Linda’s extra weight came from another source: my dick.
“You’re pregnant?” I said.
“You sound… disappointed… or mad or something.”
“Well, hell-how should I sound?”
We were discussing this at the A-frame, sitting out on the porch in deck chairs, looking out at a lake bathed in moonlight. Her eyes were a similar color-washed-out blue. I really liked the color of her eyes.
“You should sound happy,” she said. Her eyes were tensing.
We hardly ever argued. In fact, I can’t remember arguing with her. Sometimes I got mad at her when she was a little thick about some business aspect at the Inn, but when all was said and done, I cared more about her than any of that other shit, so I tended to cut her some slack. I mean, fuck, I didn’t need the money. The Inn was just something to do.
“Happy isn’t my style,” I said.
“Sure it is,” she said, and she got up and sat in my lap and smiled at me, dimples and all, though I could tell she was still sad.
“You want to break this damn chair?” I said.
She just smiled some more and hugged me around the neck and said, “I’m not that heavy yet. I’m only a month or so gone.”
And she was a little thing, after all. I bet she didn’t weigh a hundred pounds.
“I thought you were using something,” I said.
“I was. I stopped.”
“We should have talked about it.”
“I thought you’d want a child with me. You said so once.”
“I was drunk. And you know I don’t drink, and when I do, I can’t be held responsible.”
“Well, you’re responsible for this,” she said, and patted her tummy, and her smile shifted to one side of her face, crinkling it.
Goddamnit, there’s no way around it: I did love her, or as close to it as I’m capable.
I said, “If I was going to have a child, I’d want it with you.”
“Well, I should hope to shout. I’m your wife, aren’t I?”
“Only one I ever had,” I said, which was a lie. I was married one other time, but that was in another life, the life she didn’t know about.
“We’ll be a family,” she said sweetly. “Won’t that be wonderful?”
This girl thought life was a fucking Christmas card.
“Linda, I don’t know about bringing anybody else into this goddamn place.”
She looked confused. “What goddamn place?”
“This world. This planet. It’s no prize.”
“Our life isn’t so bad, is it?”
“We have a great life.”
“So, why not let a third person in on it? A person who’s part of us, Jack…”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand, kid. This is a very protected life we got going here. We’re the couple in the plastic bubble-nothing touches us. But a kid-he’s going to have to go out in that world and face all the bullshit.”
“How do you know it’s going to be a he? And what’s wrong with going out in the world?”
“For one thing, it’s crawling with people.”
“I like people!”
“I don’t. I’m not so sure pulling another passenger onto this sinking ship is such a hot idea. What’s he got waiting for him? Or, her?”
She gave me a sideways look, trying to kid me out of it. “Don’t be such a Gloomy Gus.”
“Read the papers. They’re full of famine and AIDS and nuclear bombs.”
“Jack, you don’t read the papers.”
“Well, hell, I watch TV. And I’ve been out in that world, baby. It sucks.”
“I don’t know why you feel that way.”
“Well I do.”
“Why? Have you had it so bad?”
“Not lately.”
She cocked her head, gave me a smirky, pixie look. “When did you ever have it bad?”
I tasted my tongue.
“I never mentioned it before…”
Her eyes narrowed. “What, Jack?”
“I… I saw some combat.”
“Combat? Where?”
“Where do you think? In the war.”
“What war?”
I sighed. “Vietnam, dear. A distant event in history that happened during your childhood. Let’s just say… I’m not wild about bringing somebody into this life when Vietnams are still a part of it-and they are.”
She looked very troubled. She was sweet but she wasn’t deep. “I never heard you talk like this.”
“Sure you have.”
“Not so serious, at such length. I… always thought it was a joke, the things you say, the way you see things. You always made me laugh. It was just, you know… sick humor.”
“Defense mechanism.”
“What… what makes life worth living then?”
She was really getting upset; I decided to smile at her. Said, “Life’s worth living as long as somebody like you’s in it.”
She beamed and hugged me.
I held her for a while. Listened to the crickets.
Then she drew away and said, “Jack, you don’t really… you wouldn’t have me get… rid of it, would you?”
Her lip was trembling and her china-blue eyes were wetter than the goddamn lake.
What else was there to say?
“Of course not,” I said. “What do you think I am? A murderer?”
2
I was chopping wood, which was about as physical as my life got these days. The lake was placid and blue, surrounded by trees painted in golds and yellows and browns; the water reflected a soothing Indian summer sun. You could almost understand why somebody, long ago, chose to name the lake Paradise. There weren’t even any mosquitoes this time of year.
I swung the axe in my two hands, building a rhythm, liking the pull on my muscles, enjoying the sweat I was working up, feeling alive. Wood chips flew and logs became firewood. When Linda got back from her yoga class at Twin Lakes, I’d prepare supper (still had a microwave) and the wine would be chilled and we’d sit before the fireplace and be “toasty warm” (as she put it) together. We would also undoubtedly have great sex, one of the major reasons I kept the ditsy little dish around.
Feeling winded but good, I sat out on the deck and unzipped my down jacket and relaxed with a cup of coffee. I was watching the lake when a cloud covered the sun and the gravel in my driveway stirred.
A chocolate BMW pulled abruptly up, making a little dust storm. I did not recognize the car-other than as the pointless and drab status symbol it was. I stood. My shoulders tensed and it had nothing to do with chopping wood.
From the edge of the deck I noticed two things: the driver of the car, a slightly heavy-set man of about fifty in a London Fog raincoat; and the front license plate of the BMW, which was covered with mud. There hadn’t been any rain in the Midwest for several weeks.
He saw me perched above him on the deck. My expression must have been hostile because he smiled tightly, defensively, and put both hands out, palms forward, in a stop motion.
“Just a few minutes of your time,” he said, “that’s all I ask.”
He had a mellow, radio-announcer’s voice and a conventionally handsome, well-lined face, a Marlboro man who rode a desk.
“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
His smile twitched nervously. “I’m not a salesman, but I am here on business.”
I motioned off toward the highway. “Talk to Charley up at the Inn. If he can’t handle it, make an appointment to see me, there, later. I don’t do business at home.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with the restaurant business, Mr. Quarry.”
I said nothing. A bird cawed across the lake. My sentiments exactly.
“I, uh, realize that isn’t the name you’re using around here.. ”
“Explain yourself.”
The outstretched hands went palms up, supplicatingly. “Please. There’s no reason to get your back up. There’s no obligation…”
“You sound like a salesman.”
“Your wife won’t be home for another hour. I didn’t want to bother you while she was here…”
Mention of Linda made me wince; this guy, whoever the fuck he was, knew entirely too much about me. He didn’t know how close he was to spending eternity at the bottom of one of the area’s scenic gravel pits.
“Come up here and have a seat,” I said.