20070104

The phone rang, a shivering brittle sound, and I jerked awake. The room was dark, street light filtering in through the window slats, burnt orange and faint. Susan stirred next to me, pushing her face into the pillow in an attempt to block out the sound as the phone rang again. I pushed myself up into a sitting position, saw that it was past 11PM, and answered it.

“Hello.” I spoke softly, hoarsely.

“Hello Tim. Did I wake you?” It was Matty. I sat up further, suddenly and terribly awake.

“Matty, what’s wrong?” Susan heard my tone, and opened her eyes.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, “I mean, I’m just having a coffee at Sam’s. Just a coffee. That’s alright, isn’t it? I was wondering if you might want to join me.”

“Where’s Steve?” I asked.

“Steve?” Matty laughed, “God, I don’t know. Probably asleep by now. Either that or watching TV waiting for me to come home. But I just wanted some coffee first, you know? Were you sleeping?”

“No, I wasn’t sleeping. And sure, I’d love some coffee. Are you ok, Matty? Really?”

“God, I don’t know. I mean, probably not. But what can you do, you know? I’ll just put some extra sugar and cream in my coffee, and everything will be just fine.”

“Hold on, ok? I’ll be there in about ten minutes. I’ll be right there, ok?”

“Ok, sure,” said Matty. “Take your time.” She hung up.

“Is she ok?” asked Susan.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She wouldn’t say. But you know how Steve gets about her leaving the house without him at night. So I’d better get over there.” I stood up, and began fumbling around in the dark for my jeans. Susan turned on her bedside light, and passed her palm over her cheek.

“Do you want me to come?”

I shook my head. “No, best not. I’ll call you, alright?” Susan nodded, and I sat down to pull on my shoes.

“Maybe this is it,” said Susan. “Maybe she’s finally had enough.”

I paused, laces caught up in my fingers. “Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t believe it.

Large rectangles of white light splashed out across the parking lot from Sam’s windows. There were a handful of cars and trucks parked outside. The usual for a Wednesday evening. People driving down the Interstate, locals who hadn’t wanted to go home after the bowling alley closed. Drunks. I parked next to Matty’s battered yellow Honda, and climbed out. The air was cold. I examined the windows, and saw Matty sitting in a booth by herself. She was stirring her drink with a straw, and gazing blankly at the empty seat across from her. She looked like a victim in an asylum, stuck behind one way glass.

Sam’s always played old songs from the 50’s and 60’s. Old tinny speakers were set up in the corners, and you could always faintly hear music played as if from a distant room, or from a fading dream as you awoke. Two women stood behind the chrome bar, talking to each other around their mouth fulls of gum, and the place seemed to have settled down into a gentle stasis. Nobody was calling for service. People were hunched over their coffees and food with far away gazes in their eyes. I moved down the length of the Diner and stopped before Matty’s table. A half eaten ice cream sundae was set before her, and her strawberry milkshake had mostly melted.

“Hello,” I said, and slid into the booth across from her. She looked up, and I scanned her face for bruises. I couldn’t see any.

“Hello Tim.” She smiled distractedly, and then looked back down at her milkshake.

“I thought you were going to get some coffee,” I said, trying to get a smile from her. She smiled, a slight smile, but didn’t look up. The smile slipped away.

“Yeah, well. I thought I might as well indulge myself. What’s the point of being an adult if you can’t order ice cream before dinner when you feel like it?”

I sat back and bracketed the edge of the table with both hands. “Sure. I guess I’ll have an ice cream too, then.” I looked at the service bar, and the stationary waitresses. “If they ever come over.”

Matty smiled again, but stayed quiet. I frowned, trying to think of a way to talk to her. To broach the subject without being callous, or too blunt, or anything that could upset her. Finally, I opted for the general approach.

“So what’s up? Why you out here by the Interstate at this time of night?”

