The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, page 20
My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth.
“I’m sorry, Sam. I know you two developed a nice friendship, but . . . well, you never really know about people.”
I dust mopped the floor in a daze, thinking about how close I had come to being Leo Tomaro. My mother said I had been blessed with a vivid imagination, and I could only imagine the scene that had played out in the master bedroom of the Ashby home Saturday night. But even my vivid imagination could not conjure up the scene that would have played out in my own house had it not been for Mickie’s warning that things would end badly if I didn’t end my relationship with Donna.
Things ended badly, but it could have ended a whole lot worse.
Damn, Mickie.
PART FIVE
NONE OF US ARE GETTING OUT OF HERE ALIVE
1
1989
Burlingame, California
The light was blinding in its intensity, and for one horrified moment I thought David Bateman had invaded my home and was shining the flashlight in my eyes. Then I felt a cold, wet tongue licking me vigorously across the face, and I heard the rattle and jingle of Bandit’s dog tags against his chain collar. I was home in bed. Mickie was in the room, though I couldn’t see her, and she’d brought Bandit. The big dog had pinned me on my bed, his black-and-white body wagging with such joy and excitement it felt like someone had stuck a quarter in a cheap vibrating hotel bed.
“No, Bandit,” I mumbled. “Down, down.”
He ignored me.
“Somebody had one hell of a party.” Mickie stepped into the stream of light piercing my bedroom window and my eyes. It backlit her like an angel with a full-body halo. She held the empty bottle of Dewar’s that I had drunk straight—all available ice cubes having been wrapped in towels and pressed against the backs of my thighs.
“Down,” Mickie said, and Bandit dutifully leaped to the floor with a thud and a jingle. “I often wonder why he likes you so much, especially finding you like this. Is this something I need to worry about, you drinking yourself into a coma alone? Or did the lucky lady leave without even a note on your pillow? I’m not judging, mind you.”
“What time is it?” I said.
“Well past morning and rounding on noon.”
I had no recollection of how I’d made it up the stairs to my bed or even what time that occurred, but I was glad I’d had the sense to do so. My body would thank me for not having passed out on the sofa. I also did not remember finishing the bottle, though thankfully it had been only a quarter full. I chose it because it was Eva’s favorite; she liked to save it for special occasions. Well, it didn’t get any more special than when a man learns the woman he nearly sterilized himself for is cheating on him.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“You mean, ‘Hey, Mickie, thanks for coming and checking up on me when I didn’t show up in the office this morning. I could have choked on my own vomit and died like some loser rock star. Oh, and thanks for covering my patients’?”
“I don’t have any patients. I took the day off.”
“Yes, but that was before your aborted trip to Dr. Snip It and your unexpected attendance at the office yesterday afternoon.”
I managed to sit up. Mickie was dressed in office attire—beige slacks, a blouse, flat shoes. My T-shirt stuck to my chest, and I could feel sweat dripping down my neck. The room had already begun to swelter, despite the shade of the maple tree in my front yard. There would be no respite from the heat this day and, I sensed, no respite from Mickie. “How did you know about that?”
“It was on your calendar.” She walked across the room and slid open the window, bringing the sound of birds chirping but not much of a breeze. “And I wasn’t snooping. I was looking to see if maybe you had an appointment. What the hell, Sam?”
“No pun intended, right?”
She didn’t laugh. Though my schoolmates had called me Hell, Mickie never had. “Was that Eva’s idea?”
I waved her off. “My head hurts too much to argue. Besides, I hate it when you’re always right.”
“What then? Don’t you want kids?”
“So we agree. End of argument.”
“There is no argument. That was just plain, dumb-ass stupid.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I hope to God you’re not going to go through with it.”
“Can’t say that I am.”
She exhaled. “At least now I won’t have to have you committed for totally losing your mind.”
“You know your problem, Mick? You’re too subtle. You need to learn to express your opinions.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Really, Sam. Why?”
I let out a breath. “Eva doesn’t think she wants to have kids.”
“Doesn’t want kids or doesn’t want your kids?”
“I don’t know,” I said, though I suspected I did, just as I’d suspected that Donna had been using me as her personal vibrator.
Mickie shook her head. “Can I ask you something?” This made me laugh, Mickie asking permission. “Why do you put up with it?”
“With what?”
“With her bullshit; why would you let her convince you to do that?”
“I love her. At least I thought I did. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I just felt lucky to have someone like her . . . like me.”
Mickie looked like she’d sucked a lemon. Whatever she wanted to say, she held it in with great effort. She held up the bottle. “What is this all about?”
“I had a bad dream that turned out to be real.” I didn’t know where to begin, and I had to pee like a racehorse. “Hang on.” I managed to stand and immediately grimaced. The backs of my thighs burned. I made it halfway to the bathroom before Mickie spoke.
“Jesus, what the hell happened to your legs?”
“Nightmare,” I mumbled, not bothering to turn around. “I need a shower.”
