.
“You guys look chilly,” he observed. “You’re not really dressed for the weather.”
That was an understatement, Laurie thought. It was hard to find really warm clothes that also happened to be white. Pants and shirts and sweaters weren’t a problem, but outerwear was another story. She felt lucky to have a white scarf she could wrap around her head, and a heavyweight cotton hoodie with an unobtrusive Nike swoosh on the pocket. But she needed better gloves—the cotton ones she had were ridiculously thin, the kind you wore to make a surprise inspection—and a pair of boots, or at least real shoes, something a little more substantial than the beat-up sneakers on her feet.
“You want something to eat?” Kevin said. “I can make coffee or tea or whatever. There’s wine and beer, too, if you want. Feel free to help yourself. You know where everything is.”
Laurie didn’t respond to this offer, nor did she dare look at Meg. Of course they wanted something to eat; they were starving. But they couldn’t say so, and they certainly couldn’t help themselves. If he put some food in front of them, they would be more than happy to eat, but it would have to be his call, not theirs.
“Better not look too hard,” he added as an afterthought. “We’re not eating as healthy as we used to. I don’t think you’d approve.”
Laurie almost laughed. She would have been happy to devour a couple of hot dogs straight from the package to let him know where she stood these days on the subject of healthy eating. But Kevin didn’t give her the chance. Instead of heading into the kitchen like a good host, he just sat down in the brown leather recliner Laurie had bought at Triangle Furniture, the chair she loved to read in on lazy weekend mornings, no lamp necessary, just the sunlight streaming in from the south-facing windows.
“You look good,” he said, examining her with alarming candor. “I like the gray hair. It actually makes you look younger. Go figure.”
Laurie felt herself blushing. She wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed on her own account, or because Meg was sitting right next to her. Still, though, it was nice to receive a compliment. Kevin hadn’t been as tight-lipped as some of her friends’ husbands, especially in the early days of their marriage, but the praise had definitely gotten sparser in recent years.
“I’m going a little gray myself,” he said, tapping himself on the side of the head. “I guess it goes with the territory.”
It was true, Laurie realized, though she hadn’t noticed the change until he pointed it out. Distinguished, she would have told him if she could. Like a lot of men of his generation, Kevin had seemed boyish long after he’d had any right to, and the gray hair—what little of it there was—added a welcome touch of gravity to his appearance.
“You lost a lot of weight,” he continued, casting a wistful glance in the vicinity of his own belt buckle. “I’ve been working out, but I can’t seem to get below one ninety.”
Laurie had to make a conscious effort not to think too hard about his body. It was a little overwhelming seeing him up close after all this time, being confronted with his actual physical self, experiencing the subtle pride of ownership that had been one of the sweeter undercurrents of their marriage: My husband’s a good-looking man. Not handsome exactly, but appealing in a broad-shouldered, friendly sort of way. He was wearing a gray zippered sweater that she used to borrow on rainy days, very roomy and soft to the touch.
“What I gotta do is cut out the late-night snacks. Microwave burritos and blueberry pie, crap like that. That’s what’s killing me.”
Meg let out a soft groan, and Laurie glanced pointedly in the direction of the kitchen, but Kevin didn’t take the hint. He was too distracted by the TV, Jimmy Stewart getting all worked up about something, stuttering and flailing his arms. He snatched the remote off the coffee table and hit the off button.
“I can’t stand that movie,” he muttered. “Remind me never to watch it again.”
Without the TV going, the house seemed ominously quiet, almost funereal. The clock on the cable box said it was only twenty after four, but already the evening darkness was moving in, pressing up against the windows.
“Jill’s not here,” Kevin announced, though it wasn’t really necessary. “She went out about an hour ago, with her friend Aimee. You know about Aimee, right? She’s been living with us since the end of the summer. She’s a good kid, but a little wild.” Kevin chewed his lip, as if pondering a difficult question. “Jill’s okay, I guess. But she’s been having a tough year. She really misses you.”
Laurie kept her face resolutely blank, not wanting to betray the relief she felt at her daughter’s absence. Kevin she could deal with. He was a grown man, and she could count on him to behave like one, to accept the fact that their relationship had undergone a necessary and irrevocable change.
But Jill was just a kid, and Laurie was still her mother, and that was a whole different thing. Kevin rose abruptly from the recliner.
“I’m gonna give her a call. She’ll be really upset if she misses you.”
He went into the kitchen to get the phone. As soon as he left, Meg pulled out her pad and scribbled Bathroom? She nodded gratefully when Laurie pointed toward the far end of the hall, and lost no time heading in that direction.
“No luck,” Kevin announced upon his return, still holding the phone. “I left a message, but she doesn’t always check. I know she’d like to see you.”
They stared at each other. For some reason, things were a little more awkward with Meg out of the room. Air escaped from Kevin’s mouth in a slow leak.
“I haven’t heard from Tom. Not since summer. I’m a little worried about him.” He waited a moment before continuing. “I’m worried about you, too. Especially after what happened last month. I hope you’re being careful.”
Laurie shrugged, trying to let him know she was okay, but the gesture felt more ambivalent than she’d meant it to. Kevin put his hand on her arm, a few inches above the elbow. There was nothing especially tender in the gesture, but Laurie’s skin started to hum beneath his touch. It had been a long time.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re here, but it’s really good to see you.”
Laurie nodded, trying to convey the sentiment that it was good to see him, too. His hand was moving now, making a tentative up-and-down motion on her arm, not quite purposeful enough to qualify as a caress. But Kevin was one of those men who didn’t go in for a lot of casual contact. He rarely touched her unless he was thinking about sex.