Читать книгу Dear Emily - Fern Michaels - Страница 12

Emily stared at the laundry basket. in her eyes it represented an insurmountable mountain. Each day it got higher and higher. She stuck her foot into the basket and crunched down Ian’s white shirts. She didn’t feel any kind of satisfaction. Suddenly she wanted to count the shirts, needed desperately to know the numbers so she could calculate the days she and Ian had been at war. She upended the basket, kicking each shirt into the basket as she counted. When she was done, she jumped into the plastic basket and stomped with both feet. Forty shirts at three shirts a day meant thirteen and a half days. But then that wasn’t right either because Ian hadn’t come home for a few days during the snowstorm. She was stomping on two weeks’ worth of white shirts, maybe more.

The refrigerator was still empty, and there were no goodies or munchies in the cupboards. She still made only her side of the bed.

The Thorns were at war.

Emily’s nerves were in such a fragile state she no longer knew if what she was doing was right or not. If Ian would just say something, do something, make some kind gesture, she would react accordingly. Positively. She couldn’t go on like this much longer. Emily looked at the clock. Five minutes to midnight. She was home early tonight because Pete had decided to close early.

Emily raced for the bathroom and turned on the shower. When Ian wasn’t home, she could make all the noise she wanted. She could stand under the shower for hours or until the water ran cold. Tonight she’d be able to wash her hair twice with the new coconut shampoo and hopefully get the stench of Pete’s deep fryer out of her hair. The cigarette smoke she reeked of would disappear if she carried her clothes out to the kitchen and dumped them in her laundry basket.

“You are one screwed-up, mixed-up puppy, Emily Thorn,” she muttered as she lathered up her hair. In some cockamamie way she justified the feeling by telling herself if she recognized that she was half nuts she wouldn’t cross over the invisible line into insanity.

An hour later, Emily’s hair was dry, she was powdered and dressed in a high-necked, flannel nightgown and in between the covers. She was almost asleep when she heard Ian come in. She felt a tremor in her body and then another. God, how she wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted him. But more than anything, she wanted to rear up in bed and scream at the top of her lungs, I’m sorry! Love me, Ian, please love me. I’ll do whatever you want. Say you love me, say this is just something married couples go through. Say it, say it even if it’s a lie and you don’t mean it. She fought with herself, refused to give in. Instead she clutched the pillow and clenched her teeth.

Tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow there would be forty-three shirts in the basket.

“Emily.” It was a whisper.

It was the dearest, the sweetest sound. A sound she’d hungered for so long. Her name. Ian was ready to make peace. Thank you, God, thank you.

“Yes, Ian.”

“I don’t want to live like this anymore, Emily. I feel like I’m living in a war zone.”

“I don’t want to live like this either.” She didn’t move, waited for his arm to reach out to her the way he used to do. When she finally felt his touch, she rolled over and snuggled close, her breath exploding in a long, happy sigh.

“This was the worst two weeks of my life,” Ian said.

“Me too. Let’s not ever do this again, okay?”

“Okay. You smell good. New shampoo?”

“Hmmmnn.” He didn’t smell good. He’d smoked a cigar and he hadn’t brushed his teeth. “I haven’t been sleeping well. I tried to wake you last night, but you were in a deep sleep.”

“Really, Ian!”

“Really, Emily. Let’s go out to dinner tonight. Just you and me. Call in sick or switch your hours with someone, okay?”

“Are we celebrating something or are you just being nice?”

“Both. I’ll know more tomorrow. I’ll dude up and you gussy up and we’ll go out on the town. Your choice, Emily, where would you like to go?”

“Can I think about it?”

“Sure, honey. Listen, let’s make a deal, okay. If you make out a grocery list, I’ll get up early and go to that A&P that’s open twenty-four hours a day. You wash and iron my shirts.”

“Okay, Ian.” She knew at that moment if he’d asked her to climb to the heavens she would have searched out a hardware store to see if they made ladders that reached that high.

Moments later, Ian’s lusty snores permeated the bedroom. Emily waited ten minutes before she crept from the bed and out to the kitchen. She pulled on her down coat, gathered up the laundry basket as well as her soap. She let herself out of the apartment quietly and down the steps to the basement where the washer and dryer were located. While the shirts washed, she set up the ironing board and plugged in the iron. She’d gone without sleep before. She’d iron all night and surprise Ian when he woke to go to the A&P.

While she waited for the clothes to dry, she ran upstairs to make a pot of coffee, which she carried down to the basement. She switched on the landlord’s portable radio on a shelf above the galvanized sinks. Golden Oldies wafted softly throughout the basement. It was warm, and she was doing something she did well, something Ian appreciated. If she was going to call in sick, she could nap in the afternoon. This was more important than sleep.

As she finished each shirt, she hung it on the clothesline that ran the length of the basement. The heat from the furnace would dry the dampness around the double thickness of the collar and cuffs.

At five-ten in the morning, Emily made four trips back and forth to hang the shirts in Ian’s closet. Satisfied with her long night’s work, she made a fresh pot of coffee and was sitting at the table trying to imagine Ian’s reaction when he saw all his shirts hanging in the closet and on the back of every door in the apartment. She was about to take a sip of the freshly brewed coffee when she panicked and ran to the bathroom to check on the shirts, the last ones she’d ironed, the ones she hadn’t hung by the furnace to dry. She was too late.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Emily, these shirts are still wet. I could get icicles on my neck. It’s nineteen degrees outside.”

Stunned, Emily backed up a step and sucked in her breath. “I made a mistake, Ian, the ones in the closet are the dry ones. I thought you’d take one from the closet. You steam up the bathroom and it seeps out. I’m sorry. Here, let me get you another one,” she said as Ian ripped off the damp shirt and tossed it in the corner. Emily cringed as though she’d been slapped.

The phone rang as Ian was tying his tie. Emily picked it up and listened before she handed it to her husband. “I’m on my way,” she heard him say.

“Emily, I won’t be able to do the A&P bit. Joshua Oliver is having another series of seizures. Damn, I thought we had those under control.”

“I’ll do it, Ian. Hurry,” she said, holding out his winter jacket for him to slip his arms into.

“You’re a sweetheart, Emily. I’m sorry about the grocery shopping and I’m sorry for going off on you for the wet shirt. It’s gonna be one of those days. I’ll see you around five, okay?”

“Sure, Ian,” Emily said, tilting her head for his kiss on the cheek.

If you were keeping score, which Emily was, it was Ian Thorn 1, Emily Thorn zip.