When You Were Older (18 page)

Then I flipped the phone closed.

I curled up in a little ball and just lay there, doing nothing, thinking nothing, for an indeterminate length of time. If you’d asked me how long I lay there, I’d have guessed it was an hour.

The phone jangled me back into the world. At first I thought Kerry was calling me back, which made me
dizzy.
But it was my mom’s home phone. The land line. It wasn’t my cell. It wasn’t even my phone.

I stumbled into the kitchen, the home of my mother’s only phone, so far as I knew. I grabbed it up on the fifth ring.

‘Oh, good, you’re there,’ a voice said. It was the voice of a female stranger. Before I could answer, or ask any questions, she said, ‘Ben’s really upset because you’re late to pick him up.’

I looked at the clock over the kitchen stove. It was twenty-five minutes to four.

‘Oh, shoot,’ I said, quickly morphing the word ‘shit’ into something more socially acceptable. ‘I fell asleep. Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I accidentally fell asleep. Tell him I’ll be right there.’

I hung up the phone and literally ran to the car. While I was running, I remember thinking I was amassing an awful lot of sorry for one afternoon.

I found Ben box-pacing in front of Gerson’s Market. I could tell he’d been crying.

When I honked the horn, it shocked him out of his pattern, and he stumbled, as if nothing was holding him up off the ground any more.

He shuffled over and climbed into the passenger’s seat.

‘You’re late,’ he said.

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘You shouldn’t be late.’

‘I fell asleep. I’m really sorry.’

‘I don’t like it when you’re late.’

‘I know. I feel terrible about it. But I’m here now. Can we move on?’

Obviously, I’d forgotten who I was talking to.

* * *

‘I’m never late,’ Ben said as I parked the car in the driveway.

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘You never are.’

I was looking forward to getting into the house, but I’m not sure why, because going indoors was unlikely to stop him.

Mark was watering the lawn next door, and by the time I’d made it halfway up the driveway he’d dropped the hose and was standing on our front grass, not three steps away from me.

Mark Jespers was the last thing I needed on a day like this.

‘Hey. Rusty. What’s with you and the Arab girl?’

‘Not now, Mark.’

‘Is this, like, a new small-town romance?’

‘That’s the only thing you notice about her? That she’s Egyptian? You look at her and that’s all you see – how is that even relevant?’

‘Well, she’s a Muslim. Right? She worships
the Allah
?’

I sighed. I thought of just plunging through to my front door. But his energy felt tight and aggressive, and I was guessing this was not a problem I could walk away from.

‘I don’t know what religion she is. I never asked.’

‘She is kinda good to look at, though. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing. You tapping that?’

I hit him.

I hit him before I even mentally registered that I was about to hit him. It’s just something that did itself. I swung my fist hard and connected with his jaw, and he staggered backward but didn’t fall.

It may sound like a scene from an action film, in which this would be a smooth and obvious reaction, and I would handle it as such. But I’d never punched anybody in my life. I had no idea that it hurts the puncher as much as the punchee. It was all I could do to stifle a howl as I grabbed my right hand.

Then he laid me out with a hard right that landed on the bone outside my left eye. He crouched on top of me, and pulled back for another good wallop, but the impact I braced for never came to pass.

Instead I just heard Ben yelling, ‘You don’t do that!’

I sat up.

Mark was lying on his back on our front grass, with Ben kneeling on his chest, his finger in Mark’s face. As if he were chastising a four-year-old.

‘You don’t hit Rusty! You never hit Rusty!’

Despite Ben’s vertical size, Mark was a lot bigger and stronger. All he had to do was dig his elbows into the grass and push hard, and he succeeded in tossing Ben on to the lawn. But he didn’t go after Ben. Or me. He just looked at me once over his
shoulder,
with exaggerated contempt. Then he marched back to his own yard and picked up the hose. I heard the hiss of the water when he squeezed the nozzle.

Ben stood over me, peering down into my face.

‘Why did he hit you?’

‘Let’s just get inside. Give me a hand.’

He reached his huge hand down, and I pulled myself to my feet.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s just go in.’

