The Night Before (5 page)

She had just given Malikah a snack and had gone back to finishing the ribbon on the last of the gifts when Terry came in the door. She heard him muttering about something and then he appeared in the kitchen doorway. The dull-eyed, dopey look on his face told her that their night was about to go wrong.

“How was your meeting?” she said.

Terry pulled his eyes off the gaily-wrapped package. “My what?”

“Your meeting,” she said. “With your counselor. How did it go?” Terry said, “It went, uh…”

Nicole knew. He hadn't made his rehab appointment at all. She was on him, pulling up his sleeve with a rough motion. When she saw the fresh tracks, she jerked his arm as if trying to pull it out of its socket.

“You scored?” her voice went up. “With what?” He gaped at her, his face a cartoon of slow wit. “With what?” She turned around and grabbed her bag from the counter. Myra called from the front room. “Terry! Get in here, goddamnit!”

Nicole tossed the bag back on the counter and fixed a hard eye on him. “You took the money.”

“Terry!”

Malikah said, “Mama…”

Now Myra was screeching. “Now!”

Terry mumbled something and back away from Nicole. He wouldn't meet her eyes as he disappeared through the doorway.

“I had forty damn dollars here,” Myra was raging. “Did you take it? Answer me. Or was it her took it?”

Nicole felt her face getting hot. She made a beeline for the living room. Myra was out of her chair, waving her purse in the air. “Did you take my money?”

Nicole glared back at her. “I never took a dime from you, Myra.” She clenched her fists to keep herself from slapping the old bitch's face. There had never been any doubt that the woman was a racist, the small-town, white trash, bred in the bone kind. She railed about the coons on the street and the jungle-bunnies on TV, even when Nicole and Malikah were in the room. Now she went into overdrive.

“I said I want her out of here, goddamnit!” Myra shrieked. “You hear me?”

Terry was sniveling. “Ma…” His eyes were red and brimming.

Myra was raging. “Out of this goddamn house!” she screeched “Right now.

An echoing silence descended. A few seconds went by and Terry turned around again. It was if his skin had been stripped away, leaving a sick, weak, skeleton in full view.

Nicole understood instantly. She turned around and kneeled down. “Go get your coat on,” she whispered. Malikah started to sniffle. “Don't cry, baby.”

She bundled her daughter while Myra muttered curses and Terry shook and moaned. Keeping her back to Malikah, Nicole glared at him. “You sonofabitch,” she said. “It's Christmas.” If she could have gotten her hands on the pistol he kept stashed upstairs, she might have shot the both of them.

Malikah was whimpering as they fled into the raw night. Nicole fixed Myra with a last look that froze the woman's tongue, even as her son sobbed in the background. Malikah held out her hands for the gaily-wrapped presents and wailed.

Neither the bartender nor either of the two lonely customers looked up when they went out the door again. The night had turned crystalline and the snow had dampened the cold. They tramped unsteadily down Ferry Street. Gina's coat was threadbare, a funky piece from a thrift store rack. She told Joe not to worry; she was warm enough.

He hoped she wasn't following him because he didn't know where he was going. After every few steps he thought about wishing her good night and turning for home. He wondered if the kids had missed him yet. Probably not; it was still early and they had the party at Betsy's. Then he wondered if Mariel was taking comfort from Don, who had to be in a panic of his own. Would they show their faces at the party? They'd have to. Joe took a moment's comfort at imagining Don's fake jovial laugh and Mariel's blanching face, both of them wondering if any second he'd come bursting through the door, ready to ruin both their lives.

Gina trudged ahead through the soft snow, talking over her shoulder as she passed on high school history in breathless snippets. “You hear about Ray Fegler? He shot his ex-wife.” Then, “Carmine Zitelli. He played football, you remember? He got AIDs and died.” And, “Hey, whatever happened to Billy Alden, that guy you used to hang with?”

Only after she stopped walking did he hear her last question. “So, you want to come up?”

She had stopped at a doorway lodged between two storefronts where Fourth and Queen streets crossed.

Joe said, “This is… “

“My place,” she said. “Where I live.”

