Learning Lessons Page 14

  “So...” There was more.

  “Yes?”

  She paused, exhaled. “Tyler was fired.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “He was fired and it was my fault.”

  “Your fault?”

  “I’m sorry, Pete. I...I was the instigator, really. I’m sorry.”

  What had become of Jess, when had she turned into someone he hardly knew? “It’s okay, Jess.” He slid his chair around so he could sit next to her, put an arm around her. She leaned into him, let him squeeze her to him.

  “You know, he got me out of there before they could see my face. He held a door open and he shoved me out with his foot, slammed it shut and wouldn’t let them open it until I had time to run away. He wouldn’t tell them who it was. He thinks they think it was a student.”

  “Oh, that’s awful.”

  “He hid my purse, I’d left it there. Anyway, they let him go—fired him. He left, then snuck back, took my van and drove it out of there before classes let out and it was the only one there. Someone might have figured who had run off with the blonde hair.”

  “They know it was a blonde?”

  She nodded.

  He held her head to his chest and stroked her hair. “We’ll get through this,” he told her. “We’ll get through this.”

  “I saw him today. Talked to him.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “It’s fine. If I act like I can’t be seen with him that would be worse.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I saw him. He brought my purse, my glasses,” she said, touching the arm of her glasses. “I had a coffee with him over at the Dunkin’ Donuts.”

  “How’s he holding up?”

  “Not good. Not good at all. He really needed that job. Really needed it.”

  Shouldn’t have messed around with my wife then when I wasn’t there. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, he has no savings, he was paying down some debts. He can’t even afford his rent.”

  “How long does he have?”

  “No time. He was already behind.”

  “Well, Jess, I don’t think we have much to give him. I mean, it also sounds like he’s a terrible person to lend money to.”

  “I told him he could stay here.”

  “You what?”

  “Told him he could stay here. Use our guest room until he’s back on his feet.”

  “No way.”

  “Just a few weeks, Pete. A few weeks, tops.”

  “With our kids here?”

  “What else can he do?”

  “He could leave town.”

  “He has nothing right now. No credit. Nothing. We can’t let him just...we can’t let him do that.” She was pleading with him, her eyes were tearing up.

  “Jess, baby. That’s crazy.”

  “Please, he saved me. Saved my job.”

  “So, you’re going to be the blonde girl who helps him after he gets fired for sleeping with some mystery blonde girl on school grounds? Come on, Jess, be sensible. People will assume it’s you.”

  “No, they won’t. Not me. No one will think it’s me. I’m not the type. And if I get out in front of it, unashamed, indignant, it might go a longer way to convincing people it wasn’t me.”

  “They wouldn’t consider you in the first place.”

  “It’s not impossible.”

  “Well, no. Not impossible.”

  “Pete, he’s moving in.”

  “Jess...”

  “Pete, he’s moving in on Saturday and he’s going to stay for a few weeks. I won’t put my hands on him. The kids won’t see that.”

  “Jess.”

  “Pete. 2 P.M. Saturday, I rented him a U-Haul. I have to do the right thing.”

  Pete let her go, put his hands over his face, ran them over his scalp. His heart was pounding.

  What the fuck was going on here?

  Part IV

  Letting Him In

  11

  Vampire

  Saturday, October 22nd

  Pete had picked up the moving van at the U-Haul and Self-Storage Place out on East Fifth Avenue. Guy at the counter looked at his computer screen, said, “No Mr. Mapplethorpe here...wait...Jess Mapplethorpe—I talked to her. That your wife?”

  “Sure, sure. Yeah, my wife booked it all right.” His stomach had tightened right there, hadn’t thought it could get tighter. Pictured his quiet, shy wife calling this place, booking a van to move her lover in under his roof.

  He still couldn’t believe this was happening. Didn’t she see how crazy this was? He understood how she felt responsible, but couldn’t she help in another way? There was no way this was going to work, all three of them living together. This was going to be the hardest couple of weeks of his life.

