This Glittering World

by T. Greenwood

  Ben nodded. “Is that why Ricky didn’t drink?”

  “Not even at weddings.”

  The spell with Sara was broken the second Ben opened his mouth.

  “I’m not going to be teaching next semester,” he said. She was sitting on the couch in her pajamas, flipping through a wedding magazine, when he got home that night.

  He probably wouldn’t have said anything at all except that he’d had a couple of drinks on his way home. Alcohol was worse than truth serum for Ben. After his shift ended, he had searched up and down the streets for a blue Mustang. He had also asked the bartenders at the Mad I and Uptown Billiards if they remembered any fights on Halloween night, if they recognized Ricky. Shadi had given him Ricky’s high school yearbook photo. In the picture he looked about fifteen years old, a wide, smiling baby face. Ben had had a beer at work, then a shot of Jameson at the Mad I and another at Uptown. No one had seen Ricky. And nobody remembered any fights on Halloween except for one between two girls who had both dressed up as slutty nuns.

  “What did you do?” Sara asked, clearly livid.

  “I chucked a kid’s cell phone against the wall, and his dad threatened to charge me with assault.” He laughed at this, waited for her to laugh too. It was ludicrous, really, if you thought about it.

  “What?” Sara asked, her eyes growing wide.

  “I’m taking a sabbatical,” he said, smirking.

  “There’s no such thing for adjuncts,” she said.

  “No shit,” he answered and plopped down on the couch next to her. He grabbed the magazine she had set down. Glossy models in slinky white dresses, zillion-dollar flower arrangements, diamonds as big as boulders. The smell of the pages was nauseating. He felt acid rising in his throat and burped quietly into his hand.

  “Are you drunk?” Sara asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, you reek.”

  “I’m not drunk. I just had a couple of drinks after work.”

  “Well, you better figure out what to do for a job come Christmas,” she said. “Two shifts at Jack’s is not going to pay the mortgage, and I’m already working fifty hours a week with overtime.” She picked up the magazine and started flipping through it angrily.

  All of the doubts and regrets rose to the surface again, corpses bobbing in still water.

  He was actually drunker than he thought. He probably shouldn’t have driven home. His tongue felt thick.

  “My dad could maybe get you a job at one of his dealerships,” she said, without looking up at him. She knew this was the one thing she should not suggest. “We could move to Phoenix.”

  His heart started to race. He tried to keep the words in, but he couldn’t stop himself. He looked at her and felt nothing.

  “I don’t think I want to get married,” he said. It felt awful and wonderful to finally say it out loud.

  “What?” Sara asked, stunned.

  Her obliviousness, her ignorance, pissed him off. “Really? You’re surprised?” he said.

  When she slapped him, any sort of buzz he’d had went flat. His face stung. Jesus, what had he done? His skin was hot from where she had hit him.

  “You’re one stupid asshole, Ben Bailey,” she said, standing up and grabbing her coat. She lurched forward and yanked her car keys from the table. She stopped and pointed the keys at him. “Does this have something to do with that girl?”

  That girl. His head was spinning. This was it. Was he this transparent? His thoughts like glass?

  “What girl?” he asked.

  “That bitch with the guitar?” she said, her voice shrill, and he thought of Shadi riding her bike, Ricky’s guitar slung across her back. Someone must have seen him with her. Someone must have told.

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

  “Rory? That stupid hippie chick at Melanie’s on Halloween? Jesus, I saw you that night.”

  Relief came over him in one hot liquid splash. “No. God, no. Sara, listen…. ”

  “I’m going down to Melanie’s.”

  The front door slammed, then her car door slammed. Her headlights swept through the living room, and then she was gone. Blood was pounding hard in his temples, but beyond that thrumming was something quiet, something close to peace.

  And suddenly the only thing he wanted was to see Shadi. He knew he shouldn’t drive, but maybe he could walk. It couldn’t be more than a mile to the RV park. Sara was gone. Sara was gone.

