The Wife's Tale (37 page)

Jack’s room. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows where the curtain rod had fallen, the towering eucalyptus and murky rectangular
pool in the backyard. Jack’s presence lingered like an odor in the room, his residual energy crackling and popping throughout
the night, and Mary’d slept fitfully in the too-soft bed. Sometime in the night, overheated, she’d torn off the navy scrubs
she was wearing as pajamas, and tossed them onto the table with the photographs of Jack and Eden. She noticed that the strap
on her worn gray bra was hanging by a thread.

Watching the breeze tease the pearl-leafed bushes outside, she hugged her nearly naked body beneath the crisp white sheet,
not considering her proportions one way or another but enjoying her vessel’s most recent accomplishments. The climbing of
hills. The walking of miles. The lifting and twisting and hefting and shifting. Kissing little blonde heads. Standing at the
ocean’s shore. She stroked her shrinking stomach like a sleeping cat.

She was startled by the shadowy figure of a man darting behind the trees in the backyard. She sat up, squinting, heart racing.
Gooch? Not tall enough. The man was wearing blue coveralls and a ball cap with long fabric flaps that protected his neck and
face from the sun. He slipped into a shed near the rear of the green pool. Mary waited, heart thudding. When the shed door
opened again, she saw that the man had relieved himself of the top half of his coveralls, tying the empty arms around his
waist and exposing a broad, deeply tanned, toned torso. He carried a pool skimmer, and whistled while he worked.

Straining to the left, she could see in the mirror the reflection of the company’s blue van in the driveway—he was from the
pool cleaning service. Having no experience with pools, she could only guess that the legend of the sexy pool man was drawn
from real life.

With no curtains on the window of Jack’s bedroom, she was fully exposed to the backyard. She pulled the white sheets up over
her worn gray brassiere, praying to be invisible. She could not reach her navy scrubs on the dresser without rising from the
bed, and couldn’t risk being seen. Seeing the pool man draw nearer, she shut her eyes lest he catch her looking.

After a moment, bearing the suspense no longer, she peeked to judge his location, and could not tear her gaze from his body.
She watched as he scooped leaves, the knotty muscles of his wide shoulders and back coiling with his efforts, thick ripples
hardening beneath the curling hairs of his torso, nipples growing rigid within the brown areolae. Gooch had said there was
natural order in the objectification of the body. Mary noted the dimples hovering above the man’s carved buttocks, and was
startled by what she recognized as the blush of arousal.

He set to work, scrubbing the sides of the pool and dousing the green water with tablets he handled with yellow gloves. Mary
heard the woodpecker in the eucalyptus and once again felt the ticking of the clock, not thumping or thudding but speeding
forward at face-bending velocity. It seemed no sooner had the man begun than he disappeared from the backyard and was standing
on the front porch, ringing the buzzer.

She hurried out of bed, pulling on the navy scrub bottoms and the old green polo shirt of Jack’s, remembering that she’d agreed
to pay the pool company in cash and hoping to reach the door before Eden. But the white Prius was already gone from the driveway.
Opening the door, she busied herself counting the cash in her hands. She could not bring herself to meet the pool man’s eyes,
even though he’d tugged his overalls back on.

He was involved in writing her invoice, and didn’t look up as he explained, “We’ve cleaned it and shocked the water. You’ll
be swimming by the end of the week.”

She knew his voice instantly. That weighty baritone. Behind the cap with flaps, the face of Jesús García. “Hay-su!”

“
Mary?
”

“Oh my God!” she said, laughing, handing him the money. “You work for the pool company?”

“You were at the hotel.”

“This is my mother-in-law’s house. I’m staying with her now.” Mary and Eden sharing the space of a small house, waiting for
their men, one to leave, one to return. “Your friend Ernesto?” she remembered.

Jesús García nodded. “Broken ribs. He won’t be back to work for a while.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. And you, Hay-Su? You’re well?”

“Thank you. Yes.”

“And your wife and sons? They must be getting excited about Christmas.”

He cleared his throat but did not respond. He found that Mary had miscounted the money, and passed back twenty dollars.

“Keep it,” she insisted. “A tip.”

