Bygones (17 page)

He didn't want to go home.

He didn't want to go to Bernie's.

He didn't want to be with any girls.

He didn't want any fast food.

He decided to drive over to Grandma Dorner's. She was always cheery, and there was always something to eat over there, plus he liked her new place.

Stella Dorner answered his knock and swept him into her arms for a hug. “Well, Randy Curran, you handsome thing, what are you doing here on a Saturday night?”

She smelled like ritzy perfume when he hugged her. Her hair was combed fluffy and she had on a fancy blue dress. “Just came to see my best girl.” When he released her she laughed and lifted her hands to her left ear to fit it with a pierced earring.

“You're a doggone liar but I love it.” She turned a circle and her skirt flared. “There, how do I look?”

“You're a killer, Gram.”

“I hope he thinks so. I've got a date.”

“A date!”

“And he's darned good-looking, too. He's got all his hair, all his teeth
and
his gallbladder! A darned nice set of pecs, too, if I do say so myself.”

Randy laughed.

“I met him at my exercise class. He's taking me dancing to the Bel Rae Ballroom.”

Randy scooped her close and executed an Arthur Murray-style turn. “Stand him up and go with me instead.”

She laughed and pushed him away. “Go find your own girlfriend. Have you got one, by the way?”

“Mmm . . . got my eye on one.”

“What's the matter with
her?”
She gave his arm a love pat as she swung away, crescendoing as she walked toward her bedroom. “So how's everything with you?”

“Fine,” he called, ambling into the living room. There were lights on all over the condo, with music playing on a component set and a painting on an easel by the sliding glass doors.

“I hear you're going to be in a wedding,” Stella called from the far end of the place.

“How about that.”

“And I also hear you're going to be an uncle.”

“Can you believe it?”

“Do I look like a great-grandma to you?”

“Are you kidding? Hey, Gram, did you paint these violets?”

“Yes, how do you like them?”

“Jeez, they're good, Gram! I didn't know you could paint!”

“Neither did I! It's fun.” The lights went off in the far bedroom, the bathroom, the hall, and Stella breezed into the living room, wearing a necklace that matched her earrings. “Did you find a band to play with yet?”

“Nope.”

“Are you trying?”

“Well . . . not lately.”

“How do you expect to find a band if you don't keep trying?” The doorbell rang and Stella said, “Oh, there he is!” She skipped once on her way to answer. Randy followed, feeling like the old one there.

The man who came in had wavy silver hair, shaggy eyebrows, a firm chin and a nice cut on his suit. His pecs didn't look too bad, either.

“Gil,” she said. “This is my grandson, Randy. He just dropped in to say hello. Randy, this is Gilbert Harwood.” The two shook hands, and Gil's grip was hearty. They made small talk but Randy could see the pair was eager to be going.

Minutes later he found himself back in his car, watching his grandma drive off with her date. Hungrier. Lonelier.

He headed back down McKusick Lane to the stop sign at Owens Street, where he sat observing the collection of cars around The Harbor across the street. He parked and went into the crowded beer joint, slid onto a bar stool and ordered a glass of tap beer. The place was smoky and smelled like the grill was in use. The customers were potbellied, gruff-voiced and had a lot of broken capillaries in their faces.

The guy beside Randy wore a Minnesota Twins billcap, blue jeans and an underwear shirt beneath a soiled, quilted vest. His forearms rested on the bar while he turned his head and glanced at Randy from beneath puffy eyelids. “How's it goin'?” he said.

“Good . . . good,” Randy replied and took a swig from his glass.

They sat with their elbows two inches apart, sipping beer, listening to Randy Travis sing a two-year-old song on the jukebox, and the sizzle of cold meat hitting a hot grill in the kitchen, and occasional loud bursts of laughter. Somebody came in and the cold air momentarily chilled the backs of their legs before the door thumped closed. Randy watched eight faces above eight bar stools turn and check out the new arrivals before returning indifferently to their beers. He finished his own, got off the stool, fished a quarter from his pocket and used the pay phone to dial Lisa's number.

Her voice sounded hurried when she answered.

“Hey, Lisa, it's Randy. You busy?”

“Yeah, sort of. Mark is here and we're making spanakopita to take to an all-Greek supper over at some friends' of ours. We're in butter and filo to our elbows!”

