After I called the deli, I changed into a soft, cotton shorts romper and sank onto the bed to listen to splashing. What a glorious sound. What a glorious feeling to be still and safe at home. I hugged his pillow to my face and breathed in the scent of his hair for a long time.
A muffled sound floated from the bathroom. I tore the pillow away and ran to the door. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I wanted to ask you a question?”
I didn’t know if he was asking himself or me.
“Want to come in?”
I stared at my feet. “Do you want me to?”
“You’ve seen me naked before.”
Defeated by sexy logic. Could be the title of my autobiography.
I undid the romper by one button. Couldn’t hurt. I pushed the door open and stepped in, staring at the hand-painted Spanish tiles, and at Taco, lounging in the sink. Don’t look at Sam’s junk. Don’t look at Sam’s junk. Or his chest. Or his ass. Or his shoulders. Or his penis.
My eyes down, very, very down, I made my way to one of the teak chairs in the corner. Safely sitting, I glanced up into a steamy mirror. And him reflected chest up in it—wet, dripping skin and rippling muscles. He’d shaved the stubble from his chin, leaving gleaming, perfect, smooth skin. Soft skin that my lips remembered. Mmmmmm. Nooooo. Good thing the floor was so attractive. Yup. Just as attractive as the big, hunky husband I couldn’t touch who sat naked two feet from me.
Was this punishment for living the high life? Me, some nobody from North Carolina who was too short and normal to be in the position I was in?
“You okay?” he asked.
My head snapped up. Naked, naked, naked, naked. I scratched my pasty white leg, which I could only do by staring at it, of course. “Yes, of course. What do you need?”
Splish, splash. Wet, nude man. He was trying to kill me. “You said you might know what’s going on?”
I knew that that tub could fit two people. I knew that much.
I cleared my throat. “It’s the government.”
“What?”
“You were doing something for the Feds.” I tucked my feet up on the chair and hugged my knees. “See, you were kinda…bored. Just painting and not criminal-ing. Your art is amazing, but I don’t think it gave you quite the intellectual zing that solving problems did. Trouble is your middle name, after all.”
“I thought Sam was my fake middle name.”
“Don’t interrupt me. Hey!” The rat had splashed me! “Don’t make me come over there.”
“Or what?”
Okay, that was an invitation. When? Now. Where? The tub. RSVP to Sam’s dick.
I took a deep breath and chose to ignore his evil, evil invitations. “You came to me one day a few months ago and told me that the Feds had asked you to consult with them. Bust other thieves.”
The water went quiet. “No shit?”
“Yeah. You wanted to do it, even though it was a bit snitchy. But you’d changed sides, and I think you really needed the rush. The chase. You told them you only wanted to hunt people who were violent. That made you feel less turncoat-ey.”
“And what was your opinion about it?”
I folded my legs underneath me and stared out of the window behind him. Nothing but gray and rooftops. “I was scared for you, but I understood that you needed it. You’d changed your life for me. You can’t change who you are, though, and I didn’t want you to. I told you to follow your heart. The only thing I asked you was to be safe, and to always have someone know where you were.”
“So, theoretically”—he spread out along the lip of the tub, his eyes on the ceiling—“someone knows where I was and maybe even who tried to kill me.”
“Yes.” I stood and went to the window. It cooled my forehead. “But your damn contacts, whoever they are, have not called you or returned my calls. They’ve hung you out to dry.”
“Speaking of, can you hand me a towel?”
Oh, boy. I backed up to the table beside the tub. I swung my arm behind me until I connected with a towel. I held it out in his direction. He laughed at me. Laughed! I was trying to respect his personhood and the little shit thought it was funny. The water splashed in a loud wave from one side to the other, and he rose, reflected in the window, washed in shades of blue. Staring straight at me.
I left with an, “I’ll leave some clothes for you on the bed.”
“Wait!”
I halted in the doorway, my hands braced on either side. The scent of soap made my senses swim.
“Can you shave my head?”
