The View from Here

by Rachel Howzell

  I crept to the guest bedroom on my right and peeked in. Stacks of boxes. Shadows. The damp stink of stale cigarettes.

  I passed Truman’s home office on my left. Empty.

  I continued down the hallway, nearing the upstairs den.

  “I knew that going up there…”

  I stopped in my step and cocked my head.

  Truman was talking.

  “Almost two hundred people had bit it on this mountain.”

  Who is he talking to?

  Maybe he had called Keith or Manny at the office to tell them about his strange, jacked-up day.

  “I’m standing there anyway,” Truman was saying, “looking at this wall of ice—”

  I reached the den’s doorway, and poked my head in. A blue blanket spilled off the arm of the couch to the floor. The lamp burned on the computer desk, and the television played video of Truman at Mount Everest’s base camp. “And I kept thinking,” Video Truman said, “will I be a trivia question? You know: how many climbers died on Everest this year?” He glanced at the snowy peak behind him and shook his head. “Seeing Nic again… That’s what’s driving me.”

  “Truman?” I whispered. “You in here?”

  Monica popped up from the couch. “Hey.”

  I shrieked, surprised seeing her there.

  “It’s the DVD,” Monica said, aiming the remote control at the television. “Sorry for scaring you.”

  “I forgot you were here,” I said, catching my breath. “Where’s Lei?”

  “Sleeping downstairs in the living room. What’s wrong?”

  “I was just looking for Tru. The storm’s making me a little jumpy.”

  Monica’s eyes narrowed, and she whispered, “Truman isn’t here, remember?”

  “He is here. I saw him. He was in bed just a minute ago.”

  Monica stared at me, then said, “What you’re experiencing is normal.”

  I saw something strange and sad in Monica’s ashen face. “What am I experiencing?”

  “Maybe you’re seeing Truman because you need to believe that he made it out of the ocean. That he’s still...”

  “Still what?”

  Monica swallowed, then bit her lip. “Nothing’s changed, Nic. I’m so sorry.”

  “Why are you apologizing? Where is—”

  Flex’s phone call at the market.

  The frantic drive to San Pedro.

  The Coast Guard chopper racing north beneath a battleship-gray sky.

  Truman’s dive bag…

  “No,” I said. “I just saw him. I woke him up and he complained, and… and…”

  It’s rain, not acid. That’s what he had said.

  I lurched out of the den, ran past his office and the guest room, and rushed into my bedroom.

  Only my side of the bed was rumpled.

  I had insisted on buying this bed. A California King with sixty yards of space for videogaming, reading and love-making. It had appropriated two-thirds of our old bedroom.

  “It’s big,” Truman had said.

  “Huge,” I had said, smiling.

  Truman had grabbed me from behind, and threw me onto the mattress. “I’ll miss you. You’ll be on the other side of the world.”

  “China,” I had said.

  “The east side of the South Pole.”

  Then, we wrestled and crawled to the head of the bed. I nestled in the crook of his arm like a kitten, and told him that he was being dramatic. That I planned to snuggle and cuddle and terrorize him with my chronically-cold feet forever. It would be just as it was in our full-sized bed but better. Nothing would change.

  I clicked off the lamp and the bedroom fell back into darkness. I slipped beneath the comforter and pulled Truman’s pillow to my chest. Gazed at that empty space, and waited for the magic of medicine to dull my pain, to send me back to those Sunday mornings with snuggling, videogames and sunshine. Still clutching his pillow, I rolled over and stared at the rain-soaked window panes, at silver raindrops zigzagging down the glass in unpredictable paths. Beyond those panes, only darkness existed. Past that darkness, nothing at all.

  I slid out of bed again, grabbed my own pillow and the comforter. I couldn’t sleep in a California king, not without my husband, so I settled on the chaise lounge.

  Thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, and weird shadows—lagoon monsters and forest trolls—twisted on the walls.

  I kicked away the comforter and slipped back to the nightstand. Groped in the darkness until I found the television’s remote control. With one push of a button, Roseanne popped on. No longer alone. I sank back onto the chaise, remote in hand, the bedroom now bright with man-made light.

