by Amity Gaige
“Call me back?”
“Or, no—” Charlie slapped his forehead, smiling at Bruce. “I’ll just come home right after. Don’t forget where you were in the story about the rain and the bookstore. I was listening.”
“All right,” said Alice.
“The stroller was sailing into the street,” he said.
Charlie hung up the phone and clapped Bruce’s hand. “Hey, man. Come on in, come on in. I’d offer you a drink but—”
Bruce stepped in, gestured with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing, as usual, his long gray trench coat and his Patriots cap. His skin bore its usual sallow color, hairily shadowed around the jaw line. He was a huge tree of a man.
“You’d be surprised,” Bruce said, rubbing his jaw. “Once or twice a day I’m on the verge of scrapping it all. Throwing off the whole idea—the whole fussy, clichéd, recovering alcoholic’s mindset, all twelve steps of it, and just having a little drink. Just a nice little drink in a nice little glass. Sitting at a nice little bar some girl has just rubbed clean. Once or twice a day I can’t understand for the life of me why I should not do this. You’ve really got to find a powerful reason—something better than living long enough to grow old because who wants to grow old? Sometimes alcohol just doesn’t have a powerful enough enemy. At around five o’clock it doesn’t. The sun setting, the cold air. The crack of a bat—Do you know what I mean?”
“No,” said Charlie. “I’m one of those people. I’m not tempted. Never have been.”
“Aw, screw you, then. You are a waste of my verbiage.”
“Do you want to sit here, Bruce? Until it passes? You want to talk?”
Charlie folded his hands over his shirt. Bruce looked down at him, his broad-featured face underlit by the desk lamp.
“You’re cute,” said Bruce. “I love it when you practice on me. But I’m not having the jones right now, thank you anyway. Not today.”
“Oh, good,” said Charlie. “Well, then?”
Bruce sat down in a chair and exhaled. He fixed his cap over his bald head.
“Nope,” he said. “I just wanted to sit here with you, tell you a thing or two about myself. You’re so—” Bruce looked Charlie up and down, not unkindly, but without reserve. “White. I mean, like snow. You’re light. I mean it. In the best way. You’re some kind of guy. I’m glad Gregorian sent you over here. I like being around you, Charlie. You’re like a little campfire. I like looking at you. I mean that in the very best, most heterosexual way.” Both men laughed. Bruce’s big square shoulders went up and down. Charlie thought passingly that Bruce was nice to look at too, like a big rough oak, and also he thought Bruce was sort of full of shit, and that Bruce wanted him to know it. It was different being supervised by someone so like Bruce—a man’s man, weathered, an alcoholic at fourteen, a bachelor from Fall River who on at least one occasion in his past had been thrown through a bar window without feeling it. Charlie uncrossed his legs and stretched.
“I’ve noticed that you’ve been staying late,” Bruce said. “Why are you staying late, Charlie? Your duties end at five. We don’t pay you enough to stay late. This isn’t Morgan Stanley, sweetheart. You know that, right?”
Charlie nodded, rubbing his eyes.
“I know you went to visit a client after hours.”
Charlie lowered his hand. Blood rushed to his neck. “Excuse me?”
“Opal Ludlow. I know you went over there to help her out. She called ES when it started to snow and by the time they got over there, she was all happy because you’d come yourself. She told the guy.”
Charlie opened his mouth to speak.
“No,” said Bruce. “Don’t say anything. Don’t worry about it. It happens. The sense of personal responsibility gets too great. You start to see there is a standard of humanness that can’t be written as a rule. But I don’t want you to say anything right now, though. I want you to sit there and listen to me. All right?”
“I’d like to explain,” said Charlie.
