She drank from the bottle. “You were popular though. You weren’t just some damn egghead.”
Janet shrugged and smiled. “I guess.”
“Sure you were. You dated that guy Wilder for a while, and Kenny Whatsisname, big Irish preppie. What was his name?”
“Coughlin.”
“Coughlin. Kenny Coughlin. Right. Real sonovabitch that guy was to me. You know that?”
“No. I didn’t even know you’d gone out with him.” Kenny and Marion? Before or after us? she wondered. Kenny was about as straight arrow as they come.
“See, you and me didn’t hang out with the same crowd. Guys I hung with, they expected you to put out, and maybe at first you didn’t and maybe later you did. And that was seriously fucked because as soon as you did their friends would know, so from then on you pretty much always did, and by the time a guy like Kenny comes along your cunt’s Grand Central Station and everybody knows it. So what’s Kenny do? He comes on like he’s going to save me. You believe that?”
Marion drank again. Not good, she thought. It was starting to worry her. That and the fact that she was accelerating now, just a bit over the speed limit. But the woman would be in trouble if some cop pulled her over.
Then she thought, what cop? We’re out here in the middle of nowhere.
“At least with one of those other guys it’s right out front, know what I mean? At least he doesn’t do the movie-and-dinner routine so he can excuse his own sorry butt for wanting to screw you in the backseat later on. And then never calling you again. At least with those other guys, they call again. Kenny Coughlin. What a bastard.”
She’s using the present tense, Janet thought. Like she’s still there. Back in high school. She knew that some of them got stuck in time-she’d seen it before. The same old town, the same jobs, the same old friends growing older. Some simply got trapped there and it looked as though probably Marion was one of them. She was starting to get very unhappy about the whole conversation and it didn’t help at all when Marion pounded at the steering wheel.
“Who the fuck is Kenny Coughlin not to call me?”
She watched her take a deep breath and hold it and expel it slowly, and then she seemed to calm again.
“I mean, you dated that guy?”
Janet nodded.
“How’d he treat you?”
“Okay I guess. It didn’t last that long, not really.”
In her look Janet seemed to read a barely concealed hostility. And not toward Kenny, but inexplicably, toward her. As though this whole business with Kenny Coughlin were somehow Janet’s fault. And she held that look too long-considering she was the one doing the driving. And then she reached suddenly for the glove compartment and Janet couldn’t help it, she jumped.
She glanced down and saw the gun in there and then she saw her slide the bottle in and slam it shut.
Her heart was pounding. She wondered if Marion had noticed the overreaction.
For a moment I thought… my god…
But no, Marion had done the right thing-not the crazy thing. She’d put away the bottle. And maybe it was the bottle that had been talking all along. Maybe there was nothing to worry about here at all.
“Not too long, huh?” she said. “Well, good. Good for you. Myself, I could have killed the little prick.”
She laughed. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I was always too serious. Y’know?”
Emil watched the girl take her beer back into the poolroom, stand and watch one of the games. From what he could see the game wasn’t much. The players were just a couple of skinny kids in their twenties who thought that if you didn’t hit the fucker hard you didn’t hit good. He got more interested when he saw her reach into the pocket of her cutoffs and pull out a quarter and set it down by the left comer pocket.
The girl was a player. Or wanted to be.
He was surprised the bartender hadn’t carded her. She was just a kid.
“How’s your game these days, Bill?” he said.
“Oh, imperative, Emil. Imperative.”
“Fine.”
“So I guess you got married, huh?”
“No,” Janet said.
They were about twenty minutes from home now. Still in farmland, all gentle rolling hills and dark two- lane blacktop. They’d be coming up at a Kaltzas’s service station soon though, in about ten minutes or so. She wondered if she should tell Marion to stop there instead of taking her home. It was probably a good idea. If Dean was on, he’d give her a lift the rest of the way, drop her off and then go deal with her car. Dean had a massive crush on her that she didn’t exactly discourage. It helped if your local service-station guy happened to like you.
Besides, there was the matter of that gun.
“You got a boyfriend?” Marion said.
“Yes.”
“Fiance, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Been together a while?”
“Almost eight years, believe it or not.”
“What is he? Doctor? Lawyer? You got a congressman tucked away somewhere?”
“Lawyer, actually.”
Interesting, she thought. She hasn’t asked me what I do for a living.
“Lawyer. Actually. ” She nodded. “Well, I guess you really made something of yourself then, didn’t you.” And the hostility in that little zinger was loud and clear. Jesus! It was definitely going to be the service station now, even forgetting about the gun. She didn’t want this woman in her life any longer than she needed her to be.
“So how come you don’t marry the guy? What is he? Lousy in bed?”
“Marion… listen…”
“What? I can’t ask a question, now?”
“I’m not up to having a personal discussion right now, that’s all. My car’s dead, I’m exhausted, I’ve got work to do. You know what I mean?”
She laughed. “You’re not up to it. Having a hard night, are we?”