Object lessons (22 page)

“There are rules you can break like that,” said Maggie, gesturing out the window at the orange glow. “And then there are the rules that are, are—” She began to sob and the flowers fell from her hand to the floor.

“I wouldn’t break those rules,” Connie said. “That’s not the kind of person I am.”

“What kind of person are you?” Maggie said, looking up, and then suddenly she saw herself, and it was as if it was the first time, as if she’d never passed a mirror, never seen a photograph, never looked into her own eyes, and she realized that no matter what she might do with her life, no matter how she might twist or turn or move away, it would be for nothing, that she could never escape, not just who she was, but what she had come from.

“I don’t know,” Connie finally said, and the two of them stood in silence for a long time, watching as the water leapt through the air, putting the fire out, leaving an empty space in the row of new houses.

The noise from the incongruous nighttime crowd—men in black slickers, police with their buttons glinting in the light of the fire, people from the surrounding houses standing in their backyards, barely visible, like a ring of ghosts defending Kenwood—gave way to the faint, unmistakable sound of the last pockets of heat popping into oblivion and the water falling from what was left of the wreckage to the blackened earth. The two women watched in silence. They did not touch or speak or look at each other.

“That’s over, the fires,” Maggie said finally, her shoulders sagging beneath her white shirt. “I don’t want to tell you who, but I promise you it wasn’t me. Not this one. I promise you this one wasn’t me, and I promise it’s over. I promise.”

She looked up at Connie and her face was wiped clean, and Maggie knew that her mother did not believe her, although she wanted to.

“I promise you too,” said her mother, and Maggie saw that in some sense she might never understand, she had been right to have the suspicions and the fears she had had, and that this day, this night, was the end of a part of her life as surely as it was the end of the new house, now a tumble of glowing debris framed by the square of her window. Silently Connie turned and left the bedroom, turning the light off as she went, and Maggie lay down on her bed in her clothes. When she woke in the morning she was still in her shorts and shirt, but her sneakers had been placed side by side under her bed, and one of Joseph’s crib quilts had been wrapped around her.

20

W
HEN TOMMY CAME HOME ON THURSDAY
night it was already dusk. His dinner was in the oven, the plate covered with foil, and his wife was sitting on a collapsible lawn chair on the back patio, smoking a cigarette and giggling with her cousin Celeste. Tom stood in the kitchen, watching the moths flail against the screens, the fluorescent tube above the counter blinding him, so that when he looked out he could see the bugs and nothing more. He picked at the chicken and beans on the plate, licking his fingers and absently shaking salt over everything. He was not hungry.

After work he had played one-on-one for almost an hour with one of the mixer drivers, running up and down the asphalt court until perspiration falling into his eyes turned him blind and clumsy. Then he had gone to the hospital and driven his mother to church, to a novena to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Even with the sun down, it was near ninety degrees outside, and Tom felt as if all his energy and hunger and fight had melted into a puddle on the car floor, right between the acceleration pedal and the brake. When he looked at himself in the mirror in the men’s room at the plant, a gray room with a persistent smell of Lysol, he thought of the old trick of holding a buttercup beneath your chin to see if you liked butter. Almost always there would be a pale yellow shadow cast by the flower, pale yellow like the color his skin was now, the whites of his eyes, the wet circles on his shirt beneath the armpits.

Down in the basement, below his feet, he could hear the washer going. It seemed as if the washer was always going in his house. He smelled a faint odor of burning and wondered if the vent on the dryer needed replacing again. Then he remembered the fire the night before, already doused and dead by the time he came home from his mother’s house. He wished someone would burn the whole damn development down. Outside he could hear more laughter, and looking inside the refrigerator saw that four of his Miller High Lifes were missing.

He did not like it when women drank beer. He even thought it was inappropriate for his mother to have Scotch on Sundays. Whenever they went out to dinner he always ordered a whiskey sour for Connie, and one for himself to keep her company, although he could never taste the liquor in those things. Sal said fancy restaurants didn’t use any liquor in drinks like that, only vanilla. He stood inside, drinking his beer, pressing it against his cheek. He did not like it when Celeste spent a lot of time with Connie. The rest of the time he could think of Connie as only his, his wife, nothing more or less. When Celeste came, he felt as though his Connie disappeared, in the way she had taken to doing. He put the bottle down on the counter.

“Tommy?” Connie called, hearing the clink of the glass. Her voice was high and a little giddy.

He walked to the back door, his hands in his pockets, and stood behind the screen like a shadow.

