Not Perfect

by Elizabeth Laban

  So Stuart plugged in his phone and let it charge. It wasn’t too long after that that Fern called. He could barely stand to hear her voice—he was going to cry, so he rushed her. And then he wished he could get her back. Weeks later, one of Abigail’s cousins came by, reclaiming the cabin, and thinking he was a squatter—it was such a mess inside he could see why the woman thought that. There was talk of calling the police, but he said there was no need, he would be out by the next morning. That’s when he left the cabin and moved into the Hampton Inn, using the last credit card that he had that was not maxed out or canceled, and charged his phone and sat looking out the window at Lake Superior, wondering if he dared go out there. He could see all his missed calls and texts, but by then they seemed beside the point. And Fern called again, that time with Levi. Stuart hadn’t expected to feel what he felt. It was awful, he had let them down, and there was never, ever going to be a way to make it up to them, to take away what he had done. He missed Abigail desperately, and knew he would never stop thinking about the time they lost, the time that was wasted. He was so alone.

  Was it worth it? He would have to say it was, despite the absolute hopelessness he felt now. He loved Abigail as much those last few weeks as he ever had. He could never go back to Tabitha, not like that. But he wanted to see the kids, those wonderful kids, and he wanted to see Levi become a bar mitzvah. He picked up the phone and called the airline. He would fly in for the big event. After that, well, then he might just let it all go.

  When Tabitha got home, the TV was still on. Levi had dozed off and was leaning on Fern’s shoulder. Fern was staring straight ahead, like he wasn’t even there. Tabitha noticed that the house phone was on the coffee table in front of them.

  “Did someone call?” she asked quietly. Levi was still on an assortment of different medications, and they made him tired, so finding him in this state wasn’t surprising.

  “What? Why?” Fern asked.

  “No reason,” Tabitha said. “Just that the phone is there, I wondered if it rang.”

  “Levi was going to order a pizza,” Fern said quickly. “Then he remembered that we don’t have any money.”

  “Oh,” Tabitha said.

  The intercom buzzed, and they both froze, then Tabitha went to it.

  “Hi! It’s Tabitha.” She never knew what to say to the buzzer.

  “It’s Ron,” the doorman said. “You have a guest. A male.”

  “A male?” Tabitha repeated, dumbly.

  “Yes,” Ron said.

  “Does the male have a name?”

  “Oh, let me ask,” Ron said, and Tabitha rolled her eyes. She hadn’t had a guest other than Rachel or responded to the buzzer in so long, it had thrown them all off. She had the well-formed thought that it would be a relief to not live in this building anymore. As nice as it was, something a little simpler might be even nicer.

  Ron was back. “Yes, the male’s name is Toby.”

  Tabitha wondered if Toby could hear the doorman talking. She decided that she didn’t care. She also didn’t care anymore that there was only that one working light bulb in the kitchen, she hadn’t gotten around to replacing the bulbs yet, or that she had absolutely nothing to offer him except for ice water.

  “Okay,” Tabitha said. “Send him up.”

  She went to the front door and opened it. She didn’t realize how much she wanted this, she didn’t let herself even think this was a possibility. But still, maybe he was coming to tell her she was a thief and he wanted nothing to do with her. Or maybe he was coming to take back the money—which technically she could give to him, it was in her room. The elevator dinged and opened. He was the only one in it, and he hesitated for a second before stepping out into the hall.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “I followed you,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “For some reason, I didn’t expect this, though,” he said, waving his arms around. “Fancy.”

  “Yes, well, looks can be deceiving,” she said. “Come on in.”

  He followed her into the dark foyer, where she did not turn on a light because it wouldn’t work even if she did. They walked by the living room, where Fern was still watching TV and Levi was still sleeping. Fern had turned as far around as she could without disturbing Levi, but when she saw Toby, a stranger, she just shrugged and faced forward again. Maybe she thought he was a maintenance person or something. Tabitha led Toby into the dark kitchen. She flicked a switch, and the one bulb illuminated. She did not apologize for it. She opened the fridge and made sure he could see how empty it was.

  “Do you want some water?” she asked. “It’s all we have.”

  “Look, Tabitha, I didn’t come here for a drink,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  “I know, what I did is bad,” she said. “Believe me, I know it.”

  “That isn’t even what I came here to talk about,” he said. “Well it is, but it also isn’t. Yes, it’s bad that you stole from an old lady, but the honest truth is she left it there for you to steal. You didn’t take her wallet, or weasel her PIN number away from her. You took the money she put in front of you. This has been an ongoing battle I have had with her for years. Would I rather she saved the money for herself and eventually give it to Tara? Of course I would. But the truth is, she has plenty, enough to leave a nice amount to Tara and give some away. She thinks everyone is suffering, and she wants to be the one to help. You know how little girls want to be princesses? Well, my mother wants to be a fairy godmother. It is her fantasy, and if she can do it, I guess she should do it. The fact that you became involved, that you went to her apartment under those false pretenses and met her in the first place, well, that’s just bizarre. But none of that is why I followed you home.”

  “Why then?”

  “Because you walked away from me,” he said. “And I didn’t like that at all.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “The bottom line is: I don’t care. I don’t care about the bad things you did,” he stopped.

