Be Mine (27 page)

Chad came into the kitchen behind me and said to my back, "Hey, what did that bread dough do to you?"

I felt the relief of it collapse around me. He
hadn't
heard. I felt the relief of it spread through me like cool water. He'd heard nothing. He'd slept through it. Somehow. He didn't know. I said, turning, "Chad—"

He said, "Yeah, Mom?" as he went to the refrigerator, going for the jug of orange juice again.

"I love you, Chad," I said.

"Hey," he said, "I love you, too, Mom."

He took the cap off the jug.

For my sake, I suppose, he took a glass out of the cupboard and filled it, then raised it to me as if in a toast before drinking it all without taking a breath.

A
S SOON
as Chad pulled away in the Explorer to pick his father up from work, I called Jon. The sound of his voice, answering the phone—steady, sober, patient—brought something up from my throat that had been there since Bram had driven away in his red Thunderbird two hours earlier. It caught there. A bit of barbed wire. A piece of broken glass. I couldn't speak except to say his name, but Jon knew it was me.

"Sherry," he said. "What's wrong?"

I said, "Jon, something happened."

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Is Chad okay?"

"Yes," I said. "But, Jon, Bram came here."

"What?"

"He came here. To the house. Chad was asleep, but—"

"Did he touch you?" And then he qualified it, asking, "Did he hurt you?"

"No," I said. "He just wanted me to talk to him. He wanted me to kiss him."

"Jesus Christ," Jon said. "Did you? Did you kiss him?"

"Yes," I said. "I had to."

"Sherry," Jon said, sounding angry now. There was a thinness to his tone, an implication that his patience was running out. He said, "You have to end this, Sherry. I know I played a part in it, and I'm willing to take full responsibility for that, and I'm being honest when I say that I'm not angry at you. But this game's over. You have to tell him that."

"I didn't
want
him to come here," I said. (Was I whining?) "Do you honestly think that I would
want
him to come here, after everything that's happened, with
Chad
here?"

"I don't know," Jon said, and the flatness of his tone took my breath away.

When I could speak again, I said, "You don't
know?
Jon, if I'd wanted him to come here, would I be telling you about it now?"

There was a silence. In it, I imagined Jon taking stock of everything he'd ever known and thought about me. I felt as if a flock of invisible birds had descended on me—so much fluttering and heartbeat and breathing, searching around in the bones and clothes of me for flesh to eat.

"
Jon?
" I said. "Do you think I
wanted
him to come here?"

Jon said nothing. I said, more loudly—maybe I was shouting—"Jon, are you there? Are you listening? I've told you, haven't I, over and over—you
know
how sorry I am. You're not going to pull away from me now, are you? You're not—"

"No," Jon said. "No. No. Sherry, calm down."

"Calm down?"

"Yes, calm down. No. I don't think you wanted him to come to the house today, Sherry. But I also think that if you'd told him, Sherry, like I told you to, that you were ending this, he wouldn't have come over. You certainly didn't have to let him kiss you. Don't patronize me, Sherry. I'm not a child."

"Jon," I said. "You don't know. You don't know Bram like I do," I said, and regretted it immediately.

"No," Jon said, and I could not have mistaken the sarcasm in it for anything other than what it was. "No, I don't know Bram like you do, Sherry. But I know
men.
They don't come around if you haven't given them some sort of encouragement to come around. And he won't come again if you make it clear, Sherry, that there's nothing in it for him. Just tell him you'll call the cops, or that your husband will shoot him, or something, if he comes to the house again. Make it very plain.

"Now, I have to go, Sherry. I have someone waiting for me. Call him now, Sherry. End this
now.
"

I
'D NEVER
had Bram's cell phone number or his home phone number. He'd never even given me his address, never even told me if he had roommates, a house, a pet. What did I know about Bram Smith? I called the only number I had, his office number, expecting no answer—hoping, I suppose, that there would be no answer—but Bram answered the phone on the first ring. "Bram Smith," he said.

"It's Sherry," I said.

"Yeah," he said.

"I'm calling—to talk, Bram."

"I'm busy right now," he said.

"Should I call you back?"

