The Hazards of Sleeping Alone (27 page)

Leaning against the sink, she studies her reflection more closely. She thinks again of the way Joe looked at her this morning, and wonders what he saw. Up close, her face is no longer a whole face but an assemblage of details: pores and lines and freckles. Wrinkles that have gathered in the corners of her eyes, bunching when she squints, like fish gills, or feathers. Eyes that are not just blue but gold inside, near-orange, growing more intricate the longer she looks, like the insides of marbles. She notices a new sun spot emerging faintly on her cheekbone, then pulls back and cuts the light.

The moment Charlotte steps onto the patio, she feels herself relax. As she sinks into a chair, she takes comfort in the reliability of the outside world. It's always here. Always awake, always breathing. She used to think of the outdoors as an ominous silence, but she's come to realize it's made up of infinite sounds—not just the concrete noises, but pure tones. Listen hard enough at any given moment, and one will surface, disentangle itself, a tinny sound that wavers in and out according to the angle of your ear. It's always there, just takes patience to
locate, like slowly turning a thermometer until the bar of mercury appears.

Charlotte hears the crunch of Bea's footsteps coming around the side of the house, each step punctuated by a smack of flesh. Absurdly, Charlotte's mind flies to Emily's speculations about whips and chains. As it turns out, naturally, Bea is wearing flip-flops. Faded black rubber with fake yellow-and-white daisies perched between the big toes. She has on black stretch pants and an oversized white sweatshirt that says
HARD ROCK CAFE
—LONDON, and holds two clear bottles in her hand.

“I figure I owe you a drink or two,” Bea says, handing one to Charlotte.

Charlotte looks curiously at the label. Smirnoff Ice.

“It's not like beer,” Bea assures her. “It's sweet. Here.” She takes the bottle back and unscrews the cap on the hem of her shirt. “Try it.”

Charlotte does. It tastes like sugary lemony water. And like the mimosa this morning, she likes it. After a drinking résumé that consisted mainly of wedding receptions spent sipping one glass of champagne over the course of five hours, this weekend has been a virtual education in alcohol.

Bea folds herself into the other chair, tucking one flipflopped foot beneath her. She still has on her makeup and jewelry: pink eyelids, clumping mascara, large kinked gold hoop earrings. On her finger is a bulbous, purplish stone; it looks like the “mood rings” Emily was briefly obsessed with in junior high school. For a period of about six months, she consulted her mood ring constantly, using it to validate all her impulsive decisions. “Mom, I'm not going to gymnastics today,” she would announce, then hold the ring up to Charlotte's face. “My body's just not up for it. See?” Or, after a boy called, she would frown
at the ring for whole minutes, watching for the slightest change in shade. Eventually she would say, “It's just like I thought,” and sigh deeply. “I just don't like Mike the way I used to.”

Bea is uncapping her Smirnoff. “It's kind of a girl drink,” she says, “but I like it. Whenever I get together with the other girls from work, this is what we have.” She tips her bottle back and swallows. “Bill hates it.”

Charlotte pauses. Is this her cue to ask what happened? Before she can decide, Bea continues. “So that guy last night. That was your ex-husband?”

“Yes,” Charlotte says, then quickly adds, “and I want to apologize for his behavior.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“Really. He asked me to apologize to you. This morning. He said to tell you he was sorry. And out of line.”

This news has seemingly no effect on her.

“He's not usually like that,” Charlotte concludes.

Bea shrugs. “It was no big deal. I know his type.”

She does? Charlotte has never thought of Joe as a “type.” On the contrary, he's always seemed distinctive, unlike anyone else she's ever known.

“He didn't seem like a
bad
guy.” Bea lets her flip-flop slip forward and dangle between her toes, held aloft by the plastic daisy. “Just a drunk one.” The foot starts to swing, exposing the dusty imprint of her heel in the rubber. “Hot, though,” she adds.

“Hot?” Charlotte pauses. “Joe?”

“Yeah. But that's no surprise. You're a good-looking woman.”

She feels herself blush, but Bea doesn't seem to notice.

“So he's remarried now?”

“Joe? Oh yes.”

“Do you like her?”