  She thought to herself, If you only knew. Then she thought, No, you should know.

  “Let me tell you about all of them, and you can decide,” she said, getting up to check on the kids before continuing. She lowered her voice. “Stealing is not the worst of it, believe me.”

  He raised his eyebrows. She motioned for him to follow her, back past the living room and the kids and into her bedroom. She was glad she’d made the bed that morning. She let him walk by her and then she closed the door so it was just slightly open. He stood waiting for an instruction of some sort.

  “Sit,” she said.

  He did, on the edge of the bed. She sat next to him.

  “You know what?” he said. “If this is going to be a day of confessions, can I go first?”

  “You have a confession?” she said. “Sure, you can try to one-up me, but I don’t think you’re going to win.”

  “I’m not trying to win,” he said. “And I’m not trying to one-up you. My point here is that we all have confessions to make. We’ve all done things we’re sorry we did, things that if we could do over, we might do in a different way. Not a single one of us has a clean record. Not a single one of us is perfect.”

  “Okay, I’m interested,” she said, but really she wanted to sit closer to him, rest her head on his shoulder. Or maybe his lap. His lap would be nice. “What did you do that you want to confess to me?”

  “I have to warn you, it’s possible that this is going to make you not like me,” he said, so seriously that she started to laugh, but she realized he meant it.

  “Really?” she said, not laughing anymore. What could he possibly have done? She was a little scared. She didn’t want to not like him anymore.

  “Here goes,” he said. “Remember how I said there was an incident with my wife, and that’s why we aren’t together anymore? Well, that incident was me having sex with her cousin on a family trip. It is the worst thing I have ever done, and I still can’t
figure out why I did it. If someone had said to me, even that morning—no, make that an hour before it happened—that I was going to do that, I wouldn’t have believed them for one second. I loved my wife. Our marriage was actually pretty good. We still had sex, we loved being Tara’s parents. But that night, Tara wasn’t feeling well, and Jane took her back to the hotel room. We were all in Cancun, celebrating Jane’s dad’s seventy-fifth birthday. Can you imagine the scandal? I mean really, and I was not ever the one in the middle of a scandal—before that night, that is. Jane’s cousin had always been a little off. Maybe off isn’t the right word. But something. She isn’t married. She’s used to getting a lot of attention from men. At first, I just thought she was overly friendly. That night, though, we had all been drinking. I drank way too much, I completely lost control of myself. She was so pretty. I hadn’t realized how pretty she was until that night. She laughed at everything I said. She stood so close, then she was touching me, then we were alone. It was like she was irresistible, though I know that’s no excuse. The thing is, ever since then, I can’t put my finger on what was irresistible about her. She should have been fully resistible. I have gone back to that moment so many times, when I went from just being a cousin by marriage to kissing and then being alone in her hotel room and having sex. Jane couldn’t find me, she was worried something happened to me. She thought that I drank too much and went swimming, or that someone abducted me. She had her mother sit in our room with Tara, and she went room to room. I had fallen asleep. I was naked. You can probably imagine what happened after that.”

  Tabitha felt nothing. That wasn’t true. She felt everything she felt before, but nothing from his story. No dislike or repulsion. She simply didn’t care that much. Or maybe it just seemed so unreal.

  “Do you think there’s a chance you were drugged?” Tabitha asked practically after a few seconds had gone by. It seemed like the obvious question. “By her or by a bartender?”

  Toby hesitated, then he shook his head.

  “Drugged or not I did it and I have to own it. Even if I had been drugged, and I have to admit I have considered that, I still did it. It is still something I did.”

  “Okay,” she said. She was quiet for a minute. She didn’t want to say that it was nothing, or, at least he didn’t kill anyone. She didn’t want to make it a competition. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Oh, I get it,” he said, sitting up. He had slumped over more and more as he talked, like the weight of what he was saying was pushing him down. But now he straightened and shifted on the bed. “You’re going to be all polite, and then I’ll leave, and that will be it. You’ll never answer my calls and you’ll never agree to see me again.”

  “Let me tell you my things, and then we’ll see who never agrees to see who again,” she said. She felt like she was playing a game. How Honest Can I Be? or What Will It Take to Push You Away, and Can I Do It? It was like Nora’s Monopoly money—it felt real and not real. He sat back now, ready.

  “I think I am responsible for my mother’s death. She was very sick, she was going to die anyway, but I think I sped it up with morphine,” she said. “And I think I may have killed someone I cooked for. I had a business, cooking out of my house, and it was late, I had finished for the night. They called, I agreed. The normal channels were not gone through. He had a peanut allergy but I didn’t know, I used peanut oil. I think of him every day. I know he was in great trouble, but I don’t know what happened. I never reached anyone.”

  “I hear a lot of ‘thinks’ and ‘not knowing,’” he said matter-of-factly. “From what you just told me, it is also possible that you aren’t responsible for any deaths. Am I hearing that right?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure I am,” she said.

  “You need all the facts,” he said. “If there is anything I’ve learned, it’s that you need all the facts.”

  “If you’re pushing me to get all the facts, why don’t you want them for yourself?” she asked.

