Further Joy (31 page)

Cammie reached over and squeezed a drill bit with two fingers. “Yeah, I probably would,” she said. “I'd probably go to Nova Scotia if she wanted me to. She's really good for me.”

“It doesn't have to be Las Vegas. This is about the point where all my projects fall through. I can feel it. This is right about the time.”

“This isn't really
your
project, so relax,” said Cammie. “I said moving was mentioned. I didn't say it was happening. Who knows, she could be bringing up moving to leverage something else. It could be part of a strategy. Women, you know?”

“A big soup and sandwich chain will move in down the block. Or the licenses will get held up. It'll be something. Probably something we can't think of right now.”

Cammie made an impressed face, like she'd been enlightened about something. “Wow, you can really make a hurricane out of a dark cloud, huh?”

“It's never just a dark cloud for me. I should've warned you about my luck before you hired me. It's truly not pessimism. It's just acknowledging a pattern. Scientific observation. I'm okay with it. Worse things happen to people than being snake-bit in financial endeavors. A lot worse things happen to people.”

“Okay, so if this restaurant never opens, which no one is saying is
remotely the case, you will have made money off the whole affair. It's me who loses money. If anybody should be doing community theater about that situation, it should be me. But I'm not, because there's no situation.”

“Oh, it'll be something,” I said, and I could hear stagey put-on wisdom in my voice. I felt comfortable and fortified, poor-mouthing the future.

“Geesh,” she said, almost laughing. She was about to say something but she decided not to. She twisted her hair into a tight knot at the side of her head. “I'll tell you something. You sure did an awful nice job in here for somebody who doesn't think this restaurant is going to work out.”

One especially still, humid evening I came home and the house was silent except for a faint whimpering sound. Mike was at some work function, I knew, a charity dinner. I followed the sound upstairs, to a room I'd never stepped foot in. The door was usually closed, and I'd always assumed it was another of the countless closets. I peeked my head in and saw wall-to-wall packages. Unopened gifts. It took me a second to figure out they were wedding gifts. Melanie was in among them, curled up. After a moment, she realized I was standing in the doorway. She didn't seem startled, but she stopped crying all at once. I asked if she was okay and she turned her face away from me, looking at nothing.

“What did you guys get us?” she asked.

I couldn't remember, of course. I hadn't had anything to do with picking out their gift. “Something monogrammed,” I told her. “Like maybe some pillow cases.”

Melanie shivered. I wanted to get down next to her, but I stayed put. What Mike had said about her being special was true. She never got onto anyone. She never nagged Mike. Not really. She never asked me any pointed questions about my plans. She never moaned that her talents were misused. When she cried, she did it in private.

“Why haven't you guys opened these?” I asked her.

She puffed up with a breath and then deflated. “Yeah, that,” she said. “We went on the honeymoon, so we were going to wait until we got back.
When we got back Mike's mom was sick, then by the time she was better we were moving over here from the apartment. I've asked him to open them with me two or three times. At some point it became a thing, you know? He says he's too busy, which there's some truth to. I'm not going to force him to do it but I'm not going to open them by myself. I still haven't sent out thank-you cards. When you're a woman you have to send thank-you cards. There's pretty much nothing worse you can do in the world than not send thank-you cards.”

She stopped talking so I said, “I get it.” I said, “This stuff gets complicated, doesn't it?” It felt wrong that I wasn't getting down on the floor next to her, that I wasn't at least touching her shoulder.

“That it does,” she said. “That it certainly does.”

I watched her there breathing evenly, absently fingering the ribbon on one of the gifts.

“Dana still isn't dating anyone,” she said.

Next the sharks got into a family of Canadians. They were way up the beach, so I didn't hear the sirens, but word traveled down the strip fast enough. One gang of preadolescent hammerheads had shimmied into the soundless surf behind the waist-deep Newfoundlanders, and another had advanced from the open water. Hundreds of stitches. The town council was making a plan already. When the family got released from the hospital, a bank of suites in the swankiest hotel on the beach would be waiting for them, if they could be convinced to stay.

