What Milo didn’t add was his doubt that he would ever find a woman again who would be interested in him, and more important, a woman from whom he could conceal so much. Neither did he think he wanted to do so. While he couldn’t imagine sharing his secret with any future bride, he also wasn’t sure if he wanted to invest the effort and energy in doing so again, especially when it could all end so quickly.
And then Milo realized that he was sitting next to the one person in the world with whom he could share this concern, the one person who knew his secret and didn’t think of him as dangerous or insane. For once, he would be able to share his feelings with someone without lying or omitting or altering facts. For the first time since that day on the school bus when loquacious took up residence in his mind and lies and fabrications were required to exist, Milo could just be himself with another human being.
He waited a moment, considering how he might phrase his next sentence, and then he discarded forethought and nuance and took a deep breath. “I’m afraid that I’ll never find anyone else like Christine,” he said, still staring at his sneakers.
“Well, I hope not,” Emma said, rising from the curb as if to imbue her words with authority. “I don’t know your wife, but it’s clear that you two weren’t a good match, Milo. You need to find someone entirely different next time.”
“No, I mean, I don’t think I’ll find anyone else at all. Christine might have been my one chance.”
“Why would you say that?”
“It’s just true,” Milo said, rising from the curb in fear of appearing too pathetic.
“But why?”
“Look, Emma, I’m not the coolest guy in the world. I’ve got a dog named Skywalker and I play Dungeons and Dragons every Wednesday night with guys from a comic book store. I’m a hospice nurse who delivers Viagra to old men and rakes his client’s carpet. I don’t have many friends, I don’t handle new situations well, and on top of it all, I sing karaoke and smash Weebles and have another two dozen jelly jars rolling around in my trunk because some inner force compels me to do things that I don’t want to do. Finding Christine was a fucking miracle, and keeping all of my insanity hidden from her was an impossibility on top of a miracle. What are the odds of me finding that again?”
“You play Dungeons and Dragons?” Emma asked, a grin forming on the corners of her mouth.
“What?”
“I’m just kidding. Look, I could tell you not to worry, and that you’ll find someone else, but frankly, I don’t know. You’re right. You’ve got some stuff going on that not every woman is going to embrace. But I’m willing to bet all the money in my wallet that the trouble with your marriage had more to do with you than it did with Christine.”
“How can you say that? You have no idea what my marriage was like.”
“I know that you were never honest with Christine. She never knew who you really were. Sure, she just dumped you on voice mail, and she sounds like a complete bitch, but maybe being married to a stranger for three years will do that to a woman.”
“A stranger?”
“Yes, Milo. A stranger. You probably expended more energy keeping secrets from your wife than you did opening up to her and letting her know who you really are. What do you expect from her? Is it a surprise that there’s no passion in your marriage? That you have nothing to talk about? That she’s bored? She’s married to a guy who can’t share half of his day with her.”
“So it’s all my fault, then?”
“Don’t get pissy with me. Asking for a divorce on voice mail is an awful thing to do, and I have no doubt that Christine is a piece of work. I’ve got no love for the woman, and I have no doubt in my mind that you’re too good for her. But I also know that she married a man who hid the truth from her from day one. She had no clue about who she was really marrying, and that sucks for any woman. And it was pretty selfish of you.”
“Pretty harsh for an advice columnist. Don’t you think?”
“Bullshit,” Emma shot back with a smile. “That’s why my column is going to get syndicated. I don’t screw around.”
“So then what advice do you have for me?” Though he tried to sound flippant, Milo wanted to know the answer to this question more than any other.
“You? That’s simple. If you’re going to get into a relationship again, be honest this time.”
“Easy for you to say. You’ve got secrets too, you know.”
“I know,” Emma said. “That’s why I don’t date. Until I get myself together, I’m not good for anybody, and I know it. I’ve got about half a dozen bad relationships to prove it. And even though I bitch about my therapist and his desensitizing bullshit, I’m on my way north. Aren’t I?”
