Dry as Rain Read online

  “Is it a done deal?” Her tone was cold enough to freeze molten lava.

  I told her we had thirty days to back out if she really hated it, and I promised not to be mad if she did, but to please, please wait until she did a walk-through to decide. We’d been here ever since.

  I sat in my SUV across the street from that dream house chain-chewing sticks of gum.

  The sun hit my rolled-up windows in such a way that every speckle of dust and dirt showed up like organisms under a microscope. In dimmer light, it had looked clean as a pin. The more I stared at the smudges and flecks of grime, the more irritated I became. I looked around for something to wipe them off with but found only a box of lotion-infused tissues. I spit my latest piece of Big Red back into its wrapper, added it to the small mound of silver in the ashtray, and looked through the blemished windshield.

  Just a few feet ahead, a towering pear tree cast a shadow on the road. With a turn of the ignition and a little bit of gas, I inched into the shade. The car looked clean again and I was happy to pretend it was. After another stick of gum and a long, deep breath, I decided it was now or never.

  I felt like an intruder when I turned the knob of my own front door without first knocking. Would things ever feel normal again? At the moment, that possibility seemed like anything but.

  Kyra met me in the foyer wearing sweatpants and a frown. “Where have you been?”

  “Your car was ready.” I pulled her ring of keys from my pocket and dangled them before her.

  She took them from my hand and set them down. “Great.”

  You’re welcome, I thought.

  “Oh, and I stopped by Mom’s.” I dropped my own car keys on the foyer table next to hers.

  Her expression softened. “Is she okay?”

  “Of course.”

  She gave me a funny look.

  “I visit with them every other Wednesday, remember?”

  Her lips curled into a smirk. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “That you seem to keep forgetting that my memory’s gone bad.”

  A few months ago, I would have bantered with her, but I guess I’d left my sense of playfulness on Danielle’s pillow. I walked to the window and looked out at Bram Harrington, who was helping his wife into the Volvo I’d leased him twenty-four months ago—or maybe it was thirty-six. I needed to check on that tomorrow. It might be time to put him in a new one.

  She walked behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I didn’t deserve her, but I needed her. Her warmth. Her love. Her vanilla-almond smell. “Marnie’s leaving,” she said. Her warm breath tickled my ear.

  I turned and gave her a questioning look.

  “Her boss asked her to fly to Milan. Another buyer had an emergency and had to cancel.”

  “She didn’t mention anything to me about it.”

  “It was last-minute.”

  Pressed into my back, I felt her chest rise and fall as she sighed. “I wonder what it would be like to just run off to Europe,” she said, “or Asia, or Africa, any old time you wanted.”

  And then the perfect idea hit me—an opportunity to make me a hero in my wife’s eyes instead of the villain I felt like. “You should go with her.”

  She scrunched her nose. “What?”

  “Yeah, I mean you’ve always wanted to go with her on one of those boondoggles. I’ve been pretty busy at work. Benji said it would be at least a week or two before he gets to come home. Go. Have fun. Get your mind off things for a while.”

  “Milan?” she whispered. “Really?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  A shadow crossed her face. “I had my appointment with Dr. Hershing this morning.”

  I didn’t know she had an appointment. My heart quickened, but I reassured myself that she must not have had any major memory breakthroughs or she wouldn’t be still standing here. I pulled her hands gently from my waist and turned around. “Feel like going out for dinner?”

  The sun streamed in through the window igniting her hair in golden red. Love overwhelmed me. “That’s your question?”

  “We’ve got to eat sometime.”

  “I’m thawing chicken.” The look on her face told me that I’d asked the wrong question. Seemed I’d been doing that all my life.

  “How’d the appointment go?”

  She sighed. “Weird. I keep feeling like that movie where the guy thinks he’s living a normal life but he’s really the star of a TV program, and everyone knows it but him.”

