She said nothing. Just looked at him.
“Do you fuckin’ understand? Say you do before I fuckin’ hit you again.”
“You told me to shut up, Roy. That’s what I’m doin’.”
“You want me to hit you again?”
“I want you to be nice. If you can’t be nice, you can just walk back into town.”
Or, Roy thought, I could wring your fuckin’ neck, see if your fat ass would fit in the trunk and drive down to Albany and park this shit-bucket in the bus terminal and let people find you when you begin to stink. Which she already did, with some kind of cheap perfume or other. The thought of the Greyhound reminded him that just yesterday his bitch-in-law had offered him three grand to disappear, an offer that hadn’t impressed him at the time, which just went to show he hadn’t really been thinking straight. Because what was to stop him from taking her money and going somewheres — Atlantic City, maybe — and coming back when he was broke. Fortunately, he was beginning to think straight now, at least enough to realize he needed Cora for a while longer.
“And an orange juice, okay?” he continued, wiggling the plastic tube that contained his pain meds. “Something to wash down these little beauties.”
“Can I have one or two?”
Not a fuckin’ chance. “Of course,” he told her. “I always share, don’t I?”
When she reached for the door handle, though, he grabbed her wrist. Because suddenly he didn’t like the look on her face. “Don’t do what you’re thinkin’,” he told her.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re thinkin’ about goin’ in there and tellin’ somebody to call the cops.” Because in her place, that’s what he’d be thinking.
“It ain’t what I’m thinkin’, Roy.”
“Like hell. Don’t lie to me. I can tell you are just by looking at you.”
She began to cry again. “It was just a passing thought, I swear.”
He was taking a chance, letting her out of the car, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of options. “You got one minute,” he said. “Don’t make me come in there after you.”
“I need some money.”
“Use your own. I’ll pay you back later.”
“You never paid me back from Tuesday.”
“What are you talking about?”
“At Gert’s.”
“You said that was your treat.”
“No, I said—”
“Will you just get the fuckin’ shit, like I told you? I’ll pay you back for that and Gert’s, too.”
“You promise?”
“And get a couple six-packs,” he added. “We’ll go out to the reservoir.”
“Really?”
“And some Pringles.”
She sighed, beaten. “Okay.”
He was asleep, or maybe passed out from the pain, before she was inside the CVS. Then she was back again. He could tell she’d been gone for more than a minute, but not much more. And she didn’t look scared like she would’ve if she ratted him out. She had two big plastic bags full of stuff that she put on the seat between them.
“Let me see that orange juice,” he said.
She handed him the large plastic bottle, its contents ice cold, just the way he liked it. He was so parched that he drank half of it straight down before remembering the painkillers. Shaking the remaining pills into his palm, he counted eight. Returning four to the vial, he swallowed the others with the remaining juice and tossed the empty container into the backseat. “What?” he said.
Cora was back in behind the wheel and staring at him. “You said I could have one.”
“You can,” he said. “When half your fuckin’ ear’s hangin’ by a thread.”
“I like how they make me feel,” she explained. “And you said.”
“You know how to get to the lake?”
She nodded.
“Then go, before the beer gets warm.”
Still she just sat there. “It come to almost twenty dollars.”
“It did fuckin’ not.”
She showed him the receipt. Seventeen bucks and change. “Okay, so what?”
“And the other afternoon at Gert’s was almost thirty.”
“That was your treat.”
“Then pay me for this, at least.”
“When we get to the lake.”
“Now, Roy.”
“The beer’s gettin’ warm, girl. You know I don’t like warm beer.”
She turned the key in the ignition. “What you don’t like is spendin’ your own damn money.”
No argument there. He’d lifted a couple twenties from Janey’s purse while she slept, so he could afford to give Cora one of them, but that was the thing about money: you never knew how much you were going to need. In Roy’s experience, the deeper the shit you found yourself in, the more it cost to dig yourself out, and at the moment he was hip deep. One thing was for true. He’d gotten his last free cup of coffee at Hattie’s. He done killed the golden goose. Well, not killed her, exactly, but good as. No more day-old pie for ole Roy. It had been worth it, though, the thrill of shutting that bigmouthed bitch the fuck up, wiping that superior look off her face. He could still feel his knuckles throbbing pleasurably. Later, he’d take his list out and draw a satisfying line through her name.
Cora was studying him sadly now. “Janey’s never gonna take you back, Roy,” she said. Like this was what they’d just been talking about. Like she hadn’t pulled this brand-new subject right out of her ass.
“What’d I say to you about that?” Roy’d told her last week at Gert’s that he didn’t want to hear Janey’s name coming out of her mouth. In fact, it was when she brought Janey up that he’d decided the beer was Cora’s treat.
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Anyway, what the fuck do you know about it?”
Cora put the car in reverse and checked the rearview. “You should start being nice to me. I’m the one that likes you, not her.”
“Well, if she don’t like me, how come she fucked me?”
Cora hit the brake and looked at him, her eyes like little slits. “Fucked you when?”
“Last night.”
“You’re lyin’.”
“I’m gonna take a nap,” he told her. The painkillers were kicking in, giving things that gauzy feel. “Wake me up when we get to the lake.”
He closed his eyes and kept them closed while he counted to twenty. When he opened them again the vehicle was in motion, about to pull out of the CVS lot. Cora was crying, and that made him happy. He hadn’t been sure she’d believe him about Janey. Roy could hardly believe it himself, but clearly she did, which meant she’d try even harder now to please him. He doubted he’d have much further use for her, but you could never tell.
Drifting off, he thought again about Janey, how nice she’d fucked him. It was like she’d been in jail, too, just like him, and starved for it like he was. They’d always been good in bed, and she’d admitted as much. Okay, she hadn’t agreed to getting back together, but she hadn’t said they wouldn’t, neither, not till Mama Bitch started egging her on this morning. Anyway, she’d been his again, if only for a couple hours. Even if it was just because she was horny, like she said.
—
HE AWOKE when the wheels of Cora’s shit-bucket left the pavement. Sitting up, he saw they’d just pulled in to the campground’s dirt lot. It was still only nine in the morning but hot already, and even this early there were half-a-dozen other cars there. By noon the lot would be full, the beach full of brats in water wings screaming, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, look at me.” Or worse, “Mommy, look at that man’s ear!” Fuck that shit. The shoreline was dotted with camps, most of them unoccupied this early in the season, for as far as the eye could see. “Take that dirt road,” he told her, pointing.