“I thought maybe I’d get in with you. It’s been a while, and if I’m gonna be gone . . .”
“We made love last night,” Carmen said. “You don’t remember?”
Wayne stared at her thinking about it. He said, “Was that last night? Uh-unh, it was the night before, after you threw the beer can at me.” He said, “Well, I can wait if you can.” He gave her a kiss good-night, got in his own bed and said to her in the dark, “We could check it off on the calendar each time and keep score. The way your mom used to do it.”
He thought that was funny. He’d say, well, it is. You take things too seriously.
Lying awake listening to him snore. Trying not to resent the way he could fall asleep almost at will.
She could say something that was really funny and he wouldn’t get it, but she was the one who took things too seriously or was too sensitive. He’d say, if that’s the word. Sensitive. He didn’t trust it. When she used to have problems at work, someone in the real estate office stealing her leads, she’d be afraid to tell him. He’d say, well, you settle it or forget it, don’t piss and moan. Now she had Ferris making the moves, touching her, telling her he’d be back, he’d look for her car in the drive and stop in when she was home, telling her he was a patient man and once she got to know him ... But if she told Wayne she was afraid he would go after Ferris and get in trouble, threatening or assaulting a federal officer. Or was she afraid he might not and say she was imagining it? Why would the guy make the moves on a woman ten years older than he was? Seven years. All right, seven years. Good-looking guy, he wouldn’t have any trouble getting girls. Wayne would say that being a moron had nothing to do with it. But being smarter didn’t solve the problem either. Getting straight A’s twenty years ago. If she mentioned Ferris tonight, Wayne might decide it was a problem to be settled now, not put off or forgotten, and he’d miss his boat ride. So maybe you’re playing the martyr, Carmen thought.
And then thought of her mother. She’d better call her tomorrow.
That business about keeping score, marking a calendar each time you made love, was something her dad had told Wayne. Her mother never said a word about it. The way Wayne had told it to Carmen:
“Your dad says, ‘You understand, all those years of marriage we’re using the rhythm method of birth control. It gives you about a week a month when it’s safe to do it. So it became known as Love Week with us and among some of our friends, all the micks. The problem was, the wife could hold it over your head. Say you’re at a party and she wants to go home and you don’t, you’re having a good time. She whispers in your ear, “We go home right now, buddy, or you don’t get any.” You have to decide quick. You want to get smashed, have a good time? You do, you’re gonna have to wait a month to get laid. This goes on for years of marriage. One night I’m not feeling so good, I’m constipated, sitting in the bathroom trying to get something going. Lenore says to me through the door, “If you want to have sexual intercourse”— that’s what she called it, sexual intercourse—“you have to come right this minute.” I sat there thinking about it and decided, that’s it for Love Week. No more. I left the house the next morning and we got a divorce.’ He tells me all this, I say, ‘Yeah, but there’s one thing you didn’t mention. Did you have sexual intercourse that night?’ And your dad says, ‘Why not?’ ”
Maybe it was funny.
***
Wayne rolled out of bed saying, “Jesus, I’m late. I’ll never make it.”
“That clock’s fast,” Carmen said. She stood in her robe watching him. “The coffee’s made. What else do you want, a sandwich?”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I did, twice. I thought, well, if he wants to go he’ll get up. If he doesn’t, he won’t. Isn’t that the way you’d look at it?”
Less than ten minutes later he was in the kitchen, clean coveralls over his shoulder. Carmen sat at the breakfast table with toast and coffee, looking out at the backyard in a mist of rain.
“I can’t find my goddamn keys. I bought new gloves, I can’t find them either.”
“The gloves are on the refrigerator.”
“I know I didn’t leave them in the pickup. I used my house key to come in.” He stood looking about the kitchen saying, “Shit, I don’t know where they are.”
“I made you a meat-loaf sandwich,” Carmen said. “Sit down, have some coffee.”
“No, I gotta run. Listen, I’ll have to take the Olds. You mind?”
“Didn’t you park behind it, in the drive?”
“I can get around the pickup. I’m not worried about ruining that goddamn lawn.”
“What if I have to go somewhere?”
“Well, the keys’re here someplace, you’ll find them, you’re good at finding things.” He came over to the table, picked up the sandwich, took a bite and gave Carmen a kiss. “I’ll call you when we get to Cairo. It should be early this afternoon.”
“I wish I knew what time,” Carmen said.
“I think early, by two anyway.”
Wayne walked out of the kitchen, was gone only a few moments and came back in.
“You have the keys for the Olds?”
Carmen was positive Ferris would stop by sometime today. She had made up her mind, the moment she saw that cream-colored Plymouth coming up Hillglade she’d call the Cape Girardeau Police, 555–6621, she had the number memorized. Or, she’d run out back and hide in the woods. The only problem was she had to find Wayne’s keys and call her mother, and she didn’t want to be down on the floor looking under the dresser or in the kitchen talking to her mom and hear Ferris walk in. Not again. It was not ever going to happen again. She could leave here, call her mom from the mall or somewhere once she found the god-damn keys. But it was hard to stop and think where they might be when she had to keep running into the living room to look out the window. She decided, finally, to make the call. Get it over with.
Carmen sat at the breakfast table, dialed the number, cleared her throat and waited. She listened to it ring several times, thinking, Come on, will you? She got up from the table with the phone and brought it across the kitchen as far as the cord would reach, the phone ringing several more times. From here she could look straight into the living room and see the big picture window and its view: the back end of a failed subdivision where cars seldom went by. She saw the road directly in front of the house and trees beyond in this morning’s mist of rain. The phone continued to ring, Carmen listening, thinking, One more. But let it ring twice again, staring at the front window, and was startled to hear her mother saying, “Who is this?”
“Mom? It’s me.”
“Well, where are you?”
“The same place. Did I call at the wrong time?”
“I was lying down on the floor with my legs on a chair. It’s the only way I can get any relief, if I lie perfectly still and not move.”
“What’s wrong, your back?”
“I had to crawl to the phone. My back has never been this bad in my entire life.”
“I’m awfully sorry, really. Did you call yesterday?”
“I called twice. You gave me the wrong number. I’ve been in terrible pain ever since that man was here and gave me the back rub. Oh, my Lord, when I try to move. I have to crawl to the bathroom to go the toilet. I didn’t sleep all night with the pain, I couldn’t.”
Carmen stared at the front window in the living room.
“What man? Who was it gave you the back rub?”
“From the company Wayne was working for, when you left. They want to send him his check.”
“He picked it up,” Carmen said. “I’m pretty sure.”
Her mother groaned saying, “I’ve never felt pain like this. I imagine you can tell from my voice. It’s just something terrible when I try to move.”