Mr. Peanut (38 page)

The move seemed to confirm something for Susan, somehow thrilling her. When he got back from the hospital that evening, she had fresh flowers on the dresser and a martini just poured for him from a shaker. “Welcome home, Doctor,” she said, walking toward him with the glass in her hands. And even before he could finish his drink she was on him like the woman she had been three years ago, hungry and inventive and tireless, though afterward, in the semidarkness, she said, “Tell me what you wanted to say. I’ve been waiting, Sam. I’ve been waiting patiently.”

“Do you mean that I love you?” he said.

“You’ve said that before,” she told him. “But you can say it again if you’d like.”

Her insistence put him on the defensive. “Maybe some food will jar my memory,” he joked.

While they dressed, she turned quiet and made herself another drink; and when he came up behind her at the mirror and took her by the shoulders, she stiffened. Now it was Sheppard who talked to fill the silence, who tried to turn the conversation to something … like his training. He’d always enjoyed talking with her about it. Unlike Marilyn she was knowledgeable—she knew what questions not to ask—but he couldn’t coax her from her funk.

Over dessert, while he was describing that afternoon’s procedure, she dropped her spoon and it clattered loudly in her dish. “When do you leave?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Here,” she said. “Los Angeles. When do you
go?”

“I leave on Sunday,” he said. “You know that.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “And when do you come back? Or
do
you?”

“I do,” he said.

“When?” she snapped. The couple at the table next to them glanced over. “Say when. Say something
specific.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Don’t treat me like a child.”

“Please,” he said, “this isn’t easy for me.” He had traction here; it was true, after all. “Was it easy for you to leave?”

He reached for her hand but she ripped it away and crossed her arms.

“Imagine what it’s like for me,” he said.

“I’ve already done my part,” she said.

They sat staring in separate directions for a time. He paid the bill and they left without speaking. But when they returned to the room, she said, “I’m sorry. I’ll be more patient.” She came up behind him at the mirror and laid her entire weight against him. “I promise I will,” she said.

Later, they made love, and it began as something tender but turned vicious and abandoned. She fell asleep quickly afterward, and her breath, as she snored lightly, smelled of garlic. It was odd to be awake; he always fell asleep before his wife. He found himself floating through foggy recollections of her busying herself while he drifted off, his awareness in that netherworld of her reading a book next to him, or doing the dishes softly downstairs, of a light being on in the house that should be off by now, or the sound of the porch door rapping closed, which meant she’d slipped out for a cigarette. He thought of her expression again, of what she’d said about
too
much fun. It was a form of mockery, he thought now, a brand of maternal ribbing of a silly boy. He got up, naked, walked to the window and stared at downtown Los Angeles. Its skyline, bunched and piled in the distance, sat protected by all the lit flatness surrounding it. You never felt
in
Los Angeles. It always seemed somewhere
out there
that you were trying to get to, so this view was in fact the perfect view, as if you were a nomad camping for the night in the outlands before making the final push across the peneplain in the morning …

He was out the door well before six the next day. He’d done his utmost not to wake Susan and was relieved to be heading to work without having spoken to her. But while driving to the hospital he felt anxious once more. Why was he hesitating? There was Chappie and surgery again and then in the doctors’ lounge one of the young surgeons, Bart Elster, who’d completed his residency at Bay View three years ago, introduced himself and asked Sheppard to join him and a group of surgeons for lunch. It soon came up that he was getting married in San Diego on Saturday. Would Dr. Sheppard like to attend the reception?

Back at the hotel that evening, he expected Susan to be excited by the news of a trip down the coast, but instead she lit into him.

“Why would I want to go to a stranger’s wedding?” she snapped.

Sheppard, stunned, explained the young man was merely an acquaintance.
In fact, he’d know next to no one at the reception. It was more an excuse to leave town.

“Why do we need an excuse?” she said. “Couldn’t you just think of something yourself?” She pulled the jigger off the bar shaker to pour him a drink, splashing the countertop when his glass overflowed. “It’s like staying at the Millers’ all
over
again,” she said. And when he told her he didn’t understand, she flung his glass against the wall. “Just go yourself if you’re so anxious to leave!” Then she collapsed sobbing on the bed.

Sheppard, watching her back shake, wasn’t sure whether to flee or stay. When he pressed her shoulder, she yanked it from his grasp.

