The Bad Box

by Harvey Click

  Sarah could tell by Howard’s long silence that she was right. At last he said, “Emily Larkins. Do you know her?”

  Larkins, Larkins. The name didn’t sound familiar, but Peter knew so many women, one could hardly keep track of their names.

  “Apparently she has taken up residence in his house,” Howard said.

  Jeez. Already. That hurt.

  “The problem with Peter,” Howard said, “is perhaps not his fault. I suspect it may be in his genetic makeup. It’s evident he’s one of those pre-human primates from the Pleistocene epoch. What are they called? Oh yes, Assholelopithecus. Really, my dear, you deserve someone far better.”

  The moment she hung up, she remembered a young woman she had met a couple months ago in Peter’s office, some bubbly blond student named Emily. Of course. In fact, Sarah had sensed something at the time, something in the way the woman was sitting, something in Peter’s too-casual manner.

  Bastard! Sarah stomped to the bathroom, pulled off her soaked T-shirt and hurled it angrily into the corner. She turned the old tub faucets, adjusting the water to just barely lukewarm. The mirror, like everything else in the apartment, was old and spotted and stained. She pulled angrily at her long auburn hair. It looked damp and stringy. She should have it cut off, chopped as severely as a boy’s, something really ugly. She was sick of looking like some cute little doll baby.

  She pulled off her shorts and underwear and eased herself into the tepid water. The old claw-foot tub was large, that much at least could be said for the apartment, and her slender 107 (today) pounds fit into it comfortably.

  She lay back with her knees sticking up, trying to enjoy the rush of water against her legs. Somehow she had to get out of this mood. She shut her eyes and drifted. She thought of the small town where she had grown up; she imagined the woods just outside town where she had loved to play, the wide creek that meandered through the trees. She and her little brother Johnny would catch frogs and harmless snakes from the clear, clean water. She could see the green pebbles at the bottom. She remembered Johnny’s guileless smile, so wide that it looked almost comical on his round moon-face.

  Poor Johnny. Poor Mom. Poor Dad.

  She soaped up her washcloth and began to scrub off the second skin of grimy sweat. Friday night and not even a TV set to keep her company. She could almost hear Peter popping another cork from another bottle of wine and pouring a nice glass for Emily Larkins.

  There was a knock at her door.

  Chapter Five

  Peter stopped in the middle of the narrow street with his engine running and stared at Sarah’s apartment building. Nestled in a litter-strewn corner of two blighted streets, the building seemed to have four apartments, two on each side, with a row of windows in front of each apartment, though there wasn’t anything that anybody would want to look out at.

  Not quite ready to confront her, he continued to the stop sign just past the building and turned right. He still hadn’t decided what to say. All day he had been running speeches through his head, but at some point each one derailed into a bullying whine.

  He had felt nervous all day. His one o’clock had gone badly, a droning lecture delivered to students petrified with boredom. After class, not wanting to go home for fear that Emily might be there, he had stopped at a bar and had a few scotches to steady his nerves. The drinks had been a mistake, especially before dinner. If there was one time he needed his wits, this was it. He believed Sarah would give him one chance, but not two. He knew he should get something to eat to take the edge off the alcohol, but he felt too anxious to eat.

  The street perpendicular to hers was wider and busier, still throbbing with traffic though rush hour was over. Peter tried a new speech, saying some of the words out loud, but it began to derail as soon as he imagined her spouting out some hard fact to trip him up.

  He noticed a carry out and pulled over. Maybe some wine would soften her up. Then he would take her out to a good restaurant. The side of the carry out was painted with gang graffiti, and its windows were protected with steel mesh. Inside, the coolers and shelves had nothing but malt liquor and rotgut wine. What a neighborhood! At last he located a couple dusty bottles of Merlot on an obscure shelf. Cheap stuff, but it would have to do.

  He drove past her place again, turned the corner again, and parked beside her building on the busier street. If she saw his car parked out front she might not open the door. His legs felt weak and rebellious, and he had to force himself to climb the crumbling concrete steps up to the front door and step into the dingy landing. There was her door on the right, its metal A hanging loose and crooked. He knocked.

