“I’ve been expecting it. At least it happened before winter.”
They entered the house together. The vacuum cleaner sprawled on the family room floor and the kitchen was a mess, as if putting away groceries was in interrupted progress.
Claire called from the porch, “We’re out here eating soup! Bring a couple of bowls and spoons!”
Tom opened a cupboard door, Robby the silverware drawer, and they went through the family room toward the sunny side of the house.
On the screen porch Claire and Chelsea sat at the round patio table, where a stainless-steel kettle and a tube of crackers shared space with the day’s mail. Chelsea was painting her toenails, wearing an oversized white T-shirt sporting a chartreuse parrot. She finished one nail, ate a spoonful of soup, and began painting another. Claire, dressed in jeans, a chambray shirt, and a baseball cap, clinked her spoon into her bowl and said, “Help yourselves.”
Tom’s hand drifted over her shoulder as he passed behind her chair. “What’s new?”
“Mmm ... not much. Your dad called. Nothing important, just said hi. What’s new with you two?”
“The Nova probably needs a new battery. We had to jump-start it at school; now it won’t start again.”
Robby lifted a cover off the soup kettle and peered inside. “What kind?”
“Broccoli-and-ham chowder.”
“With cheese?” he asked, his eyebrows rising.
“Of course.”
“All right, Mom! I’m starved.”
“So what else is new,” she remarked, as the guys filled their soup bowls and sat down. “Here, have some crackers.” Claire pushed a tube across the table.
Robby began breaking some into his soup and pushing them beneath the surface, keeping one eye on his sister. “What are you painting your toenails for? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of.”
“Yeah, well, what would you know, Big Neck?”
“Hey, you know how many hours of weight lifting it took to get my neck this big? And who sees your toenails anyway?”
She gave him a look that said, Your stupidity is showing. “Does Kent Arens like painted toenails or what?”
“If he did, it’s none of your business.”
“I hear he walked you home from the game last night.” A spoonful of soup stalled halfway to Tom’s mouth. A warning crimped his insides.
“That’s none of your business either,” Chelsea shot back.
“Can’t he drive a car yet, or what?”
“My goodness, that makes you sooo manly when you belittle others you’re jealous of.” She blew down the length of her shin, trying to dry her toenails.
“That’ll be the day I’m jealous of Kent Arens. Talks like a Confederate, and you can’t understand half of what he says.”
“Well, I happen to like it, and yes, he walked me home last night. Anything else you want to know?”
“All right, you two, enough,” Tom said, forcing down the flutters in his stomach and the hot shot of fear whizzing through him. “I swear to God, the way you talk to each other, a person would think you were mortal enemies. And Robby, don’t forget what we talked about at school.” Chelsea said, “What did you talk about at school?”—her bearing suddenly alert with typical sibling nosiness. Tom chided, “Chelsea.”
“Oh, all right.” They had rules about privacy, this family who bumped against each other twenty-four hours a day; Tom and Claire had laid them down early on. “But tell him he’d better not say anything to scare Kent Arens off. He’s really nice and I like him a lot.”
Chelsea’s words struck Tom full force.
His throat closed.
The chowder seemed to curdle in his stomach.
Good God, what had he done? Coward that he was, he’d withheld the truth, and now Chelsea probably had a crush on her own brother.
He had to get away, be alone, sort this through. He rose to carry his soup bowl into the kitchen.
Claire watched him go. “Tom, you hardly ate anything.”
“Sorry, honey, I’m not too hungry.”
In the kitchen he rinsed his bowl. He should have admitted his wrongdoing a week and a half ago, the day he’d first laid eyes on Kent Arens. All these lives—six lives—affected by this father-son relationship, and he’d stalled long enough from doing the honorable thing. Above the sound of the running water he called, “Listen, honey, I’m going to run up to Target and buy a battery for the Nova. I’ll try to get to the kitchen faucet later, okay?”
“But shouldn’t you take a look at the faucet first in case you need to pick up any parts?”
He went out to her, gave her a kiss on the hairline, worried sick about the mess he’d caused.
“The car’s more important. Be back soon, okay?”
He drove to the Target Greatland store at the Woodbury Mall and called Monica Arens from a pay phone in the customer service area. She answered on the third ring. “Hello, Monica. This is Tom Gardner.”
A surprised pause, then “Oh,” as if she’d looked up warily at someone else in the room. Probably Kent, Tom thought.
“I need to talk to you.”
She said nothing.
“Immediately.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s important.”
“I’m in the middle of something here and—”
“Monica, I don’t give a damn what you’re in the middle of! This can’t be put off! Kent walked my daughter Chelsea home from the game last night!”
Again came a pause, then, “I see.” He sensed her fumbling for code words before she asked a question, pretending she was speaking to someone at work. “Is the front door to the reception area open on Saturdays?”
“He’s there in the room with you, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Will he believe you’ve been called to work?”
“Yes.”
“I’m at the Woodbury Mall. Can you come here?”
“Yes, I guess so, but I can’t work very long. I’m still getting settled and there’s so much in the house to do.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Yes.”
