The next morning Laine slept until noon, hard and sound, as if drugged into a numbed and contented slumber. She barely rolled over even as Michael banged dishes together in the kitchen. She smiled away the last vestiges of her dreams and stretched her sore body the length of the bed.
Thinking about the night before, a foreign sound escaped her throat and went flitting about the room like a nymph. She covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide and disbelieving. I giggled, she thought with amazement.
Dressing quickly, she hardly realized what she was doing until she put on her cross-trainers. They were shoes she had to have, for an aerobics class that she attended twice, and that were relegated to the back of the closet where they waited for the occasion when she would start her total make-over, reinvent herself, and perhaps win a shot on Oprah. She admired their potential.
"Good morning, Michael," she said as she entered the dining room. She grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator and drank half down, letting some of the water spill down her neck.
"Laine!"
"What?" she asked and looked at him innocently.
"You're spilling water all over your shirt."
"I'm thirsty."
"You mean you're dehydrated?" he asked. "I know you went to that place last night."
"I did," she said.
"I could smell the alcohol all over you when you stumbled into bed," he said, "like a drunken sailor."
She laughed so hard she had to bend over at the waist and hold her side.
"Laine, it's not funny."
"Okay," she said, gaining her composure. "I'll be back in a little bit."
"Where the hell are you going now?"
"I'm going jogging."
"Excuse me?" he said, finally noticed her running clothes.
"I'm going jogging," she repeated.
"Jogging."
"Yeah, like walking, only faster?"
"Jogging."
She shook her head and opened the door.
"Wait! Laine!"
"What?"
"I don't understand this. You won't even take the stairs at work! You think the mailbox is too far away!"
"So I can't change my mind? I can't take up a new hobby? Do I have to stay pigeon-holed and boxed into your idea of who I am for the rest of my fucking life?"
"You sure are using that word a lot lately," he said and sat down.
"I sure am," she answered and started out, screaming the word several times on her way down the driveway.
She started out slowly, walking fast and then jogging a little. Memories of high school track gave her the confidence to push forward as she remembered breathing exercises and techniques for energy conservation. By the end of her street, she forced the pace. Her breathing had become labored, but she ran through it, hoping she was not too old or too out of shape to hit a runner's high.
At the second block she was jogging steadily, though she was unable to catch her breath at times and had to stop and walk around in small circles. By the third block, all the tiny, insignificant thoughts left her mind and all that was left was a near visual mechanism of physiological functions occurring in her brain: respiratory status operated with slow, careful, and controlled breaths in tiny dosed cycles. Heartbeat was increasing, blood pumping in, out, swishing through the chambers, regulated and timed. She consciously willed her legs onward, one knee up at a time, feet hitting pavement with carefully paced steps, and pounded her way through the desire to turn back.
By the fourth block, she had disappeared. The world has transmuted into a single path toward one cosmic function. All that mattered was the runner, a woman unaware of the cars passing, not caring about people seeing her, not worried about dinner or children or meetings or work. A runner, sprinting into the expanse of holy potential, fed from an internal fountain of life-long regret and inaction. She fled indecision and raged towards an unknown precipice where she would not pause to admire the scenery...a precipice where she would plunge without ever having stopped running.
By the sixth block, she could feel her skin tingle and vibrate, could feel the hot blood filling up in her face. She slowed to a walk and tried to recover, but a cramp in her left side and a charley horse knotting hard inside her right calve collapsed her weight from under her.
She had never felt more alive.
She began to feel the effects of her run later, after her shower, when she sat in the window seat in her bedroom and looked out at the world. Running made her feel alive and empowered. It was the only thing which she ever did that made her feel stretched to the outside of her capacity, strong and aware that she controlled her own destination. Running made her realize the full extent of which she was capable.
I'm coming back, she thought to herself.
Sitting in the window seat, half distracted by a craft magazine, she watched idly as her neighbors prepared for their summer vacation.
