Bygones

  “I didn't expect you to be there. I called for Randy.”

  “He's not here, sorry.”

  “I wanted to congratulate him. I hear he's found a job with a band.”

  “That's right.”

  “I suppose he's really excited, huh?”

  “Is he ever. He's quit his job at the nut house and he's practicing here every morning and with the band every afternoon. Today, though, he's out shopping for a used van. Says he's got to have one to haul his drums in.”

  “Has he got any money?”

  “Probably not but I didn't volunteer any.”

  “What do you think? Should I?”

  “That's up to you.”

  “I'm asking your advice, Bess. He's our son and I want to do what you think will be best for him.”

  “All right, then, I think it's best to let him struggle and find his own way to get a van. If he wants the job badly enough—and of course he does—he'll work it out.”

  “All right, I won't offer.”

  A lull fell. End of one subject, opening for another . . .

  Michael picked up a stapler, moved it to a different spot on his desktop, moved it back where it had been. “Bess, about Saturday night . . .” She said nothing. He depressed the head of the stapler four times, not quite hard enough to release staples. “All week long I've been thinking I should call you and apologize.”

  Neither of them spoke for a long time. His fingertips lingered over the stapler, polishing it as if it were dusty.

  “Bess, I think you were right. That wasn't a very smart thing we did.”

  “No. It only complicates matters.”

  “So I guess we shouldn't see each other anymore, should we?”

  Again, no answer.

  “We're only getting Lisa's hopes up for nothing. I mean, it isn't going to lead to anything, so why do we put ourselves through it?”

  His heart was drumming hard enough to loosen the stitches on his shirt pocket. Sweet Jesus, it was just like when they used to talk this way on the phone in college, longing to be together yet summoning willpower to do the right thing, which they inevitably failed to do once they were together.

  When he spoke again the words emerged in a ragged whisper. “Bess, are you there?”

  Her voice, too, sounded strained. “The damned awful truth is that it's the best piece of sex I've had since the last good one you and I had together when we were still married. I've thought about it so much since Saturday night, about all those years of learning it took to get it right together, and how comfortable and easy it felt with you. Did it feel that way for you, too?”

  “Yes,” he whispered hoarsely while beneath the desk he felt himself grow priapic.

  “And that's important, isn't it?”

  “Of course.”

  “But it isn't enough. It's the kind of reasoning teenagers use, and we're not teenagers any longer.”

  “What are you saying, Bess?”

  “I'm saying I'm scared. I'm saying I've been walking around thinking of nothing but you since Saturday night and it scares the living hell out of me. I'm scared of getting hurt again, Michael.”

  “And you think I'm not?”

  “I think it's different for a man.”

  “Oh, Bess, come on, don't give me that double-standard crap. My feelings are involved here just like yours are.”

  “Michael, when I went into your bathroom to look for a brush I found a whole box of condoms in the drawer. A whole box!”

  “So that's why you got all huffy and walked out?”

  “Well, what would you have done?” She sounded very angry.

  “Did you notice how many were used?” When she made no reply he said, “One! Go back and count them. One, which was in my pocket before you got there that night. Bess, I don't fuck around.”

  “Oh, that word is so offensive.”

  “All right then, screw. I don't and you know it.”

  “How can I know it, when six years ago—seven—it's a good part of what broke up our marriage.”

  “I thought we'd been through all that and agreed that it was both our faults. Now here we go again; we get together, we make love once and you're already slinging accusations at me. Hell, I can't fight this for the rest of my life.”

  “Nobody asked you to.”

  After a broad silence he responded in a sound of pinched anger, “All right. That's certainly clear enough. Tell Randy I called, will you? Tell him I'll try him again later.”

  “I'll tell him.”

  He hung up without a good-bye. “Shit!” He made a fist and banged the stapler. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” He banged it three more times, pumping out staples and jamming the contraption. He sat staring at it, scowling, his lips as straight and thin as a welt pocket. “Shit,” he said again, quieter, spreading his elbows on the desk, joining his hands with the thumbs extended and pressed to his eyeballs.

  What did she want of him? Why should he feel like the guilty one when she'd been as willing and eager as he last Saturday night? He hadn't done a damned thing wrong! Not one! He'd seduced his ex-wife with her total compliance, and now she was putting the screws to him for it. Damn women, anyway! And damn this one in particular.

  * * *

  He went up to his cabin the next weekend, got eaten up by mosquitoes, wished it were hunting season; got eaten up by deerflies, wished there were someone with him; got eaten up by wood ticks, wished he had a phone up there so he could call Bess and tell her what he thought of her accusations.

  He returned to the city still fuming, picked up the phone on Sunday night and slammed it back into the cradle without dialing her number.

  On Tuesday night he attended another “unreasonable citizens” meeting on the Victoria and Grand issue, came out of it angrier than ever because they wanted him to plant twenty-four good-sized boulevard trees all up and down Grand Avenue at a cost of probably a thousand dollars per tree (including concrete ironwork), which had nothing whatever to do with the building he wanted to put up but it appeared he was being legally extorted and would go along with it: twenty-four thousand dollars' worth of trees for his building permit and an end to their squawking.

