The Woman Next Door Read online

  He hadn't planned on Marilyn's claustrophobia.

  At one point—during the peak of the storm—she had even left the cottage. "I'm going home," she announced. "If I have to walk the whole forty miles, I'll walk it." And she was out the door. It had taken Brett a full half-hour to get her back inside.

  The storm ended the next day. And so, he realized now—eight years later—had their relationship.)

  He turned, finally, onto the gravel road. Here the traffic was sparse, the road all but empty. There were a few year-round residents, their cottages uniformly small and gray and tired-looking, much like his own. He decided that he enjoyed the lakeside in winter. It was dreary, yes, and cold, but it was also dead quiet. The cacophonous squeals and screeches of summer were months away.

  He remembered. Andrea's face was as clear in his mind's eye as his own.

  "Andrea," he whispered, because, even in memory, her beauty was breathtaking.

  He hit the brake pedal hard; the car came to a jolting stop.

  A moment later, Andrea opened the passenger door and got in. "Hello, darling," she said.

  Brett stared incredulously at her; words would not come to him.

  "I enjoy a winter walk, don't you?"

  "Yes," he managed. "I almost . . . hit you."

  She smiled reassuringly. "But you didn't. You couldn't." She nodded at the road ahead. "Shall we?" He put the car in gear.

  Minutes later, they were at the cottage.

  It had been the best—by far the best. Nothing even came close. This had been . . . beyond words. Brett smiled at that. He had, on occasion, imagined lovemaking that was beyond words, lovemaking that required not even the grand excuse of an "I love you," however passionately said. This had been (and still was) lovemaking that needed no excuse. And Brett realized that all his lovemaking, all his life, had needed some kind of excuse: It was release; or a child was wanted; or it was to break the monotony (because there was nothing on TV); or because it was Saturday, the night for lovemaking. Always some damned excuse.

  Until now.

  This past half-hour.

  And into this very moment.

  Afterglow. . . . He had never before had the time for it, he realized, and he had wondered what it was, precisely. Now he knew.

  Then be thought that he was not enjoying it as much as he could, because he was analyzing it.

  He squeezed Andrea's shoulder affectionately.

  And enjoyed.

  "We're staying the night, aren't we, Brett?"

  It had been a half-hour since their last lovemaking. Were it not for the yellow light of the kerosene lamp on a table across the room, they would be in darkness. Brett picked his watch up from the floor: 7:10. He chuckled. Christ, he had never had any idea how easily time could slip away, how ecstasy could negate it. He thought, She's the fountain of youth. And felt her chuckling with him.

  "We both are," she said.

  He sat up in the small bed, swung his feet to the floor, felt her fingers moving down his spine. He shivered involuntarily, enjoying her touch.

  "Yes," he said, "we're staying the night."

  He stood, crossed to the lake-facing window, peered out. There were a half-dozen feeble lights burning on the opposite shore, and a pair of lights—headlights, he realized—moving on the frozen surface of the lake. The storm had bypassed them. "Damn," he whispered.

  "Is something wrong?" he heard.

  "No," he said, his mind suddenly caught up with possible excuses for Marilyn. "It's just that. I forgot to pick up firewood. And we're going to get hungry later

  He felt her hands on his buttocks. He had always enjoyed that kind of touching; now it reminded him that he was naked, and cold.

  "Let's go get the firewood, Andrea." Something tense in his voice; he hoped she hadn't noticed it.

  "I'll stay here, Brett. I'll wait for you." Her hands left his buttocks. "I like it here."

  He turned, faced her, saw that she had slipped her black lace panties on and now was stepping into her jeans.

  "Okay," he said, surprising himself that he was not giving her an argument. He supposed it was the image that he enjoyed—the image of this remarkable, beautiful, sensuous woman waiting in this tiny cottage for him to return with the firewood and the food. It was such a fantastic, noble image, as if they had both been magically transported to another, less complex time—a time without Marilyn, without excuses. "I won't be long. The store's only a couple miles away. I hope it's still open."

