Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

Seeing this, she walked over and kissed him on the side of the head and then started out of the room. He muttered something behind her, and she turned, and saw him lift the glass of vermouth to his lips.

“Pardon?” she said.

“Wondered if you wanted to have a drink with me.”

“I’m beat. I’m going back to bed.”

“I should go to bed, too. But I seem unable to let go of the day.”

“It doesn’t sound like it was all that special for you.”

“No.” He raised the glass. “Very. Very special. I learned about cheating on someone you supposedly love.”

She studied his face as he drank. He was watching her, staring. “Honey, come to bed,” she urged.

“I wonder why he wanted me to know about it now.”

“No offense,” Natasha said. “But he strikes me as strange.”

“He is that ,” Faulk said. “But then, so am I.” He gave her a peculiarly conspiratorial look, almost a leer, out of that sidelong smile she had always liked; now it unnerved her and seemed to be eliciting something from her.

He saw the small step back she took, putting one hand on the frame of the doorway, and he wanted to say more, draw her out concerning unfaithfulness. He thought he saw the guilty pall of it in her face. The color had left her cheeks, he was certain of it; she was hiding something. “Talk to me,” he said.

“I’m so tired, Michael. It’s late. He’s your father. He’ll go back to Little Rock, and you won’t have to see him if you don’t want to.”

“Just wondered what you thought about it.” He poured still more of the vermouth.

“Honey, please come to bed.”

“I’ll be there in minutes. So fast you’ll be astonished.”

She went and sat down across from him. “Do you want to talk? It must’ve upset you so much. I should be here for you.”

“It didn’t upset me.”

“But you’re — you had — you said you had drinks with him and—”

“Whiskey. We drank it slow.”

“It’s no good to sit here getting drunk. We’re getting married day after tomorrow.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

She patted his wrist and then tried to take the glass. He held it tight.

“This one more.”

“Okay. And you’ll come right to bed?”

“Promise.”

He muttered something else as she stood. “What?” she said.

“I was thinking — your present state of mind.”

She waited.

“You — you’re — how you are now. It’s just the way you were when we met. You were grieving the lost — the end of the — whatever it was …”

“No, honey. Please.”

“I was just wondering what happened in Jamaica to change everything between us.”

She said, “Oh, baby. Nothing’s changed between us , has it?”

He swallowed the dregs of the vermouth.

“I’ve just been so nervous about getting everything done,” she told him. “It’s a — it’s a big step for a girl.” She felt the falsity of her own voice and sought to cover it by moving to his side and bending down to kiss him. She meant it as a passionate kiss, but he kept his mouth shut tight. He did not close his eyes but looked at her with that bleary-eyed expression of someone with too much to drink.

“My God,” he said, meaning it. “You are so beautiful.”

“I’m a mess.” She moved to the door and turned and made herself smile into his disturbing, suspicious, glittering gaze. “I love you.”

He held up the empty glass. “Here’s to love.”

5

Early in the morning, her grandmother came to the doorway of the room to say that Constance was on the phone and wanted to talk to her. The night had been long, full of dreams that woke her, and near fallings-off that shook her into fearful listening to the house, Faulk sleeping heavily at her side. The sound of Iris in the hall outside the door startled her, and as she left the bed, carefully, her heart was pounding, knocking against her breastbone. She dressed hurriedly in jeans and a sweatshirt and went downstairs to the phone in the hall.

“Hello,” Constance said. There was an evenness, almost a guardedness, in the voice.

“I’ll come get you,” Natasha said. “I’ll take you out for brunch.”

“I just want something light.”

“I’ll pick you up in five minutes.”

Iris was sitting in the kitchen with her coffee. “I had a long night,” she said, as Natasha entered the room. “Not much sleep.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s just nerves, honey.”

“What’re you nervous about?” Natasha asked her.

“I’m an old woman. And my knee hurts.”

Natasha kissed her forehead.

“I’ve got to take it easier on it,” Iris said.

Natasha poured herself a little of the coffee and stood there sipping it while the other watched her. She put the cup down in the sink with a small clatter.

“I’ll shut up,” Iris said.

“I have to go. I won’t be long.”

“Take my car,” she said with the air of someone deciding to let something pass.

“Okay.”

At the Holiday Inn, Constance was sitting under the canopy in front. She wore a light scarf and white slacks with a blue puffy-sleeved blouse, and she looked rested. The sight of her brought everything back in another bad interior rush, and the effort of the past days to find a way beyond things, the little victories of will, all seemed to collapse again as her friend got into the car and leaned over to hug her. The awkwardness of it made Constance frown. “You look frazzled,” she said, with her customary bluntness. “Do you wish I hadn’t come?”

“Stop it,” Natasha said, and flashed a brittle smile.

“I almost didn’t. Now I don’t know what to say.”

“Did you go to California?”

“Briefly. I came from there.”

“And?”

Constance sighed. “It’s a nice little shop. I still want her to use her degree.”

“Does she seem happy?”

“We’re fine. I’m wondering what you’ve got planned.”

“A small wedding. So we can start our lives.” Natasha drove down Central to Cooper Street, and over to Otherlands Coffee Bar café. They went in and ordered, and stood waiting, and Constance wanted to know about the café and about some of the other places in Memphis that she remembered with fondness. When they had their food, they went out on the open patio and took a table overlooking the cars in the lot with the sun on them. Constance remarked about the leaves not having begun to take on color yet. “In Maine, some of the trees were already bare when I left for California.”

Natasha had ordered granola with orange juice, and she was surprised at her own appetite for it. Constance sat there tearing up a bran muffin and washing bites of it down with sips of black coffee. “So — how are you—”

“Fine.”

“You’ve let go of being mad at me.”

Natasha stared at her.

“Okay. Okay.”

They ate quietly for another few moments.

“You know I thought I saw him at the airport yesterday.”

Natasha paused only slightly, concentrating on her food. The blood was hurtling through the veins of her neck.

“Unpleasant, to say the least. Reminded me of my stupidity.”

“Are you going back to Maine or to California when you leave here?” she asked, hearing the tremor in her own voice and feeling the coldness rising at her abdomen. She had put her spoon down and sipped her water.

“Maine. Until the end of the month, anyway. I’m gonna sell that house.”

Others came up onto the patio and entered the café. They were talking animatedly, interrupting one another and laughing, and they seemed perfectly happy and at peace with things as they were.