“Have a good night, Lara,” her voice rang out as the door closed behind us.
I followed him to his truck. I sort of already knew where it was, but thought it best to let him lead. It wouldn’t do to let him know I was literally stalking him by the window. He opened the door, and after feeling the height of the seat, I hopped in, as nimble as a goat. Well, that’s what my Ma used to call me.
A stubborn, nimble goat.
The truck was toasty warm. The seats were wide and comfortable, and covered with butter-soft leather. I ran my palm over it as he got in beside me and closed the door. His arrival changed the air in the truck. Suddenly it was bristling with electricity. I wondered if he sensed it.
“I love old vehicles,” I said, to quell the thousand butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
He paused. “How do you know it’s old?”
“The sound of the engine.” I grinned at him. “Don’t tell me you can’t hear all that gorgeousness purring away under the hood.”
“Yes ma’am.” His voice took on a note of pride. “I put a lot of time into this old girl.”
“Well, Sir. It shows.” I don’t know what it was about him, but he actually made me want to pretend I was cold and snuggle up to him. Even the small talk we exchanged about his vehicle had undercurrents of something dangerous swirling underneath. It was weird and exciting … and scary.
As he drove out of the library parking lot and onto the street, he said, “I got your tea.”
“Thank you! I’m looking forward to it.”
Obviously not a man of many words and he subsided into a deep silence after that. Though I tried to start a conversation from time to time, he had reverted back to his hard and tough exterior and all I got were a few grunts and almost unintelligible mutters. He was turning into quite the psychological experiment. Still, I wasn’t unhappy with the silence. I sat perfectly still in the seat, listening to the sound of the engine and the world rushing by outside the window.
The drive out to the house didn’t take as long as it did when I was with Elaine; perhaps the knot of nervousness in my stomach was not there this time. The winding curves told me he was taking backroads.
He didn’t say another word until we pulled into the drive. Then it was simply, “stay right there” as he got out of his side and came around to mine.
By the time he got there, I was standing outside the truck.
“I told you to wait,” he said, an edge to his voice.
“If you want me to wait next time, ask politely,” I told him.
“And only if you are opening the door because you are a gentleman. Not because I’m blind.”
There was a moment of silence. He was obviously taken aback, but his response was very measured. “I have no doubt you are quite capable of getting out of the car yourself. I wasn’t opening the door for you because you’re blind, but because the ground right now is slick as warm owl shit, and I damn near busted my ass twice this morning.”
“Warm owl shit?” I laughed so hard it hurt.
He took my hand as I was still howling and began to lead me to the steps. My feet suddenly went out from under me, and I stopped laughing pretty quick then.
“See?” he said.
Neither of us spoke again until we were in the house. It was way too treacherous to do anything but try to stay upright.
Thirteen
Lara
Once in the house, Kit seemed to be entirely out of his element again. Awkward and oddly shy. “There’s no fire. Shall I light one for you?”
I shook my head. “Not on my account.”
“There’s a wood stove in the kitchen. It’ll be warmer. Do you want to sit there?”
“Okay,” I agreed easily.
“Follow me then.”
“It’s lovely and warm in here,” I said as we entered his kitchen. It smelled of bacon and beans.
He grunted and pulled out a chair. I went and sat on it. He bustled around the kitchen. I heard the tap running to the left, the sound of a kettle filling. He took three steps, which would be my four steps to the right and I heard him put the kettle on and light the stove. He turned around to face me.
“I’ve got the water boiling for your tea.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at him.
His voice was again that gruff, leave-me-alone tone. That was fine. After all, we weren’t here to share our deepest and darkest secrets. I was there to read to him, and he was supposed to listen quietly.
I waited as he went back over to the stove, banged a few pots and pans, cursed, set down a piece of silverware in front of me, something else thudded next to it, before he came over and sat a steaming cup or mug on the table.
“Thank you,” I said, and reached out for it.
It was a cup with no saucer. I wasn’t surprised. There was nothing genteel or any false sophistication about the man. He didn’t play the games others did. He set his own rules. The silverware was a teaspoon, and the other thing he put down was a bowl of sugar. Its lip was chipped.
“Milk,” he said, and put it next to my cup.
