Bad People (13 page)

He sat beside her, she didn’t make room for him and it was a little bit of a corner of bench that he had to squeeze onto.

He watched with her and the little lime slice bounced up and down every few seconds on the screen.

“Do ya ever listen to all them songs?”

“Sometimes,” Crystal said.

“What’d you eat today?”

She didn’t move.

“Crystal?”

“A banana.”

“What else?”

“ A pop tart. Two pop tarts and an banana.”

He hadn’t bought any pop tarts, and there were seven bananas when he’d left that morning. He should have called her on it, but couldn’t make himself. He put his hands on his knees. “I’m making spaghetti,” he said. “You want to eat in here tonight?”

“I’m not eating noodles,” she said.

“Okay, then. I’ll open a Campbell’s. Chicken soup.”

“That has noodles too.”

“I got Chicken and Stars.”

“Stars are still noodles.”

“Right,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet. “It’ll be there if you want it. I’ll scoop out all the stars I can. You can eat around the rest.”

He walked back down to the kitchen, found the Campbell’s and the can opener. He was looking out the window, out at the infected tree in the back yard, and he turned the can opener right into his thumb, pinching it and breaking the skin. He sucked on the wound a moment, then wrapped it in a paper towel. He was pretty sure they were out of band-aids. So sure that he didn’t bother to look.

Chapter 15: Connie

Connie got to the doctor’s and waited a few moments in the empty waiting room. The receptionist went away. Connie couldn’t make herself sit, so she paced, arms crossed. Her doctor, short stocky Deb Ari, came out in person, and motioned to her.

Connie followed her down the hall to the dreaded examining room. The examining room was a necessity of the form, Connie supposed. You don’t tell someone they are HIV-positive in the middle in the waiting room, even when the waiting room’s empty.

Dr. Ari, never known for bedside manner, was especially quiet on the short walk and, Connie thought, especially grim. The corridor was hot. The day, which was unseasonably warm for autumn, caught this building’s HVAC system off-guard, as seemed to often happen in Seattle offices.

Dr. Ari found the open doorway she wanted and motioned Connie in. Connie had tried to make herself accept the inevitable. She had tried telling herself through the endless waiting-time while the window of exposure closed before the test could even be administered had been the hardest part. She tried telling herself it would be better to know so she could start dealing with it.

She had failed.

Inside the examining room, before Connie could even sit, Dr. Ari pulled the door shut, startling her and closing them both in.

“The test is negative,” said Dr. Ari, challenging herself with a sincere attempt to smile.

Connie had expected something else; some build-up at least. Viscerally, she was not sure how to react, though her brain seemed to understand that
negative
was the word she had hoped to hear. She felt lightheaded, and Dr. Ari eased her into taking a seat on the examining table.

“Take deep breaths,” said Dr. Ari. Now looking as if she was undergoing some test herself. Almost without realizing it, Connie held her arms out. The little doctor exhaled and allowed the embrace. Connie squeezed, realizing she had not had a more prolonged human contact since the pro-forma touches of well-wishers at Robb’s wake.

Finally Dr. Ari said, “Well.”

“Yes,” said Connie, letting Dr. Ari go. She waited. “Is that everything? Is there anything else.”

“Not really. We went over the other results of your physical on your last visit. There’s nothing to talk about. It’s good news. Go home, go out. That’s all.”

“Right. Oh my god. I really didn’t know what to expect, but…“

Dr. Ari raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. I didn’t expect this.”

“There’s no mistake, Connie. You are well. You haven’t got HIV.”

“What good news.”

Dr. Ari’s expression changed, slightly. Lines appeared on her forehead. “Connie?”

Connie felt her face scrunch up. Dr. Ari took a box of tissues from the counter and set it beside Connie. Connie felt the tears roll down her face. Neither spoke until she was finished.

“I’m sorry,” said Connie when she finished.

“No need to apologize.”

“Nevertheless.”

Dr. Ari inclined her head slightly.

“Well, I guess I can go…” said Connie.

“I have another patient. I will have to excuse myself. Take as long as you like, however.” She patted Connie’s shoulder. “Is there anything else?”

“Nah. I just need a minute.”

“All right then.”

Dr. Ari left, and Connie watched the door close. She did not move for a moment, then said to the air: “I guess I’m safe to start dating again.” Another deep breath and she dug her phone out of her bag. She selected Luke’s name from the scroll down, and watched the numbers jump onto the screen as it dialed. The screen counted the first ring, and the second. “Oh, Jesus,” she said and cancelled the call. She started to close the phone, to put it away. Instead she scrolled the stored numbers again, down to Luke’s name, the cursor flashed over the first number. She deleted it, and backed the cursor over each number, watching them disappear in reverse. When the numbers were erased she did the same thing with his name, disappearing the four letters one by one.

She felt drained, depleted; how nice it would be to lay down on the examining table for a little while. How serious had Dr. Ari been when she invited Connie to stay as long as she liked?

She still held her phone. It rang in her hand and she nearly jumped out of her skin. At first she assumed Luke must have seen her on his caller ID and rung right back. Then she recognized the numbers on the call coming through. No Luke at all, but Barry.

She answered.

“The police had me back in,” he said. Not even “hello” first.

“They did? What did they say?”

“I don’t know. Bullshit. Nothing. A bunch of nonsense bullshit.”

“Nothing at all?”

“They’re grasping at straws. They’re dickless and hopeless you know?”

He didn’t sound like himself. “They’re doing their job,” she said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“ A couple of jocks, you know. Might as well be diesel mechanics. Grease monkeys. It’s upsetting. That’s all.”

