Tied to the Tracks

by Rosina Lippi

  Angie drew back, alarmed. “What in the hell does that mean?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Angie.”

  The screen door slammed behind Rivera, and Angie went to see if there was any more wine.

  The rain had started to come down hard again when John Grant parked Kai’s Mini in front of Ivy House. It was a warm rain and the air was sweet with it, and he had no idea, suddenly, why he had come here or what he wanted to accomplish. A half hour ago it had seemed the logical thing to do: he would apologize for being rude, settle whatever question Angie had about Miss Zula, and then calmly, rationally, he would make it clear to her that the past was past, and he was content to leave it that way. Surely once he opened his mouth the right words would materialize.

  Then Angie was standing in the open door under the eaves, her arms wrapped around herself. She leaned against the door frame, her shape outlined by the light behind her.

  John drew in a deep breath, unfolded himself from a car that seemed, from the inside at least, no bigger than a bread box, and sprinted across the street and the lawn, up the walkway, the paving stones slick underfoot. He stopped on the lowest porch step and forced himself to move forward slowly, deliberately.

  She was looking at him with an expression he could hardly read: severe, unblinking, but curious, too. Certainly not angry or unhappy. At that moment it struck him, quite unexpectedly, that Angie was rarely unhappy; she could be angry better than anybody he knew, but nobody could accuse her of being morose, or even moody.

  She said, “Come in out of the rain, John.”

  He went up the steps and onto the porch, where he stood dripping onto the floor. The house smelled of coffee and a meal cooked not long ago, meat and beans and spices. His stomach rumbled loudly enough for them both to hear it.

  “Sorry.”

  Her arms were still crossed. She turned and went into the well-lit kitchen, pausing on the door swell. “Rivera’s been cooking. Chuletas, and arroz con habichuelas.” Then she plucked a folded towel from a laundry basket and tossed it to him.

  Tony might be in Savannah, but Rivera was here, which meant they weren’t alone in the house, and that was a good thing. A very good thing. Any moment Rivera might come down the stairs and sit down across from him. They would argue about movies or books or Ogilvie, and that would help him focus. Because he had come here to talk about business, after all. John fixed his mind on that idea and then he sat down to eat.

  The table was cluttered with books and piles of paper and folders, some of them spilling photographs or newspaper clippings. Angie’s mess, because Angie worked best like this, scattering everything around her and then standing back to see what patterns jumped out. It had irritated him and intrigued him too; sometimes, watching her work, John had the odd idea that he had been born without some particular kind of seeing that Angie—that many people—took for granted.

  She moved Rivera’s dirty bowl out of the way and put a clean one in front of him. For a few minutes they said nothing more to each other than strangers sitting at a restaurant counter: please and would you like and thanks. Then John was overwhelmed for a while by Rivera’s cuisine of choice, which demanded his absolute attention. He drank the beer Angie put in front of him and accepted another thankfully.

  Out of the corner of a tearing eye John watched Angie, who was playing with her food, drawing on her placemat with the tip of her knife. She looked less tired than she had that Saturday morning she had come to the house for breakfast, almost exactly a week ago.

  First son of the local gentry sets up an ideal life for himself and discovers perfection is overrated. Or maybe you haven’t got to that last part yet?

  A week in the New York City archives up to his eyebrows in the most demanding, arcane, interesting material he could find, and still John had never been able to get rid of Angie’s voice and the things she said to him over his own breakfast table. Now, when they were alone, she seemed content with small talk, because she said, “Where are Rob and Kai this weekend?”

  “They found a house. It’s empty and they talked the real estate agent into letting them camp out there tonight.”

  “So they’ll be moving.”

  He nodded. “Pretty quick, looks like.”

  “Just in time.”

  She was looking at him. He raised his head slowly and met her gaze. “Caroline asked you to videotape the wedding.”

  “Harriet did. She said you had been dead-set against the idea but finally gave in. I expect that was the fallout from my indiscreet morning visit.”

  That was pretty close to the truth, though John neither wanted to admit it or to fill her in on the details. There was no better way to convince the Rose girls that he had no interest in Angie than to invite her to his wedding, and at the same time to give in on the video question. It had been a tactical decision on his part and it had worked well enough to put a crimp in Patty-Cake’s plans to launch a major Angie-based offensive. The look of satisfaction on Patty-Cake’s face was a relief and an irritation at the same time, even a week later.

  Angie said, “Caroline and I don’t talk about you, if you’re worried we sit around comparing notes.”

  He studied the bowl of his spoon and the hard crescent of reflected light in its rim. There was nothing he could say that would make this situation right, no explanation, no rationalization that would fix things, and maybe it was good that he had come here tonight, if only because he might not have faced that fact if he hadn’t. On the other hand, he was having trouble reading Angie’s expression—nothing new there, he had made a career, it seemed, out of misreading her—and he was suddenly too weary to try. He said, “I thought you wanted to talk about Miss Zula.”

