"I could come over later if you wanted, Nettie ... You are? ... Well, rest is probably the best thing ... Tomorrow?"
Polly laughed. It was a free, pleasing sound that always made Alan feel as if the world had been somehow freshened. He thought he could wait a long time for her secrets to disclose themselves if she would just laugh like that every now and then.
"Gosh, no! Tomorrow's Saturday! I'm just going to lie around and be sinful!"
Alan smiled. He pulled out the drawer under the stove, found a pair of pot holders, and opened the conventional oven. One potato, two potato, three potato, four. How in God's name were the two of them supposed to eat four big baked potatoes? But of course he had known there would be too many, because that was the way Polly cooked. There was surely another secret buried in the fact of those four big potatoes, and someday, when he knew all the whys--or most of them, or even some of them--his feelings of guilt and strangeness might pass.
He took the potatoes out. The microwave beeped a moment later.
"I've got to go, Nettie--"
"That's okay!" Alan yelled. "I've got this under control ! I'm a policeman, lady!"
"--but you call me if you need anything. You're sure you're okay, now? ... And you'd tell me if you weren't, Nettie, right? ... Okay ... What? ... No, just asking ... You too ... Goodnight, Nettie."
When she came out, he had set the chicken on the table and was busy turning one of the potatoes inside-out on her plate.
"Alan, you sweetheart! You didn't need to do that!"
"All part of the service, pretty lady." Another thing he understood was that, when Polly's hands were bad, life became a series of small, hellacious combats for her; the ordinary events of an ordinary life transformed themselves into a series of gruelling obstacles to be surmounted, and the penalty for failure was embarrassment as well as pain. Loading the dishwasher. Stacking kindling in the fireplace. Manipulating a knife and fork to get a hot potato out of its jacket.
"Sit down," he said. "Let's cluck."
She burst out laughing and then hugged him. She squeezed his back with her inner forearms instead of her hands, the relentless observer inside noted. But a less dispassionate part of him took notice of the way her trim body pressed against his, and the sweet smell of the shampoo she used.
"You are the dearest man," she said quietly.
He kissed her, gently at first, then with more force. His hands slid down from the small of her back to the swell of her buttocks. The fabric of her old jeans was as smooth and soft as moleskin under his hands.
"Down, big fella," she said at last. "Food now, snuggle later."
"Is that an invitation?" If her hands really weren't better, he thought, she would fudge.
But she said, "Gilt-edged," and Alan sat down satisfied.
Provisionally.
5
"Is Al coming home for the weekend?" Polly asked as they cleared away the supper things. Alan's surviving son attended Milton Academy, south of Boston.
"Huh-uh," Alan said, scraping plates.
Polly said, a little too casually: "I just thought, with no classes Monday because of Columbus Day--"
"He's going to Dorf's place on Cape Cod," Alan said. "Dorf is Carl Dorfman, his roomie. Al called last Tuesday and asked if he could go down for the three-day weekend. I said okay, fine."
She touched him on the arm and he turned to look at her. "How much of this is my fault, Alan?"
"How much of what's your fault?" he asked, honestly surprised.
"You know what I'm talking about; you're a good father, and you're not stupid. How many times has Al been home since school started again?"
Suddenly Alan understood what she was driving at, and he grinned at her, relieved. "Only once," he said, "and that was because he needed to talk to Jimmy Catlin,. his old computer-hacking buddy from junior high. Some of his choicest programs wouldn't run on the new Commodore 64 I got him for his birthday."
"You see? That's my point, Alan. He sees me as trying to step into his mother's place too soon, and--"
"Oh, jeez," Alan said. "How long have you been brooding over the idea that Al sees you as the Wicked Stepmother?"
Her brows drew together in a frown. "I hope you'll pardon me if I don't find the idea as funny as you apparently do."
He took her gently by the upper arms and kissed the corner of her mouth. "I don't find it funny at all. There are times--I was just thinking about this--when I feel a little strange, being with you. It seems too soon. It isn't, but sometimes it seems that way. Do you know what I mean?"
