Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 10

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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Where are we really going? Always home.

— Novalis

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During our pre-coital moderately-wild abandon, Wade tossed to the floor of his living room every cushion from his couch and every chair. He covered the mare's nest with towels, sheets, and blankets which he drew from I know not where, and then we fell into it, naked and squirming.

It was soft. Hot, from all the blankets and towels, but soft. I don't know what lying in field of heather is like, but I romantically imagine it would be like this... except not at baking temperature.

We went at it, thoroughly. Not in a frenzied way. Smoothly, calmly, enjoying each... well, yes, every inch of it, bit by bit.

By the time we finished, we were both soaked, dripping as if we'd fallen in the sea, and lying in a sodden mess of cloth.

I was spent, empty, but happy to my core.

"Do you want to go again?" Wade asked.

"Oh God, I would," I cried, "but do you have air-conditioning?"

He burst out laughing, but in spite of his declaration that "Air conditioning is for chumps!" I had to get up and out of that melange of heat-trapping softness. "I feel like a boiled potato," I told him.

"Seems like you remembered how it's done," he observed, grinning.

"The basic principles, yeah," I replied, smirking. "I think we did alright."

He stretched his body out, a huge long X of a man, there on the mess of cushions. It was plain to see, he had the wherewithal to make another assault on my castle. I wanted to go again, as well, but the heat... the heat was simply ennervating!

"Praise the Lord!" Wade cried out abruptly in a voice loud enough to make the house echo. "I'm cured! I'm healed!"

"Healed of what?" I asked.

"Of everything: of life, of pain, of confusion!"

"That's a lot to lay on... what just happened."

"Yes, I know," he agreed. "You're absolutely right. That's why I think... I believe... I'm sure we'll need to do it again, and again. I'll need more treatments, quickly, soon, in future. At least twice a day, if not more."

I burst out laughing. "I can't commit to that!"

"No, of course not," he agreed, sitting up. "Nor could I."

"Aren't you hot, lying in there?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "But it's good practice... eventually I'll be living in Hell, so this... this is a tender prelude."

"Oh, Wade!" I scolded.

 

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I dried myself as well as I could with a tea towel, and asked for some cold water, which I drank greedily.

Before I left, we each made a profession of non-committment. No promises, no expectations, no requirements...

"Although each of us is always free to ask for a roll in the hay, and the other is under no obligation to comply," as Wade put it.

Wade was bouyed up, energized, elated by our encounter, but he quickly pulled back the curtain to reveal the dark underside of his ecstacy.

"I want to tell you," he began, "About an old silent video I once saw, of a drunken man, in broad daylight. It must have been somewhere in California, someplace with lots of hills. Outside his house there were three flights of stairs that ran all the way down from his door to the street, a long straight shot. Somehow he falls down the first flight, head over heels, breakneck speed. He stops and stands on the first landing for a moment, and then he falls down the second flight, and after a pause, he tumbles down the third. And it's fast: fast as a ball rolling downhill."

"Oh my God!"

"And then, once he reaches bottom, he stands in the road, straight and tall, just getting his bearings, and boom! he's hit by a car! Goes flying in the air, head over heels, and lands flat bang in the middle of the street."

"That's awful!" I exclaimed.

He waved his hand, dismissively. "It's all staged of course. It's slapstick comedy. It isn't real. But even so, sometimes I feel that way: that I'm that man. Except I'm the opposite: I mean, I go in reverse order. First I got hit by a car, and now I'm falling down one staircase after another."

"I hope I'm not one of those staircases!" I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Oh, no, not at all!" he said. "You're one of the landings, where I can stop for a moment, stand up, take a breath, and believe for a brief moment that it's all over."

Soon after that, I left to head back to Hermie and Lucy's house. Strangely, although everything Wade said was disturbing and wrong, his tragicomic view of life didn't touch me; it didn't get as far as my heart. I knew his sorrows and misfortunes were real, and I wished he didn't suffer from them, but at the same time, they somehow felt staged, like the video of the man falling and falling and falling...

