Class Couple
by E. Hearne
Dougie Pardo was weird in high school: tragically weird. He spent an entire semester junior year wearing a quiver of arrows and a leather breastplate. The year after, he shaved the top of his head like a medieval friar, revealing that his cystic acne had spread all the way onto his scalp. But ten years ago, at Grassland High’s fifteenth reunion, Dougie Pardo brought a real live woman, who seemed to like him just fine. She was ordinary enough: a dumpy para-professional with sales-rack couture. They had met at church.
More importantly, Dougie himself seemed regular at the reunion. Stan and Sheila Grey had spent most of the evening with Dougie and his date, probing for remnants of his high school eccentricities. They found none. Dougie had the resigned and padded look of a mid-level insurance agent, which is exactly what he was.
Later that night at Stan and Sheila’s after-party, everyone was standing on the back patio smoking and pounding their arms against the winter cold. Stan announced that Dougie’s transformation was “goddamned remarkable.” Sheila nodded her confirmation to the ladies, who had long cherished her opinion on all things Grassland. Stan told everyone that of course his wife had bent over backwards to be friendly to Dougie’s date. “Practically invited her to our Valentine’s Day dinner party,” he bellowed, and everyone laughed because that was classic Sheila.
Myra Pettington noted dryly that Sheila never could pass up an opportunity to be kind and charitable, could she. Stan gave Sheila a kiss and told Myra she should try to be nice for once in her life and Myra pouted a bit.
Of course, back then Stan had been sober enough to get through a whole evening without blacking out and Stan and Sheila were still cute in that way that they used to be. And because he had been so normal, everyone forgot about Dougie Pardo.
***
Ten years later, Dougie Pardo entered the twenty-fifth reunion alone with something tucked under his arm. He stamped the snow off his feet and asked Myra Pettington and Sheila, the welcome committee, for two nametags.
Behind the folding table, Myra’s powdery face went blank. “Are you expecting someone?”
“I’m afraid you misunderstand. My wife and I are both here in front of you.”
Myra glanced over at Sheila, who was sitting next to her. Sheila shrugged, so Myra pressed on, curtly. “I’m sorry, Dougie—I don’t see anyone besides you.”
Dougie curled his lip and tapped the parcel he was holding, and for the first time, the ladies saw what it was. In his arms was a small ant farm with clear sides, about the size of a lunchbox. He cradled it in his arms and stroked the top. “Myra, Sheila—allow me to introduce you to my lovely wife.”
Sheila smiled at him. She did not understand, but she took her Grassland spirit very seriously. “Oh, Dougie, you always were so unique! Here’s your nametag, and here’s a blank one for your...for that.” She pointed to the ant farm. Next to her, Myra sniffed and crossed her arms.
“Her name is Birgit,” Dougie said, loudly. He put her down gently on the table and printed “Birgit” on the nametag in big block letters. He took great care to make sure it was perfectly centered on Birgit’s thin glass side. The ants inside seemed unperturbed. He picked her up carefully so as not to disturb the intricate system of tunnels and stalked off into the school’s gymnasium.
“Grassland Forever!” Sheila called after him.
Dougie looked coldly at Sheila over his shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.
***
Stan had already had more Amstel Lights than he could count. Even before he had arrived, he was tired of the whole evening. He saw the old crew too often anyway: every Tuesday at McDowall’s Pub, plus parties, plus at the kids’ lacrosse practice three nights a week. And of course, Sheila had opted to man the welcome table. God forbid she remain uninvolved at a Grassland event. He leaned heavily against one of the mats that lined the gym walls, enjoying the feeling of being propped up. Stan guessed he might be very drunk, based on how much he was relying on the wall. His swimmy eyes suddenly lit upon Dougie Pardo standing alone, holding a glass of punch in one hand and something shiny and square in the other.
Stan sidled up to Dougie and pounded him on the back, laughing loudly for no clear reason. “Dougie, mi amigo! Good to see you again. Hey, you made it out of this bullshit town, didn’t ya? I remember that from last time.”
Dougie stood up very straight and said, “Hello Stan. I’d like to introduce you to my partner, Birgit.”
Stan’s eyes jerked from Dougie to the air beside him, where a wife should be. There was nothing but empty space. Same thing on Dougie’s other side too, Stan noticed, because he checked. He shook his head in confusion, swaying a little.
“She’s right here.” Dougie pointed to Birgit’s nametag. Then he turned her around to show her off.
The music eased into an old, sentimental slow song, and points of light from the disco ball began to reflect off Birgit’s shiny glass side. Stan leaned close and peered deep inside of Birgit. Small red ants clambered through her tunnels. Their bodies were translucent and looked taut, as if swollen stiff with blood. At some high-traffic junctures, they climbed over each other. Some of the ants staggered under heavy bits of leaves. Others had grains of sand in their jaws. In one corner, three dead ants were being slowly gnawed by five more. Stan had to hold on to one of Dougie’s shoulders to keep his balance, but he couldn’t look away.
