by Larry Watson
“I’m just supposed to sit back and not do a thing when someone tries to hide my wife and daughter away from me? Do you people know a goddamn thing about what a marriage is?”
His question brings a laugh from Carla. “Mister, everyone in this room is an expert on what a marriage isn’t!”
Gary reaches for Edie’s hand again. “Let’s go,” he says.
Roy steps between Edie and Gary and pushes Gary in the shoulder. “I told you!” Roy says.
Gary pushes back, and this shove has the force of a blow.
Edie rushes into the space between them. She puts her arms around Gary, but this is not an embrace. She’s pulling him toward the door, and though he could stop their movement at any time he allows himself to be led away.
“Please, Gary,” Edie says. “Let’s just go. Please, I’ll go with you.”
Roy has regained his balance, and he’s moving swiftly to intercept Gary and Edie before they reach the door.
Edie keeps one arm around Gary and holds the other out to halt Roy. “No, no,” she says. Caught between these men and their belligerent claims on her, Edie feels her allegiance lies with the Lindermans. But she will do what she can to remove the threat of violence from this home and its occupants.
“He’s my husband,” she whispers, and she feels Gary relax under her touch.
When they’re almost at the door Gary says, “What about Jennifer?”
“We have a motel room,” Edie says. “Tonight it will be ours. Just ours. But let’s go. Let’s go.”
Edie grabs her purse from a table, and then she and her husband are on their way out while Roy, Dean, Carla, and Jay watch them leave.
“Tell Jennifer we’re at the motel!” Edie calls back to them. “We’ll pick her up in the morning!”
To anyone looking out a window from another house in the neighborhood, Gary and Edie Dunn are just another middle-aged couple walking toward their car, heading home after a sociable evening with friends. You’d have to be very close to them to see how tight his grip is on her shoulder.
Inside the house Roy and Carla peer out through the parted curtains. Dean has remained in his chair, but he says loudly, “She didn’t want to go with him. I know she didn’t.”
“Well,” Jay says, “she married him. And she went.”
BRAD TIGHTLY GRIPS the steering wheel at ten and two o’clock, and he checks the side and rearview mirrors frequently. Jennifer sits in the passenger seat and gazes out the window as Gladstone reveals itself, street by leafy street, avenue by neon avenue. From the back Troy leans into the space between the bucket seats.
As they near Gladstone’s commercial district, they stop at a red light. At one corner of the intersection is a small white house with a hand-painted sign in the lawn that says Little Tot’s Day Care. Troy points to the house. “That’s where Brad’s girlfriend lives,” he says.
“She isn’t my girlfriend,” Brad says.
“You said—”
“She’s not. Okay? She’s not. So shut the hell up.”
The light changes to green, and Brad speeds away from the intersection.
“What’s her name?” Jennifer asks. “The girl who isn’t your girlfriend.”
“Michelle.”
“And why’s Michelle your girlfriend but not really?”
Troy thrusts his head forward to say, “He took her to the movies last week.”
“I didn’t take her. I met her there.”
“But she’s not your girlfriend,” says Jennifer.
“She’s more or less everybody’s girlfriend,” Brad says. “She’s pretty much a slut.”
Jennifer shakes her head. “Wow. Nice talk.”
“You don’t know her.”
She looks away from Brad and directs her next statement to the glittering windows of Eagle Auto Parts. “You don’t either,” she says.
Troy leans farther into the space between the seats and looks to his brother. “Hey,” he says, “should I ask her? You know. What Clint said?”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“But should I?”
“You said that before,” says Jennifer. “Ask me what?”
Troy wriggles himself even farther between the seats. “This guy Clint, at the ranch where we were—”
“Older guy,” Brad says.
“Yeah. Older. Like nineteen. Anyway. He told us . . .” Troy pauses and looks to his brother again.
Brad turns his father’s Thunderbird down a street lined with fast food eateries—Wendy’s, Burger King, and, in the middle of the block, Kentucky Fried Chicken, its giant white bucket revolving over the roof.