  The dolly he’d rented rattled around in the back as he turned onto Tyler’s street, Jess’s handwritten instructions open on the seat next to him. The dolly rolled on its wheels, bumped into the back of Pete’s seat. Shouldn’t someone there have thought of fucking strapping that down before they gave him the keys?

  He saw Tyler up ahead standing at the end of a driveway, talking to some woman. This was a town-home complex, narrow units plugged into a long row of Victorian peaked roofs, grey slate shingle over light grey brick. The woman was standing next to Tyler, looking up at him, unashamed of the infatuation lighting up her face. The doe-eyed eye-batting, the smile, showing him her white teeth. He could just hear it: Oh, Tyler, we’re going to miss you around here, you’ll have to stay in touch. She probably watched his window looking to see him without his shirt. Shit, they might be fucking. They probably were fucking. She was probably married too.

  Pete drove past them, stopped and put it in reverse. He watched the mirror while he backed it up. Couldn’t see them. He inched back. Someone slapped the side of the van and he stopped. Tyler was in the side mirror now, looking at the back of the van, holding his arm up, wagging his pointed finger, telling him to move forward—try it again. What the fuck? He was doing fine. It was a wide driveway. Pete moved it forward, then pushed the gear up again, into reverse. Watched the mirror, Tyler waving him back now looking over and chatting with the woman. Turned and said, Whoa, gave him a stop hand. Shook his head and pointed him to go forward again. Was he fucking with him? Pete did it again, forward then into reverse. Tyler waved him back, stepped aside, watched the wheels. Lucky he stepped aside, because if he told him to move forward again Pete might have kept going, gunned it and flattened him. Tyler shook his head like he guessed that was as good as Pete could do, he heard him yell out, Okay.

  He put it in park and got out. Tyler was close to the woman, whispering something to her. She was pretty. Looked like she could be a mom. Looked like she could be married.

  “We’re really going to miss you around here,” she said. Oh, my God. Big surprise.

  They kissed cheeks and she gave him a dreamy look then went back up her driveway.

  “That’s my neighbour,” he told Pete.

  “Yeah? You all boxed up?”

  “Sure,” Tyler said, “come on,” turning and walking up the driveway, waving for Pete to follow. Pete caught up with him at the front door. “I sold a lot of my stuff. Most of it. We just have to move the things I needed to keep.” He opened the front door and followed him into the place that Tyler had been living in. It was kind of sad. He felt a bit for the kid. Looking around the space he used to come home to until his wife had ruined that. Maybe it wasn’t entirely Tyler’s fault. Shit, he knew that, though. It wasn’t, was it? His wife had changed. She maybe had ruined this kid’s life. Maybe she was right to help him. If Jess wanted it, what kind of twenty-five-year-old could keep it in his pants? If Jess made the first move was it Tyler’s fault he let her?

  The place was bare. About a dozen different sized boxes just inside the door. Plain white walls, bare wood floors, a cable stuck out of the wall where his TV must have been.

  “This is it?”

  “Yeah. I sold
my TV, my kitchen stuff. Threw out a lot too. I sold my bed since I’ll be using yours.”

  Our guest bed, right kid?

  Sad he had to sell off his stuff like that. Sold his bed. Pete looked around the place, hands in his pockets. Did you fuck my sweet Jess on that bed you sold? He wondered if she’d ever been here before. Behind his back. She wrote out the directions in her pretty Bic cursive. She knew where Tyler lived. Had she ever come here after work, taken a session like he heard that day coming from his own bedroom?

  “Hey, man, it’s really cool of you to let me move in.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “It’s a little crazy I know. Everything I've done with her.”

  Pete swallowed, temples aching.

  “Pretty big of you.” Tyler slapped him hard on the shoulder, twice. His hand was heavy, resting on his shoulder, felt like he was trying to push Pete down to his knees. Subconsciously.

  “Right, let's just get the van loaded. Get going,” Pete said.

  Tyler slapped him hard again right on his collarbone, it made his brain jostle.

  They loaded the van in silence, and for every box Pete carried, Tyler carried three. There were some weights there and he left that to Tyler. Stood and watched him carry three big rubber plates at a time, carry his bar out to the van, some cannonballs with handles on them.