“I hardly know her, really. She seems very, I don't know. Stylish, I guess you could say.”

“So you don't like her.”

This is starting to feel familiar: first Walter, and now Bea, getting Charlotte to admit to not liking people.

“I guess you could say that,” Charlotte says again, burying her response in her Smirnoff.

“What about you? Are you dating anybody?”

“Me?” She swallows. “I haven't dated in years.”

“How many years?”

“Not since my divorce, actually.”

“How long ago was that?”

“That was … let's see … fifteen years ago.”

Bea's eyes bulge. Her foot stops swinging. She sets her bottle down and leans forward, speaking slowly. “Charlotte. You haven't dated anyone in fifteen years? You haven't had any action in a
decade and a half?
”

Charlotte just shrugs, but Bea seems genuinely distraught by this information. She must have orgasms, Charlotte concludes.

“Wait a minute.” Bea raises one hand. From inside her sweatshirt, Charlotte hears her bangles go racing from wrist to elbow. “I have the perfect guy for you.”

“Oh no, I'm really not in the market—”

In the market?

“Come on. He's great. Trust me. I wouldn't set you up with somebody awful. This guy's one of my regulars.” Bea pauses, then picks up her bottle and starts swinging her foot again. “His name's Howie.”

Charlotte knows, without question, she could never date a man named Howie.

Bea squints at her over the lip of the bottle. “He's older than
you—fifty-five, maybe sixty. A sales rep. Pharmaceuticals. He's divorced too. I swear you two would hit it off.”

Even though it's out of the question, Charlotte is curious. “How come?”

“Because.” Bea swallows and rests the bottle on her thigh. “Howie comes in every Friday night. Same time. Same order. Same tip.” She raises her eyebrows, as if to say she doesn't need to spell out the obvious reasons why Charlotte and Howie are meant to be. “He's like clockwork.”

“What does he order?” Charlotte can't help herself.

“Bowl of clam chowder. Unsweetened iced tea. Turkey club SuperMelt, no mayo. He's watching his cholesterol.”

“He told you that?”

Bea shrugs. “People tell me all kinds of things. Then for dessert he has a cup of coffee and a fudge brownie sundae. Tips me five bucks—that's twenty-five percent, by the way—and never leaves a drip or crumb on the table. He never calls me doll or sweetheart or any of that waitress crap. I'm telling you, Charlotte,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “He's a catch.” She takes a deep swallow, smacks her lips, then plunks her bottle on the table. It lands loudly, glass striking glass. Bea bites her lip and glances behind her. “Hope the cat lady didn't hear me.”

“Ruth?” For some reason the possibility of Bea and Ruth knowing each other makes Charlotte feel surprised, yet oddly excited. “You know Ruth?”

“Not really,” Bea says. “To be honest with you, I try and avoid her.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “She kind of freaks me out.”

“Is it the—”

“The leash! Yes!” Bea yelps, then lowers her voice. “I don't
know much about animals, but that seems very weird to me. Does it seem weird to you?”

“Oh yes,” Charlotte says, nodding energetically. “Very weird. Very, very weird.”

“Thank God,” Bea says, flopping backward. “I thought I was the only one.”

Charlotte lifts her bottle to drown the giggles bubbling up inside her. She wonders if this is what it feels like to have a college roommate: sitting around in sweats and pajamas and talking about cute boys and weird neighbors. “So,” she says, feeling emboldened. “What happened with Bill?”

Bea seems to visibly deflate. Her shoulders sag, foot stops swinging. The heel of her flip-flop grazes the ground. “It's my fault, really,” she says. “I started in on him last night. Not picking on him or anything—I just said I wanted to have a talk.”

Charlotte nods. She is feeling sorry that she asked.

“Thinking back, it probably wasn't the best timing. It was late, he was tired, he just got done work. He was like, ‘You're doing this to me
now?
' But I'm telling you, it wouldn't have mattered when I brought it up. It's never a good time for him. Bill just doesn't like having talks, period. He's a typical man.”

Bea seems to possess a world of knowledge about the behaviors of men, Charlotte thinks. Maybe it's all her experience as a waitress.

