“We’ll only talk with our hands,” Gary said. Denise giggled.
“Good,” Johnny said. “Good. Everything’s fine,” he added for Gary’s benefit.
He walked back up and closed the basement door softly. Then he went to the front and waited by the window. When he saw his parents drive up, he went out to greet them. His father got out of the car quickly and slammed the door hard.
Johnny remembered Mr. Lucy’s words. “They’d be angry,” he said, “angrier than usual because they’d be embarrassed and frustrated. They’d expect to go back to their party, maybe, but in any case, they knew everyone back there was waiting to find out what had happened.”
“What is it?” Johnny’s father demanded as soon as he saw his son. His father was a big man, well over six feet tall. He had been a good athlete in college and now, despite his heavy work and social schedule, he kept himself in relatively good shape. When he was angry, his face reddened so quickly he looked as though he would have an explosion of blood at the top of his head. Once, Johnny humorously compared him to a thermometer. His mother laughed but his father didn’t think it was so funny.
“What happened, Johnny?” his mother asked. She came around the car quickly. It never took much to get his mother set off. She was normally high-strung and nervous, which was supposedly why she remained so thin. “Is this some kind of a prank, because if it is…”
“It’s no joke, unless you think it is. I don’t like being a snitch, but…”
“What?” his father demanded, his arms extended.
“Go on down to the basement and leave me out of it,” Johnny said, feigning indignation.
“My God, what could it be?” his mother asked. She brought her hands to her mouth and pressed them against her lips as though to stop herself from screaming.
“Damn,” Thomas Masterson said. He hurried into the house, his wife right behind him. Johnny watched them and then smiled.
After a moment he walked back to the front door. By the time he reentered, they were already down the basement steps.
6
Ellen had taken to looking out her windows more than ever. She told herself that it was a nervous habit, something she always did, but she had difficulty lying to herself, especially when every time she looked out the window, her heartbeat quickened. She knew she was anticipating him, hoping to see him. When she was honest with herself, she told herself she was acting like a teenager with a crush. That thought embarrassed her and drove her to attack her housework with a vicious enthusiasm.
Vaguely she understood that when she pressed that vacuum cleaner to the rug, practically digging out the material, she was transferring her frustration into the effort to clean. Never did her furniture shine so. The windows were so clear that they looked invisible. The tiled bathroom and kitchen floors were practically aseptic. She had gotten on her hands and knees to scrub out cracks and corners.
Barton, who hardly ever noticed any changes in the house, remarked about the new spic and span appearance. His comment brought out guilt immediately and she became defensive, but so vehemently defensive that she had him apologizing profusely and feeling terrible.
“What does that mean?” she asked him. “That the house isn’t usually clean? You have some complaints? Someone said something to you?”
“No, never. I just…”
“I try my best, Bart. If that’s not good enough for you, hire a cleaning lady.”
“All I said was…”
“How would you like me to be critical of the work you do or what you contribute to this marriage?”
“I wasn’t critical.” He held his hands out, practically begging for her understanding, but she was unrelenting with her tirade.
When she walked out of the room, she was crying, but she wasn’t sure of the cause. She knew only that it wasn’t really his fault. He came after her, trying every way he could to placate her. He even suggested that they take a vacation. But that idea was the most threatening. He was surprised to see how quickly she rejected it. It was something she brought up from time to time.
“I’m not looking for a change of scenery. What good is a change of scenery going to do? I have to come back to this afterward, don’t I?”
“I know, but I thought you said…I have two weeks coming and…”
“Save it for when the weather’s bad here,” she said. He shook his head and retreated.
It was all too confusing for him. Why did women have to be so damn complicated? Later, Ellen was nice to him, even overly solicitous. She behaved like a servant instead of a wife, and filled her voice with such sweet, soft tones, he was lulled into forgetting the entire incident. Although they didn’t make love, she was affectionate. Her gentle and considerate manner continued into the following morning. Feeling secure again, he went off to work, unaware of the rupture tearing at the fabric of his marriage.
But she sensed it more and more. Each time she caught sight of Adam Lucy, each time he waved to her or smiled or nodded, she felt the frustration swell within her. These thoughts and feelings manifested themselves into an actual physical symptom—her skin suddenly became very sensitive. She couldn’t touch her arm or her stomach without sending a tingling all along her body. Often, in the middle of the day, she would have a heat flash. She would gasp, get a glass of water, throw herself into exercise, try to read, watch television, call her friends, go shopping, and generally do anything she could to keep herself from thinking about him. None of it worked.
And she met him coincidentally so often that she felt she was fated to do so. One time, at the supermarket, she came around the corner of an aisle and nearly bumped into his cart. When he looked up at her, she was speechless. It brought a smile to his face. Embarrassed at her own reaction, she hurried on, positive he was laughing at her.
It seemed to her that her friends talked about him all the time, too. He was rapidly becoming quite a hit with the parents of the students he tutored and the students themselves. Nearly all of his available hours were taken. Even Myra had changed her initial impression of him. She said he was having incredible success with Sandy.
“Not just her schoolwork, either. She’s behaving like a mature person at home. My brother is very pleased.”