‘But why did he hit you?’

‘I hit him first.’

‘Why did you hit him first?’

I struggled to get my key into the lock, but my hands were shaking. I got it on about the seventh try, and we stepped into the safety of the living room.

‘Why did you hit him first?’

‘Because he said something about Anat.’

‘What did he say?’

‘It’s a long story, Ben.’

‘Was it mean, what he said?’

‘I thought it was mean, yes.’

‘He shouldn’t be mean.’

‘But he is.’

‘But even if he is. You shouldn’t hit.’

‘I know.’

‘But you did.’

‘Ben!’ I barked. More harshly than I had intended.

‘What?’

‘I’m a little upset. Can we just have it quiet for a minute?’

‘OK. What’s for dinner?’

I sighed. ‘You want macaroni and cheese?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Will you go watch TV till it’s ready?’

‘OK.’

I had twenty heavenly, silent moments in the kitchen. Nearly enough to pull myself together. Or, anyway, as together as I’d been in the first place. The beautiful silence was punctuated only by occasional throaty laughter from the TV room.

I held a paper towel full of ice to my eye as I worked. Now and then I shifted it to the knuckles of my right hand. I stopped once to swallow four aspirin.

Eventually I put two bowls of highly refined flour and reconstituted cheese-related powder on the table with two glasses of milk.

Then I called Ben to come and get it.

The TV went silent.

What seemed like too much time later, he ambled in and sat at the table with me. He picked up his fork.

‘Napkin,’ I said.

‘Oh, right.’

He shook out his paper napkin and spread it carefully on his lap.

Then he wolfed down a good half of his dinner in five or six big bites.

‘Taste OK?’

He nodded. He looked lost in thought. Whatever ‘thought’ meant to Ben.

‘What?’ I asked. I can’t imagine why I asked.

‘You were really late,’ he said.

I LET MYSELF
into the bakery at 6.51 a.m. But not through the kitchen door. With a distinct sadness, and a physical feeling of loss that seemed to be wedged up under my ribs, crowding my heart and making it hard to draw a full breath, I used the customer entrance.

Anat looked up from the kitchen. Waiting. Waiting, I suppose, for me to come back and talk to her. The way I always did.

I didn’t.

I took a table in the darkened seating area up front.

A long moment passed, during which she did not cut any donuts.

Then she wiped her hands on her white apron, and came out and stood behind the counter and stared at me in silence for another moment, and I looked at her in the dim light.

‘You’re angry with me,’ she said. Alarmingly, she sounded as if she was forcing back tears.

‘No!’ I said. Shouted, really. ‘No, of course I’m not! Why would I be angry?’

‘I shouldn’t have come to your house.’

‘No, it’s fine. That was fine. It’s not that at all.’

‘What is it, then?’

I looked out the window for just a second or two as a car cruised by, its headlights cutting through the civil twilight, half-necessary and half-not. I pointed to the car as I spoke.

‘People will notice,’ I said, ‘if they haven’t already. Which wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. But it’s obviously a problem for you. And I don’t want to make problems for you. I want to be a good thing in your life. I don’t want to bring you trouble.’

Then I just sat and breathed for a moment, unable to bring myself to look at her, to see how my words had been received. When curiosity overcame fear, I looked into her face.

What I saw there could only rightly be described as … it frightened me to use the word, but there’s only one word that will finish that sentence. Love. She looked at me with love. Or, if not love, something that lived close by.

‘You’re sweet,’ she said. ‘No wonder …’

I waited for her to tell me no wonder what, but she never did. Too bad. I’m guessing I would’ve liked it.

We survived a long, awkward silence.

Then she said, ‘Well, at least let me put the light on for you. Don’t sit out here in the dark.’

‘The dark is OK.’

‘That will look as odd as anything, don’t you think?’ She marched around the counter as she asked this. ‘You’re my customer. I put the lights on for my customers.’

And she did.

And so, of course, she saw. Sooner or later she was going to see. I’d just somehow been hoping for later. Not enough to make me stay home. But some.

