Running Into Trouble Read online

  “And did you see the headlights of the other car, as it approached?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, I saw them for just a split second before impact.”

  Rosie made a couple of notes in his pad and then closed it. “Well,” he said, “I think we’re done here. Both vehicles are totaled, we’re having them towed to the Hockville garage. We’ll mail you a copy of the accident report for your insurance company.”

  In the distance, he heard a siren. An ambulance was pulling up. “What’s that doing here? Is Jennifer okay?”

  “Oh she’s fine, just a couple of bruises,” said Rosie. “It’s just standard procedure to check things out.”

  “Oh, well. Good,” said Eli. “Oh and by the way, do you have the number for a cab company, or something like that?”

  “It’s a slow night, crime-wise. Why don’t I give you and your girlfriend a ride home?”

  In the back of the police car, Hell was sullen and silent. Her face appeared old and stubborn in the moonlight. Dark shadows deepened the hollows beneath her eyes and turned the lines surrounding her pursed mouth into deep grooves carved in unyielding granite.

  “So, how’s the training going this year?” asked the officer, turning his head to look at Eli and blowing through a red light. “Oops, didn’t see that.”

  “Oh, pretty good,” he said, thinking of Hell, who knew a lot more about the status of his training than he did. Every day, she asked him questions about his runs and copied down his answers. She and the Coach interpreted these notes as if they were tea leaves.

  “So how do you get ready? Do you run, like, a marathon every day?”

  “Something like that,” said Eli, stealing a glimpse of Hell, who continued to stare straight ahead into the depths of some private abyss. He sighed inwardly. He figured Hell must be working hard to contain a long night’s worth of rage and ugly words that would burst forth as soon as they were alone.

  As the police car pulled away, narrowly missing their mailbox, Eli followed Hell into the house with all the enthusiasm of a man mounting the scaffold.

  -Helen Kale-

  “God, you are the least supportive boyfriend in the whole fucking world!”

  Helen stomped into the living room and seized a cushion from the couch before it occurred to her that throwing it wouldn’t produce a satisfyingly loud noise. So she marched back into the kitchen, picked up the telephone, an ancient model with a cord and a base, and slammed it down. Twice.

  Eli followed Helen with a tentative, wary. Coward, she thought.

  “What do you want from me, Hel?” he asked in a small, tight voice.

  Helen glared at him, feeling as though her eyeballs were on fire. This was not what she wanted, not at all. She wished Eli would get mad at her. She was desperate for him to yell, to scream, and, most of all, to care. Instead, he was passive, irritated, concerned—small emotions, just one step away from indifference, which was the polar opposite of love.

  “I want you to be my boyfriend! I want you to care about me, even when things suck! Especially when things suck like, I dunno, when I’ve totaled my car!”

  Helen sat down at the kitchen table and watched Eli grab a microbrew from the refrigerator and glide out of the room without even glancing at her. Asshole, she thought. He was acting like she was some batty old incontinent aunt, a horrible, embarrassing relation that you kept at arm’s length but took care of anyway, because you just knew that nobody else would be crazy enough to do it.

  It—this awful distancing—had started after the crash. Rather than checking if Helen was okay, he jumped out of the car and ran to the other vehicle. He talked with the woman inside and urged her to get away from her car because “it might explode.” He helped her crawl out of her car, which was resting on its side. Helen just stared numbly, caught in a dream. “C’mon,” he yelled as an afterthought, “you too, Helen!”

  While they stood around, waiting for the police, Helen recognized the woman she’d hit. It was Jennifer Champion from the R&M club, a smiling stick figure of a woman who sneered at slower runners like Helen, using “jogger” as an epithet. Although she looked okay—she could walk and talk and had no visible bloodstains—Jennifer was clearly not herself. She cried and murmured I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry to Helen, who patted her on the shoulder and interjected a few hesitant “It’s okays” while she tried to come up with something comforting yet non-incriminating to say. Helen, like everyone who works in insurance, knew that you never talk about who’s at fault after an accident.

  But, before Helen could think of something, Eli rolled his eyes and gently pushed her out of the way. He grabbed Jennifer by the shoulders and said, in a hearty voice, “There’s no reason for you to be sorry for anything. We hit you, okay?” Jennifer gave him one of those halfhearted I’m-trying-so-hard-to-be-brave smiles and then collapsed into Eli’s arms. He held her and talked to her until the police arrived.

  Helen stood by the side of the road with her arms akimbo, stunned and alone.

  -Jennifer Champion-

  It was late and the wine was good. Jennifer was on her third glass of wine, and she liked the way it smudged the cold, sharp edges of the accident into a warm friendly blur. Alcohol was also coursing through the party’s circulatory system, replacing awkward hey-how-are-yous with bold groping and fearless dancing on the lawn. But Jennifer remained on Bob Robertson’s favorite lounge chair, still pleased to watch the currents of people ebb and flow.

  If she were eating some curds and whey, she thought, she could be Miss Muffet. Except that she wasn’t really sitting on a tuffet, just a very comfortable chair. She wondered why there wasn’t a line of cushioned furniture called tuffets and started giggling softly.

  “Hey beautiful, what’s so funny?”