“Well, a trip to New England isn’t nearly as embarrassing as telling a woman who you barely know that you have to let the air out of your tires because some—”
“You told me.”
“Not everyone is as enlightened as you.”
“Thanks.” She smiled again, this time a warm, friendly smile that Milo returned in kind.
“One more thing. Like I said before, I wouldn’t tell you to change a thing about your life. Be yourself if that’s what you want. But if you’re embarrassed by these demands, and you said that you were, then maybe you should think about doing something about them. If you’ve got to keep them a secret from the people you love, then maybe you have a problem after all. But that’s not my call. That’s yours. Love yourself or fix yourself. Okay?”
The image of Louis the Porn Fiend, a.k.a. Hot Potato, entered Milo’s mind. As perverse as that man had been, Louis had not been ashamed of or embarrassed about his predilections in the least. He was a man whose living room was designed to watch pornography, and he made no bones about it. And he thought about the Brysons, Emily and Michael, two enormous human beings who had shown no signs of self-conciousness as they piled enormous quantities of food onto their table and encouraged their unexpected guest to join in. He thought about Arthur Friedman and his unabashed affection for Internet pornography and Viagra-assisted masturbation. He thought about Edith Marchand and the carpet raking and Grace Bedford and her necklace of baby teeth and marveled at their willingness to share their oddities with the world. Milo wondered again if he could ever be as honest or as unabashed about his secret life, if he could share the demands of his U-boat captain with his friends or future dates or even a stranger knocking on the door. He had always been simultaneously disgusted and impressed with Louis’s courage and honesty. He had found the Brysons to be both warm and repulsive at the same time, a combination of hospitality and excess that he both admired and abhorred.
Perhaps he worried that others would feel the same about him if he was to be so open about his own secrets.
“Okay,” Milo said, knowing that no decision would be made in the parking lot of this gas station. Some of what Emma said had hurt, and he suspected that much of what she said would echo in his mind for days, but for the first time in his life, Milo had been completely honest with someone, and he suspected that it had also been the first time someone was able to be completely honest with him. “By the way,” he said. “How much money is in your wallet anyway?”
“None,” Emma said with a grin. “I never carry cash. I live and die by the credit card. But I was still right.”
“I know you think you were.” This time Milo smiled first.
“So what’s next?” Emma asked, turning toward the car.
“I don’t know. I guess the sheriff will leave the papers in my mailbox. Or he’ll keep nosing around my apartment until I come home. I’m not sure how this stuff works.”
“Not that. I mean with you. What’s next? Bowling or karaoke?”
“Oh. Well, I’m not sure if we could even find karaoke, but the GPS should tell us where the nearest bowling alley is.”
“How are you feeling?” Emma asked.
“I’m okay. Letting the air out of the tires helped a lot. There’s still a lot of pressure to bowl and sing. I
t’s hard to explain. It’s not really a voice in my head. It’s more of a force. A throb. But talking about it, out in the open like this, has helped, I think.”
“Good. Then let’s get going. We’ll need to find a hotel soon too.”
“I have a place in mind. It’s less than an hour from here, but it’s nice.” Milo paused a moment, and then added, “Actually, I stayed there on the way down, so it’s familiar to me. That sometimes helps keep the demands away. Routines and familiarity. In the spirit of being honest, I thought I’d tell you.”
“Okay. And if another demand pops into your head, you’ll tell me?”
“Sure.”
The bowling alley, an AMF center that Milo was pleased to see was modern and clean (some bowling alleys, in Milo’s estimation, were more like an apology for the adjacent bar than an actual sporting venue), was less than three miles from the hotel where Milo hoped to stay for the night. Emma had not bowled since she was a kid and therefore proceeded to roll gutter ball after gutter ball down the lane, much to Milo’s amusement.
At last he had found something at which she did not excel.
