The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards (2 page)

The Supremes take over the stereo, arguing that love’s a game of give and take. Greta uses it in her chat. “Aren’t you sick of these oldies?” She touches the bulging shirt of the man she’s talking to, the soft expansion of his gut. “Diana Ross has a sweet voice, but she isn’t Sylvia Plath or Zora Hurston or, I don’t know…
Euripides.
” She laughs. The man follows her lead—his laughter a gurgling chortle, as if he’s choking. She keeps going. “Her
work
doesn’t hold up to forty years of listening, do you think?”

The man’s head wobbles, unable to consider the question for the feminine hand pressing against his fabric. She moves her fingers over his belly to heighten the effect. What she likes about dating as an adult is the same thing she liked as a girl: it’s pleasing to have power over someone.

Ellen signals with a jerk of her head. Andrew Holzman, the man she has targeted, has emerged from the adjoining room to get a drink at a bar set up in the corner. A young woman with a ponytail—hired help, evidently—cocks an ear in his direction.

Andrew Holzman does not impress from a distance. Ordinary face, graying hair, pale eyes that might be made of ash. He’s missed a loop with his belt. But his shoes are presentable. That means something, Greta supposes. He has a cast over his wrist and thumb and up to the elbow of his right arm. It’s her task to invite him to Ellen’s house on one pretext or another. She can provoke a group to skinny-dip in Ellen’s pool. She can see if a handful want to smoke pot. Ellen simply wishes for him to visit. Nothing has to happen. The cast, she realizes, rules out a swim.

Greta met Ellen years ago at a neighborhood playground when they were both lugging small children. One invited the other to dinner, and they all—spouses and children included—hit it off. Their husbands jogged and golfed together. Their children held hands in preschool. Greta saw Ellen every day. They made excuses to go off together, to a spa, a cabin in the Upper Peninsula, even a hike in the Rockies. Greta had never had such a friend. Ellen taught her bridge, made her wear short dresses, drove her to the hospital when her daughter fell from a swing and went into convulsions. They cooked elaborate meals together—pheasant under glass, beef Wellington, souvlaki with homemade pita—and went door-to-door together, handing out pamphlets for a local candidate. From the beginning, each participated in the other’s thoughts. Once, after they’d gone downtown with their husbands to see a Tennessee Williams play, Greta had tried to explain her disappointment with the production. “It’s like they weren’t really
acting
, just talking,” she said, and only Ellen had understood her. “They performed as if their characters were merely
people
,” she’d replied. How terribly surprising and addictive it was to be understood.

Then Theo accepted a transfer and Ellen was gone. Within a year of the move Theo and Ellen’s marriage fell apart. Greta followed the deterioration by phone. Theo slept with a company receptionist. Ellen had anxiety attacks. She went to bed with a man she met in a self-help class. Greta can’t remember the man’s name, but the class was called “How to Take Charge of Your Life.”

Duncan’s deterioration was going on during that same time. Greta’s stories were duller. “He can’t tie his shoes,” she would say. “He can’t button his shirt.” Duncan had his own ideas about Ellen and Theo’s move, but he refused to divulge them. The disease made him stubborn.

“Here she is,” Ellen says, tapping the shoulder of Andrew Holzman, “the one I’ve told you about.”

He turns as if to shake Greta’s hand, but he holds a drink in the hand with the cast and a cracker smeared with cheese in the other. Greta bends down and takes a bite of the cracker. She raises her head at the same moment the girl with the ponytail passes along a drink. Liquor splashes over the front of Greta’s dress.

“My fault,” Greta says before the bartender can apologize.

Andrew Holzman runs a finger over the damp spot on her dress, sticks the finger in his mouth.

“My,” he says. “You’re delicious.”

Duncan finds his wife in the study standing next to Ellen. They’re staring out the window, watching the tree men. He has spent the past few hours carrying dusty boxes down a narrow attic staircase. Even though he has washed his face, it’s pink from exertion. Sweat darkens his shirt. His back aches. The tear in his pants is rimmed with blood, like lipstick, and the wound bites at him with each step he takes.

The window is too close to the oak’s massive trunk to provide any perspective on what the men are doing. Leaves and small branches tumble down and settle among the roots. From the attic window, Duncan was able to watch a young man—a boy, really—suspended on a swing, trimming small limbs with a chainsaw. The kid did not inspire confidence, the saw jumping and growling in his hands like a dangerous pet. Down here, the noise is not as loud but it’s fierce. Like being inside a hive and hearing all the worker bees.

