The Sweetheart Deal (18 page)

L
eo had already decided to apply to the fire academy before he moved to Portland. I remember the conversation so clearly. We were lying in bed one morning and he was twirling my hair around his finger. I wanted to get up and make coffee, and he told me,
Wait. I want to tell you what I want to do, and if you don't want me to do it, now's the time to say so. Don't hold anything back, Audrey. This time I'm packing, then driving back out here. I'm going to apply to the fire department here, and, maybe not right away, but soon, this place will be my home as much as yours.
He had graduated with a degree in history less than a year earlier.
What the hell am I going to do with that?
he'd said.
Get a job as an historian? Right, because I hear that's where the money is.

I didn't care. I didn't care what he did. All that mattered to me was that he was moving, and coming west to me, for me, for us. So he'd sent in his application and joined a gym, and although he'd saved money, he wanted to work until he heard back from the academy. Of course he did. He needed something to do, and he told me outright it didn't suit him for me to go to work every day and earn a paycheck while he didn't. Someone he'd met at his gym, Alan or Adam, or maybe nothing even close, told him he knew of a club that needed security and paid well. It wasn't until after he was hired that Leo told me he'd gotten a job at Doc's Bar & Grill on Powell. He'd only work three nights a week, he said, and it would be late, but the money would be good and he could take a book with him.

“What kind of place is it?” I'd asked him.

Without balking he'd said, “Dancers. It's a strip club.”

I had just stared at him. Now I did care. His ambitions and my expectations of him and us didn't include this.

“Are you fucking kidding me? No,” I'd told him. I didn't care if he'd been to strip clubs in the past. I did care about Leo and this particular strip club, now.

“Jesus, Audrey,” he'd said. “I'm outside. I work the
door
.”

“So you never see a thing?” I'd said.

“Are you serious?” he'd said. “It's a job. I'm not spending my
time
there. I'm not there because I'm looking for something to do.”

It was the first thing we fought about, and we fought bitterly. It was a point of contention so early in our relationship, so soon after he'd relocated, that I'd quickly been jolted from my idea of us as an untouchable couple, because as soon as we were together, this became part of our reality. This was the employment solution he'd found, and after multiple versions of the same argument, I'd taken a leap of faith. In the end, I'd had nothing to worry about. He came home about a half hour after his shift—as long as it took to drive home—and never smelled or looked or acted like anything except a tired guy who'd been working the door at a bar.

He had worked there only six weeks when he was accepted to the academy and the Doc's stint was over. His departure from it was as unremarkable as if he'd left a summer job scooping ice cream to go to college. The focus was on what lay ahead, and I was crazy about him all over again. I'd never thought another person could make me so happy. We'd weathered a tiny, inconsequential storm.

So when the letter came in the mail one day in early June with a return address in Beaverton and handwriting I didn't recognize, I thought it was one of those solicitations made to look like genuine letters sent by real people. I just didn't even think about it. But when I opened it, I saw that it wasn't junk at all; the handwriting was real. I looked to the end for the signature, which said,
Yours truly, Wade Reynolds,
and as I read the letter, I learned Leo must not have only ever stayed outside when he worked at Doc's.

I read the letter a second time.
Are you kidding me? Really?
I thought.
Well
,
you're
still
full of surprises, aren't you?
Why Leo hadn't told me about tutoring the kid, I couldn't imagine—it wasn't something to keep secret. Unless it was because a friendship with Wade Reynolds would have revealed Leo wasn't in fact
always
outside? I had made a huge deal about it, and we were so young and new together. He'd left one side of the country for the other. But later, years after Doc's and once he was in the department, if Matt and Leo had stayed in touch, why hadn't he told me about it then?
Shared
it with me? He didn't share it with me. He didn't share.

What if Leo had asked too much of Matt Reynolds? Leo hadn't had a right to hold someone else's kid to that kind of commitment, although it had all turned out well and Matt's own father was happy. But what if Matt had wanted less, had been happy with less? To go to a vocational school and get a job after graduation? If he went to Leo with those plans, what did Leo say? Maybe Matt wanted those more modest, equally worthy goals, and because of Leo's expectations, the kid had graduated from college instead. I had no way of knowing, and it made me crazy—like I needed one more thing.

