Summerlong: A Novel Part 26

"I know that we did everything together. It's just this: you had more potential than I ever had," he says. "That's what's so sad about all of this. You know, when someone contacts me, on Facebook or e-mail or whatever, some old friend from college . . ."

"That's why I don't go near Facebook right now, by the way. You should get off it."

"Anyway," Don goes on, "when I tell them that we're living back in Grinnell, they always a.s.sume you are a professor now, or maybe an a.s.sociate dean. They never a.s.sume I'm doing anything like that, because they remember us, and they remember how many people looked at us and said, 'What is she doing with him?' Even back then."

"Whatever, Don."

"No, they used to ask that. To my face! And so when I tell them we live in Grinnell, an underperforming real estate agent and a part-time dining services staffer/novelist-"

"Former novelist," she says.

"-and that we've recently lost our home, they don't believe it. And they always say, 'That's terrible. How is Claire holding up?' because me, they think I expected this life, these mediocre expectations and constant disappointments, but they know you didn't."

"n.o.body expects the life they get, Don. That's what makes life so strange. I am ready to accept it. Charlie's taught me something."

"Charlie?"

"He's taught me to stop caring about where I am going, what I could possibly do or get or achieve. You, Don, you can't stop. You're not happy. You know what I am understanding? I am a happy person at my core. I don't care if I never write another book. You care. You do. You care what everyone thinks. You think you're a failure 'cause you went broke. We went broke. I don't care. You know what I want? I want someone who'll swim with me at the end of the day and not talk about the next day coming, or the new week, or the next year."

His heart breaks for her, and he suddenly wants to set her free, wants to let her loose in the world without the burden of him. It is okay to end things, he thinks. Still, he can't.

"Are you in love with Charlie?"

"He makes me happy. He calms me down. Is that love?"

Don excuses himself to use the bathroom. He's drunk five cups of coffee that day and it is suddenly urgent.

When he comes back out, Don is prepared to make an "I love you and I am setting you free" speech, hoping it has the opposite effect of Claire breaking free, hoping it makes her love him and miss him again. But at the table, he is disappointed to see ZeeZee Donovan, the art historian, and her partner Jean-Claude, standing near Claire in spandex outfits. They are on their bikes. Jean-Claude is blatantly looking at Claire's b.r.e.a.s.t.s from behind his sungla.s.ses, at her tanned legs. ZeeZee is talking.

Don hides inside the foyer of the restaurant until ZeeZee and Jean-Claude pedal away, their firm, spandexed a.s.ses wiggling farewell.

"I've been invited to a heat wave party," Claire says when he returns to the table. "At ZeeZee and Jean-Claude's. I saw you waiting inside for them to leave."

"A heat wave party?" Don scoffs and sits down.

"I forgot to tell you about it. ZeeZee just wanted to confirm that I'd actually be going."

"What's a f.u.c.king heat wave party?" Don asks.

"Inappropriate summer attire is encouraged. That's what ZeeZee said. They'll have a slip and slide in the yard, sprinklers, kiddie pools, slushy drinks, and cold beer."

"That sounds awful. No way," Don says. "But why wasn't I invited?"

"Well, the kids are gone for the night. I'm going."

"You are?"

"The new Claire, not like the old Claire."

"Oh, Claire!" Don says. He wants a wince of nostalgia from her, but he gets nothing, as if she doesn't even remember, or want to remember, the note he once gave her.

Claire looks across the street and Don follows her eyes, because she is obviously looking at Charlie and ABC, heading down Park Street toward the Mayflower. Don and Claire, obscured, in part, by the cafe's garden and leafy trees, do not call out. They watch Charlie and ABC in silence, poking at their summer salads.

It is ABC who notices them. Don watches, from the corner of his eye, as she drags Charlie across the street by the hand.

"Hey, guys!" ABC says. "It's great to see you out and about together."

"The kids are with their aunt in Des Moines," Claire says.

"Seize the day," Don says.

"They're spending the night," Claire says, looking perhaps too directly at Charlie when she says this.

