Page 47 of Night Songs

Alice slapped me on the back and laughed. “You arenotwhat I expected. I thought you were this little lamb in a wedding dress following Clayton around.” She dabbed her lipstick with a napkin and asked the bartender for another. “But you ain’t that at all.” She winked at me and slung it back.

I saw Hess and Clayton watching me from different sides of the room, and I started to sweat under the jeweled collar at my neck, suddenly aware that it was choking me. I tried to loosen it with my fingers, but it wouldn’t give. “You think there’s anything to get into around here? You know, something more than just jawing? I’m so antsy I might shed my skin.”

Alice thought about it for a moment, and then she got this devilish lookon her face. “I know just the thing.” She leaned over the bar and grabbed a bottle of champagne in each fist. The bartender didn’t try to stop her.

We pretended to hide the bottles behind our backs as we snaked around the edge of the party toward the doors, and then hightailed it down the hallway, giggling like banshees. We got in the elevator, and she asked the bewildered conductor to take us to the top floor.

As we ascended, the light dimmed, and the world tilted.

Next thing I knew I was on my knees on the hallway carpet as if I’d just tripped. Alice was hunched over laughing in front of me.

Then I was climbing a metal ladder up the side of the building with one hand, the bottle in the other. My heel slipped on a rung, and I kicked both shoes off into the void below like the world was my bedroom.

Then I was on my back on a hard, gritty surface looking up at the stars, reminding me of that Fourth of July years ago when Hess and I first fell in love.

I moved against a body. Thick, chemical-coated hair was in my mouth and eyes. There was only that feeling between my legs and the hair smothering all other perception.

And then there was a whole lot of nothing.

I came to in my soft, starchy bed. Consciousness was a heavy burden, and I longed to go back under and sleep forever. Or at least until I felt like a human being again. But when I turned over, I saw Hess hunched on the side of the bed, faced away from me. Her shoulders were shaking. I reached out for her, and she shrank away from my touch.

I closed my eyes with my arm still outstretched on the comforter, attempting to conjure some stronger self to rise to the moment. But I was destroyed.

I reopened them and watched Hess pace in front of the bed. I saw in the light slanting through the curtains that her face was bare and rubbedraw. Hess was the kind of woman who could swim all day in a creek, and she’d look better than most women could ever hope for. I’d woken up next to her hundreds of times, and she always looked fresh as a baby’s bottom. I’d never seen her so unraveled. It scared me.

“Are you just going to lie there?” she asked icily. Her anger had only ever been the sweet, nourishing kind meant to help me find the right answer. I didn’t recognize this voice.

“I’m not feeling very good.” I half expected her to start tending to me, maybe get me some aspirin and a glass of cold water. But she just stood there, staring daggers into the wall. She’d yet to actually look at me.

“How could you? Just explain it to me. Because I don’t understand how you could actually, physically do what you did. It is beyond my intelligence.”

At the mention of the unnamed act, last night came back in chunks. The realization seeped in like bile. The regret was so immense I couldn’t absorb it. It only sat there pooling, this sense that I had done something so awful that it couldn’t be undone.

“Dear God. Hess, I’m so sorry.” I thought I might spew if I said anything else. The sickness was overpowering. But I kept going. “It wasn’t me. I mean… it was my body, but it wasn’t me making it happen. It was like somebody else in my body calling the shots. Does that make sense?”

“I’m familiar with the concept of being drunk.” She was quiet. “But Lou, you weren’t drunk when you left me alone and went to the bar. I could tell you were on some kind of mission from hell. Which I might’ve understood if you’d talked to me. I could have come with you. We could have gotten drunk together.”

“I needed to be alone for just one moment, so I could breathe. I’ve been feeling trapped lately. Like if I don’t bust out, I’m gonna end up in pieces painting the walls.”

She finally looked at me, and I flinched at the pain in her eyes. She sat down at the edge of the bed and smoothed the comforter. “You feel trapped withme?”

“It ain’t just you. It’s Clayton, too. Making all the decisions and running my life.”

“But it is partly me, then.” She brought her thumbnail to her mouth. “Is this about the kids? Lou, we don’t have to have kids. It was just a daydream.”

“No. It ain’t about the kids. You know if you really wanted them, I’d do it for you.” I’d already slit the skin open, so I just let the blood flow. “But you dream of a future for us, of us growing old together. And it just can’t happen.”

“Oh, Lou. I know we can’t be together in front of people, but we can at our own house. You have Clayton to hide behind. We have the freedom tobewhatever we want. You aren’t trapped.”

“I’m not talking about what other people think. I’m talking aboutme. I only got ten years left. What are you gonna do after I’m gone? It’s not right for you to build a life around me.” My mouth filled with salt. “I can’t do that to you. And I… I can’t be with someone who doesn’t understand that.” My vision went cloudy, and the tree on my chest felt like it might split in two.

She crawled across the bed and took both of my hands in hers. She focused hard on my eyes, making sure I was tuned in. “Listen to me. You are not cursed, Lulabelle Powers. That is just a silly story someone told you when you were a child. You are going to have a long, beautiful life. And we can have it together. All you have to do is say yes. And promise to never step out on me again. We can get through this. I know we can.”

I pulled my hands back. “I’ve made up my mind. This can’t go on any longer with us.” I turned over so I wouldn’t have to look at her face. “You should go.”

“You can’t do this. You don’t want to do this.”

I continued to stare at the wall in silence, refusing to answer any of her pleas.