June

“You know what you need? A pink flamingo for your yard.”

“You know what you need? A lawnmower.”

Hyde and Will kicked back on the wicker and enjoyed their twentieth porch-date since the accident. Hyde wasn’t keeping track, but Kayla worked four evenings a week so the math was simple enough.

“I like messin’ with the HOA. Six-and-a-half inches; what’s the worst they can do to me?”

“They can throw you in jail. It’s happened before.”

“In Brandywine?”

“Not yet. But there’s always a first.”

A stream of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly flooded the Brandywine streets and homes with dark, melodic pretension. 

Will must have sensed Hyde’s distaste. “I can get you free tickets for tomorrow’s show.”

“Ha! I don’t think I’d ‘get’ opera.”

“Puccini’s operas are otherworldly, but I must say I’m sick of it too. Especially the guy who thinks Pinkerton is supposed to sing every high note a touch flat.”

“Only two more days?”

“And ‘Butterfly’ is out.”

“What’s next?”

“Another weekend dance competition, then back to church services on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. I’ve got the rights coming in for some old Shirly Temple movies too.”

“I’d put a gun to my head if Kay decided to dance in that show. Sparkle Motion was enough competition for one year, and we still have nationals next month.”

“In Chicago,” Will drew out the “a” with his best midwest accent. “We’ll get ‘em here next year.”

“Is Janie still practicing... what was it? Ave Maria?”

“Every day.”

Hyde cracked the top off his beer and caught the foam in his lips. It was his second summer in suburbia and he already loathed the neighborhood conventions. The bird houses, the tiki-torches, the plastic swing sets. The bees were back in numbers that exceeded last year’s swarm but he didn’t mind them anymore. He enjoyed watching the bugs dance and sway with Puccini’s opera. And if a rouge bee found his way into his beer, then good for him. Drink up little buddy.

“Does it make you nervous?” he asked and nodded to the fresh holes and mounds on the lot next door.

“Nervous? Nah. I’ve still got a while.”

(There was more on Hyde’s mind tonight than opera, bees, and suburbia, but finding the right moment was essential. His heart fluttered at every potential opening, but before he could muster the courage, the relevant topic changed and he kicked himself for the missed opportunity.) “How are the tiny martyrs?” he asked. “Done with the sling already?”

Will lifted his left hand. “The sling got in the way.” A plaster shell locked all four fingers in place and continued down his hand and enveloped his wrist. Janie’s name was written in red marker on the crusted palm with a heart dotting the “i”. His free, yellow thumb served as a barometer for the severity of the hidden bruises.

“Can’t feel anything?”

“My pointer still has nerve-endings. I can feel the fingernail rattling around in there.” He held the cast to his ear and shook it. “I can hear it too.”

The screen door wheezed and Janie stepped out with a glass of water and a pill. “It’s seven.”

“Thanks honey,” Will pinched the pill and accepted the water.

Janie held up a fork. “What’s this doing out here?”

Will looked to Hyde for help. “Mr. Whitaker was just showing me his new silverware. Right Hyde?”

“Yeah! We bought a whole set from JCPenny’s last night. You like it?”

Janie punched her dad in the good shoulder and pocketed the utensil. “Don’t scratch your arm with forks! You’re shoving germs in the cast. Do we need to go over the doctor’s orders again?”

Hyde covered his smile behind his beer. “Busted.”

“And Mr. Whitaker,” Janie turned to Hyde, “hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to drink in front of someone in recovery?”

Hyde nearly choked on his gulp. “I’m sorry, Janie. I did ask permission first.”

She looked at Will. “You’re okay with this?”

“I told him it’s fine, sweetie. I’ve been sober since before you were born, but thank you for the concern.”

Janie’s pocket buzzed. Before Hyde could blink, the phone was in her hand with the keyboard flipped out and thumbs zipping across the micro-keys like Superman entering the kill-code on a time bomb. She snapped it shut, ran a finger behind her ear to hold back hair, then leaned down to kiss Will on his beard.

When she was back inside, Will said, “That phone was the worst Christmas present ever.”

“She’s growing up.”

William chanted, “She’s thirteen going on seventeen. Inn-o-cent as a rose.”

