by Heidi Pitlor
“I guess I should,” she said. She reached for her cell phone in the glove compartment.
“Hannah!” Marcy said. “We were wondering where you were.” Her young, high voice was a surprise. Hannah’s life was a world away.
“Janine is home sick,” Hannah said. She heard Mozart in the background, Eine kleine Nachtmusik, played on loop there from morning to closing time. “But I’ll come in soon, in about half an hour or so. She’ll just stay home and sleep today. Sorry about this.”
“It’s OK,” Marcy said.
Jamie looked at Hannah as she apologized again before saying good-bye.
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?” he asked.
“What am I supposed to do, tell her I’m sitting in my car in Boston with some guy I just met?”
“I never lie,” he said with surprising earnestness. “Ask me anything.”
“Do you really work here?” She only realized that this had been a question for her after the words had left her mouth.
“I really do. Professor Trobec or Professor T., they call me. Today’s lecture is ‘Conflicting Ideologies in the Analysis of Jazz,’” he said.
She paused and said, “Sounds conflicting in another way, jazz and ideology.”
“Yes. Hence the conflict.” He stepped out of the car and walked around the back to open her door for her. “Come on now, Hannah, let’s go for that walk.” He offered his left hand, and she took it for a second, then let it go.
They made their way over a hillside that sloped toward a sidewalk and then the water. They passed a few college kids smoking, one a girl in black army pants and a yellow T-shirt, and then a young father with a baby in a stroller. Hannah thought of Janine and Ethan and his big green backpack tight around his shoulders that morning. She would leave soon. This strange moment and this person, this man, would become a memory. “I don’t come into the city too often,” she admitted, as if to explain something about her behavior.
“Why not?”
“Well, the kids, and my job. Our lives aren’t here.”
“Our lives? What do you and your husband like to do?”
“The usual stuff, I guess.”
“Oh, that.”
“Are you married?” she asked.
“Don’t believe in it.”
“Why not? You’re the noncommittal type?”
“I’m committed to not marrying,” he said. Speaking to him was a little like looking into a fun-house mirror.
She took in the panorama before her, the marbled sky and the opaque water, the buoys along the horizon. She tried to remember what this water and sky had looked like so many years ago with Doug, the moment before he suggested they get married and the moment after.
“I’ll admit that I can’t stand the thought of walking into that big gray lecture hall and seeing all those bored faces.”
She nodded. “I can imagine.”
“Because how often do I get to see a face like yours?” He suddenly shook his head back and forth like a wet dog. “Wait. What day is it?”
“Thursday.”
“Ha! What do you know?” he said. “This whole time I’ve been thinking today was Wednesday. Lucky you. I don’t have that class today after all.”
Chapter 19
Not long after the vigil, Janine told Lovell that the neighbors were planning a costume party for the next night. “They wanted me to invite you and Ethan. So I guess you’re invited.”
“Oh? Sounds fun,” Lovell said.
“You don’t have to come.”
“You don’t want us there,” he said, but he thought that the party might be a chance to get a better handle on her fixation with these guys, maybe even a clearer sense of the rationale behind this asinine surrogacy business. It would also be a good alternative to sitting at home, thinking and worrying about Hannah. “But I think we should go,” he said.
Janine would wear one of Lovell’s old button-down shirts and his dark blue bathrobe; she would be Beethoven. The next day, Lovell helped Ethan assemble a pirate costume, Captain Jack Sparrow, he insisted—pants that he had outgrown and that now looked more like knickers, along with one of Janine’s shirts, a white summer blouse with capped sleeves and a cinched waist. “It’s so girly,” Ethan protested, but Lovell told him that pirates did in fact wear girly shirts. Lovell typically wore vampire fangs and a red cape when he passed out candy each Halloween, despite Hannah’s attempts to stoke his middling enthusiasm for the holiday. “We could be some kind of duo. Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett? The Alcotts?” she suggested once. He had just gone for his plastic fangs in response. With no other easy options now, he went to find them again.
