Picturing Will (18 page)

Telling the child that you will see him in the morning, and smiling down at him, is as unconvincing, and as little to the point, as standing on the deck of a sinking ship and applauding as the lifeboats are lowered. As if the sea didn’t churn. As if something benign presided over our destinies. As if words could palliate so real a darkness as
night. The feathers shift inside the pillow and sink. The leaves of the plant curl until morning light. Sleep is like life in the city: Everyone is in danger who moves while others are still. How can we continue to tell the child, or any other skeptic, that night settles like lush, soft velvet, when it’s as insidious as the swirl of the bullfighter’s cape? The cape swishes and the bull escapes for a while, but soon enough the dagger plunges in and there is blood on the velvet, blood on the sand
.

At night, the furry fox cub in the storybook sprouts fangs and gnaws the wire coiled in the boxspring. The jack-in-the-box, having popped up, continues to grow, towering until it touches the ceiling, and then ducks its head, the eyes two globes dangling from the lighting fixture, the mouth smiling or smirking, obliterated by darkness
.

Things are hungry at night. This is when animals stalk their prey. When fish sleep with open eyes. When fevers rise. When a sheer drop may be just ahead, and there is black ice on the highway
.

For children, the metaphor exists, not the simile, and at night they see what we see, without dreaming. How interesting to always see potential: the thing transformed, before it is even understood
.

At night, the child and the adult try to puzzle out the same thing: In order to comply, does one also need to smile? If someone is gone, are you the same person? Will people still call? Wasn’t there an understanding that you belonged to each other? In the future, just once, could you have a guarantee? What will there be to say if the person returns sadder, or perhaps seeming younger or older, surprised by something, changed? What if, when you next see your lover, he has a scar on his cheek, or she has cut her beautiful curls?

He opens his eyes wide when fairy tales unfold and when myths are made to seem real, but the child’s surprise is no less intense than ours. Why did Orion die, and what was it like for Diana to be tricked? Was Diana’s brother sorry that he told her Orion’s head, above the waves, was a ball floating? Or was he happy his prank turned out just as he wanted? What a perfect myth for the late twentieth century—the story of a man who dupes a woman, and a woman with the power to turn her mistake to splendor, while poor Orion, become a swashbuckler
of the sky, finds that death means only that by the simple process of transformation he has lost his life and become, instead, a work of art. An unhappy bedtime story, though one likely to be remembered by the storyteller staring out the window, observing the stars’ configuration in the sky
.

Nighttime. How pleasant to think of the child, at least for a while, questioning nothing and dreaming the unimaginable. He is snug in his bed, still as a mummy. The monsters are at bay; the bull does not snort; his beloved and tattered blue blanket is clutched in his fist. The blanket is as necessary to sleep as the puffed parachute to the skydiver’s safe fall
.

The way we think of the child at night—our image of him as calm and sweetly sleeping—is a necessary delusion. It’s romantic and also a little sad, like a love letter carried by hand, or being in love with a person who lives in another city. We are all vulnerable to darkness and to silence. Yet something has to be imagined. Something has to be said. In the dark room, every night, our last whispered words are always—and only—“Good night
.”

FIFTEEN

W
ayne and Kate tumbled on the beach. Not sex, tumbling. Wayne on his knees, holding her thighs so she couldn’t get away as Kate tried to jerk sideways, out of his grip, the sea breeze blowing her hair forward and obscuring her view every time she looked down.

In spite of the laughter and the insincere curses, it wasn’t really a game. Wayne felt that he was holding on for dear life, like a drowning person who doesn’t know his own exhaustion until he grabs hold of the rope. This wasn’t water, but sand. He wasn’t sinking, but buoyant. This wasn’t his wife, it was a thirty-two-year-old divorcée from New Jersey offering him a tumble he was eager to take. He had met her earlier that evening, when he was delivering groceries. They had flirted then, and after work he had returned for her. Now he held on to her legs because he wanted to show her how strong he was.

He held on because that allowed him more time to fantasize, and what he imagined was getting more interesting by the minute.

