by Susan Slater
She turned to survey the room. It was mellow and warm with just the right splashes of color, combinations of wood and metal, but it didn’t look lived-in. Everything had that too-new crispness of having been just delivered.
“How long have you been here?” she asked, keeping her voice casual.
“Couple months, a little less, shortly after I became a part owner in the circus.” He walked behind a white oak bar that designated the kitchen and came back with a Negra Modelo and a small dish of lime sections.
She took the beer, squeezed two slices of lime directly into the bottle, and pretended to look closely at one of the paintings. Less than two months? She’d never asked, but she’d assumed that Grams had known him for some time. What kind of an endorsement could you give someone you’d known for less than two months? But, of course, with Grams a good set of buns was everything.
Steve excused himself and went outside for firewood, bringing back an armload of pinon. Pauly sipped her beer as he stripped to a tee shirt, throwing his ribbed turtleneck sweater on the futon. She wasn’t sure what first caught her attention, mesmerized her, the inked mural that escaped up the neck and out the short sleeves of the tee shirt, or the muscle. Traps, deltoids, triceps, anything not covered by white cotton knit rippled with each movement. So did the tattoos that covered them. Oblivious of her open admiration, he stuffed newspaper under the grate, criss-crossed sticks of kindling, then placed two chunks of wood on top and lit a match. The fire crackled into life.
“Join me?” He had stretched out on the floor in front of the fire, a thick tasseled pillow propped under his head. Long shadows crept across the room, and without the light of lamps, the fire gave everything a burnished tint, glinting off the polished floors, even off the gold chain around his neck.
She didn’t say anything but sank down beside him and stretched her feet towards the fire. Something had dropped her body temperature to a minus five. Or maybe it was anticipation? And she wasn’t certain how she would react. Did she really want an affair with this man? Affair, hell. So far there was every possibility it would be a one-night-stand. And she couldn’t afford to get involved, not until her life was a little more certain.
When he reached out to caress her neck, she pulled away.
“I don’t want this…not now, anyway. It makes me feel cheap. My husband’s body isn’t cold yet and I’m—”
“I’ve read this plot before. Shakespeare, maybe?” He was chiding her, but he let his hand drop before saying quietly, “I don’t think either one of us could back away right now, even if we wanted to.”
She didn’t say anything, just listened to the sizzle and pop of the fire, drew her knees up to her chin and hugged them. She didn’t trust herself to look at him. But she didn’t pull away when he took her hand, and Pauly knew before his arm came around her shoulders and he had tipped her head back what was coming next, and she knew she couldn’t—wouldn’t—stop him.
His lips touched her neck. She shivered and tried to choke back a gasp, a breathy, aspirated nanosecond of sound before it escaped to tell him more than a hundred words about how much she needed him—needed the physical closeness, wanted the touch, was drunk with the need before even finishing one beer….
Suddenly she wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t care. A feeling of craziness hovered just out of reach and warmed by the fire and the tiny jolts of electricity that shot through her body with each touch of his lips, she turned to him and hoarsely whispered, “Condoms?” It was the only thing Pauly could think of that gave her a reality check, pulled her back from the brink of no return.
“Pocket full.” But that wasn’t the bulge that he guided her hand to feel. And suddenly his excitement was her excitement and she tore at her sweatshirt and Levi’s and watched by the light of the fire as he pulled down his jeans and slipped the tee shirt over his head. The black thong and pouch combination was probably some leftover from days of competition and seemed to intensify the dark outline of the body art, the skin etchings that actually only covered shoulders, neck and arms.
She didn’t know why this surprised her. She’d assumed there would be very little “plain” skin when, in fact, the perfectly tanned body was smooth, shaved and oiled like a bodybuilder—why?—and free of images.
“Will it be more exciting for you if I leave my socks on?”
Steve must have been watching her watch him, and he struggled to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up. Pauly laughed outright.
“I might be able to handle bare feet.”
He pulled his socks off then pushed to his knees and facing her slipped down the thong and began unrolling the condom over his erection.
