Devil's Food

by Anthony Bruno

  “Thank you, but I’m really not hungry—”

  But Annette was already on her way to the kitchen.

  Loretta didn’t want to stay any longer than she had to. “I’m really not hungry,” Loretta pleaded to Marvelli.

  “You gotta let her make you something,” Marvelli said. “Or else she’ll drive you batty.”

  “All right, just coffee then,” Loretta said.

  Marvelli turned to his daughter. “Nina, go tell Grandma to forget the ziti. Tell her to just put on some coffee.”

  “Okay.” Nina rolled her eyes as if she knew there was no stopping her grandmother, but she went anyway.

  Renée Marvelli winced and groaned as she propped herself up on her elbows. “If you want a cup of coffee, doll, go make it yourself. My mother can’t make coffee for shit.”

  Loretta pressed her lips together and nodded. She didn’t know what to say to this.

  “It’s not that bad,” Marvelli said.

  “It’s real bad,” Renée said to Loretta.

  Marvelli glanced at his watch. “Shit, I better get moving if we’re gonna catch that nine-thirty flight.” He stood up and headed for the short staircase that led to the upper level. “I just have to grab a few things. I’ll be right back.”

  Loretta wanted to go with him. More precisely, she didn’t want to be left alone with Renée. Not after what she’d been thinking about doing with her husband.

  “Sit down,” Renée said, pointing toward the end of the couch. She struggled to sit up straight. She seemed to be in a lot of pain. “Go ’head. Sit. I know I look pretty bad, but I won’t bite.”

  “Oh, no, that wasn’t what I was thinking.”

  “Yes, it was,” Renée said.

  If you only knew, Loretta thought as she took a seat.

  “So you’re Frankie’s new partner,” Renée said with a smile of pity. “You’ll hate it. They all do.”

  It was hard for Loretta to think of Marvelli as Frankie, but he was obviously Renée’s Frankie.

  “He seems pretty easy to get along with,” Loretta lied.

  “How long have you known him?”

  “Since this morning.”

  “You’re a very kind person, Lorinda.”

  “Loretta,” she corrected.

  “Loretta. Sorry. I think it’s spread to my brain sometimes.”

  “What?” Loretta asked.

  “He didn’t tell you? I have cancer. In both breasts. Can’t do anything about it. It’s too far gone,” She shrugged and smiled.

  Loretta tried to hold a sympathetic expression, but she felt like an idiot. What was she supposed to say to this? She’d just met the woman. A showy outpouring of heartfelt emotion would look pretty phony—even if she were capable of that kind of thing, which she wasn’t.

  “Anybody do a laundry today?” Marvelli yelled down from upstairs. “I can’t find any underwear.”

  “Helpless,” Renée said, shaking her head. “Tell him to look in the laundry basket,” she said to Loretta. “I can’t yell anymore. My voice is shot.”

  Loretta felt funny about telling Marvelli where his underwear was, but Renée had asked. “Look in the laundry basket,” she called up to him.

  “Where’s that?” he called back.

  Renée rolled her eyes. “On the bureau, in our bedroom.”

  “On the bureau,” Loretta repeated, “in . . . your bedroom.”

  “Oh, I see it,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Right in front of his face,” Renée said in a hoarse whisper. “Totally helpless.”

  Loretta nodded. “Guess so.” She didn’t know what else to say. She wished someone would come back in here.

  Renée didn’t say anything. She just sat there, her eyes a little out of focus. It was as if she’d suddenly shut down to conserve energy. Loretta tried not to stare. She also tried not to think about Marvelli’s underwear. It wasn’t easy.

  Marvelli came bounding down the stairs then. He was holding a wrinkled brown-paper grocery bag. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got what I need.”

  Renée snapped out of her trance and glared at the paper bag. “Use your gym bag. You look like a jooch with that thing.”

  “It’s all right. We’re only going one night.”

  “Use your gym bag,” she repeated.

  He cradled the grocery bag as if he’d grown attached to it. “It’s okay. This is fine.”

  “If you get on a plane with your clothes in a paper bag, I swear to God I will drop dead on you.”

