Flesh (4 page)

He had an urge to look again.

Don’t be a jerk, Corey.

He headed away.

“Did you hear that?” Peggy asked.

“Hear what?”

“Turn off the damn radio.”

Ron dragged the sponge mop behind him to the counter and silenced the radio.

Peggy let go of her scrub brush. She straightened up, wiped her wet hands on her shorts, and stared at him.

“I don’t hear anything,” he whispered. He looked frightened. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open a bit.

A drop of sweat trickled down from Peggy’s armpit. She brought her arm against her side and rubbed it away.

“Maybe you just imagined it,” Ron said.

“I didn’t imagine anything.”

Ron’s head swiveled, eyes darting from window to window.

“Not out there,” Peggy told him. Raising her arm, she pointed at the closed door to the cellar.

The color went out of Ron’s face. “You’re kidding,” he muttered.

In a harsh whisper, she said, “I heard something, damn it, and it came from there.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Don’t just stand there, get the gun.”

He looked over at it, then back to Peggy. “What
kind
of noise was it?”

“A thud, a thump, I don’t know. For godsake, Ron…”

“Okay okay.” He tiptoed across the kitchen, lifted the shotgun, and held it at his side, barrels pointing at the cellar door.

Peggy glanced sideways. Her wadded jersey was on top of the counter, just out of reach. Bare to the waist, she felt very vulnerable. She watched the cellar door and inched her way toward the counter on her knees. She realized that she was afraid to make any quick movements. She couldn’t take her eyes off the door. Reaching up, she patted the counter until she touched the jersey. She pulled it down. Holding it at her belly, she gazed at the door and fingered the jersey until she found its opening. She slipped her hands through the armholes, raised her arms high, and let the jersey drift down. For a moment, it blinded her. She tugged it quickly down off her face.

Gripping the countertop with one hand, she stood up. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You mean leave?” Ron asked.

“Yes.”

“You must be kidding.” The tone of his voice pried Peggy’s gaze off the cellar door. She looked at him. His face was still pale, but a corner of his mouth twitched as if he were working on a grin. “We haven’t finished the floor,” he mocked her.

“Ron.”

“I really do think we owe it to ourselves to finish the floor, don’t you? Otherwise, we’ll have to get up at the crack of dawn and—”

“There is someone in the cellar!”
she hissed.

“Look who’s the chicken now.”

“I never called you a chicken.”

“Didn’t you? Seems like you did. Or maybe I just imagined it.”

“This is no time to be…let’s just get out of here, okay?”

“You’re going to let a little noise scare you off? After you dragged me back here?”

“You want to stay, stay. Give me the car keys.”

“And what am I supposed to do, walk home? Spend the night? No thank you. I’ve got a better idea. I’ll go down and search the cellar, and when I come up you’ll apologize. You’ll repeat after me, ‘Ron is not a wimp or a coward.’”

“You’re not a wimp, you’re not a coward. Now let’s go. Please!”

He smirked at her. Then he stepped boldly toward the cellar door, lowered the shotgun, and wrapped his left hand around the knob.

“You idiot!” Peggy rushed forward, ready to grab him and stop the craziness, but her bare foot hit a slick patch and her leg flew up. She landed hard on her rump.

The mockery left Ron’s face. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“I’ll live.”

“Here.” He searched a pocket of his jeans, pulled out his key case, and tossed it to her. It thumped and jangled, striking the floor between her knees. “Go ahead and wait in the car.” He pulled open the cellar door. “I’ll come and get you after I’ve checked it out.”

“Don’t go down there. I know, you think I’m nuts. You think it was just a mouse or a rat or some damn thing, but—”

“Right.”

He flicked a light switch and started down the cellar stairs.

Peggy snatched up the key case. She clutched it tightly as she listened to Ron’s feet on the wooden treads. Slowly, quietly, she gathered in her legs and pushed herself to her knees.

The sounds of Ron’s descent stopped.

“Ron?” she called. He didn’t answer.

Peggy got up. She crept to the doorway and looked down. The cellar was lighted, but she could only see a small area at the foot of the stairway. Ron wasn’t there. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, fine.”

She leaned against the door frame. “Why don’t you come up now?”

“Just a minute. Haven’t been down here before. This is kind of…
SHIT!
”

The jolt of the outcry jerked Peggy rigid and knocked her breath out. Stiff in the doorway, she gazed down. The thought flashed through her mind that if she had to run, she wouldn’t be able to.

She tried to call down to him. Her voice seemed frozen.

God, oh God, what had happened to him!

“Damn thing,” Ron said.

She felt relief, but not enough. She still couldn’t speak. She gasped for air.

