The Good Life (14 page)

“I can carry a coffeepot.” Jack had gone off to stand with the men. She would have been surprised if he'd done otherwise.

“It's been my impression that he volunteers to help.”

“Jack?”

“He carries my trash can back to the garage every week after pickup. I finally asked him to stop.”

Janice felt her mouth flatten. “I'd say that's nice of him.”

“I would too. But he won't stop. I've asked him now three times. He appears just after five o'clock, when I'm home from work.”

“He's retired. He doesn't have a lot to do.”

“I know that. I assume he was looking for something to do when he found out my birthday.”

“Sorry. You've lost me.”

Flinn's face was so tense that the flesh of her cheeks looked as if it had been pinned back. “He got on the Internet, looked up the records from my house sale, and found out my personal history. Probably my health history, too, and anything else he was interested in. Two days ago, he walked up to me and said, ‘It's almost your birthday. You shouldn't be here all alone. Next week I'll come over and give you a nice birthday spanking.'”

Janice couldn't keep her gaze from flying to Jack, who stood comfortably telling a baseball story—first the wind-up, then the pitch. Even from across the lawn, she could feel his easy charm.

Flinn said, “Where I work, that comment would be actionable.”

“You want to sue Jack because he made an off-color joke?”

“I don't want him walking past my house when I come home. I know he's your husband, but he gives me the creeps.”

“He likes to walk. Five o'clock is convenient for him. You don't have to go outside then.”

“I have a dog who has to go out as soon as I get home. That's the first thing your husband learned about me.”

The frustration that rose in Janice's throat felt like soft, clammy dough. Flinn was saying, “I wouldn't be surprised to find him outside my windows, trying to peek in.”

“He's sixty-eight years old,” Janice snapped. “Believe me, he's too old to do the things you're thinking.”

“He's not too old to bother me,” Flinn snapped back. “I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable, but he's been making me uncomfortable. The next word he says to me is going to get him a harassment complaint.”

“Who are you going to complain to? He's just a friendly older guy who thought you could use a hand.”

Flinn folded her arms. “He should—I'm sorry—be on a leash. My dog backs off from him.”

“He loves dogs,” Janice said stupidly. Chloe was standing near enough to listen. Alicia, too. From across the yard came Ben's laugh, a yelp as if he'd been goosed, and then Jack's dependable chuckle. The sound made Janice's mouth fill with an emotion that was not anger and was not fear, but borrowed from both of them.

“Your husband is a menace,” Flinn said.

“No, he isn't.” Janice knew she sounded like a grade-schooler. And then: “At least I have a husband.”

Flinn took a moment before she produced a flat laugh. “I told you because I thought you'd want to know,” she said.

“Like hell. You could have come to my house and talked to me privately. You wanted everybody to know.”

“I wanted to know if he's done this with anybody else,” Flinn said.

“And?”

“I'm not special.”

Janice very much wished that her voice had not grown so thick. Still, she managed to say, “I could have told you that.”

 

In the five minutes it took her to leave Jack at the party and reach her own back door, Janice had thought about pornography sites on the Web, about the new shoes Jack had bought for his walks, about how much walking a dog as small as a Boston terrier would require. When her brain flashed an image of Jack peeking around the door as she stepped into the shower, she stared down at the suburban throwaway newspaper that lay on the steps. She blinked until she could read the headline about scholarship winners at the local high school, eager to give back to society.

Half an hour later, when Jack came looking for her, she had turned the kitchen radio off three times. “Are you sick?” Jack asked. “I looked up and you were gone. You should have told me.”

His light brown eyes glittered like river water. She said, “I hear you've been toting Flinn Merchant's trash cans for her.”

“Thought she could use a hand.”

“I guess you thought you were Galahad when you offered to deliver that birthday spanking.”

She had to hand it to him: he looked as baffled as a child confronting a new word. “How would I know her birthday?”

