In the shower, under the stream, his head hung low, water pouring over his neck and shoulders, he realized he had to go in there at least once more. He would get his shit out and work in the dining room. The light was better in there anyway. In and out. And when he was finished with the stuff for Friday, he would set up in the attic, or the little room upstairs that Becca wasn’t using. And then whatever went on in that roomjust bad dreams could go on without him.
And today, he’d skip the pot.
He put off going in for as long as possible, doing the supper dishes and sweeping the kitchen floor with extra caution, the way Becca did before she washed it. He carted some empty boxes out of the bedroom and stuck them by the back door. He opened them up and laid them flat. He gathered some laundry and then thought better of throwing it into the washer: the machine was in the cloakroom, just a few paces from the studio. He wasn’t ready to go in there yet.
Max called. He wanted to know how it was going and could he drop by after work and see anything? Dan gave him a brief on the work he’d done the day before (giddily thinking about sayingand then but ultimately not saying a thing, not betraying himself by word or tone, and as for thinking the penultimatewho who he did not even go there). It had been good work. The conversation turned long. Some of Dan’s anxiety started to drop away as they talked about the work. The prospects.
When they hung up, he geared up. But even as he approached, sweat dotted his upper lip and around his hairline. Close to the door, he could smell her. His erection rose, a mind of its own.
Becca watched the clock nervously, in a way she hadn’t since her college-years job at Starbucks. Little work was accomplished, mostly papers were shuffled from one side of her desk to another. Her computer glared at her, figures without meaning.
When she knocked on Gordon Huff’s door at ten-thirty her hands were not shaking nearly as badly as they had been that first time. She took it as a sign.
She knocked and went in, poking her head with false concern around its corner before pushing it all the way open, “Mr. Huff?” she said, wishing she had called him Gordon. “It’s ten-thirty.”
He waved her in; he was on the phone. His face was a frown when he nodded a greeting to her and motioned to a chair. He put his hand over the receiver companionably and, like a conspirator, mouthed the words,This won’t take a minute. She nodded her acquiescence, fitting her hands into her lap and crossing her legs at the ankle. She breathed deeply and hoped he didn’t notice. He finished his call and hung up, pulling his chair closer to his edge of the desk and flopping his arms across it with that same companionability.
“You wanted to see me,” she said, a statement, not a question.
He sighed and looked off into space for a moment, as though gathering thoughts. “Well, Rebecca, I thought I would let you know that Don Geisbrecht has expressed some interest.” For a moment she didn’t understand. Expressed interest in what? Inher? In the hiring process?
“In the position,” Huff added, noting her confusion.
“But he’s from outside,” she said.
Huff nodded. “He’s a good candidate.” A scowl she couldn’t control marred her features. Her stomach twisted and she wished she’d had breakfast. She thought it might rumble. She opened her mouth to speak, but wasn’t sure what to say.
Mr. Huff said, “I’m not sure how the board is going to look at this—he hasn’t applied, of course. But I understand he’s been talking to Ben King.” She nodded with growing understanding and a small sinking feeling. There was a long pause between the two of them.
Finally she said, firmly, although her voice wanted to shake, “I think I am a good candidate for the job. I’ve worked in this department for six years. With this company. I hope that you will recommend me to the board. I appreciate the information, Mr. Huff. Thank you.” She rose to leave, her mind going in a million directions at once. He had wanted to see her to prepare her. It was as good as saying she didn’t have the job. She was angry, and embarrassed.
“Rebecca,” he said, from behind her. She turned halfway around. “I enjoyed our lunch yesterday very much,” he said, watching her face. She met his eyes. In the pause, she turned and faced him fully.
So here it is. This is the part where he tells me what he wants.
“I was hoping we could have dinner sometime,” he said. The words were spoken carefully. He leaned back in his chair.Bastard prick bastard. Even as she thought it, she knew what she would say.
She blinked twice. Thinking and not. Sleepily, she said, “That would be nice.”