  He got into his clothes quickly.

  At the door, Andrea kissed him lingeringly.

  "You livin' here year round?" asked the store owner. "'Cause if ya are, I can arrange to give ya some credit—that is, if ya got an income. Ya got an income?"

  "I'm only staying the night. Thanks." He paused, looked around. "Where's Mr. Francis? Did he sell out?"

  "Naw. He died, 'bout five years ago. A stroke."

  "That's too bad. I liked him."

  "Didn't know him, myself. Now, what was it ya wanted again?"

  "Firewood. Mr. Francis used to carry it."

  "Sorry, we gave that up. Somethin' else ya wanted?" Brett sighed. Without firewood, a stay overnight in the cottage would be close to suicide. "No," he said. "Thanks anyway."

  "We got charcoal briquettes. Maybe you can use those. They's cheaper than firewood."

  "No," Brett repeated. "Thanks again." He left.

  He sat in the car—the motor off, the headlights on—for several minutes. Something was wrong; he knew it. It was obvious in the way the cottage door hung slightly open, in the memories that flooded back to him—here, now—memories of Marilyn and of Greg, and not of Andrea.

  Something was wrong.

  He turned the headlights off, got out of the car, moved slowly, resignedly to the door.

  He opened the door, stepped in.

  The cottage was empty. Andrea had left him. Her offer to stay while he went for the firewood and the food had merely been some kind of excuse.

  He saw the note. She had put it on the table, beside the lamp. He picked it up.

  "It's not time yet," he read. "She still has you."

  He reread it again, and again, increasingly and naggingly certain that there was something very, very familiar about it, though he couldn't imagine what. Finally he put the note in his shirt pocket.

  Chapter 20

  The dream was rapidly becoming a nightmare. Greg had many nightmares—nightmares about suffocating and drowning and falling. They were a part of "getting older," he was told, something like "growing pains," though he had no idea what growing pains were, only that they couldn't be as bad as the dreams.

  He awoke from the dream with a deep sense of relief, as if he had just stopped gagging on a piece of stringy meat, and opened his eyes wide.

  The boy was at the other side of the darkened room, near the closet door. He brought his hand up level to his waist and waved once. "Hi," he said. "I was wonderin' when you were gonna wake up."

  Greg asked, "How'd you get in here?" Because it was a two-story drop to the ground, and his window was locked, and there were no vines to climb up on the side of the house.

  "I'm a vampire," the boy said matter-of-factly. He took a step forward. "I changed into a bat and I flew in through the window." He smiled broadly. "If you don't believe me, I can do it again."

  Greg believed him: He had seen vampires before, in his dreams, and some of them were like this boy. His mouth fell open.

  The boy chuckled, amused by the effect of his joke. Greg's mouth clamped shut. The boy's chuckle quickly became an earthy, mature laugh. It made Greg feel very foolish.

  Brett hoped Marilyn wouldn't wake, see that he was not in bed with her and come looking for him. He had so few private times—certainly not at the office, and even more certainly not in the hours after he came home, before sleep. Marilyn would not understand his need for "private times." She would ask what he had to hide. He would tell her, "Nothing. I just wanted to be alone." And she wou
ld not be able to accept that, because, in marriage, there wasn't supposed to be such a thing as "alone." Alone was for bachelors and unmarried women and criminals; marriage was for sharing and knowing and tossing secrets away. He had heard it all before, and he knew precisely what it meant: I own you.

  He glanced at the framed snapshots in the tall armoire opposite his chair. Those snapshots proved it, he thought. There must have been a hundred of them, taken on vacations and Christmases and Thanksgivings, and one or two just for the hell of it. And he was in a lot of them—nearly half—but always with Marilyn beside him, clinging to him, smiling her big, proprietary smile: See what I've got?

  He wondered if he despised her.

  And if he had ever loved her.