“From the Internet.” This part sounded right, even though Janice herself didn't use the computer. There had been so many news reports about violations of privacy.

“No wonder she's divorced. You take a gal's trash cans in and the next thing you know she's accusing you of indecency.”

“How do you know she's divorced?”

“You told me. You said nobody goes to the gym as much as she does unless she's between spouses. Believe me, nobody's going to want to marry that one.”

Janice studied his tense hands and shoulders. Even his elbows looked stiff. “They'll just want to spank her?”

Although he took a moment to reply, his voice was steady. “At first when I couldn't find you, I thought you were inside with Chloe, helping out. I kept watching for you to come back outside. After fifteen minutes I asked Ben. After twenty minutes I asked Saralynn. I was afraid something had happened.”

“Something did.”

“Are you all right?”

“What do you think?”

Jack watched her for a minute before he went into the living room, to the TV. The news was finished now, replaced by a quiz show. After a few minutes, Janice joined him, sitting in a chair across the room.

 

Sleep that night was flimsy, interrupted by dreams of boats and shadowy cats. As soon as the first light came, Janice studied Jack's face: broad forehead, straight nose, beautifully deep-set eyes. A throat and mouth that drooped despite the fifteen minutes he spent every morning on facial isometrics. He looked, she thought without rancor, like a hound. “Woof,” she said.

In the kitchen she clattered through coffee making and studied Alicia's house across the back yard. Janice had no doubt that her neighbor was remembering what she had overheard at the party, weighing this interesting news, rehearsing how she might retell it to others. Janice would have done the same.

“Think you could be any noisier in here, Janice?” Jack stood in the doorway, showing off his lean frame to advantage.

“I haven't detonated anything yet.”

He glanced at the counter, where she had not set out his oatmeal. “You're not being fair, you know.”

“Am I not? Shucks.”

“You won't even listen to me.”

Janice was looking out the window again. “I listened. You didn't say anything that explained why a complete stranger would want to come up to me and lie.”

“She's a man hater. I know her kind.”

“You know a lot, for a guy who just brings in her trash cans.”

“Don't you get it? She's gunning for me. She'll say anything to make me look bad.”

“You?” Janice stared at her husband's righteous mouth. If she could have, she would have laughed. “You think this is about
you?
Oh, Jack, you're priceless.” She could hardly breathe, watching his face stiffen under the kitchen light. She said, “I'm the one Flinn talked to in front of everybody. I'm the one they were watching. You get to be the heel, but I get to be married to the heel. To stand by my heel.”

“So no matter what I do, from now on I'm the bad guy?”

Underneath the vexed whine Janice heard something that startled her—a note of desperation, and surprise. He truly couldn't believe that anyone might think ill of him. Irritation and amused affection surged through her, and she allowed the affection to win out, a bit of marital kindness he would never know to thank her for. “Sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “I thought you knew.”

 

Usually Janice and Jack made up readily after quarrels, moving ahead with the good cheer that was their trademark. This time, though, the good cheer froze into a merciless solicitude. A stranger watching them might have thought he was seeing courtesy. Jack, who rarely so much as poured anyone a glass of milk, searched out Janice in the odd corners of the afternoon and handed her steaming, watery cups of coffee. She hemmed a pair of his pants that had lain on top of the sewing machine for close to a year. A pucker crept in the left leg where she had forgotten to adjust the bobbin's tension, but he thanked her twice, and she could see him trying to take shelter from whatever storms might be on the approach.

He might have tried a little harder. Ancient slights were revisiting her, feelings he'd hurt thirty years before. When he handed her another cup of light-brown coffee, she remarked, “Do you remember the Christmas you gave me Chanel, but you gave a bigger bottle to your secretary?”

“I must have gotten the packages mixed up.”

“I would never have known, but I dropped by your office one day, and she had the bottle next to her typewriter. It was so big, it made her feel rich.”

“I don't even remember that.”

“Two weeks ago I didn't, either,” Janice said.

“Do you want me to bring you a big bottle of perfume?”

