Separate Flights (30 page)

‘What isn't?'

‘Everything. Everything isn't that simple.'

She lay awake for another half hour or so, then slept. She woke up when Peggy closed the front door. The next sound was the refrigerator. After a while Peggy came upstairs and went to her room. Beth wanted to go talk to her, but she could not think of an excuse. She lit a cigarette and got up and stood at the window, looking at the streetlight on the corner. Once in a while she looked back at Lee sleeping on his side, and she wished she were like him: believing she knew those things she had to know, and not caring to know anything else. If she were that way she would not be standing here at the window; she might be sleeping or even talking to Peggy now, maybe they would go down to the kitchen for a snack and sit there eating and talking; because above all, if she were that way, she would not have turned on that lamp.

4

N
EXT DAY
after lunch, when Lee had gone to play golf, Beth asked Peggy if she wanted the car.

‘No.'

‘I need some things in town,' Beth said.

She was going to see Helen, and lying about it to Peggy made her feel more lonely. On the way she bought popsicles for Wendy and Billy. Helen lived in the country; for the last two miles Beth left the highway and drove on a dusty road through fields of tall corn. When she turned into the driveway Wendy and Billy saw her from the gym set in the backyard and ran to the car. They wore bathing suits. She hugged and kissed them and unwrapped the melting popsicles, and they walked back toward the gym set. Helen was in the kitchen doorway, holding the screen open.

‘Beer?'

‘All right.'

‘Larry went back to bed. There was a party last night, and we got about three hours sleep.'

‘Aren't you going to sleep?'

‘Tonight. I could put the kids down for a nap, but I don't like to. Wendy doesn't sleep.'

‘She could sit in bed with books or something. She'd be all right.'

‘I know, but it makes me feel degenerate. Let's go in the living room.'

They sat in front of a large fan and Beth looked out the picture window at the willow tree in the front yard, its branches touching the ground. Across the dirt road there was heat shimmer above the corn that grew as far as she could see. As Helen lit a cigarette her hands trembled.

‘You're hung over too.'

‘Just tired. I don't get drunk at those parties.'

‘That's smart.'

‘Next time I'll be smart about leaving too. How's Peggy?'

‘Fine.'

‘Excited about New England?'

‘I guess.'

‘Still going steady?'

‘Oh sure.'

‘Then it's good she's leaving. She's too young for that.'

‘You weren't much older.'

‘No, I guess I wasn't. Shall we have another?'

‘It'll just make you sleepier.'

‘As long as I'm suffering I might as well drink.'

‘Okay.'

Helen took the empty cans to the kitchen. Beth knew she ought to leave and let Helen rest somehow, at least spare her the effort of talking. But she thought of going home to Peggy and she could not. Helen came back eating a sandwich.

‘Peanut butter. You want some?'

‘No thanks. Listen: you go up and take a nap and I'll stay with the children.'

‘I've made it this far, I can make it till tonight.'

‘Don't be silly. Finish your beer then go up and sleep.'

‘You're being silly. What kind of visit is that?'

‘Well, it's not like I drove a hundred miles. Come on: let me. Don't you know I love to be with them?'

Helen took a long swallow and sank in her chair.

‘You're tempting me.'

‘Do it, then. Think how nice it'll be to just go upstairs and lie down and sleep.'

‘I'll do it.'

‘Good.'

‘But first I'll put Billy to bed.'

‘I'll do that. Just finish your beer and go to bed.'

‘Oh, my.' She drank. ‘Oh my, you're good to me.'

Now that her favor was accepted, Beth wanted something in return. She wanted very much to talk about Peggy, but she recognized her need for what it was. She didn't want advice: if she did, she wouldn't ask it from her twenty-five-year-old daughter. Nor did she want Helen to speak to Peggy. She merely wanted to talk about it, to share with someone else the burden of her decision. But she couldn't do that: it was cowardly, and it wasn't fair to Peggy. So they made small talk, then Helen said, ‘That beer's there to be drunk,' and went upstairs. Beth went outside and carried Billy upstairs; his eyes were closing as she covered him with a sheet and turned on the fan. Going downstairs she wanted another beer but she went past the refrigerator and out into the yard. She could not drink beer all afternoon; the day was too hot and she would drink too fast and go home tight. For a while under the hot sun she pushed Wendy in the swing.

