“Are you making friends with my Beth?” She asked me with a smile that wasn’t entirely friendly.
“Of course,” I said, “but she thinks I talk funny.”
Connie laughed. “She thinks I do too. Don’t you think he speaks much like my friend Keith? You remember Keith? You liked to sit on the beach. You were there once. This man comes from the same country as Keith. They were children together.”
Beth Sanders stared at the messy inside of her mug and said nothing.
Connie spoke again. “Now no one knows what’s happened to poor Keith, and a lot of people are really very worried.”
Again there was silence. Connie looked across at me I tried to give her a look of encouragement.
“It’s not anything serious Beth. It’s just that people want to know that he’s all right. If you were lost I’d surely want to know that you were okay, now wouldn’t I?”
A monotone. “I suppose so.” There was a long hesitation after that. Then Beth Sanders spoke again. “I’m not supposed to say, so I’ll tell you because you’re my friend and you did ask but you have to promise not to say anything to anyone else. I can trust you, Connie.” She looked directly at me. “But can I trust you?”
She sounded so serious I almost laughed, which would have been disastrous. “I promise you can trust me Beth,” I said solemnly.
“Tell us please, Beth.” Connie said.
Beth Sanders sighed deeply. “All right then. But you did agree. Keith was an evil man. He took his penis out and made Tammi look at it. My dad and Mr. Tait found out, and they made him go away.”
I must have looked quite dazed.
“Did you see this happen, Beth?” Connie asked her sharply.
“Yes, I did.” She sounded adamant. “Tammi and me were playing on the beach.”
“Are you sure he really did this?” Connie’s voice was no longer quite steady.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Of course I do, Darling. I just didn’t expect that Keith . . .”
“Mrs. Tait says he’s evil, that what he did was an evil thing. She kept saying that. Evil. Evil. She said he should be sent away.”
I sat there dumbfounded.
If it were true, he was lucky not to have been lynched. If . I didn’t have any reason to doubt the girl. I didn’t have any evidence to suggest that Keith couldn’t do a thing like that. But I was doubtful. There was in Beth’s succinct explanation of Keith’s act a clinical detachment, as if leaned by rote, or else dictated. As I looked at Connie I could see that, behind a face reflecting an anxious concern for the child, she was doubtful too.
“Mrs. Tait told us not to tell anyone.”
“Was she there?” Connie asked.
“Yes. I mean no. She wasn’t there. After he . . .” She hesitated. “After he did that to Tammi, we ran to her house. Her mother was there. We told her what happened. She said it was an evil thing. That he was an evil man to do it. She told us that Tammi’s dad would take care of it. She gave us Cherry Cokes and cookies and we watched Bugs Bunny cartoons on their big screen television.”
“Did he take care of it?” I spoke then, more to myself, in truth not really expecting an answer.
She nodded. “I bet he did. Tammi told me that her dad and my dad beat him up and sent him far away. I never saw him again. Tammi said her mother made her promise not to say anything about it. And that I was to do the same. Not even to my dad. Even though he knew all about it later when Tammi’s dad told him. I wanted to tell my dad, too. But I promised I wouldn’t. So I didn’t. I’m only telling you now because Connie asked me.” Her tone turned petulant.
Connie asked. “Are you glad they sent him away?”
“I suppose. But it made you sad didn’t it? And I liked him before that. Before he did the evil thing. When we all sat on the beach it was fun. But Mrs. Tait’s been nice to me ever since. And she can be weird and mean to me sometimes. I don’t like having a secret thing from my dad though.”
“Maybe you should talk to him,” I said.
“Oh no. I can’t. I promised. I’d get into big trouble.”
“How would you get into trouble?” Connie asked.
“I don’t know. I just would.” She spoke snappishly. “Can you stop asking me all these questions? I shouldn’t have told you anything. I need to go to the bathroom now.”
She got up and left the room.
Connie and I looked at each other.
“I know Beth very well. She’s not telling us the exact truth,” Connie said.
“I know,” I said.
“Is it possible she’s being made to lie?” Connie said.
“It’s possible,” I said.
We both sipped at our hot chocolates, which had cooled but which were still potentially delicious.
Mine tasted like mud in my mouth.
FIFTEEN
When Beth Sanders returned from the bathroom, she asked for a spoon and proceeded to dig out the marshmallow remains from the bottom of her cup. When she was finished, she had chocolate encircling her mouth, but she did look extremely pleased with herself.
“I have to go now,” she said suddenly and jumped to her feet. Connie’s cheek was kissed, transferring a little chocolate, and for a long second she regarded me quizzically. Did I rate a kiss? A handshake perhaps? Finally she settled for a shy smile.
After the girl had gone, Connie wiped absently at the dark chocolate stain on her milk-white cheek.
“I simply can’t believe any of it,” she spoke gently into the silence.
I couldn’t either.
She took my hand and squeezed it. She shook her head back and forth emphatically.
