Open House (18 page)

31

T
WO DAYS BEFORE THE APPOINTMENT,
I
TAKE A DAY OFF FROM
work, tell Travis as he is eating breakfast that I’ll be cleaning out his closet today.

“No!” he says, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.

“I have to! You can’t shut the door anymore!”

“I’ll do it,” he says. “You’ll throw everything out!”

“First of all,” I say, “you won’t do it. Secondly, I will not throw everything out.”

“Yeah, just the good stuff.”

“If you would keep your closet clean, then I wouldn’t have to clean it for you. I don’t enjoy cleaning it any more than you do. I’ve told you a hundred times—”

“Oh, don’t give me one of your lectures.”

“Travis, don’t you take that tone of voice with me. I swear to God. Do not speak to me like that again or I’ll slap your face. I have never hit you yet, but I promise you I am entirely capable of it.”

His eyes widen. “Boy. You’re
crabby
.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I know!”

“Go to school.”

He stands. “I
am
!”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

As I watch Travis go out the door, Lavender comes up the basement steps and into the kitchen. “Hi,” she says, her voice croaky with sleep.

“Hi.”

I watch her grab a spoon, then head for the refrigerator and take out a carton of plain yogurt. She sits at the table and pulls off the lid, smells it. “I really hate this stuff.”

“Well, why eat it, then?” I ask tiredly.

“ ’Cause everything else is, like, poisonous,” she says. “Everything else will give you cancer. The planet is so totally wrecked.” She swallows a mouthful of yogurt, shudders.

“Lavender?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you tell Travis that if he eats snow he could die?”

“It’s true!”

“And that in a few years we’ll all have to wear gas masks?”

She shrugs.

“You know,” I say. “I’ve been thinking. I don’t think things are working out too well with you living here.”

She looks up, sighs deeply. “You’re, like, kicking me out, right?”

“Not ‘like.’ ”

“I knew it.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“So . . . end of the month, right?”

“Right.”

Lavender nods. “This always happens.”

“Frankly, I’m not surprised.” I want to ask Lavender who her references were. Probably relatives who wanted to make sure she didn’t end up with them. But what’s the difference?

I go upstairs to Travis’s bedroom, sit at his desk, look around his room. He has made his bed, more or less. I reach over to tuck in one edge of the sheet, pull on the quilt to straighten it, find a sock, hold it in my hand. I look out his window, remember when his chin barely came to the ledge, remember him later sitting on my lap while I helped him undress for bed, looking out that same window at the setting sun and saying, with wonder, “The
sky’s
coming down.” When I came downstairs, smiling, I told David what Travis had said. From behind his newspaper, David said, “Huh.
He’s
mixed up.”

I open Travis’s closet door, stare dejectedly at the mess. It’s sort of amazing, the creativity of it. A veritable sculpture of clothes, games, old schoolwork, shoes, hangers, loose felt-tipped markers. Back in the corner is a stack of old children’s books, the ones he’d liked best. I pull one off the top of the pile.
Pumpernickel Tickle and
Mean Green Cheese
. Ah, yes. I open the book, turn to the picture of an elephant and a boy who are playing cards on the boy’s bed. Neither Travis nor I had found anything about that to be unusual. Of course a boy and an elephant are playing cards. What happens next? I close the book, put it back in the closet, shut the door, and go to the phone. “This is Sam Morrow,” I say. “I’d like to cancel an appointment.”

I
AM UP LATE
, watching
E.T.
Couldn’t sleep. Suddenly, between my legs, a warm wetness. I go into the bathroom, pull down my pajama bottoms. A fair amount of blood. I go into the kitchen, call the hospital emergency room, speak in a low voice to the nurse on duty. How old am I, he wants to know. Oh. Well, then. I can come in if I want to. Or I can just wait it out. It will undoubtedly all pass without complication. If cramping gets bad, if I develop a fever, if the bleeding doesn’t stop . . . Yes, I understand, I say.

I am in my forties. I already have a child. Therefore there is no tragedy here.

I feel more blood coming and go into the bathroom, sit on the toilet and wait. I feel it pass. I stand, and, holding a towel to myself, try to see it in the bloody water. Then I pull up my bottoms and go to the kitchen for a tablespoon. I want to bury it in my yard. I want it always near. But it won’t stay on the spoon and I’m afraid to touch it with my hands. I flush the toilet, and, quietly weeping, put on a sanitary pad. It’s gone. Everything is gone. I can’t hold anything. Back in bed, I cup my hands over my uterus and begin weeping so loudly I awaken Travis. He opens my door, sticks his head in. “Mom?”