The Hartwell's she thought and smirked. They were annoyingly dismissive and condescending. Laine remembered when they first moved in, seeing Mrs. Hartwell walking out to her car and waving enthusiastically. "Hi Neighbor!" she had called out and waved.
Mrs. Hartwell had simply smiled, got into her car and drove away.
Laine rectified the injustice by making international hand gestures whenever she saw Mrs. Hartwell outside. It didn't help that she was never obvious enough to be noticed. It was enough for her to extract her payment in any way possible.
They were packing a 40-foot motor home, loading organized bins and see-through crates into the cabin. Mr. Hartwell emerged from the camper, crisp in his ironed Polo shirt and matching Polo shorts. She wondered if Mrs. Hartwell ironed Mr. Hartwell's underwear, and if starch was her only method of hardening the area of her husband's shorts.
She laughed out loud.
She remembered when Aaron was only six months old, when she had run into Mr. Hartwell in the grocery store. She had been shopping, stumbling blindly in love with her baby, when the song playing overhead induced her to take Aaron out his little seat and dance with him in the aisle. It was a weekday and the store had not been crowded. She had closed her eyes and held her baby, holding out his little arm and dancing cheek-to-cheek, dancing up and down the aisle an infantile tango when Mr. Hartwell had rounded the corner, stopped and said, "Drinking so early?" He had laughed his way down the aisle, not even taking another look at her.
She was angry immediately, but the feeling soon bubbled into embarrassment. Settling Aaron back into his seat, she had walked away with her head down, her face hot with an inexplicable shame.
She looked at Mr. Hartwell now and narrowed her eyes, willing him to feel her eyes on him. "You starched pompous fuck."
"Laine!" her husband said from the doorway.
She smiled wickedly without turning to face him. "Those Hartwell's," she mumbled.
"They're going to California," Mike said. "For a month."
"How original."
He sat down next to her. "Laine..."
"I wonder how long it's been since Mrs. Hartwell had a mind-blowing orgasm."
His mouth dropped open.
"I bet they pencil in Tuesday night for sex and Scrabble."
"Laine," he pleaded. "Please talk to me."
She looked at her husband as if she had never seen him before, stared into his face and studied the once familiar lines. She realized she knew everything there was to know about him, that he knew nothing about her at all, and that he would never admit to either. "When's the last time we had mind-blowing sex, Michael?"
He face registered no answer.
"Yeah, it's been about that long," she said, her voice drifting off.
"I want to know what's going on with you, hon. You've been acting so strange and crazy."
"Maybe I am, Michael. Maybe I am crazy."
"You're not..."
"Why couldn't I be? My Mom's a nutcase."
"I'm not talking about this," he said and got up.
"Wait a minute!" she said and ran to the door, blocking his exit. "You always want to know what I'm thinking," she said and lowered her eyes, letting her glance crawl slowly up his body. She reached out and touched his chest. "You say, 'Laine, be a good girl and tell Daddy what's bothering you.' Don't you?" She got closer. "And then I tell you and you back off. Because it scares you, doesn't it, Michael? I scare you."
She kissed his neck and whispered into his skin. "I'm not quite the wife you married, am I? Not that good little girl you used to bounce on your knee..."
"Laine, where are you?"
"I'm so many places, baby," she said, kissing him hard on the mouth. "I'm up and down and back and inside and rolling and running. Sometimes I think I'm going to spontaneously combust, just like you do when you fill me up..."
He pushed away from her. "Sometimes I think I don't know you anymore!"
"You never did," she said and walked back to her window perch. "I am what you see. I'm the definition of all your experiences. I'm nothing outside of what you can identify." She turned her head away and added, "I am the creation of all your expectations, you piece of shit."
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing."
"I think you need to see a doctor."
She only nodded, again mesmerized by the activity of the Hartwell's and their preparations. She watched as Mrs. Hartwell greeted their neighbor, Angie, who appeared to be getting instructions regarding the house. Laine watched their every move as if memorizing the scene for her part in the play. They walked the perimeter of the yard, Mrs. Hartwell pointing here and there; Angie nodding and looking interested.