  “The Truman Show,” I said. “Jim Carrey. We watched it together the night Benji took that little brunette who used to live down the street to dinner. We were trying to pretend we weren’t waiting up for him, remember?”

  A sparkle lit her eyes. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

  “Her name was Doris Lipscomb,” I said, pleased to have done something right, “and he wouldn’t ask her out again because he said she gave him a heart-shaped balloon.”

  Kyra gave me a sheepish grin. “I remember you did your infamous yawn and stretch move on me that night.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I did that on our second date, not a decade and a half into our marriage. Your memories are jumbled.”

  “You did it that night too.” She sounded so sure.

  “I did not.”

  When she raised an eyebrow at me, she looked just like her late mother. “You most certainly did.”

  “You’re my wife; I don’t have to do the yawn and stretch.”

  She crossed her arms. “Is that right? Once the ring’s on the finger, it’s all in the bag, huh?”

  I shrugged.

  “So, you think you could have me any old time you want me?” Her tone had become playful, sexy.

  “Woman, I’ve got you wrapped so tight around my finger, it’s turning purple.”

  She laughed. “You’re awfully cocky.”

  “And awfully lucky.” I pulled her against me, wondering how long that luck would hold out.

  Twenty

  Being locked overnight with a bunch of teenagers and holy-roller types was the worst possible way to spend an evening I could have imagined, but Larry was convinced that I was a danger to myself if left unattended while Kyra was out of the country. So he’d corralled me into helping him chaperone the youth group lock-in on Friday night.

  The last time I was in church had been with Kyra. Sitting beside me, she tried to hold my hand, but I kept my fingers flaccid so that hers slid right out. When hurt flashed in her eyes, I felt the ache too. Causing her to suffer was the last thing I’d wanted, but how else could I make her understand how she’d made me feel? My mother would say I was being passive-aggressive; to me it was just trying my best to show her what I couldn’t seem to say.

  She rejected my advances again that night, and the next, until I became like a lab rat shocked every time it reached for the piece of cheese. After enough electrical burns, I finally concluded that starvation was the less painful option.

  That Sunday at Faith International had been the final occasion I’d made it to church that year. When I’d accepted the promotion at Thompson’s, even though I bemoaned having to work Sundays to Kyra, I secretly considered it a fringe benefit of the job. Having to work that day was the perfect, unarguable excuse not to go. I hadn’t wanted to be in church then any more than I wanted to be here now.

  Still, by eleven or so, I found myself resigned to my fate and even laughed once or twice at Larry’s stupid jokes.

  The kids got along remarkably well, playing board games and stuffing themselves with pizza and junk food. Only the occasional disagreement surfaced and was quickly buried again by the chaperones. For that, I and my blood pressure were grateful. By midnight, the girls split off to perform makeovers on each other in the bathroom, while the boys gathered around the two TV sets for a video game marathon.

  The carpeted sanctuary had been emptied of most of its chairs and was now lined with sleeping bags that would probabl
y not be slept in. I leaned against a wall beside the snack cart. I’d just wolfed down several handfuls of chips and was pouring myself something to wash them down when I noticed a teenage boy sitting by himself on the edge of the stage.

  Despite wearing a nondescript T-shirt and jeans, the kid would have stood out even if he hadn’t sequestered himself. He looked Hispanic, which made him the only non-Caucasian besides me among the otherwise lily-white group. No wonder he felt like an outcast.

  Larry patted a couple of the boys on the back on his way over to me. Two shrieking girls ran by the doorway in hot pursuit of something, someone, or each other. I stuck my head out and called for them to stop running.

  When I turned around, Larry was standing beside me. “This ain’t so bad, now is it?”

  I took a sip of my drink, thinking about Larry’s question. Flat, lukewarm Dr Pepper slid down my throat. “No comment.”

  He took off his glasses and rubbed the indent on the bridge of his nose, then slid them back on. “Admit it. You’re having fun.”

  I set my thin, plastic cup on the table beside me littered with empty pizza boxes and board games. “About as much fun as that time my mother maced me.”

