The Instant When Everything is Perfect (32 page)

It’s what you have to do if you want to go farther.

Good advice
, she thinks, knowing that she hasn’t truly followed it herself. Sure there was that strange, surreal moment of Dick touching her incisions. And they are good friends, constant companions. A couple in many ways. But also there has simply been her recovery and then her chemo. Now, her body almost hers again, Sally knows that there are things she needs to do, wants to do.

Sally pulls herself up and slaps the dirt off her hands. Looking around the patio, she nods. She needs some snow in summer, a few zinnias, and a couple of cosmos. More dirt, a little compost.

But more importantly, she needs to change the sheets and take a shower. Then a little mascara. Her new silk blouse that Dahlia sent her with the pockets over the breasts. Some music. Reservations at that new restaurant on Main Street, Kenitos, the one Mia said was so good.

“That was a fine meal,” Dick says as he takes her coat and hangs it up in the coat closet.

“Mia said that chicken dish was the best she’d ever had.” Sally walks into the kitchen to start the coffee. “I’m glad I ordered it, too.”

Dick follows her, picking up the
Newsweek
and flipping through it as she scoops coffee grounds into the basket. She can feel him behind her, all the energy that he is, the pulse and heat of his body. Sally smiles, shakes her head, presses on the machine and turns to him.

He looks up, and she opens her mouth, knowing there are words to say. She’s heard them on television and in the movies, and maybe once, a million years ago, she said some of them to David. She said, “Let’s go upstairs,” or “I’m feeling a little frisky, honey.” Was that how it had always happened? Or had it been just a roll over in the bed, arms around each other, a pressing of flesh. Who knew? Who besides her is here to remember?

“Sal Gal,” he says, before she can remember what she’s forgotten. Dick walks around the counter and takes her in his arms, just like that. Then he looks down at her, brushing her wispy hair away from her face, the hair she’s just managed to save.

“Yes,” she says, and then he leans down and kisses her.

Upstairs, he sits down on the edge of the bed, pulling her down so that they are next to each other. He unbuttons her blouse, the fancy silk one Dahlia gave her. What would Dahlia think if she knew that the most important thing about her present was that it was being taken off by a man? By Dick, who now pulls it off her shoulders, whisking it along her arms and then putting it gently on the chair next to her bed.

Sally brings her hand to his face, holding his jaw in her palm. Then she leans into him, pressing her flat chest against his shirt, his hands on her back. Wherever he touches her feels like tears, as if her very skin will cry from the feeling of him against her, as if they are talking in a language she now recognizes.

She moves away, and he takes off his shirt, and there is his older man’s body, a body David never grew into: white chest hair, a belly a bit pooched out, his shoulder and collar bones prominent.

Sally loves the way Dick feels, her hand running along the flat ridge of his sternum, and like he did before, he brings his hands to her chest, running his fingers lightly over her scars, the small puckers of extra skin, and then trailing to her belly. Then he is no longer touching her lightly, hugging her tight instead, and they lie down on the bed, kissing, their flat chests pressed together.

Inside herself, Sally feels another story beginning to form, and for a little second, she wonders if Mia got her talent directly from her mother. Sally knows how to create a narrative, the beginning and middle, though she’s never been too good with ends. But now as she kisses Dick Brantley back, one old story ends.

She can see the story’s ending even in the darkness of her closed eyes. David gets up from this very bed, the bed they used to sleep on together, and walks to the door. He turns, smiles, gives her a little wave, and then disappears into the hall and walks out of the house he never actually lived in, the one he only inhabited because Sally wouldn’t let him leave.

Opening her eyes, she looks at Dick’s face, his closed eyes, his hair hanging over his forehead. She doesn’t see David. He’s not there at all. She sees only this, them, and she closes her eyes. His hands move, so do hers, finding the terrain she thought she’d never travel again. He sits up, turns off the light, and they take off the rest of their clothes, and get under the blankets, old bodies, old bones, their flesh hot and warm.

That night, spooned up against Dick’s back, Sally dreams of Scotland again, sees the same green hills, the little village with thatched roofs, the villagers in their wool clothes, the women wearing big white aprons. She tries to find herself in the dream, but she’s not the observer, really, she’s one of the villagers. But where? Which one? She scans the entire village, the doorways, the windows, the barns. But then, there! There she is! An old woman picking vegetables and putting them in her basket, her long gray hair tucked up in a bonnet. And then Sally’s in the body of this village woman, her hands on small brown potatoes and then long green beans. She moves down the rows, talks with other women, feels the dirt on her palms, the sweat at the back of her neck.

Oh, this is hard, good work, and she puts the basket down on the tilled earth and stretches, her arms held high, breath tight and full in her body.

Fifteen

Robert

Robert has never been to Honduras, so he reads the extensive list Operation Grin sent him very carefully. Light weight shirts, drip-dry shorts, sandals. Mosquito repellent. Water purifiers. First Aid kit. All things he hadn’t used since camping two years ago with Jack and a couple of other guys from Jack’s practice.

Last week, he went to REI, a local camping and sports supply store, and bought all his travel supplies. With all his purchases, Robert felt like he was moving to another state, country, world, all for only two weeks.

And this list is just for getting to and from the airport, the brief time he will be at the International Tegucigalpa Hotel, and the small slip of time he might do some sightseeing before and after his work. One of the other lists is for the operating room donations Operation Grin would like Inland Community Health Center to make: a standing anesthesia machine, a portable vaporizer, oxygen regulator, Leibinger cleft lip/palate instrument, or portable suction machine.

Then there is the request for the incoming staff to bring their own scrubs, gloves, masks, all the things Robert tears off his body daily, without really thinking about them—without thinking of the money and human energy required to manufacture them, to clean them, to fold them, to stack them, to start all over again.

