You Could Be Home by Now (16 page)

“There's nothing wrong with my putting.”

“Maybe. If you're up against a baboon.”

The nurse reappeared then, scrutinizing her clipboard. She butchered the pronunciation of his last name. Ben stood so fast it made him dizzy. He didn't want her crossing toward them and saying something to show she mistook Sadie for his wife. He said, “Here's hoping the doctor's a bit older than twelve.”

Sadie stretched, then nestled back into the chair. “Oh, I
like
it when they're young. The young ones are going to fight harder. They still take the bad stuff personally.”

Ben looked at Sadie, really looked.

This was the only ER for miles.

They must have brought Gary Birnam here, post-collapse.

Her husband must have come here to die.

He took her hand again and squeezed. He said, “I'm probably still a little in love with my wife.”

By her face, Sadie didn't know what to make of that. He only had the guts to say what was next because of the easy exit, the nurse on standby to lead him away. “I'm still in love with Veronica, but I like you more.”

S
ETH CUT OUT EARLY AND
went up to Alison's office. It was empty. A single orange, its PLU sticker peeling, sat on the corner of her desk. It was the only bright thing in the room. A half-dozen books occupied the shelves, their spines muted gray and green and brown.
Azucena's Table: Feeding the American Frontier. After the Golden Spike. Tribal Groups of the Four Corners Region. Arizona! A Pictorial History. Coyote, Fox, Hawk, and Bat: A Compendium of Apache Mythology
. Two Stegner titles. For reasons he couldn't begin to guess at, a Danish-English dictionary. While Seth waited, he alphabetized them. Ali's office windows were smaller than his but oriented better. The room was thick with dust-flecked light. Two news vans—up one from the other day—were parked in the circular drive below. When she got here, he'd tell Alison that he'd given Nicky Tullbeck the Rosko story. He'd frame it as the kid's big break. Alison would like that. She was fond of Nicky.

Seth sat at his wife's desk. Her chair groaned under his weight. He leaned back and the groan changed pitch. More of a squeak now. It must drive Alison up the wall. He knelt and jiggled the seat, trying to pinpoint the trouble. There. Yes. It would take all of five minutes to fix. Seth lay down to better reach the undercarriage. Loose bolts. It wasn't even a question of WD-40.

“Seth? What are you doing on the floor?” He hadn't heard Alison approach.

“Your chair squeaks.” The funny knobs of her ankles stuck out. Also her ears. There was something strange about her neck. He realized: “You've cut off your hair.”

“Yes.”

“It's cute.” He sat up. Stood. A blunt fringe cut across Alison's forehead. The rest cropped close to her scalp. It made her eyes enormous. There was something different about the color, too. More yellow maybe.

“Well.” She tousled it. It was better after. Less pristine. “Now you can quit complaining about my hair in the drain.”

“Alison.” His wife was fitter than ever. His wife was blonder than ever. And Seth was apparently no true blue American male. Because what he felt was cheated. Alison's had always been an unexpected sort of prettiness; if she were less confident, she might even be taken for plain. Ali was all those industrious colors of a summer road trip. Hair warm and variegated like farmed grain, eyes the cool gray-blue of quarried shale. Even her freckled skin. Nothing one color or the other. Her attractiveness came from that tension, and from the vividness with which she held it all together. “This morning, I shouldn't have said—”

“No. It was bothering you. Of course I want you to tell me when something is bothering you.” Her voice was dangerously bright. It matched the unfamiliar scent that hung between them, all zest and false flowers. Chemical undertones. Eau de salon.

Seth sneezed.

“
Salud.
”

“Thanks.” He looked around. Back home in Chettenford, Alison always kept a box of Kleenex on her desk. The school was constructed in 1923 and his wife was allergic to some lingering interior mold. And of course her desk saw its steady stream of weeping girls. Ms. C, it seemed, was as essential post-breakup as a pint of Ben & Jerry's. “Kleenex?” he asked.

Alison shook her head.

He'd thought she might have some on hand, that maybe she cried in private now and then.

