Storm Tide (32 page)

A friend? I made love to Judith. What did that say about Crystal and Tommy? What
had
Michelle walked in on that night? Why had they been on the couch in the dark together? There were lights in that room. There were two other chairs. Did she think that because I slept with Judith that she had the right to sleep with Tommy? Did Tommy think he could walk into my house when I wasn’t here and make love to the woman I was living with? I left for work that morning with raw intestines and my head on fire. I couldn’t accuse her, not when she knew
exactly where I would be and what I would be doing. It was a silent threat: be with Judith and I’ll be with someone too.

The following night was Friday and Crystal was waiting for me at the door. She ushered me into the kitchen. “Do you like it?” So much seemed to depend on my answer.

“Of course!”

“It’s all here, right?” The table was covered with an old lace cloth instead of the usual vinyl. “I did the whole thing like the book said. I got it all, I think.”

“I helped with the bread.”

“Oh, I know you did, Laramie,” I said. “It’s beautiful.” He was wearing a dress shirt and a Bruins cap. My sister had lent Crystal
The Complete Book of Jewish Observance
. Crystal, doing her best to create a Shabbat meal, had fashioned candle holders from upturned egg cups and baked a braided bread. “They didn’t have poppy seeds. Is sesame all right?”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Thank you.”

She had located—probably from the back of my sister’s liquor cabinet—a bottle of cherry wine labeled Kosher for Passover. She and Laramie stood at something like attention as I recited the blessings. She wore a silk kerchief and a white Greek fisherman’s shirt with balloon sleeves. She had roasted a chicken, and instead of the potato kugel in the “Suggested Menus” chapter, served macaroni and cheese. They began to eat only after I did (Laramie watching for the nod from his mother), and sat in dead formal silence, waiting for something to happen. I had never been one to initiate dinner table conversation. Moreover, my father had led the few ritual dinners we had, and after his death, Marty did it. When I shared Shabbat with Judith, she was the source of prayer and song, shadowy memories for me. The truth is, I didn’t know much about being a Jew or how to teach anyone else.

Crystal poured me another glass of cherry wine, half cabernet sauvignon, half Robitussen. “Eat slowly,” Crystal reminded Laramie. “I know it’s not as good as
she
makes it but—”

“It’s wonderful,” I said automatically. “It’s very good. Don’t put yourself down.”

“—but it’s my first time. I wasn’t putting myself down. Did you have a good night last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t seen you since yesterday morning. I just asked if you had a good night.”

In fact it had not been good. The question I could not bring up to Crystal was the first thing Judith asked. How long is she going to be
there, David? I said I didn’t know. Why? she asked. Why can’t you set a date, tell Crystal she has two weeks to find a place? That’s a little stiff, I said. All right, two months, David, but make a deadline. How long am I supposed to go on like this? You live with her now. So what? I said, you live with your husband. So you see her five nights a week and I see you two, Judith said. So I’m involved with a man whose house is off limits to me. So you’re not even with me when you are here.

Because all I could think about was Crystal and Tommy. I had driven past my house on the way to Judith’s at seven. Tommy’s truck was not there. Which meant he could have come and gone—or that he wasn’t coming until after dark.

“Judith and I mostly dealt with the election,” I said. “It was business.”

She swept crumbs from the table into her palm. “What kind?”

I didn’t want Crystal to be jealous of Judith and me, but the fact that she did not show the slightest concern seemed to prove she had gotten even. “Strategy stuff,” I said grudgingly. “We decided to send out a last campaign letter to arrive in the voters’ mailboxes the morning of the election.”

That night I wanted her with a fierceness fueled by pure anxiety. Everything I’d felt a hundred times seemed new: the tickle of her hair as it lay on my inner thigh; her nipples dangling above my lips. Her breath in my ear made me shiver. I came the first time just kissing and again inside her.

