Trophy House (18 page)

“I'm washing the dishes. I can talk and wash the dishes at the same time. David's noncommittal. He's too absorbed in his foot.”

“You know, Dannie, I've been thinking about his foot thing. Is he accident-prone? Sounds like your sweetie-pie is accident-prone.”

“Are you nuts?” I said, not bothering to hide my irritation. “There's something wrong with those people. They
want
to get hurt. David isn't like that.”

“He isn't? How many accidents has he had since you've known him?”

I thought a moment. “Not that many. Everybody hurts themselves from time to time. I burned the top of my hand the other day.”

She asked me about David's missing finger. That was when he was a little boy, I told her. You couldn't count that. I hadn't told her about the time he was almost killed by a bicycle. And I didn't say anything about it now, nor about a couple of minor mishaps of the summer before.

I assured Raymie that she would get my answer about the brochure and the rest of it in the next few days. After I hung up, I began to consider her question. Were all David's accidents really accidental, or had something he didn't want to think about made him do it to himself. This wasn't such a big deal, of course. Being accident-prone was far down on the list of human defects. One could live with it; one could even ignore it. It wasn't as if David was a crackhead or dressed in women's clothes. But it did suggest that here was someone who needed someone to watch his step for him. A man who wanted pampering and more TLC than I cared to give him. A man whose mate was constantly on edge, waiting for the next blood-soaked mishap to occur. Was he merely a little needy or did the passiveness have an aggressive tail? That wasn't exactly where I had planned to go with the rest of my life. Did we communicate with each other or not? Wasn't that part of why we got along so well? Okay then, I told myself, if you're so open, just put it to him.

I was nervous. When you accuse someone of not being adult, it's not as if you were asking them why all their shirts are blue or why they never eat boiled eggs. I chose my time carefully, on a night when we went out for dinner. No big scenes in restaurants. Not that David and I had ever had a big scene, but I was aware that I might be playing with one of his rawest nerves. We had a favorite place, Cantos, a few blocks from the apartment. David was off crutches and was using a cane. We walked arm in arm.

Along about the dessert course—they had excellent lemon sorbet—I started to circle the red-hot subject, easing into it slowly, sticking one foot over the glowing coals, then withdrawing, then moving in again. I could see, by the way David's forehead was creased, that he suspected something was up. “Hey, pet, is there something bothering you?”

I said, well yes there was. Not a big thing, really, just something that wouldn't go away. Was it something about him? he asked. I nodded. “I would never make you unhappy,” he said.

“I know that,” I said. “I love being with you.”

“Then what is it?”

“David, please don't overinterpret and please, please don't take this the wrong way.”

“My God, what has the man done? Have I betrayed you? I don't think so. Have I put poison in your pasta? Have I failed to tell you I love you and that you've brightened my life?”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “All those accidents?”

“What about them?”

“David, did you ever wonder why you had so many accidents?”

His face rearranged itself into a broad smile. “Is that all? Is that what you're worried about? I can't quite believe this.”

I told him it worried me. The finger, the foot. The fireworks accident. How many times had he got hurt that I didn't know about? He said, “You're serious, aren't you?”

“Well, I know it sounds silly but I guess I am.” The smile faded away.

“I can't believe this,” he said.

Our waiter came over with two espressos. While he put these down in front of us, we went mute. I guess he was used to men and women squabbling over dessert and coffee. “We'd like our check, please,” David said.

Once outside, walking back to his place, David pressed me to explain, and I have to admit that when the problem was out in the open between us, it didn't seem half so hot as it had earlier. He wanted to know exactly how much of an issue his “accidents” were for me. Rashly, I said, “It's the accidents plus, well this sounds crazy, but I think you need someone to take care of you, to sort of watch over you and make sure you're all right. Maybe you should talk to somebody.”

“Talk to somebody? You mean a shrink?” The look on his face read, “I cannot believe my own ears.”

“And how about those times when you didn't have to go to the emergency room?”

“Such as?” I noticed that however fast I walked he kept a step or two ahead of me. He was pretty good with his cane. I did not believe that he was seriously awkward.

“Such as when you walked into the tree branch and cut yourself above the eye. I can still see the scar. Last summer. And the time you spilled hot coffee on your lap? Also last summer. Are you just awkward, or are you trying to tell me something? I need to know, David. This is my life as well as yours.”

“You want me to see a shrink. You think I have a major personality disorder. My God, Dannie, I'm only human. Maybe a human klutz but still a human.”

“Listen to us,” I said. “We're not even married and we're having one of those on-the-brink conversations. I can't bear it. No, I don't really think you need a shrink; I don't know why I said that. David, you're walking too fast—I can't keep up with you.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Look, I think we both need to cool down.” He reached into his pocket for the key to the front door. He turned the key, opened the door and stood back to allow me to go in first.

“Thanks for the nice dinner,” I said.

Later, in bed, neither of us could sleep and neither of us spoke. The room was dark except for the stripe of wan light thrown up by the streetlamp. David's hand found its way to my left breast. He knew what to do there. “I've got a confession to make,” he said so softly I made him repeat what he had said.

I told him that he didn't have to tell me anything. But he insisted. “You were mostly right about this accident thing. I never told you why Betty and I split up, did I?”

“You said something about going in different directions.”

