All Night

by Alan Cumyn

  Like I did. I don’t quite say it.

  Jess shakes her arms loosely, moves her head from side to side to get ready to perform. “Well, I was sitting on a streetcar. And this guy who smelled of pee was standing in front of me. I felt sorry for him. I was ready to give him my seat. But the stink was like a wall I’d have to pass through.”

  “Great!” I jump on the bed. “Do the wall!”

  “The wall?”

  I hold my arms and hands flat, as if I am a wall.

  Jess ignores me. “And my phone rings. It’s my mom.” She pretends to be on the phone. “‘Hi, Mom. Can I call you back?’ ” Jess looks out at nothing, as if she might be on stage, with the lights shining in her face. The judges will love her. “I’m, like, how do I even breathe with this stench? The guy is looking at me. Does he want my seat? My phone? What?

  “My mom says, ‘No. Are you sitting?’ She sounds tight. As if she can’t breathe. ‘Mom, are you all right?’ She says, ‘It’s your father, dear.’ And then a hole seemed to open up in the earth. I don’t know how I got from the wall of stink and the streetcar to running along the street. Oh, God! The air felt like a thick liquid that I had to swim through. I was nearly home, but I felt as if I would never get there.

  “I don’t remember Mom saying, ‘He’s dead,’ those exact words. She said, ‘Daddy crumpled in the bathroom.’ Down he went. Standing at the sink, with the door open. He was clipping his nose hairs. And then he crumpled.”

  The Sweeney Circle judges will see and hear her like this and love her, love her like I do. But suddenly her face shuts. She says to me, “You’re thinking I’ll get in because the judges will feel sorry for me. That’s sick.”

  “No. It’s a good story. That’s all. You’ve got this mighty martial arts bookkeeper father. And he crumples in the bathroom while clipping his nose hairs. That’s life. That’s life right there.”

  “Great,” Jess says. “My father’s nose hairs. A fine story.”

  “It needs an ending,” I say.

  “He died!” Jess says. “The end. I don’t remember getting home. But when I got there, Mom had already dragged him into the bedroom. Somehow, she had lifted him onto the bed. She didn’t want anyone to know that he died in the bathroom.”

  Just saying the words seems to split her open. In a moment she’s crying. I hold her. She sobs into my shoulder. Misty. Peter’s pet name for her. Because she does cry. A lot.

  “That’s not a story,” she says. “It’s the terrible thing that blew a hole in my family a couple of years ago. I’m not going to get picked.”

  “Shh,” I say. She did cry today for Peter. She rained hard. We all did.

  Jess says, “There are no lucky breaks. You don’t get picked based on something you threw together a few hours before trying out.”

  “Sometimes it happens,” I say. She has to believe that, if she wants to be an actor.

  “Never. Not to me,” she says.

  I hold her so that she has to look into my eyes. “Tell them about later. With the moon and everything.”

  “It’s hopeless,” she says.

  “How you were walking that night in the summer. And the moon was hanging like a huge, pregnant dinner plate in the sky.”

  Jess moves away. “A pregnant dinner plate?”

  “I forget how you put it. How did you put it?”

  She seems to have forgotten. But then she says, “The moon itself was like a beaming, pregnant belly. Like my father’s belly. He was so proud of all the chi he packed into his insides. He said he was almost pregnant.”

  “They might not know what chi is,” I say. “You could tell them it’s healthy energy, sort of an Eastern idea.”

  Jess crosses her arms. Almost hugging herself. “Well, a fat lot of good Dad’s healthy energy did him. His heart gave out. That could happen to anybody. How many more examples do we need?”

  “But about that moon. Beaming down on you. And you had that feeling ...”

  “I guess.”

  “You were flooded with chi from the pregnant father moon,” I say. She must remember telling me this. She must! “And a great weight lifted. Right? And then you just knew—”

  “You remember,” Jess says.

  “Of course I remember! It was just about the first thing you said to me. Right after, ‘Please pass the pickles.’ You talked about your father, and the moon, and that feeling.”

