Just Once

by Lori Handeland

  ‘But that’ll only give you a day before you have to go back.’

  ‘I never thought I’d hear you complain about my short stay.’

  ‘I’d like more than a day of freedom.’

  ‘You can’t leave!’ Hannah’s voice was so loud Frankie pulled the phone away from her ear.

  ‘Calm down. I won’t be going anywhere.’ Far, that was.

  Charley and Hannah should have some time alone. See what developed.

  Another thought from outer space.

  ‘This is a bad idea,’ Hannah murmured.

  ‘Don’t you miss him?’

  ‘Of course. The apartment is empty. Everything’s empty.’

  ‘Was he really in the apartment that much?’

  ‘No. But there’s not there and there’s not there, you know?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The ‘not there Charley’ of after had been so much more not there than the ‘not there Charley’ of before.

  ‘I don’t even want to go to the restaurants we like alone. I’ve started going to new places because if he was never there I don’t keep expecting him to be.’

  ‘Hear ya.’ Frankie hadn’t gone to DelMonico’s since 1991.

  ‘But mostly I miss his voice, how he’d tell me about where he’d been, what he’d done.’

  ‘His voice is the same.’

  ‘It isn’t. Not to me. Especially not the way he says “Hannah”.’

  Frankie remembered how Charley had said ‘Fancy’, how he was saying it again now exactly as he’d said it then.

  She understood completely what Hannah was saying, feeling. She wasn’t sure how to express that, or if she even should.

  The silence that came over the line made Frankie think Hannah wanted to say something too, but was struggling with how. Join the club. A club of two.

  ‘This is nice,’ Hannah finally managed. ‘Sharing him.’

  Frankie choked. Even though she’d been thinking something very similar, hearing it out loud … She was even less sure of what to say than before.

  ‘Are you nuts?’ she asked. Probably not the best response.

  ‘Yes. Aren’t you?’

  Frankie sighed. ‘Yeah.’

  She did feel nuts. Because everything in her life had become so. Her. Hannah. Charley. The situation.

  Nuts.

  ‘Talking about him with anyone … I’ve never been able to … because, well, no one knows him like we do. No one understands Charley Blackwell except us.’

  The thought that soon no one else ever would flitted through Frankie’s head. She kept it to herself. Hannah seemed freaked enough already. Her next words proved it.

  ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘That he won’t be better? That he’ll still see you as a stranger, or worse, a crazy stalker stranger?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Frankie admitted. ‘But maybe it’ll be different. Maybe he’ll take one glance at you and say “Hannah, baby, where you been?”’

  Frankie could barely get the words out of her mouth and as soon as they were out, she had to clear her throat of the nasty aftertaste.

  ‘He never calls me “baby”.’

  Thank God for small favors.

  ‘Though sometimes he calls it out in the middle of the night.’

  Frankie tensed. ‘You don’t have to …’

  ‘It’s then I know he’s dreaming of you.’

  Frankie took a deep breath. ‘There’s no reason to be jealous.’

  Why was she trying to soothe Hannah? Because she didn’t want her to cancel again, that’s why. Had to be.

  ‘Isn’t there?’

  ‘He left me for you. You’ve been married to him longer than I ever was.’

  ‘Lucky me.’

  Why did that sound sarcastic? Because it was.

  ‘If things weren’t so rosy, why didn’t you leave him?’

  For an instant Frankie thought Hannah had hung up and she wanted to yank out her too-blunt tongue.

  ‘Because even though I wasn’t the love of Charley’s life, he was mine, and I would rather have what I had of him than not have him at all.’

  Frankie had been happy to give him up if what she had of him was anything less than everything.

  Well, not happy but less unhappy. As time went on she’d come to understand that not unhappy was the new happy.

  ‘Have you had any issues with his insurance?’ Hannah asked.

  Well, that was an abrupt, random shift of subject, but Frankie was more than willing to accept it and leave the other subject behind.

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘Why?’

  ‘You know how insurance companies are.’

