Chapter 29
That afternoon, I did my usual tasks with a focused intensity, making liberal use of bleach and a scrub brush, and sweeping floors I’d already swept.
I got a pasta salad ready for dinner, and grated an entire head of broccoli in under five minutes, putting my back into it, as Mae would say.
I took another shower, shampooed my hair twice, and checked the drains and my shoes for sand.
When I did my final tour of the house, nothing suggested I’d done anything but spend another day at home.
Still, when the dryer buzzed, I jumped like a startled cat.
I felt as if I’d already lied to Russ, as if I were already caught.
By half past three I was hungry. Russ liked us to have dinner as soon as he got home, so I tried to tide myself over with a slice of cheese and a beer, then lay back down on the couch.
I didn’t think I’d sleep, as even with the AC humming, I could still hear the sawing and hammering outside.
But I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I knew that I’d slept.
The light coming through the sliding glass door had the softness of early evening, and the construction sounds had quieted enough that I could hear gulls out back.
It wasn’t until I turned my head that I noticed Russ sitting in his armchair. Usually, he showered as soon as he came home, but he was still wearing his work clothes, including his boots. I could smell his dried sweat from where I sat.
“Goodness.” I smiled, trying to read his face. “How long you been sitting there?”
“Not long.” He only half smiled back. “This idiot contractor doesn’t know what he wants.” He crossed a thick arm across his chest, rubbing his opposite shoulder. “Sorry if you were waiting. I grabbed dinner on my way home.”
“I’m okay.” I blew on my hands, cold from the AC. I was still hungry. I thought of the pasta salad I had waiting in the fridge. But I could sense his irritation. “Can I get you anything?” I asked. “A drink? Dessert?”
He looked at me for a long moment, Bambi eyes steady. He’d been drinking. A particular sentence formed in my head, so clearly I could see it before me. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. I couldn’t remember where I’d read it.
“Let’s take the boat out.” He stood and walked over to the couch, squeezing my toes as he passed.
By the time we pulled out from the dock, the sky to the east was already cobalt blue, and the low, wispy clouds to the west were edged in fuchsia and gold.
We passed under the causeway, and then, picking up speed, passed the north side of Treasure Island.
I didn’t look at it, but I thought of Leonard, back in his hotel, maybe less than a mile away. In the morning, he’d be gone.
“Hand me a drink?” Russ nodded at the cooler. “Get one for yourself.”
I got the beers. I alternated sipping and breathing in the muggy air, and soon we were out into the open water.
Russ gave the boat enough gas that I could only hear the thump thump thump of the cresting waves as we moved past other vessels, all heading into shore for the night.
We alone headed out toward the half-sunk sun on the horizon, as if to chase the sky’s remaining light.
This life, I thought, this life I had, it was already assembled.
I’d assembled it, action by action, choice by choice.
And if the quality of my thoughts determined the quality of my life, it followed that if I felt myself to be fortunate in my marriage, I would be fortunate.
But riding in that expensive boat, going fast enough that neither the bugs nor the heat could catch us, I couldn’t make myself feel fortunate.
My thoughts remained low quality, wanting what was too late to want.
I guessed the beer wasn’t helping. When Russ wasn’t looking, I extended my arm and drained what was left in the can into the water.
We continued to head west, out into the Gulf.
Russ asked for another beer, and I got it for him.
The water smoothed out beneath us, and when I turned around, the lights from shore were far away.
I thought about Leonard having night-blindness, unable to see his own hand in the dark.
He’d said it was terrifying, the night blindness, even after all he’d already been through.
I wondered what Carol would think of that.
She might laugh or disagree, but maybe not.
She herself could see shadows and shapes.
When Russ finally cut the engine, he did so without explanation, pushing the ignition key into the front pocket of his shorts. I could tell by the set of his jaw he was still in a mood, so I, too, stayed silent, watching the inky water as we continued to drift. He made no motion to drop the anchor.
“How was your day?” he asked.
It was his tone, strangely pleasant, that alarmed me.
When I turned to him, he smiled, and my breath stilled in my lungs.
His smile was so false that I realized, at that very moment, the story about the contractor was false as well.
He’d come home angry because he knew I’d spent the day with Leonard.
This was also why he’d taken me so far out on the boat.
