The Weight of Gravity (4 page)

“And you think you’ll sleep here?”

“I don’t know.  Only know that I can’t sleep anywhere else.”

What he wasn’t ready to tell her or anyone else, including Marcie, was that his writing had come to a grinding halt, that he was incredibly depressed, and it had been coming on for years.  He felt a
s if he’d exhausted every option, meditation, bottles of melatonin, soothing music, walks around his favorite museums and parks, and a fortune on therapy sessions with one of New York City’s most respected head doctors.  Then, it hit him one day, and ever since Max couldn’t shake the feeling that life had never been as sweet as when he lived in Cottonwood.

“Boy, that’s a switch.  You couldn’t get out of town fast enough twenty-five years ago.”

“Twenty-four.”

“Whatever.  You hated this place.”

“Still do.”

“So why come back?”  She studied him for a moment.  “You think Erika is your salvation?”  He didn’t answer.  “She’s been married to G
arner all these years, you know?  Got a kid, too.  'Course, he keeps getting into trouble.  And the word is, she’s screwing around with the partners in Garner’s firm.  You sure you want a piece of that, Max?”

“Not sure, Doris.  Just know I can’t sleep.”

“You said that already.  Personally, I think you’re having a mid-life crisis, is all, but you’re too damn old for me to be counseling you.  Come on, let’s take a walk.  Sometimes a change of scenery can help sort things out in our minds.”

She led him through the back porch and out into the yard.  He recalled that Pop was bitten by a rattler while picking peppers in the garden that still grew just to the right of the small patch of lawn.  “What happened to the snake?” he’d asked his father.  “Lost its head over the whole thing,” Pop told him, waving the hoe in the air.

They walked a narrow path through a thick grove of alternating mesquite and cottonwood, with a few towering aspens thrown in for variety.  Max could see his father’s hand in everything from the fence posts to the horse pens.  He’d drilled the well for water and laid in the septic tank for waste.  “Take it from the earth, flush it through our bodies, and put it back in the ground,” he’d told everyone at the EGG & BISCUIT’S diner one morning.  Doris talked about Nathan’s successes and failures in the Chaparral business, and about his passion for good whisky, barmaids, and waitresses at the IHOP on Highway 54.  Max could hear a long, low train whistle at the crossing back up the road.

“You never minded?”  Max asked.

“Hell, yes, I minded, but what could I do?  He always came home to me.  That was something, right?”

“He was an asshole.”

“So were you.”

Max laughed.  He’d forgotten how direct Doris could be.  She had a gift for cutting through the crap. 
He loved that about her from the beginning.  He never really took issue with Pop divorcing his mother and marrying Doris, although he put on a good show in a few teenage rants, but Doris knew better than to be offended by her adopted son.  “Love me or hate me,” she’d told Max one day following one of his hallow outbursts.  “Make me no mind, either way.  I’m not going anywhere, child.  You’re just wasting good air shouting like that.”

They continued their slow pace along the dusty lane that led to the far eastside of the acreage.  The trees on either side did little to give them relief from the heat rising off the desert.  “Why’d you marry my old man, Doris?”

“Why the hell not?  He was better than most.  Shit, he was better than all of them.”

“I miss him, I think,” Max said, when they came to the fence line at the far end of the property where a dozen Mexican elders grew out of control; their branches twined into a knotted mess, and the tiny white blossoms littered two inches deep on the ground.

“Really?  That’s a surprise.  Wish you’d told him.  I miss him too,” she said as they began the walk back.

Chapter 4 - Erika

             
Erika was still dwelling on her Tuesday encounter with Darrell when she pulled out of the driveway after lunch, but she was also heartened to think she’d finally taken the first steps to bringing their relationship to an end.  Darrell was cocky, too.  He’d be certain she’d cave when he came looking for it, but she’d find the strength somehow.  Then she could begin to redeem her dented self-esteem.  She could handle finding out later that he’d moved on to shtup'n his secretary. 
No problem
.  She turned out of the neighborhood onto Marble Canyon Avenue. 

Erika actually worried in the early days that Darrell would end their relationship.  His attention and passion were i
ntoxicating.  Now, the entire episode disgusted her. She turned down Greasewood, past the Dairy Queen.  She was going to be late for her stylist, as usual, but with Darrell out of her life, she didn’t have to apologize anymore for missing appointments.

She pulled into MAXINE’S
MANES parking lot, whipped the Lexus into the first space she came to and turned off the engine.

             
So, why, she began to think?  Why had Darrell been at all, aside from the fact that her marriage was dead?  The answer was more troubling than the realization she’d had an affair.  It was Cottonwood.  This small town, these often small-minded people, the feeling that she’d become a trophy wife to an inattentive husband who was openly, and embarrassingly, honest about his devotion to his firm; that she and their son came – at best – second.  That was too much.  Darrell had been nothing more than an escape from Cottonwood, and his ability to make her feel good about herself was exhausted.  Now, their moments only deepened the pain and loneliness.  She couldn’t fix Cottonwood, but she could do something about her encounters with Darrell. 
Yeah, I’ll find the strength this time.

             
“God, I--am--so--sorry, Maxine,” she said, rushing into the shop.  “Garner called just as I was walking out the door,” she lied.  Enough of Darrell and Garner, it was time to chill and let Maxine do her magic. 
Make me beautiful.  I need to be beautiful tonight.
She closed her eyes.

