When You Were Older (25 page)

She took my money and rang me up. Handed me change. The tips of her fingers brushed my palm lightly. Maybe purposely. Other than that, I found the whole moment profoundly depressing.

I felt like we were paying for our impetuous morning. Suddenly we had something to hide.

I ate the cinnamon twist and drank coffee and watched her putter in the kitchen for ten or fifteen minutes. Watched her glance at me far too often.

Then I waved goodbye and walked the nearly two miles back to the house, hoping to catch up on at least some of the sleep I’d missed.

The doorbell jolted me out of sleep. I’d been deep into a REM cycle, dreaming something dark and convoluted and a little disturbing. And the sound was like a bomb going off under my bed. I woke up on my feet, standing beside the bed, with no memory of how I’d gotten there. My heart hammered so hard I felt like it might be dangerous to my health.

I looked at the clock beside my mother’s bed. Ten thirty. Too early to be Anat.

I put on a shirt, and combed my hair as best I could with my fingers. The bell rang again before I could get to it.

‘I’m coming as fast as I can,’ I called, trying not to sound pissed.

I threw the door open wide.

It was Mrs Jespers from next door. Mark’s mom. She looked like she’d been crying.

‘Oh, honey, I got some bad news,’ she said. ‘Mark wanted to tell you, but I said, “No, let me.” Because of how you two haven’t been getting along so good. Anyway, sit down. You should be sitting down.’

‘Did something happen to Ben?’

‘No, it’s not Ben, honey, sit down.’

She barged into the house. Just walked right around me and sat down on our living room couch. Then she
patted
the couch next to her thigh. But I didn’t feel like sitting.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Just tell me.’

‘It’s Vince, honey.’

I must’ve still been half-asleep. Because I made no immediate connection with knowing someone named Vince.

‘Vince?’

‘Vince Buck. I just got done talking to his mother. Oh, dear God, she’s a mess. She was on her way out the door this morning to go to the hospital because her husband – Vince’s father – just had a quadruple bypass. Yesterday! And just as she’s walking out her front door she sees them. Coming up her walkway. Those two uniformed soldiers they send to tell you. She said she knew right away, before they even said anything. She said her knees just went right out from under her, and she took a tumble down her three stone steps. Banged herself up good.’

With that image, Mrs Jespers began to cry again. I excused myself and found a box of tissues in the TV room, and brought them back to her. I held them out for a long time before she looked up and saw what I was offering.

‘Oh, thanks, honey.’ She took them from me, yanked out one tissue, and used it to delicately wipe under her eyes without smudging her make-up.

I watched her, wondering why, when a person is crying and you hand them tissues, they always wipe
their
eyes. They never blow their nose. I always think the nasal stuff is more to the point. But maybe we’re only worried about the part that shows. I guess I’m famous for disjointed thinking in times of stress. As if there were any other times these days.

‘She says she didn’t even ask why they were there, because she knew. She just asked them, “Where did it happen, and how?” They said his unit was trying to secure this prison in Kandahar … Oh, Lord, honey, it’s so sad. Now she has to go to the hospital and ask the doctors when they think her husband can take the bad news, and then she has to break it to him and hope it doesn’t kill him. Can you think of anything sadder than that?’

My brain did a fast scan of fallen towers and mothers dying suddenly and young. Well, not just any old mothers. My mother. This news had stiff competition.

Plus, it could have been Larry, the guy with three kids; but even so, it was bad enough.

‘It’s very sad,’ I said, not wanting to play games with sadness ratings.

‘I just knew you’d want to know, seeing how you two went to school together and all. And Ben. You’ve got to be the one to tell Ben, OK? Those two were pretty close. Vince was nice with Ben. Nicer than most. He and Larry even came by after your mother died, just to see how Ben was doing.’

Just for a flash of a moment I entertained the idea that this might all be part of my discordant dream.
Then,
failing with that theory, I grilled myself regarding what I felt. No doubt it was a shame. And yes, Vince and Larry and Paul had been there for the first eighteen years of my life. But had I known them? And had they known me? Or were we just semi-strangers operating in the same small piece of real estate? This is not to say I didn’t care. I’d very much wanted Vince to come home from Afghanistan in one piece. And not in a flag-draped coffin. But it wasn’t a heavy personal loss. He was just a guy I knew. But not really. I was very sorry for his family, but only a little bit for myself.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Ben.’