2
After my shower, I provided Mickie with an abbreviated version of David Bateman administering a whack with his billy club across the backs of my thighs, and Mickie helped me smear Vaseline on my welts and wrap them in gauze.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You have to report it, Sam.”
“To who?”
“He has to have superiors. This is assault and battery.”
“It’s more than that. It’s psychotic. That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Exactly why you have to report it.”
“I’m afraid it would only make things worse for his wife and daughter.”
“So you’re not going to do anything?”
“At the moment, I’m just trying not to throw up. Listen, this isn’t like when I was a kid. I’m not afraid of David Bateman”—though in a sense I guess I was more afraid of him as an adult than as a child—“but reporting it would only help my ego. It wouldn’t solve the problem. This isn’t about some welt on the back of my leg. That will heal.”
“No, but it might get him kicked off the force and prevent him from doing it to someone else.”
“But not to his ex-wife or his daughter,” I said.
Mickie sat again.
“As much as I’d like to hurt that asshole, this isn’t about me,” I said. “It would be the selfish thing to do. You know how this goes. She’s too afraid to do anything, so she’ll deny it. If she did, by some miracle, agree to back a complaint, Bateman would deny it. I need to outsmart him. I need to find a way to end the abuse for them, not for me.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, Sam.”
“You mean more hurt, I presume? First thing we need to do is correct that little girl’s eyesight. Then we need to figure out a way to get them away from that psychopath for good.”
“Any idea how to do that?”
“Not yet.”
Mickie left me to dress. I found a pair of shorts baggy enough that the material didn’t grip my thighs but long enough to cover the gauze. I slipped my feet into sandals and pulled a gray Stanford T-shirt over my head. As I dressed I smelled spices wafting up from the kitchen—the pungent odor of garlic and the sweet smell of pepper and onions sautéing made my mouth water.
When I made my way downstairs, Mickie stood at the counter, adding ingredients to what looked to be scrambled eggs and everything else edible in my fridge. I saw bits of potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, onions, and hamburger patty. Bandit sat beside her, licking his chops.
“I can’t eat anything,” I said. In response, she handed me a bright-red concoction in a sixteen-ounce glass. “What’s this?”
“The best hangover medication you will find anywhere. Drink it.”
“What’s in it?”
“I’m a freaking doctor. Trust me.”
“Where have I heard that before?”
“Drink.”
The first sip tasted awful. I groaned and put the glass down.
“You really are a baby. It’s supposed to taste terrible. It’s punishment for abusing your body.” Mickie had become a health freak. She didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs. “Now finish it before I hit you across the backs of your thighs with this spatula.”
I downed the rest of the concoction, though not without further complaint. At first I thought I would throw it all right back up, but to my surprise, my stomach started to feel better. My head still hurt, but I hoped the Tylenol would kick in and at least dull the beating drums. “You should bottle that stuff,” I said. “We’d make a killing.”
“Old family recipe,” she said without humor.
She put a huge plate of food on the counter in front of me and found a fork. It dawned on me that Mickie had probably cooked more meals in my kitchen than Eva. As I sat at the counter eating, Mickie cleaned the pots and pans. “This is good,” I said. “Better than good.”
She poured herself a tall glass of water, grabbed a fork, and joined me, systematically swallowing a handful of pills and eating eggs. “So, you want to tell me the rest of what happened?”
“I told you what happened.”
“You told me about Bateman. You didn’t tell me why you tried to drink yourself into a coma.”
I proceeded to give Mickie the blow-by-blow of my evening. Bandit sat at our feet, his head alternately swiveling back and forth, watching us like he was watching a tennis match. When I got to the part about calling Eva’s hotel room in Boston, Mickie asked, “Could they have connected you to the wrong room?”
“I heard her. She was there.”
Mickie nodded but did not offer further comment. Silence was not like her. Discreet silence was really not like her. Then the reason began to crystallize through my considerable cobwebs. “You knew.”
She arched her eyebrows.
“How long have you known?”
She shrugged. “How long have you been dating?”
“What? You think she’s been cheating on me the entire time? I don’t believe it.”
“You’d have to ask her that question, but yes, I think she has been.”
“Why would you think that?”
“The way she interacts with you, the way she treats you.”
“What’s wrong with the way she treats me?” I asked and, under the circumstances, immediately felt like an idiot. Thankfully Mickie did not take the opportunity to beat me senseless with logic.
“She treats you more like a brother than a lover, Sam. You two are more like roommates than soul mates.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“Really? Why did she move in?”
“I asked her to.”
“Yes, but why? Did you not say it would save on rent and utilities?”
“It does.”
“And she said it made sense, didn’t she?”
“It did make sense.”
“Yes, if you were business partners, but last I checked that’s not so good a reason for committing to a lifelong relationship together.”
“It doesn’t mean she’s cheating on me.”
Mickie looked exasperated. “She keeps a separate room.”
“She has to get up at four in the morning a lot, and she doesn’t want to wake me.”
“Very considerate of her.”
“It doesn’t mean she’s been cheating on me, either.”
