The Last Time I Saw You (3 page)

Last Sunday afternoon, Sarah Jane had driven the thirty miles from her house in Dayton to visit Mary Alice. While Mary Alice claimed her old place on the top porch step, Sarah Jane sat gently rocking herself on the porch swing, embroidering a face on David, giving him eyelashes to die for. She also brought over some lovely plaid pajamas she’d made for him. She included long sleeves that had been filled with cotton batting, in case Mary Alice wanted the feel of “arms” around her. Mary Alice mostly uses David to back up against and has no use for arms at all, but she didn’t tell her sister that. She told her it was a very good idea.

Mary Alice wonders sometimes if Sarah Jane doesn’t waste far too much time worrying about her; it makes Mary Alice worry about Sarah Jane. “You don’t need to keep coming
up
with things for me,” she wants to tell her sister. “You don’t have to bore your husband at the dinner table with your concerns about your old maid sister.” But in the way of most families, Mary Alice only accepts with gratitude the inappropriate gifts Sarah Jane gives her, aware of the fact that she undoubtedly gives Sarah Jane things her sister would happily do without.

While Sarah Jane sat working on David’s face, Mary Alice told her about receiving the invitation to the high school reunion. Her sister stopped rocking, stopped sewing. “God help us,” she said.

Mary Alice knew her sister had not enjoyed her own experience at their high school. Sarah Jane was five years older than Mary Alice, so they’d not been at that school at the same time, but they’d had many of the same teachers and knew many of the same people. Sarah Jane had been more popular than Mary Alice—she’d been blessed with better looks, and she knew better than Mary Alice how to behave in various situations. But to say she had been more popular than her sister was not to say she’d been popular per se. She’d been accepted, but she’d not been
in.
Sarah Jane was the kind of girl who was allowed to sit at the popular kids’ table because she would go and get more catsup for them or take individual blame for what was a group infraction. She would spend hours decorating the gym for dances where the elite were honored and from which she was often excluded, for lack of a date.

When she was in high school, Mary Alice had occasionally confided in Sarah Jane about the kind of treatment she endured—the way she was mostly ignored except when she was teased. Once, on Valentine’s Day, she’d found fake dog shit put into a candy box and left in her locker. Mary Alice had thought that was kind of funny. It was actually almost flattering, because it was the kind of weird thing some of the popular kids did to each other. She didn’t tell Sarah Jane that, though. It used to make Sarah Jane crazy that Mary Alice was so unperturbed about the way kids treated her. Sarah Jane tried to help Mary Alice by offering makeovers or trips to the mall to enliven her wardrobe, but it was no use. Mary Alice made a fair amount of money delivering newspapers, but she would never use any of it on clothes or makeup. At first, she spent it on supplies for her microscope: slide covers and probes and fixatives—Mary Alice had from the age of nine been a card-carrying member of the Junior Scientists of America Club. By the time she was in high school, she spent all her money on record albums and on paperback books—she couldn’t get enough of either. Why moon about not being invited to a party when you could listen to Bob Dylan? What date could compete with
Nine Stories
? She held out hope that, when she got to college, she’d be appreciated, and in some respects, she was right: she was appreciated when she was in college. She wasn’t popular, but she was appreciated.

“So are you going?” Sarah Jane asked. She kept her voice light, but Mary Alice figured her sister’s blood was boiling.

“I thought I might.”

There was a thick silence until Mary Alice finally sighed and said, “What.”

Sarah Jane looked up. “What? I didn’t say anything!”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Mary Alice, I mean… What can you possibly
gain
?”

“I don’t know. These are people I used to know, so long ago! I’m curious to see how they turned out.”

“I can tell you how they turned out. They were assholes then, and they’ll be assholes now.”

“Oh come on. People grow up.”

Sarah Jane sniffed. “Some people do.” She stabbed at the fabric with her needle. Then she gasped and looked wide-eyed at Mary Alice. “You aren’t going there to see some secret
crush
, are you?”

“No,” Mary Alice said. “Not at all. No.”

