She propped the spatula against a trivet on the stove and turned and kissed him on the lips, then smiled up at him. “I’d rather have you home than away,” she said.
He kissed her back, hard, and said, “That’s where I’d rather be.”
She turned back to the stove and sizzling canola oil.
“We gonna eat soon?” he asked.
“ ’Bout fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll do some unpacking.”
“You got time,” she said. She opened a drawer and got out a can opener to use on a tin of green beans sitting on the sink counter.
Jerry patted her rump and went back to the entry hall for his luggage, congratulating himself on how calm he was. On how smoothly everything had gone.
After dinner, maybe some wine. Then maybe the bedroom. Or the sofa. It was odd how much he felt like sex. Like he was back in his twenties.
Hell, don’t question it. Make the most of it.
Later that evening, he went out to the garage to put his suitcase up on the sheet of plywood over the rafters where the luggage was stored. His black nylon carry-on he took to his wooden workbench set up against the front wall of the garage.
He glanced at the closed door from the kitchen and stood still for a few seconds. He’d left Sami in bed, snoring lightly. He smiled, remembering. He’d exhausted her.
After dinner they’d watched part of a Yankees game on TV, then gone to bed early. They’d had sex every which way, and then read for a while in bed. Pleased and surprised, Sami had remarked that she’d never seen Jerry so passionate and so relaxed.
It was true, he realized. It was amazing how everything in the world seemed so much better, more vivid and real, once a man took control of his life.
He unzipped the carry-on and looked at the banded stacks of dull green bills inside. A hundred thousand dollars in small denominations. Another fifty thousand would soon be given to him. That money would be profit after paying back the bridge loan he’d taken out at the bank. He had a personal credit line there and had taken out such loans before, for stock purchases or business deals. They’d known him for years, so all that was needed was his signature.
The money had been left for him in a tightly wrapped and taped brown package at the hotel desk. After checking in, Jerry had taken it up to his room, made sure the door was locked, and started to count the money. But he’d soon gotten bored and impatient. It was all there, he was sure, so he threw away the brown wrapping paper and stuffed the banded bills into his carry-on.
The question now was where to hide the money.
Jerry looked around the garage, trying to settle on a safe place of concealment, somewhere Sami would have no reason to look.
Finally he decided to take his suitcase back down and put the carry-on, still with the money in it, inside, then lock his suitcase before replacing it in storage. Sami had her own luggage and would probably never touch his large suitcase anyway. That was where he’d always hidden her Christmas gifts before wrapping them, and she’d never found them.
When he’d switched off the garage light and returned to the house and gone to bed, he lay beside his sleeping wife and calmly stared into the darkness.
He’d reached a new maturity. It was great the way he could set aside selective parts of the past so they didn’t get in the way of the present. Compartmentalize.
When he thought back on what he’d so recently done in the city…
Sweet Jesus!
He held up his right hand and tried to see if it was trembling, but the darkness in the bedroom was so dense he couldn’t tell. It sure felt steady.
He decided maybe there’d be a delayed reaction. But if that were true, it didn’t seem it would hit him tonight. Jerry laced his fingers behind his head and sighed. He had no remorse, no regrets. He was sure he never would have.
But it took him forever to get to sleep.
He would dream without remembering.
20
“Dan Martin,” he said, and Hettie knew the name of her lover.
She repeated the name, as if testing for taste.
“You never asked my name after the first time,” he said.
They were in her bed, and had just had sex. Hettie was spent and sore, but if he wanted to go around again…
“You could wear me out,” he said.
She grinned and moved her nude body against his on the perspiration-damp sheet. In the warm room their flesh seemed almost hot to the touch. “Did I hear a complaint?” she asked.
He smiled. His dark hair was damp and mussed, a lock dangling over his forehead and almost in his eyes. “You did not.”
“Well, I’m complaining now,” she said. “I’m thirsty.”
She started to get up, but he gripped her shoulder gently and pulled her back down. “I’ll get us something.” He sat up and swiveled on the mattress so he was facing away from her. Twisting his muscular body, he looked over his shoulder at her. “What would you like? I’m having a beer.”
“There’s an open bottle of Pellegrino in the fridge. That’d suit me fine.”
He turned some more so he could lean down and kiss her lightly on the lips. “Gonna miss me?”
She laughed deep in her throat. “I already do.”
He kissed the top of her head, then stood up. She watched him as he walked from the bedroom. He’d have to cross the living room to get to the kitchen. She wondered if the blinds were closed.
He returned a few minutes later with the green glass Pellegrino bottle and an opened can of Busch Lite. She sat up on the bed and scooted back so her shoulders were against the cool headboard. When he handed her the bottle she immediately took several long swallows, aware of him watching her. Some of the cold water dribbled onto her warm breasts, sending a chill through her as it mixed with her perspiration.
Dan (as she was training herself to think of him) sat back down on the mattress, exactly where he’d been before, facing away from her. She watched a drop of perspiration drip from his damp hair as he tilted back his head to take a long pull on his beer.
Hot work, she thought. It called for cold drinks afterward.
Neither talked for a while, getting comfortable with each other’s silence. The air conditioner had cycled off and was quiet. Hettie listened to the constant rush of traffic from the street below. A faraway car alarm warbled briefly, barely audible in the summer night. Closer, but still far away, a police or fire department siren called like a lonely banshee.
Loneliness. Hettie hated it. Maybe now, for her, it had ended.
She reached over and traced the fingers of her left hand down Dan’s sweaty, muscular back.
He turned and grinned at her. “You trying to seduce me again?”
She smiled. “I could’ve sworn it was you who seduced me.”
“A woman’s convenient lie,” he said, leaning back and kissing her softly, using his tongue, showing her that if she were willing…
She let out a long breath and pushed him away.
He moved his mouth to her ear. “What should we do now?” he whispered.
