Envy (24 page)

“Again, the first time is undercover, in the dark, he has some blindfold trick and reveals himself only after they've had sex. Lisa doesn't think it's cool or liberated or whatever, and she's scared of Mitch. I don't know what he did to frighten her, but she doesn't disobey his directive to keep quiet. She goes on meeting him at night and follows his order not to tell me.”

Will's father nods. “Then what?”

“Then what!”

“I mean, where are you now? Have you contacted anyone else?”

“No. I don't need to.” Will shakes his head. “I don't know, Dad. What am I supposed to do with this?”

His father puts his hand across the table, takes Will's, gives it a squeeze.

“You know,” Will says, taking his hand back, “I knew Lisa would tell me that it had happened with her, too. I did. I knew it. And yet I was shocked. Shocked sick. Literally.” Will looks at his father, and the two of them watch each other without speaking until Will can't stand it anymore.

“I have a question, Dad,” he says. “I've been thinking about it, thinking about asking you this question ever since I got back from talking to Lisa. No, before that. It occurred to me on the way home from seeing Elizabeth in Philadelphia, but I managed to, I don't know, put it aside.” His father raises his eyebrows.

“Why did Mitch disappear after the rehearsal dinner? Why was it then that he broke off contact with us?”

Will's father leans back in his chair. He tips his head up, toward the ceiling, which, Will sees as he follows his father's eyes, is painted to look like the urban sky—not a celestial vision of
putti
and clouds, but buildings reaching upward, a slice of atmosphere between the expertly foreshortened façades of skyscrapers. After a minute, his father looks back at him.

“I told him to,” he says.

“Why, Dad? Why?” Will shakes his head, eyes closed. “Oh shit,” he says.

“She didn't know what to do. She came to me, knocked on our door at the hotel.”

“What am I supposed to do with this!” Will says, loudly enough that the few remaining diners turn toward him, then look away.

“Look, I did what seemed like a . . . a . . . what seemed proportionate. Is that a word? The only thing I could think of that had a severity in proportion to the, the . . .” He holds his hands up, empty, and they look at each other. “I'm sorry, Will. I did what seemed . . . I did what I did. I hoped we'd all move on.”

“Well,” Will says. “I guess I know the punch line. I want the whole story. I want what came before.” He pushes his plate away. “So,” he says, “go ahead.”

Will's father laces his fingers together and looks down at his hands. He makes a noise like a whistle, but lower. “You remember your bachelor party?”

“Not especially well. I was, I believe, getting plastered in the time-honored way.”

“You remember your brother leaving at some point?”

“Maybe. I think he said he was going back to the hotel, that he was still in training, had to get a decent night's sleep.”

His father nods. “Right. That would have been around ten-thirty, eleven.”

Will shrugs. “We're talking fifteen years ago. All I know is that the party went on for a while without him.”

“Call it ten-thirty. Carole and her bridesmaids, all the women from the rehearsal dinner, women friends from out of town, they were at—what was the name of that place?”

“I don't remember.”

“Well, whatever the name was.”

“It was a male strip club. Not Chippendale's, but the same idea. Her sister set the whole thing up. Carole was anxious about it, embarrassed. Thought it was vulgar. And it was, objectively speaking. Guys, handsome young guys dancing in G-strings. She was worried you and Mom would think it was white trash or something.”

Will's father waves his hand. “We had no idea what it was. Anyway, at eleven, there's a surprise guest at the girls' party. Looks familiar, height, hands, knees, his face is hidden. Now Mitch's always been in top physical condition, but he carries some fat for insulation, and in a smoky, dark nightclub . . . Also, it's just before your wedding, when you were, what, thirty-two? Still working out, running in the morning.” Will nods. “So, Mitch, wearing a G-thing and a—I don't know—whatever getup those guys had instead of clothes. He's gotten himself dressed in the club outfit, what there was of it. A G-thing and a bow tie, and he's wearing one of those gorilla masks.”

“A gorilla mask?”

