Bad People (14 page)

Then Glen’s face was coming toward hers, lips at the ready, a happy puffer fish. Connie remember her duty and leaned in to be kissed on the cheek. “How are you there, you,” said Glen.

He was the good sort. The kind of guy who when married to somebody else never bothered anyone. No—you don’t find Glen Purdy running down to Vegas, hiring prostitutes and shooting drugs. Where did you finds guys like that? Small farming communities, perhaps? Tibetan mountaintops. No, she guessed not. Robb had been to Tibetan mountaintops.

Erika and Glen ordered their drinks. After some strangely-abbreviated pleasantries, a lull followed in the conversation. Connie had become accustomed to awkward silences in her presence since the murder. No one knew what to say to her, or even how to look at her—or
not
look at her, as the case may be. That was one thing she hadn’t had to worry about with Luke, she thought wistfully. Because of his age no doubt, he was completely guileless and genuine with her. She put that thought out of her mind. That was over. Closed off. Absolutely.

But for the evening that that had lasted, it was a relief. A great relief, in fact.

“Any new leads from the police, Connie?” said Glen.

Erika must have elbowed or kicked him, because the next thing he said was, “I’m sorry, I’m only—”

“Leave her alone!” said Erika.

“It’s all right, Erika,” said Connie. “And no, there isn’t. At least not that they will—”

“Of course not,” said Barry. “The police don’t know what the hell they are doing. In fact they—” He stopped himself. Connie assumed he was going to complain about the investigators calling him in again, but had decided not to. How much had they told him? Had they told him everything they had told her?

“They’ll get the bastards who did this,” said Glen. “Give it time, but they will.”

Barry scoffed and looked away.

“No more!” said Erika sharply.

“I only—”

“Well don’t!” she told him.

Glen smiled sheepishly. “Sorry Connie,” he said.

“No really, it’s okay,” she told him. But she was glad that Erika had stopped it.

“So…” Glen ventured. “Four hours, eh?”

“Four and a half,” Connie said.

“Aye! It got longer?” said Glen.

Barry looked away from them, occupying himself with the middle distance of the crowd. The bar was quite full now, but the lobby lights had not flashed yet.

“Time for one more?” asked Glen.

“That’s enough,” said Erika. Glen had begun to raise his hand to signal the bartender, and now it hung in the air as if he did not have the mental strength to go further against his wife’s will. The bartender happened to be close and Barry slapped his hand on the bar. “A Gibson,” he said.

Glen, maybe trying to make a joke to masquerade his embarrassment at being cut off by Erika said, “Nothing for the rest of us Barry?”

“Stop it,” said Erika.

Barry dropped his credit card down on the bar.

Erika was always after Glen about something, sometimes his drinking, though Connie had never thought Glen drank all that much. In fact, he hardly drank at all, come to think of it. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was a secret drinker. Maybe he was a mess. Who could know what went on inside their marriage, really? What would anyone have said of her and Robb? A dream couple, that’s what anyone would have said.

Barry sucked down his drink as soon as it arrived, tipping it so quickly and fully that he must have gotten his nose wet. They all watched him. Glen had a stupefied grin on his face, and Erika was holding a frown so deep that Connie found it physically exhausting to watch.

The house lights flashed finally, signaling time to take seats. Connie was never so relieved to be going into four hours of enforced non-conversation mode in her entire life. Glen, more than amiably, Connie thought, took Erika’s arm. Erika led them all out of the bar and into the lobby.

Connie was at Barry’s side—his unaccountably stiff side. When they were in line, waiting for the usher, Connie asked, “Got the tickets?”

“And if I don’t?”

“What?”

“If I didn’t haven’t them, isn’t it a little late to be checking with me?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Of course I have them.” He pulled them out and waved them at her.

“I didn’t doubt it.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

She shrugged, a little fed up with this childishness. “For the scintillating conversational possibilities,” she said

“Ha, ha.”

“Still glad you brought me?”

“Still pissed you came?”

“Oh Jesus.”

This last exchange was a trifle loud and witnessed by the appalled and timid usher who was now waiting to check the tickets in Barry’s hand and offer programs. Connie pulled the tickets out of Barry’s hand, tore them and pressed the tops into to usher’s hand. She took two programs from the usher. “Thank you, we’ll find our own seats,” she said.

They found their aisle in silence. Erika and Glen were already seated and the open seats were on Glen’s left. Connie sat next to him, and Barry to the left of her. Boy, girl, boy, girl.

Glen leaned toward her conspiratorially. “Found us! There’s no escaping now.” Connie laughed a little, and Erika thrust her head forward to see what was going on, looking at Connie sharply. Barry hunched forward and to the right in his chair, as if the proximity to Connie’s shoulder was too offensive to take. The house lights flashed again, and then lowered for the performance to begin. What a lovely night out for one and all.

The hours passed like the first half of the ten-year war they were meant to represent. Impossibly lithe actors in rainbow body-makeup writhed and twisted across the stage, simulating battles, speeches and sex acts. Even though she was sure she knew the story, Connie could barely follow the performance. There was no thread to it, nothing to latch onto and anchor it to understanding. The action was just bodies moving about a lighted stage. What did they look like up close? Make-up caking blocked pores. And with the stone-like masks some of the actors wore—totally impossible to tell one king from any other. She knew there would be a part with a wooden horse, and that would be near the end. She kept praying for that horse to make an early—pre-intermission entrance and save her, holding out hope that everything they had heard had been wrong—it couldn’t
really
be four hours. Who could stand for it? Who in this audience didn’t have to be somewhere else for four hours this evening? They couldn’t all be here at the insistence of someone else. They couldn’t all be victims of their own failure of believable excuse making. Someone had to have wanted to be there.

