Good Things I Wish You (8 page)

“Of course,” Ellen said. “It’s also the truth.”

“Oh, God. Not you, too.”

“Wait till I tell you my latest online success story. Are you writing these things down? This stuff is too good to waste.”

“You mean Ketchup Man?” Ellen had met Ketchup Man on eHarmony.com. They’d e-mailed for weeks before agreeing to meet at a Subway, where—his suggestion—they’d ordered sandwiches to go. “Do you like ketchup?” he asked, leading her across the parking lot to Publix, where he purchased a family-size bottle. “They never give you enough ketchup on these things.” Ellen confessed she
did not like ketchup. “More for me!” Ketchup Man said. By the time they’d finished eating, sitting in his car, the bottle was almost empty.

In between squirts, he’d licked the cap.

“Not Ketchup Man,” she said. “Dancing Man. Who, by the way, was a certified flight instructor.”

“When he wasn’t dancing.”

“Or cheating on his wife.”

I looked at her and saw she wasn’t smiling. “What happened?”

“I met him a couple of months ago. Remember I told you I signed up for this dance class? Actually, we signed up together.”

“Did you tell me about him and I just forgot?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t want to jinx it. I mean, we had so much
fun.
And he seemed—well, we’d go out for dinner, dancing, whatever, and then we’d say good night and go home. But this past weekend was our last dance class, and there was a contest that, of course, we won. So afterward, we’ve got this ridiculously huge trophy, and I say,
Where should we keep it?
And he says—wink, wink—
Your place or mine?
Well, it’s the first time that
this
has come up, and it’s perfect, it’s just right, so I tell him,
Your place,
because mine’s a mess, and we jump in our cars and off we go. As soon as we’re in the door, he’s pulling me toward the bedroom, fine, but I really have to pee, so I twist away into the bathroom and I’m sitting on the toilet when I see—hello?—a box of tampons by the wastepaper basket. He’s outside tapping on the door, and I’m like,
Just a minute,
but by now I’m opening drawers, and there’s all this makeup, hair ties, nail polish, and that’s when I find the birth control pills. Prescribed to a woman named Linda. Coincidentally, they have the same last name.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“So then I look in the laundry hamper and, I kid you not, there’s this lacy scrap of a nightgown in there. I think about putting it on, but in the end I just throw it over my shoulders like a goddamn boa and open the door. He sees it—I mean, you can’t miss it—but still he’s ready to go. So I say,
Are you married?
And you should have seen his face. He turns bone white, and get this, he says, he says—”

She was laughing now, despite herself—

“He says,
How did you know?
”

“Jesus,” I began, but Ellen said, “No,” and picked up her glass of wine. “Don’t say anything, okay? Just write it down.”

She looked past me into the darkness. A sport fisher passed too fast along the intracoastal, disregarding the no-wake zone, and all the little runabouts tied along the pier bumped roughly against each other. Suddenly, I was wishing I’d answered L—’s e-mail, wondering if it was too late to do so. I wanted to ask him if it ever got easier: this dating, this dodging, this longing for love. The second marriage. The second time. I simply could not imagine it.

When the buzzer went off, it startled us both. A waiter appeared to help carry our wine.

“What do
you
think?” Ellen asked him, as if he’d been
part of the conversation all along. “Can men and women ever be friends?”

He was somewhere in his early thirties: tall, dark, and handsome. His teeth shone like something you could spend.

“When a woman asks that question,” he said, eyeing Ellen’s full chest pleasantly, “there is only one answer a man can give.”

Date: Friday, May 26 11:56 PM

To: [email protected]

Hey there—

Sorry I didn’t write back sooner, but you asked how I was doing, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to answer. Maybe the old joke sums it up best:

Q: Why do people pay so much for a divorce?

A: Because it’s worth it.

Congratulations on your new marriage—what is that like? I wish you both the best.

Take care,

Jeanette

Date: Saturday, May 27 12:02 AM

To: [email protected]

Oh, no, Jeanie, are you cynical now? Be careful with yourself. Heartlessness comes next. Write me a real letter if you can, when you can, and let me know (really) how you’re doing.