“Anyway.” Now that she's started talking, Bea doesn't seem to want to stop. “I got to thinking about what we're doing together, and where this is heading, and whether we'll ever really get married. Then I started thinking about never having kids and going through menopause and growing old alone. Once your brain gets stuck on one thing, it just runs wild, you know?”

If Bea only knew how well she knows.

“So basically, I did everything the magazines tell you not to.

‘Don't pressure your man,'” Bea says, making her voice high-pitched and girlish. “‘If you don't push him, he'll come around. If you do, you'll push him right out the door.'”

It sounds like she might actually have this advice memorized.

“But I'm thirty-eight, you know?” Bea says, voice returning to normal.

Charlotte nods.

“So screw it. If I take that advice, I could be sitting around unmarried when I'm forty-five.” She glances at Charlotte. “No offense.”

“Oh, none taken.”

“It's just that I really want kids. And I love Bill, I do. I think he's the one. And I know he loves me. But the clock stops ticking sooner or later.” She lifts her bottle, surveying Charlotte over the rim. “You were smart to have one so young. And now you're going to be a young grandmother.” She shakes her head. “And Emily …” She lowers the bottle, looking at it wistfully. “I think that's actually what brought all this on last night, seeing them together and hearing about the baby. I was just sitting here, looking at them and thinking, they're so young and in love and they're just getting started. Then I went upstairs like, what am I doing? What if I'm wasting my time with Bill? What if I already let all my chances pass me by?”

“You haven't,” Charlotte says. It's a meager gesture, and she berates herself for not saying more, but what? She doesn't trust her own advice. Then she reminds herself of Joe's words this morning:
You are comforting. You are.

“I admire those two,” Bea is saying. “They're doing it right. Jumping in with both feet. I wish I'd done that. But I wasted my twenties on an asshole.” She smiles wryly. “That's how you get
where I am, Charlotte. All us single women in our thirties, worried we're never going to have babies, we wasted our twenties on some asshole. Mine was named Jonah.”

Charlotte cannot for the life of her picture Bea with any form of man named Jonah. Jonah is too conservative. Too white-collar. Jonah's not a man at all, but a boy at a prep school wearing khaki pants and a baseball cap turned backward. Unless—is
every
male name Charlotte pictures a conservative boy at a prep school wearing khaki pants and a baseball cap turned backward? Revise, she thinks.

“Why?” Charlotte asks. “What did Jonah do?”

“Oh, the usual. Cheated. Drank. Couldn't commit. I hung in there because I thought he'd change. And my mom loved him because his name came from the Bible.”

“I'm sorry,” Charlotte says, the words feeling strange on her lips.

“Thanks. I mean, I learned from it and all that. I paid my dues. I learned my lessons. What doesn't kill you. Blah blah blah blah blah.” She takes a drink, bangles sliding up and down. “And Bill's a good guy. I mean, he drinks, yeah, but not like a problem. He'd never cheat. He wouldn't hurt a fly. And the sex is great.”

Charlotte doesn't blink.

“His crime is, he's
lazy.
He could do more, he just doesn't apply himself. He never has. He's a youngest child, and you know what that means.”

She nods. She has no idea.

“But he's a good, good guy. A good man. And that's what makes it so tricky—because it's easy to break up with someone when they're an asshole, right? You never have to look back and wonder if you did the right thing.” Her voice is getting louder.
“He cheated on me.
Bam.
“ She slaps a palm flat on the table, her maybe-mood ring hitting the glass. “He got so drunk he scraped up the car.
Bam.
He hit on my best friend.
Bam bam bam.
“ At that, she slaps the table three times, apparently no longer worried about bothering Ruth O'Keefe. “But it's like my friend Meg at work is always telling me, they don't have to be assholes to break up with them. It's okay to break up with a good guy. It's even okay to break up with someone you love.” She pauses then and looks at Charlotte, eyes glassy. “But how do you do that?”

Charlotte shakes her head.

Bea looks down at her toes, at the forlorn plastic daisy. Though the petals are fake, they actually appear more limp now than they did before. “How did you do it with Joe?”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm sorry.” She looks up. “Too personal?”