little miss priss things anymore. Full, Roy. Generous.”
“Generous,” Roy said. The word seemed strange in the context of lips, but it got him thinking.
Marcia laughed again. “You’re something, Roy. You surely are.” Meaning something stupid, he thought, ignorant when it came to changing lips, shorting Yahoo, all that. But then her foot touched his under the kitchen table.
Just for a moment.
He took a sip of beer, glanced at her over the bottle. Couldn’t tell anything about the lips, but now that he thought about it, her hair seemed a little different, kind of copper-colored in a way that reminded him of the sky on the way to work that morning.
She was looking at him too.
“Did it hurt?” Roy said.
“Hurt?”
“The lip implant.”
She laughed, spraying Bud across the table. “Implants are for tits, Roy. This was just an injection.”
“Of what?” Roy said.
Marcia shrugged. “Something they shoot in there.”
Tits: he remembered the ugly thing he’d said to Barry but the truth was he’d forgotten what Marcia’s breasts looked like. Not that he wouldn’t recognize them, he just couldn’t picture them. Funny thing, though, he could recall the springy feel of them with a precision that made him uncomfortable.
“Another beer?” he said.
“You’re not drinking.”
“I am.” He took a sip, fetched another bottle, refilled Marcia’s glass. His forearm happened to brush her shoulder. She didn’t shy away; the opposite, if anything.
He sat down.
“How’s work?” she said.
“Work?” said Roy. “Not bad.” He was tempted to tell her about being in line for a promotion. That awkward moment or two in Curtis’s office, the mix-up with the train, none of that would add up to much. The important things were that Rhett was home safe in bed, and here was Marcia sitting around having a beer. “How’s yours?” he asked.
She made that contemptuous little upper-lip movement of hers. Roy noticed the change then. “Busy,” she said.
Marcia took a big drink, her lips a double crescent on the rim of the glass. Yes, they’d changed: sexy lips, no doubt about it. Her new lips reminded him a little of the lips of Curtis’s girlfriend, who worked in the mayor’s office and had once been on the cover of Ebony; maybe not the kind of thought you were supposed to have.
“I was in your house today,” Roy said.
Marcia paused, eyeing him over the glass. “I’m sorry if there was a scene.”
“No scene,” Roy said, “but it’s pretty impressive,” and when she didn’t reply, added, “your house in Buckhead.”
“Buckhead,” she said, almost like she now had some problem with it. Was it possible that she’d changed, that she’d come around to thinking that some simpler place was just as good? He took a close look at her, thought he detected changes other than the lips, internal ones.
“You lost some weight, Roy,” she said.
He knew that wasn’t true.
“Working out some?”
“Not much.” Not at all-he’d let his gym membership lapse, was getting soft around the middle, didn’t care. Maybe he seemed in shape compared to Bar “I’m of a mind to do something pretty crazy right now, Roy,” she said, draining her glass.
“Like what?” Roy said. He thought: She’s going to give me custody of Rhett.
Marcia reached across the table, laid her hand on his. Roy felt a jolt right through his body. The fact that she wasn’t wearing the wedding ring he’d given her, had a big green stone, a real emerald, maybe, in its place, did nothing to lessen his reaction, possibly increased it. He gazed into her eyes, tried to stop, couldn’t.
“Remember that time up in Tennessee?” she said.
He did, just from that.
“What was the name of that crick?”
“Crystal.”
“Yeah,” she said, getting up and coming over to him, standing behind his chair, close. “Crystal. I’ve been thinking about Crystal Crick lately.” She touched him, very light, on the back of the neck, sent another jolt through him, this one with cold tingles at the end.
“What are you doing, Marcia?”
“What I want,” she said, her fingers trailing down under his shirt collar. “What you want too, I hope.”
He turned and stood up, breaking contact. “I don’t understand,” he said.
She raised her hand, as though she were about to lay it on his chest, but didn’t. “You took over today.”
“I’m his father.” Roy would have stepped back, but the table was there.
“He’s a lucky boy.” Marcia’s hand came down on his chest, her fingertips twisting around a button.
What was going on? Roy looked in her eyes, learned nothing. All he knew was that she’d met Barry at a conference seven months ago, left Roy a few weeks later, and their divorce had come through last week. She’d always been decisive, long as he’d known her.
Marcia tilted up her face. “Give me a kiss, Roy.”
“Why?” Roy said.
She paused. “Why?” she said. “Don’t you want to?”
“But what’s it for?” Roy said.
Marcia wrinkled her forehead in a way that was new, made him wonder if confusing things were happening in her life, made him feel a little sorry for her. “What’s a kiss for?” she said. “Is that what you’re asking?”
“What’s this kiss for?” Roy said.
She stepped back. “You don’t like me much anymore, do you?”
“It’s not that,” Roy said. “But what about Barry?” And a hundred other things, but that one came first.
“Do we have to talk about him?” Marcia said.
Roy didn’t understand. In this very room, at almost the same time of night, she’d said: I never dreamed I could feel this way about a person. Meaning about Barry: that was the night Roy had first heard of him.
“We do,” Roy said.
Marcia’s eyes filled with tears. She wasn’t a crier. “No one can ever make a mistake in your world, is that it?”
A mistake? Had it all been a mistake? “What kind of mistake?”
“Oh, Roy, don’t badger me. I’m so tired I can’t hardly think right now.”
“Does this mean you and Barry aren’t getting-”
Marcia started crying, just as he was thinking, She doesn’t look tired, she looks great. But then she didn’t look great anymore, with the tears, and her face all blotchy.
“I deserve this, you not caring anymore,” she said, or something like that, it was hard to distinguish the words.
Roy’s arms came up. His hands opened. They curled around her upper arms. He pulled her in.
Marcia cried against Roy’s chest. Maybe it would have been all right if they’d left it at that, but one thing led to another.
Something buzzed in the night. Roy woke, turned on the light. Marcia was sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to him, bent over, fumbling through clothes on the floor. She straightened, put her cell phone to her ear. The buzzing stopped.
“Hello?” she said.
She listened. “I don’t know any Grant-” she began, stopped. “Oh, I didn’t recognize you without the doctor part. Why, yes, thank you, I’m fine.” She listened some more, said, “Same to you,” clicked off.
Marcia turned to Roy. For a moment her eyes didn’t appear to be seeing him at all; then they did, although
