Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [99]
“Red said that?”
“Yeah. So how ’bout you cook and I manage the house? We’ll take over the place.”
The fact that David Ibañez and Red both wanted him up there was like a flattery cocktail. “It’s a thought,” said Lewis.
“Think it over. I can’t give Red a definite answer myself until Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?”
“Just a few loose ends,” David said.
RED BROUGHT David home for dinner in order, he said, to put Libby’s fears to rest. Still, she found herself mistrusting David’s good looks, that square jaw and long brown hair and graceful, muscled body. He did have an appealing alertness that was especially enchanting when directed her way—all part of a con man’s repertoire? He didn’t laugh, she noticed, or not much. And in the odd moment, during a pause in the conversation, he pulled into a dark quietness. Something was wrong with him, she thought, some weightiness or grief. When talk started up again, he shuddered slightly, shrugging off a tangible gloom.
“It looks,” Red said, “like Lewis might come cook for the summer.”
“Lewis wants the cook job?” she exclaimed.
“He says he likes to cook,” David said.
“And he’s good at it,” said Red.
“This is what he’s going to do with his Ph.D.?”
“It’s just till September, Lib,” Red said.
“He’s actually taken the job?”
“He’s coming up Saturday to do a little reconnaissance,” said David. “He’s bringing a friend.”
LEWIS’S friend, Barbara, wore shiny, skintight bicycle shorts, a ribbed undershirt, and a leather vest. A peculiar outfit, Libby thought, to wear to an all-male recovery house; she had more hair than clothes on her back. Next to Barbara, Libby felt fat and bland and provincial and prudish and enormously pregnant. No wonder Lewis dumped her, when he could have this: impossible thinness, billowing apricot-colored hair, skin the color of drywall dust.
Libby also envied Barbara’s expressiveness and her ease with the residents; she joked with them at lunch, belting out a deep, loud laugh at their jokes and talking easily, knowledgeably, about sobriety.
After lunch, walking toward the village, Red, Lewis, and David wandered ahead, out of earshot, leaving Libby alone with Barbara, who asked when the baby was due (October) and if the sex was known (a girl, although sonograms can be deceiving).
Libby decided to jump in with her own line of personal inquiry. “So, how long have you and Lewis been together?”
Barbara squinted at Libby and broke into a broad smile. “Oh, no, we’re not together. Heaven forbid. No, I live with a guy.”
“And he doesn’t mind you hanging out with Lewis?”
“With Lewis?” Her smile sweetened, as if this question, while forgivable, was preposterous. “No, he doesn’t mind at all.”
“Sorry,” said Libby. “I guess I assumed … You know, he’s male, you’re female. Very unenlightened of me.”
Barbara moved closer. “I did go out with him real briefly a couple years ago.”
“Me too,” Libby said. “Before you.”
“So I’ve heard. You lasted a little longer than I did.”
“Yeah, but you two ended up friends.”
Barbara directed her squint at Lewis’s back, smiled again. “I love him.”
“I can’t say that.”
“Oh, Lewis has an affectionate nature. I have to beat it out of him sometimes, but he can be incredibly loyal and helpful in his own way.”
“Red likes him, too.”
At the village, the three men and Barbara went to look at the refurbished bungalow where Lewis might bunk, and also at the boarded-up bungalow where David grew up.
Libby, claiming the excuse of pressing duties, ducked into the office, lay down on the sofa, and immediately drifted off. One of pregnancy’s few boons: the instant nap. A few minutes later, footsteps on the porch woke her up.
“So tell me,” Lewis said. “What do you think so far?”
“I like it here,” Barbara answered. “It’s so tranquil. And Red Ray is a babe. A total babe.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah.