Real Life (29 page)

He said, “Isn't this where we go into a clinch? And the orchestra starts and we sing a duet, and the customers and the waitress and the guy out back thawing stuff in the microwave all get together and do a reprise while we tap-dance a little and then we sing it again and go into another clinch and curtain?”

“End of Act One.”

“Right. Now what about Act Two? You've heard my story, comrade. When are you going to marry me?”

“Whenever you like. Now. Soon.”

He stood up. “In that case, we'd better get going so I can take you home and do some of that ecstatic bit to celebrate.”

They left money on the counter, and ran back to the car. The rain was wild. Alex, at the wheel, had to lean forward and peer through the windshield. Conversation was difficult, carried on in shouts over the noise of the defogger, the tires swishing, the rain beating down. They did resolve to get married soon—before winter, Alex said, so they'd have each other to snuggle with under the covers every night. And they'd take a trip to Arizona, to the Grand Canyon. Tax-deductible research, Alex said, because Henry was going there. But how would they pay for it? That they'd have to work out.

“That and ten million other things,” Dorrie said.

“Not ten million.”

“Nine, then.”

“Nonsense,” Alex said, squinting into the rain. “All the important things have been settled. The rest will fall into place.”

Hugo
, she thought. How would he fall into place? But neither of them spoke his name.

Nina told Hugo all about her tragic love affair while they watched a movie about a mad bomber. She was in love with a boy named Carl McGrath. Hugo knew him by sight—a senior, a football player, always in a crowd of noisy boys just like him—indistinguishable. Carl McGrath? Was he even good looking? He was big and beefy and always looked like he needed a shave. What else? Nothing. God, Carl McGrath. If Hugo had an opinion about him, it was that he was one of those Jamie-ish jerks—someone so outside his own experience that he seemed not even human. Someone who ran around a football field bashing into people. He couldn't believe Nina cared about him, and said so.

“It's all sex.” Nina spoke in a reasonable, explanatory tone that nearly broke his heart. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her to forget that hulking brute Carl McGrath, that big-nosed hunk of lunchmeat. She had had a date with him; they had gone to a movie and then necked in his car for hours and hours. “It was fantastic, Hugo,” she said. “I fell in love with him when he kissed me. I can't explain it. It was some chemical thing, I'm sure.” They had made out until the wee hours, and he had taken her home, and he had never called her again. “He says hi to me at school,” she said. “He's in my trigonometry class. He treats me exactly the way he did before we went out. It's as if he's forgotten all about it, that we spent hours in the backseat of a car kissing each other.”

He took a sip of wine, thinking of Carl McGrath's gross red hands, his five o'clock shadow against Nina's soft cheek, his big flabby mouth on hers. That jerk hadn't had to get up the nerve to kiss her, he'd just done it. He would hate Carl McGrath as long as he lived.

The wine gave him the courage to ask her, “That was all? Just kissing?”

“Hugo, I'm not a loose woman!”

“Well, but you're in love with this jerk.”

She began to cry. “Oh, Hugo, I thought if I didn't let him get away with anything else he'd call me again. Isn't that what you're supposed to do? Not be cheap?”

“How would I know?” he said, but too low for her to hear.

“I can't believe he hasn't called me, it's been five weeks, he treats me like I'm his sister, not even like his sister, all he says is ‘Hi there, Nina.'” She sniffed loudly, and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Hugo got up and went into the kitchen to get her a tissue, putting on lights. When he returned, she was composed; she blew her nose quietly. “He's going with Marilyn Hayes now,” she said. “Everyone knows what Marilyn Hayes is good for.” Hugo didn't; he wasn't sure who Marilyn Hayes was. “So I guess I played it all wrong.” She drew a long breath of resignation. “Anyway, that's over. I'm fighting it. I'm not even going to those stupid football games. I try like hell to avoid him.”

Hugo thought of how he had avoided her. Was the world one long chain of people in love with people who weren't in love with them? “He's not good enough for you, Nina,” he said.