  He had tried to call and congratulate Randy three additional times, always without getting an answer, and that irritated him, too.

  Every time he passed through the gallery, with its empty faux pedestal still waiting for a piece of sculpture, he railed against Bess for writing him off with the job unfinished.

  She was at the root of his dissatisfaction with life in general, and he realized it.

  Two weeks had passed and his disposition hadn't improved. Finally, one night in late July, when he'd overbroiled some fresh scallops for himself and gotten them rubbery, and had listened to roaring speedboats until he'd been forced to close the deck doors, and had picked up the television guide to find nothing but junk scheduled, and had sat at his drafting table for two hours without accomplishing a thing, he went into his bathroom, got the box of condoms, stormed down to his car, drove to her house, rang the bell and stood on her doorstep, waiting to tie into her.

  After a delay the hall light came on, the door opened and there she stood, barefoot, wearing a thigh-length thing made of white terrycloth with an elastic neck hole and a tie at the waist. Her hair was wet and she smelled good enough to bottle and sell, which further piqued him.

  “Michael, what in the world are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk and I'm going to.” He burst his way inside and closed the door.

  She attempted to check her watch but her wrist was empty. Obviously she was fresh out of the shower. “It's got to be ten-thirty at night!”

  “I really don't give a damn, Bess. Are you alone?”

  “Yes. Randy's out playing.”

  “Good. Let's go into the family room.” He headed that way.

  “You go straight to hell, Michael Curran!” she shouted. “You come bursting into my house giving orders and bossing me around. Well, I don't have to p
ut up with it. You can just get out and lock the door when you go!”

  She caught her short skirt in her fingertips and headed up the stairs.

  “Wait just a minute there, missus!” He charged after her, taking the steps two at a time, and caught her halfway up. “You're not going anywhere until you—”

  “I'm not a missus, and take your hands off me!”

  “That's not what you said that night in my apartment, is it? My hands were just fine on you then, weren't they?”

  “Oh, so you came to throw that up in my face, did you?”

  “No. I came to tell you that ever since that night everything's been horseshit. I walk around with a wad of anger in my throat, and I snap at people who don't deserve it, and I can't even get my own damn son to answer the phone so I can congratulate him!”

  “And that's my fault?” She opened a hand on her chest.

  “Yes!”

  “What'd I do?”

  “You accused me of screwing around, and I didn't!” He grabbed her hand and slapped the box of condoms into it. “Here, count 'em!”

  She gaped at the box, dumbstruck.

  “Count 'em! One missing, and that's all. I bought them that day! Count 'em, I said!”

  She tried to give the box back to him. “Don't be absurd, I'm not going to count them!”

  “Then how will you know I'm telling the truth?”

  “It doesn't matter, Michael, because it's not going to happen again.”

  “The hell it isn't! I'm hornier than a two-peckered goat just standing here smelling you, and either you're by God going to count those rubbers or I will. You're not going to? All right, give them to me!” He grabbed the box and sat down on a step at her feet, opened it and started pulling them out. “One. Two. Three.” He slapped them down on the carpet, counting clear to eleven, until they were scattered like petals at her feet. “There, you see?” He looked up at her, high above him. “One missing. Now do you believe me?”

  She was leaning against the wall, covering her mouth with a hand, laughing. “You should just see yourself; you look absolutely ridiculous, sitting there counting those things.”

  “That's what you damn women do to us men, you play around with us until we do things that make us look like blithering idiots. Do you believe me now, Bess?”

  “Yes, I believe you but for heaven's sake, pick them up. What if Randy happened to come home early?”

  He grabbed her bare ankle. “Come on down here and help me.”

  “Michael, let go.”

  He gripped harder and with his free hand lifted her hem. “What have you got on under there?”

  She slapped her skirt to her thighs. “Michael, you damned fool, stop it.”

  “My God, Bess, you're naked under that thing.”

  “Let my ankle go!”

  “You horny, too, Bess? I'll bet you are. Why don't you invite me up to our old bedroom and we'll take one of these things and put it to good use?”

  “Michael, don't.” He was rising to his feet, one condom in his hand, climbing the two steps to reach her, then flattening her against the handrail, to which she clung with both hands.

  “Bess, there's a lot of sex between you and me just waiting to be made. I think we found that out that night at my place, so let's get started.”

  She was trying hard not to be swayed by him. He looked devastating with his hazel eyes snapping and his hair in need of cutting, and he felt inviting, too, so near and warm and seductive. “You get out of here. You're plum crazy.”

  He kissed her neck and ground himself against her, breast to hips. “I'm crazy all right, crazy about you, missus. Come on, what do you say?”

  “And what then? A replay of the last two weeks? Because it hasn't been any more fun for me than it's been for you.”

  He kissed her on the mouth once, more the strike of a wet tongue than an actual kiss, and whispered a suggestion in her ear.

  She giggled. “Oh for shame, you dirty old man.”

  “Come on, you'll like it.”

  He was still grinding, and she was still amused but weakening.

  “You're going to crush my pelvis on this handrail.”

  “But you'll be moaning so loud you won't even hear it crack.”

