Say When (22 page)

A
gain, he was awakened by the phone. This time, it was Ellen, saying, “Oh. Sorry. Are you not up yet?”He looked at the clock. Ten! “No, I’m…Yeah, I’m up. Well, not up. But awake. How are you?”

“I tried to call you last night, Zoe was really missing you. But it just rang.”

He said nothing, at first, and then, “Yeah. I was talking to someone. Didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Who?”

“Well, Donna, actually.”

“Oh. I thought you had a date with her. I thought it was probably her you had a dinner date with. For Thanksgiving.” Nervous. Was that a good sign?

“I did.”

“So…you had a date and then when you got home you called her?”

“Well, yes, but—”

All business now. “Let me get Zoe. She wants to talk to you.”

“Ellen, wait a minute.”

“Yes?”

“It’s not…. Well, it’s not what you think, okay?”

She laughed, dismissing him, put down the phone and called Zoe.

“Dad?” She was out of breath.

“Hi, sweetheart. What are you doing?”

“I was outside playing. With guess what?”

“What?”

“My puppy!”

“Mommy got you a puppy?”

“No, her friend did. Peter is his name, his neighbor’s dog had puppies and I got one! A boy. His name is Nipper, because he bites all the time. But just play bite. He’ll stop, Peter said it’s real easy to train them not to do that. Wait till you see him, Dad! He’s got one white spot on his nose and otherwise he’s all black. And he already knows not to do it inside!”

“Well, that’s great, Zoe. I guess you’ll miss him when you come home, huh?”

“Dad! He’s coming
with
me! He’s
mine!”

“I see. Listen, can I talk to Mommy for a minute?”

He heard Zoe tell Ellen that Dad wanted to talk to her, then the low, indecipherable sounds of Ellen talking. And then Zoe was back on the phone. “She said she’s busy now, but she’ll call you later.”

“Busy doing what?”

“I
don’t know.”

“Well, let me talk to her.”

Again, he heard Zoe tell Ellen he wanted to talk to her, and then there was Zoe on the phone again. “She said she’ll call you later, Dad.”

“Zoe, let me talk to her. Tell her that Dad needs to talk to her right now.”

“Okay!”

He heard Ellen say, “Yes, all right, but be sure you keep him on the leash.” And then, into the phone, “What, Griffin?”

“He gave Zoe a puppy?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Which you intend for me to keep here.”

“Well, you do have a fenced-in yard. And there are no pets allowed here.”

“Did it ever occur to you to consult with me on this, Ellen? It will be living here. In my house. Did you think for one fucking second about—”

“It was a surprise to me, too, Griffin! He just showed up with him. And Zoe was so happy, I couldn’t…I mean, maybe it would be nice for Zoe to have something, now. Her ant died.” In a way that seemed against her will, she started giggling. And Griffin, despite himself, smiled, too.

“I know,” he said, softly. And then, for this one, isolated moment, it was as though they moved back into the relative comfort of
before.
Zoe and her animals. They shared this specific knowledge and history: their daughter’s caterpillars in a shoebox, the lightning bugs she captured in a jar to read by at night, then freed in the morning. The parakeet who lived only a month; the fish who died after one day; the gerbil who ate her own young. Slinky, whom they’d had for seven years, who for seven years ignored all of them. It was time, probably, for Zoe to have a pet who loved her back, who came when she called it, who slept on the bed with her.

“Ellen?” In the background, a man’s voice.

“Oh, hi!” Her voice fresh and invigorated. “Come on in, I’ll be off in a minute.”

And then, to Griffin, “So…was there anything else?”

“I’ll see you Saturday.” He hung up the phone. And then walked into the kitchen, took the doll off the counter, and threw her in the trash. This time, the coffee grounds would be on top of her.

Just before five o’clock, he was half reclining in front of the television when the phone rang. It was Ernie, saying, “Listen, if you’re not doing anything, how about you come over and have an early dinner with me and the Mrs.?”

Griffin declined politely, automatically.

