Just Like That

by Nicola Rendell

  From the passenger’s seat, Guppy gives a low, serious growl. This isn’t the protection racket rumble; this is the real deal. Guard dog fury. I’ve got a problem with that guy. Big time.

  “Yeah, I don’t like him either.” I tighten the lens to get a better look. He’s wearing white-rimmed Ray-Bans, which don’t fit him quite right, and his chest hair puffs out of the top of the tracksuit. On his cheeks are two white streaks of zinc oxide.

  I prop my phone up on the dash and start recording. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ve got a feeling good old Adolf Richard Dickerson isn’t out here to play nine holes and drink a couple of cold ones, not at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday. I roll down my window halfway so I don’t miss anything worth hearing.

  From the other end of the fairway, a golf cart is approaching, so I focus my lens on that. Whoever’s driving is hauling ass, and the chassis bounces along the bumpy paths, heading for the green where Dickerson’s standing. As it nears, Dickerson tries to make the putt and blows it by two feet at least.

  “Goddamn it!” he roars, with his cigar puffing. He makes a two-handed strike of the putting green with his club, like he’s chopping wood. The putter sinks into the turf, and he yanks it out, sending a divot through the air.

  From the other cart comes a guy whose face I know from somewhere. At first, I can’t place it—he’s a little guy, and he’s blinking hard in the sun. But I know that face. Somehow.

  Dickerson jams the stogie back into his mouth, and the newcomer scurries around behind him.

  That’s when it hits me. It’s the tailor, that poor bastard who I saw in Dickerson’s office the first day. Only now, instead of having a pincushion on his wrist and a measuring tape around his neck, he’s got some kind of book with him. I zoom in with my camera. It looks like a binder. Dickerson grabs a few balls from his cart, and the tailor hustles around, right on his heels. The tailor flips open the binder, holding it like a preschool teacher reading to the class, pointing at…

  What the fuck is that?

  Carpet, it looks like. Little squares of shag carpet. I glance up from the view-finder. If I came all the way out here to see Dickerson decide on wall-to-wall shag, I’m going to be so fucking pissed.

  But it isn’t carpet, I realize, zooming in even further. It’s all different colors, all different lengths…of fur.

  “Goddamn it,” Dickerson booms. “I don’t give a shit about legal! Get me mink from the Ukraine. Fifty rare foxes from Siberia, I don’t care. Just make it realistic. Got that, little man? High quality. The best.”

  The tailor says something, pointing to a square near the corner of the binder but speaking too softly for me to hear.

  Dickerson whacks his putter into the green one more time, and the two balls jammed into his tracksuit pop out onto the short grass. “Fuck you and your economical squirrel pelt. Get it done right or you’ll be working for Macy’s, hemming clearance rack prom dresses faster than you can say what’s your inseam.” He points at the tailor with the lit end of the cigar. “Got it?”

  Clearly, the tailor’s got it, because he clutches his fur book and scrambles for his golf cart, lurching off wildly toward safety, careening toward a sand trap before maneuvering back onto the path.

  I relax back into my seat and lower my camera. Guppy takes his cue and slings himself over the console, draping his jowls over the gearshift box. Dickerson knocks one of his spare balls two inches, and it lands in the hole. He pumps his fist in the air, straight out of Rocky.

  Fur. It isn’t exactly interstate drug trafficking or large-scale federal tax evasion. But it might be something.

  * * *

  Back at Penny’s house, I set up a makeshift office on her kitchen table, and spread out everything I can find on Dickerson. After commandeering her little inkjet, I go truly old school on his velour ass and print out all his financial records. All the news stories, all the dirt. And I even find the wedding announcement dated 1986 from the Gazette. It’s coupled with a Sears family portrait of Penny, her mom, and Dickerson together. Her mom, all those years ago, looks every bit as pretty as Penny does now. Bigger hair, thinner eyebrows, but that same sincere, delighted smile, in spite of the total shithead sitting next to her. Penny in the picture also has the bubbling joy she’s got now. She’s missing her front tooth but she still looks like Penny. The little date in the corner says 1986.

  I think back to Dickerson’s limbo Cadillac, parked outside his office building. I do a quick search and find out that yeah, even that old piece of shit is from 1986. I also remember the plaque on the wall in his office, dated that same year.

  Which tells me that since 1986, Dickerson hasn’t changed anything at all. Not his hair, not his clothes, not his car, nothing. He’s fucking frozen in time on the day the woman he loved finally wised up.

  Just like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.

  I can see it all. Dickerson in some mini-mansion, with all the clocks set to the time when Penny’s mom was supposed to be at the altar. A piece of the cake in his fridge. Wedding invitation on the mantel. Pan Am honeymoon tickets from the travel agent still on the kitchen table. Fucking frozen stiff in the moment all his dreams went kaboom.

  Guppy comes over and puts his face on the table, considering the laptop and the papers, licking his lips at a banana peel next to my beer.

  “You want dinner?”

