Pictures of Houses with Water Damage: Stories (12 page)

I got into my car, and drove home.

From the sky, a flying, glowing disk appeared, and hovered for a moment over my car, and flew away.

I got out, and watched it.

I went to the flower store. They were just about to close. I bought a bouquet of tulips and sunflowers. I hate roses. Ginny loved roses. I remember, once, seeing Helen walking to a class, holding a sunflower someone had given her.

Anne was watching TV when I got home.
Star Trek
.

“We’re in the wrong universe, David,” she said.

“These are yours, please,” I said.

She took the flowers, and she kissed me.

T
akayuki’s parents are studying the manual they brought to the States, trying to make sense of an old tradition fitting for the 21st century.

They don’t speak much English and that doesn’t help; Takayuki and Akiko’s translations are spotty at best. Frank and I do our best to understand.

We nod our heads a lot and Takayuki’s parents nod their heads and we all smile like everything is working out well.

Frank and I look at each other and shrug.

Frank is my husband of eleven years, by the way; we got married when we were both twenty-two and things have been up and down but overall a good marriage. We bought a house three years ago in Santa Barbara. Takayuki lived by himself in the house next to us. We became friends. Takayuki works in a biomedical lab and I’m not sure what he does but he seems to make good money.

Frank my husband of eleven years teaches math at the high school and he makes decent money to keep a roof over our heads.

I work part time at a bookstore and make minimum wage but Frank my husband of eleven years doesn’t mind. It’s supplemental income. My paychecks often pay for airline tickets when we want to travel.

Someday we will go to Japan.

Takayuki had often talked about his greatest love, a girl named Akiko that he left behind in Japan.

One day, Akiko showed up and Takayuki informed us that he was going to marry the woman, finally, and he asked us to be Keepers of the Bride and Groom.

Frank and I said sure, why not, what the hell.

So here we all are, the six of us: me and Frank, Takayuki and Akiko, and Takayuki’s parents—I won’t even try to pronounce their names—sitting in Takayuki’s living room and preparing for a Japanese wedding, or something close to it, that will take place next week in Las Vegas.

As Keepers, the job Frank and I are tasked with is to keep the bride and groom on the right and righteous path to the wedding altar. We are to make sure they do not stray or go astray, that things do not go awry or wrong. We are responsible for both of them arriving at the altar in one piece and smiling.

I have mixed feelings about the wedding. I don’t think it should happen.

“Anne, oh Anne,” Frank my husband of eleven years goes, “why,
how
can you think and say such a thing?”

“Look at the way he treats her.”

“Treats her how?”

“You know
how,
” I say, getting angry that Frank my husband of eleven years is acting dumb; “if there’s a bowl of rice ten feet away from him, he won’t get up off his sorry ass and get it. He waits for Akiko to serve it to him. When he wants a beer, he tells her to get one and she jumps up and does it. You saw it, that one night, you
saw
how he was.”

Frank nods. “Yeah,” he says.

“And he doesn’t allow her to eat in the same room with him!”

“That’s their way, the Japanese way,” Frank my husband of eleven years says, “that’s their culture.”

“Screw that,” I go, “this is America, this isn’t Japan. They want to do things like that they should go back to Japan.”

“You’re reading too much into it.”

“The hell I am.”

“Akiko doesn’t mind.”

“I think she does.”

“How do you know?”

“I can see it in her eyes,” I go; “I can see it when she looks at her husband-to-be—sure she knows all about tradition and culture and blah blah blah, but she fucking

hates it.”

“I hate it when you curse, Anne.”

“Fuck
you,” I tell Frank my husband of eleven years.

It’s times like these, when he gets me angry, that I want to hurt him with some truth: I want to tell him about the affair I had four years ago with our friend Greg.

For six months, I strayed from the marriage bed and would go see Greg for quick meaningless sex. We never spent the night together. We would hook up for an hour or two in his small messy apartment and then I would go back home.

But I can’t tell Frank this.

