The Heights Part 27

She didn't say anything at first.

"Yes, I'm here," I said. "I'm still here!"

She said nothing.

"I've done my part. Where are you?"

No answer, but I could hear her breathing.

"Is this is some big joke to you? You find it funny? It's no joke!" I was quiet for a long time. "I'm giving you five minutes to get here-Wait, I'll give you an hour. Then I'm gone. You have one hour, do you hear me? One-!"

Click.

I should've left. Right then. Who am I kidding? I shouldn't have even been there. What kept me there? This part is hard to admit. I had said I'd wait an hour. So I clung to this idea that I was a person of my word. In the fog of my own moral war, I'd somehow worked out that I was the honorable one. I was holding up my end of the bargain, forgetting that I was violating a much bigger vow-the biggest vow of all-my vow to Kate.

I was disoriented when I heard the knock. It was more of a banging, really. The daylight streaming into the room made me squint. I half stumbled to the door and pulled it open only to find . . .

BEA MYERLY.

CLEARLY, I WASN'T THE PERSON HE EXPECTED. STILL, THERE I WAS, ALL PUFFED UP, full of outrage and disgust. But seeing him, the shame/shock look in his eyes, just made me sad.

"Mr. Welch," I said.

He said nothing at first. The only sound was of this once great man deflating. Finally, he managed a faint "h.e.l.lo, Bea."

"May I come in?"

He sat on the edge of the bed. He'd made an effort to look his best. He smelled of cologne. But he was like a sh.e.l.l of his old self. I stood near a large potted plant. Neither of us spoke for the longest time. My hands, my knees, were shaking!

Finally, me: "What are you doing here, sir?"

"I've been sitting here asking myself the same question." Then he scrunched his face. Then he sighed as if he'd been shot. Then he looked down at his feet and said, "You must be disappointed in me."

I was. I'd had such high hopes for Mr. Welch. But to tell him that would only have hurt him. And I was in the presence of a man who was already in far too much pain. That was when I thought, Remind him, so I said, "Here's what you taught me: History is full of people doing the unthinkable. And each of us is capable of doing anything."

Mr. Welch looked up, staring vaguely in my direction. I seemed to be having an impact. Keep going, Bea, I told myself. "And there is always a place for mercy."

"I taught you that?"

"Actually, no, but it's something I believe." I blurted out, "I won't tell anybody about what you've done here."

"Bea, thank you. It would be awful if it came out."

"Yes, I would think."

"Besides, nothing happened."

"Mr. Welch, I'm sorry, but that would be an incorrect statement, wouldn't it? That nothing happened?"

Who was the teacher now? He'd forgotten his own core belief. History-even if it is forgotten-is always happening.

Mr. Welch nodded. "You're right," he said slowly. It was as if he'd ingested ma.s.s quant.i.ties of sedatives and they'd just kicked in.

It was time to explain why I was there. "Sir, last night when I called, I was stunned. You see, I recognized your voice." It's only my favorite voice ever. "And I was so caught off guard that I said something untrue."

"Oh?" he said.

"I, uhm, lied."

"Go on."

"Mrs. Ashworth wasn't on her way."

He looked puzzled.

I explained about Philip and Anna's big fight, the begging and the tears, the makeup s.e.x, and mostly, how I'd failed to deliver the real message.

"And it was?"

I handed him the piece of paper Mrs. Ashworth had given me. It was folded in half.

But he didn't move. He just sat there holding the piece of paper. I think he wanted to read her note in private.

I excused myself to use the bathroom. Before I closed the door, I caught his reflection in the mirror. How do I give this man comfort? I wondered, just as he opened the note.

ANNA BRODY.

Go home.

TIM.

GO HOME. YES, THAT WAS THE RIGHT IDEA. OF COURSE, I WISH I'D GIVEN MYSELF the message. h.e.l.l, I wish I hadn't signed up for this pathetic adventure. But I had. And now it was up to me. Go home.

With Bea in the bathroom, I quickly packed my bag. Tossed the condoms in the trash. Unlocked the minibar and retrieved my wedding ring from under a high-priced chocolate bar. As I slipped it on, I felt a wash of relief. This will never come off again. I had dodged a big, fat bullet. Yes, Bea had the goods on me, but I believed she would tell no one. And I was grateful that she'd lied to me the night before. By leaving me to stew in room 1701 of the Infinity Hotel, she had done me a great service. I had met myself, and I didn't like the man I'd found myself to be.

So . . .

I couldn't get home fast enough.

I was stuffing my pajamas into my bag when Bea emerged. I was slow to notice the way she was standing, her arms outstretched, as if making an offering of herself. Only then did I realize she was naked.

KATE.

THE QUEST FOR SOMETHING REAL TOOK US TO THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, WHERE THE Kilimanjaro Safari was more authentic than anything we'd seen in two days. As we jostled along in an actual lorry, I pulled Teddy and Sam in close to me and tried to speak over a confused Jeff. "Look," I said. "Do you see that giraffe? It's real."

No response.

"Oh, look, real zebras!"

No response.

I pointed out the rhinos and the hippopotamuses, but the boys were miserable. They were about to cry.

"What is it, you guys?"

"We miss Dumbo."

