The Good House: A Novel (21 page)

“More,” I’d sometimes whisper to him. “More.” Frankie always made me feel like there would always be enough for me. But now I was in a marriage that was a sexual wasteland. My husband was a good friend and good father, but now I wanted a good fuck. I told all this to Frankie, in more or less those words. He was looking at me and smiling and shaking his head. It’s all a blur, a shameful blur (where are blackouts when you need them?), but I do remember him turning a little red in the face.

“Let’s just stop at your house, Frankie, just for, you know … just for a few minutes.” I was wearing sheer Donna Karan black hose and I had kicked off my shoes and was rubbing my toe up his leg.

Frankie actually did stop in front of his driveway, and he said, “Really, Hildy?”

“Yes,” I said, and then I burst into tears.

“Okay, that does it. I’m taking you home.”

“You think I’m disgusting, don’t you?” I sobbed.

“Nah, Hildy, you’re just hammered. Go to bed and sleep it off. You’ll feel different tomorrow.”

Of course, I woke up the next day feeling COMPLETELY different and wildly humiliated. It was one of those mornings when I woke up gripped with the paralyzing terror, the agonizing realization that my drinking was out of control. It wasn’t the first time I woke up feeling that way. I often awoke that way before Hazelden.

I never wake up that way now, because, as I said, I’ve learned not to set myself up for jackpots. I’ve sorted it all out. I drink moderately enough that I can see a jackpot and avoid it.

So I drove right past Frankie Getchell’s that night and climbed into bed with Molly and Babs, my sweet girls, my sweet, sweet bitches, and fell right to sleep, just full of Thanksgiving.

twelve

“Rebecca McAllister called three times already this morning,” said my receptionist, Kendall, when I walked into my office on Monday morning.

“It’s nine-fifteen,” I said. “She’s already called three times?”

“Yeah, she left two messages on the machine. And then she just called a few minutes ago.”

I went into my office and dialed Rebecca’s number. She picked up after the first ring.

“Hildy?” Rebecca said. She was giddy and out of breath.

“Hi, Rebecca. What’s up?”

“Oh. Nothing. How’re you feeling?”

“Fine…”

Rebecca laughed. “I was a little worried about you last night.”

Last night?

“Oh?” I said.

“I was really into the idea of you coming over when you called, but I was glad that you decided not to. We waited up, you know, Brian and I.”

“Oh yeah, well, I ended up going to bed.”

This is what you do. This is what blackout drinkers do.

Until Hazelden, I thought everyone who drank had blackouts. I had had them ever since I started drinking in high school. I would have no recollection of even attending a party, which, I would learn the next day, I had been the life of. “I didn’t even know you were drunk,” my friends would often say when I told them I had no memory of seeing them. I came to think of myself, during those times, as operating under the control of some kind of charming, devil-may-care automatic pilot. I would be at a party, or a bar, or a restaurant, having a few drinks and a pleasant conversation, and then it would be the next day. Only later would I learn that I had driven a group to the beach for a skinny-dip, or convinced everyone to dance on the bar, or even seduced somebody I barely knew.

As the years went by, however, after I became a wife and a mother, it was no longer very funny to forget hours at a time. It was seen, by some, as an indication of some sort of a problem. So I became quite adept at blustering my way around the last night’s recollections. I’d offer vague answers to queries about how I had gotten myself home and fumble my way through forgotten conversations with others. I made real-estate deals in blackouts, invited people over, told secrets, expressed loving sentiments to casual acquaintances, and all this stuff had to be undone while sober—usually under the bludgeoning sledgehammer of a hangover. So you can see how drinking alone, in my own house, after my trip to Hazelden, had offered a nice solution for me. What a relief not to have to wake up with all that bullshit to undo. I thought I had given up drunk-dialing, but apparently, according to what Rebecca was telling me, I had taken it up again. Or rather, my scheming autopilot had. At Hazelden, during an “alcohol education” session, a counselor discussed blackouts: “When you’re in a blackout, your conscious mind is not at work. You are operating, mainly, on very primitive instincts. You’re like a beast.” My beast had called Rebecca and now I had to cover its tracks.

“I realized that it would be better just to go to bed,” I said again.

Rebecca laughed. “Well, I worried about you driving. From the sound of your voice. But when I called back and you didn’t answer, I figured you had turned in. It sounds like you had a great Thanksgiving, though.”