  By the time he got to Shadi’s Airstream, he had sobered up.

  It was cold out, bitter and windy. He pulled his hat down over his ears, cupped his hands together, and blew hot air into them. He thought about turning around and heading back home. He looked up at the clear bright sky, and the stars made him dizzy. There was a faint pink light coming through the curtains in the window. She was awake. Before he had time to change his mind, he stepped up to the door of the camper and knocked.

  “Who is it?” Her voice was gruff.

  “It’s me,” he said. “Ben.”

  She opened the door and peered out at him. Her voice softened. “Ben?”

  “Hi,” he said.

  She leaned out of the trailer and looked around. “Where’s your truck?”

  “I walked.”

  “Jesus,” she said, trembling. “Get in here. It’s freezing out there.”

  Inside, it was warm. There was a butane heater right next to the door, and he could feel the heat coming off it in waves. Shadi was wearing gray long johns, thick wool socks, and a red plaid flannel shirt. It was unbuttoned, and underneath was a thin white cotton T-shirt. He tried not to look. As if sensing his discomfort, she wrapped the flannel tightly around her waist.

  “Sit down,” she said, gesturing to the kitchen table. “You want some coffee or something?”

  “Sure,” he said. A cold shiver ran through his body.

  The outside of the Airstream was deceiving; the inside was much more spacious than he’d imagined. There was a small stove and fridge. A decent-size counter with a sink, and the table where he sat while she made coffee. At the front of the trailer was a built-in couch with cupboards underneath. On the opposite end of the trailer was a door, probably to the bathroom, and a curtain behind which he assumed was Shadi’s bed. And next to the counter was a large weaving loom. He recognized it from the trips he’d made to the Museum of Northern Arizona during grad school.

  She sat down next to him in a metal folding chair and smiled. “It’s late.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You must have a good reason for being here. Did you find anything more out?”

  He tried to think what reason he might offer her. But the only thing he could think about was the stillness after Sara walked out of the house and that tug somewhere deep in his chest that had pulled him out his door, into the cold starry night, and through the forest to find her.

  “I lost my job.”

  “At Jack’s?” she asked.

  “No, at school.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I threw some kid’s phone at the wall when he wouldn’t stop texting.”

  She laughed. Her voice sounded like wind chimes.

  “You know, there’s going to be a position opening up at the museum. In their educational outreach program,” she said.

  “Really? That sounds interesting.”

  “I’ve shown my work there a few times; I know the director. I can put in a good word for you,” she said and gently reached for his hand.

  Her skin was so soft. He felt his entire body tremble.

  “I have a girlfriend,” he said. “A fiancée. And I told her tonight that I don’t want to marry her anymore.”

  She took a deep breath, let go of his hand, and stood up, reaching into the cupboard over the sink.

  “Do you love her?” she asked, her back to him.

  “No,” he said without hesitation. “I did. But I don’t anymore.”

  “Milk?”

>   “No. Thanks,” he said.

  She turned and handed him the hot cup of coffee. The steam drifted toward his face, getting rid of the chill. He could still feel the place where Sara had hit him.

  “People fall out of love,” Shadi said matter-of-factly. “Everything is always changing. It’s hard to stay in love.”

  He nodded.

  “Is this some of your work?” he asked, gesturing to what appeared to be a work in progress on the loom, the colors of sunset unraveling into evening. There was a large basket full of wool on the floor.

  She nodded.

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, feeling stupid. Trite.

  “My grandmother would hate it. I don’t make the traditional designs like she does. I use the traditional techniques, the skills she taught me, but the pictures are mine. I tell her I am making my own traditions.”

  “Do you miss her since you left Chinle?” he asked.

  “I’m learning not to grow too attached to things. To people. I am attached to my work. I am attached to my home, to Arizona. I am attached to my memories. These are the only things that really belong to me. Especially now.”