The furnishings weren't much, all worn, and stuffed into two small rooms. The walls were a dingy off-white and the string of lights over the street windows sagged into something like a clown's sad smile. This was where her life had placed her after the almost thirty years since they'd left school.

She produced a bottle of wine from a kitchen cabinet and poured two glasses. Joe sipped, found it sweet and not to his liking. She dug out a pack of Marlboros and lit up without offering him one.

She wouldn't meet his eyes. He understood; in the space of an hour, they had gone from forgetting that the other one existed to the intimacy of a dark, quiet abode. He was absently aware that the door to the dark bedroom was half-open and let himself consider that there was seduction in progress. She was not a young girl, flaunting her freedom. She was in her forties, alone and lonely, and craving. She seemed to read these thoughts, knew he knew her secret, and was ashamed.

“Sorry about the wine,” she said and tried for a laugh that didn't work. The tip of her cigarette glowed from a shadow.

Joe crossed the room to stand at the window. Using the side of his fist to clear the frost, he looked out to see that the snow had stopped falling on the white-quilted streets and sidewalks.

With his back to Gina and the cramped room and gazing out at this winter wonderland, it occurred to him that he had known all along in some corner of his gut that Mariel had betrayed him. Not just once, and maybe not just with Don, either. He guessed that she had told herself that the dalliances were her right and his punishment, payback for his failures. Going back to that long ago evening in Brosman's and the Epiphany Star.

As the years passed, he had not been so blind as to miss the light in her eyes shifting away from him. What had happened to the dreams - no, the promises - of fame and riches? They had been dumped at the side of the road, the reality of the work he had chosen. So why, when it dawned on her that he was such a loser, didn't she pack up the kids and leave or tell him to hit the road, Jack? Same story; because she would not cheat the children out of a decent father. She was not a bad woman and in that respect, had done the right thing.

At the same time, he had been unwilling to face the forlorn drama that was coming his way like a rumbling train. So Don wasn't the first. Other men had taken his wife, spread her legs, mounted her from front and back, and she had in turn done all sorts of delicious erotic things to them. Meanwhile, he raised their son and daughter and tried to make something magical appear on sheets of 80-pound paper.

Out of the shadows, Gina said, “What was that?” and he realized he had muttered something.

“She said she'd give me a year to finish the book, another year to sell it. And then find a real job.”

Gina shifted her position on the couch and said, “Oh?”

“But, I didn't. Find the job, I mean.”

That had been their agreement, his and Mariel's. He managed to bring in a little money with the first book, next to nothing from the other two. He floundered about with freelance work and teaching and his wife came to understand that she had married a noble fool.

Gina said, “So what's her name?”

Joe hesitated, feeling that he was starting down a crooked path. How much did he want this stranger to know?

“It's Mariel,” he said at last.

“And the kids?”

“Hannah and Christian,” he said and swallowed. “What about the other guy?”

He turned around and settled on the windowsill, feeling the chilled glass through the back of his sweater. He couldn't make out Gina's face or read the tone of her voice. He spent a moment wondering if he had given some clue or if she had seen his type before, having spent a good part of her life in saloons. Husbands or boyfriends betrayed by their women and nursing their wounds. So now he was a “type.”

“Our next-door neighbor,” he said.

“How long has it been going on?”

“I don't know. Maybe it was the first time. But I doubt it.”

“Was it your fault or hers?”

He chewed on it for a few seconds before saying, “I guess mine.”

“How so?”

“I didn't do my part,” he said and immediately realized how foolish that sounded, like they had been engaged in some trivial project. To keep her from probing any deeper, he said, “What about you? You and, uh, Kevin. What happened?”

She took of sip of her wine. “What happened was that two totally fucked-up people ran into each other full-speed.” She made fists and brought her knuckles together. “We did that until one of us broke.” Her clenched hands opened. “That would be me.”

She related in a soft, steady voice how her husband had gone bad. The drinking and drugging went from a hobby to a career. He smacked her around when the mood was on him. Of course, there were other women. She laughed crookedly. “I'd call them dumb sluts,” she said. “But what would that make me?”

