Rescue (8 page)

He smiled. “Spaghetti and meatballs,” he said. “Perfect.”

After he was seated, he glanced up and saw Sheila for the first time that evening. Did he imagine that her face was fuller?
“How are you?” he asked, a question he should have asked the minute he’d walked in the door.

“OK,” she said. “Still can’t stand the smell of coffee, which is a
real problem at work. When I get outside and breathe in the air, it’s like a happy drug.”

“No morning sickness?” he asked.

“Not morning. Sometimes in the afternoon I get a headache and I feel nauseous. But I hate throwing up so much, I’m willing
my body not to do it.”

“You look beautiful,” Webster said.

“Jesus, you really were hungry.”

He slowed down. “You have any bread?”

“Sure.”

“With butter?”

“It was that bad.”

“It was that bad.”

They sat at the edge of her bed, Webster not sure if they would make love or not. “We’re invited to dinner next Saturday,”
he said.

“Won’t that be a disaster?”

“It has to happen,” Webster said. “There’s no avoiding it.”

“Can’t we just have a secret baby and stay in a secret place?” She had her fingers in his hair. He hoped that she was kidding.

“And another thing,” Webster said. “We have to start looking for a place to live.”

“Our own apartment?” she asked, drawing back so that she could see his face.

“Of course.”

“We don’t have to live with your parents, and we don’t have to live here?”

“Sheila, did you really think we could possibly do that?”

She ruffled his hair and drew her hand away. “I didn’t know what your finances were. Mine aren’t too great.”

“Combined, I think we can just make it. It has to be small, and it has to be something close to town.”

“Close to town? Where there are shops and people, and I could walk to work?” she asked, wide-eyed. The couple from whom Sheila
rented the jalousie porch had given her the use of their ancient Buick, insisting they never drove it. Sheila was planning
on buying it when she’d saved enough money. She had needed a car to get back and forth to work, and Webster guessed the old
folks were more than happy to aid their tenant in that endeavor. Sheila didn’t make as much fun of them as she used to. “This
living in the sticks is driving me nuts.”

The northern border of Hartstone could hardly be called the sticks. Unless you thought the entire state of Vermont the sticks.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “This is so cool.”

Webster smiled. “Yeah, I suppose it is.” The idea of their future being cool hadn’t really occurred to him.

He undid her belt buckle and smoothed her belly. “You’re showing,” he said.

“I am not.”

“Go look at yourself in the mirror.”

“I don’t have a mirror,” she reminded him, and he thought about the small circle high over the bathroom sink.

“Well, I think we’ll have to go somewhere that has a full-length mirror.”

Webster thought. It had to be a place that was still open. A bar? A full-length mirror in the ladies’ room? A bad idea. And
then he had it. “The Giant Mart,” he said. “They’re bound to
have a ladies’ room with a big mirror that goes down to the sinks. If you wear your boots, you’d be high enough to see.”

“This is so weird,” she said and kissed him on the cheek.

“After we find a place, and I think we should start tomorrow, even though it’s a Sunday, the first piece of furniture we’re
going to put in there is a full-length mirror.”

She cocked her head and gave a little shake.

“So you can see how beautiful you are. And will be when you’re eight months pregnant.”

“I’ll be fat.”

“You’ll be gorgeous.”

She frowned, and it occurred to Webster that he’d never known Sheila to be even slightly vain.

She’d undone his shirtsleeve and was rolling it up his arm. “What kind of a place will we be able to get?” she asked.

He looked down at his arm. “I’ve done a little hunting,” he said. “When I was thinking about getting out of my parents’ house.
Not that I don’t love them and appreciate the meals. I do. But it’s past time. I’ve seen a few places. A one-bedroom at best.”

Sheila stroked the inside of his arm. “We have to have someplace to put the baby,” she said.

“Well, two bedrooms if we get extra lucky.” The only two-bedroom Webster had seen during his short quest had smelled of dead
animal. Tomorrow he’d walk over to Carroll & Carroll and see if there was anything new in the window. And he’d buy the Sunday
paper, look at the ads. The problem was that the apartment had to be in Hartstone. Rescue had a bunk room and a living room
with a TV for use during tours. All the furniture was from grateful patients. The kitchen had three spoons. Webster
didn’t understand why the medics didn’t just go out and buy a dozen spoons. He’d thought of doing it himself, but couldn’t
presume until he’d earned a little more seniority.

