American Wife (57 page)

Ella and I made chicken-salad sandwiches, and my mother insisted on baking blondies, and Ella and I were about to leave the house when Arthur called. He said, “No one was hurt, Chas is fine, but he got a DUI last night, and he asked me to call to say he can’t meet you. He knows you’ll be furious, but Alice, I just saw him, and trust me, there’s nothing you could say to him right now that he hasn’t already thought of. A few hours in jail gives a man time for soul-searching, you know?”

“Is he—” Once again, I was in the kitchen, meaning I couldn’t speak freely. “Is he still incapacitated, is that why he’s not calling himself?”

“He’s not still in the slammer, no—he’s over at our lawyer’s office. He’s pretty frantic to keep this under wraps because it wouldn’t look good to Zeke Langenbacher, so Dad and Ed are working the phones. Chas told me to see if tomorrow for lunch works for you instead, but maybe you can call him yourself later today? Not that I don’t love being his secretary and all.”

“When did—” But there was no question I could ask that would not include a word that would sound alarming to Ella and my mother:
injury
or
accident
or
lawyer
or
jail.
And then (it was oddly liberating), I thought,
He can clean it up.
I didn’t need to intervene. If his car was totaled, if the newspaper caught wind of it, if he was kicking himself for risking his new job before it had even started—those were his problems. Arthur had said that no one was hurt, and that was all I cared about. I said, “Thank you for calling, but about tomorrow, the answer is no.”

“Alice, he really feels bad for—”

“The answer is no,” I said. “That’s all you need to tell him.”

When I’d hung up, I said brightly to Ella, “It turns out Daddy has a meeting for the baseball team today, and he can’t get away. But he’s so disappointed about not seeing you that he had an idea, and I’m only agreeing to it because you’ve been such a good girl. He wants me to buy you a tape of
Dirty Dancing.
”

Ella had been watching me suspiciously—I dared not even look at my mother—but when the words
Dirty Dancing
left my mouth, Ella squealed and threw her arms in the air. “Now?” she said. Her eyes were wide.

“Why don’t we have our picnic in the backyard?” I said. “Mom, you should join us—there’s an extra sandwich.” I did look at her then, and her expression was optimistic in a guarded way; she didn’t want to know the truth any more than I wanted to tell it. I said to Ella, “After lunch, ladybug, you and I will drive over to the mall.”

My mother said, “Alice, we don’t have a—What do they call the machines?”

“No, Charlie thought of that, too.” I was smiling maniacally. “He’s so appreciative for your hospitality to us that he asked me to buy you and Lars a VCR.”

OVER THE NEXT
two weeks, involuntarily, I memorized every line of
Dirty Dancing.
It was a different movie than I’d imagined—it was more nuanced, and it wasn’t as risqué as I’d feared, though there was a scene in which, for under a second, the camera showed Patrick Swayze climbing naked out of bed after implied sex. To my surprise, there was also an abortion plotline that Ella seemed not to pick up on; mostly, she was focused on the dancing, which really was wonderful. It was set in 1963, and the main character was a year older than I’d been then, meaning many of the songs and references were evocative. I wouldn’t necessarily have
chosen
to watch this same movie a dozen times, and we eventually started renting others, but I did, to my surprise, quite like
Dirty Dancing.

During these days, sitting in the living room in front of the television, I felt as if I were waiting for something, but what? I did not call Charlie, and he did not call me. The start of Ella’s art camp was approaching, and then it arrived; that morning, I phoned to let the director know she wouldn’t be attending. There were decisions I needed to make, plans I needed to set in motion (how I wished that my grandmother were still there to advise me), but instead, I just kept stalling.

ON THE PHONE
, Jadey said, “I don’t know if I should tell you this or not,” which is a preamble that surely has never been followed by the speaker not proceeding to share the information in question. “Chas has befriended some minister named Reverend Randy,” she continued. “Nobody knows how they met, because if you ask, Chas deflects the question. Nan told me she and John saw them at dinner in the sports room last night, and I think he was with Chas at a baseball game, too.”

“Who is he?”

“That’s the thing—no one knows. No one has ever heard of him, although supposedly, he has some church over in Cudahy. Little Rose? Heavenly Flower? I’m probably making this sound more alarming than it is.”

“How does Charlie seem?”

“Well, we invited him over for dinner, but I think he’s afraid if he comes, I’ll chew him out.”