‘Aren't you hot?' she said.

‘No.'

She pushed her again, then held the chains and Wendy swayed, then stopped.

‘I am. What do you do with that willow tree?'

‘What tree.'

‘In the front yard.'

‘Nothing.'

‘Come on. We'll have a tea party.'

In the kitchen she made grape Kool-Aid. ‘Are there some cookies?'

‘Mama hides 'em.'

She looked high in the pantry, found chocolate Oreos, and put some on a plate. Wendy carried it out to the willow tree. Beth brought a beer, the pitcher of Kool-Aid, and a glass for Wendy. Under the willow tree there was shade; across the road the cornstalks were moving with a gentle breeze, and after Beth and Wendy had sat still for a while they could feel it.

‘This is a good place,' Wendy said.

‘It is.'

‘I bet nobody can see us.'

‘Not unless they look real hard.'

When the cookies were gone Wendy got restless. She walked head first through the hanging branches and stood looking into the dust-covered weeds in the ditch beside the road. Sitting on the grass, Beth said: ‘Don't you want to stay here?'

‘No.'

‘Wait. I'll be right back.'

She went into the house. Upstairs in Wendy's room she found a checkerboard and box of checkers: they were all there. She got a beer and went outside.

‘Do you know how to play checkers?'

‘I forgot.'

Beth parted the branches and went through and sat in the shade.

‘Come here and I'll show you.'

For the next two hours, until Helen and Larry came outside with their faces washed and sleepy-looking, she drank beer and played checkers with Wendy. Driving home she opened all the car windows so air blew on her face, but when she parked in the garage she still felt tight. She had also smoked too much: crossing the lawn she wheezed and when she coughed to clear her chest she brought up something. She swallowed and went inside.

She could hear the record player in Peggy's room, and she was about to call upstairs that she was home but she didn't. She ought to eat something. She sliced cheese and ham and ate standing up. As she cut a piece of lime and filled a glass with ice she told herself to get sober before Lee came home; she poured the gin and tonic, her mind detached as though still deciding whether or not to drink it, then she went upstairs. Peggy's door was open, and she lay across her bed, reading a magazine. Beth turned down the volume on the record player and sat on the bed.

‘Where've you been?'

‘Helen's.'

‘You better eat an onion before Daddy comes home.'

She said it in a friendly way, smiling, and Beth winked. It was their first moment like that since going to the gynecologist.

‘I guess I better. Is this what you've been doing?'

‘Marsha and I played tennis.'

‘In this heat?'

‘It gave me a headache.'

‘Did you take something?'

‘Two aspirins. Marsha has a date, and we're doubling tonight.'

‘Does she?'

‘I finally talked her into it. Vic'll be in Vietnam for a year and I told her, you know, it's just friendly dating to distract her. She needs it.'

‘Course she does.'

Peggy closed the magazine and rolled on her back. Beth went to the window and looked past the elm down at the brick street.

‘Peggy?' She did not turn from the window. ‘Was I wrong?'

‘No.'

Now she looked at Peggy on the bed.

‘Is that true?'

‘Yes.'

‘But you're not happy.'

‘That's not your fault.'

‘Then you're really not?'

‘Not what.'

‘Happy.'

‘No. No, I'm not.'

‘Then I was wrong.'

‘No, it wasn't that. That was great. Anybody else's mother would have—I don't know, gone crazy or something. No, it's Bucky. I think I'm getting tired of him.'

‘Well, that's normal.'

‘It doesn't have to be.'

‘But it is, honey. You're barely eighteen.'

The record player shut itself off; Peggy got up and turned the records over and started it again.

‘I'll be glad when school starts,' she said.

‘Because of Bucky?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then I'll be glad too. But you could just tell him, you know. You don't have to wait till September.'

‘No,I'll wait.'

‘But be happy. Don't waste time.'

