Sleep Toward Heaven (5 page)

“I never know what you mean when you say things like that,” said Nat. His face darkened. He still wore his pajama pants and his Williams sweatshirt.

“Things like what?”

“I just wish,” said Nat, crossing his arms over his chest, “that you could say, ‘Yes, I’m happy.’”

The coffee was black and strong. In the mirror across from the bed, Franny could see herself. She looked thin, and she looked tired, but she did not look happy. “Nat, I am,” she said.

“Oh,” said Nat coldly. “Glad to hear it.”

Franny heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. It was either the florist or the caterer.

“We’re going to be so happy together,” said Franny. She felt no corresponding flicker of joy. She smiled wide, so wide that her cheeks hurt.

“We are,” said Nat forcefully. He came close to her and touched his lips to the top of her head. “I really do love you, sweetie,” he said. “Can you just relax?”

“I am relaxed, Nat.”

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “Franny?” His voice was nervous, and when his eyes caught hers, it seemed that he wanted to say something else, but he was silent.

“Nat,” said Franny, “I am relaxed.” And when he left her alone, closed the door behind him, for a moment, she was.

“Darling,” said Nat’s mother, Arlene, “I’m afraid I really don’t see what the big problem is. Tulips are lovely flowers! In fact,” she leaned in, as if sharing a secret, “I carried a bouquet of tulips at my own wedding to Frederick.”

The florist, a squat woman named Reed, sighed. “Hon,” she said, “I did everything I could. You changed the order too late.”

“I wanted lilies from the beginning. Remember when I told you that my mother’s name was Lily?” asked Franny, quietly. The kitchen was unbearably bright, and she wished she had a pair of sunglasses. There was a dull ache behind her eyes.

“No, dear, I don’t. Anyway, won’t the tents be lovely?” said Arlene. Her new facelift had given her a sinister look, her eyebrows always arched. She clasped her hands together. “Well!” she said.

Reed bit her lip and studied her nails. A rhinestone chip was embedded in each one. Outside, Franny saw Nat and his father arguing. Nat’s hands were splayed, and he was shouting. His father was shaking his head. Franny couldn’t hear anything above the sound of the waves.

“I’ll handle this,” Arlene was saying to the florist.

“I’m not trying to be difficult,” said Franny.

“No, honey. Of course you’re not!” cried Arlene. To Reed, she mouthed, “Nerves.”

“It’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be perfect. I promise, hon,” said Reed with practiced cheer.

Arlene had made them hair appointments at Pierre’s at eleven. “Pierre,” said Arlene as she navigated her Land Rover to the salon, “is an absolute miracle worker.” Franny decided to ignore the implications. Arlene waved as a friend drove by. “Oh, what an exciting day,” she said, and then she turned to Franny. “Honey,” she said, “let’s have pedicures.”

“I’ve never had a pedicure,” said Franny.

“Welcome to Westchester, sweetie,” said Arlene.

When Franny met Nat, during her second year of medical school, she was living near Columbia, in a tiny studio apartment she had painted green. One night, tired of studying alone in the medical library, Franny had wandered into a bar, promising herself that she would go home after one beer. But she had heard him, in the corner with the spotlight dimmed, his voice like molasses, singing quietly about darkness. She had ordered another beer, and then another. Franny thought, there is someone as sad as me, but he makes it beautiful.

Nat began to brighten her few free hours, winning Franny with homemade dinners, goofy songs, and tequila. He took her to parties where native New Yorkers talked quickly and sarcastically, and Franny, who had not been invited to any parties since losing touch with her few friends from college, was thrilled. While Nat spoke, his face animated, his fingers flying through the air like hummingbirds, she felt lucky, and could be still. Nat filled Franny’s life with color; it bled into her exhausting days. She could stay up for the twelve-hour shifts, eating candy bars and vending machine sandwiches, sticking needles into veins, pretending to care about everyone’s aches and pains. Knowing that her bright Nat waited for her, with an old movie or an invitation to a gallery opening, even tickets to the opera, she could handle anything. She loved to study, had a reason for it now: her life as a doctor would enable her to keep him happy. To keep him.

Franny rose to the top of her class. She chose internal medicine, and began to see patients more than just once, nice to meet you, jotting down notes, patient X. She began to take over cases, to know people’s names, their smells, their nightgowns and bedside reading. Time slipped by, and she tried to ignore the sense that Nat’s antics were becoming more desperate than joyous. His songs of sadness began to seem repetitive and indulgent to Franny. Come to the hospital with me, she wanted to tell him, when he played his most popular song, “Tears Like Snow,” for the seven hundredth time. I’ll show you pain, Franny thought.

