Criminal

window filtered a soft light. There was a room off the kitchen with a washer and dryer. A pair of toddler’s jeans hung from the indoor clothesline. It was the sort of thing Amanda thought only existed in magazines.
    Evelyn put the potato salad in the refrigerator. “Thanks for not telling Bill about—” She put her hand to her chest. “He would only worry.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “Oh.” She sighed, but she didn’t add more. She put the mayonnaise by the salad, but stopped shy of shutting the refrigerator door. “You want a beer?”
    Amanda had never tasted beer in her life, but obviously Evelyn needed something. “All right.”
    Evelyn took two cans of Miller out of the door. She pulled the rings and tossed them into the trashcan. She was handing Amanda one of the cans when the circular saw started up again. “In here.” Evelyn waved for Amanda to follow her through the dining room, then into a large foyer.
    The living room was a step down. The temperature was almost frigid, courtesy of the large air-conditioning unit mounted into one of the windows. Amanda felt the sweat on her back start to chill. Her shoes sank into the lush ocher-colored carpet. The ceiling was beautifully textured. There was a chintz green and yellow sofa. Matching wingback chairs framed the sliding glass doors. The hi-fi was softly playing a track from McCartney. One wall was taken up entirely with books. A console television the size of a baby carriage served as a centerpiece. The only thing out of place was the large tent in the middle of the room.
    “We sleep in here because of the AC,” Evelyn explained, taking a place on the couch. Amanda sat down beside her. “We had the unit in the bedroom, but that wasn’t fair to Zeke, and his crib is too big to fit in our room, so …” She took a healthy drink of beer.
    Amanda grasped at conversational straws. She was awful at small talk. “How old is he?”
    “Almost two.” Evelyn groaned, and Amanda gathered this was a bad thing. “When he was little, Bill would stick him in the bottom drawer of the bureau and shut it when we needed privacy. But now that he’s walking around—” She indicated the tent. “Thank God he’s a heavy sleeper. Though you wouldn’t know it this morning. He was screaming his head off. Bill took him off to his mother’s before I started screaming, too. I’ll change the record over.” She got up and walked to the stereo. “Have you heard what John Lennon’s doing?”
    It sounded like he’d put a cat in a bag and swung it around a small room, but Amanda mumbled, “Yes. It’s very interesting.”
    “I think Bill loaned the album to Kenny.” She started thumbing through the records, talking to herself. Or maybe she was talking to Amanda. It didn’t seem to matter that Evelyn wasn’t getting a response. “Simon and Garfunkel?” she asked, but she was already putting on the record.
    Amanda stared at the cocktail table, trying to think of a good excuse to leave. She could not remember a time in her life when she’d ever felt so out of place. She wasn’t used to socializing, especially not with strangers. There was church, work, school, and her father. Not much else fit between. Evelyn was obviously fine after yesterday’s experience. She had her husband and her brother-in-law. She had her living room sex tent and her beautiful home. She had her Cosmo magazine on the cocktail table where anyone could see it.
    Amanda felt her cheeks burning again as she scanned the lurid headlines. It would be just her luck that lightning would strike them both right now and her father would find her in Evelyn Mitchell’s house with a can of beer in her hand and a Cosmopolitan magazine in front of her.
    Evelyn sat back down on the couch. “You okay?”
    Amanda said, “I should leave.”
    “But you just got here.”
    “I just wanted to make sure you were okay after what Rick—”
    “You smoke?” She reached for a metal box on the cocktail table.
    “No, thank you.”
    “I gave them up when I got pregnant with Zeke,” Evelyn admitted. “For some reason, I couldn’t stand the taste anymore. Funny, I used to love it.” She returned the box to its place. “Please don’t leave, Amanda. I’m so glad you’re here.”
    Amanda felt embarrassed by the statement. And trapped. Now she couldn’t leave without being rude. She returned to the subject of Evelyn’s child because that seemed the only safe topic. “Is Zeke a family