Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [130]
Back at the hotel that evening, he expected Susan to be excited by the news of a trip down the coast, but instead she lit into him.
“Why would I want to go to a stranger’s wedding?” she snapped.
Sheppard, stunned, explained the young man was merely an acquaintance. In fact, he’d know next to no one at the reception. It was more an excuse to leave town.
“Why do we need an excuse?” she said. “Couldn’t you just think of something yourself?” She pulled the jigger off the bar shaker to pour him a drink, splashing the countertop when his glass overflowed. “It’s like staying at the Millers’ all over again,” she said. And when he told her he didn’t understand, she flung his glass against the wall. “Just go yourself if you’re so anxious to leave!” Then she collapsed sobbing on the bed.
Sheppard, watching her back shake, wasn’t sure whether to flee or stay. When he pressed her shoulder, she yanked it from his grasp.
“Don’t touch me!” she said, and sobbed harder.
“All right,” he said, but just stood there. When she continued to cry, he picked up his jacket from the chair and put it on.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“To get some dinner.”
“You’re just going to leave me here?”
“If you can’t tell me what’s bothering you, yes.”
She sat up and turned toward him. Her mascara, streaked down her cheeks, gave her a wild look. “Don’t you understand?” she said. “It’s a wedding. And I have nothing to wear.”
The concierge gave him a list of stores that stayed open late. Ransohoff’s, he said, was closest. Sheppard, fuming from the fight, felt withdrawn and shaken. He’d never seen this side of her until coming out here. It was desperate, something impulsive and furious. Was this who she really was? Feeling a sudden need to be back in Cleveland, he thought longingly of the lake, of routine, of home. If he left now, there’d be no harm to him. He could escape unscathed.
Yet she took his arm when they entered the store and held his hand with the other. “You can be mad at me,” she said. “I know I’m being ridiculous.” After he sighed, she whispered in his ear. “Say it.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he said.
She stopped him and folded her wrists behind his neck. “It’s just that I want you to take care of me,” she said.
“Is that right?”
“Don’t you want to?”
“I do.”
“There now,” she said, “it’s settled”—which magically it seemed to be.
A saleswoman led them to the dressing room, and as the models came out of the changing rooms and paraded before the couch where he and Susan sat, their shoes silenced by the carpeting, the large gray room so quiet they could hear the fabric of the dresses swishing, the light of the two chandeliers reflecting off the mirrors surrounding them so brightly that it was impossible not to appreciate the quality of the clothes. Seeing Susan’s thrill at each new dress, he found himself wondering with a kind of scientific curiosity why it had never occurred to him to do this with Marilyn. Why the countless dreams of wooing others, of walking hand in hand with them (or Susan) through exotic cities? Why this sudden generosity? The lovely dinner later. The expensive hotel. His doctor’s spending power fully flexed, with not the slightest sense of hesitation in his cheap guts when the saleswoman quoted the prices, yet all the while the scrimping with his wife at every turn.
Susan’s favorite was a black dress with a bateau neck that showed off her collarbone and thin shoulders. When she tried it on and came striding into the room—multiplied, as it were, for the mirrors reflecting