Damage Undone

Chapter 6. Unwind





“What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked, surprised.

Romano shook his head. “I could just use a drink. Thought you might need one, too.”

She considered briefly – Ella was asleep, so there wouldn’t be any harm in taking an hour to unwind. “I can come along, I suppose.”

“Are you off?”

She nodded.

“Then let’s go. I know a good English pub, if you’re in the mood.”

“Always,” she smiled.

They took a cab – Elizabeth stopped Robert before he could pay for them both, although on top of the expense of the hotel her own budget was slowly decreasing.

She looked up to see a place she vaguely recognized, but couldn’t quite place. It was only when they stepped inside, confronted with the aroma of cigar smoke and sweat, and then the sight of the dartboard on the corner, that she remembered and laughed.

Robert looked over his shoulder, puzzled, as they walked across the room.

“I’ve been here before,” she said.

They slid into two stools, side by side.

“What’s so funny about that?” he asked.

“I came here with Peter.”

He rolled his eyes and started to make a comment, but Elizabeth added,

“To recover from a long day spent fighting with you.”

“Poor Peter, he could never take a bit of fun,” Romano said with a shrug.

“Actually, it was me you’d been torturing the most.”

“Well, you are much more fun to torture,” he said. “And I say that with the deepest of admiration. When was this, anyway?”

“I’d just come to America,” she said. “Alison Beaumont… Koklovitz… do you remember?”

“Oh, Jesus, yes,” he groaned. “You were so stubborn.”

“And you were a regular curmudgeon,” she said.

“Am, Elizabeth. You talk like I’ve lost my edge.”

They ordered drinks – a soda for Elizabeth, who had yet another shift at seven the next morning, and a vodka for Robert.

He downed his first shot before Elizabeth could think of anything else to say. “Hold on a sec,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

She sipped at her soda pensively. Being here brought back everything from that tumultuous year – she, arriving alone and ambitious and innocently in awe of Romano’s gifts as a surgeon; the slow wearing away of her veneration for him; the startling revelation at its close that he was attracted to her.

He returned with a pack of cigarettes in his hand.

“What is that?” she said.

He gave her the look he usually reserved for clueless med students or Jerry Moscovitz, and maneuvered his way back onto his seat. His arm brushed Elizabeth’s, as they were pushed closer together by the growing crowd at the bar, and she twitched away only belatedly. It’d been a long time since they were together outside of the hospital – she’d forgotten how to act.

His mouth tightened when he noticed Elizabeth pulling away. Still without a word to her, he turned to the woman next to him to ask for a light. The woman, a petite blonde – just the right height for him – looked him up and down and proffered one with palpable disinterest.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Elizabeth said, hiding a smile at his chagrin.

“Used to. Junior high.”

“Junior high school?” she repeated doubtfully.

“Stole them from my father,” he said. “Quit when he died of lung cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was thirty years ago.” He exhaled smoke, turning his face away from her. “I haven’t got many vices, but I indulge myself once in awhile.”

She didn’t know him like this, bitter for no apparent reason, mysterious and distant but also uncomfortably close.

“She’s my mother,” he remarked off-handedly.

“…Who?”

“This morning. The leg fracture.”

Elizabeth wasn’t quite certain he was serious.

Grimly he ran his tongue inside his lip, as if he wanted to reclaim the secret; but it had been told now, and he elaborated as if he begrudged her every word. “She remarried after my father. It’s why her name is different.”

“God – Robert – why didn’t you say something?”

“Say what, exactly, Elizabeth? That my mother was lying on that table with all the mental capacity of a two-year-old? It’s not something I—” He broke off, with a cough that could have been the beginning of a sob if he had been another man. Then he finished, “It’s not something I want the desk clerks getting their flapping little lips on.”

Elizabeth looked down at her hands as she knit her fingers together, nervous and exhilarated that she was finally discovering something behind the hard shell of sarcasm – still caustic, but tinged with feeling.

“What is she like?” she asked.

“I hardly know,” he said. “I left home early, cut the apron strings… after awhile we fell out of touch. Can’t say I was sorry. She was a tough old lady, way too bossy – used to harp on me for not being religious enough, for my choice of fiancée.” At Elizabeth’s startled look, he explained, “She was a grad student. In women’s studies, if you can believe that.”

She couldn’t.

“Plus, she had ‘I brake for animals’ plastered on her car bumper.” He shook his head with a reminiscent laugh. “…Anyway, a little too unconventional for my mother.”

“But you spend time with her now?”

“Yes – now that she can’t fight with me.”

He tapped out his cigarette with a flicker of impatience and the tone of his voice returned to normal. “Well, Elizabeth, I think this atmosphere loosens my lips more than I like.”

“I don’t mind hearing it.” It took her mind off everything else. Simply listening to the laconic, reluctant story from a man she’d long been vaguely, almost unconsciously, curious about occupied all her attention. She was watching his face for a hint of his meaning, listening for it in his voice. “When did you get back in touch?”

