by Lisa Tucker
From that point on, I was proud to call him by his given name. He was Stephen now, my first friend.
four
STEPHEN SPAULDING was lying on his couch at 2:47 a.m., wide awake. Nothing unusual about that. He’d had insomnia nine nights out of ten since the accident. What was unusual were his thoughts, or more precisely that he was letting himself think, rather than turning on the TV or drinking himself senseless or even staring at the ceiling until his mind was perfectly blank, something he’d become an expert at in the two years since he’d lost Ellen and Lizzie. Maybe the explanation was simple: he finally had something to think about. He could, for instance, wonder if he was losing his mind. He could wonder what the hell he’d gotten himself into, bringing that woman back to his apartment.
He’d driven her all the way to the Radisson first, despite how frightened she’d looked when he suggested it. She admitted she’d never stayed in a hotel before—why wasn’t he surprised? She also admitted that she’d never spent a night away from home before, except on the Greyhound bus, which really didn’t count, she said, because it wasn’t like night when you were traveling on a bus. You didn’t have to sleep. You could hear talking at all hours. It was friendlier than she’d expected. Nothing like being alone in a room in a strange place.
“I’ll help you check in,” he said. “But then I really have to go.”
She didn’t protest, only said thank you. Yet before they were even through the Radisson front door, he heard her start with the goofy singing again. He checked her pulse and it was up to 165. Not as bad as outside the hospital, when she was at 202, but still a cause for concern.
Her reaction when he suggested she stay with him instead was just another in a seemingly endless list of weird things about her. She said, “Do you have any extra socks?”
He couldn’t help laughing, but this time rather than staring at him like she’d never seen a person laugh before, she laughed too. Who knows what she would have said if he’d asked her why. In any case, it wasn’t long before she was back to the vaguely sad expression she’d had all day.
Was he trying to make her happier by offering to take her to the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart? No, he told himself, he was just passing the time. It was only nine-thirty. Too early to go to his apartment, especially as she’d spent the afternoon asleep in his cab. Maybe some part of him was thinking it would be distracting for her. Wherever she was from—and he still hadn’t asked her, he hadn’t wanted to pry—she’d obviously never been to a Wal-Mart.
Her first reaction was the overwhelmed shyness he’d seen every time they stopped at another dump looking for her brother. She’d actually stepped behind him when the Wal-Mart greeter came forward. “Who is that person?” she whispered. “Do you know her?” But after about ten minutes, she seemed to get comfortable, and then the rapid-fire questions began. She was curious about damn near everything: from address books to headphones, from a cappuccino maker to a shag toilet seat cover. “What is this used for? Do most people own one of these? Do you think I should buy one for my father?”
He talked her out of buying everything except a large jar of pickles and some normal clothes. “We can come back again before you leave,” he told her, though he wondered later why on earth he’d suggested that. And why he’d stood outside of the dressing room—guarding the door for her, supposedly, like she’d asked—while she tried on skirts and dresses? (No pants, she said, she wasn’t sure her father would approve. Stephen wondered if her dad was some kind of religious nut.)
He was dreading the idea that she would ask his opinion as she was trying things on. How could he know which looked best? With Ellen, it had always come down to two questions: Does it make me look fat? Does it make my boobs look too big? They were both ridiculous, but he’d gotten good at helping her find something she was happy with. He couldn’t imagine Dorothea asking either of these questions, but even if the questions were only in his mind, it would be a problem. Hell, even that they could have been in his mind was already a problem, because wasn’t he thinking about Dorothea’s body even as he thought that he couldn’t think about those questions?
Luckily, she came out of the dressing room after only a few minutes, ready to go. She said she’d picked two outfits, adding, “I hope they will keep Dr. Phillips from being so rude.”
Stephen had already told her they would go back to the hospital tomorrow. What he hadn’t told her was most of the day-shift psych attendings were decent people, not assholes like Jay Phillips. Even if they couldn’t release Jimmy to her—which they just might, considering that Dorothea was a relative and Phillips had told him they’d had Jimmy for weeks at this point—they would at least let her see her brother.
But of course none of this had anything to do with her clothes. After he asked her why she thought it did, she said, “You have on a very modern outfit. I’ve seen several men wearing tan pants and a blue shirt, though most of them aren’t as trim as you. Even your brown shoes seem to be a very popular style.”
He blinked at her. “Not sure I follow.”
“Dr. Phillips wasn’t rude to you.”
He told her it wasn’t his clothes, but he didn’t explain. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you think I could meet you in the socks?” he said, nodding across the aisle. “It’s right over there.”
“Fine.” Though she looked confused, she didn’t ask any questions for once.
He headed outside to think—and to smoke. A bad habit from his teen years that he’d taken up again since he started driving the cab. He wasn’t addicted because he could go a whole day without a cigarette, but he could also have one when he really needed one, like right now.
When he returned, he discovered that Dorothea had found a basket and loaded it up with her new clothes and jar of pickles and what appeared to be at least a dozen pairs of knee-highs. “I’ve always liked socks,” she said, a little sheepishly.
