“It’ll be nice for you. More grown up.”
“It’s not as hip.”
“We’re not as hip. Show me the inside.”
A central hallway ran from the front to the back door, and a stairway led to the second floor. Bonnie’s place was on the first floor. She struggled with the unfamiliar lock, then the door opened. “Hardwood floors,” Bonnie said. “Linen closet. Running water. What more could you want? That’s my new couch.”
“I’m glad you moved,” Jane said, walking from room to room. “Your old place was getting scary. Who’s your new landlord?”
“Some real estate entity. Look, I have an ice maker!”
They carried things in from Bonnie’s car, and a little while later the van pulled up, and Ian and Derek brought in the boxes of books and kitchenware and chairs and mattresses. “What happened to Eric?” Bonnie asked after a time, and Jane said he probably stopped to get gas or something. She didn’t seem worried about him and Bonnie decided she wouldn’t worry either. You could only walk around steeped in guilt and dread and melodrama for so long, and anyway there was work to do.
It was fun having Jane there, making up a bucket of Spic ’n Span and going over countertops that Bonnie had thought were clean enough, refolding sheets, and bossing her around in ways that would have annoyed her in anyone else, but that only seemed fond and nostalgic. Maybe things would lurch on between them, only this one little hiccup to navigate.
Eric arrived a half hour later, and not in a very good mood. “Your street doesn’t exist,” he said. “Good trick.”
“It’s like platform nine and three quarters in the Harry Potter books,” Bonnie told him, but he only gave her a bleak look.
“He hasn’t kept up with Harry Potter,” Jane said. “What do you need him to do?”
“I can’t think of anything, right this minute.”
“Let’s get your bed so you can sleep in it tonight.” Jane was full of bright enthusiasm. “Eric, can you put the frame together?”
“No, that’s OK, he doesn’t have to.” God, no.
“Oh come on. Where do you want it? Eric?”
Eric moved grimly into the bedroom and started sorting out the different metal rails and fasteners. Jane said, “You could have it under the window, or against the wall.”
“Right about here, I guess.”
“Did you want the striped sheets? I just saw them. Get the mattresses set up and I can make the bed for you.”
“You don’t have to do that. Even my mother wouldn’t do that for me.”
“Especially your mother wouldn’t do that for you.” Jane hurried off in search of sheets, pleased with herself.
“The street really is kind of hard to find,” Bonnie told Eric, attempting a tone of comradely encouragement, but he only made aggravating grunting noises. Well screw him, he wasn’t the only one feeling distressed. She went back out to the living room and started opening some of her haphazardly packed boxes.
Finally the van was empty, the Ikea bookcases put together. Bonnie ordered pizza and made a beer run, and when she got back to the apartment Eric and Jane had their coats on, waiting to leave. “You don’t want to stay and have pizza? You earned it.” She was relieved that they were going. She hoped it didn’t show.
“The kids,” Jane said. “You know.”
“You guys, thanks,” Bonnie said. “Really, you made a huge difference.” She hugged Jane, and then Eric. It felt like the rehearsal for some overly stage-managed play.
Bonnie and Ian and Derek sat on the new couch and the new chairs with paper towels spread over everything, eating pizza. Derek presented her with her housewarming present, three tightly rolled joints. Bonnie started in on one right away. She was tired, and she didn’t even want to think about the disturbing scene of Jane and Eric making up her bed for her. Ian said, “Who were those guys? They looked older than you. Like, parents.”
“They’re my age. They are parents, they have two kids.”
“No way.” Ian shook his head. “Or maybe you get married and you get all serious and generational.”
“You do,” Derek said. “You start thinking, ‘Reproduce and die.’ The guy,” meaning Eric, “was kind of a bozo. He was not a cheerful worker.”
Ian said, “I think we’re all bozos on this bus,” and the two of them laughed and snorted into their beer.
“They’re friends,” Bonnie said, trying to hold the smoke in her lungs. “He’s a doctor, show some respect.”
