answer that had been adequate only a day earlier—award-winning critic, author of three college textbooks, enema—no longer seemed complete.
“After his weird walk-through yesterday,” Penny said, “I told you it was over, he’d made his point. But it wasn’t over. It still isn’t.”
“Maybe it is,” I said with less conviction than a guy cowering in the rubble of a city only half destroyed by Godzilla.
“What does he want from us? What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I can’t figure how his head works.”
Her eyes were no less lovely for being haunted. “He wants to destroy us, Cubby.”
“He can’t destroy us.”
“Why can’t he?” she asked.
“Our careers depend on talent and hard work—not just on a critic’s opinions.”
“Careers? I’m not talking about careers. You’re in denial.”
For some reason—maybe to avoid her gaze—I plucked a can of beets off a pantry shelf. Then I didn’t know what to do with it.
“In the mood for beets?” she asked. When I returned the can to the shelf without comment, she said, “Cubby, he’s going to kill us.”
“I didn’t do anything to him. Neither did Milo. You haven’t even seen him yet.”
“He has some reason. I don’t much care what it is. I just know what he’s going to do.”
I found myself looking at a can of corn, but I didn’t pick it up. “Let’s be real. If he wanted to kill us, he could have done it tonight.”
“He’s sadistic. He wants to torment us, terrify us, totally dominate us—and then kill us.”
I was surprised by the words that came from me: “I’m not a magnet for monsters.”
“Cubby? What does that mean?”
I know Penny so well that her tone of voice told me precisely what expression now shaped her face: furrowed brow, eyes squinted in calculation, nose lifted as if to catch a scent, lips still parted in expectation after she had spoken—the quizzical look of an acutely perceptive woman who recognizes a moment of revelation hidden in the folds of a conversation.
“What does that mean?” she repeated.
Rather than lie to her, I said, “I think I should apologize.”
“Are you talking to me or the corn?”
I dared to look at her, which was not easy considering what I said as I met her eyes: “I mean—apologize to Waxx.”
“Like hell. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“For going to lunch just to get a look at him.” I couldn’t explain myself to her. For ten years, I deceived her by omission, and now was not the time to confess. “For violating his privacy.”
Incredulous, she said, “It’s a public restaurant. This is a. private residence. You looked at him, he Tasered us.”
“An apology can’t do any harm.”
“Yes, it can. An apology won’t placate him. It’ll encourage him. He’ll feed on any concession. Apologizing to such a man—it’s like baring your throat to a vampire.”
Hard experience supported what she said, but it was experience that I had long repressed and on which I was loath to act.
“All right,” I said. “So what do you think we should do?”
“Locks and alarms didn’t stop him tonight. They won’t stop him tomorrow night. This place isn’t safe.”
“I’ll have the alarm company upgrade the system.”
She shook her head. “That’ll take days. And it won’t matter. He’s too clever for upgrades. We have to get to a safe place, where he can’t find us.”
“We can’t run forever. I’ve got a book deadline.”
“And, good golly,” she said, “we haven’t even begun to do our Christmas shopping.”
“Well, I do have a deadline,” I said defensively.
“I didn’t say run forever. Just buy time to do some research.”
“What research?”
“Shearman Waxx. Where does he come from? What’s his story, his past, his associations?”
“He’s an enigma.”
She picked up the can of beets in which I had previously shown an interest. “Take the label off this can, the contents are a mystery—but only until you open it.”
“I can open a can,” I said, because we had an electric opener that required of me no mechanical skill.
“And if Waxx is this freaking weird with us,” Penny said, “he has to have been totally bizarro with someone else, maybe with a lot of people, so at the very least we should be able to find someone to support our claim that he’s harassing us.”
I acquiesced. “All right. We’ll get someplace safe, then we’ll go on the hunt.”
“Still no cops?”
“Not till we know more about Waxx. I don’t want a media circus.”
“Cops can be discreet.”
“They’d have to talk to Waxx. He won’t be discreet. Come on. I’ll help you pack.”
“I’d rather you took Lassie out to poop. Fix breakfast for Milo. Deal with your morning e-mails. I’ll pack after I shower.”
“I don’t know why that can of shaving cream detonated in the suitcase. It didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Nobody said that it did, sweetie. Not either time. I just pack faster than you do.”
“Because I like to make the maximum use of space. You can take fewer suitcases if you don’t waste a cubic inch.”
She kissed me on the nose and quoted Chesterton: “‘A man and a woman cannot live together without having against each other a kind of everlasting joke. Each has discovered that the other is not only a fool, but a great fool.’”
We drew on each other’s strengths, but perhaps more important, we found our strength increased and our love enriched by being able to laugh at our own and at each other’s weaknesses.
As Penny opened the pantry door, I suddenly knew
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