Nice to Come Home To

by Rebecca Flowers

  She wanted to scope out the new building, and so went out for a long late-afternoon walk. She was still surprised to see how many people were out and about in the daytime. There seemed to be no end of people whose lives had nothing to do with dingy offices and jammed photocopiers and rushing for the train home long after the sun went down. For as long as she could remember, she’d done little else besides work. She worked early, she worked late, she worked constantly. She’d carefully pursued her career path, from intern to project manager to development director, where it looked like she’d be stalling out. She’d put in countless hours. She’d spent the money she made on clothes for work, presents for her coworkers, and work-related lunches. After she was let go, she hardly knew what to do with herself. There was almost no reason to get out of bed. She could see how that could become dangerous, leading to a life of slovenly solitude.

  And then Rudy left for his conference. She went the whole first day he was gone without saying a single word to anyone. She had to clear her throat to answer the phone when he called that night. Now she made herself say “Good morning” to random people on the street. She told her name to the people who ran the dry cleaners, a nice Korean couple, just to hear someone say it.

  Today she was especially restless because Rudy was coming home, so she’d distracted herself by walking into Columbia Heights to see how far the nearest grocery store was from the apartment building she’d read about.

  She found the new building, made some careful notes about possible view options, and then returned to Adams-Morgan. On the way home, she’d run into McKay outside his building. He was sitting on the bench in his work suit, looking morose.

  She’d known McKay Ettlinger since college, in Ohio. For various reasons they’d both wound up here in D.C., neighbors. She considered it one of the luckiest accidents of her adulthood.

  “It’s Dolly’s birthday,” McKay explained, when she plopped down next to him. “She would have been twelve. This is when I’d be taking her out for her walkies.”

  “Oh, honey,” Pru said, lamely. Dolly the pug had been dead for several months, but McKay was still having a hard time. He talked about her constantly. Her loyalty, her loving nature, her unselfish devotion—Pru had heard McKay invoke these qualities as if only one dog ever had embodied them, and not, as far as she could tell, every dog that had ever lived. It was really very sweet, since McKay in all other ways tended toward the cynical. He’d only recently put away Dolly’s food dish and her plaid L.L. Bean doggie bed. But he still couldn’t bring himself to wash her little nose prints off the sliding glass doors that led to the patio. The last time Pru was there, she had to fight the urge to Windex them off herself. Well, she wasn’t a dog person. She put a hand on McKay’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze.

  “When I’m dying,” said McKay, in his soft Georgia drawl, “I want you to take all measures necessary. Do whatever you have to, to keep me alive. I don’t care if all that remains of me is an eyeball on a spinal cord.” He closed one eye and talked in a pinched, mechanical voice. “Hello, Prudence,” he said, imitating his own future decrepit self. “Come here where I can see you.”

  “God, not me,” said Pru, laughing. “I’m just going to take a fat handful of barbiturates, when my time comes. I can’t stand pain.” Or the thought of others taking care of her—a grown-up Annali or, worse, Patsy. She imagined them as creaky old women, Pru confined to a hospital bed, unable to do a thing for herself, while Patsy shuffled around ringing little cymbals and chanting healing mantras in Pali. “But I want you to have a big party. With music and dancing and an ice dolphin sculpture on the buffet table. And play Peggy Lee singing ‘Is That All There Is?’ as I’m being lowered into the ground. Is that all there is to a fire?” she intoned, in her best Peggy Lee voice. Of course, she’d had this scenario planned for years.

  McKay didn’t respond. He just looked at her blankly and said, “Do you think an engraved stone for Dolly would be too much?”

  “Come on, girlfriend,” she said, pulling him up by the elbow. “You need a drink. It’s Friday, and somewhere the sun’s over the yardarm, right? And I have a little time before I have to meet Rudy.”

  She was also thinking that a drink might help her tell McKay. She hadn’t said the words out loud yet to anyone. She wanted to wait until she was absolutely sure of herself first. She hadn’t even said anything to Rudy, during their brief conversations at night. And certainly, she hadn’t told her sister, Patsy.

