Paris Trout by Pete Dexter

the
thing would allow, and then set the empty bottle on the table. Lucy
picked it up and put it in a wooden case she kept just inside the
basement steps.
    " Let me take those clothes," she said.
"I'll get them to the cleaner's."
    Seagraves stood up and allowed himself to be helped
out of his coat and then his shirt and pants. He stood in the kitchen
in long socks and his underwear, and she held his clothes in her
fingers and studied the spots in the material. "Are you
bleeding?" she said.
    " No," he said, "it's not human."
    The pants hung suddenly by less fingers. "I
don't think the cleaner's can get this out," she said.
    He walked upstairs, she came up behind him. He washed
his face in the bathroom sink and then drew a bath. She stood at the
bathroom door. He would have told her what had happened — he wanted
to tell what had happened — but it wasn't like a story, with a
natural orderand reason to the events. Lucy needed things lined up in
front of her before she could see them.
    She took the curlers out of her hair, and it gave her
a softer appearance. She picked up a brush and began to stroke her
hair. He took a breath, there was a pain deep in his throat from the
vomiting. "Did you say something, Harry?" she said.
    He did not answer. The bathroom felt distinctly
empty. She stood on her toes in front of him, putting her face close
to his, and kissed the air near his cheek. "Momma kiss,"
she said.
    " I saw the girl Paris Trout shot," he said.
    She pulled away from him, wide-eyed, as he knew she
would be. She always went wide-eyed at news."What did she say?"
    He stepped out of his shorts, then his T-shirt. He
climbed into the tub and turned the water off with his toes. She
stood in the doorway, looking down. °°Was it an affair of the
heart?" she said.
    Seagraves eased himself in until the water covered
his shoulders.
    " No," he said, "it was business."
    °°He did business with a colored girl?"
    "That would seem to be a problem," he said.
He saw that his wife was disappointed that it was not an affair of
the heart. She said, "I could understand if it was love . . . I
mean, you've seen his wife. She would not appear to have . . .
affectionate inclinations .... "
    " You can't tell without being in the bed,"
he said. "It might be the opposite, that it's Paris who isn't
interested."
    " I don't think so," she said. "He's
old, but he looks vital."
    Lucy only speculated on the "affectionate
inclinations" of women who were attractive in a different way
than she was herself. Mostly the ones who wore less makeup. Neither
of them ever mentioned her own inclinations, which were scarce. She
sat down on the edge of the tub, and he pictured Hanna Trout climbing
the stairs, Nurse Thompson with her wet hair lying against his
shoulder, the girls he'd seen at the college on the way to work.
    But the other face came with them, with the sheet
dropped half across its mouth, calm and persistent. He would look
away when he saw it, but in a moment he would see it again. It was
there like his own reflection, glimpsed in unexpected moments.
    He sat up in the tub, trying to clear himself of her.
"What is it?" she said.
    He picked up the soap and washed his arms and his
chest. "I don't know myself," he said. "I got to sit
down with Ward Townes and Trout this afternoon, and I expect it will
sort out."

" I wish you would tell me what in hell is up,"
she said.
    She didn't swear much, and even "hell" came
out of her awkward. He smiled at that and stood up. His skin had
turned pink in the water. It had been sensitive like that as long as
he could remember.
    She said, "At least tell me what's on your
clothes. That's the suit I bought for you in Macon, and if they don't
know what the stains are at the cleaner's, I might have to throw it
away."
    Harry Seagraves looked down at himself and said,
"Don't do that. If I got to argue the law without clothes, I'm
finished. I was still getting boners going to the blackboard in law
school. It's the fear that brings