 

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There was one other thing that happened at Wade's house. I'm going to relate it without comment.

As I was leaving, I noticed a large framed print. It portrayed a woman in a field, reclining in an odd sideways pose, her upper body raised up by her arms. She's looking at a house in the distance. "Do you like that?" Wade asked. "It's called Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth. I bought it after the accident." He came to stand behind me and rest his hands on my shoulders as I admired the picture. I say admired, but honestly the picture disturbed and settled me. Her twisted pose suggested that she was unable to walk, and yet somehow she'd been left (abandoned?) in a field, in view of her home, but unable to get there.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because when I first saw you, there in the desert, you were lying just like that: with your legs bent exactly that way, resting on your arms exactly that way."

I imagined myself in the picture, getting up on my hands and knees, and the sense of the world spinning wildly around me.

I know that the picture sounds creepy, but in that moment — seeing myself in it, with the world whirling — it struck me as almost funny. "Hey, Wade! Maybe you could get an artist to add the two smashed cars — you know, to paint them into this picture!" It sounded funny to me. Of course, I wasn't serious, or only half-serious... but then again, why not?

Wade gave me an open-mouthed offended look. "I tell you that you remind me of a classic work of art, and you tell me how to turn it into a Far Side cartoon!"

Of course, I understood what he meant even if I didn't get the specific reference.

Wade found a way of glossing over our cultural misalignment by reaching down and squeezing my naked butt.

I took that as my signal to get dressed and start walking.

 

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Lucy was eating lunch when I got back to her house. She had assembled a dagwood: one of those sandwiches that stand several inches high because of all the tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, meat, and other ingredients stacked between two slices of bread. On the table, among the fixings, I saw an empty tin of sardines, which I had to imagine were buried somewhere inside Lucy's creation.

"Oh, hey," she said. "You want one of these? I can whip one up in a minute."

She's must have a high metabolism, I told mystelf. Aloud I said, "No, that's fine. I'm not hungry at the moment. I think I'll take a shower."

She gave me a knowing look. "You were out somewhere getting laid," she observed. "Who with? It couldn't have been Hermie, right?"

"No," I said, "It was... this guy." I looked at her, wondering how she was going to fit the tall sandwich into that little mouth of hers, AND wondering how she knew I'd just had sex with someone.

"How—" I began, but she cut me off with a laugh.

"I can SMELL you!" she said, "And besides, you have this goofy smile on your face that only means one thing."

"Ah."

"Who was it? Some rando off the street? I don't understand how that can happen. It's never happened to me. Did he approach you? Or did you walk up to him? Did you cock your hip and say, 'Hello, sailor'?"

"It wasn't some rando. It was the lawyer from my car accident."

She somehow managed to extract a bite from her construction, and chewing, asked, "I've dealt with lawyers, too, but never ended up in the sack with them." She reflected a moment. "Although... at the time I was a minor. Maybe things would be different now."

I blushed. A full and solid red.

"No," I said. "No. It was just..." and I told her the whole thing. She listened in silence. By the time I was done, her sandwich was gone, and she was drinking a tall glass of milk.

"I don't think something like that will ever happen to me," she observed.

"Because you wouldn't want it to?"

"No. Because why would it? It's not the normal order of things."

I thought about that for a moment, then said, "I better take a shower."

 

---

 

Before I got into the shower, I took a look in the attic, which was accessed via a trapdoor in the hallway upstairs. I did find — among grandma's old mothballed clothes, Christmas ornaments, military memorabilia (from Lucy and Hermie's grandfather, presumably) — the inflatable mattress as well as a sturdy rug made of wool. Lucy, who was about to leave for work, had no desire to get all sweaty by helping me muscle down the rug and mattress, but I managed to not-exactly-drop them from the attic and then drag and muscle them down the two flights of stairs to the basement by myself.

By the time I got that far, I was filthy, soaked in perspiration, and smelled bad enough that even I couldn't bear it. I left the unrolling of the carpet and the testing of the mattress until tomorrow. For now, I peeled off my stinky sundress and stepped into the shower.

