Nature of the Game (56 page)

“Yes,” Sylvia smiled, dreaming ahead.

When she walked Juanita to the door, she noticed the wind had turned cool. The clouds looked thicker, grayer.

Alone
, thought Sylvia. With Saul asleep for probably another hour, she was as good as blissfully
alone
in a quiet house. Except for the dog, the big black rottweiler who padded from room to room with her. She could even take the phone off the hook.

No
, Nick might call. She half hoped he wouldn't.

Upstairs, she checked on Saul: curled on his side in the crib, ribs gently rising and falling, precious hands up by his face. She pulled his bedroom door shut to preserve his quiet rest.

As her baby's door closed, she remembered the smile her boss had given a freshman congressman from Ohio, the smile and an agreement not to oppose a floor amendment from the freshman that would give a $6-million tax break for his district. In turn, the freshman gave her boss his marker for final passage of the bill. What the freshman hadn't known is that her boss already had a deal with the Rules Committee to send the bill to the Floor with a no-amendments rule. Her boss kept his promises, but he'd snookered the freshman. “Procedure beats substance,” her boss said. Now if they could get labor to squeeze the senator from—

Stop it!
she ordered herself.
It's your day off
.

In her bedroom, she kicked off her shoes and found a hanger for her suit, slipped off the jacket. Unzipped the skirt, clipped it to the hanger. There was a coffee stain on her blouse. She shook her head as she tossed it in the dry-cleaning hamper: another $1.50 accident. She peeled off her panty hose, tossed them toward the bureau. They floated to the floor. She laughed and accidentally looked in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door.

Saw her reflection. For the first time in months, she stopped and really
looked
.

Lines of gray streaked her black hair. Her bra was faded white with torn lace. The elastic in her cotton panties was shot; she could see flesh through the thin material over one cheek.

The extra weight from the baby had melted off six months after his birth, but her muscle tone had never come back. The waist was there, no roll, but her belly bulged. Her breasts filled the C cups, but when the bra came off, the flesh sagged.

“What do you think?” she asked the dog. He didn't answer. She hoped Nick was blinder than her mirror. Often as not, women were beautiful in the novels he wrote.

She saw stretch marks. Forty merciless years.

“But I'm here Monday mornings,” she told the mirror.

And she thought about the coming Friday night; smiled.

Her old blue jeans felt good, the long-sleeved pink top was comfy. She liked her feet bare.

It was her afternoon off, and she was blissfully alone.

One of the few points of contention in her marriage was that she loved to read in bed and Nick didn't. But Nick wasn't there. As the dog curled up on the bedroom carpet, she piled the pillows against the headboard, snapped on the bedside lamp. She snuggled into the pillows, picked up the biography of Martin Luther King she'd been savoring in snippets carved out of busy days, and lost herself in the panorama of real politics and true heroes.

The dog growled as Sylvia read about the sixteen-year-old girl defying conventional wisdom in 1951 and rallying her high school classmates to break the chains of segregated schools.

“Quiet!” ordered Sylvia.

The rottweiler flowed to his feet, a hill becoming a muscular river of black fur, flashing eyes, and white teeth.

“There's nobody here,” she muttered, her eyes clinging to the words inked on the book pages. “Saul's sleeping.”

The dog barked, a guttural bass explosion.

“No! You'll wake—”

The doorbell rang.

A mailman
, she thought, swinging off the bed.
Special package, probably from a grandparent or her sister in Milwaukee
.

God,
don't let it be a salvation squad: old ladies wearing hats and bearing
The Watchtower,
Bible-toting young men in white shirts and black ties
.

She hoped the dog wouldn't scare them—too much.

“Coming!” she yelled as she hurried downstairs. She grabbed the choke-chain collar, pulled the dog back from he front door: 120 pounds and the vet said there was more to come. “Sit!”

Why the hell couldn't Nick have wanted a cocker spaniel?

Their dog had a diploma from obedience school.

“But no summa cum laude,” she'd complained to Nick.

