Bad Desire (30 page)

Her left foot was growing numb and Faith shifted, as in sleep. Instantly, she felt his warm whiskey breath gliding over her arm and shoulder. After a time, he stretched out his hand—some part of him grazed her naked knee. Faith started, but concealed it by turning deeper on her side. He was lifting the sheet over her, and yet seconds had passed before she realized: he doesn't want to wake me up.

She felt the cool, thin material collapse over her and all the time Faith was breathing his familiar smell, still damp with the night's moisture. Now there was something else, too, raw-smelling, fresh, but faint—an odor she recognized. It was old and fertile, as primordial as black mud. Henry had undone his trousers.

She had always found his animal scent arousing. She could almost feel herself falling back, her body opening to him. Faith watched him recede across the room, carrying his clothes and his shoes and she was struck with a violent longing.

She heard a soft click. The louvers in the door to his dressing room were suddenly shot through with light. Putting away his clothes. It's the usual thing, Faith thought, the same as always.

The ladder of light went out, the door opened; she was aware of him going to the bathroom, the door closing, the light that cast a thin white shaft around the door. She heard him start a shower and lowered her arm, looking at the clock. Now it was five
after
three. What should I do? she deliberated. Faith glanced behind her at the felt-lined tray on the nightstand where he had emptied his pockets and saw only a few bills, not the great wad of money he would bring home on a winning night.

I don't think I can sleep. Should I confront him? From the bathroom came the sound of running water. She didn't know what to do. She was lying in bed, in much the same place, head in the pillow, eyes closed, when he came out. Faith heard him sigh. It seemed a sigh of deep pleasure. He started humming, deep in his throat, again. Faith anticipated him lifting the sheet and sliding beneath it, the familiar sag of the mattress. Now come to bed, she thought.

The latch in the door opened. When she could tell by the nature of the silence that he was no longer in the room, Faith opened her eyes. The bedroom door stood ajar, leaving only the stillness behind. The relentless seconds wore on. Her anger mounted, and at the same time, she felt disconnected, outside everything. What're you doing? Why won't you come to bed?

Through the open door, she heard music. Very low and faint. At first, she thought she was imagining it and looked querulously at the clock. 3:12. Faith sat up in bed and listened again, but now the sounds had faded and she was alone in the emptiness. She was about to lie back down, when it started up again. Music. Is he playing music?

That's it, she thought, I've had it. I'm going to find out what's going on. An icy draft of contempt blew through her. She left her slippers by the bed and silently, on bare feet, made her way out the opened bedroom door and down the dark hall. The voice met her as she went forward, floating through the darkness—a melancholy, haunting voice, soaked in violins.

“You ain't been blue … till you've had that mood indigo … that feelin'… goes stealin' down … to my shoes …”

The music was coming through the closed study door. Faith stopped dead still and listened, her eyes blazing. That's what Henry had been humming only moments ago.

“Always get that mood indigo … since my baby said good-bye. In the evenin' when the lights are low … I'm so lonely I could cry …”

Her face took on an expression of pained surprise.

Frank Sinatra?

“
When I get that mood indigo I could lay down and die.”

It was after three in the morning and he was playing an old Sinatra recording—the same song that he had played for her, again and again, when they were first married. She had been waiting for him all night and the sentimentality of hearing this music again, now, at this insane hour, was overwhelming. Uncontrollably, her eyes filled with tears. On the album, she remembered, there were two tracks that Henry had particularly loved, and this was one of them.

This was one of the songs he had always played for her, years ago, while they were making love.

But he wasn't in bed now and he wasn't making love to her. He was playing the other cut.

“When you're alone … who cares for starlit skies
…”

In the hall, outside his door, Faith began to pace without direction.

“When you're alone … the magic moonlight dies. At break of dawn … there is no surprise … when you're lover has gone.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. A sob rose in Faith's throat and she swallowed it. Still she paced the hall, back and forth outside his door—and the pain began to come. He
did
it. He
did
it. She heard Henry's voice weaving through Sinatra's, like a trailing echo, heard one mingle with other when Henry sang, “There is no sunrise.”

