“I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” he said. “To be honest, I’m mystified. Sure wish you’d give her a call.”
Marie was about to ask him what he meant, but just then a member of the Sherbourne police force came over to congratulate Neil on all he’d done on behalf of the victims.
A few days later, she called Wanda. The voice on the phone was thick and hazy, as if she spoke through a drug. They agreed to meet for coffee.
Marie arrived early and ordered a piece of cherry cheesecake which she ate quickly, hoping to get out of admitting she’d slipped off her diet. The urge to eat something sweet and rich felt less like indulgence than a necessary antidote to dread. At the sight of Wanda Springer walking through the restaurant door, she dropped her fork. Wanda had reached her weight-loss goal, all right, and gone right on by. Her tracksuit hung forlornly on her shrunken body. Her face was grey. Her hands shook when she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up.
“This is the non-smoking section,” Marie pointed out. They never smoked after class, as a tribute to self-control.
Wanda said, “Fuck it,” and picked up where she’d left off.
* * *
So, Neil’s mother died. His so-called “real” mother. The one who gave him up for adoption right after he was born. We all went up for the funeral. Montreal in November, I’ll tell you Marie, we have nothing to complain about down here. Cities are worse than towns, it’s a known fact. Wind so cold it felt like swallowing knives. Neil loved it. He said it made him think of hockey. He took a week off work and insisted we see the sights. Well, you have a very odd way of grieving, Mr. Springer.
He says: “She was an old woman whose time had come. Thank God we had a chance to know her before she went.”
We? Ha. I never clamped eyes on the bitch. Wouldn’t have, even if he offered to introduce me. Am I the only one who feels loyalty to Esther, the woman who loved him and took him in and brought him up to be a God-fearing responsible man? An American, for Christ’s sake! Let’s not lose sight of that. He is a red-blooded American and so are his three natural children, though it seems to me he is doing everything in his power to pry them away from their heritage. He took them out of school to attend the funeral of a grandmother they have never known, and then he forced them to skate. And after all that’s happened, 9/11! I stayed in the hotel, contented myself with laps and weights. I swear I have never felt more American than I did up there, sitting in the Howard Johnson’s thinking about all that flesh and bone under those Twin Towers. It gives you a certain perspective. Takes my breath away to see how fragile we are. How very fragile. You think this is the worst that could happen? Ha. It’s only the beginning. This is how we’ll have to live from now on, waiting for the next tragedy. It isn’t over yet, Marie. You can bet on that.
* * *
Marie wasn’t sure whether Wanda was talking about her personal crisis or international terrorism. She was afraid to ask. As far as she could follow Wanda’s reasoning, there didn’t seem to be any difference. She kept mouthing phrases they’d both heard on Sunday morning TV: The end of the world as we know it. Threat to peace and liberty. Homeland security. So obvious was the power of her despair that even the waitress noticed and ignored her second cigarette.
* * *
I’ll tell you, Marie, this whole thing has brought out another side to Neil. He hardly even speaks to me, and if he does it’s to say something so useless I wish he’d keep his mouth shut. When a man like that takes his love away, you’re left with nothing but a big, stony heap of silence. He doesn’t even pretend! Sometimes, just to test, I’ll throw my arms around him and give him a kiss. He kisses me back for a second and then I can feel his eyes looking over my shoulder at something behind my back. Anything, just looking somewhere else. He’s always saying: We’ve got to get away together, Wanda, just the two of us. Second honeymoon. But when? Never, that’s when. It will never happen. I will never again be alone with my husband. It’s over. Come and gone, Neil and Wanda. I know what people are saying, that it’s me, my fault. I’m having some kind of breakdown. The change of life, maybe that’s it. Crazy runs in my family. They’re saying Neil’s a brick. He is. But I’ll tell you why. He’s being nice to me so I’ll be the one to leave and he’ll get the kids. I can see right through his strategy. He’s a patient man, always has been. And I am not. I’m the sensible one, the one who gets things done, takes the plunge. That’s one of the reasons we were so good together. Opposites attract. But when one of the opposites pulls away . . .
