Say When (8 page)

“Listen—don’t pay me for that sucky pie, okay? On the house.”

“Thanks.” He put down a ten. “Keep the change.” He stood, put his coat on.

“Hey, thanks a lot!” she called after him. “You really are a nice guy!”

Barbara’s Books was still open. He parked the car and went in, nodded a greeting at his favorite employee there. Thomas was a handsome black gay man, disarmingly honest, unfailingly friendly. “Hey, big man,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Griffin had no idea why Thomas called him “big man,” but he didn’t mind it. It was nice to think that someone thought of him that way. Made him feel important.

“I’m looking for a book of poetry for Ellen. Can you show me where they’d be?”

“Of course.” Thomas came from behind the counter and led Griffin to the poetry section. “Is it her birthday?”

“No. This is just for a surprise.”

Thomas looked at Griffin over his shoulder. “Aren’t
you
nice.”

“So who do you like?” Griffin asked, looking at the rows of slender volumes.

“I like
Jackie Collins
best,” Thomas said. “You know I love
her.
But let’s see what I might recommend to you here.” He studied the titles, then turned to ask Griffin, “Are you sure you want poetry? Has Ellen ever read Jackie Collins?”

“I’d really like to get her poetry.”

Thomas put one hand on his hip, the other to his chin. “Hmmmm.” He pulled down a fat paperback. “Here you go, here’s a good one. Pablo Neruda. Love poems.”

“Maybe something more…subtle. Maybe by a woman.”

“Sharon Olds?”

“Is she good?”

“Oh, sure.” He handed Griffin another book. “Here’s one a lot of folks really like. Marie Howe,
What the Living Do.”
Another customer came in, and Thomas said, “Just look through them all, hon. See what catches your eye. Poetry’s so sub
jective.”

Griffin selected several books, then went over to the window seat and began flipping through them.
Huh.
Not as inaccessible as he’d thought. On the seat a bit down from him, a woman unself-consciously stared at him. When Griffin looked up, she smiled. “Hi.” She was about forty, husky-voiced, hard-looking, though quite beautiful.

“Hi.”

“See anything you like?”

“I’m just starting to look.”

“I’d be glad to help you. What have you got over there?’

“I’ll be fine,” Griffin said, returning to the book he held.

“I’ll bet I could make things easier for you. Why don’t I—”

“No thanks.”

“Well, excuse
me,”
the woman said. She got up to leave.

Griffin watched her walk out the door. How did women walk in those high heels? Thomas came over to Griffin and whispered theatrically between hands cupped around his mouth, “Man.”

“What?”

“She’s a
man.
And a thief. She’s always trying to take paperbacks, but I always see her doing it, so she always puts them back. She liked you.”

“Guess it’s my lucky night,” Griffin said.

“I guess it is.”

After twenty minutes, Griffin settled on the Marie Howe. He asked Thomas to gift-wrap it, then left the store and walked down the block to Borders. He wanted the anonymity he’d get there, because he wanted to look at self-help books. He hated them, but maybe he’d break down and take a look, what the hell. When his co-worker Tom Carmichael was trying to save his marriage, he’d sworn by one of the books he’d found in the self-help section—something he described as “learning to become more sensitive without having to cut your balls off.”

The store was mostly empty—a few patrons sat reading magazines. Griffin found the relationship section and was examining the titles when he saw the same man who’d spoken to him in Barbara’s come down the aisle. “Well!” he said. “Buy me a drink, sailor?”

“No, thank you,” Griffin said.

“What?”

“I said, ‘no thank you.’”

“I didn’t
offer
anything. That was just a joke. A kind of
greeting.”

“Well. I apologize then.”

“Accepted.”

Griffin nodded, buttoned his coat, and turned to leave.

“I’m Nancy,” the man said.

Griffin turned around. He had no idea what to say, settled on, “Ah.”

The man rolled his eyes. “You are
pathetic.”

Griffin bowed. “So it’s been said.”

T
he house was dark when he came in. In the living room, he made out Ellen’s dim form on the couch. Her back was to him. He tiptoed over to her, sat down beside her. Resting open on the floor was a small book: Marie Howe,
What the Living Do.
Great. Perfect. A gift from Mr. Oil Pan, no doubt.

Quietly, Griffin picked up the book, looked for an inscription. There was none. And tucked into the back was a charge slip, with Ellen’s signature. She’d bought it at Anderson’s in Naperville. When was she out there? Why? Is that where Stud lived?

He put the book back where it had been, started to get up, and Ellen turned over. She stared at him sleepily, blinked, then sat up. “Where have you
been?”

“Out. What are
you
doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“What are you doing on the couch?”

“Sleeping.”

He sighed. “This is ridiculous.”

“What is?”

“You. On the couch. You can’t be comfortable.”

“Well, I just don’t think we should sleep in the same bed, Griffin. In fact, I don’t think we should be in the same house. As you know.”