He waited until they’d made it through the mercifully short checkout line. They were walking to the cab when he told her, “I don’t want you to do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Try to figure out why a guy like Phillips is rude. I know you come from a nicer place, but this is the real world. People can be bastards for no reason. It has nothing to do with your clothes.”
“Something made him treat me like I was beneath him though. If it wasn’t my clothes, then what was it?”
“You’re doing it again.” He exhaled. “Look, I know Phillips. I used to work with him, and he would treat anyone in your position the same way.”
“And what is my position?”
“Your brother is in the county hospital. It’s one of the few hospitals in the city that has to take any patient.” He shifted the bag from one hand to the other, wondering if this would insult her or if she would even understand it. “What I’m saying is they mainly treat people who can’t afford to pay.”
She didn’t respond for a moment. Then she smiled. “But this means there is a reason for the rudeness, doesn’t it? It’s not as incomprehensible as you said.”
He gave up then, though he was still annoyed at the idea of her trying to understand that prick Phillips. Come to think of it, it bothered him how hard she was trying, period. All day, he’d watched her trying to figure things out and trying to adapt and trying not to panic and trying not to cry and trying to breathe deeply and trying to stay positive. So much trying, and for what? The world she was struggling so hard to understand was ultimately pointless, which he knew as well as anyone. There was no reason for fifty percent of what happened in life, and the other half wasn’t really important.
Not that any of this was an excuse for what he said to her. He’d been an ass on the way home from Wal-Mart, and he still felt bad every time he thought about it. She was sitting in the front of the Checker, talking about a subject that was obviously very important to her: the wonderful qualities of her father. Charles O’Brien, according to his daughter anyway, was the most intelligent
, humane, patient, loving, thoughtful person imaginable. He lived by the highest principles. He would never cheat or steal or deceive, not because he would get caught, but because it was immoral.
Stephen would have bet good money Charles O’Brien didn’t deserve all this praise, but he didn’t mind listening to it. He remembered when his own daughter, Lizzie, used to talk like her daddy was the greatest guy on earth, like there was nothing he couldn’t do for her. Of course she was only four years old. He thought she’d have plenty of time to figure out she was wrong.
“Father always says the pure-hearted person would rather lose the world than lose his soul,” Dorothea said. Stephen was still listening. No reaction yet. But then she continued, “He himself would rather die than violate one of his principles.”
He felt so angry that he spoke before he could stop himself. The words he used were bad enough, but his tone made it even worse.
“He’d rather die?” Stephen’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, but he laughed harshly. “Good for him, since I’m sure he doesn’t know a damn thing about what death is like.”
“But no one knows what death is like,” she said, so quietly he could barely hear her.
“Some people know enough not to make idiotic statements about dying for principles.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Doctors, for instance. Anyone who’s ever lost a person they loved. Hell, anyone who has an imagination, even if they haven’t suffered themselves.”
“Father has suffered though.”
“I’m sure he has,” Stephen said, and laughed again.
She waited for a full minute or more. Maybe she was giving him time to calm down a little. More likely, she was composing herself, gathering her courage, trying, as always.
“I don’t think you want to laugh the way you have at me.” Her voice was surprisingly steady. “It seems cruel, and you’re not a cruel man.”
He hit the brakes as a Pontiac cut in front of him to get in the left turn lane. “Shit,” he mumbled, but he knew he wasn’t cursing at the car. Finally he said, as much to himself as to her, “Maybe I am.”
“No,” she said firmly. “You just made a mistake. That’s what Father always said to Jimmy and me when we hurt each other. He said our goodwill was a given, so what else could it be but a mistake?”
He was a little surprised. Her father sounded like an old-school moralist and “mistake” wasn’t the word that kind of person would normally use for bad behavior. Maybe Charles O’Brien made excuses for his children, which would be understandable, Stephen thought. A lot more understandable than Dorothea making excuses for what Stephen himself had just done.
He told her he was sorry and took a long breath. “I’m sure your father has suffered. In any case, I had no right to talk to you that way.”
“Oh, he has. He lost his wife, my mother, when Jimmy and I were small children. Grandma used to say he never completely recovered. Then Grandma herself died not even two years ago, though she was eighty-seven, and as Father said, she’d had a long, good life.”
Dorothea paused for a moment before glancing at him. “But I hope you won’t feel too bad about this. You’ve been very kind to me all day, and I know it can’t have been easy for you. From the moment you picked me up at the bus station, you’ve seemed very tired. I think if you get some rest, you won’t feel so despondent.”
He had the strangest feeling then, as if he were hovering above his own life, and seeing it, for once, with something like sympathy. But of course it was her sympathy he was feeling. Her recognition of what had become for him a near perpetual state of exhaustion.
When they arrived at his apartment, she told him they both must go straight to sleep. He was expecting her to look around, to zero in on the picture of Ellen and Lizzie on his stereo and ask who they were, to force him with her curiosity to say what had happened. He was so grateful that she hadn’t; he knew this was why he’d talked so much as he was changing the sheets. Dorothea stood there with her arms crossed tightly against her chest, naturally uncomfortable being with a man in his bedroom (as later, Stephen knew he should have realized), while he told her a very long story about the ridiculously expensive house Jay Phillips had purchased a few years ago because he hoped to impress the other residents, but no one liked him enough to come to any of his parties, and finally he sold it and bought a condo in Aspen instead.
