by Rachel Kane
Mom’s hand is tight on the spoon, knuckles white like she’s about to brandish it, to defend her baby from this string of men.
“You never said.”
He sighs. “What could I say? I’m terrible at men? I have bad taste? There’s something wrong with me, that always turns me into a victim?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Charlie.”
“You don’t believe that. You think I’m a fuck-up, compared to Tag with all his degrees and his saving the world.”
She tapped the spoon sharply against the counter. “No. We hold you up to a high standard because we believe in you,” she said. “I know how smart you are. How hard-working. But I hate to see you squander your potential, to use it all up doing…well…nothing. Mall jobs and pool boy jobs, seasonal work that you can never settle into, that’s never going to build a future for you. I don’t think you’re a…a mess-up. You’re not a mistake, you’re a human being. And you deserve better than all these men. I could go out and beat them all up. And I have to assume that Val did something similar to you? If he laid a hand on you, I swear, I will go to his house tonight and—”
“No…not Val. He didn’t do anything.”
She blinks. “Nothing?”
“He doesn’t even like to fight.”
“He hasn’t raised a hand to you?”
“He’s hardly raised his voice.”
There’s that look of confusion, the one that portrays how he feels, too. “Then…why? Why leave him?”
“Because of the potential. The gifts are a warning sign. Standing up to Rumson, was he protecting me, really, or just marking me as his territory? Is it going to get bad, is he going to get violent, I just don’t know.”
“Honey, I don’t want to second-guess you, but are you saying that because he cares about you, you’re scared he’ll be violent? That the symptoms of violence are generosity and care?”
Without him noticing, she’s rounded the counter, and suddenly her arms are around him, pulling him close, so that he smells all the cooking spices in her hair. Why can’t he stop crying? Why does everything hurt so much?
“You realize, by that logic, you’re never going to be in love?” she says. “Because this is what people do, when they’re in love. Little gifts, little favors. It’s how they show each other how they feel. Men who turn that into a transaction, yes, there’s a problem with them. You’re a human being, and you can’t be bought. But to have someone who wants to take care of your needs, and whose needs you want to take care of? That’s just what love is, Charlie.”
Did I have anything to offer Val? Did I give him anything?
“I’m so scared,” he whispered into her hair.
“I know baby, I know. I wish you’d told me all this before. I would have made a mess of those boys who hurt you.”
“I couldn’t. I was a big enough failure in your eyes, how could I also be a perpetual victim? I couldn’t tell anybody.”
She straightens up; she uses her apron to wipe her eyes. “You’ve told me now. Now I know what to look out for.”
There’s a harshness to her movements, mixing the ingredients together, a harsh precision where her hands move a little too fast, where the spoons clatter a little too loud. She’s angry on his behalf. That feels good. It feels safe. Not something he expected to feel in his parents’ house.
“Can I…can I stay here a few days?” he asks.
“Of course you can.”
“It’s just that the bus is cold.”
“I’m sure. Sometime when you’re feeling better we’ll talk about you living in that unheated tetanus trap. Your brother has told us all about it.”
Another cookie, the trees this time, shortbread that tasted of butter and tradition. “Leave some for everyone else,” she said, more because that’s what you say when someone takes a second cookie, than from any real risk of running out. There were going to be snacks for days and days.
“I’ll ask one more question,” she says, “and then I’ll leave you alone, and you can go in there and watch football with the boys.”
By which she meant go be nice to your father, who misses you but who refuses to show it. Funny how you could read a parent’s mind.
“Sure,” Charlie says, finishing up his sniffling. His tears are dry on his cheeks, little salt flats.
“It’s not something you’ve got to answer right now. Just a little something to think about.”
Oh god, if this was about going back to school…
“Are you sad because Val turned out to be just like all the other men…or are you sad because some part of you knows he isn’t like the other men? Now, I don’t know the man, obviously. But if he hasn’t given you any of the bad signs, if he doesn’t have the red flags, then…maybe you are sad because you made a mistake.”
“I have no idea. Oh no, I don’t want to start crying again!”
“No, no. Like I said, don’t try to answer. Go visit with your father. I’ll have dinner ready soon, and then later you can help me decorate all these cakes and cookies.”
“Did she mention that the cousins are coming?” said Dad, buried deep in his recliner, one hand on the remote, his other hand on a bottle of Bud.
“Not tonight,” said Charlie.
“Nah, nah, over New Year’s. You want to see them, don’t you? You haven’t seen some of them boys in years. Hey, throw the damn ball, Berman! Throw—aw, damn it.”
Charlie had never cared about sports, at least not the ones you watch on TV. He enjoyed a good kayak trip, hikes, taking a bike up into the mountains, things where you really move, where it’s you against nature. A bunch of men chasing down a defenseless ball had never been his speed. But sitting with Dad and listening to him gripe about the players on TV was a long and honored tradition in the McLain family, so here Charlie was, settling back on the sofa.
Tag looked over at him. “You need a beer?”
“If you’re getting up anyway, bring me one.”
