Secrets & Surprises (31 page)

In June, Beth Ann came back from Albuquerque. She found out from Francie where Perry was living and wrote down his phone number, and took a bus to the town nearest him in Vermont. He picked up his phone one night when the band was practicing—everyone’s instrument was instantly silent—and he stood there wishing they would make noise again when he realized who was on the phone. “Whether you want me or not, I’m almost to your house,” Beth Ann said. “Will you come get me?”

He went to the drugstore where the bus had left her off, and got her. She had on a black cap and a trench coat. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was filmed with sweat, as if she had walked to Vermont instead of taking the bus. They walked back to his car without touching. “I actually knew your number,” she said. “The reason I called Francie first was to see if she was still living in New Hampshire, or if she had moved here with you.”

“She’s still in New Hampshire,” he said. “What made you think she’d be with me?”

“Everybody knows how you feel about Francie except Francie. Or maybe she pretends not to know. I don’t know.”

“Francie’s having a show in New York next month,” he said.

“I don’t want to be filled in on the news.”

“Should I talk about politics?”

“Do you read the newspaper?” she said. “What’s the point of being so isolated if you pick up the paper?”

“What are you doing here?” he said.

They drove without speaking all the way back to the house. He was glad that T.W.’s band was there because that would give him something to do other than listen to whatever she had to say. They would be eating dinner by the time they got back—he could sit down and eat, and not talk much.

“T.W.’s band is at my place,” he said.

When they got inside, T.W. was on the phone. “Here he is, wait a minute,” T.W. said, holding the phone out to Perry. “There’s Beth Ann!” T.W. said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. “Good to see you.”

Perry was talking to Nick, who had just become a father—a long, blurted story about how Anita was all right and how they had an
enormous
baby that Anita and the midwife hadn’t been able to deliver at home. “They took her out in the ambulance bent like a boomerang,” Nick said. It sounded as if he was crying. “This kid is eleven pounds and some ounces, I can’t remember how many. One, I think. The kid looks like he’s ready to take off crawling.”

“Well, congratulations, Nick. What are you naming him?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t written down anything yet. Call me back if you think of a good name.”

He hung up. “Nick and Anita had a baby,” he said to Beth Ann.

“Hey,” said T.W., “you ought to see Delores’ kid now, Beth Ann. She’s the prettiest little girl I’ve ever seen. Delores is living in New Hampshire with Carl Fellows, on a farm his grandfather used to run. I think they’re getting married. Is that right, Perry?”

Perry shrugged.

“Hey, what happened to Zack?” T.W. asked.

Perry rolled his eyes, and not wanting to hear, he started for the kitchen, where two people from the band were cooking spaghetti sauce. He heard her say, “Zack is dead.”

“What are you talking about?” T.W. said.

“He fell off a rock in the Sandia Range. I’m not kidding you.”

“What did you say?” Dickie said, coming out of the kitchen, dripping tomato sauce from a spoon.

“He really is,” Beth Ann said. “He’s dead.”

“Is he buried?” T.W. said. Perry looked at T.W., wondering why he asked such a thing.

“Of course,” Beth Ann said.

“Where?” T.W. said.

“In Albuquerque.”

“He is not dead,” Dickie said. “Look at her: she’s smiling.”

“I’m smiling because it’s so horrible, and because I told you in such an awful way.” She was no longer smiling. She went over to the sofa where Perry had just sat down and slumped beside him. “He’s been dead for four months,” she said.

“Fuck it!” Dickie said. “Fuck it—he didn’t fall off a mountain.”

“I don’t know,” Roger said. Roger had just come out of the kitchen. He had joined the band a little while before and hadn’t known Zack.

“Oh fuck it!” Dickie said, and walked to the front door and went outside. Roger went after him and looked out the door for a minute, then quietly closed it.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Perry said.

“I wasn’t thinking. It didn’t even hit me that I had no reason to be in Albuquerque until a few days ago. I sat around a rented room for four months. I called his parents, and they came out and put on a funeral. It was horrible. His mother was taking sedatives, and we all had to hold her up for three days so she wouldn’t fall over. When she left she said to me, ‘I’m not even going to see you again, ever in my life,’ as though I was her kid.”

The phone rang. Perry picked it up. “We’re naming her Belinda,” Nick said. “This is really embarrassing, but the baby’s a girl. I don’t know what I was talking about. I haven’t had any sleep for almost two days.”