* * *
She stopped talking, stared out the restaurant window through smoky eyes, her thin fingers turning the cigarette package over and over, as if she were shuffling cards. Marie thought: Am I so mean that someone else’s trouble feels like a contagious disease? She wanted to tell Wanda to trust the Lord, but that sounded obvious, pointless. To get any good out of trusting the Lord, you have to be in a trusting frame of mind, and Wanda wasn’t. Instead, she mentioned someone in their church group who knew a counsellor — at which point Wanda cut her off, blew up and started shouting obscenities about Neil and Amanda. The waitress came over and tried to calm things down. Wanda cursed her, bolted out of the restaurant.
Only after she was alone did Marie notice the stainless steel flip-top lighter engraved with the initials WBS, sitting beside Wanda’s abandoned cup. She took it, planning to call her and give it back. She put it on the nightstand next to her bed, as a reminder.
* * *
When her husband walked out a decade before, Marie joined a church group for single women and read a slew of magazine articles about how to start your life over. Don’t keep agonizing over what went wrong, you’ll risk spiralling out of control. Keep your mind off him. Move on. The most common helpful suggestion was to make new friends with other women. Get a life. All good advice. She tried not to think about the old bastard holed up with his young whore, starting married life all over again while she, at forty-three, was fat and worn out from raising a high-strung boy and trying to make ends meet. When Bob Jr. got into a fancy west coast college, people said you must be proud, but the tuition was killing her and he never came home. They said she was lucky to get the house, a split-level in a good neighbourhood. It was insured for three hundred thousand, but she couldn’t afford the taxes, not to mention the upkeep.
The main problem with all that good advice was other women. Her phone never rang unless one of them was having a meltdown. If there were single women out there having fantastic lives, they were all busy with boyfriends. She wondered if something about her attracted trouble. She did not have any original insights into the miseries of the world. Nor did she have the strength to listen.
She felt guilty about Wanda. Every time she crawled into the queen-sized bed, Wanda’s lighter was staring at her from the nightstand. But she didn’t call.
One morning — it was a Thursday — the alarm went off at six, as usual. She stayed in bed. By eight when she hadn’t turned up for work the phone rang. She let it ring. At nine she got up, drove to Walmart, purchased a gallon of white oil paint and a large can of turpentine, came back. Then she took a stroll through the marital home, picking out everything of value she could find. Only the clothes she really liked, which were few. A bundle of photo albums. Six flowered plates that had belonged to her late mother. A string of Christmas tree lights. Put them in a suitcase, went out to the carport, put the suitcase into the trunk, along with a winter coat and change of boots. Drove the Subaru six blocks to the edge of the subdivision and walked back.
Mid-afternoon, she started painting the living room. It looked good, a fresh beginning, something she should have done years ago. At six, she cleaned the brush and rollers with rags soaked in turpentine. Pulled the drapes shut. Stacked a pile of newspapers near the picture window, soaked them with turpentine. On a tour of the basement, she dug out an old lamp Bob Sr. had bought for the cottage (which he took in the divorce) but never got around to rewiring. She screwed in a fresh light bulb
, plugged it into the TV socket. No surprise: it sputtered and went out.
She ate supper, listened to an audio book. Brushed her teeth, set the alarm for 1 a.m., went to bed. The alarm wasn’t necessary. She was still awake when the time came to put on jogging clothes and running shoes. Taking a deep breath, she picked up Wanda’s lighter and lit a box of Kleenex beside the faulty lamp.
She left by the back door before the flames hit the curtains walked at first, then ran. An easy sprint to the car.
By the time she reached her sister’s place in Maine, the sun was coming up. A sky so bright, she prayed: Dear Lord, take care of your wounded. Smite Neil if You must. Amanda, whatever. But please be good to Wanda.
MANKIND
VAUGHN WALSH WASN'T always the man he is today. My husband was a drinker, in every sense of the word. He was reliable, all right. You could count on Vaughn to flip a good time on its face. Eventually, things turned ugly. Police got involved. I had to throw him out and change the locks. Better part of a year, I was on my own. Hardly ever left the house, except to take the boys to school. Got by on vodka, diet Coke and pecan pie. I was a fat pig.
Vaughn still had his hair but otherwise he was out of control.