"Yes, but over here, what we have is a real elephant . . ."

"We want to see Dumbo."

"Hey, guys, look: These are all real, live animals that we're seeing . . ."

"But Mommy, Dumbo is real! Mickey and Minnie are real!"

BEA MYERLY.

COULD HE TELL I WAS NERVOUS? THAT MY BODY WAS SHAKING? I SQUEEZED MY eyes shut, even though part of me wanted to look and see his expression. Another part of me wondered which part of me he would touch first.

I heard him moving closer.

Be open to what comes next, Bea. Be open.

I could feel his breath.

I am yours, Mr. Welch.

Before I knew it, he was behind me.

I have always been yours.

He draped a hotel robe over my shoulders . . .

Huh?

And gently told me to get dressed.

I don't even think he looked at me. That he ever saw me. I really tried not to cry. But he gave me Kleenex.

Later, on the subway, he said a lot of things I think he meant. He felt bad I had gotten mixed up in his mess. He was flattered by my offer. "But it would be wrong," he said. Of course it's wrong! But that hadn't stopped him! He told me we were kind of the same. He talked about how he'd gone too far with Anna Brody. How he'd lost himself. And how I was in danger of doing the same thing with him. He told me not to make the same mistake. He said it would make what he'd just done less terrible if I learned from it. And I promised I would do my best.

We were quiet for the rest of the ride to Brooklyn.

He walked me all the way to Baltic Street, and while I climbed the steps to my house, he waited, like a gentleman, until I was safe inside.

KATE.

WE HAD BEEN TRANSPORTED BACK TO THE MAGIC KINGDOM IN RECORD SPEED, AND now Jeff wanted to know what was next. I think he meant in terms of us. But I wasn't biting.

"Now we stand in line like ordinary people," I said.

"But the line for Dumbo is an hour and ten minutes!"

I insisted we stand there and inch along with the others. A frustrated Jeff, who hadn't stood in any kind of line in years, tried to entertain the boys, who were hot and cranky. He pulled me aside and asked if I was upset about last night. He said he had lots to say about what had happened, and I told him to put it in a speech. Then he disappeared. He returned with a stuffed Eeyore for Sam and a Jungle Book whirligig for Teddy and a long strand of cherry licorice for each of them. Over the next hour, he spent more money than I'd seen him spend the entire trip. We couldn't carry all the trinkets and memorabilia, the T-shirts, the plastic whistles and light-up saber-swords, the Tarzan clubs, the Aladdin lamp full of jelly beans. This was war. And Jeff wanted to win. My boys? They kept saying "I want this" and "I want that," and Jeff kept reappearing with it and more.

"Stop," I said. "Please stop."

"But, Kate," Jeff said. "They have the rest of their lives to be disappointed."

Late that afternoon, at the epicenter of the Magic Kingdom near the life-size bronze statue of Mickey and Walt, a mother freaked out. Poor woman. She had lost her mind. Well, it was understandable. It was hot, and her children were tired and sunburned and overstimulated from having consumed ma.s.s quant.i.ties of sugar and soda and chocolate. Maybe her younger child wanted to ride all the rides all at the same time. Maybe her older child, weighed down from all the souvenir gifts and Disney pins, had just moaned, "How come I never get what I want!" Maybe a maintenance gate had opened briefly to let a Disney cast member drive through in an electric cart, and maybe the mother had caught a glimpse of the backs of the facades facing Main Street and had been stunned at how it looked like the back of any strip mall in any city in America. Maybe she'd told her boys to come quick-look-for this, she thought, they should see.

It's a relief when it's some other mother who has snapped a tether, when you're not the one making a scene. It's a relief until you realize that it's actually you. You see, I was the person raging at her children, the one who lost her bearings, my way of behaving, my sense of perspective, so that amid all the clamor and the approach of security guards, I didn't have the wherewithal to negotiate a graceful denouement-no, all I could do was shout, shout until I was hoa.r.s.e from shouting that same word, the only word: Enough. Enough.

TIM.

I WENT HOME TO A PLATE OF TOAST CRUSTS.

Sam's cereal dried to the sides of the bowl.

The height marks on the pantry door.

Kate's hairbrush.

The gla.s.s with four toothbrushes in the bathroom.

Then I got out a small screwdriver and started to fix the broken cabinet door.

KATE.

"I DON'T BELIEVE IN REGRET," JEFF SAID IN OUR FINAL MOMENTS TOGETHER.

Well, sure, if you live in your own private Disney World, you can excise mess and garbage and even regret. But for me, regret was all too real.

"I don't know what happened," Jeff said. "Am I now some sort of monster to you?"

"No, Jeff, you're not a monster. You're an actor." Then I stuck out my hand. "Good-bye."

"So that's how it is now?"

"Yes, that's how it is." And we shook hands.

Later, forgoing the limousine Jeff had provided, the boys and I boarded the Disney shuttle and rode it to the airport. It felt good to blend in, to be just another mother traveling with her kids.

On the flight home, a woman sitting across the aisle leaned in and asked if I was all right. I turned and looked at her. She had gray hair and kind eyes. Of course I'm all right, I wanted to say. But she seemed to know better.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

"My husband's dissertation."