Chapter 24

Val chuckled dryly. “I must’ve looked just like you do when Jerry Robinson told me. He wouldn’t look at me, Carrie. I asked if Neal had done anything, and he acted like he wanted to crawl into a hole. Everything I said, he repeated that business about wanting the house for a relative.”

“I’ll talk to him. Better yet, I’ll ask Paul to. They talk out in the yard, they—”

“No.” Val’s tone was decisive. “I don’t care about his reasons. I don’t want to be anywhere I’m not wanted. He told me to take all the time I need to find another place. I intend to. Will you help me?”

“Of course. But this is ridiculous. I don’t understand—”

“There’s nothing to be done. Put it down as one of life’s little X factors.”

* * *

Ignoring Paul’s indifference, his increasing irritation, she insisted on talking about Jerry Robinson.

“In the year and a half we’ve lived here the only relative who visited them was that brother from Hawaii, remember? The Robinsons insisted we come over and meet him. He won’t rent to any relative—”

“How do we know? There may be another relative.” His voice was sharp, exasperated. “What the hell do I care?”

She said coldly, “I’ll be spending a lot of time helping her. It won’t be easy finding the right place for an artist.”

“I’m sure,” he said with heavy sarcasm.

But it was only ten days later when Val said, “This is it, Carrie. Look at the light in here, all these big windows. A little ramshackle but it’s cheap compared to what we’ve been looking at and it’ll clean up, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Carolyn said, her throat thick with misery at the three shabby rooms converted from previous office space above a down at-the-heels drugstore, with noisy traffic below them on heavily traveled Magnolia Boulevard. She had loved the tiny yellow house… “We can fix it up, Val, make it comfortable.”

With Carolyn helping, Val moved in at the end of the month, the last Sunday in September. After Neal went to bed that night, Val flung herself onto the sofa. “Carrie, if I’m this tired you must be exhausted.”

“I’m fine.” She would not admit that she had never worked so hard, had never been more tired in her life. “You did four times as much as me. You’ll be sore tomorrow…Come over,” she urged. “The pool will be good—”

“Too much to do. Why don’t you come here? I’m on your way home now. I promise not to make you work. We’ll have more time together.”

“You’re right,” Carolyn said thoughtfully, happy with the idea of more time with Val. “There’s usually some advantage in any change—even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time.”

“This place is brighter, more open,” Val said tiredly. “To tell you the truth, I was having occasional attacks of claustrophobia in that little house.”

When Carolyn returned from getting a drink of water, Val was slumped down in a corner of the sofa, asleep. It wouldn’t hurt, Carolyn decided, for her to sleep in her cutoffs. She lifted Val’s feet; Val curled her length into the short sofa. Carolyn found a blanket in the big box of linens, covered her gently, and let herself out of the flat.

Monday, after visiting Val, Carolyn slowed her car as she recognized the orange and white polyester pants of Dorothy Robinson; she was carrying two bags of groceries. Carolyn regarded her pensively. If the Robinsons did not actually intend to rent their place to a relative, then why had they evicted Val? She pulled over and picked up Dorothy Robinson.

When Paul arrived home she was standing in the living room, arms crossed. He did not appear to notice that she had not answered his greeting; he folded his jacket carefully across the back of the white armchair and came toward her. “Lenny was telling me today about a house,” he was saying, “three blocks from him in Encino, the owner’s desperate. We might—”

“You rotten son of a bitch.”

He halted in midstride.

“You did it to Val. You.”

“What are you talking about?”

His blue eyes were calm, but she had heard all she needed to know in his voice. She had irrationally hoped that Dorothy Robinson was somehow wrong.

“Is this how you look when you’re screwing somebody in a business deal? This cool and innocent?” She could not control the trembling of her body nor the reflection of it in her voice. “Jerry Robinson lied to Val Hunter but he doesn’t lie to his wife. Dorothy Robinson didn’t know about it until after it was done. She thinks it’s dreadful how you and Jerry got rid of a woman who hadn’t done anyone any harm.”

He did not reply. The remoteness of his eyes reminded her of a science fiction movie she had seen the night before, with people whose eyes were blank, their bodies taken over by aliens.

She said, “I see now how it’s been. It’s not only my friends or the hours I work, it’s my entire life. It always has been. You own me. I didn’t really know it before because it never really mattered before.”

“That’s not true. Everything we had together before was wonderful. We were happy before, remember? I don’t know what crazy things she’s put in your head.” His voice was sure, held conviction. “I have every right to protect you from her.”

“Protect? Protect? You’re crazy.”

“That Amazon’s turned you against me. Put nothing but garbage in your head.”

“How could she possibly threaten you? We’re married. You’re my husband. She’s another woman. I’m not your slave, I—”

“Just listen to me, Carolyn. She’s not just another woman. She wants you for herself. I know you don’t believe this, but that female Paul Bunyan is a dyke. She’s trying to get you into bed with her.”

“She’s never done anything, she’s—” For a moment her jaw worked in soundless outrage. “I’ve never been unfaithful to you; it’s never even occurred to me. Obviously you think I’m capable of screwing anything, man, woman, or child.”

His mouth was a thin white line. “All I know is ever since that Amazon came along we’ve had half a marriage.”

“Half a marriage?” she said grimly. “I’ll show you what half a marriage really is.”

She marched into the bedroom. It took three trips to move her clothes into the guest room.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 531