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no frills
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(Andi Wyatt and David Ziegler, spoilers up to Drought Conditions - written for thecolourclear as part of the Andrea round at tww_minis)
Dancing With Skeletons
Toby takes her by surprise the first time.
They've met several times and she is wanton under his eyes. His comments are short and gruff and he always looks to see if she laughs. By her calculations, he should smoulder for another couple of weeks before coming to the burn.
He takes her by surprise the first time, but she likes the way he does it and she doesn't ask questions.
The first time she and Toby wake up together, she stretches out and curls her leg around him. Her muscles twitch a bedtime story. She lifts her hand to her mouth to touch the grin.
Toby is very still.
She draws her foot up his leg.
"I have to go," he says, rolling aside.
"Is something wrong?"
"I mean, I have to go to the airport."
He wouldn't be the first who had to remind her how important he was. She sits up in bed and pulls down her nightshirt.
"My mother died." He is turned away, voice lost in the shirt he's pulling over his head, and she has to ask him to repeat himself.
"It was cancer." He clears his throat. "We thought she had longer."
He stiffens at Andi's hand on his back. She doesn't know him well enough for this.
"Are you okay?"
"My kid brother's taking it worst. I don't know why."
"Wouldn't the question be why not?"
He only shrugs. He is almost fully dressed already and she feels a jab of hunger to see more of him.
"Call me when you get back?"
His fingers brush hers when he reaches to pick up his watch, discarded alongside the remains of the cigarette she must have been punch drunk to let him smoke in her room. "I will."
Toby keeps his promises.
*
It's nine months before she meets his family, although they are clear in the shadows that surround him. Toby seems to be afraid of everyone he loves.
For a week beforehand he's warning her about them all, except for the ones too troubling to mention. Watch out.
Watch out for Ruthie. She can kill with a glare at ten paces.
Jess is kind of a nut, but watch out you don't look like you're thinking she's kind of a nut.
"Watch out for David." Toby glances at her sideways as he gives the wheel the yank it needs to haul the car into the drive. "He's a scientist and he has the glasses to prove it. You're the hottest thing he's ever seen outside the pages of a top-shelf magazine."
She's occupied by nerves, and when she thinks about it later, she won't be able to remember whether he was joking.
The thing that strikes her most about Toby's family is the noise.
Andrea is an only child, daddy's girl, the centre of the world. Her father died when she went away to college. Her visits with her mother are politely affectionate.
The Zieglers shout to be heard even cramped next to each other on the couch. Toby, whose most powerful declarations are often lost when his voice slips low, never mumbles while they are there. There are only four of them, not including Andi, but the room feels like a crowded hall, packed with barstool politicians whose arguments are lost in the melee. It's clear that all of them are at home.
She has never had anything like this.
Scanning the pictures round the walls, she tries to figure out who's missing from the party. There's the sister who teaches high school social science back in Brooklyn; Andi can't remember her name. There's another girl – a cousin, perhaps, or maybe just one of the others at a different age.
Andi looks at Ruth, who seems to be appraising her even as she natters a mile a minute to Jess, smiling lazily and giving every impression of not having heard a word. She won't ask in front of them.
David sits between them, hiding behind his glasses.
She wonders if she could live with the chaos, if she produced a large family. The noise and mess and distractions, the intricate web of needs and wants and hurts, and the impossibility of ever escaping from other people. She imagines a girl whose hair curls like Toby's. She looks like Andi at five, in her father's favourite school picture, and she ages like the girls in the photographs on the wall. The girl comes first. The sun rises and sets with her, until a couple of little brothers come along.
Andi picks out Toby's among the voices raised in exasperation and wonders if she could ever create anything this alien, frightening and wonderful.
She eats too much, not knowing who cooked what, and by the time they've refused her help cleaning up, she feels too weighted down to think of light conversation. The air is choking with food smells. She slips out the front door while they're in the kitchen.
Andi finds a spot beside the only tree where she can be veiled by branches, dragging low and begging to be trimmed. It's not hard to tell these people grew in the city. Maybe this is why Toby never brings her flowers.
She edges the single cigarette from the pocket of her tight denims; a cocktail bar matchbook from the other side. The first match snaps when she strikes it against the tree trunk.
"Toby told me you give him hell for those things."
David parts the branches with his hand and steps under. It's the first time she has been able to pick his voice out clearly. It raises her smile.
"They're revolting," she agrees. "I just… I don't know. Occasionally I want to hide out in a French movie."
She shrugs, almost catching the cigarette in her hair. It needs cut, like the tree. She likes the idea of being nature run wild.
"Don't tell him."
David grins. "Promise."
This feels illicit, as if he's a stranger on a street and not Toby's brother. David is a blank slate. That's why she smokes, that hint of a tingle.
"So, are you just trying to get out of the washing up?"