“I'd like my chair back,” she said, tucking her bag under the desk. “I used my lunch hour at the salon. I've got to catch up.” A false lightness buoyed her tone. Chances were he was in trouble. It was bound to be his mucking about with the chair. She'd see it as an attack on her unquestionable competence. That was Alison all over. Chivalry was wasted on her.

“I can wait around,” he said

“I'll be a while. Hoagie sprung this thing on me—he's renaming the main town here for Adah Chalk. He wants to announce at the HOA meeting tomorrow, and then have a big to-do for Founder's Day.” She sat, swiveled away from him, and got out her stack of Adah Chalk three-by-fives.

“Tomorrow? And here I thought you couldn't rush history.”

“When you get a brainwave . . .” Her shrug was sharp without the softness of her unbound hair. Or perhaps all the running had sharpened the curve of her shoulder.
Brainwave
was a Lobel word; if Ali started saying
folks
he would know the pair had been spending entirely too much time together.

“It's a nice haircut,” he said. “It suits you.” It did. Seth was the one it didn't particularly suit. Ask him again when he was used to it. Alison brushed a hand across the back of her neck. Attention there drove her wild. He wondered if the skin would start to lose its sensitivity without her hair to shield it from everyday touch. He pressed his lips to the knob at the top of her spine.

She scooted away. Her chair squeaked. “I promised Hoagie I'd get him a draft presentation on Adah ASAP.”

“
Hoagie.
”

“It's his name. He wants us to use it.” Her tone edged toward curt. “I've got to get to work.”

“Sure. Let me run out and get you a sandwich. Or maybe a wrap from that place by The Homeplate? And an iced tea, right? With lemon. Or do you think you'll need more serious caffeine?”

“Seth, I'm trying to be nice. But what I really want is for you not to be in my face right now.”

“Huh?”

She turned the chair to face him. Sunlight coalesced around her. “You'll never guess what happened while I was under the dryer.” She patted her newly sleek head. She beamed. She had on earrings. She usually didn't bother. They were silver things, shaped like graduation tassels. “My phone rang. Any idea who it was?”

She was using her teaching voice, which seldom boded well. And all at once he knew who'd called. Ross Henry, math teacher, Yankees fan, father of two. Aspiring do-gooder. Seth hoped the twins developed a lifelong affinity for the Sox. “Ross Henry,” he said. He should've left when Ali told him to.

“Ross Henry, that's right. He seemed to be under the impression you were hurting—”

“Ali—”

“I mean more than usual. He was very kind. He made sure to say of course you were hurting. But maybe the tiniest something more was troubling you?” She held her thumb and index finger close together. That Ross. Sometimes it was worse when people said precisely the right thing. It meant that they weren't quite your friends anymore. It meant they'd memorized their lines in advance. “It was nice, actually,” Ali continued. “Playing hooky in the middle of the day, all this gorgeous sunlight, stylist swooning because he's got someone in his chair whose next stop isn't a hip replacement. And it was nice catching up with Ross. Tons of gossip. Shipley's come up with some unenforceable student cell phone policy for next year. We took state in softball. Would've done baseball too, but Mark Sarrachino blew his shoulder. The twins are thriving, but Ross knew enough not to go on about it.”

It wasn't just the twins that got him. It was the casualness of that
we
. We meaning Vermont and the North Chettenford Minutemen, the weight of her life still two thousand miles away. And yet like an idiot he'd filed the story Lobel had asked for. It would run tomorrow above the fold, next to a sidebar detailing the many activities associated with Founder's Day. He swallowed. He attempted lightness. “Well. You always said Sarrachino was going to need reconstructive surgery before he hit twenty.”

She shrugged. Again. He hated that gesture and he hated that she hadn't done anything with her office. There was nothing to look at here but Alison. Her profile reflected in the window. He had to squint in the invading light. She sighed. The sound was unexpectedly content. “It was a good morning. The stylist didn't even ask if we had kids.” Another thing they hadn't accounted for in the move. How to field that standard getting-to-know-you question. “A good morning,” she repeated. “So I thought I'd treat myself. Ice cream.” Her tongue darted out and swept across her lips. The unthinking intimacy of it rocked him. “And as I'm paying,
bzzzt!
, a text. What do you know? It's Bronsted, remember? From across the hall junior year? He used to have the biggest crush on me.” It said something about Alison that she'd choose this moment to remind him, and it said something about Seth that he'd have remembered anyhow. “Eric Bronsted. Never subtle.” Alison shook her head, like she was actually fond of Eric Bronsted. “Can you guess what he wrote?”

