The Ninth Wife (31 page)

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know. Can you take over the driving? I’ll pull over at the next exit.”

T
hey stop at the Hancock Truck Plaza and Little Sandy’s Restaurant. It has a 1950s-style general store that smells of motor oil and creaks like a haunted house. Irv stands at a wall display of baseball hats and tries on a black Harley-Davidson one with orange flames. “Take that off,” says Millie.

Bess peeks in at the adjoining restaurant with its salad bar in a covered wagon. To the right, a plump waitress behind a counter pours coffee for the trucker hunched on his stool who sees something in the waitress’s eyes and slowly turns to look over at Cricket.

“Good afternoon,” Cricket says, approaching the counter. “Might I trouble you to top off my water bottle with ice, please?” A faint radio station is playing golden oldies.

“Sure,” says the waitress. “Where you from?”

“We only just left Washington this morning and are headed to Pittsburgh this evening. We’re driving my friends to Tucson where they’re taking up new residence.”

“Pretty country out there. Hot and dry, though. You’re smart to stay hydrated.” She hands Cricket a full bottle and wishes him a good trip.

Bess listens to this brief, unexpectedly ordinary exchange and feels sad for some reason. Maybe because she sees Millie looking at the sign behind the waitress that reads “Home Is Where the Heart Is.” She wants to comfort Millie, remind her not to put too much stock in pat, embroidered phrases. But the stupid sign is weighing on her, too. After this trip is over and she returns to D.C., will it feel as much like home without her grandparents there as it did before? “C’mon, Gram. Let’s go. Cricket, we’ll meet you outside.”

She leaves Millie and Irv on a bench by the store while she drives the van over to the gas station across the lot. With a moment to herself she takes out her cell phone and listens to Maggie’s message. She dials the New York number.

“Maggie?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Bess Gray.”

“Ah yes. How’s the trip going?”

“It’s been okay. I’m tired, and not a big fan of driving. But I think it’ll be fine.”

“I smash cars myself. It’s a wonder I’m still alive.”

And a wonder people like my dad are dead
, Bess is thinking. What kind of person brags about smashing cars? “Are you in New York now?”

“In Seattle. I head back tomorrow.”

“I see, so this is your cell phone.” Bess sees Cricket motion to her to hurry it up. She waves and holds up a finger to say,
One minute
. “I don’t have much time to talk. I just wanted to say thanks for returning my calls and understanding my situation. I was hoping we could meet sometime. I should be back from my trip in a few weeks. Any chance you’ll be in New York  . . . ?”

“Which way are you driving across?” Maggie interrupts.

“Through Chicago,” says Bess, fumbling with her keys. “We should be there tomorrow night and then we’re staying a few days. Why?”

“Perfect. I connect flights in Chicago. Can you meet me at the airport?”

Wow
, thinks Bess.
She really wants to see me.
But why?
Is this a good thing?
“I can meet you there, sure, but it’s just as easy to meet you in New—”

“Good. Done. I’ll call you with flight info.” She hangs up.

Bess hesitates before she tosses her phone onto her seat. Why is Maggie so eager to meet? Why didn’t she ask anything about Rory like Carol did? Why did it sound as if Maggie just closed a deal? Bess entertains the idea of calling her back and backing out.
What do you think?
she says to Peace through the side window. Peace’s dark eyes stare out toward the western horizon.

T
he highway dips and climbs through the Allegheny Mountains. Just beyond the sign marking the Mason-Dixon Line they see the gruesome remnants of a dead deer on the highway, the head and a leg. The van’s passengers look on in silence. There’s the God’s Ark of Safety Church and whiskey barrels for sale and soon the sign for Fallingwater. They park, leave Cricket and Stella and Peace, and walk to the octagonal outdoor reception area. It’s elegantly designed and smells of cedar and honey. And it’s quiet but for the insects and a handful of other tourists who will join Bess and her grandparents on their tour of the house, the last one of the day, which begins down a gravelly pathway that proves difficult for Millie and Irv. The guide warns them of the long walk and the steps, but they wave away her concerns. “We’re fine, dear,” says Millie, walking slowly, holding on to Irv’s arm.