“How soon can you meet me there?”
“All right. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“There’s a restaurant called Ciatti’s that stands all by itself. I’m driving a red Taurus. I’ll park on the northwest side of the building. Fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, okay, goodbye.”
He didn’t remember buying the battery at Target, going through the checkout line, or writing a check. He was conscious primarily of a sharp ache across his shoulders, a bulky lump in his throat, and a headache across the base of his skull. It was Saturday. The shopping center was busy. He could run into any of his students anywhere. Had he done the right thing telling Monica to meet him in a parking lot? He checked the time: 1:35, so hopefully the lunch business would be tapering off and the restaurant parking lot wouldn’t be too busy by the time she got there.
He drove to the meeting spot, parked, turned off the engine, and sat with the sun beating through the windshield, turning the car into an oven. The lot was about half full, but even as he arrived two cars left. He rolled the windows down, rested one elbow on the window ledge, pinched his lower lip, and stared at the brick wall of the restaurant, his mind working.
The blue Lexus pulled up on his right and he felt suddenly guilty of much more than a premarital peccadillo eighteen years ago. Two cars, side by side, a woman getting out of one and getting into the other—it had the appearance of a clandestine tête-à-tête. He jumped out of his car as she got out of hers—an effort to allay his sense of wrongdoing—and waited to see what she’d do.
She moved toward the tail end of the cars and he did the same.
Neither of them said hello. They stood near their rear bumpers searching for comfortable places to fix their eyes, casting about for grace in the midst of this unsettling debacle.
“Thank you for coming,” he thought to s
ay.
“I didn’t know what else to do. Kent was right there in the room with me when the phone rang.”
“I didn’t know what else to do either except call you.”
She was wearing sunglasses and a purse over her shoulder with her thumb caught beneath the strap. Her dress was another one of those sacky shapeless things that made him happy he’d married a woman with a perkier style. He braved a glance at Monica but her body language and the slant of her sunglasses suggested she’d be damned if she’d glance back.
The autumn sun drummed down on the blacktop and reflected off the paint of their cars, into their eyes.
“Should we sit in my car and talk?”
Her sunglasses flashed his way. Her lips remained a thin, colorless ribbon. Without replying, she walked toward the passenger door of the Taurus and got in.
When he’d slid behind the wheel they sat in weighty silence. Each was embarrassed to be there. Had they any sort of sentimentality about their past, it might have eased them, but they had only regret and very little recollection of the brief intimacy that had caused this meeting today.
Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Look, I was running on adrenaline when I called you. I didn’t really think through how or where we’d meet. I just picked up the phone and dialed. If you want to go someplace where we can have a soft drink and—”
“This is fine. You said Kent walked your daughter home from the game last night.”
“Yes. I just found out about an hour ago.”
“So I assume you want to tell your family who he really is.”
“I’ve got to. I’ve known the truth for only ten days and it’s been a living hell for me ever since. I’m no good at keeping secrets from my wife, no good at all.”
She lowered her forehead to the butt of one hand. Her arms were crossed on the purse in her lap, its leather strap gone slack and floating free of her shoulder.
Tom said, “The only reason I didn’t tell them this noon was because I thought you and I should discuss it first. You should tell Kent sometime over the weekend, too, so that they all find out at the same time. I don’t want one of my kids to be the one to tell him at school.”
“No, that wouldn’t be good.”
Time passed, great chunks of silence, while they envisioned telling their families.
“I got pretty panicky when I heard he’d walked her home.”
“Yes,” she said, rather detachedly, Tom thought. She seemed a very unemotional woman, tightly reined, giving away little in her facial expressions or the inflection of her voice.
“Has he mentioned Chelsea at all?”
“Once.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”
“Nothing about her personally?”
“No.”
He thought about how secretive teenagers could be. “It’s uncanny how they took to each other. I’ve been watching them all week long meeting by their lockers before school, sitting next to each other in the lunchroom. I just kept hoping it was because she was showing him his way around school, but ... well ... no such luck.”
Someone came out of the restaurant, got into a car sitting a couple of parking slots to their left, and drove away, leaving space all around their two cars.
“Listen,” Monica said, shifting in her seat as if uncomfortable not with it but with herself, “I didn’t tell you the truth just now. Kent did say something more about Chelsea.”
“What?”
She shot him a glance, as brief as a blink before facing front. “That he envied her for having a father.”
Tom took the news like a kidney punch. For a minute it was hard to breathe normally.
Monica went on. “We fought about it, and that’s rare for us. It made me realize how important it is for him to know about you. It’s ... it’s time I told him.”
“So you’ll do that? Before school on Monday?”
“What else can I do?”
“You know,” Tom said, “my son Robby hasn’t been exactly congenial to Kent on the football field. If you want to know the truth, I think he’s jealous. I don’t know what this will do to them.”
“Be honest, Tom. We don’t know what it’ll do to any of us with the possible exception of me. My life will probably go on just as it was. It’s all the rest of you who’ll have to work through a tangle of emotions over this.” Tom thought about it and sighed. He slumped lower in his seat and let his head fall back against the headrest.
