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The boy was Asian, about seven or eight, and the woman held him by the hand. He looked at Randy with the wide-eyed fascination of a child who doesn’t encounter grown men often. The woman was Caucasian and watching him warily, as if he might bite or begin talking about Jesus at any moment.
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Don’t Ask By Bernie Hafeli
Before Randy saw the car he’d been watching the sun skitter
across the lake as if thousands of silver-finned fish swam just below
surface, bouncing back light. The radio was tuned to WAPB.
Marlene’s play list alternated between small combo swing and
dinner jazz, like it was still 1955 when the two-lane blacktop he
currently traveled would have still been dirt, oil and gravel. A sad,
blowsy song swayed leisurely to its close and Randy was surprised
to hear the sax player identified as John Coltrane, whose music
would later explode with such turbulence. It was funny how
Coltrane’s search for inner peace manifested outwardly in stormy
improvisation. That’s what Randy was thinking when he came
upon the car, which was off on the shoulder, its nose nudged into
the bushes like a large dog tracking a scent.
Randy stopped the truck. Near the car was a path angling
down to the water and a little boy was running toward it. A woman
trailed in pursuit. By the time Randy got out of his truck both the
boy and woman had disappeared. Randy walked over to the car.
Despite being buried in the foliage, everything seemed intact. It
hadn’t hit anything of consequence. Stooping down to investigate
the front axle, he heard footsteps whumping back up the path.
“Mom! There’s a man!”
Don’t Ask
2
Randy turned and straightened up. The boy was Asian,
about seven or eight, and the woman held him by the hand. He
looked at Randy with the wide-eyed fascination of a child who
doesn’t encounter grown men often. The woman was Caucasian
and watching him warily, as if he might bite or begin talking about
Jesus at any moment.
“Looks like you had a little accident,” he said.
She lifted her chin and looked beyond him at the car.
“Is it alright?” she asked.
“Seems to be. Only next time you go off-roading, I’d suggest
something with four-wheel drive.”
He gave her the most neighborly, non-threatening smile he
could muster. She was pretty, Randy decided—thin, with the
athletic build of a runner or bike rider. She had rust-colored hair
that rippled in the lake breeze.
“Thanks for stopping,” she said. “Some raccoons ran across
the road. I swerved to miss them.”
Her eyes were the blue-green of Navajo jewelry.
“They ran that way!” the child yelled, pointing to the path.
“Raccoons!”
He grinned like it was Christmas morning then ran up to
Randy.
“Let’s go find ‘em,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “My name is Deirdre. That’s
Harvey.”
Randy knelt down and held out his hand, palm up.
Bernie Hafeli
3
“Gimme five, Harvey.”
Harvey slapped down hard.
“Ow!” Randy said, shaking his hand. “You’re a strong kid,
Harvey. You’ve been eating your broccoli.”
“Yuck,” Harvey said and made a face.
Randy turned to Deirdre. “My name is Randy,” he said. “I
was on my way to work and saw your car here. I work up the road
at the radio station.”
“The radio station? Are you a deejay?”
“Six to midnight,” Randy said, “holidays excluded. Maybe you
could give a listen sometime. I take requests.”
The swamp fog of “Sea of Love” segued into “Sea Cruise,” the
Huey “Piano” Smith original. Following that would be “La Mer” by
Charles Trenét, then “Baïlèro” by Frederica Von Stade. Randy liked
to mix things up—rock, jazz, country, blues, classical, but there
needed to be a thread. Each song had to flow organically from what
came before, whether due to similarity of title or lyrical theme, a
common performer or songwriter, a shared rhythm or beat,
emphasis on a particular instrument, there needed to be a reason
for the song’s inclusion, even if it was discernible only to Randy.
Sometimes his life seemed to play out in the same fashion. If he
just looked deeply enough, he could find a string that tied one
seemingly random event to another. This could go on for years
until something wholly unexpected severed the line, something
from deep left field that knocked him upside the head and sent him
Don’t Ask
4
sprawling in the dirt, whose only message was that there was no
message, that everything was arbitrary.