Say what you will of grandma's house, one thing it did have was plenty of hot water. It felt glorious, running over my sun-red skin. After towelling off, I realized I hadn't picked up any aloe vera. I tried to substitute an old body cream that looked like it once belonged to grandma. It didn't do the job. It didn't absorb or penetrate. It lay slick over my skin like Vaseline, and didn't feel as though it had any healing effect.

I had to wipe the cream off my hands on a towel before I was able to deal with the bag Cameron brought me. I dumped its contents onto my bed, the bed upstairs in the box room. After pushing the clothes to one side, I tried my laptop, but the battery was dead. Ditto with my old phone. I plugged them both in, and took a look at my engagement ring.

I'm by nature a scoffer — as far as I'm able to tell — but even I was knocked back by the ring. Barney had really outdone himself. The band itself wasn't a yellow gold, which I was glad of. It was white metal. I guessed it was platinum, or white gold, and I liked that. The diamond — I can't guess at the carats, but the stone surprised me by its size. Big. Again, I'm not a gemologist or jeweler, but I was impressed. The stone was so bright and clear that gazing into it was like looking into another world. I sat on the floor, gaping at it. I wanted to put it on my finger, and almost did, but something stopped me. Sure, I wanted that stone with me, so I could look at it always, but I didn't want what what came along with it. I didn't want what the ring signified. I felt that if I put that ring on my finger, it would be like putting a collar around my neck, a collar with a tag that read, "I belong to Barney. If found, please return her to Mariola."

So I held the ring, staring at the diamond, breathing unexpected sighs. Okay. Spectacular. I put it back in its box, closed the box, and pushed it to the bottom of Cameron's bag.

 

---

 

From the pile of clothes Cameron brought me, I selected a pair of khaki shorts, some walking shoes, and a loose, short-sleeved blouse with a dress collar. Then I went down to the basement. It was, as I said, the least tragic place in the house, and I wanted to get some idea of how I'd arrange things down there. While I mentally placed the rug here... or there... and the bed and the closet over there... my phone rang. It was Cameron.

I heard a happy bedlam behind her. "Hey, Deeny! I'm about ready to head over to my hotel, so any time you want to get there is fine, okay? You still want to come, don't you?" She sounded a little tipsy. A happy tipsy. A glowing tipsy.

"Uh, yeah," I agreed. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Do you, uh, do you have your car with you? Because if you could give me and the girls a ride, it would be like two birds with one stone, you know?"

"I have a car?" I asked her. Cameron burst into gales of laughter.

"No, you don't have a car, you ninny! I'm just goofing on you... testing you, amnesia girl." She laughed some more. Then she added in an arch tone, "Or am I?"

"Okay," I said. "What will you do? Take an Uber? Or what?"

"I think I might take a What," she laughed. "No, of course, I'll take an Uber. And you can take an Uber. Okay. You have the address, right?"

"No, I don't, can you send it to me?"

"I'll just tell you," she said, and after she gave me the hotel name, she hung up.

 

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I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but Cameron didn't have a simple hotel room; it was more of a suite. There was a large bedroom with two king-sized beds in it, and of course a good-sized bathroom. It had a sitting room equipped with a small couch, two arm chairs, a serious-sized desk, and a round table with four chairs, suitable for dining. There was also a second, smaller bathroom off the sitting room.

As soon as I walked in, she breathlessly gave me the plan: "First we'll give the girls their bath, and get them ready for bed. Then we'll get room service. As soon as they have some food, they'll fall asleep."

I expected them to want to play, both in the tub and after dinner, but they were tired from their travelling, the poor little things. They asked me to read to them, and Cameron had brought a supply of their favorite stories. We sat on the little sofa, one on each side of me, and by the time I got about two-thirds of the way through the second story, they were out, leaning into me so I couldn't move. Cameron carried them into the bedroom and lay them in the middle of one of the enormous beds.

Then she curled up with her legs under her on the little couch, while I draped myself sideways over one of the armchairs. The two of us sipped prosecco and ate chocolates and salted cashews.