  Maybe she has a man in there? he thought. Then he heard some splashing: she must be taking a bath. He pictured Sarah sitting naked in the tub. Maybe she would greet him at the door wearing nothing but a towel. The thought brought the alcohol to his head in a dizzy rush.

  “Who is it?”

  “Peter.”

  A long pause. At last she said, “Jeez. Wait a minute. Let me get something on.”

  It seemed to take forever. Finally the door opened, and Sarah stood there frowning and rubbing the damp ends of her long hair with a towel. She had put on a T-shirt and shorts. It seemed unfair to Peter that he was no longer permitted to see her undressed.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You think I have no right to be here. You don’t even want to let me in. You think I’m a jerk. But you have to let me talk to you.”

  Sarah stared for a few seconds and then shrugged. “Come in.”

  He marched past her on wobbly legs, down a short hallway to her living room. It wasn’t the opening he had planned, blaming everything on himself like that, but at least it had gotten him through the door.

  The living room was a mess, some ratty sofa that she must have found at Salvation Army, some other pathetic junk. A dining room to the left was crammed with books and boxes and her computer sitting on a cheap table heaped with papers. Good. She must want out of here as badly as he wanted her out.

  Peter sank into the sofa and stared at the bottles grasped in his fists. He put them on the floor because there was no coffee table. Where was she? In the kitchen, rummaging around. Before long she appeared with a corkscrew and one glass.

  “Don’t you want any?” he asked. “I brought it for you.”

  “No thanks. I have stuff to do tonight.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. What stuff? Did she have a date?

  Sarah sat across from him on a cheap old chair and continued drying the ends of her hair, ignoring him. He had nearly forgotten how pretty her green eyes were, how delicately her chin was shaped. Something about the corners of her mouth, the way they turned down even when smiling—like no one else’s.

  “What stuff?” he asked.

  “I’m writing. I’m right in the middle of a section, and I want to get back to it with a clear head.”

  She put down the towel and scratched her thigh, a mosquito bite or something, and it turned pink. Peter wanted to kiss it. He stared at her legs, thin and smooth as a girl’s.

  “Really? What are you writing?”

  “My book.”

  Her book? Yes, of course. She had talked about some silly notion, something to do with her thesis, but he had never paid it much mind.

  “That’s nice,” he said at last. “Well, then, I won’t have any either. Really, I brought it for you. The bottles are a little dusty—they’ve been sitting in my cellar, waiting for a special occasion.”

  “You sound like you already had a few,” she said.

  It made him feel like a derelict, already potted before dinner time. Sarah had a talent for shrinking him down to the size of a fly spot.

  “Do I? Actually I did have a couple—at the faculty club.”

  Peter didn’t like the way she was looking at him, scarcely blinking, her expression unreadable. He felt old and shabby, sweating alcohol in the humid heat, his shirt sticking to his wet armpits. He was holding the glass
in one hand, the corkscrew in the other, and he didn’t know what to do with them. He placed the glass on the floor but continued holding the corkscrew, feeling foolish.

  “Well, how’s it coming?” he asked. “The book I mean.”

  “Not too bad. Took a while getting started, but now it’s moving right along.”

  He thought it was a bluff. He didn’t believe she was really writing a book. She was trying to sound as if she had landed on her feet. She was trying to make him feel small, remind him that he hadn’t written anything publishable for many years. It was a dirty trick.

  “That’s nice,” he said. “So, what else have you been doing?”

  She shrugged. “Not much. What about you?”

  “Nothing. Just teaching. Not going so well this summer.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  But her cool gaze didn’t look sympathetic. Peter shifted uncomfortably, wanting to scratch his armpit, which was trickling sweat. The least Sarah could do was bring in the fan that was rattling away in the other room. She wanted him to be uncomfortable; she had him in the hot seat.