“What, you got plans?” Ernie asked.

“Well…No.”

“Then don’t be a putz. A quick dinner, that’s all it is.”

Something occurred to him. Ernie liked Donna, and knew Griffin had been seeing her. “Is anyone else coming?”

“Yeah, the President of the United States. No, no one else is coming, this is just a spur of the moment kind of thing. Get your butt over here, Griffin. Grab a pencil so you can write down the directions.”

Ernie’s wife, Angie, let him in. “So nice to meet you,” she said, in a voice so husky and low she sounded like a man. “Let me take your coat.”

She was a good-looking woman, with an olive complexion and widely spaced brown eyes. Black hair barely touched by gray. Somewhat overweight, but in a cozy, attractive way. She wore a white, bib-style apron, and the sight of it made Griffin feel instantly comfortable. Beneath it, she wore a matching blue skirt and sweater.

Griffin was sorry he hadn’t dressed up more—he was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt with the elbows wearing thin. Nor had he remembered to bring anything along as a hostess gift—Ellen had always been in charge of that. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring anything,” he said, and Angie waved her hand. “All we needed was you.”

“Smells great in here.”

“Oh, it’s only meatloaf. But who wants to get fancy the day after Thanksgiving?” She smiled at Ernie, who was coming down the stairs, then disappeared into the kitchen. “Hey, buddy!” Ernie slapped him on the back. “You’re going to be in for it when you go to work tonight!”

“Oh?” Griffin shifted his shoulders slightly—Ernie had more strength than he knew.

“They all come out of the woodwork the day after Thanksgiving. I had my picture taken so many times today, I nearly went blind. Remember to look away from the camera, okay? Look
away!”

Griffin thought of Donna, the editing of her expression that was sure to be there, the awkwardness with which they would now greet each other. He wondered how many people would consider him a fool to let a woman like her go, especially since it was in favor of a woman like Ellen. But the Ellen he saw was not the Ellen others did. And how to explain? There were no formulas to account for the idiosyncratic yearnings of a human heart, no ways to extract from someone feelings that lived as matter-of-factly as blood and bones inside of him. In the end, Griffin thought, we are only who we are.

He followed Ernie into the kitchen, sat at the chair Ernie pointed to. “I’m actually looking forward to being busy.”

“Yeah? Talk to me when your shift is over. I got
bit
today!” He showed Griffin the marks on his hand, the faint pink semicircle of injury. Angie, mashing potatoes at the stove, turned around to shake her head, sighed, then went back to work.

“How’d that happen?”

Ernie reached into the refrigerator for drinks, handed Griffin a soda. On the top shelf, Griffin saw a chocolate cake, decorated with walnuts. Reflexively, his spirits lifted.

“I’ll tell you something,” Ernie said. “When a kid doesn’t want to sit on your lap, he doesn’t want to sit on your lap! The little guy kicked me, too!” Then, seeing Griffin’s worried face, he said, “Aw, you know. That’s not what usually happens. It’s made up for by all the good kids you see. Had a little girl today about five years old tell me that what she wanted was a tea set, a wedding dress, and an ATM machine. Wanted the machine in her bedroom so her mother could come there and get money whenever she needed it.”

“That’s pretty smart thinking. Like on your third wish from the genie, asking for more wishes.”

“Exactly.” Ernie took a long drink from his soda can. “Another kid wanted me to get his dad out of jail. Those are always the tough ones. Get my dad out of jail, take away my grandma’s cancer. Those are tough.”

He leaned back to make room for Angie to put platters of food on the table. “Once a little girl asked him for a new house,” she said. “Turned out it was because hers had burned down.”

“So what did you say?” Griffin asked.

Ernie shrugged. “What
can
you say? ‘Santa can’t do everything, but he’ll try to make your Christmas merry.’ Some crap like that.”

“Is this your first year, Griffin?” Angie asked.

“It is.”

“How does your wife like your doing it?”