One reason Randy liked his job was that he never had to
engage very long in any one line of thinking. There was always the
next song to get ready, the next lyric to take him in a different,
perhaps more promising direction. Although that night he found
his thoughts returning again and again to the same well-worn path,
the one leading to Deirdre. It wasn’t his nature to ask strangers for
their phone numbers, but that’s what he’d done. And she’d given it
to him! Who knew why? Perhaps because of the chord he seemed
to strike with Harvey, her kid, who looked nothing like her. In any
case, Randy felt better than he had in weeks. He was practically
happy. So good did he feel that he found room for several
musicians who didn’t usually make the play list: Louis Prima,
Raymond Scott, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He even played
“Rocky Raccoon,” which he dedicated to Deirdre.
There was something about her. She made his hormones
quiver. Since he’d left Detroit, he rarely made the first move with a
woman. Usually she had to show some interest, however minimal,
before he asked for a date. After his first marriage ended, thanks to
his rat-bastard brother Harry, his relationships had been of the
spider-fly variety, where he feigned disinterest while setting subtle
traps that, once triggered, led to the capture and cocooning of the
desired prey. They weren’t relationships so much as hostage
situations, which his partners only realized over time, and he’d had
one everywhere he went—Chicago, Albuquerque, Providence, here.
Bernie Hafeli
5
Even his second marriage had begun in this manner, though the
births of Jeffrey and Jack changed that, by planting in Randy a love
that stunned him with its ardor, not just for his twin sons but for
their mother, Meredith, who’d made it all possible, and beyond
that, in diminishing degrees, to his few friends, his family (even
Harry), his coworkers, the postman, the pizza guy, pretty much all
mankind. It hade been an idyllic time, too good to last, but a gift
during the years that it did.
Deirdre was in charge of promotions for the Wisconsin
Timber Rattlers, the Class A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. It was
her task to fill the stands with fans when the Peoria Chiefs, Beloit
Snappers, and Quad City River Bandits came to Appleton to take on
the Rattlers. Her background was advertising—she’d worked for a
large firm back in New York—but the real reason she landed the job
was that her uncle owned the team.
Every morning, after dropping Harvey at her cousin
Bridget’s, she would closet herself in her aluminum trailer of an
office abutting the ballpark and get down to business. For an
upcoming visit by the River Bandits, she was putting the finishing
touches on Crime & Punishment Night. Anyone who came to the
game dressed as a criminal or law enforcement official would get in
for half price—“A steal!” the radio ad proclaimed. Every time
someone swiped a base, a free drink could be had with the purchase
of a bratwurst. If anyone stole home, ticket holders were entitled to
a free pitcher of Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer at Corleone Family
Don’t Ask
6
Pizza (limit one per family). A big recent success had been It’s
Your Funeral Night. Deirdre rounded up the local funeral directors
and persuaded them to lop thirty per cent off the price of a casket
and burial, when the time came, for anyone attending the game.
For next season she was already planning Death & Taxes Night, a
joint venture between the morticians and tax consultants.
Since meeting him in early May, she spent most of her lunch
hours with Randy. They’d go to one of the fish-and-chips bars in
Appleton or out to Floyd’s By The Lake, a knotty-pine roadhouse
with big greasy burgers that Randy adored, and rocket-fuel
martinis. They’d sit and watch the water skiers on the lake and talk
about things that had wiggled into their lives—incidents at work,
with Harvey, twists in the recent news, books, movies, the behavior
of amusing locals. However there was one subject that remained
strictly off limits—the past. No one ever said, “Don’t ask” or “It’s
none of your business,” it just never came up. She had her secrets
and was content to let him have his. It was her belief that a little
mystery never hurt—to the contrary it added a sprinkle of spice,
kept things from getting too comfortable.
What evolved as a result was the most agreeable relationship
she’d ever had. Randy was kind, considerate, acceptably worldly
and literate, and had a wicked sense of humor when he chose to let
it out for a romp. Even the sex was decent. While you wouldn’t call
him buff, Randy was in fairly decent shape, easy on the eyes, and
went to great lengths to make sure she had an orgasm, even if she
did fake it half the time.