I stop crying. “Yes?”

“Are you crying?”

What to say? What not to say? “Yes, I am.”

“Oh.” He scratches one foot with the other. “Want me to come in there with you?”

I smile, feel tears slide into the corners of my mouth.

“It’s okay, honey. Sometimes you just need to cry, right?”

“I guess.”

“It’s just . . . you know, I was watching a sad movie.”

“What one?”

“E.T.”

“Oh. The part where he goes away?”

“Yeah. Did you think that was sad, too?”

“Yeah. I guess. Not
that
sad.”

“Right. Well, I’m sorry I woke you up. Let’s just go back to sleep, okay? And tomorrow let’s have something special for breakfast.”

“What?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Pancakes with blueberries? And bacon?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.” He starts down the hall, then comes back into my room. “Mom?”

“Yeah.”

“I hope you feel better.”

“Thank you. I’ll be fine.”

He hesitates, then comes over to kiss my cheek. Which makes my throat hurt so much I make two fists in order not to cry out.

32

“W
OULD YOU LIKE TO TRY A SAMPLE OF OUR NEW CHEESE
?” I ask.

The older woman stops her grocery cart, squints at me. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s a new kind of Swiss cheese. Much lower in fat than the others.”

“Is it any good?”

“Would you like to taste it?”

She frowns. “I don’t think so.”

I put the foil tray back down on my card table. I’m wearing an apron with a cow on it. I would rather build a header. But this is the only job that was available for me today.

“Would you like to try a sample of our new cheese?” I ask a middle-aged man.

“Does it come with a burger?” he asks.

“No, it’s just cheese.”

“That was a joke,” the man says. “You don’t have a very good sense of humor, do you?”

I smile. “Guess not.”

.    .    .

L
ATE THAT NIGHT
, before going to sleep, I call King. “I handed out cheese samples today,” I say. “What did you do?”

“Painted bedrooms in a new house. Mission white, mission white, and mission white.”

“I’m tired of working.”

“Good. Let’s take a day off tomorrow and go to a movie.”

“Two movies.”

“Okay.”

I hang up the phone and hear the sound of voices, whispering. I get out of bed, come out into the hall. It’s Edward and Travis, huddled together downstairs at the front door. “What are you guys doing?” I call down. “It’s midnight!”

“Shhhh!” Edward motions frantically for me to come down.

“What is it?” I say, and then,
shhhhh!
ed again, wait until I am at his side to whisper, “What
is
it?”

“I think it’s . . . an
intruder,
” Edward says, looking meaningfully at Travis. Ah. What he means is, It’s a murderer. Edward is clutching his bathrobe at his neck with one hand, wielding his squash racket in the other.

I pull Travis toward me. “You go upstairs. Right now.” Tomorrow I’m getting a dog.

“I’m not going upstairs!” Travis says. “He might come up
there
!”

He might. He might be up there
now
. He might have watched me go down the stairs!

“When did you last hear him?” I ask Edward.

“He’s outside. I think he’s in the bushes.”

“Well, what should we do?” I ask. “Should I call the cops?”

“That’ll just make him mad,” Edward says. And then, “Oh, this is ridiculous! We need a
man
in the house!”

“Mom,” Travis says.

“What?” I look at his upturned face and immediately calm down.

“Come with me,” I say. “It’s all right. Let’s go call the police. They’ll be right over.” I dial 911, then use my best speaking voice, as I am being recorded.

It takes three and a half minutes for the police to arrive. We watch from the window as two overweight men get out of the squad car. The blue flashing lights are a comfort, for once.

“They should be careful!” Edward says. “What are they
doing,
just getting
out
like that!”

“They have guns,” Travis whispers. “Probably thirty-eights. Or maybe Magnums.”

“What are you talking about!” I say. “What are you talking about guns! That’s it, you don’t play with Howard Niehauser anymore!”

“Do you mind?” Edward says. “Do you think this is the time and the place? Why don’t you wait to see if we live? Then you can kill him.”

“Shhh!” I say. I hear it now, too, the rustling of someone in the bushes. And then the police see him, and put their hands, both of them, to their guns at exactly the same time, in the same way. A little police choreography. A little ballet. I start to laugh.

Edward stares at me, bug-eyed.

“I’m sorry,” I say. I always laugh when I’m nervous. I hate this about myself.

