Undo by Joe Hutsko (best book club books of all time .txt) 📖

of Lancome lotion into her hand. Working one hand over the other with systematic precision, she performed the evening ritual without ever once looking at them. On this occasion she focused her vision, through the mirror, on the lighted bathroom doorway at the opposite end of the bedroom suite. Finishing up, working again on the familiar motions without directly needing to - without wanting to - watch what she was doing, she reached into a drawer and retrieved a pair of fine, exclusively tailored white silk gloves. Just as she was pulling on the second glove the bathroom light snapped off.

Matthew appeared, wearing light blue Oxford cloth pajamas made of the same material used to tailor his business shirts. That was her husband, she thought with a tinge of malice, all business both in and out of bed.

Greta snapped off the lighted mirror and climbed beneath the cool sheets, folded the layers of bedclothes to just below her breasts. Matthew settled on top of the sheets, sealing her in on one side, and clamped his hands together behind his head. Straining her peripheral vision, she saw that he was staring at the ceiling.

She turned on her pillow to face him. “Darling, don’t keep thinking about tomorrow.” Softly: “Try to relax.”

Taking her advice, she watched as the puzzled, problem-solving frown on his face slackened and was replaced by a vague yet unwavering gaze.

She stretched across him to turn off the antique bedside lamp, her breasts barely an inch from his chin. As she drew back, she gently settled herself on his chest.

Through the windows beside the bed, the valley shone brightly. Orange and yellow pinpoints of light, far in the distance, glowed and shimmered in the cool summer night. She felt a sudden urgent desire to get out of bed and close the curtains, shutting out the view of the damned valley.

Was she rushing things? First the bowl, and now making love. But it had been so, so long, she thought, in her silent agony. Matthew had simply shut off where activity between them was concerned, telling her once, several months ago, that he could not concentrate on lovemaking, not even their particular style of it, until things were working again and his plan was firmly on track. Still, they were so close, just hours away from tomorrow’s big event and the unquestionably victorious outcome that was rightfully theirs.

Just a kiss. Was that asking too much?

She gently nuzzled his neck and throat, which showed minimally through the pajama top, tracing her long and delicately gloved hand, the part of her body to which he had once been most attracted, most submissive, along his upper body.

He sighed through his nostrils and closed his eyes.

Was he responding? Perhaps he too felt that he deserved to reward himself a day early, she thought with a private cheer. She inhaled deeply and pressed his shoulder with her left hand, careful to keep the sight of it from his peripheral vision. Her other hand strayed along his biceps. Raising her face, she closed her eyes and moved her lips to his.

He sniffed, and she opened her eyes just in time to see him turn his agonized face toward the window. He sneezed, twice, and she flinched with each burst, but was at the same time enormously relieved too. For an instant she had had the impression that the face he’d made had been in response to her. But it was only a sneeze. Two sneezes. Nothing at all to do with her, and so silly for her to have thought otherwise.

Or was it. There he was, gazing out the window again, as if he were counting the individual lights in the valley. She scolded herself for not having pulled the shade.

“Matthew,” she said softly, meaning to apologize or assure him or

-

“Good night,” he said.

Or nothing.

It was useless, and so she retreated to her side of the bed and lay there in silent deliberation. For the second time today she worried if perhaps the crystal bowl she had purchased had been a mistake, her private celebration somehow jinxing the outcome of tomorrow’s meeting.

They lay there like that for a long time, silent and awake but inexpressive, until, eventually, exhaustion won out and they both slept, each playing their parts in a dream that did not embody the other.

 

*

 

Peter sat on a stool at the island console range while Ivy prepared her special dinner. She bustled about in what seemed like a frenzy, but he understood, with some amusement, that she had the meal under complete control. A fragrant lamb and vegetable stew bubbled lazily in a large pot on the stove. In the oven, two small pizzas baked. Peter had enjoyed watching Ivy roll out the dough with her hands and shape it into little rounds. On each she had arranged caramelized onions, chopped olives, pine nuts, grated Parmesan cheese. During the preparation, she concentrated intensely on each step. A number of times she held the recipe close to her face and read a line or two aloud. At the same time she managed to engage him in interesting conversation. Though she had been a guest in his house for three weeks now, this was the first opportunity he’d had to spend time with her. And considering his day at Wallaby, her company tonight was a welcome relief.

“Pass me that cayenne, would you,” she said, reaching out with one hand.

“Which is it?”

“That’s curry. The one next to it. Right.”

The rosiness of her face, from all of the bustling about, against her white-blond hair, gave the effect that she had spent the day at the beach. She wore tattered old jeans cinched at the waist with a colorful bandanna, and a white dress shirt with no bra beneath. He realized suddenly that he was staring. He spoke.

“So do you cook often?”

