Separate Flights

by Andre Dubus

  ‘Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Helen’s.’

  ‘You better eat an onion before Daddy comes home.’

  She said it in a friendly way, smiling, and Beth winked. It was their first moment like that since going to the gynecologist.

  ‘I guess I better. Is this what you’ve been doing?’

  ‘Marsha and I played tennis.’

  ‘In this heat?’

  ‘It gave me a headache.’

  ‘Did you take something?’

  ‘Two aspirins. Marsha has a date, and we’re doubling tonight.’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘I finally talked her into it. Vic’ll be in Vietnam for a year and I told her, you know, it’s just friendly dating to distract her. She needs it.’

  ‘Course she does.’

  Peggy closed the magazine and rolled on her back. Beth went to the window and looked past the elm down at the brick street.

  ‘Peggy?’ She did not turn from the window. ‘Was I wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  Now she looked at Peggy on the bed.

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you’re not happy.’

  ‘That’s not your fault.’

  ‘Then you’re really not?’

  ‘Not what.’

  ‘Happy.’

  ‘No. No, I’m not.’

  ‘Then I was wrong.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. That was great. Anybody else’s mother would have—I don’t know, gone crazy or something. No, it’s Bucky. I think I’m getting tired of him.’

  ‘Well, that’s normal.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be.’

  ‘But it is, honey. You’re barely eighteen.’

  The record player shut itself off; Peggy got up and turned the records over and started it again.

  ‘I’ll be glad when school starts,’ she said.

  ‘Because of Bucky?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll be glad too. But you could just tell him, you know. You don’t have to wait till September.’

  ‘No,I’ll wait.’

  ‘But be happy. Don’t waste time.’

  Peggy shrugged and lay on the bed, one arm across her eyes.

  ‘I’ll wait till school. Maybe when I get out there I’ll change my mind. You know: maybe I’ve just been with him too much this summer.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you told me. I thought it was that other business.’

  ‘No. That was right.’

  ‘Do they make you sick?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘Good. I’m going to shower now. Will you—No: never mind.’

  Peggy moved her arm and looked at her.

  ‘Will I what?’

  ‘I was going to ask you to start the charcoal, but forget it. You rest and get over that headache.’

  ‘It’s about gone.’

  She got up.

  ‘No, I’ll do it,’ Beth said.

  ‘It’s done,’ Peggy said, and left the room and went downstairs.

  Beth left her drink on the lavatory while she showered. She was under the warm spray for a long time, finishing with a few seconds of cold; when she got out she felt better but still tight. She dried and powdered, then finished her drink while she dressed and perfumed in the bedroom. She wore a yellow dress, the color of lemon sherbet, soft and cool and pretty. She stood at the full-length mirror: her face and arms were tan and cool-looking and she smelled good. Robert had thought she was pretty, she knew that. Then why had he let her catch that plane? Not that it would have made any difference. She went downstairs and mixed a drink and went outside where Peggy sat in a lawn chair, watching the charcoal.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Peggy said.

  Beth went down the steps like a model, and in front of Peggy did a slow pirouette, then forced a short laugh that almost came out as a sob.

  ‘And so are you,’ she said. ‘And I want you to be ever so happy!’

  They sat with their legs in the sun, their bodies in the shade; when the shadows of the elm and house had enclosed their legs, Lee came home. By that time Beth was drunk.

  Lee knew it, and she saw in his eyes that he knew it, but he didn’t say anything. They ate barbecued chicken and baked beans and potato salad; Beth thought the food would make her sober, and she ate second helpings, and wiped the chicken platter with Italian bread. All this only cleared her head, but she still wasn’t sober; faced with a waning drunk, she had to prolong it, so while she cleaned the kitchen she had another drink, knowing that behind his newspaper in the living room Lee was scowling at the sounds of ice cubes and stirring. When the kitchen was clean she took her drink outside and sat on a lawn chair. The sun was very low. Across the street beside the house Mrs. Crenshaw was bent over giving scraps to her dog; she straightened and waved. Then Mrs. Crenshaw went inside, and she was alone. It seemed a long time ago she had played checkers with Wendy under the willow tree. She looked over her shoulder at the house: Peggy’s room was lighted, the shades drawn while she dressed for her date. The kitchen was lighted. So was the living room where Lee was reading. Beth looked away: everything was shadowed now, and there was a ribbon of deep bright pink over the rooftops to the west. With her back to the house she felt somehow threatened. But nothing was wrong: the kitchen was clean; Peggy’s trouble was with Bucky, not her; Lee was sulking, but that was normal.

  The sky was nearly dark when Bucky drove up the street. When he opened the door the interior light went on and Beth saw Marsha and a boy in the back seat. Bucky started across the lawn toward the front door, then he saw her and came over and said hello.

  ‘Just go through the kitchen,’ she said. She looked up at Peggy’s bedroom. ‘I think she’s downstairs now.’

  She watched him go into the kitchen; then she heard him knocking on the wall and calling hello. She went to the car; Marsha rolled down the back window and Beth stuck her head in. She stayed there, talking about the heat and tennis with Marsha and the boy whose name she didn’t hear, until Peggy and Bucky got into the car. She stepped back, and as they drove away she called: ‘Have fun!’

