“Until what?”
“Till you came in your kayak.”
Ned’s eyes changed. She knew what he was going to say before he said it, was already thinking the same thing. “I want you,” he said.
They looked at each other in a way they shouldn’t have, not in a public place.
“Monday night,” he said. “At the cottage.”
“Monday?”
“There’s no show-they’re broadcasting the Pops Christmas concert.”
Francie thought, We can’t. But she didn’t say it.
“Six-thirty?” he said.
Francie thought, No. Ned’s foot pressed against hers; that little touch, through shoe leather and so far from erogenous zones, nevertheless sent a wave of sensation through her so powerful, it almost made her gasp. She couldn’t get that no out, began having counterthoughts like how can one more time hurt? and if I’m saying good-bye it should be in person, and then Roger was back, and Ned’s foot was gone.
“So,” said Roger, picking his napkin off the chair and replacing it in his lap as he sat down, “what’s the plan?”
“The plan?” said Francie.
“Just coffee? Or perhaps something sweet.”
Francie had coffee, Roger and Ned cognac, Anne a cake called death by chocolate.
“This is incredible,” Anne said, “but I can’t possibly finish it. Anybody want some?”
No one did.
The bill came. Roger took it from the waiter’s hand.
“Wait a minute,” Ned said. “Let’s split it, at least.”
“Sharesies?” said Roger. “After you win that lottery. No, this is my treat. Mine and Francie’s, that is. It’s been a pleasure.”
“But Roger, it was my idea,” said Anne.
“And a very good one. We’ll do it again soon.”
Outside a cold wind was blowing. Anne and Francie stood hunched inside their coats while the men went to the parking garage across the street.
“Do you think it’s true what they say about oysters, Francie?”
“No.”
Anne was quiet for a moment. “Then maybe it’s the wine.”
“What is?”
“If it’s not the oysters.”
Francie was silent.
“Having an effect on me. If you know what I mean.” Anne looked at Francie sideways. “Can I ask you something?”
“I’m going to kill you,” Francie said.
Anne laughed. “Sorry. And sorry for saying sorry. But it’s kind of
… intimate.”
“Ask away.”
“In a marriage,” Anne said, “after you’ve been together for some time, if you see what I’m getting at. What do you do to keep him-to keep things stimulating?”
Francie felt sick.
“I don’t mean you personally. What does one do? I read in Cosmo — on Cosmo, actually-that some men like dirty talk. In bed, I mean, during…”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of tricks,” Francie said, realizing the truth of it as she spoke.
“Then what is it?”
“Enthusiasm.” That had been missing from her bed-hers and Roger’s in the days they shared it-if not from the start, then certainly since their procreative fiasco.
Anne nodded; Francie could see she was making a mental note.
The two cars drove out of the parking garage, stopped in front of Huitres. “Good night,” Francie said. And she thought, Good-bye. Have the fucking strength to make it good-bye, good-bye to you both.
“Night, Francie,” said Anne, getting into Ned’s car. She smiled over the top of the door. “Enthusiasm-I should have known.”
Francie went to bed alone. She lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Then she got up, found sleeping pills in the back of the medicine cabinet, left over from the bouts of sleeplessness that followed the last artificial insemination. She took two, returned to bed, waited for them to act, which at last they did.
Anne went to bed with Ned. They lay in the darkness.
“How were your oysters?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“Mine, too. Better than that.”
“That’s good.”
“I’ve decided I love oysters.” She moved closer to him, not quite touching. Enthusiasm, but perhaps Cosmo was right, too. Why not come out with all guns blasting, as Francie would? She put her mouth to his ear, breathed into it. His whole body tensed gratifyingly, giving her the courage to go on. In a low voice she said, “I love your cock, Ned. I want to… do things to it.” She reached down his body.
He stopped her hand. “I’m sorry, Anne. I have a splitting headache.”
She froze. “That’s supposed to be my line,” she said, the kind of witty remark Francie might make. But she couldn’t keep it up; all the air went out of her, and then her mind started dragging her down a long spiral, down and down while Ned fell asleep.
A long spiral, all the way back to the pressure gauge. Anne got out of bed, left the bedroom, walked down the hall. She heard Em make a noise in her sleep, paused outside her door. Em rolled over in her bed, then lay quiet. Anne moved on, downstairs, through the door that led from the kitchen to the garage. Yes, he had a pressure gauge, but did that mean he had used it? No. But perhaps she would be able to tell whether that little rubber thing, the protector, the guard, whatever they called it, had ever been unscrewed from the valve. Might there not be greasy fingerprints on it, or stripped threads inside? She opened Ned’s trunk, examined the rubber valve guard on the spare. No fingerprints. She unscrewed it. It stuck just a little before giving way, as though this were the first turning, but she didn’t know enough about the subject to make that judgment. She peered inside, could see nothing wrong with the threads. Proving? Nothing. He did have that pressure gauge, he did get headaches sometimes, and over the years she had been less and less sexual with him: it was probably her own fault. Why had she been like that? She didn’t know. Perhaps she would work up the nerve to discuss it with Francie.
Anne was about to close the trunk, to go back to bed, to try the enthusiasm gambit again, perhaps the next morning or tomorrow night, when she noticed that the map that had been jammed into the wheel well against the spare was no longer there; and the irises: gone, too. Anne searched the trunk, the glove box, under the seats, behind the visors, but she didn’t find them.
She stood in the garage, thinking, getting nowhere, and her gaze fell on the trash barrels, lined up along the wall. She began with the nearest one. It held two green plastic bags. She took out the first, unknotted the red ties, dug through, found nothing but recent garbage. Then she removed the second bag, was starting to open it as well, when she noticed the irises, crushed at the bottom of the barrel. The map of New Hampshire with the red X in the middle of the Merrimack River lay under them.
Picking his napkin off the chair and replacing it in his lap as he sat down! Roger lay on the couch in his basement HQ, his mind racing much too fast for sleep. Weren’t they aware that the proper place to leave a napkin while away from the table was to the left of the forks, folded in half, and that only a boor would leave it on his chair? Evidently not: it was symptomatic, emblematic, of the contrast between them and him. Picking the napkin off the chair, replacing it carefully on his lap, because why? Because under it was this little digital recorder, not much bigger than a credit card-birthday gift from Francie, he recalled, so he could record business ideas while in the car- spinning silently away. He rewound it and listened again, editing out background noise-laughter, cutlery clattering
