The Best American Short Stories 2014 (26 page)

“She seems great,” I said. The legs of Simone's shorts had fallen just enough to expose about that much of black lacy underwear.

“Listen, I might call you pretty soon to ask you a favor,” he said. “I
might
. It would be a
big
favor.” He looked at Janna. “From both of you.”

“
You're
being mysterious,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever whenever.”

“I appreciate it.” He stood up and called to Simone. “You going to stay like that all day, babe? Come on, I want to show you the gals.”

He took her hand and led her along the path to the henhouse. He was limping worse than usual—that broken leg had never healed properly—and I noticed that he was wearing Nikes instead of boots.

Janna touched my arm. “I don't think he's OK.”

“He's just in love,” I said.

“I could see that little display wasn't lost on you.” I was thinking of how to deny it, but she put a finger to my lips. “I mean, you know him better than I do,” she said, “but
I
think she's got a situation on her hands.”

 

That summer was the first time Janna and I had traveled together. The Brontë Trail turned out to be a five-hour trudge through British badlands—“No wonder the brother was an alcoholic,” Janna said—and back in Haworth we found our rental car had a yellow metal clamp on the front wheel. At Whitby it was too cold to swim, and neither of us had any interest in joining the fossil-hunters at low tide, or in taking the Dracula tour. When we got home, I found a package Janna had sent me from Amazon—she'd found an Internet café in Whitby—with a book of Doré's illustrations of the
Divine Comedy
, and a note reading
It's time we got you interested in writers from Tuscany
.

A week later, I got the e-mail.

 

This is Simone, Paul's friend. I hope you remember me from your party. He doesn't know I'm writing this (truly), but I was afraid he never would ask you. I'm sure you must have seen that he wasn't well, and the truth is that he's been diagnosed with liver cancer, stage 4, though he still seems like his old self most days. Anyway, I know that his wish is, and I apologize if this is just too much to ask, that you could let him be in your home for the very last part of this—he says he will know when. He has always told me your home was his favorite place ever to be. I can take care of all the arrangements, home hospice and etc. (truth is, I've already made some calls to places in your area). Not really knowing you, I hope I've explained all this in the right way. Do you think you could in any way do this for him?

 

“What?” Janna said. We were propped up together on the bed. One thing I'd learned from being married to Diane was not to be furtive about e-mail.

“Here.” I turned the screen her way. “I guess you called it.”

I watched her face as she read, but Janna didn't give much away. “He put her up to this,” she said.

“She says not.”

“Well of course,” she said. “That's the tell.”

“I just have no idea what to say to something like this.”

“He's your friend,” she said. “What time is it?”

“So you're saying I should call?”

“I don't even know this man,” she said. “But I'd do this with you.”

 

They came late on a Sunday afternoon in October. Simone helped him out of the Jeep, then reached behind the seat and handed Janna a gallon of cider, just as she might have done if they'd been normal lovers up for a country weekend. The label showed it was the catchpenny orchard on the state highway, where kids could feed donkeys with pellets from dispensing machines at a quarter a handful. Paul had let his beard grow in, entirely white; he looked like the last pictures of Ezra Pound. “And here he is,” he said. “Appearing for a limited time only.”

“He rehearses his lines,” Simone said.

Janna put him on the sofa with the afghan over him while Simone and I went back out to get his stuff. “It's just a few clothes,” Simone said, “and a couple of pictures he wanted to be able to look at. He didn't want to take up your space. I think he's planning to give you this.” She held up the mandolin case.

“That's crazy,” I said. “It's got to be worth a fortune.” Paul's F-5 wasn't a Lloyd Loar, but I remembered that it was from the thirties.

“Welcome to my life,” she said. “He tried to leave
me
his apartment. He's turned into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I have to get with his brother tomorrow in the city and figure out what to do. Paul won't talk to him.”

“You're not driving down again tonight?”

