He’s being tested. Half past two on Thanksgiving afternoon and Becca’s making Ben take a test. Or rather, she is grading a test he has already taken. One of these chronically empowered types from the women’s shelter has imposed a self-help book upon them and Becca’s been behaving strangely ever since.
Becca looks around the edge of her book.
“What did I just say?”
Ben fingers a sky-blue table runner spilling out of the cardboard box resting on the end table.
“There’s something about this color that brightens my spirits.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Blue improves my mood.”
“Most people would disagree with you.”
“You want me to be like most people?”
“You’re stalling.”
“You said the Choctaw translator woman thinks this little boy has some sort of speech impediment or oral retardation. Hopefully he’s just messed up after seeing what he did. You said if the shelter would allow it you’d bring him home and live with us which, by the way, don’t even think about it. You also said you’d be driving down to Antlers and visit your Aunt Mabel to talk about these daydreams.”
Ben beams, pleased with his performance. Thirty-nine-odd years of marriage has perfected this capacity for instant recall. No matter how far his mind might have wandered Ben can stop, rewind, and parrot back every word Becca has uttered in the last thirty-or-so seconds. The skill has saved his skin more times than he cares to remember.
“I almost had you.”
Becca buries her nose back in the book: The Five Love Languages—How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. She is lying on the couch in her reading glasses, scoring Ben’s answers to a quiz which—the dust cover promises—should solve the various problems plaguing her marriage.
“I’m liking this whole hot-for-teacher thing you’re working today,” he says.
“Shush.”
“How’d I do?”
“The jury’s still out. Go upstairs and get the next box.”
Ben does as he’s told, traipsing up the staircase and along the hallway to the attic. Beyond a narrow plywood landing where the holiday decorations are kept, rafters rise in shadowy crosshatch out of a pink blanket of insulation delicate as spun sugar. The kids, when they concede to make the long trek home, still call this the unfinished room. Ben’s breath comes hard and fast in the cotton-candy quiet. Five more boxes to go and he’s not glad about it. Turkey Day in the Porter household has always promised a brief amnesty from the diet or exercise decree of the moment. After a guilt-free day spent stuffing himself with sweetmeats, Ben looks forward to an afternoon in front of the fire watching America’s Team grunt the football down the field in Dallas. Maybe get his glow on with a nice single malt. Until this year, that is. After lunch, when Becca asked him to unbox the Christmas decorations, a sinkhole opened in his gut. Talk about gluttonous interruptus. He’ll be lucky to tune in for even the last quarter of the ball game.
Normally Ben would already have started needling her, wheedling his way out of anything resembling a chore. But Becca isn’t herself today. Or lately. What with the Neverending Remodel From Hell going on in the backyard and the kids away and this new internship at the battered women’s shelter.
It was odd the way she wrote that check without even asking.
Ben knows he’s being evaluated. She’s using this relationship test as an excuse to get things off her chest and so, at least for now, he’s leaving it lay.
He wrestles a box down the stairs and into the kitchen, reminding himself not to bellyache. But when he sets it on the granite countertop a St. Nick statuette breaks through the cardboard to poke him in the kidney, provoking a wounded whimper.
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Too late.” He walks into the living room. “So did I pass?”
“Your love language, Benjamin Porter, is words of affirmation. Which, as you refuse to stop talking, makes perfect sense.”
“And yours was . . .”
She frowns.
“Touch.”
“Okay, so this one’s easy. We just need to make like rabbits and have lots of sex. Then you tell me how great I am in the sack.”
Her laugh tells Ben he’s still got it.
Back in the kitchen, he pours himself a drink and, despite the pain in his side, indulges a shit-eating grin. The midterms were a rout, and a Pokes fan doesn’t get to revel in an utter skunking like this very often. For the first time in four decades the Geeee-Oohhh-Peee is calling the shots in the House. The morning after the election Ben was glued to the tube. He couldn’t look away. Gingrich and Dole on the Capitol steps with their fabled contract, Republican lawmakers fanned out behind them in a human victory rip so poetic Bob Dole broke character and betrayed something approaching actual, human emotion. D.C. is even lauding Crash as some kind of right-wing rock star. Word on the Hill is, come January, he’ll be inducted as an honorary member of Congress.
But the best part—the most important part of all—is Terry Giffords’s landslide of a win over that push-button liberal Gould. After Ben manages this situation with Chambliss, he should practically have the mayor in his pocket.
He had damn well better.
Back in the living room, ready for a break from manual labor, Ben hoists Becca’s bare feet, slides under them onto the couch beside her, starts kneading those toes.
Becca closes her eyes and allows a relieved sigh.
“Go easy on Cecil tomorrow.”
“Becca. It’s the Great Alaska Shootout. The first real basketball games of the preseason. Cecil won’t let me in the door if I don’t come bearing a six-pack. I hope that nurse of his isn’t there. Cecil says she’s tough as a drill sergeant.”
“Your brother’s not as strong as you think.”
“He’s stronger.”
“He’s only just home.”
“You remember that time Cecil hurt his shoulder?”
“Ben.”
“Hold up a second. Remember it? They had to give him surgery. Well he never would tell me how it happened. But I finally got it out of the doctor who operated on his arm. Turns out Cecil’s low on firewood. But he doesn’t want to hire some kid to rick it for him. So he rolls that chair out into his field, starts chopping down scrub oak with his axe. Now I have seen Cecil’s axe. It’s hard lifting that thing with two hands. But Cecil was out felling trees with it one-handed. I swear I’ll never . . .”
“Ben,” Becca’s eyes are open. “Don’t talk.”
He doesn’t.
Becca’s toes wiggle in his lap, teasing, closer.
“Touch.”
Ben does as he’s told.