“Okay. Well, Clint says girls want it just as bad as guys.”
“It?” Jennifer says.
“You know,” Troy answers.
“Yeah,” Brad says as he parks close to the entry to Kentucky Fried Chicken. “You know.”
“Why don’t you ask Michelle?” Jennifer says to Brad. “Now, are we going to get some fucking chicken or what?”
IN ROOM 106 Gary threads the chain through the lock and stands with his back against the door. “Now,” he says, “let me see that wrist.”
They can barely see each other’s faces in the dark room, but Edie steps forward and extends her bruised right arm. Gary takes her hand tenderly, but rather than inspect the injury he pulls her close to him.
“I told you I’m sorry.” He kisses her lightly on the forehead.
“I know you are.”
His hands are now up inside the back of her T-shirt.
Edie wriggles away from him. “I think we should talk, Gary.”
“We can talk when we’re back home. Right now I need to know you’re still mine.”
“Yours . . . What the hell does that mean?”
“You know goddamn good and well what it means.”
The room is small, and when Edie takes a backward step she bumps into the bed. The contact startles her and she moves quickly in the other direction. Gary takes a sidewise step to remain in front of her.
“What have you been doing here?” Gary asks her. “Why’d you come?”
“You know why I came. You met Dean. You could see—”
“Did you fuck him? Just once more? For old times’ sake?”
“Oh my God. Do you hear yourself?”
“That’s not an answer. You said you wanted to talk. So talk.”
“Do you know the first thing about me? Do you? All the years we’ve been together and you can ask me something like that!”
“You still haven’t answered the question.”
The compressor in the window air conditioner kicks in with a clunk and then begins to hum at a higher pitch. In that instant, as if her mood is tuned to that machine, Edie’s expression changes from angry defiance to resignation. She folds her arms and shakes her head sadly. “Please, let’s not do this. Tomorrow we’ll go home and we can put things back the way they were. I shouldn’t have come here. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. I was angry.”
Her apology seems to alter Gary’s temper as well and he says, “You know what my dad said when I told him I was going to marry you? ‘Don’t do it,’ he said. ‘A divorced woman—she’s got that past she’ll always compare you to.’ ‘Not Edie,’ I told him. ‘She wants to get as far away from that time as she can.’ And since you didn’t talk much about it, I let it go. I didn’t want to hear about your life with another man. But maybe I should have asked. Maybe I should have tried to find out if I was doing just what the other guy did that made you leave him.”
“No. You’re not like him. You’re nothing like him.”
He spreads his arms wide. “Come here,” he says.
Edie walks slowly, dutifully into her husband’s embrace.
“This is what I wanted,” he says. “This is all I ever wanted.”
Seconds later his hands are under her shirt and sliding up her back again.
I THINK THIS beer’s getting to me,” Dean says. “I’m going to have to go to bed.�
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Carla says, “The kids will be here with the food soon.”
Dean shakes his head. “I’m not all that hungry.”
She stands up. “I’ll show you the room we fixed up for you.”
Roy waves her off. “I’ll take him up.” He extends his hand to his brother and gently pulls him to his feet. He asks Dean, “You going to make it okay?”
Dean pulls away from his brother’s grasp and holds both arms out to his sides as if the carpet has begun to ripple underfoot. “Just give me a second to get my balance.” He takes a deep breath, then exhales. “Okay,” he says and moves slowly toward the stairs. He ascends them one at a time.
“We’re not in any hurry,” Roy says, following close behind.
Once they reach the top, Dean stops and leans on the banister. “Christ,” he says. “Okay. Ready. Show me the way.”
Roy takes his brother’s arm and leads him toward a bedroom at the end of the hall, then hurries ahead and turns back the bedspread and top sheet. “Here you go.”
Dean climbs between the sheets so slowly it calls to mind a man about to lie down on a bed of iron.
