The Stories of Richard Bausch

by Richard Bausch

  “It’s fine,” Mother said. “Guatemala’s fine. You get such enjoyment out of it.”

  “You always liked keeping pets and you had that exotic bird in college. It’s as much for you all as for me.”

  “We love it,” Lauren said. “We don’t have to go to the real Guatemala.”

  “Well, if you’re so put out by it, why don’t you let somebody know about it?”

  Dalton cleared his throat and rested his elbows on the table. Mother said, “I’m sorry,” to him. Then, looking across at Georgia: “This isn’t the time to talk about Guatemala.”

  “I’m just defending myself,” Georgia said.

  Again, there was a pause.

  “They take their time about serving people in here, don’t they?”

  “It has been a while,” Dalton said. “Hasn’t it?”

  Mother said, “Lauren, honey, what’s the matter?”

  “She’s nervous about trying out for the baseball,” Georgia broke in. “She’s at that age, you know. A lot of lean muscle isn’t going to be lean muscle in a few months.”

  Lauren put one hand to her head and stared down at the table, understanding that she was the subject of their talk for a reason. Now they went on about the changes of adolescence—Georgia saying that it was entirely possible she wouldn’t want to play.

  “If she decides not to play,” Mother said, “it’s not going to disappoint me. She won’t be letting anyone down.”

  “Wouldn’t her father be proud of her,” Georgia said. “You remember how he was about sports.” She looked across at Dalton. “Lived and breathed them.”

  “Did he play sports?” Dalton asked.

  Georgia nodded. “That’s where this girl got her talent for throwing a baseball.”

  “He actually played in the minor leagues,” Mother said. “For a while.”

  “Well, he didn’t want to settle down. Joannie’s father wondered if he’d ever grow up.”

  “He had a serious skill,” Mother said. “He was plenty grown up.”

  “I’d like not to spend the whole evening talking about my father. I never even knew my father.” Lauren felt a sudden urge to begin crying. She rested her hands in her lap and looked away from them.

  “Lauren?” Mother said. “Something is wrong.”

  “No it isn’t. Nothing more than the usual.”

  “She’s talking about Guatemala,” said Georgia. “Isn’t she? I swear. They harbor these—these hostilities, and then act on them. And you never know what’s behind it. Her mother was the same way when she was a teenager.”

  Mother said, “It’s all learned behavior, Georgia. You’ve said so yourself.”

  Lauren said, “Hey, you know? I don’t, like, care whether it’s, like, hostile or not. Or if it’s, like, learned, or normal, either. You know what I, like, mean? I don’t want to talk about somebody I never knew, no matter who it was. And I wasn’t talking about Guatemala.”

  Dalton looked at her.

  “Hey,” Mother said. “You can watch your tone there a little, don’t you think?”

  “Seems we’re all a little tense,” said Georgia, stroking the napkin in her lap.

  Dalton stared at the menu and said nothing. And now everyone stared at the menus. At last, a young man came to the table, wearing black slacks and a shirt with the same quality of shining silk as the blouse of the maître d’. He introduced himself as Byron, and began to recite the specials of the day.

  “Slow down, Brian,” Georgia said to him. “What’s your hurry?”

  He shuffled slightly and looked momentarily lost. “Uh, that’s—my name is—I’m Byron, ma’am.”

  “Of course you are. So what are the specials, as we call them?”

  He started over, speaking with the deliberateness of someone expecting any moment to be interrupted again. When he was through, there was a pause.

  “Thank you,” Dalton said.

  “Can I get you all something to drink?” Byron asked.

  “We get water, right?” Georgia asked him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why don’t you bring that and we’ll all figure out whatever else we want.”

  “Uh,” Dalton said. “I know what I want. I’d like a bourbon on the rocks.” He looked at Mother. “You?”

  “Yes. I’ll have that, too.”

  “Which one of you is driving?” Georgia demanded.

  “Two bourbons on the rocks,” Mother said.“Make mine a double.”