“You know somebody who’s a doctor? Wow, you are so much more important than I thought you were.”
“Screw you,” Bonnie said, and then they all got a case of the stoned giggles.
It took a few more days of back and forth trips, and cleaning out the old place, and hassling with the old landlord to get her deposit back, and making sure the utilities were all on or off. Finally the new apartment began to feel, if not like home, then like more of a finished project.
She met the neighbors in two of the three apartments. Across the hall was a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Dumpling. That was not their name, of course, but it described them well enough. Both of them were soft and pale and bottom-heavy, younger than Bonnie but, as Ian and Derek had pointed out, marriage ages some people. Mrs. Dumpling, whose given name was Fern, was most often encountered in the hallway, bringing home plastic bags of goods from Target, Home Depot, Jewel. She had a small, set mouth and was fond of household accessories like electric boot dryers and windowsill herb gardens and waterproof radios designed for shower use. The cardboard carcasses of these purchases were placed outside for purposes of recycling and envy. Mr. Dumpling, Ed, did something with computers. He had the look of an IT lifer, round-faced, goggle-eyed, and with goofy sideburns. Neither of them had much conversation, aside from the weather, before they shut themselves inside for an evening of television and, for all Bonnie knew, exotic sex. She considered them excellent neighbors.
The second floor was home to a retired bus driver, the chatty Mr. Hopkins, and, directly overhead, unseen and mostly unheard, someone the mailbox identified as C. Popek. This was a widowed Polish lady, Mr. Hopkins explained, who kept to herself. “She’s been here since before I moved in and that’s, what, eight years now. She doesn’t speak much English. Sits inside and listens to the Polish radio station. Knock on the door, she slams it in your face. Some people! Homebodies, I guess.”
“Really? How does she get by? I mean, get groceries and all. What does she do up there? Should we worry?” Bonnie had a grim, unworthy thought, Mrs. Popek dead and undiscovered until the smell wafted downstairs.
“She comes down and gets her mail,” Mr. Hopkins said, indicating the mailboxes in front of them. It was a week after Bonnie had moved in. The weather had warmed and pools of slush collected on the sidewalks. The speckled brown tile of the building’s foyer was marked with grime and salt melt, in spite of the mats set down at either entrance. “I keep track. And she has a daughter who shows up every week or so and checks on her. Takes her to the doctor and such.”
“Well that’s nice to know.” Bonnie liked Mr. Hopkins. He was spindly and faded, like an old board fence, but still spry and sociable. She liked the idea of living in a place where people might look out for each other, a little mini-community of manageable size. Even the Dumplings suggested a kind of stolid respectability that seemed appealing. She would clean up her act, reinforced by social norms. She could live out her days here. Take over Mrs. Popek’s apartment once she died and went to Polish heaven.
“So how are you liking the place so far? You getting settled in there?” Mr. Hopkins held his mail in one hand, the same advertising circulars that Bonnie had already thrown away, promotions for oil changes and dry cleaning. He raised the hand to gesture and the gaudy colored newsprint fluttered.
“I’m liking it. The whole neighborhood too. It seems very stable.”
&nb
sp; “That’s because they don’t let the blacks or browns in. You have yourself a nice day now.” Mr. Hopkins tapped his mail to straighten it and started up the stairs.
Bonnie got used to her new commute, her new branch bank, learned where to get gas and where to shop for produce. There was a new training program at work, teaching the beat officers to recognize people with cognitive impairments such as autism, meaning that if someone did not make eye contact or was flapping their arms or repeating themselves, they did not necessarily need to be Tased and handcuffed. She called up an old boyfriend and they went out for some drinks and ended up having sex but they both agreed it was just one of those things and probably would not happen again. It was mildly depressing, this backsliding, if that’s what it was, into the same old habits with the same old usual suspects. Wasn’t she tired of casual stupid feel-good moments that left you feeling vaguely sad, yes she was, but you could also get tired of alone.
