Bradley rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately for him, yes. Shifty, she said? Dr. Culkin, a pediatric surgeon who came to work drunk?”
Tatiana nodded. “Perhaps that woman was right to express reservations about his services, don’t you think? He could’ve cut out her lungs by mistake.”
They both smiled.
She looked away.
“By the way,” Bradley said, “you looked very beautiful yesterday.”
“Thank you.” She wasn’t looking at him.
“You were the loveliest woman in that room.”
“Very specific, but thank you.”
Suddenly Bradley reached over and placed his hand over hers. It was not the hand that had her wedding ring on it. She took her hand away. Reaching for her again, he opened his mouth, and she shook her head.
“David,” she said, in a very low voice. “Don’t say anything.”
“Tania...”
“No. I beg you.”
“Tania...”
“Please,” she said, her eyes lowered.
He leaned to her, halfway across the narrow table.
“David!” she cut him off, too loudly, then lowered her voice in supplication. “Please...”
“Tania, I have to tell you—”
“If you speak another word to me, one more word, I won’t be able to have lunch with you again,” said Tatiana. “I won’t be able to talk to you again or work with you again. Do you understand?”
He stopped, silently staring at her.
“If you break the unspoken barrier between us, you’ll stop being like everyone else I sit down to have lunch with. We’ve been good friends, it’s no secret.” She blinked. “There will be no fooling anyone anymore if you open your mouth. Because then I won’t be able to come home and look my husband in the face and say you and I are just co-workers.”
“Is that what you say to him when he asks?”
“Of course.”
“Does he... ask?”
She blinked again, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Yes. Even then he doesn’t believe me. I’m not doing anything wrong by sitting down having lunch with you twice a week, as we chat about all sorts of nonsense. But I would be doing something wrong if I sat down with you after hearing what you cannot say to another man’s wife.” Tatiana could see Bradley was deeply conflicted. “What you cannot say,” she repeated intensely, “to another man’s wife.”
“Tania, if you only knew...”
“Now I know.”
“You have no idea.”
“Now I do.”
“No, Tania,” Bradley said, shaking his head with sadness. “You really don’t.”
“We were friends,” she said weakly. “We are still friends.”
“Did you know how I felt?”
“I’m married, David,” said Tatiana. “Married in a church, sworn before God, promised for life to someone else.” She winced as she said it. Her Alexander was now someone else? Tatiana’s head was deeply down. She was ashamed. She sat with Bradley because he was calm and didn’t blame her for unfathomable sorrows she could not fix; because he made her laugh; she sat with him because he made her a little bit happy. Isn’t that what friends did? This is what Vikki did.
But Tatiana had known very well how he felt.
“Tania, what if . . .” Bradley broke off. “What if you weren’t married?”
“But I am.”
“But what if...he never came back from war? What if you were still alone, like before, in New York? When it was just you and Ant.”
“State your question,” Tatiana said quietly.
“What about you and me, Tania?” His blue eyes were so emotional. “If you weren’t married?”
“But I am,” she whispered.
“Oh God. Is there no chance for us? No chance at all?”
Reaching out, Tatiana put her hand on his face. “No, David,” she replied. “Not in this life.”
Bradley looked across at her. For a moment he did not speak, and she did not take her palm away. Then he whispered, “Thank you. Thank you for giving me my answer.” He kissed her hand. “You are a very good wife,” he said. “And perhaps in another life, I might have known that.”
“I really have to go,” Tatiana said, hastily getting up. “Please don’t mention this again.” As steadily as she could, Tatiana walked out of the cafeteria, leaving Dr. Bradley alone at the table.
Jingle Bell Swing
A day later, on Friday night, Tatiana was working, Anthony was overnight with Sergio, and Alexander was at Maloney’s with Shannon, Skip and Johnny. Johnny was regaling everyone with stories of how Emily went out with him for dinner earlier in the week, how Emily agreed to go to Scottsdale Commons with him on Sunday, how Emily was planning to invite him over for Christmas to meet the folks.
