Living Room (33 page)

She dozed, but only for seconds, it seemed. Then she drifted off again, but when she blinked at the clock later, only a few minutes had passed. Better out of bed and on one’s feet and into the shower. Standing under the stream of water, she imagined herself in the rain outside, her head a wastebasket for God’s discarded thoughts.

What kind of man was God anyway, giving well-meaning people a zest for work and an aversion to pleasure? What kind of trickster would stick the Hebrews with a zeal for pursuing justice in an unjust world? What kind of madman made Lenin, Mao, Henry Ford, Meredith Peabody? Did He drive Margaret into the wall, make Julie live?

If God were a woman, would She have bitched things up with opium, capitalism, communism? Would a woman be tuned to the pleasure of her senses, not the obliteration of pain, not to the hoarding of wealth, the pretense of nirvana? She’d know better.

Shirley turned the hot faucet handle off, let the cold water stream full force till, shivering, she was fully, finally awake, freed of her imaginings and her discourse with heaven. If it were no longer going to be a man’s world, we’d have to share the responsibility for the inevitable mismanagement of the race.

She dried herself off, dressed, found Al sitting up in bed.

“Got a turrible code,” he snuffled.

“Vitamin C in the house?”

“Too late,” his nose said. “Got to get Julie back to Meadowbrook. How can I drive with a head like this?”

“I’ll drive.”

“Work? Office?”

“Day off, remember? Julie wet her bed.”

“Always,” said Al, blowing his nose. “Help her get dressed. Please. Don’t want to give her my code.”

He reached into the night-table drawer, took out a thermometer, shook it down, put it between his lips, leaned back against the pillows, exhausted.

In her room, Julie was standing up naked, looking not five or six years old, but three. She had slipped her pajamas off, seemed unable to manage her underclothes. Shirley helped her. Julie now seemed to appreciate the help. Something was getting through. Gratitude for small favors. Strangers appreciate courtesy more than friends, more than family.

She went back to Al, who was reading the thermometer through red-rimmed eyes.

“What’s it say?”

“Keep away. A hundred three point something.”

“Flu.”

He nodded.

“Will she let me drive her to Meadowbrook?”

Al shook his head. “Won’t understand why I’m not going. Scare her.”

“How long does it take?”

“How’s weather?”

“Raining heavily.”

“Two hours in good weather. Could take nearly three in this. Five, six hours round trip.”

“You’d better stay in bed. Could we phone there, keep her another day or two?”

He shook his head again. “Peabody might phone there. Julie’s supposed to be with me for twenty-four-hours max per visit. He’d raise hell.”

“I’ll drive her back. It’s got to let up sometime. Can I get you breakfast?”

Al shook his head.

“Tea?”

He nodded.

Shirley checked her watch. “Better get started soon. I’ll make breakfast for her, grab something myself, soon as I check in with the office to see what’s in the mail.”

“Have to? Day off?”

“Slave reflex,” she said.

Twitchy answered. “Nothing in the mail, one sexually oriented material, want me to save it?”

“Put it in an interoffice envelope for Marvin.”

“One phone message. Mrs. Bialek. Know her?”

“What she say?”

“The message was here when I got here. Just says to call.”

“Thanks.”

Shirley called her father’s number. There was no answer. Odd. Only nine-thirty.

She got some oatmeal into Julie, and having watched Al’s technique with the milk the night before, managed half a glass. No wonder Julie was so thin if getting in food was so wearying.

“Will you be all right?” she asked Al.

He nodded his thanks. Shirley saw that he had fluffed up his pillows, put the aspirin beside his bed, as well as the brown phone book so he could call the doctor if necessary. This house is terribly isolated, she thought, except for the phone. Lifeline to the outside, completely at the mercy of an incompetent monopoly. She
imagined Al dialing the doctor, getting a recording: “The number
you have reached is not a working number.” If God inspired Alexander Graham Bell, what devil encouraged all those telephone-company executives to let the system slip from worse to worse? She heard the nasal twang of an operator say, “It takes two to make capitalism, dear. We have a monopoly. Want to play monopoly? What wrong number do you want?”

