She was quiet for awhile, looking at the ceiling above which Mrs Reston trod her slow miles.
‘And the insurance!’ she burst out. ‘Do you know what we have for insurance? Nothing!’
‘We have insurance.’
‘Okay, next to nothing. What if you got hit by a car? What if I turned up with an ovarian cyst?’
‘Our coverage is okay.’
‘That’s what everyone says, but what everyone knows is they fuck you at the drive-through! With this, we could be sure. That’s what I keep thinking about. We … could … be … sure!’
‘Two hundred thousand dollars makes my financial hopes for the book seem kind of small, though, don’t you think? Why even bother?’
‘Because this would be a onetime thing. And the book would be clean.’
‘Clean? You think this would make the book clean?’ He rolled over and faced her. Part of him had grown hard, so perhaps part of this was about sex. On their end of the bargain, at least.
‘Do you think I’ll ever get another job like the one with Winnie?’ She was angry, although with him or herself she couldn’t tell. Nor did she care. ‘I’ll be thirty-six in December. You’ll take me to dinner for my birthday and a week later I’ll get my real present: a past due notice for the last car loan payment.’
‘Are you blaming me for—?’
‘No. I’m not even blaming the system that keeps us and everyone like us treading water. Blame is counterproductive. And I told Winnie the truth: I don’t believe in sin. But I also don’t want to go to jail.’ She felt tears growing in her eyes. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone, either. Especially not—’
‘You’re not going to.’
He started to turn over, but she grabbed his shoulder.
‘If we did it – if I did it – we could never talk about it afterward. Not one single time.’
‘No.’
She reached for him. In marriages, deals were sealed with more than a handshake. This they both knew.
The clock said 2:58A and he was drifting to sleep when she said, ‘Do you know anyone with a video camera? Because he wants—’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Charlie Green.’
After that, silence. Except for Mrs Reston, walking slowly back and forth above them. Nora had an image – half a dream – of Mrs Reston with a pedometer attached to the waistband of her pajama pants. Mrs Reston patiently walking off all those miles between her and dawn.
Nora fell asleep.
The next day, in Winnie’s study.
‘Well?’ he said.
Her mother had never been a churchgoer, but Nora had attended Vacation Bible School every summer, and had enjoyed it. There were games and songs and flannelboard stories. She found herself remembering one of the stories now. She hadn’t thought of it in years.
‘I wouldn’t have to really hurt the … you know, the person … to get the money?’ she said. ‘I want to be very clear about that.’
‘No, but I expect to see blood flow. Let me be clear about that. I want you to use your fist, but a cut lip or bloody nose will be quite sufficient.’
In one VBS story, the teacher put a mountain on the flannelboard. Then Jesus and a guy with horns. The teacher said the devil had taken Jesus up on top of a mountain and showed him all the cities of the earth. You can have everything in those cities, the devil had said. Every treasure. All you have to do is fall down and worship me. But Jesus was a stand-up guy. He’d said Get thee behind me, Satan.
‘Well?’ he asked again.
‘Sin,’ she mused. ‘That’s what’s on your mind.’
‘Sin for its own sake. Deliberately planned and executed. Do you find the idea exciting?’
‘No,’ she said, looking up at the frowning bookshelves.
Winnie let some time pass, then said for the third time: ‘Well?’
‘If I got caught, would I still get the money?’
‘If you lived up to your part of the agreement – and didn’t implicate me, of course – you certainly would. And even if you were caught, the very worst to come of it would be probation.’
‘Plus court-ordered psychiatric evaluation,’ she said. ‘Which I probably need for even considering this.’
Winnie said: ‘If you continue the way you are, dear, you’ll need a marriage counselor, at the very least. In my time in the ministry, I counseled many partners, and while money worries weren’t always the root cause of their problems, that’s what it was in most cases. And that’s all it was.’
‘Thank you for the benefit of your experience, Winnie.’
He said nothing to this.
‘You’re crazy, you know.’
He still said nothing.
She looked at the books some more. Most of them were on religion. Finally she turned her eyes back to his. ‘If I do this and you fuck me, I’ll make you sorry.’
He showed no discomfiture at her choice of language. ‘I’ll honor my commitment. You may be sure of that.’
‘You speak almost perfectly now. Not even a lisp, unless you’re tired.’
He shrugged. ‘Being with me has trained your ear. It’s like learning to understand a new language, I suppose.’
She returned her eyes to the books. One of them was called The Problem of Good and Evil. Another was titled The Basis of Morality. That was a thick one. In the hall, an old Regulator clock was ticking steadily. Finally he said it again: ‘Well?’
‘Isn’t just putting this in front of me sin enough to satisfy you? You’re tempting us both, and we’re both considering the temptation. Isn’t that enough?’
‘It’s sin in thought and word only. That will not satisfy my curiosity.’
The Regulator ticked. Without looking at him, she said: ‘If you say well again, I’ll walk out of here.’
He didn’t say well or anything else. She looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. The most appalling thing: part of her was still curious. Not about what he wanted, that cat was out of the bag, but about what she wanted.
At last she looked up and gave her answer.
‘Excellent,’ he said.
With the decision made, neither of them wanted the actual act hanging over their heads; it cast too big a shadow. They chose Forest Park in Queens. Chad borrowed Charlie Green’s video camera and learned how to use it. They went to the park twice beforehand (on rainy days when it was mostly empty), and Chad video’d the area they decided on. They had a lot of sex during that period – nervous sex, fumbling sex, the kind teenagers have in the backseat of a car, but usually good sex. Hot, at least. Nora found her other major appetites dwindling. In the ten days between her agreement and the morning when she executed her part of the bargain, she lost nine pounds. Chad said she was starting to look like a college kid again.
On a sunny day in early October, Chad parked their old Ford on Jewel Avenue. Nora sat beside him, her hair dyed red and hanging to her shoulders, looking very un-Nora-like in a long skirt and an ugly brown smock top. She was wearing sunglasses and a Mets cap. She seemed calm enough, but when he reached out to touch her, she shied away.
‘Nor, c’mon—’
‘Have you got cab fare?’
‘Yes.’
‘And a bag to put the video cam in?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then give me the car keys. I’ll see you back at the apartment.’
‘Are you sure you’ll be able to drive? Because the reaction to something like this—’
‘I’ll be fine. Give me the keys. Wait here fifteen minutes. If there’s something wrong … if anything even feels wrong … I’ll come back. If I don’t, you go to the spot we picked out. Do you remember it?’