'To my apartment.'
'Maybe you've got the wrong impression of me. I really don't sleep around. Sorry. Denny's the only affair I ever had.'
'I thought maybe we could talk.'
'We're talking here.'
'Where we could be more comfortable, I mean.'
'I'm very vulnerable right now. I might say yes to something I'd regret.'
'Did you kill him?'
'No. Did you?'
'No.'
'Do you think my husband did?'
'I don't know,' I said.
'Is your apartment nice?'
'It's tolerable.'
'Does it have a fireplace?'
'Yes.'
'Please don't try to get me into bed, all right?'
'All right.'
'Promise?'
'Yes. Promise.”
'The first time I ever met Clay he was in the college library studying a Shakespeare play. He was very nice- looking and very clean-cut and he had this little-boy look of confusion on his face whenever he came to a part that he didn't understand. He sort of fascinated me-just watching him, I mean-because I sensed that here was somebody I could help. I usually attracted the type of men who ruled the earth, if you know what I mean. Everything I wanted to do was silly; I was supposed to just listen to them and everything would be fine.
'But Clay really needed somebody. He put on the swagger act but he was really lost. For one thing he was completely overshadowed by his father, who'd built the Traynor company from nothing. Both Clay and his father knew that Clay could never run the company. That's why Clay's father started grooming his nephew to take over the reins-even though Clay would always be called president-when the nephew was only fifteen years old. Clay told me that his cousin spent half his Saturdays at the company with Clay's father. Clay was never invited and he didn't seem to care. He was into his pleasures.'
She was curled up at the opposite end of the couch from me. For the past three hours we'd found a respite from the events pressing in on us. I'd found some decent frozen food to pop into the microwave; we'd watched the fog curl around the window in my front room, and the fire crackled in the shadows. I was starting to trust her and like her and in the lazy moments of our time here, I sensed she was experiencing the same thing. She was not the woman I'd stereotyped her into being, particularly as she talked about Clay and how much she'd loved him once and how the loss of their love had crushed her. I knew what she was talking about.
'The one thing people never give Clay as president is that he was very good as a representative of the company at one time. Until he got so caught up with all his women.' She paused, touching her head as if she had a migraine. 'I thought maybe his fascination for other women would pass- I even used to pray about it-but it never did. And all the while he was getting worse and worse at his job. That's when his cousin really started accumulating power.
'Anyway, I suppose that's why I had hope for us for so long despite a lot of evidence to the contrary.' She smiled with a melancholy that revitalized her face. 'You know, I always tried to believe that he was just as blameless as he said he was-that all the nights he was gone he was just innocently playing poker or having a few drinks with his buddies. This was back in the sixties, the early sixties, you understand, when it was still possible to delude yourself that way.' She laughed gently, sadly. 'Then one night at a party I went out to our car and I found him in the back seat with a young girl. They were both naked. The human body had never disgusted me before-but it did then. It was two years before I'd even look at myself in the mirror. I just kept thinking of them in the back seat. I admit it probably wasn't easy for Clay during that time. I could have forgiven him and we could have taken up our lives again. I don't know how many times I tried-hoped.
'We didn't make love for two years. His father would have disinherited him if we divorced, so we had to keep up pretenses. Clay had his life and I had mine-which mostly consisted of watching TV and taking tranquilizers and seeing shrinks. It never occurred to me to take a lover, even during the seventies when all my female friends had lovers all the time. The only reason I finally went to bed with Denny was because I found out about Clay and the girl in your accounting department. What's her name-Belinda?'
'Belinda Matson?' The name rocked me. Literally. I straightened up, my drowsiness gone.
'You sound surprised?'
I laughed. Bitterly. 'What a snake pit it all is.'
'Well, that's the only reason I went to bed with Denny. One night I was downtown and I saw Clay and this Belinda. I recognized her from your agency party. I'd thought by that time that I was beyond caring, but it hurt me. Well, I ran into Denny an hour later and he bought me a drink and…' She shook her head. 'We were both very drunk. I have doubts that he even remembered it exactly. The odd thing was, I never enjoyed it-never cared about him one way or the other. It was crazy. I just needed to be with somebody, even somebody like him.'
But I was still thinking of Belinda Matson and Clay-and of poor slob Merle Wickes, who probably thought he was Belinda's only lover.
She stared into the fire. 'I wrote him the note you found because I was trying to make myself feel a little better about committing adultery. I thought maybe if I could convince myself that I actually cared for Denny… My mother produced a much better Lutheran than she realized. I was going to cut it off with Denny, which is why I'd gone to his place last night. But…'
She surprised me by leaning over and taking my hands in hers. 'I have to tell you something, but I'm afraid.'
I shook my head. 'I guess we don't have any choice except to trust each other now.'
'I'm afraid for Clay.'
'Why?'
'Because…' She paused. 'When I pulled up in Denny's driveway last night, I saw Clay's car there. I think he overheard Denny and me talking on the phone one night. Anyway I panicked and backed out and parked down the road. Then I saw Clay come running out. He didn't see me, he was too wild to see anything.' She shuddered. 'I think Clay killed him.'
'I'm his alibi otherwise.'
'What?'
I told her about the lie I'd told Detective Bonnell to clear Clay.
'So you're not going to help the police and neither am I,' she said.
'Maybe he didn't do it.'
'Do you believe that?'
'I don't know what to believe.'
And then I kissed her.
It happened that suddenly and inevitably. I eased her back against the couch and what I'd intended for a chaste kiss of friendship became something I could hardly control. I felt the flesh of her beneath and against me, the taste of her mouth and the scent of her hair and the tang of her skin.
'Please,' she said, pushing away, 'you promised.'
All I could do was sit there, jangled as I'd been after finding Denny, lost in my desires and terrors.
She moved quickly, to the closet where I'd put her coat, and then to the front door.
I started to stand up but she put up a stopping hand.
She looked weary again. Confused. 'I'm starting to feel as sorry for us as I do for Clay,' she said.
She shook her lovely head and was gone.