Bernie Hafeli
7
But Deirdre’s fascination with Randy was nothing compared
to Harvey’s total absorption. To Harvey, Randy was the dad he
never had. Watching them together, Deirdre got a sense of family,
not in any major, capital-letter way, but briefly glimpsed during the
moments that Randy’s whole body seemed to bend toward her son
like a sunflower stalk when the boy had something to say, or the
way Harvey’s face lit up like tungsten when he caught one of
Randy’s tosses and fired back a strike. If she could just be content
with these little gratifications, she thought, life would be fine.
Their weekends always included Harvey. They’d plan a
picnic on Lake Winnebago or go to the Harry Houdini Museum or
the Paper Industry Hall of Fame. (She had, however, quashed
Randy’s suggestion of visiting the Joe McCarthy Museum and John
Birch Society World Headquarters in the same afternoon—to give
Harvey an idea of what makes this state great, he said. “A joke,” he
later insisted. “Only kidding!”)
Sunday afternoons were reserved for the ballpark. Their
favorite seats were behind the Timber Rattlers’ first base dugout,
where they’d settle in with the Sunday paper and a bag of ham
sandwiches, grease up with sunscreen, and watch the major league
wannabes putting in time in the Midwest League. Occasionally
Uncle Alva, who owned the Rattlers, would sit with them and want
to discuss business.
“So Deirdre, what are you cooking up to entice baseball-
hungry Appletonians?”
Don’t Ask
8
He never knew when she might be putting him on, which
often she was. “Well Alva, I’ve been talking to the paper companies
and the first week in August we’re having Toilet Paper Tuesday.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“Nope. Four free rolls of one-ply with every ticket. Or two
rolls of two-ply.”
One Sunday evening after a game, Deirdre and Harvey were
on their back patio watching the lowering sun fuzz the lake with the
hazy hues of a Monet water painting. At least Deirdre was. Harvey
was bouncing a rubber ball off the side of the house and diving to
his left or right to try and catch it, providing his own play-by-play, a
la Rex Snodgrass, the Timber Rattlers’ announcer. Randy had had
to work. The ball spanked against the plaster wall, skittered over
the patio stones and raised wisps of dust with each hop over the dry
ground, followed by a mushroom cloud when Harvey went
sprawling to the ground trying to grab it.
“Harvey, stop that. You’re making dust.”
“I have to practice.”
SPLAT!
“Harvey—”
“Randy said I have to practice.”
SPLAT!
“Harvey!”
SPLAT!
“Okay, Mom!”
Bernie Hafeli
9
The boy picked himself up and came over to the picnic table
where Deirdre sat. As he walked he bounced the ball on the ground,
raising further dust.
“Mom?”
“Harvey, stop bouncing.”
The bouncing stopped. Deirdre looked at her son. His thick
black hair was chopped off roughly at the same level all around his
head so he looked like Moe of the Three Stooges. She’d have to start
taking him to the barber. His skin was burnished, baked by the sun,
brown as a butternut.
“Is Randy like my real dad was?” Harvey asked.
The question surprised her. She had to hastily reform her
conception of Hideki.
“He is, Harvey. Now that you mention it, he kind of is.”
Over the years, Deirdre had concocted for her son’s benefit
the ideal Japanese father. She only hoped she hadn’t laid it on too
thick, to the point where other men couldn’t measure up.
“Did he like baseball?” Harvey asked.
“He did. Hideki liked baseball a lot. He loved to play
baseball.”
“What position?”
“Hideki was an outfielder.”
“Ichiro!”
“Yes, like Ichiro, only not as good.”
“Ichiro!” Harvey yelled again.
Don’t Ask
10
He threw the ball high in the air and started pounding his
glove, getting ready to make the catch. But the ball landed well
behind him, whacking down in an evergreen thicket. Harvey ran to
retrieve it. Deirdre didn’t like lying to him, heaven knew, but it was
for his own good. She’d even had pictures taken with her friend
Kaz, who played the part of Hideki. Thinking about it now though,
she felt dirty with a tarnish deeper than soot. If only there were a
pool nearby, a miraculous pond in the woods that could wash away
past mistakes. She could use a good long soak.