‘I thought maybe it was something you needed to hear. You know. So you could … kind of …’ I felt the pressure of subtext. Heavy agenda. I could feel it rise. ‘… reexamine some of your choices.’

Blessedly, at this point, I had no idea what she was talking about.

‘My choices?’

‘You have to be careful who you let into your home, Rusty. Your life. You know. Not everybody is suitable friend material.’

And then I knew.

I leaned down a little, so my face would be closer to hers.

‘Get out,’ I said. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to. Those words spoke volumes for themselves.

She recoiled as if I’d slapped her.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Get out. What part of “get out” don’t you understand?’

She dove off my couch and practically ran for the door.

‘Mark was right,’ she said, stopping with her hand on the knob. ‘He was right all along. He said you’ve gone downright un-American, and I wouldn’t listen, but now I see it with my own eyes. Choosing those people over the good people who knew you all your life.’

‘You’re not getting out yet.’

This time she did.

The door drifted open behind her, letting in a blast of cool air. I closed it, and stood a moment with my forehead leaned on the door.

‘So that’s where Mark gets it,’ I said out loud to the empty room.

I walked back to my mom’s bedroom. Not because I thought I could possibly get back to sleep, but because I wanted a shower. Needed one. I felt as though I needed to scrub off Mrs Jespers’s world view. Like part of it had stuck to me, and could infect me if I didn’t wash myself. I felt dirty.

Before I could even get there, I heard my cell phone ringing on the bedside table. I walked into the bedroom and stared at it for another two rings. Wondering if it could hurt me. It felt like it wanted to hurt me.

I took two steps closer and picked it up. It was Anat.

‘Hey,’ I said, all the weight of the morning sliding off me. ‘It’s you.’

‘Oh, Russell,’ she said. And it was not good. It was not a good ‘Oh, Russell’.

‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘My father is
very
upset. As upset as I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve seen him pretty upset. Someone called him and told him they saw you come in at two in the morning, and that your car was here until four thirty.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Wait. I need to sit down.’

I plunked into a sit on the bed. Hard enough to bounce a little. Which I could have done while she was talking. But I needed her to stop for a moment. I needed the world to stop pelting me with more and more bad news.

I had a sudden weird image that those two planes had hit the towers with such impetus that they’d knocked the world, or at least the country, just slightly off its axis. And that we still hadn’t managed to get balanced again. It felt like nothing had gone right since that morning. Except Anat. And now even that was in peril.

‘Who called him?’

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t know. Someone just called and said this. They didn’t say their name.’

‘And he believed it? From an anonymous stranger?’

‘Russell. It’s true.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Right.’

‘He asked me. I think he wanted not to believe it, but he came into the shop and he just asked me right to my face. Is this true? Maybe I should have lied to him. But I’ve never lied to my father. Well. Not about anything
important.
Childish lies, maybe, when I was younger.’

‘Did you tell him nothing happened?’

‘Of course I did. And I think he believes me. I hope so. But somewhere in his mind he must wonder. Plus, our nothing and his nothing are two very different things, Russell. In his culture … our culture … if a man and a woman are alone in a bedroom in the middle of the night, this is very much something. No matter what they do.’

‘I’ll talk to him.’

‘No!’ She literally shouted it. It made me jump. ‘No, you must leave him alone. Give him time with this. That’s the main reason I called, to warn you to stay away from him. Even I wouldn’t try to talk with him now. Not until he calms down. If you want me, I’ll be at the shop. I’ll be in the room upstairs. I won’t be going home for a while. If you want to call. But don’t come in when he’s around.’

My head swam. I pressed my forehead into my palm. Hard. As if I could physically steady my thinking. I couldn’t think what to ask first.

‘Are you afraid of him? Would he hurt you?’