She lay on her stomach in the sand, head resting on her arm, and he was on top of her, his penis erect in his pants. He knew instantly this was the person he had wanted all his life to meet. She was the person fate had sent: a cocky woman with every assurance of how attractive she was, giggling mischievously at what she had caused to happen so quickly.

Instead of going to the Azure, where they would be seen, he took her into the Hyatt, where a mirrored ball that rotated on the ceiling sent flashes of light around the room and four musicians played songs from the sixties. He moved his chair in close to the table and put his hand between her legs, under her skirt. Her skin was still sandy, even after they had brushed each other off back on the beach. Wide-eyed, she ordered a gin and tonic, staying as still as possible so that the waitress wouldn’t notice Wayne’s probing fingers. A bowl of peanuts was lowered to the table. She took his free hand in hers without objecting to the location of his other hand. He was
exactly
—except for the scar above his eyebrow and the long, straight nose—
exactly
like the car mechanic she had flirted with all year back in New Jersey, who never did call, except to say that her car was ready to be picked up. Now a man who could be the mechanic’s twin was going to save her from a depressing, claustrophobic week with her mother, whose diabetes was under control, after all, and whose opinions could seem all the more ironic as they came up against Kate’s mental images of this night. She could think of them playing in the sand while her mother talked about savings bonds. She could remember the bits of revolving light mottling his face as her mother talked about Oliver North’s bravery. When her mother urged her to eat cereal in the morning, she could—hopefully—think of Wayne coming in side her. She bumped an inch closer on the blue vinyl banquette. He took his hand out of the bowl of peanuts and held out his fingers so she could lick off the salt. Before he went back to the apartment complex to leave his car and go off on what she called “an adventure” in hers, Wayne had found a cash machine back at the shopping center and had withdrawn one hundred dollars, which was burning a hole in his pocket. In fact, he felt sweaty, his fingertips tingling, his lips dry, his forehead so moist he suspected he might actually have a fever.

“Don’t tell me your last name,” she said, kissing his thumb.

“Don’t tell me yours,” he said.

The waitress put a gin and tonic in front of Kate and a Molson and a beer glass in front of Wayne. She picked up the half-empty bowl of peanuts and lowered another one to the tabletop. She had on a pink skirt and a paler pink blouse with black polka dots and a lace collar. She was long-legged and wore black fishnet stockings. Quite different from the service Wayne got at the Azure.

“Are you married?” she said.

He hadn’t been expecting that question. He missed a beat, then shrugged, able neither to lie nor to tell the truth. He poured the beer, letting a big head rise. He looked up and saw that she understood he was married.

“You weren’t wanting to get married to me, were you?” he said.

A couple passing their table looked down at them as he spoke. The woman looked over her shoulder after she passed by.

She took a sip of her drink, then put the glass back on the table and fished out the little piece of lime. Instead of squeezing, she licked it, then turned it cut side down, rubbed it around the rim, and dropped it back into the glass. She took another sip, looking at him as she drank.

“So what’s your story?” he said.

“Were we telling stories?” she said.

“What are we doing?”

“What do
you
think we’re doing?”

“Having a drink,” he said. He was trying not to let on that she was unnerving him. What sort of game was she playing? There was an edge of mockery in her voice. He asked, “What do you think we’re doing?”

“We’re flirting,” she said.

He cocked his head to look at her sideways.

She had lovely eyes, with eyebrows lightly penciled into dark arcs. Her lipstick had disappeared. Her lips were pale. He leaned forward, and she also leaned forward and surprised him by kissing him lightly on the lips.

“How come we’re flirting?” he said.

“Truth? We’re flirting because we happened to meet and we were attracted to each other, but I’m also flirting because you remind me of someone.”

He hadn’t expected that, either. He waited to hear more.

“Except that I don’t know him,” she said. “You remind me of somebody I don’t really know.”

“I’m a stand-in?” he said.

“The way I’m a stand-in for your wife,” she said.

Touché
. He smiled, giving her that one.

She leaned back. “I like the music,” she said. She took off her shoes and put one bare foot on top of his shoe, then moved it up the side of his ankle.