Stephen and Jeff welcomed the three of them at the door that night. Stephen wore a long black wig threaded with gold braids. He was Cleopatra, and Jeff was Mark Antony, draped in a white sheet, a ring of plastic ivy on his head. Lovell tried to turn off his growing distaste for these men—they could very well become his allies.
Lovell stood by the bar, a card table set up in the corner of the room, while Janine chatted with a man dressed as Princess Di. The living room had been transformed into a gothic nightclub. The walls had been covered in mirrored wrapping paper splattered with black paint. Lovell wondered what this place typically looked like; it was tough to imagine, given the scene right now. In each corner stood tall green statues of gargoyles wearing plastic Groucho Marx glasses. The lamps had been turned off, and a lone purple bulb dangled from the ceiling and lent everyone a shaded, haunted look. A thumping, rhythmic song played, possibly an Indian singer and sitar that had been grafted onto a hip-hop beat. In the center of the room, a small cluster of men danced and mouthed the words of the song.
Ethan set up camp on the couch behind a ceramic lettuce leaf filled with olives, his eyes on two men now lip-locked on the dance floor. Was this whole scene a little much for him? Lovell took a seat next to him and watched Janine pass by, balancing a bowl of chips in one hand and a goblet that sloshed with pink liquid in the other. What exactly was in the glass?
Lovell was about to say something to her when Stephen appeared beside a gargoyle and Janine pranced over to him and perched on the arm of an easy chair. Here they were, Beethoven and Cleopatra, old friends. Potential surrogate and donor? Of course getting pregnant would be the ultimate middle finger to this “messed up” world.
Stephen and Jeff had moved here just before Hannah disappeared. Lovell remembered approaching them on the sidewalk one evening as they were unloading a U-Haul. He introduced himself and offered opinions about where to find good pizza and a decent dry cleaner nearby. Stephen went to move their Prius into the driveway, and Lovell said to Jeff, “Can we start a club for people here who don’t drive minivans or underpay Brazilians to overwater their lawns?”
Jeff appeared horrified. “Our guy, Victor, owns his own business.”
Lovell fumbled for an apology.
The smell of incense, sandalwood maybe or sage, hit him. Bodies moved in a hot swarm. Someone’s sweaty arm brushed his hand, the purple bulb flickered above, the nasal sitar twanged the same note again and again. Lovell took it all in. He tried to imagine Hannah there with him, gazing out at this dark room that might as well have been miles and miles from their home, but he could not seem to place her here. He ran through how things might have been different if she had not gone away. Janine might not have befriended Stephen and Jeff. She might not have shaved her head; she might not be wishing that she were carrying their baby right now. And if he and Hannah had not had their fight, if she had only paid that one bill? The variables began to multiply in his mind.
He wondered whether Hannah had considered leaving him during times other than the one night she spent at her sister’s. Her sarcastic suggestions about his choice of words or shoes later evolved into orders not to slouch, not to play so many computer games, orders that eventually, soon after they got engaged, melted into judgments. Whenever he was home, he was so rarely “present.” He promised to try harder, a
nd he did for a while. He made sure to comment on a new recipe and laugh each and every time she told a joke. But after a while, the focus of her irritation broadened. He spoke “too quietly,” “too loudly,” “too quickly,” “too much about work.” He seldom, if ever, exhibited any interest in her daily life. He never asked her any questions about anything anymore. And the kids too—why didn’t he ever ask them about their days or school or friends? He drifted around their house, burrowed deep in his thoughts a good 90 percent of the time, and what would this do to them, other than show Ethan that it was acceptable for men not to interact with those around them, and Janine that she was unworthy of his attention?