Suddenly he and Dad were alone. And he could only hope something else would go wrong, or right, with the game on TV, to keep Dad’s attention off him.
Nope. Suddenly he thought Tag leaving the room had been planned somehow.
“Well,” says Dad.
“Yup,” says Charlie. For years, that had sufficed for conversation between them, when it wasn’t arguments over SAT scores and college and the future.
His dad doesn’t look at him, just aims the remote and mutes the TV.
They can hear Tag and Mom talking in the kitchen.
“I heard every word,” Dad says.
“Shit,” says Charlie, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t want to talk about it with me. You think I won’t understand. If you can’t fix it with a wrench and some sockets, ol’ Dad isn’t going to be much use, is that right?”
Charlie shrugs. “That’s not exactly it. But you and I haven’t really gotten along lately.”
“You want me to talk to this boyfriend of yours? You want me to see what his intentions are?”
“Oh god, no. Please don’t do that. It’s over, anyway.”
A knowing look on Dad’s face. “You sure about that? Because you’re not acting like it’s over. You’re acting like you just had your first big fight, and it hurts so bad that you don’t know what to do with yourself. Believe me, everybody has that. I remember my first big fight with your mother. She was so mad, she packed her overnight bag and went to your grandma’s to stay the night. I said to myself, Mel, you have fucked the pooch this time. You done wrecked the one good thing that ever happened to you. But nah. It was just a fight. There’s more to fight about, as time goes on. It happens. You sure it wasn’t that kind of fight? Just something big there at the beginning? In a way, it’s like a negotiation. Get it out of the way early on. This is what you’ll put up with, this is what you won’t. Two sides, hashing out how this thing is going to go.”
“But what if he— What if Val turns out to be—”
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“What, an asshole? What if he thinks he can push you around? Then you tell us. Damn, boy, if all else fails, we’ll call in the cousins. They’ll give that boy a McLain-style whooping he won’t forget.”
Charlie had to laugh at that. His mother had a way of saying those McLain boys that had always made him smile, the way she sounded so tired when she said it. They were always getting in trouble, his cousins. A little time in jail seemed to be the initiation on that side of the family. Sweetest guys you’d ever meet, but damn if they couldn’t get a little wild.
The idea, though, that his family could protect him…that was a new one.
Families weren’t for protection, they were for being disappointed that you’d screwed up your life.
He thought about those Santa letters again. He thought about all the lives that did get a little screwed up, often through no fault of anybody’s. Bad things just happen sometimes, and was there anyone there to help them?
What if Charlie’s calling was to help those people? Not getting a big degree from an expensive college, not pursuing the big money. What if it was smaller than that…but doing a good thing nonetheless?
The memory of Val’s face, reading the letters. How naturally he had sorted them into categories.
Was Val like the other guys? Did he hide anger and violence under a veneer of clumsy eagerness?
Were Charlie’s instincts just all messed up?
“You promise me, if things go wrong, you’ll help me?” he asked his dad. “No questions asked? No judgments made?”
“You asking if I’ll stop bugging you about going to college? You know me and your mama had a dream for each of you—”
“Promise,” he says. “If something goes wrong with Val, you’ll help me.”
“We always will,” his dad says. “But I heard you in there. He doesn’t sound like that kind of man. You sure you don’t want me to talk to him?”
That was the last thing he wanted.
But now he had backup.
Now he could think clearly.
Now he knew what he had to do.
26
Val
“You want us to move all of them,” said the doorman with a frown. “Again.”
“There are fewer boxes than last time,” I said. “I ate quite a bit of the spaghetti. The food bank will be here soon.”
You see, I would not let my breakup distract me from the things that need doing. Charlie may have the wrong idea about me, may think I’m a monster, or maybe it’s the right idea, and I am a monster, and would be violent and loud and thrashing under the right circumstances. I couldn’t say. But it was almost Christmas and I had tons of food to offer, and monster or not, I am good at organizing. I’d been on the phone with the food bank this morning, discussing my donation. It’s true that they had a better time with cash than canned goods, since they could negotiate deals with suppliers, so I wrote a large check for them as well. I saw no reason that anyone in Corinth should starve, if I had millions of dollars.
I wish I could have said this kept my mind off Charlie. When a business deal failed, I could often bury myself in other projects until the sting of the failure faded. I could pretend it never happened.
It did not work today. The tree in my living room, with its perfect decorations and unfulfilled promises of togetherness, made me want to cry out in frustration, not understanding why he left. I mean, I understood. I’m very intelligent, as I have pointed out before, and can bring quite a bit of cognitive strength to bear on a situation.
But I didn’t really understand.
Back when I was young, and the boys would pick teams, I would stand there waiting to be picked, mind half on the game, half on some list of numbers I’d seen somewhere, but growing more and more confused as all the other boys got picked. The strong, popular ones first, then the smaller ones, then the kids with asthma…and then, eventually, me. If at all. If they didn’t say Sorry Valerie we don’t have room for you, why don’t you go take another math test.
