Just Bill

by Barry Knister

  AT BEDTIME, GLENDA sets the alarm. The next morning at eight, Ruby goes up the block to her grandfather’s. They get their story straight, then call. Fred uses the cordless, Ruby the wall phone in the kitchen. “I hear you’re quite the potter,” her grandmother says. “Horses and dogs.”

  “And alligators.” It’s one of the extra details they decided on. “And geckos. You put them in this kiln to bake. Now we’re studying glazes.” Ruby knows the terms from a unit at school. Last winter, everyone fired clay projects.

  “Glazes.” Her grandmother clucks. “I’m impressed.”

  “Madame left,” Fred tells her. “I checked with administration. She’s in assisted living, Terracina Grande.”

  “You should go see her.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “It’s just there, isn’t it?” she says. “Fate. Genes. It’s selfish, but I hear a story like that and always wonder if I’m next.”

  “You’re fine,” he says, realizing from his wife’s unguarded comment that she has forgotten Ruby is on the line. For one second it frightens him. She never forgets such things. “Listen, you two talk,” he says. “Too much coffee, I have to go to the john.” He puts down the cordless, feeling ashamed. You don’t have to go to the can, he thinks. You’re leaving Ruby to do all the dirty work. If she doesn’t slip up about Bill and Glenda, he prefers to think their deception will serve some purpose. Either way, he still believes in his decision.

  WHENEVER HE NOW comes along the back of the Gilmore house or rings the bell, it is painfully apparent the dog still regards him as his master. After all that’s happened, Bill still honors him above all others. He struggles up more quickly, moves with greater purpose over the slippery floor, nails clicking. Reaching the man, he lowers his head, deferring to the alpha male as he waits to be scratched.

  But Fred doesn’t go often. He visits Lydia Stafford—Madame—in her new assisted-living apartment. By turns her old self, then vague, he sees she has developed a strategy for buying time until able to place visitors. She seems cheerful enough, chatty and witty as he remembers her. It had to be hard for her, these years alone without Archie. A refined, well-read woman among golfers, he thinks. He waits apprehensively for her to bring up Emma. When she doesn’t he feels relieved.

  Back home, he takes up chores. He goes to Home Depot and comes back with more shelving for the spare bedroom’s walk-in closet. He also needs more shelving in the garage, but it’s too hot. When Glenda calls to ask if he wants to come walking with them, he begs off with something that needs doing—more small lies. Then he stands at the front window and watches them pass. The lead is gone. When Ruby stops, Bill sits. When she gives the command and gesture, he walks forward or stays until called. Ruby is teaching Bill’s new mistress how it’s done.

  Glenda wants to save the dog whatever fear might come from a visit to the vet’s. Miraculously, she finds one that makes house calls. Before he comes, she and Ruby get a cup of urine—”Don’t ask us how,” Glenda says—and a stool sample. The vet uses her stethoscope, looks in Bill’s mouth and ears, checks his paws, draws blood. The following day, she declares Bill officially “on the mend.”

  And it’s time to go. Ruby has talked several times to her mother, her father and stepmother. Does he just want to hear it, or has she actually shown some small evidence of thaw, a brief but real moment of spontaneity in speaking to her stepmom? Listening on the cordless as Ruby goes on with what are now the highly detailed particulars of her pottery class, he looks forward to getting back.

  Glenda pulls to a stop in the lot opposite Terminal B. They are flying Spirit. Next to her, Fred is talking to Bill, reaching back and scratching him behind the ears. The dog is on the floor between the Explorer’s back seats. Now she looks in the rearview. Ruby has loosened her seatbelt to stroke the dog’s hindquarters. Two night ago, Glenda dreamed the dog was standing over her on the bed, wanting to know where his master and Ruby had gone. Their leaving makes her feel threatened.

  Get a grip, she thinks. When Ruby looks up at the rearview, Glenda smiles. “I think your granddad and I will give you and Bill a minute to say goodbye.” She loosens her belt and gets out. Fred does the same. As he comes around the front of her SUV, a Northwest plane is hissing in takeoff. What a nice old guy, she thinks. No Cliff, but that isn’t fair. And Ruby. If she has ever experienced maternal feelings, Glenda can’t remember. She isn’t all that sure her feelings for Ruby could be called that. Sisters, she thinks. Maybe that’s why we get along well.