“Oh, my God. You are, too! You’re going to see
Pete Decker
, aren’t you? That guy whose pictures from the newspaper you had up on your bedroom wall. Pete Decker, right? The football player, the prom king, president of the student council.”

“Vice president,” Mary Alice said. “Tom Gunderson was president.”

“Mary Alice, listen to me, for once in your life. Believe me when I tell you: It is not a good idea to go to this thing. Everybody thinks things will be different at a reunion, but they’re not: everybody just gets right back into their old roles from high school. It’s awful. Those people won’t want to see you now any more than they did then. They won’t give you a second chance, believe me.”

“You went to your fifth- and tenth-year reunions,” Mary Alice said, and Sarah Jane said, a little too loudly, “Right! So I know what it’s like! I was an idiot to go twice. A
masochist
! I should have brought Richard, because all I did both times
—both times!—
was sit at a table and eat maraschino cherries from watered-down drinks. I’ll probably get cancer from all the red dye I consumed at those reunions.”

Mary Alice spoke gently. “It’s the
fortieth
reunion, Sarah Jane. And it’s the last. It will be my only chance to ever go to a high school reunion. However imperfect it might have been, that time in high school is part of my life. I want to go and somehow revisit it. And I think it
will
be different.”

Sarah Jane waved her arm. “Fine. Go, then. I’m just thinking of you. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

“Oh, they never hurt me.”

Sarah Jane stared at her until finally Mary Alice said, “Look. I appreciate your concern. I really do. But I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

Mary Alice laughed. “No, that’s okay.”

“Well, are you bringing Marion at least? You’ll need an ally, Mary Alice. You’ll need someone from your life now who really cares about you. You’ll need someone who can defend you if… something happens.”

Marion, a tall, pleasant-looking Polish man, is the owner of a construction company the next town over. He likes Mary Alice a lot, and occasionally they go out to eat or to a movie. But Marion doesn’t speak much English. They mostly communicate with smiles and gestures, which actually suits Mary Alice fine. It seems graceful and kind, the way they talk. It seems
of the essence
, somehow. But she told her sister, “No. I’m going alone.” Even as she said this, though, a little doubt crept in and she began to wonder.
Was
it so bad to go alone?
Should
someone go with her, just in case? But just in case
what
? What could possibly happen that would be so harmful?

Her sister is set on not believing it, but Mary Alice feels both secure and happy. She thinks she was born content, and she’s grateful for that. She’s not an insensitive person, but she has learned not to let hurt take up residence inside her. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but she learned long ago that she doesn’t have to buy into what someone else says or thinks about her.

So yes, she is going to the reunion. She has narrowed her choices for what to wear down to two outfits: either a charcoal gray suit with a silvery blue blouse, a pearl necklace, and matching stud earrings, or a long black skirt with silver stars on it—she bought that skirt at a recycled clothing shop on a day she was feeling a little wild. It would be worn with a three-quarter-sleeved black V-necked top, the top quite low. Mary Alice hunched over to hide her breasts in high school, but now she does not hide them because they are beautiful—she blushes every time she thinks of Marion telling her that one night when they were making out in his construction truck. Just a little, they were making out. Each seemed afraid of going very far physically, though not
afraid
afraid. It was more like a don’t-let’s-break-this-thing-that’s-not-broken fear. But that night Marion had kissed her breasts so sweetly and then looked up at her and sighed. He’d sat up and made a cupped-hand, up-and-down motion and said, “Beautiful. Still on high.” When she got home, she’d stood naked before her bathroom mirror and thought,
He’s right.
And she’d experienced a small rush of surprise, of delight, as if she’d walked into her bedroom and found a gift on her pillow.

“Well…
thank
you,” she’d told Marion. What
does
one say in a situation like that? Mary Alice had never understood combining talking with sex. Do whatever you’re doing and
then
talk, is what she thinks. Otherwise, it’s like trying to listen to two conversations at once. In college, she once watched a porn movie with a couple of her dorm mates. One scene showed a woman lying beneath a man saying, “Oh, do it to me, do it to me, fuck me
hard
,” and Mary Alice had no idea why the man didn’t rear up and say, “I
am
!”