  Bob Robertson pulled up a folding chair and sat down next to Jennifer. She took in his tan weather beaten face and his crooked, thin-lipped smile. It reminded her of something.

  “Are you…the spider?” she asked, still dredging her brain for the crucial bit of data that went with Bob’s face.

  “C’mon, let’s dance,” said Bob, pulling Jennifer to her feet.

  -Eli Hawthorne-

  Eli paced around his “office,” threading himself around small clusters of boxes. Eli could not, did not, would not understand what was wrong with Hell. She was a psychotic, crazy bitch, and just staying in the same house with her was making him uneasy. And, of course, she’d totaled the car, so it wasn’t like he could go anywhere to escape what promised to be a long night of tearful accusations.

  As he paced faster and faster, he considered what he would say to Hell. He would delineate in careful, step-by-step fashion, how she had become increasingly irrational, that she was insane and controlling, and that she was making it impossible for him to focus on the Death March. To show that he wasn’t completely insensitive to whatever pain she was undoubtedly feeling (and expressing in such a dysfunctional fashion), he would suggest she get some sort of therapy. And then—

  Shit! Eli had stubbed his toe on one of those damned boxes. He didn’t know why he hadn’t opened them. Unless, perhaps, his reluctance to empty the boxes reflected a deep-seated ambivalence about his situation with Hell...

  Oh fuck it, he thought. He went into the bedroom, grabbed the cordless phone, and called Matt. It was a long shot, but maybe he could get a ride to the Thing.

  -felis concolor-

  Where was the delicious smell of frightened deer? The scent had grown wispier and more dilute until it was barely intelligible to the predator’s sensitive olfactory machine. Nevertheless, even its ghostly echo had the power to send snapshots of warm, bloody flesh through his synapses, causing saliva to pool in his mouth and pour down his muzzle. He licked the drool away, and, surprised that it didn’t taste at all like newly slain deer, he frantically lapped at the air. And...nothing. All he could smell was big rubber-footed monsters and the Tall Apes who served them.

  The predator had traveled as far as he could g
o without reaching the Impassable Concrete Barrier. Now he would have to go back the way he came and cross the river of asphalt again, bringing nothing but his empty belly.

  -Eli Hawthorne-

  The house was quiet and Eli was nervous. He couldn’t hear any of Hell’s characteristic sounds—the honk-honk of her stubborn sinuses, the whoosh-whoosh of her slippers gliding over the carpet—which meant that she could be lurking anywhere, incubating a five-hour Talk, or even an eight-hour Manifesto on the subject of Why Eli Is A Very Bad Boyfriend. He checked his watch. Matt was exactly forty-five seconds late. He looked out the window. Headlights cut through the darkness.

  Oh let it be Matt, let it be Matt, let it be Matt, he thought. But it wasn’t. An SUV eased past his (Hell’s) house in a slow, creeping manner that suggested the driver was simultaneously reading a map and straining to see street signs. Eli shook his head and began pacing as quietly as he could. He’d moved to the living room, which, in contrast with his cluttered “office,” was immaculate. It was just like Hell, he thought, to flawlessly decorate and ergonomically align every part of the house except for the one room that was supposed to be his.

  And, of course, she’d wanted him to fuss over the computer room in the same way that she’d worried over the rest of house. Actually, she expected him to take even greater pains, because it was her house after all, and Eli was just some glorified sex guy-cum-employee. She’d given him boxes of paint chips, carpet swatches and furniture catalogues, and a binder with her preferred color schemes. When results were not immediately forthcoming, she’d also provided a budget and a schedule. So, for almost two years, Eli had stayed on schedule, inventing complicated excuses (that necessarily became even more complicated over time) why nothing had been done at every milestone.

  He checked his watch again. Matt was always late although, since he’d moved in with Agnes, he’d upgraded to a socially acceptable fifteen minute margin of error. Agnes (Eli thought of her as Haggie) was a no-nonsense type, a banker with a plain slab of a face, blunt cut hair, and an incongruously enormous rack. Haggie didn’t like him. She thought he was a parasite who was just using Hell for her money and good housekeeping skills.

  Of course, Haggie didn’t really like Hell that much, either. According to Matt, Haggie often said that Hell’s loyal support of his running was “borderline creepy” and that she was fast becoming a “pod zombie wife.” At the time, Eli had been terribly offended. He and Matt were drinking at the Uvula, having one of those ill advised “what do you really think” conversations, when the subject of Hell had unfortunately come up.

  By the time Hell picked them up, they were both sullen and angry. (Hell didn’t mind Eli having the occasional boy’s night out as long as she could collect him when he was done. “That way, I can be sure you don’t go home with anyone else,” she often joked.) She left Matt on his doorstep following a strangely silent ride. Once Matt was out of earshot, Eli started talking with gusto, repeating everything that Matt had said (albeit more slowly and with the occasional slurred word) as well as a few new tidbits of his own.

