Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [112]
“I know.”
“You might leave him a note. If not a thank-you note, at least a suggestion of what you want done.”
“I have the feeling that if I ask Lewis for anything, or appear grateful, or reveal one tiny spot of need or vulnerability, that’s where he’ll get me. He can do stuff at the house all he wants. But if I start expecting it, that just gives him another chance to disappoint me.”
“Can you expect the worst,” Red said, “and still be disappointed?”
Libby thought about this. “You’re right. I do expect him to fuck up. I’d be more surprised if he followed through.”
“So maybe, if you wrote him a little list of things to do on Sundays, you wouldn’t be giving him an opportunity to let you down, but a chance to grow up and prove he can actually keep a promise.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Libby. “But why do I owe him anything at all?”
“You don’t. That’s the beauty of it.”
Libby thought, and not for the first time, It’s hard being married to a saint. “But honey,” she said, “I like being angry. I like being implacable. I like being stern and unmoving and unforgiving toward Lewis. Don’t you understand? I’m having some fun.”
LUCKILY, Libby noticed the new flat tire before Red went on his rounds in the morning. She couldn’t believe it, and since she hadn’t fixed the flat she’d had at Billie’s, there was no spare. Red threw both tires into the back of his truck and together they drove to Fritz’s Texaco. While Fritz put in plugs, they ate breakfast at Happy Yolanda’s. And such, thought Libby, was the big difference between her two marriages. The same unpatched-tire situation would’ve sent Stockton into a sulk for days, possibly weeks, and there wasn’t so much as a peep of reproach from Red, who in fact seemed happy for the diversion.
Billie was sitting at a table with Rogelio and her dad. Libby had left her several messages and had hoped that she was out of town again, maybe on a creep, and couldn’t call back. But no: here she was, and clearly still angry. Greetings were perfunctory. Red and Libby weren’t asked to join them.
“What do you think it is?” Libby asked Red as they settled into a booth in the far corner. “A temper tantrum over my pregnancy?”
“Whatever,” said Red. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”
“I can’t help it. I need my women friends right now, and she’s about the only one I’ve got. I’m a little worried about this pregnancy, and I need somebody else to talk to.”
Shortly, the doctor tried to reassure Libby. Everything was fine, although now, since the spotting hadn’t stopped, he said the abortion or those weird IUD infections she had in her twenties might have weakened the cervix; the longer she was pregnant, it seemed, the more her past came back to haunt her. Nothing to worry about yet, the doctor said, so long as she avoided jumping off walls. And acrobatic, vigorous sex.
ANOTHER day, another flat. One of the tires Fritz had fixed the day before blew out as Libby was driving over to Round Rock from Howe Lane. Two fishermen stopped and changed it for her; then she drove straight back to Fritz’s. “Maybe the plugs popped out,” she said.
Fritz put the tire in a tank of opaque gray water, chalked where the bubbles emerged. “Nope,” he said. “Whole new punctures. You have any enemies?”
“No,” she said, although her black heart made its own suggestions.
She found Red picking roses in front of the Blue House. “Honey,” she said. “I just had another flat, and Fritz thinks somebody is stabbing my tires.”
“Then somebody is stabbing Lewis’s tires too,” said Red. “He also had a flat this morning—his second this week.”
“You don’t think Billie’s crazy enough to do that, do you?”
“No,” Red said. “Absolutely not.”
“I wish I could be so sure.”
When Red’s truck and Libby’s car both had flat tires the next morning, she suggested they call the sheriff. Red called Lewis and he, too, had one. “David’s taking it to town right now to get it fixed.” Two minutes later, he called back. David’s Land Cruiser had another flat.
“Maybe I’m paranoid,” Libby told Red, “but I think Billie’s behind