“Yeah, like King Kong. Black rubber with hair—fur—stuck in, big ape face, the kind of mask that covers your whole head. The only significant aspect is that it disguises the one physical thing that would distinguish him from you.”

“Yes, I get that. Go on.”

“He comes up behind Carole, speaking with a voice that sounds just like yours, says something to the effect that her little bachelorette party is nearly over and he has a special treat for her. Lots of giggling and shenanigans. The women're all drunk, too, remember. Making off-color jokes about deflowering, which really is a joke since, as we all know, today everyone lives together before they marry—if they marry—and the white dress is only an old-fashioned reference. But, anyway, there's some kind of playacting or teasing— your wife—your fiancée at that moment—she was too hysterical to tell us the exact subterfuge, but whatever it was, she ends up leaving the party to be with you. To be with a man dressed as a stripper who she thinks is you.

“She does find it strange that you insist on wearing the mask while making love, but she's tired and overstimulated and, like I said, drunk, and she figures that you, too, are tired, overstimulated, and drunk, and if she doesn't think it's funny, maybe you do.” He shakes his head.

“Where is this happening?”

“In your room, yours and Carole's, at the hotel—Carole has the key. You—I mean Mitch, but she thinks it's you—you say you've left yours behind, you're wearing someone else's clothes over the G-thing—”

“String! G-string!”

“Okay. String. String. Somehow you've gotten separated from your clothes and had to borrow another guy's to drive back to the hotel. She's changed out of her party dress into a—well, I don't know. Mitch's wearing the King Kong thing, has sex with Carole— consensual, because, remember, she thinks it's you—and, as with Elizabeth and the other one, I guess, doesn't reveal himself until after it's over. Carole has no idea—why would she? It's unthinkable, so she doesn't think it. Until—”

“Until he pulls off his mask.”

“At which point she starts screaming. It's late enough and she screams loud enough and long enough that other hotel guests alert the management. Someone calls the front desk to say there's a robbery or a rape or God knows what in room whichever. The front desk calls the room. Mitch picks up and hangs up the receiver without answering the person on the other end. Pulls on his trousers, and by the time the hotel has someone knocking on the door, he's back in his own room, lights out, all quiet. After all, the story was he was tired or what have you, he came back to the hotel to go to bed.

“Carole answers the door, pulls herself together enough to tell security or whoever they sent up that everything is all right, she saw what she thought was a man in her room but it turned out to be nothing, a coat hanging in the shadows, you know how that can happen. Why didn't she answer the phone? security wants to know. She doesn't know. It's late, she's nervous. She's sorry she's disturbed the other guests, but she's getting married the next day, it's just nerves. Is she sure there wasn't any man? Yes. Does she want a new room? No, no, everything is fine, she's sorry for causing any trouble.”

“Hotel whoever leaves. She takes a shower, tries to calm down in the shower. The only thing she can think to do is to tell us, your mother and me. Her mother's not there yet, remember, and if she tells you, if she tells her sister, if she calls the police—if she does any of these, it'll end up ruining the wedding and hurting you. So she gets dressed, and she comes to our room. Figures we know Mitch. Assumes we do, anyhow.”

“It's past midnight, both the parties are still going—yours and hers—only old folks like us are in their rooms, them and Mitch. She knocks at the door, wakes us up. Your mother opens the door, sees Carole crying and thinks the two of you have had a spat, or that Carole has cold feet or you do, or she's sick or you're sick, or it's late and you haven't come back from the party or—she doesn't know what to think. Asks Carole in, sits her down. For a long time, seemed like an hour but it couldn't have been that long, your wife is crying. She's curled up in a chair, feet on the cushion, hugging her knees, and, well, we're mystified, we have no idea what the heck is going on.”

“Finally, after coaxing and coaxing and frankly begging, finally she says, ‘Mitchell.'”

“‘Mitchell what?' we ask. Something's happened to Mitch? Mitch's sick? Mitch has had an accident? A fight—a physical fight— with you? What is it? We don't understand. We want to help but we don't understand.”

