Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [36]
Love.
He was buzzed now—drunk, to be honest—but believed with total conviction that if he were to walk into Hannah’s room with enough positive energy and encouragement and say, “Hannah, come on, up up up! I’ve got champagne and cheese and crackers. Let’s have ourselves a snack, then you can get yourself ready and we’ll go out!” she’d just climb out of bed. She would respond to his enthusiasm like someone suffering aphasia, not to what he said but to his happy face. She’d be out of bed before she knew it. The key here was the element of surprise. He’d barrel her over with excitement. So sure was Hastroll of this plan that he stopped at the liquor store and then the market and splurged on a bottle of Dom and a round of brie (Hannah’s favorite) and a box of Carr’s crackers. He would, in the words of some of the hoods he arrested, do things up right.
All the lights were off when he got home.
This threw him, to be sure, but he strode undaunted through the living room, where the blinds were drawn, Helen Kellered himself around the furniture, then came to and opened the bedroom door. Inside, he could make out his wife’s form divided into stripes of glare through the venetian blinds, sitting in bed with her arms crossed.
“Hannah, come on,” he said, “up up up!” and when he snapped the light switch, nothing happened. The bulb was dead.
“It doesn’t work,” she said.
It was like she’d punched him in the stomach.
“The TV’s dead too.” She pressed the remote quick, three times, in demonstration. “I thought the power might be out, but I can hear our neighbor’s TV upstairs.”
The paper bag in his hand felt like it weighed two hundred pounds. He put it down.
“I even changed the remote’s batteries.” She opened the bedside-table drawer, which she always kept full of Duracells. “I guess I watched it too much.”
Hastroll slumped onto his bed.
“I watched so much TV I killed it,” she said sadly.
He heaved an enormous sigh.
“What’s in the bag?” she said.
“Champagne,” he said. “Brie.” He had to look inside to remind himself. “Crackers.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Want some?”
She peered into the darkness, then sat back again. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I thought … ” he said. But then he scratched his head, which felt so heavy he let his chin drop to his chest. “I thought,” he said to his legs, “if I came in here with some champagne and appetizers and enthusiasm that you might get up and go out with me.”
“Out?” she said and laughed. “Out as in where?”
“Out,” he said, “as in the world. But just the living room would be fine.”
“Oh,” she said as he watched her ghostly form smooth the sheets. “No thanks.”
“Why?” he said, and looked up.
She shrugged her shoulders, held them there, then let them fall.
“That’s not good enough,” he said.
She did it again like a child.
Hastroll stood up and put his hands on his knees so they were eye to eye. “That’s not good enough.”
She grimaced in pantomime. “Sorry,” she said.
He saw his fist hit her square in the mouth but restrained himself. “That’s not good enough!”
She stopped looking at him and mutely stared out the window with her arms crossed.
“Did you hear me?”
She didn’t move.
“Is that how it’s going to be now? You’re not going to talk to me either?”
She didn’t speak.
“You … fucking … bitch!” he said.
He grabbed the grocery bag and walked out of the room and slammed the door so hard it seemed the whole apartment rattled. “Fucking bitch!” he called. “You hear me? Fucking bedridden, childish bitch!” He turned on all the lights and pulled up the shades. “Bitch in the dark!” He went to the kitchen and took down their two Waterford champagne glasses, the pair her parents had given them as a wedding present, took the flute he imagined was Hannah’s and pitched it with all his might to the floor, where it disintegrated on impact. “Broken-glass, bedsore-ass bitch!” He popped the Dom, drank the overflow, poured himself a glass, and downed it. Poured another,