The Far End of Happy (22 page)

As the day stretched on without resolution, Ronnie imagined the mirror ball spinning question marks across every surface of the boxy room. The walls let the questions gloss over their neutral surfaces, offering no answers. Time passed doubly slow.

In its corner stood the untended bar, a hulking presence in a dark mood. Even through stoppered bottles and shut cabinets, she could smell the whiskey and vermouth, spirits that were ultimately stronger than her husband’s.

It was in a soulless hall like this, at the hotel, where Jeff buoyed the moods of customers twirling around the turning points of their lives, while he remained stuck exchanging booze for a plump wad of cash in his pocket.

Although not happily. Jeff’s situation at the hotel continued to deteriorate. The new owner had replaced the inn’s computer system with an overly complex one on the cheap. Jeff had way more practice with it than he needed as, one after the other, the new hires he’d trained said to heck with it and walked out. Ronnie could only imagine how frustrating it was for him to train someone new every two weeks.

Yet people were still getting married and having babies and reuniting with their high school classes, and Jeff didn’t have enough staff to work banquets. Last November, he asked if Ronnie would fill in as a bartender.

“It’s just a little extra help with the big banquets,” he said, “and you won’t have to learn the computer.”

“But my feet. You remember what we did to my last pair of heels—”

“You can wear flats. And we have a rubber mat behind the bar. You’ll be fine.” He played his trump card. “You’ll make good money.”

With the boys’ schoolwork and activities, the cleaning required to control their allergies, the renovation, the animals, and her writing, Ronnie did not need to add one more thing to her life. And if she did choose to add something, it wouldn’t be bartending. She’d been determined to show Jeff she could make money from her skills and interests; she just needed more time. But she wasn’t without compassion. She knew how hard he’d worked to try to get bartenders. She couldn’t refuse.

The part she hadn’t anticipated: she had to fill out a corporate application that included her employment history, interests, and references—as if she really wanted the job. She’d have to take the TIPS (Training for Intervention Procedures) certification course the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board required so she could learn to deal with intoxicated patrons. She’d have to learn all those drink recipes—she’d been a waitress at the Valley View all those years ago, not a bartender. Learn all those prices. Jeff assured her the Sunday wedding he first needed her for would be an open bar; Ronnie wouldn’t have to handle cash.

When they got to the hotel for the wedding, they found that the families had been feuding. The bride’s family had flung generosity out the window; the groom’s family would have to pay cash for their drinks. Jeff quizzed Ronnie on prices as they cut up lemons and limes and he explained the system he’d improvised: everyone on the groom’s side would be wearing a red sticker. Those were the people who would have to pay.

“This is getting awfully complicated,” Ronnie said.

Jeff kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll do great. You always do.”

Ronnie’s first drink order was a whiskey and water. The guy had a red dot on his lapel: groom’s side. She could handle that. She grabbed a bottle and hoped she hadn’t poured heavy. Jeff never used a shot glass and Ronnie didn’t want to give away her beginner status. “Five fifty, please.” The man dropped a bill on the bar and walked away. It wasn’t until she got to the cash drawer that she noticed the bill was a fifty.

“I’ll be right back.” Ronnie strode past Jeff. “This guy left without his change.”

Jeff grabbed the back of her polyester vest and pulled. “First rule of bartending,” he said. “Never, ever return money people have left on the bar.”

Ronnie kept up as people first streamed in, but soon customers stood two and three deep. She had no cheat sheet for prices and no scratch pad or pen for adding. At one point she had to add $5.50 + $5.50 + $8.75 (wrong price anyway) + $12.25 in her head. Jeff did this all the time, but her writing gig didn’t require top-notch math skills. “That’ll be twenty-eight even,” Ronnie said, hoping she was close.

Due to corporate policy, Ronnie had to wear a name tag at all times, and since they didn’t have one for her yet, they gave her an old one. She went through the whole long evening trying to remember to respond when people called her Suzette.

After they’d cleaned up the banquet hall, Jeff took her to an all-night diner. Over eggs and bacon, he complimented her on her bartending, although to Ronnie, the entire evening had been a strain on her skill set, her back, her arches, and her most essential sense of self. When they got home, he took a bath before going to bed. Ronnie almost wept with the near-forgotten sensation of snuggling up next to soapy skin. In the morning, it was his idea to make love. Ronnie didn’t turn away the gift.

That day, he smiled at her more. She knew it was because they had resurrected a taste of the life that had brought them together. And that broke her heart: in this world where she and Jeff had met and fallen in love, Ronnie was now an impostor.

Raised voices near the entrance to the room drew Ronnie’s attention. Beverly and Janet were arguing. Approaching, Ronnie saw that they were blocking entrance to a man wearing a clerical collar.

“We don’t need more hellfire from you; we’ve been breathing it all day.” Janet’s voice.

“I don’t mean to upset you,” the pastor said.

“Well, then you shouldn’t have claimed to be from her church because she doesn’t have one,” Beverly said.

