The Heart of Henry Quantum (13 page)

People called her Madge at work. She never corrected them.

“No problem,” she said. “I'm sure I'll be better by tomorrow. And, Matt,” she added, “I'm really glad we had this conversation.”

She edged the car back onto Shoreline Drive and made the left toward Tamalpais and the Mountain Home Inn, where, she hoped, Peter was still being held captive. Another twenty fucking minutes down the tube. It was a beautiful drive, though, and had she been less frantic about Peter, perhaps she might have enjoyed it, as she used to when she and Bones came here on weekends. They would take the route past the Zen Center at Green Gulch and promise themselves they were definitely going to go there on a retreat and then break out laughing because they never actually did, though years later Henry did go, only alone. Sometimes she and Henry would end up at the Pelican Inn in Muir Beach, where they would have bangers and meat pies because it was supposed to be an English pub. It was indeed dark and wainscoted and Tudoresque, and in those days it seemed charming to her. Sometimes they would take a room.

Today, she'd be taking a different route, thank God, turning off at Panoramic and heading up the mountain.

Just as she was about to make the turn onto Panoramic she noticed a rather ragged young couple with their thumbs out standing at the crossroads in front of the signs for Stinson and Mount Tam. He had a reddish beard and blond hair and was wearing shorts. She had long brown hair and wore light blue jeans and a tank top. Idiots, she thought. They think California is sunshine.

They looked so fragile that, in spite of her rush, Margaret stopped, rolled down her passenger window, and cried out over the engine noise, “Where are you going?”

“We're trying to get to Muir Woods. Which way is it?”

“Either way will get you there,” she replied. “I could take you partway, but you'd have to get another ride at the turnoff.”

“That's fine, that's fine,” they said with brightest of smiles, as if she were the wizard Gandalf and they were Frodo and Sam trying to find safe passage into the land of Mordor.

“It's a very small car. And you're very tall,” Margaret said to the boy.

“We'll squeeze!” said the girl with the long hair. She laughed and threw her arm around the boy.

“Honestly, you'd be better waiting for someone going to Muir Woods,” said Margaret.

“Oh.” They took a couple of steps back, their smiles fading. “Well, thanks anyway.”

“Okay, okay, never mind. Get in.”

Elated, the girl jumped in the narrow rear seat, sliding behind Margaret so that her boyfriend could push his own seat all the way back to accommodate his long legs.

“MINI Cooper,” he said, running his hands across the leather. And indeed, the car was so small he had to jam his pack between his lap and the dashboard. He sort of disappeared behind it, except for his head, which was large, hairy, and very animated. The girl, meanwhile, spread out on the back seat, thrusting one leg toward the passenger side and resting her head on the shoulder of the front seat.

“Where are you two from? Obviously not from here,” Margaret asked a bit nervously. She had never, ever, ever, picked up hitchhikers.

“We're both at NYU. Winter break.”

“Not going home for Christmas?”

“Not this year.”

“Your parents must not be happy about that.”

“Yeah,” they said.

They drove along a bit. Margaret couldn't believe her own moxie. To pick up hitchhikers. To have no fear. She checked out the girl in the rearview and then looked over at the boy. He had a strong aroma about him—not exactly body odor, but something less than clean. It was thick and the car filled up with it.

“Have you two been going out long?” she asked, thinking of nothing else to say.

“We're more like friends,” the girl said.

“Oh. You seem so natural together. Like a couple.”

The girl laughed, and the boy looked over his shoulder at her and smiled. The odor intensified with his movements. It was weird. She kind of liked the smell.

“Ooo, what's this?” cried the girl, holding up the little blue box in her soiled fingers. “Who's going to get Tiffany's for Christmas?”

“Just someone,” said Margaret.

“Lucky someone!”

“My secret lover,” Margaret, much to her amazement, suddenly announced. “I'm going to see my secret lover. He's getting Tiffany.”

“Wow. Really?”

“Yep.”

Again the boy looked over his shoulder at the girl, then at Margaret.