  She went to the back door and into the kitchen. She was dropping ice in her glass when Lee came from the living room.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  She hesitated. Then, not looking at him, she squeezed lime into the glass.

  ‘Jesus. Did you have to go out to the car too? Couldn’t you have just stayed wherever the hell you were?’

  ‘I wanted to tell Marsha hello. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘What’s wrong. You’re so Goddamned drunk you don’t even know. How do you think Peggy liked it? Her mother out there bellowing her Goddamned drunk talk all over the neighborhood—’

  ‘I wasn’t bellowing.’

  She poured the gin halfway up, then the tonic.

  ‘You were. It’s what you do when you’re drunk, but you don’t hear it.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it’s a good thing I’m not sober like you because you’re bellowing a little yourself, and it’s a good thing we’re all closed up and air-conditioned or the whole neighborhood would hear you.’

  ‘That’s your last drink tonight.’

  ‘Ha.’

  ‘I’ve tried to stay out of this, but not tonight.’

  ‘Ha. They can’t hear you—’ she waved an arm toward the windows ‘—but I can, and being closed up in a house with you makes me drink.’

  ‘Forget about me. I know how you feel about me. I’m talking—’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you know something.’

  ‘I’m talking about Peggy. You don’t care about me and you don’t care about yourself either. You’re killing yourself with booze and cigarettes—’

  ‘You’re Goddamned right I am.’

  ‘—You don’t sleep enough but won’t go to a doctor. All right: that’s your business. But it looks like you could at least stay sober while Peggy’s home.’

  ‘Peggy. Oh, you really don’t know anything,
you don’t know anything at all. You don’t know—’

  She turned and walked fast to the back door, yet when she reached it the anger and speed of her motion were fake; she didn’t want to leave, but when she looked back at him he was standing there shaking his head, his lips tight. So she went outside, where now the sky was dark. She stopped in the backyard and drank, went on to the garage and got into the Lincoln. The key was in the ignition. Holding the glass between her legs, she backed out, looking at the house as she passed it: she did not see Lee at the back door or the kitchen window or living room window. She stopped at the corner, looked both ways, then squealed through the intersection.

  Her cigarettes were back there on the kitchen table or on the grass beside the lawn chair. She drove toward a supermarket that was open until nine; in the dark privacy and quiet hum of the car she felt all right; but walking into the fluorescent lights of the store she felt drunk again. The store was nearly empty, and boys were sweeping. She walked fast so she could follow a straight line, took two packs of Pall Malls from the rack and smacked them on the counter; while the girl rang up the sale Beth looked at the clock on the wall, then at her reflection in the glass front of the store. The girl could surely smell her breath but that was all right if you were dressed up and pretty and had a place to go. She picked up the change, told the girl goodnight, and walked out.

  Her drink was on the floor near the accelerator, and now she held it down in her lap until she got out of the parking lot. The streets were lighted at every corner, and in the headlights of the spaced yet steady traffic you could see into cars. Just the sort of thing a cop would enjoy: stopping a lone woman on Saturday night. Hiding the cool glass between the steering wheel and her lap, she drove out of town, onto the highway going west to Helen’s.

  She finished the drink, tossed the ice and lime out the window, and laid the glass on the seat. On the next curve the glass rolled away from her; she lunged for it and the car veered into the opposite lane but it was clear and when she jerked the wheel she almost went onto the shoulder. She slowed to forty. At the white barn before Helen’s road she slowed for a turn; she did not plan to stop at Helen’s; she would simply drive past and follow the dirt road and see where it went. But she had left her lighter at home, she could go in and ask Helen if it was there and they’d look in the kitchen and living room and with a flashlight under the willow tree, then she could stay and talk. A half mile from Helen’s she went up a gentle rise and saw the lighted house. She slowed to twenty, and going by the house she bent over and looked through the picture window: Helen stood in the living room, talking probably to Larry someplace off to the right. She drove on. She picked up a little speed, followed the beige road past dark fields of corn separating lighted farmhouses. She kept turning right, back toward the highway, and finally she came to it and headed for town. The drinks were wearing off and if she went to a movie now she’d get tired and her mouth and throat would dry. It was too late for a movie anyway.

  Then, almost furtively, her right foot pressed the pedal while her left hand slipped down to her seat belt, unbuckled it, and returned to the wheel. She did not look at the speedometer: leaning forward, she watched the curves and gentle slopes ahead for the lights of another car. Coming out of a curve she floorboarded; the highway now was straight but narrow and she fixed her eyes on the center line. She must not hit anyone. She felt the dark, flat country zipping past but she was afraid to look; once in a while there was the white blur of a house. A big truck came toward her and she held her breath and stared at the road as the truck crashed by. Now her legs were weak and the muscles in her right one were tight and quivering. Still she kept the pedal to the floor for another half minute, until she saw the close lights of houses. She lifted her foot and placed it on the floor near the brake pedal; when she reached the houses she was driving thirty miles an hour and thinking how pretty she looked in her bright yellow dress and weeping aloud. She drove home.

