Gravity, a short story

When Bev heard the front door open and shut, she called down the stairs, "Did you bring the mail?"

A gust of cold air raced past her and she shivered. Winter had lasted too long this year. She was so ready for those cheerful little snowdrops to poke up through the hoary ground and announce that warmer weather was coming.

Maury dropped the briefcase by the umbrella stand and headed straight for the bar. Every time he drew his right foot forward, he hesitated slightly before setting it down. He reminded her of that children's story where the bear has a thorn in his paw. Was it the mouse who finally saved the bear? She couldn't remember.

While Maury opened the cupboard and clinked the bottles around, he called back to her.

"Four o'clock in the post office is a mob scene. I'll go after dinner."

"We have to check the apartment too. The new tenant wants to move in this weekend, and I haven't been there since Leonard moved out."

"Leonard moved out?" He was joking.

It had taken them almost two months to convince Leonard to leave. It had required daily consultations with him, at first one or the other of them on the telephone, eventually in tandem and in person. Two years ago Leonard had wangled his way into the apartment with a sob story about downsizing and an ex-wife and a revolutionary invention that just needed some intensive investment of quiet time. Bev, the creative one, had sympathized. Maury, seeing the softening of her frown, had simply scratched through the typed lease with the changes she suggested. Appropriate, she said, in light of Leonard's obvious depression. They'd allowed him to spread the deposit over two months and to pay less than the previous tenant for the first year.

Maury's warning aside, the reduced rent had eventually dwindled into no rent and convoluted written treatises on the evils of accumulated wealth. It had taken the threat of legal action before Leonard had finally agreed to pack up his odd collection of thrift store clothes and computer equipment and disappear.

"I thought you went over last week?"

"I was working on a story."

"Ah, of course. Writing's more important than eating."

"You, creep. You could've gone yourself if it was so damn important."

Maury kissed her, smack, smack, his lips sweet with the sour mash. "Let's walk over after dinner. Supposed to be shooting stars tonight."

"I haven't started dinner."

"I'll do it."

Bev poured herself a glass of wine and traipsed back upstairs to the neon computer screen. She might have time to finish this chapter. Sitting in the straight-backed chair where she'd spent the afternoon, she mused and typed sporadically. You couldn't just spit out a novel. You had to think and arrange things in your head.

No one understood, not Maury, not her mother, neither of her sons. Writing fiction took a lot of time. Some of the most successful writers said they were lucky if they wrote five pages a day. On a good day, she could write ten. Her writing friends loved this book, so she must be doing something right. It was the publishers she had to convince. Well, first an agent.

Directly below the study she heard water running in the kitchen, some pounding, a whirl of banging, and a fine-tuned whining. It must be the blender. In spite of Maury's comments about production—his business school background made him think dollars first—he supported her writing. More than merely funding a lifestyle that allowed her not to have a paycheck job, he listened to what she shared, made suggestions, and marveled at the good parts. She sipped the wine, then read back over the last couple of paragraphs.

Her protagonist was a little flakier than she'd intended. Sometimes the characters did that all by themselves, distanced themselves from her in unexpected ways, the same way her sons had done. Emmett lived half way across the country in Salt Lake City, unmarried, but making a name for himself as an environmental engineer. At least that's what he said in his weekly telephone calls. It wasn't that she didn't believe him. It was just that it was not easy to verify, and she wondered why he was driving the same old Volvo he'd had in college if he was so sought after in engineering circles.

Daniel, Emmett's much younger brother, was very different. He spent months at a time with them, dragging around, berating the latest girlfriend or employer who never understood him, until Maury would put his foot down and Daniel would find another job. They would move him and his stuff, always within a two hundred mile radius of their house. She'd buy a week's worth of groceries, and they wouldn't see him for a year.

She reread the last paragraph again. Smells from the kitchen seeped through the floorboards of the house with the February chill. She slid off the chair and found a pair of Maury's wool ski socks in the laundry basket and put them on over her own socks. If they were walking to the apartment, she'd need a heavier sweater. She rummaged in the closet.

"Virginia Woolf, I presume?" Maury announced, tie hanging loose from the open collar and his shoes in his hand. He was grinning.

She giggled.

"Dinner's ready."

He leaned down to look at what she'd been writing. After blinking his eyes several times in front of the computer, he shook his head.

"You don't like it?" she asked.

"I must need new glasses. It's all blurry."

"It's the whiskey."

"Oh, good," he chuckled, "You just saved me hundreds of dollars."

                       *    *   *    *    *

Even the stars looked frozen in the frosty night. There was not a single cloud and no moon. They walked slowly, mostly, she thought, from the wine.

"What's with your foot?"

"What's the matter with my foot?"

"You're favoring the left one. Like you stepped on a shell and cut yourself."

Maury didn't answer. With his head tipped backwards, he gazed into the sky. "It's damn cold out here. I hope he's really gone."

"Leonard?"

"Who else?"

"Well, I thought he was packing when you were there at Christmas."