Angie was a twenty-something business woman who owned and operated a successful pet hotel, where the Hartwell's were no doubt kenneling their four cats while they vacationed. Laine had no interest in Angie, felt distanced by the span of their ages, and actively avoided contact with her. She was fascinated, however, by Angie's ability to present a front of such engagement.
She looked at the house again. It was a large split-level house on a half acre of land, encompassing the major portion of their cul de sac. She smiled slowly and cocked her head to the side.
What goes on in that house? she wondered. What secrets and storms raged within? How hard would it be to get inside?
She jumped up quickly and finished dressing, and began to hum. Her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears, like a constant drum to keep the natives awake. She jumped in place a few times, letting her arms dangle loosely.
Her mind whirled with ideas. Her thoughts fashioned themselves into the most evil plans, went into directions she had never thought of going before. She straddled the ride and released the controls, relaxing into the twists and turns as her mind flung her about.
At work the next day, she operated like a machine. She felt her instincts precise and quick. She anticipated problems and solved disasters on a seemingly precognitive level. She completed several tasks at once, and more than a few of her co-workers commented on her efficiency. At lunch she quietly stole into the accounting office while the secretaries were at lunch, fished the key to the petty cash box from behind the second filing cabinet on the wall by the windows, and pocketed a hundred dollars without thinking, without guilt and with a sense of entitled justification.
She could not stop smiling, at times giggling behind her hands like a naughty schoolgirl.
After work she drove to Wal-Mart and shopped as if by plan and map, completing the task and acquiring the necessary items as if choreographed for time and style. In the women's department, she picked out a pair of black lycra pants and matching black shirt. She grabbed a black fanny pack, thin Isotoner gloves, and a black knit cap, trying it on carefully and pulling the excess material down just above her eyes. In the mirror she noted a deliriously mischievous spark and fought the impulse to kiss her reflection.
She was sure the cashier ringing up her purchases could tell, just by the items she had chosen, that Laine Sanders was about to commit a crime, but she wisely pretended ignorance, distancing herself from the passive guilt. Laine nearly winked.
Over dinner, she and Michael ate quietly. She watched him through bored eyes, trying without success to remember why she had married him. She could not remember when he had ever enveloped her within a passionate embrace.
"I talked to Aaron today," he said. "He sounds good."
"I talked to him, too." Her mind trailed away and she noted the details of their dinner, their communication, as if wanting to document the series of events leading up to her potential arrest.
And what did you do, Mrs. Sanders, right up to the time you burglarized your neighbor's house?
I was eating chicken and baked potatoes with my husband, trying to recall the last time I straddled him and rode him like a bronco.
And can you tell the court when that was?
I have never straddled Michael and rode him like a bronco.
And you would have this court believe your sexual frustration is the reason you lost control and broke into your neighbor's house?
Well, it hasn't helped matters...
She pushed her chair from the table and walked away without clearing the dishes. Michael looked at her as if aliens had inhabited her body. "You're leaving the dishes?" he asked. "Where are you going?"
"Jogging," she said absently.
"Without clearing the table?" he asked incredulously.
She smiled slightly, realizing suddenly that not clearing the table after dinner might be more of a shock for Michael to handle than his wife fucking a lesbian in a bathroom stall. "Scandalous, isn't it?" she answered and winked.
He followed her into the bedroom. "Laine..."
She put up her hand and cut him off. "Michael, we're not discussing this. I tried to talk to you about this before and you shot me down. Now I don't want to talk about it."
"Talk about what?"
"About anything, Michael. About anything at all."
She dressed quickly, noticing with a surprise that her old jogging outfit was loose. She was running every day now, pushing herself further and further, coughing her life out at the end of the line, as if she could expel the domestic poison that had settled there.
She stepped on the scale in the bathroom and sucked in her breath at the numbers.
1-6-9.