She gave him an amused look. “You kidding. For who. I’ve been in a dorm, chowin’ on junk food and studying for the last three years.”

“Then how’d you learn all this stuff?”

“Easy. All you have to do is follow the directions. Besides, I’m a quick study.” She met his eyes and held his stare, as if challenging him. Until a bell chimed. “Pizzas,” she said with a delighted smile, breaking their link, which had felt to him a little weird but not exactly unpleasant. Just, well…significant. Careful, he warned himself.

He watched her slip on an oven mitt and told himself he should really look away as she bent over to retrieve the appetizer. Her breasts, he could see, were not large, yet were ample enough to illustrate gravity. They reminded him of the firm doughy rounds she had worked beneath her fingers minutes ago. As she reached inside the oven a little burst of heated air gently raised a few stray wisps of her hair, and an instant later the delectable aroma of her creation wafted his way. He swallowed.

Then something about her startled him and he felt his throat abruptly tighten.

As she was rising, holding the tray in one hand, she swept her hair aside with the other, and he had the opportunity to see, just for an instant, inside the collar of her shirt, in back of her neck.

What he saw was his own name - the code name the dry cleaner used to label his shirts. Something that felt about the size of a marble felt as though it had suddenly become lodged in his chest. A little to the left. Yes, there. In his heart.

“What?” she said, freezing in place.

“Oh,” was all he could manage at first. He gave a little laugh. “Nothing, oh nothing. Sorry. I just zoned out there for a second.” His lungs moved, he was breathing again.

“Hmm,” she said, a moment’s scrutiny, then she shrugged and transferred the miniature pizzas to the butcher block counter. “Where’s the cutter thing?”

“I’m sorry?” he said. He had blanked her out for a moment, and was just beginning to recover from his jolt. The cutter thing. He wanted to be helpful, to tell her where to find it.

Until he found more: The jeans, with their familiar rips where his own knees had eventually worn through the denim. She was wearing his pants, too. The marble thing became a fist.

“You know,” she said, making a rolling gesture with her hand, “The pizza cutter thing.”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. In one of those drawers, probably.” Had she gone through his closet? Had she helped herself to anything else?

“Ah. Here we go.” She returned with the instrument and cut the pizza into quarters.

Her feet were bare. She wore no jewelry, no watch. He fabricated a possible explanation: She was doing her laundry and had asked Alice if she could borrow some of his old clothes while hers went around.

“Mmm. Not bad. Here. Eat.”

It was probably nothing, he told himself. He was probably overreacting. He’d ask her about it later, no big deal. Still, it had given him one hell of a little scare there. Enough, already. Right now, he was hungry.

“Delicious,” he said truthfully. “I can’t believe you don’t do this all the time.”

“I could,” she said, and stopped chewing. He caught her look, edged with some unknown meaning. “I mean,” she went on, waving at the pot on the stove, “I could eat like this all the time, but who has the time, right?”

Peter just nodded. He took another bite of pizza. He was thirsty.

“Wine. That’s what we need.”

“Yes.”

“White? Is that good for what you’re making?”

“Red’s better.”

He went to the tall narrow wine rack hidden inside a cabinet. His fingertips lingered on the neck of a particular reserve, a special bottle. He deliberated for a moment, then selected a younger vintage. He opened it and poured them each a glass, handed one to her. There was an awkward moment, in which both stood motionless. He didn’t know what to say and, gratefully, she made it easy for him.

“To new friends.”

“New friends,” he said, slipping in a small emphasis on the latter.

They touched their glasses together and Peter looked into his own to avoid her eyes as he sipped the wine.

“Come on,” Ivy said, “let’s eat.” She went about filling two bowls with stew, while he sliced the crusty loaf of bread she’d set out on the counter. She carried the bowls into the dining room, and he followed with the bread and his glass of wine.

“Sit,” she said, “I’ll get the bottle.”

He drank some more, and when she came back in he noticed her glass. She had filled it.

They ate in silence for a few moments. He told her the stew was delicious, and she said she was surprised, though she wasn’t really.

“So, what made you choose Stanford?” he said.

“A course they had. It’s called VTSS. Values, Technology, Science, and Society.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s been around for awhile. Interesting mix.”

“Sounds like it. What interests you about it most?”

“Well, how they all overlap. One affecting and impacting the other, and so on. You sure know all about that.”

“Me?”

“Sure, you.” She snorted. “Come on. You know, the way the computers you invented have changed our society, that they’re founded on science and technology. How they’ve affected people’s values.” She glanced up from her plate. “I mean, really, you’ve democratized computing power among the masses, putting it in the hands of the people. Giving them a choice, an alternative to business as usual. No more Big Brother, brother.” She resumed eating. “Anyway, that’s what the course was about.” She spoke with the easy, unaffected confidence one acquires with experience. Yet she was only twenty-one.

He