Ellen heard the phone ring once, then again. She could hear her heart beating, and she saw the pulse throb in her right wrist. Hang up, she told herself. Hang up. There’s time.
“Hello?” said Hooper’s voice.
“Oh.” She thought, Good God, suppose he’s got Daisy Wicker in the room with him.
“Hello?”
Ellen swallowed and said, “Hi. It’s me… I mean it’s Ellen.”
“Oh, hi.”
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No. I was just getting ready to go downstairs and have some breakfast.”
“Good. It’s not a very nice day, is it?”
“No, but I don’t really mind. It’s a luxury for me to be able to sleep this late.”
“Can you… will you be able to work today?”
“I don’t know. I was just trying to figure that out. I sure can’t go out in the boat and hope to get anything done.”
“Oh.” She paused, fighting the dizziness that was creeping up on her. Go ahead, she told herself. Ask the question. “I was wondering…” No, be careful; ease into it. “I wanted to thank you for the beautiful charm.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it. But I should be thanking you. I had a good time last night.”
“I did… we did, too. I’m glad you came.”
“Yes.”
“It was like old times.”
“Yes.”
Now, she said to herself. Do it. The words spilled from her mouth. “I was wondering, if you can’t do any work today, I mean if you can’t go out in the boat or anything, I was wondering if… if there was any chance you’d like to… if you’re free for lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“Yes. You know, if you have nothing else to do, I thought we might have some lunch.”
“We? You mean you and the chief and me?”
“No, just you and I. Martin usually has lunch at his desk. I don’t want to interfere with your plans or anything. I mean, if you’ve got a lot of work to do…”
“No, no. That’s okay. Heck, why not? Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“There’s a wonderful place up in Sag Harbor. Banner’s. Do you know it?” She hoped he didn’t. She didn’t know it, either, which meant that no one there would know her. But she had heard that it was good and quiet and dark.
“No, I’ve never been there,” said Hooper. “But Sag Harbor. That’s quite a hike for lunch.”
“It’s not bad, really, only about fifteen or twenty minutes. I could meet you there whenever you like.”
“Any time’s all right with me.”
“Around twelve-thirty, then?”
“Twelve-thirty it is. See you then.”
Ellen hung up the phone. Her hands were still shaking, but she felt elated, excited. Her senses seemed alive and incredibly keen. Every time she drew a breath she savored the smells around her. Her ears jingled with a symphony of tiny house sounds — creaks and rustles and thumps. She felt more intensely feminine than she had in years — a warm, wet feeling both delicious and uncomfortable.
She went into the bathroom and took a shower. She shaved her legs and under her arms. She wished she had bought one of those feminine hygiene deodorants she had seen advertised, but, lacking that, she powdered herself and daubed cologne behind her ears, inside her elbows, behind her knees, on her nipples, and on her genitals.
There was a full-length mirror in the bedroom, and she stood before it, examining herself. Were the goods good enough? Would the offering be accepted? She had worked to keep in shape, to preserve the smoothness and sinuousness of youth. She could not bear the thought of rejection.
The goods were good. The lines in her neck were few and barely noticeable. Her face was unblemished and unscarred. There were no droops or sags or pouches. She stood straight and admired the contours of her breasts. Her waist was slim, her belly flat — the reward for endless hours of exercise after each child. The only problem, as she assessed her body critically, was her hips. By no stretch of anyone’s imagination were they girlish. They signaled motherhood. They were, as Brody once said, breeder’s hips. The recollection brought a quick flash of remorse, but excitement quickly nudged it aside. Her legs were long and — below the pad of fat on her rear — slender. Her ankles were delicate, and her feet — with the toenails nearly pruned — were perfect enough to suit any pediphile.
She dressed in her hospital clothes. From the back of her closet she took a plastic shopping bag into which she put a pair of bikini underpants, a bra, a neatly folded lavender summer dress, a pair of low-heeled pumps, a can of spray deodorant, a plastic bottle of bath powder, a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. She carried the bag to the garage, tossed it into the back seat of her Volkswagen beetle, backed out of the driveway, and drove to the Southampton Hospital.
The dull drive increased the fatigue she had been feeling for hours. She had not slept all night. She had first lain in bed, then sat by the window, struggling with all the twistings of emotion and conscience, desire and regret, longing and recrimination. She didn’t know exactly when she had decided on this manifestly rash, dangerous plan. She had been thinking about it — and trying not to think about it — since the day she first met Hooper. She had weighed the risks and, somehow, calculated that they were worth taking, though she was not entirely sure what she could gain from the adventure. She knew she wanted change, almost any change. She wanted to be assured and reassured that she was desirable — not just to her husband, for she had grown complacent about that, but to the people she saw as her real peers, the people among whom she still numbered herself. She felt that without some remedy, the part of herself that she most cherished would die. Perhaps the past could never be revived. But perhaps it could be recalled physically as well as mentally. She wanted an injection, a transfusion of the essence of her past, and she saw Matt Hooper as the only possible donor. The thought of love never entered her mind. Nor did she want or anticipate a relationship either profound or enduring. She sought only to be serviced, restored.
She was grateful that the work assigned her when she arrived at the hospital demanded concentration and conversation, for it prevented her from thinking. She and another volunteer changed the bedding of the elderly patients for whom the hospital community was a surrogate — and, in some cases, final — home. She had to remember the names of children in distant cities, had to fashion new excuses for why they hadn’t written. She had to feign recollection of the plots of television shows and speculate on why such-and-such a character had left his wife for a woman who was patently an adventuress.
At 11.45, Ellen told the supervisor of volunteers that she didn’t feel well. Her thyroid was acting up again, she said, and she was getting her period. She thought she’d go lie down for a while in the staff lounge. And if a nap didn’t help, she said, she’d probably go home. In fact, if she wasn’t back on the job by 1.30 or so, the supervisor could assume she had gone home. It was an explanation that she hoped was vague enough to discourage anyone from actively looking for her.
She went into the lounge, counted to twenty, and opened the door a crack to see if the corridor was empty. It was; most of the staff were in, or on their way to, the cafeteria on the other side of the building. She stepped into the corridor, closed the door softly behind her, and hurried around a corner and out a side door of the hospital that led to the staff parking lot.
She drove most of the way to Sag Harbor, then stopped at a gas station. When the tank was full and the gas paid for, she asked to use the ladies’ room. The attendant gave her the key, and she pulled her car around to the side of the station, next to the ladies’ room door. She opened the door, but before going into the ladies’ room she returned the key to the attendant. She walked to her car, removed the plastic bag from the back seat, entered the ladies’ room, and pushed the button that locked the door.