“It was actually quite wonderful,” I replied tersely.
Ugh. What had I said?

“I just love the way you and Scott have such a great friendship. I don’t think things will be so jolly with Brian and me, once we split up,” Rebecca said. Then, before I had a chance to say anything, she asked, “Have you noticed if Peter is up at his office today?”

“I just got here, Rebecca, but it’s Monday. Why would he be here?”

“I don’t know. But he’s not at the hospital. I’ve been trying all morning.”

I looked at my desk clock, which still read three-thirty. Then I looked at my watch.

“It’s nine-forty,” I said. “I’m sure he’s just not there yet. What’s so urgent anyway?”

“Urgent? Why does it have to be urgent? I haven’t seen him in over a week. I need to talk to him. He’s usually at the hospital by eight. Now I’m thinking something bad happened over the weekend.”

“Rebecca,” I said, “I’m sure everything’s fine. It was probably a very hectic weekend, with a lot of partying. Who knows, maybe he’s a little hungover from the weekend and overslept.…”

“What? Do you think he enjoys his time with Elise? That he parties with her? You told me yourself the other day. He’s in love with me! His life with Elise is hell! I’m just afraid something’s wrong.”

I said nothing then. Rebecca was being rude. I had a headache.

“Hello?” she said finally.

“Yes, I’m here,” I said, leafing through a pile of mail on my desk.

“Hildy, will you tell me if he comes in?” Rebecca asked, her voice softer now. She was pleading, like a little girl.

“Yes, dear, of course I will,” I said soothingly. After I hung up the phone, I worried about her a little. I worried about her and Peter.

*   *   *

Business continued to be slow, but during the last week of November, I received an offer on Cassie and Patch’s house. I had shown a New Jersey family, the Goodwins, the house twice, so I knew they were interested, but they had grumbled about the “state” of the place, so I didn’t hold out much hope. Frank’s home-improvement efforts had not been long-lived. But the Goodwins wanted to live in Wendover, it was just the right price for them, and they loved the location. The offer was slightly low. Cassie and Patch countered, and a deal was reached. I was thrilled. That night, I admit, I had myself a nice little celebration toast with Babs and Molly. Cassie and Patch had been thrilled when I told them the sellers had agreed to their terms, and Jake, well, he didn’t know it, but he was going to be going to a school that had the possibility of really helping him. It made me feel good that I was a part of that. I finished off the bottle of red that I had been drinking, but it had been nearly empty when I began, so I opened another.

The next morning was gray and there was a wet, rainy snow coming down—what the weatherman calls a “wintry mix.” I was a little late arriving at the office, and as soon as I entered the reception area, Kendall jumped up from her desk, visibly flustered.

“Rebecca McAllister is in your office. She was waiting here when I arrived.”

“Ah fuck!” I said. Kendall actually flinched.

I walked into my office and saw Rebecca peering out the window at the falling slush.

“Hi, Rebecca, what’s going on?”

Rebecca turned, and when she saw me, she heaved a very dramatic sigh of relief.

“Oh, Hildy, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Well, I’m fine, of course.”

“Do you remember anything about last night? About after you left my house, I mean?”

What? My heart was pounding. “Last night?” I said.

Rebecca walked over and closed the office door. I sat down at my desk.

“Hildy, I haven’t wanted to say anything, because I know you’re very sensitive about your drinking, but I think you really need to go back into treatment or something. You don’t even remember coming over last night, do you?”

Breathe. I had to remember to breathe in and then to breathe out.

“No, I didn’t go anywhere. I went to bed. I have a lot of work to do this morning, so maybe we can catch up another time.…”

“I know. The Dwight deal. You told me last night.”

Now I had a foggy recollection of a phone conversation—of speaking on the phone, in my bed.

“That’s right, I remember now. You called,” I said. “I was half-asleep; that’s why I couldn’t remember at first.” I began busily moving papers around my desk. It was to hide my shaking hands. I was nervous, and when I get nervous, my hands shake.

“No, Hildy,” Rebecca said sadly. Why did she have to sound so full of pity? “I didn’t call you. You drove over to my house. You were … just, well, out of your mind. I wanted to drive you home, but it was Magda’s night off and you wouldn’t let me anyway. You woke up Ben with all your shouting.”