  Angie’s eyes fluttered closed, and then opened. “I did. I do. But not now. It’s been a really long day.”

  John felt a shiver of irritation slide up his spine. “We keep dancing around the things we need to talk about. Why is that?”

  She leaned back and folded her arms, narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay,” she said, “if you insist, I’ll lay it out. You’re getting married in a week. To Caroline Rose, who is a far better match for you than I ever was or could be. I wish you both every happiness, and a perfect life.”

  Now when she looked at him, full on, unapologetic, wanting something—but what?—there was a tic at the corner of her mouth. It took everything in John not to reach out and still it with his finger.

  He said, “Maybe perfection is overrated after all.”

  She stood up so suddenly that the chair tipped over and crashed to the floor, and there she was, in a temper. He was asking himself what he meant by pushing her so far, what he meant to accomplish, what he really wanted, when the doorbell rang in a long shrill.

  Angie threw up her hands. She said, “Of course.” And: “Maybe you should just go.”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong,” John said. Not yet, he thought. “I see no need to hide as though I were.”

  “Hello?” A man’s voice bellowed from the front of the house, loud enough to rouse the neighborhood. “Hello? I know you’re in there, Russo. Got-dammit. Come on out here and face me like a man.”

  “Christ,” John said. “That’s Tab. Maybe we should both take off.”

  “Tab Darling? Harriet’s Tab?” Angie’s eyes were bright with curiosity or maybe it was simply relief that the conversation neither of them wanted had come to such an abrupt end. John might feel the same way, if it weren’t Tab Darling pounding on the door. The glass was rattling in the windowpanes with the force of it.

  “That’s him,” he said. “He’s been drinking. Let me handle him, okay?”

  Angie’s was curious about Harriet’s infamous husband (it would be best if he would just die) and ready for just about anything. She waited for John to open the door.

  Tab stood there with one arm resting on the door frame, the other fist raised to pound. He was a good-looking guy, or had been before his muscles had gone to beer, of which he reeked. On top of that, he
was dripping wet but didn’t seem to realize it.

  “Tab,” John said, “what is it?”

  Tab blinked at him in the bleary, irritable way of the very drunk. “Is Harriet here? I know she is, she must be. Where’s my wife?”

  “She isn’t here,” Angie said.

  Tab pushed past John and came to a stop in front of Angie. The fumes that came off him were enough to make her light-headed. He scowled at her.

  “I suppose that wop you work with ain’t here, either.”

  “You suppose right,” Angie said.

  Tab’s whole face screwed up in frustration. “Girl, don’t you know better than to come between a dog and a fire hydrant?”

  Angie said, “Which one are you?” and John winced.

  Tab was too drunk to follow the question, but not drunk enough to give up. He said, “The whole got-damned town is being overrun by got-damned wops.”

  His head wobbled a little as he leaned in close enough for Angie to count the oddly boyish freckles on his nose.

  “Patty-Cake’s got a hair up her ass with your name on it.” He burped softly. “Says you’re trying to take John here away from Caroline. Is that true?”

  “No,” Angie said. “I’ve got no hold on him.” She made sure not to look in John’s direction.

  Tab sniffed loudly. “The hell you say. But there he stands, big as life and dumb as a sack full of hammers. What have you two been up to?”

  “Work,” John said. “Now, what can we do for you?”

  He reared back to look at Angie down the slope of his nose. “I’m here to kill that got-damned pop-eyed skinny-assed woppish sumbitch that’s been sniffing after my wife.”

  “That’s something you’ll have to take up with Tony directly,” Angie said calmly. “But he’s in Savannah just now. You could make an appointment to kill him next week, if you want. I can give him a message.”

  She had a moment to wonder if she had misjudged Tab Darling’s degree of drunkenness, but his expression went from ornery to confused, and from there to sorrowful. “Savannah?” he said. “With Harriet?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Angie said, and managed to look him directly in the eye. “Harriet came back on the train from Savannah. I know, I was sitting across from her.”

  “That’s what Pearl said, too, but I thought she was just covering for her sister.” Tab looked directly stunned at this news. “But then where is she?”

  “If I knew,” Angie said, “I would tell you.”

  John put a hand on Tab’s shoulder. “Let’s get you home. She’s probably there waiting.”

  Tab gave John a hard look. “You’re so got-damned superior. You Grants, better than everybody else. But not for long. You’re almost one of us. One of the Rose boys.” His grin was not pleasant. “One of the Rose girls’ boys.” Behind a cupped hand he stage-whispered in Angie’s direction. “Poor bastard. Don’t know what’s coming at him.”

  Tab patted his head as if to settle a nonexistent hat, then walked out the door and fumbled his way down the steps. There was a huge old convertible at the curb and he lurched toward it with keys held out from his body in a perfectly straight arm, like a kid determined to pin the tail on the donkey.

  Angie said, “You can’t let him drive.”

  John closed his eyes and then opened them again. “Of course not.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Tab, can I get a lift?”