  The most egregious fabrication he told Hell was that Haggie had a crush on him and wanted to switch partners sometime. It was, he explained, the frustration of these desires that was inspiring Haggie’s obvious jealousy of Hell and her relationship. Eli wasn’t quite sure why he’d said this. A small voice in a dark, rarely used corner of his brain twitted that maybe all he’d wanted was for Hell to turn to him, smile, and say something like “Oh, I’m so glad you’re my boyfriend, honey. I don’t think you’re a parasite at all.” (A much louder, heartier voice in Eli’s brain was laughing at the small voice, telling it to stop being such a girl.)

  In any case, Hell remained quiet, her eyes flickering between Eli and the dark road in covert appraisal. At home, she walked Eli to the bedroom, undressed him, put him to bed, and made him chase a couple of Advils with a liter of water. Soon afterwards, she crawled into bed herself and pressed her body into his back, grinding her hips and making soft little moans. Eli gently pushed her away, feeling slightly queasy. The next day he’d attributed his lack of enthusiasm to an early-onset hangover.

  But now he recognized that moment for what it really was: the end of his physical interest in Hell. Something had switched off in his mind.

  Eli checked his watch, which displayed hours, minutes, seconds, and tenths of a second. As he watched the seconds pass, it occurred to him that he’d never realized just how long a second could be. He glanced up the window. Bright headlights cut through the darkness, making room for a big boxy SUV that pulled into the driveway and bleated impatiently.

  Matt, who combined habitual tardiness with a disinclination to wait for anybody else, had arrived, and Eli was ready.

  -Jennifer Champion-

  Jennifer swayed and wobbled as though her head weighed too heavily on her slender, stalk-like neck. She felt damp, muddy grass beneath her feet (where did her shoes go?), which she moved sporadically and halfheartedly. Loud music filled her ears, but she tried to filter it out because the tempo was so fast and insistent that she couldn’t distill a rhythm from it. Her eyes were also closed, to protect them from jarring visual inputs that could, in her intoxicated state, trigger nausea, and her face rested against a warm, if not entirely stable, surface.

  Someone was pulling her forward, causing her feet to move faster, almost against her will. After one particularly clumsy lunge, her foot landed on a plastic cup that cracked beneath her weight. She leaned to her left and then swayed to her right, in a futile attempt to regain her balance, brushed against someone’s arm, and then landed on the ground. Wet mud soaked through Jennifer’s light cotton-rayon pants, and she reluctantly opened her eyes. How did I get here? she wondered, What is—

  Before she could complete the thought, someone grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet.

  “You are a terrible dancer,” said Bob Robertson, aiming his wild, lopsided grin at Jennifer’s slightly bloodshot eyes.

  “I’m, uh, not offended,” replied Jennifer, taking in Bob’s angular face and slightly acrid smell, as though he’d been dancing vigorously all night.

  “Why don’t you sit down?”

  Bob asked the question as a formality only. He steered Jennifer to a wrought iron chair positioned in front of a table covered by half-empty wine bottles and plastic cups filled with various liquids and wet cigarette butts. He picked up a few bottles, quickly inspecting and rejecting them in turn, and then selected an especially tall, slender bottle with a large hot pink label. He poured its contents into a large yellow glass with a lipstick imprint at the rim.

  “Take this,” said Bob. “Enjoy yourself, I’ll be back soon.”

  He patted her on the back in a tentative fashion and then turned away.

  As Bob’s long, stork-like legs carried him through the crowd in the yard and back into the house, Jennifer stared after him. She’d been trying to remember something, something about him. Well, she thought, whatever it was I was thinking of has probably drowned. She put her glass of wine to the side and rested her head on the table, allowing her hair to drift into a puddle of spilled wine.

  -Eli Hawthorne-

  Eli climbed into the SUV and buckled his seatbelt. This was uncharacteristic of Eli, who generally considered the use seatbelts and helmets and kneepads to be the mark of a cowardly, shrinking person who didn’t trust their own physical abilities. But this time he didn’t want to overstress his luck, which had already protected him from one car accident that evening. He looked over at Matt, who had a long oval face and rounded, heavy features that made him look contemplative and melancholy.

  “So,” said Eli. “How’s it going?”

  “Hmmm. He wants to know how it’s going. Almost two years later, he wants to know how it’s going,” said Matt in a voice that was gruff and contained at the same time.

  Eli squirmed. After Matt’s drunken confession of his girlfriend Haggie’s unedited opinions, they had avoided each other out of
a reciprocal respect for Matt’s embarrassment and Eli’s righteous indignation. Hell quietly stopped inviting Matt and Haggie to couples’ activities, and Eli stopped joining Matt for runs on Saturday mornings. At R&M club events Eli and Matt had been cordial, grunting generic filler conversations along with their hi’s and goodbyes, and this had basically satisfied them both. Or so Eli had thought.

  “Um, yeah,” said Eli. “What’s happening?”

  Eli strove for a casual, bantering tone. He regretted that he’d spent so much time with Hell that his connections to other people had withered and died. Matt, he’d realized, was the only person he could call whose first words wouldn’t be “Oh, so what’s the matter with Hell? Did you two have a fight?” The rest of his coupled guy friends seemed to defer to their girlfriends, all of whom seemed to think Hell was some sort of selfless martyr because she hadn’t made Eli get the soul sucking life attachment they called a “real job.”