Everyone but You

by Sandra Novack

  Raulp turns his back to her. “Fine,” he says. “You’re upset and I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry.”

  “We won’t talk about it.”

  “Fine,” she says. “Let’s not.”

  “Do you want to have sex?” he asks. “Because we can have sex.”

  “Jesus, not now. Now I don’t even want to be in bed with you.”

  She stares out their bedroom window absently, wishes for sleep. After an hour passes, Raulp begins to snore. Sylvia gets out of bed, puts on a robe, and goes down to Ralph’s studio. It is an act of desperation, she realizes, this snooping around. She rummages through the sketches of Reese that he’s laid out across a worktable. She studies the softened lines of Reese’s nose and chin, the tentative touch of Raulp’s hand as it shaped the curve of Reese’s cheeks and chest. In one sketch, Reese sits on the love seat, her gaze diverted in an embarrassed but nuanced way. In another, Reese leans forward, intently holding Raulp’s gaze. There’s something in this pose that reminds her of the painting Raulp had done of Sylvia so many years before. “Expectant yearning,” he had joked that evening when the chill hit Sylvia’s skin. “A precursor to sex,” she told him, and it was.

  SYLVIA WORKS at Riverdale Ink, pricing books on bird watching and art and folk remedies for things like rheumatoid arthritis. The owner, Mr. Lesser, is a shy, eighty-year-old man, and every day when Sylvia arrives to work he says, without fail, “Good morning, Sylvia. I’ll be on call.” Then he nods and shuffles into the back office, where he spends the rest of the day devouring romance novels. Like an old married couple, she and Mr. Lesser have fallen into a predictable routine. Her entire job, really, is pleasingly monotonous. She likes the old-fashioned wooden signs hanging over the aisles that read Health Care, Psychology, The Occult. She likes the neatly stacked books, alphabetized according to subject and author. And how else but with a job like this could she become so dangerously knowledgeable about so many things? Where could she learn about tattooing, invertebrate zoology, entropy? Theories of the universe? She’d once gone on a quantum mechanics kick, explaining to Raulp over dinner the intricacies of physics, but she had to quit when, eventually, after about three minutes, she confused herself. But that was life, there you go, the accumulation of useless and sometimes dangerous knowledge, pounds of it, in fact.

  During the day’s usual afternoon lull, Sylvia sits perched on a stool and reads A Tale of Sexual Behavior. Monogamy, in nature, it turns out, is considered deviant. Lions aren’t monogamous. Caribou aren’t monogamous, nor are cows, nor are any of Raulp’s animal subjects. It all seems so evident when she reads it, and she feels that sort of desperation that comes on pre–middle age, when you realize that this is it—life is what it is and frankly, while it’s not so bad it’s not great either. She notes with resentment that Raulp has never painted a vulture, the one creature that is actually faithful to its mate. Of course they also spend their lives gorging on carrion, so what does that prove?

  The door clangs and Sylvia catches sight of Reese, who smiles in a curt way. She sends up a little wave but then quickly averts her gaze. Reese wears a trench coat and jeans. She shakes rain off her oversized umbrella before pulling it down and leaning it against the trash can at the front entrance. Sylvia watches as Reese lumbers a few feet. She stops at a table towering with books. She picks one up absently and leafs through it.

  “Can I help you?” Sylvia asks too brightly. “Coffee table read? Romance? Comics?”

  Reese holds her shoulders in a rigid, determined way. She moves toward the counter. “Art,” Reese says. Her eyes are sparkling. “I wanted to buy a book for Raulp.”

  “No kidding,” Sylvia says.

  “Raulp’s a genius, don’t you agree?”

  “Let me give you some advice,” she says. “Try not to act too smitten.”

  “Excuse me?” Reese asks.

  “Let’s not pretend,” Sylvia says. “Art!” she adds, in her ta-da voice. “Acting!”

  Reese stands up straighter. “I’m sure I can manage to find the art section on my own,” she says. “Raulp is a good man. I don’t think you appreciate that, or know how much he wants approval.”

