A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [118]
“I had to,” she said, lying back, trying to wake herself. “I have to be up to see to the breakfasts.”
Nora turned her head on the pillow to look at Harrison. She touched his face, as if she did not believe he was in her bed. “This is extraordinary,” she said.
Harrison hitched himself closer to her, but she put a hand on his chest. “I really do have to get up,” she said.
“Do we need to talk?”
“We will,” she said. “Later.”
Nora stood and put on her robe. She had to shower and dress. Harrison watched as she raised the shades. He covered his eyes with his arm. The sun’s reflection from the snow was harsh.
In his room, Harrison paced. He still had on the clothes he’d worn to the wedding. His suit jacket and tie were tossed upon his bed, still made, not slept in. His face felt grainy, and he knew he should shower.
He thought that for the good of his family he ought to leave the inn as soon as possible. He would arrive in Hartford early for his flight, but better to be at the airport than to remain here. He was too agitated, however, to perform the simple task of packing. He walked from the bathroom to the far wall and back again.
He had not even held Nora this morning. He had not kissed her good-bye. Would they leave each other this way?
He sat on the bed and stared out the window. He could hear water dripping from the roof. He needed a cup of coffee to clarify his thoughts, and he remembered the machine in the library. Would it be primed and ready to go at such an early hour? What time was it, anyway? He checked his watch. Nearly seven. Early for a Sunday morning. Might coffee be set out in the dining room?
Harrison, unwashed, left his room and walked downstairs in search of the library. As he did, he could hear the sounds of an inn waking itself up. Voices from a distant room. Footsteps on a wooden floor. The swish and thunk of a large door closing. A man in the lobby had a newspaper spread out on a low table, cup of coffee in hand. Harrison thought of asking him where he’d gotten it. Judy, Nora’s assistant, walked into the hallway carrying a stacked set of linens.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning,” Harrison said.
She had her blond hair pulled tight against her scalp, and once again she had lipstick on her prominent eyetooth. Harrison wondered why no one had ever pointed it out to her.
“You’re up early,” she said.
. . . the asymmetrical smile . . .
“Yes,” he said.
“You found Nora?”
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“Last night,” she said, “you were looking for Nora.”
“No,” he lied, his mind racing. “I didn’t find her. I wanted to thank her, but she’d gone to bed.”
“Well, she’ll be up soon enough,” Judy said. “Shall I tell her you’re looking for her?”
“No, that’s all right,” Harrison said. “No. I’ll be around for a bit. I’m bound to run into her. I’m looking for a cup of coffee actually.”
“In the library,” Judy said. “I just fixed it up.”
“Thanks,” Harrison said.
He headed in the direction of the library, but then he stopped. He took a turn at the stairway.
It couldn’t be, he thought.
He had his key out—that hefty gold key—before he’d even reached his room. Once inside, he tossed the key on the bed and searched for the book he’d bought yesterday. He lifted a sweater from the desk and found the slim volume. He sat on the bed and turned immediately to the poem he’d been reading in the town library, the one that had so intrigued him, tortured him, for its sexual images. “Under the Canted Roof.”
The woman in the poem was blond and had bad teeth. Yesterday, the word “tongue” had caught his eye. He found the line again: . . . caressing your tooth with my tongue . . .
A small confirming jolt straightened Harrison’s spine.
He read the lines again, certain as he did so that Carl Laski was writing about the woman who had served Harrison the salad with the fly, the woman who had just passed him in the lobby.
. . . the asymmetrical smile . . .
Harrison could hardly imagine the cruelty on Laski’s part to have written this poem, then to have made Nora type it. Finally to have published