"Do you want to send down for anything else?" she offered. I didn't.

"So... Barney," she began. "He hasn't called, has he."

"No."

"What do you think that means?"

"I wouldn't know! What do *you* think it means?"

"I think he's afraid. He did something... something bad enough to make you throw your ring away." She mused for a moment. "And it's a really nice ring." She pondered. "It would be nice to know what he did." She looked at me. "But you have no idea, do you."

"None." And that reminded me: "How did you know to go look for it?"

"Look for what?"

"The ring! by the dumpster!"

"I didn't. I went out to find *you*, and just happened to notice it. The light glinting off..." she let the words trail off. Which reminded her of something. "Oh, you know, I had a visit from your police friends, that duo — Carly and what?"

"Tatum."

"Yeah. They came to see me. They had SO many questions! Maybe THEY can find out what Barney did!"

"What?" I struggled to keep up. "Wait. Why did they come to see you? How did they even know you were here?"

"It looks like they're working their way through the family, calling each one of us in turn. They want to 'nail down your timeline' — that's the phrase they used. They're puzzled about how you got from Mamma and Pappa's anniversary party to a random spot in the desert. It's like, hundreds of miles in the dead of night. No moon."

"I know," I said. "It's a mystery."

She snorted scornfully.

"How much did you have to drink today?" I asked her.

"Enough," she replied. "Enough, but not too much. More than usual, but not to excess. Look, I never have a chance to let go like this, so don't harsh my vibe, if you can manage that."

"Okay." Certainly I didn't want to spoil her mini-vacation, but I did want to unwind some of the things she'd said. "It sounds like *you* don't think my crossing the desert is any kind of mystery."

"No, of course not! I'm sure you did what you always do: you found a spectacularly inappropriate man, who no doubt had a souped-up dune buggy, and he carried you across the desert like Lawrence of Arabia. And then, he either had his way with you and left you naked, or he *tried* to have his way with you, and you ran off, naked. It's pretty simple, and very much in line with your long personal history."

I sat in stunned silence while Cameron smiled to herself, before I could manage to ask, "Did you tell the police that? All of that?"

She reflected a moment, then admitted, "Yes, all of that, except that I didn't mention Lawrence of Arabia. That bit only came to me now, in this moment."

"So... what happened? The police called you? You told them you were in town, and they came to see you?"

"Yes, exactly. I imagine they'll call all of us. Even Nate."

"Nate. And will Nate have anything to tell them? Does Nate know anything about my disappearance?"

She breathed out a long breath. "Oh, Nate, Nate, Nate. Nate is a lovely little brother. You could not ask for a better brother, but keep one thing in mind: Nate is a boy, and boys miss things. Something wild and enormous can happen right under their nose, but they won't see it. They won't notice at all."

She got up to look out the window. After a half minute, she said, "What a lovely view! There's a river out there."

"It's the Robbins River," I informed her.

"What an unimaginative name," she observed. The alcohol made her fumble through the syllables of unimaginative, as though she was forming the words by lining up wooden building blocks.

One the girls let out a whimper in her sleep, and Cameron was in there like a shot. I heard her soothing the little girl, and once all was peaceful, she returned to sit on the couch.

"Can I ask you something, Cameron? Do you like being a mother?"

She gave me a look that I understood. She wanted to know whether I was mocking her, or challenging her, but no, I was only curious.

"I'm not a mother," she replied. "I'm a mom. That word, mother, is too clinical for me. But yeah, it's wonderful. You can't imagine how wonderful." She took a tiny sip. "Still, I have to admit, I have help. A lot of help."

"From Mamma?"

She laughed, a snort of a laugh. "From Mamma? Hell, no. I mean that I have a maid service that keeps my house clean, and a cook who not only cooks our meals, but cleans up afterward."

"Isn't cleanup part of the job?"