He’s been my husband for eleven years.

I want to keep it that way.

Greg had said, “Leave Frank.”

“And do what?” I had said.

“Be with me.”

“This is wrong.”

“Then why did it start?”

“These things happen.”

“Why do you keep coming back?”

“Stop asking me these things,” I had told him; “don’t test me, you know how mad I can get.”

He knew my temper, as did Frank.

“You don’t love your husband.”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why are we doing this?”

“It’s time for this stop.”

“No, no. You can’t.”

“It’s time.”

“I love you.”

“Find someone else,” I had said, “please, find a woman who isn’t married, a woman who can love you right.”

“I only want you.”

“I’m with Frank, we’ll always be married.”

Greg had said, “How could I ever find another Anne?”

I am drinking a bottle of wine with Akiko and ask her what she thinks of old Japanese customs; the way Takayuki treats her now and then.

I am sly about it.

“I hate it,” she goes.

“I knew it!”

“I hope it stops,” she says.

“Will it?”

“No,” she says.

“Tell him.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

“It is wrong.”

“How he treats you is wrong.”

“Not in Japan,” she goes. “Expected.”

“The fuck,” I say. “This isn’t
Japan,
Akiko. This is America. The good ol’ U S of A. You can’t be a woman of two customs, two countries. You have to choose one or the other. In America, women say, ‘Hey, fucker, you can’t treat me like that!’ Then you kick the asshole in the nuts.”

“I cannot,” she says. “He would call off marriage.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t marry him then,” I go.

Akiko is shocked.

“I mean, I didn’t
mean
that,” I tell her.

She goes, “You are my keeper!”

“I didn’t mean
that.
”

She goes, “How could I ever find another Takayuki?”

I snuggle close to Frank that night in bed. I take his hand in mine while he sleeps. Where would I ever find another Frank?

Greg wasn’t the only one I strayed with. There was that time on the beach; with a guy I met at a party. Two years ago. Frank was home, sick, and I went to this party of a friend and met this man, I forget his name, and we were both drunk and wandered down to the beach and did it in the sand. We didn’t say a word to each other. We shook hands and I never saw him again.

That doesn’t count, really.

That’s not an affair.

I’m pretty sure Frank cheated on me six months into our marriage. I can’t prove it and I never asked him. I don’t want to know. She was tall and blonde and pretty and was in the same child development class with Frank. I knew she had a crush on him. He was flattered but said it was nothing. Maybe I am imagining it. I don’t want to know. It was eleven years ago.

We fly to Vegas for the wedding. Why Vegas, I don’t know, but that’s what Takayuki and Akiko wanted.

There are no other guests.

On the flight to Vegas, Frank my husband of eleven years asks Takayuki about his suit or tux.

“What?” goes Takayuki.

“Your duds to get married in,” goes Frank.

“I don’t understand,” goes Takayuki.

“What do you plan to marry your bride in?” asks Frank.

Takayuki looks at what he’s wearing: a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.

“Oh no,” I go, “oh,
Frank.
”

“You didn’t get a suit, a tux, something?” Frank goes.

Takayuki goes, “Was I supposed to?”

I am this: “Oh,
Frank!
”

“What?
” he says.

I go, “Frank, how could you mess up like this?”

“Why is it my fault?” he goes.

“You’re his keeper!”

“Shit,” he goes.

“Problem?” asks Takayuki’s father, sitting in the seats across the aisle on the plane.

“No, no,” Frank says, “all is well.”

“Good,” the father goes, “good.”

Takayuki smiles at Frank.

“We’ll fix this,” Frank says; “I’m your damn keeper, we’ll fix this. No problem. Vegas has everything you could need.”

We check into our rooms at the Stardust Hotel and Frank and Takayuki go out, quietly, pretending to hit the slot machines, but really on the search for an emergency wedding tux.

Takayuki’s parents take a nap before the wedding, which is seven hours away.

I talk Akiko into going down to the casino floor and doing a little gambling. She’s shy; she has never gambled.