Ron stepped into view at the bottom of the stairway. He smiled up at her, looking rather pleased. “You should’ve seen it. Scampered out of nowhere, right in front of me.” He started to climb the stairs. “Biggest damn rat I ever saw. Of course, I must admit, I’ve never
seen
a rat before.”

Peggy staggered backward. Away from the door. A hand pressed to her chest.

She stopped when her rump pushed against a counter. She cupped her hands over the counter’s edge to brace herself up.

Ron reached the top of the stairs. He frowned. “Are you okay?”

She took a few deep breaths. “You…scared the hell out of me…yelling like that.”

“Sorry. The thing gave me quite a start.”

“A rat.”

“A rat. Didn’t I tell you there was nothing to worry about?” Ron smiled and raised the shotgun.

“Hey, don’t fool around with…”

Jake Corey, hiking up the middle of the road, having called it a night and taking the easy way back to his car instead of trudging through the dark fields, heard a gunshot.

He whirled around and ran.

Aw Jesus.

I knew it.

Aw Jesus, I shouldn’t have let them stay. I knew it I knew it was wrong I knew he was there I knew it I should’ve forced them to leave. Those goddamn idiots I warned them so what more could I do plenty that’s what I could’ve made them leave. They knew what they were doing like hell they did. Thought it couldn’t happen to them it’s always somebody else well maybe Ronnie boy blasted the bastard and not the other way around fat chance I’ll just bet one of them’s deader than cold shit maybe both of them by the time I get there can’t you goddamn it run any faster!

The restaurant was ahead of him, jarring in his vision as he sprinted for it.

Past the car.

Up the stairs three at a time, snapping open the holster and drawing his .38, still at full speed when his shoulder hit the door.

Wood splintered and burst and the door flew open.

Nobody.

He ran for the bat-wing doors.

He dove through the doors, tumbled into the kitchen, came up in a squat and took aim.

He didn’t fire.

He didn’t know what he was seeing.

The woman in the red shorts was sprawled on the floor, faceup. Faceup? She didn’t have a face. A chin, maybe.

Ron was hunched over her, his face to her belly.

No one else in the kitchen.

The cellar door stood open.

“Ron? Ron, which way did he go?”

Ron lifted his head. A bleeding patch of his wife’s flesh came with it, clamped in his teeth, stretching and tearing off. He sat up straight. He stared back at Jake. His eyes were calm. He calmly chewed. Then he reached back for the shotgun.

Jake Corey’s bullets slammed him down.

Alison filled two pitchers with draft beer and carried them to a booth crowded with Sigs. Two of the guys were seniors: Bing Talbot and Rusty Sims. She’d dated Bing a few times her freshman year. She’d been in classes with him and with Rusty, and knew they were with the Sigma Chi house. The other four packed into the booth were undoubtedly also frat brothers—they had that look about them.

They’d already killed two pitchers and six Gabby-burgers. They were still working on the chili fries.

Alison set the two full pitchers down on the table.

One of the younger Sigs waved at her. “Hey, hey!” He pointed at the name stitched on her blouse above her left breast. “Wha’s ‘at say?”

“Alison,” she told him.

“Wha’ d’ya call the other one?”

“Herbie,” she answered.

He fell apart, giggling and slapping the table.

Alison started to turn away, but Bing caught her by the skirt. Stopping, she smiled down at him. “You want it? It’d look good on you.”

“Wait, wait,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her.

The others had definitely heard her. They were yucking it up, hooting and whistling over the remark.

“Wait,” Bing said again. He let go of her skirt. “What’d the waitress say when she was sitting on Pinocchio’s face?”

“Lie! Lie!”

Bing slumped. “You heard it b’fore.”

“How ‘bout joining us?” suggested a skinny guy who was squeezed between two of the huskier frat brothers.

“Not enough room.”

“You can sit on my lap.”

“No, mine!”

“Mine!”

“We’ll draw straws.”

“I’m not allowed to fraternize with the customers,” Alison said.

“Awwww.”

“Frat-ernize,” Rusty said.

“I geddit, I geddit!”

She back-stepped quickly as Bing made another grab for her skirt. “Enjoy, fellows,” she said, and turned away.

“Ah, what a lovely derriere.” The voice was wistful.

Yes, indeed, Alison thought. And it’s about time to haul that derriere out of this joint. She checked the wall clock behind the counter. Two minutes till ten.

Eileen, behind the cash register, looked up as Alison approached. “You taking off?”

“Yep.”

Eileen, who was wearing red beneath her tight uniform, glanced over at the Sigs then back at Alison. She grinned. “At last, my chance at table six.”

“Enjoy,” Alison told her. She went into the kitchen, said good night to Gabby and Thelma, and picked up her flight bag. When she came out, Eileen was already on her way to table six.

She went to the rest room, intending to change into her street clothes, but the door was locked. With a shrug, she left. She didn’t mind walking home in the uniform. At night, it didn’t seem to matter so much.

