The Longest Night (20 page)

“Typing is hard,” Paul said. God, he sounded like a dolt.

“I'm boring you,” Nat said.

“No! No, no.” Now Paul wondered if he seemed a little too wild-eyed and emphatic. He felt as if he had just stood up and bellowed,
“Your talk of typing could never bore me!”

The night felt late now. Everyone was sprawled about dreamily, and across from Paul someone had pulled out a guitar. Three or four embers at a time rose from the fire and spun in the wind, then blinked silently out. Paul liked that last spiral they made, the whirl of energy before they were nothing.

“Want to go for a swim?” Nat asked.

Surprised, he said, “Sure.”

She let the towel around her shoulders drop and stood, picking her way around a couple of loungers to head down to the water. She smiled back at Paul over her shoulder and chatted about night swimming, how it was something she had done for years, how it never made her afraid and how there was no better feeling than having the moon right above you.

The ocean felt slightly warmer now because the night air was cool. The ocean seemed made of hammered tin. They walked in up to their waists and Nat rubbed her arms, laughing. “You can't think about it,” she said, “or you'll never go in!”

Paul grinned at her and prepared himself to dive. He paused to look back at the bonfire. There was some small worm of doubt wriggling in his mind. What was it? Then he realized: He felt that one of Nat's friends should have volunteered to come with them. Though she was only with
him,
and he was honorable, he thought she should be chaperoned, or that she should ask to be. None of her friends knew him from Adam. He was thrilled to be alone with her, and yet he couldn't help but wonder if she did this often, went down the beach with guys she did not know. None of her friends had glanced up when they left.

He decided to assume that it was only his own charm and appeal that brought her out of her shell.
Don't ruin things for yourself, Paul.
Anyway, she had already dived and come up some distance away, treading in a rippled circle. “What are you waiting for?” she called, laughing. In the dark at that distance she looked small, and could have been anything: a buoy; a sleek and lovely seal.

Paul plunged into the froth of a low wave and pulled himself through the dark, shallow water. Moonlight shone through the surface, but he could not see much of anything, which was exhilarating and unnerving at the same time. He popped up once for air, saw that she was still several feet away, and dipped back down until he could come up beside her. When he surfaced, sputtering, treading water with ten times the exertion of her occasional kicks, she laughed. “You made it,” she said.

For a moment he thought he could pull this off. He'd passed the army swim test years before, after all. But the expression on her face changed as she watched him, and he soon realized that after a minute or two of treading water he was not going to be able to keep it up.

“I can't,” he coughed, his arms and legs churning, “I'm not really good at this,” and for an instant he saw himself the way she must see him: wide-eyed, thrashing, his limbs uselessly slicing water. He felt as if the truth about him was suddenly knowable in every humiliating detail, that he'd grown up so poor he'd never gone swimming, that he knew nothing of this world of youthful leisure. He was failing, completely, before her very eyes. But she scooped one of his arms under hers and bobbed them both just a few feet closer to shore, where they could touch ground again.

He hacked miserably; the more he tried to control it the worse it seemed to get. “Just relax,” Nat said, and she was right. A moment later he caught his breath. But he knew with a sense of despair that the night was over for him. He would go back to the beach by himself and get smashingly drunk, and in the morning hopefully forget how he'd blown his one chance with this kind, beautiful girl.

“Are you all right?” she said. “Wait, are you going back?” She touched his arm. “Don't be silly. We can stay right here; we don't have to go out deeper.”

He looked at her. A wave washed over his chin and he rubbed a hand down his face and back up again.

She laughed. “Did you think I wasn't going to be interested in you anymore, just because you can't swim?”

Was she interested in him? What exactly did that mean? He tried to ignore the next wave that sloshed over his face.

“I don't care at all whether or not you can swim,” she said.

He found his voice again. “I wouldn't have blamed you.”

“Oh, you're silly. The fun part is being out here.” And amazingly, though he still cringed in anticipation of his own doom, she started talking again. As if he hadn't just looked like the world's biggest fool, she chatted away, animated, smiling, her hands gesturing: There were islands off the coast of San Diego, she said,
just over there, out that way,
where she'd taken a boat ride once. She pointed in another direction and said she'd gone abalone diving with friends near Bird Rock, that the abalone were bigger than softballs and her mother would pound them and fry them in butter.
They're everywhere! Sometimes all you have to do is turn over a rock, and there they are.

Paul did not know what the hell an abalone was, and he was so washed over with relief that he leaned in and kissed her. Then he pulled back, shocked by his own daring. For a moment he feared she might turn and swim back to shore, or—though he sincerely hoped this would not be the case—slap him, or cry. He had never kissed a girl before; he had no idea what to expect from one when he did so.

But she smiled. She gave him one soft, small kiss of her own in return, which surprised him even more. His stomach seemed to temporarily whisk off somewhere else and then come back. He put his arm around her, feeling her breath and wet hair on his shoulder, and turned with her to look back at the shore, where they could not tell their beach fire from the others that dotted the long, dark strand.