Careful, Shirley,
she said to herself.

A raincoat over her head, she dashed to the car, got the map out
of the glove compartment.

Inside, Al traced the route with the thermometer case.

“Sorry,” he said, “mainly secondary roads all the way.”

“I’m not understanding your postnasal voice.”

He repeated the route slowly.

“What if Julie has to pee on the way?” Shirley asked.

“Ode blanket in the trunk. Put under her. Strap her in with seat belt in back, right side, not behind you. She subtimes grabs for my hair when I drive.”

“You sound terrible.”

“Don’t know wad I’d do if you hadn’t come. You are heavensent.”

“Better shut up.”

“Lock the doors in back. Drive carefully. Don’t get into accident.”

*

Before switching on the ignition, Shirley traced the roads to Meadowbrook twice on the Mobil map. Getting lost in this downpour could make it a nightmare ride. She checked Julie in the rear-view mirror. The girl, strapped in her seat with a blanket under her, seemed quiet enough, looking out the window at the streaming rain.

Shirley turned the key. The engine started. She checked the windshield wipers at both speeds, left them on high. The fan worked; it would presumably warm up once the engine got hot. Damn, she hadn’t checked the tires. Pulling her raincoat collar up she got out into the downpour again, and quickly circumnavigated the car to check each wheel. The tires looked all right. When she got back in, Julie was looking at her as if Shirley were crazy. Well, why not, getting out in the wet to dance around the car! She smiled at Julie, but the girl was studying the rain.

They were on the road about a half-hour when the engine missed the first time, a loud noise coming at the same time as a slight lurch, then nothing, then a put-put-put sound like an outboard. Shirley glanced at the gas gauge in alarm. She hadn’t thought to check the most obvious thing! Al hadn’t said a word about being low in gas—well would he, his head fogged up that way? God! Not a village, house, or gas station in sight. With the car bucking, she pulled over to the side of the road.

Wait! When she had gotten the blanket for Julie out of the trunk of the car, she had seen a red plastic two-gallon can. At least that would get her to the next station.

She hated wearing that plastic idiot bonnet she kept in the pocket of her raincoat, but her hair was still wet from checking the tires and getting Julie into the back of the car. She put the bonnet on, pulled up her raincoat collar again, glanced at herself in the rear-view mirror, ugh!, and got out, raced around to the back, she had forgotten the trunk key attached to the ignition key, went back, got it, back to the trunk, opened it, yes the red can was there, picked it up, heavy, it was full, unscrewed the cap, then undid the gas tank cap, and was about to pour when, luckily, the absence of a gasoline smell made her whiff the contents of the can.

No smell.

It was water.

Water on a day like this! Furious, she remembered vaguely Al had said something about keeping a water can in the trunk ever since he had sprung a radiator leak on a deserted road. Never a gas leak? Stupid, stupid, not to have looked!

The can replaced in the trunk, she got into the front seat, he
ld
out her hand to touch Julie’s. Julie withdrew her hand. Nothing personal, a mindless gesture.

As her head was turned toward the rear, she saw the panel truck barreling toward them. He’s going too fast for a wet road. Fortunately, the driver spotted them in time, pulled over behind them. Shirley pulled the plastic bonnet off her head. Damned if she was going to let anybody see her in that.

She got out and ran the few feet to the panel truck. The driver
, lowering his window a crack, motioned her around, to get inside
the cab. She must have hesitated. “Don’t worry, I won’t rape you,” he shouted.

“I’ll get the seat all wet.”

“So what?” he yelled.

Out of the rain, sitting beside him in the cab, breathless, she said, “No gas.”

“Great,” he said with a grin. “My old lady does the same least once a year. Never looks at the gauge.”

“I know,” she said, “all women are alike. Dumb.”

“You got a siphon?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I’ll drive you to the next station and bring you back. Got a can?”

“It’s full of water.”

He laughed. “Empty it out. Maybe it’ll dry out enough by the time we get there. What about your daughter?”

