Richard Russo - That Old CapeMagic

Buzz . Griffin watched the alarm clock’s minute hand turn over.

At six, he rose and slipped quietly into a pair of shorts, an old polo shirt and sandals. He was pretty sure Joy was awake, too, that she’d slept no more and no better than he had, so he wasn’t surprised when she spoke.

“Do you really have to do this now? Have you looked outside?”

“I won’t be long. Go back to sleep.”

Outside, Wellfleet was lost in dense, liquid fog. She was right, of course. The sensible thing would be to wait for it to burn off, but he was determined to disprove without further delay the most ludicrous of the charges his wife had leveled against him. By mid-morning they’d be back in Falmouth to pick up Joy’s car and head back to Connecticut, to the life they’d managed to undermine so thoroughly.

It was far too wet to put the top down, but he did it anyway, hoping he’d be less blind. By the time he inched down the mussel-shell drive into the street, the inn was completely swallowed by the fog, and his shirt collar was cold and soaked through. Somewhere in the distance he heard the lonely tolling of a buoy, but he had no idea which direction the sound was coming from.

The town dock was probably his best bet. There might be people around even this early, but anyone standing more than a few feet away wouldn’t even know he was there, much less what he was up to. This assumed, of course, that he could find the dock. But if he couldn’t, no big deal. Except for its outer tip at Provincetown, the Cape was narrowest here at Wellfleet, just a couple miles wide. You couldn’t drive very far in any direction without coming to water of some sort, an inlet or a freshwater pond. Creeping forward at a pace that barely registered on the speedometer, he squinted into the gray soup, trusting that he’d see what he was about to hit before impact. Because it would be ironic if he got in an accident while driving to scatter the ashes of a man so prone to them.

Had he ever in his life been so exhausted? Not having slept was part of it, but the quarrel itself, he knew, was what had drained him. He and Joy were no strangers to argument, of course. What couple married thirty-four years was? But usually their disputes were contained. They were about something, not everything. Yesterday’s had started out like that, focused on his wife’s admission that yes, for a time she’d been in love, or something like love, with his old friend. But that perimeter had quickly been breached by Joy’s claim that the issue between them now was about him, not Tommy. Since his father’s death nine months ago, she said, his dissatisfaction had become palpable, as was evidenced by how excited he’d become at the prospect of a screenwriting gig. What he wanted, she told him, was his old life back, to be young and free again. She understood how losing a parent could cut you loose from your moorings. She’d lost her own mother, hadn’t she? But moving back to L.A. (and that was his real intention, she insisted, next week’s visit being just the opening gambit) wouldn’t make either of them young again, nor, she was dead certain, would it make him happy.

Griffin had laughed at the notion that he was “unmoored” (or even fazed, for that matter) by his father’s passing, and though he grudgingly conceded that the notion of moving back to L.A.-getting back in the game , for Christ sake-had its attractions, he denied categorically that he harbored any illusions about the place restoring his youth. If anything, the culture out there would have the opposite effect by making him feel his age even more acutely. But did the fact they weren’t young anymore mean they had to be prematurely old? Why spend the rest of their lives in curriculum meetings and eating in the same three or four local restaurants with the same bunch of dull academics? Did they have to be so settled ? Wasn’t that the same as “settling”? They’d left L.A. because of Laura, but she was an adult now. By this time next year, she’d be married. Obviously, their circumstances had changed. Couldn’t their thinking and future plans reflect this?

What would be so wrong with, say, dividing their time? This past winter had been brutal. Even Joy had to admit that. Why not keep an eye out for an apartment in L.A. where they could spend each spring semester? Okay, the college wouldn’t be thrilled by him going down to half-time, but before leaving on this trip, he’d floated the idea past the dean of faculty, who’d said that the school, rather than risk losing him entirely, would likely be flexible. Once they were back in L.A., Griffin could reestablish his contacts in the film world, and the money he’d make there would more than offset the loss of academic income. But for Joy settled wasn’t the same as settling . To her, settled just meant that they’d chosen wisely all those years ago. She happened to love the life they were living now; moreover, it was one they’d agreed on. And what would become of her full-time job when Griffin went to part-time? Was she expected to sit and watch while he had his middle-age meltdown?

Thus far, Griffin had held his own. He’d always wielded superior rhetorical skills (Do you ever win an argument with this guy?) and over the last decade he’d honed them further in the classroom. But admit it, he wasn’t on his game. He never should’ve allowed their dispute to expand beyond her and Tommy, and even to his own ears, his voice, though he was careful not to raise it, sounded shrill, almost desperate. Usually, by this point Joy would have become frustrated and given in, yet the quarrel ground on. It was like a poker game where the wagering suddenly accelerated, each player raising instead of calling, then raising again, until all the blue chips were in the center of the table, more than either could afford to lose, or, maybe, in this case, to win. His father’s death, she kept insisting, was the true source of his current malaise, and her steadfast refusal to surrender this causal linkage had thrown him off his stride. Truth be told, the chronology did give him pause, because the idea of returning to L.A. had taken root not long after his father’s car was found at the turnpike rest stop. Since then he’d become more aggressive about looking for film work, checking with Sid every couple of weeks to see if he’d heard of any assignments he might be right for. He never made those calls when Joy was around, but of course they’d showed up on their long-distance bill, and she’d put two and two together. And he couldn’t really blame her for being angry that he’d sent up a trial balloon with the dean of faculty before broaching the subject with her. Why had he done that? Because he’d been pretty sure she’d hate the idea, maybe even veto it preemptively. So he’d gone ahead without her.

Reluctantly, Griffin was forced to entertain the possibility that he was in the wrong. Maybe her case against him wasn’t airtight, but it was fundamentally sturdy, whereas his defense against her accusations was merely skillful, artifice teetering on the head of a pin. Panicking, he’d tried to retreat to more solid ground. If he had a few secrets about phone calls to his agent and conversations with his dean, what about the whopper she’d been keeping all these years? He wasn’t the one who’d fallen in love with somebody else; she had. And indeed it was this knowledge, the details of it, that kept playing on a loop through his brain, like a pivotal scene in a script (yes, Joy would hate the metaphor, but there you were) that was out of kilter, jeopardizing the whole.

INT. TASTEFUL B &B ROOM: NIGHT.

A man (mid-fifties, slender and moderately good-looking despite his receding hairline) is peering out the window, but his haggard face is reflected back at him in the glass. A woman his age, beautiful but despondent, is seated on the four-poster bed, her head in her hands. Clearly, they’re arguing and have been for some time.