Men and Dogs (15 page)

There is a silence on the other end.

“Tom?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just not really feeling it.”

“Feeling it?”

Palmer rolls up his sleeves. How to best put this? What did he say the last time? “I hate to do this over the phone . . .”

“Do what?”

He lets the silence answer for him.

“Palmer, are you serious?”

“Look, I—”

“I was going to wait until tonight, but—”

Palmer winces at the sound of a sob over the line. He pictures Tom slumped in his sleek, all-white office, crying. He knows he should feel sad at this imagined scene, and yet . . . nothing.

“Tom, I’m really sorry. Really.”

“You’re such a fucking coward, Palmer.”

“Tom?”

But the line is dead.

Well, that was easier than Palmer thought it would be. He blinks, waiting a moment in case he’s about to be hit by some sort of unexpected emotion. Once he is certain of the familiar void, he returns to the front of the office.

More patients are waiting; still oddly numb, he neuters a poodle, stitches up a pug.

Finally, it’s time for lunch. It is customary for Palmer Legare’s Office of Veterinary Medicine to close for lunch from twelve to one. This is a sacred hour; sometimes, depending on the number of patients, it begins before noon, but the hour never ends early. And often by the time the staff returns there is a line of pets and their owners standing patiently by the door. Today
Palmer decides on his time-alone ritual: a deli sandwich and an iced tea on a bench down at the Boat Club dock. He gathers his things and prepares to head out the door quietly (so as not to alert Jenny), when his phone rings. Probably Tom calling back. He looks at it and frowns. Hannah.

“Hi,” he says with as much spirit as he can muster.

“You think Mom was having an affair with DeWitt?”

He hears someone in the room; it’s Rumpus, who has awakened from the nap she was taking under the table. The dog eyes him,
turns around three times, then lies down with a great sigh of annoyance.

“Palmer?”

“I found a photo—you know, an old one. Of Mom, Dad, DeWitt. They’re all at this party.”

“So?”

“So I thought Mom had never met DeWitt.”

He picks up his pen to doodle.

“I’m not sure I even understand what you’re talking about.”

“Hannah, I’m sorry. You’re just not making any sense.”

“You saw Warren Meyers?”

“Well . . .”

“You mean, the minister Warren Meyers? The one married to my assistant?”

Silence.

“Why the hell did you do that?”

More silence.

“Hannah?”

“I was at church,” she says defensively.

“Oh, Christ.” Palmer pulls at his hair.

“It’s not like it sounds,” she says.

“Screw yoga. Something here is very weird.”

“Hannah, you’re being crazy. Get a grip.”

“Hannah. Calm down. What are you so mad at?”

“Life,” she says, and hangs up.

He parks in front of the Old Ashley Ice Cream Shoppe, a deli his father used to take them to sometimes after school. Downtown
Charleston has at least a hundred places to get lunch, but Palmer still likes to patronize this place, tucked away within an old shopping center. It’s shabby and unpretentious and still has posters on the walls from the ’70s featuring black, white,
and Asian kids having ice cream together, the kind of images Palmer remembers from his middle school math books. He orders a turkey sandwich.

Mind still polluted with exasperated thoughts of his sister and Tom, Palmer gazes out the window. There’s Tom’s blue Saab pulling into the parking lot. The door opens and Tom himself emerges, resplendent in a crisp white shirt.

Palmer is surprised to feel his heart lurch. Maybe Tom is lunching here, too? Not likely. Usually Tom prefers lunch places offering organic butternut squash soup and salads topped with tuna still fleshy in the center; the Old Ashley still serves sandwiches on toasted white bread and second-rate ice cream, the kind with ice crystals on the less-visited surface areas.

But as he watches, he sees that Tom is on the phone, headed to the natural foods store. Of course. He’s either shopping for some sort of body product or going to speak with that Naomi woman about God knows what.

But he can’t. Physically, he’s paralyzed. So, as Palmer watches, Tom gets into his car, stares at the wheel for a moment,
and, without looking over again, starts the car and drives away.

When Palmer finally emerges from the deli, squinting in the sunlight, he feels a wave of nausea, and it occurs to him that under these new circumstances, his stomach is not going to accept a turkey sandwich. He goes back in and orders a ginger ale.
The girl takes his money, raising her eyebrows when he throws the still-warm, freshly wrapped sandwich into the bin. Instantly,
Palmer feels guilty; someone else could have eaten it. He considers apologizing but thinks better of it. He can’t help it.
He’s mad at life.

15
Sunday Services

W
HEN HANNAH COMES downstairs dressed for church, DeWitt looks up from his paper with curiosity.

“Mexicana! All these days of pajamas, I was startin’ to think you didn’t have clothes.”

“I’m going to church,” Hannah says with a proper amount of superiority.