  “Mine, too,” said Dalton, with an edge. He didn’t look at Georgia.

  “I’d like a root beer,” said Lauren.

  Georgia held the menu, but said nothing. The young man still waited, pad in hand, pencil ready. Lauren saw Mother start to say something and then decide not to.

  “Shall I go get the water now?” Byron said. “And let you have some time to think?”

  Georgia looked up. “Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, what an idiot I am. For God’s sake. I got to daydreaming. Yes, I’ll have the water, and a glass of white wine. The house white.”

  Byron wrote in the pad and then made his escape from the table.

  “Poor kid standing there while I forget I’m supposed to be ordering something to drink.”

  It could have been perfectly sincere. Lauren saw Dalton staring at Georgia with the look of a man gazing upon natural phenomena.

  “I’m beginning to worry about my memory,” the old woman said.

  “I don’t think that’s a memory issue,” he told her. “Just daydreaming, I do it all the time.” Lauren had a wordless sense of the complicated feeling behind this: the elements of intention, even of strategy, mixed with the simple reflexive desire to ease the other’s anxiety.

  “But I’d forgotten the boy was standing there,” Georgia said.

  “I talked to a doctor about memory loss.” Dalton’s tone was sweetly reassuring. “Back when my mother was having some trouble. He told me it’s only significant if you never get it back. If you don’t remember not remembering it.”

  “Then how do you know you’re not remembering it?”

  He smiled, nodding. “People tell you, I guess.”

  “Sounds fishy to me. Nobody tells you anything in our house.”

  “I guess that could lead to some trouble. Did you ever see the movie Gaslight?”

  “I never liked movies,” Georgia said.

  Mother sighed, folding her napkin in her lap, then murmured to Dalton: “She used to go to the movies every week. For years when I was growing up. And she saw Gaslight, too, several times.”

  “I know that movie,” Lauren said. “A man trying to make his wife think she’s insane.”

  “I swear on a stack of Bibles,” Georgia insisted. “I never saw it. What’s it about again?”

  “It’s about a man who could’ve hired you to do his work for him,” Mother said. “And you do, too, know it.”

  “Is it one of those Bible epics? I hate those.”

  “It’s about Guatemala,” Dalton said.

  “I’m not going out for baseball,” Lauren burst out.

  “See how you feel in a few months,” Mother said, too automatically. She was attending to her own mother, who cleared her throat and pronounced, as if it were a matter for debate, upon which she must insist, that she did not like movies, and had never seen Gaslight.

  “Well, I don’t much like movies lately,” Dalton said with a conciliatory smile.

  Mother said, “Now you’re placating her.”

  “Placating,” Georgia said. “Who needs placating? What am I, in charge here? Is that what this is? You’re introducing your boyfriend like a teenager, seeking my approval?”

  “Oh, please. No one said anything of the kind.”

  “Maybe we could we talk about anything else?” Lauren said.

  “Listen,” Mother said to her. Then, turning to Georgia: “No one’s saying we’re seeking anything from you, all right?”

  “Well,” Dalton went on, “but in a way that is what we’r
e doing, isn’t it?” He looked across at the old woman. “Isn’t that what this is about? I haven’t ordered more than a glass of wine in a restaurant for at least ten years. But I had a feeling, before we got here, that wine isn’t going to be enough. I ordered the whiskey for my nerves. I’m really very nervous, you see.”

  “Dalton,” Mother said under her breath. “Please.”

  “It’s true, honey.”

  “You’ve been told you’ll need it, no doubt,” Georgia said. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.”

  Lauren experienced a wave of exhaustion, listening to them, watching the whole thing evolve, as she had known it would, into disaster.

  Mother said, “We are not in need of anyone’s approval.”

  “Maybe I’m the one who’s up for approval,” said Georgia. “I suppose you’ll want to shuffle me off to a home or something.”

  “How about Leavenworth?” Dalton offered, smiling. When there was no response, he looked down and murmured, “Joke.”

