The whole time that Peter and Claire made sweaty love later that night, the teenage girl next door played the same song over and over. It started with a train whistle, then a vaguely familiar voice sang about giving ninety-nine kisses and ninety-nine hugs. As soon as the song ended, the girl played it again. She must have just gotten the 45, Claire thought, not liking the song or her husband’s sweat dripping on her. Finally, his thrusts quickened and she heard that welcome long low grunt.
“That was nice,” she whispered in his ear once his breathing had evened.
Peter kissed her, right on the lips the way she liked, the way she wished he kissed her more often. But usually she only got these kisses afterwards. She kissed him back anyway. Why was it that as soon as he finished, she began to feel stirrings? Even now, too hot and too sweaty, she held him tight, her mouth opening, something in her tingling.
“Whoa,” he chuckled. “I just finished.”
“I know,” Claire said. “I just . . .”
She just what?
“I just love you,” she said, though that wasn’t what she meant at all.
He rolled off her and lit a cigarette.
“Want one?” he asked.
“All right,” Claire said.
Peter handed her that one, and lit another for himself. She always liked when he did that.
The 45 started up again.
“I can’t tell if Peggy’s just fallen in or out of love,” Claire said. “She’s playing that record so much, it must be something.”
She inhaled and closed her eyes. An image from that afternoon floated across her mind.
“Peter,” she said. “When I saw the boys this afternoon—”
“Boys?”
“Dougie Daniels and the others. There was a white car driving around the neighborhood. A car I didn’t recognize.”
“Are you sure?”
“I thought he was lost.”
“So you saw the driver?” Peter asked her. He was sitting up now, and pulling the phone onto his lap.
“I don’t know,” Claire said, straining to remember.
“You said you thought he was lost,” Peter said as he dialed the Danielses’ number.
All of the neighborhood’s phone numbers and emergency numbers were right there on the phone, neatly typed and alphabetical.
“I just meant the driver came by a couple of times, real slow.”
“Joe,” Peter said into the receiver. “Sorry to call so late but Claire just remembered that when she saw Dougie this afternoon she also saw a white car—”
Peter glanced at Claire.
“A Valiant maybe?” she said, shrugging. “Or a Fury?”
“Really?” Peter said into the phone. “Well, I’ll be damned. Call us if we can be of any help.”
“The boys reported it too,” he said after he hung up. “They all noticed that car. D.C. plates apparently.”
He kissed the top of her head and turned off the light.
“Did someone take Dougie?” Claire said into the darkness.
“I’m afraid that might be what happened,” Peter said. “Joe said the cops were leaning in that direction.”
“Someone kidnapped Dougie?” she said. Her heart beat too fast. She could hear it.
“Don’t think about it,” Peter said sleepily.
But that was when it all began.
That Saturday night was the dinner party at Trudy’s when she first met Miles Sullivan. By then, her world had already started to shift. Peter looked different to Claire. Rather than comforting her, the similarity of her days made her edgy. She kept thinking back to that afternoon, to the tops of the boys’ heads, their new summer buzz cuts, the white car circling them. Circling the neighborhood.
The heat grew worse. The air felt like pea soup. And still the police could not find Dougie Daniels. The boys had given a description of the driver to the police. A short olive-skinned man with close-cropped curly hair and a plaid short-sleeved shirt. He had slowed down, they reported, and looked right at them, taking in the sight of each of them before driving past.
Claire sent a pan of lasagna to the Danielses’ house. The next week she sent an angel food cake. No one knew what else to do, and the food piled up on the Danielses’ kitchen table and refrigerator shelves and in their freezer. At night when Peter reached for her, despite the now-installed window fan, Claire squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think about how much she wanted it to be over. When he kissed her afterwards, she did not hold him tight and kiss him back.
Two weeks after Dougie disappeared, Trudy had a cookout and Claire drank too much sangria. She felt sloppy and silly, and when Roberta’s husband accidentally brushed against her as he walked past her in the hall, it seemed as if he had electrocuted her. She studied him drunkenly. Claire had never found him attractive before. She had never considered his looks at all. But suddenly he seemed not only attractive, but desirable. Such a different type than her tall, angular husband. Ted was beefy and ruddy-faced, with unnervingly light blue eyes. She smiled at him.