She didn’t interrupt, but the second the story ended she said, “Stephen?”
Her voice was a tiny squeak, and he turned to look at her. He was sitting on the freshly made bed and she was still standing. And she wasn’t just blushing; her entire pale face had been transformed to bright pink.
“Of course I’ll be on the couch,” he said quickly, stumbling over his own feet, he jumped up so fast.
She tried to tell him she didn’t want to take his room, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He mumbled something about the location of the towels and toothpaste in the bathroom and then he bolted into the living room. He didn’t turn on the TV or take off his shoes or let himself flop down on the couch until she came out of the bathroom and he heard the bedroom door close.
He was finally relaxing about twenty minutes later when he realized she was standing in the doorway, looking at him. He had no idea how long she’d been there. The television was on, some sitcom. He’d been flipping channels, not really watching.
“I just wanted to ask …”
“Yes?” he said, muting the TV and sitting up. She was still wearing her fifties skirt and sweater, but she’d changed into one of the new pairs of socks and she didn’t have on her shoes. But her hair was the main difference. It was no longer twisted on top of her head, but hanging down almost to her knees. He wondered when she’d last had a haircut, if ever.
“Do you have a book I might read?”
“What kind of book?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, looking at her hands. “It’s just that I’m finding it difficult to sleep.”
He pointed at the set. “Would you rather watch TV? I’m sure there’s something decent on.”
“Oh, I’d love to. I’ve never done that before.”
“Never?” he said, more out of habit than real curiosity. At this point, nothing she told him seemed all that surprising.
“May I?” she said, pointing at the chair by the window. He nodded and she sat down. He noticed her hair almost touched the floor. “Actually, that’s not completely true. I have watched television, as Jimmy has told me so many times. He finds it very annoying that I can’t remember, because you see he was six when we left California and he remembers everything. But I was four, and no memories have come to me.” She paused and her voice became sad. “I suppose it was annoying.”
He knew she was worrying about her brother again. He told her Jimmy would be all right, to make her feel better, but also because he believed it. Even Phillips said the Zoloft seemed to be working. Whatever had happened to cause the breakdown—and it wasn’t hard to guess, given the places Jimmy had been living, that it probably had something to do with drugs—once Dorothea took him home, he could get healthy and figure out what he wanted to do next. Maybe he would avoid cities completely and just paint. He had real talent, even if his style ran a little to the macabre.
“Thank you,” she said, and smiled. Her smiles were so genuine, they were nearly impossible to resist.
He smiled back, but then he looked away and picked up the remote. “Let’s see what we can find.”
It was eleven-thirty when they started watching television and two a.m. when he finally turned off the set, telling her they really needed to go to sleep. The entire time Dorothea’s eyes barely left the screen, even during commercials. She didn’t ask any questions either. He glanced at her occasionally, wondering what she was making of all this. He’d never been more aware of how crude television had become, with all the Viagra ads and toilet humor and sexual innuendos. Too bad she couldn’t have started like he had with The Brady Bunch and “relief equa
ls Rolaids.”
“You must be tired,” he said.
“Oh, I am. I’ve never stayed up this long in my life. And I mean never ever.”
“How does it feel?”
“Great!” she said. “This was tremendously fun.” “I don’t know if I should be proud of myself,” he said. “I’ve turned a person who would talk about the meaning of the word ‘theory’ and casually mention Einstein into someone who can watch an hour of Jay Leno and an hour and a half of an Adam Sandler movie.” He shrugged off his own comment, but he did feel a little guilty.
“Yes,” she said.
“What?”
“Yes, you should be proud of yourself.” She stood up, and he watched her hair fall down her back. “That’s what Father told Jimmy and me and I think he would say the same thing to you. As long as you’re trying your best, you have nothing else to worry about.”
His own parents had said something similar when he was in medical school and overwhelmed by the work. Of course they were extremely disappointed when he gave up his practice and even more so when he told them about the cab. They said he was only driving the cab because of the car accident, and he knew they might be right; he even vaguely remembered a psych lecture on “repetition compulsion” after trauma. But he also knew it didn’t make any difference. How could it matter why he was driving the cab when nothing made any difference anymore?
“And what if I’m not trying my best?” he said quietly.
“Then you will tomorrow.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. She smiled. “Tomorrow is another day.”
He knew she was probably quoting the book Gone With the Wind, but after she went into the bedroom, and he’d turned off the lamp and lain down on the couch, he found himself thinking about the movie. He’d watched it because it was one of those films Ellen had always wanted to watch. He couldn’t say whether his wife would have liked it, but he knew she would have wanted to discuss the differences between Scarlett and Melanie and what they should and shouldn’t have done. It was something he always thought was cute: the way Ellen talked about characters in movies and books as if they were real people.