Disaster was Randy’s first thought when he felt the mattress
quivering—something seismic, the world cracking apart—but it was
only Deirdre jostling him awake.
“Time to go, Randy boy.”
It was 5 a.m. This was their routine. On certain agreed-upon
nights, he’d show up after his shift at the radio station and spend
the night at Deirdre’s. By the time he arrived, Harvey was sleeping
the sleep of the innocents, hands curled as if still in the womb,
knees tucked up near his chin. Randy would open a bottle of wine
while Deirdre talked quietly about her day until, eventually, the lure
of their bodies and the sway of the alcohol led them to Deirdre’s
bed. Randy would be gone by the time Harvey awoke. They both
felt this was best.
Randy padded into the bathroom and trickled water over his
face. It smelled coppery, as if the ore deposits further north had
Bernie Hafeli
11
leeched into the water supply. Brushing his teeth, he recalled
remnants of the previous night’s conversation. A friend of Deirdre’s
was coming in from New York. But in what context was she a
friend? Had Deirdre said? Randy couldn’t remember. Before he
left, he sat down on the bed and stroked Deirdre’s hair. The sun
had lightened it, not as red as last spring. A smile rippled Deirdre’s
lips. She hadn’t gone entirely back to sleep. He leaned over, kissed
her forehead, kissed her cheek, kissed the tip of her nose.
“I love you,” he said and realized he meant it. No longer
were these just words people said after a few months sharing the
same bed.
Without opening her eyes, she puckered her lips and kissed
the air.
“So your friend will be here this weekend?” Randy said.
“Friday,” she murmured. “When you come Sunday you’ll
meet her.”
“’Til Sunday,” he said. He kissed her again and left.
The sun had just come up, a sultry portent low on the
horizon, when he drove up to his cabin. Instead of burrowing under
the comforter as was his custom after a night at Deirdre’s, he
decided to put on his running things and go for a jog. It was already
getting warm. He followed the usual route—a hard-packed trail
through the woods that eventually connected with the state park
down by the lake. The day’s first birds, the ones that supposedly got
Don’t Ask
12
the worms, were out and a-twitter, darting in and out of his path
like they couldn’t make up their minds where they wanted to be.
The forest smelled fresh and expectant, the sumpy scent of soil still
damp with dew mingling with grass chaff and flower pollen, the
sweet rot of tree bark, the fecund aroma of mushrooms and moss.
It was his favorite time, when the brunt of the day still stretched
before him, unmarked and rife with possibility. Again it came to
him that he was close to being happy, perhaps was already happy,
and that the full measure of happiness might be just up ahead,
around the next bend, waiting for him to jog into its airspace. This
feeling, he knew, was attributable to Deirdre, but also to Harvey—
maybe something could work out for the three of them.
He imagined introducing them to Meredith and Jack.
Harvey was a few years younger than Jack. Would they get along?
What would Deirdre think of Meredith? He’d told Deirdre he was
divorced and that he had a child. But he hadn’t supplied the details,
such as how he and Meredith had shut down emotionally after Jeff’s
death, felt nothing for each other except for occasional pity, how he
sometimes silently blamed Meredith—there’d been more cancer in
her family after all, in his own only a dusting—how he couldn’t relax
around Jack because Jack reminded him of Jeff. He could still see
the two
of them, identical twins in every respect, telling him about the
science project. The teacher had had them prick their fingers for
drops of their own blood, which they examined under microscopes.
Jeff noticed that his blood looked different than the picture in the
Bernie Hafeli
13
book, the one with the healthy cells. His own cells drooped and had
cloudy spots. He showed the teacher. It was suggested that Jeff be
sent to a specialist to determine the reason for the discrepancy. As
it turned out, Jeff had identified his own leukemia.
Felicia stood out like a speckled jellybean in a tin of snow-
white breath mints—black T-shirt, skin-tight lemon Capri pants,
purple checked tennis shoes, bubblegum-pink hair clipped in a
pixie cut. Deirdre watched her approach, and the heads of airport
visitors turn as if to reconfirm what the friendly skies had dropped
into their midst.