“No tips. Company policy.”

“Oh.”

“We’re allowed to take water,” he said, arching a brow.

Mary opened the door and drew Jesús García back to the kitchen, where she gave him a cold bottle of water from the fridge.
Squinting from her headache, she found her pain tablets and, shaking too many into her palm, said, “I’ve had this pain. Right
here between my eyes. It just doesn’t want to go away.”

“Your third eye,” he said.

“My third eye?”

“In some Eastern religions, they believe we have a third eye in the middle of our seeing eyes where we can find higher consciousness.
See the future.”

“You really did spend a lot of time at the library.” He shrugged, looking away. She smiled. “Maybe my third eye has gone blind.”
But reconsidering, she wondered if her third eye was not losing sight but birthing it, and if the pain she felt there was
something like labor.

“You could try boiling willow bark. You wouldn’t have to take the pills.”

“Willow bark?”

“It has salex, like salicylic acid in aspirin.”

“Random book at the library?”

“My mother. We didn’t have Blue Cross. We had
Back Yard
. Yellow foxglove for my dad’s high blood pressure. Willow bark for pain and swelling. Yerba buena for nearly everything else.
You have some growing back there.” He pointed in the direction of the innocent shrub that Eden had blamed with her broom.

She walked with him toward the front door and was struck by an urge as she passed her blue tote bag on a hook nearby. “Wait.”
She opened her blue purse and grabbed a thick wad of bills. Pressing the money into his hand, she said, “Maybe you could buy
the children a few extra things for Christmas.”

Curling his fist against the cash, avoiding her eyes, he set his jaw. “No. Please.”

She stuffed the bills into the pocket of her polo shirt, instantly regretting the gesture, which had clearly been misunderstood.

“I should go,” he said.

“I didn’t mean it as charity, Hay-su,” she said quickly, seeing she’d hurt his pride. “And the money, it’s not really
mine
anyway. Not exactly. My husband won it in the lottery.”

He returned the flapped cap to his head. “I should go,” he repeated, and he was gone, swiftly, the way he’d stolen the shoes.
Watching the blue van pull out of the driveway, she rested her eyes on the big white Dodge Ram. She grabbed the keys and started
for the truck.

Ronni Reeves seemed surprised to see Mary standing on the porch. “Hi, Mary. Did you leave something last night?” The boys
ran to the door, tumbling at her feet, singing her name. She felt her cheeks flush with confusion, then saw that their affection
was genuine, their trust so quickly earned. She almost forgot why she’d come.

“I came to return the car,” she said, when the boys had disappeared down the hall.

“You can’t be here without a vehicle.”

“But it’s your husband’s. It’s not right.”

“I told you, Tom is out of town and won’t be back for a while. Besides, it gives me some satisfaction to think that his Ram
is being used for good, not evil. Please. For me. It really is fair trade for watching the boys.”

“All right,” Mary said reluctantly.

“What’s the light-switch game?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The boys have been asking me to play the light-switch game.”

“We had fun.” Mary took a breath, realizing that she hadn’t just come about the car. “I think I offended the pool man.”

“Excuse me?”

“The pool man. I tried to give him extra money for the… his family. He wouldn’t take it.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the pool man’s feelings,” Ronni said, sensing that Mary had more to say. “Maybe he doesn’t
know English.”

Mary paused. “Last night, I didn’t want you to have the wrong idea about my husband.”

“The one who won the lottery and left you?”

“See, that’s what I mean.”

“Don’t mind me, Mary,” the woman said, softening. “I’m going through my angry phase. You’re still in denial.”

“You don’t know Gooch.”

“You want to come in for a coffee?”

Mary suddenly knew that this was why she’d really come—for a coffee klatch between two left wives. Following Ronni to the
kitchen, she tingled with nervous excitement, the feeling unfamiliar, as she’d never before reached out to make a friend.

Over coffee at the kitchen table, while the boys played about their legs, the women shared their stories. Ronni told Mary
about growing up with her family back east, her delirious courtship with Tom when they were both young law students, her joy
at the birth of the triplets and the misery that her marriage became. Mary told Ronni about Orin’s colitis and Irma’s Alzheimer’s,
and her own sordid affair with inertia.

