This Is What I Want (4 page)

NORBY

Norby hunkered down in his hotel room, with a meal from Denny’s in a Styrofoam box, his phone, and the fifty-six channels on the TV set. He felt better, though, perhaps as good as he’d felt all day. When the jet banked over the Yellowstone River and made the final approach into Billings, he’d looked down at the city and felt a stirring he hadn’t expected. Anticipation. Desire, even. He wouldn’t have imagined that.

He couldn’t get over how much the place had changed, how vibrant it seemed relative to his memories and his biases. A funny place, Billings. It fueled an entire region, with a banking center, first-class health care, and the might of more than a hundred thousand souls, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone eager to love it. Billings was car lots and office towers and windblown buttes. If it’s mountains and lakes and liberalism you wanted—Norby smiled to remember how much he had desired all of those things—you’d do better to point your nose toward Missoula. And that’s what he’d done, the first westward unfurling of his ambition and discovery of self. It’s where he shed his given name, Samuel, and took his first steps toward becoming Norby, because he was finally allowed to be who he believed himself to be. After four years there, summa cum laude tucked into his pocket, he also knew his desires lay farther still from where he’d come.

But today, as Norby piloted his rental car down the Rimrocks into town, he was forced to reconsider his long-held positions. In his absence, Billings had grown into itself, with high-end bars and restaurants crowding corners once blighted by neglect; a new city library, linear and beautiful and modern; a parking lot where the beaten husk of the old library used to stand. He spun through town in wonder, cutting his way through leafy neighborhoods and business districts to a new hotel on the city’s southern edge, convenient to tomorrow’s interstate escape.

Now, a few hours later, Norby finished the last of his pasta and dropped the to-go box into the trash can by the table. He stood, linked his hands above his head and stretched, a tingle moving through him from the small of his back and radiating toward his shoulder blades. He spread out perpendicular to the alignment of the queen bed, propping a pillow under his arm and taking in the industrial scent of the laundered linens. The display on his phone read 9:13. At home, his parents would be getting ready for bed, to take advantage of the last night of decent sleep before Sunday. He wanted to call and come clean to his mom, to tell her he was in Billings and that he wanted to come alone for his own reasons. Like most lies, the one about traveling by way of Bismarck had been spawned by expediency and expanded by necessity. He felt foolish, but his father would surely be there if he called now, and Norby didn’t want to get into it with him, so he wallowed in the frustration he’d stoked.

He turned on the TV and rifled through the channels, settling on one of the ubiquitous police procedurals. He’d seen this one before; it was the brother, the seemingly normal one, who hid the bodies of those girls in the crawl space of the family home. The detectives always got at the truth of the matter, it seemed.

A message flashed on his phone.

Where u?

Derek.

Norby stared at the screen for the better part of a minute, caught between joy and revulsion. When would one name, five simple letters, stop holding sway over his emotions and self-regard?

Out of town
, he typed back.

Shit.

What?

I came by.

Why?

The reply was long in coming, and too banal for the wait.
I wanted to get my shirt. The one from Seattle. U know the one?

As if Norby could forget. Seattle, a year ago next month. A concert at the Neptune, the sweet scent of alcohol seeping from their pores as they moved in rhythm under the houselights. They’d spent the preceding day roaming the University of Washington campus, with Norby basking in sweet envy at his lover’s fortune in having matriculated there. Before the show, Derek had found the shirt—disco purple with silver cross-threading and mother-of-pearl snaps down the middle—at a vintage shop on Brooklyn Avenue, and it hung perfectly on him. Such fun those buttons had been to pop open hours later, back at the hotel, in their drunken rambunctiousness. Derek’s skin, hot to the touch. The scent of him on Norby as they slept, entwined. Yeah, Norby knew the shirt. If he closed his eyes and thought of Derek, something he tried to avoid, the shirt was part of the image. When he’d found it after Derek cleared out, he cast it to the back of the closet, not wanting to lay eyes upon it—and holding the furtive hope that he could keep it somehow.

Sorry. Not there.

Where u?

Montana.

The words lingered unanswered for a bit.

Oh.

Yeah.

When u back?

A few days.
A tremor went through Norby’s hands. Sudden anger at the imposition, and the inquisition. It came on sideways, at odd angles, with no percolation.

Can someone else let me in?

No.

