Too Easy

by Bruce Deitrick Price

  “Yes?”

  Robert fumbles with the plate, lets it roll out of his hands onto the sink. It bounces and spins, clattering for several seconds.

  “Damn,” he says. “Slippery little bugger.” He fakes a laugh.

  “It’s all right,” Anne observes mildly. “Now, you’ve been meaning . . . ?”

  “Oh, what?” He acts puzzled. Shakes his head, looking around the room as if trying to remember something. “Went right out the window,” he laughs.

  She waits. Very poised, it seems to Robert. Well, really.

  “Oh,” he says. “Maybe it’s that promotion you’ve been upset about. I just wish you wouldn’t let it get you down.” He smiles at her. “Maybe it’s a lucky break, you know, in disguise. Do you really want a lot more responsibility?”

  She shrugs, seeming to consider the question carefully.

  “I mean,” he hastens on, “don’t you have more time the way things are now? In case, well,” he almost says we have children, “you want to travel . . . or whatever.”

  She stares carefully at him. “Well, maybe you’re right.”

  He wipes some dishes, thinking, God, who knows what she’ll do? I mean, once she knows, there’s no turning back, no putting things in a different light. Hello, I’m in love, I want out—that’s a lot for her to deal with. She might get crazy on me. . . .

  “Yes,” Robert says after a moment, “it probably is a blessing, you know, in disguise.”

  Chapter

  16

  • Sunday around two, Anne sits at her desk in the upstairs den, looking over the bank statement, balancing their checkbooks, hers and Robert’s. “Anne,” he told her the first year they were married, “if my checkbook’s only ten or twenty dollars off, that’s good enough for me.” She smiles, still not able to believe anybody could mean that.

  At work, she has to make hundred-million-dollar budgets work out to the penny. If her own finances weren’t handled the same way, she’d feel indecent, like going to the office without her clothes on.

  Anne glances at her watch, thinks about her plan to leave Robert alone in the house. “Yes,” she says softly, “I’m doing it.” Alone for two hours, all by himself, nothing but Robert and a lot of phones.

  She imagines the dark technology hidden in her basement. Waiting there for . . . what?

  For Robert to call . . . whom?

  Anne finishes with the checkbooks, then goes downstairs to the kitchen. She stares out the window into the backyard, sees Robert stretched out on one of the lounge chairs, reading the Times. Sections of the huge Sunday edition scattered on the grass.

  Very bright out there. Definitely a spring day. Well, about time. But it must be still chilly. Robert’s wearing a burgundy windbreaker.

  She goes to the front closet to find a light coat, then out to talk to Robert.

  “Anything I have to read?”

  She stands near the foot of the chair, her arms crossed over her chest.

  “The chess column,” he jokes. “You can kind of skim over the rest. One of these days they’ll be competition. . . .” He grins handsomely. Or is it tensely? “But not yet.”

  “Of course not,” she says loyally. She walks over to look at the flower beds. “Things’ll be coming up in a few weeks!”

  “They better.”

  “Well,” she says, “I have a little shopping to do.”

  He stares at her, eyebrows up. “Need any help?” Wanting to say—half a second from saying—Anne, we have to talk.

  “Oh, no,” she tells him, “you stay here. Rest up for tennis.”

  “Wilsons at four, right?” He can’t say it. Damn, why is it so damned hard to do?

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll come along if you want.”

  “No, no. I have to see somebody about slipcovers. Boring.” Like me.

  “Alright,” he says, settling back. Is he relieved? She’s not sure. Maybe.

  “I’ll be back by, let’s see, three thirty,” she says as she turns toward the house. “Don’t worry,” she adds. “I won’t be late.”

  Anne goes through the house toward the car. The good wife on the way to do errands. She smiles faintly, bitterly. What errands? Call it what it is, she thinks. I’m setting a trap.

  Anne gets in the car, shivering a little. At what she’s become. Disloyal? Oh, yes. And scheming? That, too. And wasteful? The damned thing cost $368.

  And why? There’s still no evidence. No real evidence.

