Say When (3 page)

He’d pulled her close to him that starry night, kissed her face everywhere. Three times they’d made love that night. Three times—under Venus, under Orion, under the filmy gauze strip of the Milky Way—he’d lost himself inside her.

And now Ellen was standing in their kitchen holding the phone and telling him this impossible thing as though he would go along with it. Well, he wouldn’t. He would not.

“I told you before, Ellen, and I will say it one last time. I am not moving. I am not going anywhere. Period.”

“Well, fine, Griffin. Then we will as of this moment begin leading separate lives. Consider us…roommates.”

“Right.”

“And I have plans tonight. I will feed Zoe dinner early, and as soon as you come home, I will be leaving.”

“Have a good time. What are you going to wear?”

She hung up. He slammed the phone into the cradle and then picked up the picture of her that he kept on his desk. He removed it from the frame. Maybe it wouldn’t tear easily—maybe he’d need scissors.

The paper gave easily when he started ripping, but then he stopped, put the picture back in the frame, and put the frame back where it had been. Exactly.

E
llen looked beautiful. She was wearing a black silk blouse with her jeans, and a lot of silver jewelry Griffin hadn’t seen before: hoop earrings, a bracelet, a ring with a large blue stone that she wore on her middle finger. She looked young. She met him at the door, saying, “You’re late. Zoe needs a bath. Her homework is done.” Then she squeezed past Griffin and went out to the car. She checked herself briefly in the rearview mirror, adjusted her bangs, and was gone. Why had they ever agreed that having just one car was the p.c. thing to do? What if he and Zoe wanted to go out? It was too cold to walk to town, and too short a distance to take a cab—Griffin would feel like a jerk asking for a ride four blocks away. He went to the window. There went Ellen, down to the end of the block, where she signaled, then turned right. Where was she going?

“You have lipstick on your teeth,” Griffin said softly.

“What?” Zoe called from the kitchen.

“Nothing—just saying goodbye to Mommy.” Griffin came into the kitchen and sat at the table. “What are you eating?”

“Ice cream. Ice cream soup, I like to make it soup.” She stirred industriously, and Griffin watched her. Abruptly, Zoe stopped stirring and looked up. “Dad?”

Here it comes, Griffin thought, and was grateful when the phone rang. “Hold on a second,” he told Zoe, and answered it.

There was a pause, and then a man’s voice said, “Ellen, please.”

Griffin turned his back to Zoe. “She’s not in.”

“Oh. Well…could you tell me when she left?”

“Why, certainly. Just now. Two minutes ago. Two and a half. Whoops, two minutes and forty seconds.”

“…Right. Okay, thanks.”

“Hold on,” Griffin said. “I’ll be glad to take a message. Now, which one are you?”

“That’s all right. No message.”

“Is this Jeffrey?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Mark, then.”

The man hung up. Griffin listened to the dial tone while he said, “Uh huh…Yes, all right. I’ll be sure to tell her…. You bet…You’re welcome!”

He hung up and sat down again, drummed rhythmically on the tabletop with his knuckles, raised his eyebrows up and down at Zoe. “So! What are we reading before bed tonight?” His voice was too loud. He stopped his drumming, asked more softly, “Same one as last night, about the White Sox? Or have you come to your senses and want to read about the Cubs?”

“Who was that on the phone?”

“Someone for Mommy.”

“What did they want?”

“Something about the PTO.”

“What about it?”

Griffin stood up, pushed his chair hard into the table. “I don’t
know,
Zoe! They just said to tell her they’d call back, okay?”

“Sorrrrrreeeeeee!” She looked down, stirred her ice cream halfheartedly, then pushed the bowl away. “I’m done.”

Griffin sighed. “I’m sorry, Zoe. I had kind of a bad day at work. Hey, how about we go over to Mickey’s for a gyros and fries?”

She looked at him. “I just
ate,
Dad.”

“Oh—right! What did you have, anyway?”

“Soup and sandwich.”

Griffin opened the refrigerator. “Uh huh. Sounds pretty good.” Yogurt, silken tofu, English muffins, a head of lettuce. What the hell was there to eat?

“Where did Mommy go?”

He stiffened. “Well, what did she tell you?”

