He’d kept still, gently pushed her hair back from her face—just at her temple, which she liked, he knew that she liked that. And then she’d suddenly gotten up on one elbow and asked, “Do you know what a hum job is?”
He’d laughed, astonished.
“No, but do you?”
“Ellen…”
“Is it a blow job and you hum while you do it?”
Again, he laughed. “I guess.”
“Let me try,” she’d said.
Later, as she slept, he lay awake beside her, staring at the ceiling and thinking about what she’d said. He wanted to wake her up and say, “We’re not supposed to get it. We’re just here. And we have each other—doesn’t that help?” But he didn’t wake her. For one thing, her answer might be no.
He cut the engine and went into the diner. There was a twenty-something-year-old woman at the end of the counter with the newspaper spread out before her, doing the crossword puzzle. She barely looked up when Griffin sat at one of the stools. “Help you?”
“Just coffee, please.”
She put a tan mug in front of him, filled it. “Anything else?”
He looked at the desserts in the glass case behind her. “Rice pudding any good?”
“Nope.”
“Is anything back there any good?”
She turned around, surveyed the cakes and pies, the glass goblets of Jell-O and pudding. “The apple pie’s all right.”
“All right. That, then, à la mode.”
She served it to him, then went back to her crossword puzzle. Griffin took a bite of the pie. “This is awful.”
The waitress shrugged. “It’s better than the rice pudding.”
Griffin pushed the ice cream off the pie, ate it in three bites. Ellen made wonderful apple pie, and she always made cutouts of apples and leaves from the extra dough to arrange artfully on top. She made great rice pudding, too. Stop.
“How’s the crossword coming?” he asked the waitress.
She looked up. “Sorry?”
“Just wondered how the crossword puzzle was coming.”
“What’s an eleven-letter word for ‘argument’?”
Griffin thought for a minute, then said, “Altercation.”
“Oh, yeah.” She wrote it in. Then she stood back and stretched, arched her back like a cat would. “I hate doing these things. I mean, you do all this work and what do you get?”
“Satisfaction,” Griffin said.
“From what?”
“From filling in all the blanks.”
“That doesn’t give me any satisfaction.”
“Why bother, then?”
“I don’t know. It’s something to do until closing time.”
“When is closing time?”
She looked at her watch. “Twenty-three minutes. And twenty-six seconds.”
She looked at him frankly now, as though seeing him for the first time. Raised an eyebrow. Was this an invitation? She walked past him, intentionally slowly, Griffin thought, and he watched her fill the salt and pepper shakers. She had a very nice figure, her youth visible even in her back. It had been so long since he’d been with another woman. He had a hard time remembering it. Was it…Peggy something? Was that the name of the last woman he’d slept with before Ellen? Yes, Peggy Swenson. She was auburn-haired, studying to be a pharmacist, came from a big farm family in Minnesota. She was nice. Boring, but nice. Piano legs. She’d wept when they parted, said that she’d thought they’d made such a nice couple.
He looked at the waitress’s legs. Very nice—long, muscular calves, trim ankles. She wore hot pink shoelaces in her waitress shoes. She turned back to him, smiled. She had sprayed her bangs into a kind of startled, stand-up style, and pulled the rest of her blond hair into a ponytail. She was wearing a lot of makeup—black mascara that clotted her lashes into irregular spikes, a purplish color of lipstick unlike anything Griffin had ever seen in nature, blotches of blush high up on her cheeks. It was too bad, really—she was kind of pretty beneath all that. He stirred what was left of his coffee, tried to imagine her naked. Her breasts were large, and they would be high and perky. She’d have a flat belly, no stretch marks. Blond pubic hair? He saw himself on top of her, her mouth open in pleasure, maybe moaning a little.
“More coffee?” He started, looked up. She was standing right next to him now, only a young girl, really; somebody’s daughter, wearing a tacky watch with fake diamonds.
“Yes, please,” he said, and realized with horror that he was feeling close to tears.
“You’re feeling bad, huh?”
He nodded, examined his thumbnail, tried to remember some spectacular plays in the last Bears game he’d watched.
“Yeah. I knew it as soon as you walked in here.” She put the pot back on the burner, turned it off. Then she took off her apron and came to stand in front of him. “It’s all over your face.”
“I suppose.”
“What’s your name?”
“It’s Griffin. Well, it’s Frank. Frank Griffin, I go by Griffin.”
“You married?”
“I’m…” Was he? “Well, I guess I’m separated.”
“You guess?”
“My wife wants a divorce, so I guess I’m getting divorced.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“No. I don’t.”
“Well, you’re half the team, pal.”
“Right.”
“You are!” She reached under the counter for a rag, started wiping the counter clean. “You’d better get her back, before she finds out the dirty little secret. You know what the dirty little secret is?”
Griffin shook his head.
She leaned in closer. “You need us more than we need you.”
“I see.”
“It’s true. Women always do better than men after a divorce. After the dust settles. My mom thought she’d die when my dad left. But now? Whoa, Miss America! Date-o-rama!”
Griffin said nothing.
