The Carpenter's Wife Page 14

  Tom squinted at the gray hair on his chest and closed another button; the other three remained open. “No reason. It’s hot, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.” She glanced at the clock on the wall above the desk. “It’s only two thirty.”

  “She said that’d be a great time to come.”

  “Did you call?”

  “No, she sent an e-mail.”

  “So, you have it in writing.” Her brows went up in a commending way. “How long are you staying?”

  He sighed. “Depends. I’ll be fixing her problem, maybe drink a cup of coffee—Ginny and Raphael are going to be there. Ralph might drop in.”

  “What about Ginny and Raphael?”

  He shrugged and diverted his eyes. “Nothing, I guess.”

  “So, why are you mentioning them?”

  He ignored her. “And if we get around to it, I’ll share the gospel with her, I’ll do that. So, I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

  “I see.” She nodded slowly, ominously.

  “Is something?”

  Romy resigned herself and smiled. “No.”

  Ben spun around and flashed his new bucky-beaver teeth at Tom before snapping back, pretending to concentrate on his work.

  Tom grinned and left, shaking his head.

  Stark felt like a youngster going to his first date, he was so nervous. Passing the old playground by the gray brick church—a stern Twenties-style Bauhaus building—he wondered what the neighbors might think of him wandering straight up to Gina Delors’s house, ringing her doorbell, and she letting him enter; a boy meeting a girl while the girl’s permanent boy wasn’t home. But really, there was nothing peculiar about his visit to Gina; his wife was at home and knew about it and didn’t object, and his wife had a stake in this—but what if the neighbors didn’t know that Romy was at home. Then they might think—

  Oh, cut it.

  But Stark felt the gaze of a thousand eyes on his face and chest and feet, whose soles were slapped by the Indian flip-flops. And he felt them on his back, especially there; a multitude of rays, fired from prying eyes. More eyes watched him than beholders lived in Elmendorf. Eyes.

  So what. He wasn’t doing anything illegal. Let them stare.

  Butterflies wobbled in his stomach.

  He had misjudged Gina. She wasn’t the overgrown teen he’d made her out to be after the first few nights of e-mail. She was just unchurched, that was all. Sure, her was mind filled with trite worldly things, how could it be different, considering the culture in which she lived? But underneath her veneer lay a heart of…

  He bounded up the steps and rang the doorbell.

  …of silver—if not gold. She was meek, of a cast-your-eyes-down meekness, very female; actually, uniquely female, archetypically so. She’d been deferential. She was spiritually hungry.

  He rang again, and again a chime sounded deep within the house.

  Next to the intercom glistened a rectangular field, like a clouded mirror. Stark marveled at it for a moment, when he remembered that he was looking at the eye of a concealed camera. She was probably looking at him right now. His gaze wandered up the empty, dustblown street. In the windows—

  The door cracked open and Gina-Marie, Gina’s daughter, stuck her head out. “Yes?” She acted very official.

  Little impersonal, aren’t you? But what could you expect from a nine-year-old owning the fanciest residence in the village, a carp in a pond of minnows. “Hi. Is your mother home?”

  “My mom? Or my dad?” Tom’s lips flapped; he was about to answer, when she said, “Just wait. Please,” and closed the door.

  Stark inhaled and scratched his head.

  A few seconds later the door reopened and Ginny grinned like a sheep. In the background her dad grumped, “What’s that supposed to be, huh? That’s Tom. Why you not letting him in?” Then Ralph Delors himself stood under the arc, smiling in a semi-reserved way, and stuck his hand out.

  And you’re all business. Tom hadn’t even noticed the man’s Ford by the curb, he’d been so blind. He took Ralph’s hand and pumped it, chuckling. “Hi Ralph. I have an audience with your wife.”

  Delors nodded. “She’s here.”

  They entered, and Stark spied Gina’s silhouette in the giant glass cage that was their living room. His heart began to thump when she crossed the marble-tiled dining space and came closer.

