Dirty Love (17 page)

After a while she stopped and blew her nose. She lay there under the comforter with a balled-up tissue in her hand. Edna leapt up onto the bed and Marla stroked her head and listened to her purr. She stared into the darkness of the bedroom at all the shadowed furniture that had become so familiar—his tall masculine bureau, his recliner in the corner—and she felt a little better. His plane came in tomorrow, the last day of the year, and there was the feeling she was being given one more chance, and there was still time to avoid something horrible.

She just needed to work harder at loving Dennis, that’s all. What was wrong with that? Maybe he had to work harder at loving her too.

J
UST BEFORE NIGHTFALL
on New Year’s Eve, Marla met Dennis at the airport. The temperature had come up twenty degrees; there were wide slushy puddles on the highway, and the airport’s usually shiny floors were tracked with mud and salt. She was only a few minutes late, but his plane had come in on time and he was already downstairs at baggage claim walking toward her, pulling his gray Samsonite on wheels behind him, smiling and waving, a round friendly face behind a bushy beard. She smiled and let him hug her with one arm. He smelled like breath mints, and his perfumey cologne was stronger than ever.

“Oh, I missed you, Marla.” He turned her from side to side.

“Me too.”

“You did?” There was fear in his eyes, and he was looking right at her, her face hot with the lie she’d just told.

She slapped at his shoulder. “Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

That seemed to be enough for him for now, and in the car she drove carefully along the wet roads in the twilight and listened to his holiday, the three-day video game marathon he’d played with his brother, the sledding afternoon with the kids, and all the food: “The food, the food, the food. I even got drunk with my sister-in-law,” he laughed. “Peach mimosas. Ever have one?”

“No.” So far that was only the second question he’d asked her. She was aware of him taking up all the room in the dark space beside her, and she turned onto the highway ramp and accelerated quickly. Up ahead was a plow in the fast lane scraping slush, its red taillights blinking, Dennis talking about his brother’s house, the addition he’d built full of wireless, high-definition hookups. Marla was suddenly hot under her clothes and she rolled her window down a crack and breathed deeply and sat up straight behind the wheel; maybe it was okay to feel far away from all he was saying; maybe she could just stay busy there in her solitude and think her own thoughts.

When she turned off the highway, he finished telling her his video game scores, then stopped talking. There was only the sound of her wet tires on the asphalt. He took a breath and rested his hand on her knee.

“Why are you being so quiet?”

“I’m just listening.”

“Oh.” His fingers moved up her thigh and squeezed gently. “Can we make love when we get home?”

“Okay.”

He began talking about Nancy and Carl’s party tonight, how the last time he wore his tuxedo was for his youngest brother’s wedding, and he hoped it still fit. Marla planned to wear her only gown, the red one that cinched in beneath her breasts and made her look pregnant. She heard Nancy’s voice in her head saying everything made sense then, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up, and when they were finally home and undressing in only the light from the bathroom, his suitcase on the carpet, she said nothing as he reached for the condom, then was soon back inside her, and even though it was over too soon, it did feel good. After, instead of getting up and going straight to his shower, Dennis stayed on top of her, resting his weight on his elbows.

“I do love you, Marla.”

“I love you, too.” Why not say it? It was sweet of him to say it right now, like this, and she swallowed and was about to say she sometimes felt lonely with him. Did he feel that way too? Did he? But he was smiling down at her behind his beard, happy, so happy to have had his say, and he kissed her on the mouth and was out of her and off her and in the bathroom, and she felt the cool air and pulled the bedspread up and over herself.

S
OON THEY WERE DRIVING
along the shore of Whittier Lake, just an endless black expanse of melting ice and snow. Dennis sat behind the wheel in his tuxedo and overcoat singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Marla had never really heard him sing before. It wasn’t the best singing she’d ever heard, but it wasn’t bad either. A strand of hair kept coming loose, and she had to push it off her cheek and press it back into place. On the other side of the lake was the twinkle of lights.