Lovell said something like, “I am doing the best that I can. Forgive me if I’m not perfect one hundred percent of my life,” and she replied, “That is a cop-out if I’ve ever heard one.” Over time, her unending complaints became like sandpaper that scratched raw a big part of him. Each new round made him sting and wriggle away. “You will never be happy with anything,” he shot back. “You’re not happy with yourself, and no one else is good enough for you.” Each new round eroded her aura of sweet mystery and the welcome surprise of her bluntness and even her beauty itself. She was right in front of him then, right up in his face, so close that he could no longer see her.
“Where did your sister go?” he asked Ethan. Lovell could not see Janine anywhere. Ethan shrugged.
Lovell elbowed his way across the dance floor and toward the kitchen, where a few men sat around a table covered in bottles of vodka and gin. “Anyone seen Beethoven?” he asked them. They just looked at him. He might as well have been dressed up as Anxious Straight Man.
He headed toward a staircase and followed voices until he reached a bedroom. He stopped before pushing open the door and tried to hear what he could: Janine’s voice, and maybe Stephen’s as well. He pressed his ear to the door just as the door flew open and Janine stumbled on top of him.
“Were you listening in on us?” she asked.
“Home. We’re going home.” He reached for her elbow and led her toward the stairs, although she twisted in his grip.
“I’m not ready to go yet. I want to stay,” she said, but he pushed her forward.
Outside, Janine collided with Ethan and tripped down the stoop, landing on her side across the brick walk. Thankfully, the news vans had left—those that had shown up after the discovery of that arm bone a few days ago. Lovell held tight to her hand across the lawn and the shallow gulley that separated the properties, up onto their own lawn, and toward the house. Ethan followed behind them. “What were you guys talking about?” Lovell finally asked.
“Nothing. Fuck.”
“Why were you hiding in a bedroom?”
“That is in no way your business,” Janine said.
Once inside, Lovell pulled the front door closed behind him, and both kids disappeared upstairs.
Minutes later, he heard a slam and the sound of Janine throwing up. “Janine?” he called, beginning up the stairs. She appeared at the top, her mouth wet and her eyes swollen, her wig in her hand like a small carcass. “I need my bed,” she groaned.
He turned to Ethan, who was watching from his doorway, and tried to keep a measured tone. “Give us a sec. She’ll be all right.”
Lovell followed Janine as she slumped into her bedroom and began to shed her costume. She stood beside her metal music stand, shivering and coughing in a white cotton bra and purple striped underwear. She was narrower through the shoulders than he had remembered. He had not seen her without clothes on in so long. Her shaved head was pinkish and looked exposed. His frustration evaporated; he had the urge to scoop her up and set her in a deep, warm nest. “Sit,” he said.
“I think I just puked all the drunk out of me. My brain feels like a fucking bowling ball.” She fell back across her mattress.
Lovell looked in vain through her dresser to find pajamas. At last he found a green flannel nightgown on the floor in the corner of the room.
She sat back up and covered her face with her hands. When she took them away, she turned her bloodshot eyes to Lovell and scanned his face and his hair and his arms as he shook the nightgown straight. “You two always fought. You couldn’t stand each other.”
“Janine.” He stopped.
“The night before—that was one of your worst. It was your worst.”
He set the nightgown next to her on the bed.
She reached for it and eased herself back up into a standing position. She lifted the nightgown over her head and slid her arms inside. She looked at him, measuring his reaction. “I kept the evidence, you know.” Janine rummaged around in one of her drawers and produced a plastic bag with shards of broken and shattered glass inside.
“What is that?”
“It used to be her perfume. You don’t remember decimating it? Are you kidding me?”
He blinked at her. “It fell off the counter.”
“You were so off the hook. You think I couldn’t hear everything? Go into your bathroom and I’ll make noise. You tell me what you can hear. I thought you might actually knock down the wall.”
He shook his head. She was being dramatic, as always.
“And you almost hit her. I saw it. I saw you going toward her.”
“Jesus. Listen to you. You need to stop this. Yes, we had a fight. Yes, we said some not-so-nice things. And yes, her perfume fell. But there’s no need to exaggerate here and pretend you heard things—and saw things—that you know perfectly well you didn’t.” He had been hard enough on himself. He did not need her help in heaping on the blame. “You’ve had a lot to drink tonight, and by the way, alcohol is illegal at your age.”