"Yeah," he said, "you should."

"When?"

"I don't know," he said. "How 'bout after dinner?"

"I'll try," I said. "It will be—"

"Yeah, I know," Bram said. "Want to know how I know?"

"What?"

"Want to know how I know all about your plans for dinner?"

"What are you talking about, Bram?"

"I'm talking about your dinner guest, Mrs. Seymour. I just saw him, in the shop. Heard all about how he's coming to your place for dinner tonight, babe. Sounds like you've got a regular thing going here. Kind of a revolving door, huh?"

"Bram. Garrett? You saw Garrett?"

"Yeah, Mrs. Seymour. It's a real small world. You really can't go around fucking every guy in it and not expect them to cross paths now and then, can you?"

"Bram." I stopped speaking for what seemed like a very long time, the words eluding me entirely. The
idea
of words was something I'd seemed to have lost. Then, I said, "Bram, there's nothing between me and
Garrett.
For god's sake, Bram. He's my son's
friend.
"

"That's not what Garrett says," Bram said. "I mean, you really got to twist the little fucker's arm to get the truth out of him, but when he finally spit it out, it kind of turns out, babe, that he's
not
such hot pals with Chad. I think
you're
the hot pal. I think
you're
the one who wants Garrett to come to dinner. Am I right?"

"No, Bram."

"Well, like I said, Mrs. Seymour, I'm pretty busy here. Why don't you just give me a ring after your lovely dinner, 'kay?" He hung up.

On the dead line, there was a hush so total that it seemed animate—a breathing, pulsing silence into which I could project the sound of myself, into which I could tumble, listening, as if it were not silence, but space. I stood with the phone in my hand, listening to it for a long time, that silence inside me, traveling over the phone lines toward me, until Jon and Chad came in the door and called out loudly to me—
H'lo, Sherry! Hey, Ma!
—and the sound of their voices slapped me back to myself, and I put the phone in its cradle, and, without being able to respond to their greetings, headed to the kitchen to begin making dinner.

G
ARRETT
arrived at the back porch door at 8:00.

Jon let him in. Chad greeted him without standing up from the love seat, with a salute. I came out of the kitchen and said, "Garrett. Hello."

His hair had been shaved down to a fine dark dust. He nodded in my direction, but didn't look at me. He was wearing a clean white button-down shirt. Chad stood, finally, slowly, then clapped Garrett on the shoulder. "What's with the hairdo, guy? I thought you weren't going anywhere until September."

"I changed my mind," Garrett said. "I sped up my induction. I leave for boot camp in two weeks."

"Oh, Garrett," I said.

But Chad turned and looked at me so fast I said nothing more. The expression on his face, was, I thought, either suspicious or annoyed. He laughed, turning back to Garrett, and said, "So you're really doing it, old pal. You're off in defense of the homeland. Well, let me be the first to shake your hand."

They shook hands.

If the sarcasm had registered, it didn't show on Garrett's face. He neither smiled nor looked defensive. He simply nodded soberly when the handshake was over.

I said, "Chad, Garrett, you boys can have a beer while I finish getting ready for dinner. Does that sound okay?"

Chad followed me into the kitchen.

I opened the refrigerator, and he took out two Coronas, uncapped them with a bottle opener we kept hanging from a string and a hook on the wall, turned back toward the living room with the beers in his hands, but before he stepped out of the kitchen he said, so quietly under his breath that I wasn't sure I was supposed to hear or if I'd heard him correctly at all, "Are you my mother?"

Chad and Garrett went out on the front porch with the beers. The screen door banged shut behind them. Jon was in the garage. From it, I could hear things clanging—dropped, or tossed. He was upset. Before Garrett had come to the door, while Chad was reading the newspaper on the love seat, Jon had whispered to me in the kitchen, "Did you call him?"

I said, "Yes. He wasn't there. I'll call him later," and Jon had stomped upstairs.

While the meat for the nachos sizzled in the frying pan, I shredded lettuce. I cut an onion into fine pieces, stopping to wipe my eyes on my forearms. I cut up one tomato, and then the second—which, although it looked perfect on the outside (a deep, false red), was, at the center, black. Rotting from the inside—or had it, all along, been swelling and ripening around this rot? I tossed it into the garbage can, which was full, then pulled the bag out of the can, tied the drawstrings, took it to the back door.