I left Connie a little later, when our mutual silence had become a dark and overbearing presence. We held each other’s hand as we walked to her front door.
The rain was still heavy as I got behind the wheel of my rented Ford Escort. I started the car and drove carefully away, following the beach road. The rain was loud and too much for the windshield wipers. If they beat fast, they cleared the water but distracted me. When I slowed them down, they merely swept the rain listlessly in waves across the windshield and temporarily left me unable to see the road.
I slowed the car down and watched for the side road that led to Sandy’s house.
Before I could turn the engine off, the phone rang and startled me. I had unthinkingly pulled the mobile unit from the Mercedes before changing cars. More to deter theft, in truth, than to keep in touch.
I hadn’t been especially effective at keeping in touch lately.
“Hello, Tom.” Patricia’s voice was barely audible. The reception was very poor, and the rain splattered loudly on the roof of the car.
“Hello,” I said.
“Why do you sound so odd?”
“No. I’m fine. It’s difficult to hear you.”
“Are you driving right now?” She spoke louder.
It struck me as an odd question. “No, I’m not. I’m parked. There’s very heavy rain.” I sounded slightly asinine.
“Are you alone in the car?”
“Yes, I am. Of course I am.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“I called you the other day.”
“Yes. I did get your message.”
There was an uneasy quiet to my wife then, an anxiousness, and in that daunting silence, the next line of the conversation came to me a long time before it was spoken.
“This might seem terribly sudden, but I would like us to divorce very soon.” The words were like gunshots.
“I see,” I said finally, stupidly, throwing words into the silence.
After that I said nothing, waiting for the arrival of the appropriate emotion, knowing it wouldn’t be surprise and equally certain that it wouldn’t be sadness.
“I think w
e’ve grown too far apart,” she said finally.
I blurted out, “Don’t you think that’s a somewhat trite line?”
So there was the emotion. At last. With a veritable cornucopia of noble attitudes open to me, I had, in all cowardice, opted for petulance.
“Yes,” she said it thoughtfully. “I suppose it is trite. Do you deny that it’s true?”
“No. If you imagine it to be so then it clearly is. I never really noticed.”
I thought she might be smiling ironically then.
“This would perhaps be one of those situations, Tom, where, if you possessed a strong opinion you might care to actually voice it. To tell me I’m wrong for example, that our love can endure, something along these lines might be called for.”
I didn’t say anything.
“No? Well then. Our lives are really quite insular. I have talked with Jeff.” Jeffrey was our lawyer. “And he tells me that our money is a simple matter. You own your store and your car and your investments. And I apparently own everything else, as per your very specific instructions, which were never to my knowledge ever discussed.”
“Was that something wrong?” I asked.
“No. Perhaps not. Certainly it was secretive, and presumptive, and quite possibly rather arrogant.”
“You’re very wealthy.”
“How nice for me. Would you care to deny that it was a little cold-blooded?”
“Perhaps it was.”
“But as you say, I am now rich. And as Jeff says, the cut will be a clean, straight, uncomplicated one. One might almost imagine you had planned for this . . . as if you foresaw . . . did you think we would eventually split apart?”
“No. I just thought . . . it made sense to me then. It was simple. Straightforward. I thought it best.”
“Do you know I took a walk around the house this morning? There’s virtually nothing here of you. Oh, I didn’t expect to find your spirit haunting the place; that would be quite absurd. But physically there’s nothing. In the kitchen there’s the coffee you like. A few shirts and things you bought for yourself hang in the bedroom closet. There’s nothing anyone else has ever given you that you’ve cared for . . . even the things we bought in the beginning. Standing in the cutesy stores together on Sunday afternoons, nodding your head. You must have hated it all.”
“I do need to get some things. Computer files and some other things. I can send Nye over, if he doesn’t mind. He can take everything off the hard drive. It’s an old machine. Maybe you’d like to have it.”
As I sat in the rain and arranged the exchange and retrieval of the detritus of my marriage, all I could think was that I would miss my empty office and my bay window and the children playing in the park across the street.
“Thank you. I suppose I should be relieved that we’re not going to have one of these difficult divorces. We aren’t, are we Tom?”
“I don’t suppose so.”
“I suspect I haven’t been very warm to you.”
“I’m not altogether sure that I need very much warmth.”
“Oh I think you’re quite wrong there. I think that we all need warmth. You and I either pretended that we didn’t, or else came to realize that the other couldn’t or wouldn’t provide it. I think we gave each other to believe we were such strong and independent people. But I suspect that we’re in reality anything but. But these are simply my little theories, and I’ll stop now because, as we speak, I have to wonder if you truthfully care one way or another. You sound as you always do. Polite and a little bit distracted. I should, I think, be a little offended that this particular conversation isn’t capturing your attention.”
“That’s unfair. I am listening. Do I care about you? Is that what you’re asking me? Do I care that my marriage is ending?”