At the rear window of Al’s car were Julie’s panicked black eyes. “We can take her with us,” said the man. “There’s room for three up here.”

“Thanks. I’ll get her.”

She undid Julie’s seat belt. Instantly Julie shrank from her hands, squirming into the right rear corner of the seat.

“Please, honey, come with me. We’ve got to get gas.”

She might as well have talked in Swahili.

“Please?”

Back in the panel truck, she said to the man, “I’m afraid she’s retarded. I locked all four doors.”

Looking backward as the man drove off, she could see Julie wailing.

The only words exchanged during the two-mile drive were, “My name’s Hartman.” He answered, “Wilber Warner,” laughing. “Everybody laughs when they hear that name.”

The gas-station attendant, a short sack of a man who hadn’t shaved, motioned them into the ramshackle office. They hadn’t pulled up at the pump. He wasn’t about to go out into that rain for spongers.

Shirley showed the two-gallon plastic can, explained they had a child stuck in the car back two miles.

“I wouldn’t put gas in that can. Still water in it,” he said.

“Can I borrow a can? I have to drive past here. I can return it.”

“Two-dollar deposit.”

Mr. Warner started to protest on her behalf, but Shirley stopped him, gave the attendant a five-dollar bill out of the wallet tucked in her coat.

The attendant gave her a battered can. Warner took it out to the pump, filled it. “Ninety-two cents,” he reported. The attendant was squinting at the meter, obviously couldn’t read at that distance. “I’ll take your word for it,” he finally said, rummaging for change.

“Just give me the bills,” said Shirley.

*

When they got back to the car, Julie was hysterical. Shirley slid in beside her and tried to calm her down as Warner poured the gas into the tank.

“Thank you,” she shouted out of the window.

“Just hope not too much rain got in there. Here’s the can.”

She put the can on the front seat, waved goodbye to Mr. Warner, and waited till Julie was calm before switching to the front seat. Somehow the rain had managed to get into her collar, the so-called waterproof old raincoat was soaked, her dress and underthings wet and sticking to her, especially in the seat and the crotch, and there was a long drive still ahead. Nothing to be done short of stopping in some town and trying to buy a complete set of clothes somewhere. With Julie howling in the car?
Drive on.

She must have been ten miles or more past the gas station when she remembered the empty can beside her. The hell with the two-dollar deposit. She’d have liked to throw the can through the man’s plate-glass window.

Then, in a spurt of panic, she realized that she had probably used up most of the gas Warner had put in. She was terrified lest the whole fiasco start again, stalled by the side of the road. In half a minute, through the arcing wipers, she saw on the right the Sunoco sign. The station looked closed. On Mondays? Then she saw a man move inside the hut. She pulled up at the pump. The man flung a raincoat over his head.

“All the way,” she said, the whole of her heaving with relief.

*

She checked the map again. It was taking so much time. And the nonstop arcing of the windshield wiper in front of her face was hypnotic. She had to slow down to five miles an hour to plow through a long, puddled section of the road, hoping that not too much water would spray up into the vulnerable electrical connections.

The rain was having the same effect on her as standing in a shower, thoughts that would never occur to her while sitting in an armchair or even while strolling came.
Why the hell am I here?
repeated itself. There are only two things in life,
we do what we have to do, we do what we want to do.
She was doing what she had to now, a friend in distress, a child that had to be returned from B to A, the weather couldn’t be helped, the trip couldn’t be postponed, you did it like a soldier. One could stoic such moments if there were enough of the others, a trip to a shop on a whim, a trip to Bermuda with Al on his whim, scratching through the debris of a problem for the pulse of suddenly beginning to find a solution, and the high on finding it. It was the mix in your life that counted, how much of the wanted against how much of the other? A century ago, men worked sixteen hours a day in primitive factories, today they worked the same overlong hours split half between the office and half worrying the contents of the briefcase on the train and at home. Was it better now, was hers better now, did she choose often enough to balance—this: the downpour, the aching shoulders, the tension of the road, the tension of the girl in the back seat, the worry about what the discovery of Julie and Margaret—especially Margaret!—would mean to them now that the cork was out?