06.Evil.Beside.Her.2008 (9 page)

“I thought you’d like it,” she said, trying to hold back tears. In the crowd, she saw her friends and their husbands locked in each other’s arms. “I did it for you.”

“Goddamn it, what the hell’s gotten into you?” James answered, flushed with anger. “Go home. I’ve got duty tonight. I’ll call you later.”

In a last-ditch effort to save the reunion, Linda whispered in his ear, “I found out information for you. I met somebody who got out.”

For the first time, James smiled. “Finally. That’s great. Go home, I’ll call you later.”

Linda walked dejectedly away. When she surveyed the crowd from the steps of the bus, she saw her friends milling around her, bubbling and cooing to their husbands. Deter
mined not to let them see her disappointment, she smiled affectionately at James as the bus pulled away.

When the phone rang later that night, it was James calling from the base. First he apologized for blowing up at her on the pier. “You just don’t know what it’s been like,” he said. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

Then Linda told him about the sailor she’d met, the one who had been released from the navy after claiming he had an out-of-body experience.

“Yeah, I know about him. The guys on the boat told me about that SOB,” James countered, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Is that all you’ve got? What am I supposed to do? Plead insanity?”

“I don’t know,” Linda said, tears catching in her throat. “All I know is what he told me.”

“Well, go to sleep,” he said, disgustedly. “I’m off tomorrow. We’ll talk then.”

At six the next morning, Linda drove to the base to pick up James. She didn’t know what to expect, and when she pulled up to the lower base gates, he glowered at her. She slid over and he got behind the wheel. As he drove off base, Linda tried to make small talk to bring him out of his funk. James was distant. Then, once they passed the outer gates, she wiggled out of her coat, cuddled up next to him, and kissed him. As he drove, she nuzzled his neck. Finally James responded, slipping his hand under her skirt and between her legs. Linda smiled. It appeared the old James was back. When she unlocked the apartment door, he surveyed the crepe paper streamers, balloons, and the “Welcome Home” banner.

“I’m a real jerk for being so upset with you,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m sorry.”

Then he drew her toward the bedroom, pausing only long enough to laugh at the provocative signs Linda had plastered on the walls. He lay on the bed and pulled Linda to him. The anxiety melted away, and Linda relaxed for the first time in days as they made love.

Having James home made everything seem normal again. In the days that followed, each morning he drove to the base, where he helped refit the
Ohio
for the gold crew’s upcoming patrol. In the early afternoon, he was back at the apartment, announcing his arrival with a
toot, toot
of the Grand Prix’s
horn that reminded Linda of the way Ward Clever might have signaled “I’m home” to June on the old “Leave It to Beaver” television series.

In many ways, their tiny apartment was beginning to feel more like a home. There were Linda’s mementos including pictures of her family, and James had a growing collection of plaques and certificates from the navy, earned for each hurdle he passed on his way to qualifying on the sub: one for passing a fire school he attended, others for completing submarine school and basic training. Linda framed them all and hung them on a wall in the living room.

“Why are you doing that?” he asked when he first saw them.

“Because I’m proud of you,” she said. “I want everyone to know how smart my husband is.”

Though James said nothing more, Linda could tell he was pleased.
I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure this works out,
she thought.

As before, afternoons were their time together. They went to the movies or took long walks along the water. Just as he had before that first patrol, he insisted she wait for him each day before running errands, even going to the Laundromat or picking up their mail at the post office. “You don’t know what kind of perverts are out there,” he told her. Sometimes Linda thought it was odd. She was the one who had a reason to fear strangers—she’d been raped as a teenager—yet it was James who expected bad guys around every corner.

At home, James’s appetite for sex was as insatiable as ever. Off and on during the day and at least once at night, he called her into the bedroom to “do it.” As before, he held precisely to his routine, shunning any suggestion to try something different. The one night she came to bed wearing her burgundy lace teddy, he immediately ordered her back to the bathroom to change. “I like you better in just your bra and panties,” he contended. When she reappeared in plain white cotton bikini briefs and a bra, he was happy. None of it made sense to Linda. Of course, it may have if she knew
more about her husband’s past, especially his early obsession with bra and panty models in the Sears catalog.

Many afternoons were spent on the tennis court, where James renewed his effort to teach Linda the game. Although the courts on base were vastly better maintained than the dilapidated one behind the high school, James insisted they play the latter. When Linda asked why, he said he preferred not bumping into the other crew members on his off hours. “I spend enough time with them,” he contended. They also stopped working out at the base gym, after James insisted he’d noticed other sailors—“fucking bastards”—eyeing Linda when she ran the track or worked out with weights.