Chill. Just asking.

The world doesn’t turn on you and your fucking shirt.

Whoa. What’s with u?

“You goddamn well know what’s with me,” Norby said aloud. He bolted into a sitting position, turned off the TV, and jabbed his finger at the phone’s touch screen, tapping out a reply. The night of the breakup, he’d gone back to the house alone. Derek stayed in a room at the Hotel De Anza, having already packed a bag and cleared out before they met for dinner. That had been tough enough, but it was no match for the scattershot visits over the next week—sometimes when Norby was at work, sometimes when he was there—when Derek would swoop in and haul off some more belongings. Finally, Norby had set some boundaries: one more trip, get everything, leave the key, stay permanently gone. That had been eleven days earlier, and the agreement had held until tonight. The bile rose in Norby’s throat faster than he could swallow it back down.

Nothing’s with me. You can get it when I’m back.

K. Jeez.

You’re so manipulative.
Norby rapped it out before he had time to reconsider. If he could still wound Derek, that comment would get him. Their worst fights, and Derek’s most extended bouts of pouting, had come in the wake of Norby calling him on his fouls. Norby braced for the reply. If he drew blood, as he expected, he could count on Derek to overplay the offense.

Whatever. U R mean. This is why I couldn’t love u.
Norby stared at the screen, absorbing it even as his mind screamed at him to just let it roll off him. He blinked, then blinked again. How wonderful it would be if he just couldn’t feel anymore.

He pressed the power button and turned off the phone.

PATRICIA

She lay on her side in the darkened bedroom, feigning sleep after hearing Sam come in the front door. His unwinding brought forth the melody she knew well—the slap of his tossed keys on the kitchen counter, the concussive beat of his slipped-off boots hitting the floor beside the sliding-glass door, the insistent beep of the refrigerator as he pawed too long through the drawers looking for something to ease his sweet tooth, the padded footfalls through the living room as he headed toward her.

She opened an eye and found the glowing display of the alarm clock: 9:21 p.m. A late arrival for Sam, even by eve-of-Jamboree standards. She knew better than to have expected him for dinner. Once the pies were out of the oven and cooled, she’d wrapped them in aluminum foil and set them high on her grandmother’s buffet in the dining room, well out of the reach of the grabby grandchildren she expected to see in about twenty hours. After that, she drove the twelve miles to Sidney and ate a double cheeseburger from Dairy Queen in the privacy of her car, euphoric at every bite. She knew what such a luxury demanded. She would be back in Sidney the next morning, in league with her CrossFit group, ready to keep that greasy delight off her thighs.

A crack of light fell on her from the opening of the bathroom door as Sam brushed his teeth before bed.
Praise be for that,
she thought. He often didn’t take such care, and on those occasions when he went in for a good-night kiss, she would quietly endure the detritus of whatever he’d consumed for lunch at Pete’s.

Lights out, she waited for his touch as he slid into his side of the bed. A serpentine arm slithered over her hips and across her belly, drawing her into him.

“You awake?” he said.

“Barely.”

“I’m sorry.”

She patted his arm. “It’s OK. How’d it go?”

She closed her eyes and let him speak his piece. Conceit moved to the forefront on this particular occasion, where Grandview and Jamboree became the revolving planets and Sam became the sun. Patricia supplied all the proper cues—the “uh-huhs” and the gentle, reassuring rub of his arm—that kept Sam’s story rolling forth. She deviated into true interest only when he mentioned the visitor from back East.

“The
New York Times
? Here?”

Sam sat up a bit and pressed his whiskered face against her bare shoulder. She liked that. “Yeah. You should have seen Swarthbeck. He was sweating like a hog after the fair. I guess she kind of got under his skin with her questions.”

Swarthbeck. Patricia’s face twisted into a sour-milk frown. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for him; indeed, it went much deeper than garden-variety disregard. But the mayor was a useful idiot, she often reminded herself, a hedge against even greater ambition from her well-meaning husband. This Jamboree thing essentially came with the marriage, a duty passed down the family line that she knew was going to fall on Sam eventually. And she couldn’t very well begrudge the position on the school board, because what kind of troll opposes the education of kids? But as long as Swarthbeck was mayor—and indications were that he’d sooner die than give it up—Sam couldn’t be. As for the other aspirations, the county commission or maybe a seat in the statehouse, she’d exercised her nuclear option long ago: Sam could do that or be married to her, but he couldn’t do both. She wanted a husband, not a public figure.

