Love Warps the Mind a Little Page 7

  “So where do we stand?” I said.

  She opened her purse and took out a Kleenex. “You’re killing me,” she said.

  “Martha, I’m sorry—”

  “Like hell you are.”

  I looked at her trembling hands. They were chapped and raw, like she had been washing dishes in very hot water for months. I knew that anything I said now would elicit a hostile response. I saw the Belinkys take a table by the window.

  Martha said, “The day you left me I took twenty-seven Valium and drank a bottle of wine. I wanted to die.” She closed her eyes. “Father Bob saved my life.” She was crying.

  I wanted to remind her that I didn’t exactly leave, I was thrown out, but that was beside the point, given the circumstances. Then and now. I wanted to ask her where she got the Valium and how was it that Father Bob got himself involved in our business. And what kind of car does he drive?

  I said, “Can we just talk, Martha? Calmly, rationally.”

  “I’ve been abandoned,” she said. “My life is in turmoil. I’m sick. I can’t work. I’ve been made to feel ugly and useless and dispensable. And I’m not supposed to cry?”

  “Martha, you’re not—”

  “I was raped last week.”

  “What?”

  She took a breath. “Raped.”

  “By whom? Where? Are you okay?”

  Martha shook her head dismissively. “You don’t know him. Some guy” She wiped her eyes, bit her lower lip. “I’ve had dates,” she said. This was an accusation.

  “Martha, what happened?”

  She put her head in her hands.

  “Martha, you can’t make an announcement like this and then drop it.”

  I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk. It might be easier to talk in a quiet and private place. She didn’t. She took the first sip of her drink. Sheila Belinky walked her two daughters to the ladies’ room. Martha said she’d been seeing this guy who was a computer genius at Digital. Someone from the parish council. The guy became obsessed with her. Maybe it wasn’t exactly rape, she said, but it felt like it.

  “We were kissing on the couch,” she said. She looked at me. “Our couch.” Martha wiped her eye with the Kleenex. “I told him no. He begged me. He kept at it. I didn’t kiss him or anything from then on. I hated it. I haven’t seen him again.”

  “Jesus, Martha,” I said. “You should have called the cops or something. You should have called me.”

  “Called you? What a fucking laugh. You did this to me.”

  I got back to the B&B around nine-thirty. Judi wasn’t there. I went for a walk. I wanted to be alone but not by myself. Martha hadn’t said much else except that she would never talk to me as long as I was with Judi. None of my business who owned the brown car. I had a couple of drinks at the Fo’c’sle and then walked out on the wharf. When I got back to the B&B I saw Josh and Albert making out in the parking lot. Albert had Josh pinned against their van. They kissed. Albert put his hand down the front of Josh’s basketball shorts. Judi was still out. I didn’t wake up until ten. I missed breakfast. Josh, Albert, Ron, and Mark had left already. I showered, packed, and sat on veranda waiting for Judi. My father could be dead for all I knew.

  16.

  The Lek

  I LOOKED AT MY WATCH. JUDI AND LODI, I FIGURED, WOULD BE ABOUT THEN capping off a fascinating evening together with brunch at some sunny café by the water. Portuguese sweet breads, jams, eggs over ever-so-lightly, limber bacon, grapefruit juice, caffè latte. Probably telling each other how splendid and meaningful the last twenty-four hours had been. And here I was, antsy, hungry, fidgeting on the veranda of the Fin de Siécle Bed & Breakfast, trying to cultivate an interest in the spring fashion issue of Esquire.

  A silver Lexus pulled up in front of the B&B. Judi got out carrying her shoes. Lodi gave me a wave and a toothy smile. Judi stopped at his door, and the two of them exchanged a few words. Lodi pulled away with a toot. Oh, Laf, Judi said, I hope you’re not too pissed. She asked if I wouldn’t mind driving. Fine, I said. And drive to a drugstore, would you.

  Judi bought Maalox, Tums, and Pepto-Bismol. I think it’s the stress of the job, she said.All this indigestion lately. She chewed a couple of Tums, poured herself a shot of Pepto and drank it.

  “So what do you see in this guy?” I said. “He’s nothing like me, is he?”

  “Well, he’s married.”

