After they have all drank too much, after they have talked too long and laughed too hard and stayed too late, that is when Caroline starts in with her Deep Questions.  Betty sees it coming and she wants to leave.  She wants to load her husband Jimmy in the car and just go.  But all of the other couples are staying, and even Jimmy, drunk as he is, seems willing to play. Betty joins the others around the kitchen table and folds her arms on her chest.

“Now you have to be completely honest,” Caroline is saying.

Rusty raises his right hand above his head, as if to take an oath.  The others are drunk, and they laugh at this gesture.  They laugh at everything.

“Okay,” Caroline says, and shifts to the edge of her chair.  She is Ted’s wife, his second, and Betty feels that because Caroline is only twenty-two, and pretty, she is indulged in a way that Betty is not.  “You’re lost at sea,” Caroline says.  “You’re stranded with a doctor, a sailor, and a priest, but the raft can only hold three people.  Who do you think should go?”

“What do you mean, go?”

“Overboard.  The raft only holds three people.”

“And who am I with?”

“A doctor, a sailor, and a priest.”

Rusty picks at the label of his beer.  “My cousin’s a doctor,” he says, “and thinks he knows everything.  I’d throw out the quack.”

Caroline frowns.  “But what if you get sick?  Won’t you need a doctor if you get sick?”

“Am I sick right now?”

“No, but you could get sick.”

“Okay,” he says, and shrugs.  “The sailor, then.”

“Who will navigate the raft?”

“The sailor isn’t the right answer?”

“I’m not saying the sailor isn’t right,” Caroline says.  “I just want you consider all your options.”

“How about the priest, then.  What can he do?”

“You’ll need the priest,” she says, “if someone dies.”

Rusty is indignant.  “What, we kept that doctor, and people are still dying?”  He hisses through his teeth and shakes his head in frustration.  “Okay then, Caroline: Who would you kick out?”

Caroline folds her hands on the table and offers the group a benign smile.  “Myself,” she says.  There is much murmuring among the assembled guests.             “The other three can at least help each other.  What do I have to offer?”

Betty watches every man glance at Caroline’s tits.

Ted covers Caroline’s hand with his own.  Nearing forty, Ted is still athletic, and smart, and he has landed this young looker Caroline for a second wife.  It angers Betty when Jimmy repeats the things that Ted has said as gospel, or that the others will often settle arguments with the words, “Hey, let’s ask Ted.”

“That’s very brave of you, Baby,” Ted says.

“Bravo,” someone says.

“I still say we give that know-it-all doctor the heave ho,” Rusty says.

With her eyes closed, Betty can picture the doctor, the sailor, and the priest bobbing up and down against a rich blue expanse of ocean and sky.  Their faces are pink, and exhausted, and gray with stubble.  You, they say to her, you must go, but she refuses.  She sees the three men struggling to grip her writhing arms and legs.  She sees herself throwing punches around.  She imagines the priest getting socked on the chin.

 

 

“This one’s for Julia,” Caroline says.  Julia folds her hands and sits up straight.  Her lips twitch and her chin trembles in an effort to keep a straight face.  “Okay,” Caroline says.  “You’re running out of a burning building, when you think you hear a baby crying.  Now, do you keep going, or do you go back to find the baby?”

“Oh,” Julia says, “definitely go back for the baby.”

“The building’s really burning,” Caroline says.  She wiggles her fingers beside her head.  “You can practically feel the flames licking your ears.”

“I’d definitely go back for the baby.”

“Wait,” Rusty says.  He waves his arms above his head like he’s flagging down a helicopter.  “Caroline says you can hear a baby crying, but it could be outside the building.”  Rusty pauses while the others nod their agreement.  “How about it, Caroline; is the baby in or out?”

Caroline shrugs, smiling.  “I don’t know,” she says.  “Maybe it’s in, and maybe it’s out.  The question is, would you return to a burning building?”

“That’s a no-brainer,” Julia says.  “I’d definitely go back for the baby.”

“But there might not be a baby to go back for,” Rusty says. “You have to determine where the baby is first.”

“I’d definitely go back for the baby,” Julia says.

While the others debate the issue, Betty studies Caroline and wonders if this question about a baby is a subtle shot at her.  Just two years ago Betty gave birth to a stillborn daughter.  She gained the weight, they organized a shower, Jimmy painted the guest room pink, and after that, after all that, the child didn’t survive.  The doctor took Jimmy aside that night and told him that he must be careful with Betty from now on, that another baby might kill her.  Those were the doctor’s words: another baby might kill her.