  She’d tied the ends of her checkered blouse into a knot. Her midriff showed, and she wore… shorts. Tom’s brows went up. They were jeans, cut-offs; they were small, kind of… diminutive. No, Stark thought, she’s wearing hot pants. Capital H. Gina was a wardrobe minimalist right now.

  Oh boy.

  But then, she wore this on her turf. This was her house, her home, her castle. And the heat wasn’t her fault. It practically forced you to dress inappropriately for a meeting, even one with a pastor. What did he expect? He swallowed. Her arms and legs and bare midsection were bronzed and glistened like those of a metal sculpture (not even this house had air conditioning), and she wore no shoes.

  “Hi.” She shook his hand and smiled with enough shy joy to make Tom’s chest expand. Her hand was cool.

  “Got to go,” Ralph said. He patted his breast pockets. “Where’s my key? Anybody seen my key?”

  “Right here,” Ginny said in a very grown-up way and reached into a tray on a ledge.

  The object she took out reminded Stark of a blunt pen. Right. It was an infrared device; the Delors’ didn’t have to trouble themselves with inserting pieces of jagged metal into locks any longer. Red light did the job for them. The system had been an exhibit at a construction fair and Ralph, forever the interconnected business pro, got it for the asking, like so many other gadgets that made this habitation singular, from the switchless lights to the automatic outside blinds, which rolled down from their wells above the windows—the rectangular ones. The others had inside blinds and glass that changed color by itself.

  “Thanks,” Ralph said, taking the key. He kissed his wife and turned to Tom. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  “Sure.” Stark offered his hand, but Delors was already on the steps outside, pulling the door closed.

  Gina was still trying to bridle her joy.

  He asked her, “I believe you have a client who needs surgery?”

  She blinked. “You mean my computer?”

  “Yes.” Tom chuckled.

  “Come with me.” She curled her index finger and walked toward the stairwell of light-colored wood dominating the hall. He followed her as she pranced up, in turn followed by Ginny. His eyes didn’t rise beyond Gina’s heels.

  “What’s that after shave you’re wearing?” she asked.

  “Uh… Aramis, I think.”

  On the first floor she stopped and pointed at a door down the hallway. “That’s Raff’s room.” She made a serious face. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but there’s bad blood between him and Ben again.”

  Stark remembered Ben mentioning a quarrel during lunch. Raff had fought him in the breaks at school for no apparent reason and wasn’t coming up to play today, even though Ben just got a new basket ball. Mr. Neumann’s rottweiler, playing soccer with the kids Monday night, had mauled Ben’s old one while the old farmer had driven his riding mower up and down the sports field by the lake. Tom had gone over later, demanding restitution, and last night a brand new Spalding number 3 stuck in the hedge by the gate of Stark’s lot, proving that Mr. Neumann was a reasonable man.

  “Do you want to talk to him?” Gina said. After all, Stark was a full-blown pastor, an ordained surgeon of men’s souls. Her face said it all.

  “Sure,” Tom said.

  She knocked. “Raphael?” She opened the door and peeked in. “Raphael, Ben’s daddy is here and wants to talk to you.”

  Tom heard a grumble, then Raff’s disbelieving face appeared.

  Yeah, I’m really here, ole buddy, Stark thought, wondering where this would lead.

  Gina held the door open for him. Pasto
r Stark gave an obliging smile and entered. Then the lock clicked home and they were alone.

  “And?” Gina asked when Tom came out. She’d been waiting the whole time. Ginny too.

  Tom shrugged. “Can’t help him right now,” he said. “He doesn’t want to talk.” But if you buy him a Spalding number 3—better yet, a size 4—they’ll be best friends again, he didn’t say. Raff hadn’t even said hello. Instead he’d tossed a plastic ball on the far wall of his room the whole time Tom was with him. Stark finally caught on, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk to the kid. Time was short, and his interest belonged to the soul of the mother.

  “Too bad.” She seemed concerned.

  “It’ll blow over,” Tom dismissed her. Grandpa—who lived next door—will spring a new ball, he thought. I bet it’ll happen before the weekend. And all would be well.

