I pulled away, sniffed, and wiped my eyes. “You should have told me. It’s partly the money you spent, but it’s mostly the truck.” Being careful of glass shards, I scooped ice cubes into the bucket.
“It’s a good truck, top-of-the-line.”
“That old truck is the only symbol he’s got of his dad’s approval.” I put the wine back on ice. We’d drink it later, I supposed. When James came back.
Not with cake, though. I picked up the good china plates and the silver dessert forks I’d polished. “The story goes, Daniel and James didn’t get along even when they were kids.”
“That’s his twin, right?”
“Yeah, older by about six minutes. They’re nothing alike, though, not in looks or temperament or anything else. Their dad bullied them into competing constantly, and James was a disappointment.” I carried the dishes into the kitchen and returned for the surviving flute.
Gage carefully picked up pieces of glass from the shattered ones, dropping them onto a section of newspaper.
“When the family moved here, they both had a fresh start. Daniel used his to become a high-achiever student-leader type. James refused to compete anymore, although I hear he was as big a discipline problem as Daniel was a big deal. Maybe still competing for attention?”
“Yeah.” Gage nodded his understanding.
“So now Mr. Bedwell’s got a reason to be disappointed. One of those self-fulfilling prophecies? He was more disappointed that James wouldn’t go to college. Disappointed that he left Tucson and went to work for Uncle Olin in St. Cloud. Disappointed that he bought this old fixer-upper instead of a new tract house. Disappointed in the girl he married, both times.”
“Both times?”
“Alice from Dallas was first. It didn’t last six months.”
“Which disappointed his dad, right?”
“Right. Not as disappointed as when he married an Eye-tie the second time.” I gave a small bow.
Gage offered the ghost of a grin.
“And disappointed that I didn’t start popping out grandchildren like Eye-ties are supposed to. Meanwhile, Daniel’s got his MBA, a good job, a trophy wife, and two perfect children who are already overbooked even though they can’t read yet.”
“Man. Maybe it’s good not to have a dad around. What should I do, just pick up the cake in the wet tablecloth?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I explained the rest as we folded, cold water and crumbs clotting on our palms and raining on our shoes. “Way before he met me, James stopped comparing himself to anybody and just lived the life he wanted to.” I didn’t think Daniel had grown up enough to do that. He took obvious pleasure in one-upping James whenever they were together. James usually drank too much at family gatherings. At least he became sullen and too quiet instead of arguing.
“That’s good. He does all right, obviously.” Gage gestured to the house.
“Don’t you ever let him know I told you this, because I’m not supposed to know. He took out a second mortgage, when he’d gone through the money he sets aside for the lean times. Construction’s always boom or bust, but it’s been bust for too long, in this economy.”
“He needs that big job to come through.”
“Right, at Rincon. He thinks the little jobs he’s doing there are a sort of audition. Anyway, he has a work ethic, same as Daniel, and he’s as smart as Daniel, easy. James called home the day he got the company incorporation papers. He didn’t even talk to his father, but after dinner, that’s who drove up in that truck. It had a few dings and scrapes, but he’d had BEDWELL MASONRY, INC. stenciled on it. He never said it, but he was obviously so proud of James, that one time.”
“I wish I’d known.”
“I wish you’d told me what you were planning. Give me the tablecloth. I’ll empty the cake into the trash.”
“Careful, there’s tiny slivers of glass all over it. Don’t brush it with your hand.”
I didn’t. After dumping the cake, candles and all, I took the tablecloth straight to the washer and put it in alone, with a double rinse. When I got back, Gage was on his hands and knees, sponging water from the dining room carpet and squeezing it into a plastic bucket. “I did the table first. I think I got all the water out of the rug that I can,” he said. “And one little cut.”
“Let me see.”
He held up his hand. A drop of blood, no more, marred the base of his thumb. “It’s nothing. I got the glass out.”
“Wash it with soap anyway.”
“Okay. Ah, Natalie? I need a huge favor.”
“What?”
“I need to be left alone, to figure out what to say when he comes back. And to be left alone when he does, to say it, and work things out between us.”
I looked at my watch. It was nearly ten. “You expect me to just go out?”
“You don’t have to go anywhere. Just watch TV, or read, and leave us be. We’ll come to you when we’ve made up. Please?”
“Are you sure that’s the way to go?”
“I’m sure I need to learn how to fix my own messes, not have you bail me out. I have a big sister, and you’re not her. So please, leave me alone, then leave us alone, okay?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Promise.”
“All right, already. I promise. You happy?”
“No. But thank you.”
In the bedroom, I kicked off my shoes and lay on the bed. I opened my book and looked at the words, but I couldn’t comprehend them.
Neither one of the men had shown a hint of backing down. What if they couldn’t work it out? If they’d been more equally matched, they’d have fought. Maybe they still would. I supposed it was good that James was stronger. The fight, if there was one, would be over quickly, the right man the victor.
Ridiculous. There was no right man. They’d both behaved abominably. A fight would be more of the same.
If they hadn’t reached some sort of truce by tomorrow, I’d call Rowan. Between us, we could force them to be civil, to make apologies, to talk and maybe even to listen.
