Didn’t mean to blame you. Now what was this business that was so darned important, Ruth?” The lip slid back in like it was automated.
Ruth took my hand, looked both ways down the empty hospital hallway like she was crossing a street, and led me into a room. It was an empty private patient’s room, the only light burning a dim one from the bathroom. She leaned against the heavy door and it slowly closed.
“Ruth-” I began, but her mouth didn’t let me finish. She pulled my head down to hers, kissing me hard, tangling her fingers in my hair.
It’s no excuse, but I hadn’t been kissed like that in ages. Her mouth tasted of warm chocolate and caramel. My body responded while my mind continued to mull over the implications. Her hands ran across my body, feeling, lightly exploring. Fingernails nipped playfully at sensitive areas and I gasped, pulling her closer. She broke the kiss but kept her mouth scantly off mine. “See there? We make a good team. I knew we would,” she breathed softly into my face. “See? I can help you and you”-she squeezed my buttocks-“can help me.” “Okay, Ruth,” I said, restraining the urge to kiss her again. This sounded more like negotiations of commerce than declarations of affection or even lust.
“What do you mean by all this?” She kissed me hard again. I pulled back. “How would you like,” she said, pressing her breasts against me, “to be sure your mother’s never in a home?” It wasn’t the question that I was expecting. My mouth opened in surprise and she covered it with her own. She pulled away and flicked her tongue across my bottom lip. I closed my mouth and pulled away from her. “What do you mean?
What are you talking about?” “Be at my house around ten tonight, and I’ll tell you,” she said. “No, Ruth, tell me now. I came all the way over here-” “So I could let you know how I felt. And see how you felt.” She laughed, sliding her palms along my back. “And you feel wonderful. This is just a warmup, darling. We need privacy.” She jerked her head toward the door, and I heard a faint murmur of voices beyond, talking about an IV drip. “Ten? Be there, Jordy, you won’t regret it.” She gave me a quick, decorous kiss. “Now I’m going to walk out. You walk out about a minute later. I don’t want my coworkers to gossip about me.” She turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the darkness. I stood there, counting to sixty, then walked out into the brightness of the hallway. Ruth stood at the far end of the hall at the nurses’ station, talking over a chart with a young nurse. I turned and walked the opposite way. I sat in my Blazer for a few minutes.
Ruth sure liked to dangle carrots in front of your face, hoping you’d take a bite. She knew from my response that I was attracted to her. I was, physically. But I didn’t care much for this secretiveness. If she thought it was alluring, she was wrong. I wiped her lipstick from my face with my handkerchief. I wasn’t sure that I would go see her at ten. I started up the engine, but I didn’t particularly feel like heading back to the library and seeing Candace. I didn’t feel guilty per se, but I wasn’t comfortable about talking to Candace right after I’d been kissing another woman. And I hadn’t even kissed Candace. Go figure. Instead of heading back to the library, I drove in the direction of Bob Don Goertz’s house. I’d meant to get back to see him, but I hadn’t had a chance. Seeing Ruth reminded me about the fight she claimed to have witnessed between Beta and Bob Don. I thought it was high time I found out a little more about that particular incident.
Odd the whims that take us, and forever change our lives.
13
I heard glass shatter as I walked up to the Goertzes’ front door.
The door was made of thick wood and beveled, frosted panes that you couldn’t see through. My first thought was that someone had dropped a glass in the kitchen, but my finger hesitated above the doorbell. I wasn’t even sure what I’d heard. I stepped back from the door and looked up at the sprawling colonial home. The car business didn’t seem to be hurting too badly, I thought. I put my head back to the door, leaning my forehead against it, strangely reluctant to ring the bell.
I heard voices raised, Bob Don’s among them, pleading. I pressed the button and the bell rang, echoing inside the home. I heard a shouted “No!” and stepped away from the door, thinking this was not the time for a social call. I’d made about three backward steps when the porch light snapped on and the door opened. It wasn’t just an entrance; it was a crutch. A woman I recognized from the framed photos in Bob Don’s office leaned against the door; she would have fallen if the door hadn’t been there. In the pictures in her husband’s office she looked like a typically meek, quiet small-town housewife. Now she looked like a street-worn harridan. The hair-sprayed halo in her pictures was gone; a lank length of graying dark hair hung past her shoulder. She was in a rumpled pink housecoat that looked as if she’d slept in it.
Her eyes, dulled as dusty marbles, blearily blinked and found me in the porch light. “Mrs. Goertz-” I began, ready to beat a hasty retreat. I wanted no part of a drunken scene. Sister was right; I could smell the whiskey on Gretchen Goertz like she’d bathed in it.
“Well, here you are. I know you. I know you.” Her voice sounded like a thumb scraping a dry, empty bottle. I couldn’t remember that I’d had the formal pleasure of meeting Mrs. Goertz; Lord knows she would have made an impression on pert’ near anybody. “Mrs. Goertz-” I tried again, taking another step back. “You come in here. You come in here and watch me kill him,” she rasped. I stopped moving backward. She swayed in the doorway like a snake and I decided to try charm. I’d talked a drunken high-school friend down from the water tower when I was a teenager; I could handle a wasted Gretchen Goertz. “You doing okay, Mrs. Goertz? You feeling all right?” I said in my most syrupy, friendly good-ol’-boy voice. “Fuck you,” she said in clear, ladylike enunciation. “I told you to come on in here and watch me kill him.”
“Now, you’re not wanting to kill anyone, are you, Mrs. Goertz?” I wheedled. God, no wonder Bob Don smoked heavy and kept a pint at work, if this was his domestic life. She was scaring me, and now I wondered what might happen to Bob Don if I didn’t check on him and get her sobered up. He hadn’t come to the door, and I didn’t think most men would let their wives hold drunken tete-a-tetes with the neighborhood.
I moved back onto the porch, and she flung the door wide open. In better light she looked worse. “C’mon in, kid. C’mon in and see all the hell you’ve caused me.” I was firmly of the opinion her hell was a private matter between her and Jack Daniel’s. I went into the entry hall, moving past her, not looking at her. I saw a living room ahead and headed for that. The living room was blasted with light. It was oblong, with a fireplace in the middle, pale and uninspired furniture on each end, and a wet bar on the side of the living room that led toward the kitchen. The carpet was a light beige and I wagered it was well worn by Gretchen’s slippers as you got closer to the bar. An oil painting of Gretchen Goertz hung above the cold fireplace, where a shattered glass sparkled. Broad swipes of paint made the portrait look better than the model. Bob Don huddled on the couch, his broad face in his hands. He was crying. It was not a hysterical kind of sobbing, but a slow, methodical weeping, like he was cleaning out the closet of his soul. I could see the mark of fingernails cutting across his cheek, bisecting one of his long sideburns. I stepped to his side. “Bob Don?