Bill Roorbach The Remedy for Love (epub)

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.He stood there and stripped the sopping fish-scaling gloves inside out off his puckered fingers, found himself studying the underpants, elastic emerging from the band, side seam ripped, a picture of desperation.He hung the gloves near them.He could come back in a few days with a chain saw, yes, and also some provisions, even a load of clothes and bedding from the thrift shop.Maybe Patty Cardinal from the church would help him, jolly old Patty the volunteer organist and inveterate do-gooder, woman’s touch, always wearing red.“You’re a masochist,” Danielle said from upstairs, her face and naked square shoulders suddenly in view.The color was back in her cheeks.She’d tugged a big knit hat over her hair, looked at him from under the brim, one of those Rasta caps in the colors of the Jamaican flag.So maybe she was growing dreadlocks, fine.“Referring to what?” he said pleasantly.“To your masochism,” she said equally.He didn’t want to appear to be lurking, but didn’t want to appear to be hurrying, either, in case she had any further tasks she’d like done.If that were masochism and not altruism.Which was the joke he wanted to make.But did not.Because who knew what she was actually talking about.It really was time to get moving, the room and the day a notch darker, then two notches, and still the hope that Alison was coming, that Alison who’d broken their last several dates and hadn’t been home for months was on her way back to Woodchurch.Danielle said, “Keep the boots and stuff.You can’t walk out in loafers.”“I’ll bring them back, don’t worry.”“Don’t bother,” she said.“Really, don’t.”FiveHIS FOOTPRINTS AND every sign of his miniature logging operation were completely obscured.He ducked under the hemlocks to where the path started up the hill.He hadn’t noticed the outhouse right there, though he must have walked past it several times.Solid little building with a blue toilet seat bolted over the single hole, half roll of toilet paper, box of tampons empty, thick soft-cover copy of Anna Karenina, apparently much thumbed, faint stench of shit, which he was something like embarrassed to associate with the young woman.He anointed the depths of the pit with his own urine, only heightening the embarrassed feeling, an intimacy he’d just not ever thought of before in a whole life of using outhouses and wished he hadn’t thought of now.Up the very steep hill he climbed, lingering odd feelings, an afternoon of only half-appreciated charity behind him, plodded like making the last steps of a Himalayan ascent, stopping often to be sure he hadn’t left the path, which was increasingly indistinct.The wet snow lay atop the ice from earlier in the week and in the rain boots it was slippery, not only heavy.And yet he was full of the surest feeling that this was the night, the long-awaited Alison night, and that his patience had paid off, would pay off, Danielle-for-now’s need and his response amounting to a sign.Of something.Karma being one’s actions.And one’s actions bringing destiny to bear.After Alison left, that time.For example.That time she’d arrived for the monthly visit they’d negotiated as a way to test their separation over the course of a year.The second monthly visit, after a very bad first one.Yes, that second one made a good comparison.She’d arrived early with her bike on the rack at the back of her sensible car, greeted him all bright and lively, a particular vivid mood of hers that he hadn’t seen in years.“Rumble Pond!” she’d announced.Rumble Pond was a full-gear outing: saddlebags, food, sleeping bags, bike parts, tent.They pedaled side by side right out of the neighborhood and out of town and up Dairyman Hill Road four stiff miles to the log-company gate and then on gravel onward, then no gravel, mountain biking on an actual mountain, the gorgeous little lake at the end of the ride, the hot swim, the isolated campsite.And he hadn’t seen that game look on her face for years, not since the time he’d just shaved after work and she liked his smooth chin so much that she pushed him to their bedroom, fucked him hard (unheard of!), came to quick climax (unprecedented!), and bit that smooth chin (drawing blood!), just that one time, ancient history.At Rumble Pond they’d made dinner excitedly working together, not like people who were separated but like the old kitchen team they’d been in the first flush of their romance.And after they’d eaten, well, instead of cleaning it all up right away they made love, first time in at least months, and the second-best time ever, as he thought about it, and he would think about it lots.She started it—kisses of unfamiliar depth, at last an acceptance of his real kisses and not the kisses he’d developed for her overly peckish tastes.And actual giggling and the ripping of his shirt buttons, okay? And a tumble on top of un-deployed sleeping bags and then upon the tent, complete inadvertent disassembly of the poor little thing.And her skin in the moonlight, unforgettable, as if it had grown soft in his absence.They stayed up there that way three days, bike excursions east and west and north, a honeymoon like they hadn’t let themselves have in Prague (that she hadn’t let them have), stayed past their food, an extra day, giddy on the way back out with fasting and promises.Give her a month, is all she asked.They felt they’d solved the puzzle of their fractured marriage, one of those long algorithms from college math.Tonight would be like those nights!He felt a moral tug.Danielle had food.Danielle had shelter.She had firewood, now.But Danielle was alone, and with an injury, and very likely unstable.A small accident would be amplified.What if she burned herself or fell from her loft? He certainly knew of dozens of such cases, small-town law.That little girl who’d cooked to death in the back of her parents’ van parked outside the Sugarwood Grille, hot August afternoon? Or poor Kurt LaFarge, who fell on the North Church steps in the snow one Saturday night, last man out after choir, broke his neck and froze solid, ambulance and police and sheriff and medical examiner still there as the parishioners arrived the next morning.Pastor Tony paid for that one, and unfairly: gross negligence.Eric might have done more for the girl, was the point.Danielle would need more water, for example.Or did ghosts never drink?He trudged, made the road, crossed to the veterinary parking lot, climbed in his car and started it, sat a few minutes catching his breath.Really, that was a very hard climb in these conditions.His own pants legs were soaked, but the boots had kept his socks dry.The veterinarian—a crabbed old soul when it came to humans and a well-known killer of show dogs—looked out her window at him, the longest look, no expression on her face.He gave a short wave, and she disappeared behind the curtain so fast that he felt like a magician.Findings: Ms.Danielle would be alone down there for several days.A life on Doritos and ramen noodles [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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