Clean Slate Page 10

Chapter 10

  It was the law of diminishing returns. The more they talked, the less he could take in. But she gamely sketched his biography for him. He grew up in this house, and his father had been a highway engineer for the state of Washington. He had a younger sister named Elaine, living now in Arizona. He and Carrie met at the University and lived together until they both graduated, the same year. Then they married and he started law school. He worked for a Seattle firm for a while and when Halstrom-Pierce recruited him, they came back to Belmont and bought this house from his parents. That was three years ago.

  He didn't have a third beer, and Carrie had switched to water. He decided to wait until morning to think about work, and how in the world he was going to handle it.

  "I'm teaching an early seminar tomorrow," she said, "And I don't think I can get a substitute this late." They both looked at the clock. It was after 11:00. "I'm usually in bed by 10:00. What do you think? Will you be able to sleep now?"

  "It's a tossup. My body's exhausted and my mind is still spinning. I might as well try."

  She slid her chair back and stood up, pressed her hands to the small of her back, and arched it, stretching. She rolled her head around to loosen the tension in her neck. As her head dropped forward, her thick dark hair fell over her face. He watched her move her body with fascination, and growing desire. Her breasts were larger than you would expect for her small frame. Maybe that was the pregnancy. He felt like a peeping Tom, or a gawky, horny adolescent.

  It hit him suddenly that bedtime meant bed. What would it be like to go to their bed together? There was a little thrill of the illicit, mixed in with shy confusion. And yet, this was his wife. A more appealing dilemma than what to do about work, that was for sure.

  He hadn't seen anything of the house besides the walk through the living room and dining room on the way to the kitchen. Carrie led him down the hall from the living room. There were four doors. She pointed to the one at the end of the hall.

  "That's the master bedroom," she said. She tapped one of the nearest doors and added, "The bathroom is here." She opened another and switched on the light. The room was crowded with a big old desk, bookshelves, a filing cabinet and a reading chair under a lamp.

  "This is your study. Mine's upstairs." She pointed to a stairwell that opened off the hall and led to the attic.

  She left the study door open and opened the one across the hall. "This is your room. I'm down there." She pointed at the door to the master bedroom. She said it with matter-of-fact firmness. She could have been his landlady. He remembered then that she had said "your room" when they were back at the motel. He'd forgotten that. At least it solved the problem of approaching their bed together when he hardly knew her, but what was going on? He looked at her with the question on his face.

  "We're not sleeping together right now." She wasn't exactly apologetic, but she looked flustered. "It's complicated. We can talk about it later." His disappointment was only one of his feelings, and it passed quickly, replaced by the sense of being overwhelmed by all the unanswered questions he had to deal with.

  He remembered her wariness when she first came to his motel room door. She had seemed prepared not to believe him. What had he done to cause her to banish him to the guest room?

  They hadn't touched each other yet. Was that against the rules now? He wanted to reach out and make some physical contact, but he didn't know how.

  "I guess there's a lot I don't know yet." He was drained. All he wanted now was to sleep. He could face the rest of it in the morning.

  "I think you'll be able to find everything you need." Then her mouth went into a wry smile and she said, "Make yourself at home." She stood in front of him for a moment, as if she was conflicted about leaving him standing here.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Good night. I'll see you in the morning." And then she reached up and quickly brushed his cheek with her fingertips. He stopped himself from grabbing her hand. It was already more than he'd expected. She turned and went to her bedroom door, and closed it behind her.

  Alone in his room, he looked around. There were two twin beds, and he pulled back the bedspread on the one where his shirt was still waiting for him from this morning and found there were no sheets. He patted the bedspread and pillow back into shape and drew back the cover on the other one. His keys and wallet were on top of the dresser like Carrie had said. He took the wallet and sat on the bed, unlaced his shoes and pried them off his feet with his heels while he opened it and looked through it. A wad of cash, mostly twenties. His driver's license photo looked back at him blankly. No message for him there, except there was his birth date, May 12, 1977. Evelyn had said it was 2011 now, November. That made him thirty-four years old. Well, that was something he hadn't known before. And it looked like his license would expire on his next birthday.

  Two credit cards, an ATM card, and a frequent flyer card. A health plan card. In one slot were a number of business cards, and he thumbed through them, but none of them except a few from Halstrom-Pierce rang a bell. "Brian Edwards, Legal." That was him. Lou Mueller and Andrea Angeli -- Carrie had mentioned them. He turned the stack of cards over and looked at the backs. One had an inked phone number and a smiley face. He looked at the front. It was also from Halstrom-Pierce, with the name "Katherine Wells, Benefits" in the lower right corner. Who was Katherine Wells? In with the currency was an ATM receipt for a $300 withdrawal. It was an efficient wallet, no stray receipts or scraps of paper.

  That put him in mind of the grocery receipt with Helen Fisher's number and he felt around in his jacket pocket for it and put it and Evelyn Emerson's card on his bedside table to remind him to call them in the morning. He peeled off his borrowed jeans, tossed them on the bed with his shirt, and rummaged through dresser drawers until he found some flannel pajama bottoms. Across the hall in the bathroom, a lone toothbrush, probably his, was in a holder on the back of the sink. He watched himself in the mirror as he brushed. He wanted to make a connection with the man who had taken this face for granted yesterday, but he was still a stranger. He touched his scarred eyebrow. Remember to ask Carrie what happened.

  He used the toilet and put the seat back down, the way someone must have taught him, and padded back to the bedroom. There was a book lying face down and open on the bedside table, and he picked it up. A mystery. He guessed he'd have to start that over at the beginning. Like everything else in his life.

  It could all wait for tomorrow. He turned off the overhead light at the door switch and found his way into bed by the streak of light that crept in under the window shade. He was asleep in five minutes.