Impasse

by Royce Scott Buckingham

  The food was not yet out; Katherine liked to present it with a flourish after a substantial number of guests had arrived so that she could collect her well-deserved oohs and aahs. But expensive beers were already bobbing in an ice bath, and three bottles of wine were open on the dining room table—a chardonnay, a cab, and a merlot called Aged to Perfection with an aluminum walker on the label.

  Very funny, Stu thought.

  A white lace tablecloth, which he’d bought Katherine for her birthday, covered the table. She’d picked it out; he’d just purchased and wrapped it. He wasn’t good at guessing what his wife wanted for her birthday, and she was happy to provide a list because she certainly didn’t trust his judgment. It was an efficient arrangement, and she never opened a dud gift.

  Stu plunged his hand into the ice water to retrieve a cold beer, and when he turned to grab one of Katherine’s imported ceramic steins, he found his part-time legal associate standing before him pouring herself a glass of the bloodred merlot. He stared, surprised.

  She looked up and smiled. “Happy Birthday, Stu.”

  At thirty-seven, Audra “Audry” Goodwin was old for a new lawyer, less than a year out of law school and still needing to take the bar exam. She had a daughter who was away at college. No husband—she’d never had one—and she openly described herself as a former teen mom who had “ducked out of life for a decade” before she finally decided to get her shit together again. Then she’d buried herself in school and work for another seven years. Audry wore practical shoulder-length hair and an equally practical knee-length flowered dress. Her amber eyes were large and round to begin with, like a cat’s, and freakishly oversized when she donned her reading glasses. But it was not her outward appearance that Stu noticed around the office; it was her energy. Judge Pennington had once commented that he wished he “had as much enthusiasm for anything as Ms. Goodwin has for everything.” Her thirst for knowledge was boundless, not just in law, but in music and sports, science, political trivia, yard care. Hell, anything that came up, she was interested in it. It was as though she’d hoarded her zest for life while she finished school and raised her daughter, and she was only now unleashing it. Boosted by such positive spirit, the words Happy Birthday didn’t sound so bad coming from her.

  “Thanks, Audry. I’m so glad you could come.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” Then she pointed down. “You’re making a puddle, by the way.”

  Stu’s sweating beer bottle was dripping onto his shoes. He scrambled to find a napkin, hoping that Katherine wouldn’t see him dribbling water on her dining room’s fir floor; the wood was original with the house, and they’d had it refinished professionally when they’d moved in.

  “No worries,” Audry said. “Your floor finish looks recent, and if you’ve got the industry-standard three coats of a good water-based polyurethane finish on the wood, it’ll repel a few drips of water just fine.”

  “I, uh … yeah, I know. I just don’t want people to think I wet myself in my old age.”

  Audry laughed freely, and they stood together at the table and chatted. She knocked back her wine like a college student and filled her glass again. Halfway into his beer Stu felt better, and Audry didn’t let the conversation lag for even a moment.

  The gaggle of Katherine’s SAC women stood in a tight formation in the living room, whispering amongst themselves. Their husbands were nowhere to be seen; Stu’s birthday party was apparently not their obligation. Soon Margery Hanstedt broke from the group and drifted over to procure herself some wine.

  “Hello, Stu,” she said. “Is this a cab?”

  Stu nodded and pointed to the label, which said cabernet. She coughed out a polite How silly of me–style laugh and began to pour a glass for herself.

  “Hi, I’m Audry,” Audry said, smiling.

  “Hi.” Margery kept pouring.

  “This is Margery Hanstedt,” Stu said when Margery didn’t offer.

  “I’m a neighbor,” Margery added. “We’re down at the other end of William Street…”

  “By the water,” Audry finished for her.

  “Yes.”

  “Hanstedt? That sounds familiar. That’s the name of the family who owns the Finicky Fish, right?”

  “And the Arbor and Stationbreak.”

  “Oh god, I loooove Stationbreak. The Italian–Asian fusion menu is awesome.”

