Sunburn: A Novel(37)

At work that night, Polly lets Cath’s deadline approach, showing no concern. She has no concerns. She tells Mr. C what’s what, and, sure enough, he doesn’t care.

“He hit you, this man?”

Polly nods. “Hit” doesn’t begin to cover what Ditmars did to her, but it’s good enough.

“You did your time, you deserve to be out, it’s nobody’s business,” he says. “If my business falls off and I can keep only one waitress—it will be you. You’re the better one. And you make my cook happy.”

So Mr. C knows about them, too. She and Adam must have been terrible at hiding their relationship. Mr. C is the most oblivious man she’s ever met. Not a bad thing in a man. Her preference, actually.

It’s a busy night, the last Thursday in August, and Polly makes sure she is on top of her game, putting a little extra into her encounters with Max and Ernest, laughing at their stale jokes and observations. She can tell it throws Cath off her stride, seeing Polly happy and calm.

Toward 10 p.m., Cath corners Polly by the ice machine: “What about that thing we talked about?”

Polly waits a beat, as if puzzled, as if it’s so inconsequential as to have slipped her mind. “Oh, that.”

“Do you have my money?”

“No.”

“Tonight is the deadline.”

Polly shrugs. “What can I do? You didn’t give me very much notice.”

“I’m going to tell everyone.”

“Fine.”

“Not just Adam. Everybody.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll have to leave. This is a small town. People won’t want to come here once they know. Casper won’t be able to keep you on.”

She shrugs. “I’ll let him be the one to tell me that, if that’s okay with you.”

Her coolness infuriates Cath. She’s the nervous one now, worried that her bombshell is all fizzle, no pop. She has to make good on her threat, or she’ll look like a fool. She is a fool. She has blackmailed Polly into doing the best thing. No more secrets, from anyone.

Well, almost no secrets. Just the one, and it’s a happy one. Happy secrets are okay.

*

That night, Polly doesn’t slip Adam the usual Adam and Eve note signaling that she hopes for a visit from him. He’s puzzled, she can tell, but she needs to be alone and sit in the quiet of this new life. She walks home, finds herself humming. She likes it here, in Belleville. She’s happy to stay. Maybe not forever-forever, but for a good long while.

She’s having a glass of wine at her metal-top table when she hears a slight tap. She smiles. Adam jury-rigged the door this morning, but it doesn’t really lock. She’s had her alone time and now she’s glad he presumed he could drop by.

“Come in,” she calls out. “It’s not like I could lock it now if I tried.”

Only it’s Cath.

“If you’re going to stay, you better give me some money,” she says without preamble, her words a slurry rush. There’s booze on her breath.

“I am staying,” Polly says. “And Casper says if he has to let one of us go, it’s going to be you.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Ask him.”

“Then you damn well better give me some money.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“I can’t be responsible for what you’ve heard. I don’t have any money.” A pause. “Although I guess I’ll have a lot more when I’m the only one waiting tables at the High-Ho.”

“What about your husband?”

“My husband’s dead. As you know. I killed him, and I don’t care who knows anymore. My sentence was commuted. I was defending my own life, in a sense.”

“Not him. The one who came looking for you. I bet he’d pay something for what I know.”

Polly laughs at this. She’s not sure what’s funnier, the idea of Gregg having money or Gregg giving it up. Does Cath think there’s going to be a custody battle over Jani? “Go ask him. Heck, take him, he’s available. Make sure you use a condom, though. His sperm is pretty determined.”

“I bet you got knocked up on purpose.”

Polly sees herself in the bathroom in her apartment four years ago, staring with dismay at a beaming pregnancy stick, so pinkly confident that it was sharing good news. She had killed a man, gone to prison, endured public shame, reinvented herself. But she couldn’t bear the idea of an abortion. At the time, she told herself it was because of being raised Catholic. With her parents dead—there were those who said Polly’s conviction put the final nail in her mother’s coffin—she should have been free of the church. She was already down for one mortal sin, why not another?

Because, in the back of her head, she couldn’t help being curious: What would it be like this time? How hard could it be, compared to what she had already done and endured? She felt guilty even thinking such thoughts, disloyal to Joy. But the truth was, she wanted the experience of being mother to a normal kid. Even if the father was Gregg.

And Jani was a good kid, although Polly loved Joy a little bit more. Mothers aren’t supposed to say that, feel that, but Polly can’t help acknowledging the difference. Jani’s a sweetheart, a natural-born winner. She’d be fine. Joy needed her.