  He rubbed his beard with his hand; it prickled his palm. She poured more coffee into each of their cups. He tried to think of what belonged to him.

  The warmth from the coffee spread through his body.

  “I had a sister,” he said. “Dusty.” And as he said her name, he conjured her: the memories of Dusty suddenly appearing, the threads of their lives, those separate moments wound together. He wanted desperately to offer Shadi one strand, one precious filament, that would say, I know how it feels. I know. But how could he pick just one? It’s not the individual threads that make the pictures, but how they’re woven together. That’s the art. That’s the dream. And so he closed his eyes and gave her the first one he saw, and when he pulled it from his memory, he felt how tightly it was bound to every other moment. Even this moment here in Shadi’s trailer in the woods in November.

  He could remember the bottoms of her feet, small and pink, dirty with early summer mud. The sprinkler ticking in the backyard, his mother in a beach chair, straw hat, sunglasses, metallic tumbler of lemonade. Dusty sitting cross-legged on the wet grass in her bathing suit, watching a caterpillar crawl up her arm. She was five and he was ten.

  He could remember every single thing about that afternoon. The light filtering through the leaves of the oak tree, the hard bumps of last year’s acorns under his feet. He could remember the smell of charcoal, and his father’s pale legs as he stood at the barbeque, cooking hot dogs. He could remember the slivers of grass, newly mowed, sticking to his hands and feet as he ran through the sprinkler. The softness of his beach towel as his mother wrapped it around his shoulders. The freckles scattered across Dusty’s cheeks.

  He could remember the lazy tick, tick, tick of the sprinkler. The thrill of cold water against hot skin, a small cut on his lip and the sting of lemonade. Dusty, peering at the fuzzy brown caterpillar, luring him onto her finger and then running to Ben. Here, she said. Take care of him while I play. And he had sat shivering inside his towel at the edge of his mother’s lawn chair. He’d held on to the caterpillar, kept him safe, until Dusty came back dripping wet and breathless with her own bliss.

  He remembered the crisp skin of the hot dog resisting his bite, the sweet potato salad, the flimsy paper plates. He remembered the flicker of fireflies like the flick, flick, flick of streetlights and porch lights up and down their street. He remembered how Dusty cried when her father insisted they leave the caterpillar outside. The change from bathing suits into soft pajamas. The cold smell of Noxzema on burned shoulders. He remembered sleep.

  And then the next summer she was gone. Just like that.

  “You were just a boy,” Shadi said.

  He nodded.

  She reached for his hand again and took it. She stroked his fingers; he could feel the cool silver rings on his hot skin.

  “Remember I told you my grandpa had a truck like yours?” she said. “In the summertime, when Ricky and I were kids, we used to drive all the way to Winslow to the drive-in movies. My grandpa put an old mattress in the bed and we’d wear our pajamas and eat popcorn. Ricky was just a baby then. I went there last summer, and it’s just an empty field now. The screen’s still there, but it’s torn up. The marquee is gone.”

  Ben kept holding her hand, stroking her fingers now.

  “Things disappear,” Shadi said.

  And then their fingers laced together, interlocking.

  He knew even as she clicked out the pale pink light in the kitchen and they were swallowed in darkness that he would remember every single thing about this night. The smell of hickory, the alignment of the stars outside the window. The crisp smell of her sheets and the musky scent of her hair. He would remember the impossible softness of her skin, and every bone he touched. He would remember the way his entire body trilled as her lips whispered on his neck, and he would remember the heat of her breath. Even if this all disappeared too. Even later when this was just a memory. Just one pristine and perfect filament woven so tightly into the pattern, you couldn’t even see it anymore.

  The next morning, Ben woke at dawn and slipped out of Shadi’s bed, kissing her naked back from the base of her neck down to her tailbone. He pulled the sheets up and covered her, kissing her neck. It was torture tearing himself away from her, away from this quiet sanctuary.

  “I have to teach,” he said.

  She rolled over and opened her eyes. She propped herself up on one elbow. Her hair covered one eye.

