Who Do You Love (34 page)

Arturo didn't seem to hear, or at least he didn't respond as he took a seat. Martin ate the burrito he'd claimed not to want almost daintily, using a scrap of tortilla to scoop up every bit of cheese and sauce. Then he plugged some crumpled bills into the vending machine and came back with another bottle of Pepsi. He took a long swallow, belched, recapped the bottle, then said, “You ever notice that white people never drink Pepsi? Just Coke. No Pepsi.”

Andy, who hadn't noticed, shook his head. When Arturo offered the trays again, Andy helped himself to arroz con pollo, beans, and tortillas.

“Arturo's wife runs a food truck,” Martin said. Andy took a bite of the beans, piping hot and perfectly seasoned.

“This is delicious. Thanks.”

“What's your deal?” asked Martin, pronouncing the word like
dill,
as in pickle. “Where'd you come from? How'd you end up here?”

“I grew up near Philadelphia, but I've been living in New York for a while.”

“What'd you do before this?”

“I was a freelance consultant,” Andy answered. Over the years, he'd collected meaningless job descriptions—the woman at one of the parties Maisie had taken him to who'd said, “I'm in the art world” (“I bet that means she's a seventh-grade art teacher,” Maisie had sniffed); a guy at a photo shoot who'd said he was a stylist, then looked at Andy like Andy had just crapped on the floor after he asked, “So, like, hair?”

“I style everything,” the man had answered, and stalked off to join the rest of his whispering, black-clad crew. Worst of all was one of Mitch's college friends, a guy Andy had met on a golf course in Florida, who'd said he was a freelance consultant, without telling them anything else. Freelance consultant, Andy had decided, was what he'd say if anyone had questions about his work that he didn't want to answer . . . and if they kept asking, he'd just throw in the word
finance
.

“So you went from ‘consulting' ”—Martin hooked his fingers into air quotes—“to working the night shift here at
Wallen
.”

“I'm taking some time to regroup,” Andy said. “I went through a pretty bad breakup.”

“Ah-HAH,” said Martin. “Now we are getting somewhere.” He leaned toward Andy like a TV reporter who specialized in getting his subjects to cry. “What happened with you and the missus?” he asked. “Was she cheating? Were you cheating? You guys have any kids?”

“Leave him alone,” Arturo said. Martin ignored him.

“Things had run their course,” said Andy—another answer he'd prepared during his days on the couch. He got to his feet, dropped his paper plate in the trash, and pulled out the apple he'd packed for dessert.

“Aw, no, man. No way. Give it up! If we're going to spend forty hours a week together, I'm gonna need some actual information.
Ran its course,
” he repeated, giving the words a nasal white-guy-with-an-overbite rendering. “What does that mean? It means nothing. You feel me?”
Feel
sounded like
fill.

Andy shrugged, hoping the subject would stay changed. No such luck. “Lemme see a picture,” Martin demanded.

“Don't have one,” said Andy.

“Now I know that's not true,” Martin said. “You look like you're pining over her. Piiiiining,” he repeated. “Plus, you got your phone.”

Andy wondered what would happen if he did a Google search for images of Maisie. Maybe Martin would think he was kidding . . . and maybe that would be the end of it. Mentally crossing his fingers, he took his phone from his pocket, tapped her name into the search bar, then clicked on a picture of her in a bikini bottom, with her right arm crossed over her breasts and swimsuit top dangling coyly from her fingertips. “Here.”

Martin looked, then grinned, shaking his head. “Oh, sure, man,” he said. “Ha fuckin' ha. Who's she, the number-one girl in your spank bank?”

“We can all dream,” said Andy, and held his hand out for the phone. Instead of giving it back, though, Martin stared at the picture more closely. Then he looked up at Andy. Then down at the picture again.

“Hold up, hold up,” he said, lifting one hand into the air.

Andy's
stomach was churning. “Shouldn't we get back to work?” he asked.

“Fifteen more minutes,” said Arturo. His face was expressionless, but Andy had the distinct impression that he was enjoying this.

“Aw, shit,” Martin said, and did a little leap of delight. “You're that guy! You're, you're . . .” He snapped his fingers, then pointed at Andy. “The runner! Marathon man! With the drugs! And that's your wife!”

“Girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend.” Andy looked at the clock. His anonymity had lasted less than three hours. “And it wasn't the marathon, it was—”

“You're Andy Landis!” Martin said. “That's your name! Holy shit! Is that why you're here? Because Wallen hires ath-a-letes? Are you still a runner? You in training for something new?”

“Retired,” Andy said. He threw out his apple and looked at Arturo. “What's next?”

“Ten minutes of break left,” said Arturo. No question at all, he was enjoying the show.

“I got more questions!” said Martin.

“No comment,” Andy said. He walked to the back of the store, hoping to find something to lift or stack or maybe even hit. Martin followed him, jabbering queries and opinions. “Damn, man. You gonna do drugs, why not do the ones that make you feel good? That crap you was on, you don't even get high off it. Plus, it shrinks your nuts.” He gave his own crotch a check-in squeeze through jeans baggy enough to contain another person, then looked at Andy sideways. “Your nuts get shrunk?”

Andy gave a single headshake. Martin's cackles rose to the ceiling and seemed to gather volume as they echoed through the empty store. “Yeah, you say. But if your nuts were shrunk, would you really tell anyone?” Andy bent his head and grabbed three bags of mulch, hoping that work would end the chatter. No such luck. Martin picked up two bags of his own, talking about Maisie, about running, about his own skill on the basketball court and how he, too, could have had a shot at the Olympics, could have been a contender.

Feeling desperate, Andy tried to change the subject. “Do you like working here?”

Martin made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. “It ain't bad. Kincaid a'ight. Long as the work gets done, we can use headsets, talk on the phone, whatever.” Martin plugged in his earbuds but didn't start his music. “So she lef
t
you?”

Andy nodded.

Martin's face grew comically somber. “She dump you 'cause of the dope?”

“That's right.” Andy didn't feel like going into specifics. They made one trip to the greenhouse in silence, with Martin sneaking looks at Andy.

“Must be rough,” Martin said as they set down their load. He didn't say anything else on the subject, and Arturo, who'd been up on the ladder, restocking the shelves of plant food, hadn't spoken, either, but the next night when they'd had their break Arturo had carried back three trays instead of two, and at the end of the night Martin had mentioned a Saturday-­morning pickup game on the high school basketball courts, open to anyone, including ex-marathon-running, gold-medal-winning pretty boys with shrunken testicles. Andy thought that was when he'd felt things start to turn, when he'd sensed the possibility that someday he could be reasonably happy again.

On Saturday morning, Martin and his friends, who ranged in age from eighteen to forty, had more or less mopped the court with Andy, who discovered that he was disgustingly, terrifyingly out of shape, that he had no shot at all and no way to defend himself against the bigger, brawnier guys who'd come for him under the boards. Early the next morning, bruised in a dozen places and aching all over, he'd started driving toward
Philadelphia
. . . but then, instead of taking the exit that would have brought him to his mother's house, he'd decided to keep going, over the Walt Whitman Bridge and onto the Atlantic City Expressway, following the signs reading
BEACHES
until he found a parking spot. It was just after seven in the morning. The sun was turning the sky the color of orange sherbet, glinting off the water, making each ripple shine. Lifeguards with zinc-coated noses were climbing up into their chairs; waves were spending themselves gently, leaving lacy foam on the sand; walkers and joggers were making their way along the
boardwalk
.

After everything that had happened, Andy had privately sworn that he would never run again, not even to catch a bus. But that had been years ago. Who would know? More important, why should he deny himself the pleasure of something he'd once loved? Running had once taken him to a place beyond thought, a place where there were no questions, no conversations, no debates about right or wrong, fate and destiny. Would it still work?

