Dirty Love

by Andre Dubus III

  FOR THREE WEEKS she slept at his house every night, living out of her suitcase, garment bag, and cosmetics case. Sometimes she didn’t have all she needed and would get up in the near dark an hour early, kiss sleeping Dennis on the cheek, and drive to her apartment to get ready for work. At the bank and then at Pedro’s she disciplined herself to tell her friends nothing; over the years she’d seen how telling too much could backfire, especially with Lisa, who would fall in love with a man on Tuesday only to be talked out of it by Cheryl and Nancy on Thursday. Maybe if she hadn’t shined a light on something so private, Marla had always thought, then it would have had a chance to grow into something special. And even though a part of her couldn’t wait to tell her friends the news, she felt sure the telling would cheapen it, or maybe jinx it somehow, so she sipped her margarita and let them talk about work and their families, about vacation time and bad TV, and even though they had no idea she wasn’t the same Marla anymore, she sat back and felt the privileged comfort of the initiated.

  EARLY ONE MORNING in July, a Wednesday when it was drizzling outside and Marla was dressing to leave for her apartment and work, Dennis opened his eyes and said, “Wait.”

  Marla sat beside him on the mattress. The room was dim and she could smell the warm cotton sheets they’d slept in, made love in. He put his hand on her knee. “I have a big closet, you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Big bedroom, big living room.” He yawned and stretched his arms over his head. “Plenty of room, really.”

  “Dennis.”

  He squeezed her knee and looked right at her, his brown eyes swollen with sleep, but bright and hopeful. “You want to?”

  “You mean, move in?”

  “Yes.”

  Marla smiled and nodded. Her eyes filled up and she wiped at them, and she and Dennis both started to laugh.

  At the bank that morning, Marla performed her duties cheerfully. When Dorothy unlocked the vault for them to get their cashboxes, Marla was the first one in. While she set up her drawer and got her monitor running, she hummed an old tune she felt sure was a love song. She could hear the loan officers talking in the outer offices, Cheryl and Lisa opening their cashboxes and tapping their keyboards; she could smell the lemon wood polish the cleaners had used on the counter early this morning, Nancy’s coffee as she passed behind Marla and said, “Morning.”

  “Morning, Nance.” Marla glanced over at her friend, watched as she set down her World’s Greatest Mom coffee mug, cashbox, and pocketbook, her glasses already at the end of her lovely nose. Part of her wanted to tell her the news and part of her didn’t. She knew Nancy would want to hear the particulars, and Marla didn’t want to talk about them yet; she was still feeling them, the way she seemed to see everything as if for the first or last time: all the spots and stains in the lobby carpet, the thin cracks in the plaster ceiling way above the security lamps, the cobweb in the far corner there too, the false green of the plastic potted plant near the door, all the ink smudges on her computer monitor, the creak of the stool beneath her. Somehow, what she and Dennis were planning to do made this building and everything that happened in it seem smaller and less important.

  Dorothy walked across the lobby with the key ring in her hand; she wore a gold cardigan sweater that didn’t quite match the rust of her slacks and, from the back, with her short hair and flat shoes, made her look more like a man than a woman. Marla watched her unlock the doors, and she felt a surge of tenderness for her that she’d never quite had before, the guilty gratitude of the last swimmer in the lifeboat watching one left behind in the water.

  That night Marla and Dennis made love twice, once on the sofa in the flickering light of the TV, and again in his bed before sleep. When he finished the second time they were both quiet awhile, Dennis breathing hard, Marla’s hands holding his soft, sweaty back. They both seemed to be in the presence of something other than themselves, this silence that pulled Marla to fill it with something significant and true.

  “I love you, Dennis.”

  He took a breath and let out half of it. “Mmm, me too.” He kissed her forehead, pulled out of her, and went to the bathroom.

  Marla heard the pull of the shower curtain, the running water. She reached for a couple of tissues and patted herself between her legs. Me too, he’d said. Too shy to say I, she thought. Right? Too shy.

