Plan B (17 page)

“What are you talking about?”

“Your lack of judgment, I suppose.”

“No, I mean why do you think that?” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “I wasn’t trying to bring anything up.”

“Yes,” she said angrily. “You were. You can’t tolerate a single unexamined moment.”

I must have looked pretty miserable, because her expression softened and she stepped closer to me, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Listen,” she said. “I’m really glad we’re spending time together now. I’ve missed talking to you terribly. But don’t complicate things by dredging up old issues. You’re not going to find any answers there.”

We looked at each other for a minute. “Okay,” I finally said, more by way of concession than agreement. I felt something inside my chest, warm and quivering, slowly deflate. It was absolutely ridiculous for me to be feeling heartbroken here, over this, but there it was. “I’m sorry.”

“Forgiven,” she said with a smile. She gave me a short hug, during which I thankfully resisted the urge to nuzzle her hair and kiss her. “Can’t we just spend time together without complicating everything?”

“Sure,” I said, knowing that it already was complicated. The damage was done. I’d forced the issue and been deftly shot down. I’d been kidding myself to think it might have been otherwise. Lindsey had hugged me and let it go, but the words were out there, a barrier that I’d unwittingly forced her to put up between us. The “just friends” speech at age thirty. A new and profound low.

“Come on,” she said, turning around. “Let’s head back.” We turned and began walking into town. A growing rumbling behind us gradually turned into a roar, as a scary looking bearded guy shot by us on a Harley. The back of his T-shirt said, “If you can
read this, then the bitch fell off,” which normally would have been kind of funny, but I was all out of laughs for the moment.

We went into Parker’s Five and Dime, kind of an everything store, and bought out the Tupperware section. The burly, middle-aged man behind the counter, whose name was almost certainly Parker, rang up our purchases on an antique cash register, the kind where a red sign that says “Sold” pops up when the final sum appears in the little window. “How are you today?” he said, bagging the plastic containers.

“Never better,” I lied.

We drove home in silence, Lindsey looking out the window and humming softly while I dejectedly contemplated the order of things. The ink was still drying on my divorce, but all of my regret seemed to be directed at a breakup that had happened over five years ago. It occurred to me that there might be a peculiar balance to what I was feeling now. When Lindsey left me, I channeled all the feelings I had for her into Sarah, and now that Sarah was gone, those feelings were free to return to their point of origin. Then again, I might have been transferring my anguish over the divorce onto Lindsey simply because she was there. Less likely, but not impossible. I stole a quick glance at Lindsey, who thought I tended to complicate things. I remembered a literary anecdote about Kurt Vonnegut. When a visitor expressed surprise at his rather untidy office, he pointed to his head and said, “You think that’s messy, you should see what it’s like in here.”

When we got back to the house Alison was sitting at the kitchen table, eating Ben and Jerry’s Cookies and Cream out of the container and looking distraught. The Indigo Girls were playing on the stereo in the living room, but as far as I could tell that had nothing to do with it.

“He hasn’t made a sound all afternoon,” she said. “I’ve tried to talk to him, but he doesn’t respond.”

“He’s either pissed or sleeping,” I said.

“This isn’t how I thought it would be,” she said dejectedly. “I thought we’d be able to keep him company, to talk him through it. He’s so alone in there.”

“It’s just the first day,” Lindsey said. “We’re in this for the long haul, don’t forget. Things will change.”

“I guess,” Alison said, sounding unconvinced.

“Where’s Chuck?” I asked.

“He rented a car and drove back to New York to get his nose taken care of and arrange for someone to cover his patients. He’ll
be back late tonight or early tomorrow morning.” She stood up and returned the ice cream to the freezer. “I also checked my messages at home,” she said slowly.

“Yeah?”

“There was one from Paul Seward. He wanted to know if I’d heard from Jack in the last day or two.”

“It begins,” Lindsey said dramatically.

“I figure we’ll just ignore him,” Alison said.

“Maybe, for now,” I said. “Right now he’ll probably just wait for Jack to resurface. Seward probably figures he went on a bender.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Lindsey said.

“I think they start preproduction on
Blue Angel II
next week,” Alison said. “Seward will be frantic if he hasn’t heard from Jack.”

“Not as frantic as the producers and director will be when Jack doesn’t show up,” Lindsey said. “And given Jack’s recent publicity, they’ll instantly assume the worst.”

“He’ll get sued for breach of contract,” Alison said. “And it will ruin his reputation. No one will want to insure him.”

“We may have to talk to Seward,” I said. “Maybe we can get him to work with us.”

“Doubtful,” Lindsey said.

Alison sat down and looked up at us. “We may be doing more harm than good here,” she said.

“No,” I said. “You have to believe we’re doing the right thing. Whatever harm this may do to his career, it won’t be as bad as what he would have eventually caused himself.”

“He’s right,” Lindsey said. “We have to think long term here.”

“I just wish he would talk to us.”

“He will,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. He’s in there somewhere.”

“It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to get better,” Alison said.

“That’s why we aren’t giving him a choice,” I said, wishing I was as confident as I sounded.

That evening the three of us watched the news. None of us said it, but we were checking to see if Jack’s disappearance was out yet. I was so relieved to see that it wasn’t that I almost forgot to follow the body count, which was six. A power plant explosion in Monticello killed five, and an armed suspect was shot by a cop in a standoff over a domestic abuse call.