“The problem is, you see, she is looking at it like a courtship, when courtship is the last thing I need. Why am I spending so long getting her to do what I want her to do?”
“A week is too long?” Alexander laughed. “Oh, man. They have places for people like you, Johnny-boy. Special darkened places that don’t require courtship.”
Johnny waved him off. He was a young hard kid in good duds with a hot rod, a biker, a strapper. “I’m not paying for it, no way. Who do you think I am?”
Shannon, Skip, Alexander exchanged glances, and shook their collective married heads. Alexander said, “Johnny, how much have you spent so far on dinner, drinks, pictures, flowers?”
You could tell Johnny had never thought about it like that. “It’s not the same,” he said, downing his drink. “It’s the conquest, the chase that’s interesting. The pro-cre-ative process.”
“Oh, the pro-cre-ative process,” mimicked Shannon. “You’re such an asshole.”
Skip and Shannon branched off to talk about their new babies. Alexander and Johnny branched off to talk about Emily and whether she was worth pursuing further.
“Don’t you think,” said Johnny, “it’s too much effort to expend on a little fly-cage?”
Alexander was thoughtful. “Depends how much you like her,” he replied. “If you like her, it’s not too much effort.”
“Well, how would I know? I haven’t—”
“If you liked her,” said Alexander, “no effort would be too much.”
“You know something about that?”
“I know something about that,” said Alexander.
A hand went on Alexander’s shoulder. “Well, hello!” It was Carmen and Emily. They had gotten all gussied up and sprayed. Johnny suavely kissed Emily’s cheek.
“Alexander, we really must stop meeting like this,” said Carmen. “It’s our third time in a week.”
Soon Shannon and Skip left to go home to their waiting wives, who cared what time they came home.
Emily, Johnny, Carmen, and Alexander went to a corner booth and ordered drinks. Carmen sat next to him on the bench. Her perfume was unfamiliar and a little strong but not terrible. She herself wasn’t terrible. Her dark eyes flashed, she had some vim. She had a good laugh, she was a flirt, a talker. She was not shy, she was not afraid. During their conversation she moved her leg and it touched his. And at one in the morning, Alexander didn’t move it away.
“So, Alexander,” Carmen said, “is my memory failing me, or are you the same Alexander Barrington who killed a man that broke into your house late one night a few years ago? I recall reading something in the paper about that.”
“He’s one and the same man, Carmen,” said Johnny. “So don’t get on his bad side.”
“Oh, how positively frightening!” squealed Carmen, moving an inch closer. “So you have a bad side?”
“I might,” said Alexander.
“How bad?” she asked in a low voice.
Alexander could have said nothing. Certainly he should have said nothing. But it was late Friday night and he’d been drinking, and his head was swimming, and so what he said instead of keeping silent was, “Very very bad, Carmen.”
&nbs
p; And Carmen went red, and tittered, and moved even closer to him on the bench seat.
She told Alexander that she and Cubert, married for two years, wanted a bigger place because they were trying for a baby. The truth was, though, that Cubert was not home so often, she needed the building of the house to occupy herself because she was becoming “awfully bored.”
Johnny was busy talking to Emily, and so Alexander quietly said, “With him away so often, it might be difficult to have that baby.” He didn’t want to add that blinding proximity still guaranteed nothing.
Carmen laughed. “That’s why I said, trying. Not succeeding. But I am late this month, so we’ll see.” She looked slightly sheepish when she said it.
Alexander actually asked, “Do you, um, want children?”
“Oh, yes, very much,” Carmen said. “All my friends are having children at nineteen, twenty. I’m starting to feel old at twenty- four.” She smiled, raising her eyebrows. “But I’m doing what I can to keep myself youthful.” She pinched his arm. “Do you have any children?”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “A son. He’s fourteen.”
“Fourteen!” said Carmen. “He’s practically a grown up. Does he look like you?”