There was the usual walloping March snowstorm, just as everyone hoped that spring was finally hatching, which dumped nine inches of wet snow and snarled the roads and produced two fatal heart attacks among the city’s snow shovelers. The snow began on a Thursday night and made for a slow Friday of canceled schools and people taking work off. There was a pleasant sense of holiday, with the whole weekend to dig out.
Bonnie got up on Friday morning, put her boots and coat on over her pajamas, and went out to clean off her car, in case the snow removal service wanted her to move it. The sky was low and gray and a little leftover snow was sifting down. She checked in with work, decided there was nothing worth fighting her way there for, and went back to bed. She was deep in sleep when the doorbell buzzed.
Confusion, where and why and who? She padded to the front door and looked out of the peephole. Eric stood there, half turned away, pretending an interest in the front door and the street.
Later she thought that she could have not answered and pretended she wasn’t home. But she was still sleep-addled, and the sight of him struck her with the dread of a summons she had to answer. She opened the door.
“Hi there.” He smiled, or tried to. His jaw was dark and unshaven. He was wearing a canvas jacket that looked too light for the weather, and regular shoes that had soaked through with snow. He gave the impression of a man who had spent the night in jail, although she supposed that was not the case. “Sorry to barge in. You have to tell me if this is a bad time or anything.”
Or anything, Bonnie guessed, meaning, she might not want his guilt-inducing and problematic presence on her doorstep and she didn’t, really, but out of some reflex or curiosity or more confused feeling, she said, “No, that’s OK,” and stood aside to let him in.
Eric made a show of wiping his feet, though Bonnie didn’t have a proper doormat yet. She had not even thought about doormats until this very moment, when her mind was casting about trying to avoid thinking other things. He looked around him. “You’re all moved in, huh.”
“Excuse me.” Bonnie went into the bathroom and shut the door. Oh for fuck’s sake. Now what? She guessed she could lock herself in here until he gave up and went away again, but that wasn’t likely. She brushed her teeth, wondered whether to do anything about her creased face and rat’s nest hair, decided even that much effort would be provocative. At least she hadn’t slept in anything more delightful than her old pink plaid flannel pajamas. What time was it anyway?
When she went back out, Eric was examining the books on her shelves. Were they going to have to talk about books now? She walked past him to the kitchen and filled the kettle to get some coffee going. The kitchen looked out on the street in front. It had already been plowed, which she guessed was one advantage to living in a cop-heavy district.
The kettle began to whistle. She put ground coffee in a filter and poured, dividing the coffee between two cups. How did he take his damned coffee anyway? She didn’t know. It was the kind of thing a wife would know.
In the end Bonnie settled for making his coffee black, the same way she drank hers. Let him complain if he wanted. She walked out and handed him the cup. “Thanks,” he said. Bonnie sat down at the table and after a moment he sat across from her.
Bonnie waited. It was up to him to explain himself. He drank some of his coffee and rubbed at his eyes. Eric said, “I got stuck at the hospital overnight. By the time I got off, the roads were shot.”
Bonnie didn’t have anything to say to that. Absolutely no opinion. You have me confused with somebody who gives a shit.
He said, “Jane doesn’t really have any friends, except for you. Not close friends.”
She wasn’t expecting that, and she couldn’t decide if it made her feel better or worse. She said, “What about Jane, is she all right?”
“I guess so. She’s taking the antidepressants. She keeps up with the kids. So things are better. But there’s times she’s, I don’t know, she says things out of the blue, like she knows . . . She wouldn’t know, would she?”
He meant, about the two of them. “I don’t see how.” But dread was creeping up the back of Bonnie’s neck. “What does she say?”
“We were getting ready for bed”—a brief flick of his eyes made it clear to Bonnie they had actually been in bed together. Really, the man was a miserable liar—“and she pipes up with, ‘Do you think Bonnie would like to spend the night sometime?’”
“Whoa.”