“I'm having an affair,” she continued baldly. “I'm going to see him now.”

“Uh, you're married?”

“Yep.”

“To someone else?”

“Yep.”

“So, it's, like, an affair.”

“Yep.”

“Wow,” he said again.

From the back seat, the girl squeezed forward, her chin on her elbows. “So, like, does your husband know?” she asked. They were interested now, perhaps excited even.

“Uh,
no
,” said Margaret.

“So you're like, what? Going to his house?”

“The beach.”

“You mean like right there on the beach?”

“No, no. We have a motel. More of an inn, I think.”

The boy scratched his beard. “Too conventional,” he said. “You don't want a motel. You want . . .”

“A teepee,” said the girl.

He laughed. “Too small. How about a bomb shelter? Nobody has an affair in a bomb shelter.”

“No view,” said Margaret. And everyone laughed.

After a few moments the girl said, “You're kidding right? About the affair?”

“Of course.”

“I thought so.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“I don't know. You don't seem the type. You seem too nice.”

“We're here,” Margaret said, pulling over to the shoulder. “Just down that road. You can probably walk it in half an hour, but there will be a million cars.”

“Great, thanks,” said the boy.

“I would have taken you down, but I'm late.”

“For your affair?”

“Never too late for an affair,” she quipped. “Although in this case, I think I may be.”

As the girl got out of the car she turned back, leaned through the window, and placed her hand on Margaret's arm. “It was fun driving with you,” she said. “Be safe. I'm sure whoever's getting that gift will love it.”

And with that, Margaret threw the car in gear and headed up toward the Mountain Home Inn, checking the back seat to make sure the little blue box was still there.

12:58–2:52 p.m.

Peter barely said a word when Margaret stepped out onto the deck where he'd been sitting for almost two hours with only a heat lamp as company. On the table before him were a dirty plate and a crumpled napkin. She wanted to kiss him, but he turned aside, and she had to content herself with his cheek.

“I'm glad you didn't wait,” she said.

“Didn't wait? I've been waiting hours.”

“No, I mean about brunch.”

“I couldn't just sit here taking up a table.”

“No, it's fine.”

The waitress came up, all smiles, and handed Margaret a menu.

“Oh!” said Margaret. “Can't I still have breakfast?”

“I doubt it, but I'll check.”

“Oh, don't check—let's just live large!”

“In the meantime, can I get you something to start?” asked the waitress. “Wine? Coffee?”

“Let's have mimosas,” she said.

“One or two?” asked the waitress.

Margaret looked hopefully at Peter. He barely glanced up at her.

“Two,” she said, and then to him, “Oh, come on, grumpy, it wasn't my fault. Didn't you get my messages?”

“Yeah. I finally got a signal.”

“Look, I wasn't the one who was jumping. Though I did think about it!”

“Two hours,” he said.

“I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry. Let's not waste a minute more.”

She was just grateful he was at least still there, grumpy or not. She herself wouldn't have waited so long. And how exposed he had been, sitting out on this deck all by himself, having to worry about taking up a table, not having a book to read or anything to do, no computer or anything. And all around him tourists and newlyweds, because during the week that's all there were, the hikers and locals appearing only on weekends, which, of course, was the reason they had chosen the place, but just to be surrounded by couples and all alone. . . . He probably played Pet Rescue, too. In that way, at least, they were together. Although she recalled he actually preferred gambling games like Vegas Slots or some such.

Her heart went out to him. She loved the way he pouted, the tinge of fire in his eyes, the way he took her for granted. She dared to place one hand on his leg and let her fingers slide up toward his groin.

“Isn't that better?” she said.

“So, tell me what happened,” he finally asked.

“The bitch wouldn't jump,” she replied. “She was just plain chickenshit, wasted everyone's time.” She burst out laughing. “Now she'll have to spend twenty years in a loony bin.” She squeezed his crotch. “God, I'm starving!” She felt him grow a little hard, and this encouraged her, because how long can a guy stay mad with a girl squeezing his dick?

