Page 44 of The Things We Never Say

“Good, good, good!” Artie clapped his hands. “You are all cheering me up! Wonderful!”

They talked to one another as well as to Artie. But he noticed that neither Rhonda nor Danny offered anything to the class about what they wanted to do. He understood that Rhonda had already confided to him, and he could see, in her face, her quiet, almost happy acknowledgment that he knew this about her. At one point he rapped on her desk and said, “Some of us are going to help people,” giving her a wink, and she blushed and covered her mouth.

But Danny said nothing.

At the end of class, as the students were leaving, Artie beckoned to the boy. “Danny, come see me for a minute.”

Danny stood there, and Artie said, “What’s your story?”

Danny said, “Uhm, nothing.”

Kids were starting to come into the classroom now for the next class, and so Artie just said, “I want to talk to you sometime.”

“Okay.” And Danny left the room.

Later that night he spoke to Evie about Danny Marino.

“Wait, which one is he?” Evie asked. “Oh, the one who made fun of…what’s-her-name.”

“Rhonda. And he’s also the one whose father sat on our bathtub and wept about his wife’s affair.”

“He did?”

“I told you that, Evie.” Artie felt a recrudescence of anger at his wife now.

“I guess I remember that. I forgot that was his father.” Evie sipped her wine.

“His father said that day, ‘How did I not know what was happening in my marriage?’ ” He watched Evie carefully as she received this, but she seemed to have no reaction. “The poor man,” Artie said.

Evie said nothing, and Artie stood up and headed toward the stairs.

But Evie, following him with her wineglass, told him that for Christmas she’d been planning to surprise him and take him to London, but that she had decided now not to surprise him and tell him earlier so that he could plan his time there.

Artie stopped on the first stair. “No, Evie.”

“No?”

Artie turned around slowly and said, “Evie, I don’t want to go to London.”

“But why not?” She was amazed; he could see this in her face.

Almost he shouted at her. Almost he shouted that he never wanted to go back to London with her because that’s where he thought he had gotten her pregnant. The fact that they had been there many times since bothered him now, even sickened him.

But he said quietly, “Evie, I do not want to go back to London with you.”

She said to him, “Are you losing your mind? Why in the world did you say you do not want to go to London with me?”

Artie waited a moment, and then he said, “I feel old. I feel tired. I don’t want to cross the ocean. Not right now.” He added, “I’m sorry.” He sat down on the stairs; a sadness filled him, eclipsing the anger. The sadness had to do with his realization that he could not—or would not—tell her why.

Evie kept watching him, he thought (maybe) now with concern. After a few moments Evie said to him, “Really?”

“Really. I’m sorry.”

But she surprised him by saying, easily, “Okay, Artie. Let’s stay home. That’s okay. We’ll have Rob come to Christmas here, and also—now we can go to the Peabodys’ Christmas party.”

On the day before Christmas vacation, a watery snow began falling in the morning, and by the time Artie pulled into his parking spot, the faculty lot was white except for tire tracks. He got out his pass and swiped himself in through the back entrance and made his way to the teachers room, where he understood right away that Carl LeBlanc and another teacher were discussing someone who had recently died. Artie set his books down on the table and said, “Who’re we talking about?”

“Charles Schwartz. He owned a men’s clothing store in—”