The Unnamed - By Joshua Ferris Page 0,62

and there she had only one room with one bed, her life stripped down to the simplicity of self-survival.

“A drive’s a good idea,” she said.

“It’s a good day for one.”

“It’s nice to feel the wind coming in. I haven’t been in a car in a long time.”

“Are you happy to be going home?”

She didn’t answer.

“You can be honest.”

“Yes,” she said. “Very much.”

They avoided the highways. They took the numbered routes that turned into streets with names whenever they entered one of the small towns. They stopped at a state park and walked from the parking lot down a footpath to a flowering lake and stood at the edge a few feet from the still water and listened to the silence.

“Let’s jump in,” he said.

“I don’t have my bathing suit.”

“We’ll go naked.”

“In the middle of the day?”

“Who’s looking?”

She peered around and saw no one, no one on the water itself or on the far shore. They walked up into the woods a few feet and took off their clothes and hung them from a tree and then ran silently into the sun-skinned lake, which was much colder than either of them anticipated when they were taking its temperature with their fingertips.

“Christ, oh Christ,” he said. He reached for her in a panic of cold, and she was eager for him. They fought the water in a firm embrace, turning in circles and chattering and rubbing each other’s bodies with their hands and wondering how much longer they could stand it. “It’s kind of torture.”

“Bracing,” she said.

“Stupid.”

“Your idea,” she said.

“Really stupid. Are you ready?”

“We just got in.”

They raced back to their clothes. He dried her off with his undershirt and stopped to kiss her breasts. Her red nipples had hardened and dimpled from the cold, and with her hand on the back of his head, she pressed his hot mouth tighter. He got down on his knees and pushed her gently against the tree. She spread her legs and dug her backside into the rough bark and gripped his hair between her fingers until she came.

Inside the car again they blasted the heat. “I’ve missed that,” he said.

“You’ve missed it?” she said, touching her flushed face with both her hands. Then she burst into laughter.

They drove along the water, past seaports and tourist spots that had been battered the week before by the season’s first hurricane, which came earlier and hit stronger than anyone could have forecasted. The harbors and beaches had been damaged, and as they drove along they got a glimpse of a stretch of expensive beach homes, one of which had been cleaved on one side by a schooner.

They got on the highway that led home and he drove past the exit. “You just missed the exit, Tim.”

“Are you going to go back to work?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

She didn’t want to go back to work. She supposed it was the best way to spend her time, that it was an honorable distraction from the many hours in a day, and that it gave her life continuity and purpose. But the truth was she didn’t want to do anything. She couldn’t explain why, but she was nearly completely absent of any assertive sense of what she wanted to do with herself. She didn’t mind that they had missed the exit. They could keep driving forever.

“I probably will,” she said.

“If you do go back,” he said, “I have a listing for you.”

“A listing?”

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Are we driving into the city?”

“Be honest with me. Do you really want to go home?”

“It’s probably the last place I want to go,” she said.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I’m supposed to be happy to be going home, aren’t I?”

“Not if home makes you unhappy.”

When they reached the city he parked in front of a fire hydrant and threw on the hazards. He didn’t step out immediately. She was taking her cues from him, so she waited, watching him. He turned and announced he’d quit the firm. He had presented his resignation to Mike Kronish the day before, only to learn that staff attorneys didn’t need to formally resign. They just needed to give personnel their two weeks’ notice. Hearing the news, she felt something for the first time.

“They were never going to let me back in,” he said.

“You thought they would?”

“Didn’t you know that’s what I was hoping for?”

“I didn’t understand how you could do it if you weren’t a partner,” she said.

“Well, I couldn’t.” He opened the