The pastor appealed to Ronnie as she approached. “I keep trying to tell Mrs. Farnham that she’s one of my—”

“That may be a lost cause,” Ronnie said. “If you want to talk to me, however, I’d like that.”

The man looked around the room, empty except for its tables and chairs. “Is there somewhere we can sit?”

Ronnie smiled. She liked him already. “I have a better idea.” She turned to her mother and mother-in-law. “You two go sit.”

“Ronnie, don’t do this to yourself,” her mother said. “Think about what he’s going to say. You’ve had enough stress as it is.”

“Yes, I have, so please don’t add to it,” Ronnie said. “Now go on. This will just take a minute.”

Jeff too would have scoffed at a consultation with a pastor. Ronnie pictured Jeff emerging from the doorway as he had in the psych ward, like a specter, his socks silent against the waxed tiles. Ronnie actually liked that Jeff: no cigarette, no double-size coffee, no cocktail to pump some needed chemical into his veins.

Still standing inside the doorway to the social hall, Ronnie introduced herself to the pastor as the wife of the man who’d instigated the standoff. “I’m sorry about my mother and mother-in-law. They’ve had bad experiences with organized religion.”

The pastor flashed her an easy smile. “I would have happily offered them as much disorganized solace as I could. As a matter of fact, that may be the only kind.” He reached his hand forward. “I’m Pastor John. I learned what was going on when I couldn’t get past the barricade. I thought I’d stop by and see if I could lend a hand.”

“That was kind of you. What church are you from?”

“Considering that might be a sore subject,” he said, “today let’s say I am simply of God, as are we all.”

“Fair enough. I don’t want to distress them any further, so let’s get right to the point. If Jeff kills himself, do you think he’ll go to hell?” Her mother and Jeff’s may not want his opinion on this, but Ronnie did. “I imagine the Great Creator isn’t too thrilled when someone hands back the gift of life.”

The pastor laughed. “That’s not the direction I would have taken this conversation, but if you find that helpful, I won’t take it away from you.”

Ronnie’s smile quickly faded. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Today, and in the days to come, you’ll need strength beyond what many people will be called on to have in this life, Ronnie,” Pastor John said. “Your husband’s current predicament is the kind of thing that you read in the newspaper but always about someone else. Someone you don’t know. But you’ve loved him.”

You’ve loved him.
Masterfully phrased, evoking the past without presupposing the present.

“I won’t pretend. I’m divorcing him,” Ronnie said, the confession spilling with her tears. But she did not hide her face; she’d take whatever condemnation was coming her way. She wanted it, she needed it, and if the man held out a crucifix and smote her with it, leaving nothing in her chest but a blackened, smoking hole, she would not have been surprised.

He lifted two fingers—was he going to invoke the sign of the cross?—and moved his hand from his chest toward hers. She could feel energy radiating through his fingertips.

“Even when you have felt alone you have never, ever been alone, and never will be.”

Ronnie forced herself not to glance in the direction of her mother and mother-in-law. “But what about Jeff?” She pulled the pastor into the stairwell. “If God loves Jeff, why is he letting this happen?”

Her question took on a resonant echo. Ronnie had relocated for added privacy, not taking into account the two-story open stairwell with its metal treads. In answer, every word the pastor spoke now resounded with significance. “But Jeff is not alone either, do you see? Make no mistake. God is reaching out to him in an infinite number of ways at this very moment. As a matter of fact, I bet they have quite a debate raging.”

For the first time, it occurred to Ronnie that maybe this wasn’t simply a standoff between a desperate man and police as the news had reported.

Perhaps it was a standoff between Jeff and God.

“I’d better go. I’ll have to try another time with your mother-in-law.” As he shook her hand, he leaned in and added, “She’s giving me the evil eye.”

Ronnie smiled. “I appreciate you coming.”

He’d descended several steps before she realized he’d left a business card in her palm. Bartlesville Lutheran—it was the same church where, in the words of Crazy Fay, Janet had been purchasing stock for heaven.

What
is
Jeff
doing
right
now?
she wondered as she returned to take a seat in the social hall.
Drinking straight from the bottle? Falling asleep? Resting his head on the end of a shotgun?

Praying?

Something tapped at her memory, like a chick pipping at its shell, and finally broke through. After fearing that her last words to her husband had been about whether he was still planning on leaving, she recalled another exchange, almost lost to the fog of sleep.

Last night, late, Jeff had knocked on the guest room door.

Pulled from the brink of much-needed rest, she’d said, “What?”

Jeff’s voice came through the shut door. “Does your God believe in forgiveness?”

The silence grew thick until Ronnie spoke the only words that came to her groggy tongue. “He’s your God too.”

Ronnie released some of the guilt she’d been carrying all day. Maybe reaching Jeff hadn’t been a lone crusade after all. Maybe God was still trying to appeal to him.

If only Jeff would open the door.

Janet sat stewing in the heat of her family’s damnation. What could a pastor do for her now? She could sense Amelia Hoyer turning a frosty shoulder to her grandson as he fell into the crimson fires.