The fronds kept falling and I kept lofting them onto the mound at the back fence. A dozen parking spots were unusable, including a handicapped one. I could hear critters scurrying around under the pile, I had no idea what kind. None of the other business owners had complained. I guess business wasn't brisk enough that it mattered.

There wasn't much else I could do for the restaurant. I decided to add a
layer of insulation in the ceiling and put in decorative flashing in the areas where customers could see. It was going to be mostly a carryout place, but we needed at least a couple tables and a set of barstools, so I went with Cammie to the big hardware store and she made her choices and we scheduled a delivery. The barstools we took back to the strip mall ourselves, in the back of my truck. Cammie messed with the radio the whole time, stone-faced, flipping through all the oldies and Latin music and talk. She was wearing a stiff, buttony jacket, not sweating a bit, and of course a skirt.

Inside the restaurant, we positioned the stools and I settled onto one and watched Cammie walk around and touch all the fixtures. She ran water in the sinks, opened and closed cabinets. She gazed forlornly at the photos of Bryson's Canal for a minute, then went over and messed around with the lights and left them off. She walked over in her sneakers and closed the blinds. There was still plenty of light. I could see her coming toward me with a thin, frank look on her face, and she just kept advancing. I stayed on the stool and she stepped between my knees, washing in like a wave, arching her back so that our faces stayed apart. I was taken by surprise and suddenly wondering all sorts of unhelpful things. She touched my eyebrow with her thumb, smoothing it down. We were eye to eye, her standing and me stuck on the stool.

“You men wear me out,” she said. “Every one of you thinks you're a one-of-a-kind.” She grazed my ear with her thumb. It was like she was examining me for purchase. “You're good-looking, though. I won't deny that. Not you, just men in general. With your forearms and your stubble and all.”

She looked down at herself, like she was wondering how I saw her. She rested one foot on the bottom rail of the stool.

“I don't think I'm one-of-a-kind,” I said. “I'm a dime a dozen.”

“You guys have some bad luck and you fall in love with it. It's just breakups and business. It's just divorces and shitty jobs.”

“I won't be getting divorced any time soon,” I said.

She put her hands flat against my chest and locked her elbows, making sure to keep me at arm's length. Her hands were tiny and certain. Whatever
had her agitated, it probably had nothing to do with me.

“You're everybody's friend, aren't you?” she said.

Her scent was full in my nose now—an easy, natural smell, only a trace of sweetness.

“I can count my friends on one hand,” I told her. “Even if I include you.”

She leaned in and gathered my head to her chest, pressing my cheek against her jacket. She was hugging me like I was a child she was accustomed to worrying about. “You can count me if you like,” she said.

She pulled my head up and found my eyes again. Her lashes were lush and her teeth gleaming. Her blunt fingernails were in the back of my neck. I felt cursed with hope. Then that quickly, she detached herself. She stepped backward and I was empty-handed, balancing there. Her jacket made brusque scuffing noises as she crossed the room, and then the door swung open with a rush of warm air and closed gently behind her.

I stayed perched right where I was, feeling like time had stopped. But it hadn't. It wouldn't. Next I would lock this place up and drive my truck down Charter Street and cook a delicious dinner in a well-appointed kitchen. I would have a stiff drink and a smoke and then lie in bed awake for hours and hours. But I was going to sit in this dark building for a few more minutes first.

The temperature that night in Mike and Melanie's house was going to be perfect, where you cover up with a sheet but you don't need a blanket. My bedclothes would be freshly laundered. My truck was running smooth as ever. The calluses on my fingers had returned. I lived in the United States, in Florida. I was healthy. Overnight, people would drive the length of the peninsula and get where they were going. The loose cats would fight each other and survive. When the sun came up tomorrow, children would learn math and go fishing and search for lost toys.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Brandon's three novels are
Arkansas
,
Citrus County
, and
A Million Heavens
. He has spent time as the Grisham Fellow in Creative Writing at University of Mississippi, and the Tickner Writing Fellow at Gilman School, in Baltimore. His work has appeared in
Oxford American
,
GQ
,
Grantland
,
ESPN the Magazine
, the
New York Times Magazine
,
McSweeney's
, the
Believer
, and numerous literary journals. He now lives in St. Paul, and teaches at Hamline University. This is his first story collection.