Shelter Me (28 page)

He always shoveled out the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Bellows for free. “Fixed income,” Tug explained to Janie, “hadn’t made a home improvement in about twenty years.” Besides, Mr. Bellows always came out with his bent, rusted old shovel and tried to help. Tug was working on the driveway while Mr. Bellows chipped away at the front path, clearing it in spoon-sized chunks. All of a sudden the old gentleman was lying on his back in the snow, face half covered with tiny avalanches of sparkling flakes. Tug screamed
in to Mrs. Bellows to call an ambulance, and ended up giving Mr. Bellows CPR until it arrived. Sue had previously convinced him, in that calm, smiling, relentless way she had, to take a CPR course with her. It was every citizen’s duty.

A week later, the day before New Year’s Eve, Tug found himself on the front page of the
Natick Bulletin:
A HERO IN THE SNOW.
Sue, as well as the mothers of most of his friends, called to congratulate him. She seemed strangely stuttery and nervous when she asked him if they could meet on a bench at the Natick Green. “She brought a thermos of hot chocolate and two mugs.”

“She knew how to butter you up,” teased Janie.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “I guess I’m a sucker for a woman bearing chocolate.”

A flutter of anxiety went through Janie.
What’s that supposed to mean? Does he think I purposely…he knows I’m not trying to…he likes chocolate for godsake, everyone knows that…
But Tug was talking again, so Janie had to leave off worrying about the implications of her beverage offerings.

Sue had read the article about him, how he had likely saved old Mr. Bellows’s life. (“For the time being, anyway,” Tug added. A couple of months later, Mr. Bellows had died in his sleep of a more thorough shuttering of his ancient aorta.) Sue went on to say that she was reminded of what a good influence Tug had on her and was hoping that he might consider getting back together.

Good influence? On Sue? It was the first time Tug had considered that he might have any effect on her whatsoever. Sue was Sue. No one influenced her. Except, he was now learning, maybe him.

It was very flattering, and yet there was something missing from her proposal. In retrospect, it still surprised Tug that, at fifteen, he’d had the wherewithal not to jump at the offer he’d lain awake imagining for the previous six months. She had done
the cost-benefit analysis and determined him to be the appropriate choice for her. He waited to see if he meant anything more to her than that.

In the silence, her chin began to tremble. “She wasn’t a crier. Ever. Times when she should have, she didn’t,” Tug explained to Janie. And Sue didn’t cry, there on the bench that day. But he could see her strain against emotion, a sight that was almost frightening to him.

“You tug at me,” she whispered, finally. “Even when I should be focusing on other things, the thought of you tugs at me.”

That was it. “I was a goner,” he told Janie with an embarrassed little smile. And what sealed the deal was that Sue began to call him Tug, effectively announcing to him and to everyone else, that she, the most beautiful, ambitious girl in the sophomore class, had fallen in love like any other fool. The name caught on among his friends, first as a taunt—one he didn’t mind all that much. Eventually, as with most nicknames, the meaning behind it faded and it was just what he was called.

“That’s really sweet,” said Janie. He shrugged and began to tidy up the table, tightening the lid on the kosher dills and brushing potato chip crumbs into the palm of his calloused hand. “Does it ever feel strange,” Janie asked, “that she named you, and you’re not together anymore?”

“Only once,” he said. “The day she told me it was over, and she was still calling me Tug. Seemed like a joke.”

“But it didn’t bother you enough to do anything about it.”

“Nah, it bothered me alright. But a guy doesn’t go changing his name in his forties. Plus…I don’t know. It’s my name. It doesn’t belong to her.”

“Good point.” Janie nodded, thinking that what belongs to who in a relationship is always up for interpretation. It was that muddling of gifts—impalpable as a name or immovable as a porch—that caused the most confusion.

He crumpled up his napkin and dropped it on his plate. “Think you’ll make it to the game tomorrow night?”

“Not like I have a choice, now that Dylan’s practically the team mascot,” she said warmly, feeling somehow grateful for his gift of the story of his name.

He smiled and patted her hand.

T
HURSDAY
, O
CTOBER
4

W
HEN
J
ANIE CALLED ABOUT
the cake, she also asked Cormac if he would come over on Saturday and help her move the enormous leather living room set from Shelly’s. She mentioned this in passing to Tug between innings, and he said simply, “What time?”

Early Saturday morning, with Dylan and Carly circling their legs like cats, Tug and Janie took her small sofa and her mother’s old wingback chair out to his truck. He would bring it to the take-it-or-leave-it at the dump when he brought his own trash. While they waited for Cormac to arrive after the morning rush at the bakery, Tug disappeared for several minutes. She spied him hauling her garbage bags and recycling to the truck from the little unattached garage in the side yard.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said when he came back in.

“Might as well. I’m going anyway.”

“Well, thanks. It’s very thoughtful.”

A look came over his face then—barely a look, only the slightest modification of his features. A slight crinkling of the spray of crow’s-feet around his eyes, a brief play of muscles around his
lips, a minor shift of his head to one side. He looked at her, the beams of his pupils dilating, taking in every inch of her, and then after a beat, he looked away.