  “We like to think so.” Margery turned to Stu. “Stu, you said Clay was coming tonight, but I haven’t seen him.”

  “He’s here somewhere,” Stu said.

  Margery’s wineglass was finally full, all the way to the brim instead of the traditional halfway mark. “Well, don’t bother telling him I said hello. Since I’m here, I can tell him myself.”

  “Got it.”

  Audry waved as Margery pulled away. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” Margery said over her shoulder.

  As soon as she was gone, Audry grabbed Stu’s arm. “Oh my god, she didn’t say ‘Happy Birthday’!”

  “What?”

  “Happy Birthday. She didn’t say it. How could she not have said it?”

  Stu looked around. The SAC women had reconvened. Reggie Dugan, a big local developer, was filling a nearby love seat and considering them with a beer in each hand. Pastor Richards—another connection Katherine felt was valuable—was speaking politely with Brad Bear, the head of the photography studio where Katherine shot on Wednesdays. Stu didn’t attend church, and it made him feel strange whenever Pastor Richards smiled at him, as though God were silently saying, I see you.…

  “None of these people are my friends,” Stu realized aloud.

  Audry gave him a puzzled look. “Really?”

  “Yep. Not one.”

  She looked around, considering the crowd. “That’s sad,” she said. “Clay’s here, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but he disappeared. Who knows what he’s off doing.”

  “Well, we can’t have you feeling this way on your birthday.” She hoisted her drink. “Tell you what: I’ll be your friend. We’ll just be a couple of guys sharing beers and talking about bitchy women. What say you, friend?”

  “You’re drinking wine.”

  Audry gasped. “Like a bitchy woman. God, you’re right! What kind of drinking buddy am I?”

  She laughed and reached for a beer, plopping her wineglass on the table and sending a red splash of Aged to Perfection over the edge and onto the white lace tablecloth. The wine hit and spattered like a Rorschach pattern. It looked to Stu like a wheelchair or maybe a cluster of dark balloons.

  Audry’s upbeat smile turned to a rueful grimace. “Uh-oh. This tablecloth definitely does not have three coats of varnish on it.”

  Katherine chose that moment to enter carrying the food trays. There was no time to hide the crime; Stu and Audry could do nothing but part to make way for her. Stu didn’t know what to say, and so he said nothing, and the trays descended toward the wine stain. But just as he thought Audry was busted, Katherine sat the tray over the top of the spill and covered it without saying a word.

  Stu waited for the hammer to fall. When his wife merely rearranged the trays, he wondered if she was so angry that she couldn’t speak. It was impossible that she’d missed it.

  “I spilled that while pouring Audry a glass,” Stu lied, unable to endure the silence.

  “Excuse me?” Katherine said.

  She was distracted and hadn’t heard him, Stu realized. “The wine. I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She absently patted his arm and then wandered off to greet the guests who’d arrived since she’d disappeared to retrieve the food.

  “That’s amazing,” Stu said.

  Audry sipped her beer. “What?”

  “She gave me a free pass on the wine spill.”

  “You mean me. Thanks, by the way.”

  “She never does that. That deserved the passive-aggressive treatment at least.”

  “It’s your birthday. What a great wife. He
re’s to her.” Audry raised her beer.

  Stu clacked his own against hers, and they drank together as Katherine crossed the room to welcome Reggie Dugan.

  Just then Stu felt a firm slap on his butt.

  “Clay,” he said without turning around. “I wondered where you’d gotten off to.”

  “I was previewing the food,” Clay said. “Your woman is a culinary genius, by the way. Hello, Audra.”

  Stu noticed that he used Audry’s formal name.

  “Hello, Clay,” she replied. It was brief, polite.

  “Happy goddamned Birthday, buddy. Guess I should have said that at the office this morning.”

  “We were focused on other things. Besides, I don’t like birthdays.”

  “Nonsense! How can you not like birthdays? Especially this one. I got you something special to celebrate the end of your fourth decade, you know.”