Was she supposed to be comforting
him
, as if
his
husband had been murdered, not hers? “Of course it’s upsetting for you,” she said.

“Did you think about next Saturday?”

“What?”

“Connie!”

“Oh, oh right. What was it? Tell me again.”

“The Paramount. The—”

“Oh, the thing. Isn’t that like five hours?”

“Four. There’s a dinner break. Can I tell Erika we are in?”

“Oh. Four hours, Barry?”

“It’s getting great reviews and it’s only in town for twelve performances. The time flies by, according to the Times write-up. We need to sit down with Erika, anyway. Informally. Nothing too stressful. Ease back into things. It’s time. Unless you want me to handle the business for a bit longer. But Connie, I think it would be good for you to get back into the day-to-day running of the business.”

“So it’s a working dinner in the middle of six-hour opera?”

“It’s not a regular opera. It’s experimental. Based on the Iliad. It’s got dance, you like dance.”

“Oh, you make it sound so enticing.”

“Everyone is going to be there. We need to be there. And we’ll have dinner with Erika and Glen.”

“Okay,” she said, knowing she was giving in, but too drained to do anything else. “Book it. No, I guess you have already.”

His tone lifted. “That’s it then? Confirmed?”

“Confirmed. See you Saturday.”

“Well, probably before, in fact if I can come by this afternoon…”

“I’ve got to get off the phone now, Barry. I’m at the doctor’s. They’re calling me.”

“Doctor? Is it serious?”

“Not at all. Routine. But I’ve got to go in, bye Barry.”

She cut him off without another word.

The screen flashed. One message waiting now. It had come in while she was talking to Barry. Luke’s number. She swallowed, almost played the message. No, I didn’t matter. She deleted Luke’s message without listening to it. Then she pulled Luke’s number up again, and deleted it from memory, digit by digit. That was that.

For a moment or two she felt better. But then, not quite.

Chapter 16: Connie, Barry, Erika

Barry was standing by the bar inside the Paramount when Connie arrived for the performance. Poor man, he looked fat and penguin-like. He’d gained at least thirty pounds in the past few months. He ought to shave the beard, she thought, it looked exactly like what it was—a failed attempt to hide his expanding jowls.

He spotted her a moment after she spotted him, and he waved excitedly. She came over, and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek; which came so quickly she didn’t have time to pull back. He asked her what she wanted to drink. Barry had a martini in front of him. The effect of a scraggly beard, a tux, and a martini was that of a Star Wars guy deciding to switch it up one Halloween and go out as James Bond. Not good.

The martini wasn’t a martini after all. It had an onion in it. A Gibson, then, a drink, she had always felt, that misrepresented itself.

She ordered a club soda. Connie asked Barry if he’d seen Erika and her husband Glen; he said they hadn’t shown yet. Maybe they’d been braver than her and bailed on this fiasco. Four hours. Then she overheard someone in the crowd say
four and a half
.

She looked at her watch, not caring when Barry noticed it. Barry’s face fell and she regretted her callousness. It felt like inflicting cruelty on a child. Barry sought and needed her approval in ways she only wished her own son ever had.

Many of the men in the room wore tuxedos. She must have missed something. A premiere, true enough, but not the opera or anything. Anyway. She might be underdressed, a touch. Though it was never really wrong in the evening to go with a little black dress and a string of pearls.

“You look nice,” said Barry. “Very pretty.” As if keying off her observations on the formal wear in the crowd.

Well, after four and a half hours the back of her dress would be wrinkled and stretched, her feet would be aching in her heels, but she wasn’t going to be in anything like the pain Barry would be in: waistband cutting into his belly, tie and collar cutting into his neck. How did they do it? No wonder guys never dressed up anymore.

“You really do look nice,” he said, as if she hadn’t heard him a second earlier.

And very pretty?
she only just resisted the urge to say, but felt as guilty as if she
had
said it anyway. Oh hell, he was trying. Here with his tuxedo at 5 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. Doing his best to make an appearance.

She broke down and asked: “Does four hours include the dinner break?”

“It’s an seventy-five-minute intermission, that’s all I know,” he said, looking away. Then added. “It’ll be over when it is over, all right?”

Now she owed him an apology. “Okay, Barry.”

He didn’t respond. Something caught his eye. “Oh,” he said evenly. “Erika and Glen.”

She turned.

Glen made a somewhat better impression in a tuxedo than Barry had—not exactly Roger Moore, but perhaps Timothy Dalton plus twenty pounds. Erika looked killer as usual, the tips of her rust-colored hair curving in under her jaw line, looking like the trendy art gallery owner she’d once aspired to be. Instead she had become an excellent CPA, once ranking number #76 on a list of 100 sexiest professionals in
Seattle
magazine.

The following year Connie ranked #63 on the same stupid list, and there was absolutely no bad blood over that. The magazine stopped doing the stupid thing after those two years, which was fine with Connie, but Erika always felt robbed of a rematch. Connie didn’t get that. Erika truly was gorgeous, rich angular eyebrows, beautiful shoulders and with the same waist she’d had at twenty.

Connie waved at them. Maybe it was her imagination, but she could have sworn Erika smirked at her.

Erika presented her cheek to Barry and then briefly held Connie’s wrist with her hand—a hand sheathed in a glove of green velvet that went halfway up her flawlessly-sunbedded arm. The same smirk she had had at Robb’s wake. The same
I-see-through- you
look. If not for everything else, Connie could have handled it, she was sure. But the pinpricks of life were piling up too quickly, one after the other, relentlessly. The glee and the cruelty of Erika’s smirk made her want to cry.