  “Excuse me?” Sylvia asks. “You’ve known my husband a few hours and now you’re some expert?”

  Reese pushes her hair back and stares at Sylvia in a steely way. “At least I can see when someone is disappointed in me.”

  OH, HOW SYLVIA WANTED to throttle the girl. Absolutely throttle her. But instead she rang up Reese’s sale and made change, then spent the following hour complaining to Mr. Lesser. Why, she wanted to know, are kids such know-it-alls? Why, she asked, can’t men stay interested in one person? “All quite a quandary,” Mr. Lesser agreed, and he lent Sylvia a romance book for good measure.

  Now, at home this rainy evening, she listens to Raulp as he sits at the dinner table and talks about Reese’s gift. “She brought it over this afternoon,” he says. Then, when Sylvia, fuming, makes ugly comments about Reese’s foot, he adds, mildly, “She’s a nice kid.” This, as if Reese weren’t perfectly old enough to sleep with, as if an affair was so far-fetched Sylvia might as well put it from her mind.

  “They could end up in bed,” Sylvia tells her friend Martha over the phone later. “For Christ’s sake, they could end up marrying each other. It happens. It does!”

  Martha, Sylvia knows, is no putz about the ways of the world and middle-age boredom—she’s been married four times. She’s one of those serial marriers, which Martha often good-naturedly claims gives her the benefits of the mutual admiration society, the support group, and more variety in bed. “Sylv,” Martha says. She exhales in a way that lets Sylvia know she’s been smoking even after she promised to quit. “I don’t see it in Raulp. He’s just not the wandering type.”

  “Oh, really,” Sylvia says. “Well, have you seen him lately?”

  “It’s a phase,” Martha tells her. “So maybe he likes sketching this girl and painting—you said she was pretty.”

  “In a maimed sort of way,” Sylvia says miserably.

  “Trust me. It’ll wear off and he’ll get over it.”

  “Meanwhile there’s a nude girl sitting in what used to be my living room.”

  “Just tell him how you’re feeling.” Feeling, because Martha herself has been seeing a shrink of late. “Tell him what you want, but do it succinctly, Sylvia, and nicely. That’s the key—to be nice and not act like a lunatic, like you’re acting like now.”

  “Fine, then, lunatic out,” Sylvia says and hangs up on her friend.

  In the days following, she begins to make excuses to come home during the afternoons. Menstrual cramps. Migraine. Flu. Stomach pain. On this fourth day: diphtheria.

  “Diphtheria?” Mr. Lesser asks now. “Oh my, Sylvia. This is getting desperate.” He takes off his glasses and rubs them with a handkerchief.

  “What do I have to do, cough up a lung to go home? Because if you want me to, I’ll cough up a lung.”

  “No,” Mr. Lesser says. “I don’t need to see that, no. I couldn’t subject you to that.

  “Sylvia,” Mr. Lesser calls after her. “Say hello to Raulp for me, will you? I do hope everything is okay.”

  Sylvia’s cheeks flush. She’ll probably burn in hell for lying to Mr. Lesser, who is quite possibly, she decides, the nicest man in the world. “Will do,” she says.

  At home, she clomps into the house. “Forgot my umbrella!” she yells, too loudly. When Raulp appears in the front hallway, and when he points out that it’s been sunny all week, not a cloud in the sky, Sylvia only stares blankly and says, “So what does that prove?” From the studio Reese emerges, robed. “Hey, Sylv,” she says. “Home early again?”

  “Sylv?” Sylvia asks.

  Raulp pulls her into the kitchen. His voice moves to an angry, sharp whisper. “I mean it, Sylvia,” he says. “I need my space.”

  “Nude space,” she corrects.

