Chapter Five

After climbing up and down half a dozen steep slides, Sam suggested they rest for a little while in the small bowl of rock they now found themselves in. He posited the suggestion as a respite for all of them, but Charly heard the hoarseness in his voice, knew he was badly winded. Funnily enough, she found herself attracted to him for this minor deceit. Love was like that in the beginning, she knew. Everything filtered through a screen of endearment. Oh, she was sure he had his faults. Probably wore the same underwear on consecutive days and left his beer cans sitting on the table. He had something of the caveman about him and would need a little feminine civilizing. Yet the imperfections weren’t glaring ones, like the ones Eric had.

Treating her like dirt, for example.

She watched Sam now in the glow of the small fire he’d made with Robertson’s lighter and a few desiccated strips of driftwood he’d pocketed before they left the river below. The smoldering driftwood produced more smoke than anything, but strangely enough, she sort of enjoyed the greenish flare of ghostly light it put off, like they were witches around a cauldron. Staring into it, she was almost able to suppress the doomed anxiety that throbbed within her every time she thought of her baby.

Why are you sitting here? part of her demanded.

Because I’m exhausted. We all are.

No excuse.

We’ll move soon, she thought. The moment Sam catches his breath…

She cast a glance that way and felt her anxiety fade. As Sam worked his house key over a milky chunk of quartz, grinding down the teeth until the metal was honed to a gleaming shard, she studied the overgrown hair on the back of his neck, wiry black curls with a few white strands salted in. His ears, too, were a trifle fuzzy. But far from turning her off, she banked these details away for later use. She could kid him about his ear hair, maybe suggest French braiding it. He’d laugh softly and ask her if she wanted to give him a pedicure too, and she’d say yeah, we can do it in the bedroom.

Then they’d go.

Sam understood when to laugh and when to be serious. Eric was serious all the time, especially when it came to Charly. Whenever Eric made a joke with her it was cutting. Thinking about it now, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d kidded with him.

Melanie was watching Charly with sullen intensity.

Sam went on whetting the edge of the key. “Something on your mind, Miss Macomber?”

Eyes never leaving Charly, Melanie said, “You’re disgusting.”

Charly gazed back at her. “That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

“Nasty is what I’d call it,” Sam said.

“Mel’s right,” Eric said. “I’ve pampered her too much. Doesn’t have to work, doesn’t have an ounce of stress.” He chuckled darkly. “Unless you call spending my money stressful.”

Charly fought off a surge of indignation. “I buy the kids’ clothes, I shop for groceries…”

“You get your hair done for a hundred dollars—”

“Thirty-five plus tip.”

“—and then you wear it in a ponytail anyways.”

Sam said, “My wife paid fifty, and that was fifteen years ago.”

Eric shot him a look. “No one gives a shit about your wife, Bledsoe.”

“Speak for yourself,” Charly said.

“You’re so ungrateful,” Melanie said, a bitter twist to her lips. “Flo provides you with a home, a beautiful family, all the things you need, and how do you repay him? By kissing another man. I’ve never seen…” Her lips became a white line, her pretty face pinching into something decidedly unattractive. “…anything like you. You treat Flo like some—”

“Do you have to call him that?” Charly asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Every time I hear ‘Flo this’ or ‘Flo that’ the hackles on the back of my neck stand up.”

Melanie stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. “Everybody calls him Flo.”

“I don’t. Whenever I hear ‘Flo’ I think of that old TV show, what was it—”

“Alice,” Sam said without looking up.

“Alice,” Charly agreed. “You were too young for it, Melanie…actually, it was before my time too. I only watched it because my parents did. There was this big-haired waitress named Flo—”

“‘Kiss my gritz’,” Sam put in.

Charly laughed. “That’s right, she’d get mad at her boss, Mel Sharpels, and end up telling him off.”

Sam was laughing too. “‘Stow it!’”

Charly leaned forward with her laughter. God, it felt good.

Eric had been watching the exchange sourly. “Aren’t you two cute.”

Charly turned, regarded him in the green light of the fire, which had already begun to gutter. “I forgot you were there, honey.”

Eric’s grin was ghastly. “Don’t ‘honey’ me, you goddamned tramp.”

Charly didn’t flinch. “I wondered when you’d get to that.”

“I’m sure you did,” he agreed. “You know what kind of a slut you are.”

Sam spoke mildly. “I’d bag that kind of talk if I were you.”

“You don’t have enough money to be me.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Suck at building houses,” Eric went on. “Can’t make your payments on time. No wonder your kids want nothing to do with you.”

“You son of a bitch,” Charly said.

“Hit a nerve, did I?”

“You shouldn’t talk about—”

“It’s all right,” Sam said.

“Sure it’s all right,” Eric agreed. “It’s common knowledge what a deadbeat this guy is, isn’t that right, Sammy?”

Sam smiled softly. “My dad used to call me that.”

Eric went on, “I ran into someone at the lumber yard. I wanted to buy a swing set for the girls because I think it’s important for a dad to be a part of his kids’ lives.”

Charly opened her mouth to say something, but the look on Sam’s face stopped her. He was watching Eric with a kind of fierce vulnerability that was painful to behold.

Eric continued, “I spoke to this guy who worked there, and he told me how far in the hole Sammy here is with the lumber yard. This guy said that Sam used to drink himself senseless most nights and carry on with the girl who ran his office. Back when he could afford an office, anyway.”

“These are lean times,” Sam agreed.

“But back then things weren’t so lean, were they, Sammy Boy? Both in the construction business and in the screwing department. Too bad your wife dropped in on you at the office one day when you had your receptionist bent over a desk.”

