Robert Coover - John's Wife

Veronica was minding John’s paint and wallpaper store that day, most everyone else in town having gone off to the funeral of poor Harriet whom she hardly knew. Not one for funerals anyway, really. Old Alf, Harriet’s husband, she knew better; he’d done her a favor once. She sent him a nice card, expressing her deepest sympathy, but was happy to oblige when John asked her to watch the store. Veronica had returned home a year earlier after the failure of her first marriage, needing, for therapy as much as money, some kind of job, and John’s wife, a former high school classmate, had helped her get on at the paint store, in those days still downtown, she remembering that Veronica had once wanted to be an interior decorator, or perhaps it was Veronica who had reminded her of that. They had never been all that close, since Veronica never got along with her best friend Daphne, still didn’t, but she didn’t mind using what little influence she had because, anyway, she felt, John owed her one, that whole family did. Life had not been kind to Veronica. Braces, migraines, anemia, tonsilitis, asthma, she’d had it all as a kid. Then, once she got to high school, things were a little better, she was a cheerleader and a member of the choral society and popular enough, everybody calling her Ronnie back then, but though she was generous with her person (too generous, she always thought), she didn’t believe in going all the way, not yet, she was too idealistic, and so she got a P.T. reputation, ridiculed the more, the more she gave. Daphne, especially, was cruel to her, and one day at the country club pool, in front of all the boys, asked her if she thought orgasms were more fun to have alone or in company, and Veronica, who wasn’t really sure at that time what an orgasm was exactly (though when she did find out, she realized she had been having them all along, no big deal), could only turn red and stammer out something stupid about believing that was something one didn’t talk about in public. “Aha! Just as I thought!” laughed Daphne and all the boys started laughing with her. “Alone!” And then, finally, when she did start going all the way, the worst possible thing happened, and that was when she got Alf to do that favor, if a favor was really what it was, she still had nightmares about it (or him: she had named the thing as though thereby to put it to eternal rest, but rest it, or he, would not), and worried, to the extent that she believed in such things, that she might have condemned herself to everlasting hell. She was scared after that, and ran into marriage the first offer that came along, an older guy she met in college and hardly knew before they were suddenly man and wife, and again she was too idealistic, but he wasn’t, and when she couldn’t take any more, she came back home and hired Maynard and his father and got a divorce, which dragged on and was very messy and depressing and left her feeling old and used up when it was over. But, never say die, she joined the choir at church and the Literary Society at the library and got a job at the paint and wallpaper store and started going out some with Maynard, who had just recently graduated from law school, but already looked forty. Maynard had also gone through a wretched first marriage and divorce, and like Veronica, had suffered from name-calling and undeserved ridicule all his life, and he probably hated Daphne, whom he called his old ball-breaker, even more than she did, so at least they had something in common. Just the same, even though she sympathized with him, he was in many ways still the Nerd he had always been, at least everybody in town seemed to think so, the only difference being that he now had a permanent five o’clock shadow, and so, whenever he brought up the subject of marriage, always seeming to have some kind of nasty grimace on his face, like it was a dirty joke or something, she always said she wasn’t ready. That was until the day that crazy man came crashing into the store just as she had started to doze off, making her fall off her chair and nearly swallow her tongue. She couldn’t see anything for a moment — blinded with panic was what she was, she suddenly knew what that meant — and when finally her focus came back again, there he was, pointing a gun at her face and demanding the keys to the panel truck outside. She had no idea where they were, so he started shooting at all the cans of paint. She was crying and praying and trying not to have an asthma attack, not knowing what to do and hating John for leaving her in a mess like this, not for the first time. Finally, in desperation, she opened up the cash register to give him all the money, and there were the keys. When he was gone, she decided, collapsed to the floor under a dripping paint can, where they found her later, somewhat out of touch and spackled all over with Provincial Blue, that maybe the working world was not for her after all, and two months later, when she’d got her breath back, she and Maynard were married.

