"I don't know," Elaine says.
The briquettes are almost ready; the coals are orange-edged, glowing. Elaine goes to Paul, puts her arm around Paul's waist. She balances herself, then raises her leg, her foot, her toe, and taps her toe against the leg of the grill.
"Harder," Paul says.
Elaine pulls her leg back and kicks the grill. The coals fly up and out, the grill tips over. Everything sputters and smokes for a minute, and then slowly the fire builds up from the ground and moves toward the house. They stand watching as fire creeps up the back wall of the house. Wordless, each wonders if it is a game-a dare to see who will run for the garden hose. As the fire builds, their nervousness and excitement grow. Elaine begins to laugh and then stops herself. In the early evening light, the blue flame is nearly invisible. Fire seeps into a crack in the wall. A line of white smoke rises. Elaine watches, wishing she could hurry it, wishing she could be sure.
Paul leans on Elaine and puts his shoes back on. "Get the kids and get in the car," he says.
Elaine walks away, turning back to see Paul blowing on the fire, fanning it with his hands, encouraging the flame.
"We're going out for dinner," Elaine tells Sammy and Daniel.
"Roger," they say into their walkie-talkies.
They get in the car and wait for Paul. A few minutes later, redfaced, breathless, he joins them. They drive to a nearby restaurant. The waitress fills their water glasses. Paul and Elaine smile at each other.
"I'll have the steak," Paul tells the waitress, "and the baked potato with sour cream."
"The fat," Elaine starts to say.
"I just want to live," Paul says. "Live and not worry. Is that possible?"
"I'll have the same," Elaine says, closing her menu.
During dinner they hear sirens. They linger over coffee. The children eat ice-cream sundaes. When the check is paid, they get back into the car and head home. The street is blocked off, fire engines and police cars. In the distance, they can see their house, engulfed, flames shooting out of the roof.
In the backseat, the children are oddly silent.
"Is that our house?" Daniel asks.
"Yes," Paul and Elaine say.
They watch for a few minutes, and then, worried that someone will recognize them, they drive away.
They check into a motel. The children, stunned by the spectacle, stoned on hot fudge, go quickly and quietly to sleep.
"We're awful," Elaine says, crawling into bed next to Paul. "Really bad."
"We have to try harder," Paul says.
"We have to be nicer to each other," Elaine says.
Paul plays with the blankets, pulling them up over their heads. "We should build a fortress to protect ourselves from the world," he says.
"To protect us from each other," Elaine adds.
"From ourselves," Paul says, letting the blankets fall down over them.
They are quiet. Paul curls up against Elaine and wraps himself around her. "What are you wearing?" he whispers in her ear.
TWO
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, Paul wakes up. "We have to go home. We have to go home, we have to go home," he says, knocking his head against the headboard like Dorothy clicking her heels in The Wizard of Oz.
Elaine is asleep. For the first time in years, she is sleeping well, without fear or worry. She sleeps well because the bed she is sleeping in is not her own, because it belongs to someone else, because it belongs to no one. They are in a motel room. There are no expectations, no demands. She sleeps well because she went to bed thinking she would never have to go home, thinking it was over and done-gone.
"We have to go back to the house," Paul says, waking her.
"We set the house on fire."
"Did we?"
Elaine looks at the digital clock on the nightstand. "It's only twelve-thirty," she says, disappointed. "I only slept for two hours."
Paul and Elaine are in the bathroom of the motel room. Paul has brought in the phone, pulling the short cord taut. The door is closed, the light is on. Elaine puts down the lid of the toilet and sits. Naked under the frail, flickering light, the poor fluorescence, they look at each other and at themselves, then look away. Elaine looks at the thin white towels, cracking grout, sink, commode, glasses wrapped in paper bags: SANITIZED FOR YOUR SAFETY, PROTECTION AND PLEASURE.
Paul hitches up his cock and balls and sits on the edge of the tub, one leg crossed over the other. "We have to do something," he says.
Their nakedness is like a joke, something contrived to make them seem more exposed, only it fails-their skin is only another ill-fitting layer, like clothing. It has lost its memory-the landscape of the body hangs loose, shapeless. They make no effort to disguise themselves, to hide themselves, and there is something to be said for the honesty, the extreme humanity of all this faulted flesh-it is heartbreaking.
"We need help," Paul says, further adjusting himself. "We have to do something, call someone."
"Who?"
"Someone we don't know, someone we don't see. Tom. I'll call Tom."
"Your college roommate?"
Paul is already dialing.
"And what are you going to tell him?"
"Tom," Paul says. "It's Paul." And then he stops. There is silence. He begins again. "I burned down the house," Paul says. "Now what do I do?"
"If you've done something horrible, don't tell me about it until I tell you the consequences," Tom says. "Arson," Tom says. "It's arson. Or if the fire spread, if other people's property was damaged, it could be worse. If someone was killed, if lives were lost, it could be murder."
Paul stands in the bathroom of the cheap motel-where in fact he has been before, but he can't tell Elaine that, he can't tell Elaine that he's done this all before, that at the motel across the street they know him well, but they know him as someone called Mr. Melon. He can't really tell Elaine anything, but there's no point in getting into that now. Paul stands listening to Tom's litany-the potential charges against him-all the while examining himself in the medicine-cabinet mirror, touching the scar on his neck from where Elaine nicked him with a carving knife.
"What if it was an accident?" Paul asks. "What if it was all a terrible accident?"
"They might knock it down to negligence."
"And do you go to jail for negligence?" The word "negligence" comes out sounding like "negligee," and Paul blushes. The hot pink of his face against the green glow of the light is not a good combination, and now Elaine is watching him, worrying that his blood pressure is up, worrying that he's having a heart attack, worrying that he'll die here and now in this bathroom and she'll be left with all the explaining to do. "Are you all right?" she whispers, and Paul waves her away.
"You won't go to jail for negligence, unless it's criminal," Tom is saying. "But your homeowner's won't cover."
Paul's anxiety level has affected his hearing-instead of "homeowner's" Paul hears "homo," and out of the blue, like some memory released, he remembers that all through sophomore year Tom would crawl into his bed at night, and although he had forgotten it, long since put it behind him, he suddenly misses Tom incredibly. He wishes Tom were with him now-Tom would take care of this mess, Tom would comfort him, Tom would forgive him. Instead he is with Elaine, who is looking at him peculi- arly-as though she hates him. He turns away. He steps into the empty tub, pulls the shower curtain closed, and whispers to Tom, "What do I do?"
"Get your story straight," Tom says. "Then call the police."
"I really appreciate it, Tom," Paul says. "It's really good
to talk to you. How have you been? Have you been good? Have you been well?"
"Fine," Tom says.
There's a knock on the door and Paul pulls back the shower curtain and glares at Elaine, who's glaring at him. They're both frightened, thinking they've been caught. Again, there's the knocking, this time followed by Sammy's small voice pleading, "Let me in, let me in, I have to go."