  Mother said, “I wanted Dalton to meet the family. There’s nothing unusual about that.”

  “You must tell me,” Georgia said to him, “what my daughter told you to expect.”

  “She didn’t really tell me anything. That was joking. Well, she did mention Guatemala. But that was all. And I am nervous. I was nervous.”

  “I’m not as formidable as you were told I was.”

  “Something like that.”

  “So you were prepped. What did she tell you about Guatemala, as you put it?”

  “Oh, Georgia, what are you trying to accomplish now?” Mother said. “Because if it’s to make this meal as unpleasant as possible for all of us, you’re doing a hell of a good job of it.”

  The old woman sat back a little in her chair, frowning, as though trying to take in what had been said to her.

  Dalton said, not unkindly, “These things are awkward.”

  “Have you ever been married before?” she asked him.

  “Oh, can we please just stop all this?” Lauren broke in.

  Her mother glared at her across the table. “It’s not your place to mediate,” she said. “That’s not your job. You shouldn’t even have to be thinking about this kind of a mess at your age.”

  “At my age. At my age. I’m so sick of hearing about that. Do you know how sick I am of all that?”

  They were all gazing at her now, silent, waiting.

  “I told you it would be this way,” she said to Mother. “I told you how she’d be.”

  “Oh,” said Georgia. “So now it’s out that I’m the subject of private talk in the house. I heard you both whispering, you know. You think I couldn’t hear you? You think I didn’t know you were talking about me? You’d both like to get rid of me. Why couldn’t you say something to somebody about—about Guatemala, for God’s sake. I actually thought it was something we were all doing. Lauren, you’ve brought me plants for it. How was I to understand you hated me for it?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Mother said. “Give us a break. Nobody hates anybody.”

  They were all quiet again. From somewhere came the strains of Muzak. On the other side of the room a man laughed.

  “So I’m the person whose company everybody dreads,” Georgia muttered.

  “Now you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Lauren felt a climbing sense of rage, that they would never stop squabbling with one another. She said, “Listen to me, please. I’ve decided definitely not to go out for baseball, girls’ or boys’ team. I’m quitting it altogether.”

  None of them had heard her, quite. Mother only glanced her way as Georgia began to mutter at Dalton: “Joannie tells me you were married before. How long ago was that? I wonder.”

  “You’re amazing,” Dalton said. “You know it?”

  “I’m just curious. I’m trying to make harmless conversation.”

  “Harmless. That’s what you call it?”

  “Stop this,” said Mother. “Please. Both of you.”

  “What about you?” Dalton said to Georgia, leaning slightly across the table. “What about your husband?”

  “My husband died nineteen years ago.”

  “Lucky man.”

  Georgia fixed him with her darkest gaze.

  “Dalton!” Mother said. “For God’s sake.”

  “Well, hell,” he said. “I’ve sat here and taken it and taken it—”

  “But you promised.”

  “She’s been sniping at me from the first.”

  “Are you talking about me, young man?”

  “You know what I was told about you?” Dalton said. “It wasn’t just Guatemala.”

  “I’m quitting baseball,” Lauren said, too loud. “Did you all hear me? I’m never playing again.”

  They stopped to look at her.

  Without the words to express it, she understood that she had reached the limit of her patience concerning the obscure shades of adult disquiet, the baroque knots of petty angers and the constant complications, all of which accomplished so deftly the task of excluding her, or placing her safely at the remove of phrases having to do with her normal development. It came to her in that moment that she had a right to her own distress, and that it weighed as much as theirs. “I’m tired of being treated like a circus animal. Do you know that one of the other girls called me ‘butch’ yesterday? And people laughed. They laughed. They all think I’m some kind of freak, because of the baseball and because I live in a house with a monkey and a macaw and a parrot and a room that looks like Guatemala, and I’m sick of it. I’m sick of all of it.”

  “She brought me plants for it. She was excited about it,” Georgia said.