Bess observes her grandparents before she offers her help. They both look distinguished and adorable. She takes out her camera and snaps a photo. “Smile,” she says, and they do.
Love each other and be happy
, she wants to add, as if their response could be just as easy and automatic.

The house over the waterfall is a dramatic sight. The tour guide tells them Frank Lloyd Wright designed it in 1935 for the Kaufmann family who owned a department store in Pittsburgh. Millie is impressed this belongs to a Jewish family, that they could afford it even though it went eight times over budget. She stops at the portrait of Mr. Kaufmann, a handsome, muscular man in elegant attire. His gaze captivates her, Bess notices. “Did you know him?” Bess asks, thinking maybe the Jewish/East Coast fashion industry was smaller than she first thought.

Millie does not answer right away. She looks wistful. “No, I didn’t,” she says, her voice seemingly heavy with a half century of unfulfilled dreams.

On guided tours, Bess likes to trail behind. She remembers her mom was the type to walk in front, wedging in extra questions to the guide, but Bess is innately averse to groups. Besides, everyone but her is part of a couple. She watches them, inventing their stories—the community college sweethearts with the gleaming white high-tops, married too soon, he in the military, away a lot, she gaining weight, too tied to her mother; the polite and plump West Virginia retirees, he barbecues and falls asleep in his La-Z-Boy, she cuts coupons and sings in the church choir and removes her husband’s reading glasses and urges him to bed; the urban pair in faded jeans, she keeping her five-year-old’s hands off the furniture, he with their sleeping second strapped to his back, their BlackBerrys in the SUV and their neighbor watching their dog and watering their deck plants.

“Excuse me,” the little girl in the group singsongs as she wedges past Bess. Her dad smiles and nods, as if to say,
Sorry, but isn’t she cute?
Bess offers a polite smile as she is hit with a little pang of jealousy: of a little girl who still has her dad; and of a guy who looks roughly her age who is lucky enough to have a daughter.

“Bess, where is your grandfather?” asks Millie. The group has walked up to the second tier of rooms. Bess is admiring the throw pillows when Millie approaches. With her arthritic hip, she looks like a puppet on strings coming up the stairs.

“I thought he was with you,” says Bess. She takes her grandmother’s arm and helps her up the last stair.

“He does this,” says Millie, slightly out of breath but loud enough for the West Virginia retirees to glance their way. “He wanders off, forgets where he is. The old man, he’ll be the death of me.”

“Excuse me,” says one of the retirees. “I think the gentleman you’re looking for is out there.” She points to one of several terraces that jut out from the rooms like concrete trays. Irv is standing alone, his hands clasped behind him, his body bent over a small algae-laden pool.

Millie turns abruptly and marches outside. She swings Irv around with a strong tug of his shirtsleeve. “What’s wrong with you? Where did you go?” she screams.

“Nowhere! There was a bird. Look,” he says, pointing with his eyes to the water.

“I don’t care about a bird, Irving. You don’t wander off at your age. You could have fallen off a cliff!”

The full tour group is now staring at them through an open doorway. Though her grandparents’ voices are slightly muffled, Bess can hear them clearly, tuned as she is to their frequency of fury. The thought occurs to her to go to them, tell them to keep their voices down, be a buffer between them and defuse their argument. That’s her usual role. But looking at them now, she feels a stronger impulse to disassociate herself from the spectacle.
Here, folks, you have
the American marriage, circa 1940
, she imagines a tour guide saying.
Observe how the female of the species screeches and moves about.
The male becomes passive and frightened.

The tour guide begins to speak again and moves the group in the opposite direction. Bess hangs back and waits. But as she waits she notices that this fight of theirs sounds different than what she usually witnesses. Millie does sound angrier and Irv . . . why isn’t he yelling back? She steps closer to the doorway. She sees Millie reach out and clench her hand around Irv’s forearm. “Ow Mildred, you’re hurting me,” Irv is saying.

“Hey,” says Bess, rushing outside. “What’s going on?”

Millie releases Irv’s arm, says
feh
, and turns away. “I’m going back to the tour, which way did they go?” She heads where Bess points.

