Part 10 (1/2)
”This could go on forever, Miss King.” He slouches back in his seat. ”Do you have a direction in mind for this exchange?”
I open my purse and pull out the address book, keeping it close to my chest.
He looks at the book and doesn't flinch.
”Do you want it back?”
”That's supposed to be mine?” He gestures toward it.
”I know it's yours.”
”Let me see it. I'll tell you if it's mine.” He looks down at me, not making a move.
”It's yours, but that's not the interesting part.” I feel a strange bravado lurching up in my chest. I can't guess where it's coming from.
”I'm waiting, Miss King. Don't think I'm not curious.”
”I found it in my sister-in-law's bed,” I say squarely.
He pauses and manages a slight grin. ”That's the interesting part?”
”How did it get there?”
He leans back, setting his gla.s.s on his knee and spreading his arms along the back of the sofa.
”This is about your brother's wife. This is about you wanting to pin something on your brother's wife.” He can't hide a smile.
”No. No,” I say, reacting instantly to the strange allegation. What does he mean? What could he possibly mean? ”I'm just trying to find out what...”
My mouth inexplicably goes dry. Pin something on my brother's wife? Why would I...
I hear some sound come from within me. My jaw begins shaking suddenly. It seems to be rattling.
He takes a sip from his drink, smile still suspended there. The gla.s.s has left a faint ring on the knee of his cream-colored pants. I stare at it, trying to regain my focus.
”I just want to know ...” It's hard to talk with my jaw doing this. I can't make the words sound smooth.
He raises his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for me to finish my sentence.
”... what it was doing there. I just want to know ...” I wonder, can he hear that? Can he hear how loud my jaw is? It seems so loud I can barely hear myself. A horrible rattling like a dying snake.
”Why didn't you ask your sister-in-law?” He smacks his lips ever so slightly, holding the gla.s.s with its still popping soda water. ”Why don't you?”
”Maybe I did,” I blurt, fixing my hand on my jaw to keep it in place.
”I don't think so.” He smiles.
”No. I ... I just want for you to tell me. I didn't want ...” It's hard to answer because I don't know what the answer could be. To tell the truth, I'd never even thought to ask Alice. To tell the truth, it is as if, lately, as everything keeps surging forward, it is as if I am seeing her through gla.s.s, through dark water three feet deep.
”You wanted something over her?” he says, tilting his head.
He watches me squirm and shake my head fervently, but then his smile slips away for a moment, as if he has just realized something.
”How did you know it was mine, anyway?” My jaw finally settles a bit. If I clench it, I can speak.
”That doesn't matter,” I say.
”I might decide that.” His voice turns cooler. ”You'd better just spill it all, Miss King.” Then he says, ”You, honest, don't know what you're getting yourself into.” Then he says, ”And I think you better give me the f.u.c.king book.” Then, finally, ”It's mine, after all.”
I stand up, my drink nearly slipping from between my fingers as I press the book to my chest. I feel foolish. If he really wants it, my little grasp isn't going to stop him.
I set the gla.s.s down.
Things suddenly feel far more complicated.
And all the reasons for not bringing the book with me, much less coming at all, swirl through my head. I wonder exactly what I am doing here.
I turn on my heel, intending, I suppose, to get as far as I can. Thinking, I guess, that it would be too embarra.s.sing for him to overpower a woman.
But then thinking he might overpower a woman every day.
I can feel him watching me for a moment, then I see him, from the corner of my eye as I begin to walk to the door, calculatedly break into a shrug.
”You want it, you got it, Miss King,” he says, standing, his thin- lipped smile hanging from one side of his face.
Then he adds, ”I don't need it.”
And finally, ”It's been more than an even trade.”
I open the door, and my hand is shaking like a string pulled taut and plucked hard.
On the drive home, my jaw buzzes, hums, nearly sings. I jam the heel of my hand underneath it, steer with one hand, and turn the radio as loud as it will go. The zing of the brutish jazz finally vibrates hard enough to drown it out.
My head clogged with incomplete revelation after revelation, I avoid Bill entirely. Any other time, he would be the one I would go to, would have long gone to, for help. But this time I can't.
Instead, the next night, unable to sleep, I end up at Mike Standish's apartment.
”You're awful dirty, Lora King. I wonder if anybody has any idea what a dirty girl you are.”
I don't answer, don't like him saying it, even if I am curled against the edge of his bed, my knees on the floor, persuaded not to put my stockings on, persuaded to stay right where I am and look up at him, straight into his laughing eyes.
I sit there and I try to frame a question. But I can't.
”I'm going home.”
”Why go home? No one's keeping tabs on you. Come on.”
”You don't need me to stay.” I reach for my stockings, pull them slowly from the tangle of sheets.