  We discussed monogamy for a while. How it was a lovely, uncomplicated idea, but so unnatural. A prophylactic devoutly to be wished these days, a handy political tool, the way it keeps people settled and preoccupied. But a doomed notion. Even in Darwinian terms. A man wants to spread his genes around as much as he can. A woman needs as many protectors and sustainers as she can get. Judi told me that a female baboon will copulate with every male in her group except for her sons. With the paternity in question, no male hurts the babies. We said enough to calm ourselves, to placate our consciences. I mean, we believed what we said. We just didn’t say a whole lot. Not a word about emotion.

  I pulled into the Black Duck in South Wellfleet to use the pay phone. Judi went into the store to nose around. Guy Duplessis told me my father was doing fine. Great news, I said. Great. Your mom’s over there at Hollywood Memorial right now. They figure he should be home in a week. Course, he’s going to have to take it easy for a while. I thanked Guy and hung up. For some reason, I wanted a Turkish taffy. Bonomo’s vanilla. I don’t know where that came from. I hadn’t had one in twenty years, I bet.

  I couldn’t find Turkish taffy in the candy aisle. Judi knew what I was talking about, but the kid at the counter had never heard of it. I bought a postcard and a stamp, wrote a note to my father wishing him a speedy recovery, and dropped it in the mailbox outside. Judi said I’d better get a present for Spot or he’d be hurt. I went back into the Black Duck and picked out a plastic pail-and-shovel set. I went next door to the package store and bought a six-pack of Beck’s and a church key.

  Probably it was the Turkish taffy that got us started on food. Judi remembered how good Sky Bars were before they changed the flavors. Pretty soon we were talking about foods we liked as kids, and then we decided to open a restaurant for people who were feeling a little sick or depressed. We’d call it The Milk Mustache. We’d have a special salon for those with mild headaches or hurts-all-over. We’d have couches with afghans. Here you’d drink pale dry ginger ale, nibble on Saltines, and read comic books.

  Our menu: fried baloney with cheese, spaghetti with butter and ketchup, mayonnaise sandwiches. Stuff like that. You know, Fluffernutters, grilled cheese sandwiches, tuna noodle casserole with a top layer of potato chips, shepherd’s pie, baked beans with salt pork and molasses, brown bread from the can. For dessert: Creamsicles, peanut butter cups, Devil Dogs, s’mores, strawberry shortcake with bananas, gingerbread, and maple syrup apple pie. You could bring your cat or dog to The Milk Mustache. We’d have a radio going that just played snowstorm warnings and no-school announcements.

  After a couple of beers, Judi had to stop for the ladies’ room. I pulled into Frates Fried Clams and waited in the car. When Judi came back, she had a large order of fried scallops. I asked her what attracted her to me. At first, I mean. She said, “Your cheekbones and your tattersall shirt.” We met at a crowded singles bar in Worcester called The Lek. I may have been there to get out of my marriage. I don’t know. It was my first time in the place. The bar was mobbed and the music loud, insistent, and percussive. Like everyone else, it seemed to me, I had staked out a little territory of my own. I occupied a barstool at a shelf along a wall. I felt safer with no one at my back.

  All over the place, men in suits were rolling their shoulders, stretching, adjusting their loosened ties, catching glimpses of themselves in mirrors, patting their hair, laughing rousingly with their upper bodies, shooting sidelong glances, bending toward the women they were listening to, turning their ears toward the women’s mouths—all the better to hear you with, my dear. This one guy, wearing a Red
Sox cap backward, lit a cigarette like he was conducting an orchestra through the 1812 Overture. None of these men looked like the high school teachers I was used to being with. None, I bet, worked second jobs like Francis X. did, stocking the frozen-food cabinets at the Big D supermarket. I watched a guy across from me become irritated at a hanging Swedish ivy that kept brushing against his bald head. He turned his face up and bit off a leaf.

  I thought, What am I doing here? I felt out of place and incompetent. But I didn’t move. I watched women smile and flash their eyebrows at these men who, in my opinion, were acting so lame. And there I was, tapping my foot and bopping my head to the Donna Summer song blasting through the sound system. That’s when I noticed Judi for the first time. She sat at the bar, smoking, looking right at me. Her gaze was steady, direct, and it lingered for just a moment after I caught her looking. Then she looked away. I stared. She flicked her eyes back. I looked away involuntarily What was all that? I thought. For just that second, she was the only person in the bar who was not in motion. Elsewhere women were twisting their curls, shifting in their dresses. I watched their heads tilt, their eyes widen. They giggled, flicked their tongues, wet their lips, studied the hairlines of guys they flirted with. I looked back and saw her watching me, giving me the mating gaze.