“
Sit!
” She jerked his collar. He calmed down enough to back away from the door. He strained against the choke collar, the metal cutting into her hand as she opened the door.

Found him standing there.

Big and crazy, matted hair, stubbled face. His shirt was stained with road filth. Greasy jeans. Battered sneakers. The chilly wind carried his stench of sweat, bad breath, and sour whiskey, and he wobbled as he stood before her.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

That voice:
five, six times she'd answered the phone for latenight calls that all her pleas to Nick never seemed to end.

“I'm sorry,” he said again. “You're Sylvia. I'm Jud.”

“H … Hi.”

Her smiling response was automatic. But her heart and head reeled. This man was important to Nick, his friend—a man whose problems Nick had taken on. And here he stood on her porch, clearly needy. But no one in their lives troubled her more. His specter had haunted them. As a ghost, he was an abstract worry; on her porch, he embodied dangers she never let herself name. The choke collar cutting into her hand felt welcome.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, though she knew.

“Nick, I need to see Nick.”

“He should be at his office,” she said.

“I can't make it there,” he said, and she saw that was true. “Car smoked up, died in Pennsylvania. Stole a bus ticket to West Virginia. Hitched to Maryland with a minister. Let me off at the Beltway sign that said Takoma Park. Rest of the way, I humped it. You're in the phone book, gas station knew the street.

“I can't hump it anymore,” he said.

Low in his throat, the dog growled.

“I'm sorry.” Jud's face lost the little color it had. “I don't want to be trouble.”

His eyes were moist. Raindrops dotted the sidewalk behind him, falling faster, harder.

“I can wait on the porch,” he said. It was covered. He shrugged. “They might see me sitting out here.”

The Washington suburb of Takoma Park is filled with trees, winding streets—America's Azalea City, with acres of pink- and red-dotted bushes. No one watched from her neighbors' closed windows. No one sat in the few parked cars. It wasn't a busy street. Nor was it a hard street to find.

Propriety and compassion overrode Sylvia's caution. “Don't be silly. Come inside. But don't move fast. The dog doesn't like strangers.”

“Smart dog,” said Jud, shuffling with her as she backed into the house, her hand tight around the collar.

She kept ten feet between them, led them past the full bookcases of the living room, past the fireplace with its mantel of happy pictures to the open dining room and its round oak table.

“You can sit there,” she said.

Jud collapsed onto the chair.

The dog strained against Sylvia's grip.

“Easy,” she said. “Easy.”

She let him go. He trotted to Jud, smelled him, then moved between his human and the stranger.

“Long as everything is fine, he won't hurt you.”

Why are you talking so tough?
she thought. But then she looked at him, saw he didn't care: Jud's eyes were lost in the table's brown mirror finish.

Sylvia propped the kitchen door open. Her view of Jud was blocked as she moved to the wall phone, but she could see the dog; she'd know if Jud moved.

Nick's machine answered her call: “Come home right away!” she told the tape.

Juanita
. She was going to her cousin's. Sylvia called that house. A man answered, and Sylvia told him, “
Digale à Juana que venga à mi casa lo mas pronto, que pueda por favor
.”

She hung up, walked back to the dining room.

“You're Spanish is still good from Mexico,” muttered Jud. “The Peace Corps.”

“How did you know about that?” she asked.

“Nick.”

“What else did he tell you?” She crossed her arms over her chest; felt the touch of unseen eyes.

The wreck of a man shrugged. “That he loves you.”

“Oh.” She shook her head, pressed her hand over her eyes. “Look, I don't mean to be so …”

“Paranoid,” he finished for her. “That's smart.”

“That's not the most reassuring thing to tell me.”

“I don't want to lie to you,” he said.

Her neck felt cold. She blurted out, “We don't want your trouble.”

“Me either.” Yet again he said, “I'm sorry. I need to talk to Nick. Tell him … bad news.”

“What?”

“I don't want to say it more times than I have to.”

“Is that all you want?”

“I don't want to hurt him. I never did. Or you.”

“Then maybe you should have stayed away from us.”

“Yeah.”

