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Habeas Corpus, installment 6

Posted on December 10, 2007
Filed Under Habeas corpus | 9 Comments

Strep throat in the house, no school today. And thus, no writing.
Thank God I’ve got a novel to entertain you with.
Here’s more….

It was the first of many afternoons, his waiting for me to finish the lunch shift, our walking out together, far into the woods while he talked about the great novel he had come to Grafton to finish. He spoke occasionally of a wife named Bridgette, a Rhodes scholar and academic, teaching summer school at Yale. I imagined her as my opposite, an ashen haired beauty with fashion sense and heels, someone who wore designer denim and had dismissive things to say about girls who attended state universities and wore fleece.

James never defined the rules of their marriage but I imagined they were loose and radically liberal, considering our daily coupling. He spoke of emotional freedom and the outmoded nature of monogamy and began to pursue me in ways that were increasingly urgent and lascivious. He left small un-poetic notes that were dirty and directly sexual in the books he left for me on the lunch counter. Come to the cabin, 3:30 p.m.. I’m going to fuck you all afternoon . These little dribbles of correspondence grew frequent, simply slipped between the pages of his favorite prose.

“None of my business. I know it’s not. But Chad seems like a nice boy. Someone who should make you happy,” May Bowen said one morning while she counted the money in the register.

“Chad’s great. He is,” I mumbled, eyes down, concentrating on refilling the napkin dispenser.

As the owner of The Peavine, born and raised in Grafton and married to the same man for nearly fifty of her seventy years, May considers herself a sort of authority on the subject of intimacy.

“You know that the thing between you and Writer James is becoming something of a public curiosity,” she said. “Dependability and kindness. Can’t overstate the importance of those two traits. Separates good from bad. Seems like Chad’s sweet and head over heels for you. Hate to see you overlook that fact.”

“Do we have a new case of Ketchup in the back? I’ll marry the bottles,” I said, hoping to change the subject.

“You’ve got no business marrying anything,” she’d said laughing and tossing me an apron. “Why don’t you get started on Mr. Bowen’s breakfast. He’ll be walking in the door any second.”
“Two eggs, over easy,” I ask.

“Yup, over easy. Should come natural to you,” she said, not unkindly.

Though she meant well, her words needled . I’d been meaning to cut it off but then James began to invite me to dinner at the cottage he rented out behind Harvey’s farm. He’d spread a paisley print tapestry on the living room floor and serve meals of sugar snap peas and roasted pheasant. He would load the CD player with Dvorak, Orff and Bach when all I was used to was bands called Fat Buttercat and Big Head Todd. He’d pour us goblets of Pinot Grigio he’d bought by the case in New Haven. He gave me poems he wrote for me. He made gifts of hardcover books by Melville and Fitzgerald and Austen and a leather bound journal with Indian scroll work on the cover.

One chilly night, after he removed my t-shirt and my bra and peeled me out of my shorts, he slipped a tiny, green velvet box into the waistband of my panties. He removed the panties with his teeth and slid the box up my stomach to rest in the crease between my breasts.

“Open it,” he ordered and I began to sweat a little despite the breeze that blew in through the open windows, making the candles sputter and throw our shadows in shifting shapes on the living room wall.

I was nervous, fumbling with the itty bitty box, never having received anything in such a promisingly sized package. There were diamond studs, each a half-carat. He placed them in my ears, securing the backs carefully. He tossed the turquoise tear drops I’d been wearing into the full ashtray on the coffee table and I stood there naked before him save for the first expensive jewelry of my life.

“I don’t want you to think I’m not thankful. That I don’t love them. I do. But I’m going to have to keep the turquoise. Chad gave them to me for my birthday. He’ll notice they’re missing,” I said, removing the earrings from the ashes and blowing them clean.

“That’s right, I forgot. Mountain man’s coming back for a few days. Wear the diamonds. See if he notices the replacement,” James said running his tongue along the lobe of my right ear, sucking on the faceted, shimmering emerald cut gem he’d secured there.

So I placed the turquoise tear drops in my bedside table drawer and wore the diamonds that weekend. I guess I was daring Chad to see me… really, really see me. There was no outrageous confrontation. No admission of guilt or discussions of disloyalty. He didn’t even notice the sparkle and weight of them, the cold cut of betrayal in my ears.

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