“No,” said Bruce, whose face had grown solemn, and whose shoulders grew in the tiny chair, emphasizing the terrible impressiveness of his body. “Just listen. Before I lost everything, I lived in a rented house two blocks from the ocean. The house was so damned cute, there was even a goddamned weathervane on top of it, and this sign by the front door that said ‘Home is Where You Hang Your Hat,’ which between my wife and I was a joke, right, because I never hang my hat. Corny shit, right?” Bruce paused, his gaze fixed. “Well listen, I loved it. Amy bought these seedlings and we were actually growing an herb garden in the backyard. She was a very gentle human being. You could practically hear her love you, the signal was so strong. We’d met in rough times, she had her share of troubles, but she was trying to show me—I think she was trying to show me a vision, something—real. But it was a risky proposition with me. I was a huge gamble. I’d only been dry a couple years—”
Bruce stopped. He lifted his cap off his head and put it back down. “Anyway, we lived like that for a while, being married, drinking ginger ale, planting herbs. Each one had its own little sign, you know, “I’m basil, goddamn it!” “I’m rosemary!” I remember I was planting one in the garden, a tiny green tree, and I just started shaking. I was—I think I was—happy. Was it a good feeling? No! It was terrifying. I still can’t explain it. I got in the car, drove to a bar, and just like that, I was back at it. And love was this useless frilly decoration on the big black lack of importance that was life. The drinking life. During that first bender, I went out there and looked at those herbs I had planted, and they cracked me up so bad! What useless, gay shit! Flavoring. Accent.”
Bruce moved his large leg. “Charlie. Do you know that until two months ago I lived in an apartment over my sister’s garage? Do you know that most nights I sleep sitting upright in a chair? I own one fork, one glass. The last time I saw Amy was five years ago. Sometimes I pretend that my nephew is my son when I watch his ball games. I wanted a son of my own so badly.”
“No,” said Charlie. “I didn’t know that.”
“Go home, Charlie,” said Bruce, pointing. “Go home to your wife. Watch yourself. You think what you have is easy. What you have is the most endangered thing in the world. It draws threats. You might think, what freak storm is going to come over the horizon and take all this away? Well the storm might come, but it won’t come from the horizon.”
Charlie raised his finger, as if to speak.
“If you don’t call Emergency Services next time,” said Bruce, “I’ll give you a written sanction. You know very well what you did was improper. I won’t keep turning my head just because you’re Gregorian’s sweetheart.”
Bruce stood. He lifted his cap again and put it back on his head. “But for now, carte blanche. I trust you. I’m kind of sweet on you myself. I know your problem is that you’re too nice. I won’t give you another single AA testimonial, I promise.” He reached over and grabbed Charlie’s ear, smiling. “Deal, Jughead?”
“OK,” said Charlie, nodding. “All right, Bruce. Deal.”
Bruce flapped his hands in his coat pockets. He looked around at Charlie’s office. “You’re the only guy around here with plants in his office. Plants are good. They make oxygen. You got a green thumb.”
“All they need is water,” said Charlie. “It’s not a talent.”
“Oh, it’s a talent all right,” said Bruce, “You just don’t know it.” He flicked off Charlie’s office light and walked out into the hall. “Are you coming, or what?”
Charlie groped for his coat in the darkness.
She turned the page, jostling the drowsing infant on her knee. In the distant town of Combray, at noon, the steeple bell of Sainte-Hilaire sounded twelve times, and the cook trundled out to collect her goods—the fresh brill from the fish-woman, the cherries, the almond paste, and the chocolate cream. Word spilled into word infinitely, page into page. Careful to keep the bottle fast in the child’s mouth, she turned another page. A draft washed across the f
loor.
“Charlie,” she said, looking up. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”
He turned around, hanging his coat, lips pursed. He came over and pushed back the attention-damp hair on her forehead. Then he knelt, his chin on her knee, and watched the baby.
She looked at him for a moment. “Everything all right?”
“Sure,” he said.
They looked at the baby together. Charlie took the bottle and held it there at the baby’s lips.
Alice found herself searching his face. She gave his ear a tug, and he smiled, if not a bit wearily. He took the bottle.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “Let me do it.”
But peering down with such concentration at the baby, his expression took on a peevish quality. His skin looked wan, leached by fluorescence. He smelled of lunchmeat. He did not look young or anything like a long distance runner. He sat there squatting on the threadbare carpet in stark contrast to the men and women who had just then been populating Combray, carrying basketsful of cherries up and down the streets of Alice’s mind. Suddenly the bookstore clerk with the shorn head rose up in the crowd, walking toward her with an armful of books, his smile almost perceptible, almost in sight.