You have always been special to me.

L—

Perhaps a primary reason that women are often so shallow and senseless is exactly their superior talent for the external. One sees with what comical verisimilitude little girls play brides, wives and mothers…. Many grown women experience romance and carry it off with a convincing show of sincerity, but in fact it is nothing more than a reiteration of their children’s games…until in their imaginations it is as if they have really felt passion…

—from Brahms’s notebook; copied from Friedrich Sallet’s
Contrasts and Paradoxes
^*

19.

H
ART WAS ALREADY IN
front of the Starbucks, idling in his Mercedes, by the time I pulled up beside him in my Volvo with its Cheerios décor: a high-backed car seat, Winnie-the-Pooh sunshade, Styrofoam noodles, and a half-inflated dolphin pool toy filling the back hatch. A couple of sagging helium balloons trailed me out the door, but I saw them in time, beat them back with my sneakers as Hart opened his own door to greet me. He wore a cloth hat, long pants covered with pockets, and a long-sleeved flannel shirt, despite the sun, which was hotter than you’d think possible at a quarter after eight in the morning. There was a funny moment when we looked at each other, and I saw that we were both disappointed. Regardless, we shook hands like proper Germans, and he said, “Did you bring a hat?”

“Do I need one?”

“And sunscreen.”

“I always wear sunscreen,” I said, but he was studying my tank top, my bare arms and shoulders.

“It is better to wear a shirt. What about your eyes?”

“What do you mean?”

He stepped forward, peered impersonally, clinically, into my eyes. His own eyes were close-set, somewhere between gray and green. A few wiry hairs escaped the arch of his brows. I wanted to touch the faint scar on his forehead. I wanted to push him away. Again, all of this seemed familiar, as if we’d stood like this before, scrutinizing each other too closely, looking for something we were not going to find.

Ellen was right: too much didn’t add up. Why had he waited this long to call? And then why these last-minute plans?

“You should be wearing sunglasses,” he said.

I stepped back. “So should you.”

“I have seen many cases of melanoma.”

“In your research, I suppose.”

“I no longer involve myself in research. Your eyes, by the way, look good. Based on what I can see. Which isn’t much. You should have them checked.”

And why were we still in the parking lot? Something was off between us, out of step. We’d have a fluffy coffee, and then I’d send him on his way. Get my laptop from the car. Spend the morning doing what I
should
be doing: writing to the sound of the baristas. Maybe today would be the day an overlooked detail would open a door into a room yet unimagined. Into my passion for these people, this story I had loved for almost thirty years.

“So what
do
you…involve yourself in these days?” I asked. “Your business, I suppose. Is Viso-Tech a large
company?”

“Sure, sure, I am the rich businessman. We can talk while I am driving.” He nodded toward the car. “It is a long way to get there.”

“I thought we were going to have coffee first.”

“I bought lattes.” He opened his door and there they were between the seats: whitecapped soldiers in wraparound jackets. The sight of them unnerved me. In the back, there was a fat padded cooler, a half-zipped satchel stuffed with papers and books, a neatly folded blanket. Everything set to go. It occured to me that this time the voice in my head crying warnings might be right. Why hadn’t I left his phone number with Ellen? Why hadn’t I thought to make certain Viso-Tech really existed?

“I never even asked which airport,” I said.

Hart got into his car. “
Glider
port. It is west of Orlando.”

“But that’s over three hours away!”

He looked up at me inquiringly. “You must be back by a certain time?”

The Mercedes ran so quietly I didn’t even realize he’d turned the key until I felt the first cool puff of air-conditioning. “Look,” I said, taking a few steps back. “I don’t even know you. It’s too far. It’s too much.”

Hart did not say anything.

“Even if I did come along for the ride, I don’t think I could fly. I’d be too afraid. I mean, I
am
afraid. Of everything, these days.” I made myself look into his face as I said this. “Not just you. Not just this.”