She didn't tell him about the twenty minutes talking to Matt. He would see it as weakness, not being able to stand up to your boss, not being your own man, or being so attached to your job you didn't really have a life.

She sipped her mimosa and ordered a frittata and begged Peter to also order something, so he dutifully requested a dessert—whichever one you like best, he said to the waitress—and out came a huge slice of chocolate layer cake, which he seemed to enjoy, and Margaret ate her frittata and the side of fruit. She drank a second mimosa, which was risky because she was not much of a drinker, but she felt she really needed that second one, and she implored Peter to have one as well—even though she knew she was forcing it on him and she didn't like how that made her look, but she did it anyway because she believed it would help him loosen up and get them back to where they were supposed to be. And she was right, of course, because she was almost always right. Peter's shoulders softened, and his eyes became a little dreamy, and when he finally reached out and touched the skin of her forearm, she knew all would be well. He caressed her arm with the same searching movements she used on his cock. I win, she thought.

“I picked up a couple of kids on their way to Muir Woods. They reminded me of us. So in love.”

“And how long did that take?” he asked.

She touched him on the nose. “Nothing could keep me away from you, sweetheart.”

Much of Peter's appeal came from his looks alone. He was stout and a little brutish, with a patrician face and moppish blond hair falling over his left eye—a prep-school brat through and through. Fucking him was kind of like fucking Jack Kennedy. He even wore a rep tie and in summer a seersucker suit, and she decided he was well-read even though he never talked books or, in fact, ever seemed to read anything other than the
Wall Street Journal
. He was also a little sloppy around the seams, but in a charming country-doctor sort of way; his shirts sometimes came untucked and his tie was often off-kilter. Only people with old money looked like that, she decided, though actually he was in insurance and had a degree from San Jose State. Henry had gone to the University of Chicago, and a lot of good that had done him. All he learned to do was think. Think and think and think. But why was she bringing up Henry anyway? For the entire past week, all she had thought about was Peter, and now she was thinking about Bones? Do I feel guilty? she asked herself right then and there. Well, perhaps she did a little. After all, Henry wasn't a horrible person. It was just that she couldn't stand him anymore. Not that she could say exactly why, just that everything he did was so annoying. Sometimes she watched him dress, or eat, or watch TV, or read a book, and she was disgusted. Really disgusted to the point of wanting to vomit. Had she felt this way about Henry before she met Peter?

Maybe it was the thing in Chicago. Maybe it went all the way back to that. All the way to the very beginning.

She knew Henry had been accepted in a PhD program at the University of Chicago before she'd met him and that their whole getting together was just a fluke. He was in San Francisco visiting a friend. Not much of a friend because she never saw him again. The two of them were hanging out or something before going on to graduate school. Margaret herself had been out of college for a couple of years. Actually, she'd never finished. She'd been switching majors so many times she never had enough hours. So she took a job as a waitress, a receptionist, a salesgirl in a small dress shop in North Berkeley, whatever came along. Henry intended to stay with his pal for a week, but after he met Margaret he ended up staying the whole month, mostly with her, sometimes back in San Francisco. He told her she was funny and smart and cute, but she realized there was also something about her that seemed to put him off. He never really opened up. Maybe it was that hypercritical thing she did. She thought of it as having “high standards,” but it often came out as a put-down, supercilious and even nasty. More likely, it was her neediness that frightened him. For the life of her, she didn't know why she acted this way around him. Could she really have been such a needy person? She hated this part of herself more than she hated the critic. Something about
him.
It was obviously because of him. She could see for herself how she sort of glommed on to him, wouldn't let him out of her sight, always asking him where he'd been or where he was going or who he had been socializing with. It was pathetic.

In the beginning Henry reminded her a little of her father, who had also been tall and thin and dark-haired, though never disheveled or absent-minded. But Henry was smart and articulate and generous. She saw him as a guy who knew what he wanted in life, someone who could take care of things. She showered him with affection. She pouted when he went off on his own.