  The next night at Pedro’s Marla waited till their second round of margaritas before she told her friends her plan to move in with Dennis. The place was louder and more crowded than usual. A group of businessmen in ties and crisp white shirts were up at the bar laughing and toasting with their drinks. A lot of the tables were full, and even the music on the stereo seemed louder, Spanish guitars and men singing high and fast. Marla and her friends were at their regular table in the corner. Lisa had been talking about this new lawyer she was seeing, Richard, a triathlete who’d told her last night she had to quit smoking if she wanted to stay in his life.

  “Is that how he put it?” Nancy asked.

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “Just before he rolled off of me.”

  “What?” Nancy and Cheryl looked at each other, their lips parted, their eyes full of the dark joy Marla saw in them whenever they got on the subject of men’s shortcomings. This didn’t feel like the best time to bring up her and Dennis, but when else would she?

  Cheryl leaned forward. “He was inside you when he said this?”

  Lisa nodded and pulled out a cigarette she’d have to smoke on the sidewalk.

  “He’s a prick, Lisa,” Nancy said. “You know that, right? Don’t get caught up in how handsome he is and how much money he makes; a prick’s a prick.” Nancy wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked down at her margarita and stirred it with her straw. Marla thought of Carl, his empty eyes, then Dennis, the way he’d invited her so sweetly to live with him, his big hand on her knee.

  The music was too loud on the stereo. Marla leaned forward and half shouted: “Dennis asked me to live with him.”

  “He did?” Nancy looked at her as if for the first time all night. “When?”

  “Yesterday morning.”

  “Uh-oh,” Cheryl said.

  Marla turned to her. “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know, it’s kind of early in the relationship, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Lisa said, looking hard now. “I’ve met guys on Friday and moved in on Sunday.”

  “Yeah, like you should be Marla’s role model, too.”

  “Are you going to do it?” Nancy’s fingertips were on Marla’s arm and she was smiling.

  Marla nodded.

  “Good for you,” Lisa said.

  “I don’t know.” Cheryl reached for a corn chip, then dropped it back into the basket. “What’s the rush? I mean, are you thinking of marrying him?”

  “Maybe.” Marla sucked hard on her straw and was surprised there was so much liquid left in her glass. She was beginning to feel hemmed in, and she wasn’t sure why she’d told her friends when she knew all along at least one of them would end up talking about it in this way, like the decision wasn’t entirely hers.

  Nancy gently squeezed her arm. “How did he ask you?”

  “In bed.”

  “Yeah,” Cheryl said. “That’s where he wants to keep you, too.”

  “How do you know that?” Lisa said. “Maybe he loves her and wants to spend more time with her.”

  “Then he should buy her a ring.”

  “What if I’m not ready for a ring, though, Cheryl?”

  Cheryl shrugged. “Look, I just don’t think they should get a wife for free.”

  “But she’s not going to be his wife.” Lisa raised the unlit cigarette to her lips.

  Cheryl leaned closer to Marla. “Will you be sleeping together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right. Will you be cooking?”

  “What’s your point, Cheryl?” Lisa lowered her cigarette.

  “I know her point,” Nanc
y said. “She’s afraid he’s going to be getting his milk for free so why buy the cow—?” Nancy seemed to stop talking in mid-sentence. Heat rose in Marla’s face, and a foot kicked her under the table and she was sure it was Lisa’s aiming for Nancy.

  “Excuse me.” Marla made her way past the crowded tables in the blue light and smoke of the restaurant she came to every week with her best friends, but she felt like crying, and she wanted to leave early and go to Dennis’s house, to be with him right now and not them. She stepped into the bathroom. It was bright, empty, and quiet. She stood there on the hard tiles and she felt as if she were waiting for somebody to come get her, to come get her and take her someplace else.