But no wooden horse appeared. No god broke through the proscenium dispensing out justice in a thunderbolt to end the agony. There wouldn’t even be a hope of any of that in the first half anyway. It went on and on, madmen screaming at each other over imperceptible slights and puerile jealousies. Madwomen crying and throwing themselves bodily at the feet of one warrior or another, seemingly believing in some difference between them. She actually thought she must have dropped off for a moment, for when the figures froze like statues and faded into darkness, and the curtain fell and the lights rose, she could not say what climatic incident had immediately preceded it. The audience held its applause in either stunned rapture or uncomprehending dismay, she had no idea which. She blinked against the painful house lights and only wished someone would begin applauding quickly, so she could join in. Then she could stand again, feel blood return to her butt and fucking pee.

The applause finally came, but Connie noticed that the applause barely outlasted the dropping of the curtain. People started to rise. Barry was slow to his feet, and slow to button his jacket. Connie realized with horror that the aisles were already jammed with women who would get to the toilets before her. Only an hour and a quarter break.

Glen spoke over her shoulder to Barry. “Barr—make for the exits!” Barry wasn’t moving enough for any of them.

“I have reservations,” Barry said, as if meaning there was no reason to hurry, but he turned and worked his way into the aisle. Connie followed close behind, though with little hope of remaining unseparated. They’d have to meet up outside on the overflowing street corner—more time lost—and pray they could get regrouped and off to the restaurant where just maybe every other theater-refugee wouldn’t be also eating, and there would be a toilet at last.

She stepped forward, inch by inch, sometimes sideways, sometimes a full step forward, but never backwards at least. Barry’s head disappeared. She would catch up outside.

The audience was eerily silent, and she stared quietly at the backs of formal wear, now wrinkled and stretched out of shape.

Finally the lobby and then finally outside and the fresh air. Plain, thin Seattle air never tasted so fucking good. There was a hint a moisture, and not stale sweat-drenched Mediterranean moisture either. Clean water from the Arctic Circle or somewhere. It had probably rained while they were in there. She hadn’t had this same feeling of relief, of sweat instantly chilled against her hot skin since—when? Since tumbling out of some punk club at 2:30 in the morning two decades ago. Jesus life was long, and filled with things you felt once that you never expected to feel again.

“Connie!” Barry called to her. He was across the street, and he raised his hand to flag her. Erika and Glen had already found him. The three of them were there just waiting for her. Connie stepped out into the street wondering why there wasn’t any traffic. Early. Just as she found the other sidewalk Barry motioned her along. “This way, this way,” he said, marshalling her and the others. His previous animation had returned, he’d forgotten he was supposed to be moping.

“Where to Barr?” asked Glen.

“The Emerald City Bistro,” Erika answered her husband for Glen, annoyed at him still. That was about four blocks Connie guessed. Close enough to walk to, far enough that most of the hungry audience wouldn’t go there too. Not a bad choice, actually, and saved fighting for a cab or getting to the cars.

Walking quickly, all there heels clacking, Connie managed to put her bladder needs aside and enjoy the increasing freedom of movement as their foursome put the rest of the crowd behind themselves.

They got there. Barry gave his name for their reservation and Connie pushed on to the bathroom at last. Erika went with her, and Connie thought they would commiserate on the endlessness of the ten-years war. But they didn’t. Something in Erika’s demeanor as she shut herself into a stall told her she wouldn’t be speaking. Connie realized Erika hadn’t really said a word directly to her all night. No—longer than that, Erika hadn’t said a word directly to her since Robb’s wake.

Connie peed in silence, eerie to be in adjacent stall with a friend not saying anything. Connie imagined the words she
might
have said being left hanging in the air, scorned by Erika.

And then dinner. Barry and Erika each had dill crab quiche. Connie had a hamburger and so did Glen. Erika had grimaced in disgust when Glen ordered his with bleu cheese, bacon, and sautéed onions.

They ate quickly, and coffee followed. Connie weighed the risks of filling up with liquid versus forgoing the restoring effects of caffeine. Coffee won out, as it always did. Now they were left with ample time before they must return to Troy. Come on wooden horse.

She realized she was enjoying the bistro. Simple, not overwrought like the earlier part of the evening. It didn’t hurt to let Barry now he’d done a good job in picking it.

Barry didn’t respond directly to the compliment, but made an uncharacteristic and absurd gesture, steepling his fingers. He looked at Erika and then at Glen. Connie had the distinct sense of having missed something. Then Barry spoke, with obviously feigned naturalness. “I thought we’d get a little work in.”

“Work,” said Connie.

“Now that we’ve got you here,” he said.

Connie knew she was the
you
and all of them were the
we
in that sentence. Her stomach tightened.

“What is this, an intervention?” she cracked. But was it? “What’s going on?”

Barry broke his steeple and gestured his palms outward to her. Easy girl, the hands said. “Just time to talk, we think.”

Connie swallowed her outrage. Erika was looking at her pointedly, and Glen was looking at his burger remnants with equal pointed-ness. Fine then.

“Okay, Barry,” Connie said. “This is an excellent idea. Let’s talk business, Barry. I only wish I’d thought to bring the books with me.”

Barry made a never-mind gesture, and produced his fucking smart phone from inside his jacket.

“So we’re going to huddle over that?” she asked.

“It’s just for reference,” he said defensively.

“What’s on your mind, Barry?” She wanted this over.

“Something’s up. So just tell me what it is already.”

“Now Connie,” he said. A thing her mother used to say, once upon a time, and hearing the words come out of Barry’s soft, bearded mouth made her bark out a laugh she did not trouble to repress.

“This doesn’t need to be contentious, Connie,” said Barry.