Valley of Ashes (37 page)

“Damn straight. Surfer boys, from way back. Dumber the better.”

“I think stupid’s pretty much the only flavor they come in, Madeline.”

“You’d be surprised. Those boys come all
kinds
of ways.”

“Atta girl,” she said.

I was about to ask her if the neighbor’s cat had survived, but she’d hung up on me.

Time for Parrish and India to have a little nap.

They actually went to sleep, which surprised me, considering how little we’d actually done that morning.

I thought about going to sleep myself, then put on makeup instead.

And then I called Mimi at work.

“My husband is fucking his secretary,” I said, the minute she picked up.

No preamble, no salutation.

“How can I help?” she asked.

“Give me something to do. Something that
matters
.”

At which point I was tempted to fucking cry again. Which just pissed me off.

“God
damn
it,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I am so sick of crying.”

“You’re going to survive this,” she said. “I promise you.”

“Whether I want to or not.”

She laughed at that. “I’m going to call you back in about an hour. I have to think a few things over—about what I could use your help with.”

“And we’re still pretending not to know each other?”

“Yes,” she said. “That part holds a hundred percent.”

“So this is going to be remote, then. Clandestine.”

“Goddamn right,” she said. “I’m going to
make
you survive, if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Awesome. I always wanted to be a spy chick when I grew up.”

“Go drink some bourbon, Harriet,” she said. “First step to getting your mojo back.”

I’d just replaced the phone in its cradle when the front doorbell rang.

I glanced out the living room windows. There was a florist’s van, parked out front—FTD’s Hermes logo danced across its side panel.

I stepped into the hallway and opened the front door.

“Delivery for Madeline Dare?”

Young guy. Blond.
Delicious
.

I considered asking whether he’d join me for a glass of bourbon. Upstairs.

When he’d left I stuck my face into the bouquet and inhaled. Not much fragrance, but of course I read the card.

A start.

I dialed the main number at his office.

Setsuko answered, of course. “Ionix. Good morning, how may I help you?”

“Good morning to
you
, Setsuko.”

Sharp little intake of breath, on her end of the line.

“I’d like to speak to my husband, please,” I said. “To thank him for the beautiful, beautiful roses he just had delivered.”

Silence, on her end.

“So thoughtful, don’t you think?” I asked. “He knows the red ones have always been my favorite—and three
dozen
of them, isn’t that sweet? I’m hoping he’ll come home for lunch, so I can thank him properly. I think he’d enjoy that, don’t
you
, Setsuko?”

Silence.

I listened to her breathe.

Shallow little puffs, like she was trying not to cry.

I waited, twining the phone cord around the base of my fingers—tighter and tighter until they turned white and felt all sparkly, wishing I had the cord wrapped around her swan-like fucking neck instead.

“Are you all right, Setsuko? You sound a little…
upset
. I certainly hope you’re being treated well at work?”

“Please hold,” she said.

And, oh… that little catch in her voice was gorgeous. So very, very sweet.

“This is Dean Bauer.”

“They’re beautiful,” I said. “And what you wrote is lovely.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Come home for lunch?”

Just the briefest hesitation. “Of course, Bunny. I’d love to.”

I still had time to take the girls to the child care center and get back before Mimi was due to call, if I hauled serious ass.

I didn’t particularly want to try seducing their father while Parrish and India looked on from the playpen.

T
he phone was ringing as I was hauling ass back up onto the porch, breathless from racing the wagon uphill and running back down again without it.

I slammed the front door wide open and sprinted inside, diving for the phone, snatching up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Madeline, I was about to give up,” said Mimi.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just ran the girls up to this babysitting place. Dean’s coming home for lunch.”

“Good for you,” she laughed.

“What’s the good word,
chère
Mimi? I take it you’ve thought of a task for me?”

“Yes, grasshopper.”

“Do tell… pretend to let Bittler stalk me, until he steps onto the mat of native grasses I’ve craftily woven to camouflage a pit full of punji sticks?”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” she said.

“Oh, come on, I bet I’d be
excellent
at getting stalked. And weaving grass mats.”

“I need to see that paperwork. The stuff your friend Cary was looking into.”

“What a coincidence,” I said. “I asked Dean to make Xeroxes only
this morning. With any luck he’ll bring them home for lunch as a peace offering.”

“Tell him to be careful. Maybe he should do it after hours.”

“I will, if he hasn’t managed it already. But I thought you were planning on a warrant, official channels and everything?”

“It’s tricky. We don’t want to tip anyone off just yet. This would be unofficial, just help me to dial things in a little.”

“How am I going to get them to you? Meet under the old clock at midnight, I’ll be the man smoking two cigarettes?”

“We’ll figure something out. Give me a call this afternoon, let me know what’s what, all right?”

“Bet your sweet ass,” I said, hanging up.

I raced upstairs and brushed my teeth, then primped a little. Lipstick, a little perfume, different earrings.

What to wear?

A short skirt. Sheer black stockings, what the hell. Shoes with a little toe cleavage: black satin Ferragamo pumps with narrow straps cutting diagonally across my insteps, each fastened with a tiny rhinestone button.

Pointy toes, slender three-inch heels.

Ridiculous for Boulder, especially midday.

Hmmm… what else? Shirt unbuttoned to show a little
actual
cleavage.

Didn’t bother with underwear. Ahem.

Then I went downstairs and made a little plate of food: pâté, raspberries, some chèvre.

Brought it to the coffee table, put it down next to the roses.

