A Dangerous Woman

by Mary McGarry Morris

  “And then later I found it,” he said, slipping into the chair. “I’d built a whole section over it! I tried to explain when she got back from town, but by then I think I’d already freaked her out. She was in a really bad way.” He leaned forward. “This is none of my business, but …”

  “You’re right,” she said, her eyes meeting his. “It’s none of your business.”

  “You don’t even know what I was going to ask!” His incredulous voice made her smile. His boyishness surprised her.

  “Whatever it was,” she said, tensing herself, “it couldn’t possibly be any of your business!”

  He slapped his knee. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” He glanced toward the shade-drawn windows over the garage. “But I can’t help wondering what I’m dealing with here.”

  “My deck. That’s all you have to deal with.”

  “And I’m working real hard at that.” He smiled. “But someone like Martha, she … I don’t know.… I look at her and I see all that … that …” He turned back now. “I don’t know what I see. I guess that’s what’s so fascinating. She’s so vulnerable and so … so … so overwhelming.” He sighed.

  “I didn’t realize I’d hired a psychiatrist.” Her eyes watered as she took a long sparkling swallow of her drink. Vulnerable, overwhelming. Try draining, she thought; try depressing, try lifelong burden. The sun burned a raw red hole in the sky.

  “I’m a writer,” he said with a rueful laugh. “You hired a writer.”

  “Really!” It was all she could do to keep a straight face. Calling himself a writer, this seedy, middle-aged brawler whose beer paunch and battered face belonged in a roadhouse with some frizzy-haired tramp hanging on his arm. She shivered. God, he was everything she had ever detested in a man. But right now, for a little while, she’d let the empty hour be taken up with his easy talk and his quick laughter. Eventually the gin could make anyone good company, she knew, amused now by the careless spread of his long tanned legs and his hand grazing hers as he took her glass. Yes, it was the ice-cold gin. She yawned, watching him refill her glass. Without being asked, he poured himself a drink. What surprised her more than his nerve was her own amusement as he sat back down.

  He needed a shave and his ragged hair curled over his ears and down the back of his neck. Men like this were nothing. Life slipped through their fingers. They took and gave little back, and their every word was calculated according to some base measure of self-promotion. She knew just how quickly that squinting smile could arch in a brutal sneer.

  But what did it matter? For now she felt like talking, needed to talk, needed someone to sit there, someone in that chair, someone tall enough to block her view of the town below. She was telling him about her birthday party for Steve. The guest list was already too long, but every day at least two or three more names would occur to her or a friend would call and remind her of someone else she HAD to invite.

  He said she was lucky to have enough friends to muster for a party. His friends were all over the place, the whole country. Even his kids were all spread out now, he said, two in California, one in England.

  “My wife’s still in Boston,” he said, and added, “my ex-wife.”

  “You’re divorced?”

  “Legally,” he said, and she laughed. “But not emotionally,” he added.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, knowing exactly how he wanted it taken.

  “I still see her.” He gestured with his hands. “We get together.”

  Eyebrows raised, she made the same gesture. “You mean you …”

  “Yah, we,” he said, laughing and returning the gesture. “But maybe only once a year.”

  She sat up and crossed her legs. In the slant of the setting sun, she was conscious of their shadows deepening on the white concrete, and the press of the night at their backs. He was telling her about the book he had written nineteen years ago.

  “What was the name of it?” she asked, smiling, perfectly willing to play the game.

  “Last Man In,” he said, and paused hopefully.

  She enjoyed telling him she had never heard of it.

  “It’s about three soldiers in Vietnam and what their lives are like once they get back to the States.” As he described his characters and the plot, his voice softened so that she had to lean forward to hear him.

  “It was, I guess, what you’d call a critical success. It sure wasn’t a financial one. But at the time, that meant so little to me. The money, I mean. Hell, I was young, and I had so many ideas for books; I remember telling my wife one night I was afraid, if I wrote them all, people would consider me a hack. I couldn’t get to sleep, worrying about it. I was really afraid of that—of becoming a hack. Me, a hack!” He shook his head.

