Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

He said, “I know. But, honey — stop that. Stop talking like that.”

“I can’t help it.”

Perhaps thirty seconds went by with only the small sound of static through the line.

“You there?” he said.

“Do you — do you want me to call you back after I talk to Iris?” she asked.

“I’ve gotta go to the train station in an hour or so.”

“Okay.”

He murmured, “We’re okay, darling.”

“I miss you,” she said, and felt it, a physical pang, like something molten being poured into her bones. It stopped her breath. She would never love anyone so much. “Michael!” she burst forth in a moment’s terror that he would hang up before she could tell him that. But she had said the words. There were no other words. “I love you,” she told him. The tears kept coming.

“It’ll be all right, sweetheart. I’m out of there. And soon we’ll be together in Memphis.”

“Yes,” she got out. “Yes, darling.”

He was gone. She put the handset back in its cradle and lay over on her side, facing the window and the French doors leading out onto the balcony, still seeking to compose herself, working to beat back the images that kept repeating in her thoughts. Constance had come out on her own balcony next door. The older woman’s shadow was on the green tiles there. A silhouette that held a glass up and drank. “Is Michael all right?” Constance called.

“Yes,” Natasha said loudly, and then she repeated the word in a near whisper. “Yes.” She sighed, feeling momentarily released, the first real sense of things working out all right moving through her with a surge of near elation, until she stirred on the bed and felt the discomfort in her hips and between her legs.

After a few seconds, Constance’s voice: “I myself never thought otherwise. But we’re grounded, you know. Stuck here.”

Natasha did not answer.

“Want some orange juice?”

She watched the shadow-shape drink; the head back, tilted to the sky. She got up from the bed and stepped out. You could tell it to a friend. You could say it to a friend. The other woman was in her Japanese robe, holding the glass at her hip and gazing off into the measureless distance. The sea was ablaze with morning, and in the brightness it was difficult to see her face.

Constance looked at her. “How do we feel?”

“Fine.” Now Natasha would say it.

“You look awful. You been crying?”

“Yes, hasn’t everyone?”

“This has done something to you. Michael is safe, right?”

“I just talked to him.”

“Hey,” Constance said. “So it’s over. Everyone we know is safe.” She leaned on the rail with the nearly empty glass in her hand and stared. “I mean, right ?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Constance gave forth a small derisive laugh.

“Constance?”

“I saw you on the beach,” she said evenly. “I came looking for you. And I saw you.”

Natasha waited, a freezing at her heart. Then: “You — what?”

The older woman nodded and with a furious motion tossed what remained of the orange juice over the railing. “That’s right. I saw you. I saw you and that Cuban guy, whatever the fuck his name is. Lying on the sand going at it.”

Abruptly, Natasha felt the chill under her heart as a kind of strength. She looked directly back into the other’s eyes. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you think you saw.”

“Are we really going to do this?”

“Yes, why don’t we go ahead and do this, as you put it. Let’s do it, Constance.”

“Well, I saw you.”

“You said that.”

“He was on his back and you were leaning over him, kissing him. Deep.”

“Nothing happened, Constance.”

“It was serious tonguing. I’m not naïve.”

“I — yes, I–I kissed him. I kissed him. I felt sorry for him. But that was the end of it.”

“You expect me to believe that.”

She turned to go back inside. “You can believe whatever the fuck you want to believe. Or whatever your ideas about me tell you to believe. This conversation is over.”

In her room, she muffled her own sobs in the pillows of the bed, trying to stop. When she looked at the window, expecting to see Constance’s shadow, the shadow was gone.

She took time to collect herself and then tried the front desk. No answer. She went out and along the hall to the elevators. The middle-aged couple she had seen the night before, who did not seem together, were waiting there. They had been murmuring animatedly in Spanish but stopped when she came up to them. The elevator opened, with a young Jamaican man and two little dark girls already on it. They all rode the four floors down in silence.

The lobby was nearly empty. At the front desk it was Ratzi now, looking beset and worried. “My brother,” he said to her as she approached. “No one can find him.”

“Sorry to hear that,” she said. And couldn’t ask him to put a call through to her grandmother. She walked to the entrance of the bar and asked a woman who stood there, a member of the restaurant staff. The woman went to the desk and spoke to Ratzi, who looked past her at Natasha.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha mouthed.

Back in her room, she sat on the bed and waited. There were voices outside, shouts, children playing. The call came through. Once more, the ring startled her. “Hello?”

“Oh, my dear girl.”

“I’m okay. I am.” But her voice was all tears.

“You’re not okay, I’m not deaf.”

“No. I am. I’m all right.” She would not. Not anyone. She waited.

“Father Mi—,” Iris began but then stopped herself. “I mean, Michael is on his way home. He took the train, if you can believe it. He’ll get here tomorrow morning.”

“The first day the truck can get there is the day after tomorrow.” Her voice began to leave her. She cleared her throat and made an unsuccessful attempt not to cough.

“You sound awful,” her grandmother said.

“It’s just a little — a little cough.”

Iris sighed. “How long will the planes be grounded, I wonder. They’re not charging you for the extra days, are they?”

“No.”

The line crackled. Iris said something about the truck with Natasha’s belongings.

“It’s mostly books,” Natasha said. “My bed. A table and some chairs and pictures.”

Silence.

“Iris?”

Again, the old woman’s voice, faint in the static distance: “Don’t worry about me. But I did have another little fall getting out of bed. I’m fine. I called a cab and got myself to Dr. Rayford’s office for X-rays, and it’s fine. The original injury is healing fine. They gave me a cane.”

How simple: you were injured and you went to see some people and they made sure you were all right and then they gave you something to help you keep going.

“God’s sakes,” Iris said. “Here I am talking about my little trouble. I’m sorry. When do you think you’ll be able to come home?”

“I’ll call you when I know more,” Natasha got out.

“Okay, hon—”

And the connection was lost. She went into the bathroom and tried to put on a little more makeup. Her hands were shaking too much, and anyway makeup was something you did to look sexy.

Sexy.

She washed the makeup off, pat-dried her face, gathered herself, and went downstairs. Several people she didn’t recognize were in the dining area. One couple had their bags around them. Jutting out of one bag was a small pennant advertising a cruise ship. The woman was writing furiously on a card, her face unnaturally pale.

The sun was pouring through the windows along the right side of the room and through the silk curtains over the French doors there. The patio outside was bathed in brightness and looked empty. The chairs were still upside down on the tables. All but one. At that table Constance sat reading a newspaper. Natasha crossed to another table, one that looked out onto the grassy hill leading to the mountain behind the resort.