“Tell Anita we’re happy,” Perry said. “T.W. and the band are here. We’ll come around soon and inspect the kid and see for ourselves if it has a penis.”

“What’s he talking about?” T.W. said to Beth Ann.

Perry hung up. He sat on the floor by the phone, thinking of all the times he’d cursed Zack. He hoped that he had never said that he wished he would fall off a mountain.

“I’m going to eat dinner,” Roger said. “If anybody else can eat, they’re welcome.”

They sat in the living room, smelling the sauce. T.W. pulled a guitar slide out of his case. Joints were tightly packed inside it. He looked at it and said, “I guess that’s not the thing to do,” put it in his pocket, and got up and went into the kitchen. Perry and Beth Ann could hear Roger, feigning cheerfulness, saying, “Would you like me to get you some spaghetti?”

“Maybe I ought to go after Dickie,” Beth Ann said.

Dickie came back, with leaves and mud and bark sticking to him, as they were finishing dinner. He bit into a piece of cold garlic bread. He tore a square of paper towel from the roll that was in the center of the table and rubbed it over his face. “What was that spastic asshole doing climbing mountains?” he said.

The phone rang, and no one got up to answer it.

Roger went to the door the next evening, when Delores and Carl showed up. The others had organized a softball game on a neighbor’s field, but Roger had been feeling sick to his stomach, and he had stayed around for Borka’s arrival. Borka played electric bass with the band, and he was thinking about moving in on her. He loved her wavy gold hair and the little pierced earrings she wore, a moon in one ear and a star in the other. She had won his heart when she did an imitation of Viva in
Bike Boy
for an audience in a bar between sets, calling
Bike Boy
an “old movie.” When he went to answer the door, he thought it was her. It was Delores and Carl, and he didn’t know who they were. They introduced themselves and came in and sprawled on the sofa, and alternately commented on how nice the house was and argued about whether it was wrong to have left Meagan with Francie. Carl said it was, and Delores said that Meagan knew very well who Francie was, and was just bluffing when they left. Roger told them that he would have to excuse himself (he had been lying on the couch before they took it over) to go stretch out because his stomach felt funny. “Papaya leaf tea,” Delores said and instantly pulled a box from her canvas bag. She went into the kitchen and brewed it for him. Roger began to formulate questions to find out who they were.

“Who are you?” Carl finally said to him.

“I’m Roger. I play trumpet with the band.”

“You look familiar,” Carl said. “Did I see you some other time with another band?”

“I doubt it,” Roger said. “I haven’t played with a group for a long time.” What he didn’t tell Carl was that he had been in the seminary. He realized that that always stopped conversation, and he had been trying hard not to say it to people.

“Who are you?” Roger said to Carl.

“Hello, look at this,” Perry said, coming into the house. There was a grass stain down the side of his khakis and he had torn the knee of his pants.

“Is there room for us?” Delores called from the kitchen. “We tried to call you twice this morning, but everybody must have been out.”

“Sure,” Perry said.

He looked around. “Where’s Meagan?” he said.

“We were visiting Francie and we left her there. Carl thinks I’m a bad mother.”

Carl looked away and said nothing.

“She’s with Francie?” Perry echoed. “Well, have you two eaten? We were going to drive into town and get a pizza.”

“Perry, this house is as big as a barn. Doesn’t it get depressing here in the winter?” Delores said, coming into the living room.

“Did you go to Bard?” Carl asked Roger.

“Yeah,” Roger said. “I was there for a couple of years.”

“In ’sixty-five or ’sixty-six?”

“ ’Sixty-six, sure,” Roger said, his face lighting up. He and Carl shook hands and laughed.

“Gordon Liddy was the fucking Assistant D.A. of Duchess County,” Carl said to everybody. “Did you know Inez?” Carl asked Roger.

“Was she the tall girl who hung out with Little Ruthie?”

“No—she was a musician.”

“Right, right.”

Delores sighed. She had not gone to college, and Carl was always running into people from Bard, which bored her. She asked Perry if she could use the phone and went into the kitchen. Suddenly Carl stopped reminiscing. He hollered, “Who are you calling?”

“I’m calling Freed. I thought we’d stay here a couple of days and look around and then go see him in Maine.”

