Hit Me

Forty-Four

Halfway to Cheyenne, he spotted a sign for a country-style chain restaurant and found it at the next exit. The menu ran heavily to quaint—Grampa Gussie’s Crispy Taters, hand-cut wif his own Bowie knife—but the food was what you’d get pretty much anywhere. He ate half of a grilled cheese sandwich and drank a few sips of his iced tea and let it go at that.

He stopped at La Quinta and caught the late local news on the CBS affiliate in Denver. A jeweler on Colfax Avenue had been robbed, apparently by a gang who’d been making a habit of this sort of thing. And the weather was going to be more of the same, although it took the weather girl ten minutes to convey that information.

Nothing about anyone named Hudepohl, or Heaney, or Crowe.

At first he thought Denia had retired for the night. The ground-floor lights were mostly turned down, and he used the key she’d given him and softened his step once he was inside.

The dining room table was cleared, the room dark. He padded across the carpet toward the staircase when she spoke his name. He turned, and saw her in an armchair in the dimly lit parlor. She was wearing a robe, and her feet were bare.

“It won’t be any trouble to warm something up for you,” she said. “But I’ve a feeling you’ve eaten.”

“The fellow I had to meet was hungry,” he said, “so I kept him company.”

“I didn’t have any appetite,” she said, “so I had a couple of drinks instead and wound up going to bed on an empty stomach. And then I couldn’t sleep after all, and I still didn’t have any appetite, and I was too restless to lie there and wait for sleep to come. Do you ever have nights like that?”

“Once in a while.”

“This is a robe of Jeb’s. That’s his actual name, incidentally. J-E-B, it’s not short for anything, though people assume it’s short for Jebediah. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone named Jebediah. Have you?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“I’m a little drunk, Nicholas. Why don’t you sit in that chair there? I want us to have a little conversation, if you don’t mind. That’s all I want, just a conversation, but I do want that. Is that all right?”

“Of course.”

“It has his smell. The robe, I mean. I ought to give all his clothes to the Goodwill. What am I keeping them for? But I like to smell them. And there’s a flannel shirt of his that I like to sleep in sometimes. And sometimes I put on this robe.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Widows are easy. You must have heard that, Nicholas.”

“Uh.”

“Everybody knows it, too. I’m not sure it’s true, but I do know that everyone believes it is, or wants it to be. I’m a reasonably attractive woman, Nicholas, but I’m hardly a movie star or a supermodel. And men who I swear never looked twice at me while Jeb was alive, men who were his friends, men who are married to friends of mine…”

She shook her head, raised her glass, sipped its contents. “Passes were made,” she said. “What an odd way to put it. ‘Passes were made.’ Well, they were, verbal and physical. Made and deflected, with no embarrassment on either side. I was not tempted.”

“No.”

“But I get lonely, you know. And I miss intimacy. Physical intimacy.”

“Well.”

“This is whiskey,” she said, brandishing her glass. “I usually have a glass or two of wine of an evening. Tonight I’ve been drinking whiskey because I wanted it to hit me, and it has. Can you tell I’m drunk?”

“No.”

“I’m not slurring my words, am I?”

“No.”

“Or speaking in too loud a voice, the way drunks do?”

“No.”

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Of course you’ve heard that slogan.”

“Yes.”

“My husband and I subscribed to that philosophy. He had to do a certain amount of travel for his business, and if he had an opportunity for a dalliance, he was free to pursue it. When he was at home he was married, and faithful. When he was miles away, he was a free agent.”

“I suppose a lot of couples have that sort of understanding.”

“I would think so. I’m going upstairs now. I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep. I’m glad we’ve had this little talk, aren’t you, Nicholas?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And tomorrow’s our last day. I can’t remember the name of the buyer we’ll be seeing tomorrow.”

“I believe it’s a Mr. Mintz.”

“As in pie? Shame on me. It’s ridiculous to make jokes about a person’s name, and the person will have heard all of them, time and time again. When he’s gone we’ll open the envelopes. And you’ll be able to have dinner, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Boeuf bourguignon, I think. With the little roasted potatoes, and a salad. Good night, Nicholas. No, I can get upstairs under my own power. It’s just my tongue that’s loosened, that’s all. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

He had a shower. He’d felt the need for one ever since he left the Arapahoe Street loft. He toweled dry, brushed his teeth.

Too late to call Julia. He’d thought of calling her from La Quinta, decided not to, and now it was too late. Was it too late to call Dot? Probably not, but he didn’t want to call Dot. It was possible she’d called him, or tried to. He’d turned his phone off earlier and had never turned it back on.

He got in bed, turned off the light. What happens in Cheyenne, he thought, stays in Cheyenne.

He didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep, and thought about putting on a robe and going downstairs to drink whiskey. But he didn’t have a robe, and didn’t much care for whiskey, or for the whole sad business of sitting up late drinking it.

He owned a robe, a very nice maroon one with silver piping. It had belonged to Julia’s father, who’d been an invalid during the short time Keller had known him. Mr. Roussard hadn’t known quite what to make of Keller, though they got along well enough, and then the man’s illness ran its course, more or less, and he was gone.

Keller had admired the robe once, and after her father’s ashes had been scattered in the Gulf, Julia got the robe dry-cleaned and told him it was his now. He liked owning it, but he hardly ever wore it. It didn’t smell of the old man, or of the sickroom, the dry cleaner had seen to that, but still it stayed unworn in Keller’s closet. Robes, pajamas, slippers, they worked fine for some men, not so much for others, and Keller—

Dropped right off to sleep, thinking of robes and slippers.