“When I brought you back from England, my sister made me go see her. By that time, she didn’t… She wasn’t really there anymore. I spent a lot of time banging my head against that stone wall, trying to remind her of things, but… you know the disease. It’s not something you can just go in there and cut out of them.”

“No,” Elizabeth agreed softly.

She was still knitting her hands together, without realizing it. His eyes flicked down to the nervous motion and he seemed both pleased and sorrowful to see the effect of his story. Almost absently he touched her hand, stilling the twisting immediately.

And he shrugged, wryly. “We do get along much better now.”

Elizabeth looked down at his fingers, lying across hers – then back up to his eyes, which were dark and straightforward and inviting.

“I need some air,” she murmured, standing up with a jolt.

Hardly noticing the crush of bodies, she alternately wove and shoved her way through the crowd, needing to feel something cool on her face – to breathe something other than smoke and beer and sweat.

As she reached the door, his arm extended from behind to open it for her, and she realized he’d kept up with her sudden flight. With mocking, but concerned chivalry, Robert held the door while Elizabeth passed awkwardly.

Outside, they stood in a magical, sudden calm. He was impassive and guarded, but she could see that his eyes were dilated, and fixed intensely on hers.

“You followed me,” she said, not quite pleased.

“Were you going to ditch me?” he asked, with deliberate amusement on his face.

An ambulance passed with a shriek of sirens. Reflexively, both of them turned to look at it. Elizabeth answered once the sound had faded, “I hadn’t made up my mind yet.”

Then, still without a conscious decision, she took a step towards him.

He followed her lead, stepping in and wrapping his hand behind her neck, pulling her close. They kissed without preliminaries, without hesitating, just closed eyes and rough lips, her fingers digging into his back. She staggered backwards at first, her back pressed against the scraping, unforgiving brick wall behind her. He tasted of that one cigarette, strange and acrid and unwholesome and she opened her mouth, welcoming.

When she pulled away, too late and too slowly, she planted her open palms on his chest, propelling him gently backwards.

He rubbed his hand over his mouth, rueful and quiet. There were streaks of blood on his knuckles: his hand had scraped against the brick wall behind her neck. She could see the melancholy on his face, and the desire.

“I’ll call a cab to take me home,” she said finally.

He looked down, letting the shadows slide quivering over his face, concealing what he was thinking. With obvious effort, as if invisible ties had closed off his airway, he said, “You don’t have to go just yet.”

No, she didn’t. She could stay here, or even go home with him – could lose herself in his consumingly strong personality, in an unexpected culmination to the games they’d played for years. “I’m sorry,” she said with some difficulty. “Ella’s at home…”

“She’s sleeping, isn’t she?” he said.

“There’s Mark. I still wear his ring.”

His voice was oddly ironic. “Yeah. There’s still Mark.” He took a few steps back to the door and paused at the threshold. “As much as it pains me to be unchivalrous, I’ll let you get ahold of your own cab.”

Elizabeth murmured something perfunctory – a good-bye, or an apology – and he, with a little nod of acknowledgement, disappeared into the haze of smoke inside the pub. That was good, that was what he needed to do – she’d been afraid she’d have to explain herself. And there were no explanations.

She was accustomed to knowing what she wanted, and to being cleverer and quicker than the men in her life, so that they could never take her by surprise. With Robert she’d been evenly matched, and that in itself was unnerving. She’d been momentarily attracted to him, that much she knew, but for once the tables had turned; she was confused about what lay beneath that attraction.

Elizabeth stepped out onto the edge of the sidewalk, lifting up her hand to signal a ride home.

Ella was sleeping in her crib when Elizabeth got home – no, not home, she corrected herself – back to her hotel room – her hands curled in fists near her mouth. She kissed the child’s forehead, stroked the soft blonde curls. Chris was on the couch, also asleep, and she tucked a blanket over the petite, curled-up body. Then she mechanically readied herself for a short night’s sleep, avoiding the reflection in the mirror, and fell into bed, hoping sleep would come quickly.

Behind toothpaste and mouthwash, she could still taste that kiss, like ashes in her mouth. And the very bitterness of it was delicious.

*

Rachel was painting her nails at the kitchen table when Mark came home from work.

“Hey,” she said. Her smile was shy, cautious. They were still working out how things were to be between them. How much she could be herself before it all got broken again.

“Hi,” he said, tasting bile in his words. The sickness seemed to be getting worse, not better.

She stuck her tongue between her lips a little as she attempted laboriously to paint the nails on her right hand. “Fuck it.”

At his mild shock, she corrected herself ironically. “Darn it, then. I can’t do this with my left hand.”

“Want me to try?”

Rachel gave him her I-can’t-believe-you’re-such-a-loser look. He found it even less endearing than usual. “Come on,” he said. “Your mother let me do it.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Well, don’t expect me not to remove it if you mess up.”