"Well, you guys enjoy your lunch," Charlie says.

"It's not anything special. Do you want to join us?" Claire says.

"We're just reminiscing about our twenty years together," Don says, looking right at Charlie Gulliver.

Don studies Charlie's silent, s.h.i.+fting form. Both he and ABC have wet hair, freshly showered or newly emerged from the pool.

"We're going to see my dad," Charlie says.

"If your kids are gone for the night," ABC says. "You should know that there's a party at Zee-"

"Yes, I'm going," Claire says.

"Me too," Don says.

"Really?" Claire says. "But you weren't even-"

"Sure! Seize the day!" Don says.

"We're going too," ABC says.

"Slip and slide, right?" Charlie says.

"You guys are going together?" Claire says.

"Like a date?" Don says. "Very interesting!"

"Yes!" ABC says. "A hot date. Get it?"

"Not really a date," Charlie says, looking at ABC, laughing. Then looking at Claire. Don sees the look, registers it, banishes the idea of clocking Charlie right there.

A few more pleasantries, some discussion of the heat, the promise of seeing each other later, and then Charlie and ABC walk off toward the retirement home.

"Do you think they've just f.u.c.ked?" Claire says.

"Claire," he says. "I want you to think about this again: Minnesota this winter, you and me and the kids. I won't sign these G.o.dd.a.m.n papers until I believe that I, that we've, tried everything to save this marriage."

"Do you know what the winters are like up there, Don?"

"Claire, he's got a plow and a snow blower. Just think, all four of us, together round the woodstove. We can go down to Duluth once a month for supplies."

She blinks at him.

"You're nuts," she says. "This is insane, Don. We just moved into new places. We've just set up our kids in new rooms and you want to play O Pioneers! this winter!"

"With central heat and a Jacuzzi," Don says. "It's hardly roughing it. And we haven't settled down again. We're cras.h.i.+ng with twenty-something stoners! Is that a way to raise our kids?"

Claire frowns. "We don't have a lot of choices."

"That's why my Minnesota plan is a great plan!"

"It's not, Don," Claire says. "It's not going to work."

"Define it," Don says. "What isn't going to work? Moving to Minnesota? Our marriage? What? This is good, Claire. I've done it. I've come from behind. I have made a small amount of money, just enough money to fix our short-term problems. We can declare bankruptcy and live on cash up there. And then, I've been working with Mrs. Manetti, with Ruth, on this plan, a long-term one. Problems solved!"

It is this final statement that makes Claire, already exhausted and nerves worn down to a nub, burst into tears. When she regains her composure, she stands up. "I hate that you think this is about money, Don. I hate that you think you've fixed a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing."

And soon after that, she is gone.

Don pays the bill with the last of the cash in his wallet, leaving a gratuity that is larger than necessary.

Later that afternoon, when Don Lowry goes home, as in home to the Manetti place, he finds ABC on the sleeping porch. She is rolling a joint. She points to an envelope on the counter. "That's for you," she says. When Don opens it, he finds a cas.h.i.+er's check for $25,000, made out to him, and drafted on an account from a business named RM Enterprises LLC.

In the memo line, it reads: "consulting fees, summer 2012."

"What is this?"

"Your paycheck. Ruth is paying you to take us up north. In advance of your getting the house, of course. A bonus."

She lights a joint, takes a long drag, hands it and the lighter to him.

"But I never actually accepted her offer," Don says.

"You want to take a nap before the party?" she asks after she's inhaled a long deep pull of weed.

"Nah," he says. "I'm gonna go back to the office and make some phone calls. I made a small sale this month. Are you sure Ruth wants me to have this money?"

"It was her idea." As he turns to go, she says, "It's been a while, Don, since you've slept next to me. I don't have those dreams of Philly without you."

"I know," he says. "I'm sorry. Maybe tonight?"

"I'm sort of Charlie's date for the party," ABC says. "I'll probably sleep there."

"Of course," he says. "Thank you so much for this. For the money."