“Eric,” Charly said between clenched teeth.

“It’s okay,” Sam said. Looking Eric in the eye, he said, “I made the biggest mistake a man can make. Excepting murder and rape and that kind of stuff.”

“You don’t have to—” Charly began.

“We were married ten years when I cheated on my wife.”

Charly’s breathing slowed as she listened.

“I never had sex with anyone at the office, but I did cheat. Two different women, the first of them a one-time thing, the second went on a couple months.”

“One of them your receptionist?” Eric asked.

“I wouldn’t call her a receptionist,” Sam said, “but yes, I did make the mistake of getting involved with an employee.” He smiled crookedly. “Course, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Eric’s smile evaporated.

“Then what happened?” Charly asked.

“Barbara found out from a friend, though it doesn’t really matter how she found out. She confronted me and I confessed. She told the kids right away, and they stopped talking to me.”

Charly heard the subtle break in his voice, asked, “How old were they?”

“Jenny was eleven, Daniel eight.”

“Hurtful thing to do to your kids,” Eric said.

“It was. I begged Barbara to forgive me, lived out of my truck a couple weeks. Eventually, she let me sleep at the house again, but the atmosphere there had soured. I was like a pet that nobody wanted around anymore. At some point, Barbara told me she’d give me another chance.”

“What happened then?” Eric asked. “You go on a bender and bang some hooker?”

“When we’d begun to reconcile, she stayed out all night and showed up the next morning telling me she’d gotten her revenge.”

“Screwed somebody else, huh?” Eric said, grinning. “Just like you.”

“Just like me,” Sam agreed. “The kids…I’d already lost them. So Barbara took them and moved to town. I was allowed to see them every other weekend, but after a while, we let that lapse. I wanted to stay in touch with the kids, but Barbara wanted a clean break, and I guess the kids did too. They no more wanted to be with me than they wanted to have earlier curfews.” Sam smiled grimly. “Which they had at my place and was one of the many reasons they dreaded staying with me.”

“You were trying to set a good example,” Charly said.

“By atoning for the bad one I’d set when they were younger, sure. I guess it was too much, too late. Last time they stayed with me, Jenny was fourteen and Daniel was eleven. He told me he hated me. Jenny didn’t state it in such explicit terms, but she didn’t have to. I could see it every time she looked at me.”

They were all quiet a moment.

Leaning back on his palms, Eric said, “Boo-hoo.”

“Shut your mouth,” Charly said.

Eric grinned at her. “Don’t think I’m not storing all this away, sweetheart. You’re gonna get what you’ve got coming pretty soon.”

Sam’s voice was no longer serene: “Lay a hand on her, and I’ll rip off that little pecker of yours and clean your ears with it.”

Charly favored her husband with an appraising look.

He turned to her. “What’s on your mind?”

“An epiphany,” she said. “I just now realized why you coach women’s basketball instead of men’s.”

Eric grinned at the ceiling. “This oughtta be good.”

“You can’t intimidate men,” she said. “You can’t intimidate every woman either—that’s why the first assistant you had quit—what was her name…Terri something…”

“I let Tanya Bogans go because she was a stupid dyke who didn’t know shit about basketball.”

“She was good enough for the previous coach.”

“Maybe that’s why they always had a losing record.”

“Or maybe she refused to put up with your outmoded, patriarchal attitude.”

“Outmoded what?”

“Giving all your assistants menial tasks, making them pick up your lunch.”

“That’s what assistants do, they assist.”

“Then why do you have managers? You’re telling me it takes someone like Melanie here to get an order right at a fast-food restaurant?”

“What the hell’s your point?”

“My point is you enjoy it,” Charly said. “You enjoy telling women what to do. Your tone is always dictatorial.”

“Big word.”

“It’s how you treat your players, your assistants. And it’s how you treat me and the girls.”

“My players love me,” Eric said. “So do Kate and Olivia.”

“I’m surprised you know their names.”

“Fuck you.”

“They hardly know you. But maybe that’s a good thing.”

Eric shook his head, his expression marveling. “You’re some piece of work, you know that, Char?”

Melanie had been watching all of this with an aura of growing asperity. Now, as they all turned to her, she inhaled deeply and with the attitude of one coming to a momentous decision, she stood, strode the three paces over to where Eric sat reclining on his hands, and put her mouth on his. As her hand settled on his chest and then began to massage, their kissing became more feverish, almost like a pair of animals rutting in the dirt. His fingers played over her chestnut hair, her bare shoulders. Charly watched in dim revulsion as one of his hands descended to her jutting rear end and massaged her. She moaned.

After what seemed like minutes, she broke the kiss, directed a triumphant glare at Charly and returned to where she’d been sitting.

“Well,” Sam said, “aren’t we just one happy family?”

Charly stared morosely at the fire, which had died to embers. She could no longer stomach the sight of her husband. Without thinking much about it, she scooted closer to Sam, who held the key nearer the guttering firelight and examined it.

Evidently satisfied, he got up and handed it to Melanie, who accepted it dourly.

“You use that if another of those things gets too close to you.” He turned to Charly. “You’ve got my pocket knife. It’s not a long blade, but it’s sturdy. One of them comes for you, don’t show it any mercy. Go for the balls.”

Eric said, “I notice you kept the buck knife for yourself.”

“I’m in the lead,” Sam said evenly. “Something attacks us head on, it’s got to get through me first.”

“Who goes last?” Charly asked.

Sam nodded at Eric. “He does.”

Eric laughed breathlessly. “Yeah? And what am I supposed to use to defend myself?”

“Try your breath,” Sam said. “I can smell it from here.”