“Come on out,” Connie said.

“Hi, Tom,” said Celeste, holding the beer bottle by the neck.

“Come out,” his wife repeated, and he slid around the screen door, trying to keep the moths from coming in. He knew he looked out of place in his dress shirt, his tie slack around his open collar, his lace-up shoes black and heavy in the heat. Even the lightning bugs were sluggish, blinking on and off in one spot for a long time. Connie’s beer bottle was turned on its side on the ground, either spilt or empty.

“We’re celebrating,” Connie said. “Have a beer.”

“Celebrating what?”

“Celeste got married. Today.”

Tommy stared at Celeste, who nodded. “At City Hall,” she said, with an Ethel Merman laugh. “On my lunch hour. Actually, I took two hours and had lunch anyway.”

“To who?” said Tom.

“His name is Sol Markowitz. You don’t know him. He runs a hat company on 37th Street. Mr. Mark’s Hats. I met him at the deli on Broadway. He’s very nice. Fiftyish.”

Tommy knew this meant the guy was in his sixties. The last time Celeste had dated someone “fiftyish” he had died of a cerebral hemorrhage when they were at the track together and his horse had won.

Celeste was wearing white toreador pants and a black sleeveless blouse, her hair in an upsweep. “You didn’t get married like that?” said Tommy.

The two women started to laugh. “I asked her the same thing,” Connie said.

“I wore a dress, for your information,” Celeste said.

“Red,” said Connie, bursting into laughter and groping on the ground for her beer bottle.

“So?” Celeste said. “I’m not a kid. Besides, he already had the big wedding, the hall, the flowers, the whole bit. Thirty-five years ago. Who needs it?”

“That doesn’t make him fiftyish,” Tommy said.

“Picky, picky, picky.”

“It’s not like she wants to have children,” Connie said, folding her hands lightly over her stomach.

Celeste shrugged. “Sometimes it’s just time, you know? It’s time to settle down, get on with your life, act your age.”

“Act your age?” Connie said, giggling. “You? Give me a break. Tell me another.”

“How many beers have you had?” Tommy asked.

“The enforcer,” Celeste said in a deep voice, picking up her bottle and taking a mouthful. Tommy flushed bright red.

“Where’s your car, Celeste?” he asked.

“The enforcer,” Connie said.

“He’s sending a car for me,” Celeste said. “Sol is. He had business and I’m going to meet him at home.”

“Where’s he live?” Tommy said.

“Up in Connecticut. You two will have to come up for a barbeque with the kids. He has a pool. We have a pool. That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? We have a pool. Seven bedrooms. It’s nice.”

“Celeste Markowitz,” said Connie.

“Oh Jesus,” said Celeste to Tommy, “your mom and dad will love that. Don’t say anything, okay?”

“Tell you the truth, Celeste,” said Tommy, pitching his beer bottle onto the grass, the faint beer buzz he got after a long hot day beginning right behind his eyes, “at this point in their lives I don’t think my parents would care.”

“Get out,” Celeste said. “Your old man would care unless he was half dead.”

“He is half dead,” Tommy said.

“Tom,” said Connie, turning to look him in the face, telling him he was spoiling the party.

“Your father will outlive us all, Tom,” Celeste said.

“I think you’ll outlive us all, Celeste,” Tommy said, and suddenly he smiled. “Let me see your ring.”

Celeste held out her left hand so he could see the heart-shaped diamond perched above her big knuckle. It was twice the size of the ring she’d had before. Even in the half-light, Tom could see that it was pale yellow, and he thought again of the shadow a buttercup made beneath your chin.

“That’s great,” Tommy said. “Beautiful. It must have cost a fortune.”

Celeste smiled. Faintly, from the front of the house, a car horn sounded twice. “That’s for me,” she said, getting slowly to her feet.

“Bring him in,” Connie said. “I have cake in the house.”

“Sometime,” Celeste said. “You can’t rush these things.” She turned to Tommy and laid one hand, the nails as slick as patent leather, along his hot cheek. “Be nice to your wife,” she said, in a throaty, intense sort of voice, and Tommy had a heady feeling of
déjà vu
. Instead of having to root around for it for days, the memory came back to him instantly: Celeste at his wedding reception, shiny in bright blue, dancing with him, looking up to say, her eyes filled with tears, “Be nice to my cousin.”

“I’m always nice to my wife,” he replied now. “When I can find her.”

