David Gates - Preston Falls

"At least it sounds like she has hope," says Jean.

"Yeah, well, like I say. Piquant. So anyway, you go on up, you order room service, you get under the covers, you have two desserts, put on a dirty movie, pop a Halcion and goodbye cruel world."

"This is really kind," says Jean. "But I should at least come to dinner. I don't want to spoil everybody's evening."

"Please-please-p/^'^je, can we not talk stupidly? An evening? This is a fucking lunar expedition."

"Well, so why are you doing it?"

"That's the question, all right," he says. "You've nailed it."

The waitress is back with the slip and credit card. Jerry looks at the slip, closes his eyes, then opens them and writes in the tip and total.

"Let me tell you one more thing," he says, guiding her toward the lobby with a hand on her shoulder blade. "Since we're talking turkey. Or the Wild Turkey's talking turkey. This might appeal to your sick sense of humor. I am technically a faithful husband. And that is not a proposition, by the way."

"I'm technically a faithful wife," Jean says. It feels daring to leave out the rest. God, that one glass of wine.

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She calls room service and orders a steak, which she never has, a baked potato and, for dessert, Chocolate Mud Pie. And a caffeine-free Diet Coke: she's afraid to have another glass of wine because of the pill Jerry gave her, which she's afraid to take anyway. She gets her shoes off, pulls the stiff synthetic bedspread over her and reads the part where Emma's trying to figure out how she could have thought Mr. Elton was in love with Harriet. The food arrives, wheeled in by a fat, beaming black woman who's either doing a good job of pretending she doesn't hate waiting on rich white women, or who genuinely doesn't because she's a Christian.

But Jean can't eat until she knows what's going on in Chesterton. She keeps the round metal covers on the food, hangs the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob, then gets into her nightgown and under the covers to make the call.

Mel answers the phone. "Oh. I thought you were Erin."

"Just me," Jean says. "How's it going? I miss you."

Mel says nothing.

"You get my message?"

"Yeah," Mel says. "Roger got in trouble again."

"What now?"

"He scratched a Nazi sign on Aunt Carol's truck, and she can't get it out."

"Oh crap," says Jean. "Is she there? Could I talk to her?"

"She and Roger are out in the garage."

"Then would you go get her, please?"

A long wait. Jean gets out of bed and brings the phone over to the serving table. She lifts the cover and looks at this slab of brown meat with black stripes on it, lying by its lonesome on the too-large white plate. It's shaped like Mississippi or something.

"Hi," says Carol. "So I guess you heard."

"Oh, Carol, I'm so sorry. I can't hdieve this. What exactly happened?"

"Well, I went to get a tape out of my truck, and there was Roger with one of those big screw hooks you have? And he was scratching this, you know, swastika on the door of the truck. The driver's side. I think he's sorry, but it's sort of hard to tell with him."

"Oh my God. Why would he do a thing like that?"

PRESTON FALLS

"Beats me," Carol says. "The most Nazi thing I think I did was telling him he couldn't have any more Halloween candy before dinner."

"I better talk with him. Is there anything you can do about your truck?"

"I don't know. I thought about using your sander, but that would just make it like a fat swastika. I guess for now I'll just put something over it to cover it up. Maybe if I could find a big piece of cardboard."

"Oh shit,'" Jean says. "Well, look, whatever it costs to fix it, you know? Obviously. But I'm so sorry. I feel terrible about this."

"It was real weird seeing it," says Carol. "He's still out there, by the way. I brought one of your lawn chairs out and had him just sit and look at it so he could start to process what he did. Was that okay?"

"I guess. I don't know. Something like this I'm completely lost. Can I speak to him?"

"I'Ugogethim."

Another long wait. Jean lies back down on the bed and pulls the bedspread over her again. She tries to read the stuff on the back of Emma. Finally she hears noises, and Roger says, "What?"

^'You know what," she says. "Why did you do that?"

"I don't know, I just did it."

"That's not an answer. You're old enough to take responsibility for the things you do. Were you angry at something?"

"I just wanted to see what it would look like."

"Didn't you know it was wrong?"

He says nothing.

"I'm very disappointed," she says, "because we've talked about this before. If you're angry about something, or you feel bad about something, you talk about it to somebody. You don't go and do something that hurts someone else."

"She can get it fixed," says Roger.

"That's not the point. But since you mention it, yes, she is going to have to get it fixed, and it's probably going to be very expensive. And you're going to have to help pay for it." Which is stupid, because she has no idea how to follow through. Should she give him chores at some imaginary wage? He'll forget what the point had ever been, unless she harps on it every day. Like a harpy.

Roger says nothing.

"I'm coming home tomorrow," she says. "Between now and then I want you to be thinking about this and be ready to give me a better

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explanation. Do you understand? This is a really upsetting time for all of us, with Daddy gone, but being upset doesn't mean you're not responsible for what you do." And if this sounds right wing, too bad. "So you and I have a date tomorrow night. Okay? I'm not going to yell at you, but I am going to expect you to talk to me about what you're feeling. If you're angry or sad or upset — ^whatever's going on. So I want you to think. Would you promise me?"

Roger says nothing. Which is about what's going to happen tomorrow night. And then what's her move? Send him to a real psychiatrist instead of that completely ineffectual woman at Mary M. Watson?

"Okay, you know what you have to do," Jean says. "Could I talk to Aunt Carol, please? Listen, I love you very much. Even when you do things that are wrong. Will you remember that too?" Which he'll probably interpret to mean that in the long run he'll get away with it.

"Hi," says Carol. "Well, he looks sorry."

"I'm sure," Jean says. "So as usual I'm not even there."

"It's not your fault. Listen, did you ever think this whole area around here, like the Hudson River, has sort of a weird vibe? "

"No," says Jean. "I mean, I wish''

After hanging up, she takes the cover off the steak again and nudges it with the fork. It leaves a smear of brown-red juice, complete with fat globules. She should make herself eat a piece just as punishment for being stupid enough to order it. She tries a little of the baked potato, but it has that bad taste from being reheated too many times. Which leaves this pointless Chocolate Mud Pie: food for pleasure. God, right now the thought of any pleasure ever again.

She cuts the pill Jerry gave her with the steak knife and swallows half. Something she's never done, taking some strange pill: well, now she's in for it. She wants this food out of here. She wheels the serving table into the hall.

It's eight o'clock. If she could only sleep right through until eight in the morning, twelve good solid lost hours. But there's that stupid breakfast. She calls the front desk and asks for a wake-up call at six, then gets into bed and finds her place in Emma\ it's working up to where Emma finally has to teU Harriet that Mr. Elton isn't in love with her, but Jean doesn't even get that far before the piU kicks in. Oh God, it's delicious: she's melting, she's melting, like the Wicked Witch.

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