He nodded, half smiling. “Monday evening?”
“All right,” she said. She slid to the door and turned the knob, her heart thudding so hard that it was hurting her ears, or maybe it was another headache. She did not turn and look back at him, and did not say good-bye. It seemed unnecessary;uncompanionable. And, anyway, she would see him later.
In her head, the cocktail party sprang to life.I’m Director of Patient Services at the Center for Improved Health, she said.
Oh, my. And how did you get that?
I earned it.Diamonds twinkled discreetly on her ears. She wore Armani. Her shoes were Prada. Somewhere, distantly in the background, Gordon Huff stood with his wife.
The door was open, the light off. The bed was down.I slept in it that’s why it’s down. A small patch of light from the hall filtered in, no farther than the end of the bed. Through the shadows he could just make out the chrome legs of the drawing board, the stool.
He leaned in through the doorway and flicked on the light.
Hello, big boy.
The words weren’t said, not out loud, but he heard them, as though they were coming from inside his own head.Hello, big boy. Said with a twinkle; a grin. There was no direction in which to look, but he spun his head around—nowhere to hide. The room was empty. He walked in, the room scented with lilac and sweat, warm. His breathing became shallow and he went to his drawing board without conviction.
Movement behind him. He turned.
She was on the bed. She lay on her side, the curve of her hip inviting, the smile on her face promising, her skin white and smooth, breasts, hips, thighs, curves that undulated like a mountain road. The door swung shut lazily, closed. He jumped in a slow, delayed reaction.
“I have to work,” he said weakly. She wiggled her hips playfully.
His penis tented the front of his jeans, pressing painfully against the seam there. It throbbed like it hadn’t since high school.
I have to work.Even as he walked to the bed. Even touching her, inside he recoiled, something curling up as though burned. Even as he slid his pants down over his hips, even as she leaned forward, her red, painted mouth opening, light glancing off little teeth like pearls, even as he slid into the darkness of her throat, even as he closed his eyes and let her swallow him, he retreated inside, breathing through his mouth so he didn’t have to smell what persisted under the sweetness of something rotten.
Intermittently, he opened his eyes from one world into the next. He would be standing, naked, at the drawing board, charcoal or pencil in hand, fingers poised as though to swoop. The overhead light would sometimes be flickering like candlelight, but filling the room and he would blink against it, as though the light shed itself on things he’d just as soon not see. At those times, the room would be still and silent, like a room should be. Unable to help himself, his eyes would sneak around it, lighting on items and ticking them off mentally in their normality. Drawing board, table, books, wall. His hair would be corkscrewed around his head, his eyes heavily lidded as though he had just woken (or been crying). His penis would lie limply, in retreat, against his leg, hardly rising to bob with the movements of his body.
Pencil to paper, he worked. On the wall in front of him, his pictures of the Reporter stared back. Subtly, they looked different, as though someone had come inside in the night and altered them. The heart-shaped face was rounder; the hair a little longer, less coiffed. Some of the intellig
ence had been replaced in her eyes with acome hither stare. He took note of all of these things.
But he worked.
He drew quickly, and well. He fell deeply into the paper, so deeply, the flesh over his top lip grew moist, as did the band of skin around his hairline, sweating with the force of his concentration. He did not notice when cool air climbed his back, stroking up from the small hollow, as high as the place where he broadened across the shoulders, and rested there for a moment.
He did not notice, but he welcomed it.
Time slipped around itself like a snake swallowing its tail. He thought that when he realized that he was not separating the day very well. He was here again, spread open on his back and she rode him. The light was off sometimes and candles burned. Sometimes the light was on. When the candles burned, unfamiliar shapes appeared just beyond his sight, in the flickering darkness that yielded randomly, like a woman.
A phonograph in the corner. A tall lamp. An overstuffed chair piled high with silks or scarves or the sort of filmy night things that women wore. A hat hung on a hook. All of these were just beyond his sight and they appeared and disappeared with disarming frequency: the hat became books stacked in rows; chair became table; lamp became stool. He preferred, after a while, not to look.