She nodded. Her frown smoothed out a little but did not disappear. "Of course I do. Characters in movies and TV shows always get to spend a little more time pining dramatically, don't they?"
"You put your finger on it. In the movies you get a lot of pining and precious little grief. Because grief is too real. Grief is ..." He let go of her arms, slowly picked up a dish and began to wipe it dry. "Grief is brutal."
"Yes."
"So sometimes I feel a little guilty, yeah." He was sourly amused by the defensiveness he heard lurking in his voice. "Partly because it seems too early, even though it isn't, and partly because it seems I got off too easy, even though I didn't. This idea that I owe more grief is still there part of the time, I can't deny that, but to my credit I know that it's nuts ... because part of me--a lot of me, in fact--is still grieving."
"You must be human," she said softly. "How weirdly exotic and excitingly perverse."
"Yeah, I guess so. As for Al, he's dealing with this in his own way. It's a good way, too--good enough for me to be proud of him. He still misses his mother, but if he's still grieving-and I guess I'm not completely sure he is--then it's Todd he's grieving for. But your idea that he's staying away because he doesn't approve of you ... or us ... that's way off the beam."
"I'm glad it is. You don't know how much you've relieved my mind. But it still seems ..."
"Not quite right, somehow?"
She nodded.
"I know what you mean. But kids' behavior, even when it's as normal as ninety-eight-point-six, never seems quite right to adults. We forget how easy they heal, sometimes, and we almost always forget how fast they change. Al is pulling away. From me, from his old buddies like Jimmy Catlin, from The Rock itself. Pulling away, that's all. Like a rocket when the third-stage booster kicks in. Kids always do it, and I guess it's always kind of a sad surprise to their parents."
"It seems early, though," Polly said quietly. "Seventeen seems early to pull away."
"It is early," Alan said. He spoke in a tone which was not quite angry. "He lost his mother and his brother in a stupid accident. His life blew apart, my life blew apart, and we got together the way I guess fathers and sons almost always do in those situations to see if we could find most of the pieces again. We managed pretty well, I think, but I'd be blind not to know that things have changed. My life is here, Polly, in The Rock. His isn't, not anymore. I thought maybe it was going to be again, but the look that came into his eyes when I suggested that he might like to transfer to Castle Rock High this fall set me right on that in a hurry. He doesn't like to come back here because there are too many memories. I think that might change ... in time ... and for now I'm not going to push him. But it has nothing to do with you and me. Okay?"
"Okay. Alan?"
"Hmmm?"
"You miss him, don't you?"
"Yeah," Alan agreed simply. "Every day." He was appalled to find himself suddenly on the verge of tears. He turned away and opened a cupboard at random, trying to get himself under control. The easiest way to do it would be to re-route the conversation, and fast. "How's Nettie?" he asked, and was relieved to hear that his voice sounded normal.
"She says she's better tonight, but it took her an awfully long time to answer the phone--I had visions of her lying on the floor, unconscious."
"Probably she was asleep."
"She said not, and she didn't sound like it. You know how people sound when the phone
wakes them up?"
He nodded. It was another cop thing. He had been on both the giving and receiving end of a lot of telephone calls that broke someone's sleep.
"She said she was sorting through some of her mother's old stuff in the woodshed, but--"
"If she has intestinal flu, you probably called while she was on the throne and she didn't want to admit it," Alan said dryly.
She considered this, then burst out laughing. "I'll bet that was it. It's just like her."
"Sure," he said. Alan peered into the sink, then pulled the plug. "Honey, we're all washed up."
"Thank you, Alan." She pecked his cheek.
"Oh, say, look what I found," Alan said. He reached behind her ear and pulled out a fifty-cent piece. "Do you always keep those back there, pretty lady?"
"How do you do that?" she asked, looking at the half-buck with real fascination.
"Do what?" he asked. The fifty-cent piece seemed to float over the gently shuttling knuckles of his right hand. He pinched the coin between his third and fourth fingers and turned his hand over. When he turned it back the other way again, the coin was gone. "Think I ought to run away and join the circus?" he asked her.