  Marvelli’s face fell. “That’s not funny, Renée.”

  “I’m serious, Frankie.”

  He didn’t argue. Instead he went straight to the hall closet, dug out a navy blue old-fashioned, hard-bottomed gym bag, and dumped the contents of the grocery bag into it. “Okay. You satisfied?” he said, zipping up the gym bag.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  He dropped the bag and grinned at her. Then he looked at Loretta and shrugged. “Some women are very hard to satisfy,” he said as he went to the couch and sat on the edge next to his wife. “Do not die until I get back. You hear me?”

  “But what if I can’t help it?”

  “I’m warning you. You are not allowed to die when I’m not here.”

  “But—”

  He smothered her objection with a long tender kiss. Loretta sat there, staring at the TV, embarrassed to death.

  Marvelli was trembling inside as he held that kiss. He was joking with Renée to keep her spirits up, but it wasn’t a joke anymore. The doctors had said she was getting weaker. She could hang on for another year, or she could go tomorrow.

  He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do when that happened. He tried not to think about it, but he couldn’t avoid it any longer. He had to face reality. But the thought of losing Renée was hard to hold onto. She had always been a brick. He couldn’t imagine her not being there. But he knew he’d better start.

  But what was making him feel worse was this trip to Florida with Loretta. He’d been looking at Loretta all day, and she didn’t look that bad. As a matter of fact, she looked pretty nice to him. He knew he was thinking with his dick, but he couldn’t help it. He and Renée hadn’t made love since she’d started chemo, almost a year ago. She just didn’t have the energy, and what was he going to do, force her? That’s why he was nervous about this trip. Alone, away from home, in a motel, with Loretta—it was a bad situation.

  And it wasn’t like he really wanted Loretta for Loretta. It was just a matter of opportunity . . . and extreme horniness. It wouldn’t be fair to Loretta if he did anything with her.

  And anyway, he couldn’t do that to Renée. He was a jerk, but he wasn’t that bad.

  But he couldn’t stop thinking about doing it.

  This was bad, he thought. Very bad.

  Renée finally turned her head to the side, pulling away from his lips and coughing into her fist. “You better go,” she whispered with difficulty. “You’ll miss your flight.”

  “Yeah . . . you’re right,” He squeezed her hand, then stood up. “We better get going, Loretta.” He had a hard time looking Loretta in the eye.

  “It was nice meeting you, Renée,” Loretta said as she moved toward the front door.

  Renée started coughing again, nodding her reply.

  Marvelli picked up his gym bag and went to the kitchen door. “Nina, I’m going now.”

  The girl came running out, throwing her arms around her father’s waist. “Bye, Daddy. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie,” he said. He felt like lead. I shouldn’t be leaving, he kept thinking. Something bad is going to happen if I go.

  Annette came out of the kitchen, a condemning look on her face. “Where you going? I just put the coffee on. And the zitis are in the microwave.”

  “I’m sorry,” Loretta said. “We have a nine-thirty flight, and I didn’t realize it was so late. Maybe next time.”

  Marvelli was grateful that Loretta had bailed him out of t
hat one. Annette would’ve just screamed if he had said they couldn’t stay.

  “I’ll be back by dinner tomorrow,” he said to his family as he backed toward the door.

  Annette looked put out. Nina put on a mock frown. Renée was still coughing, waving with her skinny fingers.

  He didn’t want to go.

  “Come on, Marvelli,” Loretta said. “Let’s go.”

  He looked at Loretta, then he looked at Renée. Something bad was going to happen. He could feel it.

  8

  It was after 1:00 A.M. when Loretta and Marvelli arrived at the motel Julius had booked for them. The Seminolian Motor Lodge was on a flat-out stretch of two-lane highway just outside Bonita Springs, across the road from a gas station/convenience store. Except for the blinking yellow traffic light at the crossroads up the road, there was nothing else within sight, just acres and acres of tropical scrub.