He groans and his brother covers him. “Are you warm enough?” Roy asks. “Can I get you anything?”
“I can’t believe she went with him,” Dean says.
“It was just to get him out of here. She’ll be back.”
Dean closes his eyes. His breathing slows and goes deeper. But just as Roy moves toward the door, Dean says, “Promise?”
Roy returns to the bedside. He bends over and kisses Dean on the forehead. “I promise,” he says.
GARY IS TRYING to pull Edie’s T-shirt up and over her head, and she’s not fighting him, not exactly, but the shirt is snug.
“Just wait,” she says, and she steps away from him and pulls off the T-shirt herself.
He hurries to close the distance between them, and once he does he pushes the straps of her brassiere off her shoulders.
“Don’t you want to get into bed?” she asks.
When she turns toward the bed, he keeps his hold on her, lifting her hair and kissing her neck. She tucks her head into her shoulder to discourage him and again she says, “Just wait.”
Gary persists and Edie takes a step toward the bed. She reaches behind her, finds his hand, and pulls him with her. She bumps against the mattress and manages to turn him around, and she pushes him onto the bed. He falls backward with a laugh.
Edie gets onto the bed and straddles Gary’s legs. She unbuckles his belt and unzips his trousers. Gary reaches for her, but Edie pushes him back down. “Huh-uh,” she says.
He laughs again, and again he allows himself to be controlled. He throws his arms out to his sides.
She pulls his shirttails out of the way, then reaches inside his boxers, and when she has a hold of his cock she pulls it out. Studiously, determinedly Edie begins to slide her hand up and down. It might seem her arm is moving though a darker shadow in the darkened room, but that’s only the bruise on her wrist that makes it seem so.
Gary gives a little groan and after a moment he says, “My balls.”
Obediently Edie fondles his testicles.
When he reaches for her again, she leans back out of his grasp.
“At least take off your bra,” he says. “Let me see you. Come on. Let me see those tits.”
“Have I ever told you, Gary, how much I hate that word?” But she says this softly, almost lovingly. And she doesn’t alter the rhythm of her strokes.
“You should have thought of that before you had such great ones. Tits. Tits, tits, tits.” He laughs but now begins to squirm under her touch. “Would you put your mouth there? Would you use your mouth? Would you?”
“Shh.” She squeezes harder with both hands and pumps faster.
“Come up here,” Gary says. “I want inside you.”
But he has barely uttered his request when he gasps and ejaculates.
Before his spasms have subsided, Edie clambers off the bed. “I’ll get a towel,” she says.
She returns and tosses the towel at his crotch. “Did you bring other clothes?” she asks. “Because you got some on your pants.”
“I’ve got a suitcase in the car. I’ll get it in a minute.”
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“Take your time. I’ll probably be ready to go again when you come out.”
“Since when?”
“Since I been doing nothing but think about you for a couple days. Wondering if we’d ever do this again.”
“Well, you found me.”
Gary props himself up on his elbows. “You knew I would, didn’t you?”
Minutes later the sound of the shower fills the room like windblown rain. Gary has wrapped the towel around his cock like a turban, and he’s lying back with his fingers interlaced behind his head.
AS HE PULLS up in front of the house, Brad miscalculates and scrapes one of the Thunderbird’s tires against the curb. He hits the brakes too hard, and Jennifer and Troy both lurch in their seats. One of the buckets of chicken slides onto the floor of the back seat.
“Shit,” Troy says. “Shit, shit.”
“Just pick it up,” his brother says. “And don’t say nothing about it.”
“Brad! There’s all sand and shit on the floor!”
“So don’t eat out of that bucket. And put it where we don’t either.”
All three of them get out, and Brad calls out to Jennifer, “Hey, you want to go somewhere? I bet my dad will let me take the car.”
She’s carrying a bucket of chicken, and she doesn’t even break stride. “I’m not interested in going anywhere with you,” she says. Just before she steps onto the porch she stops, turns, and says, “And the next time you see your girlfriend? You better fucking apologize.”