  He thought he had. Maybe when they were in high school together and the mere act of touching each other was an awe-inspiring thing, when lovemaking meant commitment (it had to), which was all right, because then you got to do it all the time and nobody cared. Brett shook his head slowly: God, but those were awful times.

  And here he was again, sweating blood and trying to cover it with the toys of his adulthood—his big house, his big car, his business, his insurance policies, his clinging wife. Jesus, what could the child locked deep inside him—screaming, babbling, tearing him apart—do with those things?

  It took several seconds for the quick laughter from upstairs to filter into his consciousness. He looked toward the source of the sound, listened. Was that his son laughing?

  He stood, moved slowly out of the room, to the bottom of the stairs. He wished he'd turned on another light before coming down. This house had always unsettled him a little, even in daylight.

  The blond boy in the light blue jacket appeared only briefly, first at the top of the stairs, then on the landing. He said nothing. He was not even looking in Brett's direction.

  Brett called, "What are you doing?"

  And saw his son appear to the right of where the boy had been.

  "Greg?" Brett said. "What's wrong, Greg?"

  Greg stared blankly at his father for a moment, turned, and went back to his room.

  Chapter 21

  I love you, Andrea. The words were unnecessary, Brett knew. They were a statement of the obvious. They had no place here, now. If his actions hadn't said he loved her, his words certainly couldn't.

  "Go ahead and say it, Brett, if you feel a need to."

  He stared confusedly at her. Their lovemaking—the physical act—had ended a half-hour before, yet they still lay naked beside each other. And though the fire in the wood stove had gone out, and sharp patterns of frost were starting on the windows, they needed no blanket for warmth.

  "How did you know?" he said.

  "That you wanted to say you love me?"

  She turned her face toward him, rolled over slightly. He watched her breasts move and thought how sensuous and . . . affectionate that movement was. (He had told her a half-dozen times that her body was perfect —"a tribute to creation," he'd said. Any other time, the remark would have embarrassed him; with Andrea it was truth, naked and unembarrassed truth—like their lovemaking.)

  "Yes," he whispered.

  She rolled over again, onto her back, focused her eyes on the ceiling. (He hadn't told her why her body so appealed to him—that it seemed a magnificent wedding of all that aroused him, and had aroused him in the past. His years of marriage to Marilyn had obliterated what he now thought of as a juvenile love for huge, basically grotesque breasts. Andrea's breasts were small, well-shaped. When she lay on her back, there was only a slight swelling of flesh remaining at the sides.) "Maybe we're too civilized. We have to say what really doesn't need to be said. And if we don't say it, it means, somehow, that we don't feel it." (Her rear end delighted him. He had always been delighted by slightly out-of-proportion rear ends; the chauvinist in him said that a woman's rear end should be slightly larger than her top end. He had read once that ancient man had always found rear ends the most hypnotizing part of woman's anatomy. He thought that was a pretty civilized way to think.) "If I were to refuse, Brett, to say that I love you, you would probably think that I don't, despite—"

  "No, Andrea, you're wrong."

  "I wish I were. But I'm not."

  (And comparisons between Andrea and his mother were impossible to avoid. There was no physical resemblance at all—if there was, he thought, she would not arouse him as much as she did, with that demon incest leering at him—but her sensitivity, her caring, her sense of humanity—he recalled the spiders in the sink and the words she'd used—his mother's exact words—were uncannily like his mother's.)

  He propped himself up on his elbow, reached out, put his hand on her belly. (He longed to tell her all these things, because he thought they were marvelous things and worth sharing, but he wondered how well he knew her, what her reaction would be.) "Do you love me, Andrea?" he said, and knew immediately his mistake.

  A look of sadness came into her eyes. She cupped his face in her hands: "My God, Brett, my God—what she's done to you!"

  He pulled away, sat up on the bed, fished around beneath it for his socks. "Andrea, can I ask a favor of you?" He heard the annoyance in his voice.

  "Yes."

  "Can we forgo discussing her—my wife? I mean ever."

  "Is it painful to talk about her, Brett?"