Christmas was always Vaughn’s favourite time of the year. I dreaded it. The one I’m going to tell you about started out quiet. The kids hadn’t seen him in months. He’d missed two support payments in a row. So I bought myself a stash of Black Magic chocolates and a five-litre box of white wine. Funny how when you’re a lump of crap, what you’ll do to feel better is pretty well the thing that makes it worse.
That was the year my eldest, smartass Billy, figured out the truth about you-know-who. He threatened to tell his little brother and ruin Christmas. Vaughn’s son to the core, he took a bribe to keep his mouth shut. I had to max out my credit card on one of those damn videogame machines, which ended up in the garbage by spring. Anyway, I told them time passes quicker when you’re asleep. They were in bed by seven.
I filled an old wine bottle full of plonk and settled down in front of the TV with my box of choc, then the traffic started. One yacking couple after another, stomping up the stairs right beside my wall to the third-floor apartment. A real doozy of a party was taking shape. Why wasn’t I invited? I looked after that bitch’s dog when she and her man went to Costa Rica. You know, I never noticed till I was on my own, but couples mainly mix with couples. Noah’s fucking ark. Piss on earth, to hell with me.
By ten, the racket was so bad I couldn’t hear the TV. They must have left the door open. The reek of dope and cigarettes drifting in from the stairwell was enough to make you puke. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to go up there, or call the cops. And I still had to fill the stockings, put the presents under the tree. But I couldn’t get my fat ass off the couch. It was all I could do to fume and unwrap chocolates.
Finally, I forced myself. Went into the kitchen, ate Santa’s cookies. Poured his milk back into the carton. The rear end of my apartment isn’t insulated so the floors were like ice.
I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my feet on the electric heater when all hell breaks loose upstairs. Some kind of fight. Music stops. Hollering, then a free-fall of crashes, like a sack of potatoes rolling downstairs. For a few blessed minutes, silence. Then the music starts up again. Diana Krall. So maybe it wasn’t the party of the century.
I head for the front room, planning to catch a glimpse of the party animal they’d kicked out. Big mistake. There’s a man standing on the balcony right outside my door. He sees me peeking through the curtain. I step back, flick off the light. Too late. He rings the doorbell. Shit. Bzzzt. Bzzzzzzzzt. I ignore him, go to the hall closet, start hauling out presents. But he won’t give up. Next thing, he’s pounding on the door. Now all I need is one of my boys to wake up. So I pick up a pewter vase I keep handy for emergencies, tuck it behind my butt and stomp toward the door.
Whatdya know. It’s Santa, in full regalia. Completely drunk. A nasty bruise on his cheek.
I motion through the front window for him to go away. He starts begging to be let in. I make like I can’t hear his voice through the glass, so he leans on the doorbell again. I’m so mad I shake my weapon at him.
He shouts out: “What are you doing with that crazy dildo, lady?” Loud enough to be heard across the street.
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m rolling out the crust for mince tarts.”
He laughs, jabs the doorbell again. I open up to tell him to get moving or I’m calling Helen upstairs and she’ll get the cops. He does one of those little mocking dances drunks do when they’re struggling to keep a conversation rolling and imagine they’re being funny. And he says: “Mince tarts, eh? I looooove mince.”
The next thing I know, he’s standing inside my apartment. A big man, at least a foot taller than me, truly obese, with a very bad fake beard and genuine bloodshot eyes. His breath reeks of beer puke and he has snot stains on his jacket, which I notice is made out of cheap synthetic velveteen, ready to go up in flames if he backs into a candle, which I can arrange, if things get out of hand. He’s wearing rubber boots, the kind you see on farms. This man was invited to the party of the year? I’m thinking they must be desperate.
A minute later he’s walking around my kitchen in his sock feet, giving me tips on how to add zest to mincemeat tarts. I tell him there will be no mince, meat or otherwise. Absolutely no meat at all in this house. I am a woman alone with her chocolates. Now, get out.
“What about the dildo?” he snorts.
“It’s a lethal weapon. I’ve used it before.”
We’re arguing, but I notice he keeps his voice to a whisper, like he knows the kids are asleep and shouldn’t be woken up. Somehow, this puts me at ease. At least I’m not as afraid as I should’ve been. As I said, he was a big man. Practically a giant. Standing beside him I felt small. But not scared. Somehow.