He said that was putting it mildly. The real story emerged with many hesitations, throat clearings, and sighs. He and his wife Betty and their two children were driving to Baltimore to visit Betty's sister's family over Thanksgiving. David and the sister were not the best of friends. He thought she had an attitude problem—“bossy, she couldn't help telling everyone what to do”—but this was a trip Betty very much wanted to make. The children were quite young: Josh was nine and Rachel seven. It was getting late and they had to decide whether to stop at a motel or drive through until they got there. David wanted to stop for the night; Betty persuaded him to go on. It was only another hour to go. The children, she pointed out, were already asleep in the back seat. Why wake them now? David yielded. About six miles from their destination, having left the highway, David drove through a suburban intersection. A pickup truck, coming from the right, hit their car broadside, plowing into the right rear door, which crunched and buckled, injuring Rachel. “I apologize for not going into any more details,” he said. I told him I didn't need them. “You see,” he said, “there was a stop sign but it was obscured by some trees. But I should have stopped or at least slowed down before the intersection. It was my fault. We thought Rachel was going to die. She had a concussion and her leg and hip were broken. She was in a cast for months. She's okay now, she's learned how to compensate. You'd like her.” David paused. “Incidentally, she doesn't blame me.”

“And her mother?” I said, seeing all too vividly the scene as David described it.

“That's another story,” he said. “Rachel survived. The marriage didn't.”

What had I got myself into? I'd fallen for a man who couldn't—or wouldn't—keep himself safe. Tempting fate and wanting someone close to stanch the bleeding. In kind, he was no different from Evel Knievel, or the Frenchman who walked across a tightrope connecting the two World Trade towers. Not in kind, only in degree. David was telling me this without coming right out and saying so. And so what? An inner voice started peppering me with questions: “Is this sufficient to split? Does David do drugs? Does he fuck other women? Does he cuff you around? Does he drink himself into a stupor? Does he blow his paycheck at the track? Then what are you bitching about? He may be a little goofy, a little needy, but he's one of the good guys. He's a sweetheart. This accident thing—it has nothing to do with you. You can live with it.”

I realized that David had gone to sleep without bestowing his usual kiss.

The next morning at breakfast, David was subdued. “Should I not have told you?” he asked. “I'm sorry I told you.”

“Of course you should have told me. You should have told me long ago. But we won't talk about it anymore if it makes you unhappy,” I said.

“I don't deserve you,” David said.

“Please don't misread me,” I told him. “It isn't helpful.”

David said he understood perfectly when I told him, later that day, that I needed some time by myself. Besides, I had just about decided to accept Raymie's offer. It was odd and wondrous, how the more jobs I took on—it was now three: the house book with Beth, the
Peter Pan
project and Raymie and Mitch's trophy house—the more energy I seemed to have. I had, meanwhile, told various book editors that I was taking a “vacation” from other illustration work until my own book was finished.

Beth came to join me in Truro, bringing Marshall, who kissed me on the lips and wagged his tail for five minutes before he knocked a glass of juice off the coffee table. Beth was in very good spirits. She had had her hair expensively cut and shaped. She was wearing real clothes, not sweats. She told me she had been going online to meet guys. I stifled any show of doubt about this. After all, I knew several women who had met their mates on the Internet. Still, it seemed a risky way of doing that sort of business. “How do you know they're not going to lure you somewhere secluded and dark and rape you?”

“Mom! This is two thousand and three. This is the way it's done. Sure there are creeps on the Internet. But there are plenty of creeps in real life too.”

At least she wasn't still living with that married person. I think she kicked him out.

Beth had brought her text with her and we matched it up with my pictures. This took over two hours. “I really like this,” I said. “I think we've done a good job. I hope David likes it.”

Beth asked if I was going to marry David. “I don't know, pet, I can't make up my mind. He wants to. I try to like New York but it's so noisy. I can't get used to the noise. I miss the quiet. And I miss Marshall. I hope he isn't any trouble?” I thought, “How can a dog not be trouble?” But Beth shook her head. And then she asked me if it was just the noise or something else I couldn't get used to. I told her she sounded like a shrink. The phone rang. It was Raymie asking me when I was going to come over. “You said you'd be here at eleven. It's almost twelve.” I told her Beth was with me. “Bring her.”

Beth didn't want to come with me. She said she didn't like anything about this trophy house project. “You've lost it, Mom.”

“No, Beth, I haven't. It's a compromise. I don't want to lose Raymie. If I say no, she won't understand.” A blush of incredulity spread over Beth's face. How could I persuade her that, at my age, principles could easily be trumped by friendship? I think maybe it's something you learn only by living through those moments when you have to choose one or the other. Most of the time, it didn't matter. But what if your closest friend asked you to hide her secret that she had sold military secrets to the North Koreans? Or that she was guilty of a hit-and-run accident, killing an old lady? Or that she had gone to Neiman Marcus, where she had acquired a number of small items, none of which she had paid for? I suppose one answer would be that this is not a friend you would want to see any more of. This is a sociopath and you can't trust them. But in my case, now, to put it into the category of moral dilemma was dignifying it beyond its worth. As far as I could tell, it was no big deal. And maybe converting the Brenner house into a B & B would take some of the curse off it. Beth said, “I don't see how you can take part in Raymie's horrible scheme. You hate that house, you hate what it stands for, you hate the greed that oozes out of every crack.”

“But I love Raymie. I'm afraid I need her in my old age.”

“Mom, you're not old! You're not even sixty.”

“Thanks.”

“No, really, Mom, this isn't like you. It's got something to do with Dad, doesn't it?”

I told her I couldn't really tell what had caused the slippage from a moral stance to something a good deal more pragmatic. I also said that my so-called moral issues were as nothing compared to what was going on in the Middle East—wars on all sides; wholesale slaughter.