The Weight of Gravity (18 page)

             
In an instant, with a single word, Max had touched her to the core.  Emotions from two decades past washed over her.  “No one has called me that in a very long time.  Not since ... you.”

             
They left the store and she joined him in the Jaguar – questioning her wisdom until the very last instant before the door closed.  He headed out of Cottonwood, seeming to her that he was unsure of where he wanted to go.  Soon, they were headed up highway eighty-two, climbing the switchbacks toward the Mescalero and Sacramento Mountains, toward Pine Meadow.  They drove in and out of the shadows that washed down from the mountaintops on either side.  Dusk, then darkness, settled into the Tularoso basin behind them.  Mesquite scrub gave way to wild oak that yielded to cottonwood until they were surrounded by pine forest. 

In the silence between them, Erika heard their young voices echo in her mind.

             
“Pop was overly generous letting us use the Oldsmobile tonight.”

             
“He’s a nice man, Max.  I wish you two got along.  He’s always nice to me.”

             
“He’s nice to anything young and wearing a short skirt.”

             
“Oh, thanks.  That’s a mean thing to say.  Your father doesn’t think of me that way.”

             
Same road … same man.  Different car … different time. 
Erika couldn’t remember when, but sometime in the twenty minute drive Max took her hand and she let him hold it.  It seemed natural and unimportant for the moment. 
Not like we’ve never held hands.
  There was no need to talk.  Not now.  The drive and being alone together was enough.

             
When they rounded the last switchback and pulled into the lethargic village, Max turned onto a familiar gravel road that led up a steep grade to the top of an outcropping of rock.  Pine Meadows’ main road was on one side of them now, and the lights from the valley and the city of Cottonwood were far away, below them, on the other side.

             
The road ended when they came to a dark structure.  At first glance, it looked like a cabin with no one home.  On second sight, it was obvious that the building had been ravaged by fire.

             
“I heard it burned,” she said.

             
“There didn’t seem much need to rebuild since Pop had passed away the year before.”

             
They got out of the car.  He took her hand again and they walked to a bluff that dropped off several hundred feet.  Cradled in a valley below, halfway down the mountain, was Heart Canyon Lake.  The surface of the water was a mirror that captured the sunset and set the water on fire.  At the bottom of the mountain range was the desert flatland of the Tularosa Basin.

             
“Pop had a great view,” he sighed.

             
“
We
had a great view,” she said.  She looked back at the cabin and saw a porch swing with two teenagers huddled tightly together on a warm summer night.  He smelled of Od Spice cologne and her eye shadow was too heavy.  Erika could see them sitting there still, wrapped in their blanket of youthful emotion, watching the growing shadows in the valley below. “Somehow I knew you’d bring me back to the cabin, even though there’s hardly anything left.” 

             
“A lot happened here, Reeki.”

             
“I was here, Max.  I vividly remember what happened.  It changed my life.”

             
Max leaned in to kiss her and she turned away. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.  It won’t help either of us, and could make things worse,” she told him.  “We’re in a diff
erent place now then when we stood here last.”

             
“You’re right, as usual.  You were always the voice of reason in our relationship.”

             
“You were the hot-headed writer,” she said.

             
“And you loved it.”

             
“I loved you, Max.  But that was then,” she quickly added.

             
Max spoke of his writing successes and failures, about his life in New York City, his inability to date anyone long enough to establish a meaningful relationship, and his consuming sadness in recent years. 

Erika talked about Jay -- her favorite subject – about his difficult birth and wonderful childhood.  She mentioned Garner’s absence on the day Jay was born.  “Incredibly important business deal in California,” she said with no hint of disappointment.  She stayed away from telling Max about Jay’s problems with drugs and her inability to connect with her son any longer.  Erika also chose not to mention her affair with Darrell; too complex a subject, she reasoned, to bring into their brief conversation.

              An hour later they took a moment to stroll through the shell of the cabin before heading down the mountain.  He took her hand again and she gave it willingly.

             
“Thank you, Reeki,” he said when he left Erika with her own car, parked along the curb in front of the bookstore.  He handed her a business card with his cell number.  “I’d like to see you again before I leave.  Please call.”

             
“Take care, Max.”

              “Hello, dear,” Garner said, as she walked through the door.  “Nice to see you found your way home.”

             
“I thought you and Darrell were working late.”

             
“Planned on that, did you?”  He clinked the ice in his tumbler of scotch.

             
“Garn, are you trying to make a point with this conversation?”  She threw her coat over a wall separating the vestibule from the front room. 
He knows something.

             
“So, where were you?”

             
“I went for a drive,” she told him, trying hard not to let him see her hands shaking.

             
“Really?  Where’d you go?”

             
“Garn, this is getting third-degree.  If you have something to say, will you please say it?  I told you earlier I had to go to the cleaners and the photographers, and then I took a drive out to visit with Miriam.”

             
“Funny.”

             
“Where’s the humor, Garn?”

             
“Let’s try again, shall we?”   He clinked the ice more vigorously.  “Where ya been, Sweetie?”

