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Authors: David Poyer

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BOOK: The Passage
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“What do you mean, sir? I been fixing his entertainment system.”
“Seems like it's needed a lot of fixing lately.”
“It's broke all the time, that's why. It's a shitty system; they bought low bid.” Sanderling's eyes went still. “Or are you askin' me something else, sir?”
“You seem to be friendly with him.”
“We talk. He's okay.” The seaman's eyes slid off Dan's toward the pier. “What you want me to say, sir? He's the captain. I'm a seaman second. Sometimes we talk about music.”
He couldn't tell if the man was being evasive or just defensive. He thought for a second of asking him something along the lines of “Does he ever try to touch you?” But that sounded like something you'd say to a child. Anyway, what could Sanderling tell him? If he admitted something and Dan reported it, ship's office would start discharge proceedings tomorrow.
So he didn't ask. He just turned, and there was Jay Harper on the quarterdeck. “There you are, you little son of a bitch,” Harper said furiously. “I got him, Glasser. Sanderling, you little pansy thief. I ought to cut your nuts off.”
Dan said, “Report to me later and tell me what this is all about, Chief Warrant.” Then he walked aft, forcing himself to detach even as he heard Harper shouting.
 
 
HE picked Beverly up at her apartment and took her out to an Italian place. He felt her warmth against his back as they rode, arms wrapped around him, tightening every time he leaned into a curve. But dinner felt strained. He was tired and she didn't have much to say, either. He kept catching her eye, but when he looked right at her, she dropped her gaze.
“How's Billy?”
“He's fine. He wanted to know if you were coming over tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“He wanted to stay up till we got back.” She smiled. “You've got a fan.”
“He's a good kid.”
“You look tired.”
“I guess I am. We're coming down to the wire on the availability.”
“That's one of those weird Navy words that means something else, right?”
“It means being pierside at the shipyard—so they can fix stuff.”
“I see. Well, we don't have to go to the movie if you don't feel up to it.”
There it was again, her fucking agreeableness. “You wanted to see that one, didn't you?”
“Yes, but I can go anytime. I can see it with a girlfriend when you're at sea.” She smiled faintly. “I'll have plenty of free time then. Why don't we just go home? You can lie on the couch. I'll rub your neck.”
The sitter met them at the door, a finger to her lips. “Oh, he fell asleep?” Strishauser said, pulling off her linen jacket. “He wanted to stay up and see Dan. Here, is this enough? Thanks, Jennie.”
She turned to Dan. “Just let me look in on him. I'll be right out. Wine in the refrigerator.” She went off and he strolled into the kitchen. A roach—no, he corrected himself dryly, in Charleston they were “palmetto bugs”—froze on the sink as he flipped the light on. The Lancer's was in the fridge. He found glasses and poured two tall ones.
She came out in a pale flowered robe, not silk, but padded cotton. A housewife's cover-up, he thought. She wasn't wearing her glasses, and her eyes blinked, making her look puzzled. They settled on the couch, and the quiet grew longer, till it was a living thing one of them would have to kill. Beverly finally did. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“I know how you feel about … your ex-wife. But don't you think all this bitterness is hurting you more than her?”
“Bitterness?”
“Yes, I know, ‘What bitterness?' I don't think men know half of what goes on in their own heads. You're full of anger, Dan. So full, it spills over on me. Sometimes it makes me mad. Most of the time, it just makes me sad.”
“Well … I'm pissed, yeah. I got hurt. She gets my daughter and two-thirds of my fucking paycheck. You call that fair?”
“Don't you think she might have been hurt, too?”
“She didn't have to leave.”
“She must have felt she did.”
“I can't control what people feel. We had a house, furniture, a car. A hell of a lot better than my parents ever had it. We had Nan. Betts was going to school part-time. She could have done anything she wanted. I'm not the most in touch with my feelings kind of person. I'm not spontaneous, but I was trying to change. I
was
changing. What does she do? Fuck some asshole she meets in a bar.” He tossed the last of the wine off, got up, and got another. She shook her head when he held up the bottle. “Her parents are rich. I couldn't match what she grew up with. And then she got into this feminist stuff—”
“You know, I don't drink very much—except when I'm with you. Then I always get up with a headache the next day.”
“Well, your cigarettes give me a headache, too.”
“You didn't notice.” She sounded hurt.
“Notice what?”
“I haven't smoked at all this evening. I thought you'd be pleased.” He couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he just felt guilty, then angry because she made him feel guilty.
“Did you ever ask her what she needed to be happy?”
“Who?”
“Your ex-wife.”
“I don't know. Look, I really don't want to talk about this stuff now.”
“I'm sorry. I just wanted to help. I don't see how you can—it's hard to be happy when you keep all that bottled up inside you.”
“Now you sound like her.”
“Do I?”
“That's what she was always saying—that I bottled everything up till my brains fizzed. She called it ‘rigid Academy bullshit.' Hey, if it wasn't for the Navy, I'd be back in Pennsylvania wiring houses.” He got up and went to the window and pulled the curtain aside. His bike was sitting at the curb, under the light. Shit, he thought, I got to get that turn signal fixed.
“I know,” she murmured.
“What do you know?”
“How it feels, having someone tell you what you're like, belittle you. Carl made me feel like I couldn't do anything right. He'd criticize me at every opportunity, tell me I was helpless, that I exaggerated my feelings. I hated myself because I believed what he told me. Then I found out about his affairs.”
Dan looked out the window. “Yeah?”
“My friends all knew. I finally opened my eyes and saw what had been right in front of me. That's what made me realize that I had to get out. For my own sanity and for Bartholomew—for Billy's.” She paused. “Is that what your wife did? Have an affair?”
“I told you that.”
“Not till tonight.”
“I told you that first time I met you.”
“So you know how it feels,” she said in a faint voice.
He thought, What is this? He jerked the curtain closed, went over to her, ran his hands down her back under the robe.
“I locked his door,” she murmured.
He uncovered her long pale body, her hollow thighs. He thought of Baird's heavy white breasts, of Little Mary's dark nipples. He pushed her down on the rug and plunged into her, riding the bone at the bottom of her belly with his weight till she tightened in a choked, shuddering murmur.
 
