Be Mine

by Laura Kasischke

  "No," Jon said, and I could not have mistaken the sarcasm in it for anything other than what it was. "No, I don't know Bram like you do, Sherry. But I know men. They don't come around if you haven't given them some sort of encouragement to come around. And he won't come again if you make it clear, Sherry, that there's nothing in it for him. Just tell him you'll call the cops, or that your husband will shoot him, or something, if he comes to the house again. Make it very plain.

  "Now, I have to go, Sherry. I have someone waiting for me. Call him now, Sherry. End this now."

  I'D NEVER had Bram's cell phone number or his home phone number. He'd never even given me his address, never even told me if he had roommates, a house, a pet. What did I know about Bram Smith? I called the only number I had, his office number, expecting no answer—hoping, I suppose, that there would be no answer—but Bram answered the phone on the first ring. "Bram Smith," he said.

  "It's Sherry," I said.

  "Yeah," he said.

  "I'm calling—to talk, Bram."

  "I'm busy right now," he said.

  "Should I call you back?"

  "Yeah," he said, "you should."

  "When?"

  "I don't know," he said. "How 'bout after dinner?"

  "I'll try," I said. "It will be—"

  "Yeah, I know," Bram said. "Want to know how I know?"

  "What?"

  "Want to know how I know all about your plans for dinner?"

  "What are you talking about, Bram?"

  "I'm talking about your dinner guest, Mrs. Seymour. I just saw him, in the shop. Heard all about how he's coming to your place for dinner tonight, babe. Sounds like you've got a regular thing going here. Kind of a revolving door, huh?"

  "Bram. Garrett? You saw Garrett?"

  "Yeah, Mrs. Seymour. It's a real small world. You really can't go around fucking every guy in it and not expect them to cross paths now and then, can you?"

  "Bram." I stopped speaking for what seemed like a very long time, the words eluding me entirely. The idea of words was something I'd seemed to have lost. Then, I said, "Bram, there's nothing between me and Garrett. For god's sake, Bram. He's my son's friend."

  "That's not what Garrett says," Bram said. "I mean, you really got to twist the little fucker's arm to get the truth out of him, but when he finally spit it out, it kind of turns out, babe, that he's not such hot pals with Chad. I think you're the hot pal. I think you're the one who wants Garrett to come to dinner. Am I right?"

  "No, Bram."

  "Well, like I said, Mrs. Seymour, I'm pretty busy here. Why don't you just give me a ring after your lovely dinner, 'kay?" He hung up.

  On the dead line, there was a hush so total that it seemed animate—a breathing, pulsing silence into which I could project the sound of myself, into which I could tumble, listening, as if it were not silence, but space. I stood with the phone in my hand, listening to it for a long time, that silence inside me, traveling over the phone lines toward me, until Jon and Chad came in the door and called out loudly to me—H'lo, Sherry! Hey, Ma!—and the sound of their voices slapped me back to myself, and I put the phone in its cradle, and, without being able to respond to their greetings, headed to the kitchen to begin making dinner.

  GARRETT arrived at the back porch door at 8:00.

  Jon let him in. Chad greeted him without standing up from the love seat, with a salute. I came out of the kitchen and said, "Garrett. Hello."

  His hair had been shaved down to a fine dark dust. He nodded in my direction, but didn't look at me. He was wearing a clean white button-down shirt. Chad stood, finally, slowly, then clapped Garrett on the shoulder. "What's with the hairdo, guy? I thought you weren't going anywhere until September."

  "I changed my mind," Garrett said. "I sped up my induction. I leave for boot camp in two weeks."

  "Oh, Garrett," I said.

  But Chad turned and looked at me so fast I said nothing more. The expression on his face, was, I thought, either suspicious or annoyed. He laughed, turning back to Garrett, and said, "So you're really doing it, old pal. You're off in defense of the homeland. Well, let me be the first to shake your hand."

  They shook hands.

  If the sarcasm had registered, it didn't show on Garrett's face. He neither smiled nor looked defensive. He simply nodded soberly when the handshake was over.

  I said, "Chad, Garrett, you boys can have a beer while I finish getting ready for dinner. Does that sound okay?"

