Part 5 (2/2)

My knees were glad for Thom's solid body. I trembled and leaned. ”Take the leg?” I said. Those words made no more sense to me than ”mostly” had.

”Shoot, she won't even know.” Joe bulled his way back to the middle of the conversation from the easy chair. I started and felt Thom's reflexive jerk, too, as we remembered together that the room was full of all the wrong Grandees. I wished Margie were here or Thom's youngest brother, Peter. Margie taught middle school science, and that's a job that trains a woman to brook no c.r.a.p. Nothing Joe said ever fazed Teflon Peter, either. He was a beautiful pothead who dropped in and out of jobs and colleges and the beds of pretty young women with good-natured, unshakable ease. But when Joe spoke, Thom turned away from me, one arm still across my shoulder, so the single thing we'd been split and opened to face Joe.

”I had a hunting dog lost a leg when I was growing up,” Joe went on. ”Trip, I called him. Get it? Trip? After he got used to it, he didn't remember he'd ever had four. He didn't remember his name used to be Blue, either. They aren't the brightest things, dogs.”

Larry and Charlotte nodded in unison, like this was wise enough to be engraved on tablets and handed down the mountain. Commandment Eleven, Thy dog shalt have three legs and like it.

I looked up at Thom, trying to call him back, and asked, ”What did the cops say?”

He made a scoffing noise, and he stayed facing his daddy. ”Kids, maybe? Poachers? They didn't take it too serious.”

Joe shook his head, disgusted. ”d.a.m.n cops, checking boxes. They aren't going to do a d.a.m.n thing.”

I tried to look anything but relieved. Thom let go of me to pace up to the top of the room. He took long loping strides like a riled zoo tiger.

”I want to go see Gretel,” I said to his back.

He wheeled on me and said, ”She's going to be f.u.c.king fine, Ro.”

It got very quiet.

”No call for that,” Joe said. No one used the f-word in front of Charlotte. Not when Joe was in the room, anyway. Joe pulled it off as good ol' boy gentlemanly behavior, but I understood him better than that. It was one of the thousand ways he let the world-and his sons-know that his wife was not his equal. Joe s.h.i.+fted in the chair, prepping to rise, and I think we all could feel how electric the air had become, even thick old Larry.

I was trying to think of what to say, of what Thom's Ro would do. It wasn't coming natural. I didn't feel like Thom's Ro. I felt cornered, and I felt Rose Mae rising; excepting fire and locusts, she was the last thing needed in this overcharged room.

I made myself walk across the room toward my husband, trying to block his view of Joe with my small body. He was so on the edge, I knew if Rose Mae pushed him, even a little, the room would be all over blood in seconds. Mine, no doubt, though if G.o.d was merciful and just, it would be Joe's.

I took another step to Thom. I was small and he was so very angry. I didn't understand why Rose felt so excited, almost hopeful. Why she was putting her hand on his broad chest and why his flesh shuddered at her touch.

”Baby,” I said, ”I'm so glad you're all right. That's the only thing that matters. That you're all right.”

It was the right thing. He wheeled back into his lopy pacing. After a moment, Charlotte wrinkled up her nose-peck at me and said, ”It's nice you're helping your friend, next door, but you might want to have that shower before you go check on the dog. Or before you go, well, anywhere.”

Thom's eyebrows beetled back down as he walked the room. My bullets and his daddy had put him as on edge as I had ever seen him. His ears p.r.i.c.ked and his brow furrowed at every little rumble.

”A shower sounds like a good idea,” I said, treading careful, trying to see what Charlotte had said to rile him. Then I had it. Me helping my friend friend. Thom and I didn't have friends, neither of us. He came to me for food, for s.e.x, for talk, for play, for violence, and he had no other needs. We were closed together like two halves of a clam's sh.e.l.l. If I had a friend, she would notice long sleeves and scarves in summer, and unlike Mrs. Fancy, women in my generation had not been trained to look the other way.

It wasn't as if Thom and I were hermits. We were friendly enough with couples at church, and I was in the Ladies' League and helped with food and clothing drives. Sometimes I went to lunch with Margie, but her job and her young boys kept her too busy for it to happen often. Thom hunted with his brothers and his father, and he played on the Grand Guns softball team. Every other Sunday, we choked down his mother's dry-meat roast at an all-family dinner. But Thom didn't like me to have phone calls or girls' night at the movies. That sort of thing brought us back to Who is he Who is he every time. every time.

I said to Charlotte, ultracasual, ”I'm going to have to talk to Mrs. Fancy's son or whoever that is who mows her lawn. She might need to go to a.s.sisted living. She seems like a nice enough old lady, but that house... well, look at me, and you'll get a clue how bad it was.”

I could feel Thom's hackles lowering as I spoke, but his fingers still fisted and uncoiled in angry rhythms as he paced. It wasn't good, having me in the room, untouchable in every way that mattered.

I said, ”I think I will grab that shower.”

I took silence as permission and got out, fast-walking all the way down the hallway to our master bedroom. Gretel was alive. I wouldn't think about her leg now. I couldn't. She was alive, and I was not alone. Those were the main things. The vet had said she would be mostly fine. Mostly.

I didn't realize Thom had followed me until I was inside our bathroom. When I turned and saw him, I almost screamed.