  She didn’t seem to be sweating at all. Something bothered him about her calm gaze, her eyes like still green ponds. She was the nervous type; this serene expression wasn’t like her.

  “The truth is, I’ve been missing you,” he said, annoyed that he was the only one humbling himself.

  “That’s natural, I suppose,” she said. The green pools of her eyes didn’t show a ripple. “I mean when people break up they sometimes miss each other for a while.”

  “I don’t mean for a while or any of that rubbish,” Peter said, his tone sharpening to an irritable edge. “I mean I really miss you. I want you to come back. I’ve been miserable.”

  “Funny. I hear you’ve been keeping yourself pretty well entertained.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m told you have someone named Emily Larkins living with you.”

  That traitor Howard Goldwin—it had to be.

  “Nonsense! Who told you that? She is not living with me. She’s just a friend, that’s all. Who said she’s living with me? It’s a fucking lie.”

  Peter realized he was starting to shout. He lowered his voice, but now it sounded weak and unconvincing. “I haven’t been seeing anyone, I’ve just been thinking about you all the time. I know I did a lot of things wrong, but that’s all going to change.”

  He went on and on, repeating himself, pleading. Almost without noticing it, he had removed the cork from one of the bottles and poured himself a glass. He needed it. The wine was too warm and a little sour, but he finished one glass and filled another. Sarah sat with her bare feet on the seat of her chair, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting on her hands, the corners of her mouth turned down in a tantalizing frown, and she looked so sexy, so small, that he could scarcely bear it. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.

  He kept trying to tell her how he understood so much more now, how he wished he had taken the summer off and taken her to Greece, how profoundly he had changed, but he was having trouble keeping the irritable edge out of his voice.

  Sarah’s eyes maintained that tranquil gaze, and it occurred to him that she had picked up this new demeanor from some man, the way lovers often borrowed gestures and tics from each other. Who was this man, already impregnating her with his Goddamned annoying mannerisms?

  “I didn’t realize how much you meant. You’re everything to me, everything,” and while Peter spoke he kept staring at her legs and hoping that all this would end with them in bed together, tonight, now, he didn’t want to wait, he wanted to take that T-shirt off of her now, touch her sweet little breasts, pull down her shorts, and the more urgent this need grew, the more hurt and angry he became that she was not responding to his need, just gazing at him with some bullshit Buddha expression in her eyes that she probably had picked up from her new lover—maybe she was even thinking of that new lover ripping off her T-shirt, enjoying her breasts and her slim legs. He realized that everything was coming out wrong, that he was bellowing at her, blaming her for everything, shaking the corkscrew at her like an absurd weapon.

  “So that’s that!” he finally shouted. “That’s the way I feel!”

  “Peter,” she said, “you’re snot-flinging drunk.”

  “I’m not drunk!” he roared, though he knew he was. It had been a terrible mistake to drink before coming over. Now he had blown it. He felt like crying. No, he’d be damned if he would let her see him blubbering.

  He shut up and waited for her response like an accused man waiting for the verdict. So he was drunk—big deal. Surely she would understand. It was human to get drunk, human to roar sometimes. Humans had emotions, even if Sarah didn’t.

  The verdict finally arrived: “I’m not in the mood for this tonight,” she said.

  He couldn’t take any more. She loved this, he thought, loved watching him grovel and crawl. Burning with humiliation, he walked to the door, but it was fastened with so many chains and bars that he couldn’t get it open, and she had to help him. He felt her small body against his as she undid the locks.

  “Maybe we can learn to be friends,” she said. “Maybe you could call me when you’re sober.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Peter stumbled out of the building, and the twilight heat made his stomach reel. Down the street some young thugs were eyeing him. Where the hell was his car? Oh yes, around the corner.

  Two years shot straight to hell, he thought. When they had met, he had held all the cards: a prestigious position, a beautiful house, countless friends. She was a student struggling on a paltry TA’s stipend, new to town and all alone. He had given her comfort, friends, a nice place to live.

  Now she imagined she had the winning hand with some kind of wild joker card stuck up her sleeve, some Buddha-eyed lover-man that she had slipped between her sheets, and that gave her the right to humiliate him. Fuck her.