She started down the sidewalk, coins from tips jangling in her apron pocket. After a few steps, she crouched, opened her flight bag, and took out her purse. She was transferring handfuls of change from her apron to a side pocket of the purse when someone approached.

And stopped in front of her.

She recognized the beat-up, ankle-high boots.

Her heart quickened.

She looked up at Evan.

“So,” she said, “you came after all.”

“I never said I wouldn’t.”

“I guess not.” She finished emptying her apron, buckled down the purse flap, shut the purse inside her flight bag, and stood up.

“Can I carry that for you?”

“If you like.”

She handed it to him. Evan pretended it was too heavy, gasped with surprise and staggered sideways. “Whoa!
Mucho
tips, huh?”

Alison found that she couldn’t smile.

“Hard night?” he asked.

“Hard afternoon.”

“Oh.” He took her hand and they started walking. “Nobody came into the room, by the way. I stayed until after five.”

“So it would’ve been perfectly all right, is that it?”

“Yeah. I knew it would be.”

“Good for you.”

“Hey, come on. We didn’t do it, okay? You won. So what’s the big deal?”

“No big deal,” Alison muttered.

They waited at a street corner for the light to change, then started across.

“Am I some kind of creep because I wanted to make love with you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Hell, we’ve done it in the park. Not just at night, either. What about Sunday afternoon?”

She remembered the bushes, the sunlight, the feel of the blanket, the feel of Evan. It seemed a long time ago.

“I don’t happen to see the big difference,” he said. “A park, a classroom.”

They stepped onto the curb and started down the next
block. They passed closed shops, a bar with the sounds of clacking pools balls and jukebox music drifting from the open door, more deserted stores.

“So what’s the big difference?” Evan asked.

“There’s not that much,” Alison told him. “It doesn’t have to do with that.”

“You lost me.”

“It doesn’t have to do with the difference between the park and your classroom.”

“I still don’t get it.”

She looked at him. He was frowning. “The thing is, you dumped on me.”

“I see.”

“It didn’t bother me that you wanted to have sex. It was your reaction when I said no.”

“Just because I wouldn’t walk you to Gabby’s?” He sounded as if he considered that a silly reason to be upset.

“Sort of,” Alison said.

They reached the corner of Summer Street’s intersection with Central Avenue. Evan’s apartment was four blocks to the right, just off Summer. The house where Alison lived was straight ahead, two blocks past the end of the campus, on a road off Central. As she expected, Evan led her to the right.

She didn’t resist.

Her heart pounded harder.

Earlier, she had made up her mind against going to his apartment tonight. She had doubted that he would meet her after work, anyway, but if he did come, she would simply have to tell him no.

That kind of decision was easy, she realized, with Evan nowhere around and the confrontation sometime in the vague future.

It wasn’t so easy when the time came.

And it would get more difficult with every step. Before long, they would be at his apartment.

“Wait,” she said. Stopping, she pulled her hand free. Evan looked at her.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“You don’t think what?”

“Not tonight.”

In the dim glow from the street lamp, she saw his brow crease. “You don’t mean it.”

“I mean it.”

A side of his lip went up. He looked surprised, annoyed, disgusted—as if he had stepped on a mound of dog waste. “What is it with you?”

“I don’t like what happened, that’s all.”

“Christ,” he muttered.

“It changed things. It made me think. It made me wonder if all you really care about is the sex.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I don’t know—is it?”

“Of course.”

“Then you won’t mind too much if we…abstain.”

“You don’t want to make love tonight,” he said quietly, as if explaining the situation to himself.

“It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“But.”

“But I won’t.”

“I didn’t walk you to work, so now you’re going to punish me by holding out.”

“That isn’t why.”

“No? That’s how it sounds.”

“I’m ‘holding out,’ if you have to call it that, because I need to find out what’s there—what’s there without the sex. I mean…” Her throat tightened. “Do you drop me, or what?”

“Alison.”

“Do you?”

Evan looked confused and hurt. Raising a hand to the side of her head, he gently stroked her hair. “You know better than that.”

“I wish I did.”

“I love you.”

“Even without sex?”

“Of course. Come on now, let’s go to my apartment and you’ll see that I’m a marvel of restraint.” He took her hand.

“No, not to your apartment. We both know what would happen.”

“We’ll just sit down and talk. On my honor.” He smiled. “Unless, of course, you should happen to change your mind, in which case…”

“I’m going back to my place,” Alison told him. “Are you coming?”

“You’ve got
roomies.
”

She reached for her flight bag.

“Never mind, I’ll come along. Can’t have you wandering the streets alone—not with all these tips.”

The returned to the corner and crossed Summer Street.

“Another thing,” Alison said.