  Partly, she blamed her sister for the fact that she wasn’t able to make up her mind about Rudy. Patsy kept asking if Rudy was “the One.” She accused Pru of being contented, of settling. Pru wasn’t sure she was settling; but she wasn’t sure she could see what was wrong with that, anyway. Rudy loved her. He told her so all the time. She never had to worry about him being faithful or attentive or responsive. But her sister had put doubts in her head.

  Was Rudy the One? Was there even a One? If so, who was it, and where the hell was he? How would she even know, when she met him? Maybe Rudy was the One, or on his way to becoming the One. Or maybe he was One of the Ones, as she liked to tell Patsy, much to her sister’s annoyance. Patsy had refused to marry Annali’s father, because he wasn’t the One. Pru couldn’t help but feel it was a bit of a selfish decision, on her sister’s part. Jimmy Roy had his problems, she couldn’t argue with that. But Pru had always liked him. He seemed to sincerely love her sister, and that he adored Annali was beyond question. Was it better to wait for the One than to give your child a home with two loving parents? Pru wasn’t sure. But she didn’t have big emotions, like her sister.

  Anyway, she was sick of wondering about the One. The question bored her. She could hear the boredom in her friends’ voices, too, as she revisited the same old topic yet again. Everyone she knew, including her friend Fiona, Patsy—Jesus, even her gay friends—had moved on, long ago. She wanted new questions, like the ones the other women had: What should we name the baby? Epidural or natural birth? Dr. Maurino, Dr. Hamilton, or a midwife? Post-delivery doula, live-in nanny, stay-at-home or work? Montessori, Waldorf, or Reggio? For heaven’s sake, she already knew the answers: Josephine or Benjamin, epidural, Hamilton (she’d delivered Fiona’s kids), doula, stay-at-home, Montessori!

  Even after her first few sips of beer, she couldn’t quite get the words out. She knew McKay wasn’t going to be thrilled. For one thing, she supposed, it would mean less time with him. The three of them—Rudy, Pru, and McKay—had never worked out. Girlfriend Pru and Best Friend Pru didn’t seem to be the same person. It was like when Annali handed her a Barbie and a Teletubby, and demanded a story. Made-up stories weren’t Pru’s strong suit, much less one with two such disparate characters. (Rudy, she realized suddenly, would have known what to do. See? They complemented each other.) With McKay she never gave a second thought to what she did or said, but when she was with Rudy, she sometimes felt—constrained, somehow. McKay didn’t like that. She knew—she could feel—that it made her a little rigid.

  “Guess what,” she finally ventured. “I think we’re going to get married. Me and Rudy, I mean.” It sounded funny, just saying it out loud.

  What other people said with their whole faces, McKay conveyed with eyebrows alone. They were like two batwings that came whooshing down, in full glower, gathering to a scowling point right above his nose. McKay almost never bothered to hide his feelings, one of the things Pru loved most about him.

  There was a little silence while he glared. Finally he said, “Rudy Fisch? God, why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Because Rudy loves me.”

  “So what? Do you have to marry everyone who loves you? I love you, and you don’t see me going around asking you to marry me.” The batwings furrowed even deeper. “Is this because you got fired?”

  She winced, and took a long drink of beer. She couldn’t even think of that word without wanting to squash it down to six-point type, in her head. She hadn’t done anything to deserve getting canned. In fact, i
n retrospect, she felt she should have seen it coming. Her boss was notoriously whimsical and sadistic. There weren’t government grants for the arts, like there used to be. She slaved over her proposals—beautifully written, gorgeously punctuated odes addressing the plight of the inner-city children who lacked a proper arts education. She knew how to artfully disguise her budgets to hide the fact that a good chunk of government change was going to pay her boss’s undeserved salary. Okay, so, inside, she acknowledged the utter bullshit of the endeavor: Sorry you didn’t get breakfast this morning, kid. Let’s decoupage! And yet, the grants kept coming back rejected. That she’d gotten the boot seemed just plain unfair. Indecent, in fact. Maybe she didn’t have “A Passion for Mission!” But she’d thrown several good years at that job, and it had come to nothing.