“Probably nothing complimentary.” Bronsted had never liked Seth, but Seth had been human about it. Gracious in victory and all of that.

“Ali. Hey. Think your man might be cracking up.” She made her voice husky but didn't sound a thing like Bronsted.

“The guy never liked me.”

“Are you, Seth? Cracking up?” There was a claylike cool now to Alison's voice, as if she were still working out how to shape it.

“No. I'm really not.”

“See, I wondered. Because my phone's sure been busy.” Ali rummaged in her purse. Her skirt hitched up. He knew better than to reach for her. She found her phone. “Kerstin Buell: Are you guys okay? Jessie Jarvis: What's up with Seth? Give us a call. Oh, and this one's new. Aaron Fisher: Everything all right? And not one, not two, but three voicemails I haven't had a moment to check.”

Seth was glad she'd cut her hair. It was like someone else unloading on him.

“Neil's call actually rang through.” Neil was her brother, who played shortstop for the AAA IronPigs. He should have been out on the diamond. He should have been in the weight room. He got to live outside, lungs full of clipped grass and worn leather. He had no business whatsoever checking Facebook midday.

“Okay then,” Seth said. There was no point dissembling. Alison knew. She'd seen it. They had WiFi everywhere here. The brochures had gone on and on about it. Alison leaned forward and the chair squeaked its protest. She ran her palm along the edge of her desk. Her hand skirted the orange. He wanted to take it in his. That or pick up the fruit. Peel it. Loose the scent of something other than hair gel in the room. Alison pointed and flexed her sandaled foot. Her toenails were painted soft mauve. He'd lain in bed and watched her apply that paint last weekend. She'd done it at home in Vermont, too, but back then he was the only one who'd known. Shipley had rules about open-toed shoes.

“What's up with you, Seth?” This came out a tired whisper.

“I may have pissed off some people.” She wasn't meant to be one of them. Alison. She was meant to be on his side.

“Try everyone. Try may have committed social suicide.”

“
Virtual
social suicide.”

Alison gave him a look.

“I honestly didn't think you'd care.” She didn't care for much these days. This, he had the good sense not to say.

“You honestly didn't think. Period. These are our friends.”

“They were so smug, Ali. So smug and so happy.”

“Facebook's smug,” she said. “That's the whole point.”

“It should be us. Complaining about spitup.”

Alison said nothing. She curled in on herself like a comma. The only thing stopping him from laying his hand on her shoulder was how it would feel if she shook it off.

“It should be us,” he said again.

“It's not.” Alison looked at her palms, like her life was actually spelled out there. “And I like Facebook. I like seeing that the people I love are okay.”

“It's so showy, Alison. It's all polished and rah-rah and unreal.”

“I like that, too. It's an easier place to pretend.”

“It's not a place,” he said.

“Well. Whatever. It's an easier context to fake in.”

“What do you mean, to fake in?”

An unsteady laugh. Her smile was a studied thing, deliberately crafted.

“You didn't really sign up for that marathon, did you?” He hated that he'd fallen for it, bought into the happy illusion she'd crafted of zeros and ones. The patio pictures and intriguing local restaurants. The road race she was looking forward to in three months' time. He was her husband. He should be impossible to put one over on.

“Look at me,” Ali said. He did. Maybe it was the shorn hair, or the relentlessly waning curves. The particular thinness of her wrists. She looked like a little boy. “Here I am.” She stood. She pointed at breastbone. Her clavicles made ridges beneath tan skin. “Me. Alison. Your wife. A real, live human being. Can you try to remember that?”

“Where's this coming from? Of course I—”

“No, you don't. I don't know what you see when you look at me, but it's not a person. Because a person, an actual human, wouldn't have to hear from some idiot she knew back in college that her husband is out of his fucking mind.”