  Chad followed me into the kitchen.

  I opened the refrigerator, and he took out two Coronas, uncapped them with a bottle opener we kept hanging from a string and a hook on the wall, turned back toward the living room with the beers in his hands, but before he stepped out of the kitchen he said, so quietly under his breath that I wasn't sure I was supposed to hear or if I'd heard him correctly at all, "Are you my mother?"

  Chad and Garrett went out on the front porch with the beers. The screen door banged shut behind them. Jon was in the garage. From it, I could hear things clanging—dropped, or tossed. He was upset. Before Garrett had come to the door, while Chad was reading the newspaper on the love seat, Jon had whispered to me in the kitchen, "Did you call him?"

  I said, "Yes. He wasn't there. I'll call him later," and Jon had stomped upstairs.

  While the meat for the nachos sizzled in the frying pan, I shredded lettuce. I cut an onion into fine pieces, stopping to wipe my eyes on my forearms. I cut up one tomato, and then the second—which, although it looked perfect on the outside (a deep, false red), was, at the center, black. Rotting from the inside—or had it, all along, been swelling and ripening around this rot? I tossed it into the garbage can, which was full, then pulled the bag out of the can, tied the drawstrings, took it to the back door.

  Passing through the dining room, I could hear Chad or Garrett cough on the front porch.

  The front door was open. Something large and buzzing bumped against the screen. One of them, Chad or Garrett, cleared his throat. I stood for a moment, listening, with the garbage bag in my hand—eavesdropping, I supposed, but there was nothing to hear. Either they'd quit talking because they'd heard me passing through the dining room, or they hadn't been speaking to one another at all out there—not one word—on the front porch.

  I tossed the garbage near the back door for Jon or Chad to take out and went back to the kitchen to finish preparations for dinner. I set the table, and put the food out, and called them in. And, when they came, I smiled as if nothing had changed, as if I were the wife, the mother, the friend of the mother, inviting them all to the table I had prepared for them—exactly the woman I had been two months before, the year before that, the decade prior to it, the woman I had been for half my life.

  But the silence between Garrett and Chad was carried with them to the table.

  They passed food to one another, but didn't look at each other.

  Jon seemed conciliatory toward me, however. He complimented the smell of the food, its abundance. Chad and Garrett nodded in agreement. I said thank you. I asked if anyone needed anything.

  No. No. No.

  Everything was fine.

  Everything was great.

  We ate for a few minutes in silence, and then Jon cleared his throat and asked Garrett a few questions about the military, about his induction, which Garrett answered politely, finally saying, "I decided there was no reason to just hang out here all summer, that I should go."

  I looked over at Chad, who was nodding. He said, "Hey, bro, want another beer?"

  Garrett wiped his mouth with a napkin, and looked at me.

  "Chad," Jon said. "How many have you boys had? Garrett has to drive home."

  "Yes," Garrett said, "thanks. I shouldn't have any more."

  Chad snorted at this. He said, "I don't have to drive anywhere," and stood up from the table, went to the kitchen. Jon and I both watched him walk away, but neither of us said anything.

  "So," he said when he returned, open bottle held in his hand by the nec
k. "So, Garrett, how's that Thunderbird of yours going? Got it fixed up yet?"

  Garrett put his fork full of nachos down, and said, "What?"

  "Your Thunderbird, pal. You know, I thought you were fixing up an old car in your garage?"

  "Mustang," Garrett said.

  "Mustang," Chad said. "Whatever."

  Thunderbird.

  I put my own fork down.

  My breath felt knocked out of me, knocked into another room.

  "It's still in the garage," Garrett said. "The transmission's not in it yet. I'm still driving my mom's old station wagon. But not for long."

  "Awesome," Chad said, and took a long drink from the bottle.

  I stood up from the table, and went to it—the kitchen. I said nothing as I left.

  Thunderbird

  It had been a slip, Chad had simply misspoken, but it had run straight through me like a knife.

  He had seen.

  He'd been awake.

  He'd seen Bram's Thunderbird.

  He'd seen Bram.

  He'd seen me with Bram.

  I held on to the edge of the kitchen table for a moment.

  "Mom?" Chad called out. "Can you bring me another napkin while you're out there?"