  BECAUSE DENNIS WAS thirty-seven years old and owned all the furniture he needed, there wasn’t much room for Marla’s, so Dennis suggested they store it in the garage—her double bed and frame with the turned maple posts, the matching bureau and mirror, her deep rose sofa and love seat, her table and chairs, boxes of dishes, pots and pans—he and Marla stacked them neatly in the far corner of the empty bay next to a rolled garden hose and two rakes. It was a Saturday morning and muggy. They’d rented a small U-Haul truck. It took them most of the day to fill it and empty it, both of them dressed in loose sweats, stopping occasionally to drink from a water jug they shared, to kiss briefly, Dennis’s whiskers all wet. What Marla did bring inside were her clothes, three plants, Edna’s scratching post, and two small museum prints of a willow tree by a Flemish painter whose name she could not pronounce. She hung one above the stair landing, the other on the blank wall above the toilet. The rest of the wall space throughout Dennis’s house was taken up with large framed pictures he called “graphics,” a lot of gray and red angular lines Marla supposed only an engineer could appreciate. In the living room was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and most of it was filled with paperback espionage novels, science fiction, and a few mysteries. The sofa and recliner were oversized brown naugahyde. Neither they nor the books ever had a speck of dust on them. Once Marla had asked if he had a housecleaner. Dennis smiled. “Nope, just me.”

  At the end of the day after returning the truck, Dennis went off to buy them a takeout dinner, and Marla drove back to her old apartment to drop her keys off in her ex-landlord’s mailbox, check the closet and cabinets one last time, and get Edna, who was napping in her cushioned basket in the corner of the kitchen. Marla picked her up, held her to her chest, and walked through the bare rooms. Her footsteps had an echo, and it was as if she were leaving not only a place in her life, but a time too, that her years of solitude were over, that she was somehow, miraculously, rising to the next step and would no more be left behind than Edna, purring now against her, rubbing her ear against Marla’s throat.

  Marla’s father was the only other man she’d ever lived with; after his workday was through, he would sit in his chair in front of the TV with the newspaper, a CC and ginger ale, and a smoking Raleigh. She imagined Dennis might do something similar, sit in that huge brown recliner and unwind in front of some news show with the paper or maybe one of his many books, she on the couch with a magazine or book of her own. She looked forward to this, quiet evenings just the two of them relaxing together like that, Edna curled up between them. But most nights when Dennis came home an hour after she did, he didn’t loosen his tie and sit down: he cleaned the house. He’d take a blue feather duster and wipe down every flat surface there was, even the tops of the door and window casings, and he did it cheerfully, whistling as he went. He owned a commercial-sized vacuum cleaner that was louder than any Marla had ever heard. It had tiny headlights that lit up six inches of carpet in front of it, and Dennis seemed to keep his attention on that six inches of space as he pushed the big machine along.

  After watching him do this three nights that first week, Marla said she’d never seen anybody dust or vacuum that often, even her mother.

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “I like it, though; it clears my head. Plus, there’s cat hair now.”

  “I can clean that.”

  “No, I don’t mind.” He smiled at her. “It really clears my head.”

  Marla smiled too, then walked over and hugged him, this big eccentric engineer of hers.

  But there seemed to be more to this than just keeping his head clear; he expected her to keep hers clear too. Because she got home before he did, she usually cooked, and after they’d eaten Marla was content to let the dishes soak in soapy water for a half hour or so before she got up to clean them. When she lived alone she’d sit on the sofa with Edna awhile first, watch some trashy TV about movie-star gossip, or sometimes something fortifying on PBS. She’d run her fingers through Edna’s fur and sit there with her legs drawn up beneath her, nothing pressing to do for the first time all day. But Dennis didn’t do that. He insisted they do all the chores before they did anything else. “Business before pleasure, right?”

  The first week or two Marla went along with this; she still felt like a guest in his home, and she did not want to be impolite. But once she settled in it was harder to do things his way just because they were his way. One night after a pasta primavera dinner she’d cooked, Marla stood from the table and went right to the living room. “Let’s do the dishes later. I’m going to relax.”

  He didn’t answer her. Soon she heard the water running, Dennis rinsing the plates, glasses, and silverware, stacking them in the dishwasher. Marla stayed where she was. She reached for the remote control but wasn’t interested in watching anything, simply wanted the TV to cover up his sounds. She was still in her work clothes—a jacket, blouse, and skirt that was a bit too tight in the waist—Edna in her lap. If she were alone she would unsnap it and relax completely, but she didn’t want Dennis to see her that way. On the TV was a game show, a heavy woman trying to guess the letters of the mystery word. Dennis came into the room drying his hands on a dish towel he then folded twice. Marla smiled up at him, and he smiled back. “I love your cooking, Marla, but you sure do make a mess.”

