It Happened One Night (16 page)

Recognition came over Ron’s face, but he wasn’t entirely friendly. “The meteorite dude. Right. What can I do for you?”

A movement in the room behind Ron caught Eli’s attention, and a woman’s voice followed. “Ron?”

“Be right there, babe.” Ron stepped into the yard and pulled the door closed behind him. He took a long drag on his cigarette
and flicked the ashes into a silver, dirt-speckled pail by the door.

Eli crossed his arms. “We’ve got a little problem.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s time you paid Lana a visit.”

Ron laughed. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Yes, I heard you. But you’re going to have to get me up to speed here, man. Lana and I have been over for a while now.”

“That’s just it,” Eli said between clenched teeth. “It’s not over.”

Ron shifted on his feet. “I’m not an idiot. It was over with us even before it started. I’d think you’d know that.”

Eli scowled. “What are you talking about?”

Ron laughed. “Nothing. You know what? Nothing. Look, I’m just going to go back inside and forget I saw you. Good luck, man.”

Ron started to go back inside, but Eli grabbed his arm, hard. “Tell whoever is in there that you’re leaving, because you’re
coming with me. Now.”

Ron frowned. “I don’t want any part of your negative energy.”

“Cut the crap,” Eli spat.

Ron’s nostrils flared. “Listen, my thing with Lana ran its course. It’s over. She’s all yours. I know damn well that you and
Lana have some kind of tangled-up karma. And I don’t want any part of it.”

“You have to talk to her.”

“What’s your deal, anyway? You like her so much, want to be her little lapdog? Why don’t you date her? She’d probably let
you, if you had even half a testicle in your whole body.”

Eli’s fists went tight. “I’m telling you, you’re coming with me.”

Ron stepped close, got in Eli’s face. Eli stuck out his chin.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ron said.

Eli glared, frustration boiling over. He wanted to do something mean. He picked up the garbage can full of cigarette butts,
and then walked to Ron’s rusted blue convertible.

“What are you—”

A mix of rainwater and nasty cigarette butts ran down the seats, ash soaking into the yellow foam where the seat covers were
torn. Eli threw the bucket into the woods and dusted off his hands. It didn’t come close to the trouble Ron had caused, but
it was something. He felt better already.

Ron threw his cigarette. “You’re a
dead man
!”

Eli ducked under the first blow. He went for an uppercut but missed, and Ron’s fist slammed into his stomach—once, twice.
He couldn’t breathe. His head swam and he put his hands on his knees, doubled in pain. The ground before him wobbled as he
tried to breathe.

Come on
, he told himself.
Come on.

Ron laughed. And when Eli looked up, he was walking away. Laughing and walking away.

Eli ran with a speed he hadn’t known he possessed. He meant to push him into the wall of the house, to grab his hair and slam
his forehead into the white wooden siding like he’d seen in so many movies. But Ron moved at the last moment, threw Eli off-balance,
and the next thing he knew, the wide blue sky filled his vision, the dark shape of Ron’s head blocking the sun.

“Did you come here with a death wish, you little shit?” Ron yelled. “I don’t know what your angle is, but you went after the
wrong guy.”

In a millionth of a second, a hundred scenes flashed before Eli’s eyes—each of some old humiliation or failure. His teacher
pointing at him in front of the whole class and telling everyone he had to cheat because he wasn’t smart enough to pass on
his own. Lana practically laughing in his face after they’d made love. Lana knocked up with some other man’s baby. And now—Ron
kicked his rib cage, knocking the breath out of him—and now this.

Rock fucking bottom.

“Get up.” Ron bent over him. “Get the f—”

“Ron!” A woman’s voice came from the direction of the house. “Do you want me to call the cops?”

Ron grabbed Eli’s collar and pulled until Eli’s shoulders came off the grass. “Pick yourself up and get out of here.”

Eli said nothing. Ron let go.

Slowly Eli got to his feet. “This isn’t over.”

“Oh, I think it is,” Ron said.

Eli stared at him hard for a moment before he limped toward his car. In the driver’s seat, he glanced at his face in the mirror
and saw that he’d avoided a busted lip or black eye. But pain exploded when he breathed, maybe a cracked rib. He put his face
down on the steering wheel and squeezed his eyelids closed.

