And what bed would we lie in? And would we make babies together? And would he write songs about me? And would women in town treat me differently, whisper behind their cupped hands and smile at me stiffly when I paid for groceries with fifty-dollar bills? Or would everything be the same? Would Lee and I come over to Henry’s house and have dinner with him and his wife, their children buzzing all around us, and would I look at Henry and detect some infinite sadness, an emptiness that was my absence in his life?
The Escalade began rolling forward again and soon we were parked outside the terminal, the air hot and full of exhaust, the faint smell of final cigarettes and the snap of cinnamon gum. Henry collected our luggage from the back and shook hands with Kip. Ronny and Lucy stood on the curb, shifting their weight from leg to leg. They were dressed a little garishly, as if headed to Branson or Gatlinburg, or some other two-bit destination. I gave Kip a hug and he handed me a small package, small enough to fit inside my purse and wrapped in thick, brown paper.
“Would you please give this to Lee?” Kip asked me. His face was serious, etched with an emotion I had never seen before in him and I might have called remorse or resignation. “Tell him we’re happy for him, okay? Tell him congratulations. Will you do that for us please?”
“All right, campers,” Henry said, clapping his hands together, “let’s get moving.”
“New York City,” Ronny said. “New York City.”
* * *
Minneapolis is the nearest big airport to our town, though as I have said, we are from Wisconsin, and though the two states embrace each other along the Mississippi and the St. Croix, all the way up to Lake Superior and all the way down to Iowa and Illinois, I still feel that they are separate, unique places. And flying up and over Minneapolis and its skyscrapers and then over St. Paul’s older, more humble skyline, it felt as if I could draw a very detailed map of the landscape that grew in scope beneath me. The tapestries of fields, the ridgetop and valley bottom forests, the creeks glinting silver and blue, the teardrop ponds, the innumerable lakes, the yellow gravel roads and the blacktop lanes and highways. Then, directly below us, our town.
“Wave to the kids,” I said to Henry.
“You think that’s Little Wing?”
“Sure, look—there’re the railroad tracks, and the mill. The pond, the golf course. No seriously, look—you can tell because of the quarry, look at that water.”
“It’s almost turquoise,” Henry said, and nodded, “like the Caribbean. I still don’t think that’s Little Wing.”
I turned to him. “Why not?”
“That golf course only had nine holes, I think. Ours has got eighteen.”
“What? No, that one had eighteen.” I turned back to the window, but by then we were already over another city, a city that was much bigger than our town. Maybe Eau Claire. “I was sure that was Little Wing.”
“Wake me up when we get over Lake Michigan,” Henry said, closing his eyes.
Suddenly, Ronny was in the aisle.
“Hey Ronny,” I said.
“Yeah, hey—Lucy was wondering if you would trade seats with me so you could go back and talk about something.”
“Ronny, something?”
“I dunno, dresses or something. Shoes. She’s worried about her shoes.”
I nodded, collected my purse, and slid past Henry, who patted me gently on the butt. I was more than a little nervous about my own dress, but I wasn’t sure that Lucy would have been my first choice as fashion consultant. I moved into the aisle and Ronny jammed past me, jarring Henry. He threw himself into my seat, and peered out the window. I heard him ask Henry, “Did we pass Little Wing yet?”
I paused a moment in the aisle to allow a flight attendant to slide past me.
“Beth thought she saw it,” Henry mumbled. “Ronny, get some sleep.”
“Can’t sleep on planes,” Ronny said, “never could.”
“Did you fly a lot when you were doing the rodeo?” Henry asked.
“Never,” Ronny said. “We always drove ourselves. Or went Greyhound.”
Henry looked up at me and shook his head.
Lucy was waving me back, the bangles on her arms sounding like a tambourine. I smiled at her, folded into Ronny’s seat, and then felt a moment of uncertainty, that I had nothing to say to this woman, this stripper, whose body my husband had surely seen at Kip’s bachelor party. I placed my hands in my lap and felt uncomfortably proper.
“Leland must be a real nice guy to fly us all out there like this,” she said, turning her body toward me.
I nodded. “Well, you know, he adores Ronny.”