“Breakfast 8
A.M.
The brother's a freak too.”

“But you're coming back.”

“And you've known Paul for how long? I mean, I wanted to. He's got it all plotted out, like each of us with our own little jobs—I mean, not that yours is little. He's just putting everybody away, away, away. Fuck
him
, you know? I was a good girlfriend.”

“Would you like us to disappear for a while? We do need to go to the store at some point.”

“No, it's fine. He already got the last sweet blowjob. Under this fucking apple tree—sorry. I just feel like
somebody
should know. And all the way up here, he keeps finding these sports-talk stations. Did you know that the World Series begins next week? It's going to be quite a matchup.”

We found him sitting up on the sofa, propped up by pillows under his back, looking at
The
New York Review of Books
. “So,” he said, “did she tell you what a dick I'm being to her?”

“I can imagine how hard this must be for both of you,” I said.

“Ah, still the slick-fielding shortstop,” he said. “But we're into serious October baseball here.”

“Can you just
stop?
” Simone said.

“Isn't that the whole idea?” he said.

Janna came downstairs with her arms full of sheets and blankets. “We're going to put you guys in the den tonight,” she said. “I thought it would be easier than having to do stairs.”

“She has to go back,” I said.

“You know,” Paul said. “Stuff to do with the, ah, e, s, t, a, t, e.”

Simone turned to me. “They said they'd be coming with the bed tomorrow morning. And the nurse should be here. You have my information, right?”

Paul shook his finger at her. “Now
that
should have been said sotto voce.”

“Let me make you some coffee,” Janna said. “I don't know if anything's open between here and the interstate.”

“She'll be cool,” Paul said. “My guy brought over some Adderall before we left. He gets the
real
stuff. Made from adders.”

I walked Simone out to the car. She opened the driver's door, then turned back and came into my arms, taking deep breaths. “He's been lucky to have you,” I said.

“And now he's lucky to have you,” she said. “There's just no end to his luck.”

In bed that night, I said to Janna, “Can we really do this?”

“What's our choice at
this
point?” We were lying on our backs, and she rolled over, her breasts against my arm. “Did you two talk at all?”

“I don't want to, you know, press him.” I worked my arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer. Her belly into my hip. She sighed and moved her palm up my thigh.

“Why didn't he ever, you know, find somebody?” she said. I felt myself beginning to get hard—could we really do
this
? “That woman loves him.”

“He never had any trouble
finding
them,” I said.

“Do you ever wish you were like him?”

“What, you mean dying?”

She jerked away and rolled onto her back again. “I hate when you pretend to be stupid.”

“No,” I said. “Who would ever want a life
that
lonely?”

“It's even more obnoxious when you try to figure out the right thing to say.”

I shoved a pillow against the headboard and sat up. “Are we fighting?” I said. “Because this is a hell of a time for it.”

“For the record, I don't blame you for getting us into this. I just hope it gets over with quickly. Is that horrible to say?”

“No, it's actually the
kindest
thing you could say.”

“But would you say it about me? If
I
were in the situation?”

“Come on,” I said. “Nobody can ever—”

“OK, I need to go to sleep,” she said. “Obviously I'm not going to get laid tonight. Why don't you go down and check on your friend and see if he's still breathing. Then you can get yourself a drink and forget all about it.”

I put my legs over the side and got to my feet. “I bring you one?”

“I'll be asleep,” she said. “You don't even listen anymore.”

 

The rooster woke me at six. I heard Janna breathing away and couldn't get back to sleep. But when I came downstairs Paul had already dressed himself, except for shoes and socks—he'd told us it hurt to bend down—and had managed to get from the den, where Janna had made up the fold-out, to the living room sofa, and was stretched out listening to something through earbuds. He flicked them out when he saw me.

“How are you?” I said. “You hurting? I can get you another Vicodin.”

“Just took a couple. They're coming with the real shit this morning, right?”

“They should be here by ten,” I said.