  “I’m going to break a promise,” she says facing the terminal. “I wouldn’t if I didn’t think you should know.”

  “There’s been a fair amount of that on this trip,” he says.

  “We were talking. I shouldn’t have, but I’d had some wine. I was telling her how when Cliff and I first started seeing each other, I was living with this guy. I didn’t tell him about Cliff. It was cowardly. I picked some fight to break it off. Accused him of cheating, completely bogus. It’s not a thing to tell a little girl, what can I say? It just came out. She says, ‘I did that with Bill. I blamed him like that, and they took him to the shelter.’ I didn’t push it, but I think it had to do with your new grandson.”

  Fred smiles, looking into the Florida midday sky. “It’s all right. I think I knew something like that happened. It could easily have happened. He really is big.”

  “Anyway, that’s what Ruby said. It was a big deal to her. She saved it a long time.”

  “She’s a great girl.”

  “I know how your wife feels, but please let me see Ruby when you’re down.”

  He looks to her. When he takes his hands from his pockets Glenda embraces him. After a long moment, he steps back, holding her forearms. “Absolutely,” he says. “My wife’s not a mean person. We’ll come see you and Bill, you’ll come see us.”

  On the ground at Metro Airport, the two move through the tunnel. A tradition of greeting or being greeted at airports figures between Fred and his wife. Like other long-standing habits it goes unnoticed, but is forty years old.

  Security no longer permits such moments in boarding lounges. Ruby and her grandfather walk quickly with others toward the escalator leading down to the baggage claim. Along with his carry-on, Fred lugs a sack of pink grapefruit, another tradition. Ruby’s small red Pokemon suitcase flaps at her side. She explained on the way down how it also serves as her school book bag. What happened to back packs? he asked. This is how we do it now, grandpa, she explained. Both she and Ronald have tried to explain the intricacies of Pokemon to him, the many characters’ special powers and vulnerabilities, what they’re compatible with or attacked by. He couldn’t get it.

  In her other hand she holds a plastic bag wrapped around a small ceramic horse. The horse is for grandma, to serve as corroborating evidence of the summer class. Part of the bottom is missing (“I dropped it in the airport bathroom”), where Made in China was stamped. He feels frustrated to still be dreaming up untruths. Then why are you? he wonders. What he said to Glenda is true. His wife is generous. Tolerant, thoughtful. She has her blind spots, but who doesn’t?

  “Which airport?” Ruby asks, matching her stride to his.

  “What, sweetie? This is Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Grandma’s going to pick us up and drive us home.”

  “No. Which airport did I drop it?” Ruby holds up the plastic.

  “Fort Myers. On the tile floor, that’s how it got chipped.”

  Blind spots. For instance, corrupting children. But he doesn’t really believe it. The conspiracy has added to the value of whatever took place in Naples. The truth of it early on led him to view the spur-of-the-moment decision for his granddaughter to fly down with him as a gift. A blessing. He feels confident something positive has happened for both Ruby and Glenda, he can’t say what. For you, too, he thinks. Doing something for the dog has redeemed him a bit.

  They start down. As the moving stairs edge lower, his wife appears—expectant, smiling. He’s never b
een more grateful to see her. In the moment, the strength of his gratitude surprises, almost alarms him. He cannot imagine coming back, riding the stairs this way, and not seeing her. It will happen, he thinks. To one of us, pretty soon. But not yet.

  Hugs and questions about the flight, weather. After the fashion of all bad actors, Ruby promptly gets her scene under way with too much build. “The class was really neat,” she says. “All the stuff I made is at the house except this—” She hands up the evidence.

  “Well, thank you.” They decided on this as a way to buy time before eventually telling the truth. As his wife with due ceremony unwraps the plastic, he thinks how lucky it is for them, for the whole country, that he went into vinyl siding and not counter-intelligence. His wife holds up the horse. However little the person in China was paid to make it, the ceramic piece still displays a level of craftsmanship remarkable for a ten-year-old.

