drop the containers with all the food, but he manages not to. His head’s buzzing. He licks his lips, a raspy dryness in his mouth. The long hallway is high-ceilinged, painted white. He hears Patricia approaching from the living room in her bare feet. She pauses a few feet away. “Sorry,” he says, forcing himself to smile. “It’s been a strange day.” She tilts her head. The light lands on the left side of her face, the high cheekbone, the ear. “I was wearing a dress, but I took it off.” She tosses her hair back, lifting her chin. “I thought we were going to have a nice evening.”
With his back he pushes the door shut, then sets the containers on the low table under the mirror.
“And we will, won’t we?”
He catches a glimpse of himself, ruddy-faced, bags under his eyes. Then he advances toward her, and reluctantly she falls into his embrace. “You smell like alcohol,” she says into his neck, “and I’m hungry.”
She’s wearing something that looks like pajamas, but he’s not certain they are pajamas. Silk that hangs loosely from her, no doubt very expensive. Patricia spends a lot of money on clothes. Patricia wants a baby. Patricia’s ambitious, but she wants a baby. She crawls onto the sofa and bites into an artichoke heart. She raises her beer to her mouth and drinks. Then, shifting herself, she points at the tapenade. She’d like some of that, too. In the blue armchair Thomas sits arching forward, longing for a cigarette. But then he’d have to go all the way down to the street, and that wouldn’t be the best thing to do right now; it’d be downright rude. He shovels some lettuce into his mouth and bites into a hunk of bread, realizing that he hasn’t eaten anything since lunch. When Patricia’s full, he eats what’s left in the containers, and when he’s emptied the containers, he leans back, lethargic and sleepy. Patricia, apparently no longer angry, asks how his visit to his father’s apartment went. He can’t muster the strength to tell her how it looked, so he tells her about Mrs. Krantz instead, trying to make it sound light and funny. “Her voice sounds like . . . like some screechy kid pissing in a potty.” Where that came from he doesn’t know, but Patricia smiles, her eyes growing friendlier. “Did she sound like the screechy kid or the piss hitting the potty?” she asks. Thomas returns the smile. Staring into each other’s eyes, they are in harmony, everything they have together is in that moment, a fraction of a second. Then Thomas glances away. “I have no interest whatsoever in going to the funeral. I’m considering not going. Why should I go? For whose sake?”
“For Jenny’s, I guess.”
He doesn’t answer that.
“Do you think your aunt and Helena will go?”
“No. But Jenny’s probably invited them. I can’t deal with Jenny either, for that matter. All of this means nothing to me, I don’t want to be involved.”
“But Thomas. Isn’t it best that we go, get it over with? At least then you’ll never regret not going.”
“But I can regret that I went,” he says, standing. The city glimmers in the darkness, under a yellow half-moon. Patricia sighs and collects the containers.
“We’ll go out afterward and have some champagne, just you and me. We’ll celebrate when it’s over,” she calls out on her way to the kitchen. Slap, slap, the soles of her bare feet against the wooden floor. Water running in the sink. She’s rinsing the plates, no doubt. Thomas opens the window and lights a cigarette. He leans across the cornice and blows smoke into the cold, damp night air.
Patricia returns to the living room. She stops, preparing to say something, but hesitates. Instead she says, “Want me to put my dress back on?”
He turns toward her, making sure the hand holding the cigarette remains outside. “You don’t need to. I’d be fine if you just took your clothes off.” She regards him solemnly. Then she smiles and begins to undress. He doesn’t have any desire for this at all, but now there’s no way back. So ridiculously compliant of him, just because he felt guilty for coming home late, for smoking indoors when he’s agreed not to, for not making dinner for her, for not talking with her. For coming home drunk like a loser. Now she’s naked and standing in the center of the room, her fair skin almost golden in the half-light of the reading lamp. He looks at her hips, her pubic hair, her smooth thighs. He looks at her belly, a little distended. Her breasts and her long arms, her slender throat. Her skin is slightly wrinkled right above her knees. Her eyes are so black. He takes a deep drag of his cigarette, then tosses it away. He thinks of Annie’s big ass and quickly begins to remove his pants—he needs to be fast now, when, miraculously, he’s erect—and soon he’s spinning Patricia around and draping her over the sofa. He gets on his knees behind her and eases into her, his eyes closed; she gives herself to him, she’s soft, he pulls her close, and just when he’s about to come everything grinds to a halt. He notices a fly on the wall and wonders what it’s doing alive this time of year, then images of his father’s apartment rush through his mind, the bunk beds, the smell, it nauseates him, he draws himself out of her, lies on his back on the floor, turns his head away when he hears Patricia sit beside him, sure that she’s either eyeing him worriedly or accusingly. Soon he hears her stand and go to the toilet. He feels his spine against the floor, the pain. He’s tall and thin and bony. His shirt curls up along the hem. He’s still wearing his socks. But a little while later, after they’ve gone to bed, she does everything she can to be good to him, patiently and expertly, so expertly that even though he doesn’t feel up to it or want to, she succeeds; she knows his body, knows precisely which stimulations arouse him, and he gives in at last. He’s relieved that it feels good to enter her. She makes faint, delicate noises, and he sees her quivering eyelids. When he finally comes, with enormous relief and oddly jarring grunts, her eyes are radiant now, her gaze fixed and sated. She removes a stray lock of hair from her mouth, tucks the duvet around him, and turns out the light. Then they fall asleep.
On Saturday morning Thomas wakes early, his heart thumping, stressed, uneasy. It’s 6:00 A.M., still dark outside. Patricia sleeps with a hand on her belly, and the bed smells like old man. He rolls over, tries to get his pulse under control. Can’t. He goes to the bathroom, drinks water. Then back to bed. Falling asleep seems impossible, yet he must’ve slept, because it’s suddenly light outside, and he’s dreamt, and now it’s 9:30. Patricia’s up, and his telephone beeps with a text message. Drunk with sleep, he reads, “you need to help me, the toaster doesn’t work, j.” For God’s sake, she’s got to stop this now. Instantly, he’s pissed. Feeling the tension in his neck, he kicks off the duvet. “stop it,” he writes. “aren’t you sweet, thanks a lot,” Jenny replies. He curses under his breath and steps into the shower. He pulls on pants and a sweater, clean socks, running shoes. In the kitchen Patricia sits swaddled in her duvet, reading the newspaper. She drinks coffee. She’s bought bread and butter at the bakery. There’s also juice. “Good morning, honey,” she says, sliding over so that he can sit on the bench. She’s done the dishes. A half-empty bottle of beer rests on the kitchen table, and she’s put the food containers in a garbage bag and swept the floor. But she didn’t use the dustpan: dust and crumbs are heaped in a little pile in the corner, near the sink. Thomas pours coffee and butters his bread. Jenny texts, “knew I could count on you.” He falls for it every time. She feigns helplessness and insinuates that he doesn’t care about her, and so he comes leaping to her aid after all, motivated by a guilt he has no reason to feel. But not this time, hell no. “fine,” he responds, skidding his cellphone across the table. “What’s going on?” Patricia asks, looking at him. “Nothing. It’s just Jenny. She’s obsessed with the stupid toaster.”
“Toaster?”
“I can’t explain it. And it’s boring! Ridiculous. She’s trying to manipulate me, as usual. I guarantee she’s bored. Alice is off with her new boyfriend all the time, she says, and Jenny just sits staring at the wall.” He hears how hotheaded he sounds, how loudly he’s talking. Already he regrets it,