And then I sat down on the sofa to wait.

The smell of the food was really strong. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the day before.

I sure as hell wasn’t hungry
now
.

I sat there for maybe ten minutes, nervous as hell.

Finally, I heard the doorknob rattle, out in the front hall.

I got up and walked toward the sound, just as Dean was letting himself in.

“Bunny,” he said, putting his briefcase down on a little bench. “You look so pretty.”

I stood on my tiptoes, reaching my arms up around his neck.

He kissed me, then buried his face in my neck. “And you smell good, too.”

“Not nearly as good as you do,” I said, unbuttoning his shirt.

He laughed. “What do I smell like?”

“Like yourself,” I said, pulling his shirttails free and starting on his belt buckle. “Delicious.”

Twenty minutes later, I was straddling Dean’s lap on the sofa, my own shirt unbuttoned all the way, his off completely.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What can I do?” I leaned in until my lips brushed his ear. “Anything. Tell me.”

“It’s not…”

“What?” I whispered.

“You’re doing everything right,” he said. “I
want
to. You have no idea how much.”

Actually, I had a pretty damn clear idea.

I was skin-to-skin with the applause meter, after all. Which appeared to be taking the afternoon off, utterly unimpressed with the home-team talent.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just feel so…”

“What?”

“Guilty. Horrible. About everything.”

I climbed off his lap, trying to make the exit graceful.

I moved all the way to the end of the sofa. Leaned back, closed my eyes.

“Bunny…” He scooted over toward me, ran one finger down the black lace edge of my bra, to the little bow at the center.

He bit my earlobe.

“Just stop.” I shoved his hand away.

“What?”

Tears pricked at my eyes. Chunky little crystals of salt.

“
What
, Bunny?”

“This is just… embarrassing.” I started buttoning my shirt.

He looked down at his dysfunctional lap. “Don’t go. Please.”

“Where the hell would I go? I’m a fucking housewife. This is my fucking house.
You
should go.”

“What are you
talking
about?”

“Dean, Jesus. I feel like a fucking
idiot
.”

He reached for my hand, tried to pull me back down. “Bunny—”

“
Please
don’t touch me.”

“Why not?”

“
Because I feel like a fucking idiot
, Dean.”

“Why?”

I started to goddamn cry again. “
Why
? Why do you think?”

“I have no idea.”

I yanked my hand away. “Because I’m
dressed
like an idiot, all tarty and shit in thigh-highs and lipstick, and my husband can’t get it up. Which would obviously be because
I’m
not the one he wants to be fucking.
That’s
why. Clear enough now, or do you need flash cards?”

I kicked off my stupid shoes and ran upstairs.

I hadn’t thought I could feel any worse than I did the night before, or even that morning.

Wrong. Again.

I lay down across our ill-omened bed on my stomach, burying my face in a pillow so I wouldn’t make any noise.

Stupid, stupid Madeline. Won’t Setsuko laugh when Dean tells her all about this… what a perfumed clown I’d made of myself, and how grotesque he’d found the pitiful spectacle.

“Bunny?” I felt him sit down on the edge of the bed.

I pulled the duvet over my legs, turned my head away from him without looking up. “Please go away.”

“Why?”

“Please. Just give me some time alone.”

“I don’t want to,” he said, rubbing my back. “I want to be with you.”

“I don’t want you here.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve just humiliated myself. Because it hurts too much.”

“You didn’t,” he said, leaning down to kiss the back of my neck.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t do this?” He kissed me again.

“Just leave. Go back to your little girlfriend. You can have a good laugh about me, at the office. I’m sure she’d love that.”

He lay down beside me, started playing with a piece of my hair. “It’s not like that. It was never like that.”

“What
was
it like, then? I bet you never had trouble getting it up with Set-goddamn-suko.”

“Bunny,
Jesus
.” I felt him lean closer, kiss the side of my head.

I started crying again.

“Look,” he said. “She’s not…”

“Not
what
?”

“She’s, like, about as interesting as a gum-cracking hairstylist. There’s nothing to talk about. Never was. She’s not beautiful—not striking, like you. She’s just kind of…
fluffy
. Insipid.”

“And yet you had no trouble fucking her.”

“I don’t
want
her. I want you. I was sick of it. I’m glad the whole sorry little episode is over.
I’m
embarrassed, and I goddamn well should be. And what just happened downstairs is that my
dick
is embarrassed, which
it
goddamn well should be.
That’s
why I couldn’t get it up.”

He kissed my hair again.

I tried to stop crying.

For one thing, because my father used to yell at me for
not
crying. He was into Primal Therapy and all that seventies shit, and believed profoundly that people who didn’t immediately express every little inkling of pain or sorrow or whatever that they’d
ever
experienced were kowtowing to The Man or something. He always seemed to be bitching
to me and my sister Pagan about how we needed to “have our feelings” whenever we’d visited him as kids.

Not having feelings has never been my problem. My feelings were a giant pain in the ass, frankly. I’d’ve been perfectly happy just to dump them in a locker in some dank Midwestern bus terminal and walk the fuck away.

So maybe my not wanting to cry was some last vestige of adolescent rebellion. But I really believed that it was more my way of fighting against just being borne out to sea on my emotions like they were a fucking lethal riptide.

Plus crying never meant catharsis to me. Whatever sucked enough to have made you weep in the first place didn’t exactly go away once you’d worked yourself up into a snot-nosed, puffy-eyed woundball over it.