Valley of Ashes

by Cornelia Read

  What to wear?

  A short skirt. Sheer black stockings, what the hell. Shoes with a little toe cleavage: black satin Ferragamo pumps with narrow straps cutting diagonally across my insteps, each fastened with a tiny rhinestone button.

  Pointy toes, slender three-inch heels.

  Ridiculous for Boulder, especially midday.

  Hmmm… what else? Shirt unbuttoned to show a little actual cleavage.

  Didn’t bother with underwear. Ahem.

  Then I went downstairs and made a little plate of food: pâté, raspberries, some chèvre.

  Brought it to the coffee table, put it down next to the roses.

  And then I sat down on the sofa to wait.

  The smell of the food was really strong. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the day before.

  I sure as hell wasn’t hungry now.

  I sat there for maybe ten minutes, nervous as hell.

  Finally, I heard the doorknob rattle, out in the front hall.

  I got up and walked toward the sound, just as Dean was letting himself in.

  “Bunny,” he said, putting his briefcase down on a little bench. “You look so pretty.”

  I stood on my tiptoes, reaching my arms up around his neck.

  He kissed me, then buried his face in my neck. “And you smell good, too.”

  “Not nearly as good as you do,” I said, unbuttoning his shirt.

  He laughed. “What do I smell like?”

  “Like yourself,” I said, pulling his shirttails free and starting on his belt buckle. “Delicious.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was straddling Dean’s lap on the sofa, my own shirt unbuttoned all the way, his off completely.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What can I do?” I leaned in until my lips brushed his ear. “Anything. Tell me.”

  “It’s not…”

  “What?” I whispered.

  “You’re doing everything right,” he said. “I want to. You have no idea how much.”

  Actually, I had a pretty damn clear idea.

  I was skin-to-skin with the applause meter, after all. Which appeared to be taking the afternoon off, utterly unimpressed with the home-team talent.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just feel so…”

  “What?”

  “Guilty. Horrible. About everything.”

  I climbed off his lap, trying to make the exit graceful.

  I moved all the way to the end of the sofa. Leaned back, closed my eyes.

  “Bunny…” He scooted over toward me, ran one finger down the black lace edge of my bra, to the little bow at the center.

  He bit my earlobe.

  “Just stop.” I shoved his hand away.

  “What?”

  Tears pricked at my eyes. Chunky little crystals of salt.

  “What, Bunny?”

  “This is just… embarrassing.” I started buttoning my shirt.

  He looked down at his dysfunctional lap. “Don’t go. Please.”

  “Where the hell would I go? I’m a fucking housewife. This is my fucking house. You should go.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Dean, Jesus. I feel like a fucking idiot.”

  He reached for my hand, tried to pull me back down. “Bunny—”

  “Please don’t touch me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I feel like a fucking idiot, Dean.”

  “Why?”

  I started to goddamn cry again. “Why? Why do you think?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I yanked my hand away. “Because I’m dressed like an idiot, all tarty and shit in thigh-highs and lipstick, and my husband can’t get it up. Which would obviously be because I’m not the one he wants to be fucking. That’s why. Clear enough now, or do you need flash cards?”

  I kicked off my stupid shoes and ran upstairs.

  I hadn’t thought I could feel any worse than I did the night before, or even that morning.

  Wrong. Again.

  I lay down across our ill-omened bed on my stomach, burying my face in a pillow so I wouldn’t make any noise.

  Stupid, stupid Madeline. Won’t Setsuko laugh when Dean tells her all about this… what a perfumed clown I’d made of myself, and how grotesque he’d found the pitiful spectacle.

  “Bunny?” I felt him sit down on the edge of the bed.

  I pulled the duvet over my legs, turned my head away from him without looking up. “Please go away.”

  “Why?”

  “Please. Just give me some time alone.”

  “I don’t want to,” he said, rubbing my back. “I want to be with you.”

  “I don’t want you here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve just humiliated myself. Because it hurts too much.”

  “You didn’t,” he said, leaning down to kiss the back of my neck.

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t do this?” He kissed me again.

  “Just leave. Go back to your little girlfriend. You can have a good laugh about me, at the office. I’m sure she’d love that.”

  He lay down beside me, started playing with a piece of my hair. “It’s not like that. It was never like that.”

  “What was it like, then? I bet you never had trouble getting it up with Set-goddamn-suko.”

  “Bunny, Jesus.” I felt him lean closer, kiss the side of my head.

  I started crying again.

  “Look,” he said. “She’s not…”

  “Not what?”

  “She’s, like, about as interesting as a gum-cracking hairstylist. There’s nothing to talk about. Never was. She’s not beautiful—not striking, like you. She’s just kind of… fluffy. Insipid.”

  “And yet you had no trouble fucking her.”

  “I don’t want her. I want you. I was sick of it. I’m glad the whole sorry little episode is over. I’m embarrassed, and I goddamn well should be. And what just happened downstairs is that my dick is embarrassed, which it goddamn well should be. That’s why I couldn’t get it up.”

  He kissed my hair again.

  I tried to stop crying.

