Prized Possessions Read online

  “Six o’clock.”

  It was now three. Three hours. It loomed before him like a great black hole in his day—in his life. A hole he’d have to either fill up or jump over. And if he leaped and didn’t make it, if his jump fell short, where the hell would he end up? Maybe it’s worth having a look, he thought, but the idea created such terror in him that he felt physically sick.

  “Charlie? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just need—yeah, coffee. Coffee would be great.” He got up and went into the dining room and looked through the window into the backyard. The sun had gone behind another cloud, and the wind was gusting. Keep the lid on, he told himself. But it was hard. Very hard. He couldn’t believe how hard it was.

  “Charlie,” said Emma, behind him.

  He nearly jumped out of his skin.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve, uh, got a headache, I think.”

  “I’ll get you an aspirin,” said Emma. “Come on. Sit down in the living room with me. Have your coffee.”

  She continued to glance at him worriedly, even after he’d taken the aspirin and drunk a cup of coffee and then another; even though he assured her he was feeling better now, his headache was gone now.

  “You’ve been jumpy lately,” she said. “I think you should see Dr. Sawatsky.”

  “I may do that,” said Charlie.

  She got up and came over to his chair and placed her hand across his forehead, seeking a fever. Charlie smelled her perfume, or maybe it was hand lotion. Whatever it was—the fragrance, or the coolness of her hand, or her lips, pouty and seductive, or the rise of her breasts under her cotton sweater—for whatever reason, Charlie surprised himself by placing his hands on her waist (ah, such a slim waist) and pulling her sweater free from her jeans. A shudder went through him when his hands touched the smoothness of her skin. He reached behind her to undo her bra, and then took her breasts in his hands. Emma removed her sweater, and her bra, and slipped into his lap. Charlie held her breasts and sucked them, felt the nipples erect in his mouth. He undid her belt, and the button and the zipper in the front of her jeans, and got out of the chair, pushing her into it.

  He knelt in front of her and pulled down her jeans, and her panties. It was important not to look into her face, but he wanted to taste her lips, so he closed his eyes and pulled her toward him and covered her lips with his open mouth, gnawing gently, licking, sucking at the undersides of her lips. He felt the tune in his throat, humming there like a live thing—“Pop! goes the weasel.”

  Charlie pulled away from her and opened his eyes. He stood up and took off his clothes. Emma lay sprawled in the chair, her legs spread, and in his peripheral vision he saw that she’d flung one arm across her eyes. Charlie got down on his knees in front of her again, between her legs. He wanted her to talk to him. He wanted her to say, “Do it to me, Charlie, do it to me.” He imagined that he heard her saying it: “Do it to me, Charlie, fuck me, Charlie, oh yes do it to me do it do it.” He put his hands on her hips and drew her closer.

  And then a venomous flicker of memory occurred. He saw her face in the light from the streetlamp at the end of the alley, and he felt like a fool again, and he lost his erection.

  He wondered how much of the three hours had passed.

  He sat back on his heels. Keep the lid on. You can do it.

  “That’s too bad, Charlie,” said Emma, her voice clear and calm.

  “Yeah,” said Charlie. But it’s just as well, he thought.

  He stood up and pulled on his underwear, and his jeans, and his sweatshirt. He looked at his watch. Three forty-five.

  He went into the kitchen to get his jacket. He’d mow the damn lawn, front and back, whether it needed it or not.

  4

  “IOUGHT TO BE out at the marina on my day off,” RCMP Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg grumbled, turning off the highway. “Looking at sailboats to buy. Not having dinner with somebody I see every day at work.”

  “You’re right,” said Cassandra Mitchell agreeably. “Where are we going, anyway? Do they live on the water?”

  “Near it. Not on it. How come I don’t have any friends except other Members?”

  “Maybe nobody else likes you. Maybe you’re a miserable person.”

  Alberg brooded on this. “Well?” he said finally. “Am I?”

  They were traveling slowly along a crooked street. Clouds swept across the sky, restless and glowering, shifting size, shape, and color as they went. Cassandra clutched her sweater around her. “No, Karl. And you do have friends who aren’t cops. I mean, police officers. There’s Alex Gillingham, for instance.”

