Now and Again (17 page)

They laughed, and then they didn't talk again until they were pulling into the unpaved lot of the clinic. Before getting out of the car, Tula said with more confidence than she felt, “This is a women's clinic, Will. I forgot to tell you that. So they'll probably have you manning the phone.”

“What's a women's clinic?” asked Will.

“It's a clinic dedicated to women's health.”

“Okay,” said Will. “They don't treat men?”

“No, they don't. But sometimes husbands or boyfriends come with the women. And the doctor is usually a man.”

“What do they treat the women for?”

“You know,” said Tula. “It's women having babies and stuff.”

Will rolled the window closed and unbuckled his seat belt while Tula gathered up her purse. “The doctor can be a little gruff, but you'll like the midwife. Her name is Dolly.”

“What's a midwife?” asked Will.

Dolly told Will he could straighten the magazines in the waiting room and then the contents of the supply cupboard. “I'd let you answer the phone, but some of our patients hang up if they get a man.” Then she passed out smocks and took Tula with her into the back. “I wish I could give your boyfriend something more interesting to do,” said Dolly while they waited for the doctor to arrive.

“He's not my boyfriend. He wants to be a doctor, so I invited him to come along, but it wasn't until we were on our way that I realized this probably isn't the best place to bring him.” Tula laughed, releasing the tension that had built up during the drive. The two women were giggling over the awkwardness of the situation when the doctor walked in.

“What's so funny?” he asked.

“Will wants to be a doctor, so Tula brought him along. We were just hoping that the sight of all the pregnant ladies doesn't scare him away.”

“You just leave your boyfriend to me,” said the doctor. “I'll let him autoclave the instruments and show him how a fetal heart monitor works.”

“He's not her boyfriend,” said Dolly with a wink, and Tula said, “Will's in for a big surprise.”

When they unlocked the door at nine o'clock, two patients were waiting on the steps accompanied by their husbands, but a third said her boyfriend was a little freaked out and wanted to wait in the car. “He was in Iraq,” explained the woman. “He's on crutches, so it's a little hard for him to get around.”

“That sounds like a job for me,” said Will. “I'll take him a cup of coffee and see what I can do.”

“Men,” said Dolly as the door rattled shut. “Always racing off to fix things. I guess you're stuck with cleaning out the cupboard as well as answering the phones.”

Will was gone a long time and didn't come back into the clinic with the empty coffee cup until the third patient was leaving. “What were you up to out there?” Tula wanted to know.

“Guy stuff,” said Will. “Nothing much.”

Toward the end of the day a new mother came in for a checkup. Her hair was unwashed and her husband had to help her fill out the form Tula gave her. “Get away from me!” the woman shouted when Dolly tried to take her blood pressure, so Dolly called in the doctor, who showed Will how to put on the cuff while Dolly and Tula backed out of the room. “It's okay,” said Will. “I'm here now.”

“Well,” said Dolly. “Will you look at that?”

“What happened to her?” asked Tula.

“Her baby was born with severe deformities. It was horrible. Of course they blame me.”

“How could it be your fault?”

“It wasn't! But I was there, so they link me to the experience.”

Tula told Dolly about Will's mother and how she had quit her job at the munitions factory because of something about deformed frogs.

“Interesting,” said Dolly, but then she changed the subject to the coming-home party she was arranging for her boyfriend. “His name is Danny. Do you think I should go with a patriotic theme or just keep it simple? A barbecue would be fun, or what about a friendly baseball game?”

“I like the baseball idea,” said Tula. “Will's a baseball player.”

“I'll send you an invitation once I know when it's going to be.” A few minutes passed, and then Dolly asked, “What's her name?”

“Who?” asked Tula.

“Will's mother. What's Will's mother's name?”

“Maggie Rayburn. There was a lot of talk about her at one point—don't tell me you heard about it all the way out here!”

“Interesting,” Dolly said again, and then she talked some more about the coming-home party until it was time for Tula to leave.

On the drive back to Red Bud, Will was even quieter than he had been that morning. “Thanks for coming,” said Tula.

“I should be thanking you,” said Will. “I learned a few things.”

“You were really good with those soldiers. What did you talk about with the guy in the truck?”

“Oh, you know. We listened to music and talked about baseball.”

“I'm glad they were there, since there wasn't much else for you to do. I guess I didn't think things through when I invited you.”

“I never really thought about where babies come from before, about how one minute there's nothing and the next there's a new life. And then when you die, it all happens in reverse. Nothing to nothing.”

“They're just talking about the body when they say that. The soul is something else.”

“I used to believe in the soul,” said Will, “but I don't anymore.”

“I think that right at the last second our souls will fly up to heaven and wait for a new body to inhabit. It will be like being born all over again.”

“Huh,” said Will. “That's just a fairy tale.”

No sooner had they turned onto the highway than the clouds turned livid. Lightning forked in the distance, and then, closer in, the sky seemed to ignite. Pretty soon it was raining so hard that Tula had to pull beneath an overpass to wait for the storm to blow over. “We're lucky it's not a tornado,” she said.

“Why?” asked Will. “That's something I've always wanted to see.”

They sat for a while peering out at the rain, which seemed to be moving in a line across the fields, battering one strip of wheat before moving on to the next. When the windshield fogged up, Will swiped at it with his sleeve. “Did I ever tell you I was shot?” he asked.

“No!” exclaimed Tula. “You didn't.”

“It was just a BB, but still. That soldier today had a big ol' hole in his leg.” Will's eyes were gleaming as he rattled on about the soldier, about how he knew everything there was to know about radar and military electronics.