Mary Alice stares out Einer’s bedroom window and decides that she’ll wear the low-cut top and the starry skirt, and she thinks with it she’ll wear big silver hoop earrings and many silver bangle bracelets. But then she worries how her glasses will look with that. Oh, enough! She’ll decide what to wear on the night she’s getting ready for the reunion: an answer will come to her.

Einer has taken one more bite than she asked him to, and she rewards him with a kiss on the top of his head. Then she helps him out onto the porch and begins to read the newspaper’s front-page stories to him—he can no longer see to read. She’s barely gotten through a paragraph when he starts in: “Oh, what the hell is Congress
doing
? In my day, a man had a thing between his ears called a brain, and guess what? He used it!” He’ll settle down by the time she gets to the advice columns. They like to talk about what advice they’d give before Mary Alice reads the answers the columnist actually wrote.

Today, when she gets to the advice columns, she makes up a question. She keeps her eyes on the newspaper, as though she is reading, and says, “I am a middle-aged woman who has been invited to a high school reunion. I was not very popular in school and was often picked on. Should I expect that I might have a good time anyway?” She lets the question hang in the air, then says, “Hmmm. What do you think?”

Einer scrunches forward. “Don’t you even think about going. Don’t give those bastards the pleasure of your company.”

“That’s what you’d tell her?”

“That’s what I’m telling
you
.”

She looks away, and he says, “Everything’s shot but my mind. You of all people ought to know that. Don’t forget my wife taught music at that high school. She knew what went on. She used to tell me about how those kids treated you and your sister. So, they’re having a reunion, are they? Coming back to the old hometown they couldn’t wait to get away from. You’re not going, are you?”

“Well, yes. I am.”

He grunts, adjusts himself in his chair. Then he leans forward and says, “I’m going with you, then,” and she laughs, though a part of her thinks,
Well, why not?
This could be exactly what she needs: an ally who won’t get in the way of anything.

“When we’re there, if anyone says one snide thing to you, you help me out of my chair and I’ll give them what for.”

“Okay, Einer.”

“I’m serious about this. You think I’m kidding? I’m serious! Where is it, anyway? At the school?”

“No, it’s at the Westmore Hotel, out on Thirty-three.”

“That’s not but ten, fifteen minutes away. Short drive.”

“Right.”

“When is it?”

“Next weekend.”

“Well, if I’m still here, I’m going.”

“You’ll be here,” she says, though she’s aware that he might not be, actually.

He sits back in his chair. “Punks,” he mutters.

“Some of them were nice,” Mary Alice says. “A lot of them were.”

“Yeah. We’ll sit at
their
table. All two of them.”

Rita, Einer’s caregiver, pulls up to the curb, and Mary Alice goes to help her carry in groceries.

“You will not believe what happened at the grocery store,” Rita says. “I met the nicest man, over by the lettuce; he was all confused about what kind to buy. I helped him out and then we just got to talking, you know? When I said I had to go, he asked for my number, and I gave it to him. Oh, I hope he calls. I hope he does! Do you know how long it’s been since I went out with a man?”

Mary Alice doesn’t answer, thinking the question is rhetorical, but then when Rita says, “
Do
you?” Mary Alice dutifully responds, “No. How long has it been?”

“Well, it’s been seven
months
,” Rita says. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Mary Alice does not find this ridiculous. But, “
Wow!
” she says. And then, “I’m sure he’ll call you.”

“Oh, I hope so. And if he does, promise me you’ll stay with Einer? I don’t want to turn him down on the first date; I want to say yes to any night he proposes. Will you promise?”

“I promise,” Mary Alice says. It’s a pretty safe bet she won’t have any other plans.