             
“Gaw, go on!  You are such a liar,” Erika heard one woman say.

             
“Nah, true.  Bobby saw him and called me on his lunch break,” said another.

             
“Damn.  That is so neat,” the first woman added.

             
Okay, what?  Enough with the incomplete sentences, what are you two talking about?  You got my attention.  What, on God’s green earth, is so “neat” in Cottonwood?
  Erika didn’t recognize the women sitting across from her.

             
“Max Rosen, the famous writer, right here, walking the streets of Cottonwood.”

             
Max!
 
Max Rosen!
  Erika sat upright.  There was a time she’d prayed that he'd return to Cottonwood, but that was twenty years ago. 
Longer than that!  What is he doing here now?

             
“Yeah, Bobby saw him up on Juniper,” one said.  “Fancy convertible sports car, too.  You know he’s from round here, don’t you?  He went to school here and everything.”

             
Another time, she thought … long ago.  A classroom full of teenagers congratulating each other on their musical talents, and there … in the corner, leaning against the instrument lockers was the strangest boy in school … Max Rosen.  She tried not to look at him, even though he seemed fascinated with her.  When the crowd thinned and they made eye contact, he smiled.  At least, she thought he smiled.  He might have only been swallowing his gum.

             
He wasn't unattractive, she remembered thinking.  Max’s reputation for being the class weirdo was fueled by self-imposed isolation -- at lunch in the back of the cafeteria, in the corner desk of every classroom, sitting in the highest, most remote seat of the football stadium.  Funny, she thought, that handsome could become ugly with suspect behavior.  He was … different … unlike any other student.  That was his only crime in high school.

             
"That was … you were … nice show, you know?"

             
Erika was sure Max had something to say, but was getting off to a rough start.  "Thanks.  What instrument did you play in the recital?"

             
"I didn't.  I was in the audience … with my friend, Danny."

             
Erika looked around the room.  "Danny Mason?  We have orchestra together."

             
"Danny … yeah, well, I saw … heard you play."

             
She saw him nervously thumb the edge of a book in his right hand.  "What's that?"

             
Max seemed for a moment not to hear the question, then raised the journal and looked at it.  "I write."

             
It was a statement so direct, spoken with such conviction that it almost frightened her.  "Stories?" she asked.

             
"Sometimes." He looked at her again.  This time she was sure it was a smile. 

Then, this strangest of her classmates -- who she had barely noticed before tonight -- said something that opened a window in
to her heart.

"I wish I could write … as well as you play the piano."

A memory nearly thirty years past that still brought chills.  She thought of the encounter as the most defining moment of her young life.  From that meeting in the orchestra room until Max left Cottonwood, Erika never thought of herself without including him in the picture.

Now he was back. 
I know he'll call.  What will I say?

Erika saw him coming before he reached the door, into the shop, past the gawking biddies sitting under their dryers.  Maxine stepped back from Erika’s chair as Max stepped up close.  His boyish smile and gray-green eyes were enough to pull her up onto her feet.  In one f
luid movement Max wrapped his arms tightly around her and pulled her body against his.

             
“Oh, Max...” she whispered, before he leaned in to kiss her.

             
“Say, what?  Did you say something, honey?” Maxine asked, still snipping and styling. 

             
What happened?  Damn, where did that come from?
  Erika was dazed by her daydream.

             
“Didn't you know that writer fella Cricket and Marge are talking about over there?  I tried to read a couple of his books.  You know the one about the man who sails out into the middle of the ocean to kill himself?  Icky.  And I read a few pages of the one about the lighthouse, but I couldn’t get into it ... too many fancy words.  I saw the movie on that one though.  It was okay.  I was with Pamela Jo when I saw it, and she hates everything, so maybe it was better than I remember.”

             
“I’m sorry, Maxine, I wasn’t listening,” she lied.

             
“Didn’t you say the name Max … Max Rosen you mean?  He’s from around here, right, and you knew him, didn't you, Erika?”

             
“Yeah, I knew him a little.” 
A little, hell! You were joined at the hip in high school … the cutest couple ... the couple most likely to do everything together.
 
The only students with ‘HIS’ and ‘HER’ bath towels in the gym locker room, they joked.  Knew him a little?
  “Get real, Erika,” she breathed.

“Say what?”

              “Yes, Maxine, I remember Max Rosen.  We went to school together.”

             
“What was he like?”

             
“Nice, a little moody.  He spent a lot of time in study hall writing in his journals.”

             
"You two dated, didn't you?"

“Briefly.”

“Bet he turned out like all those artsy farts in Hollywood and he likes boys now.”  Maxine guffawed in redneck fashion, then stepped back to give Erika a playful sneer and wink.

“I think he lives in New York,” Erika told her.  “Say, Maxine, do you know my husband’s partner, Darrell?” 

“No, should I?”

You two would make a delightfully dysfunctional couple.
  She returned Maxine’s sneer and wink.  “I’ll introduce you sometime ... soon.” 

Erika stared at her reflection in the mirror behind Maxine’s workstation.  In her preteen years, daddy told her that she had “melancholy eyes” and a “God-given” frown.  “Gotta work on that, angel,” he’d say.  “People gonna think you’re unhappy ‘bout everything.”  There was a lot of truth in his words, and there was more than the usual sadness in her eyes today.