On Sundays he refused to go to the base chapel, demanding they join Holy Trinity parish in nearby East Bremerton instead. “This is a real church,” he said with an all-knowing air the first time they pulled up to the sprawling complex with its mansard roof. Linda liked the church. It reminded her of the parish her family belonged to in Houston. But she couldn’t help thinking James was avoiding the base as if it were the wellspring of all his problems.

Most days, James was as he had always been, thoughtful and attentive. As always, he was obsessive about spending all their time together. Still, he sometimes seemed nervous and distrustful—even of her. Once when she had just finished showering, she looked out the bathroom door and saw him searching through her dresser drawers. She had no idea what he was looking for, and as soon as he heard her pull the shower curtain back, he stopped. Then a few days later she walked out of the bedroom and discovered him tearing up the telephone number of the discharged sailor.

“Who’s this guy?” James demanded.

“He’s the one I told you about,” Linda answered. “The one who got out of the navy. I got his number for you.”

James was furious. He stormed around the apartment, his face bloodred and the veins standing out in his neck. “I know about what you do when I’m gone,” he accused. “All
you wives. The husbands go out to sea and you shack up with some other guy.”

Linda stayed quiet, and a moment later James calmed down. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just being out there like that for months. It does things to you,”

The
Ohio
’s alternating team, the gold crew, sailed out of Puget Sound on March 26, and James settled into his onshore routine of taking classes on base for six hours each day and then coming home to Linda early each afternoon. As his twenty-fourth birthday approached, Linda mentioned inviting Chris and Tina over for a party. “No. He talked me into this, and now he won’t even be going out on the next patrol,” James fumed. “He’s been reassigned to shore duty. What a way for a brother to do a brother.”

So on the morning of James’s birthday, Monday, April 6, Linda baked a cake. Not wanting to celebrate alone, she approached a young navy couple who had just moved into one of the other units, inviting them to stop in after dinner for cake and coffee to surprise James. Although they’d never met the Bergstroms before, they accepted Linda’s invitation. James appeared pleased when the doorbell rang and his new neighbors introduced themselves and came inside. He took it good-naturedly, blowing out his candles and cutting thick slabs of chocolate cake for everyone. Yet as soon as the other couple left, he turned to Linda and ordered, “Don’t do that again. That guy’s above me in rank, and I spend enough time on the ship feeling like a nobody. I don’t want that when I’m home.”

It was becoming a pattern with James, this not wanting to be around anyone who outranked him. They were invited often to go out with Penny, Gayle, and Diane and their husbands, but James always refused. “They’re nukes,” he contended, referring to their position onboard. “We don’t belong socializing with them.”

The only ones James sometimes agreed to see were Chris and Tina, just, he said, to keep up appearances. But each time, it was progressively more difficult for Linda.

It all began one Sunday afternoon when James and Linda stopped at his brother’s after church. Chris was seated on the couch with his oldest son on his lap, and he and James were talking about their last patrol, when Linda, who was wearing a skirt that ended a few inches above the knee, walked across the room toward the bathroom. “Sexy,” Chris whispered.

His four-year-old mimicked him, only louder, “Sexy.” The little boy giggled, mischievously covering his mouth.

At the time, James laughed along with Chris and the child, but that night, when they were alone in the apartment, he fumed, screaming at Linda, claiming her dress was too short and that she’d knowingly elicited Chris’s comment. “Keep your damn legs crossed like this,” he said, sitting on a chair and demonstrating by prissily clamping his legs together at the ankles. “Keep your knees together. And no more short skirts. Who the hell are you trying to impress?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Linda countered. “Chris and I barely talked. You’re just jumping to some kind of sick conclusion.”

A few days later when James suggested she wash the car while he was at work, she called Tina to see if she could do it at their apartment, where there were better facilities. Chris answered the phone.

“Sure,” Chris said. “I’ll tell Tina you’re coming.”

When she arrived, Chris came outside and watched as she sprayed the car down and began soaping it up. “Where’s Tina?” she asked.

“Oh, she just ran up to the store,” he said. “She’ll be right back.” Chris was friendly and talked to her casually while she worked. Mostly he wanted to talk about James. “Does he like the navy?” Chris asked.

“Not really,” Linda said. “But I’m sure hoping this works out for him.”

