"Good," Mrs. Hansen says. "That's the way it should be. See you tomorrow. Good night."
Paul's roach, the end of his joint, is on the counter, next to the car keys, pushed back-out of sight. Elaine peels open the gluey paper and eats the pot. She chews it; it's a little burned, a little like lawn, like twigs. She eats it-it's evidence she feels compelled to get rid of. She has some nervous compulsion to keep the house clean, to put something in her mouth. There is a distant memory of hash brownies, escape. The pot sticks in her throat. She eats some ice cream to wash it down. She pours herself a glass of wine. She is still thinking of the cop, of Pat. She should call Pat, but what would she say? What did you and George do when the Montgomerys canceled? Idle conversation, cheap chatter. She finishes her snack, pours herself a glass of wine, picks up a disposable camera, and wanders around the house, taking pictures. She goes into the living room and watches them staring at the TV. Images, colors, flicker across their faces. She aims. She snaps. Flash. Flash.
"What are you doing?" Paul says. "We're watching a movie."
"Documenting," she says.
"Very funny," he says.
The movie ends, no one wins, everything goes up in smoke.
"I'll drive Jennifer home," Paul says, putting his shoes back on.
"I'm so glad you were here. We don't see enough of you," Elaine tells Jennifer as she's opening her wallet, taking out a twenty.
"Hush money?" Paul asks.
"Baby-sitting," Elaine says.
"You didn't go out," Jennifer says, refusing the money.
"You baby-sat the whole family," Elaine says.
"I ate pizza and watched a movie. I put no one to bed, I didn't call poison control, the pediatrician's pager, or the parents at a dinner party-forget it."
"It's Saturday night," Elaine says. "I'm sure you had a hundred better things to do." "It was a night off for me," Jennifer says, following Paul out of the house. "Deeply relaxing."
"Back in a flash," Paul says, picking up the car keys.
Elaine is afraid to be home alone even though the boys are there-she imagines the cop is still out there, still hard. The condom is in her pocket-she doesn't know what to do with it, save it like a caul, a scrap, the skin of her infidelity, or take it out and toss it in the Dumpster.
Elaine tries to sit somewhere in the living room where he wouldn't be able to see her. She sits in the corner holding the portable phone. If he comes back, who will she call?
Sammy wakes up. "Where am I?"
"You're right here at home," Elaine says.
"Is the door closed?"
"It's nighttime, and the door is closed," Elaine says.
She shakes Daniel's shoulder. "Come on, Scout, up to bed." Daniel babbles something about making a left turn at the what'd- ya-call-it tree, losing the route of the trail.
"You're talking in your sleep," Elaine says.
"No I'm not," he says.
She tucks both boys in and goes down the hall to her room.
They are home, back where they belong. Elaine hears the car pull in, the engine turn off, she hears Paul come into the house, she hears him whistling downstairs, making a drink. He comes up, offers the glass to her.
"Nightcap?"
"Pass," she says, pulling her nightgown over her head.
"Twelve-twenty and all's well," Paul says, unzipping his pants. "Kids asleep?"
"In comas," Elaine says.
"I'm so glad to be home," Paul says, sliding in next to her.
"Door locked?" Elaine asks.
"Bolted, chained, and I threw the sofa in front just in case."
TEN
SUNDAY MORNING. Two dogs knock over a trash can, dragging garbage across the grass. Squirrels jump from tree to tree, a cat slinks around the corner of the house, someone's sprinkler kicks on-things bubble beneath the surface.
Elaine is awake, alert, vigilant. She hears everything: the cracks and creaks, the shifting of the foundation, the even engine of Paul's breathing. She has been up half the night, afraid to go downstairs, afraid the cop is out there, watching. She had a strange dream and woke up thinking Paul was Pat. In the middle of the night, she sat up and took a look. Paul was Paul. The splash from the streetlight, the spill of the moon, gathered on Paul's shiny dome, giving his scrubbed skull a blue glow. A vein in his temple pulsed, his eye twitched. Elaine took a deep breath, turned over, and went back to sleep. She dreamed that every morning when she woke up someone different was in her bed: Pat, the cop, the workman with the broken fingers, the architect, Ted Talmadge. Every day someone new was pressed up against her-naked. Elaine dreamed she had no way of stopping it, she dreamed that she had no control.
Again Elaine woke up. Again she looked; still Paul. She got out of bed, walked down the hall, and checked on Sammy.
"Leave me alone," Sammy said in his sleep.
Standing over him, she cast a shadow across the bed, a dark cloud over the comforter's blue sky. She stepped back.
"Don't close the door," he mumbled.
"Door's open," Elaine said, leaving.
Elaine went back to bed and lay there, waiting.
A noise: tires, the slam of a car door, the sound of her mother's voice. "Try the kitchen door."
Her father asking, "Do you have a key?"
"If I had a key, why would I send you around to the other side of the house. Blow the horn."
There is a single shy beep, simultaneously splitting the air and struggling to be unobtrusive.
"More," her mother says.
The beep is followed by a second solid blast.
Sammy staggers into Elaine's bedroom. "Grandma's here," he says. "She beeped right under my head."
"Why don't you go down and let her in?"
He is in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes, a sleepy boy. "I don't like her," he says. "She squeezes too hard."
The horn blows again.
"I'm not here," Sammy says, crawling in next to Paul, pulling the covers over his head.
"All right," Elaine says. "All right."
Paul stirs in his sleep.
"My parents are here," she tells him. He rolls away.
"House of sleepyheads," her mother says, pushing ahead of her father and into the house. "Good thing we didn't call before we came." "It's Sunday morning," Elaine says.
"It's nine o'clock," her mother says.
"We brought brunch," her father says. He is holding bags of groceries and a white bakery box tied with string.
"You've already been to the store?" Elaine asks.
"I'll tell you a secret," her mother says. "When you get older, you need less sleep."
"You need less of everything," her father says, putting the bags down.
"I brought your father so you can see for yourself," her mother says.
"See what?"
"Exactly," her mother says. "I want you to see how he is." She says it right in front of him.