  “This is amazing, Ruby,” his wife says. “So lifelike. So real.”

  “Remember I told about learning glazes?”

  “You most certainly did learn something,” she says, glancing from horse to husband. She turns it in her hands.

  “It fell,” Ruby explains. “In the Metro airport.”

  “Here?”

  “I mean the one down there. In Florida.”

  “It’s beautiful, Ruby. Thank you.”

  BY THE TIME they reach the town of Jackson, everything is already unraveling. By Battle Creek, Fred and Ruby surrender. “I see,” his wife says. “That’s very elaborate. You must both think I’m very small-minded.”

  “No, Grandma, we don’t. You just don’t know her, is all. Glenda was a model. She told me that’s why other ladies don’t like her. Because they think it means she’s a gold digger, but she’s not. She showed me yoga. I showed her how to walk Bill with the commands. She didn’t know what they were, Cliff never took Hotspur to school. Hotspur was always on the lead. Now her and Bill walk the way I used to walk him. After his first wife died, he just wanted a dog to hang out with and be company. His second wife didn’t work out, she was gone in six months. Then he met Glenda at the beach, she was down for a shoot for Land’s End—”

  His wife has the horse in her hands and is looking straight ahead. Fred has the advantage of driving. In tight situations, driving can work for you something like knitting. You’re busy, people’s lives are in your hands. The monolog continues—intense, detailed. And because his wife is not finally small-minded, she hears in all this the why behind what happened down in Florida.

  SEPTEMBER ARRIVES. RUBY and Ronald move with their parents into the new house. They like the change of school better than either of them wants to admit. Still seeing friends on weekends, neither of them really misses the old one, the car- and truck-glutted streets and litter surrounding it in Brooklyn Heights. In the manner of children, they come home announcing new allegiances and attachments that have formed overnight. When Ruby tells her parents about the Florida trip, her stepmother reveals that several of her law firm’s clients are top models. She even writes a thank-you note to Glenda Gilmore, showing it to Ruby for her approval, adding at her request the part about the horse.

  Other things—a growing interest in the new baby—begin to ease the logjam separating Ruby and her stepmother. Now, though, Ronald begins showing signs of rebellion, particularly after weekends in the city. He’s always been closer than his sister to their mother. Her pet, her little man. “It’s day to day,” the stepmother says on the phone. “We all have our moments.”

  Wisely, she agrees to let them have a dog. When the children call with the news, Ruby asks what kind of dog Bill is. “A Lab mix,” her grandfather says. “A mutt.” The stepmother comes on. “Labradors are even-tempered,” he tells her. “But I know your concerns about big dogs.” The kids ask around at school, their parents quiz colleagues at work. Whatever you do, people say, do not go near a pet store. Most puppies in stores have been bred in puppy mills. What you get can’t be predicted. Visiting shelters and breeders with their father and stepmother, Ruby and Ronald can’t decide. “They want them all,” their father says. “Who wouldn’t? Puppies are not fair.” When a dog owned by the cousin of a girl on the same block whelps her second litter, Ruby and Ronald bring home a new Shetland sheep dog, a male. Ruby names him Emperor.

  HE CATCHES A lot of smallmouth. He and the missus play golf and gin rummy with friends. In the third week of September, neighbors from their old community north of Detroit come to visit for four days. They all drive to Chicago and see a new production of Crazy for You. The music holds up for them. The two couples bob their heads, getting into the tap dancing. Home, Fred paints the two bedrooms in the guest cabin. He rakes leaves, puts down fresh sealer on the floor of the screened porch. In the second week of October, the crew drags out the pontoon boat.

  He comes in at four and washes his hands at the sink. Oprah is playing on the set in the cavernous great room. He steps in using the hand towel. “Want a rob roy?”

  His wife looks at her watch. “Pretty early.”

  “This is true. Tea?”

  “I got a call from Glenda Gilmore. She wants you to call her back. The number’s on the pad. Tea would be good.”