A plan to infiltrate the Pentagon began to form in her mind. "There's nothing I can't do," she whispered. Catching her reflection in the mirror on the way out, she stopped and ran her hands slowly down her chest, lingering her fingers over her nipples, swirled hands down her abdomen and touched herself, down below, where it was already getting warm.
Lately, every physiological response that her body produced was evidence that she was alive, and each time her heart raced, each time her breath caught suddenly in her throat, she acknowledged her own power. Her hand slowly trespassed inside her panties, dipped into the wetness as if sampling frosting off the top of a wedding cake, and found its way into her mouth. "You want some?" she said to the mirror. "You want some of this, little girl?"
"Laine?" Michael called from outside.
She opened the door and stepped past him without answering, entering her room and closing the door behind her. She quickly fished the fanny pack from under the bed and dropped it into the bushes under the bay window. She grabbed the black trash bag from behind her pillow and dropped that as well. Jumping up and down a few times, she swung punches into the air and imagined the bell ringing.
Michael was standing outside the door when she opened it. "I'm not clearing this table, Laine. Those dishes will stay right there!"
"Michael," she said and laughed slightly. "I don't give a shit about the dishes."
"I noticed! All you care about is jogging and losing weight! You don't even scrapbook anymore. What happened to that?"
"What would you suggest I scrapbook, Michael? My latest root canal? I have no experiences to scrap about."
"What about what Aaron's doing this summer? He's sending pictures and scrapping stuff."
She grabbed his shirt without thinking. "What about my summer, Michael? How 'bout I scrap about what I did on my summer vacation?"
Michael looked down at Laine's hand closed around his shirt. Laine felt her lungs expanding, filling up and out, and closed her eyes, feeling the saturation of oxygen as if it were a ghostly being, billowing her sails to attention, and floating her above and away from any other thought outside the delicious ecstasy of her own air.
Five minutes later she was outside, retrieving the items from the protective clutches of the heirloom rose bushes. The scent enveloped her and she slowed her pace to admire the flower's beauty. She had always loved roses, had always paid a reverent heed to their royal stature, and regarded the lush swirl of their contour with respectful admiration, delighting in beauty that basked equally among mortals and insects. She grabbed the stem of the tallest bloom and ripped it from the bush without wincing when the prickles penetrated her palm's soft, pale flesh. She squeezed the stamen into her fist, mingling her own blood into the flower's organ, and imagined the transfusion of the flower's vitality flooding light and wonder through the years of her tranquil indifference. When she opened her fist, she was astonished at the imperfect coagulation of her blood on the rose's petals. "I want some," she whispered, painstakingly selecting the most saturated petal and eating it.
She was unaware of the passage of time, but when she looked up, the light had fallen and offered shadow for her movement throughout the neighborhood. She had meant only to jog down the small grassy ditch that separated the Hartwell's home from the empty lot next to it, toss the bags over the fence at the corner junction of their lot and keep running, but when she hoisted herself up to ensure proper landing of the items, the lights in the house went on. She was surprised at how quickly she acted, dropping the bags and following them over in one motion, and landing noiselessly on the thick, cover of mulch.
She righted herself and held her breath, letting the stillness fill in the space around her. She noticed the bag at her feet, but had to crawl around and feel for the fanny pack in the darkness, hoping her hands would not grasp the furry paw of whatever other animal slithered within the shadows of earth's hiding places.
Finally, she looked up and saw Angie in the house moving about in awkward strides. Laine watched transfixed, as if Angie were a talented actress performing a promising off-Broadway play for a one-member audience. In Act I, she opened the windows, stepped outside the French patio doors and set out fat potted houseplants along the perimeter of the deck. Laine half expected her to meet a mark in the center of the wooden stage, look into the sky dramatically and proclaim, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet."
Crouched under the canopy of a corkscrew willow tree, Laine felt a giddiness well up in her that was nearly impossible to contain. She fought the urge to give in to the night's black and engulfing mystery, denying herself the wicked pleasure of spying, and concentrated instead on the setup of the house. She counted ten windows total, two doors--one leading to the basement, the other opening out from what she assumed was the master bedroom, and the French doors just off the deck that led into the dining room.