  Part II

  The Hardships of Marriage

  Two Weeks Ago

  13

  When we were first married, Truman awakened out of sleep with a smile, often begging me to climb back into bed with him. Since our 11th anniversary, though, he muttered and whimpered as he slept, scowled as he opened his eyes.

  “What’s bothering you?” I had asked once.

  He had stared at me before saying, “What are you talking about?”

  “You were thrashing around and moaning.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I had tried to chuckle. “I’m not blaming you for anything. I just… Never mind.”

  I never mentioned his nightmares again.

  Truman was muttering now, just an hour before the start of our perfect night, and he lurched out of sleep with that scowl in place.

  I sat at my vanity, dressed in a silk robe, contemplating my malfunctioning womb and whirling the blush brush across my cheeks.

  “It’s past six,” he grumbled. “Were you gonna wake me up?”

  I didn’t answer him—didn’t like his tone—and shifted my eyes to the vanity’s surface. Nail polishes there, powders and pill vials here, remote controls to the television and ceiling fan lined up like matchsticks. Organized, just like my life.

  “Hello?” Truman said. “You there?”

  Who was he talking to like that? Snippy. Expectant. Like my name was Jeeves. “Wake up, Truman,” I said. “People will be here soon.”

  He climbed out of bed, kicking the scarlet comforter to the floor. “I’ve been knocked out since 4:30. Did I somehow manage to piss you off in my sleep?”

  I grabbed the vial of Paxil, and popped off the top.

  “It’s a party,” he said. “You don’t have to dope up.”

  “When you were away on your Big Adventure, I doped up a lot.” To deal with the stress. And that’s why I was pregnant on one day, and not pregnant on the next. My body can’t function cuz of my stress levels and your sperm that’s messed up from climbing icy mountains and breathing air that doesn’t have oxygen.

  “Technically,” I said, “I’m not doping up. I’m supposed to take one a day, and I forgot this morning cuz I was getting the house ready for tonight.” I cocked an eyebrow. “I’ve had this same prescription for over a year. You haven’t noticed until now?”

  “Let’s not argue today,” he said as he stretched. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “Like how you should’ve told me you were planning to be at the pool with Penelope all day?” I swiveled on my stool to face him. “We didn’t talk about that, you know, since you’ve been asleep for two hours. And honestly? I wasn’t even sure you’d show up tonight. I thought you’d flake out on me again.”

  Truman cocked an eyebrow, then offered a lazy grin. “I’m selfish and inconsiderate. I got the better deal when you said, ‘I do’ and I’m sorry about that, all right? But the dive is next week, and… I had a little accident at the pool this morning. Something with the tank—”

  I slapped my knee, and shouted, “I knew something was… You shouldn’t have been out there—”

  “But it’s fine now. Flex fixed everything. And he showed me what I’d done wrong, and it was a stupid mistake. Won’t happen again.”

  I narrowed my eyes. �
��What kind of stupid mistake? You forget a step? You read the gauge wrong? What happened?”

  “Nothing big. Don’t freak out, okay?”

  “That’s like telling a bear not to…”

  He crossed the room, and stood behind me now, bare-chested, wearing blue-striped boxers.

  I blushed, and forgot words at the sight of my nearly-naked husband. I loved his smile. His cognac-colored eyes. He had lost weight and had gained muscle because of his adventuring. I did benefit from that. “You have to be careful,” I said, coming out of that spell. “You’re stuck in this marriage for another fifty years, and I don’t want you short-changing me. And stop flaking on me. It hurts my feelings.”

  “You forgive me?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “You promise to have fun tonight?”

  “What do you think?” I let my robe slip off to show off black lace lingerie. His favorites.

  Then, we fell into bed together to get the party started.

  14

  Even though I had planned dinner for close friends, Penelope Villagrana had arrived early with a bouquet of sunflowers for the birthday boy, with her boobs and ass spilling out of a fake Herve Ledger bandage dress. Muscle-bound and bulky, she resembled Rambo in drag. I had curves and softness, and Truman liked curves and softness. He told me that just an hour before.

