Iona Moon (21 page)

But Jay was a coward in the end. That's what ate at Willy.

Willy hadn't done a decent dive all day, and this one was the worst. His thighs stung where they'd smacked the water. He wished he could stay on the bottom of the pool so he wouldn't have to stand there dripping wet while potbellied Bob Brubaker circled him, gripping his shoulders and jabbing the small of his back, slapping his buttocks to demonstrate all the ways the dive had gone wrong. “You're the best I've got,” Brubaker said, “and you are one sorry sack of shit.”

Willy's wet suit clung to him. He shivered, though he wasn't cold. Three weeks of practice, three more Saturdays of competition, then he'd never have to put up with Brubaker yelling in his face again. He wanted to say he didn't give a fuck about the speed of his spin. He wanted to say he was joining the police force in September, that high school sports were for kids. But all this was still a precious secret, this picture of himself in uniform. He couldn't risk the disbelief of such a stupid little man. Besides, he knew what Horton would say if he quit now.
I
hate to think you're the kind of man who doesn't follow through
.

Ever since that night on the tracks, Darryl and Luke and Kevin had kept their distance. They were friendly enough at the pool; they even clapped him on the back when he hit a good dive at the meets. But in the locker room they were too quiet, and after practice they always had somewhere else to go. Sometimes they took off in three different directions, and Willy was sure they'd tricked him. He imagined them meeting up a few blocks down the street and having a laugh about ditching Miss Priss.

Willy headed toward the showers, and Darryl trotted up beside him. “Brubaker's an asshole,” he said. “Your last dive wasn't tight, but it wasn't half bad.”

“Thanks,” Willy said. It made him feel worse to have Darryl put it that way.

“He's a pig,” Kevin said. “Where does he get off, patting your ass?”

“I wouldn't let that fag rub my buns,” Luke said as they all stood in the showers.

Willy turned his head up to take the spray in his face.
Brubaker's an asshole
. He felt the sharp pellets on his lips and eyelids.
The best I've got
. The other showerheads went off one by one.
One sorry sack of shit
. He heard laughter and talk echoing against the cinder-block walls of the locker room, snapping towels, metal doors slamming shut, footsteps fading.

He took his time, stood naked under the blow dryer, let the hot air blast. He buttoned his shirt from bottom to top and checked his fly twice, old habits never forgotten, Flo's lessons the first day of school. He looped past Jay's house. He could just pop in, say hello, tell Jay he was having a hard time with Brubaker. He wouldn't stay long. He'd say, “My sisters will eat all the potatoes if I don't get home.” And Jay would say that was the last thing they needed. They might laugh. Jay might say, “Drop by tomorrow after practice.”

Delores Tyler answered the bell. “Willy,” she said, “goodness.” She looked him up and down, and he was glad he'd been so careful when he buttoned his shirt. “You've gone and grown up on me.” She put her hand on his arm. “I'm forgetting my manners. Please—come in.” She stepped back and opened the door wide. The entryway was cool, and the house had a musty smell, as if the family had just returned from a long vacation. When Delores Tyler led him to the sitting room, he almost expected to find the furniture covered with white sheets.

But everything was just as he remembered, the sofa with its muted flowers, the twin gold chairs, his and hers, the myrtlewood coffee table, the polished oak floor that always looked slippery. A portrait of Dr. Tyler's father loomed above the fireplace, and a photograph of his mother sat on the mantel. Jay used to say these pictures explained everything, and Willy nodded without knowing what Jay meant.

“Can I make you an iced tea?” Mrs. Tyler said. “Or a lemonade?”

Willy wondered why she was whispering. “Tea,” he said, “iced tea is good.” He kept his voice as low as hers.

“I hope you don't mind instant,” Mrs. Tyler said when she returned with two glasses on a tray. “I'm afraid I didn't brew any tea today.”
I'm afraid
. She had such an odd way of putting things. “And I'm all out of lemon. I hope you don't mind too much.”
Why should I mind
. “I could give you a splash of lemonade. Shall I do that?” The glasses slipped on the tray as she lowered it to the table.

“I'm sure it's fine just as it is,” Willy said.

