Chapter 32

Paul watched Carolyn stare at the TV screen as if she were newly converted to the ritual of Monday Night Football. “So they had to call off the presidential election,” he said.

Her response was an absent nod.

“Goddammit, Carolyn.” She looked up at him in alarm. “You haven’t heard one thing I said since I got home.”

She shook the ice cubes in the drink she had not touched, placed it on the coaster, and rubbed her eyes.

“Bad enough you don’t sleep with me, you don’t even listen when I talk.” Her sigh pushed his anger higher. “You say you need time—how much time?”

“I don’t know…till it’s right again.” The green eyes looking into his were wide and grave. “How can you want me when I feel like this?”

“I always want you.” He added pointedly, “If you committed murder I’d forgive you. And want you.”

“That’s crazy. You can’t mean that.”

He considered his statement only briefly. “I do mean it. Whatever you did, I’d love you and want you.”

“But I don’t want you to love me like that. It’s as if nothing about me matters. As if your love has nothing to do with anything about me. I don’t want that from anyone.”

“Everything matters about you, that’s just the point,” he said, shaking his head at her vehemence, smiling at her silly logic. Women were such a goddamn pain in the ass. “You’re stuck with how I love you. Believe me, a lot of women—”

There was a buzzing sound in the kitchen and she went off to see about the microwave and their dinner. He sat down in the blue armchair and propped his feet on the ottoman, admiring his slippers deep brown leather, ridiculously expensive—she had given them to him last Christmas.

After dinner he divided his attention between the football game and a competitive report he was formulating for a new product line of featherweight tubing. He raised his voice to ask, “Princess, what are you doing?”

“Just straightening up,” she called from the kitchen, banging a cupboard door in emphasis.

All she did these days was clean and tidy. Or go over to that Amazon bitch’s house. Come to think of it—why hadn’t she gone over there tonight? She always went there on Monday nights, part of her justification being that she’d leave him to his football game.

For a moment he allowed himself to hope; then he realized that if there were a breach with the Amazon, Carolyn would be back sleeping with him again. Probably the Amazon had plans tonight, maybe with her bratty kid. That Amazon bitch, still laughing up her sleeve at him—knowing he hated all this time Carolyn was spending with her and there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it.

Eight miserable nights. Nine, now that tonight looked to be no different. She missed it too, goddammit. Look at her—nervous, jumpy, hardly eating any dinner. Bad day at the office, she says. Bullshit, I say. After eight years I should know. She needs it just like Rita needed it, just like I need it.

“Princess,” he called, “you can come out now, football game’s almost over.”

When would she stop this craziness? The image came to him of the way he lifted Carolyn’s hips off the bed as he slid into her, and he squeezed his eyes shut to drive off the vision, stirring uncomfortably with his partial erection.

She came into the living room and glanced at her watch. “Merv Griffin’s on.” She went toward the guest room.

Her watch—fourteen carat gold, two small diamonds, seven hundred wholesale. Four years ago this Christmas—or was it five? He had been so sure she wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t approve somehow, would make him take it back…but she had fastened it onto her wrist and that had been that. He concentrated on his report again.

She came out of the guest room tying the belt of a white terry cloth robe, face cream glistening on the warm tan of her face. She curled up in her usual corner of the sofa and began to brush her hair.

Why had he ever stopped brushing her hair at night? It had been years…He longed to feel the silk running through his hands again.

His attention was absorbed by a chase scene on the television screen. When the scene faded into a commercial he glanced at her, about to speak, and saw that she lay with her head on the sofa back, gazing at the gray painting.

He glared balefully at it. What was there, what did she see? He could do as well by collecting gray ash and smearing it over canvas. He returned his attention to his report.

When next he looked at her she was asleep, her head tucked into the corner of the sofa, arms hugging her body. He waited until the program ended, and then through the ten o’clock news, wanting to keep her with him even asleep. He went to her, knelt before her.

“Princess,” he whispered, aching with love and desire, kissing her forehead.

She awakened reluctantly. Her eyes heavy-lidded, she gathered her robe around her. Almost as an afterthought she kissed him on the cheek—he grieved that it was unshaven—and then she got up; he watched her walk slowly, yawning, into the guest room.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 501