I marched into the bedroom to grab boxers and pajama pants, which I then threw at him. “Please put these on.”
He was out of the tub by now, a towel around his waist, trim from chasing me around jogging paths. I turned away and tamped down my mating urge by counting to sex. Six. Shit.
The shuffle of clothes sounded, and he said, “Okay. I have effectively hidden my thunder.”
“Would you like a matching head wound on the other side?”
He chuckled. “Shave my head first. It’ll make the doctors’ job easier.”
The clippers were still in my purse, so I fetched them then returned to the bathroom. “Sit in the chair.”
He did as I’d bidden, the unmistakable glint of flirtation in his eyes. His bath had obviously revived him. In more ways than one.
“You know, Sam, I am trying to be respectful of you for your sake.”
“I appreciate that. I feel extremely respected and I, too, want to be respectful of my new wife, whom I respect most respectfully. Your ass looks cute in those shorts.”
I did not giggle, or smile, or do anything else in the ‘flirting’ family. No answer deigned to pass my respected, virginal lips. Be the better person, I told myself. The better person who’d put on short shorts so that he’d notice her ass.
He continued being smarmy. “If I had to guess, I’d think that I like that little…onesie thing you’re wearing. It’s red like the sweater. I like red. On a redhead.”
“I’m actually a blonde.” I turned on the clippers and waved the buzzing end at his face to warn him to keep things PG.
He reared back, then gripped his head and winced.
“Shit, baby, I’m sorry! I’m sorry. Don’t make any sudden moves.”
“S’okay. My own fault.” He pushed himself fully back in the chair and took a steadying breath. “I shouldn’t tease you. You’re just cute as a bug is all.” His Carolina twang came out at the most unexpected of times. “And there’s good chemistry between us. That much I can tell.”
“Yeah. That’s what got us in trouble in the first place.”
I looked him in the eye in the mirror, and he smiled, the dimple holding more memories than his brain at the moment. “Try to behave, will you?” I moved to the side to clean off his remaining soft, brown hair. I’d miss it.
“I’ll try. But you could put more clothes on. It’s January, so my doctors tell me.”
“The bathroom has heated floors.” I turned on the clippers.
“Ah-ha! You admit you’re wearing that on purpose.”
“I admit nothing!”
“I taught you well.”
One, two, three passes, and I’d buzzed the hair right off his obnoxious scalp. There had been only the top and one side left, anyhow. He brushed the loose hair off his chest…his pecs…his hand dipping lower to smooth over his rippling abs…
I moved to the sink to stop staring. And to find the…the… Mostly to stop staring.
I spread a towel over his chest and held it behind his neck with a toothy hair clip of mine. Already he looked like a different person. Appropriate. His head appeared rounder, but his cheekbones flared more. He seemed more dangerous, like— This was a criminal. The old him was clean-cut, blended in more.
Criminal Sam was hot. Pure and simple.
“You need a tan,” I said. “Pasty white guy.”
He ran a hand gently over his scalp. “Yup. Jesus. I’ve turned into every hick
I grew up with.”
I cocked my head. “I lost my virginity to a buzz-cut hick with a biiiiiiiiig truck.” I squirted shaving lotion on my fingers.
“That’s quite a story.”
“V8 engine.”
“Do I need to give you the ‘behaving’ speech?”
“Sure.”
I smoothed the lotion over his head stubble. His entire body relaxed, and his eyes fluttered closed. “That was it,” he murmured. “That’s the whole speech.”
I made impressed noises that did not seem to impress him. “I’ve never shaved a head before.”
“I feel honored. Wait—” He grabbed my wrist and met my eyes. “So…this is something you never did with Old Sam?”
I cracked a smile. “No, never.”
“Huh. Good. I was starting to get jealous of that guy. And the hick with the big…truck.” A long, wandering look sauntered from my wrist to my face, then he let me go. “Be gentle with me.”
