Other People We Married (14 page)

It was three days after Passover, and the largest wall in the room was covered with hand-drawn interpretations of the Seder plate—one poor girl had been assigned the brown nutty stuff, and the drawing could easily have passed for what accumulates at the bottom of a rabbit’s cage.

“Why is this night different from all other nights?” Jim squinted a little.

“Well, let’s see, we’re
in a synagogue, you’re marrying Franny… I’d say there are a shitload of reasons, wouldn’t you?”

Jim smiled and pointed to the blackboard behind Charles, where his question was written in chalk.

“Oh, right. What can I say, the only holidays I ever celebrated had to do with birthdays, mine or Jesus’s,” Charles said, seeming slightly embarrassed.

Outside, the sun was just starting to lower itself gently into the horizon. It wouldn’t be much longer before Franny’s father came to get them. All the Posts and the Golds and their friends were already assembled in the large room next door, waiting to bear witness to the blessed event. Charles tried to fix his hair in the small, waist-high mirror on the back of the door. The glass was covered with smudgy fingerprints, evidence that people had been there before, beaten him to the punch. Charles wondered how Fran was doing, if her mother was driving her crazy. He could imagine little Mrs. Gold wielding two aerosol cans, trying to shellac Franny’s curls into quiet submission.

“Thanks for doing this, Charlie.” Jim stood next to Charles’s reflection in the mirror, their tuxedoed lower halves both cut off at the belly button. “It means a lot. Having you here.”

“Where else would I be?” The thought of Franny getting married without Charles seemed so wrong. They could have done it without Jim, maybe, but not without him. Who would she have talked to? They could have filled him in later, told him all his lines, how handsome he was. They would have looked into each other’s eyes and known, yes, this was forever.

“I mean, I figure if you’re standing up there, Fran probably won’t run out the door.” Jim shoved his hands in his pockets where they could twitch in peace. He was nervous.

“I don’t think she’d run anyway.” Charles turned to face him. Jim’s eyes were boring a hole in the wooden floor, his eyebrows high wires across his forehead.

“No?”

“No way—too much energy. That’s practically cardiovascular exercise. I think she’d just sneak out the back, you know, catch a cab.”

Jim put his hand over his heart, wounded. “Guess I’m lucky you’ll be there to stop her, then, huh?” He loved Franny, Charles could see that. Jim had the sense to love her, and so Charles had no choice but to love him, too.

“I’d bring her right back.”

Someone rapped their knuckles against the door. Franny was ready, and who were they to keep her waiting?

Bobby had to keep his shoes on whenever he was out of bed due to rusty nails and other miscellaneous dangers, which meant that each thundering little step was amplified. Fran and Jim took the proper bedroom, which left Charles to the bunk beds, which in turn left him with no sleep whatsoever. Dear thing that he was, Bobby was up at six every morning, running back and forth, hitting every loud spot in the floor. The walls, perhaps unsurprisingly, were made of a material that could best be described as loose-leaf paper, and so Charles at least knew for certain that he wasn’t the only miserable grump in the house.

Franny woke when Bobby woke. She fed him some yogurt
and bananas, which Charles knew because she sang him a little song while she was doing it, dictating every one of her movements. “And now I mash the bananas with my little fork, and here comes the yogie, a mush a mush a mush…” Franny could not then, nor could she ever, carry a tune, even one of her own invention. Charles could hear groaning from the other bedroom. Bobby finished breakfast, and before Charles knew what was happening, there was a song about cleaning off his face, there was a knock at the door, and then, like it or not, he was babysitting.

Charles was still half naked, half asleep, and almost entirely pissed off at Fran. But there Bobby was, little boy wonder, saying, “Drawing?” and what could he do, really. He reached up his arms, asking plaintively for Charles to lift him onto the creaky bottom bunk. His hair was still fair then, closer to Jim’s color, and as he sat in front of Charles, waiting patiently for the art supplies to appear, Charles was struck by the fact that he and Bobby had remarkably similar hairlines. Wisps in the front, more solid cover in the back, long dangly bits on top that hung down across their foreheads; they were two marooned teenaged surfers who the undertow had cruelly spit up on the coast of balding.