 
THEIR clothes were scattered over the couch and the coffee table. They lay together on the floor.
She whispered, “Have you been seeing Sibylla?”
“What?”
“I said, have you been seeing Sibylla Baird? The artist?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
She stretched out a blue-shadowed arm for her wine. She sounded cool, but her hand was trembling. “Where did that come from?” he asked her.
“She's a friend of mine. Have you been dating her?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me. I'd like the truth, please.”
“Well then—yes.”
“How many other women have you been seeing, Dan? Since you started dating me?”
“I don't know.”
“You must
know
, Dan. You must keep score. In your head, at least.”
“Holy shit.” He sat up. “What is this? Do you want a list?”
“Yes. Why don't you make me a list, Dan. Just so we both know.”
“All right. Jesus. Three.”
“That you dated?”
“Yes.”
He saw her ribs rise and fall as she took a deep breath and let it out. Her fingertips gripped the skin of her belly into faint pale wrinkles. “Did you go to bed with them?”
“I don't know.”
“Oh God.
Did
you, Dan?”
“ … Yeah.”
“With Sibylla?”
“Yeah.”
“And the others …”
“Yes.”
“Do I know them? The others?”
“No.”
She reached out suddenly and he flinched, but she only grabbed at her robe. She shook a cigarette out with quick nervous motions and lighted it, and he saw that she was weeping.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to know.”
“Is that supposed to be thoughtful? Am I supposed to thank you for that?”
He didn't answer. She went on, “I know. You didn't promise anything. Maybe I'm being naïve about all this. I guess that's the way things are these days … the
dating
scene … .” She tilted her head back and breathed smoke into the empty air. “Maybe I'm the trouble. I need a man as part of my life. And Billy does, too … . Believe me, I know I shouldn't love you. But I'm afraid I do. Maybe it's my fault that you felt like you needed the others. If I'd said it sooner, maybe you wouldn't have needed to look elsewhere for whatever—whatever it is they gave you.”
He felt sorry for her, but it was irritating, too. He'd never promised her a damn thing, and she was acting like it was the end of the world. “I don't want you to love me.”
“Why not?”
He couldn't tell her what the real reasons were, that he just didn't like her enough. She was too clinging; she smoked; her accent, the ugly dress shields … “I don't know. I just don't want to love anybody anymore.”
“Didn't it feel good, what we just did? Don't you want to keep on doing it?”
“Sure, but now you're talking about something else, okay? It's just not on my list of priorities right now. You're acting like my mother—”
“Your
mother
? What just happened was not exactly maternal, Dan.”
“The way you want to know every little detail of what I'm feeling.”
“Oh my God. When you love somebody, you want to know. You don't want to just be bodies rubbing in the night.”
“Cute. But I don't feel like being owned, Bev. Can't we just enjoy each other?” He rolled over and got up, looked around for his shorts, found them under a cushion. “That was what I liked about you. That we could just be together and you wouldn't start demanding stuff.”
“I knew that before you told me, Dan—that you didn't want me to love you. You're right, sex is good, but I can't leave my feelings at the door. I might as well go to an aerobics class.”
“Well, you're not getting any more out of me than that,” he said,
knowing it was too blunt and too coarse, but she just wasn't getting it.
“But I can offer
you
more, Dan. Companionship. Friendship. Billy needs a dad. And I can offer … what your ex-wife didn't. I won't do what she did to you.”
Something huge and painful was welling up deep inside, something that wanted to tear its way out, but he couldn't let it. He kept getting dressed. He was crying, too; he couldn't tell why, whether from her pain or his own. “But I don't want that,” he said. “Not now.”
“What do you want, then? Whatever it is, I can do it. You don't have to leave. Dan? Where are you going?”
He didn't answer, just pulled the door closed. He slammed his boot down again and again on the bike, kicking it into life as if he was kicking something else to death.
 
 
HE ran the dark streets as fast as he dared, gunning through yellow lights and red, too, if he didn't see anyone coming. After several miles, the wind dried his tears to itchy trails of salt. At the gate he flicked the lights off, held up his ID as he rolled through; the guard gave him a bored wave. He headed down to the dry docks and turned right. He slowed when he came opposite the football field, lighted and empty under the stars, then gunned it again. Instead of turning, he headed down Hobson, shifting up and booting it till the engine boomed back from the slab concrete of the enlisted quarters and engineering buildings.
BOOK: The Passage
6.33Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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