  “Your mother maced you?”

  “She was trying to force one of those keychain pepper sprays onto the ring, and it went off.”

  “Some would argue that there’s no such thing as an accident.”

  In front of one of the television sets, a boy wearing a knitted cap over shoulder-length hair started having words with another boy. As the two exchanged insults, they began to play a not-so-friendly game of tug-of-war with the remote.

  Larry’s gaze darted from me to them and back again. “Want to take this one?”

  “You go ahead.” I nodded toward the kid on the stage. “I was just on my way to talk to Lone Ranger over there.”

  He glanced at him. “His name’s Angelo. He turns eighteen tomorrow.”

  I made my way over and leaned against the stage beside him. The kid gave me a brief side glance as he pulled at the end of his hair as if trying to cover his face so I couldn’t see him.

  His awkwardness must have been contagious, because suddenly I felt self-conscious too. “Hey there,” I said. “I hear it’s your birthday tomorrow.”

  He didn’t respond.

  I cleared my throat. “Eighteen, huh? That’s a big one. My son’s just a year older than you.”

  His dark eyes settled on me for just a second before moving back to watching the group. It hit me then that the kid might not even understand what I was saying. I’d never been very good at Spanish, though. In high school, it was the one class that kept me from making A-B honor roll. After repeating it a second time, I’d at least learned the basics. “Me llamo Eric. Como estas?”

  Angelo turned and glared at me. “Dude, I’m third-generation. You can cut the Spanglish.”

  I felt warm as I tried to recover. “Sorry. You were just looking like you . . . Never mind.”

  Wearing a look of disgust, he clicked his tongue. “You look like you came over from Ho Chi Minh City, but you don’t see me speaking to you in Vietnamese.”

  “I’m half-Japanese,” I offered, knowing he couldn’t care less.

  He went back to watching his peers.

  I wanted to leave the kid alone with the gargantuan chip on his shoulder, but Larry watched me with an attaboy grin. It had been a long time since I’d done anything noble in his or anyone else’s eyes. Although I’d never admit it to him, it actually made me feel good to win his approval again. Besides, what else did I have to do for the next—I checked my watch—six hours?

  “Why don’t we start over? I’m Eric.” I put my hand out.

  After staring at it for an uncomfortably long time, he finally took it. He had a good grip, not overbearing, but not wimpy either. His hand was small and cold. “Angelo.”

  I leaned back and pressed my palms against the polished surface of the stage. Before hoisting myself up, I asked, “Mind if I sit?”

  Predictably, he shrugged.

  My shoulder muscles pulled and burned as I lifted my own weight. More and more, I was starting to feel my age. I sat there beside him a minute or two in silence, hoping maybe he would start a conversation. When he didn’t, I finally said, “I grew up in an all-white neighborhood.” Not wanting to see him brush me off again with a shrug or blank stare, I kept my eyes fixed straight ahead at the boys laughing and punching each other’s arms. Everyone but Angelo and I seemed to be whooping it up.

  Since he didn’t walk away, I continued, “There were only two Asians in my school and I was one of them. I was your age before I met another person who was half-Japanese like me, and she was an old lady.” I thought about that woman, then added, “Well, she was probably younger than I am now, but back then she seemed older than Moses.” I smiled at the thought. “I’ll bet that’s how old I seem to you.”

  “I’m not sitting here by myself because I feel some ethnic stigma.”

  So, the kid had a brain. Good. “Then why are you?”

  He nodded toward the group. “Bunch of hypocrites.”

  “Who, them?”

  The look he gave me made it clear he thought the question was a dumb one. “No, my mother.” He banged the heels of his black and red Pumas against the stage one after another in an annoying rhythm.

  I had been right. He and I did have something in common. Neither of us belonged here, and not just because of our race. I understood where he was coming from better than he knew. “Believe me,” I said, “I get how Christians can come across as hypocrites. Pretending to live one way and trying to get everyone else to live another, but—”

  “Who’s a Christian?”