She gave me a level-eyed look. "It sounds like you've never done either part. Whatever idea anyone has about it, cooking and cleaning up afterward are two jobs. They amount to two jobs; they're two jobs worth of effort. Anyway, the fact that I don't have to worry about all that, or about whether we'll have a roof over our heads, it leaves me free to be a mom to my little girls. Most people aren't that lucky."

"Are you saying that you might love it less if you didn't have all those advantages in life?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying." As she spoke, she pulled out a throw pillow from behind her and threw it at me, hitting me right in the head, almost striking the lump on my forehead. "How dare you," she told me, but without any intensity. Her objection seemed pro forma.

"Seriously, Deeny, one thing nobody can tell you is how much you will love your children. You can't understand it until it happens to you. Those two little creatures, they lived inside me. Can you imagine that? Having two actual people living in your belly? And then they come sliding out, crying and slippery and needy. And you know, when they're born, they—" she paused, feeling the narrative thread slipping away from her.

"There's a bond," she concluded. "A physical bond. It's physical and metaphysical. It's emotional and—" she searched for a word— "commotional. Whatever."

"Okay," I acknowledged. "I didn't mean to offend."

She shrugged it off.

"So," she asked, after a pause. "Are you going to call him?"

"Who? Barney?"

"Yes!"

"Cameron, I don't know who he is!"

"That's the spirit!" she chortled.

For some reason — maybe it was just to fill the silence — I was about to tell Cameron about my having sex with Wade, when Cameron sniffed, rubbed her nose, and said, "I'm not going to ask you whether you want to come back with me. I know that you don't. You've never wanted to live in Mariola."

"Really?"

"Even as a little girl. You'd draw maps, you'd make escape plans... and whenever we went away on vacation, you'd cry when it was time to go back." Cameron sighed.

"Why does that make you sad?" I asked her.

"Oh, fuck!" she exclaimed, wiping tears from her cheeks. "I never want to be a maudlin drunk, a weepy drunk, but look at me!"

"It's okay," I said in a soothing voice. "It's okay." I was about to go to her, to embrace her, but she warned me off and warded me off with her hands.

"It's sad because it always ended the same way," she said. "You would stand up on something and declare, I am NEVER going back to Mariola! Never! and then Pappa would grab you, drag you off, and spank the living daylights out of you. Then *he* would declare that he was not about to listen to you complain about having food to eat and a decent roof over your head for the entire ride back home."

"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed. "That's terrible!"

"The pair of them — Mamma and Pappa — have always believed in that 'spare the rod and spoil the child' bullshit." She waved her index finger at me. "Mind you: that's one thing I've refused to do with my children. I've never raised my hand to them. Neither has Andre." I must have had the question on my face, because she answered it immediately: "And no — their grandparents have been warned in no uncertain terms that they dare not — never. No. If they want to see their grandchildren, there'll be no swatting or slapping or spanking." Her face darkened, then cleared. She sniffed, and took a deeper breath.

"Look at me, all teary-eyed," Cameron mused, as she wiped her tears with the palms of her hands. "And then of course we'd all pile in the car, head back to Mariola, and be the happy God-fearing family until next time."

"Whew!" I said, trying to take it in, blinking at a few stray tears of my own.

Cameron stood up, sweeping the wrinkles from her dress and arranging the pillows on the couch as she rose. She wobbled briefly, but after grasping the arm of the couch to steady herself, she straightened up and got her bearings.

"Well, how 'bout that!" she declared. "I've saved you five years of psychoanalysis right there!"

I laughed. She gave a wry, lopsided grin. "I don't usually drink this much. I don't usually drink at all."

"Make sure you drink a lot of water," I recommended, then wondered where that suggestion came from.

"I'm going to bed now," she announced. "You've seen it: it's a great big bed. You're welcome to crawl in with me, or you can work out some way to be comfortable out here. Just — whatever you do, don't wake the girls."

She came over and kissed me on the forehead. "I'm glad you came, little sis."

"Me, too," I told her. "Do you need me to wake you in time for your plane?"

"Oh, no," she laughed. "I have two little curly-haired alarm clocks in the bed next to mine. You'll see."