She unzipped her fanny pack and removed a small wrench set, a screwdriver, a flashlight and a red thong. She froze abruptly when the lights went off in the house, and noticed Angie backing carefully outside. She watched as Angie locked the doors and checked the lock several times, walking a few steps away and then going back, to check again. "Anal-retentive cu..." she began and then held her breath.
Angie bent over casually at the side gate, picked up a beige, rounded item and slid the key into it. For a moment Laine's heart jumped crazily, like a child finding the candy store unattended and unlocked, but immediately, she was flooded with disappointment.
It was too easy.
She had wanted to force her way in, wanted to assault their pompous suburban superiority by sneaking in the back door and grabbing them from behind. She wanted them to make no mistake that a violation had occurred. She wanted them to feel it ripping the foundation out of their sanctuary.
She wanted them exposed.
She removed the black clothing from her bag and hastily tore off her jogging outfit. Quickly she changed into the black clothing and pulled the knit cap over her head. She yanked off her sneakers and slid her feet into black ballerina slippers. Shielded by the reflection of the night off the dark mulch, she could only discern the pale white outline of her hands, until she pulled the gloves on, and imagined herself appearing like a floating head of sorts, disenfranchised from her body's illicit enterprise.
She sprinted through the grass, kneeling at the side gate and finding the key hidden in the rock, opened the back door on the deck and stepped in. She stopped suddenly, returned the key to its secret encasement, and reentered the house. She let her eyes adjust to the soft, faint illumination of the streetlamp outside, and decided against using the flashlight. She felt a part of the darkness, navigating around furniture and small, awkward shapes, steadily like a ship through treacherous waters, captained with a cautious helm.
She parted the front curtains slowly and slid her gloved hand down the center as if unzippering a dress, careful of what might spill out. She had wondered what her house looked like from this perspective, and as she peered out, she felt herself a spy against her own country, gathering data for the enemy camp. Her house looked smaller from the Hartwell's immense living room. Her house looked common, nothing begging attention or standing out. There was no quaint or oblique architectural component about her house that would ever evoke any interest. "Just like me," she said out loud, startled by the sound of her voice blurted into the silence.
The business of depositing the red thongs into Mr. Hartwell's top dresser drawer was expedited without the excitement she had hoped to feel. She opened the closet nearest the vanity and gazed in amazement at the tidy organization of Mrs. Hartwell's wardrobe. She looked around quickly, not disturbing anything for fear her touch would trip a secret alarm.
She was rearranging the folds in the living room curtains, fingering the material back to its original shape when the sound of metal into jagged metal made her stomach flip over. A sinister chill festered, prickling the molecules of her skin into a heightened awareness.
The back door opened and the curtains jumped out, as if rising to greet a visitor.
Laine faltered and nearly froze, flinging herself to the floor at the last moment and rolling behind the loveseat situated at a stylish angle by the fireplace. She had not moved, had not even relaxed her position on the floor, when the light overhead spilled like a searchlight on an escaped convict. She held her breath.
"Damn it, Angie! Turn the light off!"
Hot white shock bled across her face in a slow painful wave.
"It's alright, Michael. I'm watching the house, remember?"
The overhead lights went off. "Laine is always looking at this house. She could be sitting over there right now looking at us."
Laine closed her eyes tightly.
"It's kinda creepy," Angie said, "the way she is always watching the neighborhood."
"She's going through something, lately," he said. "I don't know what..."
"Listen Mike, we can talk about your wife during the daytime."
The sound of a zipper rolled through the room.
"Don't you wanna go into the bedroom?" Angie whined.
"Nah, I've gotta get back. She won't be gone long."
"This might be hard for you to believe, Mike, but Laine doesn't give a shit about what you do."
They were quiet. For a few moments the only sound was the rustling of clothing, the smacking of wet lips and whispering she couldn't hear.
