April & Oliver (14 page)

April lifts her hand to touch him, but instead folds it back in her lap.

“On my way back to the apartment, I was planning how to kill him. I pictured the old lady’s frying pan. It was heavy and black,
like it was made of wrought iron. But when I got there, I saw two cops in the living room. It was so weird, like they’d read
my mind and came to arrest me before I’d even done it. But they were there for something else. The littlest kid—I can’t remember
his name ’cause he was always so quiet—had been doing dive bombs off the couch like he always did when the old lady was sleeping.
Only this time he broke his neck.” He draws a breath, still staring into some corner of the wall April cannot see. “He looked
so tiny on that stretcher. I could tell by the way the EMS guys looked at each other that it wasn’t good. He wasn’t a bad
kid, neither, not like some of them. Just loved doing dive bombs.

“Anyhow, the rest of us got reassigned right away. Lucky for Cory that information was sealed because I would have gone after
him if I could have.” He sighs. “I don’t know how the old lady survived after that, ’cause I’m pretty sure the agency was
her only income. I can’t picture her face no more, but I still see the dog lots of times when I get into bed. I can almost
feel him snuggled up right here.”

April touches his arm, and he looks at her for the first time. She doesn’t know what he sees in her face, but he grins. “So
surprised, babe? That’s you, isn’t it. You’ve got your prissy little life, your mom and dad to take care of you, a brother
you grew up with in the same house all those years. One house. Real brother. And those make-believe cousins of yours. You
must think it’s a dandy world, don’t you. You think life’s a candy walk. Well, I hope it stays that way for you. I really
do.” His eyes move from her face down to her breasts.

“What happened to your parents?” she asks, but it’s too late. He gathers her hair in one hand and unzips his pants with the
other. She glances at the bottle of vodka, but she’s lost her chance.

He frees himself from his jeans and groans like he’d been bound up in there for half his life. “C’mon, baby. Take me away.”
He lies back, closing his eyes, and she understands what’s expected. She watches herself dimly, through painted glass. She’s
barely in the room. Mentally she takes inventory of the bar, clears the drain under the sink, stocks the supply room, anything
but this. After a while T.J.’s back arches. He catches his breath, and then stands suddenly, turning her around.

“Where’s the condom?” she says.

He pushes her back against the desk, shoving the black denim down over her hips.

“Stick it in without a condom and I’ll cut it off,” she says.

“Christ,” he says, reaching in his pocket. “If it’s true you’ve never done it without one then you haven’t been properly fucked
yet.”

“Fine, call me a virgin but put on the goddamn rubber.”

He gets it on and rams himself in. She is as dry as he is hard. She thinks of the round steel brush that hangs in the basement
of the bar, the way her father used to curse, jamming it down the stubborn pipes. She bites her lip until she tastes blood.
Bizarrely the desk clock reads nine thirty; six hours fast, she wonders, or six hours slow? She pictures Al in the city glancing
at his watch, understanding by now that she will not call. She tells herself she chose this. This was her choice. Her nails
sink into the desk. T.J. quickens, a human jackhammer. Her flesh joggles on her bones. If it takes much longer, she thinks,
she’s going to lose a filling.

A searing pain erupts inside. Has he split her cervix? April swallows her scream, which rings out inside her body, brittle
as ice chipped from a windshield. With just the right blow the whole length of her will shatter and slide away.

T.J. lets out a small whimper, piling his weight onto her back and panting heavily. She turns toward him but he straightens
and heads for the bathroom.

“T.J.?”

He doesn’t answer. She hears a sob.

She pulls up her pants and looks for the vodka beside the bed. She takes a long swallow, then another. She slips on her shirt
and stuffs her bra into the pocket of her coat, her hands too shaky for the clasp. She pulls on her scarf and catches her
reflection in the dim, tarnished mirror over the bureau. Her face is sallow except for the shadowy moons under her eyes. She
tells herself she wasn’t drunk enough, that’s all.

She opens the bureau drawer to look for a brush, but finds it empty. She opens all the drawers, seeing nothing but hairballs
and dust. She goes to the closet, where she finds a row of empty hangers and a tightly packed duffel bag. The relief hits
her before she even understands what she is looking at.