The door to Fran and Jim’s room slammed shut, which was a feat in and of itself, given that the door didn’t weigh anything. Feet—Franny’ s—padded loudly across the floor, presumably toward the bed her husband was still sleeping in.

Most children are accustomed to hearing the sound of their parents’ voices in all sorts of situations. How else do children learn the meaning of words like
yell
or
scream
or
bloody murder
?
Bobby, clearly, was going to have no problem remembering any of the above. She’d always been a good fighter, but in the years she’d been married to Jim, Fran and Charles hadn’t had any major arguments. Now he understood why; she was using that energy elsewhere.

In the next room, an object fell to the floor. It was a small object, nothing breakable, but nevertheless, it unleashed something powerful out of the slumbering Jim.

The last time Charles had heard them fight was when the three of them were all traveling to London together, three broke kids, and his tiny little shoebox of a room was right next to theirs, with a similarly thin wall. Jim and Charles were showering simultaneously, each in their own rooms, and when Charles flushed the toilet after his shower, Jim’s water went ice cold, which Charles could tell from the angry yelp ringing through the wall. Across the room, Franny poured herself a glass of water from the tap, and she got blamed for what was clearly Charles’s error in judgment. Jim screamed at her, sure that she had done it on purpose. They weren’t so serious yet, and Franny loved to play games. She might have done it on purpose and, in any case, couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t ruined his shower accidentally. The only thing worse than hearing them argue was hearing them have sex, which usually followed. Of course, that was before Bobby.

They were trying not to yell at first, as it was quite clear that Charles could hear every word they were saying. Franny was more effective than her husband in this regard, probably because she cared that Charles knew that she was being yelled at, while Jim had no such reservation. One nice thing
about being friends with a couple is that one usually gets to hear both sides of an argument, without hearing the argument itself, and so over the course of, say, ten years, you know them better than they know themselves, and with none of the pyrotechnics. Sometimes, however, one finds oneself in the next bedroom, with nowhere to go, and nothing to do but listen.

J
IM:
… this fucking bed…

F
RANNY:
… Bobby…

J
IM:
… and the fucking smile…

F
RANNY:
… adventure, my…

J
IM:
… about what I wanted…

F
RANNY:
… coo…

J
IM:
… no…

F
RANNY:
… yes!…

This went on for several more minutes, increasing in volume with each point. When they were still courting, Jim and Franny used to fight everywhere: pizza parlors, bowling lanes, the office bathroom. It was something they liked about each other. Charles wanted the opposite.
Find someone calm
, that’s what he said to himself. Ferdinand the Bull was the ideal mate—tough on the outside, soft on the inside, and the opposite of both Jim and Fran. It just wasn’t worth it.

J
IM:
… and then you and Charlie…

F
RANNY:
… oh, Jim, please…

J
IM:
… and the fucking house…

F
RANNY:
… but love…

J
IM:
… fucking drunks, at least…

F
RANNY:
… don’t you dare…

J
IM:
… at least Charlie’s…

Here’s where Jim called Charles a faggot. He’d done it before, Charles knew, and liked to think that they could say things like that to one another; after all, Charles had slept in the same bed as his wife nearly as many times as he had before they got married. They were family, Jim must have thought, it was okay. It was entirely different, however, to hear it through the wall, when none of Jim’s wry charm was attached, and when, technically, Charles wasn’t listening. Franny, to her credit, went ballistic, literally bouncing off pieces of furniture like a ricocheted bullet, her voice higher and tinnier than usual. She sounded like a Chihuahua trapped in an overheated car, bless her. There were other words that bothered her more,
moist
, inexplicably, and
kike
, which no one even used anymore, but
faggot
was pretty high on her list.

Meanwhile, Bobby had put down the Cray-Pas and pushed aside the sheet of newsprint he and Charles had been sharing, crumpling its corners with his sneakered feet as he lay down with his head in Charles’s lap, bringing his tiny little fist up to the ear not already muffled by Charles’s shin.

