Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [131]
“Give me a clue.”
“To hell with clues. I wanted a man who looked at me like that. I wanted a man who would work up a lather with me in bed and then thank me. No one had ever thanked me before, that was for goddamn certain sure. And you know what? That’s what happened. You married another nurse. Me, this time. And it was me you looked at, me you thanked. Heaven in a bottle. Are you listening to me? Conor, pay attention. I’m about to do something.”
Conor follows her gaze. A living room, newspaper on the floor, Sunday morning, the twins playing, a family, a house, a life, sunlight coming in through the window. Janet walks over to Conor, unties her bathrobe, pulls it open, drops it at his feet, lifts her arms up and pulls her nightgown over her head. In front of her children and her husband, she stands naked. She is beautiful, all right, but he is used to her.
“I’m different from Merilyn,” she says. “You can look at me anytime you want.”
Now, on Sunday afternoon, Conor cleans out his pickup, throwing out the bank deposit slips. When he’s finished, with his binoculars around his neck and his telephoto lens attached to his camera, the 400-millimeter one that he uses for shots of birds, beside him on the seat, he drives down to the river, hoping for a good view of an osprey, or maybe a teal.
He parks near a cottonwood. He is on the opposite side from the park. Above him are scattered the usual sparrows, the usual crows. He gets out his telephoto lens and frames an ugly field sparrow flittering and shivering in the flat light. A grackle, and then a pigeon, follow the sparrow into his viewfinder. It is a parade of the common, the colorless, the dreary. The birds with color do not want to perch anywhere near the Chaska River, not even the swallows or swifts. He puts his camera back in his truck.
He’s standing there, searching the sky and the opposite bank with his binoculars, looking for what he thought he saw here last week, a Wilson’s snipe, when he lowers the lenses and sees, at some distance, Jeremy and Merilyn. Merilyn is sitting on a bench, watching Jeremy, who has taken off his sweatshirt and is talking to his mother. Merilyn isn’t especially pretty anymore. She’s gained weight. Conor had heard from Jeremy that she’d gained weight but hadn’t seen it for himself. Now, through the binoculars, Merilyn appears to be overweight and rather calm. She has that loaf-of-bread quality. There’s a peaceful expression on her face. It’s the happy contentment of someone who probably doesn’t bother about very much anymore.
Jeremy stands up, throws his hands down on the ground, and begins walking on his hands. He walks in a circle on his hands. He’s very strong and can do this for a long time. It’s one of his parlor tricks.
Conor moves his binoculars and sees that Jeremy has brought a girl along, the girl he saw yesterday at the flood show, the one who was dancing with him. Conor doesn’t know this girl’s name. She’s standing behind the bench and smiling while Jeremy walks on his hands. It’s that same aggressive smile.
Goddamn it, Conor thinks, they’re lovers, they’ve been sleeping together, and he didn’t tell me.
He moves the binoculars back to Merilyn. She’s still watching Jeremy, but she seems only mildly interested in his display. She’s not smiling. She’s not pretending to be impressed. Apparently that’s what she’s turned into. That’s what all these years have done to her. She doesn’t have to look interested in anything if she doesn’t want to.
To see better, Conor walks down past his truck to the bank. He lifts the binoculars to his eyes again, and when he gets the group in view, Merilyn turns her head to his side of the river. She sees Conor. Conor’s large bearlike body is recognizable anywhere. And what she does is, she raises her hand and seems to wave.
From where he is standing, Conor thinks that Merilyn has invited him over to join their group. Through the binoculars a trace of a smile, Conor believes, has appeared on Merilyn’s face. This smile is one that Conor recognizes. In the middle of her pudginess, this