The room—the whole house—has an air of injury about it: furniture swathed in plastic wrap, rugs rolled and bound, bookcases gaping morosely.
I’m missing them in advance,
he thinks. Darkened spots mark the walls, as if the photos that had hung there left bruises. He has fetched bottles of beer from the refrigerator. He needs to rest, and the beer will give him an excuse later for his fatigue.

“Beverage break?” he says.

The women turn to him. “It’s not even noon.” Greta taps her watch. “If we start drinking now, we’ll never finish.”

He shrugs. “We need to empty the fridge, don’t we?”

Ellen offers her hand. “We’ve just been admiring the butts these young men possess,” she says, accepting a bottle.

“I’ve got one of those, too.” Duncan turns to display his evidence. The divide of his slacks is marked with sweat. “I’ve been watching the trimming from above.”

“You can’t call it trimming.” His wife takes a bottle. “It’s wholesale destruction.”

“That tree would have crushed us,” Ellen says. “Don’t forget that. We’ve been living quite literally in death’s shadow.”

“That’s quite a feeling,” Duncan says, “isn’t it?”

“I can’t help thinking about the tree itself,” Greta says. “If there’s a tragedy, it’s that oak coming down.”

“The tragedy would’ve been not finding out,” Ellen insists. “Even if it hadn’t crushed us when it fell, it would have made a mess of our lives.”

“All right,” Greta concedes, “but felling the tree is a tragedy, too.”

“I know it is.” Ellen puts her arm around Greta. “Once it’s cut, I want you to come over and count the rings with me.”

Greta softens immediately. “What am I going to do without you?”

The embracing women send a small erotic charge through Duncan’s weary body. He is the most familiar and least celebrated of romantic heroes—the man who loves his wife.

“You finish the attic?” Greta asks him. She wants him to walk home and fetch their station wagon. “Ellen’s giving us all these books,” she begins, but she reads his reaction accurately. “Or I can get the car. You look pooped.”

“I wouldn’t mind resting.”

“I’ll go.” Greta sets the bottle on the window ledge. “Only take a minute. The beer won’t even get warm.”

She vanishes. The closing door creates an echo. Duncan decides to use the time with Ellen. He has something to tell her and something to ask.

“I need to talk to you,” he says, “while we have some privacy.”

“About anything in particular?”

“Something very particular.”

“Cigarette?”

The back stoop is made of concrete and has a distinct slope. Duncan leans against its metal rail. The tree men have hauled in a trailer with wire mesh sides and are filling it with twigs, leaves, and limbs. In the shade of the house, the afternoon air is surprisingly cool. Duncan understands that autumn is really beginning. In the Midwest, seasons often change hands during a single day. It is the last day of summer and it will be the first evening of autumn, warm in the sunlight and cold in the shade. He lights two Merits, passes one to Ellen.

“I’ve been to the doctor,” he says, “and a specialist.” He reveals his diagnosis. The symptoms are just starting to show. “Greta doesn’t know. I’ve tried to tell her, but it’s harder than you might think. I don’t know what I should do.”

“Take her dancing while you can,” Ellen says. She quickly adds, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have put it that way.”

The cold makes him shiver, and he thinks perhaps Ellen already knew. Theo must have told her.

“However you put it, I won’t be dancing long.”

“Nothing pop, of course,” Ellen goes on to cover her embarrassment. Her nose is turning red and beginning to run. She’s going to cry after all. “She prefers the blues.”

The chainsaw sounds high above them, which makes the chill hunker down. All across the city, people will remove their screens, and the ambitious ones will hoist storm windows. The birds will gather to discuss migration, and the animals that hibernate will move to their winter burrows. Duncan can tell from today’s effort that he’ll have to hire someone to help him with the winter chores. The thought dismays him.

“You and Theo will come?”

“Dancing?” Ellen says. She nods. “On one condition.”

“What condition is that?”

“Don’t tell her until after.”

“After the dancing?”

“Until after we’ve moved.” She drops the cigarette and keeps her eyes on her shoe as she snuffs it. “Otherwise, I can’t see myself going.”

Duncan is surprised and baffled by this response. Inside, the front door noisily opens and shuts. Greta has already made the short walk to their house and driven back.