“Why don’t you get us a room?” she said. “Unless you have to get home to your wife.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “You seem to like sitting here, chatting about my wife. Are you sure you want me to get a room?”

He was on automatic pilot. He had probably realized when she was driving him around in her car that they would have to go somewhere, but until she mentioned checking in to the hotel, he hadn’t really thought it through. What would it cost? And was there any possibility that they’d go to the room and she wouldn’t let him touch her? Was it possible that this was some strange game she played, and that she was just a cock tease?

“You’re frowning,” she said. “Do you and your wife have children?”

He shook his head no. He thought about the amniocentesis booklet. About Will—but she didn’t ask if he had ever had children.

“You have children yourself?”

“I can’t, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said. “I’ve got scarred fallopian tubes.”

It was more than he needed to know. Women had so many problems. He hoped she wouldn’t elaborate.

“You’re not interested in whether I’m married?” she said, running her toes up the back of his calf.

“No,” he said. “Who do I remind you of?”

“A car mechanic in New Jersey,” she said.

The flatness with which she answered took him aback. Not a movie star. A car mechanic?

“So,” she sighed.

“So what?”

“So I guess it’s my turn to ask a question.”

“Go ahead,” he said. He would have liked to toss down a big swallow of beer, but he had already drained the glass. The waitress stopped at their table and asked if they’d like another.

“No thanks,” he said. “Just the bill.”

As the waitress started to walk away, Kate said, “I might have one more while he’s gone.”

The waitress scribbled something, nodded, and walked toward the bar, swinging her hips. The “So” was obviously decisive: He was to get a room. The change from the hundred dollars was all he had—the MasterCard was at home in a drawer, where Corky insisted it be kept so they wouldn’t buy anything impulsively. He couldn’t charge the room anyway, because Corky would find out. How much did three drinks cost? Was the change going to be enough? In any case, he would have to wait for the waitress to come back, pay the bill, and go with cash in hand to the front desk.

Kate had on bright pink nail polish. He let his eyes drop to her chest. Nice breasts. The waitress had seen where he’d been looking. She put another drink in front of Kate and handed him the bill. He took out his billfold and paid her. She fished in her money belt for the change and put it on the table. He picked up a five, folded it, and handed it to her. The waitress had on shiny orange lipstick that clashed with her blouse. Nail polish, too, although her nails were bitten to the quick. She looked like a lot of women in this part of Florida: women who had wide hips even if they had slender bodies. He had tipped her five dollars, which was almost 50 percent. At the Azure he left a dollar, whether he had one beer or five. He pocketed the money and walked away, out of the bar and into the overlit lobby. A child was getting off the elevator as he passed by. The child held a pink inflatable palm tree and ran ahead of his mother and father.

“Andrew Bornstein, you come back here,” the child’s father called, stressing all syllables of the name.

At the desk, the clerk was reading a newspaper. He put it down and looked up pleasantly as Wayne approached. Wayne considered asking directions to the seafood restaurant he sometimes ate at with Corky—asking directions, thanking Mr. Clean-Cut Smiles, then walking out the door and going home and telling Corky that he had been having a beer with a friend. He looked at his watch. Whatever he told her, she would be furious. As long as she was going to be furious anyway, why not sleep with Kate?

The room was affordable. There would even be money left over. He got the key and turned and looked at the elevators, where Mr. Clean-Cut Smiles pointed. The doors were opening again, and a group of laughing men were coming out. They turned left and went into the bar. When the clerk had asked for a credit card, Wayne said that he would like to pay the bill in advance. Even this was done smilingly. Would he also smile when Wayne and Kate checked out, an hour later?

Reentering the bar, he was happy that Kate did not know his last name. He put the key on the table, and she picked it up and smiled. Her drink was empty. They walked together out of the bar, away from the already drunk laughing men, who had settled at a table in the corner. The waitress’s eyes met Wayne’s, and he realized that she knew perfectly well what she was caught between: a group of wild men who were going to act crazy and probably stiff her, and a man and a woman who had decided to go fuck. He knew that she knew he and Kate weren’t married.