back and do some serious exploring.
Another odd thing is that now I think I understand Laura better than I did when we had that talk, so many months ago. I think she was telling the truth when we first spoke: This would be a nice place to live, to settle down.
There is little that I have ever done that I actually regret, but, do you know, I’m sorry about that dog, Pepper. And I’m glad I didn’t give in to my instincts when I wanted to kill Bill’s wife. I hope all of this doesn’t sour them on the neighborhood; it will be a good place again, once I have broken free of Kellem and left.
The night grows old, the day approaches, and, as always, I run.
It has been an entire day since I have seen Susan.
My lover is sleeping on the bloodstained gray chair downstairs.
The house was cold and dry as I made my way up to the bathroom earlier this evening, from which I concluded that the dogs of winter still held the weather and would shake it with at least a few more days of cold before dropping it and retreating once more to await November.
When I came back down, feeling strangely at peace after a dreamless sleep, Jim was still standing by the window. “Still there,” he said.
It took me a moment to realize that he meant the police, then I said, “It doesn’t matter.”
For maybe the second or third time since I’ve known him he looked right at me. “What happened?” he said.
I shrugged. “A bit of a surprise, is all. People sometimes turn out to be, I don’t know, not what I’d thought they’d be.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Good, but also upsetting. I begin to think I make too many hasty judgments.”
He nodded and went back to looking out the window while I got my coat on. He said nothing else as I left the house. I went carefully, making certain I wasn’t spotted. Outside, the last traces of purple-red sunset were absorbed by the soft glow of the lights of Mark Twain College, a couple of miles to the west. The wind was light but steady; I kept my hands in the pocket of my parka. There were a few slippery spots where snow had melted and then frozen again, but they weren’t too bad.
I knocked at the door and Susan answered. I was glad it wasn’t Jill because I really didn’t know what I’d find to say to her, what with one thing and another. I hung up my coat, took off my Wellingtons, kissed Susan, and said, “So, what do you want to do?”
She grinned, spun once, then gyrated her pelvis lewdly.
“I meant after that,” I said.
“After that? Hmmm. Perhaps you could take me to Baghdad. I’ve always wanted to see Baghdad.”
“During a war?”
“The war’s over. But you’re right. Maybe somewhere else.”
“We’ll talk about it,” I said, and held out my arm. She curtsied, dimpled, laid her hand on top of mine, and we ascended into heaven, as it were.
I was very careful with her, and gentle, trying to give as much as I could while taking as little as possible. I must have been successful, because she seemed quite pleased, and did not fall asleep.
We spoke of school, and her hopes for the future, and her love of dancing, and the exhilaration of being before an audience; a pleasure I’ve never felt, but can almost understand. She asked about me and I avoided answering. I asked about her and she told me some things. She talked about grabbing what she could from life; I talked about waiting while life delivered whatever I wanted.
“I don’t have the patience for that,” she said.
“You want it now.”
“Instant gratification,” she agreed. “I hate waiting.”
“I will remember that.”
“I told you about the bus.”
“That’s true; I’d forgotten. When that happens, it’s time to get a car.”
“I hate cars,” she said.
“If truth be known, so do I. But I hate buses, too.”
“What do you like?” she said.
“Walking.”
“How do you feel about flying.”
“Flying is okay; depends on how one does it.”
“Ships?”
“Only when necessary,” I said.
She shook her head. “I like to travel.”
“I like to be other places; I don’t like getting there.”
“We can work it out,” she said.
“I would imagine we can.”
Then she said, “So, would you like to show me your house?”
“Now?”
“Why not? Is it cold?”
“Not horribly.”
“Well then?”
“All right; let’s go.”
She put on a dark blue skirt and a Twain sweatshirt, brushed her hair, stuck a blue band in it, kissed me, and pronounced herself ready.
As I type this, the problem with bringing her to my home is staring at me so hard that I can’t believe I didn’t notice it at the time; I guess my head was so filled with Susan that there was no room for anything else. We walked through the Tunnel, arm in arm, talking about alternate energy sources, oil wars, and yellow journalism, and as we turned onto Twenty-eighth it suddenly hit me, and I stopped dead; I believe I felt perspiration on my forehead in spite of the cold, but my imagination may have supplied that later.
“What is it?” she said.
I stood there, unable to answer. It is one thing to know that I can circumvent the police, quite another to expect Susan to do so; particularly when she didn’t even know they were there.
So, what to do?
I stood there for what seemed like forever, trying to think of a way out of this, while Susan said, “Jonathan? What is it? Are you all right?” I could change my mind about showing her the house. I played that conversation over in my mind and decided against it. I could tell her we had to sneak in, and then explain that… no.
I shook my head and said, “It’s nothing, love. A thought just came to me, but it doesn’t matter.”
When there are no easy ways, you take the hard way, right? Right.
I pulled up the hood of my parka and approached the rust brown ’89 Plymouth from behind, and after telling Susan I had to ask these gentlemen something, I put my head next to the passenger door and rapped on the glass. Two men were in it, both seemed to be in their early thirties. Maybe taxi drivers turn into policemen in their middle years. They looked at me. One was dark and had a fleshy face with a high nose, the other had short, light-colored hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion, and a pointed chin.
He rolled down the window, started to ask what I wanted, then turned his head quickly to glance at the sketch on the clipboard on the seat between them.
That was as far as he got before he fell asleep. His partner actually reached into his coat before slumping forward against the steering wheel, and my knees were shaking.
When I turned around, Susan was standing right behind me, staring at them. “What happened? Should we call an ambulance?”
I looked her in the eye. “Nothing happened.”
“But-”
“Nothing happened. We just walked by this car, not even stopping, and we never looked through the window. Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened,” she repeated dully.