“It’s peculiar. I had this talk with Robby today about how every person you meet changes you, how every moral dilemma you face shapes your character. Maybe I was saying it for my own benefit and didn’t realize it till now.”
A car pulled in on their left. Its windows were down and the radio on. Tom glanced over just as the driver reached down to shut off the radio. The woman saw him, smiled, and waggled her fingers.
“Hi, Tom,” she called through their two open windows. He straightened in his seat. Heat shot up his body. “Hi, Ruth.”
She got out of her car and headed his way.
“Oh, shit,” he mumbled.
“Who’s that?”
“My next-door neighbor.”
Ruth reached his open window and leaned down. “Hi, Cl .. . oh ... sorry, I thought it was Claire with you.”
“Monica Arens, this is my neighbor, Ruth Bishop.” Ruth gave a quick smile, her eyes bright with interest. “Just came over to pick up some of their bread sticks for supper. They’re Dean’s favorites, and for once he’s going to be home for a meal.” She strained forward and studied Monica with unveiled curiosity even while speaking to Tom. “Is Claire at home?”
“Yes. She’s housecleaning today.”
“Oh.” Ruth seemed to be waiting for more, an explanation perhaps, but with none forthcoming she let her hand slip off the window ledge and chattered, “Well, I’d better get going, get my bread sticks. Nice to see you. Tom. Say hi to Claire.”
“I will.”
Watching her retreat toward the restaurant Tom said, “Well, that clinches it. If I don’t get home and tell Claire first, Ruth will do it for me.”
“And I’ve got to go home and tell Kent, too.” Monica put her purse strap up over her shoulder but stayed where she was. “I never know what to say to you at moments like this. I just always feel so awkward.”
“Me too.”
“Good luck telling your family, I guess.”
“Good luck to you, too.”
Still they remained where they were.
“Should we talk again ?” she asked.
“Let’s wait and see.”
“Yes ... yes, I suppose you’re right.”
“I think it’ll be unavoidable.”
After considering awhile Monica asked, “This is the right thing to do, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes... absolutely,” she repeated, as if trying to convince herself. “Then why am I so hesitant to go home and do it?”
“Fear,” he said.
“Yes, I suppose.”
“It’s not much fun, is it?”
“No. It’s awful.”
“I’ve been living with it ever since you walked into my office, and to tell the truth, it’ll be a relief to get it out in the open and face it, whatever needs facing. My mind’s been ... oh, scattered, I suppose you’d say.”
“Yes ... well ...”
“Here she comes again.” Ruth Bishop came toward them carrying a white paper bag. Tom watched her all the way.
“Do you have a strong marriage, Tom?” Monica asked, her eyes, too, following the woman.
“Yes, very.”
Ruth Bishop went to her car, hefted the bag up so it could be seen above the roof, and called, “I got a whole dozen of ’em! Dean better make sure he comes home now!” Tom sent her a perfunctory smile and an empty wave of acknowledgment.
Monica said, “Good, because you’re going to need it.” When Ruth had driven away, she added, ?
??Now I guess I’d really better go. I’m anxious to have this day over with.”
“Good luck,” he said again. “And thanks for coming.”
“Sure.”
There was a certain sadness to their parting, the sadness of two people whose past has caught up with them and who—in spite of feeling no physical attraction toward one another—feel drawn together by their similar fates. She would go to her family and he to his. They would both face a baring of conscience that would forever alter their lives. Leaving the parking lot, driving in opposite directions, they felt once more a melancholy regret, for they had not even one warm memory of each other to carry as consolation for the upheaval their lives were about to undergo.
*****
Kent was on the portable phone when his mother returned home. She came through the living room, where he was sprawled on the wide-armed sofa with one heel on the coffee table, his foot waggling back and forth like a windshield washer. His chin rested on his chest and he was grinning.
Passing through the room, Monica said, “Get your foot off the furniture.”
He crossed it over his knee, imperturbable, and continued with his conversation. “No, I told you, hardly ever. So are you going to teach me, or what? ... No, where? ... No, we never had school dances. A couple of times they had these big parties out at Beaudry’s house with live bands and everything, and Rich asked me over, but we just sort of watched the old people dance because we were the youngest ones there ... Homecoming? ... Who says you have to dance just because it’s Homecoming? ...”
His mother came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a linen towel. “Kent, I have to talk to you. Could you cut your call short, please?”
He covered the mouthpiece and said, “I’m talking to a girl, Mom.”
“Cut it short, please,” she repeated, and disappeared.
He removed his hand from the mouthpiece and said, “Sorry, Chelsea, I have to go. Mom needs me for something. Listen, you gonna be home later? ... Maybe I’ll call you then ... Yeah, sure. You too ... Bye.”
He rocked up out of the sofa and sprang to his feet, taking the phone along. “Hey, Mom,” he said, rounding the corner into the kitchen, tossing the phone from hand to hand. “What’s so important I can’t finish my conversation first?”