Heather Lewis - Notice

I pressed her palm against my cheek. Held it there for a little while until I was kissing it again, sucking her fingers. She didn’t move for the longest time. Then her knees, which had begun firm together, loosened, let me closer. I put my other hand under her skirt. Ran it up her thigh to where her stockings ended. And just for a moment I found myself wondering if she’d always worn stockings or if this, too, had something to do with me.

I couldn’t think this way for very long, so instead I listened for her breathing. I tucked my hand in back of her, pulled her close to me and lay my head in her lap. I had my other arm around her, too, but outside her clothes. She’d begun stroking my face and I closed my eyes and simply held on.

We stayed this way for some time – not speaking, not moving too much. Finally she said, “Come on, let me take you home.”

I knew what she meant and wished it was that easy. Wanted her in my bed more than I could ever remember wanting anything, except her, and just last night, just this way. To have to say no, to have to invent some way around it, felt like more than I could manage.

What I said was, “All right.” And we got to our feet and got pulled together. We got ourselves outside and into her car. And I believed that between here and there, in those five minutes, I’d figure something out.

I didn’t and, of course, she could feel me trying to. She kept asking me what was wrong. And then she pulled into the little lot by my place instead of up at the curb. From here, so clearly, you could see my lights on and I watched her noticing this. Ingrid might as well have been standing in the window.

Beth faltered but, true to herself, she continued as if she’d seen nothing. She said, “Let me come in with you.” And when this must’ve seemed too plain, she quickly added, “I want to make sure you’re all right.”

We’d gone again to that horrible place of pretending who we were to each other. Or she had. My head in her lap a few minutes ago and now it was simply about concern. It gave me the push I needed, though. I said, “I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.” And this came too quick and too sharp and she looked stung.

“Look,” I said gentler, trying to patch things. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She just sat there with her hands on the wheel and this strange look on her face. She still stared up at my window.

I got out and walked around and into the building. Climbed the stairs two at a time. Ingrid met me at the door. She said, “You’ve been gone a long time.”

This sounded odd to me, out of place. It made me wonder how much I could tell her when maybe it should’ve clued me somewhere else. Still, I liked her hands on me and her arms around me, and then I could play her game a little longer. Could see what she said as just nice. Simply about missing me and wanting me because after all she’d been cooped up here all day. I wondered how much longer she’d be able to stand it.

She pulled me toward the bedroom but I broke away, said I’d be there in a minute. I went to the window, knowing I hadn’t heard Beth’s car pull away. Hoping I was wrong and knowing I wasn’t, I stood away from the window and pulled the shade. And then I went to bed with Ingrid, knowing I had to find some way to get her out of my place.

The next morning I decided it could be simpler than I was making it. That maybe Ingrid only needed to leave for an evening. I approached this while we were still in bed, having coffee.

I said, “I need to entertain someone. Just for tonight.”

She acted surprised and not surprised, all at once. She said, “If it’s money… You know I have money.”

“It’s that, but not only. I quit my job. I can’t just keep on like this.”

“Like what?” she said, and it sounded close to pouting.

I didn’t say anything, and she caught herself. She said, “Well, I really should be getting back to my life.”

I didn’t know if she meant this to hurt me the way it did. And then before I knew I had, I’d said, “I don’t want you going back to him.”

“If I don’t, he’ll come looking. I’m surprised he hasn’t already. I suppose he knows where to find me.”

I pulled the covers up because I felt cold as soon as she said this. And seeing me, she said, “He won’t come for you if I go home. I’ve taken too long already.”

We didn’t say any more about it and so later, when I left for Beth’s office, I didn’t know for sure what Ingrid would do. I puzzled this my whole way over there, still worried about it by the time I was sitting down and facing Beth again.

She looked almost as if last night hadn’t happened. Almost. Something in her maybe couldn’t keep all the angles going either. But that didn’t change things much.

She said, “I’m worried about you not working.”

This was how she started. It annoyed me, her going back here. For this reason alone I said, “Oh, I’m working.”

It was an ugly thing to say and I wished I hadn’t. I knew I was holding Beth accountable for Ingrid going home, for what she was going home to, even. And I knew what was really to blame were my feelings for her, for Beth. I blamed them for everything – their largeness, the way I could never put them away but always, always had to do something about them.

Beth stared out the window. She wouldn’t look at me even when I began trying to mend things. I started lamely, saying, “I didn’t mean that. It’s not even true.”

This last bit seemed futile. I knew she’d think I was lying. And then too, maybe what I’d been doing with Ingrid wasn’t really so different, was really just the same kind of work.

“There’s just one, anyway,” I said, lumbering on. “Someone you don’t have to worry about.”

She glared at me. “Do you think I’m stupid, or do you believe that yourself?”

This was so unlike her, it stopped me. And maybe it was the truth in it. That somehow, once again, I’d forgotten to see how things were with Ingrid – the jeopardy involved, which was certainly more than with any commuter.

“No,” I said, cowed now. “I suppose I don’t.”

I would’ve said whatever she wanted if only I could figure out what it was. I would’ve said it and even tried to mean it. “What do you really want from me?” This was what I finally asked and it wasn’t mean. I meant it as an actual question and this softened her.

“I don’t know,” she said, and her eyes wavered, drifted to the window before they came back to me.

We sat a long time this way, saying nothing until I felt the silence under my skin making me twitchy. And so finally, just to stop this feeling, I said, “Would you take me home now?”

She didn’t say anything. She just got up, got her coat and we were out the door and into her car.

She pulled into the lot again. Glanced up at my darkened window and then back at me. She wasn’t going to ask again, not tonight, I could tell. So I said, “Would you come in with me?”

Again she said nothing. She just got out of the car. Did this before I had. We went around to the door and up the stairs, and this whole time I feared Ingrid might still be there, asleep maybe, or something.

Beth stood behind me when I opened the door. And as soon as I saw the envelope – a fat one on the coffee table – I knew Ingrid was gone, maybe gone from me for good.

I hesitated, or maybe I went backwards, or Beth kept going forward. Whichever way she was there, pressed up behind me, forcing me ahead.

I went in, turned on a light. I tried to pretend the envelope wasn’t there. Beth stayed standing near the door. Her doing this reminded me she’d never been here before and that it wasn’t normal that she was now. It was too forthright and obvious, too planned. Somehow I felt like the lone instigator.