Dry as Rain (22 page)

“What time is she coming home tomorrow?”

“I'm picking her and your Aunt Marnie up first thing in the morning,” I said. “Why? You want to come?”

He scrunched his face, indicating he'd rather not.

A sudden gale blew sand at us. I turned to keep it from getting in my eyes and watched Benji do the same. After a second it died down, and we continued on.

Ahead, we saw the old restaurant overgrown with weeds. The wood siding was falling off in places, and a tear ripped through the roof. Rodents and seagulls now called it home. With a troubled look, Benji met my gaze. “What happened to it?”

“I don't know.” Then I remembered my mother telling me about a hurricane a few years back that flattened a few of the older structures and took out part of the pier. “Hurricane Janey, I think. Remember that?”

He ran his fingertips across the splintered shingles and looked up at the neon sign that never did have all its letters lit at one time. “This place is like my childhood. I can't believe it's gone.”

“Change is hard,” I said, or maybe I just thought it.

“You know Mom always wanted to play the piano here.”

“Is that right?”

“She thought that Sonny never hired her because he was prejudiced.”

“Against redheads?” I asked, confused.

Benji made a face. “No. His father fought in World War II.”

The truth hit me. “So the Japs were good enough to spend their money here, just not good enough to work here?” I thought back to how Sonny treated me. I hadn't picked up on him not liking me, but then Kyra always said I was oblivious to that sort of thing. I guess sometimes that could be a blessing. “She never told me.”

“She didn't tell me either.” He squatted and scooped up a handful of sand. “I overheard her talking to Aunt Marnie on the phone a long time ago.” Looking deep in thought, he smiled and let the sand spill through his fingers.

“What?”

“I just remembered that I told her when I grew up I would buy it for her, and she could play anytime she wanted.”

That was our Benji. “You sure do love your mama.”

He gave the restaurant a closer look. “Maybe I still can.”

“In this condition I'm sure you can get a good deal, but that still doesn't make it free.”

“I'll get a job. I just want to see us all happy again, like when we were here.” He looked more defeated than when we'd left the house.

“Can we go now?” I asked. I was sorry I brought him. It hadn't been my intention to heap on more disappointment. Just to remind him of better times. Somehow I guess I'd managed to do both.

Twenty-Seven

Benji and I exchanged unimpressed glances as Kyra prattled on about Marcello, a designer she and Marnie had met in Italy. I tried not to be jealous, but the way she talked about him, you'd think the guy walked on water. She picked up a roll. “Besides being an incredible designer—and I mean incredible—he plays the violin like an angel.” She smiled between Benji and me as if this should amuse us somehow.

Happy day, a musician too,
I thought. He probably was a great dancer, poet, and lover as well.

A kid shrieked in the booth behind us. The parents shushed her, which only made her shriek louder. Kyra threw a glance over her shoulder as she buttered her roll. “Get it? He plays the violin and his nickname is Cello.”

Benji took a sip of his soda. “Cute.” He looked about as thrilled as I was. I guess he didn't like his mother gushing over another man any more than I did.

Her smile faded as she looked back and forth between us. “I just thought it was funny that he played a string instrument.”

“Yeah, we get it,” I said, although I really hadn't until she explained it. “So, in a nutshell—” I cracked yet another crab leg I had no intention of eating—“you had a great time and Marnie found the next big thing.”

She set the roll back down. “She's going to personally introduce him to a designer—Panachee, I think she said. Apparently this woman is a really big deal.”

I pushed away my plate full of mutilated king crab legs. “I never heard of her. Why didn't you tell me about this guy when I was there?”

“I mentioned him,” she said looking uneasy.

“No, you didn't. You sure you don't want me to drive you back to the airport so you can return to Milan and hang out with him?”

She shook her head at me like I was an insolent child. “He's just a nice guy. Sheesh.”

I looked at Kyra's and Benji's barely touched entrees and said, “Since no one's eating, does anyone mind if we go?”

“Great idea,” Benji said, a little too enthusiastically.

A neighboring patron pushed away from his table just as our waiter walked by with a full pitcher of tea. Before he could react, it sloshed over the side and right onto our plates. It missed Kyra and Benji, but I, and most of our food, ended up wearing it.

Cold liquid soaked through my shirt, and a handful of ice cubes slid down my front and landed in my lap. Dark amber pooled on my plate and Kyra's. The waiter grimaced. “I'm so sorry; let me get a towel.”

I brushed the ice onto my hand as he rushed off.

The person who'd caused the mishap went on talking and laughing, oblivious. Shaking his head, Benji watched him leave. “Excuse you.”

The waiter returned with some paper towels. I dabbed them against my shirt and wet hands and tried my best not to sound irritated. “We'll just take the check.”

He said it was on the house and continued to apologize, but Kyra in her sweet, disarming way let him off the hook. By the time she finished, she had us all convinced that our meal being ruined was the best thing that could have happened to us.

As we made our way back to the vehicle, I pulled at the cold, wet fabric of my shirt so it wouldn't lie against my skin. With the window now whipping my hair around and drying my shirt, we drove along I-81 with eighteen-wheelers flying by us on all sides.

Kyra turned back to Benji. “Baby, I just want you to know how proud we are of you.”

“Proud?” His tone implied he thought her statement ridiculous.

“Of course.” I hit my blinker and passed an Accord that didn't understand the concept of a minimum speed limit. “You went after your dream, Ben. That's more than most people do.”