“Ronnie and the Nerd! Perfect! Hell on earth! I can’t think of any two assholes who deserve it more!” was what Daphne, on the telephone with her best friend and, as usual, doing most of the talking, said of the engagement news. Daphne had once been married to Maynard, it had lasted less than a year, a miserable time spent away at law school in a grad student flat, far from home, drunk most of the time or fucking around helplessly while that drudge hit — and hit and hit — the books. Later she would marry Nikko the golf pro, the one who ran away a few months later with the orthodontist’s teenage daughter in her psychedelic warpaint, and after that it would be old Stu the car dealer, whom Daphne generously called Old Stud, at least for a while. But back at the time of Harriet’s death and Duwayne’s deranged assault on the paint store, Daphne’s “current steady,” as she called her second husband when she wasn’t calling him Eric the Ready, the Rude, or the Rod, was the town’s new surgeon and resident oncologist, caught by her before he’d even got his bags unpacked. “Speaking of which, honey — assholes, I mean — I hope Ronnie’s isn’t as tight as it used to be, it’s in for some heavy drilling. Mange likes the back door, you know. Did I ever tell you about his enema routines? Talk about sloppy sex! Peeyoo!” The person on the other end of the line, the mother of a one-year-old by then (which had aroused strong but ambivalent feelings in Daphne, who longed to have children only so long as she did not have to be a mother), was probably not interested in this intelligence, there was some other reason Daphne had called her, but for the moment it had flown her mind, which in truth caged very little, even when soberer than she was now. “Still, it was about the only time old misery-guts ever let himself go, so to speak. That’s not Eric’s problem. You couldn’t ask for a more relaxed guy, so relaxed he’s asleep most of the time. Honest to God, I greet him in nothing but a dab of perfume when he comes home from the hospital, and all he does is give me this sweet sad smile and fold up like dropped pants. Hey, I know they’re working him too hard out there, but they’re not working that part of him, are they? Well, let’s face it, they probably are, it’s the only answer, isn’t it? He’s out there taking the temperature of all those hotpants nurses all day, dip-sticking himself to exhaustion, poor boy, nothing left for his house calls. They do the scoring, I get the snoring. So what’s a girl gonna do? Well, Colt was back in town a couple of weeks ago, that bastard, you know, for his aunt Harriet’s funeral. This is just between you and me, honey, not a word now — but Eric had the duty that day, so Colt and I skipped the burial part afterwards and went to have a drink together at the downtown hotel where he was staying. We sat there at that old wooden bar, not saying much, feeling nostalgic about that old place now that they say it’s going to be torn down, and while we were in that mood, he suggested we go to his room and get laid just for old times’ sake. What—?! Old times was a goddamned rape , for Christ’s sake, was he crazy? That’s what I told him. Still, forgive and forget, water under the britches and all that, right? Besides, he was looking pretty good, now that his hair was long. And he did say he was sorry, he was just a dumb little shit back then who didn’t know any better, he said, so I asked him what it was worth to him, now that he was a grownup shit. He kind of sneered and said, ‘You doing it for money now, Daph?’ and I said, ‘No, come on, you prick, you abused the hell out of me when I was just an innocent kid and now you come back here and I’m a happily married woman and you think you can just have me for a shot of gin or two? How cheap do you think I am?’ He studied me for a moment, and then he grinned and said, ‘Okay, how much?’ I didn’t blink an eye, honey. I just grinned right back at him and said: ‘A thousand bucks, sweetie. In cash. It’ll buy me my cherry back.’ I clinked his glass with mine, he stared at me for a minute, then he shrugged, winked, went off to the bank. And let me tell you. The sonuvabitch got his money’s worth. So did I. I’d forgotten it could be so good. Not since — well… Never mind.” She was about to say, not since the red, red robin came bob, bob, bobbin’, but having almost no friends left in this town, decided against it, a rare moment of prudence. “When it was over, I gave him half his money back. No kidding. Sheer gratitude. It was in small bills, so he flung it onto the bed and we fucked on that, pardon the French, it was like being a kid again and rolling around in autumn leaves. Except you don’t get dust up your nose. Oh, speaking of the French — hello? are you there, honey? yes?” Daphne asked, recalling at last the reason she had phoned. “That was terrible news about your friend, Marie-what’s-her-name, so sudden and all. I’m really sorry. No, really. I noticed she was looking a little green around the gills when she was visiting here last month, but who would have guessed, hunh? It’s crazy! What a world! How is John taking it? I mean, they’d got pretty close, hadn’t they? Speaking loosely, I mean, her love of flying, and all that. Well, hell, good old unflappable John, straight up as always, no doubt. What do you suppose it was that made her do it? Still carrying the torch for Yale, you think? Or …? Hello—?”