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.And I had to tell him.That’s all.This is about me and him.Not you.I’m so sorry.I’m hanging up.I’m not giving you a chance to talk.I’m just hanging up now because this is my problem with Peter, not yours, and not about you and me.So I’m hanging up.I’m coming over to collect Peter, but that’s it.I won’t bother you.I’m hanging up.”He was protesting more loudly now.“Wait, wait.Don’t hang up!” But I did anyway.I had to.I would learn later, much later, a sketchy version of what happened in between the time of Elliot’s call and when I arrived at his house.Peter started yelling obscenities.He sliced a ball and it popped off one of the neighbor’s shutters.The neighbor called Elliot on the phone and told him that he was going to call the cops if he didn’t get the maniac to settle down.Elliot went out to talk some sense into Peter.When he reached for the club in Peter’s hand, Peter threw a punch, and soon they were wrestling in the snow.That’s where I found them.The fight was vicious.Peter was drunk, but more athletic than Elliot, but Elliot was taking advantage of Peter’s sloppiness.Both were getting in some quick punches.Their bodies were rolling and pitching in a blur of motion, the fog of their breath bursting up from their mouths into the cold night air.Peter’s golf bag had tipped over.The golf clubs were splayed on the white lawn.A box of balls had tipped too, and the balls had rolled to the sidewalk where they sat like lost eggs.The angry neighbor was on his front stoop now, glowering at them in a sweatsuit with the hood’s drawstrings tightened up around his meaty face.A few other neighbors were peering out of lit-up windows.The snow was coming down faster now, the flakes bigger and wetter.I got out of my car and just stood there on the sidewalk, watching in stunned silence.Did I want Elliot to beat Peter up? I did, I think, for sleeping with Helen.But I didn’t mind Peter getting in a few jabs of his own—on Elliot who’d moved on to someone else so swiftly.Was that why I was frozen there? It was possible, but also I’d absorbed so much in one day.I was no longer living in the world I’d woken up in.I didn’t know what was expected of me here, how to act, what to say.Elliot finally got Peter’s button-down pulled up and over his head so that his arms were trapped and his chest bare.His skin was pale but reddened with spots that looked like they’d form bruises overnight.Elliot then pulled Peter in close to his body, his shoes slipping in the snow, and put him in a headlock.“You need to go home!” Elliot said breathlessly.“Just stop and go home!”“No truce!” Peter was shouting, reverting to the language of a sixth-grader.“No truce! I do not give up!”“Someone’s going to call the cops!” Elliot said, and he scanned the street, as if wondering if someone already had, and that’s when he saw me.Elliot loosened his grip and Peter jerked free and stood up.He tugged his shirt down violently, as if he were fighting himself now.They both stared at me.Elliot already had a puffed eye that was sealing shut.Peter had a little blood trickling from his nose.“Gwen,” Elliot said.“Tell him you love me!” Peter shouted.“Gwen,” Elliot said, walking toward me.“I’m not seeing anyone else.I don’t know what you were talking about on the phone.” I wasn’t sure I could trust him or anyone.Nothing made any sense.Peter caught up to him before he could get too close and shoved him.“Get your own goddamn wife!” he said.“You lousy fucker!”“Hey,” Elliot said, putting his finger in Peter’s face.“Don’t start again.”“You slept with Helen,” I said to Peter.This was a simple sentence, all that I could manage.He was about ten feet away and I was speaking softly.“What?” he said.“Helen?”“You slept with her,” I said.“Did she just say that?” He laughed and spun around.“It’s true,” I said.“Admit it.”“I’m not admitting to that!” he said.“That’s horse-shit.” He started to pick up his golf clubs then, but lacked balance and fell to one knee.He staggered quickly back up.“Just tell her the truth,” Elliot said, staring at the ground, his arms folded on his chest.I looked at Elliot sharply.“Why don’t you sound surprised?” I asked him.He looked up and then back down at the ground.“Because he told me,” he said.“You knew? For how long?”“He doesn’t know anything!” Peter said, holding a club by its foot and pointing its handle at Elliot.“You don’t know anything, do you?”“He told me that day in the golf cart,” Elliot said.“Why didn’t you tell me?”“How could I?” he said.“I would have just been the old boyfriend who was trying to break you two up.He’d have denied it.It would have been his word against mine.It was a trap.Plus,” he said, “it wasn’t my secret to tell.”“You should have told me,” I said, wiping the wet snow angrily from my face.“I feel like an idiot.”“It isn’t true anyway,” Peter said, walking toward me, his golf bag on one shoulder.I noticed he was wearing his father’s spikes again.Had he put them on for this occasion? “I didn’t sleep with Helen.I don’t even like Helen.I love you.” He started walking toward me.“Tell Elliot you love me,” he said in a slurred whisper.“C’mon, sweetie.Tell him now and we can all go home.”I stared at the two of them.“Gwen,” Elliot said.“I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t.”“You should have thrown yourself into the trap!” I shouted.“You should have told me! What’s the matter with a little honesty?”I jogged to my car and got in.My hands were shaking as I shoved the key into the ignition.Finally, I managed to get the car in gear and drove off, leaving them standing there.In my rearview mirror, I saw Peter listing to one side under the weight of his golf bag, and Elliot, who turned around and punched him, one last time, in the stomach.Peter folded at the waist.And Elliot stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked toward his front door in the steady snow.I DROVE TO MY FATHER’S house.It was late.The house was dark.I had no key and so had to knock on the front door, like a stranger, and maybe that was fitting.I suddenly felt like I was surrounded by strangers and that I was a stranger to myself.I saw my father’s bedroom light turn on and then the porch lamp.He opened the door with the old-fashioned chain still in place [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]