Crash Diet by Jill McCorkle Read Free Book Online Page B

lecturing on hotel management, Options During the Slow Season, a two-week course offered at the community college an hour south on 301.
    The thought of him there, a tired knowing look on his face, had made her homesick for when they had just started, homesick for all those days they had walked out to the road to hang the NO VACANCY sign or even before, those late afternoons in the camper, his how-to books thrown on one bed while the two of them curled up on the other. She had liked the way his shirts looked hanging over the other bed, his guitar up where the pillow should be. We’ll show them , they had said too many times to count; that’s thekind of promise she missed and needed. She had wanted to stretch out on the bed in Blue Moon, only Mrs. Andler had beaten her to it, and already she could hear the opening music to “Falcon Crest” coming through the Venetian- glass door; Mrs. Andler had probably fallen asleep as she did every night, the sounds of the stories keeping her from having thoughts that would keep her awake.
    So Ruthie tiptoed past Blue Moon and then ran past all the other dark doors until she got to the end, the familiar key on the ring already pressed in her palm, an involuntary act. It slipped into the lock and she crept in, soothed by the darkness for that half of a second before she heard a splash. She froze, first expecting a thief, a stranger. “Barbara,” he said, and she could not move, her legs paralyzed. It was after a series of sounds, slips and slides and groans, that her voice came back to her, only it didn’t sound like her voice at all. “Jim!” she screamed. “Jim, is that you?” And then within minutes, he stumbled out in front of her, a towel around his waist, and there in the dark bathroom before the door slammed shut, she saw the profile of a woman sitting straight up, arms crossed, hands covering her breasts.
    Jim looked as handsome at that moment as he had ever looked, and it made her sick that she even thought it. He kept opening his mouth as if he had something to say (It’s not what you think. I have no idea how this happened.) but realized that there was nothing he could say, absolutelynothing, at least at that moment, and before he had time to think of something, she turned and ran, leaving the door to number fifteen standing open.
    Her mother would have known with one glance that something had happened, and she was not up to facing her. She searched her pockets for the car keys but they were on top of her dresser, dropped as they were every night into the pink silk box that she had received when Frieda was born. At a loss, she went into the office and turned her stool towards the wall where hung the last of the auto calendars, a turquoise Chevette front and center. Below it in bold letters, MAY DAY .
    Jim came in and stood behind her for a long time without saying a word. She could see in the reflection of the plastic-coated bulletin board that he kept reaching a hand out and then drawing it back. The reflection of his hand kept reaching right into a notice about AKC poodles, and then into one about a Jane Fonda aerobics course that took place each weeknight in the Petrie Junior High School Cafeteria. Jim said it had never happened before, a first, and though she didn’t believe that, though she sensed habit and pattern in the whole fiasco, she said so what if it was the first, did that make it right?
    When it was finally late enough that she knew her mother was asleep in the guest room, she went up to the house, Jim right behind her. She kept looking around for Barbara , kept wanting to ask how and when he met Barbara , but the night was silent. He brushed his teeth and got in their bed as if they would sleep on it, talk it over in the morning over a strong pot of coffee and frozen waffles. She stayed up the entire night, checking on Rodney and Frieda every thirty minutes, needing to put her hand out and feel their warm breath. She could not shake the picture of the