Fragile

makeup, smiling brightly.

“That’s what I used to think about your mother. Of course, that was before I understood women. You’ll learn the hard way. Like we all do.”

Travis, chuckling now, started moving toward the door. Marshall knew he should just let him go. Travis already had a beer in his hand. If he sat down in front of the television, he’d drink until he fell asleep. And if his father slept in tomorrow, maybe Marshall could make it to school before his dad decided he needed a ride somewhere. But something dark within Marshall wouldn’t allow his father to walk away.

“Dr. Cooper says that just because Mom has a new boyfriend, that doesn’t make her a whore.”

Travis stopped in the doorway and turned around. He had that dead, mean look on his face, those flat eyes.

Marshall felt the urge to rush to Maggie’s defense; he didn’t want to hear his father call her a whore, too.

“She’s a good person,” he said, realizing too late that he was repeating what he’d said a second ago about Charlene.

“She’s a good person. She’s a good person,” Travis mimicked nastily. “If they were any good, Son? Trust me. They wouldn’t want anything to do with you.”

The words landed like a spray of acid, corrosive, burning through his skin. Anger deserted him, replaced with a tide of shame. Marshall felt his voice grow small inside his chest, a powerlessness settle over him. He was shrinking. He braced himself for a verbal battering, but instead his father deflated in the doorway. His eyes took on a kind of glassy quality, and he seemed lost in looking at something high above Marshall’s head. Then he turned and walked away. Marshall didn’t even feel strong enough to hate him.

He turned back to the screen and was surprised to see he had a new message. When he saw that it was from Charlene, he almost couldn’t believe his eyes.

Hey, Marshall, it read. Are you still good for that ride? Can you meet me on Persimmon and Hydrangea?

When Charlie awoke, there was a moment before he remembered where he was and how he’d gotten there. He was aware of the sick pounding behind his eyes that came when he drank too much red wine. Then he was aware of the soft, clean bedding, so unlike the dirty, tangled mess he slept in at home. And then there was the measured breathing of a woman sleeping beside him. Slowly, the dawning, the memory of the evening, crept into his consciousness. This would usually be the moment when he rooted around on the floor for his clothes, crept naked from the bedroom, dressed hastily in the hallway, bathroom, living room-wherever-and got out as fast as possible.

But he didn’t feel the urge to do that. He turned instead to look at her, the lines of her. The round of her shoulder, the swell of her hip beneath the sheet, the curl of her fingers and hollow of her palm resting on the pillow beside her face. Oh, she was pretty, in a real way. She didn’t need to dye her hair or wear so much makeup. She didn’t have the kind of beauty that washed off, got stale, smeared on the pillow. She had peaches- and-cream skin and washed-denim, kitty-shaped eyes. Maybe in the first blush of youth she’d been a killer, a bombshell. But age had revealed the mettle of her beauty; it would not fade with time.

Her breath smelled of peppermint, which told him that she’d gotten up to brush her teeth after he’d drifted off. There was something about that, something nice.

There’s something about you, Charlie. I always feel like I’m going to show up for work one day and you’ll be gone. You’ll have gotten on to that thing you’ve been meaning to do all the while you were doing this. Every day I see you, I’m a little surprised. You know what I mean?

She’d said it with a certain kind of wistful sadness that touched him, that flattered him. He liked that she saw him this way.

I do know what you mean, Wanda.

So what is it? What is this thing you’ve been meaning to do?

I write. He looked down and cleared his throat. It was embarrassing, as though he was in love with a movie star, or hoping to summit Everest. I’m a writer.

When he looked back at her, she was smiling. Not laughing, not giving him that Good luck, don’t quit your day job derisive kind of smirk.

I knew it, she said. I knew it.

He felt something shift inside him, something move and start to grow. The look on her face made him want to be what she clearly thought he was, someone with a secret talent, someone who was marking time until he got his big break.

In her sleep, she shifted closer to him. His bladder ached. He held it awhile, not wanting to break the spell of lying there beside her. But eventually, nature would not be denied. He moved quietly to the small bathroom. When he shut the door and turned on the light, he was greeted with his reflection in a full-length mirror. He was shocked by how bad he looked, how pasty and out of shape.

He could have lived with fat. You had a passion for food, you got big because of it. Whatever. He, on the other hand, took no enjoyment whatsoever from the garbage he habitually ate-bags of chips and tubs of soda, all manner of fast food, Taco Bell and McDonald’s most often, Burger King in a pinch. And his physiology didn’t allow him to get fat exactly-not big and round, not pink and portly. His torso looked like a spent white pillar candle, flesh drooping. In the light he appeared as underdeveloped as an adolescent, very little muscle tone, even in his chest or arms. He doubted he could run a mile, bench-press a hundred pounds.

In clothes, he looked okay. But naked, he could barely stand the sight of himself. A body in utter neglect. He looked away, turned on the water for privacy, and emptied his bladder into a spotlessly clean white toilet. At least he had a fairly decent-size schlong. Wanda hadn’t seemed to notice his other failings, though she’d kept the lights low.

Lots of flowers everywhere in Wanda’s house. On the shower curtain, a kind of retro floral print in pink and brown, matching rugs, towels, and accessories-soap dish, tissue box cover. Downstairs, he’d noticed it, too, when they drank wine on her couch. Everything was nicely put together, cozy throws and plush pillows, all coordinating. Not expensive things, but the kind of stuff you would get at Target. Her place was cute, with some thought behind it. She was a woman with style but a limited budget. He noticed these things, the kinds of things other men missed. The details told the story, revealed the person. The way she hung up her coat rather than throw it on the couch. How there was a little shelf on the table in the foyer where she put her purse. The way she didn’t check her messages, even though the light was blinking. How everything was orderly, had a place, how her dishes and glasses all matched.

His mother had never been much of a homemaker, and his place was an afterthought. It wasn’t a hovel or a pigsty; he was fairly tidy, cleaned occasionally. But Wanda seemed to devote a lot of energy to her home. He liked that she cared about herself, about where she lived. This was a good thing.

He quietly opened the medicine cabinet and found neat little rows of nail polish, shades of pink and red, a couple of tiny sample tubes of various moisturizers, a little jar of cotton balls, a bottle of aspirin, some pain-relief ointment, a plastic box of Q-tips. It was all so clean, so precise. Everything was carefully placed, labels facing out. Something about the colors of everything made him think of a candy shop. He’d done this before, opened medicine cabinets-in the homes of his clients, or women he’d slept with. The contents never failed to turn him off. He’d find all manner of remedies-antifungal cream, depilatories, hemorrhoid pads, sedatives, old, twisted tubes of unidentified lotions. Medicine cabinets, places where people were confident no strangers would ever enter, could be very telling. He wouldn’t go so far as to say that the medicine cabinet was an allegory for the soul. But when he found things dirty, disorganized, the little shelves packed with expired medications and leaking containers, it made him wonder about the owner, what his or her inner life was like. His own medicine cabinet was a virtual biohazard-God only knew what was in there.

He heard something outside, a whisper. Quietly, he closed the door. Then he washed his hands, turned off the water, and shut the lights. He stepped back into the bedroom.

“When I woke up, for a minute, I thought you were gone.”

“I’m still here,” he said, standing by the bed. “Do you want me to go?”

“No,” she said. “Don’t.” She patted the bed beside her, and he climbed back in beside the heat of her body, pulled her to him. She moved to him easily and wrapped her arms around him. Then his mouth was on hers; he felt the soft press of her breasts against his chest, grew hard and hungry for her again. His whole body shuddered when she climbed on top of him and then lowered herself onto him, began moving in slow, deep circles.