His glass was tall, but hers was short, the drink clear. “I'd offer you what I'm having, but I imagine you're in training.” Her hair was pulled back in a knot, a
French
knot, Jay called it. Her eyes looked puffy. “You are still diving, I hope.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He felt proud for the first time all day.

“Please—don't call me that.”

“Don't call you what, ma'am?”

“That. That old-lady name. And don't call me Mrs. Tyler, either.” Willy nodded. “I want you to call me Delores.” He wouldn't call her anything. He slurped his tea. It was sugary and much too strong.

“How is it?” Delores Tyler said.

“Perfect. It's perfect.”

“Delores.” She stared at him, waiting for him to repeat her name.

He wanted to run from the house. Andrew Johnson Tyler, Sr., glowered from his portrait. He rode a white stallion with a wild mane. Delores looked at the painting too. “Old bastard never rode a horse in his life,” she said. She forgot to whisper. She downed half her drink in one gulp. “I'm afraid you've come at a bad time,” she said. “Jay's had a touch of the flu. He's sleeping.”

Willy set his glass on the tray and stood up. “I need to get home anyway,” he said.

“Your mother's expecting you.”

“Yes,” he said.
How did she know?

“Well, don't keep her waiting.” Her voice was soft again, sweet and cloying as the tea. He was ten years old and she was his best friend's mother.

At the door he said, “It was nice to see you again, Mrs. Tyler.” She didn't correct him.

He was relieved to see how bright it was outside; he wouldn't be too late for dinner. “Don't be such a stranger,” she called. He turned to wave. Delores Tyler leaned against the doorframe. She looked wilted, older at this distance than she'd looked when he faced her in the dim sitting room.

Jay was glad Delores hadn't called him. He didn't want to see Willy, didn't want to be reminded of all the things his body couldn't do. From the start, Dr. Rush had told Jay his legs would never heal if he didn't exercise every day. Joints freeze, tendons stiffen, bones lighten, muscles go slack—
flaccid
, he'd said, and Jay wondered if he knew about that too.

The doctor had a way of looking very serious and sorry as he asked Jay to lift one leg at a time, to bend and extend. He shook his head without speaking, and Jay thought the whole thing was pointless.

Jay did walk, in the beginning—around and around the rose garden, after dark. Rain streamed down his face, and still he made himself limp for an hour, sometimes more, using two canes, hobbling till the skin of his palms ripped and the sharp pains shot up his shins, radiated through his knees, throbbed in his thighs.

Afterward he sat on his bed, wet hair plastered to his skull, damp jeans making a spot. Delores stood at the door, knowing what he'd done. She said, “It won't always be this way,” but he didn't believe her and wouldn't take comfort because nothing ever changed—in her life or his—and it was always exactly this way.

He'd stopped walking months ago. Now he drove to Woodvale Park to watch the divers practice, a private torment. Luke wasn't strong enough, so his dives were soft, unfinished. Darryl was sloppy, too loose in the limbs to go down straight, too cocky to correct the flaws. Burch was just too big to knife the water and too satisfied to try. You had to be hungry to hit a dive. That was Jay's secret. You had to feel a hollow place at the center of your body. You had to suck your stomach toward your back and want perfection more than anything. Willy had lost his concentration. He knew about hunger but couldn't use it.

Sometimes Jay parked on Main to watch women. When he saw Belinda Beller and Susie Endicott bouncing along, arm in arm, he thought about the vision he'd had of himself, graduating then going to college, this summer of freedom in between. Now he was a cripple who would live his whole life in a fancy house at the edge of town. He knew what happened to families like his own who lived in houses that were too big. People grew older and more feeble; they stopped climbing stairs, sealed off one room at a time. Paint chipped, windows broke, porches sagged, lawns grew wild, dust gathered along hallways and under beds, and still no one died and nothing changed.

He saw what happened to sons who stayed in their parents' houses. Joe Baldwin returned from Portland after his pretty wife divorced him. Now he drove his father's hearse, wore white gloves, kept his eyes on the road. Wade Catts got kicked out of seminary school. He watered his mother's garden, drove her to the store twice a week, put up the storm windows in October and took them down in April.