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “The possibility of being drugged?” she said.

  “No, it’s too late for that,” he said. “Believe me, it is too late. That fact wouldn’t help me now. But your facts, those could help you. Here’s a fact: there’s a lot of peanut oil that will not cause an allergic reaction. I know, Tara has a peanut allergy. The doctor even said she could have certain oils and not have a problem. We don’t do it—I don’t dare—but did you know that?”

  “I did,” she said slowly. “I do. But I don’t know exactly what kind of oil it was. I threw it out.”

  “Maybe it was the kind of oil that was okay,” Toby said. Tabitha just shook her head. He got up, tentatively, and Tabitha thought he might be walking out. She didn’t know Tara had a peanut allergy. She imagined Toby must have a zero tolerance level for any indiscretion when it came to food allergies. But he closed the door quietly and soundlessly rotated the lock. He turned back to her and raised his eyebrows. She nodded. She felt like this was their good-bye. There was no way in the world he would want to be with her long term now. No way. They had both done terrible things. Even so, she let him kiss her, all the time with her ear out for the kids. They kissed and kissed and eventually she began to cry. He was so kind, so tender. He looked her in the eyes as much as he possibly could. And she looked right back. There was nothing to hide from anymore. He knew it all. He didn’t push to do more than kiss, and neither did she.

  Eventually she stood and brushed her clothes to get the wrinkles out, not because she wanted to, but because she felt she had pushed it long enough with the kids. He did the same, and together they straightened the bed. She turned the lock and opened the door, tiptoeing out, a little afraid that Fern was going to say she knocked but no one answered, or that she would ask where Tabitha had been. But Fern was sleeping now, too, with her head leaning back against Levi like they were holding each other up. Tabitha looked at Toby, who smiled. He kissed Tabitha on the head, breathing in as he did. She closed her eyes.

  “I’ll call you,” he whispered.

  “I need some time,” she said. “I have so much to sort through, and the kids need all of me right now. I don’t want to drag you into it. I just need time to think.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But I’m still going to call.” He leaned in again to kiss her, lingering there. He was going to say something else, she was sure of it, but instead he turned and walked out. She stood there for a few seconds, thinking the house felt so empty, then she lay down on the floor in front of the kids and eventually fell asleep.

  As promised, Toby called twice a day for the next week, and Tabitha didn’t answer or respond; she simply didn’t know what to say to him. But she missed him so much it hurt, which was a relief, because she thought she might never feel that way about anyone. She never missed Stuart this much. Did she ever truly miss Stuart? Toby never left a message. He just called and let it ring and then hung up, so the only notification she got was one that said Missed Call, over and over again, and, of course, the pleasure of seeing his name—Toby. On Friday, Toby called and left a message. She saw the phone ring and eventually stop, and that was all she expected, but the notification of Voicemail appeared, and she almost hit her head on the bookshelf, she stood up so fast. She immediately pressed “play”—she couldn’t do it fast enough.

  “Listen, I know you want time,” he said, and he sounded as kind and sweet as ever, not mad or defensive. “But I have a problem, and that problem is named Nora. She misses you. She wants to see you and she doesn’t know how to find you. She keeps referring to you as ‘that dear girl,’ but I know who she means, unless there are a number of strangers waltzing into her apartment, which I guess is possible, but not likely. She seems sadder than I’ve seen her in a long time. Please call me back. Please come see Nora.”

  Two requests, not necessarily connected. They could be, or they might not be. Please call me back was one and please come see Nora, the other. She could do one without the other, or she could do bo
th. Today was the first day Levi was back at school for more than a few hours. He was talking more and more comfortably, though his face was so badly bruised, it was hard to look at. It was a deep purple, which was now speckled with a sickening yellow. He was going to see how long he could stand it, and she would pick him up when he called. But it would be just as easy to go from Nora’s, really. She was about to go see her, she thought she would, and just deal with whatever she found when she got there, but as she was reaching into her drawer for a bra she touched the money. All of it. The shame she felt was overwhelming. She sat down on the bed. She couldn’t go. She wouldn’t go. Instead, she gathered the money, every last dollar, and she took it to the bank where she planned to open a new account.

  Toby didn’t call again. Not Saturday. Not Sunday. On Monday morning, when the kids were in school, Tabitha got dressed. She was supposed to have an orientation with the pest control company later that day, but she had a few hours. The relief she felt about finally making money was huge, and she sang a little while she chose jeans and a pink cashmere sweater. She grabbed her purse and walked out, turning right toward Walnut Street. She didn’t let the actual thought of where she was going form in her head. She told herself she would just see where she ended up. But she knew.

  When she got to Nora’s building, she walked right in and to the elevators. She would feel better if she planned to return the money, but she felt pretty good that she didn’t plan to take any more. Maybe, once she started getting a regular paycheck, she would be able to bring some back. If Nora didn’t want it, at least she could leave it for someone else who might.

  She opened the door slowly.

  “Nora?” she called.

  Tabitha heard footsteps and waited, surprised, since Nora usually called back. A woman dressed in teddy-bear scrubs came around the corner and down the hall. She looked stern.