“How am I doing?” He paused.
Pauly realized she was still staring and blurted, “Fine.” Again, the start of a smile played around his mouth.
“I’m not taking over a job that you’d like?” There was a sultriness about his smile, a certain amount of posing, she thought. More than a little narcissistic interest in how he might look. Pelvis thrust forward, shoulders flexed, Mr. January beside the roaring fire adjusting latex protection. And she was both excited and repulsed. She felt wooden, disconnected from reality in bra and panties and sweaty palms. Suddenly she didn’t want this to happen, didn’t want this calendar-perfect man swarming all over her saying all the words that he thought she’d want to hear. Or was she getting cold feet because she did want to hear them—but how would she know if he were telling the truth? How could she trust anyone again?
“Is it too late to order a drink?” Her voice sort of croaked over the words. He reached out and caught her wrist. Not roughly, just a little pressure to make her look at him. He didn’t say anything, just studied her. A little spark of fear ignited somewhere within when she caught the tightening of his jaw, but he mastered his emotions, let her hand drop and erased any coldness that might have gleamed in those brown eyes.
He sat back, the condom forgotten as he pulled the thong back in place. He looked perplexed. There was a name for what she was doing, changing her mind at the last second, but she told herself that it didn’t really apply. If she couldn’t go through with it, she couldn’t, and that was that. She scrambled back into her clothes as Steve rose, gathered his and walked behind the screen, the black strap of nylon separating two hard gluteals.
He didn’t say anything. And she didn’t offer an “I’m sorry.” But then neither did he. The silence was awkward. He came back around the screen and padded barefoot across the wide room towards the kitchen, this time in a terry cloth robe, snugged in at the waist by a belt of the same material and color, a deep cobalt.
“Another beer? Sherry? Something else?” He leaned against the bar, his voice noncommittal.
“Sherry sounds good.” She tried to match his tone.
She was still sitting on the floor when he came back.
He eased down to join her balancing two glasses of sherry.
At first she simply sipped her drink and watched the fire through the gold-brown liquid that swirled in the etched crystal. It was sweet and seemed to coat her tongue, felt good as its warmth slipped down her throat. She really didn’t want to look at him. What was there to say? She had lost her nerve…that was a part of it.
But the bigger part was Steve’s perfection, the almost unreal body parts and surreal art, and how he made her feel. She’d thought of Randy. Randy naked, the beginning of love handles, white skin, concave chest, runners’ legs, sinewy and slight…how easily embarrassed he was by a hard-on. Would never think of posing in front of her while slipping on a condom. Always apologizing for wanting sex. Then coming in a breathless rush of thrusts and jerky movements that left her empty, wanting more, wanting something else. Or like now, someone else. How could she have been so willing to settle for so little? Had she really thought that children and house and security would make up for the lack of electricity between them?
“I’m good at back rubs, and listening, and holding. I’m also good at what yo
u just passed up.” He turned her head towards him, a finger under her chin. “But it’s got to be when you want it. So, any of the first three interest you?”
“Holding?”
“You got it.” He leaned back against the pillow, making room for her beside him.
She settled against him, still sorting through the mixture of thoughts. It didn’t seem necessary to talk. She was glad of that. And leaning against him seemed okay, too. He put an arm around her as the tears came. Just tears. She took a shaky breath, and he looked down then reached across her to an end table for a box of tissue.
She dabbed at her cheeks and blew her nose and feeling spent and adrift in conflicting emotions, leaned against him and closed her eyes. He adjusted his weight so that she just fit there curled into his side. And she tried to close out all thoughts of Randy…all thoughts of anything…and just enjoy the fire and the rest of her sherry.
The room was pitch-black except for the glow of embers in the fireplace when she opened her eyes. She’d slept. For how long? There was no telling. She hadn’t seen a clock in the room. She looked at Steve but could tell by the evenness of his breathing that he was still asleep. Maybe this would be a good time to go. She remembered all too vividly the scene earlier.