After a harrowing bout with depression Betty emerged from the ordeal stronger.  The shower presents and the pink room lingered like reminders of a broken promise, so she made a conscious effort to get out of the house.  She took aerobics, and started running, and swore off alcohol and caffeine.  She even bought a keychain that reads, in beautiful calligraphy, TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.  She only took up alcohol again because drunks started confessing to her at parties.  When they saw Betty sipping orange juice they felt compelled to say things like, “I normally don’t drink this much, but I’ve had a hard day,” or “This is my fourth highball, but I plan to start jogging tomorrow.”

It was Jimmy who took the loss hard.  Betty can barely remember the Jimmy she married, the big, simple man who guffawed and pounded the arms of the furniture during cartoons and sitcoms and the Three Stooges. After the baby died Jimmy spent his evenings sacked out on the couch, methodically draining a twelve-pack while he listlessly thumbed the remote.  It was all Betty could do to get him to start joining these other couples for parties, and barbecues, and cookouts.  It didn’t end Jimmy’s drinking — if anything, he drinks more — but at least she doesn’t have to watch him do it alone, in front of a ballgame.

 

 

“Okay,” Caroline says, “this one’s foooooor . . . Billy.”  She is rubbing her hands together and smiling, because she’s thought up a good one.  “If you had to lose an eye or a hand,” she asks, “which would you rather lose?”

“What do you mean, lose?”

“You lose it,” Caroline says, and snaps her fingers. “It’s gone.”

“I know, but how do you lose it?  I mean, do I actually have to have the eye poked out, or would I, like, wake up with it gone?”

Caroline waves her hand in front of her face.  He is ruining her question with these petty objections.  “What difference does it make?”

“A big difference,” Billy says, a little too passionately.  “A big difference.”  He has a grave, sincere expression on his face that makes a few of the others giggle.

“Okay, okay,” she says.  “You just wake up one morning and it’s gone.”

“No pain?”

“No pain.”

Billy thinks a moment.  “An eye,” he says.

“The eye.”

“Definitely the eye.”

While the others share their thoughts, Betty closes one eye and looks around the room.  She then opens her eye and lifts her drink with her left hand.  She puts down the drink to pick up a potato chip.  After a moment’s deliberation, she says, “A hand.”

“What?”

“If I had to lose an eye or a hand, I would rather lose a hand.”

“That’s crazy,” Rusty says.

“I couldn’t live without my hands,” Billy says.

“You do get to keep the other eye,” Ted says.

“I know,” Betty answers, a bit defensively.  She is surprised by how loudly they have reacted to her choice.  “But if you lose the other eye by accident, then you have two perfectly good hands and no sight.”  She sips her drink, to calm herself.  “I read somewhere that going blind is the number one fear in America.”

In response, Ted clears his throat and looks away.  In this way he has told the others that she is wrong, that the number one fear in America is something else entirely.  Someone, someone Betty can’t quite see, starts snickering.

Ted clears his throat.  “What do you say, Caroline?”

Caroline pauses dramatically.  She puts a finger to her chin, and twists her mouth into a thoughtful pout until she gives a single, determined nod.  She then folds her hands on the table and delivers her pronouncement.  “An eye,” she says.

A cheer goes up.  The men are whooping and slapping high-five.  Billy is especially loud, since it appears he gave the right answer. “Okay, Caroline,” Billy says, “now lemme ask you one.”

“Go ahead.”

“Let’s see.”  Billy is too excited by all this.  He is sweating along his hairline and twitching with adrenaline. “Okay, you’re, um, in the woods, and then you see this, uh, this grizzly bear.  Yeah, you’re, you’re walking along, see, and you’re not near any houses or anything, you’re just out in the middle of the woods, and then all of a sudden you’re being chased by this huge grizzly bear.  Now, what would you do?”

Caroline has a sour expression on her face.  “No,” she says.  “No, no, no, no, no.” The question has made her angry.  “The question has to be deep, Billy.  Like, a philosophical question.” She rolls her eyes.  “What’s philosophical about outrunning some stupid bear?”

“Well what the hell’s so philosophical about losing an eye?”

Ted steps in, the baritone of reason.  “It’s not the eye that Caroline’s interested in,” he says.  His fingers interlock with his wife’s.  “She’s curious about the choices you make.”

“Yeah,” Caroline says.

Billy just clenches his teeth and stares at the table.  He crosses his arms and leans back in a way that suggests that he won’t play their game anymore, not even if they beg him.  He did this at the last party, too.

 

 

“So who’s next?” Caroline asks.  Her eyes scan the room and pause on Betty’s frowning face before moving on.  A moment later she claps her hands together at her chest.  “Jimmy!” she says.

Jimmy opens his eyes and smiles with just the corners of his mouth, a tired smile, a drunk’s smile.  He blinks slowly as his head rolls around on his shoulders.  Betty can tell that he has no idea where he is.  She wants to stand up and put a stop to this right now, wants to guide him out to the car and settle him into the back seat for the long drive home.  But Betty knows that if she interrupts their fun Jimmy would be embarrassed, or at least he will be when he hears about it later.