While hardly a professional bowler, the constant demands for strikes over the years had afforded Milo a great deal of practice, and he could often score well above two hundred on most days. On this evening, he beat Emma 258 to 34, his largest margin of victory ever. Had the computerized scoring device not continued to display the disparity in their performance on the television screen over their heads, Milo might have stopped keeping score altogether. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was probably more difficult to score a 34 than it was to score a 258.
Though it was not the first time that Milo had bowled with a partner as the demand for a strike pounded away in his head, it was the first time that his partner was aware of the demand, and this unexpectedly added to the pressure. It was as if his submariner at the controls knew that he had an audience and wanted to make the most of this unusual moment. Not only was the demand for a strike in need of satisfaction, but now Emma was waiting anxiously for the satisfaction as well. Thankfully, Milo managed his strike on the first ball, causing Emma to leap from the plastic bench and embrace him in the middle of the lane while he attempted to savor the release associated with the toppling of ten short white pins.
“That’s amazing,” she shouted, loud enough to cause the pair of overweight women in the next lane to stare. “How long does it usually take you to get a strike?”
“Actually, I can usually get it on the first or second ball. It’s getting to the alley that is sometimes the problem.”
“Oh.”
Milo watched in amusement as Emma attempted to subtly retract her excitement, slowly returning her arms to her sides and casually stepping back toward the bench, much in the way a man who has tripped attempts to incorporate the stumble into his natural gait, hoping that no one else has noticed.
As if to confirm his claim, Milo bowled four strikes in row before finally missing with a miserable seven-ten split that he failed to pick up for a spare.
After hot dogs and root beer, they made their way to the same hotel where Milo had watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Lily and Eugene just two days before, parking in the same spot that he’d had on his first visit. It seemed as if weeks had passed since then.
As they entered the lobby and passed by the movie kiosk that had attracted his attention during his last stay, Milo turned to Emma midstride and said, “I’ll pay for your room. No arguments.” Even as he was saying the words, he couldn’t get over how easy it was to discuss sleeping arrangements now that he was no longer hiding anything from her. Just a few hours ago, those two sentences would’ve required planning and precision and would have been laden with anxiety and uncertainty. Now they had come without a second thought or the least of concern.
“Actually, how about one room and two beds?” Emma asked.
“Really?”
“I told you that I don’t sleep very well. I sleep even worse when I’m not in my own bed in my own apartment. If I have any shot at getting some rest tonight, it’ll only happen if I’m not alone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Milo, I’m not making a pass at you. You’re a Star Wars geek who plays Dungeons and Dragons, for God’s sake. And you’re still married, at least for the next six months if your wife is correct. Not to mention that I don’t date, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be sleeping with you after just one day together. What kind of girl do you think I am? I just have a hard time sleeping in a strange place. If you are in the room, it might make it a little easier, okay?”
“Sure. But enough about the D and D. Okay? You’re not funny.”
“Sorry, Frodo.”
“Still not funny.”
“I think so.”
“Can’t you find something else to do besides make fun of me?” Milo asked, though secretly he was enjoying the banter very much.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she said. “Can you check us in?”
Emma turned and made her way past the hotel desk and into the restaurant on the far side of the lobby. Milo approached the high counter and waited for an employee to appear from the doorway behind the counter, hoping that it might be Lily.
It was not.
Milo handed his credit card to an African American man named Nigel and waited as the man, whose name badge declared him an assistant manager trainee, processed the transaction while somehow managing to repeat Milo every step of the way without ever making any eye contact.
“Hi, I’d like to get a room for the night.”
“You’d like to get a room for the night,” Nigel said, already pounding away at the keyboard. “A single, sir?”
“No, I need two beds.”
“You need two beds,” Nigel repeated, pounding away again.
Nigel eventually handed Milo two card keys to open the room, recorded his request for a six A.M. wake-up call in the computer, and asked if there were any bags to bring up to the room.
“We’re all set,” Milo said. “I can handle it.”
“You’re all set. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Slade.”
