Unlovely (46 page)

"What?"

"Well, all the bad stuff is gone.
You can do anything you want now, right? No problem."

Melanie blinked rapidly, confused.
"I honestly don't know what you're saying."

"You trot into the confessional,
you talk to the old man in the dark, whisper all your naughty secrets, and then
he makes the bad stuff go away, right?" Claudia watched for the words to
hit their mark. They did. "It's the coward's way, all ashes and hair
shirts. Some of us are brave enough to live with our choices."

Melanie swallowed the first words that
came to mind. "I would ask you to please treat my faith with respect,
Claudia. You know very well that's not what the Sacrament is. If that's what
you honestly believe we Catholics do, I'll discuss it with you some other time,
when we're less emotional."

"Go ahead and explain. I'm calm
right now."

"Well, I'm not."

The kettle had worked up to a whistle.
Melanie got up, turned off the burner and moved the kettle onto a trivet. She
turned to face Claudia.

"Look, I don't know what's going on
here. I came up with cookies, hoping for a few minutes of pleasant conversation.
Why are you doing this to me? Why are you mad at me? Did I do something to
you?"

Claudia raised her chin, regarded
Melanie down the length of her nose, and murmured, "I'm beginning to think
that my living here isn't such a good idea, after all. Maybe I should
move."

Melanie's first impulse was to agree;
after all, this woman was nuts and was living only yards from her family. But
in the space it took to draw a deep breath, Melanie knew she couldn't ask her
friend to go. She'd never been a danger to anyone but herself; she certainly
wasn't a threat. And hadn't Melanie asked Claudia to move in to the apartment
precisely because she wanted to be present for her in moments like this?

"Wait," Melanie said,
struggling to be the voice of reason despite her injured feelings. "Let's
just take a break from this before we make any decisions about moving or
staying."

"No, let's address it, right now.
You don't like me living here. I've known it since about the second week.
You're just too polite to ask me to go. Admit it. You'll feel better once
you're honest."

"That's not true –"

The corner of Claudia's mouth curled in
a sly smile. "I see the way you act when Scott and I are together, the
looks you give me when you think I don't notice. You shoot daggers at me with
your eyes." Claudia paused meaningfully before adding, "Believe me,
Melanie, I have no interest in your husband."

"I – I never said you did!"
Melanie spluttered.

"I didn't do this for him, you
know. The hair and the makeup. You don't have to worry."

"Claudia, you have to believe me.
I'm not worried."

Claudia gave a short caustic laugh.

"I'm serious," Melanie
protested.

"Okay. If you say so. But it's
pretty obvious that Scott is out of sorts when I'm near, and I think that makes
you nervous."

Melanie was momentarily speechless. How
can you tactfully tell a woman that she poses absolutely no sexual threat?
Scott
was
agitated whenever Claudia was near; she
creeped
him out.

Was Claudia having some sort of reaction
to her medications? Was she on something new? Surely she was acting against her
nature. Tomorrow she would return to her senses, remember this scene and be
mortified.

"Okay. Let's stop and take a breath
here. This has obviously gotten way out of hand," Melanie said, modulating
her voice as if she were talking to a nervous animal. "I absolutely
believe that you aren't trying to make a move on my husband. Just like you
said." She stopped for a moment to note Claudia's impassive expression.
"I also trust my husband, and I don't think he has a roving eye."

Claudia smirked.

"But you're acting oddly, Claudia.
You're not yourself."

"Who am I, then?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure
out," Melanie answered. "This new look and attitude," she said,
gesturing to indicate the whole person of her friend. "Is there any
particular reason you've suddenly decided to change things up?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Yes, there's a reason,"
Claudia said coyly.

"Okay," Melanie replied.
"Do you want to tell me what it is?"

"No.  I'm not ready to talk
about it, yet. But I've been working something out."

"Does this reason involve a man? I
don't mean Scott, of course," Melanie hastened to add, "I mean,
another man?" She hoped against hope she was on the wrong trail.