  “Jesus, Gillingham.”

  “And there’s me.”

  He glanced at her, pleased. “Yeah. True.”

  “I want it to be warm again,” said Cassandra, shivering.

  “When it comes time to trade in my Olds,” Alberg mused, “I think I’ll get one with air.”

  “With air?”

  “Yeah. Air-conditioning.”

  “Karl, we get a summer like last year’s about once every century. You don’t need air-conditioning here.”

  “You’re right,” said Alberg, nodding. “I need a boat. That’s what I need.” He pulled up in front of the Sokolowskis’ house and turned off the engine. “Well, here we are. Christ.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop complaining,” said Cassandra, exasperated.

  “I’ve never been here for dinner before. Maybe I’ll have to invite them back.” He stared at the house, which was set back a considerable distance from the street. It was such a small place, for a man as large as Sid Sokolowski. He looked at his watch and wondered aloud how long they’d have to stay.

  “You aren’t a very sociable person, are you,” said Cassandra pityingly.

  “I’m damned hurt you should say such a thing,” said Alberg.

  He got out of the car and moved quickly around to the passenger door, but Cassandra had it open before he could get there, as usual.

  “Well, I’m not going to sit there like some potentate waiting for you to do something I’m perfectly capable of doing for myself,” she said.

  He followed Cassandra through the gate and up the walk, admiring her legs. “Is it okay to admire your legs?” he asked as they reached the front porch, and she said it was.

  Sid came to the door wearing a yellow shirt and a pair of khaki pants and brown leather sandals. Alberg thought it was early in the season for sandals. He also found the sight of the sergeant’s naked toes embarrassing. And he felt overdressed; he was wearing a jacket and a tie, for God’s sake. He couldn’t remember if it had been Cassandra’s idea or his. It must have been Cassandra’s, he thought, loosening the knot in his tie, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt.

  “Come on in,” said Sid, and they trotted after him dutifully, down the hall and into the living room. Through an archway they could see the dining table, set for more than four. “Let me get you a drink,” said Sid, and took their orders.

  His wife, Elsie, came into the room, smiling. She deposited a tray of vegetables and dip on the coffee table and shook hands with Alberg and Cassandra. “Sit down, please,” she said, but then Sid returned with glasses of wine, and as he handed them over, he invited Alberg to go outside and look at his new fence, and they ended up all four of them going outside.

  “That’s a lot of work,” said Alberg admiringly. He walked to the east side of the yard and looked across at the next property, which was unfenced.

  “That place is a disgrace,” Sid muttered, his bare toes curling in disgust. “Look at the damn dandelions, will you? They’re gonna go to seed; all the damn fluff’s gonna blow over here.”

  Alberg knew Sid hadn’t been keen to buy this house, which he and Elsie had occupied now for five years. The Sokolowskis and their five daughters had lived in a big place over near the high school, a house on a straight street, with a straight lane behind it, and houses on eith
er side that looked straight ahead, as houses should. “A street on parade, you might say,” he’d said to Alberg, who sometimes had difficulty deciding when Sid was joking.

  When the last of the girls left home, Sid often wandered wistfully through the place, looking into his daughters’ abandoned bedrooms. They’d all left stuff behind, for various reasons, and sometimes, he confided to Alberg, he pretended for a minute that they still lived there. Elsie, on the other hand, upon finding herself alone so much of the time, decided to take control of her life.

  “She tells me, ‘I don’t want to drift, Sid. I mustn’t start drifting.’ ” Sokolowski reported this to Alberg with a pained expression and a helpless shrug of his enormous shoulders.

  One day she announced that she’d gotten herself a job managing a dry-cleaning establishment. Her husband, who had expected her to have considerable difficulty finding employment, was shocked. But Elsie pointed out that running a seven-person household was excellent training for practically anything.

  Next, she wanted them to move. It took her several months to persuade Sid that this wouldn’t be the end of the world as he knew it.

  They put their big house on the market and started looking around for a smaller one and eventually they’d ended up here, on Persimmon Drive.