  And then at the bar, I introduced myself. Judi told me I looked famishing. I told her she looked ravished herself. She smiled. I smiled. It’s not what you say, but how you say it. Judi swept her hair back with her hand. I rolled up my shirtsleeves. Pretty soon we had a table. And soon after that we were out the door. I put my hand on her waist.

  Judi chewed a couple of Turns. She adjusted her seat back and closed her eyes. I turned on the radio, fiddled with it till I heard Jonathan Richman singing “Roadrunner.” I thought about Martha and how we met in college. I was crazy for her. If I were at home reading a book, I’d want to call her up and tell her about it. If I saw a movie on TV, I’d wonder if she’d like it as much as I did. Everything I saw reminded me of her. This is how Dale feels about Theresa. The poor guy can’t work, can’t even relax at home with his hobbies. He is nagged, as I had been, with hope and uncertainty. Martha’s flaws were charming and more interesting than other people’s. Her orthodox Catholicism, her theatricality, her thumb-sucking, her fascination with the literature of her childhood, with Anne of Green Gables and C. S. Lewis. What happened to my passion, that fire, that admirable foolishness?

  Judi woke from her nap. I told her we were in Upton. I asked her why passion doesn’t last. She said that passion in a relationship is all behavioral, emotional. You can regulate it. Said she deals with this all the time in couples counseling. I’ve had clients married thirty years just as frisky and spellbound as teenagers. You just work at it. It’s all up here, she said, and she tapped her forehead. Biological. Your brain simply can’t keep up the accelerated metabolism of romantic bliss. Passion has a limited and definite half-life, like nuclear material. That meant someone like Dale had better do something before it was too late.

  We pulled into Aesop’s parking lot. Judi waited in the car while I went in to fetch Spot. The receptionist asked me to wait a moment. She returned with a vet who told me that Spot would not be welcomed back to their kennel. He’d been a bad influence. He ate his food bowl, for one thing. You’ll see the cost reflected on your bill, the vet said. Ten dollars for a bowl? I said. He ate the Reardons’ poodle’s squeaky toys. He kept running into the electric fence in the exercise yard, and he got the other dogs doing it. Oh, sure, I thought, he twisted their forearms. I could tell that he held me responsible for everything Spot had done. I said, He’s never behaved this way before. What have you done to my precious?

  17.

  Letter from the Editor

  I PUT MY NOTES AND MY TYPEWRITER ON THE KITCHEN TABLE, POURED MYSELF a cup of coffee, sat down. The phone rang, Spot barked once for each ring. I heard Lodi’s unctuous voice introduce itself. It seems he was missing his favorite watch, a Jaeger-LeCoultre “Grande Taille,” and wondered if, perhaps, she might have it, or might remember having seen it. Lodi signed off leaving his phone number, fax number, and e-mail address. I got up and erased his message. I noticed that my props were missing—my scribbled notes, apartment ads, rental agency card. Judi must have cleaned up.

  Some days Dale feels on top of the world. Other days, he doesn’t know a thing. But you can’t push him, exasperating as he might be. So now he’s sitting at home. It’s Thursday night. Keynes is sitting on his beach towel on his side of the couch. The TV’s on to an old Mary Tyler Moore Show, but Dale’s not paying attention. I’m watching for him to do something. This is like one of my dreams. I can see everything clearly, but I have no control over what happens. I made a list of things that Dale could do: polish his guns; call Theresa and chat; read Time; have himself a snack—eat those jalapeño-stuffed olives he bought at Jewel Osco today; go for a drive, maybe to Eunice; give his sister a call up in Lovington. Dale scratches Keynes behind his ears, sees Ted Baxter on his knees, pleading with Lou, but Dale doesn’t know why that’s happening. He’s trying to think of how to proceed with Theresa and the kids. He knows the kids are afraid of him. And he’s afraid of them. He thinks about their father, what he might be like. Theresa has told Dale that her husband left after Peter was born. He was repulsed, she said, by his own child. No, she tells him, I don’t know where he is.