He took the deepest breath he could, and when it hurt so bad that it made him dizzy, he began to laugh. Just a chuckle at
first. Then an out-of-control hooting and cackling that verged on hysterical. He threw his head back against the seat and
brayed. It hurt, but he couldn’t stop. Trying to hold it in made it hurt worse. His eyes teared up. He beat his hand on the
steering wheel, only to discover his hand hurt too. That made him laugh more.

He thought:
Nowhere to go but up.

He put the car in drive and kicked up as much dust as possible as he drove away.

Lana was alone in the store, sitting on the old stool beside the counter and flipping through the pages of a childbirth book
that Charlotte had given her. She knew she should scour the pages, sow each point of information like seeds into her brain.
And yet she could do little more than glance at the pictures and skim the words. The language of pregnancy simmered and bubbled
around in her head like a Latin Mass: anovulation, corpus luteum, endometrium, lunaception, oocyte, ovum, os,
amen
.

She didn’t want to be a parent—she planned to start doing preliminary research on adoption very soon—but for now, the first
order of business was to deal with the actual facts of pregnancy and childbirth. Her body was demanding more and more of her
attention every day, and she had little choice but to give it.

She looked at a line drawing of a fully dilated cervix. It seemed so impossible it was almost funny: an inconceivable conception.
Not just labor, but what came after too.

Eventually it was time to close, and so she spent a half hour counting the register, running reports, and cleaning. She was
just about to close the Barn door behind her when she realized she’d left her book out on the counter. She tucked it away
and didn’t miss the irony: She was now hiding her baby book where her Costa Rica brochures used to be.

Outside, the sun was setting. She paused a moment on the concrete slab in front of the Barn’s side door. The trees and power
lines were stark silhouettes against a pale sky. And there, at the top of the hill on the far side of the parking lot, was
a dark figure, the hard-edged shadow of a man.

She was just pulling in a breath, ready to yell, “We’re closed,” when, to her surprise, she saw the man’s arm lift, thin as
a bare tree branch, and he gave her a little halfhearted wave.

Calvert.

What was he doing? She didn’t move. And after a moment she saw his hand fall dejectedly before he turned around and left.
Lana gripped her bag closer to her side.

He’d been watching her. Waiting for her to get off work. And yet, instead of approaching her, he’d turned tail and ran. She
shook her head and fumbled in her purse for her keys, eager to get inside her car and lock the door.

Eli and Moe lounged in beach chairs on Moe’s boat dock, tucked away in a cattail-spotted cove far south of the city. Eli was
sloshy drunk, no more stable than the water under the boards beneath them. Of the twelve bottles of Long Trail that they’d
started with, Eli had drunk six; Moe, one.

“And you know what else?” Eli said. “The guy had some other woman with him! Prob’ly seeing her the whole time.”

“Trash,” Moe said, shaking his head. “Total trash.”

Eli stood up from his lawn chair and wobbled on his feet.

“Easy, man.” Moe laughed.

“I should have been quicker, you know. Got in at least one good punch. Broken his nose.”

“Tough break.”

Eli shook his head, and the whole world teetered. He leaned down and clasped both of Moe’s shoulders. “No, Moe. No. Don’t
you get it? It was the best thing that could have happened.”

“I don’t follow.”

He stood and looked out over the water. A fish broke the dark surface and made a splash. How could he say what he was feeling?
Ever since the day Lana had first rejected him, he’d been acting like a complete coward. He’d decided he would follow her
lead, would be satisfied with what she wanted and put his own desires out of his mind. Better than having his heart broken
again. Better than being humiliated.

But now—all bets were off. He’d taken a good look at himself, at his worst and most pathetic self, and he saw what he was
capable of, all the pain that he could make himself withstand. He’d glimpsed a strength within himself that he hadn’t known
he had. He knew now that he’d gone to Ron’s not to help Lana, but to pick a fight. It had been selfish and inappropriate—he
would need to apologize to Lana—but emotionally, it was exactly what he’d needed to do. All these years he’d been so afraid
of
not
getting what he deserved that he didn’t even
try
to get it. He just wished it hadn’t taken getting his ass kicked to find out.