Anna’s death had changed something in Franny; everything seemed precarious. Franny vowed that Nat’s sloppiness, his hangovers and his songs, would not stand in her way, or throw off the equilibrium of her carefully balanced life.

Pierre regarded Franny critically. He wore thick glasses and a long shirt with a belt around it. Franny’s head had been massaged and shampooed, and a floral smell rose from her hair. “Nothing drastic,” said Franny. “I’m getting married in August.”

“The eyebrows, is what concerns me,” said Pierre.

“Eyebrows?”

Pierre stood back, squinted, and then stood close again. He smelled of mint and cigars. “Tweezers!” he cried suddenly. A girl in a red smock rushed over. “You know,” said Franny, “I really don’t think…”

“Shhh,” said Pierre. “Be calm.” He breathed in slowly, lifting his palms, and then breathed out, dropping them. “You see? Yes?”

Franny nodded. The girl began to rub a hot lotion around her eyebrows, and Franny closed her eyes. Before long, the girl’s fingers stopped, and Franny could smell Pierre again, feel his breath on her eyelids. She breathed in once, then out, and she felt a terrible pain as Pierre pulled eyebrow hairs from their sockets.

“Ouch!” Franny covered her eyes with her hands. She began, slowly, to cry.

“Oh dear,” said Pierre, a hint of distaste in his voice. “My, my.”

“I’m sorry,” said Franny, “it’s not the eyebrow.”

“This girl,” Franny heard Pierre whisper to Arlene, “she needs a nap, I think.”

Arlene drove back to the house with bits of foil in her hair and her lips pressed together. At the gates to the house, she stopped. “Take a nap, now, will you?” she said. Franny nodded, and climbed out of the car. Arlene reversed so fast that Franny’s shoes—Pappagallo sandals, which she had bought to fit in with the Westchester crowd—were covered with dust.

Nat and his father were out sailing—the slip at the dock was empty. Franny stood by the water. The breeze smelled of salt. Franny could still see Anna’s face: the small chapped lips, eyes filled with shock at the pain that would not leave her. I don’t think I can do this, Anna had said. Can I let go now? And, will everything be here when I am gone?

It will never be the same world without you, Franny had promised, and she had been right. Anna, her green eyes.

Franny walked in the door of the house and up the stairs to the guest room. The bed had been made, sheets pulled taut. Franny did not unmake the bed, but lay down on top of the coverlet. As soon as she closed her eyes, Franny drifted to sleep.

In her dream, the front hallway of her childhood home. Texas heat, bearing down, a new jigsaw puzzle spread before her. A tall glass of lemonade, the smell of baking earth. A slant of sunlight on the wooden floor. All the blue pieces together first, the cardboard edges rough on her fingertips. She can hold only three pieces in one small palm. Her feet are bare. Uncle Jack watches TV in her parents’ living room. He is the only doctor in town, but he has taken a day off to babysit Franny on her parents’ anniversary. Uncle Jack is making hamburgers for dinner, and Franny can have a Coke and a popsicle too if she stays quiet.

Dust in the driveway, Sheriff Donald. His car is white and blue. His boots are dirty, don’t walk on the rug with dirty boots. Through the screen door his face is sad and strange. Franny, where is your Uncle Jack? Sheriff Donald and his boots on her puzzle. Franny sips lemonade. The ice is melted.

Donald shuts the door to the living room, but Franny can hear: car crash, drunk driver, both of them dead.

Uncle Jack’s voice is tight: I’ll handle it. Thanks.

Franny decides to put all the red pieces together, and then the blue. The puzzle will be a stop sign, she can see on the box. The door opens and Sheriff Donald steps on her puzzle again. What are you making, sweetheart? Franny does not answer. Dust in the driveway, and Franny is alone with Uncle Jack.

His hands are strong on her shoulders. God took your Mommy and Daddy, he says, and his voice is like an electric wire, shivering and stay away. He says, Don’t cry, Franny, they’re watching you from heaven. Don’t let them see you cry. The lemonade tastes sour, and Franny drops the glass. Uncle Jack slaps her, and the slap is hard and good. He slaps her and then leans down and grabs her fiercely in his arms.

