If the Body Allows It

by Megan Cummins

  Alex told Beau about his parents, and how they’d moved here when his dad was in the air force, and how they might have left Opal eventually if his father had lived past his station at Winder AFB, where Alex had spent most of his childhood. His father deployed in ’67 and never came back, though a buddy brought home his jungle jacket. On the back, his father had written the words “I will surely go to heaven because I’ve already been to hell.” Alex’s mother worked a civilian job at the base but had a heart attack when Alex was only twenty-two.

  “Do you believe it?” Beau asked.

  “Believe what?”

  “What the jacket says. That if you endure something terrible you’re automatically granted something great.”

  Alex had never given it much thought. His dad’s jacket had been simply that, something his father had worn in the war. The blue waves undulated beneath the boat. Alex had rowed out past the breaking point, and as each wave rolled beneath them to the shore it rolled over itself and dissolved into a frothy puddle.

  “Heaven seems convenient,” Alex said.

  “Maybe,” Beau said. “As I’ve gotten older, I find myself wanting to believe more and more, but believing less and less.”

  Alex shifted on his wood-plank seat. He didn’t like being reminded Beau was older than he was—it made his footing in her life feel tenuous. But Beau didn’t seem to be thinking the same thing. She smiled and stretched her feet out so they landed in Alex’s lap. The sun veiled her face. She squinted her eyes shut. Alex discreetly checked his watch and was dismayed to find he was due at work in an hour and would soon have to grasp the oars and return to shore. He could hardly believe the conversation he was having. For so long he and Dolores had lived in separate silences, broken only by the chatter of the local news, but here with Beau, Alex felt he was talking about important things. Life-changing things. What had he and Dolores been holding on to? Maybe it was time to divorce.

  With eyes closed, Beau mumbled, “This is very nice.”

  Alex was about to respond eagerly that today had been one of his best days, but Beau wasn’t finished.

  “With you I feel like I have privacy. I don’t usually feel that way around other people, but I crave the feeling.”

  “I guess the bar doesn’t offer much privacy,” Alex said.

  “That’s different,” Beau replied. “That’s a crowd. I’m talking about the way I feel around one person.”

  Alex made a noise to show he understood, though he didn’t, not really, but that didn’t seem to matter because as best as he could tell, Beau was talking about love.

  * * *

  Dolores and Peter continued to see each other. Most nights Dolores stayed on the lake, even during the week when Peter went downstate to go to work, and Alex cherished having their house to himself during the day, and he cherished even more the nights he spent with Beau at her cottage. He would meet her at the bar; on her breaks they would walk to the beach and watch freighters grind past. The lake often faded into the background of Alex’s life but with Beau it all looked—not new exactly, but different, bluer, more expansive. When Beau returned to the bar Alex would go with her, unless he had to work, but they’d always find each other when the night had ended and the streets emptied and the lake got dark and quiet.

  When Alex and Dolores were together, they didn’t feel the need to explain themselves to each other anymore, and they were the happiest they’d ever been. Alex even thought that if the affairs did fall apart, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go back to the way things were, maybe he and Dolores could have a fresh start. Or they could divorce at some point, which would be fine, too.

  There were times in the past when all four of them would sit together at the Evergreen, Beau on their side of the bar until a new customer came in or one of the regulars raised his beer to indicate it was empty, and she went back to serve them. Once the affairs began that camaraderie stopped, with Alex seeking time alone with Beau, and Dolores with Peter.

  But one evening in August the door to the bar swung open and a block of light from the streetlight fell on Alex and Beau. The air was cool and lake scented, and a glimpse of the outdoors showed that night had fallen earlier than it had been falling recently, the first signs of summer fizzling into fall. Peter had his arm around Dolores, who’d braided her hair into two long plaits over her shoulders, and they settled onto their usual stools near Alex. Alex clutched his beer in surprise because he hadn’t expected to see his wife tonight. She and Peter had been keeping to themselves on the lake. It was one thing for Alex to waste hours with Beau, and for him to be seen leaving with her—they were longtime friends—but gossip had begun to spread about the four of them; they were either swingers or sinners, depending on whom you asked.

  Peter and Beau ignored the gossip, but Alex could see flashes of pain in Dolores’s eyes when talk reached her. He felt it, too. They were not immune to ridicule as Beau and Peter, who held stations in town, were.

  Beau filled their drinks.

  “What a lovely evening,” Dolores said, and she rubbed Beau’s shoulder in greeting. “Hey, you.”

  Someone put a song on the jukebox, Johnny Cash, and Dolores swayed to the music. Her sandal had fallen from her foot and she squeezed the leg of Peter’s barstool with her toes—a gesture Alex found strangely intimate, her bare toes on the same cool metal where Peter’s feet rested, and it wasn’t jealousy this time that crawled through him when he witnessed them sharing the same space, but worry, because although Peter had had his arm around Dolores when they walked in, he now stared deeply into his beer and didn’t react when Dolores tried to take his hand and swing it to the rhythm of the music. They’d both been drinking already, Alex realized. Dolores, just enough to make her cheerful; and Peter, more than enough to have already made him sad.

