| The Right Color by Terry Simpson |
| Terry Simpson is a journalist.
She lives and works in Maryland. This story is dedicated to her parents. The door shut behind them and they stood there in the hall. Empty, quiet. Too fucking quiet. Then Rose let out a sigh and he felt the world start spinning slowly back up to speed. On the way in, he’d pressed his foot into the carpet, rubbed his hand across the polished wood door. “We have to pay extra for this, you know,” he’d said. “Some fancy doc you picked.” “So?” She’d leaned away from him a little, looking at him with that teasing look that made her seem like she was still sixteen. “You’re not worth it?” And they’d smiled at each other. Because then it seemed like nothing could touch them. Somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed, and she put her arm through his and they started toward the elevator. “So,” he said, and then again, “so.” Rose tucked herself a little closer, touching the side of her face against his arm. He felt the pressure of her hands through his jacket. Tight. She was hanging on real tight. “Remember the time Vinnie bet you couldn’t pick up the refrigerator?” she said. “‘Fifty bucks, Hank,’ he said. ‘Fifty bucks says you ain’t so strong.’ And then you did it.” She squeezed his arm. “You picked it up like it didn’t weigh a thing.” She smiled. “We had a good time with that fifty bucks, Hank, remember?” He didn’t answer her. He didn’t feel like talking. Besides, he was used to it. After thirty-nine years he was used to her going on about something that didn’t have anything to do with anything. They stopped at the elevator and he pressed the down arrow. “A year,” he said. “That’s not a long time, Rose. A year.” She frowned. “Now there you go. What he said, Hank, was as little as a year. Without the operation. And then only because you pushed him. And what a question...what if I don’t have the operation…as if it was something to even think about.” She shook her head at him. “Not having the operation.” “Bullshit,” he said. She pulled her head like the word had slapped her, but nothing registered on her face. The elevator door slid open and they stepped inside. He pushed LOBBY. “Thirteen months then,” he said. “You wanna celebrate?” She ignored him, and they stared at the numbers lighting up on the wall above the door. Five, four, three, two... “Look at Charley Lederman,” she said. “The doctors gave him six months. Then he had the operation and now he’s good as new.” “They gave him a bag.” He looked at her. “A bag, Rose. No one’s giving me no bag to piss into.” They stepped out of the elevator and she pointed at a chair. “Sit,” she said, “I’ll call a cab.” “Good,” he said, “have a nice ride,” and he started for the door. “Hank!” He kept walking and she didn’t catch up with him until he was outside at the bottom of the stairs. “Hank, for Christ’s sake, slow down!” He could hear her breathing hard, and he turned and looked into her face. Pink. Her skin was pink from the hurrying. And her eyes were bright. It took him by surprise, that face. How pretty it still was. Rose looked good. Sixty-four and she still looked good. “I can still walk,” he said, “I can still walk home.” “Okay,” she said, “okay.” She was taking fast little steps to keep up with him, and the sound of her heels on the pavement was familiar, quick and sharp. It made him remember how it used to be a game, a joke he liked to play on her a long time ago. Because then they walked everywhere, and her steps were half the size of his. So he had to think about his stride, keep it short so they could walk together. But sometimes he’d pick it up, gradual, and she wouldn’t notice at first. He’d step out a little farther and a little farther until finally she was half running, half skipping beside him. Then she’d grab his arm. “Cut it out, Hank, slow down, cut it out!” Laughing, dragging on him with all her weight to try and slow him down, but the weight of her so light, hardly any weight at all, so he’d be walking fast and carrying her besides. Her heels clicked a rhythm behind him, dragging across the cement once in a while, and he knew he should slow down, but there was something inside him pushing. It made the motion necessary, even made it hard to keep it at a walk. It had come into him back there, sitting in that fancy office. A feeling that turned his insides tight, made him cold and made him sweat at the same time, while he sat there listening to what the doctor was saying, watching the bastard match the tips of his fingers against each other carefully so they went together even every time. So careful while he explained, like he was talking to a couple of kids. And it made him so mad he had to try hard just to make himself listen. “Remember the push-ups, Hank?” Her question made him miss his stride, and he slowed down a little, glancing toward her, wondering what the hell she was talking about now. “Huh?” It came out a grunt. He didn’t feel like playing guessing games now. Not now. “I remember how many even,” she said. “Fifty if I slammed the door in your face. Seventy-five if I wouldn’t talk.” Her words came in rushes to fit around her breathing, and he slowed down a