  They arrived in an open space under the roof. The room was carpeted and fully developed, if sparsely furnished; Tom spied two rollaway beds next to one another. Ginny stopped on the stairs and watched them, her nose and hands on the banister.

  On a desk by the wall sat Gina’s computer. “It’s Ralph’s old Windows 95 system,” she said, walking toward it. “It can’t play media—at least not what my...” She fell silent.

  “What?” Ginny said.

  “Nothing. Things your dad’s colleague sends from America.”

  Ginny’s eyes studied her mother.

  “Let me see.” Tom pulled up a chair and sat down, his eyes on the monitor.

  Gina reached into a bureau. “Look at this first.” She handed him a blue booklet.

  Tom took it and glanced at its front. Faded golden letters. A cloud of stars. An eagle, arrows in one talon, an olive twig in the other. E pluribus unum. He grunted. He was holding an old American passport.

  Gina beamed.

  Stark opened it to the data page and turned it sideways; a fresh-faced child, blonde, perhaps four years old, grinned at him. He looked up to compare. The passport was made out to… Gina Bollinger. Of Boston, Massachusetts.

  “You’re…”

  She nodded with barely subdued excitement.

  “You’re an…”

  “American. Just like you.”

  “Well, now.” He stared at the booklet in disbelieve. “Now, it’s expired. You’ll need to renew it, get a new passport.” He shook his head. “How come? I mean… You need to tell me more about this…”

  “Yes!” Gina gushed.

  Ginny, still hiding behind the banister, rolled her eyes, but the adults didn’t notice. Kilroy was watching them.

  21

  Thursday, 17 July 2003, Afternoon, 37° Celsius

  “I cried after reading some of your mails,” she said. “You were right, it was an escape. I was discontent with my life. I still am—and that has nothing to do with sex or material wealth.” She sat in a chair in front of him, her legs angled, parallel to one other and very decorative. But her gaze was on the floor and she was choking on her words.

  Ten minutes ago Stark had finished downloading and installing the legacy Real Player she needed. Also, Jennifer had come to call on Ginny, and now both girls were at her friend’s house. Even Raff had decided he’d moped enough and was splashing around in the swimming pool outside. He was by himself, but Grandma reportedly had an eye on him. Stark and the carpenter’s wife had been alone for the last hour.

  “I miss heart-to heart talks, and tenderness, spontaneity and things like that. Ralph knows only his work, he admits that himself.”

  “Did you feel… stressed?” Tom said. “After all, you folks were building a house; you’re a mother, plus, you started to work again, all at the same time. You had to digest pressure coming from three different directions.” His eyes avoided her knees, even as he fought the urge to reach out and put his hand on one. He was filled with empathy.

  “No,” she said, shifting in her seat. “Actually, it felt wonderful to work again. That is one area where my talents get praised. I get acknowledged; and my boss likes me. No, work’s not a problem. When I was just a mother I felt boxed in and taken for granted.” She fell silent.

  He reached for the water bottle on the desk. “How’s Ralph react to your drinking?”

  She shrugged. “He copes.” Suddenly tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, Tom. You don’t know the half of it.”

  Stark leaned forward. “Why…”

  Gina searched her pockets for a tissue. She found one and dabbed her eyes with it. She didn’t look at him. Staring at the floor, she said, “I always felt fatherless, you know.”

  “What about Mr. Gillich?” her step dad. He put the bottle back.

  “Sure, there was Alfred,” Gillich. She glanced up. “Mom remarried quickly after returning from the States. But his family never accepted her, you know. She’s evangelical and they’re all Catholics. And Alfred’s so mild-mannered, at the same time so… so inaccessible. He always kept to himself. He put kind of a harness on.”

  “An emotional harness,” Stark said.

  “Yes. To be honest, I didn’t want it any different back then. But I always imagined how my real dad would understand me better than my mother did, especially after we fought. I felt defective growing up, you know.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Incomplete. I felt incomplete. Like my soul was shot through, and now,” her hand gestured feebly, “there are holes everywhere, pieces missing.”