The last straw was the theft of several thousand dollars of the tavern's receipts one night after closing.

“And then he disappeared,” she said. “Haven't heard from him since. No one has. My dad swore out a warrant for his arrest. But it's been years now. Maybe
he's
in Mexico.”

She crushed out her cigarette, got to her feet, and crossed the floor to lean against the window frame opposite Joe. “That's old news,” she said. “You're still bleeding here.”

Joe wondered what he was supposed to say to that. He didn't want her sympathy. He didn't want to discuss his horrible joke of a Christmas gift. Because the next step might be to pitch himself out the window and be done with it. Though that wasn't his style, either.

Some quiet moments went by. Gina, half in shadow, was regarding him steadily, waiting. He sensed that she would go willingly if he made the slightest move her way. Indeed, as if sensing a change in the air, she turned in his direction. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and her response was to raise her head and gaze into his eyes. Her mouth was parted slightly and he knew that if he bent to her, there'd be no turning back. So he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her too close to kiss.

She whispered, “Joe. Poor baby.”

In the next lingering moments, his mind wandered and he saw himself standing in a series of doorways: the front door of the little frame house he'd grown up in; the one from where he viewed Mariel and Don; finally, the one that opened into Gina's bedroom. His thoughts shifted and he considered the question of one misdeed earning another. Did it matter anymore that he was still married? Having been true to his wife except for a single drunken groping with their neighbor Tina in the front seat of a car five years before, he had never strayed.

Time stretched in an arc that waxed and waned. Gina held fast, purring against him. He was shifting his body against hers when he happened to glance out the window to see a scarecrow standing on the opposite sidewalk, stark and stiff against the new snow.

“There's somebody out there,” he said. Peering closer, he saw that it was one of the two customers from Jimmy's. “It's -”

“Sonny.” Gina said. “From the bar.”

When Joe continued to stare out at the lonely figure, she pulled away from him, turned, and picked up her cigarettes from the end table. Joe said, “What's he doing out there?”

“What he always does,” she said. “Waiting to see if the guy is going to stay.”

“What guy?”

In response, she snapped her lighter, blew a slow plume of smoke, and watched it curl to the ceiling.

Joe rubbed the glass, this time with his sleeve. Sonny stood unflinching in the icy breeze that traveled along the street. Joe felt cold just watching him. “How long will he stay there?” he said. “Until the lights go out.” Joe looked at her and she shrugged. “It's what he does.”

“Why?”

“Because he thinks he's in love with me.”

“Maybe he is.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said.

A quiet minute went by. The glass misted over once more and Sonny disappeared. Gina said, “It's getting late. You should probably go.”

Joe tilted his head to the window. “Will you let him come in?” She gave him a look that was faintly amused. “What do you care?”

“It's Christmas.”

“I guess I could.”

“Can I tell him?”

She smiled a real smile for the first time all evening. With a slow roll of her eyes, she said, “If you want.”

At the door, she surprised him by stretching to kiss his cheek. “Take care of yourself, Joe,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”

Sonny watched as Joe stopped in the middle of the street. “She says for you to go on up.”

Sonny straightened into a posture of uncertainty that he held until Joe had moved off, then made his way to Gina's front door. When Joe looked back, he saw her silhouette at the frosted window above. He raised a hand in farewell, but she didn't see it.

Mariel made her way down the stairs to find that Don had vacated the premises. She went into the kitchen and refilled her glass from the pitcher, hoping to ease the fluttering ache in her chest, but after a small sip of the eggnog, she felt her gut churning again and tossed what was left in the glass down the drain.

She felt shaking weak as she bundled herself for the walk to Betsy's, as if in the wake of a bout of flu. Outside, the sky had cleared, leaving the night crisp and cold, with only an odd flurry crossing her path. After what had just transpired, the familiar street seemed surreal. She recalled about the few times in her younger life when she had gotten into real trouble and how she had wished desperately to evaporate, if only to save her from the wrath of her angry father or the sad face of the boyfriend she had wronged.