I got some shredded cheese out of the refrigerator and sprinkled some over the food and put it down on the floor. Pearl did like it with cheese. She also liked it without cheese, or with sawdust. Susan went into her bedroom, and I sat at the counter and sipped my scotch and soda. Susan came out in a while barefooted, in a dark blue tank top and white shorts, with her hair combed, and wearing fresh lip gloss.
“Got any snacks?” I said. “I appear to have slept through lunch.”
Susan got an elegant wine goblet sort of the color of sea mist from another cabinet and poured some Merlot into it, and took a small sip.
“I have some rice cakes,” Susan said. “And some broccoli sprouts, and…” She got up and opened her refrigerator door and gazed in. “… half a bagel.”
“Gee, a cornucopia,” I said.
Susan had great glassware and wonderful china and beautiful silverware and no food.
“And some shredded cheese, but that’s for the baby…” She closed the refrigerator and opened the cupboard. “… and some bite-sized shredded wheat.”
She turned and looked at me optimistically, as if I might like shredded wheat and broccoli sprouts with my scotch and soda.
“That’s okay,” I said. “We can order out.”
“Chinese?” Susan said.
“Yes, a bunch of everything, and tell them to hurry. In a little while it will be a medical emergency.”
Susan called and ordered a bunch of everything including some broccoli, sauce on the side, and steamed rice. Then she came back and sat across the counter from me and took a sip of her wine.
“What I don’t get,” I said, “is this creep beats her up and rapes her and she won’t tell the cops.”
“But she admitted it to you.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that aside, consider it from her perspective,” Susan said.
She was leaning her elbows on the counter holding her sea mist wine goblet in both hands, looking at me over the top of it. I had a fresh drink.
“Okay,” I said, “she leaves her husband for the man of her dreams and the man of her dreams turns out to be an abusive rapist.”
“Bad mistake,” Susan said. “But to report him to the police is to certify that mistake.”
“So?”
“So maybe it means her husband wins and she loses,” Susan said.
“And she’d rather shield her rapist than lose to her husband?”
“It’s not just that she loses, it’s that he has the triumphant gratification of seeing her be humiliated for her own folly. It might be worse for her than rape.”
“So why does she tell me?”
“Because she has to tell someone. Because she needs you to protect her. Because she somehow has learned already that you won’t judge her. Because you may have replaced, what’s his name?”
“Louis Vincent.”
“You may have replaced Louis Vincent as the man of her new dreams.”
“Well,” I said. “You would certainly know what that’s like.”
Susan paid no attention. When she was thinking she was filled completely by the subject of her thoughts.
“And,” Susan said and smiled slightly, “because you knew anyway. And she’d cozy up to you by making you the only one she’d tell.”
The doorbell rang. Pearl went ballistic as she always does when the doorbell rings. I went downstairs and paid for the Chinese food and brought it back up. The smell of fresh delivered Chinese food almost defines anticipation. Pearl barked once at me when I came into the living room before she realized I wasn’t a bell-ringing intruder, then got a whiff of the food and became very focused. I put it on the counter prepared to eat it from the cartons, but of course Susan had set the counter and put out place mats and silverware and a pair of ivory chopsticks for herself. She liked to eat with chopsticks. I did not. Susan served.
“If she won’t tell the cops, of course, this becomes my problem.”
“Oh really,” Susan said.
“What do you mean ‘oh really’?”
“Given what we know about her, and the letter you showed me,” Susan said, “isn’t that exactly what she would want?”
I thought about it.
“Yes,” I said. “But she couldn’t have contrived the rape.”
“No, I’m sure she didn’t. But she has exploited it, consciously or not, to serve what she thinks is her best interest.”
“Which is me.”
“Yes.”