“Oh, I know.” She smiled at him almost absently. She had calmed down; the movie caught her attention. The mad bomber was on a bridge, looking over his shoulder. He began to run frantically, pursued by men in suits and hats. There was an explosion, and a commercial. She turned to Hugo again. “Frankly, I found it kind of appalling that I fell for such a conventional guy. I mean, a football player! Total triteness! Just because he's got muscles and—whatever.” She smiled in Hugo's direction, unexpectedly, sweetly. “As far as company goes, Hugo, I vastly prefer you, you know.”

He didn't know what to say. Here, he realized, was where he should kiss her. Thank her, at least, for the compliment. Reciprocate. Something. But he waited too long, and suddenly she jumped up and said, “My guitar! What did I do with it? I've got to play you my song.”

She found the guitar in the doorway, and settled down on the sofa with it, tuning. He realized, watching her, how much he had missed her more even than he missed
Upton's Grove
—her songs, her strange high voice, the look of her with the guitar across her lap, her eyes lowered and her eyelashes a thick dark line. He thought about how he had told Dorrie that Nina's songs reminded him of
Upton's Grove
—that same friendly, involving feeling. O God:
Nina, Nina
. She hummed, adjusted a string, played it, hummed again. Her wineglass, on the table before her, was still half full.

He picked up the bottle; it was nearly empty. “I guess I've drunk most of this,” he said with a grin, and emptied the bottle into his glass.

“That must mean you like it.”

“Sure—it's good.” He didn't, actually, like it very much. He thought maybe it went better with food than by itself—the salami and peanuts weren't enough. He didn't feel like rummaging through the refrigerator for more. He wished he had brought potato chips, but Nina wasn't complaining. Now that she had told him her sad story, she seemed to need nothing else. He wondered, though, if the evening was going to be a bust. He hadn't kissed her yet; he was a long way from kissing her, he wasn't half drunk enough. He took a long drink; the wine was sour on his tongue.

She looked up. “Okay. Ready? This is the one about your auntie.” She played an introduction, a loud, jazzy-sounding tune in a minor key, and then she began to sing:

“Oh, Heart of Clay,

Let me tell you how I feel;

I'm gonna crush that Heart of Clay

Underneath my heel.”

He felt an impulse to move across the room, to recoil from its loud violence. This was a song about his aunt? It went on:

“Oh, you Heart of Clay,

You think you're so tough,

But I wanna tell you, Heart of Clay,

That I've had about enough.”

It was a terrible song, repetitious and just plain noisy, in a way Nina's songs, whatever their failings, had never been. He wondered if she had been listening to rock music. Something was different. Had her night of passion with Carl McGrath ruined her talent? And then—the violent music pounded around the walls of the little room, drowning out the explosions of the mad bomber—how could Nina hate his aunt so much, to write this song? Nina had seen her only a couple of times. If she hated her, it must be his fault; she had prepared this poison song for him, she had thought he would like it. At the end of each verse she looked up at him with a wolfish smile.

“Your Heart of Clay,

It's an easy one to break;

A heart that is only made of clay,

That's a heart that's just a fake.”

Oh, God, what a lame song. What was he going to say when she was done? But it went on interminably, with long, harsh instrumentals between the verses that pushed him away as rock music always did. Hugo drank some more wine, and felt himself getting drunker. The wine worked in stages, it was like waves on a beach: calm and then a surge. The top of his head was numb and tingly. He realized, as he sat there, that he didn't feel well at all. He thought: did he hate his aunt? The answer came instantly: no, not hate. But righteous indignation, along with passionate curiosity—that was what filled him up as he sat there listening to Nina's music. Heart of clay. He wished he could have it out with her, right that minute, with the wine working in him. Tell me, he would say. Tell me. Tell me everything. I'm not a little kid, I can take it, tell me, tell me.

Nina said, “Here's the last verse,” and sang:

“Oh that Heart of Clay,

I can smash it on the floor,

And after I break your Heart of Clay

I'll be goin' out the door.

“Yeah, Heart of Clay,

Let me tell you how I feel;

I'm gonna crush that Heart of Clay

Underneath my heel.”

She ended with a flourish of loud chords, and looked at him triumphantly. “Well? Isn't it great? Isn't it the absolute pinnacle of my songwriting career?”

