She is waiting for him to leave.
“So, when you get like that, how long do you stay upside down?”
“About a half hour,” she says.
“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.