“So I guess you were kicked out of the party?” I say.
He looks at me. “What party?”
“Upstairs.”
He wouldn’t own up to it, claims he was just passing by, saw the light.
“But you were pounding on my door.” “I was doing no such thing,” he says.
Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem so drunk any more. In fact he’s stone sober. He says he’s sorry to trouble me but he’s powerfully hungry. The mention of mince tarts had unleashed a terrible craving in his belly and if he could just have even a crust of bread . . .
“Sorry, I ate your cookies.” I decide to play along.
He picks up the piece of paper beside the empty plate and reads the note Billy left.
“Nice,” he says. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy.”
“How old?”
“Nine.”
“Great age, for a boy.”
Boy, do I feel weird. I make him a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of pickles and pour us both glasses of wine. He says he appreciates good cheddar. You can only eat so many cookies in one night. Then he laughs, a real Ho! Ho! Ho! from the bottom of his belly. But . . . in a whisper.
“You’re good at what you do,” I say.
He lets out a long gust of air, as if he’s been saving it up inside the suit.
“Sorry,” he says.
Well, me, I’m a sucker for apologies, something it took Vaughn a long time to figure out. Santa had it in his nature. He says nothing. He just sits there at the end of my kitchen table, looking apologetic.
Meanwhile the party upstairs is back in full swing, as if there’d never been an incident. Drunken laughter, Elvis dreaming of a white Christmas. Guess we were both feeling pretty low. He gets up and fills up our glasses. I duck into the bathroom for a pee. The light was dim, but I catch a look in the mirror, I think, hmm, not that bad. Hell, I was thirty-five. Compared to now I was a ripe pear ready for the picking. The mystery guest must have been fifty, which seemed old then.
What got into me?
I step into my bedroom to get the rest of
the kids’ stuff out. He’s standing by the night table.
“Come over here,” he says, taking off his cap. “I want to show you something.”
I figure it has to do with his hair, which is thick and grey and looks like it hasn’t been combed, ever. Which is true. It’s a bad wig. He lifts up a corner and points out the rash around his forehead where a band of rubber holds it to his skin. He’s furious about the rash. As if somebody besides himself is to blame.
“Why do you wear the wig?” I ask.
He says he has to. It’s part of the package. “What package? Your job? Is this your job?” He sits down on the bed.
“It’s more like a calling,” he says, as if he’s talking to an idiot.
I don’t know why I decided a man who’s old and fat and whispering might not be a psychopath, but I did. I’ve always been a really poor judge of men, bar none. Even when I was twenty and thin and not bad looking, I never once found myself with a naturally good man. I was always drawn to fixer-uppers. I just don’t see flaws, only potential. Which is a terrible curse, because I am not a born fixer. Not at all. I’m more of a leveller.
Anyway, he reaches out and takes my hand and we both roll back on the bed like two empty barrels. My main consolation is, he’s fatter than me. And a breast man. For men like that, well, there’s no such thing as too much. Fat does not exist in that area of the female body. It’s all just more of what they prefer. I mean, he really seemed to get worked up over my . . . which is . . . you know . . . a very big turn-on, to see a man get worked up over your . . . intimate . . . self. Not that he was pushy, or anything. Not one bit. He treated my breasts like they were . . . a treat. It was embarrassing at the beginning but not for long. As we’re rolling around the bed, not actually in it but just kind of fooling around, his wig slips off. His real hair’s black and thick and smells — whew, like what? I don’t even know if there’s a word. It smells like . . . mankind. He pays no attention to the wig, he just keeps doing what he’s been doing and the room gets hot. The next thing I know the black plastic belt hits the floor. He unbuttons his furtrimmed coat and slips out of it. The coat just sits there beside the bed, like the barrel I thought he was, but he’s not. Naked from the waist up he is muscle, ribs, skin stretched over a body that is tight and bulging. He does not appear to notice of my jaw drop. Just continues doing what he’s doing until the whole bronze package starts to sweat and smell like . . . ripe mankind. He’s heavy as a tank on top of me. All I can think of is: How could anything human be so hard? He’s not rough, not a bit, but when he tries to help me out of my blouse, it rips. So does the bra.
Mankind & Other Stories of Women Page 12
