Dirty Love

by Andre Dubus III

  Over the years, Nancy had suggested it was her personality that needed some attention, that Marla was too honest. The first time she said this was on a Monday morning before the bank opened its doors. Nancy had come in wearing a black rayon blouse that made her breasts look small and pointy, which then made her look somehow more middle-aged and inappropriately sexy. When she asked Marla if she liked it Marla had told her the truth. “Not really.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You asked me what I thought.”

  “That doesn’t give you license to say what you really think, you know. Jesus.” Nancy set her cashbox loudly on the counter.

  Marla’s face got hot and she stared at her keyboard.

  “I mean, that’s just not how people make conversation, and, I’m sorry, but that’s why you never get asked out—you always say what you really think.”

  Marla’s eyes began to fill and she had to reach for one of the tissues the bank left out for its customers. It was the start of another workweek and all she’d done over the weekend was call her parents down in Florida, gone grocery shopping, mopped her kitchen floor, and watched rented movies with Edna. She began to dab at the corners of her eyes, then heard Nancy let out a breath, felt her hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just—you need to go with the flow more, okay? Make a little small talk.”

  But no matter how much Nancy had suggested this over the years, Marla was not convinced; if a man was impressed with small talk, how big could he really be? When she was a girl, her own father only spoke when he had something to say, his feet up on the plaid hassock in front of the TV, and it’d be one or two words, a question whose answer he only seemed to half listen to. She’d feel invisible and say, “Daddy, you’re not listening.” But by the time she was out of high school and going to the business college in Boston, she had long since stopped waiting for him to respond more than he did. She’d sit on the couch next to his recliner at the end of a long afternoon of classes and he might reach over and pinch her knee. “Having fun? Learning anything?”

  “I’m learning things.” That the world was a marketplace of numbers, nothing but numbers: debit columns and profit margins, mergers, acquisitions, charts, graphs, codes, leveraged buyouts, and bankruptcies; that she always did well on exams and ate lunch alone; that she began to see her mother as a woman, a truly unhappy one, who had always worried about money and could hardly let a day pass without mentioning how poorly the boxboard company had treated her husband. Marla began to notice how old her mother seemed to be getting, that after so many years working the switchboard at St. Mary’s Hospital she spoke to everyone with a slightly impatient edge, as if she still had the headset on and was getting ready to press a button and send whatever you were saying along to somebody else. Soon Marla became friends with another woman who ate alone too, a sweet big-nosed girl who worked part-time at a bank downtown. She said they were looking for somebody reliable to work a window, and just two days after their graduation, she introduced Marla to Dorothy, who never smiled but took her on anyway. Then Marla’s friend got married to Frank Harrison III, the son of one of the loan officers, and at the reception Marla had gotten tipsy with her new workmates. She’d danced with Nancy’s husband Carl, who had pressed his sweaty cheek to hers; she felt included and welcome, and the whole room seemed to be lit with the light of open doorways; Marla began to believe that her childhood was something she’d endured, and now that she was in the adult world things would get easier, better.

  AT THE BANK, her tasks were repetitive and her days soon became predictable, yet there was a real comfort in dressing well and having people trust you to store their money with precision and honesty; sometimes Marla would see one of her customers on the street and get an almost shy but respectful wave, the kind she’d once given to her own gynecologist, the kind you give to the one you trust with the knowledge of what you have.

  Marla began to hope for more, too; a real boyfriend, the loving company of someone other than her old cat, Edna. And Nancy was right. Over the years Marla had had conversations with men at house parties and bank barbecues, but she never could seem to keep things going; she could only talk about work, about interest rates and the convenience of online banking, her computer screen hurting her eyes at the end of the day. There was really little else she knew much about. Soon enough even the homeliest of men would smile politely, then drift away with their plate of food to either talk with somebody else, or just stand alone at the bar or buffet table. Marla would stay where she was and try to pretend she didn’t care. She knew she was dull company, and she also knew if she were slim and pretty, but just as dull, they wouldn’t drift away at all. Sometimes Nancy or one of the other girls would whisper to Marla to follow, to keep the conversation going no matter what. But Marla refused; if someone wasn’t interested in her, then he wasn’t interested in her.

  Nancy suggested she look in the personal ads or log into an online dating service. But the idea left Marla feeling more desperate than she believed she truly was, and she resented these prods from her friends. All of them had come from big loud families, and Nancy already had her own, but what they didn’t understand, Marla thought, was that she’d always been alone; she had no brother or sister. Until now there’d only been one real friend, the last two years of middle school—Hannah. She had a round face, stringy hair, and always smelled like mustard and clothes starch. She lived next door and for two years they spent nearly every afternoon playing board games, reading Judy Blume books side by side on the bed, watching TV and eating cereal out of the box, washing it down with Coke or Pepsi, getting giddy and laughing so hard Marla could see a forked vein in Hannah’s forehead. Then it was high school, and Hannah’s face was no longer round; she had breasts and a waist and slim legs she showed off in tight jeans; she grew her hair long, and if Marla saw her at all it was as she climbed into a boy’s car and roared off down the street.