"Maybe.” Claudia took a bite of
cookie. A crumb stuck to the corner of her mouth, embedding in a clump of
lipstick that had accumulated there.

Melanie chose her words carefully.
"Don't you think it may be a little early in your recovery to be thinking
about men? I know I don't make the best decisions when I'm having any kind of
major life change."

Claudia sensed the crumb and licked it
away. "I am in charge of my own recovery," she said firmly. "I
feel fine. I'm not 'thinking about men,' Melanie. I told you, I've been making
plans, and this change is very much in keeping with them."

Melanie asked her next question with not
a little trepidation. "This doesn't have anything to do with Mark, does
it?"

Claudia sighed and shrugged.
"Maybe." She saw Melanie's face cloud with concern. "Oh, for
Pete's sake, don't make that face. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."

Melanie was incredulous. "You're
not going to tell me?"

"You'll know when you know.
Curiosity killed the cat, Melanie."

Saturday morning burst forth clear and crisp as a bugle
call. The air smelled dusty sweet, with just the faintest memory of smoke in
the air from leaves burnt in the neighborhood the day before. The sky was as
blue as a turquoise ring. It was a perfect autumn morning.

Susan Adams opened the sliding door to
let the dogs run out into the yard, but one whiff of the air was enough to
convince her that she should be out there, too. She threw her coat on over her
pajamas and went out onto the small deck that opened off her kitchen, brushed
the leaves off of one of the chairs and congratulated herself for having
convinced Mark not to pack away the patio furniture quite yet. She went back in
to the kitchen to fetch a cup of coffee and the newspaper, then sat down to
enjoy the quiet.

It was a cool morning – she shivered as
the chill of the seat cushion penetrated her pajama bottoms – but bracing. The
news report said that this glorious weather would be gone within twenty-four
hours, to be followed by a week of rain. Poor Mark. Missing out on these last
few spectacular fall days in order to attend a Slavic conference in D.C. It was
probably a little warmer there, but it was the city. It couldn't be as lovely.
Fall is wasted on the city.

Susan only half-attended to the
newspaper, repeatedly looking up to watch her dogs as they capered the expanse
of the yard, slightly more golden than it had been just a week before, and the
adjacent field, bordered by a woods on fire with yellow and red foliage. The
dogs stopped to sniff something that caught their attention, their heads bent together
in mute conference, and then took off again, coats shimmering in the sunlight.
Susan sipped her coffee and let herself think of nothing at all but the
beautiful morning.

The reverie was abruptly interrupted by
the crunch of gravel on her driveway. Someone was visiting? She'd glanced at
the clock in the kitchen before coming outside, and it was only a bit after
eight o'clock. Susan didn't recall any appointments with repairmen, but maybe
she'd forgotten something . . . ugh! Awful to be caught in pajamas. She left
the dogs to their activities in the yard and rushed into the house, leaping up
the stairs to her bedroom. She'd hoped to have time to throw on a pair of jeans
and a sweatshirt before the visitor reached the porch, but she'd only gotten her
head through the neck of the sweatshirt when the doorbell sounded.

She slid the shirt the rest of the way
on and grabbed her jeans, hopping her way into them and shouting, "Just a
minute!" out the bedroom door to whoever was rude enough to be ringing her
bell at this hour. She popped into the bathroom and sucked some toothpaste out
of the tube as the bell rang again, ran a brush through her hair and grabbed an
elastic, twisting her hair into a low ponytail as she bounded down the stairs.

“I'm coming!” she yelled exasperated,
opening the door to discover a skinny young man standing on her small porch.

He was wearing jeans and a pea coat, and
he kept his hands in his pockets. He didn't look up to greet Susan, but instead
stared nervously at the pair of golden retrievers clamoring about his legs,
smiling and wagging their tails. His apprehension was comical, really. Could
there be two less intimidating dogs in the world than Guinness and Scotch?
Well, maybe that wasn't fair. They were big. Perhaps to the uninitiated they
appeared ferocious.

