Everybody Loves Somebody (31 page)

Clarisse and Sam walked up the hill in silence. They stood for a moment on the steps of the maintenance building beside the
reservoir, and then they pressed together. She started to shake with what Sam would later learn was the pent-up grief from
two years of trying to love a man who was too full of rage at the injustice of his fate to keep loving her back. Sam and Clarisse
kissed through her crying. They moved up the steps into the small arcade and kissed again. Eventually Clarisse stopped crying,
and they settled into each other’s arms on the stone bench. Sam brushed his lips against Clarisse’s neck and slid his hand
inside her blouse. Clarisse rubbed her cheek against the bristle of Sam’s three-day beard—a decisive action suggesting that
she was ready to love someone new, even if she wasn’t ready to give up loving Raymond Johnson. They kissed and stroked and
explored each other until the sky was tinged with pre-dawn silver, the rising light bringing with it a sweet, heavy calm.
They should head home, they agreed. They didn’t say that in this new life they had no home, but neither did they make a move
to go. Helpless to fatigue, they fell asleep.

They couldn’t have been asleep for long when old Abraham Groslik came tapping up the reservoir road on his early morning walk,
huffing at the effort, his huffing worsening incrementally with each step. As he approached the arcade he paused to catch
his breath, then he cleared his throat to warn the lovers of his presence. When they didn’t stir he inched closer to take
a long look, studying, with eyes made keen by a new pair of bifocals, what he understood as the image of pure happiness.

Lovers in love. Sure, Abe knew what that was like. He knew it in the way he knew the warmth of the rising sun. He hoped that
these two would be allowed to grow old with each other and to have the luxury of remembering, fifty years from now, the night
they fell asleep in each other’s arms on a stone bench up at the reservoir.

Their heads were tipped in sleep, their faces hidden from Abe’s prying eyes. But he didn’t need to see their faces to enjoy
a small surge of pride. Just by discovering them on the bench in the arcade, he had earned the right to take credit for their
happiness.

Sunlight had replaced the shadows over the flat suburbs to the east by the time Abe decided to get on with his walk and head
home. He chose to take the path rather than the paved road down the hill—this was his first mistake. His second mistake was
to let gravity speed his descent. For the first few steps he moved at a spirited pace without huffing much at all. But soon
he found it difficult to keep up with the momentum as the slope steepened. At the same time, the earth tilted forward, and
the sky that had always been above old Abe fell across the space in front of him. He felt himself plunging into it, running
straight on, as though toward a closed glass door.

His Lucite cane saved him. He managed to lift the cane in front of him, barely keeping himself upright as he thrust the stick
against the air, pushing the sky away. An observer might have thought Abe was lifting his cane in a gesture of freedom or
joy, but in reality Abe was using his cane to open the door so he could pass through.

The forceful action caused him to loosen his grip on the handle, and as he stumbled, the cane flew from his hand and disappeared
into the bushes. Amazingly, Abe remained on his feet. Monroe Avenue was ahead of him. Across Monroe Avenue was the small apartment
complex where he’d lived for thirty years. Next to the apartment complex was the synagogue his wife had attended regularly
and where he always lost at bingo.

Somehow Abe made it home that morning on wobbly knees without his Lucite cane. He went straight back to bed. As he drifted
off he told himself that after a short rest he’d get up and go find the cane because he really couldn’t manage without it.

J
OANNA SCOTT IS THE AUTHOR OF EIGHT PREVIOUS
books, including
The Manikin,
which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize;
Various Antidotes
and
Arrogance,
which were both finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award; and the critically acclaimed
Make Believe, Tourmaline,
and
Liberation,
which won the Ambassador Book Award from the English-Speaking Union of the United States. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship,
a Lannan Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, she lives with her family in upstate New York.