‘Yes. And no. Yes, I am afraid of him. No, he would never hurt me. But I can’t be around him right now. I have a temper, too, you know. And he brings it out in me. We both said some things we can never take back. I need to stay away until things calm down.’

Speaking of calming down … I counted breaths. I tried to pull them in deeply.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

‘No. Please. It was every bit as much my idea as yours.’

‘Should I not come in at all for a while?’

‘You can come in, but on my days only. Not when he’s here.’

I breathed some more. I wanted to ask a dozen more questions about our future. If indeed we still had one. But I was afraid that, if I did, she might answer them. I decided to go with her idea of giving everything time to settle.

‘I have a customer,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to you as soon as I can.’

And she clicked off the line. Before I even had time to say goodbye.

‘You look bad,’ Ben said. ‘You look really upset.’

‘Walk with me,’ I said. ‘I have to tell you some news.’ We stood together just outside the sliding doors of Gerson’s Market. Close enough to hold them open with our presence as we spoke.

‘Bad news?’

‘Yeah. Pretty bad. But pay attention to where we’re going, anyway. OK? The bus stop is that way. You look that way. And, see the stoplight? You walk to the corner with the stoplight.’

‘OK. But I think tomorrow—’

‘Right. I know. Too soon. I won’t ask you to do it by yourself tomorrow. But pay attention anyway, OK?’

We set off walking.

‘What’s the news?’ he asked, struggling to keep up.

I was too agitated to match my pace to his. So I just kept gaining. I stopped at the corner and waited for him to catch up.

‘Maybe it should wait till we get home,’ I said.

Maybe you don’t tell Ben bad news in public. What if he collapsed or had a tantrum right in the middle of Conner Avenue?

‘No, you have to tell me now,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll be scared for too long.’

‘Yeah. OK. But first … do you see which way you’re supposed to turn?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t know which way the bus stop is?’

‘No.’

‘It’s right.’

‘Right.’

‘That way.’

‘Oh. That way. OK. I can see the pet store way down there. Walk to the pet store, right? What’s the bad news?’

I started off walking.

‘It’s Vince. Vince Buck. He was killed in Afghanistan.’

No response. I looked over my shoulder to see Ben a good six paces back.

‘Could you slow down, Buddy?’

‘Sorry.’ I stopped and waited for him. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Yeah. Vince. What’s Afghanistan?’

‘It’s a country where we’re fighting a war.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you know what it means when someone gets killed?’

‘I think it means I don’t see them any more.’

‘Right. That’s what it means.’

‘I like Vince.’

‘Yeah. Me, too. You ready to walk some more?’

This time I tried to breathe, and to slow down. We walked, more or less together, to the corner.

‘Pet store there, bus stop there,’ I said. Pointing. ‘That’s pretty easy. Right?’

‘Well. I was just following you.’

‘But we talked about which way to go. Which way do you go when you come out of the store?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Toward the stoplight.’

‘The stoplight! Right!’

‘Then which way?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘How can you not remember? You love pets, right?’

‘Oh! The pet store!’

‘Right. Now. Again. Which way when you come out of the store?’

No answer. We stood there on the corner for a good minute. Well, not a
good
minute. But a minute. Ben had no answer.

I sighed, and walked to the bus stop, and he followed me.

We sat with our backs up against the cool bench, covering up an ad for a funeral home. Looking off in the direction of the bus. Assuming there would be a bus. At some point.

Ben spoke first. ‘Are you mad at me, Buddy?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. Good.’

‘But I’m not giving up on you, either. We’re going to keep after this.’

‘Oh,’ he said.

It sounded far less optimistic than his previous ‘oh’.

IT WAS TWELVE
miserable days later, at 7.05 a.m., when I got the call that Ben hadn’t shown up at work on time. I was standing at Anat’s counter, picking out a powdered sugar donut. And dying a thousand deaths. From the look on her face, she was dying in similar numbers.

My cell phone went off in my pocket. I fished it out, and recognized the number as Gerson’s Market. And I knew this could not be good. But, to put it as bluntly as possible, I didn’t even expect good news any more. I just hunkered down as best I could and waited for the bad news I assumed was stacked up waiting.