With Dolores gone, Blackburn had nothing to do until three o'clock. He dozed, then turned on the TV and found only game shows and soap operas. He ate some Post Toasties dry. No wonder Dolores liked to get out during the day. The apartment was no fun when you were alone.
He was brushing his teeth when the phone rang. He ran to the living room to answer it and said a garbled "Hello."
"Dolores?" The voice on the other end of the line belonged to a man. Maybe Dolores's father.
Blackburn spat out his toothbrush and swallowed the foam. As he was swallowing, the voice spoke again.
"Dolores, you there? You said twelve-thirty. It's after one. Where are you?" It was not Dolores's father.
Blackburn said nothing.
"Dolores? Dolores?"
The phone clicked, and Blackburn replaced the receiver in its cradle. He picked up his toothbrush and went into the bedroom. He sat on the bed and studied the drying paste in the toothbrush bristles. He sat there for an hour, then went to work.
By the time Blackburn came home that night, he had concocted and rejected a dozen explanations for the voice. A few of them had been innocent. Lisa's boyfriend, perhaps, had confused ten-thirty with twelve-thirty. But Dolores hadn't said anything about Lisa's boyfriend joining them. Blackburn thought she would have said something about that. So most of the explanations he had concocted had been vile. He had always thought of himself as cool-headed, and it irritated him to realize that he had fallen prey to something as intemperate as jealousy.
Dolores was sitting in bed with the sheet pulled up, reading a paperback romance. The borrowed leather jacket covered her shoulders. When she saw Blackburn in the bedroom doorway, she dropped the book and jumped up. The sheet and the jacket fell away. She was wearing a white teddy. Blackburn sucked in his breath.
"Comeherecomeherecomehere," Dolores said, grabbing his wrists and pulling him to the bed. "Sit down. Sit down and close your eyes. Oh, come on, Eddie, do it!"
Blackburn sat on the edge of the mattress and closed his eyes. He saw orange blood vessels. Dolores put something in his lap.
"Okay, open your eyes."
He kept them closed. He was tracing the pattern of the blood vessels.
Dolores's hands touched his face, and he shuddered. Her fingertips were hot. She put her thumbs on his eyelids and pushed them open.
A cardboard box lay in his lap. Dolores removed the lid. Inside, nestled in tissue, were black cowboy boots. They were tooled with designs representing prairie grasses.
"Happy month-and-a-half anniversary," Dolores said. "I would have done it at the actual month anniversary, but I didn't see these until today."
Blackburn was astonished. This was the first gift he had received since he was sixteen. He picked up one of the boots. It was solid. It was his size.
"Cowboy boots?" he said.
Dolores bounced on the balls of her feet. "Well, you said you were born in Wyoming, and I figured, you know, cowboys, right?"
The Wyoming lie had brought him a present. But there had been cowboys in Kansas too; it didn't matter. He picked up the other boot. The box slid off his lap. "How?" he asked. He'd had a sudden thought of money.
Dolores turned her eyes toward the ceiling. "Oh, I've been saving my pennies," she said. "And Mama sent a check. I didn't use our account, if that's what you're worried about."
Blackburn stood and put his arms around her. The boots clunked together behind her back. She loved him. She had proven it every day. She had just done so again. He was a bastard to have concocted vile thoughts about her.
"I'm not worried about anything," he said, and kissed her. "I'll wear them always."
Dolores grinned. "Not to bed, you won't." She made him drop them, then pushed him down.
The next day was Sunday, but Blackburn worked anyway. Seven-day-a-week double shifts were becoming a steady thing. He wore his new boots to work and was proud of them.
The day after that was September 1, and Blackburn paid the rent and the bills. There was enough money left over for him to give Dolores twenty dollars and to set aside another twenty toward a two-month anniversary celebration. He was determined that it would be a special occasion.
In retrospect, he supposed that it was.
On Wednesday, September 10, Blackburn left the apartment in the morning as if he were going to his first shift at the Taco Tommy. Dolores was still in bed, curled like a kitten. She had switched to a new shampoo and smelled of apples and cinnamon. Blackburn licked her neck before he left. She squirmed.
Blackburn got into his Rambler and headed for a mall in Oakland. He had seventy-six dollars that he had saved by skipping lunches and shaving the household budget. He hoped to spend forty or fifty on a gift, and the rest on a surprise lunch at a nice restaurant. He would have liked to make it dinner, but he had to work that evening. Money was still scarce-too scarce, really, to spend any on a two-month anniversary. But it would be worth it. He wanted to prove his love with more than words and sex. He hadn't given Dolores anything since her wedding ring, and that hadn't been much. Someday he would buy her a better one.
He didn't have the money for that today, or for a leather jacket either, but he could still get her something nice. Maybe a sweater. Dolores had only moved from L.A. to San Francisco in April, and she didn't have much cold-weather clothing. The breeze off the Bay was already chilly. Something to keep her warm would be a fine symbol of his love.
He arrived at the mall right after it opened, and he found the sweater fifteen minutes later at the J.C. Penney store. The sweater was thick and gray, with a knitted belt and wooden buttons. The color would bring out Dolores's eyes and set off her hair. It cost thirty dollars. He bought it and had it gift-wrapped, then found a flower shop and spent another fifteen dollars on a dozen red sweetheart roses in a glass vase. The vase had vines and butterflies cut into it. The engraving looked a little like the tooling on his boots. Dolores would appreciate that. And he still had money left for the restaurant. He was pleased with his success.
He carried the package and flowers to the Rambler, listening to his footsteps on the asphalt. The boots were almost broken in. In another few days, they would feel fine indeed. They already looked and sounded good. Their pointed toes caught the sunlight, and their thick heels made solid chunk noises.
As he walked, Blackburn experienced a rush of exhilaration that started in his belly and swelled into his chest and head. The air became crisp, and the outlines of cars and lampposts sharpened. Colors brightened. The sensation was so strong that it made him dizzy. When he reached the Rambler, he set his things on the hood and leaned against the fender. He hadn't felt anything like this since he was ten years old and almost fell from the Wantoda water tower. He had tried to recapture the feeling then, and had failed.
In the years since, he had learned that joy never came when he looked for it. When it came at all, in whatever strength, it took him by surprise. While he was falling, or listening to his boots. Or looking for a copy of The Kids Are Alright. Or eating fried shrimp. It would never be in the same place twice.
After a few minutes, the sensation ebbed enough for him to feel safe driving. But some of the joy remained, and he would take it home to Dolores. That would be the best present of all.
He drove back across the Bay Bridge, to ruin.
In some ways, it was a classic scenario: Husband comes home unexpectedly. He brings a gift. He finds wife in bed with another man.
In other ways, it wasn't. Blackburn was unfamiliar with classic scenarios.
He entered the apartment with the package and flowers hugged to his chest, taking care that the front door didn't squeak. It was only ten-thirty, and Dolores might still be asleep. He didn't want to wake her with noise, but with kisses. Once inside, he heard Led Zeppelin playing on the clock radio back in the bedroom. "Gotta wholotta love." Bwaaaah. "Gotta wholotta love." Bwaaaah. "Ah-a-aaah, Ah!"