The search for an apartment might be hard.

“OK,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Sheila, drawing her fingers away from his arm, seemed confused.

“The Giant Mart,” he said.

T
hey took the first apartment they could afford: a one-bedroom the size of Webster’s parents’ living room situated over an
ice-cream shop. That the apartment had a washer and dryer sealed the deal. If they’d been willing to look further, they might
have been able to find a better place, but this one was available, and Webster was impatient. Now that the decision had been
made, he wanted to make it a reality as soon as possible. They could move in any time, the owner of the ice-cream shop had
said.

They transferred Sheila’s belongings the following Saturday morning. Webster wouldn’t start moving in until the next day,
after they’d had the dinner with his parents. He didn’t want to appear too eager, even though he’d move no matter what they
said.

Once Webster had paid the security deposit and the first month’s rent, he and Sheila walked into their new home together.
The kitchenette allowed only one person inside it at a time, but the round table Webster would bring from home could seat
three in a pinch. The appliances looked tired, but they worked, which was all Webster cared about. They studied the small
living room, noting water damage on the ceiling. They didn’t much like the blue wall-to-wall either. Someday they’d own their
own place, Sheila said, and Webster wondered if that would ever be true.

They walked into a single bedroom with a slanted ceiling and one window. They debated where to put the bed, a short debate,
there being only one section of wall without a door or a window. They drove to the Giant Mart to buy a broom, a wastebasket,
kitchen and bath supplies, and enough food to get by for a couple of days. When the parental dinner was behind them, Webster
would go to his father’s hardware store and purchase a full-length mirror for Sheila. The only place he could put it would
be inside the only closet in the apartment, the one in the bedroom. The owner had put hooks, in lieu of a coat closet, by
the front door.

Sheila had asked the nurse if she could borrow the mattress from the porch for two nights until Webster moved his own bed
in the next day. The nurse had been annoyed at the abrupt notice but had said yes to the mattress. Webster hauled it up the
outside stairs. “Let me sweep first,” Sheila said.

Together they settled the mattress on the floor of the bedroom. After it was in place, Webster asked where the sheets were.

“I don’t have any,” Sheila said.

“You didn’t bring them?”

“They weren’t mine.”

“But…” Webster shook his head. “A towel?”

“Nope.”

“We’ll just have to be careful, then,” Webster said.

“Careful with what?” Sheila asked.

“We have to christen the place,” he said with a grin.

“Your father’s going to recognize me,” Sheila said from the passenger seat of the cruiser.

The hardware store.

“You didn’t go wild in there, did you?” Webster asked.

“No, I just bought a lot of cigarettes.”

“Well, I wouldn’t light up during dinner.”

“Jesus, Webster, give me some credit.”

He was inclined to give her a lot of credit. When she’d emerged from the bedroom, she was wearing a loose light gray dress.
Not a maternity dress, but one that could become one. She had put her hair up, which showed off her long white neck and the
pearls at her ears. She had on stockings and a pair of white flat shoes. He whistled and made her turn around and told her
she looked beautiful, which she did, though he hardly recognized her, and that threw him a little. It was as if she had on
a costume for a theater production.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” she said in the cruiser.

“I can’t tell them no at this point. Besides, you’re pregnant with their first grandchild. We have to do this.”

“Doesn’t it seem like everything is happening too fast?”

It did. The pregnancy had put the normal timetable into overdrive. Then he wondered if there would have been a normal timetable
at all. If Sheila hadn’t gotten pregnant, what would they be doing now? Taking drives? Still visiting B and Bs? All of that
seemed another lifetime ago.

He’d barely absorbed the news of the pregnancy himself. Now he had to help his parents comprehend what their son had done.

Pregnant.
Hell of a word.

Webster and Sheila arrived at his parents’ house at exactly 6:30. “Stay in the car,” Webster said. “I’m coming around to get
you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

When he opened her door, and she stepped out, Webster was proud of the way she looked. “I don’t want to sound like an
asshole,” he said quietly, “but you might want to get rid of the gum. My mother hates girls who chew gum.”

