The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [119]
She positioned herself in front of her mirror and studied herself very carefully. She had examined herself in this fashion at other times in her life. When she got her period for the first time. When she lost her virginity. On each occasion it had seemed as though her face ought to reveal the changes in her body, and on each occasion she had sought such facial revelation in her mirror with no success. If there were changes they were all beneath the skin.
And now? Was there more tension in the corners of the eyes? Did the nostrils tend to flare? Did her mouth show a pout of petulance or lust or abandon? If so, she saw no evidence. Or was it in her walk, or her speech? If so no mirror could show it to her.
Either he had seen something or he had heard something, and in either case she was troubled. Of course the most obvious explanation lay in the fact that Bert must have noticed her weeks ago at the Carversville Inn. But she had gone there only once, and she had not thought her availability was quite that obvious. Even if he had reported that she had gone out looking for a man, why would that lead them to believe she was looking for far-out sex? Why?
It was this goddamned town, she thought suddenly. New York or Chicago or Los Angeles none of this would be a problem. There she and Sully could choose their friends and acquaintances from people like themselves. Or they could have no friends, could take their sexual pleasure with strangers and be utterly ignored by neighbors. But in a town the size of New Hope there was no such compartmentalization. Men with whom she slept would turn up at the Barge Inn for a drink, and she would run into their wives at the market or under the dryer. That added spice, but it also added an unmistakable element of danger.
Did everyone know? Was the whole town talking about her? Men did talk. You couldn’t expect them all to keep silent. Sooner or later it was inevitable that she would be talked about throughout the county. She wondered if she could handle that. She wondered if Sully could handle it. If worse came to worst, they could move, they had already discussed the possibility, but she did not want to move and neither did he.
And she certainly did not want to have to move.
She turned off the television set, went downstairs, fixed herself a cup of instant coffee. Then she made a pot of regular coffee so that it would be there for Sully when he came home. He would sit around drinking coffee and waiting for her while she played bizarre games with a couple of faggots. It seemed that making the coffee for him was the least she could do.
Faggots.
This puzzled her. She had never known a homosexual well, and she had always taken it for granted that a faggot was a faggot and that they only did it with each other. They were not supposed to be interested in women. But Warren had been unmistakably interested in her. She remembered the expression on his face when she had taken him up on his invitation to examine his erection with her foot. She had instantly kicked off her shoe and plopped her foot in his lap, and he had obviously never expected her to do so. His face, however, had shown surprisingly little of his surprise. Well, perhaps that was to be expected; he was an actor, after all.
Not even an actor could will an erection into existence. And that erection had been real enough, big and hard, warm when her toes gripped it.
She could have done him with her toes. The current that flowed between them then had been that strong. And she remembered his hand on her foot. He had stroked her foot as any lover might have done. There was nothing faggoty in the way he had handled her foot. And nothing equivocal in her response to that handling.
She pictured Warren now, the eyes glinting at her through the rimless eyeglasses, the high forehead, the sharp hawk nose. She heard his voice in memory, caught all the special