“Jadey, please don’t.”

“Believe me, Arthur has already given me the whole spiel about how you leaving and the DUI are punishment enough, blah blah blah.”

This wasn’t quite what I thought. It wasn’t that I felt protective of Charlie as much as that I knew a lecture from Jadey would be wholly ineffective and only create a wedge between them. At the same time, as the days passed, I could feel the yielding of my own anger. I missed Charlie—I missed talking to him and sitting next to him, loading the dishwasher in the kitchen at night and knowing he was watching baseball in the den, joking around in bed after we’d turned out the lights and before we fell asleep. I missed his off-color remarks and the way that when he made damning comments about people we knew, it meant I didn’t have to; I got to be the good guy and defend them.

To Jadey, I said, “I still don’t get who this Reverend Randy person is.”

“You and me both,” she said.

____

AND THEN HE
called; he called the next night, by which point we’d been in Riley for three and a half weeks. It was nine, and Lars and I had moved on to a puzzle of the Sydney Opera House. Charlie said, “It’s all worked out. Jessica’s enrolled for this coming year at Biddle, full ride—full ride from us, I mean, but none of the Suttons will know, because I assumed you’d think that’s better. How’s Ella?”

“You arranged for Jessica Sutton to go to Biddle?”

“Nancy Dwyer called the family, invited them to visit campus, she said the school had heard about Jessica from us—I figured Yvonne and Miss Ruby would have to be morons not to know we were involved, so why not ’fess up partway?—and Jessica passed all the tests today. It’s a done deal. I’ll write her tuition checks at the same time I write Ella’s.”

“Charlie, that’s amazing. I’m not sure what to say. Thank you.”

“You were right.” He sounded better than he had in a long time, more energetic and upbeat, and he also didn’t sound like he’d been drinking, or at least not much. “This is an opportunity for us to do a good thing, and who are we gonna open the coffers for if not Miss Ruby, you know? I’m glad you pushed me on it. All’s well in Riley?”

It was as though Ella and I really were on vacation without him, as if Charlie and I were any married couple catching up at the end of a day apart. “We’re fine.” I lowered my voice—I was in the kitchen, and my mother and Lars were in the living room. “I think she’s a little bored, to be honest.”

Charlie chuckled. “Probably good for her.”

“You sound great,” I said. “You really—You sound wonderful.”

“I’ve started running. You know, I made fun of John for wearing those faggoty spandex, but man, Lindy, the endorphins are something else. It’s different from other sports.”

“How long have you—”

“Just the last ten days or so, but I’m a new man. Getting up at six, heading over to the track in Cudahy, at the high school. A bit of a drive, but it’s invigorating.”

Charlie was getting up at six to drive to the south side and run on the track at a public high school?

“Listen,” he said. “I don’t want to keep you. Let me sign off, and I’ll call Ella tomorrow from work.”

“Where are you right now?” I asked.

“Just watching the game on TV—the Brewers are playing in Anaheim tonight. Hey, my new office at the stadium is great. You’ll have to come see it.” His tone was as friendly and unfraught as if I were a neighbor of whom he was genuinely fond. “Have a good night, Lindy,” he said. “Love to you and El.”

I had been on the cusp of asking again where exactly he was staying—at home, it seemed, except that I just couldn’t believe it—and also who Reverend Randy was, but the conversation had gone so unexpectedly well that I gave in to its rhythms, its imminent conclusion. “Love to you, too,” I said.

THE FOLLOWING NIGHT
, Ella and I read a chapter of
Fantastic Mr. Fox
together before she went to bed, and after I’d stood to turn out the light, she said, “Mom, who’s Andrew Christopher Imhof?”

I froze. Trying to keep my voice steady, I said, “Did someone mention him to you?” Could Dena have, when and if she’d given Ella the tiara? We’d also run into an old classmate of mine, Mary Hafliger, on Commerce Street, but surely Mary wouldn’t have said anything about Andrew. And even if she had, or if someone else had, I’d have heard it.

From the nightstand, Ella lifted a large navy blue hardcover book. It was my high school yearbook, I quickly realized, seeing the embossed silver cursive on the cover:
The Zenith
1964. “He’s in here,” she said, and she opened it, flipping the pages. Then she held out the “In Memoriam” page with Andrew’s full name, his photo in black and white, his fair hair and long eyelashes, his heartbreakingly sweet smile. Beneath the photo were the dates of his birth and death: 1946–1963. They both seemed terribly long ago. The forties, that had been the decade of World War II and Sugar Ray Robinson and Rita Hayworth, but even the sixties, the early sixties especially, seemed very distant: a time when Jackie Kennedy wore a pillbox hat and chimps were sent into space.