  For one thing, because my father used to yell at me for not crying. He was into Primal Therapy and all that seventies shit, and believed profoundly that people who didn’t immediately express every little inkling of pain or sorrow or whatever that they’d ever experienced were kowtowing to The Man or something. He always seemed to be bitching to me and my sister Pagan about how we needed to “have our feelings” whenever we’d visited him as kids.

  Not having feelings has never been my problem. My feelings were a giant pain in the ass, frankly. I’d’ve been perfectly happy just to dump them in a locker in some dank Midwestern bus terminal and walk the fuck away.

  So maybe my not wanting to cry was some last vestige of adolescent rebellion. But I really believed that it was more my way of fighting against just being borne out to sea on my emotions like they were a fucking lethal riptide.

  Plus crying never meant catharsis to me. Whatever sucked enough to have made you weep in the first place didn’t exactly go away once you’d worked yourself up into a snot-nosed, puffy-eyed woundball over it.

  It always still sucked, only now you looked like shit into the bargain.

  “Look at me,” Dean said.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my eyes are all swollen and I probably have mascara down to my fucking chin.”

  “I’ll lick it off.”

  “Like hell you will.”

  He cupped his hand around my far shoulder, trying to make me turn over.

  “Stop,” I said.

  “No.”

  I felt him sit up, reach across me with both hands. I tensed up but he flipped me anyway.

  “Please,” I said.

  He took a corner of the duvet and licked it, then started cleaning my face with the little nub of fabric, gently as a cat.
<
br />   “This is silly,” I said.

  “No, it’s not.”

  He rubbed a little harder at one spot on my cheek. “There. All finished. Now you’re perfect.”

  The duvet corner was streaked with black.

  “I brought that little plate of food up,” he said. “You should eat something. It looks delicious.”

  “Not hungry.”

  “I’ll feed you,” he said.

  49

  No more,” I said. “Please. I’m really not hungry.”

  He popped a raspberry into my mouth, then ran his thumb against the corner of my lips.

  “Cheese,” he said, licking it off.

  “Don’t you have to go back to work?”

  “Probably. Eventually.”

  “We could use the paycheck, you know. I’m not making any money with this writing shit.”

  “I have another job already, remember?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right.”

  “By the way, what happened to our children?”

  “Sold them to a passing circus. I’m sure they’ll be much happier. All that fresh air. Elephants. Ferris wheels.”

  “Really, Bunny. Where are they?”

  “At the child care center, up Mapleton.”

  “Why don’t I go pick them up? I brought the car home.”

  “Can you throw the wagon in the back? I left it up there.”

  “Absolutely. Why don’t you sleep a little, until I get back.”

  “That sounds like a really, really good plan.”

  He got up from the bed, put his shoes back on.

  “Oh,” he said. “I brought you home a present.”

  “What?”

  He leaned down to kiss me again. On the mouth this time. “It’s a surprise. I’ll show you when I get back.”

  “It’s at least another month until Mother’s Day.”

  “I know,” he said. “But what have I done for you lately?”

  “Excellent point. Hurry back.”

  I punched the pillows up into a downy cloud and laid my head down, closing my eyes.

  Gum-cracking hairstylist… Fluffy. Insipid.

  I was out like a light, but with a trace of a smile.

  I could feel the happy, even in my sleep.

  Dean woke me up a couple of hours later by climbing onto the bed with the girls. Giggling and cooing—all three of them.

  “Ready for your present?” he asked.

  “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I sat up against the window, that trace of smile still on my face. Bigger, now.

  I heard him jog down the stairs, then back up.

  “Close your eyes, Bunny,” he said, before he came back into the bedroom.

  “Okay.”

  I could feel a gentle shift of weight as he put something on top of the duvet, right at the center of my lap.

  “You can open them now,” he said, very, very pleased with himself.

  So I did, expecting to look down and see a little velvet jewelry box. Black, probably.

  That wasn’t it. Not at all.

  There was just a pile of papers. Xeroxes, with streaky toner.

  “Um, what is this?” I asked, trying not to sound disappointed.

  “Cary’s paperwork. You told me to make you copies of everything this morning, remember?”

  “You’re such a romantic,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Three dozen roses already today. Lighten up, Madeline.

  “Go back to work, Intrepid Spouse,” I said. “I can take it from here.”

  He leaned down to kiss me, whispering, “Why don’t you take off your stockings and that little skirt, leave them folded up right here under the pillows? I’m thinking they deserve an encore later.”

  “I’ve always heard the secret to a kick-ass opening night is a deeply crappy dress rehearsal. Wonder if there’s any truth to that?”

  “Bet we can have a pretty damn good time finding out,” he said, insinuating his fingers slyly between my stocking-sheathed knees. “I can think of several things I’d like to open, starting right about here.”

  “Mmmmm,” I said.

  He pulled his hand out, then tapped my knee. “Break a leg.”

  I called Mimi, back in my jeans again.

  When she picked up, I said, “I have zee papers, old maaaan.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Madeline?”

  “Cheech and Chong routine. Totally classic.”

