Long Island Noir by Kaylie Jones

Author:Kaylie Jones
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook, Suspense, book
ISBN: 9781617750625
Publisher: akashic books
Published: 2012-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

Now, when I think of him, I remember not our lovemaking, but the dramas we staged for one another. And as I relive them, they transform from the once playful taunts I’d believed them to be, into war exercises, our weapons dishonesty and disrespect. I longed to turn into the selfish man-killer I’d imagined myself to be when we met.

The kind of person who could do things like phone the house to talk to his wife, or appear in his driveway.

But I kept thinking about the kid. About what her issues would be when she grew up. I didn’t want to be a part of what she went into therapy twenty years later to get over.

I really couldn’t understand how Michael could be happy with this arrangement, as a father or as a man. So eventually it seemed that the only helpful thing I might do would be to exit.

Later that winter, my health improved. I did not have a hysterectomy. Simply getting rid of Michael was enough.

One morning, long after the affair was over, I ran into a mutual acquaintance in the parking lot of a local eatery. It had been awhile and Paul seemed eager to talk. He and Michael were working together again and Paul’s need to gossip was overwhelming.

“You know,” he said, “his wife committed suicide recently. And throughout the entire ordeal, he’s such a horn-dog you know, he chased and fucked anyone he could get his hands on. I mean, do you know Marcie? Well, he was all over her the week after his wife was buried …”

“What did you say?”

“He was all over Marcie …”

“No, before that. About his wife.”

“She committed suicide.” He looked at me blankly. “You mean you didn’t know?”

“No.”

“Took pills and put a plastic bag over her head.”

I inhaled.

“What a blessing that you were well out of it by then,” he said.

“You don’t need to tell me any more.”

But he continued: “He had moved out. Then their daughter moved out to join him. They were in couple’s therapy together, and the last time she just didn’t show up.”

I needed to get away from him. He was talking and licking his lips, his big brown eyes bulging out of his head with each detail.

Sweat broke out on my upper lip. Goddamn it. The bead started rolling into my mouth. I caught it with my tongue.

I didn’t want to know how ugly it had been, and yet I did. Paul couldn’t stop talking about all the women. How many? No, don’t tell me. I knew that no woman really meant anything to him. We were pitchers of martinis; we numbed him to his existence. As soon as he was done drinking one pitcher, he simply tossed us in the trash and went on to the next. We all wanted him precisely because no one really mattered. Stupidly, I believed that I had been the one who would make the difference. It was that old cliché; if only he would open his heart, my remarkable love would redeem him, enabling him, so to speak, to transcend the crap of his life.

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