He grabbed her hips and pulled her down on himself hard, felt bone through flesh and that was both better and worse. He squeezed and pinched, felt her wriggle and tremble on him, felt her heat, the sweat that trickled down her back and that was both better and worse—
Because sometimes he held only air.
His cock pointing up to a white corked ceiling, hands above him, muscles tightening against nothing. His head became light and he would close his eyes and, slowly, pleasure would take him past thought, and if then he opened his eyes again he would have forgotten the moment before when he held nothing, and the room smelled stale, like yeast and old fruit.
Becca took off early, claiming a headache, and headed for the mall on the outskirts of the city. She rarely ventured to that particular mall. It was very, very expensive. The last time was to buy the pair of shoes that she had worn yesterday to her lunch with Mr. Huff. They had cost three hundred dollars, and were not the most expensive pair that she had tried on; in fact, they had been a compromise. Three hundred dollars for a soft little pair of pumps. There was about two thousand dollars in checking. She had both her Visa and the AmEx with her. If all went well, in a couple of months’ time, she would have a little gold company card and this day would be a memory.
Becca drove slowly past Beemers, Jags, softly tinted subdued little Mercedes, and lots of other Volvos. Her older, but well-cared for Volvo was still okay among the cars in the lot.
She found a parking space near the entrance. She decided that it was a sign. Divine approval for the line of attack, while shopping for body armor.
At very least, she would have to have a new outfit for dinner. And shoes. Probably underwear. It was unseemly to expect her to appear at dinner as the fatted calf in underwear the previous farmer had already pulled off her body, wasn’t it? And the outfit had to be spectacular, something that spoke of her lofty grounds for execution. Something spectacular, in fabric so expensive and fine that it would raise her up by its very perfection above the dirty little engagement that instigated its purchase. And shoes to match.
Women strolled elegantly through the mall in clutches of twos. From jeweled, dainty fingers dripped richly colored shopping bags, with matching tissue climbing out the tops of some as though they were barely able to contain the secrets inside. Others gaped openly, their contents peeking out above the straps of the handles. On the sides of the bags the names of shops were discreetly pressed in black. Louis Vuitton, Ambrosia, Kate Spade, Gucci, Anne Klein, Versace. Becca breathed deeply, her body relaxing familiarly into the rhythm and pace of the aisles.
She went first into Talbot’s. It was very likely the same place where Mrs. Huff shopped.
When Becca pushed open the front door, both hands were fully occupied with shopping bags. There were two from Talbot’s, and an Ambrosia bag, tiny and sexy with its rose-petal montage and scented paper, containing undergarments so light and engineered with such perfection that the bag hardly seemed necessary—the items seemed capable of walking home on their own. There was a Veda bag, with a new pair of slingback pumps—jumping the gun slightly on summer, but by then she’d thought,what the hell? and a pair of more sensible shoes for the moment(the moment, you could say), which matched perfectly the suit in the large suit bag slung over her shoulder.
The trick would be getting it all upstairs before Dan noticed.This old thing? I’ve had it for months. I hardly ever wear it because it’s not flattering. The bags crinkled excitedly, cheerfully, discreetly expensive, and she realized thereal trick was going to be keeping her own excitement down and resisting the desire to try everything on once she got the bags upstairs. Her stomach was tight with exhilaration and utter terror. She had put everything on her charge cards (distributing it relatively evenly between the two). In all, she had spent just over a thousand dollars.
A thousand dollars. The figure left her out of breath. It was half of what was left in their checking account.
