April & Oliver (3 page)

“Smoking again?” Oliver asks tentatively.

“No.” Al frowns. “She isn’t.”

April unscrews another container of olives, with pimientos this time, and eats them straight from the jar, licking the juice
from her fingers. “Anyone got a cigarette?” she calls.

She gave up smoking years ago. No one answers. She doesn’t really want to smoke, but a dull noise in her head is getting louder,
like an insect she cannot swat. She sees the fold in Oliver’s brow, knowing she has put it there. She can be kind to him one
minute, cruel the next. She doesn’t know why. It’s more like reflex than choice. She glances at Bernadette. “Your fiancé is
about to give me a lecture on smoking,” April says. “Can I see the rock?”

Bernadette glances down at the ring, extending her hand with ballerina grace. “I suppose we ought to announce it,” she says.

“We need good news.”

“The timing.” Oliver shakes his head.

“Anything to dilute this,” April says, glancing around the room.

“April,” Bernadette says. “Oliver’s told me how close you and Buddy were. I want you to know how awful I feel.”

“We fought a lot,” April says. A stupid response, and not true. She shoots Oliver a glance, but he looks away.

“I love that old picture of the three of you,” Bernadette says, “the one where you and Oliver are swinging Buddy by the arms
and legs.”

“I don’t remember that one,” she says. When Buddy wanted tips on stealing bases, he asked their father, but when he had trouble
with his math homework, he went to Oliver.

“He’ll make a good dad,” April says to Bernadette. Then April glances at Oliver, catching his eye. “He loved you,” she says,
her fingers grazing his tie just below the knot. Then she steps back, arms folded, surprised to have touched him.

Oliver lowers his eyes. Bernadette caresses him, and he puts his arm around her in a gesture so natural it appears involuntary.

April backs away, taking the last few olives. She goes upstairs to an out-of-the-way bathroom that once belonged to Oliver
and Al. Framed over the light switch hangs Oliver’s Eagle Scout badge, right where she remembers it. In the medicine cabinet
mirror April sees that her hair, which a grade school teacher once described as sable black, has turned overnight to dull
soot, overly long and unkempt. She bunches it in her fist, a handheld ponytail, and wonders how she would look bald. Shaving
it off would be easier than getting a comb through it. Better yet, let a mortician deal with it. They did wonders on Buddy.
Except for the subtle waxiness of his skin, April might have thought he was only asleep, and would bolt upright at any moment
to laugh at the mistake.

“April.”

She jolts. Bernadette stands outside the bathroom. For a moment, April sees only the hound’s-tooth, a pattern that plays tricks
with her eyes.

“Oh,” April says. “Were you waiting long?”

“No,” Bernadette says.

April gathers her purse, glancing around for her brush. She feels completely scattered. Bernadette, on the other hand, strikes
April as the kind of person who rarely misplaces anything. Even her face gives the impression of balance and harmony, no one
feature dominating the rest. Her eyes are blue, like Oliver’s, and full of sympathy. It is impossible to dislike her. “Sorry,”
April says, leaving the room. “All yours.”

“April,” Bernadette stammers. “Listen, I just want to say that I lost a sibling, too. My sister, I mean, when I was twelve.
I don’t mean to say that I know how you feel, just that I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you,” April says. “And I’m sorry about your sister.”

Bernadette’s eyes well up. “Fifteen years ago.” She waves her hand dismissively.

April caresses her shoulder.

“This isn’t what I meant to happen—you consoling me.”

“It’s okay,” April says. “Do you have a picture of her?”

Bernadette hesitates, then opens her purse and shows April the only photo in her wallet. A young woman waves at the camera
with stubby fingers. She has a wide, flat, freckly face; almond-shaped eyes that are deeply slanted; and almost no neck. Her
tongue protrudes slightly from a goofy, affectionate grin. April is aware that Bernadette is studying her reaction.

“She looks very sweet,” April says.

“All sweetness,” says Bernadette.

“How did she die?”

“Congenital heart defect,” Bernadette says, closing her wallet. “But she’d been doing so well. My parents had just found her
a job bagging groceries. It happened so fast.”

April gives her hand a squeeze. Bernadette moves into the bathroom, and April takes her leave.