  I ran my hands over my face, as if to compose it, then turned back toward the dining room. I took a napkin with me. I gave it to Chad, who looked up at me as I did, and asked, "You okay, Mom?"

  "Yes," I said.

  Jon looked at me. Instead of concern on his face, I thought I saw an admonition. (Pull it together:) I sat back down. Chad was still looking at me. He said, "Say, the last time we were all together, Mom was getting love notes from some grease monkey over at the college. What's up with that, Mom? Still getting propositions, or what?"

  Garrett looked down, too fast, I thought, at his plate. Chad looked over at him.

  "Hey, Garrett, didn't you say your auto instructor was hot for my mom back then?"

  I opened my mouth, and nothing came out, but Jon, as if he'd been rehearsing for his moment for weeks, said in a voice so casual and convincing I almost believed his offhandedness myself, "We don't know what you're talking about, Chad. Your mother's been the object of so many lovesick fellows, we can't be expected to keep track of them all."

  "No," Chad said, and went back to eating his nachos. "You're right. Of course," he said with his mouth full.

  We finished eating in silence, and when we were done, I stood up to clear the table, trying to take Garrett's plate away first. He'd only eaten half his dinner, but his napkin was beside his plate. He'd put his fork down, his hands in his lap, and before I could take it from him, he stood up with the plate himself and said, "Mrs. Seymour, let me help."

  "Thank you, Garrett," I said.

  He took Chad's plate, too, and Jon's, and I followed him into the kitchen with the glasses, a handful of silverware.

  "Mrs. Seymour—," Garrett said when we were alone in the kitchen. "There's—"

  "Garrett," I said, whispering. I tossed the handful of silverware into the sink and turned to him. "I'm so sorry, Garrett, that you had to be involved in this. Please forgive me, Garrett. I promise you, no one will hurt you. It's all been a terrible mistake."

  Garrett took a step toward me, and he said, "Did Chad tell you then? You know he thinks—" He nodded his head in the direction of the dining room, where Chad and Jon were talking about something clinical, it seemed, abstract—mismanagement ... precision ... opportunity for growth and development...

  "No," I said. "Not Chad. Bram"

  Garrett looked as if he were simply, purely, confused. He put our dishes down on the counter. He looked, I thought, with that buzz cut, in that starched shirt, so vulnerable and young I couldn't help it, I went to him, and took him, as I had so long ago (those skinned knees, the blood running in dusty rivulets down his shins) in my arms. He let me hug him for only a moment, and then he pulled away, glanced toward the dining room, and we both saw him at once—Chad, standing behind us in the doorway to the kitchen.

  Those voices had been the television, in the living room, not Chad and Jon.

  Chad said, "Am I interrupting something here?"

  Garrett stepped backward, away from me.

  I said, "No, Chad. Garrett's just helping me—"

  "Yeah," Chad said. "I can see that."

  I stayed in the kitchen after that, cleaning up. When I finally came out, Chad and Garrett were gone.

  "Where are they?" I asked Jon.

  Jon shrugged. He was still watching the political debate on television. He looked up from it and said, "They went out. They didn't tell me where they were going."

  I LAY awake long past midnight, waiting for the sound of Garrett's car pulling into the driveway, dropping Chad off—but, eventually, I simply fell asleep to the sound of a coyote, far away, howling, over and over.

  The sound of it was mournful, but not desperate—a wild and melancholy dog singing a tuneless song, not a cry for help or an appeal to God. The sound of it made its way into my dream. I was rocking a baby (Chad?—no, this was a new baby, a girl) in my arms. As we rocked, she made those soulful, uncomplaining sounds against my breast, and after a while, I joined in, and it was oddly comforting, and beautiful, rocking together, howling quietly and distantly, in unison, into the night. When something loud (a car door slamming?) punctured the silence outside, I woke up and realized that I was actually humming aloud. Whatever it had been, the noise from outside, it didn't wake Jon any more than my humming had.

  I lay in the dark and listened to the silence.

  Now, there was nothing out there—as if the night had imposed silence upon itself, as if it were holding its breath, tiptoeing, a finger to its lips, shhhh.