  She drives the Volvo toward a friend’s house. Stop there, kill time. Oh, Sally would be so shocked if she knew about that little box beneath the kitchen floor. Well, who wouldn’t be shocked? Everybody I know would turn pale, and then probably disown me.

  Or would they all say, “Well, of course, dear. We know all about Robert. We tried to tell you. . . .”

  No evidence at all. And yet everything feels different. Is this because I’m thinking horrid, unthinkable thoughts? And I’ve somehow settled down to their morally debased level. Or is it simply that my instincts are right? And I am now, already, a woman who used to have a loving husband?

  Anne pounds the steering wheel with her left hand. She can’t remember feeling this sort of frustration.

  “It’s intellectual,” she says aloud, waiting for a light. “You know two things. But you don’t know three others. And you might never. . . . But, but they are knowable. Heck, Robert knows all of them. So the answers are all around me. . . . And I just can’t quite reach them. . . .”

  She thinks of the way he followed her into the shower that morning. “Oh, you look good,” he said. And he kissed her and hugged her, and finally he got behind her and, well, it was very nice. Well, what is this? A lusty, attentive husband. And I can’t enjoy it for what it might very well be. And why? She thinks over the details. Robert has followed her into the shower before. He’s made love to her almost that same way.

  But it wasn’t the same. That’s just it.

  He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask. He didn’t—what?—test the waters. That’s the way he would do it before. He’d feel out the situation, circle around me a little. Wait for me to respond, to indicate one way or another, Sure, Robert, we can do it.

  Ah, the Bold New Robert. That’s just what is terrifying me. Something has changed. Robert has changed.

  She waits too long to make a left turn, then accelerates in front of an oncoming truck. She hears a horn and brakes in the same instant. She sees the shadow of the truck rush by behind her right shoulder. She tenses . . . but there’s no crash. She got away with it. She presses on the gas, keeps going. Too embarrassing to deal with. She’s not paying attention, and she almost got killed.

  “Anne! Please!” she scolds herself.

  She sees a supermarket ahead on the right and turns into the big parking lot. Just sit perfectly still and say a little prayer, she thinks. Don’t drive for ten minutes. Try to think clearly, for a change.

  And the way Robert started to say something the other night, then he didn’t. It just isn’t like him. He’s good with words, they’re his business. He speaks in sentences and paragraphs. My husband does not say, “I’ve been meaning to mention something,” and then forget what it is. Maybe in thirty years. Not now!

  So what happened there? I remember, I heard a tone in his voice. I was alert, ready. But I was being very careful—I remember this clearly—not to react prematurely. Not to anticipate. Way back in my head I thought, Well, maybe he’ll mention another woman. Then, a second later, I thought he could mention some pretext, a trip or something. Yes, I would have been very suspicious of a trip.

  But mainly I was trying to be very neutral. Just washing the dishes. Just chatting. An ordinary wife who has no suspicions about anything whatever. I’m sure that’s how I acted. There was no reason for him to stop like that.

  So what happened?

  Do I look different? Am I different? Is it me who’s changing? Not Robert?

  She leans forward until her forehead is on the h
ard steering wheel. Her eyes close.

  So, she demands, how should I feel? What should I do?

  Why can’t I just be grateful? Good husband. Good sex. Good times. Oh, yes.

  But suppose there is someone else. And he comes home each night and lies down beside me. It just makes me so angry . . . I can’t think clearly.

  She cries a little, feeling sorry for herself. Wallowing in the dreadful truth. She’s not very interesting. Not nearly pretty enough. She got lucky, marrying Robert. But she overshot. What else could she expect? Finally, he drifts away.

  She wipes her eyes, imagines the complicated little box waiting for Robert to call. The man said, “It’s state of the art. Great little gizmo.”

  Anne smiles thinking of that phrase. Well, it’s action. She’s sure of that much. Doing something feels good. It was funny—she simply couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  She looks at her watch. Wonders if Robert is lying in the yard, thinking to himself, Hell, Anne’s out of the way. I could call her now.

  She glances around the parking lot, turns the ignition key, says, “Go for it, Robert.”