Years ago, Everett Fry sat on Main Street, just like Jay, his hunter's cap pulled down so the flaps covered his ears. He watched women. He stuck a gun in his mouth. Jay wondered if these things necessarily followed one another. He wanted a cap with a visor to hide his face.

Twyla Catts used the window of the bank like a mirror—brushed her hair, made her lips more red. He wanted to ask her:
What did your brother do?
He saw Sharla Wilder. He remembered the year she moved back to town and got her own apartment. He and Willy climbed the tree outside her window and watched her undress. He could see her body even now, unbelievably white, the slope of her breasts, the rosy nipples. There was so much of her, so much doughy flesh, round arms and small white hands, big thighs but slim ankles, huge globes of her buttocks, luminous as moons. She turned toward the window as if she sensed the boys in the tree, but her eyes stayed blank as chips of blue ice.

Now she was heavier, no longer smooth and supple but just plain fat. Still he longed to whisper her name and have her sit in his car, to fill the space with her warm breath and vague words. He knew something had happened to her that made her run away. And something else happened to make her come back. He wanted to ask her now, to say:
Something happened to me too
. He imagined her body above him, enveloping him in all her white flesh.

He saw a pretty little red-haired girl standing alone. He wanted to call to her too, wanted her to move toward his window so he could see the color of her eyes. She was a child, no more than ten, unformed, with a pink bud of a mouth and thin legs. He almost loved her for being so frail, so beautiful; he thought he might still be saved. But before he could open his window and speak to her, a woman swooped down the sidewalk, grabbed the girl's hand and dragged her away. He was doomed. He recognized the woman. Grace Arnoux. The pretty child was Muriel's little sister.
I'll kill you and go to hell
. Worse than that.
I'll
cut off your balls and stuff them in your mouth
. His hands were shaking. He gripped the key but couldn't turn it.

Jay saw the boys go off the board, one after another. They tumbled toward the water, doing half somersaults and quarter spins. Their legs spread, their feet flopped. But no matter how many divers he counted, he couldn't fall asleep.

He heard his father rap on his mother's door. “Delores?” he said.
Come in
. Jay didn't hear those words, but the door clicked open, then quickly shut. Jay knew what would happen in that room. His father wore only a towel. He flicked off the light and let the towel drop to the floor. Delores lifted the covers, and he slid in without a word. Soon he grunted over her, eyes screwed shut, hands pinning her shoulders. She was still dressed, the nightgown bunched up around her waist. Her eyes were open, always, so she saw his bald head gleaming, reflecting the glow of the streetlight. She saw the sweat bead on his brow just before he collapsed. He rolled off her, indulged in minutes of rest, then slipped out of bed. He gathered up his towel and left the room without saying goodnight. Jay heard water running in the bathroom, his father showering before he went to his own room to sleep, cool and solitary between clean white sheets.

Jay saw his mother lying in the dark, yellow hair matted, eyes still open.

He lumbered down the stairs. The night air was chill; stars pulsed like tiny, brilliant hearts. He drove to the pool and stood outside the fence, wondering if he could really do this.

The wire fence was easy to climb—even for a cripple, he thought. There was only one string of barbs at the top, a symbol more than an obstacle. He stripped quickly, letting his clothes fall in a heap.

His pale body was both skinny and flabby. His legs had lost their definition, his buttocks were loose. His chest seemed sunken and his ribs showed, but there was a slight bulge around his belly, a ring of unfamiliar fat.

He thought of Delores, her ruined body.
Jello on high heels
—
just like Marilyn Monroe
. This was the final humiliation—the body gone slack and helpless. This was every disappointment turned to flesh.

Each rung made him aware of his limitations. Each time he bent a knee he felt the stiffness. He had an image of himself, his whole body shattered, as if he had dived onto concrete and broken there. Now he was reglued, but each seam pulled and stung. From the outside he looked whole but inside he was brittle: a single breath might make him splinter, might send shards of bone ripping through his flesh.

He was almost there, about to stand on the high board. He thought of Sharla's white flesh, how it weighed her down, sapped her strength. He thought of Muriel, of the way her body had betrayed her, of the way he was to blame. He imagined Iona helping her mother's body move through those last days. He remembered her thin arms wrapped tight around him; he wished she were here now, to walk to the end of the board with him, to hold him on his way down.