Chapter

32

 Anne wakes up a few minutes after seven. She stares with one eye at the light coming through the east window. She shifts her attention to the body behind her. Robert’s breathing is low and smooth.

She focuses on her body. She doesn’t feel that good. Tense and on edge. She seems to wake up very fast. She has a sense that her mind is also on edge.

She flexes her left arm against her breasts. They’re tender. She remembers the way Robert hugged her the night before, as they were saying good night. He dropped his arm across her chest and when she winced, he said, “Oh, sorry. You’re sensitive. You having your period?”

Did he ever say anything like that before? She thinks he might have. But the way he put his arm down on her. . . . It seemed deliberate. As if he wanted to make her wince. So that then he would have a pretext for saying, “You having your period?”

And how did she answer? “It’s about here.” She thinks those were the words.

And what did he say? “Well, maybe you’ll grab a sick day? Well, ’night, dear.”

Grab a sick day? So casual. Then he drops it. He never said such a thing before, she’s sure of that. The whole matter is so unpredictable, in lots of ways. Men learn to leave the subject alone. The fact is, she could never really know until the next day how she was going to feel. Robert knows that. Talking about a sick day is like talking about next week’s weather. Not much point.

She knows she’s on edge, probably thinking rashly and overreacting. Still, she has a powerful feeling of artifice, of furniture not being in the right place. Just what she’s been watching for, tensely and carefully.

She slides slowly out of bed and goes into the bathroom. There she splashes water in her face, shakes her head, and decides, Yes, I’ll go with it.

Fifteen minutes later she’s dressed. Robert hasn’t woken up yet. She goes and kneels down by the side of the bed. She studies his sleeping face for a minute. Then she shakes him gently.

“ ’Morning.”

He blinks, then his eyes open wide. “Anne . . . what?”

“Wake up, sleepyhead. Listen, I don’t feel so hot. I’m going to pick up a few things at the drugstore. Maybe stop by the office. Then I’ll take the day off.”

Now Robert really stares at her. “Ohhhh . . . alright.”

“You’ll be gone when I get back.” She leans and kisses his cheek. “Bye, sweetheart. Have a good day.”

“Oh,” he stammers, sitting up a little, “I’m sorry you’re feeling bad.”

“No big deal.” She laughs briefly. “Me too.” She stands up, staring at him, wondering, Is this how we say good-bye forever?

“Bye,” Robert says. He waves vaguely.

She thinks there’s something sad in his face? Or he just hates waking up?

“Bye, honey.”

She walks slowly away from him and out into the hall. Not feeling any better than when she woke up. Perhaps a little worse, from moving so fast. She doesn’t have a choice on this. She figures she has to get out of the house quickly, leave him alone.

As she goes out the front door, she thinks: Yet another squalid little trap. And despite herself, she feels disloyal. She feels . . . evil.

She starts up the car, shaking her head in disbelief at her own feelings. Disloyal? Well, we’ll see who’s disloyal. I just hope it is me. Me a little bit. Instead of him a whole lot. Please, God, that’s what I want. You know what I mean. . . .

Anne drives slowly and by an indirect route to a large DrugCo store. I do need a few things, she thinks. No lie there.

When she gets out of the car, she studies the sky more carefully than before. Cloudy. And it looks like the kind of overcast that will stay around. The air feels cool and damp.

Who cares? I’ll be snuggled up in bed, if I want. . . . I care. If it’s not Robert and whatever is happening there, then it’s cramps and sweating. And if that’s not enough, what the hell, then we get this lousy kind of weather. I won’t have one reliable thought the whole day.

Go slow, sister, she tells herself as she walks to the store. I’m giving you this advice free. Go slow.

She’s wondering how she’ll kill an hour. Already wishing she was back home and listening to the recorder, already dreading it.

She looks at her watch, calculates the train Robert’s mostly likely to catch, when he’ll leave the house, whether someone in Manhattan would still be home at that time or on the way to work.

Then she thinks, It’s just a hunch, isn’t it? An evil hunch. Grab a sick day? Grab? Sort of slangy for Robert. The way somebody talks when they’re trying to seem casual. When they’re lying, that is.

She stays in the store a long time, walking up and down the aisles. They seem surprisingly bright and full of interesting objects. Why, look at that . . . they make a denture adhesive out of the glue in kelp!

Anne decides not to stop by the office. She’s not sure she can handle routine chatter. Even this early there’ll be people there. All the A types hunting ahead of the pack. . . .

She feels exquisitely keyed up. A painful state but somehow, she thinks, a valuable one. One she doesn’t want to lose.

Her watch says 8:22. Robert’s bound to be gone by this time. Still, what’s the rush? Who wants bad news?

She works toward the checkout line to pay for the few items she has. As the cashier rings up the purchase, Anne glances out the big windows. It’s raining, in a slow, mournful way that makes her think of funerals.

Yes, I’m supposed to be in one, aren’t I? I’m supposed to be the victim here.

“Your change, ma’am.”

Anne looks at the cashier, surprised. “Oh yes . . . of course. Thank you.”

What did that boy say? “Victims are shit, ma’am.” Yes, I think that was it. At the time, I was more upset by the word ma’am than what he said. As upset. Either way, that seems kind of funny now.

Anne puts the change away and walks back to her car. The rain splattering lightly on the windshield. A heavy drizzle. She starts the motor and the wipers. She stares out through the shiny windshield. Well, she thinks, I don’t want to be a victim, not in any sense.

She drives slowly, taking a somewhat long way, back to her street. Then she goes faster, intending to keep on going if she sees Robert’s car in the drive. Oh, I could have gone by the train station, checked the parking lot there, found his car. I’ve got to think ahead. . . . No, the drive’s empty.

She pulls in, feeling awkward and conspicuous. She’s not sure why. What the hell, I live here. No, I know why. This is when you check the trap, see what you caught. And you hope the trap’s empty. . . . No, maybe not. Maybe I want to get this over with. . . .

She walks quickly through the light rain. Inside the door, she carefully throws the dead-bolt lock. Then, taking off her coat, she walks slowly about the house, wanting to make sure nothing is open, that no one could possibly surprise her.

She holds off until 9:01. Robert’s always on the train by that time. Usually he’s at his office.

She stands a moment at the top of the stairs leading to the basement. Holding the railing. Taking inventory of her body, to see which parts hurt, which parts are happily unaware she’s kicking another egg downstream.

Oh, yes, I have to call the office. . . . Oh, hell, let’s deal with this.

In another minute she’s sitting by the stack of blankets. Everything quiet upstairs. She pushes the button marked PLAYBACK.

There’s a hang-up. Somebody calling us? No, Robert hung up here. . . . “Oh, there you are. In the shower?”

“Ummm, yeah.”

“Well, it looks like the day.”

“Sick day?”

“Yes. Here all day, I’d think. Thought you ought to know right away. I’m still home. Anne went to the drugstore.”

“Roger. Big 10-4, darling.”

“Good luck.”

“Don’t worry. Oh, I’ll leave a message about the walk, exact time. Figure maybe late lunch hour.”

“Got it. Love you.”

“Yours truly too.”

Then clicks. Anne pushes STOP while she can still move. Snakebite must feel like this. A heavy paralysis that begins in the heart and widens.

She sits without moving, staring at the gray cement floor for a long time.