  Chapter

  17

  • Robert’s at his desk at the newspaper, sipping the morning cup of coffee, trying to think clearly, which seems to be harder and harder to do. Let’s see, meetings at ten and eleven. Kathy appears in his head and she’s undressing, more real than the room he’s in. . . .

  No, block that! Think about the garbage strike, the tourist who got killed two blocks away, anything. . . . Then Anne’s there in his head and he sees them yelling, he sees her throwing things. Damn, no, please stop that! . . . There’s got to be a better way. . . . Alright, what if I put it all down in a letter, get everything said before she can interrupt me. Right! I try to talk to her, she’ll just go to pieces on me and we’ll never get through it. . . . Never, never, never.

  Robert’s frowning thoughtfully as he finishes the coffee, puts the cup down. He glances over at the old IBM Selectric he keeps in the corner of his office, moves his chair toward it. Yeah, all the word processors are connected, maybe some jerk supervisor is checking everybody’s work habits, personal memos. Jesus, the nerve of these people. . . .

  He puts a piece of paper into the typewriter, starts typing.

  My dear Anne,

  The most amazing thing has happened. Amazing but also sad! You and I have been truly blessed.

  Jesus, right, pile it on. . . . Yeah, this is good. I can hand it to her, some place public. Hell, I can messenger it to her at work. Then it’s done. Let’s see. . . .

  We’ve had a wonderful marriage. I believe few men are as fortunate as I’ve been.

  He sits back, reading the words over several times. Yeah, be gentle, be nice. Infinitely nice. Right! Lay it out like a lawyer—but poetically. So there’s only one conclusion she can come to. Yes, Robert, you are right, she’ll say. Go in peace. God bless you. Thanks, Anne, you’re wonderful. Yeah, it’ll be like A + B = C. This is what I should have done at the start. Jesus, can you imagine! You try to talk about something like this, everything’s out of control before you know it, and you’ve got nothing but scars all around.

  Robert goes on typing, watching the door now and then. Somebody’s always stopping by. . . . Why’re you using the typewriter, Mr. Saunders? . . . I guess I’m just an old-fashioned kind of guy, buddy. I think best on this old thing, can you believe it? . . . No, Mr. Saunders, I can’t. . . . Well, buddy, fuck you.

  Robert’s smiling as he gets up and goes to shut his door. Yeah, let’s concentrate, do this thing right. He sees Anne reading the letter calmly, nodding sadly but resignedly, going with it.

  Then he’s telling Kathy, everything’s set, no problem, I told you I’d take care of it. What do I take off first, she wants to know. Wait a minute, wait a minute. This is important.

  Robert sits down again at the typewriter, reads what he’s got so far.

  Chapter

  18

  • Robie lies on his back, flopping his penis side to side. He stares across the room at Kathy’s lean, well-proportioned body, the black bush she says she trims.

  She’s by the dresser, pouring champagne. She glances back, sees what Robie is doing to his penis. “Hey,” she says, “stop that.” She tosses her shoulders. “That’s my job.”

  She comes back with the glasses of champagne, some croissants and Swiss milk chocolate. “All the things you love to eat,” she says, sitting on the bed by his hip, her knees spread apart. Robie glances between her legs.

  “Go ahead,” she says. “I want you to memorize me. No matter what you’re doing, you’ll see my pussy in your mind.”

  “It’s about that bad.”

  “Bad, hell. That’s great.” She leans way over and sloppy-kisses him. “You couldn’t say anything sweeter to this girl. Except maybe, ‘I do.’ ” She dribbles some champagne on his almost hairless chest, leans over again to lick it off him.

  Robie’s face tenses. “You know I’m not happy about it.”

  “Lover! Don’t worry. Things are going fine. We’re getting married. I want it. You want it. It’ll happen.”

  Robie sees his wife’s expression, in the kitchen, when he tried to mention the word divorce. Damn it. He thinks about the letter he’s been carrying around all week—it just never seems to be the right moment.

  “It’s just so clear to me,” he says, “no matter how I handle this, there’s going to be trouble. Maybe she goes ballistic, starts yelling, calling a lawyer, ordering me out. I don’t know. . . .”