  The lights were on in the living room; she sat in the car, in the garage, and smoked. She remembered the glass and lay on the seat and picked it up from the floor. She was down there when Lee spoke her name.

  ‘Beth?’ he said again.

  She sat up and looked around at him framed by the garage door. She got out and started to walk past him; when he didn’t move aside, she stopped.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘I went for a ride.’

  ‘Oh.’

  They walked back toward the house.

  ‘I was worried,’ Lee said.

  ‘I just went for a ride.’

  In the kitchen he watched her mix a drink, then he followed her into the living room. A movie was on television.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Pal Joey.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  She sat in her chair; he sat in his and now the lampshade was between them so all he could watch was her hands while she drank. For about five minutes she watched the movie.

  ‘What is it, honey?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think maybe the change is coming?’

  ‘No. Besides, the pills postpone it.’

  ‘Maybe it’s coming, though.’

  ‘No it’s not. I’ll die of lung cancer, wearing a Tampax.’

  He was quiet for a while.

  ‘About the drinking,’ he said.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Could you cut down if you wanted to?’

  Sinatra was singing ‘I Could Write a Book.’

  ‘Wait,’ Beth said. ‘Let’s hear this.’

  Then there was a commercial for laundry soap.

  ‘Did you ever notice the commercials for Saturday night movies are mostly for women?’ Beth said. ‘What do they think men are doing on Saturday night?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anyhow, what would happen if you told yourself you just won’t have a drink till five o’clock? Would it be easy, or would you start climbing the walls, or what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never had a reason to try it. But since I’m a lousy mother—’

  ‘No, now wait.’ His hand gestured under the lampshade, stopping her. ‘I’m not talking about that. Forget all that. I just mean that if you can take it or leave it, well, no problem. But if you can’t, then you are in trouble and we should do something.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you might be an alcoholic, that’s why.’

  ‘Oh, all right. Tomorrow I won’t have a drink till five o’clock.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And Monday too? And after that?’

  ‘Yes: Monday too and after that.’

  ‘That’s fine. That’s the best thing I’ve heard in a long time.’

  She could feel him watching the movie again.

  ‘Is it? Well, you’re mighty easy to please. I guess if I quit smoking you’d be so happy you couldn’t stand yourself.’

  ‘Why are you talking like that? The fight’s over.’

  ‘Okay.’ She stood up. ‘I guess since I’m going to be so good tomorrow I can have another one.’

  ‘I’ll have one too.’

  She brought him one. When the movie was over he stood up and cleaned his pipe.

  ‘Coming up?’ he said.

  ‘I think I’ll read a while.’

  He stood there for a moment, then said goodnight and went upstairs. She turned off the television and the lights and sat down again. It took her about fifteen minutes to admit she was hoping Peggy would come home while she was sitting here. Then she stalled for another five minutes, thinking of what she wanted to tell Peggy: that it was all right about Bucky, she was free of him and anyone else, she didn’t have to marry until she was twenty-five or thirty, or maybe not at all. Then she went upstairs. When she entered the dark bedroom Lee rolled toward her, awake. She sat on the edge of the bed and touched him, then let him take off the yellow dress and drop it on the floor, a
nd she let him believe the fight was over and everything was fine.

  Next day Peggy and Bucky and Marsha and her date went on a picnic; Lee played golf. At three o’clock Beth started waiting and at exactly five o’clock she mixed a martini. When Lee got home she was sober.

  5

  THIS LASTED until late August. It was neither difficult nor easy: it was a bother, like being hungry. Sometimes she broke her rule: when she drove out to Helen’s or when a friend came over and bored her. Most of them did. She knew some interesting men but she only saw them at occasional parties when usually she was trapped by their wives. Polly Fairchild was good company only when she was troubled or confiding. So on afternoons when Polly came over Beth mixed them a drink and got Polly started on the war or Johnson. Or Beth would remark generally about marriage or changing morality, and Polly usually responded with gossip. She was an intelligent woman who paused to find the right word, the right simile, the psychological term, and she had a way of making gossip feel like an objective discussion of marriage and morality. But after these conversations, when Polly had gone, Beth always felt ashamed.

  Most days, though, people did not visit, and she did not go to Helen’s, and she did not drink until five o’clock. She spent much time with Peggy, planning what she would need at college, and shopping in town for clothes. They had lunches in town, or Cokes, or ice cream; once, their shopping done, they walked past a movie, looked at the pictures outside, agreed it was the best thing to do on a hot afternoon like this, and went in. Still, since telling Beth she was tiring of Bucky, Peggy had been different. She was friendly again, that was true; but she was like Helen after her marriage. Helen had come home from the honeymoon with a secret, married self that she would not expose to Beth. And now too often Peggy’s eyes and smile hid a secret. She never talked about Bucky.

  One cloudy morning in late August Peggy and Bucky left for a picnic. They went alone. Lee would not have approved, but he was at work. Beth had slept very little the night before, so when Peggy left around ten she went back to bed. When she woke at noon her room was dark and rain was falling hard. She dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen; while she was getting Spam and a Coke from the refrigerator Peggy called hello and came in from the living room. She was wearing her glasses.