Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

Natasha had a long slow sip of the wine.

“Wonder what those two are talking about,” Marsha said. “Only subject of the day, right?”

“Did you drive out?” Natasha asked. “That looked like your car you pulled up in.”

“I did. I’ve moved back for good. You knew that, right? I’m middle-of-the-country from now on. You know where I worked back there. Imagine. I come up out of the metro station at Crystal City on my way to the office like every day of the last five years, and there’s the fucking Pentagon burning. And I smelled jet fuel. I’m sure of it.”

“You knew right away, then?”

“Well, the airport’s so close, right. So yeah, I smelled the fuel and knew instantly it was a plane. I mean what could it be but a plane? Remember the one back in ’81 that crashed into the Fourteenth Street Bridge?”

“I was twelve and thought the world was going to end every day anyway because Reagan had just taken office — nuclear cowboy, Iris and her friends called him. So, yes. Yes, I remember it. Iris and I watched it on television.”

“Didn’t everybody.”

Presently, Marsha said, “So tell me about Jamaica.”

Natasha turned quickly to her. “What do you mean?”

“Excuse me?”

They stood there.

“It’s a pretty straightforward question, Natasha. I ask it and then you answer, you know, Great . Or Okay , or Really shitty . Right?”

“Well, but you knew we were stranded — what did Constance say about it?”

The other’s voice took on the tone of another question. “Um, well, she said you were stranded?” Then: “Jesus, kid. You want to tell me what’s going on with you? I just asked how it was in Jamaica. You were there almost two weeks before you got stranded, right?”

“It was good for the two weeks. There’s nothing else to tell. I mean, I — we got stuck there. We were having a really good time until it happened.” She swallowed; it was a gulp. And with a rush of buried wrath at her continuing disquiet, she took another long drink of the wine.

“You turned green when you sipped that bourbon, and just now you turned the same color when I asked you about Jamaica.”

She managed a shrug. “I had too much bourbon in Jamaica the day it happened, okay? It made me sick. All of it. The whole thing, and the whiskey.”

“You liked bourbon so much. Is the love affair over?”

Natasha stared.

“You and bourbon are done with each other.”

“Okay. Yes.”

“Did you think I was talking about Mackenzie?”

“I knew what you were talking about. Mackenzie. For God’s sake, Marsha.”

“Well, why’re you so fucking nervous?”

She said nothing.

“I was talking to Constance, and she said you were really nervous. Scared, I think is what she said. Scared. I mean you’re living a dream, right? What’s to be afraid of?”

“Oh, well, Marsha, you know — obviously I’m in a panic. And it’s so sweet having a person like Constance worrying about me and putting her own interpretation on everything and then reporting it to the whole fucking civilized world like Reuters news service.”

“Hey, honey. Hey. Hey .”

She swallowed more of the wine.

“You didn’t actually have much fun together on that trip, did you.”

She took another long drink.

“Go easy, kiddo. You don’t want to be hungover on your wedding day.”

“Oh, you too? You’re going to worry about me, too?”

Marsha took her own long sip. “I’m glad I didn’t go with you guys. I think I’d’ve gone batshit stuck like that. Even in a place like Jamaica.”

Faulk saw them talking, and even as he himself continued with his story, the fact registered at the back of his mind that there were a large number of associations and incidents in Natasha’s life of which he had little or no knowledge. He went on telling about the little girl on the train who was going home with her father and who had seen the disaster close up from a highway in Virginia, but he wanted to go stand with Natasha. He looked at Constance, who was sipping a beer and listening to Leander talk about the role of religion in the world’s violence. Constance had been there, in Jamaica. Faulk determined that he would speak to her about it. He stood and moved across the room in her direction, but then Andrew Clenon arrived.

Because Clenon was a priest, the others assumed he was the one who would perform the ceremony, and so Faulk took him around the room introducing him as the best man. “We were in seminary together.”

Leander shook Clenon’s hand and smiled at him warmly. “Another priest,” he said, having his own little joke.

“Our numbers seem to be dwindling in some quarters,” Clenon said.

Faulk guided him across the room to the kitchen, where Natasha and Marsha Trunan were still standing. Constance had joined them, with Clara and Jack. They were pouring more wine — Saint-Estèphe — which Jack had bought for them and which Natasha had opened. Faulk stood with Constance in the entrance of the room, while Clenon exchanged pleasantries with Jack about the wine, and they watched Aunt Clara swirl it in her glass, making a sardonic show of being about to taste it. Everyone seemed lighthearted now, and Natasha’s smile was broad and lovely as she lifted her own glass to her lips.

Faulk leaned slightly toward Constance, as if to confide something. “You flew in from Maine?” he said, feigning interest.

“California,” she told him. “I have a house in Maine.”

“Natasha mentioned that. Guess that’s why I thought—”

“I may be selling it.”

“It was kind of you to give her that trip to Jamaica. Even if it worked out so badly.”

“Well, she was good company for me. You know.”

He saw the narrowing of her eyes, the color in her face. Her cheeks were blotchy now, and she sipped her wine without returning his gaze. “I can’t get her to talk about it much,” he said. “It’s still got some kind of hold on her emotions.”

“Well, wouldn’t it? It was so terrible being — being stranded like that. And — and thinking you’d been in one of the towers, you know. An awful time for her. I’m still having nightmares about it myself.”

“Were you together when you found out?”

“On the beach together, yes, like every morning. The two of us. Every morning we would go down to the beach. But you knew that. Anyway, we came in, and it was already going on.”

“She must’ve — you both must’ve felt so alone.”

A small silence followed. She glanced down at the wine in her glass. Then: “Yes. Exactly. All the Americans felt that. Being alone. I know I did. It was very strange.”

“Even when you were with someone.”

She stared.

“I mean you and Natasha were together and — and alone at the same time.”

“Yes.”

“The feeling of being alone.”

“I didn’t know where anyone was for a while. I’m afraid I got pretty drunk. A lot of people just went off the deep end. There was a man there—” She stopped, having apparently seen the change in his features.

“You were saying.”

“A man there with his wife who said he hadn’t had a drink in something like ten years. He announced that he was an alcoholic, and — and, well, he already smelled of it when he said it and he went on and drank himself silly. He fell off the wagon in a big way, and I’m afraid I helped him do it.”

Faulk waited, thinking there was more.

Her head tilted slightly to one side. “How does it feel to leave the priesthood after so many years?”

“I’d been wanting to leave for quite a while.”

She nodded, without quite seeming to take it in.