little more. “And God forbid I should make you sleep on the couch!” She laughed. “Then you were good for a hundred and twenty-five easy. Easy! I used to lie in bed and listen to you woosh out in the living room. I used to count them.” It took a minute for the word to register in his brain. Woosh. She’d said woosh. He looked at her again. “What are you talking about, Rose. What in hell are you talking about?” “Woosh. You know.” She raised her arms straight out in front of her so her pocketbook dangled from her elbow, then she brought her hands into her chest and pushed them out again. “Woosh,” she said, every time her elbows bent, “woosh woosh woosh.” He stared at her. Shook his head. Push-ups. Piss bags. It was all just a way to drive him crazy. He decided to ignore it. Ignore the whole damn thing. “Hank? Remember when my father locked the door on you?” She started laughing. “I can still remember how it looked with your foot sticking through the wood. And my father’s face.” She reached out and hooked her hand around his arm. “I figured that was it for sure. That I’d never see you again.” He slowed down a little more. He remembered, too. But like it was someone else who did it. Or maybe just his foot. Like his foot did it all by itself. Sometimes if he tried, he could almost remember the force that used to roll through him. It was a little like the way whiskey hit you, only faster and harder. And it was almost funny...because it used to be a big part of him, that feeling. Maybe the biggest part. And now he could hardly remember it at all. “Thing I most remember,” he said, “is how you yelled about it. You and my mother.” “Well what did you expect? A prize? You put your foot through my father’s front door, for Christ’s sake.” Somewhere behind them a horn blew. Someone yelled and then the horn blew again. “Hank...” She pressed his arm and pointed to a row of benches behind an iron fence. “Ah...let’s just go home, Rose, huh? It’s a lousy day to sit in a park. A lousy day.” “Hank.” She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, holding on to his arm, making him stop, too. “Hank. Please. My feet are killing me.” The feeling that had been pushing him was almost all burned out of him anyway, so he half-turned and let her pull him through the big iron gate. “I’m not a kid anymore, you know,” she said. She sat down, leaned back against the wooden slats. “I’m not a kid and I need to go on a diet and my feet hurt.” He sat down beside her. “You don’t need no diet. And your feet always hurt. You and your mother. That’s what killed your father, you know...listening to her complain about her feet.” He leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. “Must run in the family. Must be the genes.” “That’s not so and you know it. Did my feet hurt when we used to go dancing? Four, five hours on that floor and did I ever say anything about my feet? Did I ever once say they hurt?” She looked over at the pond. “Now you on the other hand...” He waited for her to finish, and then he finally looked over at her, but she was busy watching the pigeons. “Jeeez,” he muttered. He looked off in the other direction. It was a game she played. Just to get his goat. Just to make him say ‘what did you mean by that?’ But today, he wasn’t playing. Today he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “So what did you mean by that?” he said when he couldn’t stand it any more, “what did you mean by ‘you on the other hand...’?” She cocked her head and shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing really.” She said it like it didn’t matter. “I was just thinking about Manny Decenzo, that’s all. Remember Manny?” He nodded his head slow, thinking. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember him. A little greasy son-of-a-bitch. Used to sit on the back of your chair just so he could look down your dress.” “Oh, Hank, he did not. And when did I ever wear dresses like that anyway?” “You had one. You wore it to your sister’s wedding. And afterwards, at your mother’s house, he perched himself on the arm of your chair.” He nodded. “Yeah...I remember the son-of-a-bitch.” “Well I don’t remember anything like that.” She scratched a piece of lint off her skirt. “So how come we’re talking about Manny Decenzo all of a sudden?” She shrugged, then she pointed. “Oh look...ducks!” And he knew she wouldn’t answer until she was good and ready, or maybe not at all. He watched a red setter pulling a red-headed woman along the path, wondering how Rose's mind worked. Thirty-nine years and he still wondered. It used to sound like a long time, thirty-nine years. Now it didn’t sound so long. He leaned back and watched the people walking by. They all looked young. They all looked healthy. Like they were going to live forever. Rose shifted beside him, stuck her feet straight out in front of her, wiggled them. He followed the line of her ankle up her calf, stopping at her knee where the straight line of her blue skirt began. But in his mind, he saw the rest of her leg. The rest of Rose. And he felt a sadness fill him so tight he could only take shallow breaths. Vinnie thought he was crazy because he still got hot for her. It made