  He felt her hand on his shoulder and noted that it seemed to have lost much of its warmth. "It's cold in here, Andrea. Let's get dressed."

  "You didn't answer my question, Brett. Is it painful to talk about her?"

  He stood suddenly, violently, whirled around to face her. "Please. . . ." He saw himself in his mind's eye, saw his quick, unreasoning anger, saw Andrea—this beautiful, sensitive woman who had shown him her love—flinch.

  "I'm sorry, Brett. I didn't realize."

  He lowered his head as if in apology. "No," he murmured. "No, please don't be sorry. It's me. And it's her. She . . . dirties what we are; do you understand?"

  "I think so, Brett; do you?"

  He looked up, surprised by the question. And was aware that he couldn't answer it.

  Andrea got out of bed, kissed him lightly. "I have to be going." She stepped away from him, glanced about for her clothes.

  "Yes," he said. "I'll be ready in a few minutes."

  "Alone, Brett." She slipped her bra on, hooked it. "For now, alone."

  He knew from her tone, and from her look, that it was not a matter for discussion. Still he said, "Why?"

  "It's the way it has to be." A statement of fact. "I'm not asking you to understand, only to accept." She pulled her panties on. "Can you accept that, Brett?"

  "I don't know; I don't know why I have to. There's so very little that I know about you." (Only this, Andrea. If there is a God, He looked down on me and saw what I needed, and sent you.)

  "You know what's important"—she smiled warmly —"and you know that you love me." She picked up her yellow blouse from the foot of the bed, put it on, began buttoning it. "If you want to know more, you need only ask." She touched his face with the tips of her fingers; they were cold. "But we've been together several times, now, and you haven't yet asked—" She let her band drop. "So, you see, you have already told me what's important and what isn't."

  "Where do you live?" he asked, and immediately felt foolish, as if he had committed a faux pas. "It's not important," he hurried on. "It's not important."

  She slipped into her jeans and gestured toward the cottage's front door. "Out there," she said, "about two miles south. If you weren't looking for the house you'd miss it."

  He smiled at the revelation. "How come you never told me? I mean, we're practically. . . ." He faltered. "Neighbors?" she teased.

  He put the word in context mentally; it sounded ludicrous. "No," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

  She zipped up the jeans. "I'm thirty-two years old, have a bachelor's degree in sociology, was married for five years—no children—both my parents are living, but only one of my grandparents, my m
aternal grandmother, and I—"

  "Andrea, please. . . ."

  She put her loafers on, then her boots, got her suede coat from the coat-tree. "I am reasonably intelligent, have had a number of not-very-stimulating jobs, am an only child—"

  "Andrea . . . . "

  She shrugged into her coat, went over to him, kissed him lingeringly, until he nudged her away. He looked quizzically at her; her lips were icily cold.

  "I'll drive you," he said.

  She went to the door, pulled it open and grinned as if at a private joke. "That's very nice," she said, "but not for everyone's eyes."

  And she was gone.

  Brett looked down at himself. He was astonished to discover that, except for his socks, he was still naked. And his erection was massive.

  He listened, heard Andrea's footfalls in the crusty snow grow softer. He looked hurriedly around the room, saw his pants crumpled beneath the bed, ran to them, pulled them on, zipped them up with effort, because of his erection. He ran to the door, yanked it open:

  "Andrea!"

  Like all the other cottages on this side of the lake, his cottage had been built on a narrow, flat ridge of land flanked by shallow, sloping inclines. The lake was to the east, and the gravel road to the west. Most of the trees had long since been cleared to make way for boats and camping equipment. It was less than a minute's walk from the cottage to the road, and to the west of the road was open land for several hundred feet.

  Andrea was nowhere in sight.

  "Andrea?" Brett said again, though more softly, resignedly. "Andrea?"

  Minutes passed. He became aware, at last, that he was shivering violently. "Andrea?" He heard the pleading in his voice. "I . . ." Need you! He looked north, then south.