  The question caught me off guard. “What?”

  “Who here is a Christian?” He raised his eyebrows like he already had the answer. “Show me one.”

  My tired mind was probably not working as quick as it should be, but I just couldn’t grasp what the kid was getting at.

  Pointing at the group to the right, he said, “You see that kid with the skateboarder hair?”

  I followed his line of vision to the boy with straight black hair swooping down into his face and nodded.

  “He was baptized last month and gave a testimony in front of the whole church that brought tears to my mother’s eyes.”

  I waited for the punch line.

  “He was still dripping water when he hit on my sister. He’s dating one of her friends.”

  “Not everyone—” I started to say.

  He cut me off. “See that kid over there with the glasses?”

  I looked over at the one in the John Lennon specs, lying on the carpet, propped up on an elbow.

  “He got a girl pregnant last year.”

  I gave the boy another look. He couldn’t be more than seventeen. “How old is he?”

  Angelo ignored the question. “That one, with the hair . . .”

  I turned my eyes to the boy with a mop of curls, sitting cross-legged among the group.

  “He sells weed so he can buy video games.”

  They’re just kids, I wanted to say, feeling as defensive as if he’d accused me personally. Instead I asked, “How do you know all this?”

  “People tell my sister everything. She tells me. The worst part is that it’s not just the kids. The pastor we had last year resigned because he had an affair. The pastor.” He shook his head. “They’re not Christians.”

  Dozens of verses I’d had to memorize when I joined our church swirled through my head, from the Ten Commandments, to “judge not lest ye be judged,” to “all have fallen short of the glory of God.”

  “What about you?” Indignation rushed blood to my temples. “Are you so perfect that you can cast stones at them?”

  He crossed his arms and huffed. “I’m not perfect, but I go to sleep with a clear conscience. I’m not stealing stuff or taking anyone’s virginity or cursing my parents out on the way to Sunday school.” He turned to
me with a look of defiance. “That’s the difference.”

  “No,” I said, “you just think you’re better than them because you’re justifying your sins, just like they’ve justified theirs. Christians are sinners like everyone else. The real difference is grace.”

  He twisted his mouth but looked less certain. “People use grace as an excuse to sin.”

  “And you’re using the law as a way to negate grace. Are you a Christian?”

  “Yeah,” Angelo said defensively. “Yeah, I am.”

  Who is this man preaching to this kid? I wondered. I had no idea I had this in me, but what I was saying seemed right even if it was coming from my own sorry lips. “We’re all sinners. That pastor who had to resign is no better or worse than me or you. The Bible says if you’re guilty of one sin, you’re guilty of all. Remember when they were about to stone that woman accused of cheating on her husband?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I felt driven to make this kid understand, maybe so I could too. “What did Jesus tell them?”

  He shrugged, not like he didn’t know, but like he didn’t care. I knew better.

  “Being the judge and jury over everyone, you need to read the book so you know what the rules are. Jesus said the one who was without sin should cast the first stone.”

  He looked down at his dangling legs. “Did they still stone her?”

  I felt the zeal start to seep back out of me. I hadn’t been that worked up since, well, ever. “No, they dropped their rocks. He told the woman, go and sin no more. Just like that he forgave her, and she was given a fresh start.”

  Angelo stilled his legs. “What if that woman left and just did whatever she pleased, kept on sinning and all?”

  As I considered the question, I imagined Kyra giving me that kind of pardon, and I knew just how that woman must have felt. Who in their right mind would ever pick up a burden that heavy again after someone finally took it off their shoulders? “She didn’t,” I said, surer of that than anything in my life. “But that wasn’t the point of the story, anyway. The point was –”

  “Don’t throw stones if you live in a glass house?” he offered, the angry edge gone from his tone.

  “Don’t throw stones,” I said, more to myself than to the boy.