  More than that, she was simply not used to failing. She’d never doubted for a moment that she would rise to the level where she belonged. It’s what you did, growing up middle class in the Midwest. She’d always climbed whatever ladder was in front of her— the swim team, the high school band flute section, her literature classes—and went up, step by step. It never occurred to her to go down a step, not by accident, and certainly not on purpose. People were supposed to be like bread: people rose.

  “Not at all,” she said, defensively. “Well, yes, a little bit. I mean, I’m beginning to think this whole work thing is antifemale. Antifeminist, frankly. It’s so male—oh, you have to have a job, so we can define you in some narrow way. What’s wrong with just being a wife and a mother? Why do I have to be some other . . . thing?” Not, she reflected ruefully, that she had any idea of what that other thing would be.

  McKay looked truly appalled. “God, Pru, when did you start channeling right-wing talk-show fascists?”

  “You know what I mean. There’s so much pressure to do everything, have everything. I’m just saying maybe that’s just another form of oppression.” Now, that sounded good. “There’s got to be something more important to do with all this equipment, you know what I mean?”

  “So you’re going to marry Rudy because you want to have a baby?”

  “Also, you know, I love him.” It came out sounding like an afterthought.

  McKay was looking at her suspiciously. “You do?”

  “Of course I do. I’ve been with him for years. What did you think?”

  “I don’t know, I thought you were in it for the sex.”

  “Girls don’t do things just for sex,” Pru said. “It’s not that hard for us to get. Come on, honey. I gotta get this show on the road. I’m thirty-six. Oh, cut it out, you knew that.”

  They didn’t speak, drinking their beers. In the heat of the day, it didn’t take long to feel a little drunk. Then McKay loudly smacked his lips and said, “I hate to admit it, but I always thought Rudy was hot. I was kind of pissed that he went for you, not me.”

  Pru pressed the cold bottle to her face, pleased. Rudy was hot, with intelligent, green eyes and black, curly hair. And until she’d gotten to him, he hadn’t known it. He’d dressed in sloppy oversized clothes, with big plastic, geeky-on-purpose glasses. She made him buy some nice new clothes that fit, and more flattering glasses. She took him to her own hairdresser, Samuel, to have his hair cut. And she’d persuaded him to work his shtick a little bit less when out in public. He still embarrassed her sometimes, but the way he took her suggestions, his desire to please her, touched her deeply. She’d thought it a stroke of genius on her part: Rather than fight over the obvious desirable guys, she’d made one for herself.

  “I did some good work on that boy,” she said. “You wouldn’t know him as the same person from two years ago. He’s like my Eliza Doolittle.”

  “More like your Frankenstein,” McKay replied. “So, when is this whole wedding thing happening?”

  “Soon, I think. There was a kind of we-need-to-talk-tonight e-mail from him this morning.”

  “What kind of we-need-to-talk?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, just that. Just, we need to talk tonight.”

  “That could be anything, you know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like anything.”

  She’d been so happy to see that e-mail. She wasn’t used to feeling out of touch with Rudy. Quite the opposite. She was usually besieged with e-mails and phone calls from Rudy, even when he was just a mile away, at his office downtown. The most she’d been able to get out of him all week was that he’d met Ken Burns in a session on documentary film programming, and that his dry cleaning needed to be picked up.

  While McKay went to the men’s room, she ordered another round. It was almost too bad she had to leave soon to meet Rudy. She and McKay were so comfortable together they could sit and watch grass grow. In fact, the summer after college, when McKay’s roommate seemed to have unlimited access to dime bags, they probably had watched grass grow. God, she hadn’t gotten high in ages. She didn’t know anyone who smoked pot anymore. She hadn’t particularly enjoyed the smell, the dirty bong, or how it made her feel—thirsty and, later, paranoid—but she liked its calming effect. And how, when stoned, you were semi-quarantined with those who got you that way.