He shuffles his shoulders and she catches the first thread of family resemblance. "I have to give the girls their chance to interrogate Toby."
She doesn't know them well enough to want to know what they think of her.
"I can't believe my brother brought you home."
The way he says it makes her wonder if it's a compliment, but he's standing close and he is less afraid of eye contact than Toby, so she makes the assumption that suits her and smiles her thanks.
The match sparks on the second strike. She flicks it away into the weeds.
David's nose wrinkles, whether at the littering or the rising ribbon of smoke.
"He'll taste it when he kisses you."
She shakes her head. "I have to brush my teeth before it gets stale. I can't stand it, really."
He is squinting at her, adjusting his glasses against the sun. She is lit from behind. She turns away from him to exhale.
He tells her, "You need to find a form of rebellion you actually enjoy."
"I've been thinking about that. I have a few ideas Toby's not going to like."
By the time they are called inside, she is ready to hear the girls brag about both their brothers.
She has a little fun with Toby on the way home. "You didn't tell me he was an astronaut."
"He's a payload specialist! He experiments with creepy crawly things!"
"He zooms around in a rocketship, Toby. That's hot."
"He has left the earth's atmosphere precisely once, Andrea."
"Still. He's not a geek." She leans to kiss his curled lips. "No more so than you are, honey."
Toby pulls away. "I told you to watch out for him," he says.
*
Toby's in California. Or Oregon. Somewhere on Pacific time. She can tell the time of day by how drunk he sounds when he calls. Andi never drinks anymore, except every time she discovers she has no reason not to. Toby's far, far away and he sounds exactly the same as he does when he's beside her in bed.
When the doorbell rings, she can't think of a single person she'd like to see.
"Hi," says David. It's been raining and he isn't wearing a coat. His glasses have steamed up. It takes her a moment to snap out of it.
"I know it's been a while, Andi. You do recognise me, right?"
He laughs nervously and she joins in.
"Sorry. I'm sorry, come inside."
He finds himself a seat and she pours him a drink. He takes his glasses off and wipes them on his sodden sleeve.
"Toby's in Oregon. Or California. Not here."
"I thought I should call before I stopped by."
"Yet you didn't."
"Well, I'd been thinking that for six months, and eventually I realised I was never going to call, so I might as well stop by."
She wonders if David knew Toby wouldn't be here. It's one too many things to think about.
"Okay."
He swirls his glass. The smell of Scotch used to make her feel warm, wrapped in a masculine blanket. It used to smell sexy. She presses her hand against her stomach.
"I can't drink this," he says apologetically. "Makes me sick. I should have said."
She takes the glass and puts it down beside her.
"I take after my dad," David explains. Her shock must register, because he adds, "Well, not the organised crime. You know, underneath all that he was really a very ordinary man. Still is, I guess." He turns his hands over in his lap, fiddling with his wedding ring. "We're alike in that our jobs make us sound more interesting than we are. Anyway, he never really enjoyed the hard stuff."
"Toby never talks like this."
"Yeah, talking about our father probably isn't the best way for Toby and I to… move forward."
Toby never talks anything like this.
"I'm not sure that paying me a visit while he's out of town is the best thing for that, either."
David bites his lip. Andi enjoys the beard on Toby, but it wouldn't suit David.
"Andi, it wasn't about you. Every few years since we were old enough to fight, Toby and I have done this."
She shakes her head. Toby is good at this too. It's never about her. He's mad at the candidate; the polls have brought him down; he needs a drink because of the idiot intern they've got answering his phones.
"I wasn't coming onto you. You're a very attractive woman, but I'm not looking to-"
"Okay, this is a conversation you really have to have with Toby. I'll give you the number for the New Hampshire office. They probably have a better idea of the schedule than I do."
Andi is very weary of things that aren't about her ending up her problems.
"Toby and I get pissed at each other for a hundred reasons, ninety-nine of which have nothing to do with you."
"Maybe one of them's that you keep insisting you're ordinary when you're going to be a Nobel Laureate one day. You have a perfect family. Ruth thinks her purpose in life was to give you a start. You're the little prince, David, and you're not one bit grateful."
She drinks the whisky in an unthinking gulp and reminds herself again that she barely knows this man.
His hand hovers in the air and for a moment she thinks he's going to touch her. Instead his fist clenches. "Toby's the dark knight," he says. "And who's not more interested in that guy?"
Andi stands up and he follows, nodding.
"Okay, I get it. I have to speak to Toby." He taps his fingers against the card and puts it away in his wallet. "I'll call."
It's spoken too easily; he won't. She feels peculiarly defensive of Toby, who never will understand that he's almost the only family she's got.
"How are the kids?" she asks.
David's face lights with an unexpected flare. That's Toby when an idea hits him just so; when she used to say something that made him see a new angle.
"Great. Sonya's three months gone, by the way."
"Wow. That's- that's wonderful."
