Sunburn: A Novel(49)

But the next generation would do it, if only out of sheer perversity. God, the shit on the radio now, those awful “boy” bands built on a formula as old as the Monkees—a cute one, a brainy one, a quirky one, an ugly one.

He is cleaning up after a slow Wednesday, although business had picked up a bit when early diners reported around town that he was serving “chicken casserole.” The dish was, more accurately, a chicken lasagna, made with heavy cream and about four pounds of cheese. It tickles him, he has to admit, when he gets a burst of locals late in the shift because word has traveled about how good tonight’s special is. But it reminds him, too, what life in a small town is like. There are three or four families who “matter,” at least in Belleville. There’s one in particular whose name is on everything, the Langleys. They were here tonight, swanned in like the king and queen of homecoming, their loyal court in attendance. But their approval matters, and he slaved over their plates as if the New York Times restaurant critic were out there.

No, the small-town life is not the life for him, which sounds like another song his mother might have sung. How he misses his parents, those sad, sweet hippies who ate macrobiotic, smoked dope, and died before they were sixty—a heart attack for him, a stroke for her—because some people do everything right and still don’t catch a break.

And maybe that’s Polly, he thinks, looking at her, closing down the register at the bar. Maybe she just had shitty luck all these years. He watches her count the cash. She’s so loving with the money. It’s as if every bill is a child on its way to school, each one needing a last loving touch—a cap adjusted on this one, a smear of toothpaste wiped from the corner of that one’s lips. She is especially solicitous of her tips, tucking them into her billfold snugly.

Why aren’t you tucking your own child into bed at night, Handsome Polly-O? Where did you go, my Handsome Polly-O?

And maybe because his thoughts keep going to music tonight, or maybe because she’s swaying a little, as if lost in a private dance, he goes over to the jukebox and drops a quarter in. He doesn’t want to agonize over a pick, so he punches in a random combo, AA:11. He knows the song from its first notes. “I’d Like to Get to Know You.” 1968. A deeply uncool song. But he was eleven in 1968. He would have killed to slow-dance with a girl to this song, to any song.

He turns and opens his arms to her and she doesn’t have to be asked. Oh, how I love you, Quiet Polly-O, with all your secrets and silences. They move through the restaurant as if it were a ballroom. Jorge comes out of the kitchen to watch, then disappears as if he’s caught them fucking. Their dance is that private, that intimate. I’d Like to Get to Know You. He would, he would. He wants to know her and he wants her to know him. He was hired to get to know her. Those were his literal marching orders. Get to know her, Irving had said. Insinuate your way into her life. Look for inconsistencies. Is she living large in any way? I need to figure out if she’s tapped into the money, or if it’s out there somewhere, waiting for her. We have to get to her before she wastes that poor child’s money. She’s done this before. She and her husband used me to run a very sophisticated insurance scheme.

He realizes now that Irving planned to blackmail Polly. He thought she would pay to keep her safe new life, that she would be terrified of her husband knowing about her past. When she bolted, he lost his leverage. But it’s also evident now that Adam was working for a bad guy. Had worked. He ended the relationship the Tuesday after Labor Day, told Irving that he clearly wasn’t going to be able to deliver the information Irving wanted—the proof that she even had money, much less where she was keeping it. Adam hadn’t started out to work for a bad guy. He thought he was on the right side. He had been told that a woman had stolen money from her stepdaughter. When Adam had confronted Irving with his lies, he seemed to shrug, said he always thought the girl was a stepdaughter because Polly had been so unloving with her, so distant. And, after all, she had in fact murdered her husband. Was it so wrong to think she was capable of screwing over her own daughter?

She did kill a man. That’s not up for debate.

What if this woman in his arms killed Cath, set that fire? Did she know that the volunteer fire department would be easy to fool, or did she simply take the risk? But why would she kill Cath when Cath had no power over her? How had she lured her there? By the time Cath died, Adam and Mr. C knew about Polly’s past. What more could there be?

I’d Like to Get to Know You. Sing it, Spanky. Sing it. Polly’s eyes are closed, her head on his shoulder. They dip and swoon through the restaurant. And when the song ends and the jukebox is silent, they stand there a long time, swaying to the songs in their heads.





29


Polly has taken to slipping out of bed before the sun rises and walking to the Royal Farms for coffee, a little downtime with the Wilmington News-Journal. She needs solitude, and that’s no longer available to her at home. After the explosion, she was too dazed to consider what it would be like to live with Adam. They were a couple, she was confident of his love for her, it made sense for him to stop paying for the motel when she got the larger place.

But now she’s almost never alone, and she realizes how much she craves solitude, a luxury she didn’t know until this summer. Even when Adam is sleeping, his presence fills the garage apartment. That used to be comforting, like sleeping next to a lion. She felt safe. Now she notices that he snores a little, sometimes even passes gas. He is, after all, a man. Kinder to her than the other men she has known, but still a man, always a man.