She didn’t want to push her luck a second time. She’d backed out once—could she again? No, she shouldn’t, it wasn’t a moral victory.
She slowly sat up and wriggled an arm free. Steve didn’t move. She stood, slipped on her hiking boots—she could worry about tying the laces later—and walked to the hall closet. She had to turn on the closet light to find her coat. If the room was sparsely and perfectly decorated, the closet was a cluttered disaster.
She found her coat towards the back, but not before she’d knocked one of his jackets off its hanger. That wouldn’t happen if he’d zip them. She picked it up and paused to pull the zipper up to the collar. Now the jacket snugly hugged the wooden frame. And he shouldn’t leave things wadded in his pockets. She could just hear Grams’ voice. But it was true. It stretched the material into marsupial pouches that never bounced back, and the black leather jacket looked new.
She pulled the woolen mass out from under the left-hand button-down flap where he’d obviously stuffed it in a hurry. Not gloves but rather a single knit domed piece. She slipped her hand into the opening, pushed her fist against the top—and saw the eye holes light up with the paleness of her skin, the rounded double-stitched hole for a mouth puckered at her wrist.
Blow-ups of her photos flashed before her. The pictures taken from the bridge. The murderer in the top of the tree in a ski mask. This ski mask? The screams rode up the back of her throat, one on top of the other. She bit her fist and kept them rolling just out of reach, not breaking the silence. She had to leave. She pulled the chain on the light and fled. Closed the closet door, opened the one to the outside at the top of the stairs, and ran, slipping on the frosty wooden steps before bounding for the house and her room. And safety. Catching her breath, she stopped under the eaves of the house and glanced back. There was no light in the studio. No movement. Steve must be still asleep. She stared at the black, flaccid, puppet-like head still on her right hand. She was calmer, beginning to think rationally now, and wondered why she had taken it. Couldn’t a man own a ski mask without being a suspect? Even a man whose move to this area coincided with the death of another?
Suddenly, she felt utterly foolish. But what if it was a link, another piece to the puzzle. Could Steve have had some part in Randy’s death? She slipped the mask off her hand. She’d put it in the safe deposit box in the morning. One more unknown, one more what if….
***
“Will you be closing out Mr. McIntyre’s account?” The woman was walking ahead of her to the secured bank vault area.
“His account?”
“Safe deposit box. I’m sorry to have to bring this up. But under the circumstances, I just thought that’s why you were here.”
“I wasn’t thinking. Of course.” Actually, Pauly had no idea that Randy had a safe deposit box, too. Both of them had checking accounts at Sun Country Bank and Trust, two separate and one together, the household account, plus a savings. She’d put off consolidating them, didn’t want to touch the suspect one million in savings. The police had warned her not to. But she needed to do something. Maybe if she turned Randy’s personal account into another savings account. That would keep it intact. She’d ask Tony what would be best. She’d ducked him since the scare with Sosimo, but Tony already knew about the money. It couldn’t endanger her.
“We would only need a copy of the certificate of death.”
The woman pronounced the last like it was a worm on her tongue.
“I have one here.” Thanks to Sam Mathers, Pauly added to herself. He had provided a stack of copies, apologized for appearing unfeeling, but told her to keep a few with her, said it would save immeasurable time, and he’d been right. Pauly pulled a file from her briefcase, trying to keep the ski mask hidden from view, and handed a crisp page to the attendant. It no longer bothered her, this one page that proved Randy was dead. It was now only a formality, as Sam had said, a “necessity.”
“I’ll be right back with the papers for you to sign. But let’s get your safe deposit box first.” Pauly followed the woman into the tight aisle between north and south walls of metal assurances, hundreds of peace-of-mind cubicles that held what? Jewelry? Deeds to houses and land and titles to cars?
Pauly walked to a table by a window, barred, two stories up, and opened the box registered to her, rented for one year.