Now they slowly passed all the large houses of all the people who could afford to live here, and her heart began to beat faster as Dennis turned down Nancy and Carl’s private road. Both sides were lined with tall pine trees, and Marla could see their lighted house ahead, their floodlit driveway. Curled over and around the front door was a wide gold ribbon. Lining the sanded walk were two rows of lit candles in gold bags leading all the way to the plowed yard where a dozen cars were already parked. Dennis pulled up behind a white Audi sports car. Lisa’s Prelude was in front of it, but Marla didn’t recognize any of the others and she began to feel afraid and didn’t know why.

Dennis got out and closed the door. She pulled the rearview mirror toward her and checked her face. It was hard to see in the dim light, though, and Dennis was already waiting for her at the first flaming bag of the sidewalk. She took a breath. The air wouldn’t go all the way into her lungs. She opened her door and stood, the ground so soft her high heels sunk into it, and she quickly gathered up the hem of her gown and had to put a hand on Dennis’s car hood to make her way around to where he stood in his overcoat and tuxedo, jangling his keys, his eyes on their friends’ house. She was fourteen again, making herself go to a party where no one knew her and never would. She had to stop and swallow something in her throat.

“Coming?” Dennis held his arm out for her, a patient smile in his voice. She peered up at him, but he was just a tall, blurry shadow. There was talk and laughter and music coming from inside the house. Above it the stars were in a black sky. That black, black sky.

“You all right?”

All those stars so far apart. None of them close. From far away they just looked it.

“Marl? You okay?”

She swallowed and took a breath. “Yeah. I’m okay.” She stepped forward, and he took her hand, and they walked through the gauntlet of low flames. He was saying something to her, asking her another question, and she smiled and nodded just so he’d stop. Inside Nancy’s house, a man laughed and laughed. Dennis opened the front door for her, and she could smell wool and cashmere and the cream of lobster bisque. She stepped past him into the warm foyer. There was sweat on her forehead. She heard the door close behind her, felt his big hand on her lower back. Her hair came loose again. She reached up and pressed it firmly back into place, then climbed the stairs one at a time, and she led them to the rest of the couples, to all those smiling, happy couples.

R
OBERT
D
OUCETTE MET HIS WIFE-TO-BE WHILE TENDING BAR
at a dance club on Hampton Beach. It was Labor Day weekend, the season almost done, his sunburned customers already beginning to wear sweatshirts and light sweaters. He had spent the summer living in a one-room rental above the bar and he had four thousand saved, enough to get him through until late winter when he was thinking of hopping a bus to the east coast of Florida to work a topless bar called Skinny’s. But late this morning while he was lying in bed listening to the beach traffic out on the boulevard, a phrase occurred to him and he thought he might start a poem with it. The words that came were of a woman “with eyes of black hope.” He wasn’t sure he liked this line; he suspected it sounded mawkish and falsely heroic, but its unexpected arrival left him feeling there might be something within him worth mining for after all.

Then she walked into the club. She wore a white sundress, her long, curly black hair held back in a loose ponytail, her bare shoulders and arms thick for a woman but tanned and hard-looking. She was with two laughing blondes, both thin and inconsequential. They sat at his bar, one of the blondes ordering piña coladas for all three, and the dark one sat quietly watching him, her stillness a force that pulled him closer, though he did not approach her until setting the fresh rum drink on a napkin in front of her. She smiled and looked up at him, and there were the eyes he’d written about just that morning, eyes of black hope, and they seemed not to see him so much as all he might represent. The women only stayed for one drink. In the half hour it took them to finish it, Robert worked the service bar but kept feeling the dark woman’s presence behind him like good news in a letter he wasn’t opening. When they stood to leave Robert took a chance and wrote his name and cell number on a napkin and set it down in front of her. She glanced at it, then took out a pen of her own, crossed out his number, and wrote hers.