  “How many did you write?” she asked, yawning.

  “After the first one?” He laughed. “Not a one. Not a single one.”

  “But you must have tried.”

  “No. Not really. I thought I was, but all I was really doing was talking about writing.”

  He poured himself another drink, this one just about straight gin. She stared at his glass as he sat back down, so he’d know she knew his type—oh, did she ever. Without a word, she set her glass on the patio and swung her legs off the chaise longue to go inside.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” he said, jumping up and refilling her glass. “I should have asked you.” He handed it to her. “I’m not used to being companionable.… And I haven’t talked about this in so long, I’m getting carried away.” He hoisted his glass. “To the dearth of Colin Mackey.”

  She looked up, but did not return the toast. People who revealed too much of themselves inevitably wanted something back. She smiled at the sudden image of a little boy with his underpants circling his ankles as he waited for her to pull hers down too. Her irritation grew as he paced barefoot, drink in hand, back and forth on his shadowy stage, delivering his maudlin soliloquy.

  “… and then nothing. There I was, the boy wonder, all alone with my dust-covered desk, my pregnant wife, and two little kids who didn’t give a damn who I thought I was. They insisted I was their ‘daddy’ and she insisted I was her husband, and there was no way they were going to get away with that shit. So I left.”

  His abrupt silence sparked a commotion of crickets and squawking birds. She raised her head and sniffed hungrily at the smell of charred-meat smoke from some stranger’s barbecue. Mosquitoes had begun to swarm from the darkening tree line. Soon it would be night.

  She turned, surprised to hear this clearly the hum of cars from the distant highway. From the garage apartment came the scrape of a balky window being raised, and she knew Martha was watching them. The pool filter clicked off with a gurgling rush. What am I doing out here, she wondered, and yet could not bring herself to go inside. He had gotten them another drink. Between sips, she spoke carefully, conscious of her thickening tongue.

  She was describing the misery Anita Bell forced on everyone. Mack hunched forward. Raising a hand, he interrupted to ask why Steve had stayed with such a wife so long and, more bewilderingly, why Frances had stayed in such a dead-end relationship all these years.

  Dead-end relationship! She suddenly felt so feverish that her skin bristled and her eyes felt hot. “It just happened. Time passed and then it just seemed too late.”

  “Too late!” he cried, leaning closer to touch her arm. “It’s never too late for happiness! How can you say that? My God. That’s giving up! That’s like dying.”

  She stood up and, with a flick of her wrist, dumped her drink, the ice cubes streaking light into the dark lawn. Fireflies glimmered over the pool. Below, in town, house lights were coming on amid the bright gridwork of streetlamps.

  “You have to do something!” he said as she cleared the empty gin bottle and the ice bucket from the table. “You owe it to yourself! You owe it to Steve!” he cried, so close behind that she felt heat on her neck. “You have to do something! You have to!”

  She paused at th
e door. “You’re drunk,” she said. His head snapped back and she gripped the knob. She didn’t trust people or things that might rage out of control. Even fires in the fireplaces frightened her. For years none had been lit here.

  “Just a little, though. Just enough to feel very, very good,” he said, grinning with a childish wave of his fingers. “I’ve enjoyed talking with you.”

  “You better go now,” she said, her head reeling.

  He peered at her so closely that his whiskers scratched the screen. “I need a favor. You mind if I sleep out here in my car? Just for tonight. I don’t snore,” he said solemnly.

  “Yes, I do mind,” she said. She closed the inside door, wincing with the breech of the sliding bolt. She clung dizzily to the banister, and it seemed that she was battling her way to the top of the stairs. She groped along the hallway to her door, then crawled onto the bed, so exhausted that she fell asleep in her damp bathing suit and robe.

