PLAYING HOUSE
When Rachel Adair was not in her office, she came up with ways of staying away from the house when Hugh was around working on it -she and Hugh still had the occasional laugh, still began speaking at the same time saying the same thing, still had tender embraces when the day had been long and frustrating, but these were all becoming few and far between. There are times to be close and times to be distant, and this was one of those times to be a little distant, to let Hugh work out his troubles on his own. Rachel was afraid that if she were to sit down with Hugh and plan out his future, he would blame all his troubles on her. She did not intend to be used for an emotional punching bag, and didn't want to begin disliking Hugh.
"Well, I almost broke my sacred vow." Rachel was jogging with Sassy Parker on the bike path that ran alongside the Potomac River, with the Kennedy Center just across the parkway. The river smelled of dead fish, and the carbon monoxide from the traffic on the road to their right was equally as nauseating. Rachel sometimes wondered if jogging near heavy morning traffic was as bad for her lungs as her old cigarette habit.
"You running around on Hugh?" Sassy was her usual knock-out self in just an old T-shirt and baggy shorts. She wasn't even sweating half as much as Rachel. They jogged to Rachel's pace, which was very slow, almost a walk.
"Really, I don't have time to run around on Hugh."
"But you've got time to run around."
"No -I meant the vow about smoking. Hugh fell apart on me last Sunday and I ended up having the cigarette dream." Rachel's breathing was ragged and she had to slow down even further, until finally she was walking. “You know, the one where the cigarette is just begging you to suck it?"
Sassy gave her a nasty glance, but also began walking.
"Like a teenager horny for sex -you are a wicked girl, Retch. I never deny myself -in fact, I want to light up right now." Sassy withdrew something small, slender, and white from the pocket of her shorts. A cigarette. "I have another one in my pocket if you break down." Sassy brought a book of matches out. She paused, leaning against the railing of the walkway, and lit the cigarette. Sassy took a long fat drag, blowing the smoke over the Potomac River.
"No -believe me, if I could resist last Sunday I can easily turn down a cigarette -not that Hugh's been turning down his cherished booze."
"Enough!" Sassy covered her ears with her hands. "I am so tired of married women telling me their problems. Single people have more troubles, but we don't whine to everybody. Girl, go see a therapist." Both of them said at the same moment: "I don't have time to see a therapist."
"Mmm-this Kool sure is good."
"Blow a little smoke my way."
"That would be cheating. How many miles do you think we ran?"
"Ten -twelve… maybe two."
"I'm sweating like I ran twelve. This river really stinks in the summer."
Rachel nodded, but fell silent for a while as they walked along the running path.
"All right, so tell me -what's going on with Hugh?"
"No, you're right, I shouldn't dump it on you. I should figure this out on my own. Or dump it right back on Hugh. And it's nothing really bad. In a way -a very sick way -it's kind of good. Hugh and I were bickering about something, I forget, and then he went racing out of the house, and then I didn't see him until midnight when he was throwing up on the stairs and crying."
"Whoa, now, slow down. He was crying?"
"It was about his first wife, something about her, but he kept pushing me away, and there was that vomit on the third step up. Not a pretty sight. Between that and the mice and roaches… His first wife, Joanna, is not one of my favorite topics, either."
"Chalk it up to life's ups and downs."
"I wish. Hugh is kind of -I know this sounds wimpy -sensitive and he's not a coward or anything, but he has that kind of poetic slouch to him. I always feel like I should protect him. But he's been sort of out of it lately, at least since we moved in. Maybe taking on a house this soon was a mistake -maybe we should've waited until he had some steady work, or at least passed the bar. I actually thought the house would help things. But I think he's…" "Losing it?" Rachel nodded. "One of us is, anyway."
"Maybe you two should start living a normal life -he doesn't get out much, does he?"
"Supposedly on job interviews, but I think mainly to grab a few drinks." Rachel almost laughed: her life with Hugh was beginning to sound funny to her, as if they were two sad sacks who had found each other. Sassy's face was screwed up in the kind of intensity of thought that Rachel's mother was so good at when advice was forthcoming. "While I'm admittedly no expert on relationships, Retch, I think maybe you should cut back on your workload a little and try to do a few things together -maybe go off for a sexy weekend or start entertaining more."