“Don’t, Tom. You’re going to endeavor to produce a decent facsimile of emotion and care, and it’s simply not worth the bother. We are in the process of splitting up. Your wife of fifteen years and you, and this conversation is a messy little chore you have to get through, before you can move on to the next piece of ordered, all-consuming business.”
“I’m truly very sorry, Patricia.”
“About?”
“About everything. About not making you happy. About not paying attention. I should have let you buy me some nice shirts.”
“I did buy you some nice shirts.”
“Then I should have worn the bloody things more often.”
“You hated them. You tried them on, and you looked as if you were choking to death. You might want to consider living alone, Tom.”
“Is this something you’ve planned for a while?” I asked her. “Or is this a sudden thing?”
“No.”
“You’ve thought this out then?”
“Yes.”
“And I never even noticed.”
“No. You never did.”
“Is there someone else?”
“Now it’s your turn to be trite.”
I paused in acknowledgement. “I do want to know.”
“But do you truthfully care?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I can’t really say. Isn’t it something people always want to know? A precursor to the inevitable jealous rage.”
“That would be a falsehood on your part. You’ve no such emotion. But there isn’t anyone else, although I must admit that I do find myself thinking about it sometimes. Perhaps even wishing that there were, but purely in the abstract form. For the company, I expect.”
I said nothing then.
“And have you started to stray yourself?”
I thought briefly about lying, but it seemed an idiotic option at this stage. “I have a little. Only of late.”
“Does it mean terribly much to you?”
I almost laughed. “Actually it seems to mean a great deal to me. But for reasons that don’t have very much to do with the other person.”
“You’re perhaps finally letting your guard down.”
“Perhaps. I’m getting more than a little tangled up in myself.”
“You should take that as a positive sign. You might actually find yourself in the process.”
“But then again, I might simply stay lost for a while in what could well be my midlife crisis.”
“Is she a young and terribly pretty creature?” Her voice grew very quiet then. Patricia was a proud woman, and, for a split second, I thought that if she was going to cry it would be then. “But I shouldn’t really ask.” Her voice grew distant. “I don’t suppose it matters that much.”
Then there was a long quiet.
“Is your computer’s fax modem operational?” She asked abruptly.
“Yes it is.”
“Then the customary papers will be coming your way in the near future. You will have to sign a great many of them. You should speak with Jeff first. And please send Nye over any time. I did tell my mother, by the way. She sat and cried for hours and hours. She’s always been a silly romantic woman with little grasp of reality. But I do have to go now. We should talk when you return. Have you managed to locate your lost friend yet?”
I told her that I hadn’t.
It occurred to me that Patricia might even doubt the existence of Keith. She might think that this was all for sport.
She said goodbye.
As she hung up, all I could think of was that this had been the longest conversation I could remember us having in a great while.
I switched the phone off, climbed out of the car, and walked through the rain into the house of the woman with whom I had been unfaithful.
For lunch I picked listlessly at a slice of cold pizza and tried to kickstart some sort of cathartic reaction to the news that my empty structure of a marriage was close to collapsing. But noth
ing much came. I drank the last of the milk from the carton in the fridge and noticed the note attached to the door, held in place by a plastic toy girl in a skimpy blue leotard.
Tom, Don’t wait up. Chance of a killer date with young nubile town stud currently between bleached bimbos. Us oldsters can’t afford to wait. Might pan out. Might be a total bust. Really wish I’d shaved my pits this morning. Hope he likes it natural! Forage for scraps or else dine out. See ya!
The note wasn’t signed.
This wasn’t turning out to be an especially great day.
I put the remains of the pizza back in the fridge, finished the milk, and left the plate to loll in the sink in warm soapy water, an uncharacteristically sloppy gesture on my part.
Outside, the rain had finally stopped, and the air felt dense and tropical.
I stopped the car at the bottom of the dirt road, at the intersection where the shore road crosses over, and waited as a Corvette sped past. A man sat behind the wheel, a little cramped inside a performance car designed for smaller men with the sporting blood. The T-top roof was optimistically open. The car was white, a mid-seventies vintage. I knew this from a session in the sports club sauna barely listening to a Corvette owner with a soggy cigar and a protruding gut discuss his life’s passion for close to an hour.
I didn’t recognize the driver but the car was the one I had seen inside the Taits’ garage. The one the teenage Tait fiercely coveted, the one his older brother drove when he hadn’t displeased his father. I couldn’t think of the older boy’s name for a moment. Then it came to me. Chip. Chip Tait. Greg and Chip. Such all-American names. They should be Beach Boys, or else distant heirs to the Kennedy fortune.
But that hadn’t been a boy behind the wheel. By a simple process of elimination the driver had to be their father, George Tait.
Without thinking, I spun the wheel, turned the Escort in a deep puddle, and, spraying brown water, followed the trail of the Corvette.
Norm’s Nook was a rundown bar squatting in an empty space between two small towns. The place was bigger than profit margins might have reasonably allowed. Perhaps once it had been a roadhouse full of happy revelers, on a road that had maybe been the shortest distance between two places people actually wanted to get to and from.
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