22

There are some quirks of personality that seem ingrained in our very natures, and no matter how much we might try to get rid of them, they continue to influence our decisions and desires. I knew a man in Charlotte who constantly fought against his innate irritation with people.

“Earl,” he told me once, “you’re one of the only people I can hang around.”

“Why’s that?” I asked him.

“Because you don’t get on my nerves.”

“Was that why you divorced your wife?” I asked him, half joking.

His response was deadly serious. “Actually it was. I loved her too. But I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her because everything she did irritated me.”

I always remembered that friend when I thought about how we are prisoners to whims of our genetic makeup.

The flaws that came along with Earl Marcus were simple but had proved nearly impossible for me to overcome. I sought to self-medicate, and I used two methods: alcohol and women. After talking to Eleanor Walsh and lying to Chip Thompkins, I felt the need to self-medicate like I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

I couldn’t explain why my conversation with Eleanor Walsh had affected me like it had. For some reason, it made me feel helpless and hurt all at once. Maybe a part of me identified with Eddie Walsh. Not being gay, but just being a disappointment in the eyes of a father who cast a long shadow. That was the part of me that hurt. The part that felt helpless was born out of the realization that I’d tangled with Walsh before and failed. What made me think it would be any different this time?

I also identified with Joe. He’d obviously seen an injustice and tried to do something about it. There was always a risk in doing the right thing. And, too often, it felt like the risks outweighed the benefits.

Not to mention that doing the right thing was a far cry from what I’d done in that phone call with Chip.

All of that made me feel pretty miserable, so I just kept drinking. I was pretty drunk and close to calling it a day when I heard the knock on the door. Who knows how it would have all turned out without that knock? Maybe Mary and I would still be together.

No, that’s bullshit. Nothing conspired against me. Except maybe some deep part of myself that was afraid of the future, afraid that deep down inside me I wasn’t worthy of anything, especially not happiness.

When I heard the knock, I glanced at the clock over the oven. Nine thirty. Not late exactly, but late enough for me to wonder who it could be. Not Ronnie, that was for sure. I would have heard his truck coming from miles away. Rufus? Maybe, but he tended to burst in rather than knock.

I rose from the table on unsteady legs. The knocking came again. “Coming,” I said, and then realized I might want to grab my gun just in case.

Goose was growling low as I went to my bedroom for my .45. The knocking continued.

I tucked the pistol in my waistband and went to the window. Daphne was standing outside my door in a bathrobe.

I felt … how can I describe this? Something like a tingle of anticipation, almost pleasure, but also pain. I felt as if I were stranded alone, on a precipice, waiting for the slightest breeze to knock me over and into the longest fall of my life, a fall that would only end when I hit bottom.

The bottom.

Once I’d believed I’d been there, but that was before I learned the truth of human misery. There is no actual bottom; there is only the falling. The landing never comes, which might seem like a blessing, but it most definitely was not.

Don’t open the door. The voice was loud and strong and clear. My own voice, the voice of experience and reason. I ignored it. I almost always ignored it.

Maybe if Mary hadn’t been gone, if I hadn’t just lied to Chip Thompkins, I wouldn’t have opened the door. But I still had a chance, right? I was just opening a door. I’d done nothing wrong.

Yet.

Daphne stood there in nothing but a bathrobe that barely covered her ass. She was grinning as the smoke from her cigarette drifted up toward my face.

“I need another favor,” she said.

I just stared at her legs. There was so much of them, so little of her bathrobe.

“I need to borrow your shower. Would you mind?”

Tell her no.

“Wouldn’t mind at all.”

She beamed at me as she came in, not bothering to put out her cigarette. I didn’t care. “Thank you so much. I promise to be quick.”

“Uh, do you need a towel or something?”

“A towel would be perfect.”

“Just a sec.” I left her standing in the kitchen and went to my bedroom, thinking how this was a bad idea. Just all the way around. A bad, bad idea.

Only if you make it bad, Earl.

That was true. Finally, the voice of reason. I’d go outside. Simple enough. I’d go outside while she showered and avoid all temptation.

I grabbed the cleanest towel I could find, taking a minute to sniff it in a few places just to be sure. It smelled all right.

When I returned to the kitchen, she was standing beside the table, her back to me, giving me a glimpse of upper thigh that was enough to make my legs go weak.

“Here you go,” I said, my voice deeper than normal, like a croak, really. Shit, I was acting like a damned teenager.

She jumped, and her bathrobe fell open. And when it fell open, it fell off. Completely off. So fast it was as if her body had repelled it.

One hand went to her breasts and the other to her crotch. Neither hand did a very good job of covering anything. And she didn’t seem particularly embarrassed about it in any case.

I turned away. Hell, it took me long enough.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” she said.

“Nope,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ll just wait outside.”

The trouble with waiting outside was I had to go past her to get to the door. A quick glance told me she hadn’t even picked the damn robe up yet, much less put it on.

“This is awkward,” I said. “I’ve got a girlfriend.” I kept my eyes on my refrigerator. A photo of Mary and me we’d taken in downtown Riley this spring stared back at me.

“You keep saying that, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of girlfriend would leave her man alone so much.”

“Listen,” I said. “I think this was a bad i—”

I stopped. Her breath was on my shoulder, the heat of her right next to me. I turned slightly, and her mouth was on mine. I smelled the nicotine and the cinnamon and something fruity. Her lips brushed mine. My tongue found hers, and she sucked at it while hers swam free in my mouth, and her body pressed firm and urgently against me.

Later, I’d tell myself I was overwhelmed, surprised, not fully aware of the situation, but I knew that was bullshit. The truth was much uglier: I’d been fully cognizant. Fully aware. I’d just decided to enjoy it. I’d decided to not think about anything and let the moment be the moment. It was to be a moment that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

*   *   *

When it ended, I felt like something had crawled inside me and clamped down on my heart. It hurt with every beat. At any moment, I felt like it would stop beating forever. Daphne lay next to me, panting.

“That was good,” she said.

I nodded, not feeling anything now but the fist around my heart, the slow thudding of my lifeblood being squeezed into a future that was beginning to feel a lot like oblivion.