Afterwards, I went upstairs with Lindsey to bring Jack his dinner. Since our return from town, we were both doing our best to pretend that our earlier argument hadn’t happened. We were lousy actors. I checked through the peephole and saw that Jack was sprawled out on the bed asleep. I continued to watch as Lindsey unlocked the door and, convinced that he was truly out, I slowly pushed the door in. Jack didn’t budge. I took a minute to examine the room, which looked like a swarm of locusts had mistaken it for a wheat field. Torn and bent books were haphazardly strewn all over the place, and there were glass fragments everywhere. The mahogany desk was turned on its side, a feat of which I wouldn’t have thought one man capable, and two of the curved legs had been broken off, giving it the appearance of some disfigured mythological beast. Behind the door in a pool of glass splinters was the television we’d heard Jack throw, a jagged crack running up the back of the black plastic casing. Little white electronic components were scattered around it on the carpet like dandruff on a dark suit.

Seeing this destruction was like looking into a truly tortured soul. I felt an icy breeze in my intestines when I looked back at Jack’s prone form. I never would have believed that somewhere within him existed the pure and dark rage that had inflicted this
damage. Looking at Lindsey, I could tell she was equally shaken. She was squeezing her lips with her right hand, her eyes wide with shock. “Jesus, Ben,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Why’d he have to do this?”

“I have no idea,” I said dumbly. I placed the tray containing a turkey and cheese sandwich and a thermos of pea soup on the floor, scooping up what scattered remains of Jack’s last meal were within arm’s reach, and backed out of the room. Lindsey turned the key and replaced it on the doorjamb. I followed her somberly downstairs, wondering once again if we had taken on way more than we could handle. I wished that Chuck were there, to explain it all away as a symptom of withdrawal. At that moment, his unassailable confidence would have been a welcome antidote to my gnawing doubts.

By tacit agreement, Lindsey and I didn’t mention the state of the room to Alison. She’d witnessed the same pandemonium we all had that morning and probably had a good notion of the extent of the damage, but a firsthand description might still be unsettling.

“How’s he doing?” she asked when we joined her in the den. She was curled up in the corner of a large, burgundy couch, taking slow sips from a mug of hot cider. On the huge leather couch she looked like a little girl in her sweatshirt and leggings, and I wanted to curl her up into a ball and hug her. Instead I took a sip of her cider and sat down on the floor in front of her.

“He’s sleeping,” Lindsey told her. “With any luck, he’ll sleep through the night.”

“Good,” Alison said softly, cradling the mug tightly between her hands as if she were fighting a chill. “Look what’s on HBO.”

I grabbed the clicker from the glass-topped coffee table and hit the power. And there was Jack, bleeding from a fake gash on the bridge of his nose, shooting an automatic pistol from the top of a baggage conveyor belt in a crowded airport. It was the opening
scene of
Decoy
, one of the disappointingly average, highly profitable action films Jack had made after the wild success of
Blue Angel
. Two bad guys went down, and two more fled up the stairs. Jack dove headfirst over a pile of suitcases in pursuit, knocking extras out of his way. He stopped briefly to help up a little girl who been knocked over, handed her the fallen doll she’d been searching for and flashed her a wide, white-toothed smile. “There you go,” he said, and then turned to run up the stairs three at a time in pursuit.

“He hurt his knee filming this,” Alison said in a monotone, staring at the screen. “He insisted on jumping off that baggage carousel himself, and he ended up twisting his knee so badly they had to shoot around his scenes for a week while he recovered.”

“I remember,” I said. “Jackie Chan was always one of Jack’s heroes because he does all his own stunts.”

“Didn’t Harrison Ford hurt himself filming
The Fugitive?”
Lindsey asked.

“Yep. Same kind of injury,” I said. “Jumping off a bus or something.”

“Hey,” Lindsey said. “Harrison Ford to Jack Shaw in four movies. Not counting the one they were in together.”

“Easy,” Alison said. “Harrison Ford was with Anne Archer in
Patriot Games
. Anne Archer was with Michael Douglas in
Fatal Attraction
. Michael Douglas was with Andy Garcia in
Black Rain
, and Andy Garcia was in
Blue Angel
with Jack.”

“Good one,” Lindsey said. “But I can do it in three.”

“Do tell.”

“Harrison Ford was with James Earl Jones in
Patriot Games.”

“And
Star Wars
,” I chimed in.

“Good point,” Lindsey said. “James Earl Jones was with Eric Roberts in
The Best of the Best
and Eric Roberts was in
Decoy
.”

“Julia Roberts to Jack in three,” I challenged.

“Amateur,” Lindsey said. “Julia Roberts was with John Malkovich in
Mary Reilly . . .”

And so it went, well into the night. We played the game, we talked and reminisced and sipped our hot cider while basking in the soothing, blue-green glow of the television as if it were a fireplace. At some point I got off the floor and joined Lindsey and Alison on the overstuffed couch, the three of us splayed out in a tangle of throw pillows and the heavy, handknit afghan that had lain in a basket beside the couch. The smell of the leather couch mingled in my nostrils with the aroma of hot cider and feminine shampoo. I closed my eyes and leaned back, embracing all of the comforting sensations that surrounded me. For the first time in years, it felt like time was finally slowing down, at least for a little while. At some point we began drifting off to sleep, but rather than go upstairs we just pulled closer together under the blanket, like three newborn puppies, finding warmth and security in our proximity. I slept better than I had in months.