"Thank Ruth," she says. "She insisted. I tried to talk her out of it."

She grins at him, a puzzling grin he cannot begin to understand.

After making a deposit at the bank with a teller he thankfully does not recognize, some young college kid working a summer job, Don goes back to the office. The last thing he wants out in town is that he's taking charity from Mrs. Manetti. Because it is a cas.h.i.+er's check, there is no waiting period, and he takes a thousand dollars out right away, putting the cash in his wallet.

He is ready for a winter away-Claire will come around. He is sure of it. Up in Minnesota, they could make that money last almost two years. They'll sell one of the cars. They'll have to figure out health insurance. They'll have some expenses, but not many. Don has never before gone on unemployment or Medicaid or food stamps, it is not in his nature. But maybe he is dumb about that. Maybe it is time to simply swallow his pride and take whatever he can get. It is survival time now. Bankruptcy. Going off the grid. Don Lowry: going, going, gone!

ABC goes out onto the front porch. Charlie is sitting out there with Ruth, watching the darkness set in, and smoking a joint. Ruth counts the fireflies. Then ABC enters this quiet s.p.a.ce, twirls about, and shows off a flouncy black dress, short and strapless, that does nothing to hide anything about her body. She wears no shoes and her legs are s.h.i.+ny and bronzed from a day in the sun.

"You are about the s.e.xiest woman who has ever set foot in Grinnell," Ruth says.

"I'm overdressed, aren't I?" she says. "I found this at Goodwill!"

"It's a heat wave party, ABC. You look great!" Ruth says. "I love the idea. A heat wave party. It sounds s.e.xy."

"It sounds cheesy," Charlie says.

"Cheesy?" Ruth says. "I'd say it sounds more boozy than cheesy. If I remember such parties correctly, people will get powerfully and famously drunk. Just don't talk to any professors and you won't be bored."

She winks at ABC.

"You sure you don't want to come?" Charlie asks Ruth. She is toking up on the last of the joint.

She laughs. "No, no, no," she says, and she stands and lets ABC lead her inside. About ten minutes later, ABC comes back to the porch.

"She's asleep," ABC says. "This is a powerful batch."

"You're really something," Charlie says.

"You too," she says to Charlie, who is dressed in red swim trunks, a sleeveless white unders.h.i.+rt, red canvas sneakers with no socks, and mirrored aviator shades. "You also are really something."

"I wanted to look like Burt Lancaster in The Swimmer, but I think I feel more like Slater when he worked as a lifeguard on Saved by the Bell."

"There have been many adolescent fantasies about A. C. Slater as a lifeguard. I can say that with authority," ABC says. "Is that show still on?"

"It was already on in reruns when we were kids. I don't know if it translates well into 2012. It already seemed strange to me when I was young. I didn't understand the hair or the clothes. I thought I was missing some joke. And then one day I saw, what's her name, Tiffani-Amber something, and I got it. Like overnight, I thought, whoa. Whoa. Whoa!"

"You lucky duck, you get to have s.e.x with me at the end of the night," she says.

"That beats w.a.n.king it to a syndicated high school sitcom star in my father's study," Charlie says.

A little later, when they walk into the party, the sun of early evening still bright, they see that the dominant theme is flesh, that everyone has tried to look sultry and hot, and together, unspoken, ABC and Charlie feel the full power of their youth, in a way young people often fail to recognize. They are the s.e.xiest couple there. They can both feel it. Everyone is staring at them.

Charlie takes off his s.h.i.+rt and hangs it on the fence.

Don is working at his desk, answering e-mails, filling out paperwork, trying to figure out if he should or could pay any quarterly taxes, when Claire walks into his office, in a manner so stunning he involuntarily stands up from his chair.

She wears white sandals with a heel, a white two-piece swimsuit, and over it a sheer white s.h.i.+rtdress that's cinched a bit at the waist, comes down to the middle of her thighs, and b.u.t.tons down the front. Her hair is slicked back and wet and she wears huge gold hoop earrings.