“Dammit,” Charlie said, leaning back on his heels. “She keeps spitting it out.”
“It’s all right,” said Alice.
“No, it’s not,” snapped Charlie, pushing the nipple back into the baby’s mouth, and the baby’s eyes flared, wakening. “I’m not doing it right.”
“Gentle,” she said. “Be gentle.”
Suddenly, she experienced the sensation of missing him. She was missing him even as he was there. He squatted over the baby. She looked away. The flatness outside of the book made her lonely. Not too long ago, they could be lost in their own thoughts or reading separate books and yet still be together, the tangle of invisible threads that connected them vibrating live with a billion transmissions. He nicked himself with a razor and she would wince. She laughed to herself and he would share the joke. He stumbled in a dream and she would stir. Now perhaps they were attuned that way to the babies, and to other things. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. He did not look at her. She knew the vibrations between them were still there, as stars still exist behind cloud cover. She leaned down over the baby to hide the tears in her eyes.
“Mommy loves baby,” she whispered. “Mommy loves baby and Daddy loves baby.”
Charlie stood, holding the empty bottle. He walked several paces off, rubbing his neck. Discreetly, Alice wiped her eyes. It was the book. It was her adolescent temptation to feel exceptionally isolated. For there he was, right there. Charlie Shade. Bringer of springtime. Shower librettist. Thief of the landlady’s Tribune. He turned around, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry I’ve been late.”
Alice fingered a strand of hair. “I know it can’t be helped sometimes.”
“Yes, it can be helped.” He stepped toward her. “Here. Let me put her down.”
He came back from the nursery with his tie off and shirt undone. His pants retained their creases and slight, first-day sheen. He sat beside her. By then, she was leaning sleepily against the wing of the chair.
“Are you asleep?” he said.
“No.”
His shirtsleeves were rolled to the forearm. He pulled a string of hair from the corner of her mouth.
“I’m failing you,” he said.
“What?” Alice said, opening her eyes, sitting upright. “No.”
“Yes. I’m trying to do too much. I shouldn’t be trying to do so much at work. There’s no need to be late. I could be more efficient. My primary responsibility is here,” he said, pointing at the floor.
She grabbed his hand. “Don’t coach yourself like that, Charlie. I want you here because you want to be here.” Alice paused, grimaced. “You know what? I’m doing better now. Maybe I—scared you before. It takes a while to get used to being a mother, but I’m getting better at it. Like today, we went to the bookstore.” She blinked. “But I guess I’ve already told you that.”
Charlie was looking down. “I think we could afford a sitter, now and again, so that you can get a break.”
“We can’t afford a sitter, Charlie. Have you seen our stack of bills?”
“Now and again. We can give up something else.”
“Oh, Charlie,” Alice whispered, terribly sleepy now, “I just want you. Just you. Yes, come home to me. Don’t be late anymore. I—love you.”
She leaned back and shut her eyes. She saw him running down the snowbound street after her, coatless; she felt his hand stroking her hair, like some never-possessed father; she saw a magnolia blossom, a guttering candle, and then her mind clouded over. Her arm jerked off the armrest.
“It’s all right, Alice baby,” he was saying. He was covering her with a blanket. “Go to sleep. It’s all right. I’ll be better. I won’t be late.”
In the distance, a baby whined. She was vaguely conscious of Charlie moving away, away across the room. Mommy loves baby. Mommy loves baby and Daddy loves baby, and baby loves Mommy and Daddy.
“So,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Where shall we start?”
The girl looked straight ahead at the vast, brightly lit warehouse. Stacks of mattresses surrounded her. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“Opal? What do you think?”
She pulled her cardigan around her, pushing a piece of paper with the toe of her sneaker. Then suddenly, her head jerked backward. Charlie stepped toward her, grabbing her arm. Her eyes rolled toward him, shocked, as she stared helplessly for a moment at his hand.