“Hi, Deirie.”
Before Deirdre could protest, Felicia wrapped a thin, fish-
white arm around Deirdre’s neck and kissed her on the lips. Felicia
smelled of recent coffee.
“Jesus, Felicia, back off! This is frigging Wisconsin!”
Felicia moved away and unleashed her gap-toothed smile.
Deirdre felt her resolve melt like a creamsicle on the Fourth of July.
“Good to see you too, Deirie,” Felicia sang. “How’s life among
the moral majority?”
They started for the car. Felicia hadn’t aged at all. If
anything, she looked younger, while Deirdre—as she’d realized
peering into the mirror that morning, modeling her new business
suit for the lunch with the Rotarians—looked a good decade older.
“Life’s okay, Felicia. Actually, life’s pretty good.”
“How’s our little boy?”
Don’t Ask
14
“Harvey’s—”
Deirdre turned to take in Felicia. She needed to gauge
Felicia’s sincerity. This was, after all, the same woman who’d
skedaddled to Prague when Harvey hadn’t turned out exactly as
planned.
“Harvey’s just great,” Deirdre said. “He’s the joy of my life.”
“My God, you sound like Celine Dion.”
Deirdre stopped walking. That’s all it took from Felicia to
make Deirdre want to grab two fistfuls of her former friend’s pink
hair, previously lavender, and yank it out by its mousy brown roots.
“Look, you bitch, I don’t know why you’re here but I’m still
angry as hell. You have never lifted one fucking finger to help with
Harvey—with our little boy. So spare me the displeasure of your
snide fucking commentary.”
Felicia’s full lips formed a perfect purple O. Slowly her hand
rose to cover first the O then her nose and the rest of her face.
When the hand descended, there were tears in Felicia’s eyes.
“I’m sorry, Deirie,” Felicia said. “I know I’ve been the
world’s biggest shit heel. That’s why I’m here. I’m here to make
things right.”
That Sunday the Timber Rattlers made short work of the
Beloit Snappers, jumping to an early lead and coasting to a lopsided
victory. It was the day before Labor Day, a perfect summer
afternoon. A sweet breeze had kicked up early in the morning and
Bernie Hafeli
15
absconded with the heat and humidity of the previous week,
imbuing the day with a depth and clarity more akin to spring or
early fall. Deirdre’s ticket promotion, “The Farm Team Salutes the
Farm”, was a big hit too. Before the game, there’d been a farmer’s
market in the parking lot. The local farm radio station, WEIO, did
farm reports from the press box. Country bands sang about busted
dreams and slippery hearts from the bleachers in centerfield.
Afterwards, Randy took Harvey for a ride on one of the hay wagons
that the farmers towed behind their tractors through the
surrounding environs.
“So what do you think of Felicia?” he asked the boy.
“She’s cool.” A stalk of straw waggled between Harvey’s lips
as he spoke—the Asian Huck Finn. “She gave me an iPod.”
“Is this the first time you’ve met her?”
“Uh huh.”
Randy thought Felicia was pretty cool too. It was apparent
she was making a real effort to be friendly. But something about
her had him flummoxed. When they talked, her eyes lingered on
his a moment too long. It was always he who had to do the looking
away. Her smile also felt excessive. It started out genuine enough
but when whatever they were talking about lost interest for him,
Felicia would still be grinning away, seemingly still amused. It was
like she was interviewing him for a job and had some preconceived
model she was measuring him against, paying close attention to see
if he conformed to a set of standards he had no idea about. It put
Don’t Ask
16
him on edge. He was glad when her attentions shifted to Harvey, or
back to Deirdre, where they seemed to reside most of the time.
Another thing Randy noticed—Felicia and Deirdre floated
around each other like mating butterflies, each word or gesture on
the part of one compelling a corresponding reaction, fluid, almost
unconscious, on the part of the other. A raised lip or skewed
eyebrow might convey whole paragraphs of underlying subtext,
discernible only to the two of them. In the evenings, as they stood
talking near the barbecue grille, wreathed in the smoke of bratwurst
or salmon steaks, their very bodies appeared to bevel together,
like opposing shoots of the same plant arching for the last rays of
the sun.