  THAT EVENING, while Raulp goes into town to order
new art supplies, Sylvia stares at the finished painting of Reese. The girl sits at an angle, her right leg hanging off the love seat in an idle way, her left leg drawn up and bent slightly to her right, leaving one breast hidden, the other revealed. One arm rests on the back of the couch; the other falls to her side. Raulp’s added layer upon layer of paint to the canvas, to the point where Reese’s form appears thick, milky. He’s given her body weight and texture. Still, there’s something achingly feminine about the colors. Reese’s skin appears almost iridescent, liquid. Her lips part like a split peach. Her maimed foot spears solid, whole, with no discernable deformity. She stares straight ahead in an intent, serene way, holding her gaze tightly. Sylvia runs her hand across the textured surface. She breathes deeply, letting the smells of paint and turpentine infuse themselves into her burning nostrils.

  When Raulp comes home an hour later, Sylvia is sitting out on the porch steps, thinking about the two of them, and their marriage. If Reese means anything to Raulp, she decides, it cannot stand up to the years Sylvia and he have had together, to their own accidents and losses, their own efforts to hold things close over time. The smell of pine travels to her as does the faint scent of milk from the neighboring farm. It is a gorgeous early evening, really. Serene. Tranquil. The light is just starting to change, and the moon is just visible. Raulp gets out of his car and hands her a cup of coffee before sitting down next to her. “Nice night,” he says.

  “I saw the painting,” Sylvia tells him. “It’s good.”

  Raulp stares off, toward the open fields and wires.

  Sylvia sets her coffee down, studies him. It is possible, she knows, that Raulp met Reese in town, perhaps to celebrate the successful completion of the project, or to express his gratitude. Perhaps he was even so bold as to confess that he felt the thrill of a new attraction, that Reese has helped him to realize something about himself, something important that he’d forgotten. Or perhaps Sylvia is wrong completely. Perhaps Raulp simply went into town on his own and saw no one.

  “You want her,” she ventures.

  Raulp glances over at Sylvia but says nothing. They sit in silence, and Sylvia listens as, in the distance, the cows call out from the fields.

  “You want her,” she says again.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he tells her. “And that should count for something.”

  They fall into another long silence, and Sylvia thinks about time, and what miraculous grace is needed to keep love intact. She stares at the yellow-blue skyline, the last bits of light. “I’ve been thinking,” she tells him. “About trying again. I’ve been thinking that it’s time for a baby.”

  She pretends not to see the hurt and confusion that spread across his face. She cannot bear to ruin the moment, her own perfect vision and clarity in it—the thought of a new life in the house, the weight and substance it will bring to their marriage. Raulp refuses to look at her. Eventually, he stands up and walks out into the front yard. From the small shed on the corner of their property, he pulls out the lawn mower and rips at the cord until the engine roars. In the near darkness, Sylvia can make out the angular lines of his body. He pushes the mower into the high grass, knocking down weeds and the blanket of Queen Anne’s lace, and she waits for a sign—a wave of the hand, a smile, a nod—something that says they, despite everything, will be all right. After a few minutes, Raulp’s motions become monotonous, and Sylvia, still waiting, leans back and takes a swig of coffee. She pictures them all together—her and Raulp and the baby—bound by love and time, traveling across Vandyke brown valleys, wandering under skies that open and close—pale pink, blue-yellow skies.

  A FIVE-MINUTE CONVERSATION

  “It’s the same old thing,” my father said.

  This, on the phone. I usually called him on Mondays, after five, when the rates were good. He usually let the answering machine pick up first, in case I was a bill collector.

  “Same old,” I said.

  In his later years, my father had become a philosopher, though, when I was younger, he was something of an institution. On Mondays, when I called, he spoke not of loneliness but war. In about a minute or two, he’d summarize the following: the state of the nation (Terrible), the government (Liars, thieves, and murderers), and the world in general (Too much sorrow).

  “What do you know, Daddio?”

  He told me, “I’m not afraid to die. Try living for seventy years. That’s the hard part.”

  Before my father became a philosopher, he’d worked at a steel mill in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He’d worked there since he was seventeen, which is, when all is said and done, a long time. After he retired the company went bankrupt and my father lost his pension and health care, and other things he didn’t talk about.

  He said: “I’m sick of people telling me I owe them. Maybe you could send me a cool million, huh, kiddo?”

  “I’ll bring it right over,” I told him. “Be there in ten.”