As Milo turned to see if Emma had returned from the restroom, he felt a thundering clap on his back that nearly knocked him off his feet. “Hey! Movie man! You’re back!”
Eugene was standing before him, wearing the same blue coveralls and red bandanna from two days ago.
“Eugene!” Milo said with genuine enthusiasm, reaching out to shake his hand. Eugene brushed it aside and wrapped his arms around Milo in an embrace that nearly lifted him from the ground.
“What you doing back here, man?” the large man asked with excitement.
“I’m on my way home,” Milo explained. “I needed to stop for the night.”
“Who’s this?” It was Emma, approaching the two men from across the lobby.
“Eugene,” Milo said. “This is Emma. Emma, this is Eugene.”
“You didn’t have a girl the first time you were here, did you?” Eugene asked.
“No,” Milo said. “Emma’s going back to Connecticut with me.”
Eugene offered Milo a less-than-conspiratorial wink.
“We’re just friends,” Milo said.
“Right.” He winked again, in an even more obvious manner than he had the first time. Emma winked back, causing Eugene to furrow his brow and stare her down for a moment.
“Hey, is Lily here?” Milo asked.
“No, not tonight. She’s off tonight.”
“Too bad. I was hoping to say hello.”
“Yeah, she liked you, man.”
“She did?” Emma asked. “Who’s Lily?”
“Just someone who works here,” Milo said.
“And she likes Milo?” Emma asked, directing the question at Eugene.
“Yeah. She said that he … what’s your name again?”
“Milo.”
“Yeah,” Eugene repeated. “She said that Milo was a nice guy.”
??
?And that means she likes him?” Emma asked.
“Probably,” Eugene said. “Lily hates just about every guy she meets. If she says you’re nice, you’re already better than most of them.”
“And you thought that no one would be interested in you,” Emma said, smiling.
“Sure,” said Milo. “The girl barely knows me, lives more than five hours from my home, and said that I was nice. Lots of potential there.”
“Maybe not this girl,” Emma said. “But sometimes it’s just nice to know that someone’s interested. It gives you hope that it’ll happen again.”
“You don’t know that?” Eugene asked.
“I know—it’s sad, isn’t it, Eugene?” Emma asked. “But he’s a Dungeons and Dragons nerd, so what do you expect?”
“A what?”
“Never mind,” Emma said. “Milo, I think I’ve got a solution to your karaoke problem.”
“You found a place?” Milo asked. Even though his karaoke demand continued to pound away in his mind, it was the last of the demands that had threatened to topple him from earlier in the day, and it was one that he was accustomed to delaying whenever necessary. Unlike Vernon Lanes or the availability of jelly jars, Jenny’s was not open twenty-four hours and was therefore not available to him at all hours, so he often had to delay the satisfaction. He had also not performed anywhere but Jenny’s in more than five years, and the possibility of a new venue instantly raised his anxiety level.
“Sort of. Do you have the CD?”
“It’s in the car.”
“Go get it. I’ll wait for you here.”
Emma’s solution was Hooligan’s, the hotel’s restaurant and bar where she had just gone to find a restroom. Though the establishment was not equipped for karaoke (no karaoke player or screen to project the words of the song that was being sung), there was a small stage and sound system set up for live entertainment on the weekends. Just twenty minutes before closing, the place was nearly empty, with a couple of businessmen nursing drinks at the bar and a family of four occupying a booth near the stage. Emma had gotten the manager to agree to allow Milo to sing one song, claiming that it was their anniversary. She had said that five years ago on this very night, she had heard Milo sing onstage in a karaoke bar and had instantly fallen in love. She told the manager, a man with a handlebar mustache and overgrown eyebrows who looked like he should have been herding cattle rather than managing a restaurant, that Milo had planned on reenacting the scene for her tonight, but they were surprised and disappointed to discover that the bar where they had met was no longer in business. She asked if he could sing just one song, and the manager, who asked Emma to call him William, had agreed.