FOUR

P
ETE
D
ECKER HAS JUST CHEATED ON HIS MISTRESS WITH HIS
wife, Nora. Now he sits at her kitchen table, watching her scramble eggs for him. Her ass shakes in that unattractive way that used to practically nauseate him, but now he sees it as comforting. And this woman knows
how
to scramble eggs, as opposed to Sandy, the woman he’s been living with for the last three and a half months. That one makes scrambled eggs that come out like hard little yellow balls. He dropped Sandy off at the day spa this morning so that she could have her
stress
relieved. Though what she has to be stressed about, he has no idea. All she does is read magazines and natter on to her girlfriends and watch
The Housewives
this and
The Housewives
that and shop. On his dime. What a terrible mistake he has made. His kids will hardly speak to him, his office mates talk behind his back, and he’s having an increasingly hard time getting it up. Never thought it would happen to him. Never! Not so young, anyway—he’s only fifty-nine! (Though he’s told Sandy he’s fifty.) His dad was sticking it to them when he was
eighty—
he got laid the day before he
died
!

Well, Pete’s not taking those damn boner pills. One reason is, he heard those things don’t always work; two, they can cause vision and hearing loss. Wouldn’t that just be perfect: he’d take a pill to amp up his sex life and end up with the trifecta of turnoffs. He’d be a limp-dicked guy, squinting into somebody’s face and yelling, “
WHAT’s that?
”

Another reason he’s not taking those pills is that it turns out Sandy’s not worth it. If only he’d known that she drew on her eyebrows and wore false eyelashes, that she went to bed with purple crap on her face every night, that the vacuousness he had initially found so charming—such a
relief
!—would so soon wear thin. He’d only been living with her for two weeks when she got lazy about her appearance. The truth is, Sandy is a slob and a slacker. If you suffer under the illusion that all women are natural-born housekeepers, well, just come over and have a look at their place. They’d probably get evicted if anyone ever saw the kitchen or the bathroom. Sandy is great-looking, no one can deny that. Built, too, oh, sweet Jesus, built! But a slob and a slacker and a bore. What a terrible mistake he has made.

Nora puts the eggs down in front of him, perfect, fluffy eggs accompanied by the kind of bread that’s good for you but tastes good anyway, and a little bowl of fresh fruit all cut up nice. “Thanks,” he says. “Sandy mostly gives me Pop-Tarts.”

“Well,” Nora says. “Her cooking is not why you moved in with her. And you know, you could try cooking yourself sometimes.”

It frustrates Pete, the way Nora defends Sandy, frustrates and mystifies him. He supposes it’s really a way of getting back at him, a way of saying
You made your bed
. But still, shouldn’t a wife be bitter and outraged about a mistress? Nothing’s working out the way he thought it would!

“How are the kids?” he asks. He can’t look at her when he asks this. It hurts too much.

“Didn’t Katie call you?”

“She might have; I haven’t looked yet today to see if I have any cellphone messages.” This is a lie; he has looked, he’s always looking, but his kids never call. If he wants to talk to them, he has to be the one to place the call. And then, when they show him the great honor of picking up, which is about one third of the time he calls, they make it plain they can’t wait to get off the phone. They treat him a little like he’s nuts. Which he guesses he was. But he’s not, anymore. He’s back.

“Huh!” Nora says. “She said she was going to call you yesterday.”

“Well, what
is
it? Is she okay? Is it something bad?”

“No, nothing bad,” Nora says, and then she smiles. “It’s really nice news, actually.”

“Nora. What is it?”

“I think I should let her tell you.”

“Is she…” Pete sits back in his chair. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she? Oh, man, is she
pregnant
?!” Their twenty-seven-year-old daughter has been trying to conceive for two years. Last Pete knew, she was going to wait a couple more months and then start in with a fertility doctor.

Again, Nora smiles, but says nothing.

“No kidding, she’s going to have a baby! That’s great news!” But then the fact of his daughter’s pregnancy suddenly slams into his brain and he realizes that if she’s a mother, he’ll be a grandfather. Him, a grandfather! Is he ready for that? An uncle, okay, but a
grandfather
? Is Nora okay with it? Is she ready to be a grandmother? Judging by her soft, pleased expression, he guesses she is. He forces himself to smile and says, “I’m going send her the biggest bouquet of flowers they can make. All… pink and blue!”

“Wait for her to tell you,” Nora says. “I don’t want her to think I betrayed her; she asked me not to say anything. She said she would tell you, and I’m sure she will, when she’s ready.”