“You mean be the total woman?"
"Half a woman. Maybe three-quarters of one." She blew a smoke ring into Rachel's face. “You said you might give a housewarming party?" Rachel inhaled the smoke, smiling. "With all the vermin we've got running through there, we should call it a mousewarming party. I had to set one of those awful traps -you know, where the cute little mouse gets his feet caught in glue -really gross. But it's better than the racket these mousetraps make." She paused, breathing in, sighing. She glanced across the river to Virginia and thoughts of home and daddy seemed to be there, just over the water. The thought of dealing with Hugh at all made her want to crawl into bed and stay there for a week or more. I want to scream, but not too loud.
"Get out of yourself a little: give a party, go sky diving, join the Junior League." Sassy smirked.
“You realize you're the only friend I have in this town?" Sassy puffed on the cigarette. "No good -you're going to have to have at least twelve friends to have a housewarming party." Getting back up to M Street on their way home, the two women passed a storefront on the edge of Georgetown.
Rachel was not aware that she had begun crying until she felt the squeeze of Sassy's hand on her elbow. "Oh, Retch," Sassy said.
"I guess my body just hasn't caught up with reality -it still thinks it's pregnant."
The store window display was of baby clothes. They were frilly and light and draped across a long blue rocking horse with painted eyelashes and a lipsticked smile.
I want to scream, she thought.
On Saturday, Rachel could not get her VW Rabbit started to go to Safeway. She sat in the damn car in the alley after a frustrating few minutes of turning the key in the ignition, pumping the gas, jiggling the wheel, and praying to whatever gods were listening. The seat of the car was hot, the wheel burned her fingers, she had gotten dressed up to go to the store, and already she was fried and sweating. “You goddamn car!" she shouted, pounding the dashboard with her fist. She sat there feeling as if she were nothing but frazzled nerves covered with skin. She felt like yelling her head off, spewing out every obscenity she'd ever heard or seen written on bathroom walls in college. She sat there a few minutes longer; a breeze actually wafted through the open window. Her hands were shaking.
She wanted to cry but was so mad at the car she didn't give it that little victory of seeing her fall apart. Rachel looked up at her house, over the back gate, to the second floor. Hugh had come out onto the outside stairs, standing there in his paint-spattered khakis and filthy white T-shirt. When he waved to her, paint flew out from the brush he was holding. Hugh was apparently in a good mood this afternoon -when he was consumed with working on the house, planing the floor, scraping old paint off walls and spreading on a new coat, he was content. He had a way of standing there that reminded her of her father, just a certain inner calmness regardless of the turmoil going on about him.
Hugh's smile sank into a straight line, and a look of concern came across his features. His brow wrinkled. He looked like a lifeguard who had just spotted a shark fin circling a swimmer. He pointed to the left of the car. His mouth opened and he shouted something like, "Look out!" Just as Rachel turned to her left to see what he was pointing at, something enormous and dark pushed itself into her open car window.
"Boshinus!" the thing shouted (and Rachel in the halfsecond of absolute terror knew it was the fat black bag woman from Winthrop Park and at the same time thought it was a monster). Her eyes were jaundiced a translucent yellow, and she stank like an unflushed toilet. Her spit sprayed across Rachel's face as she howled at the top of her lungs, "Get outta the screamin' house, lady!"
Rachel tried to scream but found she had no voice. It felt like her vocal cords had turned to solid ice. As if in a dream, she was moving in slow motion and everything around her went on in real time. She wanted to reach over and roll the window up, but her whole body seemed to have gone to sleep, and her skin crawled with a pins-and-needles sensation. All she could do was stare at the crazy woman in horror. But normal life flooded back in an instant as if it had never been gone: the crazy woman moved away from the car. The back gate was opening to the alley and Hugh was running down the iron stairs to the patio. Mrs. Deerfield came through the gate holding the garden hose, spraying it at the bag lady who ran limping down the alley. “You get out of here, you old witch, or I'll have them put you away for good this time!"
"Boshinus!" the black woman cried out as she turned the corner, her trash bags flying behind her like a cape in the wind.