  Hudson Drive ran west of Persimmon and parallel to it, tracing a gentle curve around a small bay. Houses had been built along this street as along any other, upon rectangular lots that stretched from the sidewalk to the edge of a low bluff that overlooked the water. “Now, you’d think,” Sokolowski had complained to Alberg, “that the next street up would do the same, maybe be a little bit straighter, even. But no.” Persimmon had been laid down in two exultant swoops that formed a reverse S. To Sokolowski, this made absolutely no sense. The lots were pie-shaped, and they didn’t fit together particularly well. Some were much bigger than others, and some lay sideways to the lane. Between this lane and Hudson was a park, with a couple of houses on ordinary lots at either end.

  Sid Sokolowski’s house was the second from the western end of Persimmon. The lot on the corner was also fenced, and snuggled neatly against the Sokolowskis’. The one on the other side, however, was, Alberg admitted, peering over the fence, truly a mess.

  “Although there’s a certain charm to the place, Sid,” he said, studying the automobile carcass through which tall grass was growing; and the thicket of wild yellow broom at the edge of the lane; and the bright golden dandelions scattered across the shaggy lawn.

  Sid just looked at him, and Alberg knew he was thinking about Alberg’s own backyard and realizing that on this particular subject he was talking to the wrong guy.

  “We’d better go inside, Sid,” said Elsie, who had thrown a sweater over her shoulders before leaving the house. “Cassandra’s freezing out here.” Cassandra murmured a polite denial but headed quickly for the back door.

  Sid gestured toward the fenced yard to the west. Alberg glanced over there and saw cloud shadows racing across the lawn, and a human shadow caught his eye too, as it moved quickly away from a large window in the back of the house. “There’s another couple coming,” Sid was saying, as they followed Elsie and Cassandra. “We owe them. Because he threw in with me on the fence.”

  Alberg turned this remark over in his mind until he knew what was wrong with it, which was the phrase “another couple,” implying that he and Cassandra were a couple. Which they were, he supposed. But not a married couple, which was what Sid and Elsie were, and probably their neighbors too. Alberg felt a sting of nostalgia; for a moment, something in his body hurt.

  The other couple arrived a few minutes later. They were introduced as Emma and Charlie O’Brea.

  Again, Sid offered drinks. “Emma? Charlie?” As he turned to Cassandra, she said, “I’m fine, thanks,” interjecting quickly so he wouldn’t have to fumble around trying to decide how to address her. She’d told him to call her Cassandra, but he seemed to think that inappropriate, for some reason. Alberg wanted to grin at her, but he didn’t. He sneaked a sideways glance, though, and saw that she was tense in the company of these several strangers.

  He felt the need to say something to her in private. It didn’t matter what. It wasn’t the message, it was the conveying of it, in private, but among other people, that was important. He would touch some part of her and whisper something to her that nobody else could hear, and either he wanted nobody else to notice him doing this or he wanted everybody to notice it; he wasn’t sure which. For the moment, though, he would let there be space and distance between them, as if they were estranged.

  Politely, he turned his attention to the newcomers. They sat side by side on a long sofa, Charlie at one end, his wife in the middle. Charlie, Alberg had been pleased to notice, also wore a jacket and tie. He was in his early forties, Alberg figured, tall, with dark brown hair, graying; its tight curls were controlled by a very short haircut. His shoulders were broad, and his hands were large and square, with spatulate fingers. His eyes were blue, and the bones in his face—cheeks, forehead, jaw—were prominent.

  “I’m in insurance,” he said, when Alberg inquired, and looked amused when Alberg expressed surprise.

  “What would you have guessed?”

  “Something—I don’t know. Something outdoors,” said Alberg with a grin.

  Charlie laughed. “Insurance salesmen spend a lot of time outdoors. On the road. Going from client to client.”

  “I guess they do.”

  “He isn’t a salesman,” said Emma, placing her hand on her husband’s sleeve. “He’s a partner in a consulting group.” She looked up into Charlie’s face and smiled. “In West Vancouver.”