“He’s just got to get used to it,” Chris offered. “Give it a chance.”

Linda couldn’t help thinking about the fight she and James had the last time she’d seen Chris.
It’s all ridiculous,
she thought, when Tina, as promised, pulled up in the driveway and greeted her with a smile.

That night when Linda picked James up at the base, he whistled at the car. “Looks good,” he said. “Where’d you do it?”

“At Chris and Tina’s,” she answered.

“Was Tina there?”

“Not when I got there, but she drove up while I was washing it.”

“I suppose Chris stood around and watched you,” he prodded.

“He was there,” she answered, quickly losing patience. “We just talked.”

By the time they reached the apartment, James was bristling, not losing control, but calmly assessing her. He jerked her inside and shoved her onto the couch. “I bet Chris had a helluva good time watching your ass,” he shouted. “I bet he was thinking about what he’d like to do to you.”

“We were just talking,” she yelled back. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you saying this?”

“I bet you enjoyed having him watch. Didn’t you?” James said, strong-arming her around the room. He pushed his face within inches of hers and stared at her coldly. “You like him? I bet you’re interested in him. He’ll be here, you know. He’s not going out on that damn sub this summer.”

“I’m interested in you,” Linda said, more calmly, trying to maneuver to get past him. “I married you. I love you.”

To her amazement, James seized her by the shoulders and shook her.

“Stop it,” she cried, her voice crackling with fear. “Stop it. I didn’t do anything.”

James threw her against the bed as if she were a discarded doll and walked out.

Later that night, as always, he apologized. “I just jumped to conclusions.” He shrugged. “It’s all the pressure I’m under.”

Weeks went by with James as gentle and kind as ever, but Linda found it impossible to forget what had happened. When Tina called to invite them out for dinner, she refused. “I can’t sit there with them, after what you accused Chris and me of,” Linda told James. “You go. I’m not going.”

“But if we don’t go as a couple, they’ll think something’s wrong,” James insisted. “We have to go.”

“There is something wrong,” Linda shouted back. “You think I’m having an affair with your brother. Why don’t you tell them that?”

James made an excuse, but a week later, Chris was on the phone with another invitation.

“My wife doesn’t want to go, she’s unsociable,” Linda heard James tell him.

“Tell him why,” she demanded. “Tell him you think the two of us are fooling around behind your back.”

James covered the mouthpiece with his hand and held it like a club. “You think it’s bad now,” he said through clenched teeth. “It’ll be bad if you don’t go.”

“All right, James,” she relented. “I’ll go.”

The night they met Chris and Tina at Azteca, a popular Mexican restaurant just across the street from their apartment, Linda felt jittery and on edge. She’d spent an hour nervously shuffling through her closet searching for something long and plain to wear, finally settling on a rather dowdy flowered dress. But as they were leaving the house, James turned to her and said, “What the hell did you wear that for? I can see your underwear right through it.”

When she offered to change, he pulled her by the arm and mumbled that they didn’t have time, then pushed her toward the car.

Dinner dragged on. Though the restaurant, with its festive streamers of Mexican flags and Aztec murals, was one of her favorites, it failed to lift her spirits as it usually did. Instead she stared blankly around the room. “All I could think
of was, don’t talk to Chris,” she said. “Don’t even look at him.”

As the others ate and gossiped, Linda felt increasingly more uncomfortable. She pushed her food around her plate, until she feared she might explode with tension. Finally she excused herself and headed toward the rest room. Impulsively, on the way back to the table, she stopped at the bar for a drink, something to calm her anxiety. She was gone from the table for only five or ten minutes when she saw James storming toward her, followed by Tina and Chris.

“Where the hell did you go?” James shouted.

“I was on my way back. I just stopped for a drink,” she said.

James seized the back of her arm and pinched so hard, pain radiated into her shoulder, until tears filled Linda’s eyes.

“Hey, she’s okay,” the woman bartender shouted. “Leave her alone. Let her have her drink.”

James spun at the other woman. “Listen, you bitch, this is my wife. Stay out of it.”

On the way home in the car, James berated her. “You pulled a good stunt, Linda,” he hollered. “You embarrassed me in front of my family.”

“I just wanted a drink,” she said, trying to calm the tremor in her voice.

“I owe you one, bitch,” he concluded. “I owe you one.”

“How did you expect me to sit there after what you’ve accused me of with Chris?” she asked bitterly, as they entered the apartment.

Deadly calm, James forced her into the bedroom and onto the bed, then stood above her, glaring.