I nodded. I’d made my decision. But I wouldn’t give him the slightest of hints. I smiled. I patted the wrist that wasn’t wearing the watch.
—There, I said. Do you feel better now?
He nodded. Hideously, he was grateful.
—Thank you, Joan.
—Go home. Take a nap. Somewhere in heaven, Lenore is smiling.
I took his arm roughly, pushed him in the direction of his tiny home, then turned and opened my door.
Of course he made an attempt to follow me, so I quickly shut the door in his face and returned inside, rageful, only to find Eleanor wearing my white slip dress. It was straining at her chest. I couldn’t believe it.
—Eleanor, what the fuck.
—What? she asked. She was existentially frightened of me.
—That’s my special dress, I said.
—Oh. I didn’t know. Sorry.
—It’s my mother’s. Please take it off.
She pulled it off. Underneath she wore her cheap underwear and bra.
—I’m really sorry.
I boiled water for tea and she walked to the area on the floor where she kept her things. She dressed in her own clothes and then, with a smile on her face, something I’d never seen, told me that she felt okay that day, for the first time since her brother’s passing.
I told her how happy I was to hear that, and truly, I was.
—And I’m grateful to you for getting me the job and for letting me stay here.
I wanted to say that I’d never agreed, that she’d come and never left. Instead I nodded kindly.
—And. I forgive you.
Involuntarily, tears filled my eyes.
—Yeah. And I wanted to tell you. I feel good having you in my life. I know that sounds weird.
—No, I get it.
—Also, I’m really excited about the baby. It’s getting closer and maybe that’s why. I don’t want to be creepy or whatever. But I love him already.
I nearly spilled the hot water on my legs. I turned from her and crushed three Xanax between my fingers and dropped them into her cup.
—Here. I made some tea.
She never refused anything I made her. I thought of all the times I’d cooked for her father, his fawning gratitude. The careful way that he chewed.
She smiled as she took it from me and thirty minutes later she was passed out on the couch. I sprayed down the white slip with Big Sky’s cologne to mask Eleanor’s sweat and walked to River’s door.
* * *
FOR MANY YEARS MY RAGE was dormant. I’d lived to survive. I could call up the hideous event, but in a far-off way. I could have dictated only the facts. I could not have called up each moment of horror. Back then not a second went by that I didn’t feel like something was eating my heart. But in the Canyon the pain turned to rage and the rage was growing around me the way the sunbaked bougainvillea grew around the old swingers’ mansion.
I’d never fucked a man to get back at a woman. I’d flirted with the boyfriend of a friend to check my power, though only after the friend had hurt me, had flaunted some faux happiness in my face to make herself feel better. This was new. Alice had not theoretically done anything to hurt me. She’d removed herself from my life but not out of spite. She simply didn’t want to be near me. That’s the most awful thing someone you love can do.
I knocked on River’s door. He opened it, shirtless. I told him my air-conditioning had broken and that I couldn’t stand the heat. I asked if he had anything cold in his fridge to drink. I had nothing in mine.
—Yeah, of course, come in, he said.
His bed was unmade and Kurt was lying on top of it.
—Is beer okay?
I nodded and he pushed lime halves into two bottles of Corona with his calloused thumb. He said, Cheers, we clinked the glass, and his thick pink lips covered the whole mouth of the bottle.
—So that girl, is she like a friend?
—She’s the little sister of my good friend back in New York. Their dad just died and she came out here to get away.
—That’s why I came out here, too.
—Is your mom still in Nebraska?
—Yeah, but she’s good. She’s seeing this dude. He’s a good guy. I’m happy for her.
—That’s good.
—Yeah, it’s pretty great.
—The last time I was in here, I said, sitting down on his bed and stroking the dog’s head.
He laughed nervously. The thing with Alice was apparently becoming serious. I understood that he felt guilty, and that if I referenced our intimacy, he would pull away.
—The last time I was in here, Kurt wasn’t.
—Oh, yeah, he said. He was grateful I didn’t say anything else. I also knew that would make him want me more. The notion that I might have forgotten the way he made love.
I crossed and uncrossed my legs. The dress made a V shape between my thighs—a gleaming silk triangle. It was impossible for him to avert his eyes. I drank half the bottle. I could feel the heat growing between us.
—I wish there was a pool or something, I said. Do you know the song “Nightswimming”?
—Fuck yeah. That’s a great song. I’ll play it.
—That’d be great.
He played the song. I lay down on his bed and cuddled with Kurt and swayed my bent legs left and right to the music. The dog was a very good dog. He liked to lie against a warm human body but he wasn’t needy. He didn’t smell or shed. He was smart and loyal. He never left River’s side, even when they were mountain running. I’d never known a dog that good. I thought how lucky Alice was to have a kind and good-looking boyfriend with a perfect dog. The fact she was able to have that was because of the particular love she’d been given by her single mother. I believed that with my whole heart.
By the end of the song River was lying beside me and our legs were interwoven. We kissed like high schoolers for nearly half an hour before I leaned in to his ear and told him to please put it everywhere.
28
—I FEEL SICK, ELEANOR SAID the next day when finally she woke from her drugged slumber. What time is it?
—It’s noon. Maybe you have the flu. It’s going around.
—I missed work.
—I called in for you. Steve opened. You can go in now. Or I can if you don’t feel well.
—I wish you could just stay home.
—One of us has to work.
She nodded and got up. She pulled her hair back and walked groggily to the door.
—You’re not going to shower?
—I’ll shower later.
She walked out of the door in a way that recalled all the times I’d walked out of Big Sky’s door when his wife was at their country house in the Hudson Valley or at the cabin in Montana. I walked out with the fear that he was glad I was leaving. The fear that I might never see him again.
Big Sky and his wife lived at the Montana house most of the time now, and when I found out the location of Alice’s retreat, I began to pick at the skin on my deformed thumb. My father had deformed me. I’d had a wart on the finger and my father had picked up my thumb and turned it. He said that warts did not go away with the creams I was using, and he brought out a little laser, like a crème brûlée flare, and burned half of my thumb off. But the wart was also gone.