Irv rubs the spot where Millie grabbed him.

“Did she hurt you?”

“I’m fine, Bessie.”

“Let me see your arm.”

“No. I’m okay. Your grandmother was just worried.” Irv puts his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “Let’s catch up. This is an interesting place, no?” Irv walks slowly in the direction of the group.

What just happened? Did Millie grab him too hard? Did she hurt him? A vision comes to Bess of the day her grandparents told her they were moving, when Irv stood in his undershirt by the window looking weak and wistful. Bess remembers the bruises on his arms. She had thought then that he was carelessly bumping into things, but now . . . could Millie be that angry? An eighty-two-year-old who all her life has encapsulated her anger in the robes of social etiquette and quiet despair? It could happen, Bess supposes. And despite her grandmother’s size and age, she knows Millie has the strength to squeeze hard. She has felt it in the tight, bony grips of Millie’s hugs, in the lingering pain of a pinched cheek. Is it suspect that Millie dresses Irv—as she always has, laying out his clothes for him on the bed in the morning—in long-sleeve shirts despite the heat?

Bess doesn’t want to think about it. It’s absurd, really, if you look at them, which Bess does now that they are seated for the video that will end their tour. Even though they are not holding hands or even sitting together, they are unmistakably a couple. Bess wants to hold them. She wants to tell them it’s all going to be all right, this move, this slow dimming of their lives.

“So how was it?” says Cricket back at the van. He lowers his
O
magazine to his lap. Millie and Irv are walking toward them through the near-empty lot.

“Nice. Cricket, do you think my grandmother is capable of hurting my grandfather? I mean physically hurting him?” Bess is talking quickly while they are still alone.

“Millie, that sweet dove? Where did you get such a ridiculous idea?”

“I saw her grab him and I thought—” but here she stops. Millie and Irv are nearly upon them. “Never mind.”

“Cricket, it was beautiful,” says Millie. “You can see the waterfall from all the rooms through floor-to-ceiling windows.” Millie gestures with her hand above her head to show how tall the windows were.

Irv steps quietly up into the van.

T
he traffic through the tunnel to Pittsburgh is thick with stickered cars showing their loyalty to the Steelers. Though it’s not fully dark yet, Millie and Irv say they are tired and wouldn’t mind ordering room service at the hotel, so they drop Cricket and Stella off at his friend’s apartment and head for the Hilton. Bess kisses them good night after they check in and, exhausted herself, clicks her card key into her room and falls onto the bed.

She remains still for a while thinking of Millie. Her book on Zen and karate talks about anger and its dismantling of self-control. Anger as a feeling, the book says, is natural, but it doesn’t demand action. One doesn’t want to be angry and thus lose self-control in a sparring situation, but this is true for life, too, no? Is Millie losing control?

After a time, her thoughts wind their way to Rory and then to Maggie and Dao and the other wives. In some ways it feels like they are traveling with her, ghosts in her suitcase that fly about the room now that she’s alone.

She turns on her laptop to check her e-mail. There is one from Dao.

dear bess,

i commend your inquisitiveness. May you catch the clouded leopard through the dripping vines. but be cautious.

i did not seek out rory’s wives. my explorations then were more inward and onward. if they were behind me, they were through the labyrinth of my own origins, a wild overgrown jungle of tangled confusions. but i am older now and i see the wisdom of exploring jungles other than one’s own, particularly if they help inform you of your own terrain. it is a cushioned route to the truth, but i would have welcomed it. i imagine i might not have been so raw.

but like you, two of rory’s wives found me. you are like the first, a voice from afar, welcome and unfeigned, though she had already left this life behind. pam was her name, the one before me. i saw her shadow on a full moon. she dropped a rose petal on a caterpillar and said without words that marriage to rory would be like that. it made a difference to me.

but the other one i did not like. she stalked me. she called my house several times a day. she sent mail i would not read. i confronted her. she said she must warn me. she said I should leave rory while i still had my safety.

i threatened to file a restraining order and she did not bother me again. her name was lorraine, i believe. i do not think she should be among the ones you seek. the poisonous traps of a jungle are best left unsprung.