“Nothing to it,” I say.

First we try out the slot machines, and Akiko wins $200 in quarters on her second pull.

Lights and bells.

“Beginner’s luck,” I say.

We move to the blackjack table. We have a few free drinks. I’m feeling good and Akiko is glowing with winning and alcohol.

Men notice us. We’re both pretty enough. One tries to talk to me. He’s in his forties and has salt’n’pepper hair and looks nice enough.

I show him my wedding band.

He shrugs and says he’s married too.

“What would your wife think?” I ask.

“We have an understanding,” he goes.

I laugh.

I’m tempted. Why not? Why can’t I love everyone?

I have to pee and go to the bathroom and seriously consider going to the guy’s room for a quickie. It’s been so long since I was bad and I’m angry with Frank for not making sure the groom had a tux or suit beforehand. It would serve him right for being a bad keeper.

I return to the table and the guy is gone and so is Akiko. I don’t think much of it and play a few hands.

A half an hour later, Akiko is still gone and I get worried.

An hour later, I am in a panic.

I look for her among the slot machines, thinking maybe she’s hoping for another lucky pull.

I look for her among the roulette wheels.

I look in the bar.

My heart beats fast.

I’m sweating and feeling dizzy.

In the room, Takayuki is trying on a blue and white tux. Frank helps him with the cummerbund and bow tie. He looks dashing enough that I almost forgive him for his arcane ways.

“Is Akiko around?” I ask.

“She’s supposed to be with you,” Frank says.

I pull Frank aside and whisper, “I lost her.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said.”

“What?”

I tell him about it.

“Anne,” he goes, “what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Something wrong?” Takayuki asks.

“Just that my wife lost your wife,” Frank says.

“Lost?”

His parents join us.

“Where is Akiko?” they go.

“Where is Akiko?” goes Takayuki.

“What happened to this man’s bride?” goes Frank.

I scream: “I don’t know!”

The parents are upset, speaking fast in Japanese.

They say to me: “You are her
keeper!
”

We call hotel security. They are not worried about it. They won’t look at the security cameras. “This happens all the time,” they say. “After twenty-four hours, then we’ll investigate,” they say.

The wedding is in four hours.

The wedding is in two hours and Akiko walks into the room. She finds her husband-to-be pacing back and forth, cursing in Japanese and English.

His parents sit on the couch looking sullen.

I’m drunk by now. I have been having one cocktail after another, imagining all sorts of things: Akiko’s murdered body in the desert; Akiko on a ship, sent to Thailand to be a sex slave.

Takayuki stops pacing and stares at her.

I run to her, hug her. I can smell wine and something else familiar on her.

I go, “Where the fuck were you?!”

She grins and holds up a handful of casino chips.

“$500,” she says. “I win again.”

That other smell on her body: it’s sex.

At the chapel, helping Akiko with her dress in the back room, I ask her about it.

She goes, “I had sex with a man.”

“Who?”

It doesn’t matter.

She goes, “He asked me and I went with him, to his room.”

“Why, Akiko? On your wedding day?”

“I had to know,” she says.

“Know what?”

“Now I know,” she says. “Now I get married,” she says.

The words are said, “to have and to hold,” etc., and I take hold of Frank’s hand, my husband for eleven years, and squeeze it.

J
ust when I thought things were getting better, my wife, Anya, talks me into allowing her ex-boyfriend to come by the house for a visit. He wants to say hi, she says; he’s curious about the baby and things, she says.

I don’t want to put her in a bad mood. The pregnancy was hard; she has, or had, post-partum depression and is on mood pills. She seems to think this is important. The guy
is
a disabled veteran. He lost both legs in Iraq. He was in a truck that drove over one of those roadside bombs. IEDs they call them—Improvised Explosive Devices. You hear about them on the news all the time. When the news of her ex-boyfriend got to her ears, Anya said she wanted to get married and have a baby. So that’s what we did.