Sunburn: A Novel

by Laura Lippman

  She hopes that’s the reason the kids skip her door.

  “Adam,” she says, the wooden bowl of candy in her lap, “do you think people gossip about us? About me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About my life, what I did before I moved here.” A beat. “How Cath died.”

  “If they do, there’s nothing you can do about it, so it’s best not to think about it.”

  “Do you ever think about it?”

  “What?”

  In her black dress, black gloves, and retro heels, she looks like Joan Crawford or Bette Davis. She feels like them, too. Tough, yet brittle. That’s the thing about being really hard. When you do break, you shatter.

  “Not even ten years ago, I fed my husband one of his favorite dinners. Turkey and scalloped potatoes, lots of beer. A pie. He didn’t like the pie because I didn’t have any ice cream, only whipped cream. Fresh whipped cream, whipped by hand. I knew the turkey would make him sleepy, but I couldn’t trust it to do the entire job. So I crushed up some sleeping pills, added them to the cheese sauce on the potatoes, to make sure he would be drowsy. Then, when he was asleep, lying on his back, I stood next to the bed—”

  “I know all this,” Adam says. He’s not meeting her eyes. “You told me. Maybe not in such detail—”

  “I stabbed him through his heart, Adam. Through his heart. I studied for weeks, making sure I knew where to aim. I had one chance. One chance to save myself and my kid. He was going to kill me. When he did, I knew there was no one who would care for Joy.”

  “What’s got into you tonight?”

  “I was looking forward to the kids coming to the door. We didn’t get many trick-or-treaters on Kentucky, back in the day.” She waits to see if he will ask her about this. He doesn’t. “Do you think people think I killed Cath?”

  “It was ruled an accident.”

  His eyes are fixed on the television. He bought it three weeks ago. She hates it. First she loses her beautiful apartment and now this thing has invaded. Adam and Eve didn’t need to be forced out of Eden, Polly thinks. All God had to do was send down a twenty-seven-inch color television and a cable box. Adam’s using the remote to toggle back and forth between a hockey game and a CNN report that a passerby has been subpoenaed to testify about finding Vincent Foster’s body.

  She drops two words from her question. “Do you think I killed Cath?”

  Someone shoots a goal and he gives a short guffaw of approval. Hockey. He watches hockey. She was never one of those people who have lists, questionnaires, to hand out at the beginning of a relationship. She never had the luxury of looking for a relationship, someone who would please her. If she had, she might have remembered to ask: How many hours a week do you watch sports? Do you care so much that you mope around when your favorite team loses? Ditmars did that, of course. Gregg didn’t really feel passionate about any team, which seemed not very masculine to Polly. Adam, at least, cares, but doesn’t take it personally when his team is defeated.

  She stands up, begins to shimmy out of her clothes, not trying to divert him. Quite the opposite. This isn’t a striptease, it’s a disappearing act. Good-bye, Joan Crawford, hello, Polly. She drifts toward their bedroom, pale and cold as a ghost.

  Within five minutes, the set clicks off and he is in bed with her. They both play it savage tonight. She pulls his hair, bites him hard. And when he’s done and she’s still on top of him, she braces herself with her arms on either side of his ears so he couldn’t look away if he wanted to.

  “Do you think I killed Cath?”

  He doesn’t answer right away, which she likes. A lie would come quickly. He should have to think about this. He has avoided thinking about it, all these weeks. That morning, when they came onto the accident scene, when he agreed she had reached his place by midnight, he might have been confused, nothing more. It could have been an honest mistake. But if he did lie, it was for love of her. And that kind of love can turn.

  “I’ve wondered,” he admits.

  “Because of my past.”

  “Because she was in your apartment and there was a freak accident. It’s quite the coincidence.”

  “Coincidences happen all the time.”

  “That’s true.” His tone is agreeable, but that doesn’t mean he’s agreeing.

  She lets it go. Soon enough, he’ll see how wrong he was.