Whenever they had these conversations, everyone turned to Ellen because she lived right next door to him, and asked her if she had seen him lately or spoken to him. What they wanted to know is did she learn anything more about him.
“No one seems to know anything concrete,” Sally Anderman said. “Tillie Okun says he slips questions about himself like she slips questions Bernie asks her about their bills.” Everyone laughed.
Ellen tried to appear nonchalant about him, even to the point of ridiculing her friends for being so interested in him. Yes, she saw him occasionally and occasionally they had some insignificant conversations. No, she didn’t pursue him with personal questions and he didn’t volunteer any information, but it was like Barton said—he was just a man who enjoyed his privacy.
“We’re just going to have to respect that,” she concluded, recognizing herself that she sounded somewhat pedantic.
“You’re such a killjoy lately,” Toby told her.
“I am not. I’m just not acting like a silly teenager,” she said, but Toby wasn’t discouraged.
“Morris said he learned something about him. It’s not something he could confirm, but it’s a story,” Toby offered. Ellen tried desperately to appear disinterested, but she couldn’t control the way her throat tightened and her voice cracked.
“Some story someone made up, I’m sure,” she said. “And then we’ll go off spreading it as though it were the gospel truth.”
“You heard it?”
“No.” From the way Toby asked her, it was obvious that it was something negative. “All right, what did he learn?”
“He said he heard that Mr. Lucy was married but his wife committed suicide. That’s why he left the place he was at and came here to live.”
�
�He doesn’t act like a depressed person, Toby. Morris will have to come up with something else,” she said. She said it as dryly as she could, but she couldn’t wait to be alone to think about it.
Her imagination ran wild. All sorts of scenarios developed in her mind. Why couldn’t Morris’s story be true? It made sense. That was why Adam didn’t talk much about himself. His past was painful. But why was he so kind to her, so willing to talk to her…so…she liked to believe…interested in her?
Was it because she reminded him of his dead wife? It could be. Maybe the resemblance was so strong, it was the main reason he rented the Taylor house. He had seen her, learned where she lived, and sought out quarters that were close by. How dramatic. How romantic. In fact wasn’t there a romance novel she had read that had a similar plot premise?
She caught herself daydreaming like this more and more, and what frightened her the most about it was that she never realized it until she snapped out of it. Just how much time was she spending on these fantasies? She was like someone who went in and out of a romantic coma. It began to frighten her. Maybe Barton was right. Maybe they should get away for a while; maybe a change in scenery was exactly what she needed. She thought she would tell him she had changed her mind—they should go on a vacation now.
Then one morning shortly after Barton had left for work, she looked out the window and saw Adam Lucy returning from his early jog. She knew that he jogged, but he told her he did it so early that she never looked for him before. This morning he had either run longer or started later. She saw him coming down the block, moving gracefully, looking strong and alive. She thought if Barton ever did this, he’d keel over by the time he reached the corner of the street.
Mornings were very cool now. She could see the little puffs of breath at Adam’s mouth as he jogged. She was still dressed only in her housecoat, her hair was loose and uncombed, and her face was without makeup, but she couldn’t resist stepping out of her front door to greet him as he went by.
His sweat suit looked form-fitted. The shirt revealed the firmness in his arms and shoulders. The material, dampened from his perspiration, clung to him. She could see his leg muscles flex beneath the garment as he moved. His body was symmetrical, his waist and buttocks small.
For her there was something unreal about such physical attractiveness. It was as though he were a sculpture of Adonis come to life, a movie idol who stepped out of the screen, or a male model lifted from the pages of a magazine and placed on her block. In a moment she would close her eyes and open them and he would be gone. It had all been a dream. He had never come to Centerville.
But he was there; he was real. He stopped at her front entrance and ran in place when he saw her.
“Morning.”
“Later than usual today, aren’t you?”
“Ran a little further. Felt like it. It’s such a beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
She looked up as though first noticing the sky. It was true—there wasn’t a cloud in it and the blue was deeper and brighter than usual. She took a deep breath and nodded, closing her eyes as though to let the hand of morning caress her. He laughed at her emphatic appreciation of nature.
“You make running look so enjoyable. I might get up one morning and join you. Not that I could keep up,” she added quickly.
“You’d be surprised at what you can do, especially someone like you who is already into a regular pattern of exercise. Of course,” he said, stopping his running in place and leaning on the fence post, “you’d have to wear something a little more compatible with running.”
“Oh God,” she said, “I didn’t even think about my appearance.” She was surprised at herself. More and more she was acting like someone in a trance. She ran her hands through her hair, and her housecoat parted from her calves to her upper thigh. She squeezed the garment closed quickly. Once again, he laughed, but it was a warm laugh, an attractive laugh, a laugh that made her feel comfortable, not embarrassed.
“It’s all right. You look great. You look natural,” he said. His gaze was penetrating, even hypnotic. She had the wild urge to slip out of her housecoat and stand naked before him in the morning sun.
“I’m hearing good things about you,” she said quickly. “So many of your students are improving.”
“Thanks.” There was a dramatic pause. She looked at his house.