“He’s so famous! I didn’t even know who he was, but then Ronny was showing me all his scrapbooks and I mean, shit—Lee has been in Rolling Stone and Spin and even People.”
I was miffed not to be sitting next to Henry and I admit to being a little pissy with Lucy. “It’s true,” I said, “even People.”
“Okay, so, tell me about what you’re wearing,” Lucy said, undeterred.
I had been jogging every day since the afternoon Henry returned from the mailbox with Lee’s invitation. And I had been jogging hard. It was spring then, and desperate for the sun, desperate for fresh air, I would get the kids sent off to school, clean up the kitchen, and then hit the back roads jogging as the day warmed, the air still cool and damp.
I wanted my body to be lean for the wedding; I did not want to be standing in some posh New York City hotel lobby looking frumpy and pale, like some backwater wallflower. So mornings when the vernal ditches sluiced noisily with meltwater and over the unplanted fields terrestrial fog hung in the air, like so many surprised ghosts, I went running, the gravel beneath my sneakers soft and a little unsteady. The first morning, the most important thing to me was not to stop, so I ran all the way into town. Five miles. By the time I reached Little Wing, my feet were riddled with so many blisters I was forced to call Henry and have him pick me up from the library.
But it became easier after that, more fluid. Leaving Henry to his cows and machines and fields, I would run down the driveway and out onto County Road X, waving at slowly passing pickup trucks and tractors. One day, I decided to run out to Kip and Felicia’s place. It was seven miles, but the morning was young, the temperature perfectly mild, and so I found a sustainable pace and grooved there, aware of my breathing, the bounce of my body.
As I jogged up their driveway, Felicia waved to me from their wall of south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows. I had hoped to surprise her, to discover her not in fact working, but perhaps loafing around the floor plan of their sprawling, immaculate house. Or maybe watching soaps or some inane game shows. If I was real lucky, she might even be sprawled out on their couch, eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles while she guffawed at the cartoons, colored cereal lodged between her teeth. I had wanted to catch her in disarray, hair piled atop her head as if a squirrel’s nest, in her pajamas and glasses, last night’s facial mask still caked to her cheeks, chin, and forehead. But no—even from their driveway I could see she was put together in slim yoga pants and a sleeveless shirt, her hair looking as if she’d just been to the salon that morning. In one hand she held a coffee mug, and I could see that she was speaking into a cordless telephone with the other. She motioned me inside, as if I had wandered into her office without an appointment. Which was actually exactly what I had done.
Twenty feet from their front door I broke my pace and began stretching my aching legs. I was pleased not to be out of breath, that the running was already changing me. One of the things I liked best about being pregnant was that my body offered me surprises; that I could somehow contain this little secret, and then deliver it out into the world, and endure such pain, my very bones yielding and bending, my body immediately capable of feeding a new person; immediately! I could see then, in those moments after a long run, that exercise could take on that same unexpected hue—that I could surprise myself and run ten miles without much discomfort.
“How about a bottle of c
old water,” Felicia said, holding their glass door open. “Come on in here and take those shoes off. Sit down and relax.”
“Water sounds divine,” I said. “Busy morning?”
“Not really. That was just Kip calling. With all the spring rain and melting, they’ve got water in the basement of the mill and he’s spending more money, installing sump pumps and a new drainage system.” She shook her head. “I get what he’s trying to do. I get his vision for the place. But, Beth, I gotta level with you. The place is a goddamn money pit.”
“Maybe it won’t always be,” I offered.
“You’re too kind. Anyway … let’s talk about something else, okay? Please.”
“Well,” I said, all of a sudden uncertain, “I do have a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“I need a killer dress.”
“Black or red?”
“Hmm. Maybe black.”
“Come with me,” she said, moving off toward their bedroom. I followed, gingerly at first, and then with unabashed curiosity. I had been in their house before, once. It had been a welcoming party, their first summer in town, and though Kip had guided groups through the house, calling attention to lumber salvaged from long-since-demolished Chicago department stores and industrial fixtures scavenged from defunct Milwaukee breweries, I could not remember entering their bedroom.