He took off his coat, went to the hall closet to hang it up. In the inside pocket was the book. Right. He thought, briefly, about showing it to her, then decided against it.

He came back to the sofa, turned on a table lamp. “I know all about what you think, Ellen.”

She squinted at the sudden brightness, pulled the blanket around her shoulders. She was wearing a pair of Griffin’s sweat socks and her favorite battered flannel pajamas, tiny purple flowers faded to a blur against a blue background. “So, can we make some decisions, Griffin?”

“Are those my socks?”

She looked down at her feet. “Yes.”

“Give them back.”

She pulled off the socks, handed them to him. “Here.”

He stood silent for a moment, then held the socks out to her again. “Put them on, your feet will freeze.”

“I don’t want them.”

“Put them on, Ellen. Obviously you
do
want them; you were
wearing
them.”

“It was a mistake. They were in my drawer.”

He sat down wearily beside her, leaned back, and rubbed his forehead. “Ellen. Put the fucking socks on, and then we’ll talk. All right?”

Not looking at him, she took the socks and put them back on. Then she sat staring straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap. A woman in a waiting room, anticipating bad news.

Griffin got up and sat on the floor, began pulling off one of her socks.

Angrily, she pulled her foot away from him. “What are you
do
ing?”

He looked up at her. “It’s on inside out.” He took her foot in his hands again, gently, took the sock off, reversed it, and put it back on.

When he looked up again, she was crying. “It doesn’t
matter,”
she said.

“Yes, it does. Now your socks are on right side out.”

“Okay,” she said, wiping her eyes; and then, in spite of herself, she began to laugh.

“That’s right,” Griffin said, apropos of nothing, really.

But then she drew herself up, looked seriously at him. “So. I guess we should talk about how to manage this. Oh, Griffin, I’m
sorry,
but I really think you should start looking for a place.”

He nodded, envisioning himself with the want ads, calling this landlady and that. No. “When are you going to understand this, Ellen? When are you going to believe me? I’m not leaving. I’m not going to suddenly change my mind. I’m not going to help you out. This is your idea—
you
move.”

“Right. And who will take care of Zoe when she comes home from school? Who will make sure she does her homework? Who will wash and iron her clothes? Who will take her to her doctor’s appointments? Who will make her dinner? I’m just trying to do this right, Griffin. Someone has got to
be
here for her!”

“I’ll
be here. I’ll take time off from work until I figure it all out. I’ve got a good six weeks of vacation time coming.”

“…You do?”

“Yes, I do.”

She sat quietly. Then she said, “Well, why didn’t we ever—”

“Do you want to talk about my vacation time, Ellen, or do you want to talk about Zoe? I want to talk about Zoe. I’ll take a vacation, and during that time, I’ll interview housekeepers. I’ll find somebody to come in after I go back to work. I’ve seen ads for people looking for that kind of work. I’ll hire someone.”

“I don’t want some stranger taking care of Zoe!”

“That’s too bad.”

“But I thought—”

“You thought wrong.”

“Griffin. Please. Let me take care of my daughter.”

“You can. Every other weekend, and a couple of evenings a week.”

“I can’t leave her!”

“Neither can I.”

Ellen sat still, stunned looking. He supposed this hadn’t occurred to her. What the hell did these women think, that they could kick a man out and then keep everything? Ellen had no grounds for divorce,
he
did! Should she get rewarded for fucking some engine jockey? No. Not a chance.

“Griffin. What do you want me to do? What can I do to…” She looked up at him. “Would you be willing to meet him?”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Yeah, I want you to say his name.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then, her voice tight and low, she asked, “What is this, Griffin?”

“I want you to say his
name.”

“Peter. All right?
Peter. Peter. Peter.”

“Dickhead. Homewrecker. Lying son of a bitch.”

She turned away from him, nodded.

“No, I don’t think I’m interested in meeting him, Ellen, thank you very much. Pass on my deepest regrets. I’m going to bed.”

He started to walk away and Ellen grabbed his hand. “Griffin. There is a better way to do this. I wanted to keep Zoe’s life as normal as possible. And I thought we could stay friends.”

“Oh, Ellen, grow the fuck up.”

“I thought we could
try
to stay
friends.
This isn’t all my fault, Griffin! I know you think it is, but it isn’t! You just won’t ever admit that it’s not right between us, and it never
has
been! Why won’t you
admit
that?”

Griffin walked to the living room window, shoved his hands in his pants pockets, and looked out at the streetlight. It was beautiful, an old fixture that used to be a gas lamp. There were things in the world besides Ellen.

He heard her call his name, softly, and then she asked, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been sad?”

He turned around impatiently. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ellen. Yes, of course I knew you were sad, sometimes. But so what? So am I. So is Zoe!”