“A little.”
“He’ll be a lucky boy,” she said, giving him a diffused stare, “if he looks like you.”
Alexander took a sip of his cold drink and a long inhale of his burning cigarette. “Carmen,” he said, “how in the world did you get together with Cubert?” What Alexander was really saying is he thought Cubert was too pale and small for vivid Carmen, and she must have known it because she threw back her head.
“Why, thank you, Alexander! Coming from you, that’s quite a compliment, you are a very reticent fellow.”
He smiled. “I’m not reticent. I’m thoughtful.”
“Oh, is there a difference?” She chuckled. “Cubert, though he doesn’t look it, has a few things going for him that I really liked when we were courting.”
“Like what?”
“Are you being insinuating and naughty, Alexander? How delightful!”
“Not at all.” He kept a straight face. “I’m asking a polite question.”
“Well,” she said, “first of all, he is quite enamored of me.”
“And second of all?”
“He is quite enamored of me.” When she laughed her breasts rose up and down. The more Alexander drank, the more he noticed the breasts.
“So tell me,” said Carmen, “how does a married man get to stay out until all hours on a Friday night? My Cubert is away,” she said, “but where’s your wife?”
“My wife is also away,” said Alexander. “She works Friday nights.”
Carmen’s eyes went wide. “The fact that your wife works is shocking enough. But at night? In the name of all that is gracious, why?”
“You are not the only one who asks this question, Carmen.”
She laughed. She sat close, swelling, laughing at any stupid thing he said. When he lit her cigarette, as gallant men do for ladies, she cupped his hand and, raising her eyes to him, breathed out, “Thank you.” For a moment their eyes met.
And Alexander, suddenly finding himself mental years away, in a uniform, at Sadko, in a different time, in a different life, as a different man, said to Carmen, “Did you girls come in one car?” Though at Sadko he would have said something else. Do you want to go for a walk, he would’ve said. For a walk by the river parapets, for a smoke in the alley?
“Yes,” said Carmen throatily. “We came in Emily’s car.”
“I have to go home, Carmen,” said Emily. “My parents will kill me for staying out this late. It’s absolutely ghastly—why, it’s nearly last call.”
Carmen grazed Alexander’s hand. “Do you think you can give me a ride so Emily can go home now? I’m only half an hour south from here, in Chandler.”
He glanced over at Johnny, who was staring at him with an expression that said, I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing.
Alexander himself didn’t know. But even at two in the morning on a Friday night after five hours of drinking, Alexander knew this: no woman other than his wife could get into his truck. Another woman could not sit in his truck, where Tatiana sat, where his son sat, in which he took his family out. Even when not sober, when youthfully stirred up by an attractive, well-built young woman, all decked out and ready to party, this was something that a 38-year-old Alexander could not do. He also could not explain it to Carmen.
“I can’t drive you,” he said. “I’ve got to go home. My son is waiting.”
“So? He’s likely asleep. You can drop me off on the way.”
“I’m not on the way to anything,” he said. “But Emily is on the way, and she’s leaving. You might as well go with her.”
Reluctantly Carmen stood up, while Alexander paid, remaining behind, as the other three got ready to leave.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“In a minute. Good night now.”
Carmen shooed Johnny and Emily away and sat down again. “I’ll wait with you while you finish your drink.”
He stared at her, wondering if she was worth it. She didn’t seem bright, though somehow that wasn’t so important. “Carmen,” he finally said when minutes passed and she couldn’t figure it out, “I come to this bar every Friday. This is my local joint. People know me here. I come here with my friends, with people I work with. I come here with my wife. Do you understand why I can’t leave this bar with you?”
Why did she look so pleased by that? She left by herself, and Alexander waited a few minutes, and then left, too.
In the parking lot she was waiting, coming up to him to say goodbye. “So will you be here on Tuesday?”
“No, not likely.”
“What about next Friday?”
He shrugged. “That I might.”