He sat down, pulling his chair in close to the table. Rachel stuck out her right hand grudgingly as if she were doing him a favor. He supported her palm with his fingers, reflecting vaguely that she had slender, feminine hands like her mother. Jen’s hands and Jen’s assertiveness. She had almost nothing that was his.

Rachel watched suspiciously as Mark layered a painstaking coat of pink on her nail. “How was school?” he asked. (—Being a conscientious dad now, Greene? he thought. Not so hard, when you know you only have to put in the effort for another few months. Or weeks.)

“I got an A minus on my math test,” she offered. “I studied for it.”

“Really?” he said.

“Don’t you believe me?”

“Just asking,” he said, backing off reflexively.

“I did study.” She looked down to check on her manicure. “God, Dad, you’re not supposed to paint all the way to the edges! You have to leave a little tiny bit on the sides, so your nails look thinner.”

“Sorry.” He tried to fix the mistake with his finger, but it only turned into a smudged mess.

Rachel wrinkled her nose, but smiled. “It’s okay. Just do the other ones the right way.” After a short pause, she said, “I even met with this pimply kid on the math team during my study hall, so he could tutor me.”

“They all have pimples at this age.”

“Maybe all your friends had pimples.”

“Touché.” The second nail he finished was cleaner. He surveyed his work proudly. “See? This isn’t so bad, right?”

She giggled. “Sure, whatever.”

When he leaned closer to see better, he caught too deep a whiff of the nail polish. His stomach rebelled, and he let go of her hand and pressed his fingers to his mouth.

“Dad?”

He spoke cautiously past growing waves of sickness. “I’m okay.”

“You look awful.”

“I’m a little—” He stopped. “I think I’ll go to bed. Sorry I can’t finish this.”

She rose halfway up as he pushed his chair back with a clatter. “Dad? Are you okay?”

He muttered excuses and hurried out of the kitchen, hoping she didn’t know enough about cancer treatment to make the connection.

Upstairs, once the illness had passed, he sat on his bed and took his address book out of the nighttable. He hadn’t replaced it for years, and hadn’t even bothered to update Elizabeth’s entry since her address became the same as his – until, as an afterthought, he’d scrawled her hotel number and address in the margins, in pencil.

He turned the pages to the “L” section.

“Hello?” Susan’s voice came, after a few rings.

He smiled, just hearing her. “Hey.”

“Mark?”

“You don’t know my voice,” he pouted.

“You sound different.”

“Well, I just finished throwing up.”

“Oh, God,” she said. “I’m sorry, but did I need to know that?” After a pause, she added, “Do you want me to come over?”

“I just wanted to hear a friendly voice for a second. I don’t want to make so many demands on you.”

“If you want me to be there, I’m there.”

He wanted to tell her to come, knowing that she meant the offer, and that her presence made even mortality seem liveable. “I heard it made problems for you and Carter.”

“Oh, you heard about that? Yeah, he’s a little – he’s…” She sounded like she didn’t know what to say. “He spends so much time pining after Abby, he assumes I must be pining after someone, too.”

She didn’t say he was wrong. Mark cleared his throat. “Abby Lockhart, you mean?”

“Yeah,” Susan said. “I don’t know her that well, but it seems she’s got more love interests than she knows what to do with.”

He fell back on the pillows, too tired to sit up any more. “How was your day, otherwise?”

“Well, Weaver is practically foaming at the mouth after that dominatrix thing today – did you hear about that? I even managed to get Gallant in trouble.”

“You must be the only person who could do that,” he said.

“Oh, I have many talents. …But it means giving up an entire day for this stupid sexual harrassment class. It’s such a waste.”

“What I don’t understand is how Robert Romano could practically ruin Elizabeth’s career because he had a thing for her, and he never got punished at all. Meanwhile, you five get smacked into after-school detention.”

“Romano did what? I’m sensing a good story here.”

“He’s an ass. You can fill in the details.”

“Oh, he’s not that bad.”

“That’s what Elizabeth said,” Mark said.

“Well, he hasn’t caused any problems about that phone call this morning. With Elizabeth, I mean. Either he’s waiting for an opportune moment, or he’s really trying to do the right thing.”

In the short pause that followed, his eyes drifted closed.

“Mark?” Susan asked.

He woke up. “I’m sorry. I think I just fell asleep for a second.”

“You should get some rest. Are you sure you’re okay?”

A knock came at Mark’s door. He said a quick good-bye to Susan and called, “Come in.”

Rachel slipped inside, wearing those pajamas of hers with big monkey faces on them, and waited while Mark made the effort to sit up and place the phone in its cradle. “I’m going to go to sleep,” she said. “Do you need anything?”

Something in her expression made him wonder if she knew what was going on. He kept his tone light. “Good night kiss?”

She rolled her eyes and padded over to the side of the bed, planting a light kiss on his cheek. He caught a look at her right hand – she hadn’t yet fixed up his poor efforts.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said.

He couldn’t help but hope that this unspoken truce might last. Illusory or no, the thought made him smile as he went to sleep.





Chapter 7: Who Have You Been?