I Loved You More (57 page)

As far as Ruth's salads go, this New Year's Eve salad is not
that
unusual. But it's when the three of us sit down at Ruth's oversized dining room table, me at the head of the table, Ruth to my left, Hank on the right – when I look down at the extra boiled eggs she's cooked for me. At first I think it's cool Ruth has considered that the salad didn't have enough protein for me. I start staring at them eggs, though, and then I look around at the chicken in our bowls. I stare at the chicken. There's no more than
two
chicken breasts worth of chicken meat for
three
of us. Back and forth I'm staring, the chicken, the eggs. Then I'm sure of it. Ruth wasn't at all planning on having Mr. Protein for dinner. She thought for sure I wasn't going to come. At the last minute, she had to quick come up with more fucking protein and all she had was three fucking eggs. An afterthought. Didn't even have the time to cook them all the way hard.

When I finally look up from my three extra not fully boiled eggs, I look straight at Ruth. Her beautiful long red hair, those too-blue eyes. She has that looked-at look only beautiful people have. Ruth for sure knows I'm scrutinizing her and her protein
faux pas
. And sure enough, there it is. The tell-tale scarlet flush up her neck, onto her chin. The way she's trying to cover it with her hand. She knows damn well her neck is giving her away. But she's ignoring me. Her eyes suddenly all transfixed, staring into Hank's. Hank's staring back at her. His eyes beholding her. As if
she is something newly formed, precious. His breath breathing life into her.

Hank's making a toast.

They're
having prosecco.

I'm
having water.

Hank's black eyes, the right eye shiny, rolling a little south. Hank's doing that thing he does when he's trying to express something inside him that's big – as if his body is literally trying to push the thought or the feeling that's inside him, out. Chest raised up and out, his chin pulled down, shoulders down, flexing his biceps.

“Here's to old friends, new friends, and a new century!” Hank says.

Not a one of us that night, when we clinked our glasses, Hank or Ruth or me, had any idea, not yet, not really, about the new century and the huge load of horseshit it was going to bring.

But looking back on it, it's like that Jeske thing. You know but you don't know you know.

Maybe Hank didn't know it yet.

But Ruth knew.

And I knew it too.

SUNDAY MORNING HANK
rolls into my kitchen door about ten-fifteen. His airplane leaves at one. Hank's back all in black, his jacket, his baseball cap, the hood of his sweatshirt up. His dark black sunglasses. I'm eating my five scrambled eggs with two yokes when he walks in. We give each other a big bear hug in the mudroom. When I put my chin on Hank's shoulder, I can smell lavender from those scented square pieces that Ruth throws into her dryer.

“How'd you get here?” I ask.

“Ruth drove me.”

“She coming in?”

“Nah,” Hank says. “She's got some shopping to do.”

“How you getting to the airport?”

“Ruth,” Hank says. “She'll be by about noon.”

“You better be careful,” I say. “She's always late.”

Hank lays his big hand on my shoulder, squeezes my shoulder. Stares his big black eyes into mine. We both take a breath. I can't help it. That shiny black glass eye of his makes me love him all the more.

“
Porca Miseria
, Gruney,” Hank says. “What a fucking ten days it's been!”

The brooding dark Hank that stepped out of the darkness Christmas Eve was gone and now there he is, right in front of me, his hand on my shoulder. The Maroni once again. Bright as a star. Freshly fucked, gorgeous. And why can't I just blow it off and be happy for him.

There's so much I want to say to Hank right then. But it's not one of my better moments. It's morning all right, but it's more than a drug hangover and the time of day. I'm ashamed. That I could be so petty. I mean now that I look back on it. The stink eye, man. There's not a worse feeling in the world. Like you've been slimed. And that Sunday morning in the mudroom, believe me right then, I don't want to be anywhere near my tiny Catholic heart.

Hank takes off his coat and his dark glasses, his black baseball cap, and unzips his sweatshirt. Pulls down the hood. He sees my eggs and I can tell he's hungry. Ruth never did get it how much a man can eat. So Hank sits down and I crack a bunch of eggs into a bowl and all the while Hank is talking talking. I smile and act like I'm listening while I'm scrambling eggs, but I'm not listening. Hank's talking about Ruth. Ruth this and Ruth that.

What I'm really paying attention to, what I start obsessing about, is the time. I've got yoga at eleven o'clock and I still have to get my shit together. I mean, what the fuck. Hank's come back over to my house, an hour early, without Ruth, to catch up with me. And I could easily blow off yoga for one day. But why should I interrupt my schedule because it's convenient for him. He knows I go to yoga every day at eleven. And during the past five
days he's had all the time in the world to drop by and chat. Or even call just to check in.

So instead of being thankful that I can see and talk with my dear friend for a whole blessed hour long, all I can think is that if his L.L.Bean toiletry bag and his green toothbrush and his Crest and his razor and Barbasol shaving cream and his Mennen stick deodorant weren't hanging in my bathroom, he'd probably be calling me from the airport.

So when I turn around, dump the scrambled eggs on his plate, I tell him:

“Sorry, Hank,” I say. “Don't have the time to talk right now. Yoga's at eleven and I got to get there early to get a good spot.”

“You all right?” Hank asks.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” I say. “Leave the door unlocked. Call me when you get back to Florida. We'll have some real time to talk.”

We hug once again, before I leave. Hank's eyes, Christ, he's got so much to say. But I'm late and I waited for him so now he can wait for me.

After yoga, about twelve-twenty, I'm walking up a side street when Hank and Ruth drive by on Morrison. I quick duck into a bush so they don't see me. Late as always, Ruth's shifting into second. She's got the silver Honda Civic floored. They don't look like they're stressed, though, Hank and Ruth. Both of them big smiles. And the damndest thing.

Ruth's wearing dark glasses. Just like Hank's.

