‘I did no such thing.’
‘Did so.’
‘Did not.’
‘So.’
‘Not. And stop laughing like a hyena.’
‘But it is pretty funny, Jacko. I mean, here we are,’ she’d said, as he pulled into the driveway, crunching over something he hoped had not been alive. ‘Both trying to…well, to better ourselves, and who do we fall for? Why, practically our next-door neighbour in disguise!’
‘Sonoma is not next door to Redding.’
‘It’s still valley. You’re not better.’
‘It’s in the north Bay Area,’ he said primly.
Billie put her hand on his knee and stared him in the eye.
‘Okay,’ said Jacko. ‘It’s valley. But not as valley as Redding, you’ve got to admit. We grow grapes for wine. You grow...what?’
‘Almonds? Some cattle ranches outside of Red Bluff. We grow hamburgers.’
‘My point exactly.’
‘Oh, come on. We each thought we were other people. Serves us right for being snobs.’
But Jacko hadn’t seen it that way. And his disappointment had not entirely dissolved, because she might never allow him to totally reinvent himself. Oh, what did it really matter? Now they were going to a place where no one knew them, and they could be whoever they wanted. If he was lucky, no one there would find out he’d been fired. For Christ’s sake, how could any man spend his days describing plastic roses and toilet seats, and still respect himself? It had been a silly, boring job – vastly demeaning. Ahead was their new life. Their bright and shining brand-new life! It waited for them 900 miles away in Smithton, a small industrial city in Oregon. Jacko had already rented and furnished an apartment. Well, just the bed, really. He wanted them to choose the rest together. He’d been dreaming of this shopping trip for weeks. He liked simple lines, lots of beige and white, or just unvarnished pine. No more of that dark colonial furniture favoured by his mother. No patterned wallpaper. And please, no collections of china animals! He already had his eye on a certain dining table and chairs. Would Billie want them too? He snuck a glimpse at her profile – she was so damnably sexy. Like a doll, with her red lipstick and heart-shaped face. Even her knees, just poking out of her skirt, were adorable miniature knees. The most feminine knees he had ever seen, and they were attached to his very own wife. Imagine that! It did seem a kind of dream or miracle. They’d need shelves for his Modern Library books, and Penguins too – but he’d make those himself some weekend soon. He’d draw up some plans.
The road opened up, flat and straight for five miles, and Jacko accelerated till the engine made that satisfying sound he called the Singer scream. It would break his heart to be in the passenger seat.
‘Billie?’
‘What is it, my Jacko pie?’
‘Nothing. I love you.’
‘You’d better.’ She smiled.
‘Oh, I’ve got it bad,’ he said, focusing on the road so she couldn’t see him smiling too.
‘And bad ain’t good.’
‘Oh yeah.’
The lines were song lyrics and an old joke now, but they giggled anyway as if they were hearing them for the first time. Boy oh boy, life was good. Jacko squeezed Billie’s knee, and she covered his hand with her own while leaning just close enough so her left shoulder brushed his right shoulder, closing the circuit, amplifying whatever erotic music played in each of their pounding hearts. To their left was the Pacific Ocean, wild and empty. The road was empty too, and they each thought to themselves:
Whew! It’s over, thank God. Lucky us.
The way they looked at it, they’d accidentally discovered a new country, one that millions of innocent people never got a chance to see. No matter what happened from now on, no matter what horrible things life threw at them, they would be behind this buffer of...well, a happy marriage. Corny but true. What if they had missed this? As long as they could access this current that was travelling down his arm and hand, into her knee and leg and entire being, nothing could hurt them. Not really.
Last night had been their wedding night, but they’d been too overwrought to treat it as such. In any case, he’d been making love to her whenever he could, sometimes both of them falling off her single bed. He rarely slept all night with her, but hadn’t minded. He’d quite liked those solo journeys back over the Golden Gate Bridge, then slipping into his own single bed, the cool sheets keeping him awake till he drifted off to the memories of what had just occurred in Billie’s bed. Strange, how it kept feeling new; every damn time seemed different, almost like a first time. Strange also, how much he’d missed her at night, those three months prior to the wedding when he’d been working in Oregon. He’d written, and so had she. He wrote with a fountain pen. She’d sent letters typed at work.
Marcus Whitman Hotel Beaufort, Oregon
June 3rd, 1952
Darling –
I love you. I miss you! Drove over from Smithton this a.m. Will be working with O.L. Bloomer for a few days on the Philpott murder case. He is a very bitter, profane little man who thinks that no one at the paper is any good unless they are about to quit, or even better, have just quit, or best of all, been fired. I was tempted to tell him the truth about me and Perkins PP, but decided it was too risky. Clean start, that’s what we need.
Did I mention I love you? I will love you forever and ever and be the best husband on earth. I still can’t believe you want to marry me. I can’t believe how much I miss you! I’ve rented us the sexiest apartment you ever saw. I wish you were here right now. I wish you were here, and wearing that yellow dress with the roses and all the buttons so I could unbutton them slowly. You wouldn’t have to do a thing. Then I would get you under the covers and keep you warm. I love you. I miss you! Oh yeah, I already mentioned that, didn’t I. See, missing you is making me BORING.
J’amour tu boucoup, Mon cherie,
Jacko
PS. If you think Redding is bad, you should see some of these hick towns.
Perkins’s Petroleum Products
22 Battery Street San Francisco 6, California June 15th, 1952
My Dearest –
Have so many things to tell you, I don’t know where to begin. First of all, Mr Corey received a memo from Mr Richmond about me leaving and in turn Mr Corey wrote to head office, and the company is giving me a send-off office party on the 25th, and a wedding present! So, darling, I guess that’s their way of apologising. Didn’t I tell you they’d be sorry? Fools, firing the best man they had, just because you made a few mistakes anyone could make. You’d think they couldn’t afford to lose a few grand! But they are all being so sweet to me, and therefore you. You are missed! I told them about your new job, obviously – and they are all very impressed you are now a reporter. I fibbed a bit and said you were the crime reporter. Well, you kind of are sometimes, right?
Last night Louise got home about 2:00 in the morning, so of course we stayed up and talked until about 4:00. She had a wonderful, wonderful time, but darn Chuck, he never committed himself.
