“Who’s there?” Her voice sounded tinny coming out of the small speaker.
“It’s me-Rafe. I have to talk with you.”
There was a momentary pause, and Raphael felt himself shrivel inside as he considered the possibility of refusal-some easy, offhand excuse. But she said, “All right,”and the latch on the door clicked.
She was waiting warily at the door to her apartment. Mutely, she stood to one side and let him in.
“I think it’s time we got this squared away,” he said as soon as he was inside, knowing that if they started with vague pleasantries, the whole issue would slide away and they would never really come to grips with it.
“There’s no problem, really.” Her voice had that injured brightness about it with which people attempt to conceal a deep hurt.
“Yes, there is. We know each other too well to start lying to each other at this point.”
“Really, Rafe-” she started, but then she glanced up and saw that he was looking very intently at her, and she faltered. “All right,” she said then, “let’s go into the kitchen, and I’ll make some coffee.”
They went in, she put the pot on, and they sat down.
“I made a fool of myself that night,” she told him, “and I’m sorry. I was stupid and thoughtless. My silly little jealousy forced you to tell me something no man ought to be forced to admit.”
“Have you got that out of your system now?”
She looked at him sharply.
“Why do you continually beat yourself over the head? There’s no need for it. We had a misunderstanding-that’s all. It’s no big thing. We were both embarrassed by it, but nobody dies from embarrassment, and it’s not important enough to make the two of us spend the rest of our lives not talking to each other, is it?”
“I wanted to speak,” she objected, “but you wouldn’t even look at me.”
“Okay. I’m looking at you right now-right straight at you. Speak, Denise, speak.”
“Woof-woof,” she said flatly. And then she smiled, and everything was suddenly all right.
And then the words that had been dammed up in those weeks of silence came pouring out. They talked until very late, their hands frequently touching across the table.
About eleven she reached across the table and took his hand. “Stay with me tonight,” she said simply.
“All right.” He didn’t even hesitate.
And so they got up and turned out the lights and went to bed.
Raphael woke early the next morning, coming from sleep into wakefulness without moving. Denise lay quietly beside him, her arm across his chest and her face burrowed into her pillow. Her skin was pale and very soft, and she smelled faintly of wildflowers. In the close and friendly darkness of the night before, they had lain very close together and had talked drowsily until long after midnight. There had been no hint of sexuality in their contact, merely comfort and the sense of being together. They had said things to each other in the darkness that would. have been impossible to say in the light, and Raphael was content.
In the steely, dim light of dawn filtering through the curtains, he was surprised to discover how content he really was. The closeness, the simple thing of holding each other, the affection, had produced in him an aftermath of feeling not significantly unlike that which he remembered from times before his accident when the other had been involved also. Idly, he wondered how much of the afterglow of sex was related to sex itself and how much was merely this warm euphoria of closeness-and naturally, in all honesty, he realized that he was to some degree rationalizing away his incapacity; but he felt much too good to worry about it all that much.
She stirred in her sleep and nestled closer to him. Then, startled, she awoke. “Oh, my goodness,” she said, blushing furiously and covering herself quickly with the blanket.
“‘Oh, my goodness’?”
“Don’t look at me.” She blushed even more.
“What?”
“Don’t look at me.”
He laughed and lay looking at the ceiling.
“Rafe,” she said finally, “you don’t think I’m terrible or cheap or anything because of this, do you?”
“Of course not. Are you sorry?”
In answer she reached out arid pulled him to her, making small,’ contented noises into his shoulder. Her tiny, misshapen hand gently caressed his neck. “Oh dear,” she said after a moment.
“What?”
“We have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you realize that we’re both stark naked?”
“So?”
“So who gets up first?”
He laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s like a cold shower. After the initial jolt it’s not so bad.”
“Oh, no. You’re not going to catch me parading around in the altogether: My whole body would go into shock. I’d absolutely die. I’d blush myself to death right on the spot.”
“I think you’re exaggerating.”
“Come on, Rafe,” she pleaded.
“We have to get up. I have to be at work.”
“All right,” he relented.
“I’ll turn over and cover my head with a pillow. Would that be okay?”
“You won’t peek?”
“Would I do that?”
“How should I know what you’d do? If you peek, I’ll die.”
“You won’t die, but I won’t peek.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
He rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head. He felt the bed quiver as she slipped out and then heard the quick scurrying as she gathered up her clothes and dashed into the bathroom.
Later, over breakfast, she would not look at him.
“Hey,” he said finally.
“What?” She still did not look at him.
“I’m here.”
“I know that.”
He reached across the table and lifted her chin with his hand. “If you don’t look at me, I’ll tell everybody at work that we slept together last night.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Oh yes, I would.” And then he laughed.
“You’re not a nice person,” she accused, and then she also laughed, and everything was all right again.
Before they left for work, he kissed her, and she sighed deeply. “I love you, Rafe,” she said. “It’s stupid and useless and probably a little grotesque, but I love you anyway.”
“And I love you, Denise, and that’s even stupider and probably a whole lot more grotesque, but that’s the way it is.”
“We’ll work it out.” She squeezed his hand. “What we feel about each other is our business, right?”
“Right,” he agreed, kissing her again. And then they opened the door and went out together into the hallway and down the stairs and on out into the bright morning sunlight.
Raphael finished work about noon, turned off his machine, and went over to the desk where Denise was intent on some papers. “Hey you.”
“What, hey?” She looked up at him. Her eyes seemed to sparkle, and her face glowed. He was startled to realize how pretty she was, and wondered why he had never seen it before.
“I’m going to take off now. I’ll give you a call when you get off work.”
“Do.” She smiled at him.
“Maybe we can go to dinner or something.”
“Are you asking?”
“All right, I’m asking.”
“Let me check my appointment schedule-see if I can fit you in.”
“Funny.”
Billy, a retarded boy, was standing nearby, concentrating very hard on some clothing he was unfolding and putting on hangers. He looked up at them. “Rafe,” he said, his thick tongue slurring the word.
“Yes, Billy?”
“You an’ Denise ain’t mad at each other no more, huh?”
“No, Billy,” Raphael said gently. “We’re not mad at each other anymore.
“I’m real glad. I dint like it when you was mad at each other. It made me real sad.”
“It made us sad, too, Billy. That’s why we decided not to be mad anymore.”
“I’m real glad,” Billy said again. “Please don’t be mad at each other no more.”
“We won’t, Billy,” Raphael promised.
Denise reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘
Raphael went outside, crossed the street to the graveled parking lot, and opened his car doors to let the blast-furnace heat out. After a few minutes he climbed in, opened the front windows, and started the car.
He drove down to Sprague, went west to Lincoln, and then over to Main. He followed Main along behind the Chamber of Commerce and the Masonic Temple and then down the hill into Peaceful Valley. If he could catch Flood before he went over to the house on Dalton, before, by his arrival and his presence, he committed himself to another of Heintzie’s “last and final wars,” he might be able to talk him out of the ultimate idiocy.
But Flood was gone. The shabby house where he had a second-floor apartment sagged on its patch of sun-destroyed grass, its paint peeling and its cracked windows patched with cardboard and masking tape, and Flood’s red sports car was nowhere in sight.
The little red car was not parked in front of the house where Heck’s Angels lived either, and Raphael wondered if perhaps Flood had perceived on his own how truly stupid the whole affair was and had found other diversions to fill his day.