“Be extra nice to her,” said Celeste, and before Tommy could get the last word she had kissed him, and was gone, a cloud of L’Air du Temps lingering over the lawn chair in which she’d sat. Tommy realized it was a new scent for Celeste, perhaps in honor of the new husband. He leaned over and picked up her beer bottle. The top was red with lipstick. He carried the bottle into the kitchen.

Connie followed him. “Tom,” she said. When he turned she was standing by the stove, smiling, a misty look in her eyes. It was the booze, he told himself, but still he was excited.

“I have another surprise for you.”

“What’s that?” he said, running his hands up and down her arms, his fingers encircling her tiny wrists. She pushed her hands into his pockets and his breathing changed, but she only took out his car keys and held them in front of his nose.

“Ta da,” she said, and he could tell now that the beer had really affected her. The last time he remembered hearing her say “ta da” was when she came out of the bathroom the first night of their honeymoon in her negligee. He wondered for a moment how she was keeping the beer down in her condition.

Connie walked out the front door, the keys still held in front of her like a carrot on a stick, and he followed. She opened the passenger door of the station wagon and said, “Get in.” Then she slid in on the other side and turned the key in the ignition.

“Where’s the thing that makes the seat go closer?” she said impatiently, slurring her words a little.

“Are you nuts?” Tommy said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The seat slid forward with a jerk, and Tommy’s knees were pinned against the glove compartment. When the lights came on, he saw the grass edging the driveway all sharp-edged and clean, like one of those arty nature photographs. Connie put the car into reverse and backed down the driveway. The bumper hit the street solidly.

“Why does it do that?” she asked, jamming on the brake and adjusting the rear-view mirror.

“This is not funny,” Tommy said. “You’re going to kill us both. It’s bad enough that you don’t know how to drive, but you’re drunk to top it all off. Just stop.”

Connie dug in the pocket of her shorts and handed him a square of cardboard. It was a temporary license from the Motor Vehicle Bureau. It said that Concetta M. Scanlan had brown hair and eyes, did not need corrective lenses, was five feet tall and weighed 103 pounds. Tommy thought she was probably a little heavier than that by now.

Connie was cruising silently down Park Street, holding a little too far to the right, staring a little too intently out the windshield, the way Tommy remembered doing when he had first learned how to drive. At the corner she turned left and went around the block. She went around the block again, and then a third time, before pulling back into the driveway. Part of Tommy noticed that she cut it a little too wide on the turns, but he thought that would iron itself out in time. The other part was so enraged that he could taste the metallic tang of adrenaline on his tongue.

“Ta da,” she said again, as she turned off the engine. Without a word he walked back into the house and took another beer out of the refrigerator. He sat down in the living room in his chair and switched on the television. She came and stood in front of it, her arms crossed on her chest.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Congratulations would be nice.”

There was a long silence. Finally he said, “Where are the kids?”

“Joseph is upstairs asleep. Damien is at my father’s. Terence is spending the night at O’Brien’s after his game, and I think Maggie is with Debbie.”

“Oh, that’s convenient,” he said sarcastically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Connie, turning around to switch off the television.

Tommy just looked at her, his eyes cold, his heart pounding. He looked down and imagined he could see it pulsing beneath his damp dress shirt. The beer was making him feel tired.

“Do you have something going with that guinea?” Tommy finally said.

“You sound exactly like your father,” Connie replied.

It was not, he thought, the way he had planned to bring this up. But it was the sight of her behind the wheel that had set him off, so small that it seemed scarcely possible that she could see over the dashboard or reach the brake pedal, like a little girl playing at being grownup. She was exactly the same, and yet she was entirely different. There was no need for her to be able to do this. He could take her anywhere she wanted to go. He went into the kitchen and uncapped another beer, wondering how he could have finished the last one so quickly, but when he came back she was in the same place, with the same hard look around her onyx eyes. Her face and throat were dewy with the heat, and she had faint dark circles just beneath her eyes where her mascara was smudging onto her skin.

“The answer is no,” she said finally, breaking the silence, and there was a certain something in her voice that told him that the question had been neither unexpected nor unreasonable.

But it never occurred to Tommy that she might not be telling the truth. She was that sort of person, black and white, who would not lie about what she had done simply because facts were facts and you had to acknowledge them. “I never would have thought this of you,” he said slowly. He could think of nothing else but clichés, and he drank his beer to stop from talking.

“Thought what of me, Tommy?” she said, raising her hands in the air. “That I would get tired of not fitting in? That I would want to do the things that other people do? I don’t always want to be the strange one. I want to be happy.”