Continental Drift by Russell Banks Read Free Book Online Page B

know.” She extends her hand, and he leans forward in the chair, takes her hand in his and rises. Together, they switch off the lights and slowly walk up the stairs to bed.
4
    Before Bob and Elaine Dubois sleep on this snowy night in December, they have one more conversation that is of significance to them both.
    They are lying on their backs side by side in darkness, he in his underwear, she in her flannel nightgown. She has wrapped her curlers in a nylon net. When, in a familiar form of invitation, he lays one leg over hers at the thigh, she quickly slides her hip against his.
    Bob speaks first. “You know something? Ever since we were kids, I was the big silent one and Eddie was the little guy who did all the talking. But actually, I was a lot smarter than Eddie. In school, I mean. I was even smarter than Ave Boone, but he just never tried, he didn’t give a shit then, just like now. But I
got
things faster than Eddie did. He was always just this side of flunking, and I did okay in school. And he knew I was smarter than he was, so he was kind of jealous of me and got a real kick whenever he could make me look stupid, which was easy for him when we were kids, because he was almost two years older than me, even though he was only a grade ahead of me in school. But I was jealous of him, too, because he could talk so good, and all I could do was stand there like a big dummy.
    “The only time we were even, when we were really equals, was when we both skated for Bishop Grenier those three years before he graduated. He was a forward, and I was a defenseman, and we were the best combination in the state for three years running. The Dubois brothers. Remember? The Granite Skates, they called us in the Boston papers. That was the year I was a junior and we won the New EnglandChampionship down in the old Boston Arena. If it was today instead of 1966, we’d both have gone to college on scholarship. UNH, probably. But hockey wasn’t such a big college sport in those days. Anyhow, we were a team then, me and Eddie. And we were real close then. You know? Real close.”
    “You want to move to Florida, don’t you?”
    He sighs heavily and says nothing for several seconds. “I didn’t before.”
    “But you do now.”
    “Naw, I just don’t want to buy Ruthie’s skates,” he says. “If we move to Florida, I won’t hafta buy her any skates for Christmas.”
    “Be serious. You do want to move to Florida, don’t you?”
    “Well … yes, I do.”
    “Right away? Right after Christmas?”
    “No. No, there’s something I want to do first.” He slides his leg down her thighs to her knees, then back again.
    “There is? What?”
    “You know what I want to do first. And I’m not moving to Florida till I do it.”
    “Now?”
    “Is it okay? You wanta check the calendar?”
    “It’s okay.”
    Bob turns, places one hand between her legs and kisses his wife on the mouth, gently, gently, then more intensely, and when she starts to move beneath his hand, he kisses her fiercely, until he can feel himself huge and stiff, and then he finds himself fucking her with marvelous, thrilling force, while she turns and writhes under him, pushes her pelvis back at him more and more rapidly, in their old, familiar, utterly natural rhythm, the rhythm it took them years to discover, a rhythm they’ll never lose, they know, because it belongs to them alone, Bob and Elaine, his body and hers, in the one clear linkage either body can make to the other. They push smoothly on, one against the other, until first she sighs, and then seconds later he feels himself spread warmly out from the center of his body, and they stop.
    For a few moments, they lie face to face in silence together, she on her back with her nightgown around her waist and her legs snaked around his waist, he with his weight resting on his elbows, and she says in a tiny voice, “Don’t ever do it with anyone else.”
    “I won’t.”
    “I don’t think I could bear the idea. I