“It might be easier on her, though,” he says softly, “while you’re still here.”

“Easier at first,” Ellen replies.

He can hear his wife crossing the living room and coming to the stoop. There’s no time to argue.

“All right then.” He agrees to her terms.

Greta joins them. She holds a book in her hand, a hardback novel. “How can you possibly give these up? Are you certain?”

“They’re too heavy to move,” Ellen says. “Besides, I don’t plan to read in Florida. No one there reads.”

Greta plucks her husband’s cigarette from his mouth. “Are you crying?” she asks. “Has it finally hit you how much you’ll miss us?”

“It’s just the cold,” Ellen says. “Thank god I’m leaving it behind.”

Dancing with Andrew Holzman hasn’t helped Greta’s sore calves. She steps into the backyard of the party house to smoke in peace. She’s carrying her shoes again, which makes lighting the cigarette awkward. The trip to Ellen’s gym is still troubling her. She hated their reflections, how their muscled torsos spoke not of youth or beauty or even health, but something she can’t—or won’t—name. Men like the way Greta looks. She has known this all her life and it’s still true. She’s gone out with several men since Duncan died. Contrary to the dire predictions about dating after forty, she’s had no trouble finding suitors. But her body in the gym’s mirror had seemed like the body she used to have in caricature.

During a slow dance, she convinced Andrew to come to Ellen’s later and smoke a joint. Getting him there by seducing him is not a strategy that will please Ellen, but Greta is confident she can pass him off at the house. A few years ago, she and Ellen had made their husbands take them to a blues bar on Chicago’s South Side. The men had quickly given out, but she and Ellen danced together until closing, talking the whole time, yelling over the music. Greta cannot fathom how they saw each other so often without using up all their stories. The long-distance calls had been compelling at first, until the gaps began. Greta repeated herself, caught herself exaggerating, occasionally outright lying. When they lived inside each other’s lives, they had no end of things to discuss and analyze, reconstruct and dismiss. Now she feels the need to entertain her friend.

A giant palm dominates the yard, the squat kind with leaves like spikes. A figure steps from the tree’s complex shadows. A woman, Greta can tell, although she can’t see her face. As she draws near, Greta recognizes her—the bartender with the ponytail. Before she can greet her, the girl says, “I know who you are.” She stops walking and crosses her arms. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m a friend of Ellen Riley,” Greta says and corrects herself. “Elle Forsythe.”

“That may be true,” the girl says, “but it’s beside the point.”

Greta feels a quiver of fear and smokes to hide it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I knew it the second I saw you.” The girl’s eyes are bloodshot, her face puffy.

“You spilled that drink on purpose.”

The girl’s eyes shift to one side and back, the most laconic dismissal Greta has ever witnessed.

“I don’t know you,” Greta insists, “and I don’t know who you think I am.”

“If you don’t want to consider
her,
fine.” She spits out the words. Real spittle strikes Greta’s cheek, as well. “But what about
me?
What about my brother?” She takes another step and the porch light turns her face green.

Greta drops her cigarette and grinds it into the dirt. The girl starts to rush past, but Greta puts out the hand with the shoes to make her stop. The girl backs away from the heels as if they’re spiked with toxins. Greta searches her purse and then offers her driver’s license.

“I don’t live here,” she says. “You poured a drink on the wrong person.”

The girl seizes the card and studies it.

“Okay,” she says reluctantly, “you’re not her.” Her tone is not apologetic. “But you’re exactly like her. You’re one of
them.
” She tosses the license back.

Greta snatches it out of the air, as the girl rushes past and slams through the door, bumping Andrew Holzman as he pokes his cast through.

“What’s her problem?”

“Mistaken identity,” Greta says casually, as if it happens to her all the time. She swings the shoes against her thigh, feeling drunk and sweaty, barefoot, scorned, and sexy, as if she’s Bette Davis or Marlene Dietrich, a woman with intrigues and desires and a taste for trouble. She feels bold. “Are you married?”

“At the moment?”

She laughs and puts her arms around his neck, kisses him on the lips. She tastes bourbon on his tongue. She slips her fingers inside the waistband of his gray slacks and whispers in his ear. “You don’t move for a second. Let me do this.” She unbuckles his belt and pulls it partway free. She slides her arms around his waist, puts her mouth to his ear. “You missed a loop.”