“I don't know what to say.” He knew she would take it as a compliment.

“Of course, it's a very personal song, Hugo. I wrote it just for you. I know how you feel about your aunt, about what happened. I thought you needed a song.” She took the guitar from around her neck and looked at him earnestly, seriously. “Hugo, I have missed you. I have. I've wondered about you, and felt so sorry for you. Did she ever say anything? About—you know. That newspaper. Did you ever ask her?”

“I never had the guts,” he said.

“Well, of course, she probably wouldn't tell you anything, the old bitch.”

“No,” Hugo said. “I think—” He couldn't defend her too much, or Nina would know that her song had given him not comfort but a headache. “I think I could probably make her tell me. I guess I'm afraid of hearing it.”

Nina took a sip of her wine. “You mean the truth about—all that, what we read.”

“About my mother being a dope addict who got murdered,” Hugo said. His voice came out loud and belligerent, as if it had been Nina's fault. “And what about my father? That newspaper never even mentioned him.” It was this that had stayed in the front of his mind all summer and fall.

“Oh, Hugo, Hugo, poor Hugo,” Nina said. She set down her wineglass and, with a long sigh, moved closer to him on the sofa. She put her arms around him, he felt her soft electric hair against his face. “My poor Hugo,” she said, and kissed him gently on the mouth.

Kissing her was better than he had dreamed. It was impossible to imagine what kissing was like: you had to do it. They lay together on the sofa, lips together, one of her hands behind his head, on his neck, in his hair. She smelled of peanuts and shampoo. The mad-bomber movie ended in a series of explosions, then music, and was followed by something with penguins in it. Hugo heard, “The emperor penguin of the Antarctic has evolved a remarkable temperature-control system. Arteries carrying warm blood to the feet run alongside veins carrying cold blood back to the—”

Nina's little body was pressed against his. He felt her warm blood running. She was impossibly small, delicate, vulnerable. He would protect her always. He kissed her neck. “Nina, Nina,” he whispered, and she took his hot face between her hands and opened her lips to him again.

Dorrie's house was warm—besides books, heat was her one extravagance—and upstairs in the living room they pulled off their wet coats and sank down exhausted on the sofa before they noticed that all the lights were on, Hugo's alcove was empty, the place was deserted.

“Hugo?” The kitten leaped from the kitchen table to stretch and rub against their legs. “Hugo?” Dorrie called. “Damn it, he's probably out in the loft. In this weather!”

“I'll go out and drag him back in,” Alex said.

Dorrie imagined a scene. “No, let me.”

Alex shrugged and went to the refrigerator, looking for a beer, and Dorrie put her raincoat on again and went down the back stairs. She turned on the outside light; rain fell straight down like nails. She ran to the garage and called up to the loft. “Hugo?” She could tell he wasn't there—and why would he have gone out to the loft, anyway, in the rain, when all his things had been brought inside weeks ago? Nothing up there now but spiders. But she climbed the stairs and called again. The loft was pitch black, empty, and somewhere water was dripping in, striking the wood floor with loud ticks.

She stood in the empty garage, trying to think. She could think only of disaster. “Hugo?” she called, and her voice in the dark, against the muffled, gray sound of the rain, scared her.

Back in the house, she said, “Something's wrong, Alex. He's not here. I can't imagine where he would go on a night like this.”

“Out with his girlfriend,” Alex said. He was sitting on the sofa drinking beer, the cat on his lap. His hair hung in wet stripes over his bald spot. “Relax. The little darling is growing up. Probably losing his virginity this very minute.”

She shook her head. “He wouldn't just go, not without leaving a note or something. Besides, she's not his girlfriend. Although—oh, I don't know. He did say they're friends again. Maybe he's with her over at the Verranos'.”

“No doubt. Watching the telly with one hand and losing his virginity with the other.”

“Alex, can't you stop joking? I'm worried about him. I'm responsible for that child.” She felt sick with the certainty that something was wrong, and Alex sat there grinning with his can of beer, petting the cat, ridiculing Hugo as usual. “I can't just assume he's somewhere and go to sleep and forget about him.”