“What’s her interest?” Patricia asked.

He kissed her ear. She rolled her shoulder to cover it up.

“Oil,” he said. “Same old story, just a different way of going at it. She wants to know what the future looks like for a place like this.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her we’re in a lot of trouble.”

She rolled toward him, face-to-face. “John isn’t going to like that.”

“It’s true, though,” Sam said. “I get it. Everything’s hunky-dory to Swarthbeck. Money’s rolling in, times are good, we can replace the town pool, whatever. I’m looking at the bigger picture.”

She touched his face. Good old earnest Samuel Einar Kelvig. Thirty-two years had a way of putting distance into their marriage, and in some significant ways even discontent. Other times, though, she remembered why she’d loved him in the first place, and why she’d stood by him, even when he was flat wrong or just entrenched and pigheaded. Because his heart was right.

And about pigheaded . . . Her thoughts turned to their son and his impending arrival.

“Kids’ll be here tomorrow,” she said.

Sam propped himself on an elbow. “Samuel, too?”

“He called me from the airport this morning.”

“Where is he?”

“Bismarck. I told him to drive the rest of the way tomorrow.”

“And you know he’s there?”

Patricia clucked her tongue, trying to chase her husband off the territory he was claiming. This had been Sam’s go-to on matters of their son ever since that disaster of a first visit with Samuel’s friend, and Samuel and Derek’s subsequent turnaround in the Minneapolis airport after she and Sam had bought them tickets and asked them, pretty please, to come back at Christmastime for another try. To Sam, that had been an unforgivable snub and a demonstration of the immaturity that still hung heavy from their son. Patricia had found a softer spot in her heart. The boys had gotten spooked, and she and her husband had done the spooking.

“He said he’ll be here,” she said.

“OK. Good. Glad to hear it. He bringing anybody?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, we’ll roll with it, I guess.”

Patricia exhaled. She couldn’t say this was promising, but among all the reactions Sam might have conjured, it was on the safe side. “Denise and Randy and the kids will be here in time for supper in the park,” she said. “Randy’s got a dentist appointment in the morning.”

“OK.”

Sam rolled away from her, prepping his pillow for the coming slumber. She reached for his shoulder.

“Sam.”

“Yeah?”

She caressed him, dribbling her fingers down the length of his arm.

“What, Pat?”

“It’s important to me.”

“What?”

“Samuel’s visit.”

“I know.”

She paused, the words caught in her throat. She swallowed, straightening them out.

“No, listen.”

Sam rolled back to face her. “What?”

She swallowed again. Lord, how many times had she rehearsed this in her own head? How many ways had she looked at this breach with the child she loved and yet didn’t understand? All she really knew is that she felt incomplete. It had happened as Samuel pulled away from them by degrees out there in Missoula and then extended the distance when he moved to California. Three years ago, the rupture came, and she’d spent the intervening months and years trying to mend the broken ground. She needed help, and only Sam could give it to her.

“Make time for him this visit,” she said. “He’ll be here by noon, he said. Come home for lunch. Will you do that?”

Sam thrashed in the bed to sit up and to face her again. “Good lord, Patricia, I’ve got a to-do list longer than the Missouri River. Send him to me. I’ll put him to work, and we’ll talk then. I could use the help. It’s gonna be hell for me and Omar to get it done alone.”

“Sam, I need you to be gentle with him.”

“Gentle!” The word leapt from him, ready to thrash away at her. She leaned back, aghast, and listened to him strangle on the others trying to get out.

Finally he spoke, softly, as if to compensate for the things he had nearly said.

“He’s not a delicate flower, Patricia, he’s our son. I love him, but I am not going to pretend that I understand him, and I’m not going to let him disrespect us just because he’s . . .” He fumbled about for the closing, and Patricia silently filled in the blank he’d left in a dozen uncharitable ways.

“I’m done,” he said. “I’m wiped out. Let’s talk in the morning.”

He flopped over again, for good, and found the groove into sleep faster than he had any right to. Patricia lay on her back, listening to the rise and fall and blinking into the darkness, her mind scattered to the wind.
This funny life,
she thought.
Sometimes it shows you everything you love and everything you’d leave all in the same moment
.