  Beau gave Alex a tight-lipped smile; she didn’t like dealing with Peter when he was like this. She slipped down the bar and leaned on her elbows in front of Kevin, one of the town’s cops, and Dick, the pharmacist from the Rite Aid.

  Alex asked Peter if he’d been out sailing today, the weather had been good for sailing.

  Peter rubbed his chin against his shoulder to scratch an itch. He said, “Not many good days left for it.”

  Alex looked nervously at Dolores, but she didn’t seem to hear Peter. She was absorbed in her wine as she studied a group of pool players in the corner.

  “We should talk about closing up the cottage,” Peter continued. “I might want to do it early this year. Get a jump on things downstate.”

  “It’s early still,” Alex said. “Most of August left. And there’s Labor Day still.”

  “My girls have sports and shit,” Peter said. “Games starting the first weekend of September. Wife says I have to go to their stuff this year.”

  As though drawn to the word wife like a bug to light, Dolores’s attention snapped back to the conversation.

  “What’s your wife doing now?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” Peter shrugged. “Same old.”

  Dolores smiled and Alex had the sense she was sipping on what she thought was her own superiority—she was better than Peter’s wife, she was the woman Peter really wanted to be with. And maybe that was so. But Alex knew from Peter’s voice, from his agitation, that he wasn’t planning to leave his wife, that he wasn’t going to keep the cottage open all winter, as he’d promised Dolores he would do. He would not go through with the plans they must’ve concocted during the long drunken summer nights as they lay in bed.

  Alex’s breath punched his chest at odd angles. He took a sip of his drink and found his hands were shaking. Of course it would be Peter who would be the first to leave what they had because Peter was the one who had somewhere else to go. Peter whose desires only settled here for the warm months.

  Peter seemed more cheerful now, as though he’d gotten something off his chest. He raised his glass and called for Beau to refill it, and she did so reluctantly. Alex must have looked stricken because she searche
d his face for what was wrong—but he couldn’t tell her here, and in fact didn’t want to tell her at all, that Peter was leaving Dolores, he was leaving their affairs, and soon Alex would have to make a decision of whether or not to leave Dolores, too.

  The neon bar sign in the window made a persistent spitting sound and as Alex’s temper rose he wanted to tear the plug from the wall. Throw a punch at Peter. Break a glass. But none of this would bring him any pleasure, and Kevin the cop sat nearby, and Beau had no patience for bad tempers, especially not in her bar. So he stayed in his seat and asked for another drink, too.

  * * *

  After that night Alex assumed Peter would soon have a conversation with Dolores and explain himself. He went one day in mid-August to Peter’s cottage and drained the pipes and pulled the boats up from the beach to the garage. He brought down the American flag and folded it, making sure no corner touched the ground. Peter followed him, hands in his pockets, helping occasionally, but he mostly just lingered in Alex’s shadow.

  When Alex had finished his work, Peter took his wallet out and counted out twenties.

  “You’re really gone until next summer?” Alex said.

  “Looks like it.”

  They stood in the sand. The lake rolled in and out and the light was turning heathery. Peter finally reached out his hand and shook Alex’s.

  “Hey,” he said. “Give Dolores my best.”

  Alex nodded, knowing that Dolores must be heartbroken. He wouldn’t bring up Peter in her presence, not until he saw how badly she was hurting. Not until he decided if he would leave her, too.

  But when he arrived home later he found Dolores bustling through the house. She was looking through cassettes on the rack in the living room, and she called hello to Alex and said she was finding music to play at the cottage.

  “I’m thinking of a dinner party soon,” she said. “Or a barbecue for Labor Day.”

  Alex looked over his shoulder, looking for someone who might understand what she was saying.

  “What dinner party?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m just planning one in my head,” Dolores said.

  “With Peter?”

  “Yep,” she said. “He said he liked the idea.”

  Alex lowered himself onto the couch. He worked for Peter, cleaned up his messes, took care of his house, and now he would have to be the one to end his affair, too.

  * * *

  Alex told Beau everything at the bar that night. She listened with her eyes averted. Dolores had frozen when Alex said Peter was gone, that he wouldn’t be back.

  “You’re wrong,” Dolores had said. “He’ll be back next weekend.”

  Alex had shaken his head and told her he’d turned off the gas and the water in the cottage and pulled the boats up from the beach. The storm windows were in place and the shades drawn, and they wouldn’t be opened again for months.

  Dolores hadn’t believed him. That had always been their problem: neither ever believed the other unless it was something they already thought was true. She’d grabbed her keys from the table by the door and had driven away, down the highway to Peter’s, and Alex had gone to the bar.

  “I’m just picturing her there,” Alex said. “Peter’s halfway downstate by now and the cottage is dark and the doors are locked. She doesn’t even have keys. She’s peering in windows and not seeing anything. Peter really screwed us over this time.”

  Beau rubbed the same spot on the counter with a rag. She looked about to say something, but then held back, and these expressions repeated themselves until Alex told her to spit it out.

  “Well, should you be surprised Peter left? He doesn’t live here. His life is downstate.”