T.J. comes up behind her and slides his arms around her waist, buries his face in her hair. “Don’t think for a minute I won’t
be back.”

She turns to face him. “Where are you going?”

“To find a better town for us. In the Midwest, maybe. Or Texas. Someplace where people will leave us the hell alone.”

“Jesus, T.J., how much more alone could we be?”

“I’m doing this for me and you.”

“There’s no you and me. There’s only you and her.”

“Don’t bring Denise into this.”

“She’s here. She’s us.”

He pushes her and she falls back into the closet, clattering the hangers.

“Why did you do that?” he says. “Why did you have to piss me off?”

She straightens, rubbing her shoulder, and ducks under his arm. She heads for the door but he cuts her off and holds it shut.
“Wait,” he says. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No, I didn’t hurt myself.
You
hurt me.”

“April—”

“I’m not moving to Texas.”

“You don’t have to promise anything. We can talk about it when I get back.”

“I promise I’m not moving.”

“It’s the sportswriter, isn’t it.”

“For God’s sake.”

“I saw you today,” he said. “So don’t make a liar out of yourself.”

“There was nothing to see.”

“A fuck is one thing. But a kiss is something else.”

“Look,” she says. “I’m sorry about what happened to you as a kid.” She puts her palms on the sides of her temples, pressing.
“I can’t imagine what it was like for you. All I know is I’ve got to get out of this room. Move to Texas if you want to. I’m
going home.”

“Wait for me, that’s all I’m saying.”

“No.”

“What, then? You think some other guy’s going to want you? Good luck.”

Her eyes fill. “If that’s what you think, why are you so goddamn uptight about every guy I talk to?”

“What they’re thinking of don’t take more than fifteen minutes, and it ain’t a walk down the aisle.”

Her cheeks burn.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring, not diamond but pearl, with sapphires on either side. “My mother’s,” he says.

“No, no. I don’t want it.”

“She gave it to Denise when we got married, but Denise only wore it for a few months. I thought that was an insult to Mom.”

“T.J., are you listening? I’m not putting that on.”

“Sure you are, honey. You absolutely are.”

She stiffens as he slips it over her knuckle. The pearl is shriveled and discolored like a piece of dried-up garlic. April
tells herself to keep breathing. Don’t panic. Once home she can lather it off, use a wire snip if she needs to. Surely he’s
left one of those lying around her apartment. She looks him in the eye. “When are you ever going to tell me how Denise died?”

He turns away and lifts his duffel bag from the closet.

“T.J.,” she says.

He turns and looks at her. “A hundred aspirin and a bowl of Cheerios,” he says. “Didn’t bother with a note. Any more questions?”

T
HE HEAT IN BUDDY’S CAR
is slow to kick in. April cranks it up, though clearly she’ll be home by the time the car is warm. She shivers, trying not
to think of T.J.’s story, the tiny bones snapping in the little boy’s neck, the puppy stiff in the Dumpster, its suede fur
stained by coffee grounds and eggshells. Will she ever be able to wash these pictures from her mind? Yet this was just
one day
from T.J.’s childhood. Not the worst, either. There are his scars, after all. If only she had gone into the city to meet
Al instead. Where would she be now? Drinking bitter coffee in some greasy diner and laughing at Al’s bad jokes. But really
it’s Buddy she misses. He was the one who could take her mind off herself. She spent so much time going to his games, helping
him shop for clothes, going over his term papers with him and, later, college applications. They talked about friends and
girls and college. He always wanted to know her opinion, and she inevitably turned the question back on him. What do
you
think you should do, Buddy? Which shirt do
you
like? What major appeals to
you
? And it worked. Over time, he was gaining confidence; he was on his way.

Only now, two months later, does it dawn on her. If she stops in the coffee shop where they used to meet on Sunday mornings,
he will never be there. When the phone rings, it will never be him. People say the dead linger, that you feel their love in
quiet, intangible ways. But it’s not true. April feels nothing but the absolute nature of his absence. When Buddy was alive
there had never been time for the kind of empty space that now exists in her mind. She wants him back. She wants him now,
sitting beside her in the car.