  Her eyes light up first, and then her whole face, the way it does. Like when clouds move to show the sun. “We were at that party,” she says.

  “Yes! I passed you the pickles. And you said, ‘Last night I was flooded with the feeling that everything is going to be all right.’ ”

  “That’s when we met,” Jess says.

  “You talked on and on. I almost asked you to marry me on the spot.”

  “You did not,” she says quickly.

  “I asked you to come with me to Peter’s family’s cottage the next weekend. Almost the same thing.”

  “Shut up,” Jess says. But she is smiling. She is my Jess, no matter how late it is or what we might say to one another. I touch her cheek softly. “I loved you so much, right from that first pregnant moon story.”

  She brushes my hand away. “Yeah, so you say. But you didn’t ask me to marry you. You have not asked me, you will not ask me. We are going nowhere.” She moves away. “You are stacking chairs. And I am showing people to their tables. Wearing a low-cut blouse to get bigger tips.”

  “I am doing my comedy act at the Rats’ Nest on Saturday night,” I say slowly. “And you are auditioning for Sweeney Circle, which is two years at full pay.” I breathe hard, as if climbing stairs. But there’s no stopping now. “And I, Gregor Luft, am hereby asking you, Jess Hale ...”

  Her eyes widen.

  “... to marry me,” I say.

  Chapter Six

  “Shut up,” she says.

  As if I am joking. As if I didn’t mean every word of what I had just asked her.

  Gently I hold her face in my hands. “Marry me.”

  “You’re not even on one knee!”

  I kneel down. “Jess Hale. Love of my life. Wounded daughter.” My face is burning, as if the hot plate is right beside me. “Teller of the pregnant moon story. Wonderful actor. Future mother of our charming children. Marry me! Please!”

  I wait, but she can’t seem to look at me. Whatever she means to say, its not yes.

  Silence. All the air is gone.

  “I’m going to ask you again.” My voice cracks. “Will you please take this beating heart of mine out of my hands? Save my life. Marry me.”

  She looks to my left, not into my eyes. “You thought of this right now, didn’t you?” she says. “You’re just making it up. You have no ring. No plan. Twenty years from now, we’re still going to be in this basement.”

  I swallow hard. “I do have a ring. I was going to ask you on the bus home. But then you slept most of the way. I think I picked the right time. I think this moment is exactly—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” she says.

  My heart beats in my ears like a bass drum, but I stay quiet. Icy calm. “I’m not lying. Why do you say I’m lying?”

  She sits on the edge of the bed, away from me. “That was such a strange weekend, the time we went to Peter’s cottage.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “No, I’m not. You said you almost asked me to marry you when we first met. Instead, we went to Peter’s cottage.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to be there,” I say.

  “Gregor! You told me others would be there. Or I wouldn’t have gone in the first place. I barely knew you!”

  “Peter said he would stay for half an hour. Then he would go back to the city.”

  “That’s how you planned it?”

  “But he stuck around,” I say. “He had fallen for you, too. As you and I both know. Remember when we were on the blanket, back in the shade, getting closer? Then Peter started yelling as if he was
drowning? And you ran off to save him?”

  “You wanted me to fall for your stupid plan, not his. You’re just full of plans. But when you ask me to marry you, you don’t even bring a ring. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  I don’t move. “I have a ring. It’s in the pocket of your father’s tuxedo.”

  She steps towards the closet. As if she wants to prove me wrong. But then she stops. “Why don’t you go get it?”

  “I would,” I say. My jaw is tight. “But you don’t believe me. And I really, really need my future wife to trust my word. When I’m being serious. Like now.”

  “Go get it if you have it!” She is only a few steps from the closet herself.

  I do not move. “That’s not the issue right now.”

  Silence.

  “I knew you didn’t have it,” Jess says. She throws herself back into bed and surrounds herself with pillows, as if for protection.

  I’m hot and cold at the same time. I rush to the closet. There’s the tux, but I don’t touch it. I pull on my pants, my coat, my shoes. Up the stairs. The door won’t open. I kick aside the magazine and then I am out. To hell with the door. She can close it behind me, she can ...