Leo had always asked too much of people. Andrew was only two when Leo had our family do fire drills; it seemed to make sense at the time, but had the boys really been old enough to understand what to do if we'd had a fire? Brian had been terrified but it had been nothing but a game to Andrew. He left Christopher, at nine, in charge of his brothers when he went out to the store for food for dinner one night when I was out—wasn't that too much to ask? He'd taught the boys to ski and bike and ride their skateboards early and well; at the time I thought it was about safety, but maybe it had been about achievement. After I had run three half marathons and was planning a fourth, Leo had said to me, “You've already nailed the halves—why don't you run a full?” And I'd laughed and said, “Because I don't
want
to run a full. If you think it's such a great idea, you do it.” It wasn't the last time he brought it up.

After all the years we were married, with him gone, I was still uncovering the person Leo had been. If he were alive, would I still be discovering new things about the man I lived with every day, year after year? If we had both lived into our nineties, would he have
ever
told me about helping Matt Reynolds? Would Wade have written the same kind of letter of thanks to Leo if he hadn't died? If he had and if I'd gotten the mail and asked him about it, what would Leo have said? What if I'd answered the phone when Matt had called, before cell phones? How had I never? Leo had always held others to the same high standards that he held himself to, not higher ones, but what if what wasn't too high for Leo was too high for someone else? He wasn't critical, but he would push, sometimes more than a person wanted to be pushed. How often had the boys or I disappointed him and not known it? Had he just waited, bided his time, hoping we'd do better the next time?

I
had come up with a plan and had decided to share it with Audrey one day during the last month the boys were in school, the last month we were predictably alone. But only after we left the sheets in a twist and the pillows thrown on the floor. And after I held my hand gently over her mouth because the bedroom window was open, and when I'd closed the curtain I'd seen the neighbors across the street working in their front yard. And after we showered and I washed her hair and she shaved my face—the first time I'd ever let a woman do such a thing—concentrating to relax and not clench the whole time. I was going to tell her that after the addition was finished I was thinking about staying in Portland.

We went to lunch at the Rams Head on Northwest Twenty-Third, and since it was such a nice day we got a table outside, but it wasn't a quiet or secluded place to sit. It was a narrow sidewalk. And although it was a weekday, so many people walked by, the pedestrian traffic close enough to knock something off our table if they wanted to. Each time someone passed, it felt to me like they were about to pull up a chair and join us. And the bicyclist and skateboarder who streaked past, they shouldn't have been on the sidewalk in the first place.

I was annoyed, granted, but maybe it had more to do with my nerves, what I was going to tell her. We ordered drinks and I pretended we were in the middle of an empty patio. It was sunny, and we both sat there drinking, wearing our sunglasses. It was far from a honeymoon, but it made me imagine a scene anyway, of a couple on an exotic, well-planned one. The honeymoons other people had.

Then at the same time:

Me: “I want to tell you something I've been thinking about.”

Audrey: “Do you know someone named Wade Reynolds?”

She took a sip of wine, then, right away, another.

“Wade Reynolds?” I said. I looped back through a mental list:
Portland,
neighbor, student, colleague, college, high school, childhood
. I drew a blank. I would have remembered a name like that. “No,” I said. “Never heard of him. Who is it?”

“I got a letter in the mail yesterday,” Audrey said. “Kevin was over and you guys were working. Just the strangest thing. From this guy named Wade Reynolds who Leo worked with when he first moved here, at this place called Doc's? Remember? It was a strip club—do you remember? Did he ever tell you about it?”

I did remember. I remembered Leo telling me what kind of deep shit he was in with her and how he thought about quitting as soon as he'd started because there was no way he was going to fuck things up. Not for such a thing, after having come so far to be with her. But the money was good and he didn't want to be a kept man. He'd get a job slinging coffee if he had to, he'd said, but it was what he had for the time being. He only ended up working there for about a month anyway, and left after he got into the academy.

“Yeah, I remember,” I said. “Vaguely. He didn't work there that long, did he?”

“Did he ever tell you anything about Doc's?” she said. “He never mentioned Wade or anyone else who worked there?”

I pushed my glasses up on top of my head and took a long sip of my beer. “No,” I said. “Not really. Only about the trouble it caused between the two of you. It bothered him and he was worried.” I took my glasses off and put them on the table and leaned back. “That's it. Christ, that was a long time ago.” I heard those last words linger in the air and how I'd said them, and felt regret and pleasure in equal measure.