  “Will you come back?” she asked sleepily.

  “Yes.”

  “What will you tell her?”

  “The truth,” Ben said.

  “Do you promise?”

  He nodded and leaned over to kiss her again. He closed his eyes and felt the smooth skin of her cheek on his.

  Outside, the world smelled of pine, of winter. Since last night, the sky had clouded over, and he knew it would probably snow again soon. Clouds shivered across the tops of the Peaks. He walked along the edge of the road, hands shoved into his pockets, his stride quick and long. For the first time in a long time, he was happy. Thrilled to simply breathe the cool air in and out, to feel the earth beneath his feet.

  Sara was not at the house, had not been back to the house as far as he could tell. There were no messages on the machine.

  None on his cell phone, which he’d left on the coffee table, either. He quickly showered and changed and grabbed his things, got in the truck and drove to school.

  Joe Bello was not in class, for which he was grateful. Rob must have managed to get him transferred out, or, maybe, he’d just opted out today. Ben handed out the tests and pretended to be absorbed in a book as his students hunched over their work. His heart was racing, his head thumping. He could barely keep from smiling as he thought about Shadi, as he recollected every inch of the night before. Every tremble, every shudder. He wanted to leap out of his skin, leave the shell of him there and race back to her, to disappear into her trailer, into her bed, into her body forever.

  The wall clock ticked off each excruciating second. And he still had another class before he could go back to her. Finally, the students came up one by one and gave him their tests and left. At last, there was no one in the room but him. He stuffed the papers into his bag and made his way to his next class.

  Again, he passed out the tests and pretended to read, and time slowed down, the minutes arthritic. By the time it was over, and he could leave, he was exhausted, as though he’d been trying to swim upstream for hours.

  He couldn’t get the key into the ignition of the truck fast enough. He had to concentrate not to press his foot to the floor as he drove through town. He cursed at the train that held him up at the railroad tracks. Car after car after car, the rumble and whistle of the longest train in history a moving wall between him and his future. That’s how he saw her, as the beginning. He felt like he’d just woke
n up from a terrible dream.

  When the train had finally passed, the wail fading into the distance, his heart was pounding. As much as he wanted to go straight to Shadi’s, he knew he should stop by his house and let Maude out. She’d been alone all night and cooped up all morning. He figured maybe he could take her with him. There was nothing else in that house that he cared about or really needed. If he got Maude, he could just leave. He could be gone.

  Sara would be at work. In the entire time he’d known her, she’d never missed a day. She’d had a perfect attendance record in school too. In thirteen years of school, she hadn’t missed a single class. She’d never been sick. Never woke up with a sore throat or the flu. And so when he pulled up to the house and saw her Camry parked in the driveway, he hit his palms against the steering wheel. “Goddamnit.”

  He considered not stopping, just driving. Just forgetting about Sara, even about Maude. But then something snagged in his chest like a rusty fishing lure. It bit and then held on. Christ, Sara hadn’t done anything but love him. Didn’t he at least owe her an apology? Six years; he couldn’t just run away. He felt like an asshole. Was a stupid asshole. Just like she’d said.

  And so he pulled into the driveway, turned off the ignition, and tried to figure out what to say to her to make this less painful. He figured she was home for lunch, probably making a sandwich, a salad, heating up a bowl of soup in the microwave. But when he opened the door and went inside, she wasn’t there. Not in the living room, not in the kitchen.

  “Sara?” he said, walking down the hallway to check in the bedroom.

  Maude lumbered toward him. “Hey, girl,” he said, rubbing her head. She whimpered and rubbed against him.

  The bedroom was empty. The bathroom door was shut.

  “Sara?” he said, knocking gently on the door.

  Maude flopped down at his feet. He didn’t hear the shower running. He leaned into the door, listening.

  “Sara, are you in there?” he said and gently turned the doorknob. The door was unlocked. “Hey, you okay?”