“How’s the writing?”

Will made a whirlpool in his water glass. “I’ve been digging through my old notes... I was a crazy kid.”

“No kidding.”

“Some of them are good. If I can just put the pieces together--find a through line--I think I can write a great play.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Back in the day I would take pills to help my concentration. I smoked pot to help my creativity and I drank like a sailer to calm my brain. Things are harder now, but slow and steady... right?”

A bee landed on Hyde’s forearm. He flicked it away and the bugger smacked the railing and dropped.

“Do me a favor.” Will pointed to the ground by Hyde’s foot. “Grab that twig for me.”

Hyde bent over to grab the stick, then tossed it to his friend’s lap. 

Will pinched it between his thumb and cast, then scraped the buds off with his nail. When it was clean, he wiggled the tip into the sliver of space between his arm and the plaster. “That’s it,” he moaned, sliding the stick it in and out. “Right there.”

The noisy spring on the screen door made Will jump and he ripped the twig from his cast and tossed it on the ground just before Sarah’s eye-line rounded the corner. “Good evening, beautiful,” he said. “Need help with dinner?”

Sarah set a twenty-dollar bill on the table between the men. “I want Arby’s. Janie wants McDonald’s. We have drinks in the fridge.”

“If you’re in the mood for something nicer, I don’t mind cooking.”

“You’re going to infect your arm if you keep scratching it with twigs.” She plodded back into house, leaving Will to stare at the money.

This probably wasn’t the appropriate opening Hyde was waiting for, but Will would leave for dinner soon and it couldn’t wait another day. “Will, I...” he paused. He suddenly realized how difficult it was to tell his friend about the knotted feeling stuck between the back of his heart and his spine.

The wrinkles on Will’s forehead furrowed in long black creases. “Something on your mind?”

“Yeah. I need to talk.”

Will pressed his head against his forearm in a vain attempt to see down the gap in his cast. “The tone of your voice suggests this topic is best suited for the privacy of my truck?”

“You could say that.”

Will dropped his cast to his side and gave Hyde the rare courtesy of direct eye-contact. “How does McDonald’s sound?”

*  *  *

Hyde was always calling Betty “ancient”, but Will considered his truck “venerable.” Betty was named “Betty” because Will didn’t know enough about cars to learn her real name; four-by-four, somethin’-or-other with rust-red paint and two missing hubcaps. As long the wheels and engine moved his crippled ass from point-A to point-B, he didn’t give a damn what she looked like.

Hyde slammed the glove compartment but it popped right back open. 

“There’s duct-tape at your feet,” Will said. “Throw a piece on that latch if it’s bugging you.”

“I don’t love Kayla anymore.”

Will hit the break pedal instead of the gas and the car lurched forward. “Damnit, Betty!”

“I don’t have anybody to tell. I have a thousand old friends, but nobody who really cares.”

Will could handle Janie’s drama; she was his daughter so he could be stern and logical. But buddy-buddy conversations of this caliber were the very reason he became a hermit. “I’m sorry. I didn’t... Just... just make it work. That’s my best--”

“I can’t anymore. When I step back and look at my life and my future, I can’t. It’s been a year of tedium. I sit in the same living room as her... I sleep in the same bed as her... but she’s just... gone.”

“I thought she was doing better.”

“She is. She has been. But I still feel trapped. I’m trying to tackle this from a spiritual perspective. I’m trying to determine God’s will, but--”

“God’s will is to make it work. Always. And I know you believe the same thing. Hit the left blinker for me, will ya?”

Hyde reached across the steering wheel and flipped the blinker lever down.

Will felt a trickle down his arm. “Shit. I think I scratched too hard.” He balanced the steering wheel with his knee and wiped the blood with his finger. He smeared it on his jeans.

“I don’t know if that’s always true. Am I supposed to be miserable for the rest of my life? I’m twenty-seven; I have so many years to be happy. I made one mistake when I was young, and now I pay for it forever?”

“These are new feelings. You can’t rush--”

“It was there from the beginning.”

“Why did you get married?”

“I didn’t know better.”

“You gave your word. You made vows. Were they meaningless?”