It sent a spasm of panic through her almost as intense as the night she faced the intruder in her living room. She turned and walked quickly away from him, finding herself in the darkened bathroom.
Shit
, she thought.
Shit, shit, shit.

It had been the shadow at the back of their friendship, this look. A silent, barely perceptible edge to the questions he asked and the stories he didn’t want to think about but nonetheless wanted her to hear. In certain light, even a shadow can be caught unawares.

The whole picture came into focus as she sat on the edge of the tub pinching the back of her hand. The lunches and the little offerings—not quite gifts, but also not necessary in the course of a purely platonic relationship. The easy contentment as he leaned against the stands chatting with her while the rest of his team sat on the bench. The pats on her hand. More than anything, the way in which his presence had come to be expected. He hadn’t asked whether his help was needed today. There was furniture to be moved. Of course he would come.

“Janie!” she heard Cormac boom through the house. “We’re here!”

Get a grip,
she told herself.
Get one huge hell of a serious grip.

“Tug and I are going over for the chair,” said Cormac clapping his hand on Tug’s shoulder when she emerged. “You sure all of this is going to fit? How wide’s this door?”

“Two foot ten,” said Tug. His face was as blank as sheet rock. “The one on the porch is a three-footer.” Measuring tape in hand, the two men left for Shelly’s with Dylan in tow.

Barb came around the corner from the kitchen. Carly was standing on her feet, her little hands stretched upward to meet Barb’s, giggling as they clomped into view. “Are you excited?” Barb asked Janie.

“What?” said Janie sharply, feeling as if her jangling nerves might somehow show.

“About the new furniture—don’t you just love redecorating?”

“Oh.” Janie inhaled deeply and exhaled, finally managing a friendly smile. “Yeah, it’s just…”

“I know,” said Barb, walking Carly all around the nearly empty living room. “I always get a little wigged out when I make a major change, too.”

Janie nodded and leaned against an empty wall, willing herself to calm down.
It’s just Tug
, she told herself.
He’s just lonely. It’ll pass. He knows I’m not…It’ll pass.

“Hey,” said Barb, swinging the little girl up into her arms. “I’m glad we have a moment alone. I wanted to ask you something.” Janie forced herself to focus on Barb with her best I’m Listening face. “Would you…” Barb stammered, took a breath and started again. “I’d really like it if you’d be one of my bridesmaids.”

You’ve got to be kidding me,
thought Janie. “Sure,” she said. “Love to.”

“I promise not to make you wear anything silly—no hats or bows or anything!”

Janie sighed. “I’m sure anything you pick will be fine.”

“Ooo, this is so great!” Barb said, giving Carly a squeeze.

“Bah!” squealed Carly and clapped her hands.

W
ITH
B
ARB CORRALLING THE
kids, Janie, Tug, and Cormac got the couch into the house. The living room was more crowded with all the new furniture, but the coolness of the color and the rounded smoothness of the leather softened the room. It begged to be sat on.

Tug remained standing while the others sank to their seats. “I should run,” he said. His dark eyes transmitted nothing as they flicked to Janie. “I’ll catch up with you next week.”

“Thanks for all your help,” she said.

“Thanks, man,” said Cormac, standing to shake his hand. “Couldn’t have managed it without you, no kidding.”

After Tug left, they sprawled out on the couch and chair, the kids climbing over the arms of the furniture like fleshy lizards. Cormac and Barb squabbled happily about what kind of cake they would design for Carly. “Is Tug coming?” Cormac asked Janie.

“No,” she said. “Just family.”

T
UESDAY MORNING
, J
ANIE SWEPT
up any errant cake crumbs missed the night before, and moved the remains of Carly’s piano cake into the oven. She brought the balloons up to the kids’ room and took out the trash, though the bag was only half filled with festive paper plates and napkins.

Even still, Tug had not so much as unpacked his cooler before he was asking, “Carly’s birthday is this month, right?” He smiled down at the little girl as she grasped the knee of his jeans.

“Uh, yeah.” Why was Janie feeling so guilty? It was a family party. She hadn’t invited Heidi. And she had only invited Shelly because Shelly had instructed her in no uncertain terms that she was to be apprised of all Janie’s festivities. But it was clear that Shelly would be too busy arranging and rearranging her new home in Rhode Island to come, so it didn’t really count. And just because someone keeps showing up, that doesn’t entitle him to a season’s pass to your life. She didn’t have to make excuses. “It was yesterday.”

Tug glanced back up at Janie as if to determine if this could possibly be true. “How’d you celebrate?” His tone was overly neutral.

“Little party here last night. Just pizza and cake. And relatives.”

“Huh,” Tug grunted, the least possible indication that he’d heard her. He ran a hand over Carly’s soft black curls. “Happy Birthday, birthday girl,” he murmured. Carly grinned up into his blankness, then turned and wobbled away, in search of someone or something more engaging.

Janie ground her molars together. It was unreasonable that a grown man would be disappointed at not being invited to a child’s birthday party. It was insane, actually. He couldn’t just puppy
dog around like some adoption candidate, for godsake. And if he had a…a thing for her…he would just have to get over it.

Tug glanced back at Janie, nodded once, and began to unpack the cooler. Sandwiches, potato chips, grapes…

“Uhh!” Janie groaned.

“What.” There was a warning in his voice but she ignored it.