T
hings, Nat decided, were looking up. She had managed to grow her budding friendship with Patrice, the army wife she'd met at the park down the street, and they got together a few mornings a week to let their girls play. Patrice had an angelic blond four-year-old named Carol Ann who made Nat's girls look like poorly behaved beasts, but Nat was willing to weather an occasional humbling in exchange for companionship.

Because Patrice's husband, Bud, was not deployed, she was kept busy with the usual tight schedule of shopping, cooking, and cleaning that Nat had almost entirely let go. After an hour at the park they would go their separate ways, and Nat felt as if Patrice were being sucked out onto some briskly moving highway, having dabbled in Nat's drowsy life and enjoyed the break, but there was a real world of responsibility and human interaction to get back to.

Nat's car was still in the shop; she and the girls took the ten-minute bus ride downtown when they needed to but spent most of their time at home. She drifted through the days, maybe doing laundry, maybe not, maybe cleaning the kitchen, maybe letting it go, maybe chatting with the mailman one day or maybe not talking to another adult for forty-eight hours. It didn't matter as much as it might have, though, because she also had Esrom's visits.

He kept his word, dropping by to check on her and the girls every couple of days. It turned out that the Fireflite's transmission was completely wrecked and would have to be replaced. Esrom said he'd repair it with no charge for labor if he could work on it in his spare time, but his uncle was charging over a hundred dollars for the part alone, a sum that nearly made Nat grow faint. She began to tuck five dollars here and there from Paul's paychecks, wanting to settle the bill without him knowing, but between Esrom's leisurely pace and her own slow accrual she realized that she would not be getting the car back soon. It didn't much matter; riding the bus was not as bad as she'd feared, and the girls even found it to be a bit of an adventure. Besides, it meant that Esrom continued to drop by.

She found him the same way each time, holding his hat and standing at the back edge of the top step. He always knocked rather than ring the bell, as if he mistrusted that simple technology. And he brought some nature-made trinket for the girls—a hollow wasp's nest, smooth as a gourd; a chipped arrowhead carved from obsidian—that they exclaimed over and then lined up on their bedroom windowsill, like a parade of harmless fetishes.

He said that a couple of weeks ago, while on horseback inspecting his neighbor's fence, he had seen an unusual silhouette at the edge of his vision and ridden over to inspect it. As he got closer he realized that it was two bucks locked at the antlers, big males who, during a fight, had become entangled and were now forced to live eyeball to eyeball, confused and hating each other as they starved.

“If they were humans, they would've figured out a way to take turns eating,” Esrom told the girls, whose little faces were scrunched, trying to picture such a thing. “But being animals, they weren't able to figure it out, and they were starving to death. One would try to pull his head down to eat, and the other would startle and yank them both up. Or they'd pull their necks down in different directions, getting nowhere. Lord knows how long they'd been stuck like that. I didn't get much meat out of those fellas, but I did get two nice racks of antlers.”

He told them about a litter of coyote pups he'd seen on his ranch land, so fluffy and trusting that they stumbled right up to him until the mom flashed into sight and bossed them back underground. “Back when we'd had sheep, I'd have had to shoot them,” he said. “But I was glad not to. They were just like dogs.”

“Oh, I want one!” Sam cried. “I want a coyote pup.”

“Coyotes don't make good pets,” Nat began, but Esrom said, “I know. I want one too.”

At naptime, Nat ushered her girls to the back of the house. She assumed Esrom would take his leave, but when she returned to the kitchen she saw a pair of boots just outside the window at eye level. “Oh, for Pete,” she said with a laugh and walked outside, where Esrom waved distractedly from his ladder. He was grabbing fat, sloppy armfuls of leaves and seedlings from the gutters and chucking them to the ground below.

“Stand back,” he called as another mound of rotting maple pods rained down.

“Stop that,” Nat said. “Don't you have a coyote pup to train or something?”

“Coyotes don't make good pets,” he said. “I thought you knew that.”

Nat crossed her arms. “You've got my little girls dreaming about getting one for Christmas.”

The street was quiet. A few kids played at the far end, but most of the mothers were inside, children napping. She felt she should keep Esrom company when he did these sorts of chores; it didn't seem right that he should be slaving away of his own goodwill while she was inside, resting. She hoped her endless chatter didn't annoy him.

“You can go in,” Esrom called, as if reading her thoughts. “I mean, you don't have to stay right here.”

“I'll sit for a minute,” Nat said. “It's nice out.” And it was, the sky crayon blue, dragged with wisps of clouds.

“I won't be able to come by again till late next week,” Esrom said, climbing down from the ladder and scooting it further around the side of the house. “My neighbor's moving his cattle and I usually help him.”

“Okay,” said Nat. “You don't have to feel responsible for us, you know. Moving his cattle where?”

“Just to another pasture.”

“Do you like that kind of work?” Nat asked.

Esrom tossed another wad of compost to the grass. “I don't know. I never thought about it. Actually, I'm trying to get onto the fire department out at the reactor testing station.”

“Oh,” Nat said.

“Yep. Just got an apartment in town with some friends.”