"It seems heartless, I know, but perhaps if I called the authorities she might have a better home at one of the hospitals." Mrs. Deerfield sat on Hugh's college chair between the rubber plant and the shedding ticus, pathetically potted in a too-small pail. Rachel leaned back on the couch, and Hugh was in the kitchen brewing tea. Hugh's framed photographs hung along the wall above the fireplace; Mrs. Deerfield studied them with some interest while she spoke. The pictures were of interesting and unusual houses, bridges, landscapes, whatever had caught his eye. One of them was of a twenty-six-year-old girl named Rachel Brennan wearing a heavy sweater on a beach in Cape Cod one autumn, trying to smile and keep her hair out of her eyes while he took the picture. Her dark hair was longer then, down over her shoulders, and what Rachel remembered about the picture the most was the way that Hugh kept laughing every time he was about to take the picture and how much love she felt for him then. In just two years, how things had changed.
“You're ever so much prettier now, with your hair cut the way you've got it, dear," Mrs. Deerfield commented.
"Change is always for the better."
"Oh." Rachel felt as if Mrs. Deerfield had just read her thoughts. It startled her a bit, but then Mrs. Deerfield returned to the subject of the crazy bag lady. "She calls herself Marty or Mattie or something, and she used to be in hospital, I think, until someone let her out. I know her well -at least I feel as if I do -she used to fling large chunks of dog feces at my window, and once she broke into this house when the two young men had just moved in. I imagine they scared her as much as she did them -they said she came into their bedroom at two in the morning waving a knife around, but evidently she didn't expect to see two naked men sharing the same bed. I suppose I would've been as shocked as she was, and she dropped the knife and ran out screaming." Mrs. Deerfield paused when Hugh brought her a cup of tea.
"Mightn't you have a drop of whiskey for flavor?" Rachel glanced at Hugh and smiled.
"I could run get some down in my flat," Mrs. Deerfield volunteered.
"Oh, perhaps not, then." She sounded defeated; she began glancing about the room again, at the photographs, at the stereo, up at the hanging plants.
"If she has a knife she must be dangerous," Hugh said. He went and sat down next to his wife.
"Oh, hardly, she's all show, that one, mad as a hatter but fairly harmless, I think. She seems to imagine that her baby or something is being held hostage in this house. Perhaps she has a half dozen or more houses she does this to -I suppose it seemed cruel to hose her down like that, but you see, words and logic don't seem to get through to her. She's like a poor, dumb child, really. Oh, dear, but you shouldn't have done it." Mrs. Deerfield sipped her tea, glancing about the living room.
"What's that?" Rachel asked.
“You went and blocked that lovely fireplace. You put your telly there, and it's really a wonderfully beautiful fireplace, and I can tell you that no one could build them like that anymore, dear."
"I thought you meant I'd done something to that woman." Ignoring her, Mrs. Deerfield went on while Hugh winked at Rachel, "I do like the paint job -ever so much more light in the room, don't you think so? And the photographs are lovely, who took them?"
"Hugh did -he was big on photography in law school."
"Ever do any nude studies? When I was younger I always wished someone would've done a nude study of me before the world revolved a hundred times, and here I am today old and useless and drinking weak tea. You ought to put a drop of whiskey in your tea, dears, it adds a little sunshine to the afternoon, especially after our run-in with that creature."
Mrs. Deerfield barely caught her breath when she spoke, and Hugh, sitting close to Rachel, began nudging her knee playfully with his, shooting a smile her way which she tried to ignore because she was afraid she'd laugh and hurt Mrs. Deerfield's feelings. Mrs. Deerfield seemed oblivious to this, however. She didn't look at the couple on the couch while she spoke, but scanned the room, taking in the little changes they'd made. "I've called the police on her, once or twice, but it doesn't matter, does it? The authorities around here seem to expect this sort of behavior. I suppose it would be easy to go crazy in this neighborhood -and this Mattie woman has been around a long time, I think. Most of this block burned out in '68, you know, when the riots were blazing. I looked out from the window and saw several men running down the alley spraying gasoline on the cars, and then an explosion as one car after another went up, and then it spread to the building behind us, and it almost came over here, too, I suppose, before the night was over, but the wind kept the fire back -thankfully. It was as if for a brief moment Hell had spilled across the park." She paused and looked away. "My Ramona is due any time now and I'm afraid she's been quite the naughty puss and run away from Nanny Deerfield -if you should find kittens in your bathtub, you have my permission to scold her on my behalf.