  I tried to return to my dream (the lulling hum of that baby in my arms), but it was gone.

  When I fell asleep again, finally, I didn't dream at all.

  IN THE morning, I woke to the sound of Chad's alarm clock, shrill and insistent, and remembered that it was his first day back at the lawn service. I got out of bed and went to his room, and when I got there I saw that he had one hand on the alarm clock, which he'd managed to turn off, but that he'd fallen asleep again—on top of the bedspread, fully clothed in the same things he'd been wearing the night before. His room was suffused with the smell—stale and familiar and redolent of the past—of beer and cigarette smoke.

  "Chad," I said from the doorway. "You've got to go to work, don't you?"

  He blinked, and the alarm clock slipped out of his hand to the floor.

  "Yeah," he said, then sat up and looked at me. "Oh, Mom," he said. "I'm a very hungover boy. Do you still love me?"

  "Yes," I said, blinking at the sudden tears in my eyes as I said it.

  I went downstairs and made a pot of strong coffee, eggs, bacon, toast, while Chad showered. When he came downstairs I gave him a sympathetic and disapproving look. He was wearing jeans and FRED'S LANDSCAPE CREW T-shirt.

  "Please," he said. "Mom, don't look at me. It hurts."

  "What time did you get home last night?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Chad said, spreading strawberry jam on his toast.

  "That late," I said. "Did Garrett drink as much as you?"

  "Garrett drank a lot," Chad said. "Once word got around the bar that Garrett had joined the Marines and that I was his friend, we got so many rounds bought for us we couldn't keep up."

  "Where were you?"

  "Stiver's."

  "Stiver's? How? You're not twenty-one."

  Chad snorted. He said, "Mom, we've been drinking at Stiver's for years. They don't care how old you are."

  "Oh," I said. It was not, I decided, the time to interrogate him about the past, about Stiver's, about drinking, but I wondered—when? With whom? Where had I been? How could I not have known? Instead, I asked, "Then Garrett drove you home, afterward?"

  "Yeah," Chad said.

  "Drunk?"

  "Please, Mom. We made it, okay? Don't scold me." He looked up at me, and wha
t I saw there made me take a step backward. It was like a little threat, I thought, the expression on his face—eyes narrowed, lips parted. What was he telling me with that expression? What did he know?

  Bram?

  Had Garrett told him after all?

  Or, that red Thunderbird—was it certain, then, he had seen it?

  Or, did Chad know, simply, that his father and I had, ourselves, driven home from Stiver's, drunk, only two months ago?

  I said nothing more.

  I poured more coffee into his cup.

  "Thank you, Mom," he said.

  ***

  ON THE drive to Fred's Landscaping, Chad kept his head against the passenger-side window, his eyes closed, but when we pulled up to the enormous garage that is Fred's, he leaned over and kissed my cheek (toothpaste, soap) and said, "Love ya, Ma," and got out.

  Fred—a fat man in jeans that hung so low on him that not only did his belly pour out from under his T-shirt, but I could also see where the pubic hair began to ride down into his pants, curly and black—waved to me before he and Chad high-fived each other. Chad turned then and blew me a kiss before disappearing with Fred into the garage.

  He still loved me.

  Everything was the same.

  The blown kiss. The summer job.

  Just like last summer, I thought, I would pick him up here at five o'clock, and he'd get into the car. He'd be speckled with damp green bits of shredded grass and leaves, smelling of lawn, fair weather, hard work. He would kiss me on the cheek. He would take a shower at home. We would have dinner when Jon got home from work. If the subject of the Thunderbird came up, we would think of something, Jon and I together. If Garrett had told him, we would sit down with Chad. We would have a long talk. We were his parents, and we'd find a way to explain.

  WHEN I got home, I poured the last inch of coffee from the pot into a cup, and brought it with me outside, to the back porch.

  The sun all over the backyard had lit it up.

  Out there, in the scrubbrush, Kujo was barking, howling, so consumed with whatever he was doing that he didn't notice a small white-tailed rabbit hopping mindlessly across the green lawn toward the road. When the mail truck came down that road, blowing up dust and dirt as it does, it had to swerve to avoid hitting that bunny, which continued its straight line right into the truck's path.