Downstairs, the crowd has thinned. “Looking for a place to sit?” asks Oliver’s father, Hal, patting an empty chair beside
him. Oliver leans in the kitchen door frame, sipping a glass of water.

“No,” April says. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome to stay here tonight,” Hal says.

“That’s kind,” she says. “But I’m fine.”

“You’re staying with a friend, then?”

“Right,” April says, though it must be obvious there’s no friend.

“April.” Hal shifts awkwardly. “What about the rifle?”

“What?” she says.

“Buddy’s gun, the one he hunted with.”

“The Bangor police gave me everything that was in his car. It’s still in my trunk, I guess. I haven’t touched it. His duffel
bag, too.”

“I’ll take it out for you,” Hal says. “Leave it all here.”

“Thanks.” She looks at him, her father’s stepbrother, with his patient, gentle eyes. He is as different from her father as
a man could be. She kisses his cheek, smooth and smelling of soap, and remembers her own father’s face, the texture of sandpaper.
Aftershave and nicotine. It’s crazy to miss her father more now with Buddy gone, but since when do things make sense? She
steps back. Around her people are talking, laughing, whispering in cahoots, a discordant symphony. The room contracts, the
air compressing. She heads for the back door.

Out on the deck, she finds Al lighting up. “Liar,” she says, holding out her hand.

“Believe me,” he says. “You don’t want to start this filthy habit again.”

“I just want to hold it,” April says, hoping that will steady her.

“Mooch off someone else.”

It is a relief to hear Al being himself.

“Where are you staying until this thing with T.J. is settled?” he asks, taking a drag.

“It’s settled.”

“You mean he packed up his things?”

“I brought everything to his friend’s house.”

“It’s not settled.”

“You said you would keep this a secret. How is it that your father found out? And now your brother?”

“You could come down to South Carolina with me,” he says. “I’ve got two more weeks of training camp.”

“Right. Me and the boys.”

“They’d love you.”

“Who would you say I was? A groupie?”

“A woman with legs like yours has no need to explain herself.” He exhales smoke over his shoulder, but the breeze blows it
back in her face.

“I’ll pass,” she says. “Besides, you need to concentrate on your work. An entire column last week on Ewing’s legacy? That’s
ancient history, Al. What your readers really want to know is what Pat Riley uses on his hair. I know he’s in Miami now, but
surely you can still find out.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Thought you didn’t read my stuff.”

“Win or lose, there’s never a strand out of place. I’d like to know his secret.”

“Riley’s long retired. Sorry to disillusion you.” He smiles—not wryly, as usual, but gently, in a way that makes her uncomfortable.
“April,” he says. It feels strange to hear him use her real name; normally he calls her Rose, his nickname for her since they
were teenagers, when he used it to make fun of the awful dime-store perfume she wore. “What about Charleston?”

When she doesn’t answer, Al drops his cigarette and crushes it.

April folds her arms in front of her, staring down at the lines in the deck. “If I hadn’t gone to the police, none of this
would have happened.”

“How do you figure?”

“When Buddy asked to borrow my car, I thought:
Perfect, T.J. won’t look for me in Buddy’s car.
”

“If Buddy had electrocuted himself shaving, you’d find a way to blame yourself for that, too.”

They stand in silence for a moment, leaning on the rail and staring through the screen door into the house. April sees someone
pouring a scotch. She could go for a drink right now, a little Absolut to scorch her throat or a sweet, dark sherry to coat
it.

Al sighs heavily. “No one’s accusing you, Rose. If you want to blame yourself, that’s up to you.”

She nods.

“I’m serious about Charleston.”

“I know you are.”

“I’ve got a plane to catch.” He frowns. “I’ll see if I can’t scrounge up an extra ticket for the season opener. That is, if
you promise to use it.”

April doesn’t feel she can promise anything at the moment, nor imagine herself paying attention to basketball. “See you, Al.”

He kisses her, on the lips as usual. It’s not a sexual thing exactly, more like a provocation. The ash on his breath stirs
her craving for a cigarette. “Try not to break too many hearts on the road,” she says. He smirks and trots down the deck stairs.