Why doesn't the phone ring!
she thought.
Where's Nick?

“You can't stay here tonight,” she said, hating herself for fears she didn't understand but couldn't ignore.

“Okay.”

The dog Finally sat, but kept his eyes on Jud.

Suddenly she felt too cruel.

“Do you … Are you thirsty?”

“Got a drink?”

“We don't have any liquor in the house.”

“Oh,” he said, and they both knew he recognized the lie.

“Do you speak Spanish?” she asked.

“I can order beer and say
gracias
. Tequila.
Señora and señorita
. Eat the worm.”

“All we've got is milk,” she blurted.

“Milk?” He shook his head. “I'd love a glass of milk.”

As she gingerly sat a cold glass of milk on the table, a baby's crying floated downstairs to them.

“That's Saul,” said Jud.

“
No!
” snapped Sylvia. “I mean, stay here. I'll go … take care of him. Stay here.”

“Whatever you want.”

The dog came with her. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

Saul smiled at her from his crib. He wore overalls and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, socks. He was standing without holding on to the bars. He reached out for Mommy.

Probably he was wet, but she didn't want to change his diaper, risk
exposing
him. Not even for a minute.

When they came downstairs, the dog led the way. He kept between his baby and the stranger.

“He looks like Nick,” said Jud of the son the mother carried into the dining room.

“Yes.” Saul clung to her neck:
Who was this guy?
“I have to fix him something to eat.”

“Sure.”

“You … Are you hungry?”

“Been awhile.” His milk glass sat on the table. Empty.

Shit
, she thought.
I should have asked sooner and I shouldn't have asked at all
.

In the kitchen, the baby held on to her leg as she opened cans of tuna fish. But by the time she dumped the tuna into a bowl and started mixing in mayonnaise, he'd wandered to the door. Sylvia kept an eye on him as he held on to the doorjamb and stared at the man sitting where his daddy always sat.

The dog moved close to his boy.

“Hi, Saul,” said the gravel voice in the dining room. “How you doing?”

Saul stared, drooled.

Jud smiled. Saul smiled back. Jud made a monkey face, an orangutan. Saul blinked. Jud scratched his arms and mouthed simian noises, bounced around in his chair. The baby's smile became a grin, and he pointed at the funny man. Jud covered his face with his hand; peeked through his fingers. The boy giggled. One after another, Jud slapped his hands down his own face, a surprised monkey grin showing between blows.

Saul laughed, hit his own face. Jud laughed with him. Excited, Saul ran into the kitchen, to Mommy.

Jud laughed again, shook his head at the son.

Then he cried, quietly and completely, tears running down his cheeks as he stared at the empty doorway.

She must have heard me crying
, he thought, because she called out, “Here comes your sandwich,” but waited a minute before she walked into the dining room bearing a tray with two tuna fish sandwiches with lettuce and tomato on whole wheat bread, potato chips, a fresh glass of milk.

A baby boy who adored his father toddled behind his mother, who loved them both.

Jud had time to wipe his cheeks.

As she sat the tray down, she asked, “Are you okay?”

“Sure.” He forced the words out, got his breath back. He could smell the bread, the tuna. “Sure.

“I was just being a monkey,” he said. “For the boy.”

He looked at the wide blue eyes beside her knees.

“
Monkey man!
” Jud said. Made the face. Made Saul giggle.

Sylvia sat at the table, that brave with the dog nearby. She scooped her son to her lap. Spoon-fed him from a bowl of tuna.

“Who are you?” she asked Jud.

The food melted in his mouth. His stomach rumbled with denial, with anticipation. One sandwich disappeared in five bites.

“I'm your husband's best friend,” he said.

“I don't think so,” she said.

Half the second sandwich went inside him; his guts struggled with the abundance of riches. His hands trembled, and he wondered where they kept the liquor.

“Guess not,” he said. “Guess I was just dreaming.”

“Not with my family,” she whispered, embarrassment at her anger flushing her face. She could feel the paring knife she'd hidden in the right back pocket of her jeans. She hated herself for doing it, found comfort in its pressure.