  34

  Bob Riley is eating a turkey sub, extra hots, and thinking about his next week’s picks when he notices a new customer, a stranger, walking into Video Americain. Not that Bob knows every VA customer, but most of the customers know him, greet him by name—or, rather, the name he uses on his shelf talkers, Baba O’Riley.

  Bob’s—Baba’s—staff picks have earned him a following, mainly with guys. The idea of cults growing up around a staffer’s recommendations has gone so mainstream that Seinfeld even did an episode about it, but Bob likes to think his picks have an oblique wit that rewards the people who really get him. He’s not obscure or arty, but his choices are clever, no obvious or literal connections, similar to the best mix tapes. This week, for example, he’s featuring Songwriter and Payday. Everybody—well, the kind of everybody who rents from Video Americain—knows Payday and most of them know Alan Rudolph, although he never lived up to the promise of his early stuff. And even people who love Choose Me and Trouble in Mind seem to have missed Songwriter. Part of it, Bob thinks, is the entrenched snobbery about country music, which shows how ignorant people in the Northeast can be. They think country music is what’s on the radio right now—Alan Jackson and Tracy Lawrence and Reba McEntire. They’ve never listened to Johnny Cash, much less bluegrass. Alison Krauss is fine, but what about Marty Stuart? People mock him for the hair and the sequins, but he’s only the best mandolin player ever; he was even in Cash’s band for a while.

  Johnny Cash. Bob wishes Cash would act more. Have the old Columbo episodes even been released on VHS? He could add the season with “Swan Song,” featuring Cash as one of the best Columbo villains ever. Because you can tell Columbo kind of feels for the guy, gets that he got a raw deal. If he had killed just the harridan of a wife in the plane crash instead of taking out the wife and the girl, the Cash character would have been almost heroic. Bob goes over to the television section, which is not his specialty, but no luck. There are not a lot of old television shows on VHS. People don’t want to rent things they once saw for free.

  The new customer is browsing the mystery section, clearly trying to figure out the store’s classification system, which is deliberately offbeat. Bob scored a job here two years ago, which gives a guy some bragging rights in Newark. The owner won’t hire just anyone. There’s a hundred-question test. And film knowledge isn’t enough. You have to have people skills, too. A lot of would-be hires ace the test and fail the customer relations part of the interview. They can tell you every film that Bernard Herrmann scored, but they can’t make eye contact with a human being.

  “I’m looking for a movie,” the guy finally admits to Bob. He’s probably the kind of man who doesn’t like to ask for directions unless he’s desperate.

  Bob gestures at the walls with his sandwich. “I think we got you covered.”

  The man smiles. He’s got a Sergio Leone man-with-no-name vibe; you can almost hear the Morricone music coming up. Is he the good or the bad? He’s definitely not ugly. Bob’s always a little confused, as most men are, about what women find attractive, but he figures this guy checks all the boxes. Tall with broad shoulders, strong jaw, pale blue eyes, olive skin, sort of James Caan crossed with Paul Newman. Bob is medium height and lanky with sandy hair, not a hunchback, but not swoonworthy on first sight.

  “I’m looking for a movie that my”—long pause, as if he’s lost his train of thought—“that my girlfriend described to me. Only she doesn’t know the title or the stars.”

  Bob doesn’t sigh, not even inwardly. On a slow afternoon, this kind of challenge is what he loves. “Does she remember when she saw it in th
e theater? A year would help narrow it down plenty.”

  “She saw it on television, when she was growing up in Baltimore, so I’m guessing it’s older. Fifties, no later than sixties.”

  “Black and white?”

  “I didn’t ask, but my hunch is that her family had a black-and-white set, so she wouldn’t know.” The guy has the self-awareness to be chagrined. “She did remember one scene in vivid detail.”

  “Have at me,” Bob says. “Graduated UT-Austin six years ago with a film degree. Still unclear how I ended up in the land of the Blue Hen.”

  “The Blue Hen?”

  “That’s the mascot for University of Delaware. I’ve gone from Hook ’em Horns”—he does the fingers—“to who gives a cluck?”