“Come out of there with your hands up,” I hear one of the cops say, and I thrill to the familiarity of the phrase, which, up to now, I’ve only heard in movies, on TV. A slight figure disentangles itself from the bushes. It is Lavender Blue, who, as she explains hysterically to the policemen, just forgot something, that’s all. A statue of Saint Jude she had buried out front when she first moved in. It was just for luck, she tells them as she slides into the car, the muddy patron saint clutched in her hand.

I open the door. “Excuse me!”

One cop slams the car door after Lavender, then heads up the walk toward me. The other cop gets in the front seat of the car and turns around to look at her, a weary sorrow in his face.

“It’s all right,” I tell the cop who is standing on my front porch. “She used to live here. She just moved out.”

“You don’t want to file a report?”

“No.”

“She always visit this late?” the cop asks.

“She has trouble sleeping.”

The cop tongues off a tooth, makes a muted smacking sound. “Okay, then. Take care.”

I close the door, turn to see Edward stashing his racket back in the front hall closet. He combs his hair back with his fingers, tosses his head, tightens his robe belt. “Well,” he says. “Good night.”

“I’m not tired,” Travis says, exhausted-looking.

33

I’
VE GOTTEN TOO DRESSED UP
. I
T
’
S ONLY A LUNCH
. B
UT THERE
was something in his voice.

I see David come in the door, and wave at him. He comes over to the table, smiles. Sits. Smiles again.

The waiter comes over and I order herbal tea. “The same,” David says. “You like tea?” I ask. “You never used to.”

He shrugs. “It’s so cold out. Seems like a good idea.”

“It is cold.”

“Yes. Sam . . .” A long silence.

I wait. He has circles under his eyes. He’s lost a little weight. The waiter brings our tea, and we both order sandwiches. And then David says, “I don’t know exactly how to say this. But I’ve been thinking. Sam, I made a big mistake. I’m coming home.”

I sit, frozen.

“Do you think we should tell Travis together?”

“Well, David, I—”

“You don’t need to answer right away. We can think about the best way to do it. But I’m just so relieved.”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“Oh, that was . . . She was only—”

“Did she leave you?”

He looks into my eyes. “No. It was my decision.”

He’s telling the truth.

I try to imagine telling Travis, think of how happy he will be to learn that his dad is coming back. I can have my old life again.

“I’ve missed you, Sam. I’ve come to understand so much about myself lately, about the way we were together, about what we
had
that I just . . .” He stares into his teacup, shakes his head.

“What do you miss, David?”

He looks up, laughs. “Oh, come on, Sam, I think you must know that. Our routines, Travis, I just—”

I swallow, touch his arm. “About me, David. What do you miss about
me
?”

“Well.” He smiles, leans forward. “I miss . . . everything. The way you’re always there for me. The way you never question me or give me a hard time. Even the meals you make, you—”

“David?”
How about this? The way your shoes are always untied. The
way you cry over greeting cards. The way you try to hide your cowlick. The
freckle at the side of your right breast
.

“Yeah?”

“It’s too late.” I pick up my purse. “I’m sorry. But I think it will be better if I just go, now.”

“Sam, wait a minute!”

“We’ll talk later, David. But not about this. I’m sorry.”

I am, a little. I walk down the block, thinking of him sitting there. It’s odd; it pains me that his clothes are still so familiar to me. I took the shirt he was wearing to the cleaners many times; I saw the belt and trousers he had on hanging in our closet. I believe I could tell you everything that’s in his pockets. But it will happen soon that I won’t know anymore.

34

S
PINACH LASAGNA,
K
ING IS MAKING FOR ME, A GRAND
S
UNDAY
luncheon, and I’m bringing the garlic bread. I spent the day attempting to make it from scratch, but now that it’s out of the oven, I regret the time I spent doing it. It looks awful. I break a piece off the end, taste it. Well, if ever I think about baking bread for a living, I’ll remember this. I dump the loaf into the garbage and head for Franco’s Market, home of Pepperidge Farm.

When I arrive at King’s, he ushers me in with a flourish, bending low at the waist and sweeping a dish towel through the air. He is wearing an apron and, when he stands up straight again, I see that he has drawn on a thin mustache. I smile, reach out to touch it, but he holds his hand up protectively. “Don’t mess it up,” he says. “It took me a long time to get it so realistic-looking.”