Certainly, it didn’t hold the usual assets. Wasn’t it safe to guess that she was the only one with photocopies of nude eight-year-olds and a ski mask that was possibly worn by a murderer? She hurriedly rolled the knit headgear into a ball and pushed it towards the back, behind the envelopes. Then she shut and locked the box and waited, not allowing her mind to even speculate on what Randy had thought so precious that he had to keep it separate from his other “important” papers. Separate from her. As always, that was the difficult part, this something else she hadn’t known about.
“Here we go. Everything’s in order. A signature here,” the woman pointed to an inked-in blue X halfway down the page, then pointed to an identical X at the bottom, “and here.” Both signature lines were followed by the demand for a date.
“Do you know when my husband first rented this box?”
“Let’s see. It should say somewhere.” The woman peered at the single-spaced contract. “Just give me a moment. You’ll have to excuse me, this isn’t my usual area. Here. Looks like he’s had this box for a little over five months.” She looked up and smiled. “Well, I’ll wait outside.”
Pauly smiled her appreciation of the woman’s thoughtfulness. She did want to be alone. And suddenly she had a case of cold feet. There was such a thing as knowing too much. And wasn’t she just about at the saturation point? Did she want to know more? Her hands shook and it took two tries to fit the key into the lock.
The dark thick curl of human hair tied with a ribbon nestled on top of a stack of papers. She was stopped, reluctant to touch it, unwilling to think through the possibilities of what it could mean. A mother’s memento? Randy’s hair was a pale ash blond. And he had been an only child. The keepsake snipped from the head of an eight-year-old paramour?
The taste of bile gathered at the back of her tongue. She swallowed hard a couple times and forced herself to lift the lock of hair and gingerly place it on the table. Randy’s passport was in an envelope underneath. She pushed past the picture in the front and briefly checked the stamped pages. It read like a travel log to Central America. Two trips to Honduras, three in one year to Guatemala, then Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Mexico. But then she remembered that rain forest project, an exchange program of experts that included research and a grant to offer classes at the local universities. There had been several trips in the months before the wedding.
It wasn’t a surprise to fi
nd the title to the red four-wheel-drive truck purchased two months before the wedding and now sitting unused beside Grams’ three-car garage. She should consider selling it. Pauly slipped the title into her purse and reached for the next envelope in the box. Immediately, she knew, felt, it was somehow different, maybe the reason it was necessary to have a safe deposit box that no one knew about. She unfolded the single eleven by seventeen sheet. It looked official with pale, almost transparent blue scrolling, Rococo twists and flourishes that trailed along the side of the page and gathered in feathery bunches in the corners.
She could only make out the names and a couple other words, Dr. Randall Vincent McIntyre and Pauline Lucille Caton McIntyre, wife…only she wasn’t a wife at the time of the dates on the document. The rest was in Spanish. But the word adoptar was difficult to misinterpret. They were adoption papers, official-looking, drawn up by an agencia called Amistad…but, perhaps, not quite legal; Pauly couldn’t tell even though they had been issued by a court. What was clear was that Randy was trying to—or did—adopt a child, a certain Jorge Roberto Suarez Zuniga born nine years before on the fifteenth of January. The orphan from Honduras had become the son of Dr. Randall McIntyre approximately one month before they were married.
Pauly sat back and looked out the window, not even seeing the criss-crossing of wrought-iron bars that interrupted her view. She just stared at the pale watery-blue sky and thin bank of cirrus clouds that were moving ever so slightly to the right. The powdery rim of the lead cloud touched the edge of a wrought-iron post before pushing slowly past to encounter the second metal bar, and so on. Somewhere beneath the surface of rational thought, a voice prodded her to acknowledge what she knew. What had to be true. But she fought to silence it and continued to sit there.
Finally, when she turned back to the open metal box, she was prepared for the picture lying in the bottom. Somehow she knew there would be one, a snapshot of a happy man, blond hair tousled, standing beside a dark-haired child. The child dressed in the pressed shirt, short pants, anklets and oxfords that said he was not American or, at least, not being raised in this country.
