Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [82]
Then Sam’s black form reappeared at the door.
“How could you be so inconsiderate?” she said.
But it was Dick Eberling, the house and window cleaner. He had her husband’s height and build, balding in nearly the same way. He looked uncannily like him, in fact. He stood at the door sheepishly—Marilyn heard it rap closed—with his head cast down.
Sam’s car pulled out of the driveway.
“Oh,” she said. “No.” She put a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry, Dick. I thought you were Sam.”
Eberling, clearly relieved, looked up at her and smiled. “I’m sorry Mrs. Sheppard, I should’ve knocked.”
Hoversten’s voice snapped her out of memory.
“Is there coffee?” he now asked through the wall.
Marilyn hurried to dress—she’d be damned if she’d let him see her in her nightclothes—and went downstairs.
Of course it was on a morning like this two years ago, Sam off to the hospital and Chip still asleep, that she and Hoversten had had their “disagreement.” A good ten years older than her husband, he’d gone to medical school with Sam in California, their enduring camaraderie maddening to her not only because Lester was an obvious screwup, a philandering alcoholic who made passes at nurses so blatantly they refused to be in a room alone with him, but also a man who’d regularly invited Sam out on double dates whenever Marilyn was away.
That morning, she was doing dishes when Hoversten slid up behind her and pressed his nakedness against her gown, the ends of his open robe seeming to wrap around her legs like tentacles. “Need some help?” he whispered.
For a moment Marilyn was so shocked she froze.
Hoversten, taking this hesitation for consent, pressed himself into her harder, cupping her elbows in his hands and sliding them down to her wrists. He put his lips on her neck. “Come on, Marilyn,” he said. “I saw how you looked at me last night.”
She turned and slapped the soaped sponge against his chest.
“Hey,” he laughed, staggering back and looking down at the bubble-wound. His erect cock listed right, like an inchworm reaching for a leaf. “Don’t be so mean.”
“Of course I looked at you,” she said. “We were talking.”
“No, no,” he said, and stepped closer. “I caught you staring.”
He had caught her. At dinner the night before, she’d stared while he spoke to her husband, at the bald head splotched with eczema, at the gathering teardrop of fat beneath his chin, at the small teeth that reminded her of a child’s, wondering if there was a single thing a woman could find attractive about him, amazed that he could sit across from her so comfortably after having flagrantly disrespected her, expecting her to write off all the other girls he and Sam had double-dated in California as bygones, trifles who didn’t mean anything. Then his eyes had darted toward hers, pinning her, and he smiled at her smugly. She cursed in her mind, looked down at her plate. And now here he was, hot with his own misunderstanding.
“Lester,” she said. “Thank you for showing me your thing.” She put her hand on her side, dismissing his penis with the sponge. “Now, why don’t you go play with it in private.”
He snorted, shook his head. “You’re a tease. You know that, Marilyn?
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
He tied his robe closed, then turned and stomped off. But he’d kept a respectful distance ever since.
Back down in the kitchen, Marilyn put on coffee and felt the craving, as the aroma hit her, for a cigarette, considered washing Sam’s breakfast plate and skillet—he’d made himself bacon and eggs, leaving her the mess—only to change her mind and decide to go down to the boathouse. She could get the place picked up, she figured, arrange all the life jackets and towlines and skis, and steer clear for a while from the pack she’d hidden in Sam’s study. By then Chip would be awake, so she could take him to breakfast and be out of the house and off to the grocery store without having