In the privacy of their room, Amanda’s inscrutable veneer dropped like a carton of eggs.
“This is unbelievable,” she said, flopping onto the bed. “They ‘dropped in’ from Fort Myers. Who ‘drops in’ from Fort Myers?”
“Did she say how long they’re staying?”
“No.” Her voice had an edge of panic.
“My flight leaves first thing in the morning. Will you be okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were brilliant tonight,” he said. “How did you do that? Not that she didn’t manage to have a fight with you all by herself anyway.”
“I tuned her out. Or at least I tried to. It’s hard to do. I don’t know how long I can keep it up. She-” The strain of whispering was too much. Amanda sat forward with a sudden cough.
John hauled himself up on an elbow and rubbed her back. “You okay?”
“Mm-hmm,” she managed. “Just swallowed the wrong way. I’ll be fine.” She cleared her throat and nestled back against him.
Down the hall, the guest room door creaked open. There were footsteps, moving past the bathroom, and down the stairs, followed by a rattling in the kitchen. It sounded like the cutlery drawer, but that made no sense, unless someone was having a midnight hankering for scalloped potatoes. But no, that could not have been the case, because now, too soon for a plate to have been made, came the unmistakable sound of someone ascending the stairs.
And down the hall.
To their room.
The door crashed open, hitting the wall behind it. John yanked the blankets up to his chin. Amanda let out an “eep” as she struggled to do the same.
Fran stopped at the end of the bed, squinting to make out the figure of her daughter among the shadows. “There you are,” she said, coming around to Amanda’s side of the bed.
In the near-colorless glare of the moonlight, John saw the flash of a spoon. Amanda sat forward obediently, clutching the covers against her naked body with both hands. Her mother poured cough syrup onto the spoon and Amanda opened her mouth like a baby bird.
“That’ll sort you out,” Fran said with a nod. She turned on her heel and left the room, closing the door behind her.
John and Amanda lay in stunned silence.
“Did that just happen?” John said.
“I think it did.”
John stared at the ceiling. A car drove by; the headlights flashed across the length of their bedroom wall and disappeared.
“Come with me tomorrow,” John said. “We’ll get you on standby.”
Amanda flopped back onto him and adjusted the covers so that only their necks and heads were exposed. “Thank you,” she said, clinging to him like a spider monkey and breathing warm eucalyptus across his face. “Because if you leave me here with her, I think I might have to kill her.”
The next morning, John lay perfectly still until he heard the sounds of the television downstairs. It was a reliable indicator of when his in-laws began their day.
Amanda was asleep with her arms thrown over her head. Her hair, corkscrew curly, tumbled over her pillow and beyond her pale wrists. It was what had struck him the first time he laid eyes on her, in a hallway at Columbia, standing between him and the sunlight within a glowing halo of curls. It was always out of control, even when secured in its customary knot. She never used elastics; she used chopsticks, pencils, plastic cutlery, and anything else she could poke through it. Very early in their relationship, John had learned to check just what was in there before letting her lay her head on his shoulder so he wouldn’t lose an eye. But no matter how tight the knot or how recently done, bits of hair always sprang free.
He leaned over and buried his nose in her hair. He breathed deeply, and then nibbled her collarbone, which gave way to soft curves and heartbreaking dips. God, how he loved her. It had always been Amanda. For eighteen years, it had been Amanda. He’d never even been with another woman-unless you counted the unfortunate incident with Ginette Pinegar, which he did not.
“Mmm,” Amanda said, swatting him away.
“It’s time to go,” he whispered.
Her eyes opened wide. She smiled as he pressed a finger to her lips.
With a rerun of
“Good-bye! We’re leaving!” John called loudly.
Sounds of muffled confusion floated down the hall, followed by fast footsteps.
Amanda pressed a fist against her mouth to suppress a laugh and zipped her feet into shiny high-heeled black boots that were very much the opposite of mukluks. John gazed admiringly, but not for long-Fran’s solid feet slid into view, encased in Isotoner slippers.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving?” she said. She stood with arms akimbo, eyes flashing. “Where are you going?”
“Kansas,” said Amanda.
“L.A.,” said John at the exact same moment. “House-hunting,” he added. Amanda paused momentarily, then resumed struggling into her pink belted coat. Large sunglasses already hid her eyes.
Tim ambled down the hall toward them.
“Bye, Tim! Thanks for coming,” John called cheerily.
“You’re welcome,” the old man replied in a baffled tone.
John pulled the door open.
“Wait!” Fran’s voice sent chills through John’s body. It was a reflex-her tone demanded obedience. He girded himself and turned to meet her steely glare. “Yes?”
“Nobody said anything about this last night.”
“It was very last minute. No choice. The Realtor was very busy-”
“Very busy,” added Amanda. She tied the sash of her coat while trying to remain hidden behind John.
“You only said you were thinking about moving, not that you had decided. When are you coming back?”
“No idea,” said John, ushering Amanda through the door. She headed for the car at a near-run. John followed with the suitcase.
“And what are we supposed to do?” Fran cried from the porch.
“Stay as long as you like,” said John. “Good-bye, Fran. Good-bye, Tim!”
“See you at the wedding!” Amanda called over her shoulder. She climbed into the car and slammed the door.
John glanced behind him. Fran was marching down the walkway, a one-woman armada, her bosom an impregnable force resting on a shelf of gut.
By the time John hit the driver’s seat, Amanda had pulled down her sunshade and was pretending to search through her purse. “Gun it, baby,” she said, without looking up.
John did, screeching backward into the road and then forward and out. Somewhere down the road, as he finally did up his seat belt, he asked Amanda, “What wedding? What are you talking about?”
“My cousin Ariel is getting married in three weeks.”
“That’s awfully fast.”
“It’s of the shotgun variety, although officially we don’t know that. Are we really going to L.A.?”
“No. We’re going to Kansas.”
“Oh.”