It was stark, modern, white. A vase of daffodils stood on each bedside table. The bed was perfectly made, and dozens of throw pillows festooned it near the headboard. The space seemed too big, too empty for my taste, but then I remembered my own bedroom, our bedroom back home. The walls practically bowed with family pictures, threadbare chairs in the corners, paperback mysteries stacked three-deep on Henry’s nightstand alongside the old clock radio, romance novels and Kleenex on mine. Clothing everywhere and every surface covered: parental consent forms from school, children’s books, perfume bottles, cologne bottles, shoehorns, and lotions. Not even for an instant was I envious of Felicia’s life, which then appeared before me as so fashionably barren. Ours was a home. A nest. A place well lived in, and loved. Maybe it’s a good thing, from time to time, to spy on other people’s lives. For me, anyway, it has the effect of making my own life feel like a well-loved thing.
“Here,” Felicia said at last, emerging from a cavernous walk-in closet. “Try this.” She held a dress up against me. I was aware then of my own perspiration, and inched backward. She stepped toward me, following me. “Don’t be silly—come on.”
“Felicia, I can’t.”
“Please. Try it on. Look, if you hate it, I’m just going to take it to Saint Vinnie’s.”
I did as she said. And it was perfect, the dress. We chatted the remaining hours of the morning away, and then, graciously, she offered me a ride home. On the drive, gazing out the window of her Land Rover, I thought about the fact that she and Kip had not been invited to Lee’s wedding, and though it made perfect sense, it also seemed unfair to her, this woman who had done nothing wrong to Lee or Chloe, and who had been nothing but decent to me. Better to me, truth be told, than I had been to her. For all of our Middlewestern niceness, I realized that we, that I, could be every bit as cold as our longest season.
Slipping Felicia’s dress on in front of the mirror back home, I stood on my tiptoes, and imagined what shoes I’d wear. The dress was silk, but felt more like a part of my own body—as if some dark paint had been applied to every curve, every muscle, every bone of my being, rendering me no longer nude, no longer a figure even, but an invitation.
* * *
“I don’t know how to describe it,” I told Lucy, “it’s almost too sexy, without actually being too sexy. It makes me feel younger. I don’t know. That probably doesn’t make any sense.” I felt embarrassed, opening up to her, this almost-stranger, about my body, about what I thought was sexy or not.
Lucy put her hand on my forearm and looked at me meaningfully. “Girl,” she said, “I hope to Jesus there’s no such a thing as ‘too sexy,’ ’cause I intend to let it all hang out.”
I smiled. Over her shoulder, I could see Lake Michigan, its millions and millions of scalloped waves shimmering like blue and silver sequins.
* * *
LaGuardia was stifling hot, and the cab ride into the city as different from Minneapolis as imaginable—the traffic dense, erratic, competitive. I held Henry’s hand the whole way, and not out of affection. I felt as if I had just boarded a malfunctioning rollercoaster or a rocket. Ronny naturally took shotgun, intrigued by the Sikh driver’s orange turban and walrus beard, and frequently turned to face us through the glass partition, grinning wildly.
The hotel lobby was cool, the carpeting thick and inviting beneath my swollen feet. I tried not to gawk at the lobby’s grand furnishings, or the other guests streaming past us in their chic sunglasses and unwrinkled linens and silks. Although some, I noticed, were not suave enough to leash their own stares when Ronny waltzed into the lobby, holy cowing the scene entire, his cowboy boots announcing him like a drumroll.
At check-in, the concierge informed us that our rooms were already paid for, courtesy of a Mr. Leland Sutton.
“Goddamn it, Lee!” Henry hissed, though I suspected he was just as relieved as I was, given that the rooms would have cost us upward of five hundred dollars or more a night, money that we just didn’t have.
“He also left you this,” said the concierge, handing us an envelope. The paper carried Lee’s sloppy left-handed chicken scratchings. Henry opened it.
Dinner tonight at Chloe’s. A car will pick you up at seven. Enjoy the city.
Love, Lee
“Hey Ronny,” Henry said, “you two lovebirds gonna be all right? Beth and I might just take a nap.”
Ronny’s arm was around Lucy’s waist. The smile that formed over his face broke slowly, exposing all of his teeth, and making his eyes shine. He nodded at us, as if privy to some secret of ours, something juicy and incriminating.