“Oh, well, listen, it's no big deal. I was just gonna see if you wanted to watch a video or something. Thought I could pick one up and come over.”

“Gosh, Rand, sorry. Not tonight. Tomorrow night, though. I'll be around then.”

“Yeah, well maybe I'll stop over then. Listen, have a good time tonight and say hi to Mark.”

“Will do. Call me tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah, sure. 'Bye.”

Back in his car, Randy started the engine, turned on the radio and sat awhile with his hands hanging loosely on the wheel. He hiccuped once, then belched and studied the lights of the houses on either side of the Owens Street hill. What were they all doing in there? Little kids having supper with their folks. Young married couples having supper with each other. What would Maryann Padgett say if he called her up and asked her out? Hell, he didn't have enough money to take her anyplace decent. He'd spent that sixty bucks on pot earlier this week, and his gas tank was nearly empty, and the payment on his drum set was due, and payday wasn't until next Friday.

Shit.

He rested his forehead on the wheel. It was icy and brought a sharp stab of cold that concentrated in the back of his neck.

He lifted his head and pictured his dad's reflection in the mirror today beside his own while they'd zipped up their flies and experimented with tying bow ties. He wondered where they'd have gone if he'd said yes to lunch, what they'd have talked about, if they'd be together now.

He checked his watch. Not even seven yet. His mother would still be home, getting ready for her date with Keith, and he'd just be in their way if he got there before they left; and his mother would get that guilty look on her face for leaving him after he'd opened his big mouth at the store and asked if she was making supper.

Everybody had somebody. Everybody but him.

He reached into his pocket, found his bat and the Ziploc bag of marijuana and decided, To hell with it all.

 

BESS AND KEITH ATE AT LIDO'S at a table beneath a potted tree trimmed with miniature lights. The minestrone was thick and spicy, the pasta homemade and the chicken parmigiana exquisite. When their plates had been removed they sat over wine and spumoni.

“So . . .” Keith said, fixing his stare on Bess. He wore glasses thick enough to magnify his eyes. His face was round, his sandy hair thinning, allowing the tree lights to reflect from his skull between the strands. “I've been waiting all evening for you to mention Michael.”

“Why?”

“Isn't it obvious?”

“No, it's not. Why should I mention Michael?”

“Well, you've been seeing him lately, haven't you?”

“I've seen him three times but not in the way you infer.”

“Three
times?”

“I hardly thought I'd get through Lisa's wedding with
out
seeing him.”

“The night Lisa set you up, and the night of the dinner at the in-laws.” Keith ticked them off on his fingers. “When was the third time?”

“Keith, I don't appreciate being grilled like this.”

“Can you blame me? This is the first time I've seen you since he came back on the scene.”

Bess pressed a hand to her chest. “I divorced the man, are you forgetting?”

Keith took a sip of wine, lowered the glass and remarked, “You're the one who seems to be forgetting. I'm still waiting to hear about the third time you saw him.”

“If I tell you, will you stop haranguing me?”

He stared at her awhile before nodding stiffly and picking up his spoon.

“I went to see his condo. I'm going to decorate it for him. Now could we just finish our spumoni and go?”

With his spoon poised over his ice cream, Keith asked, “Are you coming over tonight?”

Bess felt him watching her minutely. She ate some spumoni, met his eyes and replied, “I don't think so.”

“Why?”

“I have a lot of work to do at home tomorrow. I want to get up early for church. And something's come up with Randy that's on my mind. I think I should be there tonight.”

“You put everything and everybody else before me.”

“I'm sorry, Keith, but I . . .”

“Your kids, your work, your ex-husband, they all come before me.”

She said gently, “You demand a lot.”

He leaned closer to her and whispered fiercely, “I'm sleeping with you, don't I have a right?”

He was so close she could detect the subtle color shadings in his green-brown eyes. She found herself unmoved by his resentment, grown very tired of fighting this fight. “No. I'm sorry, but no.”

He pulled back and his lips thinned.

“I've asked you so many times to marry me.”

“I've been married, Keith, and I never want to go through that again.”

“Then why do you keep seeing me?”

She considered carefully before answering. “I thought we were friends.”

“And if that's not enough for me?”

“You'll have to decide.”