“Take your time,” Dougie said, quietly. “She’s special, isn’t she.”
Stan nodded fervently, his pupils very black. He had never seen anything so heartachingly beautiful. He watched a scrum of ants construct a careful sand clump on the upper left side.
“You should have seen her when we met. She looked completely different. All the ants were on the top. She was so fresh and untouched. I think I love her even more now, though. Now that I’ve watched her change and mature.”
Stan clung on to Dougie’s shoulder. He needed a minute to compose himself.
***
The welcome table traffic had died down, and Sheila and Myra were combing through the unclaimed nametags. “Uh oh,” Myra said, pointing. Sheila saw Stan lurch and grab ahold of Dougie Pardo’s shoulder. Ronda Wilson and Joe Brown were over in the corner, pointing and laughing at him. Those two always were the meanest. “Better go help the hubby,” Myra ordered, with a tone not far from delight.
Sheila walked up behind Stan and wrenched him up by his waist. “Oops-a-daisy, there you go,” Sheila chirped. “Dougie, you are so sweet to be so sturdy. Stan’s not feeling so well tonight.”
Stan jerked away from her touch. “I’m fine,” he snapped, and then calmed his voice. “I’m just meeting Birgit. Have you met her? She’s...amazing.”
“I’ve already made her acquaintance,” Sheila replied, smiling at Dougie. “You need to watch yourself. Everyone is here,” she said quietly to Stan, her words punching into him like needles. She pinched him hard on the arm and grabbed the entire bowl of pretzels on the way back to the welcome table. She handed some to Myra, to give her mouth something useful to do for once. Holding the bowl in her lap, Sheila munched the pretzels one by one, enjoying the way they shattered in her mouth as she crunched them into dust.
***
After Sheila’s unwelcome intrusion, Dougie and Stan stood together in silence for a while. “So, how did you two meet?” Stan asked, finally.
Dougie gazed at Birgit with soft, wide eyes. “The first time I saw her, I knew that we were destined for each other.” Stan thought back to the first time he’d seen Sheila, which was when they were both in ninth grade. She had been putting up posters for the pep rally and her figure from behind almost made him fall to his knees. Stan didn’t think that “destiny” was what was on his mind during their first encounter.
“And ever since,” Dougie continued, “things with between us have only improved.”
“No nagging, I bet...” Stan ventured.
“Of course not! Birgit and I agree on everything. That’s what makes us work.” Dougie lightly drew his index finger over her wood frame so sensually that Stan looked away, for decency’s sake.
“Enough about me and my luck. How’re things with Sheila?”
Stan winced and took a step back. “Not so good, Dougie. In fact, things are pretty terrible. Sheila is the same, I mean exactly the same, every fucking day.” He jammed his finger into Dougie’s chest. “Look at her over there.” They both looked over at Sheila, who was eating pretzels and writing on a clipboard. Her hair was arranged into a taut French twist, and her face was twisted into a stony smile.
“She doesn’t even like me anymore,” Stan whispered. “She doesn’t let me touch her.”
“Birgit lets me do anything I want.” Dougie looked smug. Stan didn’t blame him. Inside the thin, clear frame, the ants crept about tirelessly: shifting, building, hefting, burrowing. Stan pointed to where he thought a particular ant would go and laughed happily when the ant changed direction and went the other way.
“She’s so unpredictable!” Stan cried.
“That’s exactly it,” said Dougie. “And so quiet.”
The two men stood looking at each other, as if seeing each other clearly for the first time. Around them, the reunion smeared into a nauseating swirl of sound and motion. In a sudden flash of pure certainty, Stan realized that Dougie Pardo was better off in every way. Stan staggered away, overwrought, and threw up in the blue plastic can by the potato chips.
***
The next Tuesday, one of the coldest days that winter, the local Grassland gang met up at McDowell’s. Stan sat three seats down from Sheila, drinking double gin and tonics. Myra asked Sheila if he’d come to the bar already drunk, because didn’t he seem awfully drunk, like more drunk than usual even? Sheila shook her head and didn’t answer. Under the table, she ripped up her cocktail napkin into a number of precise little pieces. Myra told Sheila that she looked a little pale. Sheila said felt quite well, but she didn’t blink in a very long time, which Myra noticed.
Suddenly, Sheila spoke above the crowd. “Didn’t you go out on a date with Dougie Pardo in high school, Myra?”
Myra froze and everyone at the table turned to look at her.
“That’s right, I remember it now,” Sheila said. “You knew everyone would laugh at you. You made me promise not to tell.”
Myra took two deep breaths. Her face turned the color of raw meat. “I do not remember that,” she said.
“I do,” Sheila said, her voice getting even louder. “Tell them. Tell everyone that you went on a date with him.”
Everyone at the table sat in stunned silence. Ronda put her glass down louder than she meant to and Joe, her old crush, put his hand on her arm.