“How’s the house?”
“Fine. Everything works. Have you ever seen the inside of it?” he asked.
“Actually, no.”
“It’s an interesting place. You should come in one day and see it.”
“Yes,” she said but it was a weak yes. She touched the bottom of her throat. Why wasn’t she cold? She should be cold standing out here like this, she thought.
Then, it just burst out of her. After she said it, she could hardly believe she had said it. It was as though there were someone else within her, someone who had taken over her mind and her body. She felt more like an observer.
“I still have some hot coffee, if you’d like some.”
“Well, thank you,” he said. “That’s very generous of you, but I’ve run into quite a sweat,” he added, pulling the material away from his body. “I don’t think I’d be very good company right now. I’ve got to take a shower.”
“Of course.” She couldn’t hide her disappointment.
“If the invitation is still there in, say, ten minutes…”
“Oh, yes. I have to change out of this anyway. Natural or not, I don’t want to walk about all day like this.”
“I know,” he said. He made her feel as though he watched her constantly. She sensed the flush come into her cheeks. “Ten minutes,” he repeated, turned, and jogged on to his house. She stood there for a moment in disbelief.
Had it really happened? Had she really invited him into her home? Was she mad? What had she done?
She looked up the block. There was no one standing outside, but someone could have been looking out his window. She looked up at every house, searching for a witness. It was impossible to tell if anyone were there or not. And what about later…in ten minutes? Wouldn’t someone see him walking in? How could she explain it to Bart?
She went back inside quickly. How could she stop it? Should she phone him and say she was sorry but she had forgotten she had to be somewhere? That would work. Of course, she’d have to leave the house, but so what? At least she would get out of it. What could she have been thinking about when she invited him in? She had to call him. She had to stop it.
She went upstairs to get out of her housecoat. She would have to get dressed quickly so she could leave the house right after calling him. What would she wear? (For a moment she was so flustered she couldn’t make the simplest decisions.) She spun around, confused. And then she caught sight of herself in the wall mirror.
Rarely did her own nudity affect her so quickly. She felt faint. She kept thinking, he’s coming over any moment and I’m undressed. Her arms and legs became heavy. She teased herself with indecision. The doorbell would ring and she would have nothing on. He had seen her this way before, in the window that first night. She’d permitted it then; she’d permit it now.
But this would be different. There would be no distance between them. They could actually touch and it wasn’t by accident that he saw her. The wild fantasy stirred her. A redness came into her chest; her nipples hardened and a pocket of warmth filled the inside of her thighs so quickly she moaned and sat back on the bed.
Time, she thought, time. It was too late to call it off. He was coming and that was that. She couldn’t prevent it; she wouldn’t prevent it. Why was it so terrible anyway? she rationalized. She was just being friendly to a new neighbor. This wasn’t the nineteenth century, was it? There was nothing wrong with it. She thought about that television commercial that featured a woman inviting a man over for a glass of wine. Times were different.
Yes, her conscience replied, but the woman in the commercial is not married and you remember how Barton reacte
d to that commercial—how he said he was glad they didn’t have a teenage daughter who would be exposed to all this forwardness encouraged in the media.
She couldn’t prevent this part of herself from chastising and warning her. She fought to ignore it. Anyway, she liked battling with herself like this. The struggle was exciting and made her mundane existence more interesting, she thought. Most importantly, it was dangerous and danger filled her with a sense of being alive.
“It’s time I knew exactly who I am,” she muttered.
More determined now, she stood up and went to the closet. She chose a pair of jeans and a rather lightweight cotton blouse. Placing the garments on the bed, she turned to her dresser drawer. Then she stopped and thought. There was one concession she would make to her passions and fantasies immediately: She would wear no undergarments, no panties, no bra.
As if to prevent any more argument, she hurried to put on the jeans and blouse. Then she began to brush her hair. The strands did not fall into place quickly, but she liked the fact that she looked a little wild. She liked the redness in her cheeks, the moisture on her lips. She liked the way her eyes brightened from an inner fire. She liked the way her breasts remained firm behind the flimsy blouse. When she turned and leaned back, she admired the way her jeans carved her thighs and clung tightly to her rear.
He had teased her with his eyes and his smile, with his laughter and his words. She would torment him with her body.
“We’ll see who the real tutor is,” she muttered and laughed at her own joke. The joke wasn’t characteristic of her, but she didn’t seem to care that a face with an attitude almost unrecognizable stared back at her from the mirror.
She didn’t want to stop it. That part of herself that wanted it stopped was behind her, hovering somewhere in the corner of a dull room. Let it remain there, she thought and went down to greet him when he came.
Johnny Masterson’s father was there in the morning waiting for him. Usually, he was gone before Johnny sat down to have breakfast. His father was an ambitious man, a workaholic. Johnny used to believe that characteristic was one of the major differences between them and one of the main reasons why he could never be like his father. His father was driven and determined. He was tenacious and intense. He hated losing; he hated being wrong. There wasn’t any deep secret to his methods, nothing like there was to Mr. Lucy’s. His father simply took everything personal and that meant commitment and sacrifice.
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