Compound Fractures by Stephen White

Author:Stephen White [White, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

35

I CHECKED ON JONAS—THE LIGHT was off in his bedroom—before I returned to the guest room bed. I was glad it had been he, and not Gracie, who witnessed my tantrum.

I sat, leaning against the headboard in the dark, pondering whether a more observant husband would have noticed the day that the nondescript brown shoe box arrived in the closet.

Or would that have been a more controlling, paranoid husband?

I knew it wasn’t whatever kind of husband I had been.

I broke in my new burner by phoning Amanda. Since it was the middle of the night I assumed the call would wake her. I heard five rings before she answered.

In a sleepy voice she said, “Wrong number,” before she hung up. She hadn’t recognized my new burner number on her caller ID. How could she?

I was elated by the anonymity. I phoned again. One ring only. She answered. I said, “Amanda. It’s—”

She wasn’t listening. She spoke when I spoke. “Stop calling.” She hung up again.

I hit REDIAL. Before I even detected a ring, she said, “Alan?” She’d heard me say her name before her last hang up.

“Yes.”

“Jesus. It’s three o’clock in the morning. What’s wrong?” It was apparent that she was trying to engage with me without actually waking up. I didn’t think that would end up working out for her.

“Almost four. It’s starting to snow. I have a question. It can’t wait.”

“What?” The what didn’t reflect any curiosity about my weather update, or about my question; it reflected her incredulity that I would intrude at that hour.

I asked, “Did Raoul give you the shoes with the red soles?”

“You woke me to ask me that? Yes. He gave them to me. He has a shoe thing.”

I wanted to know all about Raoul’s shoe thing. And I didn’t. I was a coward about self-inflicted wounds. Begging for details of Raoul’s shoe thing with my wife would have been the psychological equivalent of taking a blade to my own flesh.

From Amanda’s mouth, in the context of her red-soled shoes, thing meant fetish. I so much didn’t want confirmation about the role of Lauren’s spike-heeled feet in Raoul’s fetish. But then, of course, I did. I had to. Didn’t I?

That was why I’d called. I said, “Your shoes? They are Christian Louboutin?” The French from the brown box rolled off my tongue as though I’d practiced it. I had, of course, practiced it. I had no choice. I couldn’t get the damn name out of my head.

“Yes.” Amanda was wide-awake. “I’m impressed you know women’s shoes.”

“My education is recent and reluctant. I apologize for waking you. Good night.”

“Wait,” she said. “I get it. I think I see. You found some? Lauren has a pair too. Are hers Louboutins or Kurt Geigers? They’re Louboutins, of course. Red soles?”

“Yes.” I didn’t know what the hell Kurt Geigers were.

After a pause of five seconds, Amanda purred, “He used to call the Geigers ‘his consolation prize.’ Any chance Lauren’s shoes are eights? If the toes are open—Raoul loves women’s toes—I can wear seven and a half.

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