  ‘Not really.’ So far she’d been lucky enough to avoid much contact with hers.

  ‘They try and get out of paying whatever they can. Insist other agencies pay as much as they can.’

  ‘Other agencies?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘The VA for instance.’

  ‘Is he supposed to be going to the VA?’ That had never occurred to Frankie.

  ‘He doesn’t have to. We have insurance. And a specialist like Lanier …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘He wouldn’t be a VA doctor.’ Sad but true. Veterans didn’t get the pick of the litter like Lanier.

  ‘No,’ Hannah agreed. ‘They’re just being …’

  ‘Assholes?’

  Hannah gave one short, sharp bark of laughter. ‘The insurance company is saying that his cancer was caused by Agent Orange and therefore the government should pay.’

  ‘OK.’ Dr Lanier had mentioned that, so had the Waz. She’d meant to relate her conversation with Charley’s friend to Hannah and had forgotten. ‘There were a few guys in Charley’s unit who contracted Agent Orange cancers.’

  ‘I know. Jim Colby’s wife kept in touch. I informed the powers that be, but the government wasn’t impressed. It’s been over forty years and Charley might just have brain cancer, not Agent Orange brain cancer.’

  ‘Lanier said that too.’

  ‘I checked and there haven’t been any studies that have proved Charley’s disease is a result of all that crap they sprayed over Vietnam. But let me know if you have any problems.’

  ‘Will do. Did you … uh … need me to help?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve dealt with this kind of stuff before. My brother …’ She paused, cleared her throat and soldiered on. ‘Dying of AIDS in the nineties … the victim got blamed. Should have known better, should have taken precautions.’

  ‘That’s …’ Frankie searched for a word, came up with: ‘Horrible.’ Which wasn’t good enough but she’d never been good with words. Just pictures.

  ‘Yep,’ Hannah agreed. ‘So just let me know if you have a problem and I’ll deal with the insurance company and the government. I’m good at it. I’ve gotten to where I almost like making them eat every word they utter.’

  Frankie couldn’t help but be impressed with Hannah’s skills. She hadn’t even considered insurance, the bills, anything but Charley. She also admired Hannah’s ‘gonna make them pay’ attitude. Hannah was a very different woman from the one Frankie had thought she was. The more Frankie knew her, the more she liked her and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She also wasn’t sure how to make it stop. It wasn’t like they could be friends when all this was over.

  Could they?

  ‘You’ll be here Saturday?’ she asked.

  Now Hannah did hang up. It was how a lot of their conversations ended. So, not friends, and she was fine with that. She had plenty of friends.

  Well, she had Irene.

  ‘Charley?’ Frankie called, and got no response. ‘Let’s get ice cream!’

  She was in the middle of searching for her purse when she realized he’d never responded.

  She hurried to his door, tapped once and opened it. Her breath rushed out when she didn’t find him dead on the bed, passed out on the rug, throwing up in the bathroom. But where was he?

  She glanced out the side wind
ow. Car was still there. Maybe he was sitting on the dock again.

  However, when she reached the sliding glass doors, she didn’t see him in his usual place, but there was something floating off the edge. Something large. Something Charley shaped, wearing his shirt. Face down in the water.

  Frankie didn’t know she could still run until she ran down the steps and across the dock.

  She didn’t know she could still jump until she flew off the edge into the water.

  She didn’t know she could still swim until she took several strokes to reach what she could now see was definitely Charley.

  She grabbed his arm and he erupted from the water like Nessie, spraying water in an arc that hit Frankie in the face.

  ‘What the fuck, Charley?’ She smacked him in the shoulder. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I …’ His forehead creased, the lack of hair and eyebrows causing the wrinkles to appear more pronounced.

  ‘Come on.’ She pulled him toward the pier and together they clambered out, then sat in a heap of soaked clothes as they tried to get their breath. Frankie thought she might be having the heart attack she’d been expecting for years.

  ‘I keep seeing her here.’ Charley pointed to the gently lapping waves. ‘Floating.’ He shook his head. ‘Why do I keep seeing that?’