“Don’t touch me!” she said, and sobbed harder.

“All right,” he said, but just stood there. When she continued to cry, he picked up his jacket from the chair and put it on.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“To get some dinner.”

“You’re just going to leave me here?”

“If you can’t tell me what’s bothering you, yes.”

She sat up and turned toward him. Her mascara, streaked down her cheeks, gave her a wild look. “Don’t you under
stand?”
she said. “It’s a wedding. And I have nothing to
wear.”

The concierge gave him a list of stores that stayed open late. Ransohoff’s, he said, was closest. Sheppard, fuming from the fight, felt withdrawn and shaken. He’d never seen this side of her until coming out here. It was desperate, something impulsive and furious. Was this who she really was? Feeling a sudden need to be back in Cleveland, he thought longingly of the lake, of routine, of home. If he left now, there’d be no harm to him. He could escape unscathed.

Yet she took his arm when they entered the store and held his hand with the other. “You can be mad at me,” she said. “I know I’m being ridiculous.” After he sighed, she whispered in his ear. “Say it.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” he said.

She stopped him and folded her wrists behind his neck. “It’s just that I want you to take care of me,” she said.

“Is that right?”

“Don’t you want to?”

“I do.”

“There now,” she said, “it’s settled”—which magically it seemed to be.

A saleswoman led them to the dressing room, and as the models came out of the changing rooms and paraded before the couch where he and Susan sat, their shoes silenced by the carpeting, the large gray room so
quiet they could hear the fabric of the dresses swishing, the light of the two chandeliers reflecting off the mirrors surrounding them so brightly that it was impossible not to appreciate the quality of the clothes. Seeing Susan’s thrill at each new dress, he found himself wondering with a kind of scientific curiosity why it had never occurred to him to do this with Marilyn. Why the countless dreams of wooing others, of walking hand in hand with them (or Susan) through exotic cities? Why this sudden generosity? The lovely dinner later. The expensive hotel. His doctor’s spending power fully flexed, with not the slightest sense of hesitation in his cheap guts when the saleswoman quoted the prices, yet all the while the scrimping with his wife at every turn.

Susan’s favorite was a black dress with a bateau neck that showed off her collarbone and thin shoulders. When she tried it on and came striding into the room—multiplied, as it were, for the mirrors reflecting each other created a contrail of images behind—he was beside himself with desire. Something in her—in her
beauty
—eradicated any previous unpleasantness. She could appear anew, like Venus from the sea. To fail to take her over and over again was akin to neglect, and he reminded himself of the freedom they had now, and, if he chose, could always have.

He called Marilyn that evening.

“God,” she said, “there’s no place more beautiful than this. It makes living in Cleveland seem foolish.”

“You didn’t think so when we lived here,” he said.

“Yes I did,” Marilyn said.

“Oh, come on, you were always going home.”

“I was younger. I was stupid. That doesn’t mean we have to compound the stupidity. We’re being stupid now, Sam. We could be happy here. Think of Chip growing up on the ocean.”

“You’d change your mind again. It seems wonderful now that it’s temporary.”

She was silent for a moment. “Actually, sweetie, if you remember, Chappie gave you the open door.
You
wanted to come home.”

“Can we stop talking nonsense?” Sheppard said.

There was static over the line that sounded like the sea. He could feel both their moods tumbling.

“Have you been busy?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Has it been good?” she said. “Being here?”

“Yes.”

“You should do it again.”

“I will.”

“I guess I’ll see you Sunday,” she said.

Hanging up, he believed he could break away.

He kept this in mind as they drove down Highway 1 that Saturday. He and Susan left in the afternoon, close to four.

This route would make the drive longer—a solid two and a half hours to La Jolla—but the weather was spectacular, the afternoon unseasonably warm, the sky wiped as clear as his mind. He was ready to tell her. Tonight. He was leaving tomorrow morning for Big Sur and plans had to be made. True, he could tell her now, but it was too pleasant to interrupt it with talk when you could
be
the engine’s submarine gargle and gentle tug of the curves, the dips that left your stomach hanging in the air, the approaching traffic that bobbed silently in and out of view and the brown cliffs, furred with patches of green bush and scrub grass, that climbed up from the road toward tall stands of pine. “Weather like this should last forever,” Susan said. He agreed and held her hand.