  Down the alley. Running, running, in the slush and the wind. It’s freaking cold. Why didn’t I bring a hat?

  I don’t need one. I just run, run. Work my lungs, my legs. Feel the whole planet turning beneath my feet ...

  She said no. I asked her to marry me. I showed her my soul, and she said ...

  Well, she didn’t say no, but she didn’t say yes. So really, she said no.

  Slap, slap, slap, my feet against the slushy road.

  Where am I going?

  I am just going.

  To Peter’s place. Of course. He’ll know. He’ll ...

  Oh God, God, God, the truth hits me like an arm suddenly held out in the darkness. Where I’m going. What I’m doing. How my life is all coming apart.

  Chapter Seven

  I run around for a bit in the empty streets. I shout up at the moon, which does not answer. I watch my reflection in the black of shop windows. I should find a bar. Isn’t that what men do?

  But I do not find a bar, and I have no money, anyway. I circle around and around, and then I head back. Down the dark alley. To the closed door and past it, to our one window. I squat and look in. There she is, my Jess. Mine? I thought she was.

  She is not mine. Just Jess. Standing in my ... no, her father’s ... tuxedo, with her back to me. She must have checked in the pockets. What is she doing now? I can’t hear what she’s saying.

  She looks as if she is pretending to talk to the acting school judges. Maybe about her father. About the nose hairs. Or how he would do tai chi fighting on the weekends for extra money. How he loved being in the ring. He’d fight anyone, a kick-boxer or maybe a karate guy. When he practised, his movements were very slow, but he was fast enough in the ring. She told me no one could knock him down.

  But Jess is different. Her spirits do get low. I know that about her. She is a fighter, too, but she needs someone steady beside her.

  Someone who doesn’t take no for an answer. Or even not yes.

  I find myself standing by the door, listening. Her voice is hard to hear, but I can just make out what she’s saying.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you about Peter,” she says. “Peter had these sideburns. Has. He has. Is he really gone? I don’t believe it.”

  Quiet. I imagine Jess wiping her eyes. Misty. “These sideburns. He would shave them off and look so goofy, like a twelve-year-old. But they’d be back in a few days. You couldn’t ... you couldn’t keep him down. He would call in the middle of the night, blind drunk. He’d say, ‘Jess. Jess, I love you?’ Like a question. ‘Where are you? What are you doing right now?’ And I’d say, ‘I’m sleeping. Beside Gregor, your friend. What do you want?’ ”

  Her voice falls, and I strain to hear. “Peter told me, ‘I want to just breathe the air you breathe. That’s all. That’s all I need.’ ” She gives a little laugh.

  I am shaking, shaking in the cold. But I can’t go in yet. She says, “I know Peter was drunk. But I would give anything, anything I’ve got, to hear that voice again: ‘I want to just breathe the air you breathe.’”

  I step away. I don’t want to hear any more, so I walk back up the alley. But I really have nowhere else to go. When I turn around, I shuffle my feet as loudly as I can to warn her that I’m coming.

  I hurry through the door and quickly shut it behind me. I jam the magazine in place. Jess is in bed now, in the dark, pretending to be asleep. The tuxedo jacket lies on the floor where she must have dropped it.

  If she can pretend, so can I. “It’s bloody cold out there!” I say. I pull off my outer clothes and jump into bed beside her.

  “I’ve got freezer burn!” I say. I am a shivering ice cube beside her.

  “Gregor,” she says.

  “Just don’t say anything. Nothing! We’ve already said enough.”

  “You’re shaking.” She holds and rubs me.

  “Not another word,” I say. “Honestly. We have said way too much. All right?”

  She stays quiet for a moment. Then she says, “I looked in the tux pocket.”

  Of course she did. And yet still she was thinking of Peter. I just want to breathe the air you breathe. He would say anything to impress her.

  “Yes,” I say. “You looked.”