His spumoni had melted into a sickly green puddle. He pushed it aside, took a deep breath and said, “I think we'd better go.”

They rose and left the restaurant politely. At the coat check, he held her coat. At the entry, he held the door. At his car, he unlocked the passenger door and waited while she got in. Inside his car they buckled their seat belts and headed for his place in silence. She had left her car parked at the foot of his driveway. He passed it and stopped before the garage door, which he got out to open. When he'd pulled inside, when the headlights were off and the engine silenced, Bess unsnapped her seat belt but neither of them moved. The beam from the streetlight stopped short of the car, leaving them in blackness. Beneath the hood the engine ticked as it cooled. The absence of warmth from the heater chilled Bess's legs. The absence of warmth in her heart chilled much more.

She turned to Keith and laid her hand on the seat between them. “Keith, I think maybe we should break it off.”

“No!” he cried. “I knew this was coming but it's not what I want. Please, Bess . . .” He took her in his arms. Hampered by their heavy winter outerwear, the embrace was bulky. “. . . You've never given us a real chance. You've always held yourself aloof from me. Maybe it's something I've done and if it is I'll try to change. We could work things out, we could have a nice life together, I just know we could. Please, Bess . . .”

He kissed her heavily, wetting her mouth and spreading the taste of wine into it. She found herself slightly revolted and eager to be away from him. He released her mouth but held her head in both hands with his forehead against hers. “Please, Bess,” he whispered. “We've been together for three years. I'm forty-four years old and I don't want to start looking for someone else.”

“Keith, stop it.”

“No . . . please, don't go. Please come inside. Come to bed with me . . . Bess, please.”

“Keith, don't you see? We're a convenience for each other.”

“No. I love you. I want to marry you.”

“I can't marry you, Keith.”

“Why? Why can't you?”

She had no desire to hurt him further. “Please don't make me say it.”

As he grew desperate his voice became pleading. “I know why, I've known all along, but I can make you love me if you just give me the chance. I'll be anything you want . . . anything, if only you won't leave me.”

“Keith, stop it! You're abasing yourself.”

“I don't care. I'll even abase myself for you.”

“But I don't want you to. You have a lot to offer a woman. I'm just not the right one.”

“Bess, please . . .” He tried to kiss her again, groping for her breast.

“Keith, stop it. . . .” Their struggle became ferocious and she shoved him back, hard.
“Stop it!”

His head struck the window. Their breathing beat heavily in the confined space.

“Bess, I'm sorry.”

She grabbed her purse and opened her door.

“Bess!” he pleaded, “I said I'm sorry.”

“I have to go,” she said, scrambling from the car with her heart clubbing and her limbs trembling, welcoming the rush of cold air and the sight of her own car in the nearby shadows. She hurried toward it, running the last several yards after she heard his car door opening.

“Bess, wait! I'd never hurt you, Bess!” he called. Her car door cut off his last word as she slammed and locked it, then rummaged in her purse for her keys. The sound of all four automatic locks clacking down should have calmed her but she found herself shuddering and digging frantically, then peeling out of his driveway in reverse.

A quarter mile up the street she realized her hands were gripping the wheel, her back was rigid and tears were running down her cheeks.

She pulled to the curb, dropped her forehead to the steering wheel and waited for the tears and shakes to dissolve.

What had happened to her back there? She knew full well Keith would not hurt her, yet her revulsion and fear had been genuine. Was he right? Did his being her lover give him the right to expect more from her? She
had
always held herself aloof from him: this much was true. Her children
had
often come first, and she
had
frequently put him off in favor of business that could have been delayed.

Furthermore, she was beginning to suspect perhaps Michael did play a part in her rather sudden severing of ties with Keith. He had been the one calling out apologies as she'd run away, but perhaps it was she who owed them.

