Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [63]
He took a deep breath, steadied himself. “What a rush! It all came flying back to me. How much I loved drinking.” He took hold of her wrists, held them tightly at her sides. His eyes glistened. “It was like meeting an old friend, but one who betrayed you. Who tried to kill you. It’s all so complicated. I really loved alcohol. I did.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Libby. “If it’s any comfort, I don’t think I had three sips. But I had a hard day, and I blew a fuse, and I was feeling sorry for—”
“That doesn’t matter,” Lewis said. “You can drink whatever you want. This is my issue.” He let go of her wrists, lowered himself onto the futon. Scratched his head. “Scotch, right? What did you mix it with, club soda?”
“7-Up and lemon.”
“Jesus. That’s disgusting.”
“I wanted something weak, nothing I’d feel.”
Lewis, leaning back on his elbows, started to laugh. “You didn’t want to feel it?” He patted the mattress, inviting her down. “What’s the point of drinking, then? You’re such a lightweight, Lib. Straight up or on the rocks!”
“Look, I’m sorry I had alcohol on my breath,” she said. “But I’m not going to apologize for what I drink.”
“Hey, no big deal. I’m just joking. Please come here.”
She stepped back. “Just a minute,” she said, and let herself into the trailer.
In the bathroom, she slipped out of her clothes and pulled on a cotton kimono. In the kitchen, she poured the drink down the drain. In the living room she sat down on the sofa.
The candles were still lit from her blackout and she could see her mandolin, a present from Huey Labette, the lead singer of the zydeco band she’d fiddled for in New Orleans. And the antique standing lamp she’d bought for two dollars at a yard sale in Carrolton—although the glass sconce, a large frosted bowl, cost sixty at a lamp store. The Franklin stove Stockton had installed a week before he told her he was leaving.
Lewis tapped on the door and poked his head inside. “What are you doing?” he said. “Is something wrong?”
“Does everyone have to be a heavy-duty alcoholic to be taken seriously by you?” she asked. “Did it ever occur to you that other people have their own emotional lives?”
“What are you saying?”
“How come only your emotions matter?”
“Me? Libby, I don’t even know what emotions I have. I wouldn’t recognize an emotion if it slapped me in the face.”
“Oh, no. I think you’re very eloquent about them. Kissing me, for example, is like meeting somebody who betrayed you.”
He stepped inside, closing the door softly, and knelt down before her. She kept her arms wrapped tightly around herself, so he began rubbing her left foot, pressed the pressure points, and jiggled each little toe before pulling it out with a small, knuckly pop. She stared over his head in the dark.
Lewis set down her left foot and picked up her right. He gave it the once-over, then lifted it to his jaw like a telephone receiver. “Hey, grouchy girl,” he spoke into the heel, “let’s go to bed.”
He made love to her slowly, with uncharacteristic tenderness. Her resistance gave way in stages, like fine strings breaking, their ends snapping in weightless arabesques. He stroked her face and whispered something in her ear—his first blurred endearment? Afterward, she wept soundlessly, tears coursing from the corners of her eyes. Lewis stanched them with his thumbs, smiling down.
I did not expect, Libby wrote, to be tumbling dangerously toward love. Not at this time. Certainly not with this man. He has a beard, for heaven’s sake. And smokes. And makes even less money than I do. His feet are usually dirty. My mother will hate him on sight. Stockton will say I’d landed even further down the social ladder than he predicted.
She wanted to see him right away, the next night, but he clearly had more self-control. She actually expected him on Saturday night—so they could go fishing on Sunday, as usual—but he neither called nor appeared, and Libby fished alone.
This late in the summer, the water was shrinking, the band of crackled gray mud now wide as a highway. Don’t know what’s going on with Lewis, she wrote in her