Stranglehold (6 page)

But the hand was priority.

He'd broken it against his own bedroom wall when he'd learned that they were not going to give him the scholarship for the Masters program. Now he'd have to find the money somewhere. Beg it. Borrow it. Steal it.

He'd figure something.

Meanwhile the hand hurt like a bitch.

He'd have to try to control that shit.

One of these days a guy's temper could get him into some real trouble.

Separate Lives

Cambridge, Massachusetts April 1982

"It's just
work
, Jim. What in god's name is wrong with my wanting to work?"

"We've been through this."

"My little sister Barbara works and she's just a sophomore in college!"

"Barb needs the money. We don't."

"But it's not
about
money."

"My practice is fine,
Lyd
. You know that. Hell, I'm turning people away. We don't need it."

He wasn't hearing her. It was happening more and more these days—happening on many subjects but on two subjects in particular. Her getting back into nursing was one. The other was having children. And Lydia thought that Jim's patients weren't the only people he was turning away these days.

But she thought there was nothing to do but try again. She couldn't go on like this.

At least here in the restaurant he couldn't just walk away from her into the next room and turn on the TV or go to bed. They couldn't get into one of their shouting matches either.

"Jim, I'm bored to death here. Do you understand that? I'm twenty-seven years old. And you don't want children."

"Yet."

"...
yet
, and you don't want me working. So what's left? We have an
apartment
, Jim. A big, beautiful apartment, but that's all it is—an
apartment
! I clean it. Fine. It doesn't take much. I pick up the groceries and do the laundry and then what? Do you know how much
time
there is between breakfast and dinner?"

"You have aerobics classes. You have the gym."

"Oh, for chrissakes, Jim. That's not a
life
."

"You have a life. You have friends."

"I have acquaintances. Casual friends. Mostly the wives of
your
friends. And even if I were close to them, that's no life either."

The waiter brought coffee and her slice of pecan pie. She was going to have to move this faster.

Jim looked disgusted with her. She'd seen the look before.

"Friends isn't a life," he said. "Having a good home and a husband isn't a life. What the hell is it you want,
Lyd
?"

"You
know
what I want!"

"I don't want you working."

"Because it's not going to fly over at the Club? That's no good reason."

"The Club has nothing to do with it."

"Of course it does. Be honest, for
godsakes
.
None
of their wives work. If I work, then you figure that you lose face. But you keep forgetting—
their
wives all have kids to raise."

"That again."

"Look, there's only one
other
reason I can think of. And that I like even less."

He looked at her. She took a deep breath.

"That you need to have total control over the purse strings. Control over me."

"That's bullshit."

"Is it? I hope so. I honestly do. But it's got to be one thing or the other. Or both. This business of 'we don't need to' just doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. I'm talking about me having a full life here, something in my life that's really mine. Not about what we need or don't need. I want kids or I want work."

"You're giving me some sort of ultimatum now, is that it?"

"Call it whatever you want. All I know is I just can't do this anymore."

She paused and then told him what, for her, was the simple but deepest truth of the matter.

"It isn't fair."

He looked at her for a moment over the coffee cup, then slammed it down. Lydia jumped. Coffee filled the dish.

"Damn you!"

He pushed up from the table and walked away. She turned and saw him hand his credit card to the waiter. The waiter moved fast to oblige him.

He was leaving her sitting there.

Just like that.

She guessed she was wrong. She guessed that there was always another room for him to hide in even if the room was Harvard Square.

That's that, she thought. For three long years she'd tried. At first to understand him. Then to cope with him. And then finally to survive him—to somehow exhume her own life from the empty crypt of her empty days.

They had a Picasso drawing, small but authentic.

They had
nutske
and a Steinway and two-hundred-year-old Japanese art.

Jim would succeed further. Jim was just getting started.

It didn't matter.

She found that, unsurprisingly, the women's group hadn't really helped her at all in one area. Despite what she knew to be true—that this was
his
fault, not hers—she felt she'd fucked up again.

That she'd asked too much, given back too little. For all the talk, when it came right down to it what she knew and what she felt were still two different things.

She finished the coffee and pecan pie at her own deliberate pace. It was a matter of pride. Then she walked past the waiter out the door and smiled at him and hailed a cab for home.

He wasn't there. That didn't surprise her either.

What there
was
was
a note.

You want a divorce, get it.

She felt a tingling down her spine.

This was just too damn easy.

Wait a minute.

She knew him.
Something else was going on
.

She went to their bedroom. Searched through his bureau, through the closet. It wasn't long before she found it, a note off some other doctor's prescription pad, the doctor's name unfamiliar, written in a woman's hand and tucked into the side pocket of his navy blue jacket.

The note had a little round happy face at the bottom and said
2:30 Wednesday at the Copley Sheraton, Rm. 2208. Right after your meeting.
Today was Friday so that meant three days ago. Yes, he'd worn the navy blue that morning. She was sure of it. She wondered how often he'd been this careless or if lately it had been getting so that he wanted her to know.

You want a divorce, get it
.

Okay, Jim.

She wanted.

Plymouth, New Hampshire

March 1983

It was nearly a half hour past closing time. The waitresses were long gone. They had the chairs up on the tables for the kid who swept out in the morning and most of the lights off and he was closing out the register but Jake, Arthur's night man, was still indulging this guy. The guy was seriously loaded and stooped low to the bar so Jake had put a cup of coffee in front of him gratis, but the guy preferred the watery dregs of his scotch to that. Sipping it slowly. The fucking idiot.

"Jake. You take off. I'll lock up."

"Sure, Art. Thanks a lot."

"Sir? You want to finish up your coffee now? I'd appreciate it."

Jake was right to feed the guy coffee because at least they could say they'd done that for him when the asshole wrapped his car around a tree a little while later.

Jake was a pretty good man. If he'd had a few more like him back in Boston he might have made a go of the place. Boston was a disaster.

Masters degree in Business, specialty in small-business management and here he was back in New Hampshire not fifty miles from where he grew up
.

At least he was making a profit here.

"Night, Art. Take care now."

"Night, Jake."

He locked the door behind the barman and heard him fire up his Land Rover while he went behind the bar and finished closing out the register. They'd had another good night tonight. The Caves was popular with the older students and faculty at Plymouth State; his location out on 93 near the Polar Caves tourist trap was well chosen, and Arthur knew his business. He had probably the best bartenders around and definitely the best cook. Summertime and ski season he drew a bonanza.

The drunk lurched up from his barstool, muttered
'
scuse
me, gotta piss
, waved at Arthur, and started weaving his way through the tables toward the back of the restaurant.

Arthur slammed home the pseudo-antique silver-plated register drawer.

Asshole
.

The guy looked to be maybe fifty, wearing a red-and-black checked hunting jacket.

A laborer.

Scruffy.
Not
a regular.

I've just about had it with you, buddy
, he thought.

He tossed the rest of the man's coffee into the sink and rinsed and racked his cup. He poured a short Dewar's rocks for himself and lit a cigarette and then sat down at the bar, waiting.

How long could a piss take, anyway?

He sipped his scotch.

His mother and father had been in again tonight, dressed to what they thought was the nines. Of course they hadn't a clue. Usually whatever it was, was right off the rack at his father's store in Ellsworth. Arthur didn't mind. His staff all seemed to think they were sort of charming and old-fashioned. His parents always called him at home for reservations nights they wanted to come in as though ma
î
tre
d's
didn't exist and he always made a point of being there when they arrived if that was possible. He didn't know why.

It wasn't as though he'd actually bother to sit down to eat with them or anything. He guessed he just sort of liked showing off the place.

He finished his smoke.

Jesus! How long
did
a piss take?

He got up and walked back to the men's room to face what he guessed was the inevitable and there the guy was, passed out snoring in the first stall.

"Hey. You. Up."

He slapped the man's face. The drunk just blinked.

God! this guy's shit stunk like he swallowed
sulphur
pills all day. He flushed the toilet.

Then slapped him again.