  My father laughed—a raspy, deep laugh, a laugh full of awkward rhythms—because he knew that I lived five hundred miles away, on purpose. I made it home only once a year, if that. “Money,” I said. “No time, too.” But, in other ways, I was my father’s perfect daughter, a philosopher-student, a want-to-be maker of meaning. And my life, like his, never did seem to work. Washers and dryers gave out at inopportune moments. The lawn mower fell to pieces. My car engine rattled furiously. A love affair ended. The laws of the universe dictated that everything, eventually, broke apart.

  My father attributed all this to bad luck, the multigenerational kind.

  He said, “You know, for all your education, honey, you’ve never amounted to much, and you sure don’t have any money to brag about. You’re already thirty-one and still renting. By your age I had two houses. You’ve got to build and fix things. You can’t even change a tire. Maybe you should go into politics.”

  Sometimes, in the middle of saying something, my father gasped for air. A breath he couldn’t complete, a failed action. “Damn asbestos,” he said, and I thought, then, vaguely, that my father’s gasping, like his laments, was full of sorrow. “Thank the steel mill for that, too. That stuff stays around forever, unlike institutions. And when you do amount to something,” he said, not waiting for my answer, “look where it gets you. I’m probably going to lose my house, and I’m sure as hell going to die.”

  “What do you know, Daddio?” I interrupted. “What did you dream about last night?”

  He said, “I’m sick of everything, really, dreams most of all. If you can swing it, though, I’d like a decent coffin. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for—”

  I interrupted, in desperation. “Can I ask you a philosophical question?”

  This pleased him. “Sure,” he said. “Shoot.”

  “Do we ever connect?” I wanted to know.

  “Does anyone?” he answered.

  I could have said, Yes. Or, Maybe. Or, Can’t we at least try? But I worried then, suddenly, about the cost of the call.

  “Did you ever notice,” my father mused, “that the worst things in life are said quickly?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Time’s up,” he said. “That’s all.”

  “I have to go,” I agreed, shuffling him off the phone. I planned on stepping outside and taking a brisk walk. It was a cool, gray day, the air so crisp it hurt to breathe. I knew that later—maybe a day or a month or a year later—I would regret my abruptness. I didn’t really have things to do. I didn’t really have to go anywhere. And money is just money, after all.

  “Well, then,” my father said.

  “Well, then,” I echoed.

  “Goodbye,” we said, in unison. Then, as if surprised, we waited an extra moment before hanging up.

  MY FATHER’S MAHOGANY LEG

  My father’s mahogany leg arrives via priority mail. Here is the box, lying on the coffee table, and inside the box I find the leg bandaged in bubble wrap along with a note from my father written in shaky, eager scrawl: Dear Anna: Here is
my leg. Do with my leg what you wish, My Darling.

  Of course it goes without saying that this leg is the most impractical thing I’ve ever received, more farfetched than the Publishers Clearing House letter lying next to it, more pointless than the Book of the Month Club and mailings that promise self-help through holistic medicine—Lose twenty pounds with verbena supplements and Alter your mood with St. John’s Wort.

  For starters, I have two legs already. And they are beautiful, very presentable, very real legs—thin and muscular, milky and always clean-shaven—legs that look good in skirts and cowboy boots, which I always wear. My legs bustle me around the city, where I flaunt them at men who wait for public transportation, pudgy men in wrinkled suits and balding men in sweatpants who have, once again, decided to walk, then finally decided to ride the bus the last few miles home. My legs hoof it ten blocks to the CD store where I work, peddling Top 20 Hits to angst-ridden, tech-savvy teens with absolutely no sense of the classics.

  My legs strut and stroll, prance and pirouette. They are actually really fucking wonderful legs. Over the years I’ve worked hard on them—gymnastics and swimming, painful dance and hovering on pointed toes only to stare out, blankly, into a room of other children’s doting fathers. In contrast, this wooden leg is idle, severed, blunted as a crutch. Like you, My Darling, it is simply an afterthought, an appendage, but hey, better late than never.

  That the leg was sent priority mail annoys me.