Who but Carl Roebuck, the little twerp, wouldn’t be satisfied with such a woman, Sully wondered as he limped up the driveway of the Roebuck house. Well, most men wouldn’t be, he had to admit, because most men were never satisfied. Still, he couldn’t help thinking he’d be satisfied, now, at age sixty. Of course, he was nearly twice Carl’s age and over the years he’d grown sentimental where women were concerned and had gradually developed the older man’s confidence that he’d know how to treat a woman like Toby, confidence born of the fact that there was now no chance he’d ever have one.
Toby Roebuck’s Bronco, a vehicle Sully had long coveted along with its owner, was in one of the open stalls of the Roebuck garage. The bay where Carl’s red Camaro usually sat when he was at home stood empty, which was good. Sometimes Carl came home for the lunch hour for a little afternoon delight. Most days, though, he went someplace else for the same thing. Sully had been hoping that would be the case today, because he didn’t want to run into Carl just yet. Alongside the back porch a shiny new snowblower was parked. The machine looked like it probably cost about what Carl Roebuck owed him. Maybe more. Probably more. Sully made a mental note to price them.
Since the back door was unlocked, he knocked on his way in, calling, “Hi, dolly. You aren’t naked or anything, are you?” Once last summer he’d come upon Toby Roebuck sunbathing topless in the back yard, a happenstance that had apparently embarrassed him far more than her. She’d hooked her bikini top quickly, chortling at his stunned confusion, his having flushed crimson.
“No, but I can be in about two minutes,” her voice, light and girlish, came down from somewhere upstairs.
“Take your time,” Sully called, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table and collapsing into it, his knee still humming from Wacker’s assault. This was one of the things he’d missed during these last four months, he realized. There were few places he enjoyed more than Toby Roebuck’s kitchen, where, miraculously, a pot of drip coffee, which Sully located by smell, was now brewing on the counter. “I need a cup of coffee first, as soon as I can find the energy to get up and get it.”
It was at this point that Sully noticed a man in gray work clothes on one knee at the front door, two rooms away. “That you, Horace?” Sully squinted, recalling now that he’d seen Horace Yancy’s green van parked at the curb outside, without drawing any inferences.
“Hi, Sully,” Horace said over his shoulder. “I ain’t naked either.”
“Thank God for that,” Sully said. “What are you up to?”
“I’m tightening these screws,” Horace grunted, twisting his screwdriver. “Then I’m all done.”
Since the coffeepot had gurgled twice and stopped dripping, Sully got up, found his favorite mug in the cupboard, the one bearing a poetic inscription on its side:
Here’s to you, as good as you are,
And here’s to me, as bad as I am,
But as good as you are,
And as bad as I am,
I’m as good as you are,
As bad as I am.
Sully was not a man who cared much for material possessions, nor was he particularly envious of what other people had. How odd, Sully thought, that so many of the things he coveted were Carl Roebuck’s. For starters there were Carl’s wife and Carl’s wife’s Bronco. Big-ticket items, these. And now there was the new snowblower. But there were little things too. One day he’d come in when Toby was doing laundry, stacking Carl’s underwear and socks on the kitchen table. Sully had counted over twenty-five pairs of underwear and an equal number of socks. To Sully, a man who did his wash in laundromats and who was forced to go more often than he would have liked when he ran out of socks and shorts, the idea of having twenty-five pairs of underwear seemed a very great luxury. That Carl Roebuck should have so many pairs didn’t seem quite fair. The fact that he also had the prettiest girl in the county to wash them for him didn’t seem even remotely fair. Sully tried his best not to think about these things. He was pretty sure coveting was wrong in general, and he was certain it was not a good thing to covet another man’s undershorts. And of course there was the specific injunction, etched in stone, against coveting another man’s wife. But what about his favorite mug? Toby Roebuck probably would have made him a present of it if she’d known how fond he was of it. Then again, he wasn’t sure he wanted it, exactly. If he brought it home with him, he’d never use it, would probably forget all about it. Here, in Toby’s cupboard, he got to use it occasionally and regret that he didn’t have one like it.
By the time he sat back down, Horace was snapping his toolbox shut and struggling to his feet. He was a few years older than Sully and had about as much trouble getting up and down. Toby Roebuck skipped down the stairs then, dressed in her usual getup: tight, faded jeans, a sweatshirt, running shoes. She’d been a two- or three-sport athlete in college, and she still jogged, every day in warm weather, her blond ponytail bouncing youthfully down the tree-lined streets of Bath. Sully noticed she’d cut her hair short since he’d last seen her, though. It was styled rather mannishly, he thought, and he regretted there’d be no more bouncing ponytail come spring. Fortunately, other things still bounced delightfully, Sully noted when Toby Roebuck reached the bottom step.
“All done, Mr. Yancy?” she sang.
“All done, Mrs. Roebuck.” Horace sighed, presenting her the bill. “I wish I hadn’t let you talk me into it.”
“I’ll write you a check,” she said, taking the bill and disappearing into the den.
“I’m the one he’s going to be mad at, not you,” Horace said, setting his toolbox down to wait, glancing at Sully as if to suggest that Sully at least would understand his position, even if this crazy, beautiful young woman didn’t.
“Men are such cowards,” came Toby Roebuck’s voice from the den. A minute later she emerged with a check and handed it to the sad-faced locksmith, who studied it with the expression of a man who’s just realized he’s going broke by centimeters, having made a wrong career move thirty years ago. Sully knew the feeling.
“I wouldn’t wait to cash that, though,” Toby advised.
“Okay,” Horace stuffed the check into his shirt pocket. “Here’s the extra keys.”
She took these and slid them into her jeans. Sully could see the perfect outline they made.
When Horace was gone, Toby Roebuck turned to face Sully, who, until that moment, she’d not looked at. “Tell me,” she said, “how does a man — even a man like you — get that dirty?”
“Working for your husband,” Sully informed her, since it was true.
“Ah,” she nodded, as if it all made perfect sense now. “He makes you look like he makes me feel.”
“He’s a beaut’,” Sully conceded. “Listen. While you got your checkbook handy, how about writing me a check for the work I did this summer? Dummy and I have ironed things out, but all he had down at the office was the company checkbook.”
Toby Roebuck grinned at him. “Nice try, Sully.”
“What?”
“He called this morning and warned me you’d probably be by. He told me what you’d say almost word for word.”
Sully grinned sheepishly. “He does owe me, you know.”
“Get in line,” she advised. “He owes everybody.”
“Good thing he’s got all that money,” Sully observed.