Her name was Althea, and throughout the fall they dated; they went to movies and restaurants in Portsmouth and sometimes Boston. She was a good eater, always finishing the salad and entrée, then ordering a dessert, too. She was quiet, more of a listener than a talker, which at first unnerved Robert. He was used to being around waitresses and barmaids, women who seemed to talk about almost anything as if they were experts. Althea did not present herself as an expert on anything, which left Robert feeling he might not be either. One night driving her home while she sat quietly beside him, he forced himself not to turn on the radio or to tell her another tale from the bar business: of the fellow bartender who had skimmed ten thousand dollars from the register one winter to pay off back child support; of a cocktail waitress who was kidnapped by her boyfriend after her shift and found tied up in a motel room two weeks later—dehydrated and hysterical—her boyfriend having hung himself in front of her; or any of the dozens of bad jokes he knew, tools of the trade which felt, in Althea’s presence, like dried mucus on a handkerchief. He’d already told her of his dreary childhood growing up on his family dairy farm inland, and of course he’d told her that he was a poet, that for ten years he’d been working on a book of poems he hoped to one day publish. She nodded knowingly at this piece of information, but even then, remained quiet. So he drove in the silence and fought the urge to ask her a question about herself, for he already knew the essentials: Althea was an upholsterer, working in the basement of a house she rented and shared with the two blondes, bank tellers Robert didn’t like because they talked mostly of interest rates and attractive men who owned property and they wore makeup even when they stayed in at night. But Althea wore little makeup. Her mother and father had immigrated from Greece, only to return there to care for ailing relatives now that their girl was a woman with a trade she’d learned on her own. She had a steady line of business from local antiques dealers who trusted her to strip and redress their ancient chairs and settees in floral brocades, classical damasks, and gold and burgundy tapestries. She had no brothers or sisters, which perhaps explained her silence, Robert thought, her feeling there was no one in the room to whom she had to speak.

After two months of dating, she invited him to spend the night in her room, and as they made love, Robert moved carefully, as if he were trying on new clothes he didn’t want to spoil in case they had to be returned. Afterward, they lay quietly together in the dark, the faint sounds of a late-night television talk show coming from downstairs. When he had softened completely, he eased off his condom and was trying to lower it discreetly to the floor when she held out a white tissue for him to drop it in. He did, and she took his seed and placed it on her bedside table next to a copy of the New Testament and two Willa Cather novels she’d borrowed from the library. Outside, an October wind blew dead leaves against the house and across the yard. Her room was spare, no rug or carpet on the pine floor, nothing but a dresser, a cane chair, and at the foot of the bed an old trunk that had once belonged to her grandfather in Sparta. One wall held a framed poster of the Wyeth painting of the young woman sitting alone on the grassy hill staring up at a farm house, her hair lifting in the breeze. Robert could see just the shadow of it.

Althea kissed his shoulder. “Robert.” It sounded like more of a statement than an inquiry, as if she were assuring herself of who he was.

“Yes?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone I wouldn’t want to have a baby with.”

There was a slight itch in the hair at Robert’s temple, but he didn’t move to scratch it. He wondered what his heart sounded like beneath her ear.

“That’s good.”

She lifted her head and smiled at him in the dark. “For you? Or for me?”

“For both of us.”

She was quiet now. Robert’s cheeks grew warm, and he felt he’d just lied.

“You mean that?”

“Yes.”

“Completely yes?”

“Yes, completely.”

She kept her head up awhile, looking at him in the dark. Then she rubbed her nose against his and kissed him deeply, opening his mouth with her tongue. They made love again, this time without a condom. The wind picked up outside; it sounded cold to Robert, though here with Althea it was warm, almost hot. A lone leaf scuttled across the window and was gone.

Two days later, a Monday, the weather was warm, the orange and red leaves on the branches and ground like flames giving off heat. Althea carried the frame of a wingback chair from the basement to work on in the sunlit grass of her rented yard, and Robert had no shift later so he sat close by drinking beer and trying to read from an anthology of twentieth-century poems. But he kept watching her instead, the way she sat on her calves with her back straight, a long curved needle between her lips as she pushed a spring into the seat, then began to sew it down, her wild black hair tied back loosely with a purple scarf, and he had to look away because the word that kept tumbling through his head was
bride
.
My
bride. He said nothing to her, but in the days and weeks that followed, this knowledge began to transform her silence for him; sitting in the car or across the table at a restaurant, it now began to feel comfortable, like she had accepted him for who he was already, without him having to go on and on, the way a home should feel to a child, Robert thought, and he proposed to her the day after Christmas as they lay in bed watching it snow out the window. “I think I should marry you.”