“Ah! I like it. All the sinners gotta crawl back at some point.”

“I’m actually going for research purposes.”

“Got it. Checkin’ up on the old boyfriend. Keepin’ tabs.”

Hannah looks at DeWitt with surprise. How does he even remember whom she dated in high school? She goes into the kitchen,
carrying a bag of organic coffee from Jon’s favorite roaster in San Francisco; she puts the kettle on and grinds the beans.
Her mother comes in to watch, leaning against the marble counter.

“Why are you speaking about me in the third person, Mom? I’m right here.”

Her mother shrugs. It’s a sharp movement. A physical exclamation point.

“Anyway, I don’t have sophisticated tastes. Look. This is as simple as coffee gets.”

“Well. May I please try this magically simple yet delicious coffee?”

“I only made enough for—” But she stops herself. “Sure.” She pours her mother a cup and ponders her next question. She hasn’t brought up DeWitt’s picture yet; in fact, she’s mostly been avoiding both her mother and Will all week. “So, Mom. I have a question.”

“Which is?”

“Are you certain you never met DeWitt before Dad left?”

Daisy picks up her cup, smells the coffee delicately, takes a sip, and scowls.

“Lord, that is strong! How do you drink this?”

“Mom?”

“Hannah, we’ve been over this. First of all, darling, your father is dead. He didn’t leave; he drowned. So don’t be all loony about it. Second, no, I did not meet Will. Never spoke to the man before the funeral.” Daisy shakes her head and goes to the refrigerator for some milk. “So why are you dressed up? Do you have a lunch?”

“I’m actually going to church,” Hannah says, resisting the urge to pull out the photo in question.

“You’ve found religion, I suppose.”

“Mom.” Hannah pauses to strategize. Her smartest therapist—the one she fired—once gave her advice on speaking with someone who is being difficult. Talk about your feelings, she told Hannah, rather than voicing a criticism of the person herself.

“You know, I’m feeling like you’re really taking the offensive right now, Mom. Your words make me feel caged in, and I feel that I deserve more respect than your tone allows.”

Hannah sighs and picks up her mother’s discarded cup.

“Are you drinking my coffee? That’s very rude. So what church are you going to?”

“Grace.”

Daisy crosses her arms. “He’s married,” she says. “He married Jenny White.”

“Well, what are you doing, then?”

“I’ve never thought there was anything to be curious about concerning the subject of Warren Meyers. He was about the dullest boy in your class.”

“Well, why don’t you come with me?” Hannah asks. But as soon as the words drift from her mouth, empty as little balloons,
she’s sorry. There is no way Daisy, with her relentless curiosity, will be able to let her daughter go to Warren’s church alone and unobserved.

“You know, I have so much to do in the garden . . .”

“And that dinner party to plan . . .”

“I’m leaving in five minutes.”

“All right,” Daisy says, getting up. “I’ll drive you. Just let me find something appropriate to wear.”

Although Grace Episcopal Church is just a pleasant walk from the DeWitt House, they drive together in Daisy’s Ford Taurus.
As Charleston’s tiny streets were originally designed to comfortably fit one horse-pulled carriage and perhaps a hoopskirt or two, the city’s ice-cream-colored walls are just inches from Hannah’s window. Daisy drives with a girlish carelessness that explains why her car is pocked with so many candy-hued dings.

In just under three minutes, they are in Grace’s parking lot, not far from a starched and ribboned throng at the church door.
Daisy gets out of the car and scans the crowd.

“Are you coming?”

“You know, I’ve just got to call Jon back first.”

“He called you? When?”

“Last night.”

This is a lie. Since she has arrived, Jon has not called, e-mailed, or so much as answered the phone during any of Hannah’s countless attempts to reach him.

“Well, tell him I say hello!” her mother says with a smile, then whirls around and throws her hand up to greet friends she sees in the distance.

Hannah presses the silent phone to her ear as she watches her mother through the window. Daisy speaks to her friends animatedly,
waving her hands and laughing. There are a couple of people in the crowd even Hannah recognizes from high school, toting small children. And, by the time her eyes land on the shining tresses of Jenny White-Meyers, it occurs to her, not for the first time, just how bad of an idea this second visit to Grace may have been.

Hannah flips the phone closed, suddenly shamed by the pretense of speaking to the husband she’s only pretending to have.
She gets out of the car and walks over to her mother.

“Here she is!” Daisy chirps. She’s speaking to a group of Charleston ladies, mothers of her classmates. They are all so much older now. But then, she thinks, so am I.

“Hello, Hannah,” one of them says. “We hear from your mother that you’re doing very well out in San Francisco!”

No, not really, Hannah is tempted to say. I’m a total sniveling mess.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“And she says you have a new company?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She glances at her mother—how far should she go with this?

