The Outer Cape by Patrick Dacey

Author:Patrick Dacey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

NINETEEN

Irene smokes a cigarette by the window, waiting for Phil Donovan to finish whatever it is he has to do in the bathroom right after sex. Probably whacking off, she thinks. He can’t come. He says it’s his medication. Irene, at first, believed it had something to do with her body—her sagging breasts, wrinkled stomach, and the blue veins now visible along her legs. But after a month of seeing each other, she doesn’t know if that’s the case, nor does she really care. Each time they make love now she imagines Phil is a handsome actor from a specific film—Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces, Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides, Robert Redford in Out of Africa. Their faces and bodies never age from film to memory. She has her orgasm and listens to Phil struggle until he’s out of breath, and then she dresses and waits for him to leave.

She gets up and makes coffee. The boys will be home from the swim class in an hour. She had signed them up at the Y, where she was able to get an inexpensive membership based on her low income. Like all the men (boys, Neanderthals, troglodytes), even Nathan and Andrew have begun to slip from her understanding. They are sweet to her, but in the kind of way a distant relative is at a wake; she feels they know she has suffered a loss, but they cannot internalize that suffering. After work, she usually goes to Kerrigans on the water and has a beer before driving home to cook dinner. She is lonely. Phil is heavyset, with a bristly mustache that leaves her neck and cheeks red.

She pours the coffee, looks at it, then dumps it out in the sink and takes a beer from the refrigerator. Phil lumbers down the steps and grabs his boots and sits, lacing them up with such careful precision that Irene wonders why the same dexterous, knowing hands are incapable of maneuvering around her body.

“Okeydokey,” Phil says, and stands. Irene cringes. Is there a man in this world who doesn’t revert to childish sayings after sex?

“Is the coast clear?” he says, creepily, as though their act is secret instead of pathetic.

“Yes. The boys won’t be back for another hour. You can go now.”

Phil kisses her on the cheek. She flinches, not expecting that kind of affection.

“Maybe next time we can do it facing each other,” Phil says, and leaves.

* * *

Irene hasn’t taken a day off since she started working for the town. The long days of working what feels like two jobs, or three, if you count Phil, has finally hit her. She needs a break. She’d been running like this to take her mind off of Robert, but Robert is in the wind, and a trip will do her good. Tickets to Miami are cheap in August, and she doesn’t mind the heat. If anything, she’ll sweat off a few pounds. She calls Francine and asks if she’ll be able to watch the boys for a long weekend.

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