Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross Page B

to work uninterruptedly with him standing there, and then, without realizing what had come over him, he dropped to his knees and gathered her skirt in both his fists. “Please,” he said. “Alice, please forgive me, whatever I did. Whatever I’ve done. Just tell me what it is. Tell me what I can do. I’ll do anything, Alice, I promise. Anything at all.”
    He inhaled her smell and felt the fabric of her skirt, and his whole body shook. Then he heard her tapping away at the keyboard. He stood slowly, shuddering like a man squatting a tremendous amount of weight, and staggered out of the room. “Whatever,” he said. “Take your time. Take as much time as you need.”
    He went to the kitchen to make himself some dinner. He was hungry, though the idea of cooking—the effort required—seemed so involved as to be nearly impossible. He put water on, shook some salt into the pot, poured olive oil into the water, and stared at the circular globules that slicked on the surface. He got down a can of white clam sauce—he kept a secret stash of Alice-lethal foods—and opened it, inhaling its briny smell. And when the water finally boiled he found himself mesmerized by the roiling. And now, in his solitude, he found himself thinking very clearly once again. He thought of Georgine’s idea and what she’d said about directness. He thought of calling her to make love right now. He thought of his and Alice’s last five years together and then what he thought was this:We have arrived at some new phase. That, or we are about to enter one. We have been in the same place for so long we can either stay here forever—which is impossible—or not. And not is an unknown, and might not include each other, because at some point it requires both of us to hold on. “David,” Alice said.
    Startled, he looked up. She stood a few paces out of the kitchen, just out of range of the smell of the sauce. She was nicely dressed, not for work so much as a date. He took a step toward her, and she pointed at the door.
    “I’m going out,” she said.
    “Out where?”
    “I have an appointment.”
    “What time is it?”
    “It’s almost seven,” she said. “I’ll be back before ten.” She turned to leave. “But where are you going?”
    She stopped in the foyer but wouldn’t look at him. “I’m going to change my life.” And as if to emphasize her determination, she let the door swing closed with a slam.

 
    O ne evening, Detective Hastroll came home—it was late spring and unseasonably warm—and found his wife, Hannah, in bed. It was a Friday. He asked what was wrong, and she said she didn’t feel good, that she’d come home from work early to lie down. Her throat was scratchy, she said, she thought she was coming down with something. She just needed some rest. She lay there in her slip, the sheets thrown off her legs, the windows open onto the courtyard. There was no breeze and the room was stifling. Hastroll could see the beads of sweat on her upper lip and chest. She refused to look at him.
    “Can I bring you anything?” he said.
    “No, thank you,” she said.
    “Are you hungry?” he said.
    “No,” she said.
    “Are you sure?” he said.
    “I’m sure,” she said.
    “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.
    She looked at him and began to cry. “There is
nothing,”
she said, “absolutely
nothing”
—and here she sat up and pointed a finger at him—“that you can do for me. Except get out of my sight!”
    She waited, and Hastroll waited too.
    “All right,” he said finally, then went into the living room, poured himself a tall drink, and sat down in his favorite chair.
    That was five months ago.
    Hannah was still in bed.
    Hastroll was getting desperate.
    Murder brings out the basics in people, Hastroll thought. It reduces their character to the simplest forms of desire.
    Women, for instance, almost always kill their spouses in self-defense. It’s a proven fact. There are exceptions, of course, but nine