  Loretta was too tired to have an opinion about the place as Marvelli pulled their rented Ford Crown Victoria into the lot. They’d lucked out at Hertz. There were no small cars available, which was what Julius had booked for them, and the Tauruses were all spoken for, so they ended up with a big Ford for no extra charge. Loretta took this as a good omen. She hated compact cars. Her car back home was a rusting ’84 Chevrolet station wagon with imitation wood paneling painted on the sides, a living room on wheels, the kind of vehicle whose mere presence proudly proclaimed that it could inflict more damage than it would take, so just get out of the way.

  The rental car was so comfortable Loretta had started dozing off on the ride in from the Fort Myers airport, but all she wanted now was a bed. The flight down from Newark had been pretty uneventful, except for the fact that Marvelli must’ve set an airline record for conning a stewardess out of the most number of little bags of peanuts on a single flight. They hadn’t talked much on the plane. He’d rented a set of headphones and listened to music; she’d picked up a mystery at the airport and gotten through most of it. But as she read, she couldn’t stop sneaking glances at him, especially his hands as he ripped open those little foil bags of peanuts. He had beautiful hands. He also had a sick wife, so she forced herself to concentrate on the book.

  Marvelli parked the car and shut off the ignition. “You stay here. I’ll get our rooms.”

  Loretta just nodded, her eyes half-closed, as Marvelli got out and went to the motel office, where a neon Indian head stood guard in the picture window. A neon cartoon bubble sprouted from his lips. He was saying: “No Vacancy.”

  Very tasteful, Loretta thought, closing her eyes.

  She was roused when Marvelli opened the back door and took out his gym bag and her garment bag. “You’re not going to like this,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Somebody screwed up the reservation. They’ve only got one room for us.”

  “Oh. . . .” She picked her head up and stretched. “So what do you want to do?”

  “The clerk says the nearest decent motel is about twenty-five miles from here, back toward Fort Myers.”

  She yawned and checked her watch. “It’s late. Maybe we should check out this room first. Maybe it’s big enough for both of us.”

  “Maybe.” He shut the door.

  She got out and locked her door. “I don’t mind sharing a room,” she said over the roof of the car. “If it’s big enough. It’s no big deal.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t care. I thought you might not like it. You know, sharing the bathroom and all.”

  “No. I don’t care. It’s only one night.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go see what it looks like.”

  She followed him as he walked along the concrete walkway, passing all the motel rooms in descending order. Theirs was the last one in line, Room #1. He set down his gym bag and unlocked the door, but he didn’t go in. He just looked in from outside, waiting for her to take a look.

  She peered in over his shoulder. The room was a typical budget motel room—small. Twin beds with barely enough room between them to walk, TV set on a long bureau, big mirror facing the beds, bathroom all the way in the back.

  He let out a sigh. “So what do you think? Too small?”

  “It’s fine. I’m too tired to go back and get another room. It’s just one night.”

  Just one shot, she thought, glancing at the beds. She hated herself for thinking what she was thinking, but she couldn’t help it.

  They went in, and Marvelli laid her garment bag on the bed near the door. “You want this one?” he asked. “Or would you rather have the one near the bathroom? Renée always takes the bed closest. . . . Whatever you want.”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “That one’s fine.”

  He’d left the door open, so she went over to close it.

  “You want me to rig up a blanket or something?” he asked.

  “What? Between the beds?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sleep with your eyes closed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So do I. We don’t need a curtain.”

  “All right.” He looked awkward, just standing there not doing anything.

  “You want the bathroom first?” she asked.

  “All right. If you don’t mind.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Thanks.” He picked up his gym bag and went into the bathroom. He kept his sport jacket on.

  A moment later she heard water running. He was brushing his teeth, she could hear. She unzipped her bag and took out her robe and a man’s white V-neck T-shirt, which was what she usually slept in. She quickly stripped, pulled on the T-shirt, and put on the robe. She wondered if she should’ve brought a nightgown, something a little more Victoria’s Secret. Maybe she shouldn’t wear anything at all. Which would he prefer?

  Then she frowned at herself for being so stupid. Nothing was going to happen.

  The toilet flushed, and Marvelli came out of the bathroom. “Your turn,” he said.

  She slipped past him and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She squeezed out some toothpaste on her toothbrush, but before she started to brush, she stared at herself in the brightly lit mirror.

