Things You Should Know (5 page)

“And how long has it been?”

“I'd say about fifteen minutes.”

“Would you like to get a cup of coffee when you're done?”

“Aren't you on duty?”

“I could say I was escorting you home.”

“Not tonight, but thanks.”

“Some other time?”

“Sure.”

“Sorry to hear about your grandmother—I read the obituary.”

She nods. A couple of months ago, just after her ninety-eighth birthday, her grandmother died in her sleep—as graceful as it gets.

“That's a lot for one year—an accident, a canceled wedding, your grandmother passing.”

“It is a lot,” she says.

“You a birder?” he asks. “I see you've got binocs in the back seat.”

“Always on the lookout,” she says.

 

In a way she could see going for coffee, she could see marrying the local cop. He's not like a real cop, not someone you're going to worry isn't going to make it home at night. Out here she'd worry that he'd do something stupid—scurry up a telephone pole for a stuck cat.

He's still standing in the door.

“I guess I'd better go,” he says, moving to close the car door. “I don't want to wear your battery down.” He points at the interior light.

“Thanks again,” she says.

“See you,” he says, closing the door. He taps on the glass. “Drive carefully,” he says.

She stays the way she is for a while longer and then pulls the pillows out from under, carefully unfolds herself, brings the seat back up, and starts the engine.

She drives home past the pond, there is no escaping it.

 

He was drunk. After a party he was always drunk.

“I'm drunk,” he'd say going back for another.

“I'm drunk,” he'd say when they'd said their good-byes and were walking down the gravel driveway in the dark.

“I'll drive,” she'd say.

“It's my car,” he'd say.

“You're drunk.”

“Not really, I'm faking it.”

An old Mercedes convertible. It should have been perfect, riding home with the top down in the night air, taken by the sounds of frogs, the crickets, Miles Davis on the radio, a million stars overhead, the stripe of the Milky Way, no longer worrying what the wind was doing to her hair—the party over.

It should have been perfect, but the minute they were alone there was tension. She disappeared, mentally, slipping back into the party, the clinking of glasses, bare-armed, bare-backed women, men sporty and tan, having gotten up early and taken the kids out for doughnuts, having spent the afternoon in action; tennis, golf, sailing, having had a nice long hot shower and a drink as they dressed for evening.

“Looking forward to planning a wedding?” one of the women had asked.

“No.” She had no interest in planning a wedding. She was expected to marry him, but the more time that passed, the more skittish they both became, the more she was beginning to think a wedding was not a good idea. She became angry that she'd lost time, that she'd run out of time, that her choices were becoming increasingly limited. She had dated good men, bad men, the right men at the wrong time, the wrong men a lot of the time.

And the more time that passed, the more bitter he became, the more he wanted to go back in time, the more he craved his lost youth.

“Let's stay out,” he'd say to friends after a party.

“Can't. We've got to get the sitter home.”

“What's the point of having a baby-sitter if you're still completely tied down?”

“It's late,” they'd say.

“It's early, it's very early,” he'd say.

And soon there was nothing left to say.

“You're all so boring,” he'd say, which didn't leave anyone feeling good about anything.

“Good night,” they'd say.

He drove, the engine purred. They passed houses, lit for night, front porch lights on, upstairs bathroom light on, reading light on. He drove and she kept a lookout, fixed on the edges of the road, waiting to catch the eyes of an animal about to dash, the shadow of a deer about to jump.

When he got drunk, he'd start looking for a fight. If there wasn't another man around to wrestle with he'd turn on her.

“How can you talk incessantly all night and then the minute we're in the car you have nothing to say?”

“I had nothing to say all night either,” she said.

“Such a fucking depressive—what's wrong with you?”

He accelerated.

“I'm not going to fight with you,” she said.

“You're the kind of person who thinks she's always right,” he said.

She didn't answer.

 

Coming into town the light was green. A narrow road, framed by hundred-year-old trees, a big white house on the left, an inn across the way, the pond where in winter ice-skaters turned pirouettes, the cemetery on the far side, the old windmill, the Episcopal church, all of it deeply picturesque.

Green light, go. Coming around the corner, he seemed to speed up rather than slow down, he seemed to press his foot harder into the gas. They turned the corner. She could tell
they weren't going to make it. She looked at him to see if he had the wheel in hand, if he had any idea what he was doing, if he thought it was a joke. And then as they picked up more speed, as they slipped off the road, between two trees, over the embankment, she looked away.

The car stopped and her body continued on.

 

She remembers flying as if on a magic carpet, flying the way you might dream it, flying over water—sudden, surprising, and not entirely unpleasant.

She remembers thinking she might fly forever, all the way home.

She remembers thinking to cover her head, remembers they are by a cemetery.

She remembers telling herself—This is the last time.

She remembers when they went canoeing on the pond. A swan came charging toward the boat like a torpedo, like a hovercraft, skimming the surface, gaining on them. At first they thought it was funny and then it wasn't.

“Should I swing my paddle at him? Should I try and hit him on the head? Should I break his fucking neck? What should I do?” he kept asking, all the while leaving her at the front of the boat, paddling furiously, left, right, left, right.

Now, something is pecking at her, biting her.

There is a sharp smell like ammonia, like smelling salts.

She remembers her body not attached to anything.

“Can you hear us?”

“Can someone get the swans out of here?”

Splashing. People walking in water. A lot of commotion.

“Are you in pain?”

“Don't try to move. Don't move anything. Let us do all the work.”

She remembers a lot of questions, time passing very slowly. She remembers the birds, a church, the leaf of a tree, the night sky, red lights, white lights in her eyes. She thinks
she screamed. She meant to scream. She doesn't know if she can make any noise.

“What is your name?”

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Can you feel this?”

