It happens this way.
Belinda snaps the light off, turns toward Matthew. There’s fatigue in her eyes and a wobble in her walk. She puts her finger to her lips. On her way to Matthew’s side, she seems to lose her balance a couple of times. She squats beside his chair and has to grab it to steady herself. “I’d better go,” she says.
“Mm,” says Matthew, but he puts his hand behind her head and pulls her toward him, kisses her. He runs his hand over her back, tugs her blouse from her skirt. She pulls away. With the smallest and briefest of smiles, she shakes her head.
“Uh-uh,” she says.
“Why not?” says Matthew. He reaches for her, tugs her toward him by the front of her blouse, begins unbuttoning it. “It’s an exciting idea.”
“Not for me,” she says.
“Oh, come on,” he says. He doesn’t want to plead. He wants her to give in to him. He doesn’t want to have to say “please.”
“I’d feel very weird, Matthew.”
“But incredibly sexy,” he suggests.
“Maybe,” she admits. “But quite possibly just weird.”
“Please,” he says.
Liz stirs, on the sofa, and Belinda shudders.
“No,” she says. “No.”
She takes his hand and leads him toward the door. “Hey,” she says, passing the section of wall where the hole ought to be, “it’s all back together. I was going to say something, but I thought you wouldn’t want Liz to know.” She rumples his hair. “I know you,” she says. “You don’t like to let on that anything is less than perfect.”
“Thanks.”
“So it’s all fixed?”
“No. Afraid not. I just put the bookcases back so that it wouldn’t show.” He wonders whether she understands what that means. He went to a great deal of trouble to hide the wall and his graffiti, to make himself and his apartment look good for Liz. When Liz is gone, he’ll have to pull it all apart again.
At the door, they say good night. “Sorry about — you know,” she says.
“Forget it,” says Matthew. “It was a stupid idea. Childish. I should never have suggested it.”
“Cut it out. Don’t go being so hard on yourself.”
“I won’t. We’ll just forget it.”
In the elevator, on the way down, Belinda feels anger at first, resentment that Matthew would try so hard to put on a good front for Liz, moving those bookcases. She feels a sinking feeling that she takes for falling out of love, but then she reminds herself that she has never been in love with Matthew, nor he with her, and she decides, when the elevator bounces uncertainly and comes to rest a few inches above the lobby, to cut herself loose from this drifting hulk and let him sink without her if he will.
[to be continued]
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🎧 499: It happens . . .