On my right, Audrey's left, two women, each pushing a stroller—one headed in one direction, one in the other—converged next to our table and, each smiling with apology and understanding at the other—
We're all in this together
—negotiated the passing and continued on their way. Once they managed the pass, they each waved a hand behind them.
Carry on!

Audrey had watched the exchange between the women too, in silence, and continued gazing over my shoulder after they were gone. Or so it seemed. The sun was behind me and she still had her sunglasses on. I waited. I finished my beer. I looked for our server to hail. I was getting more annoyed. Why hadn't we sat inside? Maybe we should finish our drink and leave and skip lunch.

I felt nasty and mean. As petulant as a child not getting his way. My temper expanded. This wasn't the lunch I wanted. I sat there, checking in with myself, aware of all of it, submerging in the simmer. I put my sunglasses back on.

“So, Audrey, and—?” I said. “The letter. What's up?”

“Oh, sorry.” Not two hours earlier, she had shuddered under me, her heels digging into my back, but now she seemed surprised not only that I was sitting across the table from her but also that I'd just spoken, and she looked back at me, away from where she'd been staring.

She took off her glasses, put them on the table, and brushed her hair away from her face. “It was a very strange letter to get. This man, Wade—it was a very nice letter too. Well, I'd never heard of him either, but he had written to tell me how sorry he was about Leo and to thank me, because back then Leo had tutored his son, Matthew. Matthew was having a hard time in school, and I guess for a long time after that he stayed in touch with the kid, told him to stay the course, you know, stay in school, and to let him know, to get in touch with him, with Leo, if he ever felt like he was getting off track.”

I waited for more. She looked down at her wineglass and traced the stem, scowling.

“Okay,” I said, irritated, bored. I didn't give a fuck about Wade Reynolds. “I don't get why it's strange, really. You've heard from a lot of people, haven't you? But I guess it is an awkward thing for the guy to do, to write to you now. Kind of disturbing too, I think, coming out of the woodwork all these months later.”

She looked at me then with an expression that I'd never seen on her. But I recognized it. I'd seen it on plenty of other women's faces.

“Garrett, are you listening to me?” she said. As she talked, her words became quieter, not louder, and slower, not faster. “Sorry you're not interested in anything I'm saying. He wrote to me
now
because he wanted to tell me that his kid graduated from college and was in the Peace Corps and is getting married next year. He made it. He made it because of what Leo asked him to do, and the kid did it. Wade Reynolds wanted to thank
me—
he can't exactly thank Leo, now can he—because his son did what Leo had asked him to instead of turning out to be some loser, his father's worst nightmare, some criminal in jail or living on the street or dealing drugs or even pumping fucking gas, I guess. I don't know. The letter's not
disturbing
. What's strange is that I never heard of any of this happening. Leo never said anything to me about it. I find out now. I think that's fucked up. What's going to come in the mail next week? A picture of his other, secret family? You read about this kind of thing happening to wives, right? After some guy dies? The poor wife never had any idea.” She finally stopped talking and exhaled. “I just assumed I could talk to you about it, you know, since.” She waved her hand in the air above the table, toward me, back to her, and me again. “My mistake.” She looked at her lap. “Never assume.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Now, after all the times I'd grappled with it, tossed the idea back and forth, weighed the odds—
Now? No, wait. Yes? No
—I knew I could never tell her. It was too late. It had been for a long time, but what she'd just said underlined the fact. Although by comparison, what he'd asked of me would surely make her feel better about Wade and Matt Reynolds. Of that I was confident. It would help her forget all about them. And even without disclosing that, I was still fucking up, right this minute.

However familiar to me Audrey's expression was from all the times I'd seen it on the faces of other women I'd alienated and angered, their looks had never alarmed me the way hers did now. I'd never felt compelled to do whatever it would take to eradicate that look of utter disappointment and disgust overlaid with disbelief. But now I wished I had some experience with undoing the damage, had spent some time practicing such a thing. When I finally needed to do it, pull out that work ethic—now—I felt as skilled as a nine-year-old mistakenly recruited to drive the getaway car who pleaded for help at the crucial moment,
Which pedal?

The sidewalk wasn't really wide enough, but fuck it, the fucking sidewalk, I stood up and picked up my chair and put it on the other side of the table, next to Audrey's. People could go around, walk single file, whatever they had to. The next set of opposing strollers could cross the street. And I didn't care who saw us, either. I was consoling a friend.