  “I did not know that.”

  “Well, now you do, old man.”

  Stu winced.

  Audry interrupted. “Clay, there’s a nice woman over there who owns restaurants and wants to speak with you.” She pointed at Margery.

  “About what?”

  “I dunno. Culinary shit?”

  Clay gave the situation a look, sizing Margery up, and then nodded. “Excuse me for a moment.” And he was off.

  Having finished an entire beer, and no longer having the alcohol tolerance he’d cultivated back in college, Stu felt loose. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said anything. But he did. “You sent him away,” he whispered to Audry. “Why?”

  “You don’t need ‘old man’ comments. You’re not even old.”

  “Forty is getting up there. It’s halfway, right?”

  “That’s nothing. I’ve dated men a lot older than you.”

  Stu’s eyebrow arched, but he didn’t feel it was appropriate to comment on her love life; she was an employee, after all. “It sounded like there was more to it than that. What’s up?”

  Audry thought for a moment. “Nothing I can put my finger on. His karma is just off, and he seems to sense that I sense it.”

  “That’s a little vague for me. I don’t really do karma sensing. No offense.”

  “I think he’s damaged.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s a good-looking, successful lawyer, but he’s thirty-five and single with no ex and no prospects.”

  “He doesn’t think he’s successful.”

  “The economy sucks right now, and there’s a glut of attorneys. Look at me; I don’t even have a real job. No offense. Any lawyer who can pay their rent is a success.”

  “That’s what I told him just this morning!” Stu laughed. It felt good to laugh. “Great minds think alike.”

  “And so do we, apparently.” Audry tipped back the last of her beer and immediately retrieved her half-full wineglass. “I’d better go mingle before your wife thinks I’m flirting with you.”

  Stu’s pulse quickened. Is that what we’re doing? No. Audry had explicitly said she was cutting it off before it got to that point, and she was very direct. She was just being nice to him, he realized, and he would be careful not to cross the line or initiate minor physical contact when they parted, such as touching hands or patting her shoulder. Lively, attentive conversation was the most action a married guy should hope for from a single woman, he decided. And a forty-year-old should be thankful for even that much.

  “Okay,” he conceded. “Thanks for sharing a beer, buddy.”

  “No worries,” she said, smiling. “Happy Birthday.” And then, before he could avoid it, she hugged him.

  From there the party progressed pretty much as Stu had expected—lots of polite handshaking and meaningless chatter, culminating in his ritual humiliation by Katherine’s friends, wherein they all gathered around to sing “Happy Birthday” to him off-key. He smiled and thanked them all for coming. He didn’t want to spoil anyone else’s good time, especially Katherine’s; she worked hard to put on events. Something was strange, however. She was usually “on” for parties, but tonight she seemed preoccupied. He wondered what was bugging her.

  “Can I have everyone’s attention?”

  Stu looked up. Everyone looked up.

  What’s this?

  It was Clay.

  “I have a little announcement,” Stu’s partner said, projecting his voice across the room as he stepped up onto their coffee table, a wedding gift from Katherine’s maid of honor.

  Thank God he doesn’t drink anymore, Stu thought. Who knows what he’d be on top of.

  Clay had stopped drinking years earlier after a series of incidents, one involving talking himself out of a DUI from an officer with whom he’d worked when he was a prosecutor. The officer had been disciplined for cutting him a break, but Clay, who’d been three sheets to the wind, had gotten off without even taking a breathalyzer test, receiving only a one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar traffic ticket for an open container of alcohol in his BMW. Stu glanced at Katherine; standing on furniture was as serious an offense as dumping wine on white lace. She was biting her lip, and probably her tongue, but she didn’t say anything.

  Again—strange.

  Clay waved his arms and pointed at Stuart. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Stu!” Clapping ensued and continued until Clay held his hands up for silence. “Our friend Stu has reached the ripe old age of forty, but he doesn’t look a day over, well, forty. How does he do it? Well, I’ll tell you how. He’s careful. He follows the rules and takes the safe route every time. Am I right?”