  His huge pink tongue comes out and wets his nose. I unfold myself from the kitchen chair and crack my neck side to side. I go through the whole routine with Guppy’s food again, but this time when I say “Sit,” he listens, first time, and I don’t even need to go into falsetto to make it happen. Progress indeed.

  I take a second beer from the fridge and shoot Penny a message on Skype.

  * * *

  You there, beautiful?

  * * *

  She doesn’t answer right away, but within a few seconds, the indicator by her name changes from gray to green.

  * * *

  We’re so modern! Texting!

  Everything okay?

  Yeah, just checking in. How about you?

  I've eaten way too many dill pickles and

  I’m getting killed at Scrabble. KILLED.

  * * *

  I don’t want to get too dirty, but I can’t resist either.

  * * *

  I’d like to rearrange your letters sometime.

  * * *

  * dies *

  I find myself laughing at the screen, and Guppy turns to glance at me, scarfing down a mouthful of dinner.

  And I realize I’m fucking starving, too. I've had a long day of digging deep, which started with one of the most intense runs I’ve had in years. I could go somewhere, maybe, but I don’t much care for the idea of going out to eat around here without her. The other thing is that I really like being in this house. It isn’t like mine. It isn’t sterile. It isn’t a place where you just crash and shower in between 11-hour work days. This is a home; a place where I could get comfortable. I look around at my stuff spread out everywhere, all mixed up with hers. Really comfortable.

  * * *

  Listen, if a guy wanted to order a pizza in this town…

  * * *

  The blue bar comes up from the bottom of the screen, telling me she’s typing. And she replies with:

  He’d have to move to a different town.

  LOL!

  But there is a frozen pizza in the freezer!

  * * *

  I open up the freezer door and see a whole stack of them. Pepperoni, mostly. One Greek. Totally my kind of girl. So, dinner is solved. There’s only one more question. Because I’m not just hungry for pizza, that’s for damned sure.

  * * *

  I need you to get some privacy later on tonight.

  * * *

  I watch her start typing and stop once, twice, three times, the blue bar popping up and vanishing. It makes me think I might have pushed her a little too far. She’s at her Grandpa’s house, for fuck’s sake. But I nee
d her, I want her, and I don’t care if she’s an 8-hour drive away. I’ve got to have her.

  * * *

  Are you going to talk dirty to me on Skype, Mr. Macklin?

  * * *

  We’re going to do a lot more than talk.

  * * *

  You give me so many butterflies.

  That’s the idea. See you at 10.

  47

  Penny

  If I thought he had me hot and bothered when I was standing in the economy parking lot last week, I had no idea what hot and bothered really was. From the instant he says goodbye, my brain starts swirling with all sorts of naughty, sexy things, featuring heavily on his abs, his smile, and the way he talks to me when he’s inside…

  Penny!

  No. Get your mind out of the gutter. Be wholesome. Be upstanding. Do not think about dirty things while you watch Jeopardy! with two retirees drinking sweet tea and eating Nilla Wafers, do not.

  “Who is Jimmy Carter!” Grandpa says, snapping his wafer in half and waiting for one of the contestants to confirm.

  I am caught between two worlds. On one side is the warm, soft, familiar world of my Grandpa—and Rose, who fits right in, like she was always meant to be here—and on the other, my very new, very exciting world with Russ. I feel like I’m 15 again, waiting for my first real boyfriend to call.

  “What is needlepoint!” says Rose.

  I stare at the clock. 6:31.

  I love them, a lot, but for the first time my heart and mind are pulled in a totally new direction. Into a place that is just for us. Ours alone.

  When I was driving up here with my cinnamon bears and burnt-bean coffee, I thought I’d get some clarity, as if being away from him would make me see the facts more clearly. Like maybe I’d realize it was all a colossal mistake, letting myself fall for a man who isn’t there to stay, and who made not-so-veiled hints at me moving to Boston in the diaper aisle. As if maybe five hundred miles would clear my mind.

  It hasn’t. It’s only made it worse and made me start counting the days until we say goodbye, which is now ticking down to three. And it has filled me with so many what ifs, I could burst. What if he could stay? What if I went with him? What if we tried to do the long-distance thing? I once sat next to a lady on a plane who said that she worked in Baltimore, but lived in Atlanta, and that it was the best thing that ever happened to her marriage, bar none.

  But she was sixty! She’d probably had a whole lifetime of memories with her husband, grocery shopping and ring shopping, deciding on paint colors for their house, and all the bits and pieces of an impenetrable foundation. Our situation isn’t like that. And Russ Macklin isn’t the sort of man I want to have more than a few inches’ distance from anyway.

  The pain of being apart is absolutely real. I glance at the clock again. 6:33.

  “What is Absence makes the heart grow fonder!” says Grandpa.

  It’s going to be a very, very long night.

  * * *

  I make it through Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, PBS News Hour, and Rose’s delicious chicken casserole followed by strawberry Jell-O with mandarin oranges. And now it’s 9:58 p.m. and I am as far away from Grandpa and Rose as is humanly possible while still being in the same house. After I lock the door, I stuff a towel up against the crack underneath it like I’m trying to prevent smoke from coming in from a fire, and I turn off all the lights except the one by the guest bed. They both have their hearing aids out, so I think the coast is reasonably clear. I tuck my feet up against my body, with my heart thumping away, and watch my computer screen.