"He was, but there was still a lot of junk there. Plus, you know Leonard. He could live out of boxes if his plans fell through and he had nowhere else to go."

She began to dread their arrival. The apartment was only three blocks from the house. When the condo unit had come up for foreclosure, they'd bought it cheap. One year Daniel lived in it when he had a local job. Maury believed real estate investments were the best, but she hated the frantic phone calls when the furnace conked out or the disposal backed up. That had been one nice thing about Leonard, the little things never bothered him. He had bigger issues to confront.

No lights were on, that was a good sign. While she stamped her snowy feet on the mat, Maury unlocked the door. There were two mountainous garbage bags of trash in the front hall. Tenants were so lazy.

Once they'd inspected the kitchen and started for the bedroom, they noticed the smell. Maury strode ahead of her, but halted at the bathroom door.

"Smells like a dead animal," she said.

"You wish."

The medicine cabinet mirror was snowy with toothpaste. Over his shoulder when he bent forward, she could see the toilet, full to overflowing.

"Gawd," she stepped back, turning so she wouldn't have to see it. 

He flushed it, but the familiar whir of water racing downwards didn't follow. There was a sick sluggish gurgle, then Maury, cursing under his breath.

"Where's the friggin' plunger? That pea brain took the plunger."

Bev tried to remember whether she'd bought a plunger for this bathroom. They had two at home, one by each toilet. She raced to the kitchen, flung open the cupboard under the kitchen sink and peered in. Except for the puddle of green slime under the drainpipe, there was nothing. He'd taken her rubber gloves. The man must have a fetish. In all these months she'd never seen him cleaning. He hadn't even called to ask about Laundromats until the second month.

While she was checking the hall closet, Maury shouted, "Bev, I need the plunger. Bev."

Checking under and around the furniture they'd rented with the space, she passed through the living room, noticed the stack of Playboys, and shuddered. You never really knew anyone. On the tiny porch, suspended above the ski slope, she found the plunger, hanging upside down in a mangled metal clothes hanger. When she tugged it loose, a chunk of frozen ice flew out and smashed on the concrete. For all she knew, Leonard could have been measuring rainfall for one of his kooky inventions.

"I'm coming," she yelled back to Maury who was still bellowing obscenities.

The smell was overpowering. She couldn't stay to watch him. Back on the patio, she sucked in the fresh air and wondered if her boys ever took the time to look at the stars. Poor Maury, it had been his idea to take this nice peaceful walk and Leonard had intruded his cruddy personality one last time. She should be helping.

While Maury fought the toilet monster, she dragged the trash bags out to the landing and contemplated the best way to maneuver two flights of stairs. The elevator was carpeted and she hated to risk leaving an indelible odor there, if one of the bags sprung a hole.

"Hello," a bright voice spoke above her head. Bev looked up the stairwell at a young woman with a reddish Afro.

"Hello," Bev answered.

"You haven't seen Ricky, have you?"

"Ricky?"

"He lived there, in that apartment you're moving into."

"I don't think so, Leonard Massimo lived here."

"Ricky lived with Leonard."

"Oh," Bev said. The queasy feeling in her gut tightened into anger.

"Whoever the hell he is, he's not here, but he left his . . . ah, garbage."

The redhead stepped back out of sight. "Jeez, lady, you don't have to be so ugly about it."

Maury appeared, disheveled and red-faced. "Who are you talking to?"

"Some girl upstairs. She was asking about Ricky."

"Who the hell is Ricky?"

Bev found the mop under the bed. She hated to think how it had ended up there. After she mopped the floor and put the mop out on the balcony to air, they locked up. Walking home, they held hands, despite their ski gloves.

"Sorry about that," she said.

"How could he do that to you? You contributed to his fundraiser for endangered animals."

"Never mind. It's over. Let's stop for the mail."

The ski village post office was empty. Low wattage bulbs made the corridor, lined with metal boxes and Most Wanted posters, seem more depressing than normal. Maury extricated the key from his pants pocket and, without looking, he wadded the envelopes into his parka, zippering them inside the pouch in the front of his jacket.

"D'you call your mom to tell her we're coming through next month?"

"I forgot."

"Did you call the accountant about the taxes?"

"Yes," she crowed, knowing full well he had expected another failure. She deserved it. The telephone was her adversary, waiting in ambush, brazen and confident that she was too chicken to stop and dial. She hated the phone. That had been part of the problem with Leonard. "I'll call tomorrow. I promise."

She could feel the heat from Maury's body, even in the wintry air. After this walk, they could've gone home and stripped for a communal shower, snuggled by the fire and fallen asleep in each other's arms. If Leonard hadn't interjected the chaos of his life once again. The image of the overflowing toilet wouldn't go away. And who the hell was Ricky anyway?

Because Maury went straight to the shower without a kiss, Bev stayed in the kitchen. While she waited for the kettle to whistle, she slit the envelopes and laid out the contents, one by one. The New York city address stopped her. It was the agent for her first book. A thin envelope, definitely not a contract. They really knew how to pick their weapon. She read it three times. According to this stranger, it lacked narrative tension and the characters were not consistent.