  Was the chemo actually working?

  ‘What do you remember?’

  ‘Remember?’ he echoed.

  ‘About Lisa.’

  ‘She’s at camp. She’ll be here soon. She’s five.’ He rubbed his bald head like a talisman. ‘Isn’t she?’

  Now was the time for the truth. Where should she start?

  Despite the golden, heated rays of the sun, Charley was pale and clammy. The lines around his mouth reminded her of a very old man with dentures, holding his lips tightly shut so they didn’t fall out. His hands shook; they appeared a little blue.

  She took one. It was like ice.

  ‘We need to get out of these wet clothes.’ She tugged him toward the house.

  He hung back. ‘You know why I see her there, don’t you?’

  His eyes pleaded, but were they pleading for the truth or yet another lie?

  ‘Charley, you see Lisa in the water because …’

  His fingers tightened on hers so hard and fast several of her knuckles cracked.

  ‘Because …’ She couldn’t find the words. Where were her words?

  Drowned.

  Dead.

  Gone.

  Forever.

  She hated those words.

  ‘Because why, Fancy?’ Charley appeared old, sick, scared. When had that happened?

  ‘Because you had a dream,’ she blurted. ‘They’re more vivid with the drugs. Seems like a memory, doesn’t it?’

  His eyes captured hers, searched hers. ‘It does.’

  ‘All you can do is let it go.’ She lifted her hand and touched his smooth cheek again. ‘Just let it go, baby.’

  She needed to take her own advice.

  ‘OK,’ he said, though he didn’t sound convinced. ‘I feel so close to her here.’

  Not exactly letting it go, Charley.

  ‘But I was never here with her except for that one time right after we bought the place. I regret that.’

  Frankie couldn’t speak through her own mountain of regrets. Why hadn’t she told him?

  ‘Remember how she liked strawberry jam on Saltines, peanut butter on apples, but the idea of mixing jam, bread and peanut butter grossed her out?’

  ‘I …’ Frankie began, but Charley kept talking, and she kept quiet, because everything he brought up was something she had forgotten.

  How could she have forgotten?

  ‘She wanted to move to Bali so she didn’t have to wear shoes any more and she could meet a sacred monkey.’ He laughed, though his haunted gaze kept flickering to the water. ‘Does she still prefer wintergreen toothpaste to spearmint but spearmint gum to wintergreen? I can never tell the difference.’

  Frankie could only shake her head. She’d forgotten that too. A minor detail, one that could easily slip away after twenty-odd years of buying only the toothpaste that she wanted. But, still, it bothered her.

  How many other things had she forgotten about her daughter while she was trying to forget the pain of losing her? Would she ever have remembered any of it if not for Charley?

  Doubtful, but she wouldn’t have had to force herself to forget so much just to survive if not for Charley.

  And that excuse was growing old. Like them.

  It seemed both petty and vengeful to keep hating him, but shouldn’t she?

  Yes. Because if she stopped, she was terrified she might start loving him again.

  Charley

  Soho. Late February, 1992

  ‘She saw,’ Charley said, his voice devoid of emotion, even though he seemed to be feeling all of them – pain, fear, anger, love, hate, loss, remorse, guilt, embarrassment. Just listing them made him dizzy. Or maybe that had been Frankie’s eyes.

  Which had been devastated.

  He hated himself, which seemed to be a constant lately. He’d been wondering if he’d ever be able to stop. Now he knew he would not.

  Hannah’s eyes opened. At first full of joy and pleasure, soon confusion filled them. ‘Saw? Who? My mother?’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about her. She’d never rock the cash boat.’

  ‘No.’ Charley started toward the door through which Frankie had disappeared, moving faster and faster the closer he got. ‘My wife.’

  ‘Wife?’ Hannah’s voice was so loud he winced, turned back.

  ‘I do have one.’

  ‘And she was here.’ Hannah pointed to the ground. ‘She saw.’ Now she flipped her finger back and forth between them.