  “Things were different this year,” Alex said. “With Dolores—he didn’t even tell her.”

  “I’m not surprised about that, either,” Beau said. “Peter does what Peter wants. It’s always been that way and always will be.”

  Beau was right, but Alex still believed Peter should’ve seen how the affairs involved all four of them. And hadn’t glum, drunk Peter been as happy as the rest of them the past two months? Hadn’t Alex, as always, been the only one to defend Peter when others ridiculed him?

  After close, Beau and Alex went home—Alex wanted to give Dolores some time alone and Beau didn’t object to his staying with her. After they’d made love, Alex lost and happy against her smooth skin, he said he’d made his decision. He would wait a little while for Dolores to adjust to Peter’s absence, but after that he’d leave her. Their lease was almost up. The timing was right. Maybe he could move in here, with Beau.

  Beau freed herself from beneath Alex’s arm, which he’d thrown over her. Her hair fell over her big, loose breasts, and she brought the sheet up to cover them.

  “You don’t need to leave your wife,” she said with amused exasperation, as though Alex had told a bad joke.

  Alex raised himself up on his elbow. “I’m ready to.”

  “Alex,” she said. “It’s time to talk, I think. I’ve been thinking a lot lately.”

  Her words made Alex go pale.

  “Do you remember how I told you that being with you felt private?” she said. “How I was so happy because I didn’t feel the need to explain myself to you. I still felt like my life was my own. You were a part of it, but I was the one driving. I don’t feel that anymore.”

  “What are you saying?” Alex asked.

  “Stay with your wife, Alex,” Beau said. “She doesn’t want to be alone, and I do. It just makes the most sense.”

  “She doesn’t want to be with me, either.”

  Beau shrugged, as though to indicate that compromises would have to be made—just not by her.

  “Beau . . .” Alex’s voice dipped so low it reached his heart.

  “Alex, please. I think you should go. Leave me be.”

  Alex got in his car wondering how he hadn’t see this coming. Solitary Beau who never dated anyone, who was so secretive about her love life that people spread rumors she was a lesbian, had briefly let her heart settle on him, for reasons he didn’t know. But he was asking her to trade in her solitude for his company, and solitude, she’d decided long ago, was already her lifelong companion.

  Alex drove south, his headlights slicing open the night and revealing mailboxes and fireworks stands and boats for sale in yards. He stopped at home but Dolores wasn’t there, and the only other place he thought she might be was Peter’s, so he drove there and joined her on the porch.

  She held out a cigarette, which Alex accepted, and when he put out his hand to rub her shoulder she didn’t pull away.

  “My thing ended, too,” he said.

  “Well, look at us sad sacks,” Dolores said. Smoke left her mouth in a gauzy stream.

  They stared at the lake, or rather, where they knew the lake to be. It was completely unseeable on this moonless night. They could hear its waves, though. Maybe the same could be said of their love—it was there still, audible in the distance, even if they couldn’t see it.

  “Dolores, do you think we could start over?” Alex said. “Make it like it was when we met.”

  Dolores nodded slowly. She squinted at the stars through the branches of the oak tree that swept over the porch.

  “I don’t know what else is left for us.” She glanced sideway at Alex. “I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

  She moved her chair closer to his and placed her head on his shoulder. Maybe all they’d really needed was a short time apart. He picked up one of her braids and rubbed its spiky end with his thumb. He closed his eyes. They stayed that way until dawn opened in the sky and its light fell on the lake. They both had the opening shift at the restaurant, and they went there together, tired and hungry, but together.

  * * *

  Alex briefly thought his affair with Beau would rekindle when she told him about the baby in September, but she was annoyed when he suggested it.

  “Alex,” she said. “Stay with your wife like I told you. I’m only telling
you about the baby because you’ll find out sooner or later. I don’t need anything from you. I’m just letting you know.”

  They sat outside the tobacconist stand off the highway, in the parking lot of the supermarket. The lot was empty except for a few cars. The vacationers had trickled from the town; these days Alex only saw campers and trailers driving south on Route 23, hardly ever north.

  “But we were careful, weren’t we?” he said.

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure what happened.”

  Alex left her there because she asked him to, and as he drove home he couldn’t help thinking he’d made himself a part of her after all. But there was Dolores to think of, too. He had to tell her, she would know the truth herself soon, or gossip would reach her. He could imagine her being happy to hear the news, as though a miracle had come from the affairs that had broken their hearts. His brief hope that Beau would take him back had been a passing fantasy, nothing more.

  But Dolores was crestfallen when he told her.

  “I’m the only one left without anything,” she said.

  She was wearing her waitress uniform. Alex had caught her before work, a decision he now regretted, because tears misted her eyes and soon she had to be on her feet for hours. She smoothed her skirt and adjusted the tag with her name spelled out in uneven letters.

  “Dolores, I’m sorry,” he said. “Call in to work. Let’s talk.”

  “No, no,” she said. “No use in that.”

  And she left.

  Alex thought he would be able to talk with her later after she had time to think about everything. He would explain that he didn’t know how involved Beau would let him be in the baby’s life. For all he knew nothing would change.