Coming Home (21 page)

He handed her the cup of coffee and dropped a second quarter into
the machine.  “If we spoil this for Rob, he’ll never forgive us.”  Danny opened
the sliding door and removed his cup.  “Let’s try to be civilized, for his
sake.  We can bicker on our own time.”

Ashamed, she returned with him to the anteroom.  The wait seemed
interminable before the clerk motioned them into the judge’s chambers.  The
ceremony was brief and impersonal, and Casey tried to look anywhere but at
Danny as the judge read the familiar words in a lifeless monotone.  But her
eyes kept being drawn back to those blue eyes fixed so intently on her face. 
It was inevitable, the memory of another municipal building, another couple,
another wedding.  Heedless of the bride and groom, they gazed at each other in
mute agony until Rob cleared his throat and said, “Dan?  The ring?”

Danny tore his eyes away from his wife’s face and dug in his
pocket for the plain gold band, and Casey kept her eyes where they belonged, on
the bride and groom, as Rob placed the ring on Nancy’s finger.

Inexplicably, when the judge pronounced them husband and wife,
Casey’s eyes filled with tears.  It was an unforgivable sin; she never cried at
weddings.  She searched blindly in her purse for a tissue, and Danny discreetly
tucked a white cotton handkerchief into her hand.  The intimacy of that
husbandly gesture nearly did her in.  As Danny congratulated the bride and
groom, Casey hid behind him, struggling to regain her composure.  By the time
her turn came, she was smiling as she gave Rob, and then Nancy, a brisk hug. 
“Be happy,” she said.  “Take care of each other.”

She had baked a cake, and Danny had bought a cheap bottle of
champagne, and they celebrated back at the apartment.  It was the most peculiar
wedding reception she’d ever attended.  The bride and groom were terrified of
what would happen in the morning when they presented her parents with a
fait
accompli.
  The best man and matron of honor treated each other with a
formal courtesy bordering on frigidity, and they were all a little relieved to
call an end to the celebration.

Amid a flurry of hugs and congratulations, Casey saw the newlyweds
off for their wedding night at a downtown hotel, fully expecting to usher Danny
out the door directly behind them.  Instead, she found him at the kitchen sink,
elbow-deep in soap suds.  “I’ll wash,” he said.  “You dry.”  And although she
knew it was a mistake, she couldn’t summon the strength to ask him to leave.

So they worked together in silence, vibrations ricocheting off the
walls and ceiling of the room that seemed to have shrunk to half its size. 
Because she couldn’t stand the silence, and because in spite of herself she
cared, she asked, “Are you still working at Tony’s?”

He rinsed a fistful of silverware and handed it to her.  “Yeah.”

“Any new gigs?”

“Nothing much.  I’ve been driving a cab to put food in my belly.”

She busied herself drying the silverware.  Behind her, Danny said,
“What do you want to do with this leftover cake?”

“Put plastic wrap over it and refrigerate it.  Second cupboard to
the left of the sink.”

“I know where you keep it.”

Of course.  For a moment, she’d forgotten.  While he wrapped the
cake, she washed the stove and the table, rinsed out the sink.  Danny refilled
their wine glasses with the last of the champagne.  “We might as well drink
it,” he said.  “I believe in getting my money’s worth out of things.”  He
tossed the bottle in the trash, then held up his glass.  “Cheers.”

“Since we both already know what a sham marriage is,” she said, “I
can’t imagine why you’d want to drink to anything.”

He slammed down his glass so hard the champagne sloshed over the
side.  “So that’s it?  You’re planning to spend the rest of your life punishing
me?”

“You hurt me, Danny.  Do you have any idea how much?”

“Not enough to justify your Old Testament justice.  One wrong move
and I’m a pillar of salt, with no chance for redemption.”

“I’m so sorry, darling, that I can’t be more sympathetic to your
plight.”

“What do you want me to do?  Get down on my knees and grovel?”

“Groveling,” she said, “won’t change a thing.”

