Nancy knelt above him. ‘Hi, I’m back.’
They made love, quite expertly if the book s were any criteria. They were inventive and agile. They sampled three different positions. They verbalized their wishes. Eric experienced one orgasm; Nancy , two. But when it was over and the room dark, he lay studying the shadowed ceiling, cradling his head on his arms and pondering how empty the act could be when not used for its intended purpose. Nancy rolled close, threw an arm and a leg over him and tried to finesse him into cuddling. She commandeered his arm and drew it around her waist. But he had no desire to hold her as they drifted off to sleep.
In the morning Nancy rose at
5:30
and Eric at
quarter to six
, the moment the shower was free. He thought she must be the last woman in America who still used a vanity table. The house, prairie-styled, circa 1919, had never pleased Nancy . She had moved into it under duress, complaining that the kitchen was unsatisfactory, the plug-ins inadequate and the bathroom a joke. Thus the vanity table in the bedroom.
It sat against a narrow stretch of wall between two windows, accompanied by a large round makeup mirror circled by lights.
While Eric showered and dressed, Nancy went through her morning beauty rite: pots and tubes and bottles and wands; jellies and lotions, sprays and creams; hair blowers and curlers and teasers and lifters. Though he’d never been able to understand how it could take her an hour and fifteen minutes, he’d watched her often enough to know it did. The cosmetic ritual was as deeply ingrained in Nancy ’s life as dieting. She did both as a matter of rote, finding it unthinkable to appear even at her own breakfast table without looking as flawless as she would if she were flying into New York to meet the Orlane hierarchy.
While Nancy sat at the makeup mirror, Eric moved about the bedroom, listening to the weather on the radio, dressing in white jeans, white Reeboks and a sky-blue knit pullover with the company logo, a ship’s wheel, and his name stitched on the breast pocket.
Tying his sneakers, he asked, ‘Want anything from the bakery?’
She was drawing fine auburn eyelashes onto her lower lids. ‘You eat too much of that stuff.
You should have some wholegrain instead.’ ‘My only vice. Be right back.’
She watched him leave the room, proud of his continued leanness, his eye-catching good looks. He had been displeased last night, she knew, and it worried her. She wanted their relationship -just the two of them - to be enough for him, as it was for her. She’d never been able to understand why he thought he needed more.
In the kitchen he put coffee on to perk before stepping outside and pausing on the front stoop, studying the town and the water below. Main Street, a mere block away, contoured the shoreline of Fish Creek Harbor, which lay this morning beneath a patchy pink-tinged mist, obscuring the view of Peninsula State Park, due north across the water. At the town docks sailboats sat motionlessly, their masts piercing the fog, visible above the treetops and the roofs of the businesses along Main . He knew that street and the establishments on it as well as he knew the waters of the bay, from the stately old White Gull Inn on the west end to the sassy new Top of the Hill Shops at the east. He knew the people down there, too, hometown folks who waved when they saw his pickup go by and knew what time the mail came into the post office each day (between 11 :00 and 12:00) and how many churches the town had, and who belonged to which congregation.
These first few minutes outside were some of the best of his day, casting a weather eye at the water and the eastern sky above the woods which crowded the town, listening to a mourning dove mimic itself from a highwire nearby, inhaling the scent of the giant cedars behind the house and the aroma of fresh bread, lifting from the bakery at the bottom of the hill.
Why did Maggie Pearson call me after
They made love, quite expertly if the book s were any criteria. They were inventive and agile. They sampled three different positions. They verbalized their wishes. Eric experienced one orgasm; Nancy , two. But when it was over and the room dark, he lay studying the shadowed ceiling, cradling his head on his arms and pondering how empty the act could be when not used for its intended purpose. Nancy rolled close, threw an arm and a leg over him and tried to finesse him into cuddling. She commandeered his arm and drew it around her waist. But he had no desire to hold her as they drifted off to sleep.
In the morning Nancy rose at
5:30
and Eric at
quarter to six
, the moment the shower was free. He thought she must be the last woman in America who still used a vanity table. The house, prairie-styled, circa 1919, had never pleased Nancy . She had moved into it under duress, complaining that the kitchen was unsatisfactory, the plug-ins inadequate and the bathroom a joke. Thus the vanity table in the bedroom.
It sat against a narrow stretch of wall between two windows, accompanied by a large round makeup mirror circled by lights.
While Eric showered and dressed, Nancy went through her morning beauty rite: pots and tubes and bottles and wands; jellies and lotions, sprays and creams; hair blowers and curlers and teasers and lifters. Though he’d never been able to understand how it could take her an hour and fifteen minutes, he’d watched her often enough to know it did. The cosmetic ritual was as deeply ingrained in Nancy ’s life as dieting. She did both as a matter of rote, finding it unthinkable to appear even at her own breakfast table without looking as flawless as she would if she were flying into New York to meet the Orlane hierarchy.
While Nancy sat at the makeup mirror, Eric moved about the bedroom, listening to the weather on the radio, dressing in white jeans, white Reeboks and a sky-blue knit pullover with the company logo, a ship’s wheel, and his name stitched on the breast pocket.
Tying his sneakers, he asked, ‘Want anything from the bakery?’
She was drawing fine auburn eyelashes onto her lower lids. ‘You eat too much of that stuff.
You should have some wholegrain instead.’ ‘My only vice. Be right back.’
She watched him leave the room, proud of his continued leanness, his eye-catching good looks. He had been displeased last night, she knew, and it worried her. She wanted their relationship -just the two of them - to be enough for him, as it was for her. She’d never been able to understand why he thought he needed more.
In the kitchen he put coffee on to perk before stepping outside and pausing on the front stoop, studying the town and the water below. Main Street, a mere block away, contoured the shoreline of Fish Creek Harbor, which lay this morning beneath a patchy pink-tinged mist, obscuring the view of Peninsula State Park, due north across the water. At the town docks sailboats sat motionlessly, their masts piercing the fog, visible above the treetops and the roofs of the businesses along Main . He knew that street and the establishments on it as well as he knew the waters of the bay, from the stately old White Gull Inn on the west end to the sassy new Top of the Hill Shops at the east. He knew the people down there, too, hometown folks who waved when they saw his pickup go by and knew what time the mail came into the post office each day (between 11 :00 and 12:00) and how many churches the town had, and who belonged to which congregation.
These first few minutes outside were some of the best of his day, casting a weather eye at the water and the eastern sky above the woods which crowded the town, listening to a mourning dove mimic itself from a highwire nearby, inhaling the scent of the giant cedars behind the house and the aroma of fresh bread, lifting from the bakery at the bottom of the hill.
Why did Maggie Pearson call me after
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