“She said ‘out with a friend.’”

“I guess that’s where she went, then.”

“Yeah. I guess. Well, I’m going upstairs.” She scooped up Slinky and was gone.

Griffin sat at the table and took off his tie. He had to remember some things. Don’t take it out on the kid. Bring home dinner. Was he supposed to bring home dinner? He guessed so.

Fine. He would bring home whatever he felt like. For tonight, it looked like…He checked the cupboard, pulled out a can of bean and bacon soup, put it back on the shelf. He took out the Cheerios, poured a bowlful, and ate it standing up at the sink and looking out the window into the backyard. Zoe’s tree house needed some work—the floor was sagging dangerously. In the spring, he’d put a new one in.

Griffin finished his cereal, pulled a Sam Adams out of the refrigerator, and sat at the table to drink it. That had to have been him on the phone. Had to have been. How dare he call when Zoe was home? And where
did
Ellen go? Why didn’t she take her phone? She always took her phone, but there it was on the counter in its charger. Forget her “divorce” crap—what if something happened to Zoe? How would he reach her? What the hell was the matter with her?

He went to the bottom of the stairs. “Zoe!”

No answer.

“ZOE!”

The sound of footsteps, and then there was Zoe at the top of the stairs.
“What?”

“Did Mommy say
where
she was going?”

“Nope. Hey, Dad, can you play this computer game with me? It needs two.”

“In a minute.”

He went back into the kitchen and sat at the table, thinking. She didn’t say where she was going because it was to his place. To his stylish bachelor pad in Wrigleyville, complete with espresso maker, charcoal gray sheets and towels, and a Bang & Olufsen stereo system. Track lighting, maybe even a real leather sofa. Because this was a mechanic with style: This was a man who
read.
He’d kiss her when she came in—he’d
French
-kiss her when she came in, then put down his three-thousand-page novel and say, “My darling. My love.” Ellen loved that shit. They all loved that phony shit. Why did they all love that phony shit, didn’t they know it was phony? Didn’t they know it was step one in the Let’s Get Laid game? Griffin could call her those endearments; he could do that if it was important to her. He never had, because he respected her too much. He assumed that she was beyond needing such vacuous come-ons.

But Mr. Crankshaft. He’d use them all.
Lover. Honey.
He’d say, “Does he know where you are, babe? Did you tell him where you were going?”

She would shake her head, smiling.

“Good,” he would say, and kiss her again.

He would make dinner, and Ellen would help. She’d take over making the salad, of course, save him from all that fussiness. She’d be all womanly and careful and cute—a strand of hair falling across one eye as she sliced the tomatoes. He would gently tuck it behind her ear, kiss her again. My, didn’t making dinner take a long time when you were so in love! When you had found what you always
wanted
and never knew you could
have!
You might have to fuck each other between courses, you were so blissful! Between bites!

Mr. Smooth would say—obliquely, of course—how nice it was to have a woman around the house. Wouldn’t want to push too hard, too fast. So to speak. He would seat her at his dining room table, and, with a flourish, put before her a plateful of linguini in clam sauce. “Oh, this is so
nice,”
Ellen would say. “We only use our dining room for folding laundry, you know? For paying bills. Griffin’s just not
comfortable
eating in the dining room.” Mr. Crankshaft would pointedly refrain from commenting. What a good guy, to let pass such an obvious opener to Griffin’s myriad faults!

There’d be plenty of good wine to go along with the meal so as to loosen Ellen up, she always needed to be loosened up. Although maybe with him she didn’t.

Griffin threw his empty beer bottle in the recycling bin, then put his bowl and spoon in the dishwasher. Yes, first they’d eat, each finding at least one opportunity to feed the other, to slide their fingers in and out of the other’s mouth, slowly. Then they’d retire to the bedroom and screw one another’s brains out, and then Ellen would get up and get dressed and come home and get in bed with good old Griffin.

Oh, no, she wouldn’t.

“DAD!” Zoe called.

“COMING!” He wiped off the counter, threw the sponge in the sink. He turned out the light in the kitchen, then all of the lights downstairs and on the porch. He put the chain locks in place on both the front and back doors, then went upstairs to his daughter.