“We're going to give you some oxygen.”

“We're going to set up an IV, there may be a little stick.”

“Do these bites on your head hurt?”

“Follow this light with your eyes.”

“Look at me. Can you look at me?”

He turns away. “We're going to need a medevac helicopter. We're going to need to land on that churchyard up there. We're going to need her stable, in a hard collar and on a board. I think we may have a broken neck.”

She thinks they are talking about a swan, a swan has been injured.

“Don't go to sleep,” they say, pinching her awake. “Stay with us.”

And then she is flying again. She remembers nothing. She remembers only what they told her.

“You're very lucky. You could have been decapitated or paralyzed forever.”

She is in a hospital far away.

“You have a facet dislocation, five over six—in essence, a broken neck. We're going to put you in a halo and a jacket. You'll be up and around in no time.”

The doctor smiles down at her. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

She can't nod. She tries to but nothing happens. “Yes,” she says. “You think I'm very lucky.”

In the operating room, the interns and residents swab four points on her head. “Have you ever done this before?” they ask each other.

“I've watched.”

“We're going to logroll you,” the doctor tells her. And
they do. “Get the raised part at the back of the skull and the front positioning pin lined up over the bridge of the nose, approximately seven centimeters over the eyebrows with equal distance between the head and the halo all the way around.”

“How are your fingers? Can you move your fingers?”

She can.

“Good. Now wiggle your toes.”

“You don't want it too high, it pitches the head back so she just sees sky, and you don't want it too low because then she's looking at her shoes,” the doctor says. He seems to know what he is talking about.

“Feel my finger on your cheek—sharp or dull?”

“Sharp.”

“Let's simultaneously tighten one anterior and its diagonal opposite posterior.”

“Thanks. Now pass me the wrench.”

“Close your eyes, please.”

She doesn't know if they're talking to her or someone else. Someone looks directly down at her. “Time to close your eyes.”

She is bolted into a metal halo, which is then bolted into a plastic vest, all of it like the scaffolding around a building, like the Statue of Liberty undergoing renovations. When they are done and sit her upright—she almost faints.

“Perfectly normal,” the doctor says. “Fainting. Dizziness.” He taps her vest—knock, knock.

“What am I made out of?”

“Space-age materials. In the old days we would have wrapped you in a plaster cast. Imagine how comfy that was. I assume you didn't have your seatbelt on?”

“Do these bites on your head hurt?” one of the residents asks.

“What bites?”

“Let's clean them, put some antibiotic on, and make sure she's up to date on tetanus,” the doctor says. “Get some
antibiotics on board just be to sure, you never know what was in that water.”

“Where am I?”

“Stonybrook,” the resident says as though that means something.

“Did someone say something about a swan?” she asks.

They don't answer.

 

Her grandmother is the first one who comes to see her. Ninety-seven years old, she gets her cleaning lady to drive her over.

“Your parents are in Italy, we haven't been able to reach them. The doctor says you're very lucky. You're neurologically intact.”

“He was drunk.”

“We'll sue the pants off them—don't worry.”

“Did anything happen to him?”

“Broke a bone in his foot.”

“I'm assuming he knows the wedding is off.”

“If he doesn't, someone will tell him.”

“Does that come off for bathing?” her grandmother points at the plastic vest.

“No. It's all bolted together.”

“Well, that's what perfume was invented for.”

 

Her girlfriends come in groups.

“We were fast asleep.”

“We heard the sirens.”

“I thought something exploded.”

“He broke a bone in his foot?” she asks.

“His toe.”

There is silence.

“You made the papers,” someone says.

 

In the late afternoon, when she's alone, the innkeeper arrives.

“I saw it happen, I water the flowers at night right before bed. I was outside and saw your car at the light. Your fellow had the strangest expression on his face. The car surged forward, between the trees, it went out over the water and then nose-down into the muck. I saw you fly over the windshield, over the water. And he was standing up, pressed against the steering wheel, one hand in the air like he was riding a bucking bronco, his foot still on the gas, engine gunning, blowing bubbles into the water. I dialed 911. I went looking for you.” He pauses. “I saw you flying through the air but I couldn't see where you landed.”

 

A human gyroscope, a twirling top. She landed at her grandmother's house, a big old beach house on the block leading down to the ocean. She landed back in time, in the house of her youth. She sat on the porch, propped up in a wicker chair. Her grandmother read her stories of adventure and discovery. At night, when she was supposed to be sleeping, her mind wandered, daydreaming. She dreamt of a farmhouse by the water, of a small child hiding behind her skirt, a dog barking.

It was a summer in exile; off the party lists. No one knew which side to be on, there was talk of a lawsuit, “too ugly for summer,” friends told her.

“To hell with them,” her grandmother said. “I never liked any of them, their parents, or their grandparents. You're a young woman, you have your own life, what do you need to be married for? Enjoy your freedom. I never would have married if I could have gotten out of it.” She leaned forward. “Don't tell anyone I told you that.”

At ninety-seven her grandmother set her free. At the end of the season her parents came home from Italy. “Pretend it never happened,” her mother said. “Put yourself out there and in no time you'll meet someone new.”

 

In the morning, she goes back to the beach, her hair smells of salt, her skin tastes of the sea, the scent of sex is on her, a sweet funk, a mixed drink, her and him and her, rising up, blending.

She goes back down to the beach, proud, walking like she's got a good little secret. As soon as she sees him, she blushes.

He doesn't know she is there, he doesn't know who she is, and what would he think if he knew?

She watches as he squirts white lotion from a tube, filling his hand with it, rubbing the hand over his chest, his belly, up and down his arms, over his neck and face, coating himself. He lubricates himself with lotion and then shimmies up the ladder and settles into the chair—on guard.