I couldn’t have spoken a coherent word if you’d put a gun to my head. Hands shaking, I grabbed the razor and set to work. Slow. Steady. I traced every angle of his head with loving attention. His eyes bored into me via the mirror, but I conspicuously ignored this. Well, my brain did. My body leaped into a lusty frenzy.
Jealous? What the hell was I supposed to think about that? This déjà vex hit me so hard. The flirtation. The dance. My total inability to guess what went on in that brain of his. Our entire relationship had rewound, and we were back in the first act of us. It was confusing. It was maddening.
It was a little sexy. Except that I didn’t want a fun-time casual fling.
I wanted my husband back.
“All done.” I wiped the last of his hair and the shaving cream off his head.
He ran a hand along the result. “I could never be an art thief looking like this.” He picked at a fingernail and chewed on his lip. “But I’m not one anymore. So…”
“This is a pretty good ‘hipster artist’ look.”
“I’m too old to be a hipster.”
“Thank God.”
* * * *
Lunch arrived, and I made him rest afterward. Later on, I left him alone to go through boxes in the bedroom that might, hopefully, spark a flicker of memory in that horny goat brain of his. I cleaned up the bathroom and unpacked the kitchen a little more. We were awkward, but amiable roommates. When he got restless, I sent him to the bodega for groceries, and I made spaghetti for dinner, which he loved. As I knew he would.
Finally, when I thought my head would explode from emotion overload, it was time to sleep, perchance not to dream. To forget. I almost envied him forgetting me. Because he was in every crevice of my gray matter, burrowing deeper like a dimpled termite.
I’d never really suffered from unrequited love before. This horrible feeling was responsible for almost all the terrible poetry in the world, and I finally understood why. If I were a poet, I’d just lay on the floor writing noooooo, noooooo, whhhhyyyyyyy? Heeeeellllpppp meeeeeee. But maybe with more rhyming:
No
This blows
Like my nose
From sorrows.
I’d better stick to acting.
When the lights went out, he lay in our bed, and I on the living room couch. I stared at the lights of New York City until my eyes got tired of the burden of seeing, and I prayed for a miracle. Or for Sam to come to the living room and jump me. But mostly a miracle.
* * * *
I sat straight up, my heart ready to burst. It rang again—the doorbell. What? How? We paid an exorbitant mortgage that came with doormen. How had riff-raff arrived at our door?
“Is that the doorbell?” asked Sam, sounding groggy and adorable. And close.
I turned to find him also on the couch, across from me on the other side of the circle. I wiped the sleep from my eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Embarrassment and chagrin battled on his face. In the end, he decided on ‘adorably nonchalant’—a sound strategy. “I couldn’t sleep. I came out here to see if you were awake, but you weren’t. So I sat down—the view is wonderful—and I must’ve accidentally fallen asleep.”
A pile of blankets fortified his swaddled form. Buried in the middle was one of the unicorns Ellen had bought me. He glanced down at it and smiled. “You dropped her, and she was sad lying on the floor all alone.”
“Really? She?”
He clutched her to his chest and adopted a put-upon expression. “Don’t invalidate her preferred gender!”
Accidentally fell asleep, my ass. He’d missed me! Of course, I was the only person in his life right now, so what drew him to me was more ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ than ‘never-ending devotion’, but I would take it. Stockholm Syndrome was apparently a communicable disease.
I grinned before I could stop myself and swayed to my feet. Also before I would stop myself—I blame morning lady wood—I rubbed his shorn pate and placed a kiss there on the way to the door. Just a homey, everyday moment in Samanthaland, where the inhabitants are of unsound minds and sexually frustrated bodies.
My pleasant demeanor deflated when I spied the two men in black through the peephole. Scratch that—one man, one woman in black. Good to see that my US tax dollars supported equity in the people sent, no doubt, to harass us. But maybe, just maybe, they were here to help?
“Badges,” I demanded.
The woman, sleek and olive-skinned, registered no flicker of expression, but held up something shiny. FBI. I knew them by sight.
I sighed. I knew them by sight.
