Sunburn

Adam is in a job with no future or money, in love with a woman he can’t trust. At a critical moment, he lied to protect her. But maybe she didn’t need his protection. The fire was ruled an accident, as was Cath’s death. Polly has done nothing in recent weeks to suggest she’s not worthy of his trust.

Although there was the day she borrowed his truck and put two hundred miles on it when it should have been more like a hundred. She later said that she went to Dover to get a Delaware driver’s license. Turns out whoever told her that she could use her birth certificate was wrong, because she needed proof of residence, too.

Six nights ago, she borrowed his truck again. A Tuesday, they both had the evening off, and she suddenly announced she was going to go shopping at the outlet malls on Route 50, almost an hour away. She came home empty-handed.

“Nothing looked right,” she said. “I hate this year’s styles.”

Then, this morning, she went to Winterthur, some old estate near Wilmington. She showed him the flyer over the weekend, saying, “The bus leaves from the mall at Dover at nine sharp, comes back at six.”

“Doesn’t a trip like that make more sense in the summer, when the gardens are in full bloom?”

“I want to see the paintings,” she said. “I like art.”

News to him.

But this morning he drove her to the parking lot at the mall, near the entrance to the Bon Ton, and watched her get on the bus. He thought about staying until the bus headed out, but how paranoid can a guy be? She was sitting in a window seat near the front, wearing a yellow dress with a jacket, a thrift store find. She’s right, old clothes, pieces from the 1950s, suit her better than new ones. She looked excited but was trying to rein it in, act cool. Excited to go to some old house.

Now, back in the kitchen at the High-Ho, he reminds himself that the smallest things are new to her. You could argue she’s been a prisoner since she was seventeen, half her life. Married to an abusive fuck. Jail. Rebounding into another unhappy marriage, probably because she was broke. No wonder she seems content in Belleville. Getting up, going to a job she doesn’t mind. Pulling drafts for Max and Ernest. Serving his food, which she never ceases to praise.

He remembers the grilled cheese he made for her, back when he was wooing her. Was he wooing her then or just trying to do his job? He can no longer remember how the job faded away, when he first started loving her. Maybe he should add that sandwich to the menu. Not with tomatoes, they’re out of season, but bacon and cheese never go out of style. He needs better bread—whole grain, high quality. Better bread means a better baker. Not on-site, but as a supplier. The one place in town—it can produce the quantities he needs, but it’s mediocre. Fine for desserts and cakes, but its breads and rolls are clearly an afterthought. What this restaurant really needs is biscuits, good ones, served piping hot. Everybody loves biscuits, and, although no baker, Adam can make those with ease.

Except—he doesn’t want to be here, on a highway in Delaware, thinking about biscuits. He feels his world shrinking, rescaling itself to fit this town, this life. Just because she’s happy here doesn’t mean she couldn’t be happier still in a larger, grander life. He wants to take her to Botswana, show her a leopard lolling in a tree. Feed her real mole in Puebla, or fish tacos at a place he knows in Santa Barbara.

They’re making love with less frequency. She’s started to stay up late, reading, not coming to bed, waiting him out. And he’s too proud to ask. If she doesn’t want to be with him, okay then. But she was so cute this morning, in her yellow dress, sitting on the bus, another lady going to Winterthur. He glances at the clock. He has to drive back up to Dover to pick her up at six.

*

When he pulls into the parking lot, he’s fifteen minutes ahead of the bus’s scheduled arrival. To his amazement, she’s there, sitting on a bench outside the mall.

“I told you five,” she says, a little peeved, a tone she almost never takes with him. “I’ve been sitting here for an hour.”

“No,” he says, “I’m sure it was six. Winterthur is at least an hour away.”

“No harm, no foul. I was just worried about you. That feeling, when someone isn’t where you expect them to be—anyway, it’s a pretty night. And I loved Winterthur. I met the nicest lady on the bus, who lives up here. She asked me if I wanted to be in her book club. I told her I didn’t have a car. But maybe I should get one, used. We’ll see.”

Just like that, the fight over his lateness is forgotten. Polly doesn’t go in for sulks. He made a mistake—although he’s absolutely sure she said to pick her up at six—and she let it go, right away. She doesn’t pout, or try the silent treatment. Of course, it would be hard to notice if Polly gave you the silent treatment. She’s not one to chatter. In the early days, he found that restful, but now it unnerves him. There was an Elvis Costello song a few years back, about his grandmother who had Alzheimer’s. What goes on in that something, something head of yours—Adam can remember the meter, but not the words—what goes on, something, something in the dark? Butter literally might not melt in Polly’s mouth. She’s that cool, that quick thinking.

That cool, that quick thinking.

Tonight, she’s unusually lively. Funny, he never noticed her longing for female company or museum trips, but the Winterthur visit seems to have jazzed her up. She doesn’t want to be with a book tonight, that’s for sure. And she laughs while they’re making love—not in a mean way, simply flushed and happy. After, she starts to talk again about opening a bed-and-breakfast, maybe in one of the old Victorian houses near downtown. He flashes on her in the window of the bus, how she looked like a kid on the first day of school, tight with nerves, trying to conceal them. It is touching how little she wants.