“And what sort of business is it? Is it some sort of shop?”

“It’s sex toys,” Daisy says flatly. “My daughter is selling sex toys. Apparently it’s the newest thing.”

“Really?” Tommy Nelson’s mother asks. She leans forward.

“Yes. We’re going to have a party to sell them. Like those housewives do with the Tupperware.”

Hannah feels a tap on her shoulder and looks up to see a tall, severely pretty woman. “I’m Georgia,” she whispers with a grin.
“Be sure to put me on the list.”

The group disperses to go inside.

“Mom? What are you doing?”

“Just helping your business,” she says. “All right. I have no idea how they work the pews here. Looks like mass chaos, which doesn’t surprise me. Let’s go find ourselves a couple of seats.”

The service is like every other Episcopalian service Hannah can remember: dull, belabored, with incessant standing and kneeling.
Warren’s sermon, though well-written, is slightly academic and thoroughly boring. Before he speaks, the choirmaster is called on to turn up his mike. The congregation fidgets. Someone’s cell phone goes off, but no one bothers to silence it. A child screams and throws a hymnal in the aisle.

Hannah spends the first half of the service much as she always did when coerced into going to church: she thinks about sex.
Most of the imaginary sex is with her own husband in her own bed, but some of it is with Warren, who now stands 150 feet in front of her in his ecclesiastical robe. What would it be like to touch him now? Different? Somehow she perversely thought taking Communion from Warren might be a turn-on—kneeling in front of her old boyfriend, having him place a piece of bread on her tongue. But the reality is a soggy wafer jammed in her face with no eye contact. She shuffles back to her pew. More overwrought hymns and indecipherable lessons. Finally, the service ends, and Warren joylessly leads the procession to the doors of the church.

“Thanks be to God,” he calls out.

The crash of the organ.

“Well,” Daisy says, “that was a nice nap.”

“Mom, I’m just going to quickly say hi, OK?”

Hannah drifts through the crowd, which is loud with chatter, heavy with failing deodorant and perfume. There is a line to talk to the ministry. She watches Warren greet an old man—no one she knows, but he seems to be in distress. He speaks to
Warren, his spotted, bald head bobbing, his vein-scarred right hand jerking back and forth. Warren puts his hand on the man’s shoulder, which immediately calms him. Hannah wonders what the man is saying. Warren just listens and nods, mostly, barely talking at all. She stands at a distance, considering whether or not to join the line. It seems wrong, somehow, getting in line to speak to the person she lost her virginity to, no matter how long ago it was. A different century, even.

“Hi, Hannah.” The voice. So Southern, yet so nasal. So sweet, yet so completely disingenuous.

“Jenny. How are you?”

“Oh, so great! Just—fantastic.”

Jenny White. A woman with all the depth of a wading pool. How could he have picked her? Do perfect bone structure and breasts
(and they are, especially up close) really make up for a lifetime of dim conversation?

“I’m just loving working with your brother, I have to say.”

“Great, I’m glad to hear it.”

“He really is such a gem.”

Hannah smiles politely, choosing not to tell Jenny that the gem is currently being an asshole.

“Have you told Warren you’re in town?”

“I think he saw me.”

“Oh,” Jenny says. Then, after a moment: “These are my girls.”

Of course, Hannah is already aware of the tiny beings flanking the wife of Warren Meyers. She is aware of them the same way she always notices children: small, bright figures that remain out of her range of immediate sight. Angling her gaze downward,
she is met by four eyes—two brown like Jenny’s, and two the color of worn pencil lead.

Many women speak of the desire to have children. Hannah doesn’t have a bevy of female friends, but several of her acquaintances from business school spoke often of ticking clocks, of the problems in balancing work and family. Hannah has always seen herself as distinct from these women. She does not want children’s voices bouncing off the kitchen floor, their small feet pattering on the tile, their little fingerprints on her windows and walls.

They’re gaping at her; she realizes it must be because she’s wearing a different style of clothing from the other women: a fitted nylon skirt with zippers and a cashmere shirt. It hadn’t even crossed her mind before; it takes the eyes of children to make her see just how much she stands out here.

“Well, I guess I’ll get in line,” Hannah says. “You know, talk to the ‘man.’ ”

Jenny gives her a small smile. There. That’s how she’s changed since high school, Hannah notes. Her smile is smaller.

“You in town long?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Oh, it’s a nice town.” The words are eerily familiar.

“You sound like Emily Webb.”

“Who?”

“Oh.” Another blank stare.

“Thornton Wilder? It used to be one of Warren’s favorites. Remember? He rips it off, like, eight times in his book.”

Her face says she doesn’t.

“Oh, well. It was a little thing. Something he wrote a long time ago. I think.”

“How long?”

“Um . . . I’m not sure.”

“But you’ve read it?”