“Christ, no.  The dirty deed is already done, isn’t it?  I can’t
take it back, so you’re going to make me suffer every ounce of punishment you
can conjure up.”

“What about me?  What about my feelings?  What about the baby I
lost?”

“It was my baby, too!”

“One you never wanted!”

“No!  One I never even knew about!  One I had to hear about from
the mouth of my best friend!”

She crossed her arms.  “I think,” she said coldly, “that it’s time
for you to leave.”

“You’re throwing me out for speaking the truth?”

“Leave me alone.  I’ve suffered enough.”

“Bullshit.  You don’t know what suffering is until you see the
woman you love bleeding to death on a hospital gurney, and there’s not a
goddamn thing you can do except sit and pray to a God you didn’t think you even
believed in any more!”

Tears stung her eyelids.  “What do you want, Danny?  A purple
heart?”

“No, goddamn it!” he bellowed.  “I want to come home!”

She stared at him in stupefied silence as he slumped onto a chair
and buried his face in his hands.  “I want to come home,” he said.

In the silence, the kitchen clocked ticked.  “I trusted you,” she
said.  “I let myself be vulnerable, because I had absolute faith in you.  And
you let me down, Danny.”

“I know I screwed up.   All I’m asking for is a second chance.”

“And then a third, and a fourth?”

“It’s not like that. Damn it, I can’t live any longer without
you.  Every night, in bed, in the dark, I see you.”

She closed her eyes.  “Don’t,” she whispered.

“And I remember how soft your skin feels.  And how your hair
smells like violets.  And how you look, lying naked on rumpled sheets—”

“Stop it!”

“—and the way you tremble and cry when I’m inside you—”

“I don’t want to hear any more!”

“And I can’t believe we could let something this good get away.” 
He rose abruptly and picked up his jacket.  “I’ve had my say.  You know where to
find me.”

And he was gone.  Devastated, she slid silently to the floor,
wrapped her arms around her knees, and let the pain swallow her up.

***

It was nearly midnight when she called him.  In the background,
she could hear the commotion of a busy bar on a Saturday night:  thudding
music, well-oiled laughter, the clink of glass on glass.  And then his voice,
liquid velvet.  And a rock-hard fist tightened up in her belly.  “Hi,” she
said.

Silence.  Then, “Hold on a minute.”  The phone was jostled and
clunked, and then the background noise receded.  “I’m hiding in the john,” he
said.  “It’s quieter in here.”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking,” she said.  “And I’ve decided I want
you to come home.”

At his end, there was a sharp intake of breath.

“I’m willing to try to put this behind us,” she said.  “I don’t
know how it will turn out.  It’s going to take me some time to get over what’s
happened.  I’m not even sure I can.”   She paused.  “But I’m willing to try. 
It’s a start.”

“That’s all I’m asking for.”

“But if anything like this ever happens again, that’ll be it,
Danny.  There won’t be any third or fourth chances.  I won’t put myself through
this again.”

“You have my word,” he said.

She hesitated.  Bit her lip.  “How soon can you get off work?”

“I can be there in an hour.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

It took him twenty-eight minutes.  When she opened the door, they
drank each other in silently.  He set down his guitar and abandoned his bag of
clothes, and in a mutual move they came together, clinging like drowning souls.
 He kicked the door shut and lifted her off her feet, and she wound her legs
around him and let him carry her.  He banged his shin on the coffee table and
cursed, and Casey snaked fingers through his hair and planted hungry kisses on
his chin, his jaw, his ear.  Oblivious to everything but each other, they fell
onto the couch, his weight pinning her beneath him, their kisses hot and
frantic.  Weightless, boneless with desire, she whispered a single, breathy
word.  “
Hurry
.”

He tugged off her sweatshirt and tossed it, tore frantically at
her pants, managed to pull first one leg free and then the other.  She unzipped
his jeans and peeled them back over his buttocks, and then he was inside her,
and she no longer knew her own name.  Legs splayed like a trollop, she rode
him, oblivious to any reality beyond the few inches of rock-hard flesh that
impaled her.  Fluid, liquid, boneless, she rolled beneath him in mindless
rapture.