“You are an asshole,” Sheila said as she wrapped the gum in a tissue from her purse. “How long is this dinner going to last,
anyway?”

Webster sighed. “Can you hang in there for two hours?”

“And I’m not a girl,” she said.

Webster’s mother, who’d had her hair done for the occasion, declared straightaway that she was happy to meet Sheila. Sheila
said, “Me, too,” while his mother’s eyes slipped to Sheila’s waist, not really visible beneath the gray dress.

Webster’s father was cool. “I know you,” he said, not a trace of a smile on his face. “Toasted bagel, butter instead of cream
cheese, a carton of Virginia Slims, coffee black. You used to stand outside the store, juggling the bagel, the coffee, the
cigarette, and the carton. I wondered how you could do that.”

“Held the carton between my knees,” she said, leaving the unfortunate image hanging in the air.

“Haven’t seen you much lately, though,” Webster’s father said.

Webster could only imagine how Sheila had looked in his father’s store. Bored? Sullen? Impatient?

“I have a job now,” Sheila said, maybe as embarrassed as Webster was to have had that initial portrait laid bare.

“Well, you have other things on your mind, don’t you, dear?” Webster’s mother said, deftly slaying the elephant. Webster was
grateful. “Come right through,” she added. “We’re having drinks and some appetizers on the porch.”

Webster sat next to Sheila, who had her hands in her lap. When asked what she wanted, she said lemonade, a large pitcher of
which stood next to a bottle of wine. Webster followed suit, which caused his mother to copy them as well. Only Webster’s
father had the wine.

“I understand you’re from Boston,” his father boomed from his chair as if Sheila might be deaf. He had on a white shirt and
tie and had groomed his hair with something that made it shine.

“Chelsea, actually,” Sheila said.

“And what’s that like?”

“It’s a small city near Boston. Most people only ever see it from the Mystic River Bridge.”

Webster’s mother was seemingly mesmerized by Sheila’s waistline, visible now that Sheila was seated.

Webster endured a long silence, unable to think of a single thing to say. Nervous, he ate all the nuts in the bowl.

“How did you end up in Vermont?” Webster’s father asked, even though he’d been told the answer.

Sheila looked at Webster. She didn’t know her lines and was desperate for a prompt.

“Car trouble,” Webster answered. “I already told you that.”

“And how did the two of you meet?”

“Dad, stop grilling her,” Webster said, willing to risk a confrontation. His father wasn’t buying Sheila as the sweet newcomer
to Vermont. He knew better. He’d seen the woman in the parking lot.

Webster’s mother didn’t care how the two had met. She wanted to talk about the baby to come. “You’re taking care of yourself?”
she asked Sheila. “I had such a hard time bringing that one”—she pointed at Webster—“into the world.”

“Mom.”

“Well, I didn’t mean to suggest that you would,” she said to Sheila. “Every birth, as I’m sure you know, is different.”

“I hope I’ll be a good mother,” Sheila said.

“Oh, you will, dear, you will,” Webster’s mother said, patting Sheila’s knee, the first time the two had touched.

Sheila blinked. Webster’s father stared at Sheila’s face. Webster’s mother stared at Sheila’s waist. Webster was horrified.
They had just under two hours still to go.

At dinner, Webster and Sheila talked about the apartment they’d found over the ice-cream shop, causing Webster’s mother to
reminisce about the years when “Petey” had always liked his chocolate cones with jimmies on them.

Webster shut his eyes.

Sheila complimented the meal, which seemed to be a soupy concoction of chicken, mushrooms, sour cream, and bread crumbs, with
sprigs of parsley around the border of the casserole dish. Webster guessed that Sheila would have a hard time getting it down.
When she did, he thought her heroic.

His father brought the bottle of red wine to the table, poured a glass, and offered it to Sheila, who hesitated and then took
it, surprising Webster. He then felt compelled to mention that some doctors thought that an occasional glass of red wine was
beneficial to the mother and not harmful to the baby. He also wanted to tell his father to fuck off, but that wasn’t anywhere
in the script.