  “I do?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then how about if you cook next time and I’ll clean up?”

  “There wouldn’t be anything to clean.” He shrugged and went back inside the kitchen.

  The next night Dennis skipped his dusting and vacuuming. Instead, he baked a meatloaf, boiled and mashed some potatoes, and heated up a pan of frozen green peas. While everything cooked, he wiped down the counter and stove, washed, dried, and put away the mixing bowl and boiling pot, even swept and damp-mopped the floor before they sat down to eat. He lit a candle and they shared a bottle of red wine. Over dinner Dennis was cheerful and expansive, talking about one of his colleagues and the gentlemen’s bet that they had to come up with an engineering problem the other would not be able to solve. Marla smiled and nodded her head at all the right times, but seeing the clean, bright kitchen behind him, she couldn’t help but feel she’d just been beaten at a game she hadn’t known she was playing.

  After dinner they both loaded the dishwasher, then sat on the couch watching whatever came on television or whatever Dennis switched the channel to: an old black-and-white war movie, a color war movie, music videos, a comedy from the seventies, the actors in polyester bell-bottoms. A strange stillness had opened up inside Marla. Was there a part of Dennis she hadn’t seen before? A nasty competitive streak? Dennis went into the clean kitchen and brought out a bowl of Oreo cookies. Marla didn’t want any, but sitting away from him watching him eat cookies made her feel worse; she curled her legs up and laid her cheek against his chest. He rested his arm over her side and hip and after a while she began to feel better. What did she expect? For him to be perfect in every way?

  In bed, they made love in the dark, and Marla held him tightly. After, curled up together and beginning to doze, Marla felt little of what she had earlier; Dennis was a good man and she was lucky to have him. She reminded herself that living together wasn’t supposed to be easy, and she fell asleep with her cheek on his warm, hairy arm.

  TWO WEEKS BEFO
RE LABOR DAY, Nancy left party invitations on Marla’s, Lisa’s, and Cheryl’s keyboards while they were in the vault getting their cashboxes. Nancy took pride in her invitations, usually scrolling the borders with a pattern from one of Carl’s computer programs—blooming flowers on a vine, tiny party hats and martini glasses. In the past Marla’s invitations had been addressed just to her, but this time, engraved in gold was: Marla and Dennis. This phrase lingered for her throughout the day; it reminded her of all the other phrases she’d always heard but never really listened to quite in this way: Nancy and Carl, Cheryl and Danny, Lisa and, lately, Richard. Even her own parents: Helen and Larry. And now Marla and Dennis; by choosing to be with one she had somehow been invited into a whole society of others.

  At the party two weeks later, Marla spent the first half hour introducing Dennis to everyone she knew, standing close enough to him that they would know right away he wasn’t just a friend. And Dennis was much better with people than she’d ever been: he called them by their first names he didn’t forget; he smiled and laughed a lot, a Michelob Light in his big hand. Marla noticed the glances of many of the women she’d seen at these parties for years, quick appraising looks at both of them. Most appeared happy for her, relieved even. One woman, Anna Harrison, her old friend’s mother-in-law, kept her eyes on Dennis’s belly for a while, looking at Marla again before turning back to conversation. She seemed to be writing them off as the two fat people who’d found each other, and Marla felt bruised by this but only for a moment or two; Dennis was really hitting it off with Carl and some of his friends from the company, talking software and search engine capability. Nancy and Carl had set up a volleyball net in the backyard beyond the pool, croquet too, but by noon it began to rain, and the guests sat in Nancy’s plush furniture around the house eating barbecued chicken and potato salad off plates in their laps. After lunch, most of the men descended to the boys’ playroom in the basement and began a dart-throwing championship while Carl and Dennis played a video game on the wide-screen.