  During dinner, Penelope complimented my cooking. “I’m all thumbs in the kitchen,” she confessed. “I can’t even make tuna salad. Not that I have time to cook.”

  As I passed around dessert plates for the apple tarts I had baked, Penelope cooed about the color of my dress. “I can never find shades that flatter me,” she said. “And I’d never choose anything as bold as that pink. Not that I’m into clothes.”

  As we enjoyed a final cup of coffee before the other guests arrived, Penelope suggested that I join her and Truman on their next adventure. “You do swim, don’t you? Oh, you can’t? You really should learn.”

  Taught to be polite even in the most difficult situations, I offered benign responses to Penelope’s flatteries:

  I don’t cook much, but I can whip something up if I have to.

  I never wore this pink until Monica bought me a sweater in this shade.

  Swim? No, I never learned. Don’t care to try now.

  After dinner, as we all wandered out of the dining room, Truman took my hand and whispered, “Thank you for being nice.”

  “Your friend’s just as sweet as cod liver oil, isn’t she?” I whispered back.

  He smiled. “And you’re going above and beyond.”

  “Only for you.”

  He pinched my ass. “I know.”

  Penelope gasped as she entered the den. “Nicole, I just love this room. I am totally clueless when it comes to decorating and paint and all of that. I’m missing that gene. And really, I just don’t have the time.”

  The downstairs den was pretty swanky. We had painted the walls cranberry, and in an inspired moment, I had purchased saddle brown curtains and chocolate-colored couches and armchairs. Truman had installed a drop-down 70-inch monitor, and an audio system that cost more than a decent Japanese sedan. So, yeah: nice. But Penelope’s reaction, combined with all of her other remarks? Bugged the hell out of me. Was she being passive-aggressive, making me more girly-girly and superficial than I was? A weak woman who didn’t swim, but only sought to cook the perfect roast for her husband’s birthday dinner, to find colors that favored her, and discover a paint chip and fabric swatch that would make her neighbors envious? Was she casting me as Lucy Ricardo instead of Claire Huxtable?

  Exhausted from cooking all day, I poured myself a glass of wine and collapsed on the sofa next to Truman.

  Penelope, water glass in hand (I don’t drink alcohol, she had sniffed), plopped in the space on his right.

  “Dinner was good, babe,” Truman said, then kissed my forehead. “Everybody ready to see what we didn’t show a few weeks ago?”

  Monica’s boyfriend Gary and Leilani’s… whatever Jonathan, sat in the room’s rear. Leilani and Monica sat near the windows, whispering to each other and casting glances at Penelope and the dress that crept up her Conanic thighs.

  My husband, clueless, grinned as his bravura shone on screen at 1080i.

  I jiggled my leg and nibbled on my bottom lip as I watched Behind-the-Scenes Truman talk about dying on a faraway mountain named Everest. “You have to trust your partner,” he was saying. “There may be a time when that person holds your life in her hands. But Penny’s strong. She’s done this before. Right, Pen?” The camera panned to Penelope, her skin rosy and her lips chapped from the killing cold.

  She had more courage than I could ever buy—she’d reached Everest’s top twice now. I freaked if temperatures dropped below fifty.

  “You okay?”

  Truman was studying me, his eyebrows crumpled in concern.

  I nodded. Even though I knew the story’s ending—Truman makes it up the mountain and comes home alive—seeing it happen in color still made me cuckoo.

  Video Truman shouted, “I can’t believe I’m here. This is awesome.”

  The camera zoomed out: Truman stood atop a snowy summit. Several miniature flags representing the world below fluttered at his feet. Lesser peaks and a bleached blue sky splayed behind him. Video Truman, his brown face hidden by frost and reflective sunglasses, raised his arms and shouted, “The top of the world. Everest, man. Hell yeah!”

  Our friends clapped. I squeezed Truman’s hand. My husband had climbed Mount Everest. It wasn’t everyday for a black man to climb the tallest mountain in the world. Symbolically, yeah, but literally?