“What we like to hear. Listen, did I even thank you for this?”

“You'd do it for me.”

“
There's
a hypothetical we won't be putting to the test. Man, I have been such a shit. To everybody in my life.”

“You were never a shit to me,” I said.

“You weren't
in
my life. Well, who the fuck was. Not to be grim. How did I get onto this? That Vicodin must work better than I thought. Your lady still asleep?”

“She was.”

He nodded. “She's going to need it.”

I was in the kitchen cutting up a pineapple when I heard Janna come downstairs. She must have smelled the coffee brewing. “You boys are up bright and early,” she said.

“Only way to live a long and healthy life,” Paul said. “Get up, do the chores, plow the north forty—I don't mean anything sexual by that.”

“No, I'm sure that's the
last
thing you'd think of.” She came into the kitchen and put a hand on my arm. “Did you get enough sleep? I'm sorry I was being . . . whatever I was.”

I set the knife down and put an arm around her. “I think you get a free pass, considering.”

“I hope I was just getting it out of my system early.” She poured a cup of coffee and put in milk for me. “Will you be OK with him if I go in for a while? I should get some stuff done while I can.”

“Hey,” Paul yelled out. “Why's everybody talking behind the patient's back?”

“Shut up, we're having sex,” she called back. She poured a cup for herself. “He seems pretty chipper this morning.”

“Yeah, I don't know what to hope for,” I said. “Quality, I guess. And then not too much quantity.”

A little after nine they came with the hospital bed, and the guy helped me move the sofa into the corner so we could set the bed up in the living room, by the window looking out at the hills. Janna and I would take the fold-out in the den when it became clear that we had to be nearby. Paul watched us from the armchair, his bare feet on a footstool, his earbuds back in, his eyes on us. When the guy left, he turned the iPod off, plucked out the earbuds, and said, “Why am I reminded of ‘In the Penal Colony'?”

The FedEx truck delivered a cardboard box with the drugs, then the nurse from the hospice showed up. She had thick black hair, going gray, down her back in a single braided pigtail, and hoop earrings—not what you'd expect with the white uniform. Her name was Heather. I brought her a mug of herbal tea—she wasn't a coffee drinker, she said—and she showed me the spreadsheet-looking printed forms, on which we were to record dosage and time, then opened the FedEx box, picked up her clipboard, and took inventory. She wrote down Paul's temperature and blood pressure, listened to his heart. “So, Paul,” she said, “how would you say your pain is right now?”

“One to ten? Let's give it a seven. Good beat and you can dance to it.”

“We can improve on that,” she said.

“Can you do less than zero?”

“That's going to be up to you. And your caregivers. I'm a believer that you keep on top of the pain. This shouldn't be about you being in any discomfort.” She got up and put on her jacket—wool, with a Navajo design. “I'll be by tomorrow, but if you have any concerns or questions, any emergency, someone's always there.”

I took my jacket off the coat rack. “Here, I'll walk you out. I've got to feed the hens.”

“Smooth,” Paul said. “Jesus Christ, why don't you just ask her how long?”

“I knew I was going to like you,” she said to him. “I'll be seeing you tomorrow—that much I think we can count on.”

I followed her to her car. “I'm not asking you to make a prediction,” I said. “But just from your experience.”

“OK, based on nothing? I think he'll move fast.”

When I came back in he was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, bare feet dangling, pushing the button and making it go up and down. “So, we going to break out the good stuff?”

“Should you wait till what she gave you kicks in?”

“Don't start
that
,” he said. “You heard the lady.” He lay back, stuck out his tongue, and pointed at it.

He dozed—call it that—until the middle of the afternoon, while I sat in the armchair, checking from time to time to make sure his chest was rising and falling, and making notes in my new paperback copy of
Middlemarch;
the covers had finally come off my old one. If Janna could hold the fort tomorrow while I went in to campus, that's what I'd be teaching.