He puts down the list and looks at his duffel bag and sighs. He wants to go, he needs to go, but he still hears Jack’s voice in his head from last night.

“Fucking liberal do-gooders. Fine. Fix all the cleft lips in the world, but at least they should put you up somewhere.” Jack slapped his hand on the table. “Where are you going to be?”

“I put myself up, Jack. At a good hotel, too.”

“Oh, but where is this good hotel? Somewhere in the jungle? You’ll get Chagas’ disease. Or malaria, cholera, or dengue fever. And then what about all the wild creatures? Snakes and what? Vampire bats.”

“Vampire bats live in the Amazon,” Robert said, smiling, enjoying the sight of angry Jack, righteously indignant Jack. Jack with one too many martinis.

“So why in the stories do vampires always live in Romania? Shit. Nothing makes sense.”

“Artistic license,” Robert said, thinking of Mia, pulling her memory close and then pushing her away. “Writers. You know.”

In the long pause, Jack raised his eyebrow, sipped his drink. “All over, huh?”

Robert nodded, shrugged, fell still. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What else is new?” Jack said. “Unlike vampire bats, you are wholly unsurprising.”

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint.” Robert sipped his beer, knowing that
disappoint
was his middle name.

“Aw, man, shut up,” Jack said, hitting his shoulder with his palm. “Knock it off. When do you leave?”

“A couple days,” Robert said. “For two weeks.”

“Do you think you’ll escape it by going farther away this time?” Jack stares at him.

“What do you mean?” Robert tilts his beer into his mouth but there’s nothing left.

“You’re running away.”

Robert puts the bottle on the table, slouches down in his chair. “I can’t handle it.”

“Yes, you can. You’ve handled a lot in your life. Your parents. What happened to your patient. You’ve been on your own too long, though, man. Maybe this time you should try to stay and figure it out.” Jack shakes his head. “I try to stay out of it.”

“Yeah,” says Robert. “By talking to Leslie at the gym? She called me, you know.”

“I’m just worried about you. That’s all.” Jack finished his drink. “But who knows. Maybe this is the adventure that will change everything.”

As he packs, Robert wants to believe Jack. This is the trip that will save him, that will show him the light. Maybe he will meet someone perfect. But he knows that Jack’s first assessment was probably closer to the truth. He is running away.

Whatever is true, there’s no time to think about it now. He’s going to leave in a day. Inland has given him the time off, happy to publicize the good works of one of its doctors, grateful for the opportunity of shipping an oxygen regulator and a portable suction machine to San Felipe Hospital. In fact, the marketing and publicity department even called him for an initial interview, wanting to use his story in a round of commercials. Inland loves to pick ordinary doctors to profile, showing them in lovely, well lit exam rooms, talking with happy, satisfied patients whose illnesses are not apparent.

“No,” Robert told them. “Absolutely not.”

He can see the commercial in his head: Here’s Dr. Fake in his fake office talking to a patient about fake breasts. The voice over will explain how Dr. Fake travels to third world countries to help poor and destitute children, but if you are by chance looking for augmented breasts, please stop by. Dr. Fake truly cares.

Phyllis jumps up on the bed and begins to sniff at his duffel bag, prodding his new mosquito hat with her paw. Robert shoos her off, and then the doorbell rings. The cat sitter is going to come over this afternoon to get the Phyllis tour, but she’s a half-hour early.

Robert zips up his bag and walks out of the room, down the hall, and then opens the front door. But it’s not the cat sitter, the teenaged girl who lives down the street. It’s Mia.

She blushes, smiles, and then her face falls. “Hi.”

Robert’s body feels confused. His heart is racing, pumping blood everywhere, but he doesn’t think he can move, his legs wooden, his arms leaden. They haven’t seen each other since Bakersfield over a month ago—or, at least, she hasn’t seen him—and the body memory of that time rushes through him.

“Hi,” he says back, holding on to the door. “How are you?”

She cocks her head, watching him. “Not very good.”

Robert doesn’t move.

“Can I come in?” she asks, and he starts.

“Of course. Yes.”

His arms somehow move, and he opens the door wider. Mia walks in, and he can see how she’s trying to make herself smaller, maybe as if she wishes she weren’t here at all. He knows what she’s going to tell him, of course. It’s the news he tried not to hear before. That everything that happened between them was a terrible mistake. That she’s worked it all out with Ford. He already knows this because of the way she looked at Ford during the reading.

Together, they walk down into his living room. He tries not to glance down the hall to his bedroom, that being their usual path: the front door closing, the kiss, the pull to the bed, the sex. And then the talk and the holding. She’s really only been in the living room once, that first time they were together here. Robert can still see her looking out to the courtyard and still see his vision of her typing there, writing, working. Living.

Mia sits on the couch, her face still flame. Robert wants to lean over and smooth her pale skin with his hand, but instead, he sits on a chair opposite her.

“So,” she says and then bites her lip. “What happened, Robert? Why did you change your mind?”

He swallows, looks away, too much in his throat to say a word. Slowly, he brings forth the words he sub-intonated to himself for weeks. “It wasn’t going to work out, Mia.”

She shakes her head. “Where—how?” She stops, breathes in, holds back words he can almost see inside her. She bites her lip, breathes out. “Why?”

Robert lifts his hands, lets them fall to his knees. “You know, Mia.”

“No, Robert,” she says, her face fading, her eyes glittery. “I don’t. We had a good time in Bakersfield, didn’t we? I thought—I thought we got through some stuff.”

He nods, crosses his legs. Phyllis jumps on the couch and steps onto Mia’s lap. Mia pets her absently with one hand and wipes her eyes with the other.