After a few minutes, the papery door opened and slammed again, softer footsteps this time. Jim padded down the hall, still in his cotton pajamas—so old-fashioned, like somebody’s father, which of course he already was, although it was funny to think about Bobby growing up to be an actual
person and not just a downy little lump made in Franny’s image. The Saab rumbled awake, and he drove off, erasing the driveway in one easy stroke. Where could he go in his pajamas, really? He couldn’t get out of the car. He probably didn’t have his wallet. Charles was just starting to imagine Jim getting pulled over, going ninety on some tiny little beach road, and having to explain to the officer that his license and registration were in his pants, in his room, in his crappy rental house. The cop would understand, of course. Jim was a man’s man, all about the unspoken codes of machismo. The cop had a wife, too. He would recognize the color in Jim’s cheek, the sleep still in his eyes, and he would send him off without even a warning, maybe even tell him about a particularly good route for some angry driving.

There was a knock on the door. Franny was too upset to be shy about crying. Her whole face was red and damp, like some kind of Goya midwife, dark and angry.

“Want to go for a swim, duckies?” She laughed, and it was a little bit snotty; she had to blow her nose. Bobby pushed himself up onto all fours and wagged his bottom like a tail. Franny walked over to the bed and scooped him up in her arms. Her forearm brushed against Charles’s leg, and she looked at him, smiling. “It’s okay,” she said, to both of them, and to herself. “Mommy’s okay, mommy’s okay.”

The water below the dock was warm enough for swimming, at least in the sunshine. Bobby treated the entire crumbling thing like a pirate ship, full of hidden treasures and things
that were good by virtue of their very dangerous nature. He was so straight, even then. Franny and Charles had talked about Bobby growing up to be gay, what the likelihood was. He just wasn’t, though. It was easy enough to tell. He liked balls and bats and running and farts and his father’s car.

The sand was more like dirt, rocky like the rest of New England and nothing special. Franny and Charles kept their shoes on to wade in, two pairs of canvas sneakers ballooning in size under the water. They were looking for wildlife, but they seemed to be the only specimens out so early.

“He’s funny, you know,” Fran said, facing Bobby, who was jumping off the dock into his mother’s arms, again and again. He bent his knees and jumped straight up, his tiny back pushing itself forward as though his spine could come right through his ribs. He shot himself like a cannon was behind him, every appendage flying.

“What, you mean all that fag stuff? That really is funny. He should quit the
Review
and do stand-up, don’t you think?” The water was waist high, and the upper half of Charles’s body was trying its best to cultivate the kind of tan that would make the trip worthwhile.

“Come on, I’m being serious.” Franny made an
oof
sound as she caught Bobby in her arms, sending him into a peal of laughter. “I’m sorry you had to hear us. We really don’t do it that often, that kind of yelling, I mean.” She was lying, which was all right. It was her marriage, after all. “It’s just that, you know…” Bobby ran back down the pier to fetch a plastic truck the size of his head. “Everything is different now.”

“You’re not, though. And neither is he, really.” Charles’s voice was angrier than he wanted it to be. “You’re still hilarious and he’s
still a Yalie WASP with a stick up his ass. And I mean that in the least fun way possible.”

“Not in front of Bobby.” Franny opened her arms for the flying little body. Bobby’s feet hit the water, a surprise bonus.
Splash, splash, splash.
Franny twirled his tight frame around in a circle, dragging his feet across the surface of the water, sending ripples outward into the big, wide world, of which Bobby was the center. She had someone else to take care of now.

The Saab and its master purred back up the driveway around eleven. Jim had, apparently, had the time to put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before peeling off, and so he could have gotten out of the car to stretch his legs, buy a newspaper, eat breakfast. Charles should have known. Jim was never one to leave things to chance; he was too well turned out for things like that. He always put his wallet in the same place, his passport, his keys, his whatever. Even their medicine cabinet was organized. It was easy to tell which things were his: the muscle balm, the vitamins. As far as Charles knew, Jim had never had indigestion, diarrhea, constipation, insomnia, depression, hives, warts, or pimples. Walking back in from the car, with the sun shining right on the top of his head like a goddamn golden halo, even Charles could tell why Franny loved him. He was like a living, breathing cologne advertisement. He should have ridden horses and played polo.