A Marriage Made at Woodstock (7 page)

Next, he called his brother, Herbert.

“Didn't you and Chandra have this great relationship, the kind we mere mortals could only pine after?” Herbert asked. It seemed to Frederick to be gloating.

“Herb, for Christ's sake,” he said. “I'm hurting here. I'm dying. No need to rub this in.” He heard Herbert exhale cigarette smoke on the other end of the line.

“It's just that I don't remember you being real sympathetic to
me
when I went through
my
divorce,” Herbert said. Divorce! Frederick wasn't even thinking of divorce. It was too soon for something like that, wasn't it? The Toyota's dust had barely settled over the new marigolds lining the driveway. Surely in a week, a month at the most, Chandra would be back, dragging her tail behind her, just like those nursery rhyme sheep, the free-range kind.

“What do you mean, I wasn't sympathetic?” Frederick asked. “I took you to dinner, didn't I?”

“What I remember most about that dinner,” Herbert said, “was you trying to talk me into buying a computer.”

“That's because you
should
have a computer,” said Frederick. “I'm sorry, but how can anyone—let alone a veterinarian with the number of clients you have—compete in business without being computerized?” He was about to list a few statistics when he remembered his situation. He felt the muscles of his stomach cramping. He stared at the first photo ever taken of Chandra and him as a couple, August 1969, at Woodstock. He flopped the photo facedown on his desk. He looked like a televangelist in that picture, what with the greasy hair and sideburns. Chandra looked like, well, a flower person.

“There I was, crying on my sleeve,” Herbert went on, “and there you were, criticizing my business tactics. That's what
I
remember about that dinner. I just hope I'm a better brother to
you
, now in your own moment of need, which, by the way, you told me would never come.”

“What is this?” Frederick asked. “Some kind of contest?” He was amazed at how cold the outer world was sometimes. No wonder he had preferred to avoid it. Herbert Stone was becoming their father as he grew older.

“All right, listen,” said Herbert. “Let's go to the China Boat one evening this week for dinner and a couple of drinks.”

“I've got a feeling Chandra will be back in a day or two,” Frederick said and realized he believed it. “This is just another one of her little protests.”

“Well, just between you and me,” said Herbert, “methinks the lady doth protest too goddamn much. But let's just assume that she's not back by Friday. Dinner at the China Boat?”

Frederick thought about this. “Promise you won't do the duck metaphor?” he asked. How many times had he been forced to sit across the table from Herbert Stone and hear him tell the waitress, “One bird with two Stones.”

“I'll let you cry on my shoulder,” Herbert said. He sounded very big-brotherly.

“Thanks,” said Frederick.

“Which is something you wouldn't let
me
do, by the way.”

“Herbert!”

“Okay, okay,” Herbert said. “Hey, you gonna start eating meat again, now that Chandra's out of the picture? I always thought that was her idea, you know.”

Frederick sighed. Even the Cancer Society was denouncing red meat, and now this from a medical man.

“No,” said Frederick. “I'm not going to eat meat again. What do you think I am? A kid waiting for my mom to leave so I can devour the candy?”

“Sort of,” said Herbert. He was incorrigible. Frederick had always understood why the former Maggie Stone had one day packed up and left him.

“Do you want her new number?” Frederick asked. He had no idea why he was giving it out against Chandra's wishes. Perhaps it was his own method of battle.

“Chandra's new number?” said Herbert. “Why should I?”

“I thought you might call her or something,” Frederick said. “Maybe have a talk. She always liked you, you know.”

“You never called Maggie,” said Herbert. “Of course, Maggie never liked
you
.”

“Jesus,” said Frederick.

“Well, I'm sorry, Freddy, but the truth is the truth. Did you ever call Maggie?”

“Jesus,” Frederick said again, and hung up.