I didn't put my arm around her, but I set my hand on the back of her chair and leaned in, blocking out the street and whatever else was behind me. This trouble had happened to her yesterday and she'd put it aside in some holding place, a little box, and carried on, finished the day, had sex with me this morning, and now she'd brought the problem out into the light again and I'd made her regret it.

“No, Audrey, I'm sorry,” I said. “You're right—it is a big deal. What a weird shock. I'm sorry I didn't know about it yesterday. You could have told me, you know. I just, you know.” I knocked a knuckle against my forehead. “I didn't understand at first, I didn't get it. I wasn't really paying attention and I should have been. I was thinking about something else and I really am sorry. Maybe the guy's some kind of crackpot anyway.”

She moved and turned her chair to face me better, which made me have to take my hand off its back and stretch my arm so now I could rest my hand on the metal arm.

“No, he's legit,” she said. “I can tell.” Her anger was cooling but she was still brooding, and my one thought about Leo was not kind. Despite what was happening between Audrey and me, I'd have had him back here alive in an instant if I could have, and I would have walked away and gone back home, but this ghost that was lingering, this ghost and the mess that he'd left, I could do without.
You're still here
.
Either be here or don't.

“Okay, well, that's good,” I said. “You know, whatever made Leo decide not to say anything about this to you, I know he had good intentions. He wanted to help this guy's kid, right, sure he did, and I know the trouble him having that job caused with you, even if it wasn't for very long. It was just the beginning, right? You guys were just starting out. There was no way he was going to do something to ruin it. And he couldn't decide not to help the kid if he thought he should. Right? Am I right? And, Audrey, there's no secret family, for God's sake, trust me. I know that. That's crazy talk, so stop.”

She looked at me and smiled, a tiny one. “I know—what's the point of being mad now? Really, the letter was very nice. Just unexpected. I hate surprises, and it just brings up more—it brings up things for me to think about that I didn't know I'd have to.” She pressed her fingers into the corners of her eyes. “And you think you know a person. You think you know the person you're married to for as long as we were.”

Fuck, I should get on a plane and go home. Today.
“Audrey, I loved him and I miss him and I'd do anything to have him back,” I said. “So I don't want this to come out the wrong way.”

Looking at me, she waited for something much more significant than what I was about to offer.

“We're idiots,” I said. “Men are dumb. I don't have to tell you that.”

Then she smiled more but looked down at her lap. “I know,” she said. “I know you are. But I love you anyway.”

I knew what she meant, but I hustled to field her slip anyway. Taken out of context, it was a string of words that she surely hadn't intended to say.

So I laughed, to divert and to relieve and to hide. “We try to make up for it by doing things that are helpful. We have to, so you'll keep us around. All the lifting, the hauling, the hammering, repairing, et cetera. We try to be funny and make you laugh.” I took my arm off her chair. I thought about when I'd left the bar because of how my student had waved at me from her table. “We try to stay relevant in other ways to make up for who we are. It might not seem like it, but we're aware of our shortcomings.” I looked around for our server again. I picked up my chair and put it back on the other side of the table and sat down. “Where the fuck
is
our guy, anyway?”

“Thanks,” she said. “And I'm sorry I went off.”

“No, I'm sorry, really,” I said. “Do you want another drink? Should we order?” A new kind of lunch had appeared in our series of otherwise carefree dates—the ones when we'd been giddy and absorbed with each other, thinking no one around us could tell.

“Sure,” she said. “That sounds good.”

“Okay, I'm ready too.”

“What were you thinking about?” she said.

“Huh?” I had turned around and was still looking for the server. Where
was
the fucking waiter? Maybe he'd show if I went behind the bar and helped myself.

“When I was talking, you said you were thinking about something else. What was it? Is the work going okay?”

“Oh, yeah, sure, and you know Kevin's been such a great help with all of it,” I said.

“So, what was it then?” She was again the woman I'd been in bed with before reality had reared up, sat down between us, and given me a reminder slap on its way out—
Don't forget about me
.

“Now I'm going to seem like even more of a shithead,” I said. “Really, because you were upset and I wasn't listening. I'm embarrassed to mention it.”

“But I'm asking,” she said. “I'm done talking about the letter. Thank you for what you said, and now I want to know what you were thinking about.”