Monday, June 8, 2009

Short Story Part III

(this is rapidly becoming a "Not short story", but oh well) 
Parts I and II here

Part III

At five o’clock, the alarm rang. As John reached over Grace’s body to silence it, he realized that his wife’s side of the bed was empty.

He stood, rubbed his face and walked out of the bedroom. In a pool of light cast by one lamp, Grace was curled up on the couch, a large scrapbook open in her lap. She turned the pages slowly, reverentially, her fingers occasionally lingering on a face or a memento.

John sat beside her, careful not to disturb her position.

He looked at the pages with his wife. These were old scrapbooks, from when Grace was in college—before they’d met. But John knew most of the people in the pictures—her large extended family, her best friend, her sorority sisters, cast shots from the community theater shows she’d done.  It was clear which ones had been taken before her transplant. In those, Grace was a shadow of a girl, her eyes the dominating feature of her face. Her cheekbones were sharp ridges against her smooth skin, and the color of her lips evoked a child’s tongue after she’d eaten a pints of blueberries. Her clothes hung on her. In the ‘after’ pictures, she has color and curves—hips are visible under her jeans, and her hair is glossy and thick. Her face has filled out so the heart-shaped look of it is no longer starkly evident; instead, it’s merely suggested.

“I like this one.” John tapped at a photo, protected under the plastic sheet. It was of Grace and her cousin, Charlotte, at the State Fair. The two were about twenty-four in the photo. Charlotte’s red hair flamed in the sun. They were waiting to go on the Sky Ride. John wondered who had snapped the photo.

A ghost of a smile lit Grace’s face. “I miss Charlotte.” Charlotte lived in Israel with her husband, who worked for the State Department, and their four children.

“Invite her to visit,” John suggested. Grace didn’t respond—she just turned the page. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Another show, Grace’s face changed by stage make-up and a wig.

 “If this law had been around when I was conceived…” her hands traced the pages. “None of this would have happened.” John looked at Grace’s face in the photographs. She had been caught mid-line, her eyebrows raised and her mouth a perfect ‘O’. She’d been singing.  John could summon Grace’s voice in an instant—her singing was always in the corners of his mind, reminding him of her when they were separated. Unbeknownst to her, he’d made an audio recording of her practicing one day and kept it saved on MP3 player.  She was singing “The Beauty Is”, from The Light in the Piazza, and “I Don’t Remember.”  

Cautiously John reached for her, and she yielded, folding her body into his. “Grace,” he said, smoothing her hair. “We will do everything we can. Believe me.   I will not let anything happen to you, or the baby. We will be fine.”

Her eyes bored into his. “Do you trust me?”

Grace snorted. “Aladdin?”

“Do you trust me?” John held out his hand, mocking the movie he quoted.

Grace slipped her hand into his, and squeezed it. “Yes.”

*

Getting Dr. Wallace to transfer the records was simple. As Leo had said, he praised John for his foresight—“better to get the termination done as soon as possible, if need be,” he said, his tone confidential, like they were lovers exchanging secrets. Leo had called within minutes and said he had Grace’s files. “It’s all in order, so we’re ready.” He had scheduled Grace for her first appointment the following week.

John went to work and studied cases and looked up statutes that meant nothing to him. Soon he wouldn’t even be working here. Eric asked him to lunch a few times, and after the third invitation, John knew he’d have to take it, or Eric would get difficult. More difficulty was not what John wanted to deal with, right now. Act normally, Leo had told them. Right.

Eric chose Traviata, a nearby Italian restaurant with a well-stocked bar and a proscuitto appetizer that Grace loved.  It wasn’t anything special—just long strips of meat presented on a cutting board, the paper-thin slices resting on a sheet of wax paper. To Grace, whose father’s family was from Calabria in southern Italy, it was heaven on a plate. She kept proscuitto in the refrigerator at home for a snack.  Once a month she made carbonara and served a white wine from Portugal. Those were the nights, usually, that they made love.