Fifteen minutes later, the spongy sky squeezed out the last drops of rain and the sun came out. When they were back on the road, Tula put her right hand on the seat beside her, but then thought better of it and returned it to the steering wheel. In any case, Will was staring out the window and didn't seem to notice. Just before they turned off at the Red Bud exit, Will told Tula he was ready for something. “I just don't know what it is,” he said.

“I'm ready for something too,” said Tula. She thought Will was talking about kissing her or asking her on a real date. Maybe he was even talking about sex. Dolly had told her that even the nicest boys were always thinking about it, but when she dropped him off at his house, he waved good-bye quickly and didn't ask her to come in as she had expected him to.

“Thanks,” said Will. “That was really interesting.”

“Men,” said Tula out loud, trying to sound both dismissive and admiring the way Dolly had sounded, trying to roll her eyes and smile at the same time. But Will was already running up the muddy driveway to the house.

S
top buying me presents,” said Tomás a few days after Maggie had come to the same conclusion herself, but it was an example of his devious nature that he added, “I don't want to make your husband jealous.”

“Don't be silly,” said Maggie. “Lyle isn't jealous.”

“Or your son.”

“My son isn't jealous either.” She regretted telling Tomás about Lyle and Will, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

The schoolroom was sunny in the afternoons, and a tree outside the window was filled with chattering birds. “What kind of birds are they?” asked Tomás.

Maggie didn't know, but instead of saying she would find out and tell him later, she said, “They're starlings,” even though she wasn't sure they were.

“I wonder what starlings do with the members of the flock they don't like. To the outcasts. I bet they chase them out of the tree. I bet they peck them to death.”

“You're not here because people don't like you, Tomás.”

Tomás looked at her in surprise, and then he smiled sadly. “Sure I am. That's exactly why I'm here.”

Another time Tomás said, “The biggest thing I can give you is my trust. What more do you want from me?”

Maggie didn't want anything, but she suspected Tomás did. He was staring at her in a way that reminded her of a dog that knew she carried a biscuit hidden in her pocket. It was getting harder and harder to think of him as fully human, which was what Valerie had been telling her all along. She knew it wasn't Tomás's fault. She knew the prison system cast them in roles and the roles came with feelings already attached to them, feelings that allowed people to believe that prisoners were getting what they deserved, but she couldn't help experiencing a tiny bit of revulsion, a tiny sense that Tomás could be more respectable if he wanted to be, a little less fawning and servile. A little bit more like George, she couldn't help thinking—if only Tomás were dashing!

“Stand up straight!” she commanded the next time he came slinking into the schoolroom with that expectant hangdog look. It crossed her mind not to give him the slice of cake she carried in her purse. She would hand it over to the old man weeping and wringing his hands at the next table just to teach Tomás a lesson.

But what would she be teaching him? That he had no power in his relationship with her? That anyone who wanted to could give him a command and he would have to follow it? It was something he knew all too well. It was the reason for his servile demeanor in the first place. She took out the cake wrapped in the crumpled wedge of foil and said as cheerfully as she could, “Look what I brought you, Tomás. A nice piece of cake for your dessert.”

D
olly had spent the past two years avoiding news about the war, but now that Danny was coming home, people she knew kept calling her up with the latest reports: They were winning the war, they were losing it, they were winning, but at a terrible cost. They were fighting for freedom, or maybe they were fighting for oil—in either case, they were touching hearts and minds. They were winning the peace unless they were losing it. No one was really sure.

She decided the coming-home party would include both the baseball game and the patriotic theme. After all, the Fourth of July was coming up—what had made her think she had to choose one over the other? Once that was settled, everything started to fall into place. She had met Danny at a Fourth of July celebration four years before, and the patriotic theme not only honored his service to his country, but was also a reminder of their history as a couple. She bought a tablecloth patterned like an American flag and tied red and blue ribbons around white candles for the tables and bought boxes of sparklers for the guests and researched brisket recipes and stockpiled cases of beer.

Danny's arrival had been delayed by several weeks so the returning troops could get medical care and finish up their discharge paperwork.

“What medical care?” Dolly asked when Danny told her about it. “I thought you were okay. You're okay, aren't you?”

“It's nothing, baby. Just protocol. Mostly we sit around and wait.”

“It'll all be over soon,” said Dolly, and Danny replied, “I know it, babe. I know it will.”

But it wasn't over, or if it was, something else was beginning. Danny didn't notice the pretty apartment Dolly had worked so hard on; he noticed the smudges on the windows. He noticed a chip in the new floor tile.

“You should get that tile guy back and make him fix it,” said Danny, who was speaking in a loud voice and clenching his fists. “Get him back here, and I'll talk to him myself.”

Dolly had no one to confide in, no one to tell her, You're worried about nothing! No one to say, They all come home a little agitated and they all get better—all it takes is a little time. No one, that is, except for her sister, who was burdened with troubles of her own, and her friends, who, if she said anything negative, would look at Danny skeptically from then on. And she couldn't call her mother. Her mother would say, You didn't take my advice about your career, and you didn't take my advice about that peach prom dress, so why would I give you any advice now? And then she would give it anyway, and it would entirely miss the point. The person Dolly wanted to confide in was Danny, but Danny was creeping around at night with a cleaning bucket when he thought she was asleep. Or he was chipping out the broken tile and ruining the floor, or he was lying awake and twitching, or he was dozing restlessly and calling out unintelligible things in his sleep.

Danny almost didn't come to the party, which Dolly had scheduled for the second Saturday he was home. “I don't really want to see anybody,” he said. “I won't know what to say to them.”

“You don't have to say anything,” said Dolly.

“Then they'll just talk about me behind my back.”

They argued because Dolly thought he should wear his uniform to the party and Danny thought he shouldn't. “It's just what people will expect,” she said.

“How am I gonna play baseball in a uniform?”