His deceit washed over her—Faith felt her entire body break out in gooseflesh. Again and again, her hands doubled into fists and grasped only air. She stalked back and forth in front of his door as Sinatra's ache knifed through her. Would he, she stopped to ask herself, feel her tortured presence outside his door? No. He was oblivious to her.

He was singing. Drinking and singing.

“What lonely hours … the evening shadows bring … what lonely hours … with memories lingering … like faded flowers … life can't mean anything …”
Sinatra's voice was the loneliest voice she had ever heard. Her body shuddered; the slow, steady drag of his pain answered her own. She couldn't get away from it. It came and it hurt and her hatred spilled like venom.

You did it, didn't you, Henry?

You did it.

You were with her all night.

All night.

While I sat here.

Waiting.

Waiting and waiting.

You fucked her.

All night.

It's been going on for a long time
.

The burning inside her was not simply pain. It was pain beyond pain, a fire all through her body, all through her life.

Trembling with the effort to control herself, Faith stood at his door.
That kid was right
. She took the doorknob in her hand, silently, savagely, and then—

She put her head in her hands and continued to pace. Henry, if only you knew, she thought. If you knew what I know.

This has to do with Henry
.

My God, Henry, you're not really doing this? Surely to God.

And she began to crack. She felt a cry surge in her throat and her hands flew to cover her mouth. A terrible premonition, sharp as grief, filled her. You couldn't. She's just a kid—she's still in high school. I know you couldn't. I don't believe it. I won't believe it. No. There's got to be something else, something I don't know. But if not—then why this awful music? Sobs filled her throat, too many, too fast; Faith could no longer contain them.

Sinatra's voice smothered her now with its crushing sadness. Oh, my darling, I don't want to know. I swear to God, I don't want to know.

And then, in her two hands, finally, the tears.

19

Luisa gently shook her for the second time at eight fifty-five the next morning. “Mrs. Slater will want breakfast?” she asked.

“No, Luisa,” Faith answered, pushing herself up on the bed. “No, just coffee. You can go do your shopping. I'll help myself.” She tried to wipe the sleep from her face and heard the sandals flap softly across the room. “It waits for you,” the maid said, closing the door behind her.

Faith sat quietly for two or three minutes, struggling to stay awake. “God,” she moaned.
What's wrong with me?
She felt drained, thoroughly wasted. I can't wake up. She rubbed her face again and looked at the clock-radio. Almost nine. Henry would have left for the office over an hour and a half ago.

Her eyes felt scratchy and sore; they ached and her eyelids were tender. I must've been crying, she realized. But in my sleep? She reached around, running her hand over her pillowcase—it was dry. Then it all came flooding back.

She remembered breaking down piece by piece and then fleeing from his study door, not wanting to see him, unable to face him and hear his excuses and lies. She remembered running into the bathroom and swallowing a Nembutal. After the first she gulped down a second in order to be unconscious with sleep before he came to bed. She remembered thinking, Don't let him see you cry like this. At the time, nothing had seemed more important. The last thing that came back to her was trying to suffocate the sound of her sobs in her pillow.

It's the Nembutal, she concluded. That's why I feel so out of it. She had never taken more than one. Her drowsiness came back in waves; Faith let her head fall back into the pillow and looked up at the ceiling, smooth and white and sturdy as a vault. Protected was far from the way she felt this morning.

How could her husband have spent the night with a seventeen-year-old girl?

The threads of deception that wove into something large and ominous and irrefutable the night before, now in the cool wreckage of daylight, seemed insubstantial and full of holes. It didn't make sense. In fact, no matter how it looked on the surface, Faith didn't believe it. Henry wouldn't do something like that. She knew him too well. Of course, he was a gambler; she was convinced, if the stakes were high enough, he would weigh the odds and wager this house and everything they owned for that moment of high tension when the cards were turned.
She knew
. It had happened once before. He loved the risk, the mental maneuvering. It was that fearless, dare-me attitude so many people found attractive in him. Including me, Faith thought. But not this—not Sheila Bonner. For godsake.