We lay together afterwards in a cold sweat, barely able to move. Sex had left us more wounded than satisfied, more exhausted than content. I listened to her breathing as she certainly listened to mine. Neither of us could sleep. “You want me out of here, don’t you?” Crystal said in the dark.

“It’s just that I’m used to living by myself.”

“Tell me the truth. You think I can’t feel it? Nothing I do can make you want us. If I wash the floor, you just think I’m doing it so I can stay here. If I try to make the kind of ritual you like, it doesn’t compare to the way she does it.”

“I never said that.”

“I can feel it. You’re mad at me all the time.” I reached for her and she pulled away. “Do you think I want to impose on you? It’s just so hard for me, David. You don’t know how much it costs to have a kid.”

“I told you I’d help you. I mean it.”

“I don’t want your money. If you want us out, okay, just say it. If it wasn’t for Laramie I wouldn’t even be here. His father doesn’t help. He never sends anything. Do you know how hard that is? Laramie thinks nobody loves him. I don’t want him to grow up like that.”

“You’re a good mother, Crystal. There’s none better.”

“I’ve made such a lousy life for him.”

“No, you haven’t. He’s a good, beautiful kid.”

“He really loves you, David.”

“And I love him.”

She was suddenly still. “You do? You mean that? I don’t care how you feel about me. But if you could care for him. He can’t take being kicked again and again.”

“Nobody’s going to hurt him or you.”

“We’ll move as soon as I get the money together. I promise. I want to pay off my debts. And then I’ll work on saving enough to rent a house. I won’t be a burden to you.”

“You’re not a burden.” What else could I say? I had the sense if I ever said flat out,
I do wish you would move, I feel crowded out of my own house
, she would utterly collapse. I had to go gently around her. “I know how hard you work to please me. I know I’m not easy. Don’t cry, Crystal. You can stay as long as you need to. Why are you crying?”

“I wanted to hear you say that.”

D
AVID

    The only campaign weapon we had left was our letter, secretly typed, copied, stamped and, by arrangement with the postmaster, delivered in time for voters to find it in their boxes the morning of the election. Gordon suspected that people had tuned out the signs and forgotten the issues. They were tired of the election and might not bother to vote. We needed to goose them, he said, at exactly the right time and above all with a light hand. Gordon had three photos of me taken, each one recalling those in Blossom’s letter of attack. Under a photograph of me in a pea coat, looking something like Ahab, was the caption: “a sobering choice.” Underscoring me in a Birdmanlike safari shirt, a pair of binoculars around my neck, were the words, “Looking to the future of Saltash.” Under a picture of me on the beach holding a garbage bag, just as Blossom had posed, were the block letters: “He doesn’t have to talk trash.” In place of the photo of me and Gordon and Judith, there was a picture of Blossom and Johnny Lynch, above the caption: “David Greene is his own boss.”

But upon delivery at exactly five
P
.
M
. the night before the election, we were told by the postmaster that Blossom had sent out a second letter at the same time as ours, unheard of in Saltash politics. Gordon’s face was all furrows; lips, cheeks, and brow pinched together in a ruminative grin. “Looks like we have ourselves a mole.”

“The voters will get two letters and throw away both,” I said. “We’re finished.”

“Maybe. We’ll know tomorrow morning.”

“The polls don’t close until seven.”

“We’ll do exit polls.”

“In Saltash?”

“You’ll see.”

Meeting that night with our committee, Gordon looked sharp despite his pallor and weakness, like a general on the eve of battle. His gaze, sometimes prone to wander off, was fixed on the registered voters street listing, a pencil steady in his hand. We would have poll watchers keeping track of who had yet to vote, telephone volunteers to remind them and a driver for those who couldn’t drive themselves. More than once Judith urged Gordon to rest. He refused more rudely each time.