The way she had stood before Jeff today with no wisdom to share, no relief to promise him—it was shameful. Thinking of it now, she might say that if you take in the view all at once, life can look like a lonely journey across a long, hot desert. But she’d made the bulk of the trip and could see it wasn’t so bad. If you just planned it out one day at a time, you could find a shady spot to rest, or a pitcher of something cool to quench your thirst, or some company to share a story. But even if she’d thought of it then, that wasn’t the sort of thing you’d shout through a bullhorn.

She really hoped that gun had gone off by accident, but what were the chances?

Jeff had been such a beautiful little boy. Fresh from an afternoon nap, he was often grumpy when Janet got home from teaching, clinging to his grandmother and hiding his face in her shirt. It cut Janet to the quick every time: Jeffrey loved Amelia more. But over time, Janet learned that if she was patient enough while her son made the rocky transition from dream world to real, she could often turn his dour shirt-hiding into a game.

She’d crouch behind her mother’s back, then pop up and shout “peekaboo”! She loved that startled look on his face right before he decided to laugh rather than cry. She’d enjoy his attention so much that—she couldn’t help herself—she’d sometimes leave the room, waiting around the corner until he started to fuss.

“Janet, this is cruel. Come back,” Amelia would say, always looking to add one more thing to her list of the reasons Janet wouldn’t find her way to heaven. But those tears were precious to her. Because if she waited just long enough before returning, she returned the hero, and Jeff would reach out his chubby little arms to her. She’d take the boy from his grandmother and he’d wrap his arms around his mother’s neck and put his cheek on her shoulder and oh my, there was no better feeling in the world. She’d bounce him and tell him everything would be all right now, Mama was here.

As he grew, every interaction was a negotiation, but time and again, Janet figured out how to win her son’s favor. Once the peekaboo days were behind them, she’d bring home candy from the school vending machine for him; later, she learned that if she hid colorful bits of it around the room, their interaction would last even longer. She loved the miracle of him—the way those little legs toddled around the room, the way those chubby fingers curled around the candy and pushed it into his mouth. Her son was so smart. And industrious. She’d take him out to the garage and let him stand on the seat behind the steering wheel, where he’d drive her “coss the countwy.” He loved that, offering up all kinds of joyous, little boy smiles while making car noises. And if Amelia called them to dinner and Jerry was late coaching, why risk a snit by making him come in? Janet would fix him a plate, bring it out to the garage, and spoon-feed him while he stood behind the wheel.

Of course a time came when Janet no longer knew how to make him happy. During high school, it seemed she saw him more often in the principal’s office than at home, which as a teacher offered her no end of mortifying scenarios. She wished Jerry could have been more involved with him, but he was busy raising team after team of basketball players, all of whom he saw as substitute sons. Sometimes she felt it was by sheer luck that, with her tutoring, she was able to get Jeff out of high school and off to college.

Amelia died just before the end of Jeff’s senior year. Janet knew from experience how disruptive it was to break away just short of finals. And her mother was dead, there was nothing to be done about it. Her son’s future was on the line. So when Janet scheduled the funeral during his finals week, she convinced Jerry not to tell him about her mother’s death until Jeff got home.

Jeff flew into a rage, blaming Janet for taking away his chance to see his grandmother one last time. But he had graduated, allowing Janet to achieve her goal of educating him, so she was willing to wait out his anger. She’d take his anger any day over the burden of watching her son’s heart break.

Once she dared speak to him again, she offered him Amelia’s side of the house as consolation.

After that, Jeff pushed Janet to the periphery of his life; she would never again be the one to make him happy. He wanted other women—a string of them, in fact. Why he settled for Fay, she hadn’t a clue, since Janet felt certain she’d been the kind of tramp who’d made many men happy. Although she hadn’t inherited her mother’s faith in an Almighty God, she did believe in all manner of insurance, so she insisted that Fay and Jeff tithe to her mother’s church, just in case their souls were in peril. Janet couldn’t have been happier when Fay finally took her leave, even though Jeff went into another of his fits. Janet knew he’d get over it, and he did.

Then Ronnie. Beverly had kept quiet about their reintroduction at first, not wanting to raise Janet’s hopes. But after their first date, when Jeff came over to help his father clean whirligigs out of the rain gutters, Janet saw the transformation. Most striking was that he volunteered information.

“You aren’t going to believe who I went out with last night,” Jeff said.

Janet had always feared the return of Fay but refused to utter her name. Her mind briefly flitted to Beverly, who looked younger than her age and was always on the prowl, but she shook off the thought. “Who?” Remembering how he looked at her, with a face that radiated such utter bliss, made tears press again at the back of her eyes.

“Ronnie.”

His life was transformed, as was Janet’s. She came to believe in true love. To believe that she, Jerry, and Jeff would revive as a family. To believe in grandchildren and heirs.

But then, today. Another of his fits. One that her money hadn’t been able to prevent and Ronnie hadn’t even tried to put an end to. And if that gun went off on purpose, she could hear Amelia pointing out, her son had been intent on breaking two different commandments.

But her biggest fear wasn’t whether she and Jeff were going to hell.

It was that they may have already been living there for a good long while.