“TOOK YOU LONG enough,” Gary says to Edie. “Did you leave any hot water?”
“Did you want to take a shower?” Edie asks.
“Later,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows. He no longer has the towel draped around his genitals, but his trousers are still unbuckled and unzipped. He asks, “Why’d you get dressed again?”
“I don’t have anything else to put on.”
“Why do you have to wear anything? You used to sleep naked.”
“Not all that often.”
“I sure as hell remember when you did.”
“That’s why you remember it. It didn’t happen very often.”
“You want one of my T-shirts? I got a couple clean ones in my suitcase.”
“No thanks.”
Gary peels back the bedspread and top sheet. “Well, climb in here now. Maybe you’ll feel different once you’re under the covers.”
Edie stares down at her husband and the bed with an expression so dispassionate she might be contemplating the purchase of a mattress or bedding.
He slides across the bed to make room for her. “Come on. He pats the empty space next to him. Right here.”
Edie lies down so slowly she seems to be trying not to wrinkle the sheets.
“There you go,” says Gary. He raises his arm and she accepts the invitation—or is it a command?—and rolls closer to him, resting her head on his chest.
He sighs with satisfaction and says, “I found you.”
“Was I lost?”
“You know what I mean. You didn’t tell me where you were going. You didn’t even leave a note.”
“But you figured it out.”
“Come on, Edie. Give me some credit. It’s not like I just walked across the street and knocked on the door and there you were.”
“And was I lost the first time you found me?”
“You tell me,” Gary says, smiling up at the ceiling as if a mural has been painted there, displaying his memory. “What if I wouldn’t have gotten hungry for a doughnut? What if I would have walked into a different bakery? Hell yes, I found you. I saw you behind the counter and I thought, There she is. That’s the girl for me.”
&n
bsp; For a few minutes they lie quietly, their eyes open to the motel room’s darkness. Then Gary says, “That’s your ex-husband, huh? I guess it’s the cancer that’s got him whittled down to a twig.”
“Dean’s always been thin,” says Edie. “He was a track star in high school. He ran the mile.”
“You know what we used to say to those track guys? They’d run past the baseball diamond and someone would always yell out, ‘What the hell are you running from?’” Gary chuckles softly at this memory, and then he gently nudges Edie. “But you’re the one who ran off. Funny. Anyway, he don’t really seem like your type.”
It takes a long time for Edie to answer. “I guess he wasn’t,” she says. “Or you wouldn’t have found me in the bakery.”
“Or here?”
This time it takes so long for her to reply that Gary might think she’s fallen asleep.
“Or here.”
CARLA SEARCHES THE shelves of her pantry. “Shit, I know I’ve got some paper plates in here,” she says.
“You told us to tell you when you say a swear word,” Troy says. “Well, you just said one.”
“Roy’s not joining us?” Jay asks.
“He’s outside smoking,” Carla says as she searches another cupboard. “A pack a day habit keeps you outside a lot.”
“It won’t kill us to eat off the real thing,” says Jay.
“The dishwasher is full,” Carla says, “and I’ll be damned if I’m going to wash dishes tonight.”
“Mom! You said another one!”
“Just stack them,” Jay offers.
“And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll get up tomorrow to a sink full of dirty dishes.”
“Never used to bother you.”
“Oh, fuck you, Jay. Just fuck you!”
“Mom!”
The paper plates are not lying flat on a shelf but instead are wedged in vertically. When Carla finds them she jerks them out—napkins and plastic forks and spoons tumbling out too—and they sail across the kitchen.
Two of the plates hit Brad on the shin and he says, “Nice shot, Mom.”
“There!” Carla shouts. “Now you can eat your goddamn chicken. Now you’ve been fed.”
“Hey, guys,” Jay says to his sons. “Why don’t you grab one of those buckets, and we can take it over to my place? You can sleep there tonight. Your mom’s kind of stressed out right now.”