Peggy shrugged and lay on the bed, one arm across her eyes.

‘I'll wait till school. Maybe when I get out there I'll change my mind. You know: maybe I've just been with him too much this summer.'

‘Well, I'm glad you told me. I thought it was that other business.'

‘No. That was right.'

‘Do they make you sick?'

‘Not so far.'

‘Good. I'm going to shower now. Will you—No: never mind.'

Peggy moved her arm and looked at her.

‘Will I what?'

‘I was going to ask you to start the charcoal, but forget it. You rest and get over that headache.'

‘It's about gone.'

She got up.

‘No, I'll do it,' Beth said.

‘It's done,' Peggy said, and left the room and went downstairs.

Beth left her drink on the lavatory while she showered. She was under the warm spray for a long time, finishing with a few seconds of cold; when she got out she felt better but still tight. She dried and powdered, then finished her drink while she dressed and perfumed in the bedroom. She wore a yellow dress, the color of lemon sherbet, soft and cool and pretty. She stood at the full-length mirror: her face and arms were tan and cool-looking and she smelled good. Robert had thought she was pretty, she knew that. Then why had he let her catch that plane? Not that it would have made any difference. She went downstairs and mixed a drink and went outside where Peggy sat in a lawn chair, watching the charcoal.

‘Beautiful,' Peggy said.

Beth went down the steps like a model, and in front of Peggy did a slow pirouette, then forced a short laugh that almost came out as a sob.

‘And so are you,' she said. ‘And I want you to be ever so happy!'

They sat with their legs in the sun, their bodies in the shade; when the shadows of the elm and house had enclosed their legs, Lee came home. By that time Beth was drunk.

Lee knew it, and she saw in his eyes that he knew it, but he didn't say anything. They ate barbecued chicken and baked beans and potato salad; Beth thought the food would make her sober, and she ate second helpings, and wiped the chicken platter with Italian bread. All this only cleared her head, but she still wasn't sober; faced with a waning drunk, she had to prolong it, so while she cleaned the kitchen she had another drink, knowing that behind his newspaper in the living room Lee was scowling at the sounds of ice cubes and stirring. When the kitchen was clean she took her drink outside and sat on a lawn chair. The sun was very low. Across the street beside the house Mrs. Crenshaw was bent over giving scraps to her dog; she straightened and waved. Then Mrs. Crenshaw went inside, and she was alone. It seemed a long time ago she had played checkers with Wendy under the willow tree. She looked over her shoulder at the house: Peggy's room was lighted, the shades drawn while she dressed for her date. The kitchen was lighted. So was the living room where Lee was reading. Beth looked away: everything was shadowed now, and there was a ribbon of deep bright pink over the rooftops to the west. With her back to the house she felt somehow threatened. But nothing was wrong: the kitchen was clean; Peggy's trouble was with Bucky, not her; Lee was sulking, but that was normal.

The sky was nearly dark when Bucky drove up the street. When he opened the door the interior light went on and Beth saw Marsha and a boy in the back seat. Bucky started across the lawn toward the front door, then he saw her and came over and said hello.

‘Just go through the kitchen,' she said. She looked up at Peggy's bedroom. ‘I think she's downstairs now.'

She watched him go into the kitchen; then she heard him knocking on the wall and calling hello. She went to the car; Marsha rolled down the back window and Beth stuck her head in. She stayed there, talking about the heat and tennis with Marsha and the boy whose name she didn't hear, until Peggy and Bucky got into the car. She stepped back, and as they drove away she called: ‘Have fun!'

She went to the back door and into the kitchen. She was dropping ice in her glass when Lee came from the living room.

‘No,' he said.

She hesitated. Then, not looking at him, she squeezed lime into the glass.

‘Jesus. Did you have to go out to the car too? Couldn't you have just stayed wherever the hell you were?'

‘I wanted to tell Marsha hello. What's wrong with that?'

‘What's wrong. You're so Goddamned drunk you don't even know. How do you think Peggy liked it? Her mother out there bellowing her Goddamned drunk talk all over the neighborhood—'