  “Cheech and who?”

  “I’ll buy you the tape,” I said.

  “You mentioned something about papers?”

  “Thirty-two pages of hot piping fresh Xerox with your name on them. So to speak.”

  “How should we arrange a transfer?”

  “For chrissake, why don’t you just park in the alley behind our backyard? Come into the kitchen through the back door.”

  She sighed, not happy with the idea.

  “After dark,” she said. “Sun sets tonight around six thirty. Let’s say seven.”

  50

  Dean came home so close to five I wondered if he’d commuted in a time machine with Sherman and Mr. Peabody.

  “I haven’t seen you home this early since you were unemployed, in Pittsfield.”

  “Seemed like a good day for it. Wouldn’t want you to think I’m, ah, malingering or anything otherwise untoward.”

  “Thank you,” I said, reaching up to kiss him.

  I poured him a glass of wine and started puttering around with dinner for Parrish and India. “Mimi’s supposed to drop by around seven.”

  He pursed his lips. “Is that a good idea?”

  “She’s going to park in the alley, come in the back door.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Drink your wine. I want to give her the Xeroxes.”

  “Want some more pâté?”

  “Not quite hungry yet, but thank you for offering.”

  He was still looking down into his glass, swirling the wine around a little. Hadn’t tasted it yet.

  “It’s that kind you like,” I said. “Vendange.”

  Not a vintage to write home about or anything, but the bottles were big and we could afford them. Better than Hearty Burgundy, but what wasn’t, really?

  I still preferred beer, though I was trying to become a wine person. Kind of.

  Well, okay, it was a totally half-ass effort. The kind of thing I resolved to do on New Year’s Eve, then promptly blew off.

  What can I say? I was abused with cheap Liebfraumilch as a child. Mom liked it, she said, because it tasted like lychee nuts.

  Maybe I’d drink only wine for Lent this year. If I hadn’t missed it already. I tended to do that with Lent.

  “Do you know when Easter is?” I asked Dean.

  “April sixteenth, why?”

  “I might try drinking wine instead of beer for Lent. Try being more of a grown-up.”

  “It’s totally fine if you want to drink beer,” he said. “Grown-ups drink beer all the time.”

  “Later, maybe. When Mimi comes by.”

  “Should I give the girls a bath, a little Spa Dad?”

  “Before they eat?”

  He laughed. “Right. Might as well get the broccoli off, too.”

  “Not to mention the melted cheese. Quesadillas tonight.”

  “Think they’re hungry now?”

  “Why don’t you go hang in the playpen with them. Run ’em around a little and build up their appetites.”

  He kissed the top of my head again.

  “Do you ever get bored of being so tall?” I asked.

  “Never,” he said, grinning back at me as he skipped out into the dining room.

  I lit a burner under the skillet and got some tortillas out of the icebox.

  Dean was apparently playing “tickle monster.” I could already hear the girls shrieking with glee.

  I sat cross-legged on top of the toilet, lid down, while D
ean finished up with the girls in the tub.

  “Time for a little conditioning treatment, my darlings,” he said, breaking out the Suave.

  “I’m going to start calling you Serge,” I said. “You’re a little too good at this.”

  “I can do you next, Bunny—”

  “We shall see.”

  “Petunia,” he said to Parrish, “here comes the fun part…”

  He rubbed a big sploodge of conditioner into her scalp, then got out a wide-toothed comb and started working it gently through her tangled hair, from the ends up. He was so gentle she barely noticed she was getting knots combed out.

  Then it was India’s turn. “Ready to go, Puppy? Tilt your head back a little.”

  She stared up at him—beatific—eyes wide in utter adoration.

  “You’re so pretty,” he said. “Look at your beautiful little face. You’re destined to break hearts, sweetness.”

  That’s what it should be like for little girls. Just like that.

  “Time to comb you out, and then we rinse,” he said.

  He didn’t get a drop of water in their eyes.

  “Time to get out, Thing One and Thing Two,” he said, shaking out a big bathsheet.

  He lifted India onto it, wrapped her up snug as a bug. Then it was Parrish’s turn.

  When they both looked like fat white caterpillars, or maybe Q-tips, the phone rang.

  “Why don’t you get that,” I said. “I’ve got diapers and pajamas. I can finish up in here.”

  “Thank you, Bunny,” he said, standing up and drying his hands.

  He walked out through the dining room, into the office.

  I got the girls into their diapers first. Then the pajamas.

  I finished by ruffling their hair up with a towel, then kissing them both loudly on each cheek.

  “There you go, now you’re gorgeous—the pair of you.”

  I tickled India’s belly through the soft fleece of her footie pajamas. Pale blue, with cows and moons all over, then put her down into the playpen with her sister.

  Parrish had her plastic truck upside down again, ignoring both of us. She was very intent on spinning one of the tires. I stood up and turned toward the office, where Dean was still on the phone.

  I wanted him to come upstairs with me and help put the girls to bed, happy to wait until he was finished with this call.

  Then he made a heart-wrenchingly terrible noise, and I rushed toward the office doors to see what was wrong.