She wonders if it ceases to be 'wow' after the first time. After the second or third. Maybe it gets even better. It only gets worse when it goes the other way. She shepherds him towards the door
David leans forward, his hand lightly touching her arm. If he tells her he's sorry, that it'll happen for them, look how happily adoption has worked out for Jess – she'll toss him out into the storm.
"Did you realise you and Toby have been sending them separate gifts for birthdays?"
She shuts the door behind him. No. She hadn't realised that.
Toby is no more drunk than she is when he calls. He's had a good day and he wants to talk about bringing the world into the light. She is more forthcoming than she would have been.
"David doesn't remember Dad," Toby insists. "He was too young. His imagination filled in the gaps. Lots of boys want to be like their fathers."
"But not you?"
"Not me. I wanted to be this." He laughs - the dry, curtailed version. "You might argue the plan was flawed."
Most nights, Andrea has that argument with herself.
*
The day after David is nearly lost in space, Andi drives out to Dulles to meet his flight.
Andi's there because Toby's at the hospital with President Bartlet and Josh. If fate hadn't intervened, she doubts he would have taken advice and flown to Edwards, but David isn't his brother – and besides, they'll never really know.
He's in one of the clips they keep showing, chasing the paramedics carrying Josh. He doesn't look damaged, but who can ever tell with Toby?
There has been no mention of the shuttle on any channel since the President left the Newseum.
Her hands shake on the wheel all the way to the airport. Before leaving, she looked through all the things of Toby's she still has, but if there had been cigarettes in the pockets, she'd have found them before now. She still has too many things of Toby's. She likes to give them back one by one - to remind him it's over, to remind herself she's over it.
All flights are delayed and she has to wait. The radio doesn't tell her anything new. She wonders what Toby's thinking right now.
Finally David appears at the gate, drowning in oversized clean clothes someone loaned him. He hasn't slept in days. It makes him look more like Toby.
"Andrea? Why are you-– you didn't have to come here."
Already embarrassed before she's even moved, she launches herself at him. He opens his arms to catch her.
"Ever think somebody's out to get your family?"
He smiles. David smiles more than Toby, but it's a smaller, more fragile thing. "You were married to my brother too long."
"I'm just saying, two near misses in one night."
"I'm fine, Andi. And Toby's…"
"Fine. As far as I know. I mean, I'm sure…"
"I'm sure." He strokes her arm. "Anyway, who can ever tell with Toby?"
She laughs and rests her head on his shoulder. "Yeah."
"I didn't mean anything, you know. When I said you were married to Toby too long. It was a joke."
"I got it."
"We all wish it had worked out."
She slides out of his arms. "Call home," she tells him. "I bet the kids are still up."
"I did, and they are." He smiles again. "Sonya's going to kill me."
They find the car and Andi takes time to pull herself together. She looks at him in the mirror as she adjusts it.
"David, were you scared?"
There is no smile this time. "Yeah."
"So was he."
She fires the engine and fumbles with the radio to fill the silence. She has forgotten how to find the music stations. There's still an old mix tape of Toby's somewhere on the floor where she kicked it, but haunting poetry and mellow chords are the kind of thing she left him for.
A mile later, David says, "I'll talk to him about it."
She's not sure she believes him, but it's not her problem, anymore.
*
Andrea has never been more angry with Toby than on the day of David's funeral. She has never been more angry with anyone.
She wouldn't know he was gone if Ruth hadn't called. It would probably have been months until she wondered how he was.
She is angry that she never learned how to be part of a family like this even as she's feeling grateful she's not like them. Toby and his sisters are twisted together, a silent knot of grief, turned in against the intrusion of more distant relatives.
The hollow frame of David's wife is held upright by her elder children. Either she has been given too many drugs or else she badly needs them. Toby puts his hand on his nephew's shoulder and is brushed aside. The anger on these kids' faces isn't the kind they'll grow out of. Andi would know that even if she didn't know their gene pool.
When it's over, she's determined not to leave without some acknowledgement from Toby.
The sisters manage to press her hand and David's kids look up with grimly civil expressions. They probably have no idea who she is.
She feels a useless urge to make someone understand he was her family too. The twins' uncle. Her co-conspirator when there were too many Zieglers in a room.
Toby is steady on his feet only because he's still. When she approaches, he slides sideways, knocking into Jess. She'd like to grab him by the head and make him look at her. She wants to tell him to fuck himself; to ask him what was the last thing he said to his brother.
But she has never been angrier and Toby has never been sadder. If their marriage taught her anything – and their marriage taught her many things – it's that walking away is sometimes the only way to save them.
There are too many tears to cry quickly, so she'll save them for home. She touches David's beaming image with the tips of her fingers on her way past the family.
David was the brother who smiled more. The thought is frightening, now.
(September 2006)
love/hate to: lunatic.lover.poet at ntlworld.com --- AIM: havingthemdreams