Ella pointed to the dates and said, “Does that mean he died?”

I stepped toward the bed. “Andrew was a boy in my class, and he did die, when we were seniors in high school. It was very, very sad.”

“How did he die?”

My heart had enlarged in my chest and was blocking my throat, making it difficult to speak or breathe. Was Ella old enough? She’d been in kindergarten when she asked where babies came from, and I had told her, simply and briefly but clearly; I’d used the words
vagina
and
penis,
which, when I repeated the story to her, Jadey couldn’t believe—Drew was then twelve, and at their house, they all still called them
hoo-hoos
and
winkies.
But I believed that dodging children’s questions wasn’t necessarily good for them or you.

I took a deep breath. “He was in a car accident,” I said.

“Was he wearing his seat belt?”

“A lot of cars back then didn’t have them,” I said. “They weren’t as safe.”

“Did you cry when he died?”

“Yes,” I said. “I cried a lot.” Then—I was not sure this wasn’t an error in judgment, but I wasn’t sure that staying quiet wouldn’t be an error, too—I said, “I was involved in Andrew’s accident. I was driving one car, and he was driving another car, and my car hit his.”

Ella’s eyes grew huge. “Did you go to the hospital?”

“Yes, I did, but I wasn’t seriously hurt. I was lucky, and Andrew was unlucky. He was a wonderful person, and I liked him very much. I’d known him since both of us were younger than you. When he died, it was the saddest thing I had ever been through.”

“Sadder than when your dad died and when Granny died?”

“It was different. When someone dies young—it doesn’t happen often, and it’s not something that will happen to you, although that’s why you wear your seat belt, or it’s why you look both ways before crossing the street, because you need to be careful—but when a young person dies, it’s different from an older person dying. People are supposed to grow up and get married and have children, and when they don’t, it feels like a mistake.”

“Like Jesus?” Ella was possibly the most serious I had ever seen her—entirely focused, listening to every word I said.

“Well, Jesus was an adult when he died. But you’re right that he didn’t get married or have children, and his death was sad, too.”

Ella was silent, pondering. “Do you think Andrew Christopher Imhof and Granny are together now?”

I smiled. “He was just called Andrew, or Andrew Imhof. You don’t have to say his middle name. You know, he and Granny did know each other a little—as you’ve probably noticed, Riley is so small that everyone knows everyone else. When Andrew and I were a year younger than you are now, Granny and I ran into him and his mother at the grocery store, and Granny thought Andrew was a girl. His hair was a little bit long and curly then.”

“She thought he was a
girl
?” Ella seemed both appalled and excited.

“I don’t think he was too offended.”

Beneath the sheets, Ella had propped her legs into a tent, the open yearbook resting against her thighs. She scrutinized the photo. “Did you love Andrew?”

“Yes,” I said. “I did.” In a way, it was nice to be able to talk about him—these were questions no one had ever asked me, questions no one besides a child would have dared—but it also was striking to think, standing there in my old bedroom, how far behind I had left him. I still dreamed of Andrew regularly, but in the dreams, a certain blurriness, an elasticity of facts, kept us peers, allowing me to ignore what was in this moment starkly obvious: I was twenty-five years older than he had been when he’d died; I had lived longer, by a significant margin, since the accident than he had lived before it; Ella was much closer to the age he’d died than I was. Was it disgusting, was it unseemly, that as a woman of forty-two, I could remember so clearly the anticipation of kissing him for the first time, how tan and handsome he had looked in his football uniform, how warm his skin would have been to touch? And now I dyed the gray from my hair, I had lines at my eyes and mouth, and my face was weathered—not in a terrible way, I wasn’t someone greatly pained by my own aging, but no one would have thought I was any younger than I was. So much time had passed since Andrew’s death. That was what was hard to believe, that so much time had passed and that the accident was no easier to understand than it ever had been. I could find words to describe it so that it sounded awful and faraway, tragic but long ago, when, really, if I thought about it, it was as difficult to comprehend as it had been in 1963. How could I have driven my car into Andrew’s, and how could that have killed him?