“There must be some quaintee oldee innee,” he said. “I’ll give our guy a jingle.” He pulled into the Stewart’s and got out his cell.
“Don’t, okay?” she said. “I hate to think of him putting a phone up against that ear. Look, I’ll get some treats and we’ll have a picnic in our room.”
“Okay,” he said. “You’ve obviously got a vision of this.”
Back at the cabin, she shooed him onto the deck. The moon had gone higher up and gotten smaller. As he tried to find a face in it, he heard the yodeling witch-laughter of coyotes, echoing off lake and mountains. He opened the sliding door. “You need to come hear.” Margaret stepped outside, listened and said, “Is that what I think it is? It’s horrible. Soup’s on.”
She’d laid out a feast on top of the dresser: Beer Nuts, Nabs, a Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate bar, a Slim Jim still in its wrapper, a rectangular bar of yellow cheese, out of its package, on a paper napkin. The pair of plastic glasses from the bathroom, poured full of Bloody Mary–looking stuff.
“Well well.” He picked up the Slim Jim. “Protein suppositories. What’ll they think of next.” He tried to bite open the top.
“What are you doing?” She touched his hand. “I just thought you’d be amused. I don’t want you sick. This is the low-sodium V8, incidentally.” She put both arms around his waist. Side of her head against his breastbone. “So are we the two most awful people who ever lived or died?” She took a long breath, let it out. “I want this just to be exactly the way it is, you know? Even a little bit depressing.”
“Aren’t you the connoisseur,” he said. “Connoisseuse.”
She slid a hand inside the back of his pants, under the briefs. Dry finger at his asshole. “What would you think if I broke up with Morgan?”
“Is that in the cards?” He tightened himself.
“Isn’t everything always in the cards?”
“Well. I guess initially I’d be sad for you.”
“Okay,” she said. “B plus. B.” Took her hand out. “B minus.” She headed for the bathroom. “I need to wash my hands. You notice their soap, by the way?”
“Should I have?”
“Cashmere Bouquet. It’s so grotesque. That man with his ear, putting out the Cashmere Bouquet.”
“Presumably they’ve got bonne à toute faire,” he said. “I think he’s more the concept guy. Or is that a pricky thing to say?”
She said, “I won’t say the obvious.”
—
He picked up his watch off the night table: ten of seven. Daylight at the bottom of the window shades. Sunday morning. Margaret was still asleep. On her stomach, head to the side, lips parted, bent arm guarding the head. Each exhale a growl down in her chest, thinning to Sssh as it came up and out. He considered the face: here we had what was agreed to be loveliness. But one was also supposed to intuit the pilgrim soul in there. He closed his eyes and kissed the cheek, as if a real person were kissing another person.
When he woke up again she was sitting on the bed taking off a shoe.
“It’s so incredible here,” she said. “I told the cleaning woman to go away so you could sleep.” She dropped the shoe on the floor and started on number two. “Actually, I think it’s his wife. I was down talking to him and I noticed he had a ring on.”
“Wait, you were down talking with him? What does he talk about?”
“I don’t know. He seems kind.”
“Hey, anything’s possible,” Cal said. “So what should we do about breakfast?”
“First things first?” She reached down and started rubbing through the covers. “Or are you really hungry?” Stopped.
“I am, to tell you the truth.”
She took her hand away.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing. Let’s eat, then we can have the hiking segment and get that done.”
He looked at her. “What.”
She sat up and started putting her shoes back on. “I guess we should hike a little. Otherwise we could have just fucked at my place. And had a decent meal.”
“Come on, I liked our picnic,” he said.
“Well, now you get to have more of it.”
She got up and started taking things out of the paper bag again, then froze. “Do you hear that?” Jet going over.
“What, the airplane?”
“I guess it’s nothing,” she said. “I always think, you know, it’s starting. That would be the worst, to be caught up here.”
“Yeah, wouldn’t that surprise the nearest and dearest,” he said. “ ‘Um, sweetie? Where exactly were you when I was getting vaporized?’ ”
“I just have this fantasy of all these burned people who didn’t die right away, just all walking north in this big mass.” She shook Beer Nuts into her palm. “So what’s the worst joke you know? Like the most offensive.”
“I’d have to think,” he said. “Okay. What sits on a wall and bleeds?”
“And bleeds?” she said, chewing.
“Humpty Cunt.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Well. That came readily to mind.”
“What’s the most offensive one you know?”
She shook her head. “I don’t really like that word.”
“Huh,” he said. “Hitting limits left and right here.”
He got up and went into the bathroom, closed the door to piss. Margaret—another of her peculiarities, possibly endearing—went the whole hog, not just closing the door but running the water.
When he came out, she was back in bed, covers up to her chin. The old surprise-surprise. “I will think this is romantic,” she said.
“So,” he said, “you want to fuck?”
“Oh sure.” She sat up against the headboard, her clothes on. “My cunt,” she said, “is just dripping for it.”
—
When he got out of the shower, she was gone. And the half joint gone from the ashtray. Well, was this not her little interlude too? He should’ve made it crazier for her: pot didn’t cut it these days. Handcuffs? Coke, for sure.
Somebody banged on the door, then the lock clicking, and there stood the ear guy, Margaret behind him.
“You folks are checking out,” he said. “I told the lady.”
“We’re actually booked for tonight too,” Cal said. “If you look in your—”
“You heard what I said. Fifteen minutes, that’s when I’m calling the trooper.”
“What the fuck—”
“The lady’ll tell you about it.”
“Suppose you tell me about it. The fuck exactly is this?”
“What the fuck this exactly is,” the ear guy said, “is just what I said.” He looked at his watch. “Fifteen minutes I call the trooper and give him your plate number. Right? We straight on that?” He stepped aside to let Margaret into the cabin. “I won’t charge you the extra day. That oughta be a load off your mind.” He walked off leaving the door open.
Margaret was cramming stuff into her bag.
“So,” Cal said. “Will the lady be good enough to tell me what the fuck happened?”
She didn’t turn around. “He’s a total asshole.”
“And here I thought he was one of nature’s gentlemen. So what happened?”
“Let’s just go,” she said. “Before he really has us busted.”
“What did you do, smoke up in front of him?”