CHAPTER EIGHT
Ruthie took off her dress and stockings. The room had changed since she had moved out of it years ago. The posters of the Beatles and of Richard Beymer in West Side Story had been supplanted by serene watercolor landscapes. The two twin beds had been dropped in favour of a double with a dove-in-the-window quilt. But it was still the same space she and Nai had shared from Aaron's birth to Naomi's marriage, and it seemed strange to be up here, about to get into bed with a man in the room that had been forbidden to childhood sweethearts.
The celebration for David had gone off without a hitch, but not until nightfall had Ruthie realized that, in between telling animated, captivating stories to an enthusiastic young audience, directing and umpiring a baseball game, and ferrying boys around the block as if his Corvette was a carnival ride, Al had also been drinking steadily. He hadn't touched anything but the wine set out with the meal and the beer the men had passed around afterwards (at least, she didn't think he had had the gall to raid her father's liquor cabinet for whiskey) but over the course of eight hours that added up She didn't know whether anybody else had even been able to tell he was tipsy: all evening he had been behaving just like his usual flamboyant self. She wouldn't have notice herself, probably, but her mother had tracked his alcohol consumption with her all-seeing eyes and pronounced him unfit to drive. Ruthie wasn't going to be caught dead behind the wheel of the Corvette, and so Mama had insisted they spend the night.
That Al had acquiesced to the suggestion without argument was a bad sign: it meant he really was drunk. At least he wasn't being belligerent, and he hadn't made a scene, which she had been scared he would. Ruthie's confessions to Naomi were haunting her, as was the thought that somehow she was going to have to make this marriage work, even if he wouldn't meet her halfway. You couldn't terminate a marriage the way you could a tiresome friendship. A marriage, good or bad, was forever.
Having stripped to her slip, Ruthie picked up her purse and reached inside. The little vial of lithium tablets she always carried was there, but her heart sank into her stomach when she realized that the Phenobarbital was at home, next to her bed on the Lakehurst air base. It wasn't going to be a good night.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl felt great. He rinsed the razor he had brought for use before the Bar Mitzvah and put it back into his little toiletry case. Ruthie hadn't brought hers, and hadn't liked the suggestion that she use his toothbrush (just as well, really: there were some things that were too personal even to share with your wife), but Al never went more than ten miles from home without his. Navy training.
It had been a good day, all said and done, and although he had hoped to have a little fun with Ruthie when they got home, there was no reason they couldn't have just as much fun here.
The only downside to the overnight stay was that it would mean more time with his father-in-law tomorrow. There was nothing wrong with Isaac Zelnik. He was somber, but fair, and he loved his children, and apart from being a bit of a peace zealot (who could blame him?) and so naturally critical of the armed forces he was civil and cordial enough. But it was impossible for Al to sit at a table with the man, or talk to him, or shake his hand, without thinking what he did for a living.
It was important work, God knew. There were too many people in this world who went without a decent burial, left in the sun to rot or thrown naked into a pit with a dozen other corpses, two shovelfuls of lime to speed up decomposition and hide the evidence forever. Reason told him that if people were going to be buried clean and tended, with hair fixed and makeup to cover the grayness of death, wearing their best suit or a freshly-pressed frock then somebody had to do the washing, the painting and the dressing. He just couldn't imagine anybody doing that job every day, much less with the enjoyment and fulfillment Ruthie's dad did.
At first, Al had shown a polite interest. He had even consented to come to the funeral parlor with Ruthie for a little tour of the family business. There had been an old lady laid out in the chapel—or whatever Isaac had called it—and Al had been surprised at how peaceful she had looked, sleeping in her satin-cushioned casket. He had praised the workmanship, starting to feel better about the whole thing, and where had that got him? Into the morgue, that was where. Isaac hadn't originally intended to show it to him, but since he was so interested… A young man had been lying on the slab there, his automobile-accident-mangled body hidden under the sheet, and his battered face waiting for reconstruction. To Ruthie's consternation and his own embarrassment Al had skittered out of the morgue and fled to the bathroom, overcome by a rictus of revulsion. That had been the end of any chance of a genuinely amicable relationship with his father-in-law.
Another sore point was Aaron, Ruthie's younger brother the draft-dodger, whose exile the whole family seemed to blame vicariously on Al. Or if they didn't blame him, at least they were constantly sounding him out, almost as if they hoped he would call the kid a coward or a traitor. He had felt that way about draft dodgers once, but his mind had changed a long time ago. It was common sense, not cowardice, to fear what could happen to you over there. Any man who didn't fear the ropes and the hooks and the cages was suicidal or insane. It wasn't treason to refuse to face that for your country. Uncle Sam had no right to demand that of his farm boys and his young tradesmen. Those prisons had been purgatory for Al and the rest of the career military, the disciplined, the dedicated, the best that America had to offer. But it had been Hell, truly Hell for those poor conscripted kids. Most of them had died of despair, not malnourishment or torture. Aaron was no traitor. He was no coward, either. In fact, it took real courage to face banishment because you couldn't betray your beliefs. Sometimes Al wished he had half that boy's valor. Or his sense.