The one person who had made me feel better than that, the one person who had made me feel like a real person, was all gone, even if his traces were all over my apartment. His scent was still on the pillow case, on the blankets, as I discovered when I buried my tear-streaked face in the covers. Here was his cup where he had made coffee, and I hadn’t had the heart to wash it. If you held it up at just the right angle, you could see the imprint his lips had made on the rim.
I hope you will not think badly of me, that I kissed that imprint, and thought about holding him in my arms again.
I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much in my life.
How was I going to get on with things now? I really wasn’t sure. My mind kept coming up with metaphors for how I felt. I was a balloon on a string, and someone let go of the string, and now I was floating out of control, unable to move the way I wanted to move.
At least before he left, he had shown me the way. Had put an idea in my head, an idea of the good I could do.
The people from the food bank arrived. Unlike everyone else in my life, who responded to my ordering mistake with shock or dismay, the food bank was delighted at the haul. We all helped load up their truck.
There were tax forms to sign afterward, which made this feel official, organized, correct. I do like forms. I signed with a flourish. As they drove off with 95 crates of canned spaghetti along with a check for three thousand dollars and a promise of more to come, I was left with a sense of emptiness.
My apartment was so quiet. The tree was pretty, but seemed bare with no presents underneath. Without the spaghetti boxes, there was a lot more room to move around. By which I mean, room to pace. To walk to the window, then back to the sofa, to touch the needles of the tree, and wander into the kitchen without noticing where I was.
I could clean, I suppose. I should clean. Put the last of the mega-purchase of condoms away in the nightstand. I would never use them again, but it seemed wasteful to throw them away. I supposed there was no charity I could donate them to, at least not a reputable one.
I could use my power mop to get the floors their cleanest. I could finally open the package on this Spanish-teaching system to start using a language.
Yes, all sorts of things I could do.
Instead I sat on the couch and stared at the tree and felt like the world was over. My one shot, my one chance at love, and I’d blown it, because I had convinced myself I knew better than Charlie. He’d had a problem, and I thought I understood how to solve it, and ignored his warnings. Stepped right over him. Here, let me do this, so that when it spectacularly backfires, there’s nowhere to hide from the fact that it’s my fault.
You can tell yourself it’s no use to lie on the couch and wallow in guilt, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. If anything, it just adds a layer of discomfort to the process. You feel guilty for feeling guilty.
My phone rang, jarring me out of this depressive reverie. Not my cell, but rather the phone next to the door. I considered not answering. Why would anyone be here? No one visited me. Theo would have called my cell first. I hadn’t ordered anything else, had I? Oh god, had I? What if there were a hundred boxes of frozen hashbrowns downstairs?
I pulled myself off the couch.
“Yes?” I groaned.
“Sir,” said the doorman, “there is… There’s a…”
“Yes, man, spit it out.”
“There’s an elf to see you.”
My heart did a thing. Flipped? Pounded? I wasn’t sure, but suddenly I felt I should sit back down. “An elf.”
“Bells on hat, a big bag slung on his back.”
What was this? Charlie coming back for one last accusation? One more way to tell me how I’d failed him? Was this how breakups worked? Did they just keep happening over and over, until they were finished? I wasn’t sure I could take it…but I deserved it.
“Send him up,” I said.
It was indeed Charlie, and he was in full elf regalia. His pointy hat with its bells
made a soft jingle as he stood at my door, his red velvet sack next to him on the floor. He could barely meet my eyes. But that was okay, I could barely meet his. We kept looking away from one another, both bashful.
“Hello,” I said.
“Merry almost Christmas.”
I swallowed. “If you’ve come to tell me I did something else wrong, can I just apologize in advance? I’m sure there were other things. I was wrong to go behind your back—”
“No. No.” He turned his face to look at me, and held the eye contact this time. “I just want to know one thing from you, Val. One thing. Are you a good boyfriend, or a bad one?”
“You’re asking if I’m…naughty or nice?”
It was the wrong question, it was a flippant joke and I never should have said it, but instead of him getting mad, his face suddenly lit up, his eyes creasing as he laughed.
“Yeah, that. Look, could I come in, actually? It feels weird to talk like this in the hall.”
Even though he had laughed at my joke, I got the feeling I was nowhere near off the hook yet. I wasn’t sure why he was here. I kept imagining whole reams of other sins I might have committed. I closed the door behind him and ushered him to the living room.
“Can I get you something?”
“I’m trying really hard to hold it together, Val. I think I did something stupid.”
“Meeting me?”
“No. No, look, don’t… Ugh, I don’t know how to ask this. Just promise me something. Promise me you’re not like the other men I’ve been with. Promise me you’ll never lay a hand on me.”
You don’t ask something like that, if you’re planning to stay away from someone forever and ever.
We had just broken up, right? Had I misread that? Were there take-backs on this sort of thing? Was there a 30-day waiting period, where you could reverse your decision with no penalty?
My mind was just rambling, rather than focusing on the real question.
Was he asking for us to be together?
Naturally, logic took over at the worst possible moment.