Gordon’s exit poll worked this way: on election morning, the earlier the better, each candidate staked out a corner where the voters had to pass on their way out of the polls. My job was to wave furiously at each and every car. According to Gordon, their vote was apparent on their faces. Those who would not look at you had not voted for you. They were embarrassed. Those who gave you an enthusiastic wave had certainly been in your corner; and a thumb up and a toot of the horn meant they liked you enough to tell their friends. A middle finger in your face didn’t matter. The crude ones didn’t bother to vote. A middle finger slyly directed at your opposition, however, was good, because it meant they not only liked you and had probably enlisted their friends to the cause, but had some dirt on the other candidate they were spreading.

At six-forty
A
.
M
., I claimed the northeast corner in front of Town Hall, beating the opening of the polls by fifteen minutes and the other candidates by an hour. Blossom was next, her mouth twisted into a plastic smile. For the first two hours we were even in the thumbs-and-toot department but I had gotten more enthusiastic waves. At around ten I caught a middle finger and three no-looks in a row and tried to shrug it off. By noon, when Judith stopped to wish me luck, I was waving my sign and enjoying myself. What the hell. It was lunchtime; seven hours till the polls closed. But right behind Judith’s Jeep, Crystal pulled up in her Olds. She approached me with a brown bag lunch, just as Judith had. Standing there between them I couldn’t think of a single word to say.

“We’re going to kick ass!” Crystal said.

“It’s looking good,” Judith said, nose-to-nose with Crystal.

“People in my office are all coming out!”

Judith smirked. “To vote for Blossom?”

My face was sunburned and desiccated. My lips were parched from calling out to cars. “You’ve been out since dawn, poor baby,” Crystal said. “As soon as you get home, I’m going to give you a hot meal and a bath.”

“He can eat at the victory party,” Judith said.

“Victory?” I said through a smile as tight as clenched teeth. “Don’t jinx me.”

“What party?” Crystal stared from Judith to me and back at Judith.

“At my office,” Judith said. “There’ll be a lovely buffet. We’re having David’s supporters over to wait for the results.”

“You didn’t tell me.” Crystal turned to me, her eyes enormous.

“I didn’t know about child care. I thought it would be a late night for Laramie.”

“Too late to see his father win an election? Are you coming home first?” Crystal said.

“I, uh, don’t know if I have time.”

“Do you want to come to the party, Crystal?” I knew Crystal was the last person Judith wanted to invite, but she was too polite not to ask her. “I’m sure there’ll be people you know.”

“Sure,” Crystal said, backing away, the glint of broken glass in her eyes. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

They count the votes one by one in Saltash, reading the names from a paper ballot and shouting them out in an open hall. I swung by Town Hall at nine, when the poll counters were breaking for dinner. The town clerk said there had been a near-record turnout and they wouldn’t be finished for hours.

I knew I should go home to change and shower, to touch base with Laramie, but if my time belonged to anyone tonight, it was Judith and Gordon. In spite of my tangled sex life, my disappearances and indecision, they wished me well. In ways that surprised me, I was becoming like them. Small things surfaced, like a taste for meat cooked rare instead of overdone, a liking for vegetables as long as they weren’t boiled, a belief that olive oil and garlic were part of a good meal. I’d begun to read, for the first time in my life enjoying books—a memoir about Tip O’Neill that Judith had given me. I was thinking differently too, looking at situations in a way Gordon had taught me, not dwelling on how they affected me so much as asking who stood to lose and who to gain. Judith and Gordon had become a part of me and felt, more than friends, like family. What I was with them was better than what I had been or could be without them. With them, I grew.

Mary, from Mary’s Tea Room, and her daughter Jo in white shirts and cummerbunds were setting up platters of cold cuts and tubs of shrimp salad in Judith’s office. One of the oystermen was shucking oysters and clams on a folding table. The bar was set up by the windows overlooking the harbor. When I walked in, about twenty people were watching the last bright pink light squeezed between clouds and the horizon. Judith’s secretary Mattie put a drink in my hand. She was off to take care of somebody else before I could thank her. People pressed close. How did I feel? Did I think we had taken it? I hadn’t hugged or shaken hands with so many people since the day I left town for the Cubs.