Would that be enough? I didn’t think so. James had been at his most stubborn pig-headedness and not had the courtesy to explain, but Gage had been just as bad. Some of the things they’d said were awful. James and Gage might forgive one another, but I doubted either would forget.
Would we ever again play here in this too-big bed with Gage? Sleep nestled with the ease of longtime lovers? Any certainty I’d had dissolved.
That was depressing, and so distracting I crept back into the living room, where I heard Gage pacing and muttering. How mad would he be if I reneged on my promise and suggested what to say and how to act?
No, he was right. I shouldn’t intercede on his behalf or he’d never learn how to deal with James. I should just accept that this first time would be the hardest and let him handle it.
The truck finally crunched up the driveway. Its door slammed shut with the squealing hinge and hollow metal clank unique to old trucks. Gage stopped talking to himself. I envisioned him waiting, nervous and hopeful, and wished I could see. For a long moment the house was as silent as it often was before we met him; then the back door opened.
“Hi,” Gage said.
“Where’s Natalie?” James didn’t sound upset.
“Somewhere, with a book. I asked her to leave us alone until we worked through this.”
“I’m worried that we can’t.”
“Me too. I kept getting these flashes, scared the hell out of me. The next person at the door wouldn’t be you but a cop, telling us there’d been an accident, and I’d never get to tell you how sorry I am.”
“Drama queen.”
“Natalie explained about your dad and the truck.”
“I saw it. Big fucker.”
I moved one edge of the drapes. A huge truck stood parked on the street in front of the house.
“I got the crew cab. Tell me what you want me to do with it, and it’s done. I could sell it. Trade it. Donate it to any charity
you want. Whatever you say.”
“Nothing’s that easy.”
“Of course not. It wasn’t just the truck. I said some terrible shit that I didn’t mean, because I was mad about you not wanting the truck. I just didn’t know. Which doesn’t excuse what I said. I’m really sorry.”
“You don’t get to act like that, say you’re sorry, and everything’s fine.”
“I know.”
“How are you going to convince me you’re really sorry?”
“Like this.”
“No.”
What did Gage mean? I stared hard at the edge of the kitchen doorway, willing my vision to turn the corner.
“I had time to think, and now I’m asking, perfectly calmly. It’ll work.”
Neither of them said anything for a minute.
“You sure?” James said.
“Come on, man; I hit you. That was really stupid. I lost my temper, and I’m so sorry. And embarrassed.”
“You should be. You hit like a girl. I’m going to show you how a man hits.”
What?
For a long moment I couldn’t hear anything from the kitchen but shuffling footsteps. Were they going to fight? Conduct a boxing lesson? I wished I dared to peek around the corner, but I’d promised.
A sharp snapping noise made me jump inside my skin. Did one of them drop something? A second clap quickly followed it, and a third, before I realized the sound in the kitchen was the sound I’d dreaded at Gage’s hotel that night: a paddle.
I’d thought it would be a rapid flurry, over quickly, but the reality was slow and deliberate, with long seconds between the swats. I wished I’d counted, not to know how many times James was hitting Gage but to anticipate the beating’s end. It would fall on a round number, I was sure.
The smacks finally stopped. James sounded a little winded when he said, “Now tell me you’re sorry like you mean it.”
Gage’s voice was tight, the highest I’d ever heard it when he wasn’t doing some silly character. “God, I was sorry before, and I’m sorry now. I’m really, truly sorry.”
“Right,” James said without humor. “You okay?”
“It hurts, but yeah, I’m fine. You’re not Stuart, and I asked for this. Hurt me as bad as I hurt you.”
The snapping sounds resumed, faster and perhaps harder. Different.
I flinched in Gage’s behalf at every swat. The paddle landed so quickly my shoulders never really relaxed, until Gage made a pathetic noise somewhere between his orgasmic mew and a bleat.
“Now you’re sorry.”
“I was already sorry.” Gage sounded all wrong, nasal and a decade younger. It pained me to hear him. “Can you please, please forgive me?”
“Don’t you ever take a swing at me again.”
“I won’t. I wouldn’t. I’m sorry.”
“That was when you got to tell me. Now you get to show me.”
I knew the sound of a zipper, and of gagging, and of male satisfaction. Now I dared to look.
James leaned against the counter, still cluttered from making and decorating the cake, intently watching Gage and stroking his hair. Gage knelt, his trousers puddled around his knees, his shirttail revealing the lower rounds of a backside the color of watermelon flesh. He kissed the tip of James’s penis, then took it in his mouth.
His eyes closing, James permitted himself a groan and tilted his head back in seeming ecstasy. He moved his hands through Gage’s tangled hair. It stuck out in loops between my husband’s thick fingers as James directed and guided Gage to work him with increasing vigor, essentially steering his head.
Gage did not resist, repeatedly accepting James to a depth that make him gag or cough.
He was raping Gage’s mouth. What on earth had gotten into James? I inhaled to say whatever it would take to stop it, but James released the dark locks and gripped the edges of the counter on either side of his hips.
Gage didn’t slow, just looked up with adoring eyes and paused with James deeper in his mouth than I could take him.