“You mean there’s more?”

“It’s not just for tonight.”

“This celibacy kick?”

“It wouldn’t mean anything, just one night.”

“Hey, it means a lot to
me.”

“Obviously.”

“Come on, I’m just joking around.”

They walked in silence for a while. Finally, Evan asked, “About how long do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“A week, a month, sixty years?”

“It’ll depend on how things go.”

“What, exactly, do you hope to accomplish by this little maneuver?”

“I thought I already explained that.”

“You want to see what sort of relationship we have without sex?”

“That’s about it.”

Evan shook his head. “Can’t we vote on this?”

Encouraged by his light tone, Alison said. “It doesn’t have to be so bad. We’ll still see each other. Won’t we? You said…”

“We’ll still see each other.”

“We’ll find other things to do when we’re together.”

“No more idiot box—no pun intended.”

“What do you mean?”

“One time in high school, my folks got the bright idea I was spending too much time in front of the idiot box—the television. They said there’s more to life than watching TV. So they cut me off. I was supposed to broaden my horizons and forget the tube.”

“And did you?”

“Sort of. I read a lot of books. I played cards—solitaire. I spent more time on my homework. My grades improved. I did all kinds of stuff.”

Alison smiled. “We can read to each other, play cards, study…”

“Strip poker?” He squeezed her hand. “There’s a side effect that I haven’t yet mentioned. I became obsessed with television. Whenever I could, I finagled my way over to friends’ houses to watch theirs. And sometimes I even snuck downstairs after my folks were asleep. I’d turn on the TV in the family room and sit in the dark about a foot in front of the screen with the volume so low I could hardly hear the voice over that humming noise you get. It was pretty neat, actually. I was like a starving man at a feast.”

“Stolen sweets.”

“Precisely.”

“And you think being deprived of sex will have a similar effect?”

“It’s bound to.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“You don’t leave me much alternative. I guess I’ll just have to jack off with your yearbook pictures.”

“Evan!” Laughing, she shoved her elbow into his ribs. He stumbled off the sidewalk.

“You got a better idea?” he asked.

“How about cold showers?”

“I hate cold showers.” He took her hand again. “It is all right, I take it, to hold your hand?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“What about kissing?”

“We’ll see.”

“Ah, the prices we pay for our tactical errors.”

At the south end of campus, they waited while a car approached on Spring Street. After it turned onto Central, they crossed. They walked past the root beer stand where Alison had first met Evan.

She remembered that rainy evening, standing at the counter while she waited for her order and hearing a voice behind her intone, “She walks in beauty like the night.”

A glance back.

Evan Forbes gave her a smile.

“Talking to one’s self is a sign of madness,” she informed him.

“Ah, but I was talking to you. Is that also a sign of madness?”

“Could be.”

She had seen Evan around campus, knew that he was one of the small cadre of graduate students in English, and had noticed the way he watched her the previous night when she’d served him at Gabby’s.

She picked up her hamburger, fries, and root beer.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“No, fine.”

Evan followed her to a table.

“Aren’t you going to order something?” she asked.

Shaking his head, he sat across from her and took one of her french fries. “I’ll eat yours.”

“Oh.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve already eaten. I spied you leaving the library and tailed you here.”

She felt a blush warm her face. “That’s a lot of trouble to mooch a french fry.”

Remembering, Alison found herself smiling. “You ate
all
my fries,” she said.

“Nerves. The fries kept me from biting my fingernails.”

“Probably tasted better, too.”

They crossed the railroad tracks, walked past the Laundromat where Alison took her dirty clothes once a week, and turned down Apple Lane. Professor Teal’s house was third from the corner. Its porch light glowed, but the ground floor windows were dark. The front windows upstairs were bright, however, so Alison assumed that at least one of her roommates was in. Helen, probably. Celia would still be at Wally’s, more than likely, raising hell and soaking up beer.

A wooden stairway angled up the side of the house to the upstairs door. The light above the door was off.

Evan stayed beside her on the walkway across the yard and remained at her side, though it meant walking on the dewy grass, as she followed the flagstones past the front of the house. They climbed the stairs together. At the top, he set down her flight bag.

“Are you going to ask me in?”

“I don’t think so.”

The quiet, mellow sound of a Lionel Richie song came from inside.

“One of your roomies is here to protect your virtue.”

Alison squeezed his hand. “I’m tired. I just want to go to bed.”

“Sans Evan.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

He nodded. “What now? Am I allowed to kiss you good night?”

“I think that’s allowed.”

In the moonlight, she saw him smile. He lifted her hand
to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “Until tomorrow, then.” He released her hand and turned away.

“Evan.”

He glanced around. “Yes?”

“Don’t be this way,” she murmured.

“Fare thee well, chaste maiden.”