She put down her rag, came closer. “Aw, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I can tell you’re a nice guy. But it seems like guys never appreciate girls ‘til we’re gone. Am I right? Find me a woman who gets flowers after marriage, you know what I’m saying?”
“I do.” He took out his wallet, suppressed an impulse to show her his photo of Ellen—a great shot of her sitting on the front porch, shading her eyes against the setting sun. Her hair loose about her shoulders. Shorts and a T-shirt. Bare feet.
“Listen—don’t pay me for that sucky pie, okay? On the house.”
“Thanks.” He put down a ten. “Keep the change.” He stood, put his coat on.
“Hey, thanks a lot!” she called after him. “You really are a nice guy!”
Barbara’s Books was still open. He parked the car and went in, nodded a greeting at his favorite employee there. Thomas was a handsome black gay man, disarmingly honest, unfailingly friendly. “Hey, big man,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Griffin had no idea why Thomas called him “big man,” but he didn’t mind it. It was nice to think that someone thought of him that way. Made him feel important.
“I’m looking for a book of poetry for Ellen. Can you show me where they’d be?”
“Of course.” Thomas came from behind the counter and led Griffin to the poetry section. “Is it her birthday?”
“No. This is just for a surprise.”
Thomas looked at Griffin over his shoulder. “Aren’t you nice.”
“So who do you like?” Griffin asked, looking at the rows of slender volumes.
“I like Jackie Collins best,” Thomas said. “You know I love her. But let’s see what I might recommend to you here.” He studied the titles, then turned to ask Griffin, “Are you sure you want poetry? Has Ellen ever read Jackie Collins?”
“I’d really like to get her poetry.”
Thomas put one hand on his hip, the other to his chin. “Hmmmm.” He pulled down a fat paperback. “Here you go,
here’s a good one. Pablo Neruda. Love poems.”
“Maybe something more…subtle. Maybe by a woman.”
“Sharon Olds?”
“Is she good?”
“Oh, sure.” He handed Griffin another book. “Here’s one a lot of folks really like. Marie Howe, What the Living Do.” Another customer came in, and Thomas said, “Just look through them all, hon. See what catches your eye. Poetry’s so sub jective.”
Griffin selected several books, then went over to the window seat and began flipping through them. Huh. Not as inaccessible as he’d thought. On the seat a bit down from him, a woman unself-consciously stared at him. When Griffin looked up, she smiled. “Hi.” She was about forty, husky-voiced, hard-looking, though quite beautiful.
“Hi.”
“See anything you like?”
“I’m just starting to look.”
“I’d be glad to help you. What have you got over there?’
“I’ll be fine,” Griffin said, returning to the book he held.
“I’ll bet I could make things easier for you. Why don’t I—”
“No thanks.”
“Well, excuse me,” the woman said. She got up to leave.
Griffin watched her walk out the door. How did women walk in those high heels? Thomas came over to Griffin and whispered theatrically between hands cupped around his mouth, “Man.”
“What?”
“She’s a man. And a thief. She’s always trying to take paperbacks, but I always see her doing it, so she always puts them back. She liked you.”
“Guess it’s my lucky night,” Griffin said.
“I guess it is.”
After twenty minutes, Griffin settled on the Marie Howe. He asked Thomas to gift-wrap it, then left the store and walked down the block to Borders. He wanted the anonymity he’d get there, because he wanted to look at self-help books. He hated them, but maybe he’d break down and take a look, what the hell. When his co-worker Tom Carmichael was trying to save his marriage, he’d sworn by one of the books he’d found in the self-help section—something he described as “learning to become more sensitive without having to cut your balls off.”
The store was mostly empty—a few patrons sat reading magazines. Griffin found the relationship section and was examining the titles when he saw the same man who’d spoken to him in Barbara’s come down the aisle. “Well!” he said. “Buy me a drink, sailor?”
“No, thank you,” Griffin said.
“What?”
“I said, ‘no thank you.’”
“I didn’t offer anything. That was just a joke. A kind of greeting.”
“Well. I apologize then.”
“Accepted.”
Griffin nodded, buttoned his coat, and turned to leave.
“I’m Nancy,” the man said.
Griffin turned around. He had no idea what to say, settled on, “Ah.”
The man rolled his eyes. “You are pathetic.”
Griffin bowed. “So it’s been said.”
Chapter 9
The house was dark when he came in. In the living room, he made out Ellen’s dim form on the couch. Her back was to him. He tiptoed over to her, sat down beside her. Resting open on the floor was a small book: Marie Howe, What the Living Do. Great. Perfect. A gift from Mr. Oil Pan, no doubt.
Quietly, Griffin picked up the book, looked for an inscription. There was none. And tucked into the back was a charge slip, with Ellen’s signature. She’d bought it at Anderson’s in Naperville. When was she out there? Why? Is that where Stud lived?
He put the book back where it had been, started to get up, and Ellen turned over. She stared at him sleepily, blinked, then sat up. “Where have you been?”
“Out. What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you doing on the couch?”
“Sleeping.”
He sighed. “This is ridiculous.”
“What is?”
“You. On the couch. You can’t be comfortable.”