  Theresa is in her kitchen, ironing her uniform, listening to a call-in show on her radio. A woman from Denver wants to know if she should switch her capital from some no-load mutual funds to CDs. Theresa has no idea what they are talking about. When the phone rings, she answers it quickly so it won’t wake the kids. She’s glad it’s Dale and not some bad news at this hour. She thinks it’s a great idea—the kids’ll love it, she says. Dale’s idea is that all four of them will drive up to Capitan and Lincoln next weekend. Smokey the Bear and Billy the Kid all at once, he says.

  I figured there’d be some tension on the trip. It’s a long drive for kids. Dale and Theresa had thought of that, too. Still this was the right step to take if this love affair were to continue to grow. Dale might not know it yet, but he’d be crazy to give up Theresa. Dale hangs up and smiles. He tells Keynes it’s time for bed. Theresa takes the suitcase out of the storage closet and washes it down with Simple Green. She knows she has a week to pack, but she knows how she forgets. She puts Band-Aids, cough medicine, and Tylenol in separate Ziploc bags and puts them all in the fabric pocket of the suitcase. She closes the case, flips the locks, and stands it up beside the stove. She makes a list of what to bring. Mittens, toys, crayons, sweaters. Pick up some ipecac at the hospital. She reminds herself to check the weather forecast before leaving. I heard the mailman’s signal.

  My story “Figure of Fun” touched an exposed nerve with Mr. Thorn Blake, the editor of the Brooklyn Review. He took me to task in a noxious and ferocious letter, just bubbling with vitriol. “Please,” he wrote, “no more of these insufferable rustic septic tank rural stories. No more grotesque bumpkins or genetically damaged rednecks. Enough of these afflicted, desperate, ugly, indigent freaks, these marginal and insignificant wallowers in misery. These dysfunctional misfits do not represent the way we live now in America. We have indoor plumbing in America and medicines to cure rickets and fathers who are not alcoholic child-abusers.” Right there on the classy Brooklyn Review stationery was a thick, blotchy period.

  Mr. Thorn Blake continued: “People want to find themselves and their lives reflected in the stories they read. Is that too difficult to understand? Psychopathology,” Mr. Thorn Blake wrote, “is not literature. Neurosis is not narrative. Save your ramshackle minimalist puppet show for your buddies in the writing workshop. They probably think you’re real clever. If someday you’re ready to admit that individuals interact with and are affected by society, by politics, by economics, by culture, then maybe you can dust off that typewriter. Until then why don’t you read the newspaper and see what the real world looks like.” He si
gned the letter, “Th. B.”

  Can’t you just see the artery throbbing on Mr. Thorn Blake’s temple? Son of a bitch was probably seconds away from bursting the walls of that sucker and staining his cortex with blood. I almost killed an editor! When my hand stopped shaking, I wrote this editor of the famous-from-Canarsie-to-Coney-Island Brooklyn Review a brief response on my “From the Desk of Judi Dubey” memo pad:

  Dear Thorn,

  I am so grateful for your insightful comments. Thomorrow I will thry to write a story—no, a novel—about the wealthy makers and shakers, the Baptist golfers, the successful guys and gals of Gotham, like yourself and your investment counselor. The tale will be urban; it will be encompassing; it will be topical; it will be about people who read newspapers from the front to back, even the recipes on the Lifestyle page.

  I’m pulling your leg, Thorn. A fiction writer must make significance, you fool, not borrow it from the six o’clock news or the headlines. Since when is poverty not politics, ignorance not economics, shame not social, crime not cultural, you insipid little camp follower?

  Got you that time, Thorn! I’m only jerking your chain, amigo. Hey, you’re the editor, and I know that just because you can’t write a story doesn’t mean that you can’t recognize one if it bites you on the ass. I think we could be friends, Thorn. I mean it. I love every bone in your pointy little head, every sebaceous cyst on your scalp, every synaptic ravine in your gray matter.

  Your pal,

  Lafayette Proulx

  (his mark)

  Should I mail this to Thorn or would that make me as big a fool as he was? I won’t mail it, I decided. I’ll call him. I dialed the number on the buff-and-green Brooklyn Review stationery.