  “Michael Curran, your ego exceeds anything known to woman.”

  “Doesn't it, though.” He had her skirt up and a two-handed grip on her buttocks. Then he had his lips on hers, and his tongue in her mouth, and her arms went around his shoulders and he was touching her inside where she was all liquid heat. The kiss grew rampant. Their breathing grew stressed.

  Against his lips she mumbled, “All right, you devil, you win.”

  He hauled her by the hand, up the steps, along the hall, leaving the foil packets scattered on the stairs, into their bedroom, strewing flotsam as they went—his shirt, her belt, his shoes, her white cover-up—and hit the bed naked, already tangled.

  They were laughing as they bounced onto the mattress on their sides. Abruptly the laughter fled, replaced by a gaze of pure passion.

  “Bess . . .” Michael whispered, “Bess . . .” rolling with her, wanting his mouth everywhere at once. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too, and I thought about this. I wanted it . . .” She sucked in a quick breath and exclaimed, “Oh!”

  They were giving and greedy, tender and tensile by turns. With hands and mouths they savored one another's bodies, each the perfect recipient of the other. The bedspread grew mussed, two pillows fell to the floor, several others bolstered them randomly, and in time not so randomly.

  He told her, “You smell the way I remember.”

  She said, “So do you . . .”

  Ah, the smells, the tastes.

  “Your hands,” she said once, examining them. “How I've always loved your hands. “Here . . . they belong here . . .”

  Later, he murmured, “You still like this, don't you?”

  “Ohhh . . .” she crooned, her eyes closing, ending on a whisper, “. . . yes.”

  What they shared was universal. Why, then, did it feel unique? Triumphant? As if no one before them or after them would share these same feelings? They answered these questions themselves, when he entered her, levered her as close as possible with one heel and clasped her against his breast with her face in the cay of his neck.

  “I think I've fallen in love with you again, Bess,” he whispered against her damp hair.

  She went still, all but her heart, whose beat seemed to suddenly fill her entire body, the entire room, the entire world.

  “I think I've fallen in love with you, too.”

  For that trembling, precious moment each was afraid to speak further, to move. His eyes were closed, his wide hand cradling the back of her head where her hair felt cool. Her mouth had made a damp spot just below his whisker line.

  Finally he drew back, tenderly brushing the hair from her face.

  “Really?” His smile was delicate, surprised.

  “Really.”

  They kissed with exquisite tenderness, touching each other in places that mattered as much as those joined below—napes, faces, temples, throats—each touch a reiteration of the words they'd spoken.

  “These last two weeks apart were horrible. Let's not ever do that to each other again,” he whispered.

  “No,” she agreed, so softly the word drifted back into her throat.

  Then all that had begun so ribaldly ended in beauty, a man and a woman, cleaving, rhythmic, then gasping at the moment of cataclysm and smiling when it was over.

  Afterward, she whispered, “Stay,” and found a place for his hand, and another where her sole seemed to belong.

  Later, they lay back-to-belly. The bedside lamp was on and an insect worried the shade with a tick-tick of wings. Bess's hair had dried and spread a floral scent upon their shared pillow. The bedspread, now snarled beneath them, rode up in rills here and there, creating a barrier between their legs. Michael flattened it with his calf and found Bess's bare toes
with his own, invited hers to curl around his and closed his eyes.

  He sighed.

  She studied his left arm, stretching forth from beneath her ear; his hand hanging limply over the edge of the mattress; the pattern of dark hair ending along the soft inner arm, where white skin began; his gold watchband; the inside of his relaxed palm; ringless fingers.

  She felt his lips on her hair, his breath warming it. She closed her eyes to enjoy the wondrous impuissance, the sense of well-being.

  After many minutes he said quietly, “Bess?”

  She opened her eyes. “Hm?”

  “Are you ready to hear that M word yet?”

  She thought for some time before answering. “I don't know.”

  He curled his arm toward her face and she turned to look back at him behind her.

  “I think we'd better talk about it, don't you?” he said.

  “I suppose so.”

  They settled on their backs. He removed his arm from beneath her.

  “Okay,” he said, “let's get it out in the open instead of dancing around it the way we have been. Do you think we could make it if we married again?”

  Even forewarned, Bess was startled by the word. She said, “I've been spending a lot of time lately wondering. In bed we could.”

  “And out of it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think our biggest problem would be trust, because each of us has had others and . . .”

  “Other. Just one, for me, anyway.”

  “Yeah, for me, too. But trust will still be a big factor.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “We'll each be meeting people, doing business with people, sometimes even in the evenings. If I tell you I'm going to a city council meeting, will you believe me?”

  He picked up her near hand and placed it atop his, matching the curl of her fingers to his knuckles.

  “I don't know,” she answered honestly. “When I found that box of condoms, I really thought . . .” They both studied their hands, fitting and refitting them together. “Well, you know what I thought.”

  “Yeah, I know what you thought.” He deserted her hand to double both his behind his head. “But we can't always be counting condoms, Bess.”

  She chuckled and turned on her side to study him, laying one hand on the hollow beneath his ribs.