Betray
. He looks down at his eggs and takes another bite. “Thanks for making me breakfast, Nora. It’s really good. You know?” His throat is tight. What, now he’s going to
cry
? He bites down hard on his back molars, swallows away the feeling. “Thanks for everything.” Now he looks into her face and smiles. The woman may be thirty-five years older than Sandy, but she has her own eyebrows, for Christ’s sake. And her smile is still dynamite. And the sex he just had with her was almost like it was when they first started. What a mistake he has made.

“How are the boys?” he asks. Their older son, Pete Jr., is having problems with his wife, though he’s assured his mother he wants to work it out. He and his wife, Karen, are in therapy together. Pete himself has often said he’d never go to marriage counseling. But guess what? He’ll do it now. He’ll sit there and listen to all the bullshit and promise the moon. And deliver it.

Their younger son, Cal, is trying yet again to start up a business: selling boats, this time, God help him. Cal doesn’t know a thing about boats. But he says he’ll learn. Cal’s a happy, wildly optimistic soul; it takes a lot to make him feel bad or discouraged about anything. His wife, Sunny, is aptly named: she’ll go along with anything Cal wants to do. And her family mints money: if worse comes to worst, they can always get a loan from them.

“The boys are okay,” Nora says. “Pete and Karen are going to Paris.”

“Wow. So their problems are over.” Pete imagines his son and daughter-in-law cuddled together on a nighttime flight to Paris.
Business
class. Pete Jr. would no doubt fall for that upgrade bullshit when the truth is that an airplane seat is hell no matter where on the plane it is. Save your money for when you get where you’re going, is what Pete would like to tell him. But Paris, that’s nice, he guesses. Very romantic place, he’s heard. He should have taken Nora there, she always used to talk about wanting to go to Paris. But then she just gave up.

“No, their problems aren’t over,” Nora says. “They’re just trying really hard. They say they want to work it out, they want to try to stay together. It’s hard. But Cal! Cal is
great
! You won’t believe it, but in the last week, he got three orders for yachts. Big ones!”

“How in the hell did he do that?”

“Well, he’s got his father’s charm and he’s also connected to a lot of people that Sunny’s family knows. And you know how it is; even in a bad economy, the rich still spend money.”

Pete wipes up the last of his scrambled eggs with the last bite of toast. Perfect breakfast. “How are you fixed for funds?”

“I’m fine.”

“Why don’t I leave you a couple hundred?”

“I’m
fine
, Pete.” She leans in closer to him. “Pete? Listen, I… What we just did? I feel bad about it. And I think you need to tell Sandy that it happened.”

“Ah, jeez.”

“If you admit it—and I think it’s only fair that you do—you’ll get to some problems in your relationship that you obviously need to face up to. And I’m going to tell Fred, too.”

“You’re… Fred who?”

“Fred Preston.”

Pete can hardly contain his outrage. “You’re involved with
Fred Preston
?” The wimpy guy down the block. Widower. Always wearing a hat so he won’t get
skin cancer
. Runs every day in
a jogging outfit
.

“Yes, I am. I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

“Fred
Preston
?You are fucking shitting me!”

“Do you mind watching your language?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“He’s actually a very interesting man.”

Pete snorts. “Yeah, well, he’d better be. Not much else to recommend him.”

Nora stands and starts clearing the dishes. “Not true. I think he’s quite good-looking.”

“Oh,
please
.”

She turns from the sink to look over at him. “Well, you may not think so.”

“Oh, come on, Nora. You’re
attracted
to him?”

She raises an eyebrow, lifts one shoulder.

“And you’re going to tell him we had sex.”

“Yes, I am. I am interested in having a completely honest relationship, for a change. I’m going to say I had a little slip, but it won’t happen again.”

Pete lowers his voice to what he hopes is a sexy register. “Are you sure?” He wishes Nora would look at him. He has gorgeous turquoise eyes, god damn it.

She comes back to the table and sits down with him. “Pete. Listen to me. We’re done. I want to finalize the divorce.”

Her words actually take his breath away. They make for a deep pain right in the center of his chest.