Passing through the dining room, I could hear Chad or Garrett cough on the front porch.

The front door was open. Something large and buzzing bumped against the screen. One of them, Chad or Garrett, cleared his throat. I stood for a moment, listening, with the garbage bag in my hand—eavesdropping, I supposed, but there was nothing to hear. Either they'd quit talking because they'd heard me passing through the dining room, or they hadn't been speaking to one another at all out there—not one word—on the front porch.

I tossed the garbage near the back door for Jon or Chad to take out and went back to the kitchen to finish preparations for dinner. I set the table, and put the food out, and called them in. And, when they came, I smiled as if nothing had changed, as if I were the wife, the mother, the friend of the mother, inviting them all to the table I had prepared for them—exactly the woman I had been two months before, the year before that, the decade prior to it, the woman I had been for half my life.

But the silence between Garrett and Chad was carried with them to the table.

They passed food to one another, but didn't look at each other.

Jon seemed conciliatory toward me, however. He complimented the smell of the food, its abundance. Chad and Garrett nodded in agreement. I said thank you. I asked if anyone needed anything.

No. No. No.

Everything was fine.

Everything was great.

We ate for a few minutes in silence, and then Jon cleared his throat and asked Garrett a few questions about the military, about his induction, which Garrett answered politely, finally saying, "I decided there was no reason to just hang out here all summer, that I should go."

I looked over at Chad, who was nodding. He said, "Hey, bro, want another beer?"

Garrett wiped his mouth with a napkin, and looked at me.

"Chad," Jon said. "How many have you boys had? Garrett has to drive home."

"Yes," Garrett said, "thanks. I shouldn't have any more."

Chad snorted at this. He said, "I don't have to drive anywhere," and stood up from the table, went to the kitchen. Jon and I both watched him walk away, but neither of us said anything.

"So," he said when he returned, open bottle held in his hand by the neck. "So, Garrett, how's that Thunderbird of yours going? Got it fixed up yet?"

Garrett put his fork full of nachos down, and said, "What?"

"Your Thunderbird, pal. You know, I thought you were fixing up an old car in your garage?"

"Mustang," Garrett said.

"Mustang," Chad said. "Whatever."

Thunderbird.

I put my own fork down.

My breath felt knocked out of me, knocked into another room.

"It's still in the garage," Garrett said. "The transmission's not in it yet. I'm still driving my mom's old station wagon. But not for long."

"Awesome," Chad said, and took a long drink from the bottle.

I stood up from the table, and went to it—the kitchen. I said nothing as I left.

Thunderbird

It had been a slip, Chad had simply misspoken, but it had run straight through me like a knife.

He
had
seen.

He'd been awake.

He'd seen Bram's Thunderbird.

He'd seen
Bram.

He'd seen
me
with Bram.

I held on to the edge of the kitchen table for a moment.

"Mom?" Chad called out. "Can you bring me another napkin while you're out there?"

I ran my hands over my face, as if to compose it, then turned back toward the dining room. I took a napkin with me. I gave it to Chad, who looked up at me as I did, and asked, "You okay, Mom?"

"Yes," I said.

Jon looked at me. Instead of concern on his face, I thought I saw an admonition. (
Pull it together
:) I sat back down. Chad was still looking at me. He said, "Say, the last time we were all together, Mom was getting love notes from some grease monkey over at the college. What's up with that, Mom? Still getting propositions, or what?"

Garrett looked down, too fast, I thought, at his plate. Chad looked over at him.

"Hey, Garrett, didn't you say your auto instructor was hot for my mom back then?"

I opened my mouth, and nothing came out, but Jon, as if he'd been rehearsing for his moment for weeks, said in a voice so casual and convincing I almost believed his offhandedness myself, "We don't know what you're talking about, Chad. Your mother's been the object of so many lovesick fellows, we can't be expected to keep track of them all."

"No," Chad said, and went back to eating his nachos. "You're right. Of course," he said with his mouth full.