“Oh, we’ll be all right,” Ronny said suggestively. “We was just about to head up to our room to take a nap too, right, Luce?”
He slapped her ass playfully, right there in the lobby of that five-star hotel. I glanced quickly at the concierge, whose look of amused disdain might have been worth the cost of the trip alone, had we to pay it. Ronny nudged the gas-station sunglasses off the crown of his head and down onto the crooked perch of his nose. He showed his magnetic room key to us like a golden ticket, and said, “Sometimes I even nap with my boots on.”
* * *
I do not relish leaving home, leaving my children, leaving the familiarity of my bed, my coffee maker, my slippers. But I do love hotels.
Up in the room I kicked off my shoes and immediately went to the window. Below us were the HVAC units of a lower building and off to the side were the skeletal fire escapes. Above: taller skyscrapers, clots of pigeons racing through the sky, and a single sheet of newspaper, somehow blown hundreds of feet up off the hot pavement below. The din of car horns, though muffled by the triple-glazed windows before me, was incessant, like a hidden alarm or a telephone ringing off the hook in some vast warehouse. I called my parents, eager to verify that our children were still, indeed, alive.
“We’re doing fine,” my dad said. “Haven’t eaten anything but pancakes, chocolate chips, and maple syrup since you left.”
“The kids are doing okay?”
“Kids?” Dad asked, calling out away from the phone. “You okay?”
I heard no response from the muted background.
“They’re okay,” he said. “We were thinking about maybe driving into Eau Claire, go see a movie at the mall or something.”
“They’d love that.”
“How’s New York? Your mom and I haven’t been there since before you were born. Still just a bunch of hookers and porno theaters?”
“Oh, Dad, I don’t think it’s been that way for a while now.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, I ran my hand over the duvet, appraised the new television, th
e framed art prints on the wall. In the bathroom, Henry was trimming his nose hairs with little scissors, his shirt off, studying himself in the mirror. I watched as he ran his hands over the gray hair above his ears. He frowned at himself.
“Well all right, pumpkin,” Dad said. “Enjoy yourselves, okay? And if you don’t hear from us, everyone’s probably alive and well.”
“Probably?”
“All right then,” he said, cheerfully, and hung up.
“I love you,” I told the dial tone.
Henry came out of the bathroom, a length of floss wrapped around two fingers. He sawed at his teeth and gums, as if with a bow. “Wanna go for a walk?” he asked.
I thought about Ronny and Lucy in their room, and for a moment, I have to say that it did turn me on, the notion of a cowboy and this stripper, fucking with abandon in a New York City hotel room, cowboy boots and heels still on, their anonymous bed frame rattling almost apart. They seemed well matched that way, though I can’t say that I had ever given much thought to who Ronny might end up with, because if I was honest, I would have told you that I doubted he would have found someone. I put my hands over my eyes and shook my head, trying to disrupt the image I had formed of them.
“Yeah,” I said, “I would like to stretch my legs, I think.”
“You going to wear sneakers?” Henry asked.
“It’s either that or the heels I brought for the wedding.”
He nodded. “I know. I’m in the same boat. But I don’t want to look like a goofball. This is a pretty high-class joint.”
“Well,” I said, “we can look stupid together.” Then I motioned him toward the bed. “But maybe we oughta take care of something first.”
* * *
We rode the elevator down to the lobby, in our sneakers, holding hands, feeling as if we had accomplished something, which was true. It isn’t very romantic, but after you’ve been married almost ten years, an afternoon fuck can feel like you’ve gotten away with a minor crime, an act as thrilling and banal as shoplifting. And with the kids, that element of our marriage had become at once more satisfying and a great deal less frequent. As partners, as lovers, we’ve become better attuned to each other, to each other’s bodies. We know what things to whisper, to scream, to beg for. But it isn’t as if we’re making love every night. Sometimes, a week goes by, or two. Especially in the fall, during harvest, when Henry comes back into the house late at night, corn dust and loose loam caked all over his body and in his nose, every fiber of his hair dirty, his eyes red and tired.
Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel Page 8