  Then, in the late spring of her eighth year at the bank, Dennis Munson started coming to her window. He was big, with a beard and a hard-looking belly, the rest of him thick and solid like he’d done something athletic at one time. Marla didn’t notice him much at first. But after a while it seemed he always waited for her window when another was open, and when he stepped up she felt something flutter just under her ribs. She was drawn to him: his size and quiet sweetness, his neat and legible deposit slips, the tentative way he’d push them over to her, his thirty thousand dollars in savings. Marla thought a balance like that showed maturity, the kind of person who planned ahead. He had a high voice for a man, but it was melodious, too, the way he would say, “How are you today?,” each word pulled smoothly into the next, like a lyric she’d never heard before.

  On a Friday in May, twenty minutes before the bank locked its doors, he deposited his payroll check with her, took his weekend spending money—one hundred and twenty-five dollars—and stood there looking at her, blinking fast, like he had something in his eyes. “Do you have plans after work?”

  Marla’s blood seemed to pause in her veins; was he asking what she thought he was? “Not really.”

  “Want to get a bite to eat with me?” His eyes stopped blinking and big Dennis Munson was looking right at her—just her face, but Marla felt as if he was seeing every bit of her, and it was all okay with him.

  “All right.”

  “I’ll meet you out front after you close?”

  Marla nodded and tried to smile. Her mouth was dry and she couldn’t look at him and she didn’t want to say anything more. She picked up a stack of deposit slips and tapped them on the counter. She turned to her keyboard and pressed the space bar three times. When she looked back up, he was on his way out the door, his tweed-covered back looking so broad. Soon Nancy’s face was inches from Marla’s, her voice a shrill whisper: “Make him take you someplace nice.”

  And it was nice, a small Italian restaurant on the other sid
e of town. Dennis owned a Nissan, and he opened the passenger door for her, the inside clean and smelling like vanilla air freshener. Stuck to the dustless dashboard was a small notepad and pencil and his neat penmanship:

  3 sectors?

  Frequency reuse pattern of 7?

  Marla asked him about it, and when she did her voice sounded just right to her, not flat or nervous or overeager to please, and she enjoyed listening to what Dennis told her as he drove through town.

  “I’m a radio-frequency engineer. I get my best thoughts on the highway.”

  “Maybe driving fast makes your brain go faster.” Marla meant this as a real possibility, but big Dennis laughed and she did too, and she liked how warm his smile was after the laugh was over.

  At the restaurant he pulled her chair out for her, a gesture Marla had only seen in Gene Kelly movies. He asked if she’d like a glass of wine and Marla nodded, trying to think if she wanted white or red, but before she said anything Dennis waved the waiter over and ordered a bottle of Chianti. The busboy brought over a basket of glistening garlic bread. Marla was going to abstain, but Dennis cut a section off for her and placed it on her bread plate before serving himself.

  They were quiet at first, studying the menus, chewing garlic bread, sipping their wine. Marla was hungry, and if alone would’ve ordered lasagna or veal parmigiana. But with Big Dennis Munson she settled on a plate of antipasto.

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes, I’m not that hungry.”

  “You sure?” He looked concerned, his lips pursed behind his whiskers, and Marla knew why she was so relaxed; she felt appreciated and cared for, had ever since she’d first noticed him waiting for her window, and now tonight the way he held his car door open for her, how he’d laughed at her accidental joke.

  “Well,” she said, “could we share something? Lasagna or something?”

  “Sure we could.”

  They finished the garlic bread, then spilt the antipasto and a platter of lasagna and sausages. The waiter brought them each a clean plate, but Dennis waved him away and pushed the lasagna to the middle of the small table, and they ate it slowly, one bite at a time, till their forks touched and Marla’s face and throat flushed.

  He’d been telling her about his job scouting locations for cellular towers, about his three brothers, two of whom were engineers, too. How his company transferred him here six months ago, and how much he liked these old New England mill towns, the mountains to the north, the beach to the east. And even though he didn’t ask her many questions about herself, Marla felt privileged to hear some of his life. They each ordered a tapioca pudding for dessert, and she was grateful when he dropped her at her car in the bank parking lot and took her hand in both of his, said in his high voice, “I had a nice time with you. Can we do it again sometime?”

  “Yes, I’d like that.” Marla’s face felt puffy to her, too warm from the wine, and she hoped she didn’t look fat as he stood there taking her in, her hand lost in his. He leaned forward and kissed her on the upper cheek. His whiskers were surprisingly soft.