He already knew. I pressed my palms, slick with sweat, against my knees.
I had a decision to make. If I was wrong, if he had no idea I’d spent the morning with Leonard, my confession would borrow trouble I didn’t need.
But if I was right, if he already knew, denying it would only anger him more.
“It was quite eventful, actually.” I looked back at him, meeting his gaze. “You’re not going to believe who called me up.”
“Try me.” He was still smiling. Fear tightened my throat. I thought of my mother, holding me as a baby, smiling down at me. She must have wanted me to have a good life. Even now, even though I’d disappointed her, she would want me to live.
“Leonard,” I said. “Leonard Lifton.”
Russ didn’t bother acting surprised. I saw a shift, a hardening, in his eyes.
“Go on,” he said.
My mind was a rabbit, racing and frantic, searching the ground for cover.
Even a skilled liar, even an adequate liar, wouldn’t know what to say next.
But I didn’t have to look back over my shoulder to know how far we were from shore.
If I screamed, no one would hear me. If I stood and waved for help, no one but Russ would see.
Do not think what is hard is impossible. I pressed down harder on my knees. The boat rose and fell, rose and fell.
“Get this,” I said. My rabbit-mind pivoted, racing for a hole. “He’s hoping you could give him a job, or at least advice. He said he was too scared to go to you directly. Or too intimidated rather. As he should be.”
Russ narrowed his eyes. Of course he did. It made no sense, what I was saying.
“He heard how well you’re doing.” I held his gaze, straining for logic. “He’s fallen out with his parents, so he’s broke. He’s got no prospects. He was hoping you’d meet with him. Had no shame about coming to me.”
Russ leaned toward me, over the throttle, his arm resting along the back of my seat. I could smell his beery breath, and the soap we both used. Water slapped against the hull.
“Let me get this straight.” His voice was quiet, calm. “You’re saying Leonard Lifton wants me to give him a job? And he thought the best way to do this was to meet with my wife while I was working? My wife who he once made pregnant and then abandoned?”
I thought of Mrs. Lifton, the words she’d said on the phone. I had a decision to make and I made it. I nodded at Russ, my eyes wide, in perfect agreement. The story I was telling was ludicrous. I could hardly believe it myself. That was fine. I was in character.
“Tell me about it,” I said. “But he wasn’t thinking of that.
He’s plenty book smart, okay. But with people…
” I reached up and knocked on my head, making a clicking sound with my tongue.
“It really didn’t seem to occur to him that you might not want to help him.
Or that he might disgust me. Which he did. ”
Russ’s hand moved from the back of the seat to my neck. He didn’t squeeze, or apply any pressure, but his thumb was on one side, his fingers on the other.
“That makes no sense.” He said these words slowly, watching my eyes.
“It’s the truth,” I said. I imagined Leonard, slouched and desperate, asking me to talk to Russ about a job. I saw myself scornful, telling him that I’d do my best, adding that I could make no guarantees.
Russ’s fingers drummed against my neck. “He asked you all this on the phone?”
“No. We went to a diner on Treasure Island. That’s a busy place over there.”
“So I hear. How’d you get there?”
“He picked me up.” I braced myself. His left hand was a loose fist, resting in his lap. “In a car with a dented door. Embarrassing. Surprised that thing even drives.”
He cocked his head as if listening for some distant sound, even as he studied me. But there was just the slap and slosh of the water. I looked up, searching the sky. The moon was a waning crescent, faint.
“Did it occur to you that you’re a married woman?” He was still leaning toward me. “That you’re married to me? That married women don’t go on rides with old boyfriends while their husbands are working?”
Save yourself, Mae said. Honey. Come on.
I should say here that I never actually saw Mae in the boat with us that night.
I wouldn’t even say that I heard her voice, not the way Leonard had described hearing mine in Korea.
It would be more accurate to say that I felt my stepmother telling me to get my act together, to at least put up a fight.
“I guess I don’t think of him as a man,” I said. The character, the girl I was playing, laughed and shook her head. “I mean, he’s pathetic. Weak-natured. I told you that, that night with Buddy and Peg. My opinion hasn’t changed.”
That’s fine, Leonard said. Keep going.
“And now he’s broke, no more access to his daddy’s money. Driving that sorry excuse for a car.”