  “That’s it all?” Pete said, standing on the driveway, hands on his hips. He wasted his money on the dolly. Tyler wasn’t even huffing, he said, “Yeah, we’re all packed up.”

  “All right, I’m going to go home.” He got out the keys to the van, glad Tyler was going to be on his bike. What the fuck would they talk about sitting in the van driving across town together?

  Tyler said, “I’ll catch up. I wanna take a walk around. Old time’s sake. Make sure I didn’t miss anything.”

  Jess told the boys last night about Tyler coming to stay with them. Pete and Jess sitting in the family room, palms sweating, struggling through that awkward conversation.

  She’d explained to them that someone was going to come and stay with them for a little while. A friend of your Mommy and Daddy’s. Just for a few weeks.

  Poor boys had picked up on their nervousness. Could tell something was up. This wasn’t going to be some party. Not Jess’s fun cousin coming in from Italy and staying, keeping up the boys all night with her hilarious stories. Pete and Jess felt weird about it and they wiped those germs right on the boys.

  They bounced a ball on the driveway. A big faded yellow ball, like a melon, making that hollow sound as Petey bounced it to Andy, teaching him to catch. Being so gentle and kind to his baby brother. Jess paced the asphalt, waiting for them to show up. This was without a doubt the absolute weirdest day of her life. It put the absolute weirdest feeling in her belly too. She didn't know what it was. Jury was out. Sickness, excitement, sadness, happiness? Arousal, horniness, disgust? Maybe it was all those things rolled into one like a tense ball of rubber bands, every band a different colour. Sitting now heavy in the space below her heart.

  She heard Tyler’s bike. One band got tighter: excitement.

  “Here he is, boys. This is Tyler.” They stopped and watched the bike coming down the street, gearing down, getting louder. Petey said, Wow.

  Tyler came up the driveway, pulled off to the side out of the way, put his foot down and turned the bike off. Her boys were mesmerized. She knew the feeling.

  He took his helmet off, laid it in his lap, said, “Hey, kids,” smiling down at them, his voice deep but friendly.

  They both said, Hi. Shy and quiet. Andy looked back up at her.

  “Boys, this is Tyler.” She squat down with them, said, “This is Andy,” ruffled his hair, “and this is Pete Junior, he’s our oldest. He’s Seven.”

  “I’m five,” Andy said.

  “Andy’s five,” Jess laughed.

  Tyler got off his bike and rested the helmet on his seat. He got down knee to knee with Jess and faced her boys.

  “Do you know how old I am?”

  They both shook their heads, watching him with open, curious eyes.

  “Can you guess?”

  “Twenty?” Petey said.

  “Not even close.”

  “Fifty-seven?” Andy said, still trying to get a handle on numbers.

  “No, he can't be that old,” Petey said, looking at Tyler. “Twenty-five?”

  “Mmm. Add one hundred,” Tyler said.

  Andy looked up to his big brother to do the math.

  Petey struggled with it, the math was easy for him, he just couldn’t fathom how the answer could be possible. “One hundred and twenty-five?” he asked his voice high.

  “Yup.”

  Andy's Mouth went into an O shape, still looking over at Petey. “That’s old,” he said.

  “Well, I’m a vampire,” he said, really pleasantly.

  He gave Petey a half second for it to sink in then he pinched him in the collar where his neck met his shoulder.

  It made her Petey flinch and he jumped, laughing, scrunching his chin down to his chest to protect his neck. “Aggh,” he screamed, laughing out.

  Jess covered her mouth and nose with her hands and her eyes got wet. This could work out after all. It might all be okay.

  “Now you’re a vampire,” Tyler told him and Petey got it right away and turned and bit Andy’s neck with his fingertips. Andy screamed, lifted his shoulder to his ear, then turned and ran away with Petey chasing after him.

  She stayed squatting down with Tyler, their knees touching, both of them watching the boys running and pinching each other.

  “Boy, you made that look so easy,” she said.