His kitchen table has been covered with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth; there are bread sticks in a glass at the center of the table, an antipasto platter, a candle stuck into a Chianti bottle. “Well, this is wonderful,” I say, laughing.

“Thank you. Sit down. Would you like some wine?”

In the afternoon? Well, why not? I nod, pull my chair in close to the table, hold up my glass. He fills it halfway with red wine; then, when I don’t put the glass down, he fills it to the top. This is my favorite restaurant.

“I’
M STUFFED
,” I say. “My stomach hurts.” I am lying on King’s sofa, my shoes off, my empty wineglass at my side.

“Yeah, that’s how I used to feel after every meal,” King says.

“You didn’t eat half as much as I did.”

“Sure I did.”

He’s just being gracious. He’d only had two helpings. “You’re losing quite a bit, aren’t you? I hope you don’t mind my asking.
Do
you mind my asking?”

“No, of course not. I’ve lost forty pounds. Another twenty, I’ll have to beat Edward off with a stick.”

“Is that what you want to do, lose another twenty?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s great,” I say. “Although . . .”

“What?”

“Well, I just want you to know that I think you’re fine the way you are.”

He says nothing, and I look down, feel myself flushing. I shouldn’t have said that. He’s not losing weight for me.

Finally, to break the silence, I ask, “Do you like having no curtains?”

“I never thought of it. Do I need them?”

“I don’t know. No. I like how everything’s so . . . simple here.”

“I’ve never been much of a decorator. My parents weren’t either. What we did was read. You know, at dinner and everything.”

“Do your parents live near here?”

“No, they died, both within the last couple years. My dad was at a bookstore, looking at an atlas. He’d wanted a new one. And my mom had a heart attack exactly a year later.”

“I’m sorry; I’d thought they were still around.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too. Because they would have been really happy. They always wanted me to—”

The doorbell rings and I sit up, slide into my shoes. I don’t know why. I guess I’m afraid it’s Travis, checking up on me. “Why are your shoes off?” he’d say.

But of course it’s not Travis. When King opens the door, I see a willowy blond woman, very attractive, smiling.

“Linda!” King says.

Oh.

“I thought I’d surprise you,” she says, and I hear the confident lilt of flirtation in a relationship that is going well. “What’s on your lip?” she says, reaching up to wipe it away. Then, seeing me, “Oh. You’re busy.”

I stand. “It’s okay. Come on in. I’m Sam. I’m just a friend.” I regret having eaten so much, not having worn mascara.

King steps aside. “Yes, come in.”

Linda enters, but stands by the door. “I can’t stay, really. I just wanted to drop a book off.” She hands a small volume to King, and he smiles, thanks her.

I want a coat like Linda’s. It’s camel-colored, with a collar that you can stand up high. Her boots are a rich brown, high-heeled. Well, that’s just silly. High-heeled boots. Ridiculous. Make up your mind, sexy or safe. Large gold hoop earrings, too, I see, watching Linda push her hair back. Catch something in there and say good-bye to your lobe. I could have blond hair, too, if I wanted. A word to Edward, and voilà. Last week he “tipped” me. Very elegant. Linda’s lipstick color is nice, but her blush is too obvious. Plus the woman is stupid, I can tell just by looking at her. King can do much better than this. I’ll tell him. I owe it to him. As a friend.

There is a sudden silence, and I realize something has been said to me. “Pardon?” I say, smiling an awful, fake smile. My chest hurts.

“I just said it was nice to meet you,” Linda says. “I hope I’ll see you again.”

“Oh! Yes! I hope so, too!”

After King closes the door, I sit back down. “Well! She’s very nice.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s the one you met from the personals, right?”

“Right.”

“So, what does she do?”

“She’s a teacher.”

Nursery school. Of course, she’s exactly the type. I see Linda in her high-heeled boots, hop-hop-hopping around in a circle with her class, all of them being rabbits. Noses twitching. Bent hands for ears.

“She teaches at Boston University.”

Okay, freshman English. “What does she teach?”

“Quantum mechanics.”

“Oh, uh-huh. Well, that’s . . . So, what book did she bring you?”

King hands me a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

“You like these?” I ask.

“Sure. Don’t you?”

“I never understand them.” I clear my throat. Smile.

I need to go home. In the hamper are about forty loads of wash. And I need to pay the bills. There are many bills. Stacks and stacks of them.

“Shakespeare’s not so hard,” King says. “You can understand this.” He opens to a page. “Here: ‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.’ Nothing hard about that, right?” He sits beside me on the sofa, points to the line, says it again. “See? And they are, aren’t they? Darling? The buds?”