“Just a sec,” I said to our unwelcome visitors. Really, the Feds shouldn’t be allowed to knock on your door until at least after noon. How was one supposed to dodge uncomfortable questions effectively without coffee?
I hurried back to where Sam now stood in pants and no shirt. I did not stare at his pecs while I announced, “It’s the FBI.”
“Shit.” He squeezed his eyes. “Well, at least when I tell them ‘I don’t know anything’, it won’t be a lie.”
“That’s the spirit. Go put on a shirt. I’ll make coffee and entertain our guests.”
He started toward the bedroom. “How does one entertain a special agent?”
I shrugged and pulled a stray cardigan over my romper. “Impression of Mulder and Scully? Quick—put a Queequeg costume on Captain Taco.”
I got a laugh for that.
Another day, another officer of the peace. I opened the door, saying, “Yes, hello, come on in.”
“Were you expecting us, Ms Lytton?” asked the man in a deep bass. He could narrate expensive car commercials.
“Were you expecting me to answer that question? I’m gonna go make coffee. Have a seat. My husband will be out in a sec.”
The woman blocked my trot to the kitchen. “Don’t you want to know why we’re here?”
“Honestly?” I asked.
Her brown eyes flickered.
“Nope. I’d prefer to live my life in blissful ignorance, but here you are.”
I used our fancy cappuccino machine because it was fast, and delivered four coffees to a silent living room. The two interlopers stood at the top of the couch stairs and, still wearing sunglasses, stared down at Sam. He wore a T-shirt and plaid pajama pants—good thing he’d made an effort—and emanated such an ‘I couldn’t fucking care less’ attitude that I wanted to make popcorn to enjoy during what would surely be a spirited interview.
Sam sat with the unicorn in his lap. The two Feds’ heads both slanted toward it, their puzzlement vibrating the air around them.
They did not partake of my fancy coffee. Rude. I joined Sam on the couch, and he threw an immediate arm around my shoulders. Sam, me, the unicorn—confused solidarity!
“I’m Special Agent Hertz, this is Special Agent Anastos,” said the man, a crazy tall white guy around fifty. “We’d like to speak with Mr Ballitch alone.”
“No,” said Mr Ballitch.
Okay, then. No way I would leave him to these sharks. I didn
’t know what the hell was going on, but I had a leg up over Blank-Brain McGhee.
Agent Hertz’s jaw worked. He shared a look with his compatriot and they simultaneously whipped off their shades. Synchronized interrogating. Hertz said, “Do you know why we’re here?”
“Are you asking me?” asked Sam.
I sipped my coffee and snuggled into him. This was gonna be good.
Agent Hertz blinked sarcastically. You wouldn’t think that such a thing could be interpreted from five feet away, but that’s how over Sam he was already. “Yes.”
“No,” replied Sam.
“The police have told us that you were injured.”
“Yes.”
Crickets.
Damn—I burned my mouth on the coffee. I’d taken a too-fast drink to avoid laughing.
The partners clasped their hands behind their backs and squared their shoulders. I gave them an eight-point-five for technical merit, and a ten for not shooting us. Yet. Hertz tried again, “The doctors tell us that you have amnesia.”
“Technically, I’m suffering from ‘Samnesia’.”
Our two friends did not laugh at my joke, which was rude part deux.
Hertz said, “Mr Ballitch, you have absolutely no idea why we’re here today? You’ve never met either one of us?”
Ah-ha! A veritable clue! These were obviously who Sam was consulting with on whatever secret government bunker project he’d been on. Très sloppy, Feds.
“Not that I can recall,” Sam told them with a winning smile.
“You seem to remember your wife,” said Agent Anastos.
My breath hitched, and I gazed into my coffee while Sam squeezed my shoulder. “I don’t, actually,” he said, his voice bereft of confidence for the first time. “But she’s been very kind through all this.”
“I slept on the couch last night.” I pointed to the pile of blankets Sam had left. “The amnesia is real. I’m sure the NSA has illegally stolen the brain scans for you, because we’re taxpayers.”
The Wrath of Dimple Page 5
