Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [101]
Last night, when David came to the AA meeting, Red took him aside during the coffee break. They walked down the driveway until the house sat on the hill behind them like a lit-up stage. Roses fogged the air with moist, lemony scent.
Red crammed his hands into his pockets and, after two years off cigarettes, longed for nicotine to ease the moment. “Your references, everything I’ve seen about you, makes me want to hire you,” he said. “But a good friend of ours here in Rito says you’re not to be trusted.”
David, walking, stiffened as if alerted to danger.
“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Red asked.
“I think so.”
“Want to tell me?”
“I’m not at liberty to,” said David. “You’ll have to go by what she says.”
“She wasn’t specific, either,” said Red. “And I don’t need to know the details. She implied you took some money.”
“Twenty years ago, when she and I last had any dealings with each other, I did take some money that was offered to me.”
“Oh, so this is wreckage from the distant past?”
David paused and turned to face him. “I will say, for what it’s worth, I’ve made what amends I could. The money given to me was repaid with interest. And other amends were attempted. Although I can’t say they were taken in the spirit I’d hoped for.”
In David’s careful syntax, Red caught the unmistakable whiff of Billie’s intractability. “What, she never forgave you?” Red gave a short, knowing snort. “No? Now how did I guess?”
They stood at the foot of the lawn. Sprinklers hissed in the groves. Voices wafted down to them from the house. The bell clanged for the meeting to resume. “I need to know,” said Red, “if this could interfere with your work here.”
“Not with my work, no,” David said. “But I’m afraid it puts you in an awkward position.”
“Please. I don’t hire people based on whether or not my friends like them.”
Later that night, when Red started to relate this conversation to Libby, she interrupted him.
“I don’t care who you hire.” She grabbed hold of his waistband. “I’m sorry I stuck my two cents in. You know what you’re doing. I wash my hands of the whole business. Now, can we please get this house built and furnished? I feel a serious need to drag heavy furniture around.” She pulled him roughly toward her, pushed him up against the bed, and tugged off all his clothes.
It surprised Red how much Libby still wanted sex as her pregnancy advanced, how she’d scramble onto him, cling to him, pull him this way and that.
Red ran a finger along the bench’s rusted iron armrest. The sun now sat in his lap, and when he looked up, Libby was parked at the curb in the beige Mercedes. Twelve years old and in tip-top condition, the car had been his one-year anniversary present to her. But this obvious ploy to make her ditch the eternally faulty Falcon had caused unforeseen embarrassment. Hadn’t Yvette driven a black Mercedes? That Libby might know this, or care, had somehow eluded Red, who was therefore deeply mortified. He’d explained, awkwardly, that he respected, indeed revered, older Mercedes Benzes, to the point he’d want any wife of his to drive one. And maybe he did, on some level, want to re-create his former marriage; he’d enjoyed it, even thrived in it, although he no longer missed Yvette. Libby, high-colored and possibly amused, had allowed these stumbly confessions. Red offered to trade the car in on a Volvo or Saab or anything else she wanted. No, no, Libby said, she wasn’t a fool, it was a beautiful gift, and at least this car wasn’t black.
Red walked up to the driver’s-side door. Libby was wearing sunglasses, red lipstick, her hair in a high ponytail. He tasted salt in her kiss. “Sweetheart. What’s wrong?”
She spoke to the ground. “I’m having cramps and spotting.”
Red drove. Libby tied the black leather strap of her handbag into fat knots. “It’s that abortion I had in New Orleans,” she said.
Red knew about this; Libby had been dating Stockton only a few months at the time, and they’d agreed