“It's absurd,” she said aloud to herself. “You went off the deep end and now you're making everything worse by being silly.” Faith got out of bed, went to the bathroom and stripped off her gown. She took a long, leisurely shower, letting the hot water pound into her shoulders and then pummel her face. That's what it was. The pressure of waiting for him all those hours had gotten the better of her. I lost it, she thought. Whew, did I ever!

In her robe, Faith padded into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee and brought it back to the bedroom. I must be looking for trouble, she thought while she dried and shaped her hair. And when I do, God puts it there for me to find. All she could do was laugh at herself.

Sitting at her vanity, she made up carefully, putting on mascara and lipstick with the assortment of tiny brushes. What's the matter with me? she thought, blotting her lips on a tissue. Men in power are always viewed with suspicion. It's human nature. They always have enemies. But I can't live like this—suspecting things, doubting every word Henry says. She leaned close to the mirror, studying her eyelids, and saw that the shower had relieved most of their puffiness. I'm in love with him. I've got to stop dwelling on this.

In the dressing room, she pulled out an understated, pajamalike blouse and trousers in pink crinkled silk—she knew the color flattered her—and dressed with more speed and ease than usual. Of course nothing had happened. Her earrings were on, and her bracelets. Faith picked up her purse. But before she left the bedroom, she took out Rachel's letter for the last time. She didn't open it; she held it in both her hands. I'm not ever going to look at this again, she thought and tore it in two. The impulse was strong to tear it into pieces—flush it down the toilet. No one would ever know. She couldn't imagine ever having any use for it, and yet, at the same time, she knew that once it was gone it would be gone irretrievably, and in the shadowy depths of her mind a whisper stirred, Don't do it. Keep it. Hide it. So she looked around the room, and instead of tearing it to shreds, Faith slipped the two pieces of the letter under the heavy silver tray on her vanity.

She was grateful for the distracting errands she had to run for the Founders Day barbecue she and Henry held every year. In ten years, their invitation list had grown from less than thirty guests to more than five hundred. For this year's event, Faith had in mind something on the order of a day-long banquet.

Working through the details with the caterer later that morning kept her firmly rooted in the here and now. She was going to make this year's barbecue the most talked-about event of the summer; she would be a credit to Henry. On her way to the marina for a lunch date with Nancy Herbert, Faith felt her world was almost intact again, almost.

After lunch, in the nook under the potted palms at The Wharf, she sat sipping a wine spritzer, listening to Nancy gossip. “Jeannie Whitman! Oh, God, yes. It's madness, of course, but she's left Jack, cleaned out their bank accounts and taken the kids, skidaddled God knows where—with Bernie Piper.”

As Faith nodded and smiled at Nancy, she was thinking, What was it that boy said? What had he said exactly?

It was approaching two o'clock when they parted on the sidewalk. Faith liked walking out through the sunlight; ordinarily it gave her a sense of bright, sharp definition. This afternoon, she wondered if it wasn't the residue of the sleeping pills in her system that caused her head to feel so strange and light. Driving to the library for a meeting of the League of Women Voters, she felt an unsettling sense of detachment, as if she had separated from something of great importance to her.

Why don't you follow them sometime?

When she arrived at the Audubon Room, the meeting had already begun. Several of the women already seated turned and greeted her with a smile. Faith recognized every one of them. Tiptoeing to a chair in the back of the room, she was again struck by the same sense of unreality, of separation. It all seemed to her, then, vaguely distorted—that either the women weren't really here or she wasn't. The scene before her—the particular rows of chairs, the guest speaker standing at the lectern addressing the women—was impossibly familiar, yet impossibly foreign.