Instead, she is going home to her empty apartment. For an instant she wonders if she should have stayed with T.J. No, she
decides, better if she hadn’t gone at all. The dog! The boy! But not knowing it wouldn’t change the fact of it. There it was.
Here she is, still trying to take it in, still trying to shake it. The weight is overwhelming. She wants to confide in someone.
Oliver. But even as the thought enters her mind, she feels the impossibility of it.

As April sits shivering, waiting for the traffic light to turn, Oliver, miles away, is startled awake by Bernadette’s cool
hand on his arm. He fell asleep in the recliner with the lamp blazing.

“Tax law at four in the morning?” Bernadette says, rubbing her eyes.

He sits up stiffly, groaning. “I figured if anything would get me back to sleep, this would.”

“Insomnia again?” she says, slipping into the chair with him, draping her legs over his.

“Just overtired, I think,” he says, caressing her arm.

“Oliver,” she says after a moment. “We still haven’t talked about it.”

For an instant he has no idea what she means. “Oh, that,” he says, glancing at the piano.

“Well?”

He shifts in the chair, moving her weight off his thigh. This is the last thing he wants to talk about, but he owes it to
her. “My mother told me to get a good profession, that my music would always be there,” he says, running his fingers across
his closed eyes.

“That sounds like good advice.”

“Except the piano was a jealous lover,” he says, nodding toward the instrument. “I chose law and she dumped me.”

“Cute.” Bernadette smiles. “But now tell me what really happened.”

“It was a practical decision.”

“But why go cold turkey? Either you never loved it as much as your family thinks, or you had some drastic reason for giving
it up.”

“Don’t overanalyze, Bernadette. I was a busy college student.”

“Fine. Then play me something now. ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ Anything.”

He shifts uncomfortably. “It’s out of tune.”

“That’s not the reason,” she says. “You’re a terrible liar, Oliver. Why don’t you just tell me the truth?”

“Because I don’t know,” he says. “All right?”

“You don’t know why you won’t play?”

“I don’t know why I can’t.”

“But it was a decision. You see that, don’t you?”

“Bernadette, you’re pushing this.”

“Maybe your parents pressured you too much. That happens a lot.”

“No. It was just the opposite. They couldn’t get me to stop playing. They worried that I didn’t sleep enough. My mother was
terrified that I’d try to make a career out of it.”

“Was that a thought?”

“I’m too realistic.”

“But now you miss it.”

“No. Why does everyone think that?”

Bernadette simply stares. He turns his face toward the window. He can almost feel the light pressure of April’s back against
his shoulder as he played in the darkened studio. The scent of her hair. The piano was like a secret door. When he stepped
through, he felt released from who he was supposed to be. April understood. Oliver looks at Bernadette, her beautiful, worried
face, and feels the impossibility of explaining. Yet she needs an answer, something with logic behind it. “You had the talent,
but not the desire, is that it?”

“No, just the opposite.”

She eyes him skeptically. “When I was a kid, I took ballet for eleven years. When I closed my eyes at night, I saw myself
onstage. Whenever someone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was the same. But as it turned out, I couldn’t
even make it into a local production of
The Nutcracker.
For all those years, I dreamed the wrong dream, Oliver. I know what that feels like, and it’s not what you’re talking about.
You walked away from something that was yours, didn’t you.”

He reaches across and touches her hand. “There are no wrong dreams, Bernadette. You should dance if you want to. It may not
be a career, but you can still . . .”

“But I can be more useful working with kids. It’s what I know how to do.”

“Still, if it was such a big part of you . . .”

“I’m over it, Oliver. We’re talking about you here.”

“Well, I’m over it, too.”

“Are you sure?”

“Jesus,” he says.

“What was the dream?” she says. “Concert pianist?”

He looks at her carefully and puffs out a breath. “I liked to compose,” he says in a croaky voice.

“Ah,” she says, eyebrows arched. “Who was your idol? Bernstein, Ives, Lennon?”

“Cage,” he says.

She lets out a surprised laugh, then covers her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly.