John Lutz - The Ex

“Come on, Mol. She isn’t that bad. I’ll admit she’s a little flaky. In fact, a lot flakier than she used to be. But at heart she’s a decent enough person.”

Molly put the toothpaste back in the medicine cabinet and held his gaze in the partly opened mirrored door. “Then why did you two divorce?”

“Incompatibility, like the divorce decree said.”

“Weren’t you the one who decided to end the marriage?”

She saw guilt cross his face for an instant. He’d lied to her.

“Yes,” he said, “at a certain point. But legally which of us left the other would depend on whose lawyer you asked. And maybe I wasn’t such a decent sort myself in those days.”

“She left you, didn’t she?”

“At a certain point, maybe.” A brittle, defensive note had found its way into his voice. “It’s hard to say now. And it doesn’t matter now.”

“Jesus, David!”

She switched off the light and walked into the bedroom, aware that he was close behind her. She got into bed, didn’t look at him as she heard the sheets rustle as he climbed in beside her, felt the mattress give beneath the weight of his body and heard the bedsprings whine. She wondered if there was some way to get bedsprings to be quiet; she was sure they could be heard next door or in the apartment below. She lay facing away from him, silent. He settled down and was silent, too. The window was open but the air conditioner was off. Sounds of nighttime traffic wafted in. Someone shouting far away. What might have been a gunshot. The city kept getting more dangerous.

“Did I hear Michael?” David asked.

“No.” She knew he was only trying to forge an opening so they would talk. All right, if that was what he wanted.

Still facing away from him, she said, “That abortion story you told me, was that true?”

“Of course! Deirdre’s been through a lot, and she feels middle-age sneaking up on her. She’s jealous of you, Mol.”

Molly wasn’t convinced. “Some older woman!”

“It really doesn’t matter,” David said.

“Do you think she’s had cosmetic surgery?”

“I don’t know. Or care.”

“Sometimes you can tell if you look closely. Around the eyelids.”

“To tell you the truth, Mol. I think you’re acting a little paranoid about this. It’s the younger woman who’s supposed to be a threat to the older one.”

Molly sat up in bed and switched on the reading lamp. “I can’t believe it! You’re actually defending her!”

David stayed down. Not rising to the bait, she thought.

“Not really defending her,” he said. “I’m just trying to inject a modicum of reason into this conversation.”

It angered Molly when he did that, tried to take the high philosophical and moral ground. “I don’t want to see her again. I don’t want you to see her again.”

He still didn’t move, his face pressed sideways into his pillow, slightly distorting his words. “We probably won’t run into each other again. And if she and Chumley want to have dinner with us, we can politely decline. Is that good enough?”

“It would be if I didn’t think you were just trying to please me.” She switched off the light and settled back down, lying facing away from him again in the dimness. A breeze pressed in through the open window, swaying the curtains. Shadows danced.

He moved closer, she could hear the sheets rustle, feel the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck. “What’s wrong with doing something just to please you? I love you, Mol. I enjoy doing things to please you.”

“I do things to please you, too, don’t I? Wasn’t I polite to Deirdre? I mean, under the circumstances?”

He moved in closer, snaked an arm over her, kissed her cheek. “You’re always polite. I told you, you’re civilized. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

She didn’t answer.

“Mol?” He kissed her cheek again, then used a finger to toy with her ear. She forced herself to lie still and not respond. “What are you thinking about, Mol?”

“Architecture,” she said.

Deirdre stood hunched close to the public phone, as if to keep her conversation as private as possible, though she was alone on the dark street of shabby office buildings and closed shops. There wasn’t much light except for the corner where the phone was, and where some faintly glowing show windows cast pale dim illumination over the sidewalk half a block away. A red neon sign near the intersection said that used watches were sold there. There was a faint but ripe smell of sewage in the night air.

“I’ve decided to stay in New York,” she told Darlene. “To live here.”

“That would be a mistake, Deirdre.” Darlene’s voice on the phone was firm and positive. “You must not have thought this all the way through.”

“Oh, but I have. And I know this is the place for me. That I absolutely belong here.”

Darlene laughed. “I’m not sure anyone belongs here. New York is a hard city. It will allow you anything and forgive you nothing.”

“Like the rest of the world.”

“No, much harder than the rest of the world. Most of that world, anyway”

“You more or less live here.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Then I can get used to it,” Deirdre said.

“What about your job in Saint Louis? What will you do for money here in New York?”

“I have a job lined up.”

“What sort of job?”

“Import and export. In and out.”

Darlene was quiet. Deirdre could imagine her sitting in her apartment, maybe with a cup of tea beside her, with her legs curled beneath her and her hair and makeup perfect. Like in a movie. Maybe she even had a white telephone.

“Listen, Deirdre,” Darlene finally said, “it isn’t that I don’t like your company-”

“Oh, sure.”

“C’mon now, Deirdre, give me a break. I’m only trying to keep you from making the same mistake made by a lot of people unfamiliar with how New York can be for them. It’s a dangerous city.”

“Everywhere is dangerous. I learned that early. Horrible things can happen to you even at home in your own bed.”

“I wish I could change your mind.”

“You try,” Deirdre said, “but you can’t change the way I think. The way I am. Or arrange my life so it’s like yours. You’ll have to have the wisdom to accept what you can’t arrange.”

“Where are you calling from?” Darlene asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to the movies. In New York, you can go to the movies almost any time of the day or night. It’s wonderful.”

A man in a grimy green muscle shirt, cut off so his protruding stomach showed, appeared a few feet away from the phone. He looked like a small, chunky Burt Lancaster, only with darker hair on his head and more hair on his body Even his stomach was dark with hair. He grinned and Burt Lancaster was there even stronger, only uglier, with much coarser features.

“You don’t know the parts of town that are dangerous,” Darlene said on the phone.

“You about done talkin’, sweetheart?” the man asked. Above the grin, his eyes consumed her.

“Who said that?” Darlene sounded alarmed.

“Don’t worry. It’s just some guy waiting to use the phone.”

Burt Lancaster grinned wider.

“Deirdre, listen-”

“Sorry, Darlene, I’ve gotta hang up. The gentleman wants to make a call. I’ll phone you back later about New York.”

She replaced the receiver and started to walk away from the phone. Burt was suddenly in front of her, still with the toothy grin. Didn’t he know he was overdoing it?

“This is a bad neighborhood, sweets. Interesting things can happen to a looker like you.”