City Boy (31 page)

Jack kept his eyes on the road and reached over to pat her hand. “Pretty amazing.”

“Tell me you’re okay with this.”

“Sure I am.”

Chloe settled back into her seat. “I know I didn’t do a great job of telling you, but at least I got it out.”

“Full disclosure. Yep.”

“I took the test a week ago, but I sort of knew before then.” The turnoff to the resort came up and she braced herself as Jack slowed and swung into it. “We’ve got like a million things to decide.”

“Plenty of time for that.” He found a parking space, shut the engine off. He kissed Chloe on the top of her head. He asked her what she felt like doing for the rest of the afternoon and she said maybe a massage. She was going to load up on all the pampering she could between now
and March. Jack said he’d just hang out, maybe go buy cigars. They kissed again and he watched her walk across the lobby. You couldn’t tell anything by looking, it was way too early for that.

When he was sure she’d gone to the spa, he went back to the room and lay down on the bed, but, unable to stay still, left again and went outside to wander the landscaped pathways that allowed for the illusion of walking through forest. He spent more than an hour there, and this time when he got back to the room, Chloe was there, reading a magazine.

“How was the massage?”

“Fantastic. I don’t have a bone in my body.”

“How about a boat ride? I saw where you can rent canoes. If you’re up for it.”

“You don’t know how to paddle a canoe.”

“Sure I do. I took a video course. Come on.”

He was pulling her off the bed, and she squealed. “What, this minute?”

“Best time of day. No mosquitoes.”

The canoes were green, broad beamed, sturdy, designed to be forgiving of amateur boatmen. The teenaged attendant gave them paddles and life vests, and had them sign a waiver releasing the resort from any responsibility in case of loss, injury, or drowning. Chloe wobbled and hesitated as she took her seat. “I don’t know about this. I don’t think I’m going to be much good at paddling.”

“Relax, I’ll drive.” He pushed them away from the dock, labored to get into a rhythm, then found it, dipping cleanly from one side to the other. He could feel the muscles in his back, shoulders, arms, stretching and articulating. He tried to remember the last time he’d done anything physical, besides punching out the jerk in Wrigley Field. Maybe he should start going to a gym.

The breeze had died and the day had grown warm. Midges danced over the water’s surface. Gold-edged clouds piled up on the western horizon. Chloe let a hand trail over the side of the canoe. Jack paddled them away from the lodge, toward the most thickly forested part of the shore. Trees closed in overhead. He drew the paddle up and allowed
them to drift. It was silent, except for scraps of birdsong, very high and far away. Chloe, who had been half dozing, opened her eyes. “Rest break?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I’m so lazy.”

“I guess you’ve got a good excuse.”

“It’s not a nine-month illness. I’m going to be one of those super-healthy pregnant ladies. Prenatal aerobics. Wheat germ.”

The lake barely lapped at the canoe. There was no current. The sky was blue porcelain. Jack said, “Whose is it?”

She didn’t hear him, didn’t understand at first. Her placid smile didn’t change. Then she saw his face. “What?”

“Is it mine, or the other guy’s?”

Even now he hoped to see something in her that would mean innocence. Her eyes flickered. They were as small and hard as grains.
“What?”

“Doesn’t work. Nope. Sorry.”

“That’s a horrible, horrible … I’m going to wait for you to apologize.” “This would be so much more convincing if I didn’t already know.”

“Jack. Stop this.”

“I want to hear you say his name.”

“Tell me what’s the matter. Why you’re doing this.”

“Let’s just sit right here and have us a talk.”

Chloe looked at the shoreline, a hundred yards distant, the placid water, darker where the trees shadowed it. “All right, if you want to talk, let’s go back to the room.”

Jack held up both paddles, grinned, and shook his head.

“Are you crazy? Did you suddenly have some kind of brain event?”

She was beginning to cry. “Oh please,” Jack said. “Could we just skip this part?”

Chloe wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I want to get out of this boat.”

“Canoe. I’m insisting on calling things by their right names today. Spade a spade.”

“Jack, whatever’s upsetting you, we can work it out.”

“That’s right. Paternity tests. Affidavits.”

Her voice rose to a shriek. “Take me back or I’ll jump, I’ll jump.”