“So maybe I’ll see you then.” She smiled. “Have you had any cancellations in your schedule so we can meet some evening, have dinner, talk about the house perhaps?”
“I’ll have to check,” he said, “I might have a cancellation.”
“I hope so.” She planted a slow moist kiss on his cheek. “Well, good night, now.” Her breasts pressed into his shirt.
After she left, Alexander sat in his truck, his hands on the wheel.
He didn’t go home.
He went to the hospital.
He lurched and lurched, scraping away what was left of his clutch, trying to put the transmission in gear, and after parking—badly—meandered his way into ER. There was no one at the reception desk, the unit nurse was out, no one received him. He staggered instead to the waiting room, where half a dozen people were arrayed like sacks in chairs. One of those people was Charlie. Alexander fell into a chair one away from him. “Has there been a sighting?”
“Not yet,” said Charlie. “That just means there might be one soon.”
They waited.
And soon and summarily she appeared in their view. Small, round-faced, freckled, pale, her lips unadorned by lipstick, her neck by perfume, her breath by wine, her hair tied up in a bun inside the nurse’s cap, her legs in white stockings, slender and subdued, Tatiana came, and yet her lips were full and pulpy, her breasts swayed, and Alexander could see them, could feel them warm. She might as well have stood in front of him naked, lay in front of him naked, so clearly could he see all of her, see her, smell her, taste her.
Her white uniform covered with eight hours of a Friday night, her high forehead glistening, her freckles diminished by winter, Tatiana’s green-spoked eyes stared sad and despondent on Alexander. Sitting between them, she took their hands, Alexander’s in one, Charlie’s in the other. “Now, Charlie,” Tatiana said. “Now, Alexander. I’ve told you and told you not to drink so much. It leads to no good. It’s leading you to a bad place. It’s leading you to darkness.” She looked from one to the other as they sat and nodded. “You both have made promises to me. Charlie, you swore that you would not drink t
his Friday night.”
“And what did I promise you, Tatiana?” Alexander said, slurring his words.
She turned to him and said nothing. A small tear trickled down her cheek. She let go of Charlie’s hand but held on to Alexander’s. “I’m going to go get you some coffees, a little ice for your head. Wait here.” As if either had anywhere else to go.
She came back with two coffees. Charlie said he wanted whisky in his. Alexander put his down on the floor and, taking Tatiana’s wrist, pulled her to him to stand between his splayed legs. “Smell my breath,” he said huskily, breathing on her. “So good, right?” He entwined her in his large, intoxicated arms. “Babe, come home with me,” he muttered. “Come home and I’ll”—he still had the sense to lower his voice to a whisper—“give you some of that drunk true love you like.”
Staring down at him, Tatiana brushed his hair away, and bending, kissed his forehead. “That drunk love is sometimes a little rough on your wife,” she said quietly. “Finish the coffee, put some ice on your head, sober up a little, go home. Anthony is home alone.”
“Ant is with Sergio,” muttered Alexander. “He is not alone.”
Gently she wrested herself away from him. “I’ve got broken bones in the tent, a busted median artery, a perforated stomach, and an unstable heart. I have to go.”
As she was walking away Tatiana turned her head. “Next time you come,” she said, “wipe the lipstick off your face first, Alexander.”
O Come, All Ye Faithful
The following Friday night at Maloney’s, Johnny happily and unexpectedly admitted he was no longer pursuing Emily. Apparently at last week’s Saturday night Christmas party, Emily, nicely drunk and relaxed, had given him some milk for free in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and his thirst thus slaked, Johnny met another girl at the party and was now “courting” her.
“So needless to say Emily won’t be coming here tonight?” Alexander asked, palming his glass of beer.
They all agreed with a hearty laugh that she probably wouldn’t be.
At midnight, Shannon and Skip left; at one Johnny left.
Alexander had two more drinks alone, and then left himself.
He was about to get into his truck when a voice said, “Alexander.”
The Summer Garden Page 61