  “Hey, Rudy’ll age well, too, don’t you think?” she said, when McKay returned from the bathroom.

  McKay rolled his eyes. “If you don’t kill him first.”

  “You’re just jealous. Always the bridesmaid . . .”

  McKay snorted. “Baby, I can get married whenever I want. I can get married before you.”

  Pru smiled. McKay with his back up was preferable to McKay pining for his dog. In fact, there wasn’t anything much more entertaining than McKay with his back up.

  “Oh yeah?” she said. “Prove it.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I will.” He plucked his cell phone out of the breast pocket of his jacket and dialed his home number. He put it on speaker, so Pru could hear.

  “Hey,” said Bill’s voice, after a few rings.

  “Hey, it’s me. You want to get married?”

  There was a pause. Then Bill said, “Troy? I told you never to call me here.”

  “Ha-ha,” said McKay. “Pru’s here, by the way.”

  “Hi, Pru,” said Bill, laughing. “Sure, let’s get married. Why not?”

  “But we won’t have Dolly, to be our ring-bearer,” McKay said. “I was going to tie a little silk pillow on to her back.”

  Bill ignored this. “Why don’t you stop on your way home and get some souvlaki?” he said. “If you’re not too drunk, of course.”

  “I know what will cheer you up,” Pru said, as they emerged from the dark bar into sunlight, blinking like night ferrets. “Let’s go to the shelter and look at some doggies. I mean, I know no dog could ever replace the Dolly Lama. But maybe it’s okay just to look.”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right to me, not yet.”

  “It’s not like you’re going to have another one right away. I mean, look how long it took you two to choose paint for your bathroom.” Pru had threatened to kill herself if they asked her to look at those paint chips—“Butterfrost” or “Sandy Toes”—one more time.

  “Hmm,” he said. She could see he was warming to the idea. “Well, maybe. I keep hearing about these rescued greyhounds. I always liked the idea of that, you know, giving an old race dog a good retirement home.” They were standing at the steps in front of Pru’s building. “Listen,” McKay said, surprisingly serious. “If you marry Rudy, you’re going to have to live with him. And his cat. Didn’t you say he had a cat?”

  Trust McKay to remember that Rudy had a cat. She’d totally forgotten. She’d met the cat only once, the one time she’d agreed to sleep over at Rudy’s apartment. The instant she opened her eyes in the morning she became depressed, seeing the grim, oatmeal-colored Berber carpeting, a harsh ray of sun stealing around the edges of the cheap window shade. She felt someone watching her, and looked around to see Rudy’s enormous, beat-up-looking cat sitting nearby, staring hard at her. She put out a fri
endly hand for the cat to sniff, but it hissed and spat at her as if she’d extended a dog paw. Without taking its eyes from her, the cat slowly backed out of the room. It was the strangest thing she had ever seen, oddly deliberate and menacing. The message couldn’t have been clearer: Stay away or I will claw your eyes out, girly.

  So she’d deal with the cat. She’d already dealt with so much. She’d worked hard to get Rudy to trust her, and to let down his guard a bit, when they were together. Bit by bit, he’d begun to show her more sides of himself, open up and reveal things about his childhood, how poorly parented he’d been. Pru had been well parented, and she felt it was a duty of the well-parented to help the others adjust. Just recently he’d reported that his therapist had said he was making “great strides in the trust department.” Pru kept imagining Rudy marching with giant steps across the floor of a brightly lit department store, like Macy’s. The trust department would be on the same floor as the mattresses and box springs.

  “You’ll be happy for me, right?” she said.

  “Of course.” McKay hugged her. “And we’ll do anything you want, for the wedding.”

  “Thanks, honey.”