  She turns on the light. “A toy snake jumped out of the box in the pocket and almost hit me in the eye. I screamed like you have never heard me scream.”

  “I’m sorry. I can explain everything,” I say.

  “I’d like to hear you try.”

  I sit up. “Did you check the other pocket?” When she doesn’t move, I run from the bed and get the tuxedo jacket. From the pocket she did not look in, I pull out the small gift box she did not see.

  Jess smiles grimly. “What’s in there, a whoopee cushion?”

  I just want to breathe the air you breathe. All right, Peter could be a poet. That’s what she wants from me. I open the box: a beautiful old ring with tiny diamonds.

  That’s what she wants. I get down on one knee again.

  “It was my grandmother’s,” I say. “I’m sorry. I was only going to use the snake if I had to.”

  “Why would you ever need to propose to your girlfriend with a toy snake?”

  All right, my plan was silly, or worse. I was supposed to be there when she opened the box.

  But I don’t try to explain. I just say, “It was just in case we needed a laugh. After the funeral.”

  Jess still has not taken the ring. She must still be thinking about Peter. “So now,” she says, “you’re really proposing?”

  What does she want to hear? “I can’t think of how to live the rest of my life without you.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Please marry me.”

  “I’m too upset to think right now,” Jess says.

  “I’m not asking you to think.” I tremble as I hold out the ring. Still on one knee.

  “Get up,” Jess says. “You’re making me nervous.”

  I stay right where I am. “Marry me. Please.”

  Silence. She still can’t look at me. I just want to breathe the air you breathe. That’s what Peter would say. But I am not Peter.

  I stand. Gregor Luft. Peter Beckwith is dead and gone. “Jess Hale. Marry me.”

  Jess says, “We just went to a funeral looking like clowns. How will we ever be adults?”

  “What’s so great about being an adult?” I reply. “Jess Hale. Please.”

  Peter is dead, and she didn’t love him anyway. Not like she loves me. I know that. We used to laugh about Peter. She chose me, not him.

  Slowly she gets out of bed, takes the ring and looks at it. It really is beautiful. “It was your grandmother’s?” she says.

  “She was married seventy-two years. Couldn’t stop smiling.”

  Jess slips the ring ont
o her finger. But she still can’t look me in the eye. “Aren’t you supposed to kiss me?” she asks.

  “You haven’t said yes.” I need her to say yes.

  Jess fiddles with the ring. “If we were married for seventy-two years, then we’d be almost a hundred—”

  “We will be happy dust together!” She needs someone who will not back down. “And we’ll remember this day. This shining moment. Like seeing the pregnant dinner plate moon.”

  “Which I didn’t remember until you reminded me,” she says.

  “But you will remember this. You will remember finding that snake—”

  “Shut up.”

  “We’ll say: ‘We lived on cereal, then. When we had it. Breakfast cereal and love.’”

  She takes the ring off and puts it on again, over and over.

  “I need to hear you say yes,” I say.

  Finally she looks at me. But the words do not come. She firms her lips.

  “You can’t not say yes.” My voice breaks. “Jess.”

  Silence.

  My knees buckle. I take a step backwards, to keep from falling over. “I can’t believe this! Do you know how hard this is for me? You wear that ring, I won’t stack chairs for more than another year at most. I won’t look at another girl at a party, not even at a funeral. I won’t work for beers anymore, never, never again! I have to build something that will be worthy, worthy of you and me, of this moment. Isn’t that what you want to hear from me? Don’t keep looking at me like that. You can’t. Do you hear me? I want us to have everything together! All right?”

  Quietly she takes off the ring.

  “Jess?” My voice squeaks.

  She puts the ring back in the box and closes the lid.

  “Who are you?” she asks.

  Chapter Eight

  “What do you mean, who am I?” I cry. She really is making me crazy.

  But she will not back down. “Where’s the guy I’ve been living with for the past year?” she asks. “Is he just giving up?”

  “Giving up?”

  “Do you think I want some tamed guy? A guy who will hate me every time he looks at our one little rose bush?”

  “I don’t understand!”