  “Did she say what it’s about?”’

  His wife uses the remote’s mute button and looks over. “You remember they grandfathered Bill because there was no by-law on dog size? They added a ruling last year. Twenty-six inches maximum.”

  “I remember. They had to make an exception.”

  “For us, not her. They say he left and came back, so the current rule now applies to him. I think she wants your advice on housing. Call her and see.”

  “How’d she sound?”

  “Good. Mad about being hassled, but she sounded in charge. She’s thinking of going back to work. Go talk to her.”

  He walks back to the kitchen. It irritates him, the pettiness of club regulations. They have rules for everything. How to put out your trash, what kinds of clothes to wear. You can wear shorts in the grill room, not in the dining room three steps down. No one allowed on the course wearing a shirt without a collar. No liquor or wine bottles except clear ones in the recycling bin. Actually, he believes in such rules. They make for order and contribute to civility, but you can carry them too far.

  He taps the number. Glenda answers. “Hi,” she says. “Your wife told you?”

  “I’m sorry, Glenda. It’s pretty picky.”

  “He’s right here. I bet he knows you’re on the line, don’t you?”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Maybe not what he was. You’d know better than me. But he’s good. I guess, though, I’m going to have to lease or sell this place and find something else. You’ve been down here and know a lot, I just thought you might have some suggestions.”

  He gives her the names of two realtors he knows to be reliable. “Your best bet is probably a house in one of the single-family communities,” he says. “Kids, dogs. Some place you can do your own thing without a lot of micromanaging. I hear you’re going back to work.”

  “I got some calls, there’s work. I don’t really need to, but I’m starting to think it makes sense. Here or Fort Myers. Or Sarasota. Nowhere out of state,” she says. “Now that I have family to think of. How’s my goddaughter?”

  That’s what Glenda has started calling Ruby in her calls to report on Bill’s progress. She also phoned Ruby. He tells Glenda things are better with Ruby, and that he’s convinced Glenda deserves some of the credit. “Bill does, too,” she says. “Everybody feels better being useful.” When he tells her about the Shetland puppy, Glenda says, “Now that’s news.”

  Two days later on the second Wednesday in October, he hears the shop vac out in the garage. He opens the door from the kitchen. His wife is vacuuming the van. She looks intent, almost grim. He always vacuums at the car wash, but when she gets ideas it’s best to leave her alone. At dinner, they share a bottle of good Rhone wine, but she remains thoughtful and quiet. Lat
er, watching Law and Order, she says, “Let’s go down early.”

  “It’s not even November.”

  “You can get the dock taken out. I called, they’re available.”

  “What’s the deal? Why all of a sudden?”

  “We’re done with chores here. Why hang around?”

  Well, okay. He doesn’t get it, but if she wants to leave, they’ll leave. The next day she packs and he gets an oil change. They load the van Saturday night. She is still being squirrelly with him. Strange. Sometimes, he has the impression she’s mad, other times not. But when they go to bed, she rolls to him and makes it clear what they’re going to do. He takes a pill, and soon they make love as they have for years now. He doesn’t know whether the sameness represents the final product after various prototypes, or just a loss of need for novelty. Either way, the best part these days is lying together after, having proved they are still up to it.

  “You never give me enough credit,” she says.

  “Sure I do.”

  “I never disliked Glenda Gilmore.”

  Sure you did, he thinks, holding his wife close. It’s only taken forty years, but he now knows somewhat better when and when not to speak. Over time, peace has become far more important than being right.

  “If you guys ever went through what we do, you might understand,” she says.

  “I’m sure that’s true.”

  “You drink all that beer, all those rob roys. Nothing happens to you, you have different metabolisms. But I could’ve been more friendly,” she says. “A better neighbor. She moves in with all us old people. It had to be hard.” He holds her closer, to show he appreciates what she means. He doesn’t, but that’s not the point.

  “And I never disliked Bill,” she says. This he finds much more difficult not to answer, but manages with just a sigh. “You just sprang him on me,” she tells him. “Out of nowhere. A big decision like that. A big dog. I should have had some say.”