But by the time they arrived at the yacht club, a front had moved in and the utterly calm ocean reflected the last of the hazed sunlight. Only later would Sheppard consider how long it had been since they’d eaten. The reception had hors d’oeuvres aplenty but even more champagne, glass after glass after glass, and before he’d caught himself he’d moved on to gin. By chance, Susan knew several people in the wedding party from Cleveland, and she left his side almost immediately. Trapped in a long conversation with an ophthalmologist from San Francisco, he excused himself when he noticed rain spotting the windows. He’d left the top of the car down and hurried out to close it and then closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he stood still, listening to the masts of the moored boats clanging and whistling in the breeze. The rain was fitful, more mist than shower, but it had turned colder and this cleared his head enough for him to recognize that he was very drunk.

Coming inside, shocked at how loud and warm the room was, he now hurried to find Susan. He had a burning need to be alone with her, to tell her the things he’d been storing up, to say he was finally sure, but she was nowhere in the banquet hall. Not until he entered the main bar did he see her standing with a young man in the far corner of the room, laughing, her chin tilted up toward him, a drink resting in the fingers of both her hands. The man stood against the wall, calm and arrogant, basking in her undivided
attention. He was dark-haired and sharp-featured like she was and he bent to her ear to tell her something about a guest he was pointing to, something that made her laugh and then grasp his wrist in agreement. The transparent bubble of intimacy that enclosed them nearly stopped Sheppard in his tracks, and when she turned and saw him, her eyes flashed. He might not have felt so suddenly jealous and enraged had she not then turned her back on him as if he held no interest whatsoever.

“Hello, Sam.”

“Susan.”

He looked at the stranger, who in turn looked at him. “I’m Dr. Sheppard.”

“Dr. Kessler.”

“Mark and I work together at Samaritan,” Susan said.

They waited.

“Can I talk with you?” Sheppard said, taking her by the arm and leading her away. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

“Well, you found me.”

He stopped and studied her. Her eyes kept sinking toward his neck, then bobbed back up.

“Maybe we should go,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“No?”

“Not now, no. I’m having fun.”

Sheppard glanced over her shoulder at Kessler. “Maybe you’re just drunk.”

“Really? Thank you, but excuse me.”

She turned to leave and he took her arm again.

“Let me go.”

“Let’s get some air.”

“I don’t want
air
, I want to be
away
. From you.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. You’re a big,
embarrassing
question mark.”

“Susan—”

“Even Mark, he just asked me. He said, ‘Who are you
here
with?’ And when I told him, he says, ‘Are you two involved?’ And I couldn’t answer really, could I? Because what are we? What do I say? What do I tell people anywhere, let alone at a party?”

“You’re being foolish.”

“You’re right. I’m a fool. I’m your fuckmate of a fool.”

He took her by both elbows and raised her whole body toward him, her ear nearly pressed to his lips. “If you ever want to see me again,” he whispered, “you’ll walk with me out that door right now. Do you understand?”

She chuckled, and he squeezed her in his fists.

“Do you?” he said, and he let her down.

She looked at both her elbows, at the fading red marks where his fingers had gripped them. Then after she checked to see how serious he was, her eyes narrowed and she smiled. “You’re a funny boy,” she said.

It had been a mistake to take the coast road, Sheppard thought, not just for the weather or the state of the car but because of the added time of the added miles, the winding road’s restrictions on his speed, because he and Susan could have gotten back to Los Angeles sooner, which would have meant being safely asleep, and then he could wake up the next morning and be off with Chappie to Big Sur, where Marilyn was now. It was a mistake and also, in these conditions, dangerous. It was one of many mistakes, he thought, his thumb throbbing so badly where he’d cut it earlier he was sure he’d need stitches. And now the same anxiety he’d felt earlier came over him—the irrational, nameless fear that he wouldn’t survive this night, not with every single mistake somehow conspiring to bring about his own death, here, with Susan, so his dying would bring only harm. Sickness presented symptoms, diagnosis trailing infection or accident, but mistakes were the results of choices, of sequences that could be traced back to their origins. It was a mistake, Sheppard thought, to have gotten involved with Susan, then to think that the woman he’d known as a mistress could be anything more. No, their beginnings were themselves a set of limits imposed on any possible future. But none of these observations led to anything approaching a solution or remedy.