"Damn," she said, "Damn, damn, damn."

Above her head, the shower stopped draining inside the ceiling. She went up, passing Maury in the bedroom. She swatted his rear.

"Feel better?" she asked.

He grunted and disappeared into the closet.

She ran the bath as hot as she could stand it. Lying in that pulsing heat, with her head back and the wine glass casting shadows on the white walls, the sad evening hovered in the shadows of her consciousness. Like a great bear, Maury puttered around on the other side of the door, then sank onto the squeaky bed and snored almost instantly.

She dissected the sentences in the agent's letter. The problem, she decided, was that island life, what she'd written, didn't appeal to big city people, execs who liked the fast pace. The slow rhythm of the beach and the sun—marguerites and mangoes—that life was too foreign for them to understand. She didn't need to re-write. She needed an agent from St. Thomas.

When the water cooled, she toweled off, dressed in Maury's socks and a flannel nightgown and returned to the computer. The phone rang. She rushed to answer it so it wouldn't wake up Maury.

"Beverly? Why are you up so late?"

"It's only eleven, Mom."

"So what are you two lovebirds up to?"

"Maury's asleep, I'm writing."

"Ach, you ought to be in bed with that man. Such a nice man. I like him."

"Me too, Mom. But the agent wrote today, and . . .well, it's not good news."

"They don't want it?"

"They think it stunk."

"Beverly."

"Well, they, she said it had some problems."

"I don't know why you're writing a novel anyway. I read an article about a woman who won a million dollars from Betty Crocker. With a recipe. Why don't you just write a recipe?"

Bev groaned. "Is that what you called to tell me, Mom?"

"Of course not, but you brought it up, about the writing and all. I wanted you to know that Emmett called and he sounds fine."

"Thanks, I just talked with him Sunday."

"So you're glad he's engaged to Judith."

Bev sputtered, groped for the wine glass on the side table, and gulped the rest.

"Sure, sure," she answered, "Good news, eh?"

Her mother was uncharacteristically silent. Bev could imagine her standing with one hand on her hip, staring her down the way she used to in high school when Bev appeared at the breakfast table with a skirt that was too short.

"You like her?" her mother asked.

"We don't even know her, but if Emmett likes her, that's fine with us."

"Hmmph," her mother was breathing heavily into the receiver.

"I gotta go, Mom, I'm in the middle of something."

"Fine. I am sorry about the agent. Maybe if you took a course at the University or something."

Bev felt like crying. Instead she threw the 14^th edition of the Chicago Style Manual into the trashcan. She'd better call Emmett. She always called him at the office, but, if he were engaged, he wouldn't be working this late. He'd be with her. Judith. 

She couldn't find her purse. With Emmett's home number. "Damn," she muttered, yanking the closet doors wide and eyeing unlit corners. It wasn't in the living room or on the dining room chair where she normally left it. She muttered as she went.

"That agent is an idiot. She doesn't care about good writing. She just wants politely correct porno scenes, someone famous doing it with a minority drug addict."

She raked her hand under the sofa. No purse. Tiptoeing into the bedroom, she checked her bureau. No purse. She must have left it at Leonard's. She pulled on jeans under her nightgown and laced her hiking boots over the heavy socks. She let the door close gently and stomped off across yesterday's snow.

In the apartment she held her nose in the scarf while she searched without any luck. "Leonard, you little creep. You and your stupid ideas and your illicit roommate. Ricky, schticky. If you think you're getting that deposit back after the toilet stunt, hah."

She stumbled back to the house in the dark. The wind cut right through her layers. In those three blocks she could have become an ice sculpture. When the key wouldn't turn the lock, she guessed the tumbler was frozen. She blew on it several times and tried again. By the time she managed to open it, she was bawling. 

Maury found her on the sofa, her shoulders heaving. "Babe, what's going on?"

"I can't find my purse. I've looked everywhere. I thought I left it at the apartment, but it's gone. And that guy Ricky, whoever the hell he is, has a key and by now he's probably charging things all over town with my credit cards."

"I thought I heard the phone."

"My mother called to tell me I ought to be writing recipes."

He looked at her crooked, started to smile, but didn't after all.

"Poor Bevvy. Come here."

He held her to him. Through the flannel she could feel his heart thumping, slowly, steadily. Hers flopped wildly. She tried to concentrate on aligning hers with his. She tried not to think about the purse and the agent and her flaky protagonist.

"I'm sorry about the mess in the apartment," she mumbled.

"Shhhh."

"Do you think Leonard and Ricky were . . . ?"

"Shhhh."

"Emmett's engaged, and he told Mom and not us."

"Shhhh."

"I always leave my purse on that chair."

She pointed and they both turned to look, not letting go of each other. There it was, the black leather strap gleaming in the pale light of the stars.

"Shhhh," Maury said, like he meant it.