  Stop thinking about it, she told herself. Even if it did happen, you’d feel like a bag of shit afterward. The guy’s got a solid relationship with his wife. He doesn’t want to fool around. Besides, the woman’s dying. He’s not going to cheat on her now. What kind of bastard would do that? Loretta would throw him the hell out of bed if he tried something with her.

  Of course, if she went over to his bed, and one thing led to another . . .

  Loretta glared at herself in the mirror. Stop it!

  She started brushing her teeth, hard.

  When she went back out into the room, Marvelli was already in bed, the covers pulled up to his chin. She wondered if he was naked under there. When she went over to her bed, he turned over and faced away from her. The toilet was still running. She waited by her bed, leaving her robe on in case she had to go back and jiggle the handle. It stopped running after a second.

  She took off her robe and draped it over the end of the bed, then pulled back the covers and got in. “Good night,” she said, reaching over to turn off the lamp on the bed table between them.

  “Good night,” he said, muffled by the covers.

  She lay on her back and closed her eyes, but her thoughts were racing now. She was thinking about Marvelli and his wife and her cancer and his daughter and his mother-in-law and his underwear in the paper bag and the terrible coffee his mother-in-law made and the baked ziti in the microwave. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling in the dark. The pole lamp out in the parking lot threw a sliver of light through a chink in the curtain, crossing the foot of her bed. She was wide awake. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  “You still awake?” she said softly.

  “Yeah. What’s the matter?”

  She was tempted to get out of bed, but she had no idea how to start something. She felt stupid. She’d n
ever done anything like this. Forget it, she said to herself. This is stupid.

  “What’s the matter?” he repeated. “Something wrong.”

  “No.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Well. . . I was wondering about something.”

  “What?”

  “When you said good-bye to your wife before we left? Why did you tell her not to die before you got back? That sounded pretty heartless.”

  Loretta heard him turning over. “It wasn’t meant that way.”

  “That’s how it sounded.”

  “Gallows humor. That’s what they call it in group.”

  “You go to group therapy?”

  “Yeah. We both do. Us and five other couples. The women all have breast cancer. The therapist says it’s good to joke about it. It helps to laugh.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “You ought to hear some of the stuff Renée says. She’ll make you piss your pants. I mean it’s not really funny, but when she says it, it is.”

  “Ummm,” Loretta grunted. She really didn’t want to hear about Renée.

  “Renée actually has names for her—you know—for her boobs. She calls them Fred and Ethel. And she talks to them. Sometimes in this Ricky Ricardo accent. Cracks me up. She calls the cancer Lucy.”

  Loretta frowned. “Why?”

  “Because Lucy’s always getting Fred and Ethel into trouble. Get it?”

  “Ummm.”

  “I come home from work, and she tells me everything that happened to Fred and Ethel that day. I mean, some of the weird stories she makes up are really hilarious. Fred and Ethel go to Vegas and get radiated. Fred and Ethel deal with the insurance people. Fred and Ethel go on chemo. Fred and Ethel kill Lucy and chop her body up into little pieces, then go fishing with her. . . . That’s my favorite story.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They live happily ever after in that one. No more Lucy making trouble.”

  Loretta heard him sigh. She wondered if he was crying. She closed her eyes, wishing she could fall asleep so she wouldn’t have to deal with this.

  “No more Lucy . . .,” he said. “That would really be wonderful. Life was great without Lucy. I wish I had realized it back then. We always had fun, though, so I shouldn’t say that. We met in high school, Renée and I, and we’ve been acting like teenagers ever since. At one point I actually bought an old ’57 Chevy and had it restored. Black and red, real sharp. Renée and I used to go out cruising in it. No particular place to go. Even after Nina was born, the three of us would go out riding around. . . . But after Lucy showed up, I sold it. Renée didn’t want me to, but I said we were going to need the money. That wasn’t the real reason, though. I thought it was time to grow up and face reality. Cancer was serious stuff. I had to be serious. . . . But I was wrong about that. Being serious doesn’t do anything. Makes things worse, I think. . . . Now that I think about it, I should’ve kept that car. It would’ve been good for Renée.”