He speaks rapidly. “But I’m getting out, Nora. I’m leaving her. I was just going to tell you that. You think I haven’t been regretting what I’ve done since the day I left? What we did here today… I understand something now.

“I want to come back. I’ll tell Sandy this afternoon and then, right afterward, I’ll pack my bags and come home. Let me come home, Nora. Everything will be so different, you’ll see. I didn’t mean all those things I said the day I left. How could I have meant those things? I was just frustrated about… I don’t know. About everything, I guess. But I didn’t mean those things, Nora! Please! Do you believe me?”

“Yes. I believe you.”

He closes his eyes, exhales. “Oh, God, thank you, honey. Thank you.” He can’t wait. He’ll pack just a few… No. Fuck it. He’ll leave everything in that crap condo Sandy couldn’t live without. He never wants to go back there again. Let her have everything. All he wants is to have his family back, that’s all he wants. Once again, he feels the burn of tears. “I want you to know, babe, that I—”

“Pete,” she says.
“Don’t
. I know you really meant what you just said. But I mean what I said, too. I’ll be your friend, we’ll co-parent the kids, but…” She shrugs. “It’s over. Such a silly word for such a serious thing, it seems like such a cliché to say it, so Roy Orbison. But it’s true. We’ve come to the end, there’s no going forward for you and me. And I’m not even… I’m not hurt anymore. I’m not bitter or angry. The kids are, but they’re working that out. And I’m trying to help them with it. This has been coming for a long time, Pete. I knew it was coming; you must have, too. I guess I had more time to get ready than I’d thought. In the back of my mind, I think I’d resigned myself long ago to our not staying together.

“Look, down the road, I can see us all having dinner together, you and Sandy, and me and Fred, and the kids… and the grandkids! Things will all work out. But, Pete, you have to listen to me, now. You have to hear me. I don’t want to live with you again. It wasn’t good for me, as it turns out. I’m happier now.” She sighs. “I’m sorry, pal.”

“Aw, Christ. Don’t call me
‘pal
.’”

“I always call you that.”

“Yeah, but now it means something different.” He stares miserably at the table, where the sun has come through the window to illuminate his hands. They are clenched so tightly together his knuckles are white. He separates them and clears his throat. “Hey, Nora? Did you get the invitation to our fortieth high school reunion?”

“Yes. I threw it away.”

“You’re not going?”

“When have I ever gone to one of our reunions? I didn’t RSVP, but Pam will figure it out. Not that she was the brightest girl.
Nice
, though. And always so cheerful! She always said hi to you every time she passed you in the hall, remember? ‘Oh,
hi
!’ in that real excited way, even if she’d
just seen
you. She’d say hi and wave. Once she started to wave to me and she dropped all her books. I helped her pick them up and we bumped heads and it really
hurt
. And then we couldn’t stop laughing, we were just sitting on the floor and laughing and then we were late for class.” Nora shakes her head, smiling. “God. Pam Pottsman. I haven’t thought about her in years. Maybe I will call and tell her I’m not coming. I’ll catch up with her a little bit.”

“Don’t call!” Pete says, so loudly that Nora jumps.

“Sorry,” he says, and smashes down the hair at the back of his head, a nervous habit he hates. “Don’t call her,” he says again. “Or do call, but say you’re coming. Say you’re coming with me.”

“But I’m not coming with you!”

“Will you? Please? It’s the last one!”

“Pete. No.”

He gets up and stands before her. He holds her familiar face in his hands—oh, God, look at her. “Nora. I fucked up big-time. I know it. I fucked up for years. I’m
sorry
. I
heard
you, when you said we were done, I heard you, okay?”

She starts to respond and he talks over her. “No. No. Listen to me. We were married for a long time, Nora. A long time, you know? Why don’t you just think about going with me? That’s all I’m asking. Just think about it. I know it wouldn’t necessarily mean anything. But if you’d go with me, I’d be so—”

“Pete, I can’t. Fred and I are going on a trip that weekend.”

He can’t speak. He stares at her and feels again that terrible ripping sensation in his chest.