“Well, I just don’t think we should sleep in the same bed, Griffin. In fact, I don’t think we should be in the same house. As you know.”
He took off his coat, went to the hall closet to hang it up. In the inside pocket was the book. Right. He thought, briefly, about showing it to her, then decided against it.
He came back to the sofa, turned on a table lamp. “I know all about what you think, Ellen.”
She squinted at the sudden brightness, pulled the blanket around her shoulders. She was wearing a pair of Griffin’s sweat socks and her favorite battered flannel pajamas, tiny purple flowers faded to a blur against a blue background. “So, can we make some decisions, Griffin?”
“Are those my socks?”
She looked down at her feet. “Yes.”
“Give them back.”
She pulled off the socks, handed them to him. “Here.”
He stood silent for a moment, then held the socks out to her again. “Put them on, your feet will freeze.”
“I don’t want them.”
“Put them on, Ellen. Obviously you do want them; you were wearing them.”
“It was a mistake. They were in my drawer.”
He sat down wearily beside her, leaned back, and rubbed his forehead. “Ellen. Put the fucking socks on, and then we’ll talk. All right?”
Not looking at him, she took the socks and put them back on. Then she sat staring straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap. A woman in a waiting room, anticipating bad news.
Griffin got up and sat on the floor, began pulling off one of her socks.
Angrily, she pulled her foot away from him. “What are you doing?”
He looked up at her. “It’s on inside out.” He took her foot in his hands again, gently, took the sock off, reversed it, and put it back on.
When he looked up again, she was crying. “It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Yes, it does. Now your socks are on right side out.”
“Okay,” she said, wiping her eyes; and then, in spite of herself, she began to laugh.
“That’s right,” Griffin said, apropos of nothing, really.
But then she drew herself up, looked seriously at him. “So. I guess we should talk about how to manage this. Oh, Griffin, I’m sorry, but I really think you should start looking for a place.”
He nodded, envisioning himself with the want ads, calling this landlady and that. No. “When are you going to understand this, Ellen? When are you going to believe me? I’m not leaving. I’m not going to suddenly change my mind. I’m not going to help you out. This is your idea—you move.”
“Right. And who will take care of Zoe when she comes home from school? Who will make sure she does her homework? Who will wash and iron her clothes? Who will take her to her doctor’s appointments? Who will make her dinner? I’m just trying to do this right, Griffin. Someone has got to be here for her!”
“I’ll be here. I’ll take time off from work until I figure it all out. I’ve got a good six weeks of vacation time coming.”
“…You do?”
“Yes, I do.”
She sat quietly. Then she said, “Well, why didn’t we ever—”
“Do you want to talk about my vacation time, Ellen, or do you want to talk about Zoe? I want to talk about Zoe. I’ll take a vacation, and during that time, I’ll interview housekeepers. I’ll find somebody to come in after I go back to work. I’ve seen ads for people looking for that kind of work. I’ll hire someone.”
“I don’t want some stranger taking care of Zoe!”
“That’s too bad.”
“But I thought—”
“You thought wrong.”
“Griffin. Please. Let me take care of my daughter.”
“You can. Every other weekend, and a couple of evenings a week.”
“I can’t leave her!”
“Neither can I.”
Ellen sat still, stunned looking. He supposed this hadn’t occurred to her. What
the hell did these women think, that they could kick a man out and then keep everything? Ellen had no grounds for divorce, he did! Should she get rewarded for fucking some engine jockey? No. Not a chance.
“Griffin. What do you want me to do? What can I do to…” She looked up at him. “Would you be willing to meet him?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“Yeah, I want you to say his name.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then, her voice tight and low, she asked, “What is this, Griffin?”
“I want you to say his name.”
“Peter. All right? Peter. Peter. Peter.”
“Dickhead. Homewrecker. Lying son of a bitch.”
She turned away from him, nodded.
“No, I don’t think I’m interested in meeting him, Ellen, thank you very much. Pass on my deepest regrets. I’m going to bed.”
He started to walk away and Ellen grabbed his hand. “Griffin. There is a better way to do this. I wanted to keep Zoe’s life as normal as possible. And I thought we could stay friends.”
“Oh, Ellen, grow the fuck up.”
“I thought we could try to stay friends. This isn’t all my fault, Griffin! I know you think it is, but it isn’t! You just won’t ever admit that it’s not right between us, and it never has been! Why won’t you admit that?”
Griffin walked to the living room window, shoved his hands in his pants pockets, and looked out at the streetlight. It was beautiful, an old fixture that used to be a gas lamp. There were things in the world besides Ellen.
He heard her call his name, softly, and then she asked, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been sad?”
He turned around impatiently. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ellen. Yes, of course I knew you were sad, sometimes. But so what? So am I. So is Zoe!”
“It’s not the same thing. It’s…I just never felt right about marrying you. I mean, I loved you, but it was not the right kind of love. What I felt for you, it wasn’t the same as what you felt for me. You can’t force that kind of thing, even if you want to. It’s there, or it isn’t.” She pushed the blanket off herself, rubbed at the side of her forehead. Ellen got severe migraines every now and then. Well, that was her problem, now—he wouldn’t even ask.