Myra chose her words carefully. “I just think it’s so crazy to bring an ant farm to a reunion,” she said. The group relaxed audibly. They were back in familiar territory.
“Oh I know! Looks like poor Dougie has finally lost it,” Ronda announced.
“He was weird as a kid, now he’s certifiable. I swear,” Myra agreed. The gang buzzed with opinions.
“Didn’t he bring a real girl last time?”
“What happened to her? She was normal, right?”
“I just think it’s so sad. To not crave the company of another human being.”
“I dunno.” Stan nearly bellowed his first words of the evening and again, everyone stopped talking. “Dougie’s the only one who seems to get it.”
Heads swiveled. Stan looked at all of them defiantly: eyes bloodshot, mouth slack. “If you never had to put up with anyone’s bullshit? That’s the fucking dream.” He tried to pound the table but missed and hit his leg hard instead. “It turns out, I got it wrong,” Stan slurred. “I got it wrong, and old Dougie Pardo has it all figured out. Of all people.”
Everyone swiveled to look at Sheila.
She grimaced, then forced a smile. “Looks like we’ve had a bit too much, didn’t we? We better get you home.” Her voice was brittle like spun sugar. She hoisted him up by his armpits and staggered under his weight. “Thatta boy,” she said. The whole group stayed silent as they lurched out of the bar. Through the window, they saw Sheila pour him into the passenger side of their blue Vega. After a minute, she emerged to scrape the ice off the windshield. Everyone watched her as she neatly attended to every inch of the glass. Her profile was indistinct, like a shadow.
“Such a shame,” Myra said. A few people nodded. Everyone else looked down at the table.
***
Stan lay his head against the car door and looked back through the lit windows at McDowall’s. He guessed, from their shifty glances, that he and Sheila were about to be the topic of conversation. Through the glass, he saw everyone at the table burst out laughing. Joe got up to get more pitchers, Ronda left her husband at the table to go flirt with Joe. Stan had known them all long enough to be able to predict every single minute of their night. He closed his eyes, sick to death of everyone and everything.
***
Sheila buckled Stan in and turned off the radio. Halfway out of her parking spot, she suddenly jerked the Vega to a halt. She turned off the ignition and leaned her head back, looking up into the black night. The stars smeared slowly across the dark sky. She heard Stan fall asleep. An hour passed, maybe more. Eventually, her fingers were too cold for her to stay any longer. Sheila turned the car back on and shifted it into reverse. She put her arm behind Stan’s headrest and twisted her body around until her head was inches away from his ear. “Stan,” she said, loudly. Stan’s eyes fluttered and then opened. “Ohhhh, it’s you,” he groaned.
“Who else would it possibly be?” she said sharply. She reached over and poked his stubbly chin. When she took her fingers away, he rubbed the place she had touched.
“Why aren’t you taking me home?” he asked.
Sheila stared at him for a minute, and then headed toward the highway. “That’s exactly what I’m about to do, Stanley.”
***
Under the table, Joe and Ronda were holding hands. “Oh look!” Joe said. He was sauced and happy. “They’re finally leaving!”
Everyone looked out the window and saw the blue Vega pause at the turn off, inching forward past the huge snowbanks that lined McDowell’s parking lot. Ronda jumped a little when the car shrieked as it peeled out, spitting snow and gravel from its back tires. Through the fogged-up bar window, they all watched the Vega’s lights disappear around the curve. Then Joe ordered two more pitchers for the table and then two more and the night slid along, fast and sweet, like an old familiar song.
***
Certainly, no one expected the call the next day. As it turned out, Sheila had dumped Stan on their front porch and then drove away, leaving him to sleep there in the cold all night. When everyone visited him in the hospital a few days later, he was ashen and sober. He had lost four toes and a thumb. His hand was bandaged, and his nose didn’t look right either. “Had my keys in my pocket the whole time,” he said, laughing. He laughed a lot that day, which no one felt good about. “Are you expecting her home any time soon?” Myra asked. Everyone sucked in, not sure how horrid a question it was.
Stan laughed. “Haven’t heard from her. But you know old Sheila. She can’t stay away from Grassland for long.”
From behind the nurses’ station, Stan’s nurse saw that his room had filled with the thick blanket of insincere comfort. She knew this game well. She passed, leaving them to their charade. Everyone was nodding at Stan. Everyone said, in different ways and in soothing tones, that Stan was probably right on the money.
No question, they said.
You two are the couple that gives us all hope, they said.
I mean, where would she go, they asked.
Of course she’ll come back, they said.
After all, they said, Sheila really has always been a very reliable person.
A few minutes later, the nurse stood behind the desk and watched everyone file out, leaving a new bright coldness that Stan would be struggling to endure. When she went into his room later that afternoon, she was not surprised to find him pale white and silent. She rested her hand on his shoulder and sat with him for quite a while. When it was time to re-administer his painkiller, Stan took his pill gladly, just as she expected, and dropped off to sleep without a word before it could have possibly started working.