• • •

He had watched the news, had nibbled at a sandwich, and was in the process of clipping his toenails when he heard footsteps on the front porch. He smiled. He must remember not to tease her or condescend in any manner. A little civil disobedience now and then, as Thoreau knew, was good for the soul. He would encourage her instead to express herself in a more conventional manner in the future. Maybe they could have breakfast talks, sort of like FDR's fireside chats, in which she could air her grievances. What was it she had said, earlier that morning, as she was packing? “I have to introduce you to people over and over again.” Funny, but he had always considered his bad memory an asset when it came to Chandra's acquaintances. Fair enough. He would make a halfhearted effort to remember the Sukies, Halonas, and the assorted simpletons who filtered in and out of his wife's seminars. He paused at the kitchen door until he was certain that his smile was safely hidden beneath a mask of concern. Darn it, but he wished he had never mentioned this to Herbert, Joyce, or Lillian! He had let a spontaneous panic attack get the better of his good judgment. Well, lessons had been learned all around. So be it. He opened the door and found his brother, Herbert Stone, standing on the porch, one raised hand about to knock.

“You!” was all Frederick could say. He felt a physical change occur on his face and was aware of facial muscles arranging themselves into a frown.

“For Chrissakes, Freddy,” Herbert said, “don't puke or anything.”

“It's just that, well,” said Frederick. He held his ground in the doorway. If Herbert got inside, he'd never leave. “Why didn't you call first? You know I don't like for you to drop by without calling.”

“I thought maybe you could use some cheering up,” said Herbert. “But now
I'm
the one who needs it.” He shrugged his shoulders, dejected, but Frederick maintained his stance. Herbert peered around him and into the kitchen. “She's not back, is she? I didn't see her car outside.”

“She's not back,” said Frederick. “Yet,” he added.

“Come on, Freddy.” Herbert waved an arm. “I'll buy you dinner. Quit standing there in the door like you're about to bite someone. You look like that dog with the three heads that guards Hades.”

“Cerberus,” said Frederick. He felt a cool breeze wafting in. Early June evenings could be chilly. An involuntary shiver ran down his back.

“Besides, do you think I'm going to move in or something?” Herbert lit up a cigarette. “I'm having a pretty bad time myself, you know. Maggie hired Jaws as her lawyer. You remember that big movie shark? Raw meat isn't enough for this guy. He wants to see blood. They seem to think I'm making more money down at the clinic than I am.”

“We don't allow smoking in the house,” Frederick said. He fanned the air.

“I'm on your
porch
,” said Herbert. Frederick noticed that Herbert's hair was thinner than ever, his hairline inching slowly backward. Herbert was part forerunner to him, always had been as the older brother. He hoped his own hair hadn't been shocked into retreating more quickly than nature had planned by this nasty little turn of marital events.
Certain
types
of
shock
or
stress
can
most
certainly
lead
to
baldness, or alopecia areata
, he heard Mr. Bator say. A wave of regret swept over Frederick. He wondered what had ever happened to his old biology teacher. Mr. Bator had been very kind to him during the difficult years of high school adolescence. Especially throughout that period when Frederick had desperately wanted to play football for Portland High. His sophomore year was a time when all the cheerleaders were particularly pretty, especially Leslie Ann Doody, who had soft, doelike eyes and a quick little bounce that shot her into the air an inch above the other girls. “Son, you just don't have the balls for this kind of sport,” the coach had pulled him off the field to say. “You don't have the killer instinct. Why don't you write for the school paper? Join the glee club?”

“Am I gonna hickory smoke your front door or something?” Herbert was asking.

“The smoke can go right through this screen,” Frederick said. He was now overwhelmed with memory. Those had been painful days, when Richard Hamel had become captain of the football team and had then gone on to pin Leslie Ann Doody. After he pinned her, he obviously nailed her because Leslie Ann had become pregnant. At least, if gossip held, that's what happened. And pretty little Leslie Ann Doody, with her doelike eyes, had simply disappeared from the halls of Portland High, as though she'd been nothing more than a floating wisp of vapor. Frederick had turned to Mr. Bator for solace, dropping by the science lab on those afternoons when he knew the teacher would be alone. He had never mentioned a word to Dr. Philip Stone because Mr. Bator had said all the right things. “There will be plenty of other girls, Freddy. And the only goals in football are the posts on each end of a rectangular field. Your goals are far greater than that.” Were they? Had his goals been righteous, far-reaching, beneficial to mankind? Would Stone Accounting rank one day with UNICEF and CARE?