The climax slammed into her like a freight train.  She cried out,
and a ragged sob tore from his throat as she took him with her over the edge. 
Spent and gasping and shuddering, they lay together in a sweaty tangle.  He was
still wearing his coat.  His shoes.  “You’re mine,” she gasped.  “Do you
understand that?  If you ever touch another woman, ever again—”  She paused,
frantically gulped in air.  “I’ll kill you.  Do you hear me, Danny?  I’ll tear
out your heart and serve it for dinner.”

He didn’t answer.  He kicked off his shoes, wriggled out of his
pants.  Pulled the afghan from the back of the couch and, coat and all, rolled
them both in it.  “If you ever leave me,” he said, “I’ll come after you.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said.  “Never—”  He kissed her, hard.  “Never,
ever.”  His kiss gentled, soothed, tore at her soul.  “Danny,” she whispered. 
“Oh, Danny.”

Now that the dragons of frantic longing had been appeased, they
made love again, properly this time,
sans
shoes or coat and in their own
bed.  Afterward, lying in his arms, she asked,  “With her, was it as good as it
is with me?”

“Christ, Casey, it’s over with.  Don’t stir it up.”

“I have to know.”

“It was just sex.  Period.”

“And with me...is it ever just sex?”

He lifted his head and looked at her.  “I can’t believe you’d ask
that.  You’re my whole goddamn life.  Haven’t you figured it out by now?”

“Promise me we’ll be together always.”

He kissed her forehead.  “We’ll be together,” he said, “always.”

After a time, she said, “Danny?”

“Hmm?”

“If anything ever happened to me, would you marry again?”

Sleepily, he said, “Is this a trick question?”

“I’m serious.”  She clasped her hands together behind her head and
stared up at the dark ceiling.  “If I died, would you get married again?”

“If you died,” he said darkly, “I’d die with you.”

“I’d want you to, you know.”

“Die with you?”

“No, fool.  Get married again.”

He rolled over and wrapped an arm around her.  “What about you?”
he said.  “Would you get married again?”

“I don’t know.  I can’t imagine living with someone else. 
Sleeping beside someone else.  Sleeping
with
someone else.”

“I think you would,” he said.  “Marriage is something you do
well.”

“And you?”

“I believe I’ve already illustrated just how well I do marriage.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “you seem to do quite well at some
aspects of it.”

“Oh?”  He drew her closer.  “And just which aspects might those
be?”

She nibbled gently at the tendon that ran from his ear to his
shoulder.  “You’re a big boy,” she said.  “You figure it out.”

***

Outside the door to the Chens’ twentieth-floor apartment,  Rob
tugged self-consciously at the borrowed tie and adjusted the suit coat that was
two sizes too big.  “Are you sure I look okay?” he said for the tenth time.

“You look fine,” Nancy said.

He raised her chin and gently kissed her lips.  “Ready?” he said.

“Ready.”

She left him waiting in the foyer while she rounded up her
parents. The place smelled like sandalwood, and through the entryway he could
see a living room that must have been forty feet long.  Its furnishings were
sleek, modern, elegant.  At the far end, the New York City skyline rose beyond
a wall of glass.  The hum of a vacuum cleaner echoed from a distant room. 
Somehow, he doubted that it was Nancy’s mother who was operating it.

She returned silently, her footsteps absorbed by thick carpeting. 
“I have told my parents that we wish to speak with them,” she said.  “They are
waiting for us in my father’s den.”

He followed her through a maze of rooms to a small study off the
kitchen.  The bookshelves were lined with somber-looking tomes in Chinese and
English.  Nancy’s parents sat side by side on a beige love seat, her mother
tiny, ageless, attractive in peach silk and pearls, her father thin and
graying, looking dapper in a flawless white shirt and a suit that made Rob’s
look like he’d picked it out of a Salvation Army bin.  They sat stiffly, eyeing
him with cool courtesy.