“Carole is still, at this point, hysterical. Not hysterics as in loud, but she's shaking her head, crying, and not telling us a thing. At which point your mother decides to give her a pill, one of those old Miltown things, probably too stale to have an effect—after all, they've been in her handbag since 1972 or whenever it was she had that Bell's palsy and the doctor thought it was nerves. Carole takes the pill, and your mother has her lie down, puts a cold washrag over her eyes, tells her if she doesn't stop crying, her face will be swollen, and she wants to look pretty on her wedding day, of course she does, she wants to be beautiful, and finally—never underestimate the placebo effect, or the power of female vanity. Pride's maybe a better word. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Carole's vain. Anyway, she stops crying, she's calm enough to speak.”

“‘Will's brother came to the club dressed as a . . . as an entertainer, ' she says. ‘He was wearing a mask that covered his face and he said he was Will.' She's calm now. Absolutely calm. Considering the Carole of five minutes before, her composure is almost as disturbing as her hysterics, but, well, at least we're making progress. Your mother asks questions, Carole answers them.”

“‘Mitch pretended he was Will?' your mother says.”

“‘Yes, ' Carole says. ‘He said he was coming to take me back to the hotel and that then we were going to make love.'”

“Hearing this, your mother puts her hand over her mouth and that's the end for her, she doesn't say another thing. So I start asking the questions. Carole's lying on the bed, and the washrag is still over her eyes. She speaks very deliberately, calmly. Your mother's a zombie, and me, well, somehow I've fallen into some goddamn Ingmar Bergman movie, one of those subtitled things where you don't really want to figure out what's going on.”

“‘He didn't have a key to our room, ' she tells me, ‘because he wasn't Will. But I didn't know he wasn't Will.'”

“Bit by bit she tells us the story I just told you, and then we all sit there. Not one of us says a thing.”

“‘It's one-thirty, ' I say, when that's the time. ‘Everyone's coming back to the hotel soon. Will's going to be back soon—maybe he's on his way now. I think you should go to your room. I'll deal with Mitch.'”

“‘How?' She wants to know, and your mother wants to hear the answer, too. And, put on the spot, without having had a plan the minute before, I say that—assuming Carole doesn't want to press charges—and I ask her again, this is the fourth time, at least the fourth time, ‘Are you sure you don't want to press charges?' Because she would have been—the fact that Mitch was about to become her brother-in-law didn't alter the fact that he'd sexually, uh, what, assaulted her. Well, not assaulted exactly, but a woman can't consent to be with someone who she doesn't know who he is.” Will's father frowns. “That might've come out wrong, but you know what I mean.”

“Anyway, Carole's sure she doesn't want to press charges. She wants to get married in nine hours, ten hours, however long it is until eleven that morning. As if ever since your mother told her to lie down and not cry and spoil her looks, she's decided that the thing to do is to go on with the show. She's adamant that you don't find out what happened—not now, not that night. It's not her fault, clearly, but she acts as if it is. She seems ashamed and—”

“How could you have allowed this to happen! How could you— my own father—conspire to deceive me? It's, it's—you contributed to what he did! You added to his betrayal!”

“I don't know. I guess I made a mistake, that's how. You know I'm—for Chrissakes, Will, it's always been a joke in this family about how bad I am in these situations. You know—Hank Moreland became a veterinarian so he'd never have to make conversation with a patient. Would never have to answer a difficult question. Not exactly serendipitous then, that a mess of this proportion would fall into my hands, but it did. And I made a mistake. I see that, I saw it long ago. But I wanted to do anything that would get Carole calmed down and just, I don't know, patch it up, have the wedding go on as planned. It was her marriage, hers and yours. I figured she knew best.”

“You betrayed me.”

“I apologize.” They stare at each other.

“All right,” Will says. “I accept your apology. What choice do I have?”

“Well, there's two,” Will's father says. “You can accept it. Or you can refuse it.” He takes a mouthful of water and swishes it around in his mouth before swallowing it. “Dry tongue. That's the trouble with red wine.”

Will drinks from his glass of water. “I accept,” he says. “I'm just angry, that's all.”