25. Helen
There’s something about traveling that’s so exhausting, even though I’ve only been sitting in a car for most of the day. Thad never relented on letting me help him drive. Apparently my spotless driving record is still not good enough proof to show I can take care of his baby.
Whatever. I’m not jealous of a car. It’s fine.
Thad must be even more exhausted than I am after all that driving because after he showers, he collapses onto his bed—the one closest to the door, at his insistence—and lets me take care of ordering the food. Considering that he’s paying for all the gas and the room, and doing all the driving, I’m happy to take over finding dinner. That way I can put it all on my card and he won’t be able to do anything about it, if he’s even awake enough to notice.
“Pizza’s on its way,” I tell him, setting my phone on the bedside table. Actually, on second thought, I better take it into the bathroom with me while I shower. I have a passcode on it, but Thad seemed pretty confident that he’d be able to break into it without my help, and I don’t want him figuring out where we’re going and leaving without me.
“Hrrmm,” Thad grunts from the bed.
If the thought of me getting naked in the next room is at all titillating, Thad does a really good job of not showing it. Rolling over onto his back, he reaches for the remote and switches on the television.
Whatever. It’s not like during his shower, I was thinking about his naked body underneath all that hot water. That would be weird. And I definitely did not do that, not even once.
Thad may not care, but I’m self-conscious as I take off my clothes in the bathroom and step into the shower. I can hear him watching the TV through the wall. It’s the most intimate I’ve ever been with a nonrelated man before, and even though absolutely nothing is going to happen, I choose to see this as a positive step forward instead of simply being sad. This man might not want to see me naked, but we are sharing a sleeping space tonight, and we will be in pajamas in the same room together, and that feels like progress.
If this were a romance, there would be some emergency that would make Thad need to come into the bathroom while I’m showering. My hair would get caught in the showerhead or there would be a giant spider on the wall or something. Thad would be a gentleman and keep his eyes above my shoulders for most of it, but maybe he would sneak just one little peek and be overwhelmed with the sight of my puckered nipples and heaving breasts.
But this is not a romance, and nobody is interested in these boobies. I pat them consolingly. “Sorry, girls. Maybe someday.”
I am a certified weirdo, but this has already been well established.
When I’m fully dressed again and absolutely no one has seen me naked, I find Thad in the same exact position, completely supine, like his body has been drained of all its energy.
“Are you alive?” I tease him, putting my toiletries back in my bag. I’ve decided to treat this whole sharing-a-room thing like a fun summer camp adventure with two buddies, since I need to stop thinking romance-novel thoughts so I won’t act like a total creep with Thad.
He grunts at me. “Do you always sing in the shower like that?”
I honestly hadn’t realized I was doing that, but it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. A singing nun—what a cliche. “Sorry. Julie Andrews was a big hero to me growing up, go figure. Was it annoying?”
He grunts again but doesn’t say one way or the other. He hasn’t looked at me at all since coming out of the bathroom, I realize. I’m nothing more than a lamp in the room to him. An annoying lamp that sings.
A knock at the door saves us from this scintillating conversation. “That must be the pizza,” I say, moving to answer it so he can keep resting.
Thad shoots up out of the bed faster than should be possible, considering he was practically catatonic moments ago, rushing to intercept me. “I’ll get it.”
Once he reaches the door, he peers through the peephole. “Who is it?” It’s kind of cute, how paranoid he is. Like there’s something rare and precious he has hidden away in here that he doesn’t want anyone to take.
“Pizza.”
Thad reluctantly opens the door, just enough to fit the pizza through. I approach from behind, cash in hand. “It’s already been paid for, but here’s the tip.”
Thad snatches the money, then waves me back. “Go back to the bed.” He waits until I’ve done so before thrusting the cash through the door, along with some more he pulls from his wallet. “Don’t tell anyone what room we’re in, if they ask.” And with that he slams the door shut, bolting it for good measure.
“Such a people person,” I tease him as he returns, pizza in hand. “And who’s going to care what room we’re in?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He drops the pizza on the bed. “Whatcha wanna watch while we eat?”
I glance dubiously at the TV screen, where an old black-and-white movie is playing. “What’s this?”
“Oh.” Thad runs a self-conscious hand over the back of his neck, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was blushing. “It’s an old film noir. Double Indemnity.”
I probably shouldn’t comment, but I can’t help myself—outside of being a bounty hunter, a minor reality television star, and an obsessive car owner, this is the first thing about himself that Thad’s let slip. “I haven’t seen much film noir,” I say, treading carefully. “I like older movies, but I kinda stuck with the Judy Garland, Fred Astaire side of things. You know, the musicals, the romances.”
Thad shrugs. “Yeah, I dunno. I’ve stayed at a lot of hotels over the years and they almost always have the classics channel. The noirs are decent.”
I know enough about film noir to know the gist of what to expect—world-weary, warworn detectives and beautiful, dangerous women. No wonder he’s into them. This must be a glimpse into his world, or as close as I’m going to get to it.
“Let’s watch it,” I tell him. “Can you catch me up with what’s going on during the commercials?”