  The guy’s smile is polite but he’s clearly not much on small talk. “Anyway, all she remembers is that it’s in Paris and there’s a bonfire. A man has killed a woman, but maybe it’s by accident? Or she deserves it? And it happens that there’s a big bonfire that night, so he rolls her body up in a carpet and goes out, throws the body in the bonfire.”

  “Does he get away with it?”

  “What?”

  “In the movie? Does his plan work?”

  “I don’t remember. I just thought—well, I thought it would make an impression, if I found this movie she was talking about.” This smile feels more genuine. “At least it would prove that I’m listening to her, right?”

  Bob nods, as if he has as much experience with women as this older man. He hasn’t had a girlfriend for eighteen months. He’s dated here and there, but his job is a catch-22 when it comes to a social life: Women want to date Baba O’Riley at Video Americain, but if he wants weekends off, he can’t be Baba O’Riley at Video Americain. He’s going to be Bob Riley again.

  This guy could probably get women if he worked the midnight shift at the sanitation department.

  “Did you say Paris?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could the guy be a musician?”

  He shrugs.

  “Paris. A bonfire.” Something is flicking Bob’s imagination, he can almost hear the movie’s soundtrack in his ear. Bernard Herrmann. He’s hearing Bernard Herrmann, but not this film, yet he’s also seeing an actress who is integral to a pretty famous film with a Herrmann score. “Are you sure it’s Paris?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.”

  Bob pages through some of the video guides they keep behind the counter. His mind is racing along, hearing music again, but this time he has finally identified it—the score of My Darling Clementine. Everything clicks into place, cylinders sliding into a tumbler. My Darling Clementine. Chihuahua. Linda Darnell. Linda Darnell, with her pout and her put-upon act.

  “Hangover Square,” he says, snapping his fingers, as pleased with himself as if he were a doctor solving a medical mystery. “Not Paris. London. It’s whatever that day is in England when they celebrate that guy not blowing things up.”

  “Guy Fawkes Day,” the customer says. “So do you have it?”

  “I’m not even sure it’s out on video. The director didn’t have much of a career, I don’t think. But if you really want it, I can look into it.”

  “I live downstate, in Belleville, almost an hour’s drive. If I opened an account—could I overnight the movies back to you? There’s nothing near us like this, of course. But my”—that pause again—“girlfriend, she likes old movies. Obscure ones.”

  “Clearly. But as for mailing the movies back, all I can give you is a very flabby maybe. I’d have to ask the owner. We take a credit card for all accounts, you lose a movie, we charge your card, but I’ve never had anyone ask if they could mail it back. I know this much—if it got lost in the mail, that would be your problem.”

  “As you said, you don’t even have it in stock. But if you find it, yeah, I’d like to know.” He takes out his Visa card, fills out the paperwork. Bob can’t help noticing he lists his home address as Baltimore, which has its own Video Americain.

  As he’s finishing up, he asks: “What about She?”

  “Who?”

  “She. The movie. Do you have that?”

  “Oh, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ursula Andress. That might be in.”

  He finds it in general horror, which strikes him as sloppy. They should have a Christopher Lee shelf.

  “Another kind of bonfire movie,” he says. “Your girlfriend have a thing for fires?”

  The guy’s smile flickers, slow, like neon blinking before it reaches full tilt. “You know, I should probably wait to check this out until I find out what it’s going to cost me to mail these back overnight. I work almost every day.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Bob asks agreeably.

  “Is there, like, a vintage store nearby? With household items?”

  “Household items?”

  “I’m looking for an old sprinkler bottle, the kind women used to use to wet down clothes when they ironed. My girlfriend talks about how much she wishes she had one.”

  “She likes to iron and watch old movies. Dude, you have hit the jackpot. Does she have a sister?”

  “I have no idea.”