“Jesus, are you all right?”
She nodded.
“That ever happen to you before?”
She shook her head no.
Charlie ran his hand through his hair. Tardive dyskinesia was the one side effect, besides all the other side effects, that made patients stop taking their meds. And it was a good excuse too, he thought. The twitching below the tongue, the base of the neck, he had seen this at Maynard and he knew there were drugs to counteract it, but that it could also become permanent, a muscular scar. He would talk to Hsu immediately. It would be fixed. Charlie glanced at her again, she standing right next to him. Nothing else betrayed her illness. Otherwise, standing there in the mattress store in her green cardigan, she looked exceedingly normal. For she had done her braid neatly today, and in her bright green sweater and new Reeboks she looked normal and fresh and young with her freckle-blurred lips. The hairs that were too short for her braid formed a humid halo of airy curls around her face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ll fix it.”
Opal nodded. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“I’m cold,” she said.
“We’ll be out of here in no time. Just as soon as we get someone to help us.”
Charlie craned his neck around the absurdly high stacks of mattresses. He heard footsteps somewhere nearby.
“Hello?” he shouted. “Anyone here?”
“Be right with you!” replied a voice.
Opal’s teeth were chattering. Charlie frowned, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his own warm jacket.
“Feeling cold could be just a side effect of your medication. Why don’t I tell Dr. Hsu about that too? See what he says?”
“It’s because I’m skinny,” muttered Opal. “Always have been, always will be.”
“Better than being fat.”
“I’d rather be fat,” said Opal. “Harder to break a fat person.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.” Charlie fingered a piece of candy in his jacket pocket. “I’m skinny, too.” He sat down on a low stack of mattresses. “Runners are usually skinny. I’m a long distance runner. Well, I used to be.”
“Why?”
Charlie cocked his head and looked up. “Why what?”
“Why do you run long distances?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Because I’m good at it?”
The girl rolled her eyes at him. Charlie laughed, happy to be teased. He had never thought about it really. He liked to run. Why not? Opal began to rock back and forth, her limbs now moving rhythmically. He assumed she was dancing to her own internal radio, before he heard, softly, actual music over the store’s PA system.
“That’s good. What’s that, a waltz?”
“Contra dance,” the girl said, smiling a little.
She danced slowly over to a cardboard cut-out of a man leaning against a mattress.
“Hey, stranger,” she said, dancing in front of the cardboard man.
Charlie looked on, entertained, pleased, until the clock on the wall sobered him. He was supposed to be at a med drop a half hour ago. The salesman came jogging around the corner in a burgundy polo shirt and ill-fitting black jeans. The salesman leapt toward Charlie and shook his hand greasily. He stepped back and wiped his hands on his slacks.
“Just finishing lunch,” the salesman said. “That’s no excuse for making you wait. Very sorry. We’re short a hand today.” The man noticed Opal hanging back. “Good morning, ma’am.”
Opal looked at him straight on. Charlie had come to know this look of hers. She was deciding whether or not he was “just another mickey-mouser” or the rare sort you could actually believe.
“We’re looking for a box spring,” said Charlie. “For a twin bed. Something simple and cheap. And quick.” He leaned forward. “I’m running pretty late. If you could—”
The man started jogging away.
“Follow me,” he called over his shoulder.
Charlie jogged behind him, the sleeves of his nylon jacket swishing.
“Come on, Opal,” he said, running backward now. She sighed and began to follow with what looked very much like a military lockstep. Charlie smiled and turned back to the salesman, who was surprisingly further away.
“Hey,” called Charlie. “Wait up, will you?”
But the salesman turned a corner and proceeded to jog down the aisle in a different direction, head bobbing over the tops of the mattresses. What the hell was the guy trying to do, Charlie thought, outrun them? Charlie snorted and then, unable to resist the challenge, began to run in earnest, pushing off the linoleum with the tips of his sneakers. Coming around the corner, he saw the guy at the end of an aisle, even further and smaller, gesturing encouragingly.