Sometimes," now Mrs. Deerfield was wistful, and Rachel got halfway to a smile, "sometimes, when I think of it all, kittens, this house, that insane creature," Mrs. Deerfield shook her head slowly, “It almost makes me want to scream."
It almost makes me want to scream.
Rachel looked from Mrs. Deerfield to Hugh and back again. Had she said that, had she really said that? It almost makes me want to scream?
"In our little sanctuary by the park," Mrs. Deerfield continued, “To be, well, assaulted by that pathetic woman, and where are the police to keep people like her out of our alley? Why is there no one to keep this area free of such people? But screaming would do no good, no good at all. For who would one scream to?"
"What a sad little woman, in her small apartment, nothing to keep her going," Rachel said after Mrs. Deerfield had left.
"Nothing but booze." But as soon as Hugh said this, the two of them fell silent. Rachel rested her head in the crook of Hugh's elbow; she tried to match her breaths with his.
The air conditioner seemed to be working better than usual, and the house with its new paint jobs and greased hinges and hanging plants seemed to be theirs at last.
After a few moments, Rachel said, “You know, your photos are good. I think that picture is my favorite one of me: I look so insecure and inexperienced and confused, and so happy. You really caught the true Rachel."
"Nose shark," he said, pinching her nose lightly between his fingers. "I love you, Scout."
"She's a good influence."
"Penny Dreadful?"
"She came up and saw our living room and she made me look at it differently. She saw it as ours. We've screwed up the fireplace, but hey, we did it our way."
Then Rachel and Hugh said, simultaneously: "Our home sweet home." They laughed, and Hugh cradled Rachel against him. Her body felt heavy, and his was like a soft cushion and she wished she could just sink into him and not ever rise up again.
"I must be getting old," he said. "I feel the need for a midafternoon nap."
"You are a wizened man of thirty."
"Let's just fall asleep here the way we used to in school and we'd just laze around all afternoon." He kissed her forehead, and she closed her eyes. "Let's Pretend we're in our own home, Scout, and Let's Pretend everything will be all right."
"I love you, you-Are-There-Hugh-Adair." Later they went for a walk. The evening was cool and breezy, which was unusual for the final days of July. The trees that lined the sidewalks were a pale luminescent green, offering dappled shade from the western sun. They hiked up through Kalorama Triangle, looking at the embassies and large houses. Other couples passed by, one family of four obviously sightseeing, young people walking their dogs, which Hugh would stop and pet. The gingko trees stank to high heaven (Hugh called them "vomit trees"), the blocks seemed to go on for miles. Rachel's calves ached, but she felt so happy inside she wanted to walk forever. It was as if the scare she'd had from that bag woman, following close on the heels of her car breaking down, had awakened something in her that had been sleeping. And Mrs. Deerfield, too, had unlocked something for her, some cabinet in the house, just by saying that one phrase: it almost makes me want to scream. So, Rachel wasn't the only human being who felt like screaming sometimes, others did, too, others like Mrs. Deerfield could admit it. Things could get to be too much for her just like they could for Rachel. Normal life.
Hugh grabbed her hand and swung it playfully; he twisted around her in a pretzel dance move. "Sugar pie honeybunch."
"Oh, Hugh, you're so weird," Rachel said. She grinned goofily. "Wanna play, Hugh?"
"A dangerous question."
"No, I mean like, 'come out and play.' Remember when you could call up a friend and just say, 'Do you want to come out and play?'"
"'Play' takes on a whole new meaning after the age of twelve. Why don't we go to the movies?"
"Oh, barf, let's not go to some movie theater when we finally have bearable weather. Let's go to the zoo -it's not even seven, I think we can still get in."
"And watch the chimps masturbate? Well, it's your day -"
"And we do what I want." They took a path beside the parkway, walking through a wooded area just beneath the northern edge of Winthrop Park. Joggers were out in droves with blank, almost fatalistic looks on their faces as they pounded the asphalt, avoiding the couple.
"Walk on the grass!" one of them shouted as he ran by.
"Nice attitude." Hugh smirked.
"I was thinking maybe we could get away for a few days -maybe a week."