He said, without missing a beat, “I do not find, since I
am living here, so many people I can talk to. I was thinking that perhaps we are two people who can have a conversation.”

“So call me sometime. We can talk on the phone. Get to know each other better.”

“Sure, sure.”

“It’s the way these things go. You told me that, remember?”

He traced the downward curve of the steering wheel.

“Only then,” I said, “you didn’t call. You disappeared. Is that also the way these things go?”

He said, “There is a certain chemistry that must exist between a man and a woman. I am thinking this chemistry does not exist between us.”

Ibis threaded their way along the narrow strip of grass that divided the parking lot from the sidewalk. I waited to feel something: embarrassment, maybe. Disappointment. But nothing in particular came to the surface, other than the feeling that we’d already had this conversation. That we were just pretending there was a question on the table, a decision to be made, when in fact it had already been settled.

At last I said, “The chemistry is more like…
murky
…don’t you think?”

“No-no-no.” He looked at me, unflinching. “For me, it is not there. When I think of the sort of person with whom I wish to be involved, I am sorry, she is nothing like you.”

“Fine,” I said. Oddly enough, it was something of a relief, knowing he wasn’t looking at me as a woman. Or at
least not a woman he planned to date. “I mean, it really is fine.” I wiped the sweat from my face and neck. “I’m new to all this anyway.”

“I know. I am not new to this.”

“I know.”

“And yet, there is something about our first conversation. It is difficult to explain. After we met, I arranged to see my daughter in London. I stayed there two weeks. She is a violinist, did I mention this? And she knows all about your Clara. There’s a house in Leipzig where she and Robert—”

“On Ingelstrasse?” I stepped forward again. “It’s a music school now.”
^*

“I must have passed it countless times.”

“I’d love to get inside it, but I’m not sure it’s open to the public anymore.”

“It is open for concerts. Friederike has plans to perform there.” A little smile played around his mouth. “It would seem we have another coincidence.”

She was, in fact, scheduled to perform on the evening of the day I arrived.

“Friederike will get us tickets. I mean, if you would like that. I am happy to show you around, to be helpful to you. If I may.”

“As a friend,” I said, understanding him.

“I think, yes, as a friend,” he said, nodding. “I like to talk to you. I have told you that already.”

“Men and women can’t be friends,” I said. “You already told me that, too.”

“I made you very angry when I said that.”

“You did.”

“I’m afraid I am still thinking this is true.”

I started to laugh, I couldn’t help it. “Are you always this complicated?”

“If we were to leave right now,” Hart said, “I’d have you back by eight. Plenty of time left to chop up your body and bury it deep in the ground.”

I grabbed my computer case from the floor well beneath Heidi’s car seat, added a short-story anthology I’d been meaning to read. The inside of the Mercedes was leather lined, cool, the color of heavy cream. He was right, I decided, about the chemistry. How could there be chemistry when it was suddenly this comfortable, this easy? No resistance to chafe the match. No rough edges to spark. Getting into this car, sliding into this life, was like continuing a conversation we’d already begun. The smell of the interior was familiar as bread. I recognized the coins in the cup dish, the zippered case for CDs. The beaded bracelet hanging from the rearview. The cubby for the mirrored sunglasses he removed carefully from their sleeve.

“I do have sunglasses, you see,” he said, concealing his eyes behind the reflection of my own.

“Pretty bracelet.”

“It is something belonging to Friederike. Take this. No, this one.”

“Is it sweetened?”

“A lit-tle.”

“I don’t like sweet coffee.”

“It is the only way to drink this fucking American coffee.”

“My God, are you always like this? What’s wrong with American coffee?”

“It tastes like dishwater. It tastes like such strip malls you see everywhere. It tastes like these morally reprehensible high-rise developments.”

“You just make it worse with sweetening.”

“Fine, fine. Next time you shall have no sugar.”

A chemical glitch,
I reminded myself.

Together we buckled up for the ride.

Part IV

Blue Day