  From the bottom of the stairs he looked up at Angie. “Somebody will come by for Kai’s car tomorrow.” He tossed her the keys and then he bolted down the walkway toward Tab, who had already fallen into the driver’s seat, sideways.

  Five minutes later John waved to her as he steered the convertible away from the curb, though she was hidden behind the curtains in the parlor. He waved to her, though he couldn’t see her at all, or know if she was even there.

  Flat on her back on the old striped couch on the porch, Angie focused on the moth that was bumping its way around the lampshade. Her head felt too heavy, and her stomach too full, and that was the price to pay for chasing wine with beer.

  “Ogilvie is not good for my health.” She said it out loud to nobody at all. Tony was in Savannah, most probably in a bar scanning the women for a Harriet Darling look-alike, or maybe Harriet had snuck back there somehow and they were holed up in a motel. Rivera was at Old Roses with Caroline, and no doubt John would end up there after he dropped off Tab. Which was the way it should be.

  Then Rivera would come back here and sit on the floor with her back against the couch and listen to what Angie had to say, no matter how absolutely ridiculous it might be. Because as many times as Angie turned things around in her head, the sentences that presented themselves were going to be hard to spit out.

  I almost kissed John Grant was no better than I wanted to kiss John Grant, but certainly not as bad as I still want to kiss John Grant or, God forbid, All I can think about is kissing John Grant. All those things were true, and here was another one she would have to get out in the open if she was ever to sleep another hour: John Grant wants to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss him, but he’s too dumb to figure that out. Dumb as a sack full of hammers.

  And the real kicker: He’s getting married in a week.

  The wonderful thing about Rivera was that nothing was ever complicated. An overdue gas bill, war in the Middle East, an affair gone sour, she could resolve any problem in three sentences or less. She would say, Figure out what you want, calculate the costs, make your plans. And: Start by getting get your pitiful self off the couch.

  But Rivera wasn’t back yet to shame Angie into saving her own life. Instead there was a moth bumping against the lampshade and rain on the roof and a smell of wet grass. It had been a very long day; Angie fell asleep.

  John meant, once he had dropped Tab off, to drive over to Caroline’s, and instead found himself parked in front of his own house in Tab’s convertible, which smelled of cigars and hot sauce and boys’ sweaty gym clothes. It was surprisingly comfortable, and he might have gone to sleep just where he was, glad of the quiet and the dark and the rain.

  He made himself reach for his cell phone. It felt warm in his hand as he listened to the ringing on the other end. He was thinking of hanging up when Caroline answered, a little out of breath.

  “I was wondering about you,” she said.

  He said, “Caller ID takes all the excitement out of answering the phone. Leaves nothing to the imagination.” And neither did the Rose girls, it seemed; Caroline had already heard from Pearl and knew all about his car trouble and the trip home from Savannah on the train. Her tone was light and friendly and solicitous as always, with an edge of something slightly frazzled. Of course, the story he had to tell about Tab Darling roving through Ogilvie fueled by beer fumes was the kind of news to make anybody nervous.

  “I’ve got some pasta left,” Caroline was saying. “And some beer, if you want to come over.”

  “Beer.” John couldn’t remember the last time Caroline had drunk a beer in his presence, much less brought any home to Old Roses.

  “Rivera brought it. She came over to keep me company.”

  “Rivera?” He sounded like a parrot, and was powerless to stop himself.

  “She brought some DVDs, too, of a sci-fi cult classic called Farscape. Strong women kicking butt and the men who love them.”

  “Much like Ogilvie,” John said, and she laughed at that, a distinctly non-Caroline laugh. The idea of Rivera at Old Roses teaching Caroline how to appreciate beer and high-end sci-fi must mean something, but the one thought that presented itself to John was the fact that Angie had not exactly lied, but had certainly misled him. The whole time he sat in the kitchen with her he had assumed that Rivera was somewhere close by, and she had let him.

  “Unless you wanted to come over?” Caroline finished, and John woke up enough to realize she had been waiting for him approve of her plans. No doubt Rivera was listening to that half of the conversation and shaking her head in disapproval, and with some rea
son.

  Just that suddenly the question that had been nagging at him for a long time came into focus: Where did the intelligent, self-aware, confident Caroline, the one who chaired international meetings and wrote sharp critical reviews, disappear to when she left her office for home? Which of these two Carolines was he about to marry? And, most important—to him at this moment anyway: Why had he been avoiding this question for so long?

  Right then the one thing John knew for sure was that he couldn’t cope with Caroline and Rivera, not just now. Not this evening.

  “I’m beat,” John said. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

  There was a pause. Embarrassment? Relief? He couldn’t tell. Then she said, “You do sound tired. Sleep is what you need.”

  They could agree on that much, at least, and so John left Tab Darling’s convertible where it stood and went to climb into bed, alone, where he found, to his considerable irritation, that the thing he needed most was simply beyond him.