“About time you accepted my invitation,” Eric said, a slight hint of accusal buried behind his bonhomie. “What have you been working on?”

“Oh you know…” John perused the menu, stalling.  “Ken’s got me busy since I’ve been back.”

“Good. I wouldn’t be surprised if you landed a partnership soon.”

John snorted. “No. That’s for you.”

“Nice try, but I’m not paying for your meal.” Eric grinned. “I might be quick with a web search, but you, my friend, have brains. You’re good at strategy, at seeing all the different options available. That’s what  the partners are looking for.”

“We’ll see.” A lithe waitress came up to them, toying with a strand of long black hair. The men placed their orders and Eric saw the waitress toss John a look as she went through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

“She’s got eyes for you, man.”

“Didn’t notice.” John sipped his water.

“How could you not notice?”

“It’s pretty easy once you’re married.”

“Can’t test that.” Eric was a confirmed bachelor, who had a different girl each week. John had long since lost track of his various conquests within the firm. “I don’t like the whole idea of marriage. As an institution…too binding.”

“Heaven forbid you make a commitment,” John teased.

“Really. I haven’t found anyone worth that kind of sacrifice.”

“Maybe you will. If you ever stay with a girl for longer than a month.”

“Not fair. I stayed with Amber in accounts for three.”

“Wow. An entire quarter. Bravo.”

“One small step for man,” Eric grinned as the bread was deposited on the table (not by the waitress, but a teenage busboy). “She was nice.”

“Nice. That’s a ringing endorsement.”

Eric shrugged. “Wasn’t any more than that. It will take a lot more than nice to get me to commit.”

“AS we’ve seen.”

“So how’s Grace? And the kid?”

John’s throat tightened and he took a sip of water. “They’re both fine. We’ve got a gyneclogist who specializes in genetic research. He goes to our church, actually.”

“Is the kid OK?”

“We haven’t done the tests yet. Grace has it scheduled for a few weeks from now.”

“For your sake I hope the kid’s OK.”

“Just for mine?”

“Well, Grace too,” he clarified. “She’s a nice girl.”

“There we go again with the ‘nice.’ Please, give me something else.”
“I don’t really know her. Nice is about as far as I can go without having more information.”

“Please.”

“Invite me over for dinner sometime. Or, better yet, bring her downtown. We can all go out to eat sometime. She must eat, right?” John nodded. “So bring her out this weekend. I’ll find a girl, we’ll go somewhere where things are happening. See and be seen. All that.”

“Grace isn’t really a ‘see and be seen’ girl.”

“She’s an actress, isn’t she?”

“Sort of. Ocassionally.”

“If I remember correctly, she was a professional at one point.” Eric swirled the water in his glass and took a bite of bread. “I’m sure she’ll have no objection to going out on the town for once. When was the last time you went out?”

John thought of their dinners with Leo and Karen. “We don’t get out much.”

“Well there you go. Come on.”

The waitress arrived, bearing their bowls of pasta. John did notice her attempts to catch his eye this time—she wasn’t very subtle. But he managed to avoid  eye contact.

“She’s got it bad,” Eric muttered between bites.

You ask her out then.”

“Nah. I’m just second string. No one wants that. I want to be the first round pick.”

“Please.”

The men ate in silence for a few minutes, working methodically on the large plates of steaming pasta and marinara sauce. Wen Eric had finished he wiped away the sauce ring from his mouth and sighed. “Wish I ate that every day.”

“I’ll talk to Grace, OK? It’s up to her. I don’t know how she’ll be feeling—“

Eric blanched. “Say no more. I don’t need to hear about pregnant women things.”

“You are so ridiculous. How squeamish are you?”

“Very.”

“I’ll remind Grace not to show you her scars.” Eric made a face. “Kidding. You can’t see them anyway, unless she’s naked, and that is something she definitely will not be in front of you.”

“Thanks for that.” Eric placed his utensils in the bowl and pushed it to the table’s edge. 

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