Diane Cook - Man V. Nature - Stories

Since her brother Jon and his wife Gloria had their first kid, they’d insisted Janet have Sunday brunches with them once a month. “I want a normal family,” Jon said. Janet had grown to dislike her brother. She found Gloria to be overly housewifely. Their union seemed like happenstance, as did the baby. Like they’d just floated out of state college and hooked fingers to keep floating together. How could they think that was worthwhile? Where was the passion, the anguish, the power play? Had Jon learned nothing from her?

“When are you going to find someone?” her brother asked, ten minutes into the visit. She always hated the question, and he always asked it.

“I don’t know, Jon. When are you going to find someone?” she spat back, glaring at Gloria, who was pouring tea. Gloria looked confused for a moment, opened her mouth as if to explain, He did find someone — me , but then she understood it had been mean-spirited. Wide-eyed, she excused herself to the kitchen, calling Jon in to help. He jumped up and held the baby out to Janet. She made no move to uncross her arms.

“Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t want to hold him.” He slacked his arms and the baby seemed to free-fall, then abruptly stop to dangle at Jon’s knees. Janet cringed, afraid he’d let baby head hit marble coffee table. “Why won’t you settle down?” he asked, changing the subject but acting as if they were one and the same.

Janet said, “I am settled down.”

“Oh?” Jon sat again. “You’ve been seeing someone?”

“Yes. The meteorologist .”

“Janet.” Jon rolled his eyes. “He probably just thinks you’re a groupie.”

“Thanks.”

“You know how you get.”

“For your information,” Janet said, “we’ve been seeing each other quite a while.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. It felt that way to her, though three nights over a couple of years wouldn’t seem like that to anyone else. Despite how their last encounter had ended, she missed him. She wanted him to knock on her door and was feeling depressed that he hadn’t. She liked this game with her brother of pretending that he had.

Janet made up some details and dished them like gossip. The more she said, the more her brother believed. Dave took her to fancy restaurants; people asked for his autograph, and he obliged gracefully. He told her secrets through his weather reports, “Like when he says ‘wind gusts,’ he’s telling me he loves me.”

“Wow,” Jon said, truly admiring.

She felt inspired. “He said I was the woman he’d been waiting for. And can you believe it — we were neighbors. He was right there the whole time. Just like that song.”

Gloria kept calling Jon from the kitchen, but he was rapt. “I knew you could do it,” he said, his eyes glistening. He touched Janet’s arm.

She’d just been about to wonder, Why is he so happy for me? She was winning this fight, after all — she was saying whatever she could to prove him wrong about her life, her ability to find love. But something buckled in her at his touch, a transference of emotion or of belief. And she began to believe it herself. Believe in the possibility. Maybe it could work. Maybe she could do it.

Finally Gloria came out, hands on her hips, and barked, “Are you fucking deaf? Get the fuck in here.” Jon bolted up and dropped the baby into Janet’s lap. And Janet, too stunned by Gloria’s outburst, a kind she’d never thought Gloria capable of, automatically wrapped her arms around the warm squirming mass, as if it were second nature. His head smelled like old furniture no one wanted. “What is the point of you?” she asked, looking him squarely in the eyes. He rolled his head back and forth, like someone in ecstasy.

The mulch around the front windows of Dave’s town house was oversprinklered. Fall decay clung to her slippers. She still hadn’t seen Dave, even though she’d been looking for him. If she wanted to get under his skin, she’d need to be more proactive. She’d thought up a line: “You said I didn’t need to be scared of weather. Then why is everything dying ?” She’d also brought a measuring cup with her, in case his wife was there. Neighbors still did that, right? Not that she cared, but she had grown so tired of people regarding her with suspicion. She’d won another award at school, and the other teachers complained she was rigging it. Please, she thought. She had better things to do than tamper with school elections. I wished I’d gotten the memo ordering us to stop making a difference, she’d said to her girls in Sex Ed. They applauded, and when she asked that they not vote for her next year, they refused. She admired their conviction.

A ficus showered Janet as she brushed past to spy into the window. The blinds were drawn, and she could not see inside. Maybe his wife was still pregnant. How long had it been? It seemed like just last week. She could still taste his sea-saltiness. Maybe, she daydreamed, his wife would even approve — would motion for Janet to follow her into the house, saying, “Please take him. He makes me so sick,” then opening the bathroom door to reveal him wet and grunting, beating off over the toilet. He’d see Janet and exclaim, “Thank God you’re here!” Janet could take him back to her place, and he would explode inside her, and then afterward maybe they would talk. He’d see she was the better woman because she always knew how to fix his problems. Maybe he would never leave. Maybe he’d visit his baby from her town house. Actually, she couldn’t think of a more convenient situation, it being just next door.

She knocked, measuring cup ready, and waited. She knocked again. It wasn’t that late. Were they out? His car was gone. Was hers? She tried the door, and it opened.

The living room was empty except for a rotary phone, lonely in the middle of the awful mauve carpet; its cord slithered to the wall. Each door she opened led to a room empty of every remnant of him. The smell of food, sweat, his cologne, clung to the surfaces. The breeze through the door churned it all up for her.

On the kitchen counter she found the sales binder, though it was already clear Dave had moved. Moved secretly , Janet marveled, feeling both angry and intrigued. So she wouldn’t know. Because he couldn’t face her? Because he was ashamed? Because he didn’t want to hurt her? Because he did want to hurt her? All of these possibilities excited her.

At the association office, the clerk eyed her soggy slippers when she inquired.

“They moved a couple weeks ago. Weren’t you at the party?” he answered innocently. She could tell this guy, name-tagged Jeremy, disliked her.

“What party?”

“Their going-away party. Maybe two weeks ago? In their yard.”

She’d probably been at her brother’s. “That bastard,” she muttered about both men and tore a card for an association-approved landscaper into ragged pieces.

Jeremy’s eyes slit. “You live here?” he asked, as though there was no way she could have not known about the party, let alone not attend, if she did.

“Yes, I live here,” she snapped. “I’ve lived here since the beginning. Since before you.”

He flipped casually through a binder. “Well, their little girl is cute. Had an adorable golden curl on her forehead. Perfection. Like a picture of a baby. But a real baby.”

She slammed her keys onto the counter. “I’m also putting my house on the market,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant and failing.

“Oh?” He brightened as if glad.

“You know, I’ve come in here before.”

“Yes,” he nodded, smiling. “I remember.” His smile was flat, a stain. “Then you know that you can go through the association’s agent or find your own.” He pushed some pamphlets at her. “Buyers have to come here first. No signs in the window or on the lawn. It’s tacky. There’s a fine.” So Dave hadn’t been stealthy, he’d just been following rules. He hadn’t run from her; he’d simply moved to a new home, started a new life, and hadn’t thought to tell her. On a corkboard over Jeremy’s head hung four flyers picturing four almost identical town houses. She recognized Dave’s because of the weather vane he’d installed. She’d found it so charming; now it seemed stupid. She thought of that empty mauve carpeting.