"It's a great time. We've just spent half our savings fixing up a house, I haven't worked since May…"
"Oh, you are getting to be an old man, you stick-in-the-mud. I don't mean anywhere exotic, I mean to the beach or something."
"Like I said, it's a great time."
"Well, maybe while you're unemployed we should do something, go somewhere. I mean, once you get a job you won't have a vacation coming for at least six months, probably longer. This might be the best time. I think my paycheck'll cover a cheap motel at Rehoboth or Dewey. And while we're gone, we can have the place de-moused and de-roached."
"Only if we take Penny Dreadful and Baby Dreadful with us."
"With the kind of work I'm doing this fall and your getting a job I really don't see how we'll get another break until sometime at the turn of the century. Except for today, the humidity sucks, the pollution is getting to me, and the last vacation we took was our honeymoon." They entered the zoo from the bike path; hundreds of tourists were milling around the exhibits and cages. They took a path along the seal exhibit, up to the otters. Rachel tried to find the otters, but couldn't see them anywhere.
"Look, if going to the beach is what you really want -" Hugh said as they continued walking. The squawks and cries of wild animals filled their ears.
"I want, I want."
"I just don't want to spend all your money -I'm beginning to feel like a kept man."
"Our money."
"The car payments and repair, your college loans, your law school loans, et cetera et cetera."
"Hey, if you're going to be in debt, do it big time."
"Okay, all right, I just feel so damned guilty. And don't think I don't see your little notes around the bathroom -it doesn't help my highly developed sense of guilt any to see the word paycheck etched across the bathroom mirror."
"I know, I've been a real bitch. Look, you'll get a job soon enough -I know it."
"We haven't talked about it much," Hugh whispered. She knew what he meant. He meant: the drinking. Rachel was beginning to wish the conversation had not gotten so serious; she'd been enjoying herself, and forgetting about the clutter of her life.
"I know."
"You've been good about it. I know I'm slipping up some."
"Yeah, well, we all do it sometimes."
"The interviews I've been on!" He laughed, clapping his hands together.
"Bufu Thompson said he'd try to 'work me in.' Work me in? I was practically responsible for his getting in to law school in the first place."
"The world is full of assholes."
"It's been kind of tense. I'll try to stay away from it." The dreaded it. Beer, wine, selected refined liquors. Somehow Hugh's not naming it specifically made her shiver. It must have some power over him if he could not give it a single descriptive word. Rachel had no response to this: the past few months had been tense, to the point where when she was not working she'd been drifting through things, nodding her head when Hugh would say something, but trying not to turn every situation into a confrontation. But today. Today had been so good. All of her anxiety seemed to have melted away, changed with the weather.
She felt happy and even secure with Hugh. Hugh said, "We'll go to the beach, what, maybe Labor Day weekend?"
"Well, to be honest, the end of next week is good. I think I can get Thursday and Friday off, and the following week if I want it."
"Talk about presumptuous-how long have you been planning this little getaway, Scout?"
"I was just inspired, that's all. We could drive up Thursday morning. A couple of T-shirts, some shorts, flip-flops… we can get a couple of those big goofy beach towels up there, and order club sandwiches from room service."
"A cheap motel with room service?"
"Okay, we'll pick up Ding-Dongs and Ho-Ho's at the drugstore."
"Of course we have to think about your clunker car. I guess I could get it to a garage Monday morning."
"If it works by Wednesday, we're set. Or I can call Budget or something and we can rent something nice. I'll ask Mrs. Deerfield to take in the paper, you know, water the plants, turn lights on and off and stuff, and maybe we can get the roach man to come by while we're gone."
"You're just my one-woman problem solver, Scout," he said without a trace of sarcasm. His eyes were shining blue as he looked into hers; she reached up and with her fingers twirled the hair that hung across his forehead.
"Daddy always said: it all comes out in the wash." He grinned and shook his head, his eyes never leaving her face. "If I kissed you right here -" and before she could say anything in protest, Hugh hugged her to him, and brought his lips against hers, softly, softer than she could ever remember a kiss being, cool and moist and unhurried. I love you so much, you-Are-There-Hugh-Adair. Behind them, the monkeys shrieked and jangled at the bars of their cages.