  Heads nodded in agreement as Clay worked the crowd. Stu didn’t know where this was headed, but he didn’t like it already.

  Clay continued. “Stu’s the guy who walks all the way to the crosswalk, even when no cars are coming. He’s the man who won’t go in the pool when the lifeguard’s not on duty. When he uses a gas station bathroom and it says ‘customers only,’ he feels obligated to buy a pack of gum. He’s the sucker who buys the extended warranty just in case. Let’s face it, he’s a bit of a pussy.”

  Stu suffered through giggles and murmurs of agreement.

  “So, Stu…,” Clay said, turning his smug gaze upon him. “Now that you’re forty, there’s something that I need to give you. Indeed, I’m going to give you something you’ve needed for a long time. I’m going to give you an adventure.”

  “A trip to Disneyland!” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “No, no. Nothing so pansy-assed as fifty-five-mile-per-hour upside-down roller coasters or as tame as mobs of screaming children. No, sir. We’re going to Alaska!”

  A puzzled silence fell over the room, and over Stu.

  “Alaska?” Stu said finally. “On a cruise, or, like, with a fishing guide?”

  “No guides, my friend. No all-inclusive meal plan. Just you, me, and the last frontier. Nothing but a single solitary cabin.”

  “Out in the wilderness?”

  “Wouldn’t be much of an adventure if the cabin were in downtown Fairbanks. Our friend Reggie Dugan is helping arrange it. I’ve got the airline tickets in my desk. One week in the wild. Knowing you, you’ll want to make a detailed list of things to pack.”

  “But I have to get my calendar from the office and schedule the—”

  “No, you don’t. I’m going to get you out of that office.”

  Stu looked around, openmouthed. Katherine’s eyebrows were raised practically to the top of her head, and her lips were pursed tightly. Dugan stood right behind her, watching the show with a self-satisfied grin. Others murmured excitedly. Besides his wife, they all seemed to think that taking Stu far away and dumping him in the middle of nowhere was the greatest thing ever.

  “So are we talking next summer then?” Stu asked, trying to appear game.

  “We leave in three days,” Clay said. “You’re welcome.”

  CHAPTER 7

  When Clay offered to help Katherine carry out the garbage at the end of the evening, she knew it was time to face him. The industrial-size green plastic
trash can was tucked behind a worn wooden fence beside the garage, where the two of them would be concealed.

  After the incident in the basement, she’d set out to avoid him during the party—at first. Oddly enough, he’d left her alone too; and, after the intensity of their encounter, she wondered why. He was patient, it seemed, waiting to see what she would do, biding his time. She began to feel as though he were ignoring her, so she had purposefully brushed against his hand once at the punch bowl to see if he would flash her a knowing look. He’d only turned away as though he’d forgotten that he’d sent her on a mission.

  But he hasn’t forgotten.

  No words were spoken on their journey to the garbage, but he was marching her to a secluded location, and when they got there, it would be time to report in. She wondered how he would react to her news.

  Katherine opened the garbage can, and Clay slid the bulging plastic trash bag inside. When the lid thumped closed, she stood facing him, waiting for him to ask. But he just waited too.

  “I did it,” she said finally, exhaling. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. She watched for his reaction, but he said nothing. He simply motioned for her to continue.

  “I talked to him. Just small talk, like you said.”

  “Did it go well?”

  “I’m pretty sure he liked me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he felt me up.…” She let the revelation hang in the air. She meant to shock him. It should have been shocking, but Clay only nodded.

  “Just a pat or an actual feel?” he asked matter-of-factly.

  She rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. “Hand on hip at first, then he slid it around to my rump. He left it there while we talked. It was very awkward. Thanks a lot.”

  “Did you reel him in?”

  “We didn’t talk business.”

  “Fair enough. I appreciate the effort, Kate. I really do. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”