“Is it? I wasn’t aware of that.” Her words were slurred. She fingered the white collar of her nightgown. “I saw Mom in the bedroom, you know, while you were locked in the bathroom. I went in and checked on her. She was sitting alone on your bed and crying. She was probably terrified. I sure as shit was. Anyway, she was such a mess that she didn’t even notice I was there. And I saw you about to deck her. I did. And then you slammed the door so I couldn’t see any more. I can’t believe you’re acting like I’m lying. It all doesn’t look so good right now, does it?”
“Janine, I want you to think very carefully about what you are saying.”
Her eyes fell to the ground.
“It was unfortunate, of course it was, but it wasn’t as bad as you’re saying. Adults fight sometimes. You know that,” Lovell tried. “Why didn’t you ever tell me all of this?”
“Maybe I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Duh. Of what you might do to me?”
“Are you serious? Did I ever even spank you? Have I ever even come close?” He glanced down at the bag of crushed glass. “Did you show that to anyone—the police?”
Janine shook her head.
He reached toward her, but she batted away his hand. “I didn’t want you to get in trouble,” she finally said. “Because what the hell would happen to us then?” Her eyes began to fill. “You can be a total dick. But you are still my father.” She finally set the plastic bag on her dresser. She cried quietly for a while, and it was unbearable not to be able to touch her or comfort her right now.
She lay on her bed again, this time on her side, her arms around her knees. “Maybe she wouldn’t have gone off if you hadn’t been such a complete and total shithead to her that night.”
He blinked at her. He could not disagree. He had no argument at all. “I’m sorry we had that fight. Every day I’m sorry. I’ve never been more sorry about anything,” he finally said.
“What do you think happened to her?”
“I genuinely don’t know, sweetheart.”
“Do you think she’ll be OK?”
“I do,” he said automatically. “I really do. I really hope she’ll come back. I think she will. We have to think that, right?” Lovell steadied himself against the wall. “It’s been a long night. Everything seems worse at night, believe
me, especially after too many drinks. Try to get some sleep.” He turned out the light. Just before he closed the door, he said, “Why did you keep the glass all this time?”
“To give back to Mom.”
“But it was—”
“I know. I thought there might still be a little perfume left on the pieces. I wasn’t really thinking. I couldn’t sleep later that night, so I went into your bathroom and all the glass was still there and so I gathered it up. I think you were downstairs or something. I figured I’d give it to her the next morning, but I didn’t really get the chance, and then I thought I could give it to her that afternoon.”
“I don’t think I slept at all that night.” The daylight, he remembered, was a sort of medicine. Truly nothing was as acute or upsetting in the first light of day.
She looked at him. “Is that—was what you did that night like domestic violence?”
“Janine, I didn’t touch her. No matter how angry I was, I would not have hurt her. Or you. I’d never hurt any of you. That’s not who I am. I can’t believe I even have to tell you these things.”
“Well, you sure as hell touched her perfume and our walls. It sure as shit sounded violent to me. You sure said some nasty things to her.”
“You’ve made your point,” he finally said. He could stand here all night, getting nowhere. “Now get some sleep.” He shut off the light and pulled the door closed behind him.
The only light nearby was a small, moon-shaped night-light outside Ethan’s closed door that emitted a dim yellow glow. Somewhere a clock ticked. He tried to gather himself as he considered all that had just happened. Janine had held these things inside for two months now. He had never known her to keep anything inside. She had been that afraid of him—or that afraid that he would be carted away by the police.
It was inconceivable that they were all in the center of this hell right now and that he himself had brought them all to this dark, airless place.
He crept toward Ethan’s bedroom and carefully pushed open his door. Ethan lay asleep on top of his quilt, still in his costume, his eye patch against his cheek now. Lovell moved his koala next to his head and slipped out of his bedroom.