  “Ralph seems a stable guy,” Stark said after a while. “Did you marry him because you saw a big brother in him?”

  She smiled and huffed. “My mother always told me: ‘Got to marry someone who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, who’s faithful, and has money—and a job, so he’s not occupying space around the house all the time.” Gina laughed derisively. “That’s what she did. Alfred’s really a millionaire, you know.”

  “So, she didn’t marry him for romantic reasons…”

  “Definitely not.”

  “And you?”

  The question hung in space for a second, then she said, “Ralph’s a good guy…” She frowned delicately.

  “But?” he probed on.

  “There’s just no fire in me for him. There never was. He doesn’t stir me.” After a pause she said, “We went to school with one another, you know. On the bus, the other girls fought over who was allowed to sit next to him, because was the most handsome guy in the village, you know…”

  “Why, sure he’s handsome,” Tom affirmed.

  She looked up at him. “So I got him. But there’s just not a lot of emotion for him there.”

  “Well,” Stark said with a fleeting thought toward his wife. “That doesn’t have to be the end of it. Romantic love’s a cultural invention, you know. It’s not that old. Just a few hundred years back practically nobody married for romantic reasons. Fathers pledged the hands of their daughters, princes married strictly princesses, money always sought out other money… In most societies around the world they still do it that way. Take India for instance…” He stopped, noticing her absent-minded look. He grinned. “But I didn’t mean to lecture you on romantic love.”

  “Oh, Tom.” She sighed.

  His mouth became a drawn-out line bunching his cheeks. C’mon, he thought, spit it out.

  “Now, told you about my dad in America…” she began again.

  Okay. “Mr. Bollinger.”

  “Right.”

  “In Massachusetts.”

  “Boston, right; he’s still there, he remarried too. I even have a half-sister that I didn’t know about. I have a sister! Isn’t that something? I’m not an only child, after all.” She searched his face.

  Stark smiled.

  “Now, when he made contact last September—after so many years, after twenty years!—I was in seventh heaven. My dad, my real dad, had sought me out; he was talking to me.” Her green eyes glistened. She looked at him as if in a trance. “I don’t know if you can relate.”

  Not really. Stark’s own father wasn’t exactly a ladies�
�� man as young Bollinger had obviously been, (his frequent infidelities being the reason Gina’s mother divorced him in the first place). Tom Stark Sr., had always adhered to the traditional dictum of “One man, one woman.” His mother had seconded it with “One family, and my kids are his exclusively.”

  Tom’s head dipped sideways in acknowledgement anyway.

  “I practically began to live online,” she said. “Drove Ralph to distraction, especially since he was busy building this house and I was so unhappy. My heart is not attached to it, you know, this house. Being online with my dad, that became my life.” After a moment’s reflection, she said, “We grew close, my dad and I.” Then she fell into a ponderous silence.

  “Nice.” Stark didn’t know what else to say.

  Staring at him, she said, “Tom…”

  “What?”

  “Have you ever had… emotions for somebody other than your wife—after you got married?”

  “Uuhh.” He leaned back. She’s changing the subject on me. Or maybe not? “Well,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s possible to meet someone to whom you’re more attracted than to your spouse. That can happen. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not supposed to be married to your partner any more, or that you were wrong to marry him or her in the first place. It’s just one of those facts of life.” He swallowed. “But why do you ask?”

  Without letting him go with her eyes she adjusted her position, arranging one leg on top of the other.

  His throat became tight.

  “You never cared for anybody?”

  “Not physically; I’ve been faithful.”

  “Why?”

  He pinched his lips and mulled it over. “Fear of God.”

  Gina didn’t flinch. “I believe in God too.”

  She didn’t understand. How could she? “Let me put it this way. A ‘friendship’ with a woman can destroy a man in my position. The crowd I run with doesn’t tolerate affairs. I’d be finished; my life as I know it would be over. So, I’d have to be very circumspect.” He massaged his forehead. “But that’s not the main point. I’d be sinning against God, and that’s one relationship I don’t want to compromise.”