  Emma O’Brea was quite a lot younger than her husband, Alberg decided. Her blond hair fell from a center part, just short of her shoulders. It was sleek and shiny, and when she shook her head it didn’t fly off in all directions but kept its shape. She had a slight lisp and spoke very softly, so that Alberg’s eyes went to her mouth when she talked; her lips were so full as to look almost swollen. Her hazel eyes were carefully made up, her skin glowed, and her body was positively voluptuous, sheathed in a short black dress. She seemed utterly at ease. But her tranquillity felt to Alberg shielded and private: as if she were keeping it to herself, like a secret.

  “West Van,” he said. “You commute, then.”

  Charlie nodded. He stretched out his long legs, cradling his wineglass in both hands. Next to him, Emma sat sideways on the sofa, one arm along its back, the skirt of her black dress pushed several inches above her knees.

  It was revealed that Emma had a degree in art history. She had married Charlie right after graduation. She didn’t have a job and didn’t want one.

  “That must be very very nice for you, Charlie,” Sid began, nostalgic.

  “Things change, Sid,” Elsie interrupted briskly. “Life changes. People change.”

  Alberg noticed with interest the rapid pulse in Charlie’s throat. His heart’s going like a sonofabitch, he thought. Yet there’s nothing on his face but blandness.

  When they stood to go in to dinner, Alberg caught Charlie’s eye. His gaze was so guarded that looking into his eyes was like looking into an anteroom. Alberg was intensely curious, and he thought Charlie knew this, for he held Alberg’s gaze while he reached for his wife and pulled her close to him and smiled. Alberg could feel Charlie’s body willing itself to relax, and accomplishing this.

  After dinner they returned to the living room for coffee, and the conversation turned to neighborhood matters, and Alberg’s attention wandered. At the dinner table he had been seated next to Cassandra and had become acutely aware of her physical presence—the rustle of her clothing, the smell of her perfume, the gleam of her hair, the sound of her voice. Now he felt an ache in his body because she was too far away from him. He got up and moved an ottoman next to her chair and sat down on that. He looked at her face, in profile, for what seemed a long time, and finally she turned her head and looked back at him, smiling a
little. He reached over and picked up her hand and held it with both of his. He turned it over and brought it to his lips, and kissed the palm. He let his eyes move to her face again and saw that she was blushing. But he kept looking at her, and knew that the longer she returned his gaze, the weaker she felt in the middle of her, as if she were melting, as if her muscles were dissolving. He bent toward her and put his lips against the side of her throat, below her ear.

  When he lifted his head, Emma O’Brea was staring at him, her serenity shattered, her face contorted with rage. Alberg turned away, got up from the ottoman, and returned to his chair. He took his time picking up his coffee cup, taking a sip, replacing it. When he looked again at Emma, she was talking to Elsie, and she was once more rosy and serene.

  5

  EDDIE HADN’T FORGOTTEN about the girl called Melanie, but at least he’d stopped looking for her all the time. For the first couple of days, he’d looked for her everywhere: on the street, in the drugstore, in the café where he almost always had lunch—everywhere he went. This wasn’t because he wanted to see her—hey, not on your life. What he wanted was to not see her. Or rather to see her first, before she saw him, so he could make sure not to meet up with her, look her in the face, have to say any words to her. There was no way he wanted her in any part of his life, even in the smallest part of it.

  And then on Saturday he looked up from the shelf he was loading with antiperspirants, and there she was. With her back to him. Looking keenly at the jars of nail polish in the next aisle over.

  Eddie ducked his head a little and peered more closely from between the antiperspirants. It was her, all right. He’d recognize her anywhere, even from behind. He didn’t know what the hell to do, so he called in his mind upon his sister, Sylvia, who obliged him promptly, as she always did. Ignore her, Eddie, he heard Sylvia tell him; you’ve got your dignity to think about. Yeah, right, Eddie said to himself, concentrating upon the antiperspirants. He was lining up the roll-ons now, each one in its own little box: what a waste of cardboard, thought Eddie, and he snatched another glance over the top of the rack of shelving. He was a whole head taller than the shelves. He noticed that the girl was almost a head shorter.