He couldn't explain that to Ruthie, though, any more than he could tell her why he wasn't comfortable around her father. There were some things she didn't need to know. She had her own troubles, she didn't need his. Besides, she didn't seem to be the sort to talk about things. Sure, her emphatic protestation that she needed to know his reasons for wandering around the house in the middle of the night seemed to belie that, but you also had to take into account her adamant refusal to talk about her own problems. Al was getting to know her moods pretty well, and he could tell when it was only the medications that kept her from floating away on her own wild energy. He could see, too, when she was sinking into a trough of depression. She had never sunk too deeply yet, or stayed down too long—but from what the base head-shrinker said the condition was notoriously unpredictable.
Al hated the blue days, when she didn't want to talk or move or eat. If he tried to ask her what was wrong she would come out of the trancelike melancholy to snap at him to mind his own damned business. She maintained he wouldn't understand. He wasn't so sure about that, but if she, didn't want to talk he wasn't going to press her. Bad enough she had to go through talking to a psychiatrist. Nosy bastards, asking questions they had no right to ask and forcing you to relive miseries and humiliation better forgotten. Ruthie wasn't going to get any of that "how-did-that-make-you-feel" garbage from hi, and he didn't have to take it from her.
Of course, that left the problem of how to treat her when she was down. He hated being fussed over and tiptoed around, so he couldn't very well behave that way. All that was left was to joke and bee as cheerful as he could himself, and hope he didn't make things worse.
She seemed to be swinging down again. Maybe a little passionate lovemaking would bring her out of it. It would certainly be the perfect end to his day!
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMRuthie pulled back the quilt, the blankets and the practical cotton sheets. She was about to climb into bed when the door opened and Al slipped in.
"Hey," he murmured, closing it behind him and moving to undress. "You know, I love that slip. You have some really excellent slips, but that, that is one of the best."
She smiled thinly. When he talked about her clothes like this he only had one thing in mind. Her eyes followed him as he folded his shirt and trousers carefully. He wriggled out of his undershirt, his lean, muscled torso rippling a little as he bent to tuck his shoes under the chair by the door. He moved around the bed and put out a hand to stroke her bare arm.
"You look beautiful," he said in his velvety, seductive voice, the one where the gravel was turned to nap. "Very, very beautiful."
"Thanks," She said uneasily. She didn't want to hurt his feelings or upset him, but they couldn't do this here! An arm crawled up her back, climbing up over the silk of her slip to the lace around the top. "Al, I don't—"
He pulled her close and kissed her. He was great at kissing, really great, and she found it impossible to resist him once he started. That first time he had kissed her on that bed in a New York hotel room, she had realized what kisses were supposed to be like. Now he was reminding her. She curled her arms around his back, running her fingers over his vertebrae. He was pulling out her hairpins with the hand not clinging to her waist. Her hair fascinated him.
"Let go," she whispered breathlessly before his lips sealed over hers again. "Al," she gasped as they parted again to exhale. "Al!"
"Ruthie," he murmured, easing her back onto the bed and caressing the long coil of hair that was now hanging down her back. "Ruthie, Ruthie."
"No, stop," she mumbled, not sure if she really meant it.
"Stop?" he whispered as if he had never heard the word before, his lips moving from her mouth to her cheek and up towards her temples.
"Mmh," she sighed, closing her eyes as he kissed them. "Al, no."
"No?" he mumbled thickly.
"No…mmh…Al…" She kissed him next to his nose.
"Ruthie…"
"No," she murmured, not meaning it at all any more. She started stroking his hair, rousing his curls out of their carefully tamed conformation.
"All right," he sighed, kissing each collarbone once before slipping sideways onto the mattress. "Not if you don't want to."
Ruthie pushed herself up onto her elbows and stared at him, startled and, irrationally and unfairly, a little hurt. "Don't you want to?" she asked.
"Not if you don't," he said contentedly. "You've had a busy day, so have I. And that was a fabulous kiss. Just like your slip: one of the best." He leaned over and brushed his lips against her shoulder. "Good night, Ruthie."
As she lay back down he nestled his head next to her neck and closed his eyes. Confused and unhappy because she had no idea what she wanted, Ruthie pulled the blankets up over both of them. Al's hand moved drowsily across her waist to cuddle her hip. She tried to force herself to relax into sleep.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl curled himself in towards Ruthie's warm body, one hand on her silk-clad side, his head resting on her soft, dark hair. She didn't want to make love in her parents' house, in her old bedroom. That was okay. Beth had been exactly the same way—
No, not Beth, not Beth! He couldn't. Not Beth, not Beth, not Beth. Ruthie. Ruthie was right next to him. He could feel the rhythm of her breath under his arm, he could still smell the lilac perfume. It was Ruthie, Ruthie with her long hair and her lacy slip. Ruthie.
Reminding himself emphatically how much he liked Ruthie, who was right here next to him, right now, he fell asleep.