“I don’t think your husband deserves you,” Ronni said.

“It’s not like that.”

“I hope you don’t think you didn’t deserve him. I hate when women underestimate themselves.”

“There were… misunderstandings.”

Ronni nodded. “Their brains are in their balls.”

“We didn’t communicate very well.”

“Mars and Venus.”

“We weren’t honest.”

“
He
wasn’t honest.
He
was the one who wouldn’t talk. Right?”

“Gooch talked and talked. We just never seemed to talk about the right things. We spent so much of our lives together.” Mary
closed her eyes. “Hungry.”

The women talked until Mary noticed how late it was. She waved at Ronni from the window of the big Dodge Ram, promising to
come again. The sun had begun to set over that distant mountain range, and the roadways at once snarled with rush hour traffic.
Mary did not surprise herself by turning right, in the direction of the highway, instead of left toward Eden’s house. She
drove without self-deception, straight to the dusty corner, looking for Jesús García. In spite of what Ronni Reeves had said,
she
was
worried about the pool man’s feelings. She didn’t know exactly what she’d say when she found him. He might need charity but
he didn’t
want
it, and she felt inclined to further apology.

At the stoplights where the dozen lanes met she saw him, just as she’d prayed she might, standing in a group of three other
men with thermoses. His appearance felt like a miracle. She pulled into the lot slowly, so as not to shower the workers with
dust. The men, all but Jesús, hurried toward the Ram and scurried into the back of the pickup truck before Mary could stop
them. She rolled down the window, calling, “Hay-su?”

Startled to see her, he set off toward the truck carrying his duffel bag. “You need workers?” he asked, confused.

She shook her head. “I came to see you.”

“Me?”

“I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to—”

He interrupted, calling out in Spanish to the men who’d invaded the pickup. They groaned and jumped out of the truck.

“Weren’t they going home?” she asked. “It’s nearly dark.”

“If you have work, they’ll work.”

“I wish I did. Anyway, I came to apologize.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I offended you, giving you money like that.”

“It’s okay.”

She bit her lip, unconvinced. “You’re waiting for your cousin?”

“He’s late.”

“I’ll drive you home.” When he shook his head, she insisted. “Please.” He jogged around to the passenger door as the other
men shouted protests in Spanish.

Mary found her way to the highway. “You’ll have to remind me of the exit. I know it’s somewhere in Hundred Oaks.”

He took a breath. “You don’t want to go around just giving people money. Even if your husband did win millions on the lottery.”

“Not millions.”

“It’s none of my business. Just, you shouldn’t be so trusting.”

“Twenty-five thousand. That’s what he put in my account.”

“You shouldn’t tell people that.”

“I’ve spent my whole life not telling anyone anything, Hay-su. My husband, Gooch, won the scratch lottery, and then he left
me. That’s why I came to California. He needed some time to think. That’s why I’m here. I don’t think it’ll be much longer
now. I expect to hear from him any minute, really. He won the money. So you see what I mean? The money? I feel like it’s not
really mine.”

He shifted uncomfortably.

She turned, addressing his profile. “You must think I’m such a fool.”

“I don’t think you’re a fool.”

“Pathetic, then. You must think I’m pathetic. A pathetic wife come all the way to California to wait for the husband who left
her.”

He shrugged, watching the horizon.

“I won’t wait forever.”

“No.”

“But for now.”

“Sure.” Jesús tried to change the subject. “It’s almost Thanksgiving. You have that in Canada too, right? Back home in Detroit,
wouldn’t be long before we’d have our sleds out for the early snow. We used to ski, too. The only Mexicans at Pine Knob.”

“I never skied.”

“But you skated? Everybody skates.”

“A little. On the Thames River. Doesn’t freeze over any more.”

“Global warming,” he said, nodding.

“Have your children ever seen the snow?”

He shook his head.

“You should take them one day. Sledding and skating and whatnot.”

“Yes.”

“Have they played hockey? That’s our national sport. But being from Detroit, you must have played hockey. I suppose you wouldn’t
have a lot of arenas down here. Do they play? Your boys?”