At eight o’clock, he ran bathwater for Zoe, then sat on the toilet seat to talk to her as she washed. Zoe draped the wet washrag carefully across her head, then asked her father, “Who am I?”

Griffin shrugged. “Beats me.”

“I am the grrrrrreat…I am the Great Buffalo
hoho!”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“YES!”

“To what do I owe the honor of this meeting?”

Zoe stared at him. “Huh?”

“What brings you here, Ms. Buffalohoho?”

“Oh. A meeting.”

“I see. With whom?”

“With all my tribe in the worrrrlllddd!” She pointed at Griffin. “You are under my supreme command!”

“All right.”

“And I command you…I command you to get me two Oreo cookies.”

“Later.”

Zoe gasped. “You dare to defy the great—”

“Later, I promise.”

He didn’t want to go back to the kitchen and turn any lights on. Just in case.

Zoe stretched herself out full length in the tub. “Hey, Dad.”

“Yes?”

“Could I sleep in the bathtub some night?”

“I think you’d get pretty cold. Plus you might fall asleep and get water up your nose.” Or drown. In a distressing but utterly reflexive parental way, Griffin pictured dragging a blue-faced and lifeless Zoe out of the water.

“I don’t mean sleep in
water.
Just in the
tub.”

“Don’t you think you’d be pretty uncomfortable?”

Zoe made one of her goofy, elastic faces, rested her chin on her raised knees. “Noooooo.”

“Why not?”

She jerked upright. “Because! I’d bring pillows! And blankets!”

“Why do you want to sleep in the bathtub?”

“I don’t know. It’s cozy.”

She knows, Griffin thought. Even if it’s unconscious, she knows. And she’s scared, and she’s seeking comfort in the goddamn bathtub. He imagined Zoe dreaming her young girl dreams behind the shower curtain, soothed by the white walls that rose up straight and smooth and dependable, walls that did not ever change, and that kept her from falling out of something meant to hold her securely. Goddamn Ellen.

Griffin stood and undressed to his boxers. “Coming in!” he yelled, and then, while Zoe giggled excitedly, Griffin stomped around in the bathtub, splashing mightily, until fully half the water had spilled over the side.

Zoe covered her mouth. “You’re going to get in so much trouble, Dad!”

“Oh, yeah? With whom?”

“With Mom!”

“Oh, you think so, huh?”

“Yeah!”

“I don’t think so.” He sat down and leaned against the back of the tub, his arms behind his head. “Ahhhhhhhhh!”

“Your underwear’s all wet, Dad.”

Griffin feigned great surprise. “It’s not!”

Zoe giggled. “Is too. It’s
soaking!”

“Ah, well. It’ll dry.” Suddenly, Griffin’s heart was breaking. “It will dry.”

“What’s wrong, Dad?”

Griffin looked over at Zoe, at her washcloth sliding off the top of her head. He reached out to straighten it, then said, “Well, I’m very sad. Because I am missing something at this moment—at this otherwise perfect moment with you, Ms. Buffalohoho—I am missing the
one thing
that would make my happiness complete. And do you know what that one thing is?”

“Oreos?” Zoe asked hopefully.

“NO! NO!
Not
Oreos! Cigars! Do you have any?”

Zoe smiled, shook her head.

“Smoked ‘em all up, huh?”

“Dad.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow I’ll get a big box of real stinky ones, and you can sit in the bathtub with me while I smoke one.”

Zoe grimaced happily. “Mommy
hates
the smell.”

“Yes, I know she does.”

“And also she says if you splash water on the floor, it wrecks the ceiling in the living room.”

“Uh huh.”

“Does it?”

Griffin shrugged. “Not if you know how to fix it. And I know how to fix it.” He looked at Zoe, at her small, wet chest, her overly long eyelashes bejeweled by water droplets, her stick-out ears that their pediatrician had once gently suggested needed correcting. But neither Ellen nor Griffin nor—most important—Zoe saw them as a problem. Her ears were just her. She was a beautiful child. Griffin swallowed. “You know I can fix anything, right?”

“Yes.”

“You believe that?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then.”

Zoe stood. “I want to get out, now.” She shivered. “I’m freezing.”