“She meant, come over for dinner, hang out with the kids, and we’d make up the guest bed so you wouldn’t have to drive home. But she had my heart going, I tell you.”
Bonnie’s heart was going too, just from hearing about it. Eric said, “Every so often, she’ll say something, not about you, necessarily, but something, I guess, spooky. Like she’s on a different wavelength. I can’t figure it.”
They were both quiet. Bonnie thought it had to be Eric’s guilty conscience leading him to imagine things. She said, “It’s a coincidence. Jane doesn’t know anything.”
“Yeah.” Unconvinced.
“But she will if you don’t get your act together. Stop looking like you murdered somebody.”
“Yeah.” He wasn’t making much of an effort.
“Come on. It’s not like you have all kinds of other things to feel guilty about.” Bonnie watched him look away again and make his bad news face. “God, you’re kidding. Eric!”
“You asked,” he said gloomily.
“I don’t believe this. How often? When?” He muttered. “No, come on. You can’t tell me that and then drop it!”
“Two. I mean it was two different women. Once I was at some conference. It was practically a drive-by. The other time, well, it was actually a few times. It’s over. Long over.” He gave her a feeble look.
“I changed my mind, I don’t want to hear about it.” She felt indignant. On Jane’s behalf? On her own? Because she had been only one of a series?
“Fine.” He shrugged.
“But maybe you could tell me,” Bonnie said, unable to stop herself, “why none of those other times were like a big crisis.”
“Because they weren’t you.”
She had nothing to say to that. They were silent until he spoke again. “I know it sounds like some dirtbag excuse, and I don’t want to be disloyal to Jane. Any more than I already have been. But she’s not a very interested party, when it comes to sex.”
Not only was this no surprise to Bonnie, it was something she had known about Jane from almost the very first minute of their friendship. And yes, it did seem disloyal and dirtbaggy. “So maybe I could ask you, why get married? Why Jane? I mean, you knew this, right? You could have let her be. Found yourself a real hot tamale instead.”
“This is a weird conversation.”
“It’s a weird situation.”
“I guess I didn’t think anything was that wrong. With her. Us. I guess I thought most girls, women, they just kind of went along wit
h things, it was normal. Look, this is embarrassing, I don’t want to keep talking. Oh, and hot tamales? Anything cools off over time.”
“Why Jane?” Bonnie asked again. “Come on. Because she was impressed with you? Because she admired you?”
“Yeah, maybe. Whatever bad motive you want to assign to me.” Eric yawned and buried his mouth in his hand. “Sorry. I haven’t slept much.”
“She went along with things. She had her place and you had yours. You married her because it seemed like a good plan.”
“That’s not fair,” Eric said wearily. “Or even if you’re right, that’s not the whole story. She’s always had that sweetness to her. That calmness. I loved that in her. All right. I guess you don’t have to throw flowers at me. But I’m trying to tell you the truth.” He finished his coffee and got up from the table. “Sorry if I woke you.”
Now that he was leaving, Bonnie felt, stupidly, regret at speaking as harshly as she had. She made no sense to herself sometimes. “Look, I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to give you such a hard time. I don’t feel very good about myself either.”
He nodded, as if he was done with saying things. She followed him to the door and opened it. He was already out in the hall when he turned back to her. “Would it be OK if . . .”
“If what?”
“If we talked sometimes? About normal stuff,” he hurried on. “About work. What you watched on television. Politics. Maybe not politics.”
“You want to talk.”
“Friend stuff. Like we used to.”
Bonnie hesitated, and he began to backtrack, never mind, and she said, quickly, “Sure. We can talk, once in a while.”
“Great.” He smiled a crooked smile and there was a moment when they were visibly deciding whether to hug, or shake hands, or nothing at all. Just then Fern Dumpling opened her door and stepped into the hall wearing snow boots and toting a bag of garbage. She took in Bonnie’s pajamas, Eric’s rumpled clothes and 36-hour beard, maybe his wedding ring as well.
She Poured Out Her Heart Page 21