  ‘I have to go.’ He hurried through the still-lush crowd. It was hard to believe, but he thought there were more people there now than when he’d left.

  Hannah’s mother tried to flag him down, but he caught a glimpse of Frankie’s coat – a long, black leather job he’d brought back from Milan … whenever he’d been in Milan. As far as he knew, she’d never worn it. Said it was far too nice for anywhere that she went.

  Why was he focusing on irrelevant details? So he didn’t have to focus on the relevant ones.

  Frankie had seen him kissing Hannah.

  Snow had just started to tumble down. Charley skidded through the fresh fluff on his shiny black suit shoes and nearly fell.

  Frankie was only a block away, headed for the subway station. If she reached it, she’d be gone. He couldn’t let that happen.

  ‘Frankie, wait!’

  She didn’t slow down. She didn’t glance back. She didn’t give any indication that she’d heard him at all.

  He sped up, gritting his teeth and refusing to slide, refusing to fall. How was she managing such speed in the heels he’d never seen her wear before either?

  He caught up to her at the stairs. Didn’t touch her – contrary to his recent behavior he wasn’t a complete idiot – just said her name once.

  She paused, sighed, turned. Tears streamed down her face.

  He wanted to die.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Hannah. You know … that’s … Hannah.’

  ‘The child, the twin, the kid?’

  Was that how he’d described her?

  People streamed past them down the stairs. The snow picked up, slinging icy pellets against their skin.

  Frankie gave a little flinch every time one hit her, giving the impression that she suddenly possessed a facial tic.

  ‘We should go inside.’

  She laughed and he stared at her amazed. Who laughed with a face full of tears?

  Nobody but Frankie.

  ‘I don’t think I want to walk through a crowd of people who know you’re boinking a bimbo.’

  How tacky and cliché his life had become. Something he’d always strived to avoid.

  ‘They don’t … I’m not … She isn’t …’

&
nbsp; ‘Just shh.’ Frankie flipped her hand up like a crossing guard calling halt.

  She was wearing the leather gloves he’d bought her too. What did that mean?

  Probably that it was snowing outside. Or maybe it had been a balmy minus ten when she’d left Milwaukee.

  ‘I know what you look like when you kiss someone and you mean it, Charley. That was it.’ She let out a huff of air. ‘Is there anywhere we can go that your fan club won’t see us?’

  ‘There’s … uh … an alley entrance.’ He reached for her arm.

  She drew back, her nose wrinkling as if she smelled something rotten.

  He let his hand fall to his side and just led the way, glancing back every few seconds to make sure she didn’t dart into the crowd.

  At the gallery, people had returned to the appetizers and champagne. He’d been afraid they would be staring out the window, trying to see what was happening. But this was New York. No one cared.

  He was also afraid the side door would now be locked and he’d have to go around to the front and beg a key, but it was as open as it had been earlier. Perhaps the waiters used it for cigarette breaks.

  They reached the employee lunch room. Hannah wasn’t there. Charley wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  Frankie crossed the floor to the exact place he’d found Hannah earlier, standing in front of the huge window, staring at the night. ‘How long?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘How. Long.’ She didn’t shout; she didn’t need to.

  ‘After Heath died.’

  ‘How many others?’

  ‘What?’ He stiffened. ‘None!’

  She snorted.

  ‘I swear.’

  She turned at last.

  He almost wished she’d stayed facing the other way. Her expression terrified him. Bad things were coming, things as bad as any that had come before.

  ‘Pardon me, Charley, if I don’t believe your professions of chastity.’

  Because he was scared, because he was guilty – so, so guilty of so many things – he let anger drive his tongue. ‘You act like you caught me boffing the help.’

  ‘Didn’t I? I thought she was an editorial assistant. Couldn’t you manage to fuck an editor or higher?’

  ‘When did you get so nasty?’

  ‘When I brought my daughter home in an urn. I’ve been waiting for it to fade, but I don’t think it’s going to.’