Her mouth fell open, and she stared at my face for what seemed like an eternity. I remember thinking I must have looked even worse than I’d thought. I’d brushed my teeth and combed my hair in the mirror that morning. But I purposely hadn’t turned on the overhead light.

I just mostly knew my left eye was so swollen I could only open it halfway, and only that with great and painful effort.

‘Russell, what happened to you? Did Ben do this?’

‘Oh, no. Ben? No. Never.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s just that you said he has tantrums.’

‘He has tantrums like a kid has tantrums. He cries and paces. And sometimes he even hurts himself. But not anybody else.’ Silence. During which I knew I had to say it: if not Ben, then who? There was nothing else waiting to be filled in. ‘This is about the butthole next door.’

‘He attacked you?’

I cleared my throat and hesitated, and as I did I flexed my swollen right hand, feeling the pain in my bruised knuckles. I did it without thinking.

She noticed.

‘I see you gave as good as you got,’ she said.

‘I don’t want you to think I go around getting in fights. I never do. I’m twenty-four years old and I never punched anybody before. I always use my words. As my mom used to say. Or I just walk away. But there’s something about Mark. He pulls my strings. And everybody’s just more on edge right now. It’s like everybody’s nerves are raw. I don’t know how to explain it.’

‘You don’t have to explain that part. I’m a member of everybody. I’ve noticed things are extra tense.’

She walked back into the kitchen, leaving me to wonder what part I did still have to explain. No, I take that back. I damn well knew.

‘What will you have this morning?’ she called out to me.

A second later she wheeled the first big rack of trays up front and began to load donuts into the display case.

I got up and walked to the counter and watched her, thinking I’d know my breakfast when I saw it.

‘The almond Danish look good,’ I said. ‘I’ve never tried your almond Danish.’ Somehow that came out sounding personal, though not for any logical reason. Still, it embarrassed me.

She used a piece of tissue paper to lift one on to a paper plate. It was glazed and covered with thinly sliced almonds, which had toasted to a nice golden brown in the oven. I could see the edges of the almond paste bulging out between the folds of crisp brown dough.

I reached out to take it from her, but she didn’t hold it in my direction.

‘Was it about me?’ she asked.

I lied.

‘No. Of course not. Not at all. Mark and I have a lot of old differences, that’s all. And we have three mutual friends about to ship out to Afghanistan, if they’re not there already, and Mark might join up, and I guess it’s bringing out our political problems. I’m not one of those “rah-rah America” types. A few weeks ago that was fine, but now all of a sudden it causes big trouble. Every time I turn around.’

She handed me the Danish.

‘Be careful what you say to people,’ she said.

‘I tell myself that all the time. But then the wrong things are out of my mouth before I can even question them.’

I sat and ate and watched her load the cases, and we didn’t say more.

Then she had to go back into the kitchen to work, and it would have been too hard to talk much over that distance anyway. And besides, we had customers.

I only stayed another ten or fifteen minutes, but that feeling stayed much longer. The one I’d had when I first came through the customers’ entrance. The one that seemed to be wedged up under my ribs, crowding my heart and making it hard to draw a full breath.

When I got back, I left the car in the driveway.

I stepped out to see Mark looking out his window at me.

Instead of heading for my own door, I cut kitty-corner across his lawn and headed straight for him. He dropped the curtain again and disappeared. But I didn’t change my path.

I just stood there for a moment or two, outside the front windows of the Jesperses’ house. Predictably, Mark looked out again to see if I had gone away. And there I was.

I waved.

He didn’t.

The curtain fell back into place again.

I walked across the lawn to the door and rang the bell.

First nothing. A long nothing.

Then, just as I raised my hand to hit the bell again, the door opened about a foot, and Mark stuck his head out.

‘What?’

‘I just wanted to say I was sorry. You know. For going straight to hitting. Without an intervening, “Please speak respectfully about her.” Or, you know. Something along those lines.’

I looked at his face. The side of his jaw where I’d hit him. Nothing. I hadn’t left any noticeable mark. I was half-relieved and half-disappointed.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well. I guess it was none of my business.’

‘True. But saying, “It’s none of your business,” would also have been a better choice.’