“I don’t think God wants me to be miserable.”

“Was your word meaningless?”

“It was a mistake.”

“You’re not miserable.”

“We don’t have the same interests. I’m barely attracted to her. Our sex life is--”

“I don’t need to know!” Will immediately regretted his outburst; his friend needed to vent. If Hyde was serious about a lack of people to talk to, then Will owed it to him to listen. “You need to go to counseling.”

“I don’t know where to start with that.”

“Throw a stone in Brandywine and you’ll hit the house of a shrink. Guaranteed.” 

Hyde’s head bounced with Betty’s rusty shocks. His eyes were unfocused and distant. “We had sex for the first time on the morning after our wedding,” he said. “We would have done it that night, but we traded the honeymoon convention for a redeye flight to Hawaii. Kay wanted a princess wedding and honeymoon. ‘We’re going to be poor for years,’ she said, ‘so let’s go all out at the beginning.’ I still had some inheritance money left, so we did it. We skipped the traditional wedding-night routine and got to the hotel at six in the morning. And it was spectacular. Gold arches, palm trees inside and out... a hundred swimming pools with fountains and waterfalls and little private coves. I tipped the bellhop when we got in the room. I closed the curtains and turned off the lights, but the room still had this yellow glow. We knew what we wanted to do. We were both virgins, about to perform God’s will, bathed in yellow sunlight with those yellow walls and those yellow sheer curtains. We proceeded with all the awkward motions. We hugged and kissed and I took her to bed. And we did it. We had sex, and it was fine. Awkward, but fine. And then I was laying under those covers, bathed in that yellow light, in absolute paradise with the sound of waves and smell of sea-salt coming through the gap in the window. I looked at her. She was smiling. She told me she loved me. I told her I loved her. But I had this rock in my stomach, Will. It was small back then; just a pebble. But there it was, living inside me, telling me that something wasn’t right, that I had rushed into it, that I made a mistake that I would someday regret. I ignored it. When I felt it again later, I ignored it again. Then everything collapsed... maybe it was the move. Maybe it was the new studio or the new store. But the stone in my stomach turned to a boulder and I can’t ignore it anymore.”

The dribble of blood reached Will’s elbow but he barely notice. “That’s a horrible way to go through life, Hyde. My heart goes out to you. You came to me for advice, and I’ll give it to you.” 

“Okay.”

“Love is a choice. You don’t want to hear that right now, but it’s true. You can make it work if you try. I want you to find a marriage counselor, and I want you to give it a year. If three-hundred-and-sixty-five days go by and you know in your heart and mind that you gave it all you could, then I think a divorce would be the acceptable thing to do. But I want you to promise me you’ll work on it.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanted my advice. That’s it. You don’t have to take it, but don’t make me a promise you know you can’t keep.” 

“I know.”

“Will you do that? Will you give it a full year?”

“I will. I promise.”

“Every marriage has challenges. If you want a good example, you can look across Brandywine Drive and into my window. The Carmel family isn’t immune, even after fifteen years of marriage. Sarah’s been cold to me since the accident. I don’t know why, but I think she thinks that if I didn’t build the stage, this wouldn’t have happened. Now she’s cold. She’s distant. She barely kisses me at night. But it’s something we’re working on. Our marriage--every marriage--has ups and downs. But the downs make us stronger, and as long as we communicate with each other and choose to love one another, the ups will come flying back. And I can’t wait.” The men had been sitting in the McDonald’s parking lot for five minutes. “Grab that roll of duct-tape for me, will ya?”

Hyde reached beneath his seat and handed the tape to Will. 

He stretched it out a few inches and ripped a piece off with his teeth. He pressed his forearm away from the cast and worked the tape inside the gap, then did his best to bandaid the new cut.

“That can’t be sanitary,” Hyde said.

“Consider what we talked about. If you give it your all, I promise your marriage will work.”

“I will. Thanks for listening.”

“Keep me updated. You can’t drop something like this on me and not tell me how it goes.”

“Don’t tell Sarah.”

“Of course not.”

“I know you tell each other everything.”

“This is different.”

“Thanks, Will.”

“Anytime.”