I looked in the rearview mirror to find him staring out his window. I wondered what he was thinking, but Kyra went ahead and asked.

“I think it's finally hitting me,” he said. “I'm not going to be a Navy man. I'm really being discharged. I couldn't even make it through boot camp. How pathetic is that?”

Kyra reached back and squeezed his leg. “Benjamin, you listen to me. You are the smartest, most kindhearted, loving, giving, God-fearing, wonderful boy I know. Don't you ever, ever sell yourself short. What happened wasn't your fault.”

“None of that changes the fact that I'm out.” He let out a sound that was part moan, part whimper. “I'm out.”

I glanced in the mirror again to see my son crying. When our eyes met, he covered his. Kyra unbuckled her seat belt, and before I could protest about how dangerous that was, crawled back beside him.

I snuck glances at them. He laid his head on her lap and sobbed in a way I hadn't seen him do since he was a boy. Kyra cried along with him.

When we arrived home, Benji opened his mother's door and helped her out before disappearing inside.

After changing into a clean shirt, I joined Kyra on the couch. “Where's Benji?”

“Upstairs.” She laid her head against my chest. “I can't stand to see him this way.”

“It's awful,” I agreed. “But there's no way through it except through it.”

“I just hate it for him.”

I bent over her hair and inhaled.

“Are you sniffing me again?”

“You smell like pancakes.”

“This is some kind of maple-based treatment Marnie made me try.” She grabbed a handful of hair and held it under her nose. “I only did it to make her stop talking about what a wonder-serum it is. You know how obsessive she can be.”

“That I do. I like your regular shampoo.”

She kissed my neck. “The smell you like is actually my conditioner.”

I kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

Sitting there, with my wife nestled against me, it hit me that whatever it was we'd lost for so long, was actually back—the comfortableness around one another, the mutual respect, the playfulness. I'd forgotten how good it felt to just be with her without all the tension. There wasn't a place on this earth I'd rather be than right here.

I looked over her to the front window. Sunshine poured in as one of the neighbor kids whizzed by on his bike, wearing a baseball hat instead of the helmet he was required to by law.

An idea hit me. “I thought of something that might help Benji.”

“What's that?”

“Batting practice.”

“Batting practice?”

It wasn't an original idea, but I recognized it immediately as a good one. “It's a great stress reliever. Larry took me there when you and I—” I stopped myself, horrified by what I'd almost said.

She sat up. “When you and I what?”

Above us, something heavy scraped against the ceiling. “Think he's rearranging his room?” I asked, trying to distract her.

“When you and I what?” she repeated.

“When you and I had one of those fights about work or something.”

She searched my eyes. “That wasn't what you were going to say.”

I picked up the remote off the table. “Yes, it was.”

She laid her head back down. “So, hitting bats might make him feel better?”

“No, not hitting bats. That would just hurt. But hitting balls might.”

“Maybe a little beer drinking, belching, and scratching too?”

“He's not old enough to drink.”

“I was kidding,” she said.

“Oh.”

“When would you go?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Why not now?” She glanced at the window. “It's still early.”

Her eagerness to be rid of me hurt my feelings, but I'd always been sensitive that way. “I don't want to leave you the day you get home.”

“I don't mind. You two have a guys' night. Take him to that sports bar with the wings you both like for dinner after. I can hang out with Marnie.”

She started combing through her hair with her fingers. “She's taking Marcello to Ole's for dinner. If you two aren't going to be around, I'll take a nap, then join them.”

“You want to have dinner with him?”

“Not with him. With him and Marnie. I had dinner lots of times with him in Italy, Eric. It's no big deal.”

Jealousy bit hard. “You think that's acceptable? Having dinner with a man I don't know?”

A smile played on her lips, which only made me madder. “In this case, yes.”

There was only one thing that would make this okay. “Is he gay?”

“If you mean happy, then yes.”

“You know what I mean.”

“He doesn't like to kiss other men, no.”

“Does he like to kiss
you
?” The last remark was out of line, but I only realized it after it flew out of my mouth.

She stood. “I'm not even going to justify that with an answer.”

“So it's true,” I said.

“Since when did you get so jealous?”

“Is he ugly?”

“No, he's not ugly.”

I pictured a young, buff, stallion of a man sitting across the table from my wife, telling her that her eyes sparkled in the candlelight, asking her to pass him the salt just so he could have a reason to touch her hand. I'd kill him. No, I'd kill her. No, I'd kill Marnie.

“Oh, so you're attracted to him. I knew it.”

“You don't know jack.”

“This is how affairs start, Kyra.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”

“That's right. You're not going to dinner with some Italian hunk.” I knew how ridiculous I was being, especially in light of what I'd done, but I couldn't get my mouth or emotions to agree.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “I am.” She headed for the stairs.

“Kyra, I'm asking you—”

“You've got to be kidding me,” Benji said from the stairs.

My gaze flew to where he stood. “I'm sorry, Ben. We didn't mean to wake you.”

The elastic band of his sweatpants had worked its way toward his side, which told me he'd been tossing in bed.

“You guys aren't going to start this back up.”

“Start what back up?” Kyra asked.

“I'll move out before I live with you two at each other's throats again.”

I made big eyes at him, hoping he wouldn't say more.

He gave me an annoyed look. “Just keep it down, please. I'm gonna try and take a nap.”

When he disappeared back up the stairs, Kyra turned to me, looking confused. “I knew things had grown stale, but . . . at each other's throats?”