T
he bikini arrives on Saturday in a fat brown package addressed to Mrs. Henry Mills, 2805 South First Street, Austin, TX 78701. I am sitting in my bathrobe in the front room, drinking coffee, when I see the mail truck pull up. The mailwoman’s navy shorts are tight, and I can’t help but think of the uncomfortable day she has ahead, what with polyester shorts and the temperature near a hundred. I make a mental note to tell Maureen that I am having positive thoughts. “I recognized at that point,” I will tell Maureen, “that I would rather be me, sitting in my air-conditioned house, than that fat mailwoman in her tight shorts.” Then it occurs to me that the mailwoman might have a fabulous husband at home, a husband who quite likes her shorts, and who is just waiting to jump her the minute she gets home from delivering bikinis to people like me.

I wait for the woman to head across my lawn to the house next door before I rise from the couch. Although I originally hated Henry’s soft couch (I think I may have, in fact, called it “a piece of shit”), after his death I decided to keep it. It smells like Henry, for one thing, and Priscilla likes it. My mother has suggested I clean house, has even offered to buy me a snazzy living room set with her new husband’s money, but I have decided that I like things the way they are. I would not tell my mother or Maureen, but there are still times that I press my face into the fabric of the couch, thinking of Henry in college, doing bong hits, even having sex with girls on the couch, playing poker, Henry in grad school, studying sheet music, Henry asleep on the ugly couch, his baby face smooth, his mouth. Sometimes I still pretend he is just away, on a trip, that he is coming home.

In the mailbox, I find an invitation from Jenny and Sean, and the bikini package. I throw away the invitation. Jenny and Sean were our best friends when Henry was alive. We met them at the dog park: when Priscilla wouldn’t stop playing with their dog, Henry invited them back to our house, letting both dogs jump in the back of our truck for the ride. After that, we’d make dinner together at least once a week, drink beer in the backyard, let our dogs run each other tired. We talked about our jobs—Jenny is a programmer and Sean a history teacher—and movies we liked. We went to their wedding at the Guadalupe River Ranch, and they were the first people we called as husband and wife, from a pay phone at the Elvis Chapel.

After Henry’s death, they stopped by all the time, bringing casseroles. Casseroles? We never ate them when Henry was alive. Why would I suddenly want to start eating platefuls of hot tuna? I stopped answering the door. I did not return their calls. Eventually, Sean and Jenny got the hint and let up. But they sent me an invitation to the shower for their first baby, two years ago. Then they sent me a picture of the little one.

Now, from the looks of the card in my trashcan, there’s another baby on the way. Priscilla looks at me. She misses Sean and Jenny’s pooch, a big mutt named Lefty. “Sorry,” I tell Priscilla. There are some things I’m just not interested in seeing, and Sean and Jenny’s cheery family is one of them. “They’ll probably serve casserole,” I tell Priscilla.

But back to the package. Both pieces of the bikini are in separate plastic bags. The magenta is even brighter than it was on the girl in the catalog. J. Crew has also included a pamphlet of new items and a coupon for five dollars off my next purchase. Priscilla has taken my spot on the couch, and she moves grumpily to the side when I sit back down. I open the pamphlet and sink into the lives in front of me: there I am, frolicking on a New England island, eating corn and crab, sitting on some lanky boy’s lap, my feet in the sand.

Why not do a Texas catalog? Sweaty teens making out by Barton Springs, adorable blondes drinking margaritas and eating nachos, snotty teachers microwaving Hot Pocket sandwiches in the teachers’ lounge? I think about what my personal J. Crew catalog would look like: lonely young woman talking to her dog while modeling madras culottes, librarian shelving books in an eggplant-colored tankini and wedge heels. I start to laugh, and Priscilla looks at me with pity. Maureen would not be pleased with this scenario.

I go into the bedroom to try on the bikini. Under my robe, I am wearing one of Henry’s Grateful Dead T-shirts. It was one of his greatest unhappinesses that he never took me to a Dead show. We planned on driving out to California or Kentucky, but work always got in the way, and then Henry was gone, and Jerry, too. I still play Henry’s bootleg tapes. His favorite show was in Oregon, in August of 1988. He would play the last song, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” on the stereo. He would lie down on the floor and close his eyes. The dog would lie beside him, and sometimes I would, too.

The bikini fits pretty damn well. I’ve lost weight in the last five years, which I tell my mother is one plus side of having your husband gunned down. Eating together had been a big thing for us, and I haven’t gotten the hang of liking food again since Henry’s death. I eat because I don’t like the dizzy feeling I get when I forget to eat. I have a cabinet of vitamins and energy shakes, which are easier than dealing with a fork and knife.