  He had rounded the corner and was nearing his car when a sound caused him to glance at the rear of her building. A woman on the fire escape was locking the back door of the upper apartment across from Sarah’s. Peter watched her climb down the stairs. Striking, with dark glasses, a short pink skirt, and long blond hair. She made her way through the scruffy back yard, heading toward him. When she noticed him watching, he looked away and continued to his car.

  What an interesting idea, he thought. Sarah’s neighbor—wouldn’t that be something? Let her see what it feels like to be humiliated. Do the ol’ in-an’-out nasties right there under her nose, or rather right there above it.

  While he fumbled with his keys, he stole another glance. The blonde was standing at the bus stop. No place for a young woman all alone, he thought. He wondered if she was a hooker. He brushed his hair back with his fingers and walked over.

  “Hello,” he said.

  She pushed a golden strand of hair out of her face and smiled. Very pretty, Nordic maybe.

  “Seems like a dangerous neighborhood,” he said. “I wish you’d let me give you a ride.”

  “How do I know you’re not dangerous?” she asked. But still smiling.

  “Do I look dangerous?” He probably did, he realized. Probably stank of alcohol too.

  “One never knows, until it’s too late,” she said. Nice voice, sultry and low, but with some breeding in it. Definitely not a hooker.

  “I’m a professor,” he said. “Sociology.” Hard word to get your mouth around, and he slurred it a little. “That’s as harmless as they come. Where are you going?”

  She shrugged, and her loose-necked top slipped down a little, revealing a black bra strap. “Just out for a drink.”

  Peter thought he could see a bus approaching in the distance behind her. “Good,” he said. “I know a great little place. I’ll buy you dinner and all the drinks you want.”

  It worked. As they headed for his car, he found it hard not to laugh out loud. That bitch Sarah wouldn’t be gloating much longer. T
his was going to be rich.

  Chapter Six

  Angel was above him on the fire escape, but instead of looking up her short skirt as he was tempted, Peter stared at Sarah’s rear window. The light was still on, and he thought he could see a shadow moving on her window blind. No doubt staying up late to peck away at her ridiculous book. What arrogance, imagining that she could write a book! She should get a job—probably some nearby restaurant needed a dishwasher.

  He made plenty of racket on the metal stairs, hoping she would look out. Suddenly he was inspired. He began to sing “Strangers in the Night.”

  That did it. The blind moved, and he glimpsed Sarah’s face at the window, her Buddha-calm replaced with wide-eyed shock. Her face vanished and the blind fell.

  Ha! Popped her stupid little bubble of nirvana.

  Luck had been shining on Peter all evening, ever since he had gotten up from Sarah’s hot seat. He had taken Angel to a cozy restaurant, and if he hadn’t known the maitre-d they wouldn’t have gotten in without a reservation. Nice impressive touch of luck there, being slipped in like a celebrity.

  The food was the best this town had to offer, and after eating they had enjoyed a lovely conversation. Nice to know that not all women shared Sarah’s disparaging opinion of him. Angel had appreciated every joke he had made, every anecdote, every opinion, every glittering gem of wit.

  And she was no stupid woman. That was obvious from her manner of speaking—articulate, grammatical, almost bookish. Not that she had spoken much. In fact, she had said next to nothing about herself, but she listened with intelligence, like an ideal student. Sarah could learn plenty from her.

  Cheap date too—she had nursed a single glass of Cabernet the whole night, leaving the rest of the bottle to him. But thanks to the food, he now felt lucidly high instead of sloppily drunk.

  Angel got her back door unlocked, and he stepped from the fire escape into her dark kitchen. Hot and musty. The kitchen was bare, not even a table.

  He followed her nice slender hips into the living room. Just a sofa and a few books, not even in bookcases, but stacked on the mantle. He could scarcely see into the murky dining room, but it looked barer still. Maybe she didn’t even live here, maybe the place was her love nest. Maybe she was married.