Another Life & Other Stories
By Edwin Weihe

A Pleasure Boat Studio Book

Copyright © 2000 Edwin Weihe. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-929355-01-7

Girl in the Coat....................................................11All Clear...........................................................33Love Spots..........................................................45The Morning Room....................................................65Her Birthday Suit...................................................79Green Lake..........................................................89Off Season..........................................................99Another Life.......................................................121

Chapter One

Girl in the Coat

                              Parker's best defense was to getout of Larry and Sylvia's house as early and painlessly as possible?hehad an important seven a.m. flight to Chicago, infact?but as soon as his wife Mary rose to help Sylvia clear thedinner plates, Larry started right up, his face engorged withblood. He had been drinking like a sailor since five, and nowhe was going to spout off whatever the hell he wanted. Thatmeant going after Parker, testing his patience. Parker bracedhimself, actually gripping the edges of his chair. He understoodthis was hostile territory: their little madhouse, Larry'sempty Merlot bottles marching up the table. The three kidswere upstairs with Jennifer, the sitter.

    The twin boys, aged six, were both terrors, and Parker'sattention wandered ceilingward to their screeching and theslamming bathroom door and finally little Emily awake andcrying and poor Jennifer doing whatever she could, againstimpossible odds, to get her back to sleep. Parker suspectedthere had always been this storm of noise and terror upstairs,even before the children. The twins had arrived late in themarriage, like burglars through a broken window, and by thetime the fact had fully registered, it was really too late to doanything but hand over whatever they wanted. Five years later,when it was obvious both Larry and Sylvia were at the ends oftheir very separate ropes, they sleepwalked back onto the crimescene, and?surprise, surprise?Baby Emily appeared, and, asLarry described it, mere anarchy was loosed upon their house.

    And so Larry, too, looked up at the water-stained plaster.

    "I'm sinking here, brother. Throw me a line."

    "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"Parker said.

    Larry considered the question. "Except I'm not so nice,"he said finally. "Someday I'm going to toss them all overboard."

    "Look. The kids are wonderful."

    "Back at you. Only yours are praggaly out of the house."

    "I'm sure they'll be praggaly out for another ten years."

    "You know so damned much."

    "I don't know anything," Parker said, glancing out thewindow.

    "You know how to fucking defend yourself."

    "Looks like it's raining again."

    Larry held his palms up. "I think you're right," he said.

    He picked up an empty Merlot bottle, then put it downagain. Upstairs, one of the twins had wedged his foot in thebathroom door and Parker could hear the cracking noise ofthe door bending against the weight of a shoulder, Sylvia wentinto the hall and shouted to Jennifer to please change the babyand bring her down.

    "I'll tell you, I wish to hell I was going with you," Larrysaid.

    "Why not? We used to have a helluva time."

    "Yeah, I was up for it then."

    Sylvia and Mary came back into the dining room withdecaf coffee and little plates of something chocolate, a denselittle cake that would keep Parker up all night if he was foolishenough to eat it. They sat down.

    "Look, why don't you go?" Sylvia said. "If I need helparound here, I can always call in the National Guard."

    "Careful now," Mary said, ducking a little. When she didthat, Parker noticed her blouse opened. "Jennifer's boyfriend?isn'the in the Guard?"

    "That one's adrift, right up here, let me tell you," Sylviasaid, tapping her forehead. "She's in his place now, she movedin, like a trailer or some sort of hideout up on cinder blocksover in Rosewood or somewhere, and he won't let her drive.He doesn't want her going anywhere he can't see."

    "I think she's only eighteen," Mary said. "She was at theuniversity last year. She's really very sweet. She was in Parker'sfreshman class, wasn't she, honey? I don't think she did verywell."

    Parker did not remember. "There's so many," he said.

    "No point in going to this conference if you're not armedto the teeth with a paper," Larry announced, pounding thetable. "Isn't that right, Parker? And Parker has a paper. Telleverybody what your paper is on."

    "It's not important," Parker said.

    "Of course it's not important. But po-lice tell us what it'sabout. Unless it's a dark secret. Is it a dark, furry little secret?"

    "Yes, why not tell us, honey?" Mary said. "I'm always soproud of Parker's work."

    "It's on Conrad," Parker said, folding his arms. "`Conradand the Sanity of Style."

    "The thing is," Sylvia said, "this madman-Taylor's hisname?is violent, I know this for a fact. One night he camehere to pick her up. Remember, Larry?"

    "Shit," Larry said, and lifted a forkful of cake. It fell justas it neared his lips. "Shit and more shit."

    "Well, thank you for keeping up your end of the conversation,"Sylvia said. "Anyway, they argued right out there inthe car for like an hour, and then I saw the car actually rocking?youknow, rocking??and I saw her climb over into theback seat."

    Larry stabbed the fallen cake until he finally got hold ofa small piece of it. He pointed it at Sylvia, and then, in turn, atMary and Parker.

    "Maybe they were humping," Larry said.

    "I know she tried to have another boyfriend once. She'snineteen, by the way. And no angel, I'm sure of that. Anyway,Taylor found out and this poor guy like suddenly disappeared.Can you imagine? The guy just fell off the map."

    "She's very good with the children," Mary said.

    "She isn't, really. They're going to kill her if the boyfrienddoesn't."

    They were quiet for a moment, listening, and then theylooked at each other. Larry drew a deep breath.

    Mary sighed. "It's another world out there, it really is,"she said.

    "You busy yourself half the year getting up the goddamnedlittle paper, then drag it to Chicago or wherever, and what for? Sothat some dyke post-colonialist, for chrissakes, will cut it downand terrorize you in front of thirty-five of your colleagues? No sir.Let's be perfectly frank, all right? All you're hoping for is just maybeyour proud little wife, assuming she hasn't bothered to actuallyread the bloody thing, might come up with a blow job."

    "Now you're really going...