  They dated for five weeks, ate at nearly all the restaurants in town, went to six movies—most of them action films Dennis had heard were quite good—and started seeing each other during the day as well. One Saturday in early June they held hands and strolled along the new boardwalk along the river. The sun was bright and Marla smelled the drying mud of the riverbanks, the hot pretzels of the vendor in the shade of his own umbrella. There was a young family there, a boy and girl with their mother and father, the woman slim and pretty, her bare legs lean and hard-looking. Marla was aware of her own legs being twice as large and not muscular at all. She was wearing baggy khaki shorts that went almost to her knees; before Dennis picked her up she’d changed out of them twice, but it was too hot for sweatpants or even a long skirt, and she knew those shorts were exactly what she would wear if she were going out today alone. But when Dennis picked her up he smiled at her as warmly as he always did, as if he really appreciated her, admired her even; he wore shorts too, and Marla saw how thick and pale and hairy his legs were. Now they were past the pretzel vendor and the family, walking under the sun along the river. She could smell Dennis’s cologne—too perfumey, she thought—but she had begun to match that smell up with him and was growing to like it, the same way she was growing to like nearly everything about him: his bushy beard and big hands, the careful way he held her when they kissed longer and longer after each date, the way he seemed to listen to whatever he had to say—her stories from work usually, describing impatient customers or Dorothy’s constant demand for efficiency, for their cashbox and keyboard totals to be perfect to the penny every shift. And Dennis would listen completely, walking slowly beside her, nodding his head, his eyes on the ground in front of them.

  At Pedro’s the girls teased her gently about being smitten, and Lisa squeezed a lime into her drink and asked if the eagle had landed yet.

  “What?”

  “You know, the eagle. Has he landed in your nest?”

  Everyone laughed and Marla’s face got hot, and she was relieved when Nancy seemed to rescue her with a joke about a priest and nine nuns. As she did, Marla held her margarita and looked around the table at her best friends in the cool blue light of Pedro’s: Lisa and her dark sassy eyes; Cheryl and her streaked hair, square jaw, and tanning-booth tan; Nancy with her wire-rimmed glasses and pretty lined face holding back a laugh as she described nuns riding bicycles with no seats. Marla felt more a part of them than ever. She kept hearing the words eagle and nest, and something warm seemed to stir and loosen inside her, the same feeling she got whenever she and Dennis touched. She’d been wondering why he never tried to do more than that; he seemed to like her body and did not shy away from pressing his hands into the flesh above her hips as they kissed. Maybe he didn’t know she wanted to. Maybe he needed some encouragement.

  The next day after lunch, Friday, she walked to the pharmacy in Railroad Square, found the aisle with enemas, vaginal creams, and douches, then the small box of colorful condoms. She was drawn to one with the nude silhouette of a man and woman facing each other, Maximum Protection printed where their lower bodies should be. She walked straight to the counter. The cashier was a woman much older than she was, who narrowed her eyes through bifocals at the price on the box, nothing else. Soon the condoms were in a bag in Marla’s hand, and as she stepped out onto the sunlit sidewalk she felt part of the bigger picture somehow, more of a citizen of the world she lived in.

  That night Dennis had wanted to see a cop thriller, but Marla insisted they see instead a movie about an angel who falls in love with a mortal on earth and is willing to give up his wings to have her. When the movie ended, her mascara was smeared and she was leaning her cheek against Dennis’s shoulder. They were sitting at the wall end of a row and didn’t have to stand right away when the lights came up. She held his hand in both of hers, and she imagined him as a big bearded angel shucking his wings and all his powers to sit with her in the dark of a movie theater, to make love with her in his bedroom. She kissed his neck and whispered: “I think we should go to your house.”

  “Right, I should finally give you a tour.”

  “I don’t mean that.”

  He turned in his seat and looked at her, his brown eyes alert above the tangle of his beard. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and he smiled at her. Shyly, she thought.

  It was a quiet drive back to his neighborhood of two-story ranch houses and square lawns beneath evenly spaced streetlights. He unlocked his front door and the dark house smelled like vacuumed carpet and something vaguely fruity, bananas in the kitchen. There was only the light from the steps outside. Dennis took her sweater, then kissed her, his mouth open, his arms pulling her to him.

  He led her upstairs. Then she was in his room, and she was grateful he left on only the hall light. As he sat on the bed and began to untie his shoes, she reached into her pocketbook for the box of condoms. Her fingers were trem
bling. She didn’t know if he could see what she had, and she didn’t want to call attention to it yet, so she made her way through the partial darkness and placed it on his bedside table. If he noticed it, he didn’t show it. The room was too dark to see much, but she undressed quickly and slid beneath the covers, which felt a bit gritty and smelled like his cologne. Then he was beside her. She could feel the entire length of his body, its fleshy warmth. He began to touch her knee and kiss her gently, tentatively. His leg was over hers, his knee resting where no one else had ever been. She could feel his hardness, and her eyes filled up. She wanted to tell him how much this meant to her, but as he began to kiss her neck and shoulder, then the beginning of her breast, she was afraid if he knew the truth he would think something must be wrong with her and everything that was happening would stop. She let him kiss her nipple, then pulled him to her and kissed his lips; he was careful not to rest his great weight on her, and she felt the pressure of him against her down there, the way she began to open up and take him in, the stretch and slight burn. Dennis stopped.

  “I don’t have anything.”

  Marla could feel her heart beating in her arm as she reached for the condom box. Dennis sat up and she listened as he opened it, then unwrapped a package, the quiet of him rolling it onto himself. Was that it? Did he roll it on? She felt cold and covered her breasts with her arms, again grateful for the dark, grateful when he positioned himself over her, grateful for his warmth, for his slow careful push into her, as if he’d known all along anyway, and it was gentle and sweet and hurt all the way to feeling good.