It’s like a suctioning of the soul, being told the things your body does when your mind is in that dead zone. It’s like having your very skin peeled off, like being publicly stripped down to some gruesome inner membrane that nobody should see, and revealing it to all.

I never tell a person what they did when they were drunk. I would never do this.

“You drive around this town at night drunk out of your mind. Am I the only one who knows this? I hope so. I haven’t said anything to you or anyone else about my concerns, because this town shuts down so early, I didn’t really think there was any danger. Every house in Wendover is dark by eleven, so I never thought it was that big a deal that you like to haunt the roads at night after a few too many drinks. But, well, now I’m nervous. If you’re calling and visiting me, I can’t help but wonder who else you might be calling. Who you might have told about me and Peter.”

I had gone to bed. I remembered putting on my nightgown. I had been awakened by the phone. Or had that been a dream?

“And now Peter’s worried about it, too. He told me.”

I looked up from my papers and said, my voice quivering with rage, “I am SO sick and tired of being brought into this mess between you and Peter. I have no interest in what you two do. I have told nobody.…”

“You mean you don’t
remember
telling anybody.”

“Just get out, Rebecca. I have work to do. I have to work for a living. My father wasn’t rich like yours. I do very well, in case you hadn’t noticed, and I don’t think I would be considered such a success if your ideas about my drunkenly talking about trivial gossip like the stupidity between you and Peter—”

“Hildy, I came to you as a friend. Peter told me this would happen. That you would react angrily.…”

“Rebecca, get out of my office. Please!”

thirteen

The Goodwins signed their contract, a deposit was placed in escrow, and a building inspection for the Dwight house had been set up. The buyers needed to close by February 1. I had been shaken up a little by Rebecca’s crazy accusations, but within a few days I had let it go. Rebecca was unstable. I had always suspected this about her. Her boyfriend had been her shrink. That pretty much summed it up. I decided that I should keep her at arm’s length for a while, not only because of her nastiness to me during her visit to my office but also because, in recent weeks, I had run into Brian McAllister a few times. They’d been mostly brief encounters at the gas station or the market, but once it was in front of a shop in the Crossing. He was with the boys. They were shopping for a Christmas present for Rebecca. Brian had given me a warm hug and told me how much they loved Wendover; how thrilled they were that I had sold them their dream home. I couldn’t even look at the boys. I felt complicit in Rebecca’s transgressions, somehow. Like a silent accessory to a very serious domestic crime. Rebecca’s affair no longer entertained or amused me. I decided to keep my distance for a while.

I was heading into the post office a few days after the Dwight contract was signed and I bumped into Frank Getchell, who was on his way out.

“Hey, Hildy,” he muttered as he walked past.

“Hey, Frank, wait,” I said. He turned around to face me.

“I’ve got some good news. I’ve sold the Dwights’ house.”

“No way,” Frank said. He was grinning at me. He seemed to be trying to think of the right thing to say, but he ended up just saying, “Cool.”

“Yeah, so thanks for doing all that work. I still haven’t gotten a bill.”

“Oh. Guess I haven’t gotten around to sendin’ it.”

“Okay, well, thanks again.”

“How’s the real-estate business?” Frank asked.

“Slow. It’ll pick up in another month or so. When the weather gets a little nicer. I never got an offer on your property. Why don’t you put a price on it?”

Frankie just laughed. “Okay, fifty million dollars.”

“C’mon, Frankie. You should think about it…”

“Hey, I was out with Manny Briggs the other day. Sometimes I go out with him this time of year; he never has a crew in the winter.…”

“Yeah, I bet,” I said.

Manny was probably the sixth or seventh generation of Briggs men who were commercial lobstermen in Wendover. Manny and his dad had once had a fleet of lobster boats, but now he just had one or two. It was always easy to get high school and college kids to crew in the summer, but in the winter, the kids were back in school. It was hard, cold work. Manny is exactly my age. My friend Lindsey dated him in high school and I dated a friend of his, and we used to go out with them before dawn and spend the mornings sunning ourselves on the bow. The boats stank of fish and fuel and the sweat of the boys. Lindsey and I ate lobsters that whole summer. I always brought a couple home for my dad and Lisa. Judd never liked lobster. I haven’t been able to eat one since, actually. You go off them if you eat too many. I bet Manny Briggs hasn’t eaten a lobster since he was a child.