I stare into my lap. His breath is like licorice. Why is his breath like licorice? Mine is like a garlic factory, I’m sure. Not that there is such a thing. A garlic factory. I think about it anyway, imagine blond-haired girls wearing braids and white uniforms standing on an assembly line, shaping cloves into bulbs.

Then I look up at him. His breath is like licorice and his apartment is overly warm because he knows that’s how I like it and his hand is under my chin and he is going to kiss me.

“King.”

He sits back. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s . . . I mean, aren’t you . . . sort of . . . involved?”

“With Linda?”

“Yes!”

“I think
she’s
sort of involved.”

“I’d say so.” I stand, head for the kitchen. “Come on, I’ll help you clean up.”

He follows me. “You don’t have to.”

“No,” I say. “I want to. Really. I like washing dishes.”

I wash and he wipes. For a long while, we don’t talk, just stand, hips nearly touching, quietly working. And then I draw in a breath, take my hands out of the dishwater and put them on King’s shoulders. And do not understand how he knows how to kiss like that.

I reach around him and untuck his shirt, wonder if I really mean this. I pull away from him, look into his face. “Are you— Is this okay?”

He nods.

“Should we—?”

He nods again, takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. There, he carefully folds down the blankets, fluffs the pillows. And then he starts to unbutton his shirt, but stops. “I don’t know . . . I mean, do I—?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t move.

“I’ll tell you what,” I say. “Let’s just talk. But lying down.”

His relief brightens the room. I lie beside him, stretched out on my side. He is on his back, his eyes closed. Now that we’ve decided to slow down, I’m dying to speed up. I put my head on his shoulder, my hand on his chest. He is more solid than I had imagined. I unbutton two buttons, wait, then rise up to look into his face. “Okay?”

“Yes,” he says. And then we don’t talk anymore. And when I get home, I look at myself in the mirror to see if what I feel shows. What I see is the faint transfer of King’s mustache, and I wash it off with regret.

A
T EIGHT O
’
CLOCK
, Travis and I are watching TV when Edward comes home. He nods hello, hangs up his coat, then comes to sit on the sofa beside us. At the commercial, Travis goes into the kitchen, and Edward leans toward me. “What happened to
you
?” he whispers. And then, when I don’t answer, he leans back, arms crossed, smiling. “That’s what I thought.”

“What?” I say. “You don’t know anything.”

“Oh,
please
.”

I stare at him. “Your teeth are going to get all dried out if you don’t stop smiling. And then your lips will stick to them, and you’ll look like a chimpanzee. Stop smiling!”

“
You’re
not.”

.    .    .

A
T MIDNIGHT, STILL
awake, I call Rita.

“We did it!” I say.

Rita gasps. “Tell me everything.
Everything
. Wait! First I want to go get a glass of wine.”

“Okay, I will, too.”

I go quietly down to the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine, and head back to my bedroom, closing both Travis’s and my door.

I get under the covers, pick up the phone. “Are you there?”

“Yes! Tell me everything!”

“Okay.” I lie back against the pillows, take a sip of wine, wonder where to start. I see King’s face over me again, a tenderness there that made me separate into two selves, one who lay in a warm bed held by warm arms and another who looked down and nodded. He had run his hands over my breasts so gently, so tentatively. And then his mouth was on me and moving down, so slowly. And when finally he put himself inside me, he froze for a moment, his breath held, his eyes fixed on mine, and then there was no separation of anything. For the first time in my life, I had the sensation of simultaneous giving and taking so huge there was no room for anything else, anywhere. It was less sexual than sacred, close to what I think a good death might be. He had wept a little afterward, saying that he was afraid to believe it could ever happen like this, that he was so grateful that I was the one, that he was sorry he was weeping, he didn’t know why he was weeping, he felt terrific, he felt like running outside and lifting up cars. And I held his giant shaggy head on my chest and stroked his hair and said that was fine, I would be happy to help him, so long as the cars were small. And then we had done everything again. And then he had said he was sorry he still weighed so much, he would lose more, he hadn’t hurt me, had he? And I said no, he had not.

“Rita?” I say.

“Yeah?”

“I think I don’t want to tell you. I mean, it was wonderful. I just don’t want to tell you the details. I feel like . . . it’s ours.”

Silence. And then Rita says, “Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have your glass of wine?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, hold it up, girl, and let’s have a toast.”