“Really?” she said, surprised. She associated him only with his mythical ranch; she liked the idea of him there.

“Can't live on my parents' farm forever, right?”

“I guess not.”

“I'm close enough, I can still help out. But it was getting tight over there, all my brothers and sisters growing up. And my dad's a little, I don't know.”

“What?” Nat prodded.

Esrom's mouth pulled to the side. “We butt heads sometimes. Things can just feel small around home.”

“Oh,” said Nat, not knowing exactly what he meant, and feeling she should not press further. “I admire Mormon people,” she said stupidly. “The close families and everything.”

Esrom looked suddenly tired. “Thank you,” he said.

“Have you been fishing out at the reservoir lately?”

“No, not this year. Workin' too much.”

“That's too bad.”

“No, it's a good thing. I need to be working. I was having a slow spell there for a while, back when we ran into you in that diner.” He paused and looked down at Nat as if studying her, hesitated, and said, “I've been wondering, what were you doing at the reservoir that day last summer? You ladies driving that far from home, all by yourselves?”

The way he was looking at her, her heart sped up.

“Oh, we were just on a day trip,” she said. “It's not
that
far away.”

“It's a good long drive just for swimmin'.”

“Sometimes I just need to get out. I wish I could be content like other people, you know, just happy to stay in one place. But I've never been like that. I mean, I can stay in one area, but I need to move around
in
it. I want to see things. Sometimes,” and her face burned because she could tell she was taking her own reply too seriously and talking too much, “I feel like a piece in a china cabinet, you know? Like I just sit still, waiting for something. Like I haven't taken a deep breath in years.”

Esrom watched her.

“I'm so sorry, that was too much of an answer,” Nat said.

“No,” he said. “No, it wasn't.”

“You must think I'm a lunatic. I don't mean to sound discontented. I have a very good life.”

“I know you do,” he said. “Anyone can see that. You for sure don't sound like a lunatic.”

“Paul and I had gotten into an argument,” Nat said. Why stop now? “I wanted to use the car more. He was worried about being late for work. We fought about it a little. I was upset.”

“Oh,” Esrom said. “That makes sense. You seemed—like there was an edge to you.”

Nat rolled her eyes at herself and laughed. “Goodness, I'm obvious. Guess I won't take up poker.”

“So now you have the car all to yourself when your husband's away, but then you go and bust it?” A smile pulled the corners of his mouth.

“Well, when you put it that way, I feel stupid.”

“It wasn't your best move, maybe.”

“How's your friend?” Nat asked. “The waitress—Corrie? The one who hated me.”

“Don't worry about her; she hates everybody.”

“She doesn't hate
you
.” This came out sounding a little too familiar, and Nat wished she had restrained herself.

“Well, no,” he said, not seeming to notice. “Her life is hard. Her and her sisters—they're way out there in the middle of nowhere.” Nat waited for him to elaborate, strangely hungry to hear more about their relationship, more about these sisters who had popped into the conversation just to absurdly bother her, but Esrom glanced toward the street and twisted on the ladder to see behind him. “I think someone's trying to get your attention,” he said.

Nat turned. Jeannie Richards, of all people, had pulled the cream-colored Coupe up to the curb and rolled down the window. Nat hopped to her feet in alarm. She had not spoken with Jeannie since Paul had punched her husband in their own home. She'd passed Jeannie in the neighborhood once or twice, but one or both of them had always been in a car, a level of distance for which Nat was grateful. She was utterly ashamed by what Paul had done. And now here was Jeannie—what for? Had she been gathering up her anger these past weeks, now ready to unleash it upon Nat?

But Jeannie waved, as if the two of them were old pals.

“One second,” Nat said to Esrom, and hurried down to the car window.

“Hello!” Jeannie beamed. “I was just coming by to see how you were.” Her toddler, Angela, was asleep across the backseat.

“Oh,” said Nat, “that's very nice.”

“I'm the new Liaison Office wife,” Jeannie explained. “It's my job now. To check on all my little chickadees and make sure they're doing well.”

“How admirable.”

“I've always liked to volunteer,” Jeannie said, a little primly. “So, how
are
you? Your husband's deployed?”

“He is,” Nat said. “We're doing fine. Look,” she twisted her fingers together, feeling queasy, “I need to apologize for what Paul did to your husband. I'm just—I don't know what to say. I don't know what came over him. He has never done anything like that before.”

“Really?” Jeannie arched her eyebrows. “He seems to have a bit of a temper.”

“I've never known him to
punch
anybody,” Nat said. “Please don't think he's like that. I really can't explain it. But I want you to know how sorry we both are.”

Jeannie let out a low chuckle. “Well, perhaps my husband doesn't bring out the best in everyone.”

Nat laughed, tentatively, surprised. The argument outside Jeannie's home a year ago floated up suddenly between them—Nat could
feel
it hovering there—but she thought that to mention it would be a mistake.

“Your husband's all right, then?” she said. “He's…recovered?”

“Goodness, yes.” Jeannie brushed off Nat's concern with a wave of her hand. “He's a veteran of the Second World War, he can handle a skirmish in his own living room.”