Griffin swallowed, saw in the panicked look on Ernie’s face that he hadn’t told her. “I’m…separated,” he said. Odd word. An invisible finger seemed to appear and point itself at him, to hover directly over his head, where it would stay as he reached for meatloaf, as he leaned back in his chair, as he tried to make conversation about anything but what occupied him most. “It’s not my fault we’re separated,” he wanted to say, but did not. Could not, in fact.

After dinner, Ernie walked to the corner store for vanilla ice cream, claiming Griffin could not eat chocolate cake without it. Griffin sat at the table talking to Angie, who had refused his help in cleaning up. “I’m an old-fashioned gal,” she’d said. “Men doing things in the kitchen make me nervous.

“I’m sorry I asked you about your wife,” she said now, her back to him. She was rinsing the plates in hot water, and the steam rose up in loose billows. “Ernie never told me. It’s just that I’m always interested to know how wives like their husbands being Santas. Some of them love it, and some of them really don’t—they resent the time it takes. I guess I just always assume everyone’s married.” She turned around to look at him, laughed. “Even animals! Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve made couples out of everything—pigeons in the park, the rabbits that used to live under our porch, animals in the zoo. I liked to think about everybody bedded down for the night, lying next to someone else. I guess it made me feel secure to think that everyone grew up and had their someone. Too many fairy tales, probably. But I need to stop assuming!”

“It’s all right.”

“Especially when divorce is so common now.” She said this in a way that he supposed was meant to comfort him.

“How long have you and Ernie been married?”

She came over to the table, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Forty-two years.”

“Bet you never thought of divorce, huh?”

She smiled, sat down on the chair across from him. “Yes, I did. Oh, yes, I did. There was a time in our marriage when I thought about it every day.” She looked down at the tablecloth, traced the outline of one of the embroidered daisies. “Ernie never knew. But I used to spend hours a day planning on how I would move back in with my mother, save some money, and then get a little studio apartment of my own. I was going to get a job selling clothes over at Marshall Field’s. And I was going to keep a little lamp in my window so when I came home at night it would be there to look up at.
My place.”
She looked away from Griffin, stared into space. Then, looking back at him, she said, “He never knew. He thought I was just mad about something for a while. Thought he’d mind his own business and wait for it to blow over.”

“Were you?”

“Was I what?”

“Were you mad about something?”

“I
was
mad about something. But it wasn’t really him. It was something else that I could never put into words. Couldn’t then, and couldn’t now, either. But it was…You know, in those days, it was rare for a woman to be on her own. I didn’t think of it as a possibility for me—I told you how I used to make couples out of everything! But at the same time that I thought I knew my destiny, knew what I wanted, there was another part of me that felt like I was drowning after I got married.” She looked at him. “You know that old Peggy Lee song, ‘Is That All There Is?’”

Griffin nodded.

“Well, that’s what it was, I suppose. I was young, I thought I was in love, I got married, and then I woke up one day and thought…Wait a minute.
Do
I love him? Is this really love? Is this what marriage is supposed to be? You know,
Is that all there is?
And of course Ernie and I couldn’t have children, I think that was a big thing.” She waved her hand, settled back in her chair. “Oh, listen to me telling you all this. You won’t tell Ernie, will you?”

“No. I promise.”

“I think I just had too much time on my hands, a woman staying home with nothing to do but housework. I think that was it.”

“But you didn’t leave,” Griffin said.

She smiled. “No. I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It was such a different time. Divorce was risqué. But also…Well, I think it was because of Ernie, that I stayed, even though it was also because of Ernie that I wanted to leave. I thought about being without him and I thought, Oh, I’d just end up telephoning him every day. Asking his advice about this or that. Wanting to know if he was all right, what he was doing. If that was so, why not just stay?” She pointed to a tray on the table, holding about a dozen vials of pills. “Those are all Ernie’s. You’d never know it to look at him, but he’s quite ill. He’s got…Well. Let me just say, I’m so glad I stayed. So that I can be here now. Everybody thinks the best time to be with someone is when they’re at their best. But for me—”