TWO DAYS LATER,
two phone calls. The first one's from Hank. He knows what time to call exactly. Pacific time after yoga and my shower and after my tuna salad sandwich on my special bread. One-fifteen. Hank's doing good. He's rested and feeling strong. Me too. My stink eye's nowhere around and it's like we're back to being Hank and Gruney again. Just talking as if we'd never stopped.

In a moment, Hank takes a deep breath I can hear all the way across the United States. His voice gets lower and full of all that Hank love. He thanks me for listening about Boomer. What
a good friend I am and how much he loves that I was there for him.

I don't know what to say, but I know Hank would do the same for me, and so I tell him that. Then Hank asks a question. And when he asks the question it's as if everything we'd been talking about so far was just a prelude.

“So tell me about you and Ruth,” Hank says. “The two of you had a thing going for a while there, didn't you?”

Ruth Dearden and I, a
thing
. All that I want to say to Hank, beloved Hank, about Ruth, fucked up beloved Ruth. I try, really I do, to come up with some shit that means something not just some bullshit. But I can't. I mean, what can I say about Ruth Dearden and me, the thing we had, on the phone on a cloud-covered January day in the middle of the afternoon. Fuck.

“Yeah,” I say, “we had a thing.”

“It's over now, right?” Hank says. “I don't want to be stepping on any toes.”

“All Ruth and I have left,” I say, “is one more session with my novel.”

“That's what Ruth said,” Hank says, “that she's editing your book for you.”

Fucked up the way Hank saying
editing your book
makes me want to scream. Like Ruth is all of a sudden the Grand Chooser or something. What pisses me off is not what she says about my writing. It's that I've given her the power to say it. This time it's my deep breath all the way across the United States.

“Yeah,” I say, “she's helping me out.”

“So tell your old Hankster buddy about her,” Hank says. “What's the scoop? Anything I don't know? Something I should watch out for?”

Don't dump her then introduce her to your best friend
.

“Be careful,” I say. “She's strong and she's clumsy. She's damn near knocked me out three times now.”

Hank Christian, man. The way that man can laugh.

THE SECOND PHONE
call is from Ruth. I'm surprised it's Ruth and at first I don't know what to say. Her voice is upbeat, cheery. Hello. How you feeling. New Year's Eve was nice. Are you sleeping. What did you think about the edits I made? Is your computer all right?

“My computer?” I say.

“You know,” Ruth says, “the Y2K thing.”

My computer. Ruth just spent four days fucking my best friend and what she wants to talk about is my computer. But don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Ruth was a conniving evil bitch trying to manipulate me. To tell the truth at this point, I don't really know what Ruth's motivations are. She probably doesn't know either. But really that day on the phone, she just sounded like the old Ruth I knew and she wanted to talk and the something she wanted to talk about wasn't easy for her.

“Looks like you got Hank to the airport on time,” I say.

Ruth never could hide a thing from me. As soon as I mention Hank, there's quiet that's too long, then her laugh like a little girl.

“Traffic was a nightmare,” she says.

Then: “Ben?” she says. “Are you okay with this? I mean Hank and me?”

All the things I could've said. And that day, all I really knew was Hank loved redheads and Ruth got to fuck a rock star. My own jealousy and feelings of being passed over? Same as with Hank. Where do I start.

The maze of three, man. Fuck.

What I say surprises even me.

“Well, he sure as hell ain't me,” I say. “If that's what you're looking for.”

Quiet that's too long again.

“I know he's not you,” Ruth says. “But what's he like? I mean is there something I should watch out for?”

“If you catch him writing fuck poems to a woman he works with,” I say, “throw all his stuff out the window.”

Ruth's laugh isn't a little girl's anymore. It's Ruth and she's really laughing. Maybe too hard.

“You know, Ben,” Ruth says, “Hank said you've really changed a lot. From the old days.”

Then something new in Ruth's voice. The first time I ever hear it.

“He said he doesn't feel as close to you,” Ruth says. “How
were
you in the old days?”

My mother. My sister.

Ruth Fucking Dearden, man.

THREE MONTHS AND
one more run through, alone, on the novel later, Ruth calls me on the phone. She's been to Florida to visit Hank. That's all I ever find out about it. That Ruth flew down to Florida and for one week Ruth visited Hank. No news about where Hank lives, his friends. Nothing about the weather, or a good crayfish restaurant they ate at. How different the cultures are, Northwest and Southeast. No alligator stories or how a four-night fuck fest has turned into a cross-country love affair. Nothing. From Ruth or from Hank. Oh yeah, Ruth fucking loved the sun. That's it.

But Ruth does have a surprise. She and Hank have come up with an idea. At least Ruth says Hank was in on the idea. When Hank comes to visit in the spring, the three of us should teach a weekend workshop together.

It was the first I'd heard of Hank's spring visit and it felt weird Hank hadn't called to talk to me about teaching together. I didn't know it then, but this was how it was going to be. Hank would talk to Ruth and then Ruth would talk to me. I bought into it, though. To teach with Hank again. The chance to hang out and talk about writing. I'd have done anything. Then there was the extra money. Hank was finishing up his dissertation and he was having trouble finding a job, and I was barely scraping by and, now that I look back on it, that's about the time Ruth's alimony started to run out.

So the second week in April, on the weekend Ruth has scheduled the class, a bright warm spring day, probably the only bright warm spring day Portland's ever had, I load up on Xanax. My old Volkswagen and I make it one more time over to Ruth's.

At Ruth's front door, in the arched alcove, I'm standing on the
bienvenue
mat. On the other side of the dark wood door, the sound of people. Ruth's front door, just a damn door. The Running Boy wants to bolt. I pop a Xanax, then another one. The doorbell that sounds like Beethoven's Fifth. The step you got to take.