“It’s not the same thing. It’s…I just never felt right about marrying you. I mean, I loved you, but it was not the right kind of love. What I felt for you, it wasn’t the same as what you felt for me. You can’t force that kind of thing, even if you want to. It’s there, or it isn’t.” She pushed the blanket off herself, rubbed at the side of her forehead. Ellen got severe migraines every now and then. Well, that was her problem, now—he wouldn’t even ask.

“Did you know I called my mother the night before she was going to mail the invitations and asked her not to?”

He stiffened. “No.”

“Well, I did. I knew we shouldn’t go through with it. And my mother just said something like, ‘Oh, honey, everybody feels that way before they get married. You’re just nervous.’ And then I thought of how you’d feel if I told you I didn’t want to get married. And I just
liked
you so much, you were my
friend,
and I didn’t think I’d ever…” She shrugged. “So. Here we are.”

“Well, thank you for telling me, Ellen. I feel so much better, now.”

“Don’t, Griffin. This isn’t easy for me, either. Do you think it’s easy for me? So many times I sat at the kitchen table in the morning after you and Zoe left and I cried. Just…cried. I’d sit there for hours, sometimes. A lot of times I’d get dressed just before Zoe came home.”

How could this be? He imagined himself at work: having meetings, swapping jokes with colleagues, sitting oblivious at his computer, while at home his wife wept into her cornflakes.

When had she stopped telling him things? Had he really been so unaware? He remembered a cartoon he’d seen as a child. A man was driving down the street, and when he turned to look casually behind him, he saw that half of his car was missing. Then he crashed. Only then. Griffin remembered what he’d thought, too, when he’d seen it: Why’d the guy look? Why didn’t he just keep going?

“Once,” Ellen said, “I went to a psychic for help.”

“Oh, terrific.” Griffin imagined the scene, his and Ellen’s marriage being dissected by some heavy-accented woman wearing a kerchief knotted on her head and wondering how much she could get out of
this
sucker.

“I was desperate, I felt
desperate.
I’d sit with you at the dinner table every night and I’d be hating you, because I was so lonely and so…flat. And you didn’t see it. You were so
satisfied,
and I was getting sadder and sadder and you just didn’t
see
it! You’d chew and chew and ask Zoe how school went and tell me you were out of underwear and you did not even look at me, Griffin. And we never went
anywhere.
Every time I suggested something, you’d find some excuse not to go. All you ever wanted to do was go to work and watch television.”

“We went places!”

She said nothing. The silence said,
Yeah, right.

“So why didn’t you
say
something?”

“Oh, God, Griffin, it just…It seemed redundant. I mean, it was like my arm was ragged and bleeding, right in front of you. Why, then, would I say, ‘I’m hurt’?”

“That isn’t fair. You didn’t have any bleeding arm! I mean, I knew you were moody sometimes, you’d go through periods where you didn’t really want to talk to me. But this happens, in a marriage! You just have to go through these things, sometimes!”

She put her hands on either side of her head, viselike. “Oh, you just make me want to scream! You knew I was having an
affair,
Griffin! Why didn’t
you
say something?”

He stopped what he was about to say, that he didn’t know why. Because he did know why. It was quite clear to him, in fact. “I was afraid if I said anything, you’d leave me, Ellen. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

She nodded. “Perfect.”

“Are you going to move in with him?”

“No. I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t keep living here with you. It’s too late for us to do anything about this. It’s over. I just don’t know what to do about Zoe.”

“Zoe will be just fine.”

“How can you say that!”

“Because it’s true. I am every bit as capable of taking care of her as you are.”

“But what will you do when your vacation time is up? You can’t hire someone to take care of her!”

“I can and I will. You don’t make all the decisions, Ellen. You’re only one half of the team, here.” Unbidden, the young waitress popped into his head, and he willed her image away. “You don’t decide things unilaterally for Zoe, and you don’t decide anything for me. We’re just roommates, remember?”

She lay back down, pulled the blanket over herself.

“And I think I will meet Mr. Piston. Yes, I believe I will.”

She said nothing, reached over to turn out the light.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you. Never mind. It wasn’t a good idea.”

“Well, it has to happen sometime. Let’s get it over with. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s double date!”

“With whom?
Donna?”

“Who’s Donna?” He honestly didn’t know.

“The woman who called here tonight when we were at school. Zoe took a message. Who is she?”

Ah. The Santa woman. But to Ellen, he said, “Someone I met.” He’d leave it at that. “Good night.”

Donna might like the book. He’d give it to her, next time he saw her, tell her he saw it and thought of her.

He turned on the bedroom light, sat wearily on the bed, loosened his tie. This day had lasted forever. Time was distorted now, undependable, a measure of nothing but levels of grief. He took off a shoe, held it high, and let it fall to the floor—Ellen was just below him. Then he heard Zoe calling him.

He found her sitting up in bed, her lamp on, holding something in her hand. “Look!”