* * *

She thought of Michael too much during the week that followed. While she leafed through wallpaper and furniture catalogs she pictured his empty rooms and recalled their voices echoing off the white ceramic tiles of the empty kitchen. She saw his damp towel, his toothbrush, his mattresses on the floor—most often his mattresses on the floor. Though she was divorced from him it was impossible to divorce herself from the knowledge of him, and sometimes she pictured him moving about the rooms, in intimate disarray, the kind only a wife or lover can know, or in an equally intimate freshly dressed state, with his skin still flushed from a shave and his lips still shiny from the shower. She saw him in a suit with his tie in a Windsor knot, still in his stocking feet, picking up his change, money clip and flat, flat billfold that held little more than his driver's license and two credit cards (he hated bulging out his rear pocket). And last, before he donned his shoes, she saw him opening the penknife he always carried, standing in the bedroom beside the dresser and cleaning his fingernails. He did it every morning without fail; in all the years she'd known him she'd rarely seen him with dirt beneath his nails. It was part of the reason she so loved his hands.

She unconscionably worked on Michael's designs before seven others that had been in her files longer. She knew things he liked: long davenports a man could stretch out on, chairs with thick arms and matching ottomons, the
USA Today
with his breakfast, fires at suppertime, schefflera plants, things with rounded corners rather than squared, real leather, diffused lighting.

She knew things he disliked: scatter rugs, doilies, hanging plants, clutter, busy florals, the colors yellow and orange, twelve-foot telephone cords that got stretched out and testy, television playing at mealtimes.

It was hard to remember a job she'd enjoyed more or had designed with as much confidence. How ironic that she knew his tastes better now than she had when planning the house in which the two of them had lived together. Having carte blanche with his budget didn't hurt, either.

She called him on Thursday.

“Hi, Michael, it's Bess. I've got your design all worked up and wondered when you can come to the store and go over it with me.”

“When would you like?”

“As I said before, I try to make the appointments at the end of the day so that we won't be interrupted. How's five o'clock tomorrow?”

“Fine. I'll be there.”

The following day, a Friday, she went home at 3:30, washed her face, put on fresh makeup, touched up her hair, changed into a freshly pressed suit and returned to the store in time to lay out the materials for her presentation and dismiss Heather with ten minutes to spare.

When Michael came in the window lamps were lit, the place smelled like fresh coffee and at the rear of the store around the grouping of wicker furniture, the materials for Bess's presentation stood at the ready, fabrics draped, wallpaper books standing; textures, colors and photographs overlapped.

She heard the door open and he came in bringing the smell of winter and the sound of the five o'clock traffic moving on the street behind him. When the door sealed it off Bess went forward, smiling.

“Hello, Michael, how are you? I'll lock that now and turn over the sign.” She had to shinny past him in the limited space between her floor stock. The profusion of tables, baskets and glassware filled up all but the most meager traffic paths. She locked the door, reversed the OPEN sign and turned to find him perusing the walls, which were hung with framed prints and wall decor clear up to the blue iris border strip just below the cove molding. He turned her way, still looking up, unbuttoning his coat and blocking the aisle. The store seemed suddenly crowded with his presence, its proportions so much better suited to women.

“You've done a lot with this place,” he said.

“It's crowded, and the loft is unbearable in the summer, but when I think of getting rid of it I always seem to get nostalgic and change my mind. Something keeps me here.”

His eyes stopped when they reached her and she became aware that he, too, had freshly groomed for this meeting: she could tell by the absence of four-o'clock shadow and the faint scent of British Sterling.

“May I take your coat?”

It was gray wool and heavy in her hands when he shrugged it off along with a soft plaid scarf. She had to say excuse me to get around him once more. Hanging the coat on the back of the basement door, she caught a whiff of scent from it, not simply a bottled scent but a combination of cosmetics and fresh air and his car and himself—one of those olfactory legacies a man leaves on a woman's memory.

She drew a deep breath and turned to conduct business. “I've got everything laid out here at the back of the store,” she said, leading the way to the wicker seats. “May I get you a cup of coffee?”

“Sounds good. It's cold out there.”

He waited, standing before the settee, until she set the cup and saucer on the coffee table and took an armchair to his right.

“Thanks,” he said, freeing a button on his suit jacket as he sat. The furniture was low and his knees stuck up like a cricket's. He took a sip of coffee while she opened a manila folder and extracted the scale drawings of his rooms.

“We'll start with the living/dining room. Let me show you the wallpaper first so you can be picturing it as a backdrop for the furnishings as I describe them.” Surrounded by samples, she presented his living room the way she envisioned it—subtle wallpaper of cream, mauve and gray; vertical blinds; upholstered grouping facing the fireplace; smoked-glass tables; potted plants.