  “I think we should talk about it all some other time,” said Mother. “I think we all need to calm down. We’re in a public place, for God’s sake.”

  “Fine by me,” Dalton said, glaring across the table.

  For a long few seconds, no one said anything. They didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  Then Dalton murmured, “Jesus Christ.”

  Before anyone else could speak, Byron arrived with the drinks on a tray that he could hardly manage. He placed the glasses down. There was just the sound of the bottoms of the glasses coming lightly to the tabletop. When he had set the last one down, he stepped back, bringing out his pad and pencil. “Ready to order?”

  “Not just yet,” Mother said in a shaky voice. He went off.

  Lauren had begun to cry.

  “What the hell,” Dalton said.

  “Great contribution to the discussion,” said Georgia. “Articulate and to the point.”

  “Shut up,” said Mother. “I mean it. Just shut up.”

  “Good idea,” Dalton muttered.

  “I mean you, too. For God’s sake. Both of you.”

  “She’s only trying to get our attention,” Georgia told them. “Believe me. She’s no more upset than I am.”

  “I hate this,” said Lauren, bolting from her seat and starting away from the table. Her mother caught up with her and held her by the arm, the two of them standing in the space between two rows of tables. “Look, now, stop it. Calm down.”

  She pulled away. “I told you what it would be if she came along. I told you this was a mistake.”

  “I’m not talking about that. I want you to tell me what’s going on with you.”

  “Oh, God. Nothing. I’m quitting baseball. I’m tired of being weird all the time. I’m tired of never talking about anything else.”

  She turned and went on, to the door and out into the humid dark of the street. Faint light came from the windows of the restaurant, a yellow dimness. There wasn’t any traffic. Her mother had followed her out here.

  “Honey, look at me.”

  Lauren did so, wiping the tears from her eyes. “You should’ve heard you all in there.”

  “Listen, young lady. You took part, too. It was all of us.”

  “It was her,” Lauren said. “It’s always her.”

  “Yes, but
that’s not entirely fair, either. We hurt her feelings. She heard us talking. We’ve put her on the outside so often—it’s my fault. And we should’ve said something about the room. We did bring her things to put in it.”

  “I’m sick of her. Do you know how nice it would be if I had somebody who I could call my father? And she always ruins everything. She always has.”

  “Okay. That’s not exactly true, either. Now you’re just saying things to hurt me.”

  For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. It was all just too complicated. Lauren thought about how good she would feel if she could simply go to sleep and really rest, really go down, and never wake up, never have to stir and face into these tangles and these mazes of worry and all the useless emotions that just swept through you like storms.

  “I haven’t been happy with anybody,” her mother said. “I’m not even sure I’m happy with Dalton yet. It hasn’t always been Georgia.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “Well,” Mother said, “you’ll just have to take my word for it.” Then she sighed and indicated the doorway by a slight tilting of her head. “You know we’ve got to get back in there. They might end up killing each other.”

  “Dalton won’t ever want another thing to do with us.”

  “Well, if that’s so, then he’s not for us.”

  Far off, in some other part of the city, a siren wailed, and perhaps it had been going on for some time. They started back toward the entrance of the restaurant, and Lauren, glancing at her mother in the dimness, was abruptly filled with a kind of dizzying and depressing wonder at her self-possession, at the fact that she could decide how she would live and what she would do, with apparently so little doubt, and no crippling fear of making the wrong choice. But then Mother paused and took a breath, and actually trembled.

  “Oh,” Mother said, with a note of crying in her voice. “I wish I knew.”

  Lauren took her arm, because she could think of nothing else to do or say. They went back into the restaurant and to the table, where they found Dalton and Georgia studiously ignoring one another. They held on to each other.

  “Well?” Georgia said.

  Dalton smiled, and under the circumstances, even though it was a kindly smile, he looked momentarily rather stupid.

  “It’s fine,” Mother said. “Everything’s fine.”