Book Five: Scrabble
32. When the phone rang, I jumped. . .
When the phone rang, I jumped for the receiver, knowing it might be Grace. “Hey, Killer,” her happy voice said. “Shower up and put on some Right Guard. We’re going to a movie.”
“Great!” I said. “See you when you get here.” I put back the receiver with a smile. It was Friday, the next day after I saw the goon at the Grove; I’d had lunch at Arturo’s and was home in the afternoon, glad to be done with classes for the week. The twelve days leading up to my presentation might be crazy, but for one night, I felt I could afford to play.
I made sure that both upper and lower doors were unlocked, in case she decided to surprise me by coming early, then stripped and went to take a shower. I stayed under the spray a long time, sudsing and rinsing my fur, glorying in my apartment’s supply of hot water; I was finishing up in the bathroom, pushing a towel around the floor with my feet and getting the last drops out of my ears, when I heard someone on the stairs. “Come on in,” I hollered. “Be out in a minute.” When I stepped from the bathroom, nude and grinning, there was Mattie Halliday standing in my kitchen, looking right at me with those eyes like chips of turqouise.
Mattie was not smiling. “Get some clothes on,” she said. “You’re hairy; who wants to look at you?”
“Oops! Thought you were someone else.” I ducked back in the bathroom, wrapped a towel around my hips, and slipped past Mattie and into the bedroom to dress. When I came out again, I found her seated on the sofa, removing objects from a voluminous handbag. Most were ordinary women’s articles, but one large item caught my eye immediately: a chrome-plated .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. “Nice to see you,” I said to her, “but the truth is I have a date.”
“I won’t be here long,” she said. “Take this.” She handed me a hairbrush and twisted on the sofa, presenting me with her back. Remembering the raw-edged morning--had it only been a week since?--when I’d brushed vomit and dustmice and who knows what out of her hair, I began far down her back, carefully sorting out the split ends. When I’d scratched out the little tangles and the brush began to glide freely, her shoulders started to tremble, though there was no sound but the snap of electricity and the sweep of the brush.
So Mattie Halliday liked to cry while having her hair brushed. “There, there,” I said gently. “Ah, well.” Her hair was a treasure, rich in color, thick and elastic. Queen Guinevere hair. “Lavender blue,” I sang, “lavender green. I’ll be a king, dilly dilly, you’ll be my queen--” I had to hum the rest because I couldn’t remember it.
“Ough, ough, ough!” The tall woman began to sob inelegantly as I kept brushing, able now to pull the hairbrush all the way from the crown of her head to the bottom of her spine in one yard-long stroke. I stroked it from the sides and then lifted her hair and brushed it out underneath. The act was pleasantly physical, a lot like grooming a horse; I could have gotten into it even more, if it hadn’t been for Grace coming and that shiny revolver at Mattie’s end of the sofa.
Finally she quit crying and gave herself a shake. “Get me a Kleenex, you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I put down the brush, went to the bathroom, and brought out the tissue box. She was replacing things in her bag; the gun, I noticed, went on top. “Ah shore would’na messed with ya,” I drawled, “ef Ah’d ‘a knowed ya was packin’.”
She blew her nose into a tissue and handed me the results. “My therapist gets sixty dollars an hour,” she said. “What do I owe you?”
“You don’t owe me.” The gun was out of sight; I risked a grin. “Don’t have a license.”
“You could make good money,” she said. She stood and shouldered her purse. “Well, I’ll get out of your way.”
“I often have a date on Friday afternoons,” I said. “Most any other time, you could come by. We’ll go down by Salt Creek and shoot tin cans.”
“I don’t shoot cans,” she said. “Well, enjoy your date. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Once she was gone, I took a deep breath. “Like to hear one of her sermons on non-violence.” I went into the bathroom to brush the rat’s-nests out of my own hair, studying my new appearance in the mirror. My beard already needed a trim; stray tufts sprouted high on my cheekbones and along my neck. I got out some scissors, then put them away again. “Hell with it,” I said. “If I’m going to let them grow, I might as well let them all grow.”
A voice startled me. “Who are you talking to in there?” It was Grace this time. I turned to look at her as she stepped just inside the bathroom door. “I saw a woman leaving here,” she said. “She was six feet tall and carrying an enormous purse.”
“Mattie Halliday,” I said. “She’s a Unitarian minister. She just dropped by to have me brush her hair.”
Grace leaned against the doorway with her arms folded. “Men,” she said, studying me coolly. “You can’t leave ‘em alone for a minute.”
“Hey, you think I’d have an affair with a preacher? Give me a kiss; it’s nice to see you.” She came into my arms stiffly; I went hard instantly, kissing and nipping her fragrant, hot neck and pressing her tight against my crotch. When I began to crowd her toward the bedroom, she stopped me.
“Nn-nah-ah-ah!” She held up her finger as she pushed away. “We’re going to a movie tonight. Remember?”
“Oh, pretty, pretty please,” I begged, my voice trembling pathetically. “Just one little quickie?”
“No way! Once I let you get me into bed, you’ll keep me spread-eagled till midnight. I’ll be lucky if I even get a sandwich out of you.”
She’d brought a newspaper, and we sat together on the sofa, looking through the Entertainment section; I hung my chin on her shoulder as she tilted her fine-boned fluffed-up head, considering. “What have you seen lately?” I asked. “I don’t get out to movies much, myself.”
“I don’t, either,” she said. “The only time I ever get to go is when my roommate wants to get rid of her kids and me so she can spend some time with her boy friend.”
Grace passed up all the first-run movies--Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was still playing, as were Alice’s Restaurant and Medium Cool--in favor of Dr. Zhivago, which had finished its downtown run the summer before and was showing at the Joyo out in Havelock. I’d seen it in a maintenance hangar on the outskirts of Saigon, and Grace had seen it too, but she wanted to go again. She cried from the time when Omar Sharif ditches his wife for Julie Christie all the way through to where he runs after the streetcar carrying his love and falls dead of an exploded heart; meanwhile I kidded and teased her and blew on her neck. After we had dinner at the Ming Palace, we went back to my apartment and got right to bed. We had an hour’s worth of fast, good-humored sex, nothing pyrotechnic, and then Grace fell asleep in my arms, shoving her hot thin body right up against mine. She’d told them at home that she was working, and told them at work that she was staying home, just so she could spend the night with me. I lay awake past midnight, holding her protectively, savoring the rare pleasure of all-night company.
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