Like a benevolent god, James looked down on his underling, his pale eyes heavy-lidded with arousal that had once been mine alone. “You all right?”
Gage released the thick flesh slowly, smiling around it as it left his lips. “God, yes. I love you so much, Jamie.”
“I know. I love you too. Don’t stop.”
Gage’s pretty mouth opened wide.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I had the presence of mind to grab my purse before I slipped out the front door.
Damn. I’d forgotten that Gage parked his Porsche behind my car. I was blocked in.
So I went back in as silently as I’d left. Small wet sounds from the kitchen suggested the guys were not interested in my comings and goings. I found the Ford key still in its gift box.
The truck was so high it had a shiny chrome tube as a step. It purred to life immediately. I fumbled for the lights, found them, then pressed the clutch and shifted. It slid as smoothly into first gear as my husband had into Gage’s mouth.
In ten years I’d never needed a safe place to retreat to. Where to go? I started at the coffeehouse where I met Cynthia to talk books and husbands.
Through the windows I saw Crave drew a different clientele at night. The college students and twentysomethings made me feel old, unhip, and every bit as frumpy as the linen dress I still wore.
I drove aimlessly on neighborhood streets rather than thoroughfares. Near the university, I revisited my first apartment, a triplex on Eighth Street, close enough that I’d walked to classes. It had been a good place; I’d stayed after graduation, first with a new roommate, then when Mimi got a job in Chicago, alone.
After that I cruised by every apartment I’d ever lived in, in chronological order, watching the younger Natalie, the single one who made her own way, move up in the world.
My last apartment was really pretty nice, the young junipers grown tall in the intervening years, but James’s house was home. It seemed mine as much as his now. I’d invested my efforts painting, cleaning, making curtains, and refinishing furniture I bought at estate sales, although James refused to let me replace his recliner.
I’d have to find a new place now, I supposed. Maybe James would let Gage give Mrs. Ruiz an orgasm by buying a big house out in the desert where they’d live, and I’d keep the one I’d called home for the last ten years.
No, James would never go for that. I’d helped pay the mortgage when I’d still worked, but he’d bought the house. He’d never hand over his badge of honor when we split up. If he and Gage moved out to the desert, James would rent the house to David or something. I’d be the one moving.
Working again too. Could I even get a job? My skills were outdated; I didn’t even know what some of the ads were talking about when they described the qualifications needed for job titles I used to have.
I’d have to learn all about office computers. My sister could probably teach me a lot, and would be pleased to know I’d escaped that godless heathen who’d held me under his spell for so long. Praise her Lord.
Maybe I could take a class somewhere instead and borrow time on Cynthia’s computer for practice.
Assuming I got something, work would take new clothes, a professional look I hadn’t tried to mimic. I’d given away my work clothes and couldn’t have gotten into them even if I’d kept them. What did people wear in offices these days? Should I color my gray? Cut my hair? Buy pantyhose? Did women still wear pantyhose?
My thoughts ranged as far as the new truck.
The twenty-four-hour grocery store that James called my other home had a coffee bar. I could stop, get a cup of hazelnut decaf and settle my mind, then pick up a few things.
No. I would not be the perfect little hausfrau who pretends she doesn’t see her husband getting oral sex in the kitchen, because she hasn’t worked in so long she’s scared to leave him.
I should just get a room someplace. I’d need a drink or ten if I expected to sleep. I could buy a bottle,
but would it be so wrong to go to a place where James might look for me?
Keenan’s Boston was a neighborhood bar eerily transported to the desert, complete with patrons. It’s the bar you see in the movies, with blue-collar workers, a few old guys who were regulars and probably alcoholics, a smattering of couples, some married, some dating, and a mix of twenty- to fiftysomething men and women who came by often for a few beers, some company, or a different set of four walls.
James had brought me here before we were married. Keenan was long gone, but Red was a classic Irish bartender of about sixty who remembered everybody, knew when to talk and when to serve generous drinks silently, kept books around to settle bets, and fed a few who’d fallen on hard times. Red wore a white dress shirt, black trousers, a bow tie, and suspenders every day of his life and seemed to be behind the bar fourteen hours a day.
“Natalie, my love! You’re looking lovely. A dress! Where’s your Jimmy?”
“Jimmy.” Only Red could get away with that.
“‘Frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.’”
“Trouble in paradise? Your first is on the house. Scotch and water?”
I sighed and took a bar stool. “Neat. In the desert, we don’t waste water.”
“You drown your sorrows, sweetheart. If need be, I’ll drive you home after closing.”
“I’m not sure I can go home.” Not sure I had one. I blinked back tears.
What if I let Red drive me there? Would I find an empty house because they were out looking for me, or Gage nestled against James’s belly, the two of them sound asleep in the bed he’d bought? I wasn’t sure. “I think I’d better not.”
Red nodded solemnly. “I’ll drive you somewhere, though. If need be, I’ll call my sister Molly, ask if she’d like a guest. Her boy’s at ASU; his room’s standing empty.”
I knocked down a good part of the shot Red poured.
“Do you good,” he said. “He was in, before. Jimmy.”
“He was?”
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