"Not the table," Angie said.
"C'mon," Mike said. "I don't have much time."
A familiar rhythm rocked back and forth from the dining room, though no other sounds accompanied the percussion. Laine crawled out from behind the couch enough that she could slowly make out the shape of Angie's body draped over the dining room table. Mike was ramming into her from behind, as uninspired by such erotic potential as he was when he fucked his wife as a remedy for insomnia.
"Not yet, Mike," Angie said breathlessly.
"Angie..."
"Mike, please," she whined.
Laine knew he wouldn't wait and she smiled ruefully, as if watching a movie where she had memorized the lines, still expecting a bad scene to right itself. She looked at her watch. They had about a minute left.
"I'm coming," he said.
Angie made the same appreciative moans Laine had always made, celebrating the passage over the finish line above the passion and stamina of the race.
"I've gotta get going," Mike said.
"Can I pull my fucking panties up first?"
"Angie, just grab the key."
"It's been in my hand the whole time, Mike."
"Where's the door?"
"Here, hold on," Angie said.
There was a crash.
Angie laughed. "Fuck, it's alright. I knocked over the chair."
The back door opened. She could hear their voices traveling through the back yard, could feel the hesitation at the gate, and then the sound of their footsteps walking across the front lawn, near the darkness of the house. She got up quickly and peered out the window. She could hear Angie's stifled laughter as Michael sprinted across the street to his house, his infidelity exposed by a path across the Hartwell's grass.
She left the house casually, too stunned to care about being sneaky and catlike. She changed back into her jogging outfit and laced her sneakers. No longer feeling the need to steal over the back fence, she left through the side gate and returned home, maneuvering purposely inside the outline of her husband's footsteps.
The air that had earlier expanded her soul with such delightful promise now deflated slowly. She felt it leaving her gently, like a mother's whispered goodnight to a sleeping child.
Michael pretended sleep on the couch and she watched him for a few moments, feeling nothing at all. She removed a bottle of Dewar's whiskey from the liquor hutch and poured a healthy glass, gulping slowly to feel the burn.
Now what? she thought and looked around.
She poured another drink and realized Michael had fallen asleep. Carrying the drink into the bedroom with her, she held the glass close to her heart as she fished the paisley suitcase out of her closet. She drank slowly, taking her time as she packed, and saw a plan unfold before her like a treasure map.
Thirty minutes later she sat in the driveway behind the wheel of her car and slowly revved the engine repeatedly. The suitcase in the passenger seat was like a fare that had hailed a cab, but was unsure of the destination.
"I guess I should leave a note," she said out loud.
She dropped the car into reverse and punched the gas pedal. She had aimed for their mailbox, but blasted across the road and rammed into Angie's mailbox accidentally. She had not planned on that, but was pleased with the results. Easing into drive, she floored the gas pedal again and skidded tire tracks across the road, sideswiping their own mailbox and nearly propelled the car through their living room window. Backing up, she revved the engine again and waited.
Michael bolted out the front door in his underwear, squinting into the headlights and waving his arms as if directing traffic. "Turn the car off!"
She floored both pedals at the same time, growling out the car's frustration like a caged force, feeling the power of the engine vibrate the car sideways into an impotent rage.
"LAINE!"
She took her foot off the brake and rode the beast through agitated spirals across the side yard, skidding across the driveway and sliding into the front yard. The car rotated out of control inside a moment of exquisite confusion, spinning Laine into the depths of adrenal overload. The backend of the car smashed into two aluminum garbage cans on the swale and shot them like canons down the street.
For a moment she regained control of the car, felt her breath regulating, and closed her eyes. The cremation of her front yard hung heavy like a pestilence and she waited for the air to clear. When she stomped the gas pedal again, her husband jump sideways into the hedges that flanked their front door. The trail of sod, metal and plastic littered despair into the street, leaving evidence of her departure a mile long.
She didn't know where she was going.
She didn't know how she was going to get there.
All that mattered was that she was driving.