The Stories of Richard Bausch (77 page)

“I’ll make it,” I told her.

“Ruth wants to make her southern fried.”

We went out and joined my mother, who had opened the car door and was waiting with her hands on her hips.

“Conference over?” Ruth said.

We got in, and we took Janet to work. Nobody said much. Janet kissed me and nodded goodbye to Ruth, and we watched her walk up the steps and into the building. She likes the job, that’s one lucky thing. You could see her step getting lighter the closer she got to the door.

“Okay,” Ruth said as we pulled away. “So tell me.”

“Nothing to tell,” I said.

“She hates having me around, I know.”

“It’s the whole situation,” I said. “It’s not just you.”

She said, “I don’t blame her.”

I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I didn’t want her to worry about it. “It’s me,” I said. “Janet’s unhappy with me.”

“Well, it’s going to be better now,” she said. “We’ll have you working again. There’ll be more money.”

We went on south, and all the way she talked about what a nice woman Mrs. Wilton was. Not like so many people who have money. Mrs. Wilton looked right at you when she talked and never put on any airs. She had a great laugh, and she liked to tell stories on herself. She’d love me if I got to telling my stories, and all I had to do was relax and be myself. Forget everything
and just be who I really was. Her husband was some sort of expert in the fitness business, and owned a few spas in the area. The house was a beautiful old Victorian. Ruth couldn’t wait for me to see it.

I went the long way, so we could go past the school. “I thought I’d drive by,” I said. “Wave to Willy, maybe.”

There were a lot of kids out on the playground, four or five groups of them. I slowed down to look for Willy, but couldn’t see him in the middle of all that running and playing, all the colors.

“I don’t see him,” Ruth said.

I said, “No.”

And everything must have been in my voice, because she said, “It’s going to be okay, son.”

“I want him to know I give a damn what happens to him in life,” I said. “I didn’t have that when I was his age.”

“Not from your father.”

“That’s what I meant,” I said.

She didn’t say anything else. She quietly directed me to the Wilton house. It was what she said it was, too, a big old gray clapboard place more than a hundred years old and, for all its nice tall rooms and big porches and balconies, needing a lot of work. Mrs. Wilton stood in her doorway as we came up the walk. I was surprised how young she was—mid-thirties, maybe. Maybe even younger than that. Pretty, with brown hair and dark eyes and a tanned look to her skin. She held the door open for us, and Ruth said my name to her. We shook hands. I noticed her hands were rough-feeling, almost like a man’s. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

“So,” she said. “Your mother says you’re a good man with a hammer and nails.”

“I do my best,” I said.

“He’s a real craftsman,” Ruth said.

We were standing in the foyer of the house, and Mrs. Wilton turned and started through to what looked like a library.

“Why don’t I just run the sweeper upstairs while you-all talk?” Ruth said.

“But you were here yesterday.”

“But you had the rugs out on the porch,” Ruth said. “Won’t take a minute.”

My shoes sounded on the hardwood floor as I followed Mrs. Wilton,
and Ruth said, “Baby, you watch those big heavy shoes on my fresh-waxed floor.”

My fresh-waxed floor.

I never felt lower, never felt worse all my life. We went into the library and Mrs. Wilton started talking about her bookshelves and what she wanted done—the painting and the crown molding and the wiring, the track lighting, measurements and kinds of wood and designs, and I didn’t hear most of it. I couldn’t look her in the face, couldn’t really say anything when she asked questions. I heard Ruth running the vacuum in the upstairs hall.

“Look, is something wrong?” Mrs. Wilton said.

“Yes,” I said. I was utterly unable to help myself. “All sorts of things are wrong.” I wanted to go on and say how my mother once had a cleaning lady of her own, and it wasn’t always like this with us. But I couldn’t even speak then, for what was going through me, the whole thing, the whole disaster of the last couple of years.

“Explain,” she said.

I might have shrugged, I don’t know.

“Is there something about all this that bothers you?”

I could see what she was thinking: what sort of lazy, ignorant type I am, maybe the sort who beats up on his children or his wife or both, a sullen, inexpressive man with dirt under his fingernails and a collection of destructive habits.

“Well?” she said. There was something wrong with the way she said this, like she could demand an answer right now.

“I want to do the work,” I said. “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do.” But I wasn’t able to get the sullenness out of my voice.

“You don’t sound like you really want anything.”

“What do you expect me to do,” I said, “jump up and down for you?” I couldn’t help myself. It was out of me before I could stop it. This woman who was so comfortable having my mother running a vacuum in her upstairs hallway. She looked at me for a minute, then led the way out to the front porch. Ruth was at the top of the stairs as we came through the foyer. “He’ll do a real good job,” she called down to us.

Out on the porch, Mrs. Wilton said, “There are one or two other carpenters and contractors I’m talking to, you know. I told your mother I was. I only agreed to let you provide an estimate.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Do you want to continue with this?” she said.

I said, “What did I do?”

“You haven’t done anything. You can take some notes down, can’t you?”

I said, “Whatever you say.”

“No,” she said. “Well, I guess there isn’t any point.”

“I’ve got an idea what this will take,” I told her. “I can write up an estimate.” I couldn’t look at her.

Ruth rattled the sweeper on the stairs, making her way down. Probably we were both trying to think what we would say to her, how we would break it to her.

“If you’d let me do the work,” I said, “I’ll do a good job.”

“Well, write me an estimate,” she said.

But it was clear that everything about me had scared her, and she wasn’t about to go with me. She took a step back and looked me up and down. “The truth is, I’ve already pretty well committed to someone else.”