“Sure. I'll bring it with me to the Talk All Nite and see if Flinn has one, too.”

She hadn't thought of herself before as a vindictive person and was surprised at the new avenues suddenly open to her. When Jack drove across town to pick up their new puppy, she made a dog bed out of a cardboard box and old velour towels. But the second the dog came in the house, his sweet, broad face making him look like a Dead End Kid, Janice cried, “Spanky! Here, Spanky!” Perking up his tiny ears, he tumbled toward her.

“Is this enough?” Jack said, watching the puppy squirm joyfully while she murmured his new name. “Are you satisfied?”

“I never said I wanted to be satisfied,” she said. “Where'd you get that idea?”

“You can't just keep punishing me.”

“Because you say so?” The puppy backed up a step, let out a shrill bark, and dived into her lap again.

His voice softened. “Because I'm tired. Aren't you?”

In fact, she was achingly tired. And she could hear his version of the conversation: how she rewarded his conciliation with shrewishness and met his advances with a blank wall. It was not easy to break the long habit of telling him what he wanted to hear. “No,” she said, giving in.

 

At the Talk All Nite, the third store she visited, Janice finally found Alicia, picking through the shaggy bunches of dill. “Are you okay?” Alicia asked. “I heard you got sick at the party.”

“Not exactly sick,” Janice said. “I had some thinking to do.”

Alicia's face was full of tenderness and sympathy and expectation. “About Jack? You needed to know.”

“I put sheets on the guest room bed for him. Old habits die hard. I should have told him to put on his own sheets.”

“You've been married a long time,” Alicia said.

“Since God had grandparents.” Janice paused. “Jack has said things to you, hasn't he?”

“Jack has said things to everybody.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“In his day, stuff like that was more acceptable. Besides, not everyone minded hearing racy talk from a good-looking guy.” She stopped, and Janice hefted grapefruit while the comment trembled between them. “I'm sorry,” Alicia said.

“You could have told me.” Janice watched Alicia register the years between them, the community they had built.

“I thought it was best,” she said.

Janice sighed stagily. “At least I know what to do next: take Flinn out for lunch and ask about divorce lawyers.”

“That seems a little quick.” Alarm sparkled through Alicia's voice. Leaning toward Janice, she spoke in an urgent whisper, as if someone might overhear. “You and Jack have had a whole life together. He deserves a second chance.” Alicia swallowed. “You'll hate yourself for even thinking these things.”

“Everybody thinks about divorce,” Janice said, the line she had practiced. It was fun to say, like playing dress-up.

“Not for more than half an hour. That's the rule.” Alicia's words came even faster, a marble racing downhill. “Pat can think about the kids' French teacher for half an hour, and I can think about divorce. Then I splash cold water on my face and go back to folding laundry.” Alicia looked at Janice's stony mouth and dropped her eyes. “You would hate yourself. Just don't do anything you'll regret.”

Lou used almost exactly the same words when Janice encountered her at the dry cleaner's, adding, “At our age, we don't have many options.”
Our
age? Janice had seventeen years on Lou. But the other woman's face looked serious and tense, and Janice remembered the murmurs she'd heard, whispers of whispers, that Ben and his girlfriend had started up again.

Lou said, “Think twice before you do anything, all right? And then come talk to me.”

“I will,” Janice assured her, although Lou, with her rollicking husband and anxious mouth, was precisely the last person Janice would confide in.

Before going home, she stopped at the bakery for cream horns. Jack usually protested that he was watching his weight, but she supposed he'd eat them this time. Then she drove back to Laurel Avenue the long way. Soon Alicia would share her worries with someone, and Lou with someone else, until everyone on and around Laurel Avenue would be knitted together in a blanket of concern that Janice might leave Jack—a terrible thing, after all those years. What was marriage, except sticking together through the bad times? They'd have the conversations with their spouses every night. They'd do their best to convince Flinn. It would be interesting to watch.