She can leave, too, she thinks. Just slip away without saying good-bye, Al-style. Through the screen, she sees Oliver standing
in the living room, his back to her, his posture tense. It’s true that Buddy loved him, even though they hadn’t seen each
other in years. It’s normal for lives to drift apart; April expected it. Even back then, when she and Oliver used to take
Buddy down to the creek to catch frogs and let them go, April understood it wouldn’t be forever.

April cannot think of any reason to stay. She goes down the steps. Wind stirs the dormant lilacs. The day has chilled, a swift
cloud cover sealing off the sun. Dry leaves scramble across the gravel driveway, circling in eddies and scattering again.
April has not worn a jacket.

The car’s interior is cold. As she drives, darkness sets in with a sudden, stark desolation. She longs for the gradual, lingering
dusks of summer, and shivers to think of the weeks ahead, days getting shorter, nights falling abruptly.

She parks in the train station lot next to her building. When she enters the apartment, she looks for signs of T.J. Since
the protection order, she hasn’t heard from him. Not even a phone call. She knows she should be relieved, but the apartment,
though small, is cavernous with no one in it; she herself doesn’t count.

She walks from one room to the other. There is a grating feeling in her stomach; she is being whittled out. The bookshelf
is cluttered with remnants of T.J., electronic parts she cannot identify, nails and screws in open jars, drill bits in a coffee
can, green rubber bands overflowing from a White Owl cigar box, held together with masking tape. On the floor beside the television
is a friend’s disemboweled VCR, dusty and piled with copies of the
New York Post
. She once made the mistake of throwing some away. Not twice. She considers taking T.J.’s discarded gadgets and tossing them
out the window. She might actually do it if she could stay with the thought long enough.

She knows which taxi dispatcher is working downstairs by the volume of his radio. Today it is Henry, half deaf. She closes
the kitchen window and goes to the rear of the apartment, out onto the fire escape where she cannot hear the voices. She takes
a breath. A cigarette would do the trick. Or bourbon. But she doesn’t really want either. The sky is heavy with rain, though
none falls. She hears a distant ambulance, teenagers breaking bottles on the corner, an incessant car alarm, all gradually
drowned out by the approach of the 6:42 lumbering into the station, screeching as it comes to a halt. She hears the air brakes
release a breath, doors gliding open, and imagines the commuters pouring out.

April has always liked her apartment. She is accustomed to the cups rattling in the cabinets and the furniture inching around.
The consistency of the schedule soothes her. While the front of the apartment faces the platform, the back is shrouded by
scrawny elms, holdouts against disease. When in leaf, they partially conceal a McDonald’s parking lot beyond.

As the sound of the train grows faint, April hears her wind chime stir in the cool night air. The chime is constructed of
shells she and Oliver found on the beach. He made the mobile for her eighteenth birthday—to remind her, he said, of her dream
to live by the sea. That was not a dream she thought about anymore. To get through each day was enough. Over the years, she
stopped noticing the chime altogether. Until now. There is no room in April’s brain for the fact that Oliver has moved back
east. It seems as implausible as Buddy’s death. Surely she will wake up tomorrow and find that no part of this day was real.

O
LIVER STANDS IN THE STREET
, staring up at the darkened windows of April’s apartment. The night is so quiet, he hears the rise and fall of his own breath.
It makes him uneasy. Over the train platform, fog moves beneath greenish lights. A lone traveler leans against an advertisement
for a Broadway play, the letters obscured by graffiti. Oliver pushes the buzzer again. The doorway of April’s building is
littered with crushed McDonald’s wrappers and railroad tickets. He waits. From around the corner, a man ambles by unsteadily.
He has muttonchop sideburns and smells of liquor. He gives Oliver a skeptical look before crossing the street and lying down
on a bench beneath the trestle. Oliver glances up at April’s window once more, hoping he has made a mistake. Maybe he copied
the address incorrectly from his father’s book. He doesn’t want her to live here.

He retreats to his car. Perhaps she went to a bar, he thinks, the one where she works, or someplace to be alone. The traveler
on the train platform opens an umbrella, useless against the mists that drift sideways and upward on currents of air. Oliver’s
shirt clings to his skin. The cemetery. He remembers the blank look on April’s face. It was a relief to him when Bernadette
wept, because he knew how to respond to tears—the squeezed hand, tissues. But April. When had he ever known how to react to
her?