S usan had spent Saturday writing and now the second story was in and she was taking a celebratory bubble bath. The Great Writer had a radio in his bathroom, but she didn’t like to listen to it when she was in the tub. This was thinking time. Music was too easy a distraction. She had been in the tub for almost a half hour and the water had cooled. Now she turned on the hot-water knob with her toes and let it run until the bath was as hot as she could stand it. Her skin pinkened under the water and she felt her face burn. That was how she liked it, heat the only sensation.
She jumped when the phone rang. She never took baths without her cell phone and her landline within arm’s reach, but she was relaxed enough that it still surprised her. Now, in an effort to get to the ringing cordless that perched on the edge of the sink, she knocked over her half-full glass of pinot noir. It exploded on the tile floor, sending red wine splattering everywhere.
“Fuck,” she said aloud as she picked up the phone. She had broken five of the Great Writer’s set of eight wineglasses. Now this was the sixth. Something about the way she moved through the world did not lend itself to the care of fragile objects. She fumbled with the receiver, nearly dropping it in the soapy water as she sank back into the tub.
“Ian?”
“No, honey, it’s me.”
“Oh.” She tried not to sound disappointed. “Hi, Bliss.”
“I saw your story.”
Susan sat up in the tub, bringing her knees to her chest. “You did?”
“Leaf, at the co-op, gave me a copy.”
Susan’s body hummed with pleasure. She didn’t like to draw her mother’s attention to her work. She didn’t like to admit that it mattered.
“Listen, sweetie,” Bliss said. “I know you know how to do your job.” She paused. “But don’t you think you might be exploiting these girls?”
The humming stopped. Susan could feel her teeth clench, the molars grinding into one another, another layer of enamel gone. It was remarkable how her mother always knew exactly the wrong thing to say. “I’ve got to go, Bliss. I’m in the bathtub.”
“Right now?”
“Yep.” She splashed some water. “See?”
“Okay. We’ll talk later.”
“Sure.” She hung up the phone and leaned back in the tub, letting the hot water fill her ears as she waited for her heartbeat to slow. She and Bliss had been close until the year Susan’s father died, when Bliss had become impossible. Or maybe Susan had become impossible. It was hard to know. They had fought most over the bathtub. Back then, Susan liked to take two or three baths a day. It was the only place she didn’t feel cold.
Susan smiled to herself. Archie Sheridan. She had to admit that she’d secretly hoped it would be him on the phone. He was right up her alley, after all. Not married, sure. But totally unavailable. Crap. She was a lost cause. At least she knew she was a romantic train wreck. She had been since she was fourteen years old. Self-knowledge counted for something, right? When she climbed out of the tub ten minutes later and gathered up the small pieces of glass that lay scattered on the floor, she was so lost in thought that she stabbed her finger on one of the little shards. She grabbed one of the Great Writer’s white washcloths and secured it around the small wound. While she waited for the blood to stop, she called Archie and checked in on the case. He did not ask her out. By the time she was off the phone, the white washcloth was stained red; another thing she had ruined.
The plum trees in front of Gretchen’s old house had bloomed. That was how it happened. One day the plum trees looked dead, skeletal, like something put out in the yard after a fire; the next they were heavy with pale pink blossoms, smug with their own prettiness.
“You just want to sit here?” the cabdriver asked.
Archie dropped his cell phone in his pocket and glanced up at the driver. “Just for a while.” The sun shining through the car window was warm, and Archie leaned his temple against the glass, enjoying the heat of it against his skin. The house was vaguely Georgian, a pale yellow plantation at two-thirds scale. The windows were flanked by tall white shutters. A brick walkway led from the sidewalk to a brick staircase and up a sloping hillside to the house. It was a nice house. Archie had always thought so.
Of course, it had never been Gretchen’s. She’d been telling the truth when she told Archie that she’d leased it for the fall from a family who was spending the season in Italy. She had rented it on-line under a false name, just as she had rented the house in Gresham.
“You a stalker?” the cabbie asked, eyeing Archie in the rearview mirror.
“A cop.”