Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III

Author:Andre Dubus III
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2013-10-06T18:30:00+00:00

JACKIE WAS SITTING on the porch step of her cabin when Robert drove over the shell lot and parked alongside the marsh. She was smoking a lighted cigarette this time, and she still wore the baggy Patriots T-shirt she’d slept in—that, and a pair of shorts, Robert noticed, her hair pulled back. She was barefoot, and when Robert turned off the engine she sat up straight, blew smoke, and waited; she was a beautiful woman, her thick red ponytail hanging straight down her back, her thighs and calves hard- and supple-looking, covered with tanned freckles. Robert’s cheeks became warm, his throat dry, and he took a long drink off his Coke before he got out of the Subaru and walked over to her.

She was looking up at him, her eyes empty of mischief. Instead, Robert saw fear in them, and something he could not begin to name. But he must have been smiling because Jackie said, “Everything’s okay? The baby? Everything?”

“A girl. We have a little girl.” He was conscious of the word we, the exclusion of her in that, and, as if to make up for it, he sat on the step next to her, their hips touching.

“You’re smoking.”

Jackie nodded, took a final drag off the cigarette, and flicked it out into the broken shells of the lot. “How’d she find out?” She was looking at him, her eyes full of sorrow, as if she had been betrayed, and he knew then Jackie would never have told anyone.

He shrugged. “She saw me come out of your place. I snuck in to see you, but you were asleep, so I let myself back out again.”

The screen door opened behind them and Kimberly said excuse me and didn’t wait for Robert to finish scooting over before she stepped between them and off the porch. She was dressed for work, the early lunch crowd, her white blouse and black skirt freshly ironed, her bare legs lean, disciplined, and moral. She walked straight to the Whaler’s service door and didn’t turn around once.

“She hasn’t talked to me all morning.” Jackie looked halfway over at Robert, her eyes fixing on his shirt, his bloody shirt. “I feel really bad.” Her voice broke and Robert put his arm around her. She seemed to be crying, her shoulders bobbing slightly, though he couldn’t be sure because he didn’t hear anything. He could smell her hair, the natural oil in it, the linen of her pillowcase. He began to get hard, and he pulled away.

“I should get my vest.”

She looked at him, her green eyes shiny and dull. She blinked twice, as if she were trying to focus on what he’d really just said. She sniffled, wiped under each eye with one finger, then stood and led him inside. His vest lay on a towel on her bunk, the top sheet balled in a heap at the foot of the bed.

“I rinsed it in cold water.”

“Thank you.”

“Why weren’t you wearing it?”

Robert picked up the vest, damp and dark.

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