Later that night, the three of them took Felicia to the airport.
After they parked Deirdre’s car and were walking Felicia to the
security line, nearly deserted on a Sunday night, Harvey tugged on
Randy’s sleeve.
“I gotta go pee-pee.”
“That’s funny, me too.”
When they finished in the rest room and walked back into
the terminal proper, Randy spied Deirdre and Felicia about forty
yards ahead. They were standing together, talking. Then they were
embracing. Then Felicia was kissing Deirdre on the lips. She began
stroking Deirdre’s back and hair with her ring-heavy hand. It
seemed to go on forever. Randy held up.
“How come we’re stopping?”
Bernie Hafeli
17
“I’m a little thirsty, cowboy,” Randy said. “How about a
Coke?
The ride home was composed of miles of silence punctuated
by the minor tumult of approaching vehicles: headlights, engine
rumble, tire thrum that extinguished behind them in the traversed
distance like fragments of a dream. Deirdre seemed struck dumb
by her thoughts. Randy, for his part, didn’t know where to begin.
Only Harvey appeared to be comfortable with the situation, asleep
in the back seat, snoring occasionally, which for some reason filled
Randy with hope.
“You’re not listening, Randy.”
“You’re not saying anything.”
“To the radio.”
“Oh.”
“You always listen to WAPB.”
Which was true. He felt her eyes on him as he reached to
tune in the station. It was after ten and Lorelei had ransacked the
vaults to resurrect “Wind”, by Circus Maximus. He set the volume
low so the piano swayed along with the breeze drifting in his
window, the voice a whisper, an intimation. Deirdre was still
watching him. He smiled and glanced her way, but it felt false, and
it prompted a sigh on her part that hung in the air after she turned
away, like a scent. He wanted an explanation but he also didn’t
want to bring it up, as if bringing it up would lend it credence,
whereas if he ignored it, he might in time forget it ever happened
Don’t Ask
18
and they could continue on like they had been up to that point. So
he said nothing.
“Randy, I’ve got something to tell you.”
“This wouldn’t have something to do with Felicia?”
“Felicia and I were lovers. I need to say this straight through
or I won’t be able to say it at all, so please don’t say anything until
I’m through. Please?”
For a moment, Deirdre was silent. She looked out the
window where the white lines of the highway flashed by, markers of
time that, once passed, could never be retrieved.
“We lived together in New York. We loved each other and
thought we’d be together forever. So we decided we wanted a child.
Our friend Scott agreed to donate his sperm. It was artificial
insemination.”
She looked at Randy but he kept his eyes on the road. His
mind was suddenly purged of thought, as if he’d hit the empty trash
icon on his computer.
“I carried the baby. I felt golden, like I’d been chosen by
whatever spirit is out there to pass along the privilege of being a
human being to another generation. I’d never been so happy.”
Randy concentrated hard on the lyrics of the song. He
needed to hear what the singer was saying because it was something
other than what Deirdre was saying.
“We decided to name him Harvey, after Harvey Milk, the gay
politician. But there was a mistake. Harvey wasn’t supposed to be
Bernie Hafeli
19
Asian—he was supposed to be Caucasian, like Scott. Someone at
the clinic fucked up.”
She stopped and took a breath. Randy said nothing for the
simple reason he could think of nothing to say.
“Felicia wanted to give him up but there was no way. He was
my child! I loved him the moment I saw him, even before I saw
him. After that, I couldn’t look at Felicia without getting pissed.
She kept saying we should get rid of Harvey. She was drinking a
lot then, taking pills, and eventually she found an excuse to move to
Prague. I think she would have gone even if Harvey had turned out
as planned. Seeing me pregnant scared her. She wasn’t as
committed as she thought. Or as I thought.”
Deirdre turned to check on Harvey in the back seat. The
intermittent snoring had stopped but he was still asleep.
“That’s it in a nutshell, Randy. I came out here three years
after Felicia split and everything else you pretty much know. You’re
the first person I’ve told this to. With everyone else I’m always
bullshitting—even with Harvey. Especially with Harvey. I even
gave him a fake dad.”