Ruth came out then, all smiles. I wished I was dead. She took my hand and faced Mrs. Wilton. “He doesn’t like to brag about himself, you know.”

“You were both very nice to come out,” Mrs. Wilton said.

Ruth squeezed my hand. “Yes, so. Next week then?”

“For cleaning,” Mrs. Wilton said. “Oh, yes. Could you come on Tuesday?”

“Tuesday’s fine,” Ruth said, and she sounded a little out of breath. “Are you two finished with everything?” She looked at me and then back at Mrs. Wilton.

“Yes, I’m afraid we are,” Mrs. Wilton said.

“That was fast. You-all are more efficient than I am.”

Then we were quiet. It was embarrassing.

“So,” Ruth said. “We won’t keep you another minute.” And she started down off that porch. I felt like a child being led. Ruth turned and waved. “Bye.”

Mrs. Wilton waved back.

In the car, we didn’t talk. I drove back out to the highway and on toward home, and the wind blew into the open windows of the car. Ruth had lighted a cigarette. Finally she said, “Boy, that was quick.”

I couldn’t think of anything to tell her.

“What happened?” she said.

I told her Mrs. Wilton had already taken estimates from contractors I couldn’t begin to compete with; I said I would write up an estimate anyway. I said I spoke up to save the woman a lot of unnecessary inconvenience, that she appreciated my honesty, and that she promised to call me as soon as she knew for certain what she would want done. And there were other jobs, too—other jobs might come up. She’d give my name to her friends. I said, bright as I could, that things were looking up.

What would you say? I would like to know what you would find to tell her about it. Would you be able to say that hearing her talk about someone else’s floor as if it was her own had set you off? That it had made you angry and sick inside, because you had once felt that you liked people and you had always wanted to be kind and you didn’t have that anymore, and because it reminded you of all this? Reminded you of where you were and where Ruth was, no more real to Mrs. Wilton than that poor Mexican woman with a cut ear had been to you when you were young and fortunate? That it had made you see yourself as you were now, grabbing at anything, any little hope that all this might somehow change for the better? That maybe you can learn to stop being this person you have ended up being—that man who makes his wife think of leaving him and frightens his own son? And if you could find a way to tell her all of this, what would you then say? If you were that man and she had asked you and you had spoken at all, you had found that you could say one thing, anything, anything at all?

If you are
calling to talk to one of us hot girls, are using a
Touch-Tone
phone, and you have your credit information handy, please press I now. We can hardly wait to talk to you.

…

Please punch in your credit card number, followed by the pound key.

…

Don’t go anywhere because we’re desperate for your hot love.

…

This is Marilyn, and I’m soooo hot to give you my—

Excuse me, Marilyn?

Oh, yes, baby, let me have your big—

My name’s John, okay?

…

Okay?

You sound nervous, John. You shouldn’t be. I’m gonna do whatever you want me to, baby, and it’s gonna be so
hot.

Well, I am a little nervous.

There’s nothing to be nervous
about,
honey. I’m lying here naked, just thinking of you, John. That’s what I’m doing right now. And I’m thinking of taking your—

Uh, listen, um, Marilyn—wait.
Wait.
Please. Do you think we—could we—is there any way we could talk about some other things first? I mean, I wonder if we could kind of get to know each other a little. Or anyway
seem
to get to know each other. Like, can we—talk around a little? You know, just generally? I’ve come to the conclusion that I need something a little less blunt right-away-into-it kind of thing, you know, and as long as I’m paying for the minutes, I’d think that would be all right. That is all right—right? Is that all right?

John, are you gonna talk, honey, or do you want me to?

I thought we’d both talk. You know, have a—have a conversation about things in general kind of thing, and, um, lead up to it. That appears to be what I require right now.

Oh, but I’m all
ready
for you, honey—

I know but
I’m
not ready yet. I need to talk a little.

…

Is your real name Marilyn?

…

Hello?

…

I mean, you know
my
real name.

Is this a crank call?

No, please. Don’t hang up. I’d really like to talk to you. I’m not ugly or anything, or weird. I’m five feet eleven inches tall and I weigh a hundred sixty pounds in my stocking feet, as my father used to say, and I have dark blond hair—dishwater blond, I believe they call it. And I’m not saving newspaper articles about assassinations, or collecting body parts, you know. None of that, and I don’t keep files on famous people and I’m not a disgruntled postal worker or anything at all like that—

Whoa, honey, slow down.

—I’m thirty-two and married, though my wife and I are separated. We have two kids, a boy and a girl, twelve and nine—

Let me get a word in, baby. Don’t you want me to talk? Is this your idea of conversation?

I’m sorry.

Honey, I want to tell you what I’m
doing
right now while I think of you, and listen to your sexy sweet voice—

Right, but I wanted to talk a little first. Converse a little.

Really.

Do you—do you have any children?

I’m sorry, baby, I can’t answer that. Ask me about what I’m
doing
right now.

Well—first. I was only—I’m curious. I mean I wondered how this works.

But I want to get it
on
with you, baby. Come on, don’t make me wait. I’m touching something right now, thinking of you.

Look, I really would like it if we just talk a little before we get intimate.
Intimate.
You’re kidding, right? Well, you know what I mean.

…

I’m still paying for it, right?

Sure, that’s right—it’s your dime, baby.

So, Marilyn—where’d you go to school?

…

Hello?

You’re kidding.

Can you tell me where you went to school? Um, around.

More than one school? College?

…

Hello? Was it college?

John, I really can’t get that personal.

A second ago you were telling me about touching yourself. I just want to know if you went to college.

Okay, it’s been nice talking to you, sexy—