  Martha watched him walk back to the pool. He yanked his shirt over his head, took off his shorts, and dove into the water in his underwear. In furious choppy strokes, he flung himself through two churning lengths of the pool, then climbed out and bundled his clothes under his arm. His car lumbered out of the driveway. She left the bathroom light on and she got into bed, where she fell into a quick sleep.

  A few hours had passed. Martha’s eyes opened wide. At first she thought a branch was hitting the garage roof. She bolted up, the sheet clutched to her chin. Someone was knocking on the door and calling her name.

  When she turned on the outside light, Mack waved through the glass.

  “Can I use your phone?” he asked over the taut chain when she opened the door.

  She stood by the kitchen table while he dialed the same number four times, listening with closed eyes while it rang and rang. He sank into the wooden chair and shook his head.

  “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he sighed, then chuckled. “Now the hangovers start with the first drink.” He looked up, studying her a moment through eyes that were raw slits. “I’ll bet you’ve never even been drunk, have you? Have you?”

  “No.” She moved back against the door. The knob pressed into her spine.

  “Mind turning off that light?” he asked, shading his eyes from the overhead glare. “Please!” he said when she didn’t move.

  “I want it on!” she said, determined not to be intimidated by him again.

  “I can see through your nightgown,” he said, peering at her again. “Your underpants are striped and your …”

  She flicked off the light.

  “That’s better. That’s much better,” he said.

  Now the only light came from the open bathroom. She reached behind the bedroom door for her bathrobe, which she buttoned to her knees before turning around.

  He was dialing the phone again. “Nobody’s home,” he sighed, hanging up. “Now what do I do? I don’t feel so good.”

  He laughed when she set the aspirin bottle and water in front of him. In the half-darkness, he seemed calmer. She opened a box of saltines and poured him a glass of milk; she remembered doing this in the middle of the night when her father had stomach trouble.

  He was talking about his wife. He laughed and put his hand to his mouth. “She’s fat,” he whispered. “I gotta be careful. She’s married to this tough little guy. He’s an insurance agent in Boston. I write her these long, horny letters. She’s got a secret post-office box I send them to. And once a year I go there and we get a room and old Hal thinks she’s with her old roommate—which, of course, she is.” He laughed. “It’s very romantic,” he sighed, and then he frowned. “You think it’s very romantic?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dismal and gray, all his worn features slackening, his stare fixed on her. “Actually, it’s sad. It’s very, very sad. A whole month after, I’m no good. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I drink too much. I talk too much.” He tapped his watch. “It’s been almost a month. So by tomorrow I should be feeling better.” He sighed. “It gets worse every year. Takes longer and longer to get back on track. And you know what the worst of it is? Every year I realize how much I gave up, roaming around all that time, thinking I was some hot-ass genius, thinking all I needed was a … a cabin somewhere or a patron or a grant, so I could write decent again. So I could just finish something. And every year she looks fatter and happier, and this time it hit me.” He leaned across the table and whispered, “She’s so damn glad she’s got what she’s got. I mean, one look at me and she’s GOTTA be grateful to old Hal, right?” He shook his head in amazement. “Jesus Christ, I’M even grateful to old Hal. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what would’ve become of my kids. You know, he made them go to church every Sunday and holy day of obligation and wash the car every Saturday and change the oil every three thousand miles and go to college. All three of them! They know about things like OPEC and prime rates and the best shoes, and cars I’ve never even heard of. Sometimes I don’t even know what the hell they’re talking about. Hey!” He waved both arms. “C’mere and sit down. C’mon!” he said, gesturing until she sat down. “Sit like this,” he said, demonstrating, his elbow on the table and his hand visoring his brow. “Are you Catholic?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s even better, then. You don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Okay, close your eyes,” he said, and when she did, he leaned so close his breath grazed her cheek. “Bless me, Martha, for I have sinned,” he whispered. “I have lied and cheated and stolen things. I have fornicated and I have been slothful and cruel and, sweet Jesus help me, I have never voted. But for all my sins, I am most sorry for being cruel.… No! I take that back. I’m most sorry for being a shithead. Well, actually, I guess it’s the same thing. So I am most sorry for being a cruel shithead. Okay, give me absolution. I’m waiting!” He grabbed her hand, and she opened her eyes to see his hand waving. He opened one eye. “I’m forgiving us both. This is gonna take a few minutes, because you got some mighty bad sins in your past.” She tried to pull away and he laughed. “I’m only kidding,” he said. “I’m kidding.” Still holding her hand, he looked at her. “Tell me something, what’s your tribe? You’re a Tasaday, aren’t you?”