By the full sound of the thud, I guessed the milk was still in its carton. My fingers moved towards it. He had already unscrewed the top for me. I poured what I needed into my tea and followed it with two spoons of sugar.
I stirred my tea and took a sip. “Ahhh … it’s perfect,” I sighed, and pushing it to one side, said, “Shall we start?”
Kit placed a book on the table in front of me and I slid my hands across the cover, reading it eagerly. “Money,” I said. “By Martin Amis.” I tasted the name on my tongue again. “Martin Amis. I’ve never read anything from this author before.”
The chair across from me creaked as he sat down in it. Was he going to sit there and watch me as I read? Or was he going to close his eyes and lose himself in the words? I took some time to orient myself to the book, feeling every inch of it. I felt the thrill that always came with a brand-new book, a little happy dance in my heart. Books were fascinating.
“Do you know anything about him?”
He sounded puzzled. “Why?”
“Usually the more I know about the author, the more sense a book makes to me. It’s almost as though an author has a certain signature, one that adds a tone to the book that is unique to that author. No matter who they are, they always leave a trace of themselves in their creations.”
“Huh … well, he’s British and he’s known for having a gift for satire. Black humor. He seems bitter to me. Like an ignored child.” His voice was strange, almost challenging me to ask further questions.
“Bitter? Is he, now?” I said, thinking that I had probably just learned more about Kit than about the author.
I opened the book and read the cover pages.
“Money … a Suicide Note?” I tilted my head. How curious.
He chuckled under his breath.
I took a sip of my tea and turned through the first pages. I skimmed over the title pages and got right to the fun part. My fingers found the first words:
This is a suicide note. By the time you lay it aside (and you should always read these things slowly, on the lookout for clues or giveaways), John Self will no longer exist.
Oh, this was going to be interesting indeed!
I read clearly but normally, as if I was just reading to myself. About halfway through the first page I heard a strange sound from Kit. If appreciation could take the form of a snort, that’s what I heard.
I stopped.
“You read well,” he said gruffly, and there was a reluctant touch of admiration in his voice. He followed that sentence with silence, and I took that as my cue to continue.
I started reading again. It was a book I would never have picked up, not in a million years. To start out, it had all kinds of Britishisms and slang terms that were totally foreign to me, and it was sophisticated in the way I was not.
The narrator was a thirty-five-year old half-British, half-American, jaded film director called John Self who quickly turned out to be a self-
loathing, chain smoking, hard drinking, pleasure seeking, pornography loving, sexist pig!
He actually reminded me of the first time a snake was put into my hands. I knew I should be repulsed. I knew it was a cold-blooded poisonous, unfeeling reptile. I was told to expect its skin to be scaly and horrible. Somehow I even got the impression that it would be slimy like an earthworm.
But when I touched the snake, its body was warm and dry, and the scales were a pretty diamond pattern. It made a whispery sound as it swayed along my arm, and there was something quite wonderful about the way its strong muscles ripped underneath its skin. Then its thin tongue came out and flicked at my skin. Ticklish.
John Self was the snake moving up my arm! I was totally fascinated by him. The man was on the fast lane to Disasterville.
By the first few paragraphs he had got himself kicked out of a cab on Ninety-Ninth street on a rainy night because he called a racist New York cab driver a scumbag. Next, he hit a topless bar on Forty-Fourth, drank too much, watched a girl dance like a vicious wet dream, and for his troubles, got kicked out of that joint too.
After the first chapter, I stopped to take a long sip of my tea.
“What do you think of the book?” Kit asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said with a smile, and returning my fingers to the raised bumps, continued reading.
Very shortly after that I started feeling sorry for John Self. The man was such a hot mess. With every page his situation got worse and worse.
“Jesus, I never meant me any harm. All I wanted was a good time,” he cried, in his self-absorbed, baffled way, after he had overindulged in junk food, alcohol, and a stack of dirty mags. He had an English girlfriend, Selena Street, whom he referred to as a “hot bitch”, who wore “top dollar underwear”, and was “fucking someone else. A lot—all the time.”
“I’d better give you the lowdown on Selina—and quick,” he confided to the reader, before cheerfully admitting to lecturing her about the intimate connections between rape and her summer wardrobe!