Andy unlaced his work boots and peeled off his socks. His feet had the unhealthy pallor of mushrooms that had sprouted during a rainstorm, and there was a basketball-induced blister on his left heel. His jeans would chafe if he went too far, and he hadn't brought sunscreen. He rolled up his cuffs and walked down to the water, feeling the sand, cool and firm, underneath his feet. First he started walking, swinging his arms, getting a feel for the sand. Then he eased into a slow trot. It felt, for a few hundred yards, like he was relearning something basic, like he'd somehow managed to forget to breathe and had to figure it out again. His legs felt clumsy; his arms were as stiff as sticks shoved into a snowman's side; his breath burned in his throat. He veered toward the water and stumbled as the sand shifted, almost bumping into a pair of optimistic surfers, chatting as they zipped up their wet suits. Then it started coming back to him, the rhythm and the flow. His stride smoothed out; his arms began swinging with a purpose; his heart and lungs took up their assignments. His skin tingled as he sped up. The sun shone down on his head and his shoulders, and sweat sprang up on his face and back, good, cleansing sweat, not the acrid excretions of a man who felt trapped. The air had a salty tang, the sky was suddenly full of birds, wheeling and squawking overhead. He didn't feel trapped anymore. For the first time in a long time, as he jogged, then ran, then sprinted along the water, Andy Landis felt like he was right where he should be, doing the thing he was meant to be doing, like the constant chatter of criticism in his mind had finally stilled. For the first time in a long time, he felt free.

•••

That had been five years ago. He'd gotten merit raises, promotions; he'd become a section manager and had eventually started teaching those classes he'd once wondered about, instructing stressed-out dads and blissed-out newlyweds on how to paint a bedroom, how to install tile, repair drywall, stain a deck, build a grilling cart. When Mr. Kincaid had retired, the regional supervisor had offered Andy his job, and Andy, who'd never imagined his life after running at all and had certainly never imagined spending it in charge of a cavernous, concrete-floored megastore, had agreed.

He walked into the office that had once been Jack Kincaid's, picked up the telephone that Paul had remembered to place on hold, and braced himself for the news he'd been expecting, and dreading, for the past six months, ever since Mr. Sills's pulmonary disease had gotten worse.

“Hello?”

“Andrew Landis?” It was an unfamiliar man's voice, hoarse and soft. “This is DeVaughn Sills. I'm Clement Sills's son.”

“Hello,” said Andy, setting his free hand on the desk, surprised and yet not surprised to hear from the son whom his friend so rarely mentioned, a son he'd never met, even as Mr. Sills's health had declined.

“My daddy passed last night.”

“Oh, no,” Andy said. He and Mr. Sills had talked it over—the death, and what would happen next—when he'd visited the previous weekend. Mr. Sills, whom Andy had never been able to call by his first name, had been in his bedroom. The room had been cleared of all the stacks, the books and magazines, the collections of teapots and ceramic roosters, the thick scrapbooks about Andy. There was only a hospital bed, and two white plastic chairs for visitors. “I'm ready to go,” Mr. Sills told him. “I lived a good long while.”

“You have so many friends,” Andy said. This was true. There'd been the boys whom Mr. Sills had met and befriended and helped over the years, many of whom had found their way into one of those white plastic chairs over the last weeks. They had left tokens, too: photographs of themselves with Mr. Sills, at basketball games and graduations, at weddings and christenings and First Communions and commencements. Pride of place had been saved for a framed photograph from Athens, of Mr. Sills, beaming, with his arm around Andy and the two of them wrapped in the American flag, with Andy in his laurel wreath and Mr. Sills wearing
Andy's
gold medal.

“I've made my peace,” Mr. Sills wheezed. A tear slipped down his cheek. “I'm not afraid.” But his hand was trembling when Andy took it. “I will miss this world,” he said.
His chest labored upward, paused, and sank down. “Andy,” he said, reaching for Andy's hand. Andy leaned close. Mr. Sills's eyes were closed, and his voice was faint, but each word was clear and deliberate. “You can stop running now.” Andy sat with him, waiting for more, but his friend's eyes stayed closed, and he didn't wake up again for the rest of the afternoon.

“Visitation's Wednesday and Thursday, and the funeral's Friday at noon, at Mother Bethel on Sixth and South,” DeVaughn Sills said.

Andy knew the church. Mr. Sills had brought him there for years on the day before Christmas, to hear the choir sing Handel's
Messiah.
Once, he'd gone to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

“I'll be there,” Andy promised.