“Jimmy,” Caroline says, “your mother and father are drowning, and you can only save one of them.  Now, which would you save?”

“What?”  Jimmy is horrified.  He is so drunk that the question seems to have roused him from a deep sleep.  He is shaking his head and smacking his lips.  Some of the others have to cover their mouths to keep from cracking up.

“Your mother and father are drowning, Jimmy, and you can only save one of them.  Now, which one would you save?”

“But my mom can’t swim!” he says.  Betty can tell by the pleading quality in Jimmy’s voice that he has imagined the entire scene, that he sees his arthritic mother helplessly flapping her thick arms and legs against some swift river.

“So then you’d save your mother?”

“Well, my dad could swim to shore then, couldn’t he?”

“No,” Caroline says.  She is firm in this.  “You can only save one.  Now, which are you going to save?”

“My mom and dad?”

“Yes,” Caroline says.  She crosses her eyes and screws up her mouth to show her frustration. Some of the men have turned their heads to hide their laughter.  Jimmy is still blinking his eyes and breathing too hard.  Betty puts her hand on his arm.

“Easy, Honey,” she whispers.  “It’s just a game.”

“My mom and dad?”

“It’s just a game, Sweetie.  You’ve had too much to drink.”

“My mom can’t swim!” he says.

Betty turns to see the rest of the group practically rolling.  She can almost forgive the men, they’re all so pathetic in their way.  Rusty over there hasn’t been sober since the day his wife left him, and for Billy this night is just another installment in a lifelong sulk.  But Betty has to stop herself from screaming at the women. Imagine: Julia rushing into a burning building after a baby. This is the same Julia who fainted from the pain of having her earlobes pierced at the mall.  And Caroline over there, sweet, pretty, superior Caroline, playing at tragedy as though it were a game.   Choosing their catastrophes, as though they were logical.  As though there were options.

“Now I’ve got a question for you,” Betty says.

Caroline leans forward, pleased.  “Finally,” she says.

“A married man leaves a perfectly good woman his own age to marry a girl twenty years younger.”

The laughter stops.  The men begin clearing their throats and checking their watches.

“Yes, a married man leaves his respected, loving, honest wife for a much younger girl.  A child, really.  So, the question is, is it really right for this young girl to steal this older man?”

“Betty,” someone says, but Caroline doesn’t get it.  She is tapping her finger on her chin as she imagines the situation.

“This man,” Caroline asks. “Is he successful?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And he’s how much older than her?”

“Eighteen years,” Betty says.

“I see,” Caroline says, and nods her head.  “I see.”  She is suddenly uncertain.  She glances at her husband Ted, who is studying his hands.  “And the younger woman.  Is she pretty?”

“Oh, not just pretty,” Betty says.  “She’s deep.”

Caroline stiffens.  She sits upright in her chair, and the blood is rising to her face and ears.   She wants to respond, her expression says, but her delicate nature won’t allow it.  She is about to say something when Jimmy stands up at the table.

“I would drown myself,” Jimmy says.

“What?”

“I wouldn’t want to know which one survived,” Jimmy says.  He is crying now; his shoulders pitch forward with the force of each sob.  “I couldn’t choose between my mom and dad.  I just couldn’t.  I’d jump in the water and drown.”

He is positively blubbering now.  A string of saliva extends from his lips to his chest.  A few of the men stand up and begin chuckling, embarrassed that they must console this huge bear of a man who has drunk too much.  “Easy, Big Fella,” they whisper, “it’s all right.”  The women, too, are touched by his grief; they rush forward to stroke his cheeks and hair.  Betty is also trying to reach him but she can’t. He is surrounded by well-wishers.

The men are carrying Jimmy into the next room.  They have put his arms around their shoulders while his feet drag feebly behind him.  Betty stays behind to retrieve her things.  She hears a door open, hears their feet on the porch.  They are carrying poor Jimmy to the car.

In the living room Betty is scrambling to find her purse, her keys, her dish; she brought potato salad in a dish.  When she runs back to the kitchen Ted is massaging Caroline’s shoulders and whispering in her ear.  Betty grabs a bowl from the sink and bolts for the front door.  The others pass her on their way back in, but they don’t look her in the eye.  “G’night,” they mumble.  “G’bye.”

Betty runs outside and is so disoriented by the rush of cold air that she leans against a tree.  She is nauseous, and dizzy, and confused by the many, many cars parked along this street.  Where did all these cars come from?  It is a dark night, too dark, and somewhere out there she can hear her husband braying like a donkey.  “Jimmy,” she says, “Jimmy?” Betty stumbles forward, listening.  At times she is sure that she’s closer, that he’s sitting in the next car down.  Then it seems that he is moving farther away, behind her, lost.  She gathers her strength, swallows hard, steps closer to something.