“I’m not going to Maine to see Freed,” Carl said.

“Why not?”

“Why don’t you call and see if your kid stopped sulking?” Carl said. “That’s what I think you ought to do.” They could hear her dialing.

“Delores,” Carl said. “If you’re calling Freed, don’t tell him I’m going there, because I’m not.”

“Inez used to go to Adolph’s and drive everybody crazy playing “Heat Wave” on the jukebox over and over,” Roger said.

“Don’t be that way,” Delores said, coming out of the kitchen. “He wrote us that nice letter.”

“I don’t give a shit what he writes us. If you want to go visit Freed, I’m not stopping you.”

“I suppose you’re going to give me your car too.”

“If it really means that much to you to visit him, Delores, you can take the car.”

“I’m going to stretch out,” Roger said. “Excuse me.”

Delores watched Roger walk out of the room and go up the stairs. “You seriously won’t go to Maine?” she said.

“That’s right.”

She went back into the kitchen. Perry sat in a chair and waited for the fight. As he waited, Beth Ann and T.W. came back to the house. “Carl!” Beth Ann said. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey!” Carl said and stood to hug her. “How are you, T. W.?” he said.

“Hey, Carl,” T.W. said. “Are you going to fill in on bass if our bass player doesn’t show?”

“I’d throw you off—I’m not good enough,” Carl said. He looked toward the kitchen. “In every respect,” he said.

“Is Roger still sick?” T.W. said, looking around the room. He saw his slide on the floor and took out a joint and offered it around. Only Beth Ann would have any of it.

“Is that Delores in there?” Beth Ann said.

“Yeah,” Perry said.

Beth Ann went to the door and waved to Delores and stood by the door, waiting for her to finish. When Delores kept whispering on the phone, she walked away and sat by T.W. and asked where the band was playing. He started naming names of bars.

Carl took a hit off of T.W.’s joint and walked into the kitchen. He came out with a beer.

T.W. offered the joint again and Carl had another hit. “I’m very tempted to go get in my car and drive off,” he said.

“Sit down, Carl,” Perry said. “We’re all going to go get pizza in a minute.”

“This is humiliating,” Carl said. “Why did she have me bring her to your place if what she wanted was to be in Maine with Freed?”

“I don’t know,” Perry said. “Sit down.”

“I’m going,” Carl said. “This is ridiculous.”

“Where are you going?” Beth Ann said.

“I’m just going. I apologize for making a scene. I’m just going.”

He stood in the middle of the room for a minute, then pulled his wallet and sunglasses out of Delores’ bag and went outside. He sat in the car for quite a while. Then they heard the car start.

“Who is she talking to?” Beth Ann said. “She’s talking to Freed?”

“Let’s get Dickie and go eat,” T.W. said.

“Maybe there’s something here to eat,” Beth Ann said.

“There isn’t,” Perry said.

“I’m willing to spring for pizza,” T.W. said. “I want to eat so we can start practicing. We’ve got to get up early to drive to the job.”

Delores came out of the kitchen, seeming oblivious to Carl’s departure. She went over to Beth Ann and rumpled her hair. “What are
you
doing here?” she said.

“Don’t tell her,” T.W. said. “We’re going for pizza. Want to come?”

“Sure,” Delores said. “Did Carl stalk out?”

“He drove off. In the car.”

“Did you ever see anybody have a temper tantrum like that?” Delores said. “Don’t you think that was irrational?”

“I want pizza with mushrooms and onions,” T.W. said. “Will you split that kind of a pizza with me, Beth Ann?”

All of them got up and followed him out of the house.

“We can take my bus,” T.W. said. “Come on—pile in the back.”

“How far do we have to go?” Beth Ann said.

“Come on, get in. Should we ask Roger if he’s feeling better?”

“He’s sick,” Perry said. “Let’s just go.”

“Tell me about Meagan,” Beth Ann said to Delores. “Does she still have skin like porcelain?”

“You can see the veins in it,” Delores said. “It scares me sometimes. It looks like silk instead of human skin.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s with Francie. Francie’s taking her to a dog show.”

“Bring her to see us,” Beth Ann said.

Perry wondered if the “us” was inadvertent. He wondered how long she intended to stay, and what Delores intended to do about getting out of the house with Carl gone.

“It’s so beautiful here,” Beth Ann sighed as they rolled down the driveway.