I pull out a slice of pizza, then hand the box across the gap between our beds to Thad. He settles back against the headboard, motioning to the screen. “Okay, so there’s an insurance salesman, Fred MacMurray—that’s the actor’s name, not the character—and he goes to this rich guy’s house to get him to renew his policy, only the guy’s wife’s there, Barbara Stanwyck, and she’s this praying mantis. Gorgeous, but bad news…”
Thad fills me in up to the point where we are in the story, the final twenty minutes or so leading into the climax. I’m enjoying the movie a lot more than I thought I would, but what I’m enjoying even more is Thad’s obvious enthusiasm for it. He’s no longer a grunting, inert lump on the bed, but he’s upright, animated, talking to the characters onscreen like they’re old friends who can hear him.
“Don’t go into the house,” he warns Fred MacMurray’s character. “She’s waiting for you!”
When Barbara Stanwyck shoots him, Thad sits back with a sigh, like all of this could have been prevented if only people would listen to him. “Women,” he says with a grin, shaking his head and biting wolfishly into his pizza.
I know he’s joking, but something about it sits wrong with me. I wait, busying myself with cleaning napkins and other pizza detritus off my bed, until the final credits play. “Are all women like that in film noir?”
Thad finishes his last bite of pizza and reaches for another piece. “Like what?” He offers the box to me.
I hold up a hand, motioning that I’m full. “You know, either a Lola or a Phyllis. Either an angel or a she-devil?”
He considers it. “I guess so.” He frowns at me. “Why, you didn’t like it?”
Despite the frown, I sense a tenderness in the question. He’s shared something with me that he genuinely loves, and I don’t want to shoot it down. “I loved it,” I tell him honestly. “The tension, the buildup, that denouement. It was all incredible.”
He grins, looking visibly relieved. “I only know what half those words mean, but, yeah, it’s great.”
“And Barbara Stanwyck was incredible. Her shoes, her attitude.” I couch my thoughts with compliments so he knows I’m not trying to tear the film apart. I decide to pose my criticism as a question. “I wonder why these films use the ‘good versus bad women’ trope? It’s really entertaining to watch, but not all women are either good or bad, you know? There’s a lot in between the Lolas and the Phyllises of the world.”
Thad’s grin fades into his usual frown, despite my best efforts. “Not really. At least in my line of work. There are bail jumpers, cheats, liars…and then the nun librarians.” He gives me a tentative smile. “Don’t worry, you’re a Lola.”
I know that’s an olive branch extended, but it still bothers me. “But don’t you feel like that’s a lot of pressure on women? What about librarians who sometimes lie? Or bail jumpers who dream about being small-business owners?”
Okay, that was a stupid example, and I somewhat deserve the pitying look that Thad gives me. “That’s cute you think so, Sister Helen. That’s why you’re a Lola.”
I scramble for a better example. “Look at Phyllis. Even she couldn’t go through with killing Walter in the end because she realized she loved him.”
“And that makes up for everything she did before?”
I’m not explaining myself right. I shake my head, frustrated. “No, but…I’m just saying that it’s not fair that women have to be all one thing or the other. Is Walter a bad guy because he fell for Phyllis’s schemes, or does he get a pass because he had a conscience? Women should get to be complicated and complex, too, that’s all I’m saying.”
Thad raises an eyebrow at me. “And you don’t think men get put into categories in your romance novels?” At my impending protest, he sits up a little straighter. “Either you’re Prince Charming or you’re the guy who deserves to get strung along because you’re just the filler boyfriend until Mr. Right comes along.”
I sit up, shaking my head at him. “That’s not true. You obviously haven’t read enough romance if you think that.”
He motions to me. “What about your book—the one you were reading at the writing group? Rosamund has Wilfred lapping along after her, but he’s all but scum beneath her boot once Axel turns up.”
I glare at him. “Wilfred is not Rosamund’s boyfriend. Him expressing an interest in her does not entitle him to dibs. And he isn’t a bad person, he’s just not the right person.”
“Film noir splits it up into bad and good. Romance splits it up into Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong. That’s all I’m saying.”
I shake my head, determined to make my point. “But people aren’t all bad or all good, that’s the point?—”
He laughs under his breath, shaking his own head. “Come on, Sister Helen. You can’t really believe that. What about those assholes downstairs? You think there’s good in any of those motorcycle creeps? Would you have invited them in for a Bible study if I’d let you have your own room?”
I’m about to retort, when my brain snags on something he said. “Let me have my own room?” I echo. “What does that mean?”
Thad, finally, has the good grace to look ashamed. “I…may have asked the clerk to lie to you about only having one room.” Seeing my mouth drop, he sits up, protesting, “But it was for your own good. I was just trying to make sure you were safe.”
The confession knocks the wind out of me. For a moment, I can only stare at him, and then I’m surprised by the sudden tears that blind my eyes. “You know, I’ve spent a long time with people making my decisions for me. Taking my choice away. I didn’t think you’d be one of them.”
I don’t wait for a snarky reply, or a stammering apology, or a defensive explanation for why he’s so right and I’m so stupid and naive that I can’t take care of myself—because frankly, I’m pretty sure any one of those three responses would make me break down sobbing. Instead, I stand up, pulling my toiletries bag back out of my luggage. “I’m going to brush my teeth.”
If he responds, I don’t hear it, just the sound of a sweeping film score coming through the thin bathroom door.