  He gripped her fingers so fiercely they cracked. His smile was thin and mocking. “You’re like some primitive thing that’s never been spoiled. Like a creature that’s never stepped out of the jungle. Nothing touches you, does it? You might as well live in a glass cocoon.”

  He held her hand in both of his. His bright watery eyes and the turmoil of his words reminded her of his angry, battling swim earlier, in the pool.

  “I would like a drink,” he said, getting up quickly. “I’m absolutely—what’s the word, what’s the word—incubating! Incubating! Things are happening.” He struck his breast. “Germinating! I can feel all the hard seedpods swelling and softening. It’s been a long time,” he said, returning to the table. He bent and put his hands on her face. “For once I’m going to shut up. I’m not going to say another word! I want you to tell me things. Promise me you will. Promise you’ll talk to me all night. Promise?” He was squeezing her cheeks. His eyes kept closing.

  “About what?” she whispered, afraid to move.

  “About everything!” he growled, his face meeting hers, his mouth open and wet, his teeth gnashing at her lips. He got up, and she touched her mouth to see if it was bleeding. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she had just been kissed.

  He was in the kitchen, searching through the cupboards, until he found her father’s Scotch, which he set on the table with two glasses. She refused a drink, but when he insisted, she managed one fiery sip. She wiped her eyes and sniffed.

  “Now, next time take two sips,” he said, and downed the rest of hers in one gulp. “Then three, then four. Build up. Acquire a taste for it. Before you know it, you and Frannie’ll be out there every night, belting ’em down, having a hell of a time.”

  As he drank, he told her he had been a
high-school English teacher before his book came out. He had tried teaching a few times since then, but that had been years ago. “Oh shit!” he groaned, burying his face in his hands, strands of his hair hanging over his stained, nicked fingers.

  She kept thinking of his mouth on hers, his harsh smell still in her nostrils. She felt that same danger, that paralyzing sense of inevitability, she would get when she and her father used to climb Loomis’s ledge behind the lake. If she looked straight up, the huge tilted, balanced boulders would seem, in the sun’s glare, to teeter, to shift, their movement so slight, so fractional, that with a blink it felt as if she were witnessing the misalignment, the plate-wrenching shudder, of the earth itself.

  “Mind if I ask you something?” He peered sourly at her. “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-two,” she said, and the word tasted bad.

  “Where’d you go today?”

  “To see my friend.”

  “Who’s your friend? Not that fucking Getso, I hope,” he said with a bitter chuckle. “Next time I’ll break more’n his fucking window, windshield.” He flipped his hand. “Whatever.” His eyes half closed, he laughed. “So tell me about your friend. What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Birdy.” Just saying it made her feel better.

  “Birdy! You don’t have a friend named Birdy!” He pointed at her. “See, you’re laughing. You made it up, right? You figure, This fucking Mackey, I can tell this asshole anything, he’s so screwed up.” He shook his head. “Birdy! Whoever heard of Birdy!”

  “Birdy Dusser! There really is such a person! She’s my best friend. We used to work together. I told you about her and how Getso stole the money. Remember?”

  “Oh yah, fucking Getso. It always comes back to fucking Getso.” His head bobbed up and then down, and she thought he had fallen asleep in the chair.