  “Robie.” Kathy’s voice is a little impatient. “She’s your wife. You know best how to talk to her. It just seems to me you have to do it in a firm, decisive way. Then she sees it’s more or less settled. A done deal.”

  Kathy plays with his penis, curls her fingers through the brown hair there. With her other hand she’s holding a glass of champagne up close to her face, sipping now and then.

  Robie watches her with fascination. She always seems completely given over to him and sex. As if all she can think of is getting him hard again and stuck in one opening or another. Then she surprised him a week back, telling him, “It doesn’t make any difference if you get hard, Robie. Nice but not the main thing. You don’t want to do anything, I’ll lie here and look at your face and jerk off all by myself. I love looking at your face.”

  He thinks about her devotion, and regrets again that he disappointed her. He disappointed himself. He gets pissed every time he thinks about it. Damn Anne. He hates the thought that Kathy might think, well, that he’s not in love enough, or not strong enough.

  “Come down here and kiss me,” he says.

  When their faces are inches apart, he says, “I do love you. And I like you. And I lust after you. All three, probably more than any other time, any other woman.”

  “Probably?” Kathy laughs. “Who’s the bitch? I’ll kill her.”

  “No,” Robie says earnestly, “you’re in a class by yourself.”

  “Oh, I think I’ll jerk me off right now. You mind?”

  Robie stares.

  “Only kidding, lover. I just wanted you to know you got the juices flowing. Thanks, big precious.” She laughs in a girlish way. “I think I’ll sit on your chest. So you can see how hot you make me.”

  The things she says! Robie feels his penis stiffen. She doesn’t notice, swinging one knee over him, settling her weight on him, smiling down between her swinging breasts. “Now,” she says, “tell me what you’re thinking about. . . . Is it the economic condition of the country? . . . No? Is it the riots in Brooklyn? . . . No? By the way, what you’re feeling . . .”

  “What?”

  “It’s a special medical condition. It’s called VFS. Vaginal fire syndrome.”

  She sort of smiles at him, waiting for Mr. Literal to catch up, join the party.

  Robie finally laughs. “Oh. Haha. Yeah.”

  He thinks about Anne’s expression, that time in the kitchen. He wonders why he ass
umed that of all the things she could do, she’d react just the way he wanted. Go, Robert, you’re free to do as you please. Of course she’ll make problems, maybe big problems. How can he chance it? Damn you, Anne! Be reasonable. Get out of the way.

  Kathy studies him. “You’re with me. You don’t think about her. That’s an order.” She reaches behind herself to squeeze his penis, wake him up. “Oh,” she’s says, “it’s alive. Well, half alive. That’s still an order.”

  “The thing you have to remember about her,” Robie says, looking away, wanting somehow to explain himself, “is that she spends her days telling big corporations how to save big bucks. Maybe they think of her as a tough cookie. She doesn’t usually bring that side of her home. Wait . . . don’t do that.” He holds Kathy’s arms. “One more minute. All I can tell you is that there was an instant when I saw it.” He fumbles on, trying to find something good in his failure. “Maybe a couple instants. Thing is, this might be a blessing. I mean, once the cat’s out of the bag, hell, I lose control. I think. Now we can look the terrain over. Move in just the right way. You know, while we still have the element of surprise.”

  Kathy listens for some sense in all this, not sure there is any. “Look, lover. The best thing for everybody is she disappears off the face of the planet. But that’s not going to happen. So what are you going to do? You think of the story that will upset her the least. I’m repeating myself, right? But I’m a woman. This is what I’d want to hear, if you have to hear this kind of shit. It’s not her. You still love her. But you’ve grown in a different direction. You need time and space. It happens a thousand times a day, you know.”

  Kathy draws her knees up, rests her chin on them. Staring almost straight down at him. Robie nods that he understands.

  “You’re sure she doesn’t know, right?” Kathy asks.

  “No, I know her. She’d ask me straight out. Or she’d be pissed all the time.”

  “How can you be so sure?”