She smiled. "No--stay here with me. Alan, do you think I'm silly to worry about Nettie so much?"
"Nope," Alan said. He stuck his left hand--the one to which he had transferred the fifty-cent piece--into his pants pocket, pulled it out empty, and grabbed a dishtowel. "You got her out of the funny-farm, you gave her a job, and you helped buy her a house. You feel responsible for her, and I suppose to some degree you are. If you didn't worry about her, I think I'd worry about you."
She took the last glass from the dish-drainer. Alan saw the sudden dismay on her face and knew she wasn't going to be able to hold it, although the glass was already almost dry. He moved quickly, bending his knees and sticking out his hand. The move was so gracefully executed that it looked to Polly almost like a dance-step. The glass fell and plunked neatly into his hand, which hung palm up less than eighteen inches from the floor.
The pain which had nagged her all night--and the attendant fear that Alan would tumble to just how bad it was--was suddenly buried under a wave of desire so hard and unexpected that it did more than startle her; it frightened her. And desire was a little too coy, wasn't it? What she felt was simpler, an emotion whose hue was utterly primary. It was lust.
"You move like a damned cat," she said as he straightened. Her voice was thick, a little slurred. She kept seeing the graceful way his legs had bent, the flex of the long muscles in his thighs. The smooth curve of one calf. "How does a man as big as you move that fast?"
"I don't know," he said, and looked at her with surprise and puzzlement. "What's wrong, Polly? You look funny. Do you feel faint?"
"I feel," she said. "like I'm going to come in my pants."
It came to him, too, then. Just like that. There was no wrong about it, no right. It just was. "Let's see if you are," he said, and moved forward with that same grace, that weird speed you would never suspect if you saw him ambling down Main Street. "Let's just see about that." He set the glass on the counter with his left hand and slipped his right between her legs before she knew what was happening.
"Alan what are you do--" And then, as his thumb pressed with gentle force against her clitoris, doing turned to do-ooooh!-ing and he lifted her with his easy, amazing strength.
She put her arms around his neck, being careful even at this warm moment to hold with her forearms; her hands stuck off behind him like stiff bundles of sticks, but they were suddenly the only parts of her which were stiff. The rest of her seemed to be melting. "Alan, put me down!"
"I don't think so," he said, and lifted her higher. He slid his free hand between her shoulder-blades as she started to slip and pressed her forward. And suddenly she was rocking back and forth on the hand between her legs like a girl on a hobby-horse, and he was helping her rock, and she felt as if she were in some wonderful swing with her feet in the wind and her hair in the stars.
"Alan--"
"Hold tight, pretty lady," he said, and he was laughing, as if she weighed no more than a bag of feathers. She leaned back, almost unaware of his steadying hand in her growing excitement, only knowing he would not let her fall, and then he brought her forward again, and one hand was rubbing her back, and the thumb of his other hand was doing things to her down there, things she had never even considered, and she rocked back again, calling his name out deliriously.
Her orgasm hit like a sweet exploding bullet, rushing both ways from the center of her. Her legs swung back and forth six inches above the kitchen floor (one of her loafers flew off and sailed all the way into the living room), her head fell back so her dark hair trailed over his forearm in a small tickling torrent, and at the height of her pleasure he kissed the sweet white line of her throat.
He set her down ... then reached out quickly to steady her as her knees buckled.
"Oh my God," she said, beginning to laugh weakly. "Oh my God, Alan, I'll never wash these jeans again."
That struck him as hilarious, and he bellowed laughter. He collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs with his legs stuck out straight in front of him and howled, holding his stomach. She took a step toward him. He grasped her, pulled her onto his lap for a moment, and then stood with her in his arms.
She felt that fainting wave of emotion and need sweep her again, but it was clearer now, better defined. Now, she thought, now it is desire. I desire this man so much.
"Take me upstairs," she said. "If you can't make it that far, take me to the couch. And if you can't make it to the couch, do me right here on the kitchen floor."