  I unwind my earbuds from his holder and put them in my ears. I look at the video feed of my face and ruffle my hair. I try to twirl it off to one side, but that doesn’t really help. I try to go for messy and sexy, but that makes me look kind of insane. I opt for having it down over both shoulders, and I perk up my girls. I try to tilt the camera for optimum angle-flattery, but then Skype starts to ring. I take a deep breath and answer.

  He’s got me in his lap, giving me a perfect view of his abs and his chest. He’s leaning up against my headboard, massive arm pinned behind his head.

  “Hey,” he says.

  His whole voice fills my ears like I’m in some great big stadium, where there is nothing but him. “Hi.”

  He repositions his laptop, and I get an up-close view of those girthy forearms. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous,” he says, teasing me.

  I am nervous. Suddenly so very nervous and feeling so very…dirty. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  He smiles at me, teasing no more. “We don’t have to.”

  “Oh no, no,” I whisper. “We definitely should. Or at least one of us. Maybe you should just…you know…” As I trail off, he slides his hand down past the camera frame.

  “I should just what?”

  And I completely forget everything in my head.

  “I fucking love when you can’t finish your sentences. I love when I steal your words.”

  His hair is a little messier than it was when I first saw him, and his beard a little thicker. He’s now more casual, more beachy, and even sexier than before. The muscular ridges of his shoulders are highlighted by my bedroom light. I suddenly flash back to being a teenager and flopping down on my bed, staring up at the Backstreet Boys on a poster on the ceiling with an aching, never-ending, dream-interrupting burn.

  I notice that his left hand isn’t still. It’s moving. He’s gotten down to business already.

  Oh. God.

  The rush of wetness is instantaneous and immediate. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?”

  “You’ve got me all pent up.”

  His rippling forearm moves up and down, and I notice that when he gets to the end, he pauses. His arm flexes, like he’s squeezing himself at the top. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  He is so ridiculously dreamy, so incredibly hunky. And without even asking myself if I should or shouldn’t, I let my fingers move down to my clit.

  “Good girl.”

  I don’t just hear him in my ears. I feel his words in my bones.

  “Are you wet?”

  I nod at the screen and swallow hard.

  “You need to be quiet. You listen, I'll talk. Got it?”

  “Yes,” I whisper back. “Perfect.”

  “Lie down, relax. Put the camera next to you, let me see your face.”

  I do exactly like he asks, turning to watch him, making me feel like he’s cradling my head in his lap. He grunts as I reposition myself. “Fuck, you are so beautiful.”

  “I really do miss you,” I say. If I ever had a filter with him, it got blown to smithereens somewhere between the Cosmo-debunking orgasm and the cake on my doorstep.

  “All day, it’s been you. Since the minute I saw you, it’s been you. My whole life, even before I knew you, it was you.”

  Here lies Penelope, struck through by ten thousand heart-fletched arrows. Me. Just me. This sexy, mysterious man was always waiting to meet me.

  He grunts again, and I watch his forearm slide back down.

  “Close your eyes and let me tell you want I want to do to you.”

  I look up at the textured ceilings and shut my eyes. I hear his breathing in my ears, and my mind starts to play tricks on me because I can almost smell him. That musk, that heat. “That’s it. I want to do everything to you, Penny. I want to be good to you during the day, and terrible with you at night. I want to worship you and be so fucking rude with you.”

  “Russsssss,” I say as I speed up on my clit a little more.

  “I want to fuck you on every flat surface in your house and then take you right down to the floor. I need to feel you come on my cock every fucking day. I want to make it difficult for you to get anything done—I want to watch you bend over in the shower and come right in with you. Because that whimper when you’re gone, fuck,” he moans. “Fuck it all. When I heard you come, I knew I didn’t stand a fucking chance.”

  “Oh, God.”r />
  “Imagine me fucking you, gripping your ass and telling you to come for me, come for me again and again, until you can’t come anymore. Until you beg for mercy…”

  “Mercy.”

  “… which I'll never give you, never.”

  Never. My whole reality, with my eyes closed like this, is his voice—that booming, husky baritone. I feel myself start to turn the corner already. “The things you do to me,” I gasp. “You have no idea.”

  “Yes, I do, because you do the same fucking things to me. But I want to do all the filthy things I haven’t had a chance to do yet. I want to take you, whenever you want… Whenever I want. I want a room, with a mattress, just for us. Nobody else allowed. Just our place for doing what we have to do. Where all you are is mine.”

  “Yours…”

  “Mine,” he growls, making me gasp, which he answers with a long, “Fuuuuuck.”

  I glance at the screen. He’s moved the camera aside slightly and I see the tip of his cock as he strokes it, ruthless and aggressive. Exactly like he is when he’s inside me.

  “I love you like this,” he says, more softly now. “But I need you to come for me, I need to see that.”

  “I’m close,” I whisper.