“You'd better hope Chandra doesn't hire Maggie's divorce lawyer,” Herbert said, and then exhaled. “Remember what happened to Robert Shaw in
Jaws
? I came out of my divorce trial with stubs for limbs, and they're still not happy.” Frederick could almost feel the first symptoms of alopecia areata settling in. Before long, and with associates like Herbert Stone to cheer him on into loneliness and old age, he would feel nothing but wind blowing across the top of his bald pate.
The
human
hair
grows
at
the
rate
of
0.35 millimeters every single day
, Mr. Bator added. Frederick wondered how long his hair would be when Chandra finally returned to him. He was already due for a haircut. Perhaps he would let his hair grow, an exercise to entertain himself until she tired of this latest gauntlet.

“I'm buying,” Herbert added, “so shake a leg.”

“Okay,” said Frederick. After all, it was almost nine o'clock. Chances were that Chandra was holed up with Amy Lentz again. Or designing more posters with Cindy Huggins. “But from now on, you phone first.”

“You want it all, don't you, Freddy?” Herbert asked.

• • •

When Frederick returned from dinner at the China Boat, his wife was still not home. As Herbert swung into the drive, the lights from his car lit up the catty-corner house, the sidewalk, the marigolds, the shrubs. More flowers sat in plastic containers along the front porch, waiting for Chandra to plant them near the mailbox. She had been the one with the gardening love and knowledge. Frederick, on the other hand, kept in touch with nature by mowing the grass each Saturday during the summer, and shoveling snow from the walk as needed during the winter. His prowess at the supermarket was all the contact that a descendant of hunters and gatherers needed these days.

He said good night to Herbert as quickly as possible, and then stood on the porch looking up at those stars still large enough to be seen in the light pollution over Ellsboro Street. In more than twenty years they had never had a major fight. He wondered now if that had been wise. And, as if to add to his emotional distress, his head was thumping at the temples, the aftermath of having had an extra scotch and water at the China Boat. But Frederick had needed that extra scotch. It was the only way he could put up with a constant stream of brotherly annoyance. And Herbert had developed a perturbing new habit since his divorce: while standing at the bar for a predinner cocktail, he spun like a top on his heel and aimed himself at every young woman who sauntered past. Early in the evening, Frederick had made a silent promise to alert NASA the next day. It was apparent that, at the age of forty-six, Herbert's penis had evolved into some kind of heat-seeking missile. This torment aside, Herbert had gone ahead and done the duck joke, a prelude to an evening of gloating about the female pet owners he'd been examining lately.

“One thing you'll discover, Freddy,” Herbert had lit his perpetual cigarette to announce, “is that young women are going to go for you like flies to shit.”

“I'm not sure I care for the metaphor,” Frederick had said.

“Ah, sweet, sweet youth,” Herbert had continued. “That's the best quality of young women. Their brain cells have budded, but not yet flowered. It's that flowering part that's dangerous.”

“Regardless of what Chandra's future plans might be,” Frederick had replied, “she's only forty-two years old.”

To this, Herbert Stone had raised his brandy snifter and said, “Yes, but half of forty-two is
twenty-one
, Freddy. Don't forget that.” That's when Frederick had had the fifth scotch and, thinking about it now, it was probably all that had prevented him from grabbing Herbert Stone by his Cave Art necktie—a thing with bisons galloping about—and dragging him into the men's room for a swift round of fisticuffs.

Frederick let himself in to a quiet house and noticed that he'd left the light on in his office. Aside from that, and the small light over the kitchen sink, the house was in darkness. There were no notes on the fridge announcing a wake-up call for the next morning, and there would be no need to usher a cup of coffee up the stairs. From next door Mrs. Prather's porch light streamed into the den and silhouetted the sofa, the reclining chair, outlined the floor lamp. Frederick stood at the entrance to the den, home of past seminars, and listened to the sounds of the empty house unfolding around him, more little squeaks than earlier, more scratches of cherry branch against the window. Added now were snaps along the baseboard as hot water rushed through the pipes. The heating system had obviously kicked on at sixty-eight degrees. He wished that his wife was home with him. But the only answer to his wish, coming from that cosmic energy of the universe in which Chandra believed so firmly, arrived when Mrs. Prather flicked off her porch light and cast the den in total darkness.