  Video Truman said, “Now, Nic can stop worrying,” and everyone in the den laughed.

  Funny cuz it’s true.

  “Nothing matters,” the smiling man on camera was saying. “The cold, the frostbite, losing brain cells. Hell, knowing that I can die at any moment. This is better than sex.”

  I glanced at Truman, and playfully cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Truman took my hand and kissed it. “Not really, babe.”

  His first lie of the night. That was fine. Climbing Everest was something you didn’t do spur of the moment. Getting laid, however, could happen while you’re picking up a chicken and laundry detergent from the grocery store.

  Video Truman shouted, “I did it. We did it, Nic! I couldn’t have made it up here without you.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting someone?” a woman asked off-screen.

  Video Truman laughed. “Penny-hon, I really couldn’t have made it up here without you.”

  Not a lie.

  Then, Truman took Penelope’s hand, like he had just taken mine, and kissed it.

  Monica, Leilani and I retreated to the patio’s perimeter to escape the fifty additional guests invited to Truman’s birthday party. People spilled out of the house like batting from a stuffed bear, and music and laughter echoed across the canyon’s face. Truman kept company with Elene Givhan, one of the network’s finance managers. Elene’s long, black hair tumbled in waves past her shoulders, and her mint-green eyes sparkled as she talked. She clasped her hands in front of her breasts (barely hidden in that dress) as she laughed at the whatever-couldn’t-be-that-damn-funny anecdote Truman was sharing.

  I preferred Penelope over this siren. Penelope with her man-thighs and butchy haircut and… Where was she when I needed her?

  I had tried to join in Truman and Elene’s conversation, but her nasally voice and grating accent made my eyes cross. The woman never left Truman’s side. Not to refresh her drink. Not for a smoke. Not to pee. For a moment, I was cool with that—we all like hovering around handsome, powerful men. And like Elene, we all like to giggle, blush and touch when we’re around them. But Elene’s giggling and touching of this married man continued, and she started plucking pot-stickers and shish kebabs from his plate.

  Is this bitch hitting on my husband in front of me?

  Monica and Leilani didn’t say anythi
ng about Elene, but each time they glanced in Truman’s direction, their eyebrows raised and furrowed. Then, they nodded to each other—you see that?—before turning back to me and to the conversation we were pretending to have.

  “If I hear him laugh one more time,” I said. “If she touches his arm...”

  He laughed, she touched, and I growled.

  “You should see your face,” Monica said, trying not to giggle.

  “This ain’t funny, Mo,” Leilani said, hands on her hips. “Nic, you need to go over there. Right now.”

  “Be chill about it, though,” Monica advised.

  After taking several deep breaths, I forced a smile to my lips, then sashayed over to my husband and his colleague.

  “Hey, Nic,” Truman said.

  Elene sighed, then ran her fingers through her hair.

  “We were talking about the X-Games,” he said. “Elene’s brother is in the BMX—”

  “That’s great. Dance with me.” I grabbed Truman’s hand.

  “Nic,” he said, “I’m talking.”

  “Talk later,” I said. “I’m sure Elene will be here when you get back. Won’t you, Elene?”

  Elene smirked at me like the Mean Girl she had been since the fifth grade.

  Meanwhile, the eyes of Leilani and Monica burned holes in my back.

  “Come on,” I said, tugging Truman’s arm. “I love this song.” I didn’t know what song was playing—I could only hear the sound of blood boiling in my head. Really: Neil Diamond could’ve been singing “Sweet Caroline” and I would’ve danced to it as though he was M.C. Hammer.

  “Later, okay?” Truman snapped. “And you know I can’t dance.”

  He couldn’t catch a beat if it was chained to a cup.

  Truman offered an apologetic smile. “Later. I promise.”

  I stomped back to my friends, and shrugged, “He doesn’t want to dance right now. It’s his birthday. He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.”

  Minutes later, though, Elene had pulled Truman to the dance floor. There, he found his inner Travolta as “Erotic City” blasted from the speakers.