”I told them I'd be right back,” he said.

He came at me and I backed away, but he was so fast. He bullied me backwards to the wall, and I was half-terrified and half-excited, not knowing which thing he wanted. My hands were flat against his chest, and I looked up, trying to read his face. He kissed me then, hard, first on my mouth and then on my throat with his mouth open like he was trying to eat me up. Big Bad Wolf kisses. His hands on my body gripped me hard enough to hurt.

”You smell like lemons,” he said.

”I'm filthy,” I said.

”I don't care.”

”Your parents are just down the-”

He interrupted me. ”I don't d.a.m.n care.”

”Your daddy-”

He came back to my mouth again, eating my words, and all at once I was as ready as he was. Kissing him felt slick and secret and dirty. This was like high school s.e.x, male hands seeking desperate paths through my clothing with a room full of parents right down the hall.

”Hurry,” I said, and he shoved my jeans down around my ankles. I kicked one foot loose. He jerked his pants down, too, not bothering with the b.u.t.tons. He lifted me and flattened my back against the cold tile. His mouth was on me, and he was grinding into me, hard and good with only the thin cotton s.h.i.+eld of my panties between us, and this was like high school, too. I closed my eyes against the suns.h.i.+ne, and there was Rose Mae Lolley, rampant in my head with her Jim Beverly.

I kept my eyes closed, and the world tilted and was darker, and Rose Mae was in Jim's car after a game, parked up by Lipsmack Hill, her s.h.i.+rt pushed up and her bra unhooked. I peeked through my lashes, gasping, and there was Thom in the suns.h.i.+ne with his face twisting and his eyes open. I closed my eyes, and Jim had one hand between Rose Mae's legs, rubbing her through her jeans, and Thom said, ”I thought I was going to die, Ro.”

I said, ”They missed. They missed.”

All the while in my head I heard Jim Beverly whispering to Rose Mae, and Rose's hands remembered what it was like to touch Jim, too, her clever fingers counting the b.u.t.tons on the fly of his Levi's, endless crazy-making touching through layers of denim and white cotton. She would cup and grip the outline of him, learning by feel this thing she hadn't seen since they were nine. It was a rigid line of heat that felt nothing like the little-boy pansy blossom she'd seen.

Thom snaked one hand between us and ripped my panties away. Then he was in me, breathing hard, his face buried in my 409-filled hair. He said, ”G.o.d, it's like s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Mr. Clean,” but he was grinning. I could feel his teeth against my scalp.

I closed my eyes and heard the ten-year-old echo of Jim Beverly's voice in my head, saying, ”I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill your worthless daddy, if he lays one hand on you again.” Jim's hand gripped the undercurve of Rose Mae's a.s.s, pulling her against him to grind as he said, ”I'll slip in at night and hold a pillow over his face while he's pa.s.sed out.” Jim's fingers followed the inseam of her jeans. ”Who would know? Some drunk smothers while pa.s.sed out? That must happen all the time.”

Thom was in me, each thrust pus.h.i.+ng me up the wall, his face in my hair, just as I liked, and inside I was tipping over. Ten years away, Jim Beverly's words blew through Rose like a wind, lifted her and sent her into someplace new and dazzling. We met there, met and melded for one moment, so real that I heard that old remembered whisper in my own ear. ”I'll kill him for you,” Jim Beverly said. I opened my eyes and saw my husband's face.

Far away, in a car parked up by Lipsmack Hill, Jim's hand still worked between Rose Mae Lolley's legs. He hadn't known that Rose Mae had finished. He was still living blindly in the s.p.a.ce where her hand cupped him. But I was wholly in the present. Here in my bathroom, I laughed and arched into Thom in the wake he'd caused. I felt so good. We both felt so d.a.m.n good.

That laughy sound from me, so happy, and the way I flexed my back up pushed Thom over, too. We breathed in four or five times together, big cleansing whoops of air, and then his arms lost strength and he let me slide down the wall to thump onto my bare bottom. He relaxed into a lean against the countertop. I pulled off my s.h.i.+rt. My bra was torn, the cups hung down over my ribs, and my jeans were in a bunch around one ankle.

I grinned up at him and he whispered, ”This is nuts.”

He shook his head and began packing himself away and pulling his s.h.i.+rt down. Half his vinegar was gone, and yet he still smelled dangerous. I was spent, but Rose Mae was a wild thing in me, rioting and pleased.

As soon as he got his s.h.i.+rt tucked back in, Thom said, ”I have to go out there. Take your shower,” and he was gone.

I took my time, letting hot water pound down on my shoulders while my conditioner set for ten minutes. Even after I got out, I stayed in the bathroom, slowly moisturizing every inch of my skin and then blowing out my long, thick hair.

I think I already knew what Rose Mae wanted to do next. It wasn't what I wanted. I didn't let myself even think it. I didn't let myself think at all. I didn't want to wreck the good peace I felt in my whole body in the aftermath of s.e.x. I didn't want to start again.

I aimed the dryer at my roots to get some volume, staring into the mirror. Rose Mae Lolly stared back at me, not thinking either. She didn't have to think. Her day would come, a day when Thom would hurt me bad enough to loose her. I closed my eyes against her patience. I dried my hair by feel, but she was still there, chock-full of something close to smug. All she had to do was wait.

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