No One Will Miss Her(79)

“Your place?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Not there. I can’t. And anyway, it’s far.”

“My . . . car?” he said, and started to laugh, and so did she, the tension between them dissolving. She leaned into him and he wrapped an arm around her.

“My back seat glory days are over,” she said. “But look, look at that.” She pointed, and Bird looked, and saw the familiar logo of a discount motel chain looming on a lighted sign above their heads. Right next door, less than fifty yards away.

“It’s fate,” he said, and she guffawed.

“It’s a cosmic joke.”

“Not fancy enough for you?”

“Fuck you,” she said. “Let’s go. It’s cold out here.”



Ten minutes later, Bird was sliding a key card into the electronic lock, Adrienne hovering close behind. He was about to make another joke—something about the probable lack of champagne and caviar on the room-service menu—but when he turned to let her through the door, she was right there, right beside him, and then the door was closed and locked and her body was pressed against his, their lips brushing hungrily past each other as he fumbled in the dark for a light switch.

“Leave it off.”

The sign for the hotel loomed like an oblong moon outside the window. She stepped away from him and stood in front of it, silhouetted, her arms raised as she pulled her shirt over her head. He shrugged out of his jacket.

“I want to see you,” he said, and she laughed.

“Maybe I don’t want to be seen.”

He went to her, his hands finding her shoulders, dropping to encircle her waist. He could smell the warm, sweet scent of her body underneath the lighter note of her perfume or shampoo, and the tugging sensation in his low belly became a throb. He pulled her to the bed, pulled her down, the softness of her skin against his lips, the scratch of the cheap motel comforter against his back. Her hands were at his waist, undoing his belt, sliding his pants down over his hips. He felt the brush of her fingertips and said, “Oh,” and then there was no more talking.



When they’d finished, he reached out to flip on the bedside lamp. This time, she didn’t object, only nestled deeper into the crook of his arm. He looked down at the top of her head. The auburn color was nice, but it had always struck him funny, how the rules were so different for women that way; if you were a girl and you didn’t like the hair God gave you, you could pick any color you liked out of a box. But men, never. There was something vaguely suspicious about a guy who dyed his hair, even if it was just to cover the grays. Undignified. He yawned, feeling warm and sleepy, the first hints of a headache starting to creep around the corners of his eyes. The whiskey had been a mistake, but then again, if he hadn’t had the whiskey, he might not be here, in a postcoital moment as wild and unexpected as it was nice. It was nice. The past few months had been professionally productive but personally lonely. He’d been on a handful of first dates that had netted one night of mediocre sex, zero second meetings, and the uncomfortable feeling that this was probably his fault. He yawned again. Maybe he’d sleep here awhile before heading back. Beside him, Adrienne yawned, too.

“That’s your fault,” she said. “It’s contagious. I should go. I can’t sleep here.”

“I mean, you could.”

She smiled. “No. It’s a bad idea.”

“At least don’t move just yet,” he said, and squeezed her closer. “I like having you here. You’re very . . . warm.”

“Five minutes.”

He nodded. “Okay. Five minutes.” For a while, neither one of them spoke. Bird turned to rest his chin on the top of her head.

“So, what are you going to do now?” he said finally.

“Well, for the next five minutes, nothing,” she joked.

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” She sighed. “And I don’t know. People keep suggesting things. All these options. But I don’t like any of them.”

“Some folks I know thought you might get a book deal,” Bird said, and she laughed.

“One of the many options. They offered. Hard pass.”

“You don’t want to be famous?”

She scowled. “God, no.”

“Come on. Be honest.”

“I am. I guess it probably sounds weird to you. But Adrienne Richards, she’s the one who wanted to be famous. And I’m not her. I left that person behind.”

Bird closed his eyes. His breathing began to slow, and he thought it wouldn’t be so bad to just drift off. Drift off and wake up alone. The five minutes he’d asked for were ticking away, and while neither one of them had said so, there was a cycling-down feeling in the air. The end, not the start, of something. He should stay awake to see it through, but his eyelids were so heavy.

“You want honesty?” Adrienne said. “You want to hear something really fucked up?”

“Mmm,” Bird said.

She said, “I once told my husband I hoped he died.”

Bird’s eyes cracked open, and he rolled to one side to look at her. She was lying on her back, her gaze fixed on the ceiling.

“Jesus, seriously?”

“The thing is, I still don’t know if I really meant it. I don’t think I did. But then everything went to hell. And now he’s gone.”