David Gates - Preston Falls

But of course you can be only so compulsive. Like, she obviously could never ever say anything about what colors Helen should wear, or what kind of flowers she should put in the vase. So there'd be days when Helen would be sitting there in like a burgundy jacket next to these blazing orange lilies or something, and you would just cringe. And Jean so much wants to chuck the tacky gold frames Helen has for pictures of her husband and daughters — Lechter's has these white ceramic ones — but she has to tell herself Stop, just stop.

"Good morning," Helen says, hanging up the phone. "You had one call yesterday."

Jean takes the slip out of the K section. (These pink While You Were Out slips are another irritant.) Champ, 4:16 p.m., will call hack. Willis's brother never calls here: he must have news. She's afraid he does and afraid he doesn't.

She goes on past her office to the end of the hall. Jerry Starger's assistant, Martha, isn't at her desk, but his door is open, so she peeks in.

"Hey, there she is," says Jerry. "You get everything squared away?" On the phone yesterday, she told him she had some family business.

"Pretty much, I guess," she says. "For now." With her index finger she tries to smooth out a bubble under the tape at one corner of the poster on his door. (This beautiful bleached-oak door.) A grinning little girl with metal crutches and leg braces, and the legend Help jerry's Kids.

"All we can ask in this life," he says. "Meeting at eleven?"

"Fine."

"In the meantime, think beautiful thoughts. Think: Marietta, Georgia." The latest branch office, due to open December 1. Decent-sized space in a hopeless strip mall.

Jean closes her office door behind her, logs on and gets PHONE. PRSNL up on her screen, scrolls down to W. Two numbers for Champ;

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try the work one first. Right, and there's Sylvia's number. She never returned Jean's call, of course — though in fairness, maybe she did try Preston Falls. A man at the Counter Spy Shop says Champ called in sick; he sounds annoyed. Jean punches in Champ's home number.

A machine picks up, Jim Morrison sings Hello, I love you, won't you tell me your — then Champ says, "Wait-wait-wait, let me get this fucking thing. Hello?"

"It's Jean," she says. "Are you okay? They said you were sick?"

"On the record? Food poisoning. Off the record? Mai de something. Mai de lingering."

"Oh," says Jean. "I just got your message from yesterday. Actually, I was about to call you. "

"You did call me. Nurk nurk."

"Listen, have you heard anything from Doug?"

"Hey, great minds," he says. "See, / was hoping — shit. So he hasn't come back yet?"

"No. He was supposed to be back at work yesterday. I drove up to Preston Falls on Sunday, and it didn't look like he'd been there for a while. When was the last you heard from him?"

"Shit, a long time," he says. "Actually, I don't think I've talked to him since we were all up there for Labor Day. I tried to get ahold of him a couple weeks ago and never heard back. So then I tried him yesterday at work, because I remembered he was coming back on Halloween or something, and they said he was quote out of the office. So I thought I'd bother you for a change."

"Right." Jean's scratching white lines on the back of her left hand with a pushpin, from the center of the wrist to each knuckle.

"So when did you talk to him last?"

"Well," she says, "things were sort of at the point where we'd more or less agreed not to be calling."

"But how about the kids?" says Champ. "Oh fuck me, that was out of line, wasn't it? Doy-yoy-yoing, sor-ry. It's not like I'm a total animal."

Jean touches tongue to fingertip and starts rubbing the scratches away. "Oh look," she says, "it's stupid at this point for everybody to still go around being discreet."

"Right. But you weren't actually, like legally — or were you?"

"No. God, I've made such a mess."

"Hey, you had help. He said like a low-down disloyal un-brotherly dog."

PRESTON FALLS

"I'm sorry," she says. "I don't mean to be carrying on."

"You're not carrying on. You may not believe it, but I've always been a fan of yours."

"Is that so. But what could you say, right?"

"Well," he says. "Like you say."

When she gets off the phone, she takes the key to the ladies' room out of her drawer, stands up and feels she'd better quick sit back down. But she rides it out, standing there swaying, palms pressed on the desk as the buzzing and the sparkly blackness deepen, then dissipate. She finds she's staring at the picture of Mel and Roger: the two of them in their bathing suits, arms around each other's shoulders — a reach up for Roger — and showing teeth in grins she tries to see as unforced. Labor Day. When the pictures came back, she immediately bought a frame for this one and put it on her desk. Because she was afraid not to.

In the ladies' room, she runs cold water, gets a double handful and lowers her face into it. She pumps the soap dispenser, gets nothing — as usual — then lifts the lid the way you have to do and dips two fingers into the pink liquid. One of these days she's got to remember to pick up a traveling soap dish, so she can keep a bar of Neutrogena in her desk. ThafW. fix everything. She dries her face with a paper towel and sees she's going to have to put on more Cover Girl. For what, the third time this morning? And of course she's managed to splatter the front of her shirt. Willis's shirt, actually, that he bought years ago at a yard sale: a garage shirt or something, with Dan embroidered above the left pocket. She'd liked it for its grayish shade of green and for how the gabardine had softened just the right amount.

There's a story about the shirt too. Willis said he'd bought it just so he could say, if anybody asked, "I don't know why, my name is not Dan." She forgets what that was supposed to be a hne from; just one of his endless things. But it started to get a little snug on him, so he ended up not wearing it much. Finally she put it in the drawer with her tops. And bided her time for a month or so, until, one morning, she wore it to the table, and he said, "Hey, where'd you find that? Looks better on you than it ever did on me." Why hadn't she just asked him for the stupid shirt? Maybe because she has a thing about asking for anything. Your marriage, she used to assume, was a safe place to play out these harmless little things.

Back in her office, she gets Sylvia's number off the screen and picks up the phone. Five rings and, again, Willis's voice. She hangs up.

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What it is, she's furious at him.

And at his mother, who should've done a better job with him— though who is she to say? And at herself. Oh, of course, dear, if you need to go up and stare at trees and play your guitar. . Think no more about it: I will take care of our home and our family and our life. And fine, let him hold that against her too, that she's another angry woman. Like when she was reading Sandra Cisneros and told Willis he should really check her out, and he said the idea of a woman hollering didn't exactly do it for him. And it was like, Thanks for one more precious insight into you.

Five of eleven. She's not prepared for this meeting: her dreams and schemes for raw space in a strip mall in Georgia.

But really, isn't it his mother's fault for screwing up his whole attitude toward women? (Right, as if every other man is so fabulously healthy.) Early on, when Carol first asked about Willis, Jean had said. Well, the sex is great. Which it really wasn't: him working away at her, trying to get her to give up and come first, while as a man he could let go anytime. All over her feet, once. And demonstrating in the process what great shape he kept himself in, back when he kept himself in shape. Like just daring her to run her hands down his ass and find any flab, though she's got to say, even then… So the more he worked away at her, the colder she got. The more observant.