Body Language

‘Enough,’ she said. ‘From both of you.’

Stan sighed, smoothed some wrinkles from the paper.

‘Hell, what difference does it make? I could call the old fool every goddamn name I ever heard and he wouldn’t remember it ten seconds later. There’s no water in the well. Drop a brick from ten feet up, there’s no splash.’

‘Well, today’s the day,’ her dad said. He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and his eyes were suddenly bright and clear. ‘I’m relocating.’

He stooped over and picked up his suitcase and started for the door.

‘Wait a minute, Dad. Come on, sit down, have something to eat.’

‘No time to eat. I’m out of here, on my way up the road.’

‘Dad, Dad. You can’t go relocating on an empty stomach, right? Breakfast is the most important meal.’

He stopped at the back door and stared at her.

‘It’s very important,’ she said. ‘Keeps you going the rest of the day.’

‘Well, yes. That’s a good point. I suppose I should have something warm in my belly before I start out.’

Stan groaned and bent back to his plate, sopping up the runny egg yolks with the last of his toast. He was a big man. Jet-black hair that he wore just long enough for a part. Short arms, brawny from his barbells and morning push-ups, small hands with blunt fingers. He was television-handsome, with a muscular face and light blue eyes. He’d hardly aged in the eleven years she’d known him. One of the two or three most popular boys at South Miami High, co-captain of the football team, senior class treasurer, big-time practical joker. Iguanas and corn snakes set loose in the teachers lounge. Once coaxing half the football team into hoisting the principal’s Volkswagen up onto the bed of the vice-principal’s pickup.

But it wasn’t his status that won her heart, or his looks, or his prowess before thousands of cheering fans. It was the way he treated his sister, Margie. She was a year younger and suffered from an acute case of multiple sclerosis. Stan Rafferty had been fiercely protective of her, leaving his classes five minutes before the bell so he could run to Margie’s classroom and help her move down the hall to her next period. They joked and spoke in whispers and Stan seemed to be her one solace and relief from pain. Every game ball he received, he held high above his head and trotted up into the stadium to present it to his smiling sister. The summer after their senior year, Margie died, and Stan sobbed openly. Alexandra was deeply touched. Such a strong, independent boy capable of such mature and sheltering warmth and unguarded displays of emotion.

And for the first few years of living together, sharing Stan’s small apartment, and later in the house on Silver Palm, things had been fine. Both of them nineteen, Stan at work for Brinks, helping her parents pay Alexandra’s tuition to the local state university. It was a pleasant time. Not blissful, not a swooning romance, but good and sweet. Stan, a tender lover, almost too tender. He seemed skittish and vulnerable. Touching her body with a lightness and caution that seemed childlike and full of wonder, as if her body were made of fine crystal that might break at the slightest miscue. But in some ways, it was exactly what she’d needed. The muscular football jock with the feathery hands, the watchful and delicate strokes. The perfect man to set the record straight.

Over the years, she’d come to find that Stan Rafferty was a mostly decent man, a little childish sometimes perhaps, a streak of self-centeredness. They didn’t bicker, rarely snapped at each other. But there were no longer any fond stray touches, either – no foot massages or back rubs, as there had been in the first couple of years, no hand-holding in the dark, no kisses that heated to combustion. Even their regular Sunday-morning lovemaking had become as perfunctory and timed as his calisthenics drills. Not sufficient reason for divorce, but less and less reason to stay married.

Last month, she’d gone to see one of the shrinks who worked for the department. A Latin woman in her midforties whom Alex had seen for years around the hallways of Miami PD. They’d had a cordial, nodding relationship, mild water-fountain gossip. The woman welcomed Alexandra into her office and listened to her description of her nine-year marriage. The loss of passion, the growing distance, whole days passing by with fewer than ten words between them. When Alex was finished, Maria Gonzalez stared idly down at the papers on her desk. For a moment, Alex thought she’d dozed off.

‘Maria?’

The therapist looked up from her notes.

‘This is all?’ she said. ‘He doesn’t hit you?’

‘No, he doesn’t hit. I wouldn’t stay a day if he hit.’

‘No arguments, no screaming, no throwing things. He doesn’t berate you, belittle you in any way?’

‘No, it’s all very quiet. Very low-key.’

‘And you love him still?’

Alex hesitated a moment.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But it’s more like the feeling I’d have for a kid brother.’

Maria waved her hand as if such fine distinctions didn’t interest her.

‘Does he love you?’

‘In his way, yes, I suppose he does.’

Maria looked at Alexandra for a long time without speaking. It was a look similar to the one she’d gotten over the years from various auto mechanics when she’d brought her car in because she’d heard a creak that she was sure was the telltale complaint of a crucial part about to give way. Inevitably, the mechanics never heard the creak, and they sent her on her way with that same patient but mildly scolding look. They had plenty of customers with real problems, cars that wouldn’t run at all.

‘Trouble with Miami,’ Lawton said as he sat down, ‘it’s always summer. I’m sixty-seven years old, and, goddamn it, I’m ready for a real fall. Maybe I’ll try Ohio. I’ve heard that’s nice.’

‘You were raised in Ohio,’ Stan said, eyes on his plate. ‘You old fool.’

‘Stan,’ she said. ‘Cut it out.’

At the sink, Alexandra watched Mrs Langstaff across the street. Big woman heaving herself into her van, then pulling out the drive, off to work at her candle shop. A row of neat lawns over there, prim hedges running along the sidewalks. Dogs asleep on porches. Flowers blooming in window boxes. Alexandra’s daytime world. Miami Nice. Almost as unreal as her nights.

She walked over to the oven, took out her father’s pancakes, carried them to the table, and set them in front of him.

‘You like summer, Dad. Yellowtail fishing, dolphin. You used to love that time of year most of all.’

‘I used to love a lot of things.’

He stared into a slant of sunlight, mouth clamped.

‘Dad?’

He didn’t reply.

‘Don’t disturb him,’ Stan said. ‘He’s counting dust motes, picking his lotto number for the day.’

Stan stood up, brushed the crumbs off his white uniform shirt.

‘You’re not funny, Stan.’

‘Hey, Alex.’ Stan’s blue eyes were hard on hers. ‘It isn’t working. We can’t keep living like this. Guns and shit. The old man’s got to go. You should just start getting used to the idea.’

Alexandra sponged off the counter by the sink, kept her eyes from him.

‘After work, I’m going over to the range,’ Stan said, ‘hit a few buckets of balls.’

‘With Delvin.’

‘That’s right, with Delvin.’

‘The mysterious Delvin.’

‘He’s a guy from work, Alex. He’s not mysterious.’

‘So why have I never met him? Why don’t you ever bring him home?’