Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [165]
David dreamed powerfully for a moment.
“Again, I’m just curious,” he said. “How would you … ?
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mobius said, smiling like an actor talking humbly about past performances. “I never know how it’ll play out. I need to learn about the mark first, her schedule, her habits. That’s where the artistry comes in, the discipline. Readiness is all. But personally I’m partial to convenient acts of God.”
The two men stared at each other.
“I’m probably not interested,” David said.
“I understand. It’s not a fine art.”
“What isn’t?”
“Finishing,” Mobius said.
David watched him polish off the rest of his pasta. Once he was done, Mobius drank the remainder of his wine in one gulp, touched the edges of his mouth with his napkin, balled it up, and threw it on his plate, where it bloomed with the remaining sauce. Then he pushed the check toward David.
“I enjoyed our talk,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.” He hopped off his briefcase, snatched it up, and turned to go.
“Wait,” David said. “Did you and I just agree to something?”
“No,” Mobius said. “We haven’t agreed to a thing.”
• • •
Later, walking home in a daze, David felt like he’d been mugged—like something so unexpected and violent had happened that the experience had passed through him before he’d had the chance to react. Though now he felt a cold shiver run through his body, an effect, he decided, not only of being so close to someone so evil but also believing in their evil—enough, that is, to throw open the doors of his marriage. And as he went over their conversation again, he was suddenly terribly and awfully ashamed, both for what he’d told Mobius and what he hadn’t said.
First he’d omitted his own affair. And it wasn’t that the affair itself was important—which wasn’t to say that it wasn’t—but rather that in response to whatever Alice was struggling with, whatever had caused her to withdraw from him, he had chosen the arms of another woman instead of relying on his own fortitude, as if he’d somehow deserved more comfort than Alice herself had been able to give, or not. Which was part of marriage, after all, part of the vows: enduring those times. And this sense of entitlement seemed to him an even greater sin than infidelity.
He’d omitted that on some deep level he wished she’d remained fat, because part of him—a small, black, and ugly little part—knew that it made her grateful for as little or as much as he found it convenient to give. And once he’d recognized this, he’d in turn always feared that she would then somehow recognize her own beauty. And so long as she didn’t, no one else could recognize it either. And so long as no one ever did, including Alice herself, then she’d never have the confidence to leave him. He’d always be the center of her world—the only person she’d think loved her and thus all she’d ever know of love. She would stay forever. And realizing this, David’s wish seemed to him akin to some horrible, voracious appetite.
Finally and most awfully he’d omitted that in dark moments he thought Alice had gained the weight because of him, because of something heavy in his character that had infected her; didn’t the experts talk about obesity as a disease? And at these times he felt the best, most generous and altruistic thing he could do for her was to leave, to end them, since in some sense he didn’t understand it was their marriage that was making her sick. But he never did. And that he could see this truth without acting on it made him hate himself and love Alice all the more for caring for him at all.
He ran down the street, breaking into a full sprint. He wanted to put as much distance between him and Mobius as he could, but also to feel his heart beat, to drive himself until he was so winded he’d have to stop. He whipped past people, pumping his arms, a whistling in his ears. He wanted to run home