Jack waited for the sound to reach its dead end. The trees and water gave back no echoes. “That’s pretty much your only other option, but I don’t think you’ll do it.”

Chloe hiccuped. “It’s your baby.”

“Possibly.”

She made another sound, lower down in her throat.

Jack said, “I think you got chickenshit when you found out about this baby. Decided you’d better suck up to hubby. Clean up your act.”

She was crying hard now, lifting her face to the sky so that tears streamed down her throat. Jack said, “Something like that? Huh?

Come on, Chlo. Show some spunk.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“This doesn’t have to take all night. Up to you.”

“You make me sound like a monster.”

“You were scared, you didn’t think you were going to get pregnant, or not this soon, while you were still fucking both of us—”

“Stop it.”

“—because that’s so messy. Have you told him yet? I think he deserves equal notification.”

Chloe made some movement in her seat, trying to get farther away from him, it seemed, and the canoe rocked and pitched. She yelped and sat back down. “What do you want, what do you want me to do?”

“Tell me the truth, for once in your screwed-up life. God. I can’t stand it that I love you. I really can’t. It’s like a character defect.”

“It’s your baby.”

“And we know this why?”

“Because the other times I always—we always—used …”

He was aware of the sun beating down on the top of his head, the blinding reflections on the water.

“Used stuff. I was careful. I kept track. I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry.”

Her sobbing quieted to a steady, keening sound.

“Say his name.”

“Stop it.”

“Or we could do it like charades. You know, one syllable, sounds like.”

“This is a crappy way to behave, Jack. Whatever I’ve done, this is still crap. You never did anything wrong? You’re perfect? You can hate me because you’re perfect?”

“Yeah, perfect,” he muttered.

“I want to go back now. You’ve humiliated me, that’s what you wanted.”

His head hurt from the light slicing the surface of the water. It was tearing at some root of him to continue, but he couldn’t stop. “So what should we call the little nipper? Here’s a suggestion. Hyphenated names.”

Chloe screamed. The sound shook the birds into silence.

Another green canoe nudged around the corner of the forested point. Two people, Mom and Pop types, paddled toward them. Chloe said, “I’ll scream again. I swear I will.”

The canoe came closer. Cheery hellos traveled across the water. When they got within conversational distance, the man called, “They told us there was somebody else out here. Some great day, huh?”

“It is,” said Jack. “Damn nice.”

“But next time I’m going for a powerboat.”

“Good call.”

“Too much of a workout. Where you folks from?”

“Chicago.”

“Hey, so are we!” the man wore a bucket-shaped canvas hat, and a pink shirt a couple of shades lighter than his sunburn. His wife was dumpling shaped with a nest of gray hair. They both radiated goodwill. “I guess they get most of their business from Chicago area. I said Chicago, but we actually live in Oak Park.”

“Close enough,” said Jack.

“Excuse me,” said Chloe. “Could you take me back to the lodge?”

“Take you where, hon?”

“If you have room. If I could get in your boat.”

“Canoe,” Jack reminded her.

“For God’s sake, leave me alone.”

The couple’s expressions had not so much changed as retreated. The man said, “Everything okay here?”

Jack said, “My wife’s pregnant and we’re trying to figure out who the father is.”

Chloe said, “He’s crazy and I need to get away from him. I need to get out of this boat.”

“Actually,” Jack said, “we’re almost through here.”

The two canoes bobbed and drifted in a pool of ripples. “Now look,” said the man. “We’re going right over there and sit tight while you folks settle your business.”

“Thank you,” Jack said.

“We’ll be keeping an eye out. To make sure there’s no funny stuff.”

Jack shrugged. “It’s a little late for that.”

The couple fumbled with their paddles and chopped their way out to the center of the lake. Although they were some distance away, their voices carried across the water. The woman said, “Was he making a joke?”

The man said, “Don’t let them see you looking at them, Barbara.”

Chloe said, “Fine. Real class act. I have to go to the bathroom.” She wasn’t crying, but she looked blotchy and unwell. “This kind of stress isn’t good for the baby.”

“Please don’t tell me that you’re going to start using this baby to get you off the hook.” But he picked up a paddle. “Just one more thing.”

“Spence. It’s Spence. Let’s go now. Let’s go do whatever comes next.”