"I think I can make it at least as far as the living room," he said. "How are your hands, pretty lady?"
"What hands?" she asked dreamily, and closed her eyes. She concentrated on the clear joy of this moment, moving through space and time in his arms, moving in darkness and circled by his strength. She pressed her face against his chest, and when he put her on the couch she pulled him down ... and this time she used her hands to do it.
6
They were on the couch for nearly an hour, then in the shower for she didn't know how tong--untit the hot water started to fail and drove them out, anyway. Then she took him into her bed, where she lay too exhausted and too content to do anything but bundle.
She had expected to make love to him tonight, but more to allay his concern than out of any real desire on her own part. She had certainly not expected such a series of explosions as had resulted ... but she was glad. She could feel the pain in her hands beginning to assert itself again, but she would not need a Percodan to sleep tonight.
"You are one fantastic lover, Alan."
"So are you."
"It's unanimous," she said, and put her head against his chest. She could hear his heart lub-dubbing calmly away in there, as if to say ho-hum, stuff like this is all in a night's work for me and the boss. She thought again--and not without a faint echo of her earlier fierce passion--of how quick he was, how strong ... but mostly how quick. She had known him ever since Annie had come to work for her, had been his lover for the last five months, and she had never known how quickly he could move until tonight. It had been like a whole-body version of the coin tricks, the card tricks, and the shadow-animals that almost every kid in town knew about and begged for when they saw him. It was spooky ... but it was also wonderful.
She could feel herself drifting off now. She should ask him if he meant to stay the night, and tell him to put his car in the garage if he did--Castte Rock was a small town where many tongues wagged--but it seemed like too much trouble. Alan would take care. Alan, she was beginning to think, always did.
"Any fresh outbursts from Buster or the Reverend Willie?" she asked sleepily.
Alan smiled. "Quiet on both fronts, at least for the time being. I appreciate Mr. Keeton and Reverend Rose the most when I see them the least, and by that standard today was great."
"That's go
od," she murmured.
"Yeah, but I know something even better."
"What?"
"Norris is back in a good mood. He bought a rod and reel from your friend Mr. Gaunt, and all he can talk about is going fishing this weekend. I think he'll freeze his butt off--what little butt he has-but if Norris is happy, I'm happy. I was sorry as hell when Keeton rained on his parade yesterday. People make fun of Norris because he's skinny and sort of ditzy, but he's developed into a pretty good small-town peace officer over the past three years. And his feelings are as sensitive as anyone else's. It's not his fault that he looks like Don Knotts's half-brother."
"Ummmmm ..."
Drifting. Drifting into some sweet darkness where there was no pain. Polly let herself go, and as sleep took her there was a small and catlike expression of satisfaction on her face.
7
For Alan, sleep was longer coming.
The interior voice had returned, but its tone of false glee was gone. Now it sounded questioning, plaintive, almost lost. Where are we, Alan? it asked. Isn't this the wrong room? The wrong bed? The wrong woman? I don't seem to understand anything anymore.
Alan suddenly found himself feeling pity for that voice. It was not self-pity, because the voice had never seemed so unlike his own as it did now. It occurred to him that the voice wanted to speak as little as he--the rest of him, the Alan existing in the present and the Alan planning for the future--wanted to hear it. It was the voice of duty, the voice of grief. And it was still the voice of guilt.
A little over two years ago, Annie Pangborn had begun having headaches. They weren't bad, or so she said; she was as loath to talk about them as Polly was to talk about her arthritis. Then, one day when he was shaving-very early in 1990, that must have been--Alan noticed that the cap had been left off the family-size bottle of Anacin 3 standing beside the bathroom sink. He started to put the cap back on ... then stopped. He had taken a couple of aspirin from that bottle, which held two hundred and twenty-five caplets, late the week before. It had been almost full then. Now it was almost empty. He had wiped the remains of shaving cream from his face and gone down to You Sew and Sew, where Annie had worked since Polly Chalmers opened. He took his wife out for coffee ... and a few questions. He asked her about the aspirin. He remembered being a little frightened.