Sunburn: A Novel(19)
“And it was deposited in our joint account. Then withdrawn—by me. All legal. I left you half the money, even though it was my car and you wrecked it. I’m fair.”
Oh, a car, penny-ante stuff. Still, she does know her way around an insurance check, doesn’t she?
“I got you another car.”
“That broken-down Toyota. There are holes in the floorboard.”
“You’re not right.”
It’s unclear to Adam if Gregg is contesting the issue at hand or something larger, making a pronouncement about her general character. At any rate, Gregg gives up, stalks away holding his damaged hand.
Adam sees her to her door. He doesn’t offer to walk her to the top of the stairs, though. This stairway is an afterthought, small, the carpet smelling faintly of mildew.
Polly lingers in the little vestibule. “You want to come in? See that bed you helped me get?”
No. Yes. No. Yes.
“Sure.”
He convinces himself that it’s weird not to go up, that she will suspect him if he doesn’t. In cartoons, devils and angels argue it out on a guy’s shoulder, but he’s long past a fight between right and wrong. There’s nothing to be done.
The walk up the stairs is the longest walk he’s ever taken. He goes in, stands in the doorway to her bedroom while she lingers behind him in the large room that serves as kitchen and living room. Amazing how cozy she’s made the place with just a few possessions. Lucky she likes old things—the stove and fridge look to be at least forty years old.
“Yep, that’s a bed,” he says, looking into her bedroom. It’s staged as if she knew he would be here tonight—a bedside lamp draped with a pink scarf, a silk robe tossed over the rails at the foot of the bed. There’s a vase of wildflowers on the bureau. They didn’t buy a bureau that day at the auction. Was it already here? Or did she get some other guy to take her to another auction? It makes him crazy jealous, thinking about her at another auction with another man.
When he turns around, she doesn’t have a stitch on.
“I asked if you wanted to see the bed. You want to get in it, you’re going to have to earn it.”
She goes over to the little metal table from the auction, hoists herself up on it, never taking her eyes from his. She’s excited and he knows why. It’s the violence, the sound of her husband’s hand under his foot, his whimpers. Well, Adam’s not going to let her call the shots. He picks her up and carries her to the bed. She fights him, bites and scratches. It’s shaming how much he likes this. They haven’t even kissed yet, and she’s drawn blood on him.
“We do it my way first,” he says. “Maybe later I’ll let you call the shots.”
She smiles and he realizes she’s still in charge, that everything is happening as she wants it to. He tells himself that he wants it this way, too, and then he shuts down the voice in his head, the one worrying about the job and ethics and where he goes from here. He convinces himself that this is the only way to do the job. Follow her. Get close to her. Those were his instructions.
He can’t get much closer than he is now.
12
Polly’s first test for Adam is to make him break up with Cath. Of course he’s going to stop seeing her, that’s a given. But that’s not good enough. Polly needs him to break up with Cath in a way that will be at once humiliating and baffling. Only he has to think it’s his idea.
It helps that he brings it up first.
“So,” he says. “I was seeing Cath. I guess that will have to stop.”
It is ten hours later, and they have been on what can only be called a bender, one of those sex hazes where one stops for a little food, a little sleep, maybe a shower. Taken together, of course. Her shower is the one mean, dark room in the apartment, a rigged-up thing with one of those cheap detachable hoses. It’s hard enough for one person to get under the spray from the cracked, handheld showerhead. But they are in that mode where nothing matters as long as they can touch each other.
How long will this last? she thinks.
How long does she want it to last?
How long does she need it to last?
He brings up Cath after they step out of the shower, towel each other playfully. She is ashamed of her towels, although they are new. Thin, cheap, inadequate. All she has ever wanted is a home, a place with things that bring comfort. Thick towels, deep chairs, soft rugs. That doesn’t necessarily mean having money, but it means having more money than she’s ever had. So far.
“You can’t stop seeing her. She works there every day. What are you going to do, shut your eyes?”
“Very funny,” he says, kissing her neck. For a while, everything she says will be funny, wonderful, profound. For a while.
“I don’t like fake words. Seeing. Yeah, I see her, too. But I don’t have sex with her. Don’t use a word to make something sound nicer than it is.”
“Euphemism.”
“I guess you went to college, huh?”
“So did you.”
Her impulse is to snap her head around, stare him down, but she fights it. Looks in the mirror, runs her fingers through her damp hair. The shower has a knack for getting nothing wet except the things you want to keep dry. “I never said that.”
“I just assumed—I meant—sorry. You’re clearly smart as a whip.”