John Connolly - The Lovers

I’d had a crush on Amanda Grace while we were at Pearl River High School together. She was a year older than I, and hung with a crowd that favored black nail polish and obscure English groups. She was the kind of girl jocks pretended to abhor but about whom they secretly fantasized when their perky blond girlfriends were performing acts that didn’t require their boyfriends to look them in the eyes. About a year before my father died, she began dating Michael Ryan, whose main aims in life were to fix cars and open a bowling alley, not worthless ends in themselves but not the level of ambition that I ever believed was going to satisfy a girl like Amanda Grace. Mike Ryan wasn’t a bad guy, but his conversational skills were limited, and he wanted to live and die in Pearl River. Amanda used to talk about visiting Europe, and studying at the Sorbonne. It was hard to see where common ground could lie between her and Mike, unless it was somewhere on a rock in the mid-Atlantic.

Now here she was, and although there were lines where there had not been lines before, she was, like the town itself, largely unaltered. She smiled.

“Charlie Parker,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

I wasn’t sure how to greet her. I reached out a hand, but she slipped by it and hugged me, shaking her head against me as she did so.

“Still the same awkward boy,” she said, not, I thought, without a hint of fondness. She released her hold, and looked at C anô‡ me with amusement.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You visit a good-looking woman, and you offer to shake her hand.”

“Well, it’s been a long time. I don’t like to make assumptions. How’s your husband? Still playing with bowling pins?”

She giggled. “You make it sound kind of gay.”

“Big man, stroking hard phallic objects. Difficult not to draw those conclusions.”

“You can tell him that when you see him. I’m sure he’ll take it under advisement.”

“I’m sure; that, or try to kick my ass from here to Jersey.”

The look on her face changed. Something of the good humor vanished, and what replaced it was speculative.

“No,” she said, “I don’t think he’d try that with you.”

She stepped back into the house and held the door open for me.

“Come in. I’ve made lunch. Well, I bought some cold cuts and salads, and there’s fresh bread. That’ll have to do.”

“It’s more than enough.” I moved into the house, and she closed the door behind me, squeezing past me to lead me to the kitchen, her hands resting for a moment at my waist, her stomach brushing my groin. I let out a deep sigh.

“What?” she said, wide eyed and radiating innocence.

“Nothing.”

“Go on, say it.”

“I think you could still flirt for your country.”

“As long as it’s in a good cause. Anyway, I’m not flirting with you, not much. You had your chance a long time ago.”

“Really?” I tried to remember any chance I’d had with Amanda Grace, but nothing came to me. I followed her into the kitchen and watched her fill a jug from a purified water faucet.

“Yeah, really,” she said, not turning. “You only had to ask me out. It wasn’t complicated.”

I sat down. “Everything seemed complicated back then.”

“Not to Mike.”

“Well, he wasn’t a complicated guy.”

“No, he wasn’t.” She turned off the faucet and placed the jug on the table. “He still isn’t. As time goes on, I’ve come to realize that’s no bad thing.”

“What does he do?”

“He works on cars. He runs an auto shop in Orangetown. Still bowls, but he’ll die before he ever owns an alley of his own.”

“And you?”

“I used to teach elementary school, but I gave it up when my second daughter was born. Now I do some part-time work for a company that publishes schoolbooks. I guess I’m a saleswo Bishuo;man, but I like it.”

“You have kids?” I hadn’t known.

“Two girls. Kate and Annie. They’re at school today. They’re still adjusting to having my dad here, though.”

“How is he?”

She grimaced. “Not good. It’s just a matter of time. The drugs make him sleepy, but he’s usually good for an hour or two in the afternoon. Soon, he’ll have to go to a hospice, but he’s not ready for that, not yet. For now, he’ll stay here with us.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He’s not. He had a great life, and he’s ending it with his family. He’s looking forward to seeing you, though. He liked your father a lot. Liked you too. I think he’d have been happy if we’d ended up together, once.”

Her face clouded. I think she had made a series of unspoken connections, creating an alternative existence in which she might have been my wife.

But my wife was dead.

“We read about all that happened,” she said. “It was awful, all of it.”

She was silent for a time. She had felt obliged to raise the subject, and now she did not know what to do to dispel the effect it had had.

“I have a daughter too,” I told her.

“Really? That’s great,” she said, with a little too much enthusiasm. “How old is she?”

“Two. Her mother and I, we’re not together anymore.” I paused. “I still see my daughter, though.”

“What’s her name?”

“Samantha. Sam.”

“She’s in Maine?”

“No, Vermont. When she’s old enough, she can vote socialist and start signing petitions to secede from the union.”

She raised a glass of water. “Well, to Sam, then.”

“To Sam.”

We ate and talked about old school friends, and her life in Pearl River. It turned out that she had made it to Europe after all, with Mike. The trip had been a gift for their tenth wedding anniversary. They went to France, and Italy, and England.

“And was it what you’d expected?” I asked.

“Some of it. I’d like to go back and see more, but it was enough, for now.”

I heard movement above us.

“Dad’s awake,” she said. “I just need to go upstairs and help him get organized.”

She left the kitchen and went upstairs. After a moment or two, I could hear voices, and a man coughing. The coughs sounded harsh and dry and painful.

Ten minutes later, Amanda led an old, stooped man into the room, keeping a reassuring arm around his waist. He was so thin that her arm almost encircled him, but even bent over B aridthe was nearly as tall as I was.

Eddie Grace’s hair was gone. Even his facial hair had disappeared. His skin looked clammy and transparent, tinged with yellow at the cheeks and a reddish-purple below the eyes. There was very little blood in his lips, and when he smiled, I could see that he had lost many of his teeth.

“Mr. Grace,” I said. “It’s good to see you.”

“Eddie,” he said. “Call me Eddie.” His voice was a rasp, like a plane moving over rough metal.

He shook my hand. His grip was still strong.

His daughter stayed with him until he had seated himself.

“You want some tea, Dad?”

“Nah, I’m good, thank you.”

“There’s water in the jug. You want me to pour some for you?”

He raised his eyes to heaven.

“She thinks that, because I walk slow and sleep a lot, I can’t pour my own water,” he said.

“I know you can pour your own water. I was just trying to be nice. Jeez, but you’re an ungrateful old man.” She said it with affection, and when she hugged him he patted her hand and grinned.

“And you’re a good girl,” he said. “Better than I deserve.”

“Well, as long as you understand that.” She kissed his bald pate. “I’ll leave you two alone to talk. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

She looked at me from behind him, and asked me silently not to tire him out. I nodded slightly, and she left us once he was comfortably seated, but not before touching him gently on the shoulder as she pulled the door half closed behind her.