             
“Enough already, I have dinner to make.”  Erika moved into the hallway leading to the kitchen, but she knew he wouldn’t let it go.  Garner would be right behind her.  The traits that made him an aggressive, bite-and-don’t-let-go trail lawyer, made him very dangerous when he was angry.

             
“I already ate,” he called after her, slamming his tumbler on the bar so loudly that she was certain he’d spilled his drink.

             
“Jay hasn’t,” she shouted back.

             
“How would you know?  He isn’t here, E.”

             
“Where is he, Garn?”

             
Suddenly he was behind her, pinning her against the kitchen counter.  “Hell if I know, babe.  That’s your territory, not mine.” 

She struggled to turn and face him.

“Nurturer,” he said, pressing his nearly empty glass against her chest, the moisture and scotch residue seeping into her blouse.  “Provider,” he said, holding the empty glass to his tie.  “That’s your job, if you can call it that, not mine.  And you ain’t been doin’ it so well lately.  You know what I mean?”

             
“Get out of my face, Garn.”  She pushed past him.  “About time you started taking an interest in your son’s life.”  She opened the refrigerator.

             
“Like I said, Sweet ‘ums, ...”

             
His threatened violence scared her, but also gave her the gift of anger.  “I know what you said.  I don’t have to agree with you.”

             
“Let’s go back to the question you’re trying your damnedest to avoid.  Where the fuck have you been for the last four hours?”

             
She threw vegetables from the refrigerator on the island counter.  “I told you.  I went to see Miriam.”

             
“No, you didn’t.  Miriam and George are out of town.  George was in the office last week bragging about the cruise.  They were leaving the next morning.  One ... more ... time!  Shall we?  Where in the holy fuck have you been for the last four ...
god, don’t you dare lie to me
... fucking hours?”

             
“You’ve been drinking, Garn.”

             
“Not enough.”  He sat at the kitchen island and slid his glass across the marble top at her so forcefully that she had to stop it from falling to the tile floor.  “Not nearly enough.”

             
“Okay.  You tell me where
you
think I’ve been.”
              “Not with Miriam.  Not at the photographers and cleaners, because they closed two hours ago.  And not at the bookstore, even though your car was parked there.”

             
“How the hell do you know?”  Erika hadn’t expected this.  Garner was fishing.  He knew more than he was admitting.  How much should she tell him?  He had her at a disadvantage.  He’d caught her in a lie. 
Where do we go from here? The best defense, as they say.
  “Were you spying on me?”

             
“Do I need to?”

             
“Let’s stop playing games.”
              “That sounds good to me.  Your car was at the bookstore ... you weren’t,” he said.  “This has something to do with Max Rosen, doesn’t it?”

             
“Max Rosen?”  Shit, she had to be careful.  How much did Garner know?  “Yes, I saw Max Rosen.  I told you that.”

             
“You saw him at the bookstore a day or so ago.  Did you see him again today?”             

             
Careful, careful.
  “Yes, I saw him today.  He was shopping at the bookstore.  We went for a drive ... we talked.”

             
Garner nodded his head, as if he’d finally heard the truth.  He turned and headed down the hall.

             
“How’d you know my car was at the bookstore?”

             
Garner turned and stepped back into the kitchen.  “How did I what?”

             
“How’d you know I saw Max Rosen?”

             
“I didn’t.   You told me that.  Darrell saw your car on the way home and called on his cell to say he thought it odd you were playing piano at the bookstore on a Monday.  I say, ‘she doesn’t play at the bookstore on Mondays’ and he says, ‘Yeah, well, maybe I’m mistaken, but it looks like your wife’s car.’  So I drove over and, sure enough, it was yours.”

             
“Let me guess.  Darrell also mentioned Max’s name.”

             
“As a matter of fact, he did.  Said he thought he saw him at the bookstore, too.”

             
“Okay, I got it.  You put two-and-two together and figured I was with Max Rosen.”

             
“Something like that, yeah.  So, tell me what’s wrong with my math.”

             
Okay, cat’s out of the bag and Garner’s had too much to drink.  He knows I was with Max.  It can’t get a lot worse than this.
 

Suddenly,
inextricably Erika felt sorry for him.  His enormous ego was bruised.  His trophy wife had been with another man.  Ironic that the person Garner should have been worried about was the person who gave him the clues about Max.  She’d look for a way to get even with Darrell.  Right now the best course of action was to tell Garner the truth ... the whole truth?  She was with Max and nothing happened.  She’d been with Darrell ... many times ... and a hell of a lot happened.  Could Garner take the truth?  Did she have it in her to hit him that hard?

             
“Garner, nothing happened with Max.”

             
“So, why lie?”

             
“Because I knew you’d make a big deal about it ... and you are.”

             
Garner was intelligent, she thought.  She was killing him with reason.  Would his intellect take over, or would the alcohol take him down a dirty road into territory that could potentially damage their marriage?  Big question was, what did she want?  Where did she want to go with this?  Max wasn’t an option, Darrell even less so.  Her marriage was on shaky ground, but there were no other options.