By now, Randy had left the main highway and was on the
dirt road leading to Deirdre’s. Dust lifted around the car like a
cloud of fuzzy thinking, sifting into the open windows until Deirdre
decided to close hers. Part of Randy wanted nothing more than to
be out of Deirdre’s car and in his own truck, headed safely home.
He was angry and confused. The anger had more to do with her
deception than the fact she’d been in love with Felicia, which was
Don’t Ask
20
biological, wasn’t it? Something you couldn’t help? The fact was
he’d invested a significant portion of the past months to loving this
strange, caring woman.
“You can talk now, Randy. I’m done.”
But he couldn’t. Deirdre moved closer and put her head on
his shoulder.
“Are you angry?” she asked.
“Mmblubublub,” Randy mumbled, noncommittally.
“I hope you know I love you.”
At one time it was what he had hoped to hear. But she just
said she’d planned on spending her life with another woman. He
needed to be certain which way the wind currently blew.
“So Deirdre, when we make love do you fake the orgasms?”
Deirdre put her hand in her hair and scratched vigorously,
for what seemed like a while. Then she brushed back the strands
that had fallen over her forehead.
“Sometimes,” she said.
Randy laughed, once, in spite of himself; nothing was all that
funny.
“I faked them with Felicia too. You’re a good lover, Randy.”
“As good as Felicia?”
No answer. Deirdre leaned back against the passenger door
and looked at Randy.
It felt like the few feet between them might at any moment
become a great expanse.
Bernie Hafeli
21
“Look, I’m not going to lie, okay?” Deirdre said. “I’m done
lying, Randy. I’m bisexual, okay? I’ve had relationships with men.
In fact I prefer men. You’ve made me appreciate that. Felicia and I
were lovers. Now I love you. I’m learning how to do that. I think
I’m getting pretty good at it. What do you think?”
All at once the lake came into view. They rounded a curve
and the trees gave way to a rocky embankment that edged down to
the shore. The moon was a sliver shy of full and its pale light
perched above the dark water like lotion.
“So what do you think, Randy?”
What he thought, among other things, was that things never
turned out the way you might suppose. Just imagining a
conceivable outcome pretty much guaranteed it wouldn’t happen.
He’d been in love with Deirdre. He’d wanted to spend the
foreseeable future with her and Harvey—instant family, just add
father. Deirdre seemed to be saying that this was all still possible,
despite what she’d just revealed. Okay, so maybe their relationship
held more challenges than some. Nothing was ever perfect. And
nobody was getting any younger. So what was it going to be, Randy?
He took one hand from the wheel and reached across to grab
her hand.
“You’re extremely good at it,” he said. “You’re the Babe Ruth
of loving me. Or the Ruth—” He looked at her uncertainly. She
smiled.
“Are you saying I’m a babe?” She squeezed his hand. The
slight pressure made him jump. “I’ve wanted to tell you that for so
Don’t Ask
22
long. It’s not something that just comes tumbling out during a
baseball game.”
He turned and glanced back at Harvey. It had been a long
day—the boy was still lost in the land of prepubescent dreams. And
they were still a good ten minutes from Deirdre’s house. So, it
seemed to Randy, the next thing to do was return Deirdre’s squeeze
of the hand, gather his thoughts, and begin telling her about Jeff.
Which is what he did.
Bernie Hafeli
23
Bernie Hafeli started working for major ad agencies as a writer
and Creative Director in 1973, so you might say he's been writing
fiction all his life. He graduated from the University of Michigan in
1972 and has published three short stories: “Big Jim” in The
Rejected Quarterly, “Guerrilla Marketing” in The Berkeley Fiction
Review, and “Down the Road a Piece” in 34th Parallel. He's also
published one poem: "Snow Covers the Dead" in The Hiram Poetry
Review. In 2006, he received his MFA in Writing from the
University of San Francisco. Since then, he's completed two novels,
Grace and Scavenging and is currently working on a third novel,
tentatively called The Opposite of Oz, which includes four novellas
set in and around Detroit. He also has a short story collection, titled
Trail Etiquette.