Tell Me More. Janet Mullany

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СКАЧАТЬ face. “How do you know that?”

      “I just do.” Virtually anything blocked up the downstairs toilet. It was strictly off-limits to males and menstruating women.

      “You bitch,” he said, and to my surprise he looked really upset. He flung the condom into the wastebasket in the corner of the room and flung himself and his DVDs out the front door. The effect was spoiled by his having to stomp inside the house again to get his skis. I sat on the couch, Brady kneading my legs, and listened to his car start and reverse out of the driveway and the sound die away with an awful sort of finality.

      I cried a bit, then, thinking how tired I was of crying, but that you couldn’t let three years of your life go without some grieving. Brady purred and allowed himself to be hugged with a friendly tolerance that implied an empty food dish.

      The bright fall day was fading now, but before I could go to work there was something I had to do. I went into the kitchen and armed myself. Knife, peanut butter, barbecue tongs (Hugh’s, and I might just forget to wash them afterward), rubber gloves, flashlight. Pants tucked into socks, in case anything was alive, and (aargh) panicked.

      I didn’t need a man for this. Or for anything much else in my life.

      “You sound just like the lady on the radio,” the woman in the store said. “We’ve got a new brand of organic peanut butter in. Would you like to try a sample? It’s really good.”

      I am the lady on the radio. “No, this will do fine. Thanks.”

       Sometimes, if I’m feeling sociable, I’ll admit to it, but then what usually follows is a disbelieving look, and a strange comment. I thought you were taller … older … younger … blonde. I hate your fundraising drives. Why do you play so much Tchaikovsky? Why don’t you ever play any Tchaikovsky?

      Once, inexplicably and with great indignation, I thought you were black.

      I packed my mousing supplies and my sandwich and soup and fruit for the night in my backpack and started putting on my bike gear again—gloves, the sort of knit hat favored by hunters and rapists, helmet and a scarf to fill the gap between the hat and my lightweight down jacket. Around me, at the checkout, others were doing the same, some with huge backpacks full of organic goodies.

      In this pristine Colorado college town you wouldn’t dare drive two miles to work. I cycle.

      Neither, of course, would you dare to do anything other than humanely trap rodents and release them into a gorgeous wilderness setting. Never mind that they’d have a matter of minutes to appreciate their new home before they became someone else’s dinner—it would be natural. It’s my deep, dark secret, sending mice to Nirvana on a delicious peanut-butter fantasy (and they certainly weren’t getting the organic stuff; my sentimentality only goes so far, and besides my concern was with ending, not enriching, their brief rodent lives).

      Fall was definitely in the air now, crisp and wood-smoke-scented. Any day now we’d have some snow, and then I’d cross-country ski to the radio station. Funny how I never thought that the difference between Hugh and me could be so clearly defined by our choice of winter activities. He favored the mechanical assistance uphill and the short flashy burst of excitement of the downhill run, over in mere minutes. I enjoyed the diddling around with wax (oh, okay, I admit it—I have actually attended wax workshops … I am a certified cross-country geek). You can indulge in a slow, lazy plod uphill, savoring Mother Nature, or depending on your mood, bound athletically up—either way, you have the long, delicious glide down.

      Not that it had anything to do with our sex life, which was pretty good, or more than good most of the time. Quite often I’d prefer the short flashy sessions on the kitchen counter or in the shower or … I wriggled around on my bike seat, wondering if it really was possible to have an orgasm by going over bumpy parts of the bike path, and whether it would be safe to do so. I could imagine myself hearing the local news, to my shame, from a hospital bed.

       A massive, multibike pileup on the Douglas Pine Bike Trail resulted in several injuries today. The alleged perpetrator, Jo Hutchinson, a local radio personality who is neither blonde nor tall, showed signs of recent sexual arousal at the hospital. A spokesperson for the police department commented, “This sort of irresponsible behavior is something we take very seriously….”

      I unlocked the back door of the radio station and wheeled my bike inside. Other bikes were still there; I was early tonight. The news was on and I listened to it briefly as I peeled off my bike gear. I had an hour before going on air, and later, in the wee hours of the morning, I planned to indulge in another of my deep dark secrets, one that did not involve the untimely demise of mice.

      In my own way, I had been as unfaithful as Hugh, and with someone whose name I didn’t even know.

      2

      AT PRECISELY SIX MINUTES AFTER MIDNIGHT MY time was my own, with the last of the news headlines delivered from faraway Washington, D.C. I chatted briefly on air about the weather, a chilly night but with another perfect fall day in store for tomorrow, and the likelihood of the aspens peaking. I brought music swelling into the studio, and checked the dance of the monitor. All was well.

      As I switched the mic off the phone rang.

       He’s early.

      I turned down the studio speaker and removed the headphones. My heart pounded as I answered the phone.

      “Jo, honey, what are you doing Friday night?”

      “Kimberly!” Despite my initial disappointment I was glad to hear from my best friend, a displaced Texas blonde who ran the station fundraising; a workaholic with a busy social life, she was often awake at odd hours—my hours.

      “I have someone for you to meet. A man.” May-un, her voice dipped suggestively.

      “Oh, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to meet any men.”

      “You should for the sake of the environment. All those electrical devices buzz buzz buzzin’ away in your bedroom. You’re your own little brown cloud.”

      The studio door opened. Jason, the assistant station engineer, stood there, buckling his bike helmet under his chin.

      “Hold on, Kim.” I turned to him and smiled, for the sake of seeing him look adorably shy and give me a dazzling smile in return. “Hey, Jason. What’s up?”

      “Hey, Jo. I just wanted to tell you I’m going home, so you’re on your own.”

      “Thanks. Good night.”

      He closed the door.

      “Ah, the delectable Jason,” Kimberly purred. “You and him alone in that big ole radio station. Why, if it was me I’d eat him up.”

      “You’d terrify him.” The thought had crossed my mind, too. Lovely, lean Jason, all of twenty-one (young but legal!), with the obligatory ponytail, faded jeans, hiking boots, single earring, stubble—oh, my God, he was a walking cliché—shy and sweet and good enough to eat, as Kimberly so often pointed out.

      “You don’t think he’s gay, do you?” Kimberly asked, as though preparing to revise her list of potential bedmates.

      “No, but I wonder about hidden piercings.”

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