Quickly throwing on the pink housecoat, she ran through the bedroom and into the living room. Her feet left wet tracks on the stairs down to the front door. Through the frosted glass of the door, she could see the outline of a man.
If that's Mike this early, she thought, I'll kill him!
But when she threw open the door, she saw that it wasn't Mike.
'Mr. Davis!' she gasped.
'Hi, Val,' Richard said, swallowing hard. 'I bet you're surprised to see me.'
Valerie pulled her wet hair away from her face. 'Surprised isn't the word,' she said. She wondered what he was doing there.
He was dressed in his work uniform – dark-blue trousers stained with oil, and a blue denim workshirt. But he was also wearing a service station black bow tie, which she hadn't remembered him ever wearing before. And in his hands he gripped the neck of a bottle wrapped in a brown paper sack. She stared at him for several seconds, wondering why he had come. She didn't want to be rude to him – he was her father-in-law, and she was fond of him even if she had separated from his son – but she wished he had picked a better time to visit her.
'I was taking a bath,' she said.
'So I see,' he said, grinning, and nodding at the cleavage showing where she gripped the housecoat shut.
Valerie adjusted her grip on the collar of the robe. 'Well,' she said, 'I guess you'd better come in. I'll put something on.' She stood aside to let him pass her on the stairs, then took a quick glance outside to see if anyone had been watching. As she closed the door she said, trying to be casual, 'I thought you worked on Saturdays.'
Richard looked down at her from the top of the stairs. 'Only half a day most of the time. If there's a lot of work, I stay. But there wasn't anything today, so I got the hell out of there. Thought I'd drop in and see you,' he said. He held up the bottle and the brown paper bag. 'Maybe have a little drink together. You know I haven't seen you for quite a while. Not since you and…'
'I'll just put on some…'
'No, no,' he insisted. 'I can only stay a few minutes anyway. Besides, I've seen you in your bathrobe before.'
Valerie couldn't help grinning at him. In many ways she pitied him, because his wife kept such a tight rein on his drinking habits.
'Okay,' she said. 'The glasses are over there on the shelf by the window. You get to work, and I'll be back in just a minute. I've got to dry off or I'll freeze to death!'
She watched him as he went to fetch the glasses, thinking how awkward and out of place he looked in a modernly furnished apartment. He didn't particularly like Mrs. Davis' early American furniture, but she was used to seeing him sitting in the big overstuffed chairs, so he looked strange among her brightly colored, low-rise furniture. Then she hurried into the bathroom again to dry herself.
What does he want? she wondered. Probably to try to talk me into going back to Jim, I guess. Well, poor soul, that's a lost cause. He probably got the address from Jim's mother.
When she came back to the living room she saw that he had poured her a healthy portion of a purplish brown fluid. 'Well,' he said, picking up the glass. 'What is it?' she asked sniffing.
'Blackberry brandy,' he said. 'I don't much care for it, but Jim likes it and I thought that if…'
'We never drank anything but cheap red wine,' she said. She took a quick sip of the brandy, but made a face. 'Kind of strong, isn't it?' she asked.
'It'll put hair on your chest,' he joked.
Valerie glanced down at the thrust of her breasts beneath the housecoat. 'I'd rather not have any hair on my chest,' she said. 'But I'll drink it anyway.' She took another sip and sat down in the bright yellow chair opposite the couch where he was sitting. 'If you want to talk about Jim and me?' she said, taking a deep breath, 'I'd rather not. I'm sorry about it and all, but it's just a closed case, that's all. I can't go back to him.'
'But I don't understand what…'
'I'd really rather not talk about it. How's Mrs. Davis?'
'She's worried about you two,' he told her. 'But, other than that, just as feisty as ever.'
'Did she ever finish that pantsuit we were working on?'
'I suppose so. Listen, Val, if it's a problem with…'
'Really, Dad, I'd rather not talk about Jim right now. As a matter of fact, I have a… Well, I have a date this afternoon, and…'
'A date? With who?'
'Well,' she said, 'I'm not living with Jim any more. It's not like I was cheating on him or anything like that.' She was amused to see him so surprised that she was going out. 'And anyway, this is just with Mike Duckworth, my old boss. It's hardly…'
'But you're married to Jim!' Richard protested.
'I'm sure,' she said, rolling the glass in her palms, 'that Jim is going out, too.'
'The hell he is! Listen, if you two split up just to shack…'
'We separated because we can't get along together,' she told him. 'People do it all the time. They make a mistake, and when they realize it, they do whatever they think best to make up for it. Jim and I…'
'I don't always get along with Frances, either,' he insisted. 'But you don't see us separating, or whatever you want to call it.'
'Well,' she said simply, 'I'm not Frances. And Jim's not you. Things are different with us.' She thought it extremely curious that he could be chastising her and examining her legs with such obvious interest. Casually, she pulled the hem of her housecoat down around her knees. 'Please,' she said. 'I'd really just rather not talk about it, please.'
'So you're already going to bed with someone else then,' he said.
'Mr. Davis!' she said, setting down her drink on the glass and chrome coffee table. 'How much have you had to drink?' She pushed down the paper on the liquor bottle and saw that it was full.
'I had a few beers at work,' he confessed. 'Fuckworth? Is that his name?'
Valerie giggled despite herself. 'Duckworth,' she said. 'Mike Duckworth. He was at the wedding. You remember him. My old boss? The music teacher?'
'Kind of a fairy-looking red-headed dude?'
Valerie didn't like the description, but she had to admit that Richard had remembered him, which surprised her, since her mother had invited nearly four hundred guests to the reception.
'What do you want to fuck around with him for?' Richard demanded. 'He's old enough to be your father, isn't he?'
'I'm not 'fucking around' with him,' she said beginning to get a little angry. 'And he's only thirty-two, and…'
'Christ, he's practically as old as I am!'
Valerie picked up her drink. 'Don't you ever 'fuck around'?' she asked him. She had decided that the best thing to do was to fight fire with fire; if he wanted to embarrass her into a position where he could question her about Jim, she wasn't going to let him.
'You shouldn't talk like that,' he said, looking into his glass.
'Well,' she said, feeling a little smug, 'you started it.'
'That's different,' he said. 'You're a girl.'
'Girls are different now,' she said, sipping on her drink.
'I don't want to talk about it, either,' he said. He poured himself another drink from the bottle, then leaned back on the couch. 'You able to do all right?' he asked. 'I mean, about money and all.'
Valerie smiled at him. He really didn't know much. 'I do all right,' she said. 'As a matter of fact, I was a little worried about Jim. I make more money than he does being a teaching assistant, you know.'
'No,' he said, 'I didn't know. Jim doesn't talk to me much. He's doing all right, though, I guess.'
'And how are you doing?' she asked, feeling impish. 'Financially, I mean.'
Richard looked up at her in surprise. 'I'm doing all right, too, I guess.'
'Well, I guess we're all doing all right then.'
'Why don't you come sit over here?' he asked, patting the couch beside him. 'I can't see you very well for