He held his beer bottle up in a toast. “I love her. Did you know that?”

“Well, we all always wondered…”

“I
want
her, Moe. I want her in all kinds of different ways. I’ve been pussyfooting around worrying about whether Lana is comfortable,
how Lana feels, doing what Lana wants. But it’s time for Eli to get what he wants.”

“Talking about yourself in third person is not a good sign.”

“Did you hear me?” Eli held on to the back of his chair, desperately trying to make Moe understand. “I’m going after her.
Even if I end up losing her, I owe it to myself to try. When I was on the ground getting the shit kicked out of me, I thought,
Dude, it’s worth it. She’s worth it. Whatever it takes.
”

Moe saluted him with his beer. “Well, then, it’s about time.”

Eli looked into the mouth of his bottle. “Problem is, even if I can get her into bed, I don’t know if I can get her to stay
there.”

“What do you mean?”

“She might flake out again. She probably will.”

Moe reached down to set his bottle on the boards. “But you just said it yourself. You’ve spent too much time worrying about
what she wants and not enough time worrying about what you want. Time’s up, man. It’s now or never. You got to jump headfirst.”

“Yes! I’ve just got to jump—” Eli stepped closer to the edge of the dock and somehow his chair ended up in the water, sinking
slowly down.

“Whoa there. No jumping anywhere right now.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Never did like that chair.”

Eli watched a few bubbles rise up as the chair disappeared under the surface. He was a different man now than he’d been this
morning. And yet nothing had changed. Just his own understanding of himself.

Even in his drunken muddle, it was all very clear.

August 10

On Monday morning, the store was quiet. A soft rain was falling, soaking students on their way to summer classes, old men
waiting at bus stops, and the die-hard runners who sprinted daily along the shores of Lake Champlain. Lana sat alone at the
counter of the Wildflower Barn, listening to the rain dance and tap on the roof. Water from a gutter outside fell and splashed
thickly on the concrete before washing down into the sewers. It was going to be a slow morning.

She looked up at the sound of tires on the gravel parking lot and saw Eli’s beat-up VW pulling in. She stood, pulling her
dress down to cover the bump of her belly. She was grateful it was summer because she’d grown out of every pair of her pants.
Her pregnancy had hit the fifteen-week mark, and this morning was the first time in quite a while that she didn’t have the
urge to throw up. Her body had become accustomed to being pregnant, even if her brain had not.

She watched through the window as he got out of his car, aware of a niggling nervousness in the back of her mind. The last
time she’d talked to him, he’d accused her of jealousy, of ruining his sex life. He’d stripped away all the rules that had
kept those dangerous subjects at bay. What she’d seen on his face that day had been nothing shy of full-on, unquenchable,
plain-as-day lust. And she worried: Had it been a fluke attraction? A lapse in judgment? Or something more?

She took a deep breath to quiet her nerves. She had to admit that lately she’d been feeling that same fire, that heat. But
so what if she felt a passing attraction toward him? It was nothing she couldn’t handle. And it would pass—as all attraction
eventually passed. For all she knew, Eli might walk into the store and things would go right back to normal. There was no
reason to be worried. She and Eli were solid. To stay solid, she just had to set boundaries—that was all.

Confident, she rose and walked toward the door as he pushed through it. He wore black flip-flops and khaki shorts. His T-shirt
was flecked with rain, pinpricks of navy on pale blue. His eyeglasses were speckled too, and he looked at her through the
lenses, focused happily on her face.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

Lana laughed, surprised but flattered. Since when did Eli notice she was beautiful? Her hair was in its customary ponytail,
and a few strands had fallen out around her face and on the back of her neck. She was sure she didn’t look beautiful. But
she loved his compliment just the same. “How are you?”

“Never been better,” he said, and even though they were nearly the same height, Lana had the sudden, inexplicable sense that
Eli had become
bigger
somehow. Even if his physical size was the same, his presence was larger. How was it possible that he’d become so disconcertingly
sexy? Especially since nothing visible about him had changed?

She waited for him to say something. But he only looked at her, smiling with a slight dreaminess, as if he’d just come in
from the rainstorm because he’d stepped off a cloud.