"Guinness! Scotch! Come on in here,
boys," Susan said, moving aside as the dogs trotted into the house and
back toward the kitchen. "Sorry about that, but believe me they wouldn't
hurt a fly. They love company."

"No problem. I'm just not used to
dogs, that's all," the visitor said, looking Susan full in the face for
the first time.

Susan started with surprise. The voice
that came out of the person standing at her door was a female one. And now that
she was able to get a good look, Susan realized that her guest was unmistakably
an adult woman, albeit a very slender and androgynous one, with a strange,
butch haircut. The stranger's face betrayed her gender immediately: her cheek
was smooth beneath the heavy layer of foundation she'd applied, and her lips
and eyelids were bright with cosmetics. The whole effect was unsettling. It was
doubly disturbing that this creature who had appeared unsolicited on her
doorstep seemed to be absolutely fascinated with Susan herself, staring at her
unblinkingly.

"Can I help you?" she asked,
hoping to break whatever spell she'd apparently cast over her visitor. She
glanced down to the ground at the stranger's feet for a bag containing
advertisements or religious material. It was rare to get people peddling tracts
or services out here, but it wasn't unheard of.

The stranger blinked rapidly and
swallowed hard before speaking, the muscles in her neck visibly contracting.
"I hope you can. First, let me say I'm so sorry to disturb you this early.
I'm not from around here and I didn't know what else to do. Yours was the first
house I came across. It's kind of ironic that I ended up here, really, what
with the dogs and all."

"Yes? Well, what is it you
need?" Susan asked, confused by the circumlocution.

The stranger swallowed again and
continued, "I'm not from around here, you see, and I was driving to meet a
friend for a breakfast date – he lives several miles off the main road way back
on one of these roads back here – and I got confused and took a wrong turn. I
was driving along, maybe a little faster than I should have been because I was
afraid I'd be late, when a dog just dashed out in front of me. I tried to stop
but I couldn't, and I hit it."

"Oh, no –"

"I know, I feel awful. It's
someone's pet. He has a collar but I didn't see any tags." The visitor's
eyes grew wide with alarm. "Oh,
my gosh
– it
wouldn't belong to you, would it?"

"No, no. We only have the two. He's
not ours."

"Oh, good. That's a small relief at
least. How awful if I had hurt your dog, and you found out like this! Anyway, I
got out of the car, of course, to check on him. I was a little afraid to get
too close but I thought I should see if I could help him. He's alive, but he's
obviously hurting. I think something's broken." She shook her head in
obvious distress. "He's so huge I can't possibly move him on my own, and
I'm ashamed to say I'd be afraid to try even if he were smaller."

"It was probably wise not to touch
him, especially if you're not used to dogs," Susan reassured her. Her visitor
might be weird-looking, but she seemed to be a compassionate person.

The stranger acknowledged the kindness
with a small nod and continued, "So, I got back into the car and stopped
at the first house I could find. To be honest, I'm relieved you're so normal –
you never know with strangers. Anyway, I'm so sorry to ask you this, but could
you or your husband maybe come out with me, help me hoist this dog up into my
back seat, and direct me to a vet?"

Susan paused to consider the request. It
seemed reasonable: the woman didn't want to come into the house, didn't want to
sell anything,
didn't
even ask to use the phone. She
was beside herself with guilt. This wouldn't be the first time someone tooling
down Old Farmer had hit an animal. It was probably one of the neighbor's dogs.
It was criminal the way some of these people ignored their pets' safety.

"Of course I'll help. I'll even go
with you to the vet. We're in luck – mine is open until noon on
Saturdays." Susan opened a door to her right and bent over to retrieve a
pair of sneakers from the floor of the coat closet. "My husband isn't here
now, unfortunately, so it'll just be you and me. It'll be fine, though. I bet
if the two of us work together we can lift him. Let me put on my shoes and grab
my coat and keys."