As she sat in the garden, lounging on one of the chaises, she stretched and wiggled her toes. Perhaps she should have felt lonely, but instead of feeling lonely, she thought how wonderful it was to have no duties or responsibilities. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had been taking care of people all her life. When she had been married, there had never been a minute to herself, for her husband was always needing something. If he wasn’t hungry, he was asking her to help him find something, or he needed clean clothes or someone to listen to him describe how miserable his life was.
At that thought Samantha tightened her mouth. Altogether, it was better not to think about her ex-husband and his “writing.”
“I see you made it to the grocery.”
At the sound of the voice, Samantha nearly jumped out of her skin, then immediately went from lounging in the chair to sitting upright, her feet on the ground, her hands in her lap. She did not look up at him.
“Did you have any trouble?” Mike asked, looking down at her, annoyed that she seemed convinced that he was an ax murderer with uncontrollable sexual urges.
“No, none,” she said, standing, then starting back into the house.
“You don’t have to leave because I’m here.” His annoyance was evident.
She didn’t look at him. “No, of course I don’t have to leave. I have things to do, that’s all.”
Frowning, Mike watched her go back into the house, knowing that she was leaving to avoid being near him.
Samantha went to the rooms her father had chosen, the rooms that reminded her of him, the rooms that made her feel safe, settled down in a dark green chair, and began to read her book. She had all day in which to do exactly what she wanted to do, in fact, she had a whole lifetime before her in which to do what she wanted to do. All she really had to do was serve her sentence in New York, then she’d be free.
For the next few weeks Samantha enjoyed her freedom with the delight that only one who has not had freedom can enjoy it. Not since her mother died had she had time to sit and read or to just be still and daydream. When she was a child, she used to take long bubble baths, but she had only had time for showers since her mother’s death. Looking down the road at her future life, she saw that she’d at last have time to read all the books she’d ever wanted to read and time to take up a hobby as soon as she found one she liked. Time to do anything and everything.
Each morning she awoke and looked about her father’s room and smiled, craving the feeling of his being so close and having the prospect of a long, empty day before her. She made a list of books she wanted to read. There were many biographies in her father’s library, and she started on a biography of Queen Victoria that must have weighed four pounds.
She didn’t leave the town house unless she had to go to the grocery, otherwise, she had everything she needed right in the house. There was a washer and dryer off the kitchen; there was the garden; she had a VCR and exercise videos; she had books; she had a television with cable; she had time. There was no reason to leave the house unless she had to.
The only disturbing element in her lovely, peaceful life was her landlord. He was true to his word in that he didn’t bother her. In fact, for the first two weeks of her stay, she might have been living in the house alone, but of course Samantha went to great lengths to avoid him. She would have liked to get to know his habits so she could avoid seeing him at all, but as far as she could tell, he had no set schedule to his life. Sometimes he left the house early in the morning, sometimes he didn’t leave until afternoon, and sometimes he didn’t leave at all. On the days when he didn’t leave, Samantha had difficulty avoiding him, for he always seemed to decide to come to the kitchen whenever she went downstairs for food, so she had to run up the stairs to keep from seeing him.
On the days when he was out, she sometimes walked through his rooms, for there was no door shutting them off from the rest of the house. She didn’t touch anything of his, she just looked, reading the titles of his books about gangsters, but nothing interested her. He wasn’t a very tidy person, for he seemed to leave his clothes on the floor where he took them off, but on Wednesdays a rather pretty young woman came to the house to clean. She picked up all his clothes, washed them, and put them away. On one Wednesday, Samantha heard the telephone ring then the front door slam, and she knew the young woman had left early.
Going downstairs, Samantha saw that the dryer was full of clothes and the dinning room table was littered with dirty dishes. Without conscious thought of what she was doing, she began to clean the room. When the dryer buzzer went off, she folded his clothes, took them to his bedroom, and put them away, telling herself all the while that she was free and if she wanted to do this she could. Besides, her landlord would never know who had done the work.
It was at the beginning of the third week that Samantha found out about New York delivery services. As she was carrying three bags of groceries out of the store, one of the employees suggested that she have them delivered; after all, the delivery was free. All she had to do was tip the delivery boy a couple of dollars. For that matter, if she was very busy, she could call the store and tell them what she wanted, and they’d deliver her order. Samantha thought this was a marvelous idea, because now she wouldn’t have to leave the apartment at all. First thing the next morning, she went to the bank and withdrew five hundred dollars in cash, knowing that the money would enable her to stay in the house for a long time.