  35

  Polly pulls two drafts for Max and Ernest. The High-Ho is quiet tonight. It’s quiet almost every night now. The youngish couples in town might come in on Fridays and Saturdays, but weeknights are slow. Adam has been making old-fashioned comfort food—brisket and chicken pot pies and what locals call Maryland stew—but it is, as he keeps pointing out, a small town. That’s why they need to make the restaurant a destination unto itself. She has been reading up on a restaurant-hotel in Virginia, the Inn at Little Washington. It opened in a garage in 1978 and, in less than ten years, became the first restaurant to earn five diamonds from AAA. They could do that here if they had some cash. You don’t have to have water views to have a successful inn if the restaurant is good enough.

  Meanwhile, Mr. C seems to be getting whiter and whiter with each passing day. Adam is careful with the budget, and the kitchen doesn’t cost that much more to run than it did when it was all hamburgers and chili and frozen french fries. But the biggest line item is Adam. Mr. C doesn’t want to go back to cooking, and if he does, it won’t be like Adam’s cooking. Whatever reputation the High-Ho has earned over the past few months will be lost. Maybe the townies won’t complain and, come summer, the tourists won’t know it ever took a downturn. But Polly can almost see the wheels turning behind Mr. C’s ghostly white face: Can he get Adam back if he turns him loose? What happens to Polly if Adam leaves?

  Yes, what happens to Polly? She stayed here for Adam, gave up Reno and her quickie divorce. Will he stay here for her?

  Max and Ernest like the bar in its near-deserted state. They were unhappy when the restaurant section was filled with noisy diners, out of towners who said things like Does the television have to be on? And Is the corn Silver Queen? They mocked the specialty drinks the nonlocals ordered, things that Polly had never heard of, like a cocktail made with vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and lime. Polly never minded learning how to make a new drink, but Max and Ernest resented these requests. It was their bar, Polly was their bartender. Now they have the bar and Polly back, all to themselves. Hip hip hooray.

  And they still don’t tip her well. They seem to think their company is compensation enough. It’s not, especially given their obsession with politics, a topic that bores Polly silly. The last few days, all they want to talk about is Delaware’s attempt to encroach on the New Hampshire primary in February. The plan has backfired, and politicians are now falling in line with New Hampshire’s demand that candidates skip the Delaware primary or rue the day. Dole, the Republican front-runner, has pulled out of Delaware. Max and Ernest are outraged on behalf of Delaware, which they note is officially the first state, the first to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Why shouldn’t they have the first primary?

  “Why is everyone kowtowing to the Granite State?” Ernest says. “What’s so great about New Hampshire?”

/>   “I like its state motto,” Polly says. “Live Free or Die.”

  They pay her no heed. She’s not supposed to insert herself into their serious discussions, only indulge their jokes. She knows that. But she feels ornery tonight.

  “If you ask me, small states are like small men. Big chips on their shoulders. Something to prove. Also—wasn’t New Hampshire’s claim to fame that every president first won his party’s primary there?”

  “Not Bill Clinton,” Max says.

  Oh, right. Hillary Clinton on 60 Minutes, eating humble pie because she dared to say she wouldn’t bake cookies and stand by her man. Polly had watched that with Gregg, whose only comment was: “I wouldn’t fuck her.”

  “Slick Willie,” Ernest mutters darkly. “I wonder if we’ll be stuck with him for another four years.”

  “Clinton,” Max says. “A sweet talker. How I hate a sweet talker.”

  “They’re all alike,” Polly says. They assume she means politicians, so they nod.

  * * *

  Mr. C comes in just after the kitchen closes, most unusual. Sure enough, he summons Adam and Polly to the office.

  “I’m bleeding money here,” he says. “I never kept a cook past Labor Day before, I always did the cooking myself through the cold months. We just don’t do enough business. Adam, it’s not personal—”

  “I know it’s not,” Adam says.

  He looks almost relieved, Polly thinks. He wants to go.

  “What about me?” she asks. The question could be for either man. Mr. C is the one who answers.

  “I still need you, but I’ll understand if you want to leave. I know how thin the tips have been.”

  “Yes,” she said. “The tips are getting thin.”