“Is that what you call him in bed? Spence? You guys are like the very zenith of romance.”

“I’m not talking to you anymore.”

The couple in the other canoe had gone on ahead of them and were standing on the dock, waiting. Their arms were folded and they glowered with righteousness. Jack guided the canoe up to the boat slip. The man bent down to help Chloe out. “Oh thank you,” she said, her voice brave and quavering. The dumpling woman put an arm around Chloe and led her away, giving Jack a final look of curdled disgust.

Jack stepped out onto the dock, handed over the paddles, helped the attendant tie up the canoe. The other man was still standing on the dock. Jack brushed past him. “Hey,” the man said.

Jack turned and waited. “I’ve been married twenty-seven years, and I’ve never raised a hand in anger to my wife.”

“That’s great. She ever fuck her boss?”

“What kind of way is that to talk.” The man shook his head. His face under the canvas hat was red and wattled, like a furious rooster’s.

He couldn’t keep getting into fights with people who had nothing to do with his life. He walked away, toward the lodge. “Hey, I’m talking to you, mister,” the man called after him. The sound dwindled behind him, anger going nowhere.

Chloe was probably in their room with the chain lock on. Crying strategically to the dumpling woman. On the phone to Spence. Jack skirted the lounge, wandered through the lobby, ducked downstairs to the fitness center. Two matrons chatted as they walked the treadmills. They gave him a look. Clearly he didn’t belong here, or anywhere else.

He had his wallet on him, and the only set of car keys. He was tempted to get in the car and drive off and leave Chloe to find her own way home—with her new Oak Park friends, maybe—but he didn’t want to give her any more ammunition against him. Already he had a sense of how everything might come to be his fault.

It was after five. When he went back to the lounge, it was filling up again with golfers and early diners. Susie was already at work, efficiently serving and clearing, trading jokes and tips. Jack saw her register his presence from across the room, smile at the old couple drinking whiskey sours, then turn her back to give him a view of her bending low over the table.

He sat down at the bar to wait for her. “You again,” she said, balancing her tray and cocking her head to one side. Her brilliant red hair was fluffed up like feathers.

“Busy night?”

“Average. It’s like a feedlot, except the cattle are happy.”

“I need a favor,” he said, and held her eye long enough for her to realize he was being serious. “I need a ride out of here.”

She considered this. “Just you?”

“That’s right.”

“Where to?”

“Anywhere I can get a rental car.”

“Hang on.” She whisked away to pick up her drink orders. A television was on above the bar and Jack watched vapidly as somebody somewhere played golf. After a few minutes she came back. “If you can wait a couple hours, I’ll drive you to Green Bay.”

“Thanks. You’re sure you have time? You won’t get in trouble?”

“I’d say you’re the one with the trouble around here.”

He had a drink, and then another. The televised golf gave way to televised baseball. He paid his tab and walked outside, to the lake’s edge. His back and arms were beginning to ache from the canoeing. In the locker room in the basement, he showered and cleaned himself up as best he could. He went up to the front desk, asked for an envelope, detached the car keys, and asked the clerk to make sure the lady in 202 got these in the morning, she was sleeping now and he didn’t want to disturb her. Then he went back to the lounge to wait for Susie.

“Half a sec,” she told him. “Meet me out by the parking lot.” Jack nodded and went to stand at the edge of the front portico. It was too dark to see the lake, but he could hear its quiet voice, the sifting water.

He walked around the back of the lodge and tried to make out which window might be Chloe’s. He couldn’t tell. It wasn’t one of the important things anyway.

He returned to the front entrance and a few minutes later Susie came out. She’d changed into jeans and a sleeveless black shirt and high-heeled sandals that made clopping sounds on the wooden steps. She lifted her chin to look up at him. “Ready?”

“I appreciate this. And I hope you’ll let me at least pay you for gas.” His wallet was still fat with twenty-dollar bills, the big withdrawal for vacation fun.

Susie fished in her handbag for cigarettes, lit one, and started off down the rows of cars. “If that makes you feel better about things.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned money, he was insulting her. The true dismalness of his situation was beginning to come home to
him. He reached out and touched her arm to stay her. “I just don’t want to take advantage.”