When she returned to the town house, glad as always that it was empty, she breathed a sigh of relief and thought about what she wanted to do. Reminding herself that she was free, she knew she could do anything. With that thought, she popped herself some popcorn, went back to bed, and watched videos. But the videos her father had were all intellectual treatises on the lives of various bugs and birds, so after a while she fell asleep. How wonderful to be able to sleep in the afternoon, she thought, for surely a nap was one of life’s great luxuries.
When the sound of laughter awakened her at twilight, she got out of bed, went to the window, and looked into the garden, where her landlord seemed to be having a party. He was cooking steaks on an outdoor grill—and Samantha could see he was doing it incorrectly, piercing the meat as he turned it—and drinking beer with a half dozen nicely dressed people.
As always, he seemed to sense when she was watching him, for abruptly, he turned and waved his arm, beckoning to her to come down and join them, but Samantha stepped back into the room and drew the curtain closed. Putting a CD on the player, she sat on her father’s chair and picked up a book—she was now reading a five-pound biography of Catherine the Great. When the laughter from downstairs became louder, she turned up the music. All of her father’s CDs were of old blues singers, music from the twenties and thirties, mournful songs sung by people like Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson. It wasn’t music that Samantha would have chosen, but she was beginning to like it since it was what her father liked.
As the third week ran into the fourth, Samantha found that what she really wanted to do most was sleep. It had always seemed to her that since she was twelve and her mother had died, she had never had enough time for sleep. There had always been school and household chores and other people’s needs to see to. Then, after she’d married, she’d had to prepare three meals a day and work eight to twelve hours a day six days a week. Now it seemed perfectly feasible that her tiredness would be catching up with her, and she was glad for the time to rest.
When she was in Louisville, she hadn
’t been able to bear giving all of her father’s clothes away, so she’d boxed some of them and mailed them to New York. She found that it made her feel closer to him to wear his shirts over her jeans; she liked sleeping in his pajamas, and she especially liked his heavy flannel bathrobe.
By her fourth week in New York, Samantha was feeling very relaxed. It was amazing how much she could sleep; sometimes she didn’t wake until ten in the morning, when she’d go downstairs to get a bowl of cereal, but sometimes she didn’t eat anything. When she did eat, instead of cleaning up after herself, she discovered that she could leave her dirty dishes in the sink and the young woman who came on Wednesdays would clean them. Samantha was glad of that because, quite honestly, she felt too tired to do much cleaning.
Every day by noon she was feeling sleepy again, so she didn’t bother to take off her father’s pajamas. In fact, it began to seem like too much effort to bathe and put on clean clothes, after all, she couldn’t be too dirty since she did little more than sleep. When she tried to read a book about Elizabeth I, she could hardly keep her eyes open.
Several times over the weeks she heard laughter in the garden, but she no longer got up to see what was going on. And her landlord no longer disturbed her. A few times she’d seen him in the kitchen, but she just smiled sleepily at him and went back upstairs, no longer running to get away from him.
Putting the book on the bedside table, she turned off the light. It was only seven in the evening and it was full daylight outside, but she was too sleepy to stay awake. As she fell asleep, she thought that as soon as she was rested, she’d finish the book and all the others in the apartment, but right now she wanted to sleep.
Looking across the picnic table in the back garden at Mike, Daphne Lammourche knew it didn’t take a genius to see that he was upset about something. Usually Mike was cheerful, always making jokes, and usually he came close to eating his weight in meat, but tonight he was pushing his steak around on his plate as though he weren’t hungry.
Daphne didn’t know why he’d invited her tonight, but then maybe it was because she’d pretty much invited herself because she was “between jobs” at the moment, as people put it so politely. The last club where she’d worked had hired a new manager, a greasy little creep who thought it was Daphne’s honor to be allowed to do things to his body. When Daphne had declined the honor, she’d been fired as a result. She had a bit of money saved, and she knew she’d be okay until she got another job, but until then she knew Mike was good for a meal.
“You okay?” she asked.