Matty frowned as if I’d asked her why she didn’t like Brussel sprouts, and gave me a half shrug. “I don’t know. I felt like getting out.”

“Getting out?”

“Getting out,” she said, looking up with a flash of annoyance.

“Getting out,” I agreed, nodding.

She set her milkshake aside, and the raked both hands through her hair, breathing out slowly, deeply. She planted the heels of both palms onto her temples, and so supporting her head, stared at me. “I’m so tired, Tim. I’m so tired.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded again.

“Steve yelled at me again. I mean, he didn’t even hit me or anything. He just yelled, and I started crying. I just stood there and cried like I haven’t cried since middle school. It was awful. I couldn’t even wipe my face. I couldn’t move. I just wanted to lie down and curl up.” She shook her head, remembering.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing, really. I was telling him about Rachel and her mother, and how Rachel can’t wait to move out and get her own place. I must have said something that annoyed him, because he just looked over at me and told me to shut up. He didn’t do anything, but I could tell it was there. It was there, just under the surface. Like as if it had cracked an eye open and given me a look, wondering if it could be bothered to stand up and pad over to me and catch me one. And I just felt this awful feeling of hopelessness. I mean, what the hell. What the hell.” She started crying silently, without moving, tears welling in her eyes, brimming, and then falling.

I reached across the table and touched her arm. “Matty. Please. Leave him. You can move in with me and Susan. You can stay with us for as long as you want. Anything. Just get out.”

She sat still as if she hadn’t heard me. I watched tear after slow tear well and slide down the curve of her cheeks. A sensation of complete and utter helplessness consumed me as I watched each tear.

“I don’t know how we got here,” she said, and I wanted to let out a cry of exasperation. “How did things get this way?” She looked up at me, and there was such rawness in her gaze that I felt my annoyance sluice away. “We can be so happy together. You never hear about those times. You and Sue and Rachel only hear about when the bad stuff happens. But we can be so happy together.” She reached up and wiped at her face with the hem of her sleeve.

“We cooked hot dogs the other night. Nothing special, just stupid hot dogs. And this song came on, this song we’d both used to love, and then we were singing it, and he was beating the rhythm with the spoons on the table, and then we just started dancing together. Like we used to. Just dancing and laughing, and then we stopped and he looked at me in this incredible way, and I just wanted to stop breathing. You don’t know how he looks at me, Tim. How good it can be.”

“But Matty, he hits you. That’s not right. That’s never right. Nobody should ever touch you, ever. I don’t care how good it feels, how good it can be, you can’t be with somebody who hits you. You just can’t.”

She looked at me sadly as if I simply didn’t understand. “I know. I’m not stupid. I know he shouldn’t hit me. It’s not like I haven’t seen all the same movies you have. I know.” Her voice sounded hollow, groined and empty. “But I just can’t leave him. You don’t know how I feel when I’m with him, when it’s good. I must have been dead before I met him. When things are good, they’re so good. So fucking unbelievable.” She looked down at the table, and then pulled the shake back across and began stirring it again. “And I can’t help but think – what if there’s a way to make it good all the time? To go back to how things were? How could I give up that chance? Just walk away from it?”

I shook my head. “Matty,” I said, my heart breaking.

She smiled at me, a smile so sweet and sad and mature that it made me feel like I was twelve years old. “Listen, thanks for coming out here. I’d best be getting back. I don’t want to upset him any more than I have already.” She stood up.

“Matty, please. Let’s talk some more, or have that coffee, or –“ I stopped. She was listening to me, but I could tell she was focused on something else. Perhaps she was replaying the conversation she would have with Steve when she got home. Perhaps she was replaying a good memory. Perhaps she was just feeling sad and detached.

“Thanks for coming out, Tim. That means a lot to me. It really does.” She reached down and gripped my hand. Her skin felt dry, tight, brittle. “You’re my best friend. My best friend in the whole world.” She smiled again, and then turned and walked away.

Copyright 2007 Philip Tucker