him wish he’d never told him. “Jesus Christ, you got a case of arrested development,” Vinnie said. “No man feels that way about his wife. Not even after a year. Never mind thirty-fucking-nine!” He tried to remember a time before that feeling. A time before Rose. There must have been times before her...times with other girls. Saturday night at the dances. But he couldn’t remember any. He could only remember Rose. The way she looked with her hair piled on top of her head, and those shoes with the heels that made her calves look better than Grable’s. And even then, even with the heels and the hair all piled up, only coming high as his chin. He could still remember the first time he saw her. Coming toward him with a bunch of her friends. Looking small beside them. Small and perfect. And holding her head high so it made you notice her. And he could still remember what she was wearing the first time he asked her to dance...a red dress and red high heels...and how looking at her had made his hands sweat. And he could still remember the way she felt in his arms, how he was afraid to hold her too tight, remember the way her hair brushed his chin, the feel of her back moving underneath his hand. Then the sadness rolled through him again, and he had to slip his fingers down through the slotted bench and grip the slats to keep the words inside...I ain’t gonna be no good to you, Rose...I ain’t gonna be no good to you one way or the other. “I ran into him, you know,” she said. “The other day. When I was shopping. And he looks good. He looks real good. Especially when you think of all these years...” He took a deep breath, uncurled his fingers from the slats. “After all what years? What the hell are you talking about?” “Manny. Manny Decenzo.” She said it like what was the matter with him anyway. “He was real friendly, Hank. And he asked about you. He said how he always thought highly of you. ‘I always thought highly of Hank,’ that’s what he said.” “Bullshit.” She frowned. “Well I thought it was nice. Not bullshit. And that reminds me...the living room.” “Huh?” “The living room, Hank.” “Right. The living room.” He sighed. “What about the living room, Rose?” “It needs painting. And it needs it bad.” He shook his head. “I just got finished painting the goddamn living room. Christ, Rose. Two weeks I mixed paint. ‘A little lighter, Hank, a little darker. Too much brown, Hank. A little more brown, Hank. Maybe it should be blue instead, Hank?’ It was last year, Rose. I just painted it last year.” “Five years,” she said. “That paint’s been on those walls five years. Besides, you never did get it right. And that’s why it was such a coincidence. I mean, running into Manny like that.” The living room. Manny Decenzo. He tried to put it together, and then it hit him. What the hell did she do...invite the little shit back to the house? Christ. Manny Decenzo in his living room. And she was telling him now. Of all the times, she was telling him now. “Manny’s had the business for years, you know. His father was always trying to get him into it even when we were kids, remember? Remember his father and the paint spatters?” She fluttered her fingers. “Behind his ears and all over the back of his neck? But Manny’s done well, Hank. Says painting’s been good to him. And I was just thinking...well, with the living room and…everything.” Her words trailed off. Her hand moved palm up off her lap and settled back again. Hank stared at her hand. So. He looked off across the pond. He could see the little son-of-a-bitch showing up in the morning and Rose putting the coffee on. See him sitting down across from her in his own chair, smiling at her, and Rose smiling back because all she saw was ‘nice.’ Nice. He’d get the color right on the first try. And there wouldn’t be any brush marks when the sun hit the wall. Worse, he’d say how lonely she must be, how brave she was. Then he’d smile and tell her how good she still looked after all these years. Because he’d always wanted her anyway. Manny’d always wanted Rose. And that’s when a shadow of the old feeling rolled through him. Not the wallop it used to be, but a kick. Enough of a kick. “C’mon.” He stood up. “We been sitting here long enough.” Rose pushed herself to the edge of the bench. “So what’s the rush?” “We got things to do,” he said. “Things? What things?” She got up and started after him. He turned around and waited for her to catch up and she put her arm through his. He liked that. He’d always liked that. “So?” She looked up at him. “What things?” “Things,” he said. “You’re the one who said it. 'We got to paint the living room, Hank, we got to paint the living room.’” “Well, not today, for heaven's sakes. I didn’t mean today.” He shrugged. “No, Rose. Not today. But maybe in four or five months.” She nodded. “Okay. Four or five months. That’s good. I can wait.” “Besides," he said, "it’ll probably take that long.” She looked at him. “For what?” She sounded like she was holding her breath and talking at the same time. He looked back at her. At her still-pretty face. “To get the right color, Rose,” he said. “To get the goddamn right color.”
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