“Probably not.”
We watched the game some more. At the same time, I was aware that something was happening between us. Something cellular. I felt my body vibrating like the strings of a harp. Suddenly, Danny seemed very sexy to me. It could be the alcohol, I knew. Or the incredible darkness that had seeped into my soul. I didn’t analyze it. I didn’t want to.
On the TV, a ref blew a whistle, signaling time-out. The game was replaced by a commercial.
“I’m not gay,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m not gay. I’m not married or engaged. Just in case you were thinking that.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because I haven’t hit on you yet.”
“I noticed.”
“I thought you might be wondering why.”
“Why?”
“I figure everyone tells you that you’re lovely, that you’re beautiful. I figure everyone tells you that you could start a parade just by crossing the street and that you must get pretty bored hearing it all the time.”
“Exhausting,” she said, having fun with it.
“So I decided I would try to impress you with my maturity and intellectual depth. Only there’s a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t have any.”
Mallinger laughed. She couldn’t help herself.
I lifted my legs off the chair and swung them under the table, brushing her knee with my knee.
“Do that again,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Make me laugh.”
I did.
Yet it wasn’t enough. Almost, but not quite. Not the laughter or the drinks. The gloomy feeling remained, fed by tiny reminders of Bloom and high-speed duels and fights outside restaurants and Greg Schroeder lurking in the shadows. It was still there when I announced that I was going back to my room and Danny volunteered to walk with me and I welcomed her.
Outside my room, I kissed her on the right cheek. I didn’t say anything. I just reached my arm a little around her waist, not quite a hug, and I kissed her cheek.
She turned her mouth and kissed me back—on the lips. The kiss lasted longer than it had any right to, and near the end of it Danny moaned, not with passion or pain, but with relief. I broke off the kiss and examined her face—Danny’s face. Not Bloom’s. Not Elizabeth’s. Danny’s. It was a nice face. Without trickery, without guile or deceit. I kissed her again.
In my imagination, Mallinger’s body was mostly muscle. In reality, there was a fleshiness about her that could easily turn to fat if she didn’t exercise, and for a moment I actually considered telling her so before purging the thought from my head in horror. What was I thinking? You’re not thinking, that’s the whole thing, my inner voice told me. I felt giddy with excitement and at the same time felt that my excitement was somehow lewd, as if I was taking pleasure in a perversion—a thought probably caused by the knowledge that I was betraying Nina. I pushed that aside, too. Instead, I lost myself in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings my heightened senses brought to me, the softness of Danny’s skin and the scent of her and the surprising strength of her and the heat of her body when I entered her. I felt sensations—sensations gamblers must feel, sensations I found immensely pleasurable—and they kept coming and coming—until tenderness turned to sleep and night became morning.
Danny was standing at the window, looking out on the parking lot beyond. Early dawn circled her naked body.
“What is it?” I asked, just to be saying something.
“I should leave now.”
“You don’t need to.”
“It wouldn’t do for the chief of police to be seen leaving a strange man’s motel room.”
I objected to “strange man,” but said nothing. I slid out of bed and came up behind her. I rested my hands on her shoulders.
“Don’t do that,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“I can’t stay. I have to go home. I have to put on makeup.”
“I didn’t know you wore makeup.”
“I do. I do wear makeup. It comes with the job.”
She turned and kissed me just as she had outside the motel room door several hours earlier. When she finished, she said, “Go back to bed.” I did, but she didn’t join me.
12
I woke up feeling guilty as hell. Slants of sunlight fell across my face like the beams of interrogation lamps. I turned my head away. A song played in my brain, a song I knew as a child—the same song that was there just before I fell asleep after making love to Danny Mallinger. “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”
“You’re one sick puppy, McKenzie,” I told myself.
I went naked to the bathroom and splashed water on my face. That wasn’t going to do it, so I took a shower, first cold and then as hot as I could stand it. Afterward, I swiped the steam from the mirror and stared at myself.
“Who do you think you are?” I asked aloud.
I thought of Nina Truhler. She deserved better than someone like me.
My cell phone played its tinny melody and for a moment I was seized with panic.