None of it was out of line, really. The suit—white, how fitting: she’d thought, but only fleetingly, that she would wear white like a bride or a virginal (hardly) sacrifice—had cost just over six hundred dollars, not outrageous. The shoes had been an absolutebargain at two hundred dollars. The lingerie was also two hundred and fifty, but she had paid that before. Stockings had put her over at fifty dollars, but they were the sort that clipped on to the delicate and delightful, practicallyinvisible pair of garters that the salesgirl assured her would not show under the slightest of fabrics. The garters had been a hundred and fifty dollars. That was the fly in the ointment, and the one serious regret (and the most stimulating impulse purchase). She would likely only wear them once. It was almost a done deal now: she would have to do what she was ready to do, or she would have shopped in vain.
A thousand dollars. Thirteen hundred dollars, give or take. She preferred her rounded-off figure.
She stepped quickly and quietly into the deserted hall. There were no lights on in the kitchen and she assumed Dan was still in the studio working on his book.Let him. Soon we’ll be able to afford that little indulgence. And mine.
The bags, in spite of her holding everything carefully away from her body, made their crinkling sounds, which seemed loud in the empty hall, but wasn’t the sort of sound that carried at all. Just as she was about to mount the steps, she heard the studio door open and the scrambling sound of someone rushing out. She was caught. She thought of dashing up the stairs quickly—Hi I’m home I’ll be right down—but then he would come up, and what would she do? Shove the bags into the armoire before he got up to the bedroom, like a common thief?
She backed down the step and stood, brazenly with her bags, in front of the door.
Dan was not in the hall. Instead, she heard him fumbling just out of sight, and then the familiar sound of a zipper hastily raised.
“Hello?” she said, curious.
He came around the corner then, hair disheveled, shirtless, looking like he’d just crawled out of a Dumpster. Or a bed. Had he been napping?
“What’s going on?” she asked. He ran a hand through his hair, succeeding only in making it worse. It stuck up at the back, stiffly, as though he had lain on his back for a long time.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, and she recognized a flash of guilt on his face, even in the dim light of the hall. She leaned sideways, peering behind him, almost, but not quite, expecting to see someone (a prostitute, a tramp, a fellowartiste ) standing behind him. Dan followed her gaze, cheeks pink, and reached beside him and closed the studio door. It clicked shut boldly.
“Is there someone in there?” she said, her voice rising. “You have someone in there?”
He snorted indignantly. “For Chrissakes, Bec!” he said. “What the
hell are you talking about?” His cheeks blazed then, and it might have been from indignation or anger.
“Why aren’t you dressed? What’s the matter with your hair?” she demanded, her bags and their contents forgotten.
He looked sheepish then. “I had a nap,” he said apologetically. “I guess you woke me up. Sorry.”
They stared at each other. Of course. She sighed and nodded.A nap. Must be nice. She was just about to say as much when anger crossed his face. He looked down at her packages. “And where the hell were you?” he said, turning it all around. She was trapped, caught (a thousand dollars! Half the account!).
“I was shopping,” she answered, daring him to say something about it. Defiant.
“I can see that. Looks like a pretty successful trip.” She nodded, the same nod she’d given Gordon Huff, that first day: a duck of the chin and not much more.
“I thought we were going to discuss spending more than a hundred bucks at a time. Wasn’t that your idea?”
“Who says this is more than a hundred dollars?”
He laughed. Shook his head. “Anyway,hello dear. How was your day?” he said sarcastically. Then he brushed past her in the hall and started up the stairs. “I’m getting in the shower. Then let’s go out to eat”—he paused on the stairs, and turned to her—“unless, of course, we’re all out of money now. And in that case, I’ll have a pair of Prabas. Maybe a left one. Fricasseed. What do you think?”
“Prada,” she corrected automatically.
“Right.Prada. Nice soft leather, easy to chew. I’ll be but a moment, darling.” He ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, leaving Becca to stand in the hall, her egregious tokens dangling elegantly from her fingers.
Dan bent over the toilet, sure he was going to throw up. His body felt like it had been battered. His stomach was horribly empty, the only thing that kept him from vomiting that there was nothing to throw up; he hadn’t eaten all day. Toast in the morning. He hadn’t left the studio.
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