“No, but the guy I saw rubbing up against her on the dance floor at a club a month after she moved in here was a pretty good indication.”
I nearly choked on my eggs. “And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t say anything?”
Mickie got up and retrieved her purse. “I have to go.”
“Wait a minute.” I stood. “You can’t say that and then just walk out.”
She dropped her purse on the couch. “Fine. What was I supposed to say?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about, ‘Hey Sam, you know that woman you’re about to have your testicles cut off for? She’s cheating on you. She’s been cheating on you’?”
“Don’t drop that in my lap; I had no idea you were stupid enough to contemplate having a vasectomy until I saw it on your calendar.”
“So tell me she’s cheating on me, and maybe I never go down that path.”
“Okay, I tell you. Then what? You just said, ‘I don’t believe it.’ You tell me I’m wrong. You tell me it’s bullshit, that Eva loves you, that you love her. You ask her and she denies it, or she says it was an old friend and maybe I should just mind my own business. She tells you she doesn’t want to be around me. Then what happens to our friendship, Sam? You come to work every day, and we both pretend that nothing has changed? It’s none of my business what she does, Sam; my business is being your partner and your friend.”
“Is that why you’ve never liked her?”
“I’ve never liked her because she’s not good enough for you. You’ve sold yourself short, again. You always have, since high school and that fat chick with the big tits.”
“Donna Ashby.” Mickie and I had had this discussion about me selling myself short when it came to relationships more than once. Okay, maybe fifty times. I had a modest history of failed relationships with women who could look past my eyes, but only far enough to see a successful doctor who made a decent living. None of them could see far enough to see a life with me.
“You pick women who aren’t good enough, and then you rationalize how they treat you rather than just telling them they aren’t good enough for you.”
“Thanks. That improved my self-esteem immeasurably. Do you have Kim Basinger’s phone number? I’m feeling much more confident.”
“Would you rather I lie?”
“Sometimes.”
“Fine. Next time I’ll lie, and you can continue making the same mistake.”
“Wait a minute. How is this any different from the guys you date?”
Mickie’s eyes blazed, and I regretted my question. “How? I’ll tell you how. Because I’m not living with any of them or thinking of marrying any of them.” Mickie checked her wristwatch and retrieved her purse, moving across the room toward the front door. “You don’t want my advice? I don’t give a shit. But don’t compare my relationships to your relationship with your roommate. And I don’t have to apologize to you or anyone else for who I date or who I sleep with, though I don’t sleep with nearly the number you apparently seem to think I do, like those idiots in high school used to speculate.”
“I didn’t—” I started, but Mickie was on a roll.
“And yes, I like getting laid. I like the feeling when I watch their faces contort in sheer, unadulterated joy, when they gasp with pleasure and look at me completely and totally disarmed. And do you know why?”
I didn’t dare answer.
“Because at that moment, they would do anything, anything that I asked of them to experience that feeling again. But I don’t ask anything of them. Not one goddamned thing. I’m not in a committed relationship, Sam. I haven’t moved in with anyone. I also haven’t told anyone I love them and they’re the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, because when I do, that will be the last person I ever sleep with.” She opened the door and wheeled on me. “You deserve better. You use your eyes as an excuse for not believing you could do better and for not standing up for yourself and telling women they’re not good enough for you. You want to settle for someone like Eva, someone who cheats on you, who mistreats you, go right ahead. But for God’s sake, at least get a prenup, because I am not ever giving her any part of our damn business just because you’re blind.”
As the door closed, I was uncertain what had just happened or what exactly had set Mickie off, at least to that level of intensity. Then I thought of what she’d just said to me and I realized something else, something I had never really considered before.
Eva had never told me she loved me.
3
Just before three in the afternoon, Eva had still not called. She had a built-in excuse; her flight from Boston left at six in the morning East Coast time, which was three in the morning my time. Maybe she’d say, “I didn’t want to wake you,” and I could reply, “I didn’t want to wake you two, either.”
She had a six-hour flight to concoct a story. Maybe she’d play dumb, deny receiving the phone call at all and make me think that I had called the wrong room . . . and what type of person did I think she was, anyway? Or maybe she wouldn’t even bother with the charade; maybe she’d do us both a favor and just admit she’d been cheating on me from the start. Maybe she’d get it over with and say she didn’t love me, we had no future together, and she’d move out. I’m a coward, I know, but it would have been so much easier that way. Easier because, as angry and hurt and bitter as I was, there was still a part of me, the part that had been willing to go back to Donna Ashby in high school even though I knew she had used me, the part so afraid that I could never find anyone else and that I would spend my life lonely and alone.
I made the decision not to tell Ernie about my encounter with David Bateman or Eva’s infidelity. I knew how much he was looking forward to attending a World Series, and I didn’t want to be a downer. Even the weather was cooperating—still unseasonably warm, high eighties. The rest of the nation would tune in to see Giants fans clad in black-and-orange T-shirts instead of the parkas and ski hats we traditionally donned to attend games at the wind tunnel known as Candlestick Park.