  “How are you, Jess?”

  She looked at him, pursed her lips into a slim line, then said, “Nervous.”

  “Me too,” Tyler said. He held his hand out to her and she put hers over it, squeezed his big fingers. He stood and helped her up. She wanted to put her arm around his waist while they watched them play but knew she couldn’t. She stepped a bit closer, could feel his body against her side.

  Pete saw them on the driveway together driving in the cul-de-sac with the van full of Tyler’s stuff. His boys were running and playing and the two of them watched. They looked like a fabulous young family. But that was his wife. Those were his kids. He felt himself start to cry, felt his chest heave like he wanted to sob. They looked so good together, like they were meant for each other, watching their fair-haired boys horsing around.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered. He moaned, heard it echo in the van.

  They were knee to knee, then Tyler took his wife’s hand, held it, then raised up and lifted her next to him and they stood together. Pete drove past the driveway. He put it in reverse, looked in his rearview. A tear rolled out of his eye and he stopped what he was doing. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his coat. He cleared his throat, sniffled. Wiped at his nose.

  “C’mon, Pete,” he heard Tyler yelling behind the van. Waving his hand to Pete again, squinting—saw him in the side mirror, Jess standing just behind him.

  He backed it up, watching in the rearview. Tyler was watching the wheels, pointing to the side with his finger, saying, Left, left.

  Then he but both hands out to stop him, said, Whoa, whoa, how about your other left, now? Pete put it in drive and went on to the road again.

  Tyler said, “Okay, c’mon back now.” He turned and was saying something to Jess and it made her laugh.

  Pete came straight back, watching in the rearview and using his side mirrors, that musclebound hunk standing with his little wife, fucking with him. This was Pete’s driveway, he’d backed in a thousand times.

  Then he felt the wheel climb the curb. This fucking guy jinxed him, got in his fucking head.

  Tyler was saying, Easy, easy.

  Pete slammed it in drive and barked forward, made the front wheels chirp. He looked back saw Jess with the boys making sure they were safe. She pulled them to her thighs and put her arms over them holding them there.
He shivered again, watching his beautiful wife. She had her car coat on, dark grey cardigan and a long skirt. The wind was tossing her light hair around her. He ached for her. Wished he could be her man. He held his hands out, watched them shake. He clutched the wheel in one hand, put the van in reverse with the other. He backed it in, calmly, breathing heavy, his breaths a little shaky like he could still just burst out in tears. He got it in.

  When Jess opened the door his forehead was resting on the steering wheel.

  “Pete—you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, fine,” he said, sitting upright, quickly dabbing his eyes. He was sure she saw that they were red, puffy. He sniffed and stepped down out of the van.

  “Glad you could make it, Pete,” Tyler said, taking off his coat and throwing it next to his helmet, draping it over the seat of his bike.

  “Hi, Dad,” his boys said as they hopped over.

  “I passed your dad on the main street,” Tyler said, hiding his mouth behind the back of his hand like it was a secret for them. “He drives like an old man,” he said, holding an imaginary steering wheel up high close to his face, peering over it, squinting.

  They laughed, “That’s Dad, all right,” Petey said.

  “Look at his muscles,” Andy said.

  Tyler was just in a T-shirt now, ready to move his boxes. It was tight as could be, showing off his massive yoke, his big thick arms covered entirely in tattoos.

  Petey was looking at the drawings on him, getting close to see what they were. Tyler held his arms out so the boys could look at all the crazy things all over him.

  “Wow.”

  “Holy moly,” Andy said. “That’s so cool.”

  Pete looked at Jess, smiling, her arms across her chest, looking down through her glasses at her little boys with Tyler. Pete got close to her and put his hand on her shoulder but she didn’t look over.

  “Make a muscle, Tyler,” Andy asked him.

  Tyler laughed, got down for them again and flexed, gave them a good bicep peak. His arm was a thick slab covered in interlocking plates of muscle that rippled. Andy put his tiny hands around Tyler’s arm, nowhere close to covering up even the peak of Tyler’s bicep.