Empire Falls

opening up a new health club, so why not Sedona or Santa Fe? If what she heard was true, the desert Southwest was like California. People kept fit and healthy and wore bathing suits that were basically symbolic of clothing. If Walt didn’t want to at least check it out, Janine wouldn’t mind going by herself for a week. She’d liked the look of the Latino masseurs in the brochure. Which seemed a little ungrateful, she had to admit. After all, Walt had been the one who woke her up, who helped her locate herself, the person she really was. And he also located that wonderful spot, found it right away, the one Miles never suspected the existence of. Now here she was thinking about Latino masseurs.
    If only he just hadn’t stenciled those stupid words on the side of the van, Janine thought as she got out of her Blazer. Probably “stupid” wasn’t the right spin. They weren’t stupid so much as boastful, she decided, heading for the front door of the restaurant. Besides, wasn’t it Walt’s cockiness that had attracted her in the first place? The fact that he was so different from Miles, who was so docile? Her mother, of course, still loved Miles and sided with him on all occasions, referring to Walt as “that little banty rooster.” “Miles is modest for good reason, Ma, believe me,” she assured her mother. A mean thing to say, maybe, but true, and it hinted at what there was no way to discuss with Bea—the whole sex thing. Her mother, Janine felt certain, was one of those poor women who’d managed to do what Janine herself had damn near done. She’d lived her entire adult life from one end to the other without a single orgasm. When Bea died, it would be possible to say truthfully that she went before she came. Not Janine. If she’d been the sort of person to stencil anything on the side of a van, it’d be something more like, SHE CAME BEFORE SHE WENT . Which meant, she supposed, that she and Walt Comeau were made for each other, and she ought to quit thinking about the strong hands of Latino masseurs.
    “Hey, babe,” she said, sliding onto a stool next to the man she’d be married to next month, if her idiot lawyer was to be believed. Unless the roof of the Fairhaven courthouse fell in too, which wouldn’t surprise Janine one bit, not the way everything had been conspiring against her right from the start, when she made the mistake of telling that priest with the Alzheimer’s all about herself and Walt, figuring he’d forgive her and then forget all about it. Everyone said he couldn’t remember twice around, which was why they’d finally had to hire the younger priest. Except that this time the old guy remembered three or four times around. He told Miles everything she’d said in the confessional and then, forgetting he’d told him, told him again the next day.
    Still, now that it was almost over, Janine figured it was probably just as well the old nitwit had squealed on her. At the time she’d been confused about what she wanted, or else she wouldn’t have gone to a priest at all. Once everything was out in the open, it occurred to her that what she wanted was Walt and for the two of them to make up for all the sex she’d been cheated out of. If that meant everybody thought she was a slut, including her daughter and her own mother, then they could just think whatever they wanted. In a sense it was good she and Walt got caught, because if they hadn’t, Walt, being a man, probably would’ve been just as happy to keep on with the hanky-panky. It was Janine who hadn’t liked all the sneaking around, and getting caught had at least set the legal ball rolling, which was something. Keeping it rolling had required all her energy, except for what she kept in reserve for sex and the Stairmaster. The last nine months had proved one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: you can’t beat city hall the same year its roof falls in.
    Walt was intently playing gin with Horace, so he didn’t notice when she came in. Another thing that was beginning to bother Janine was the way Walt knitted his brow over anything that taxed his intellect. Quite a lot did, Janine had to admit, so she had plenty of opportunity to study her least favorite expression. Walt was wearing it now as he looked up from his hand to study his opponent, as if the solution to whatever perplexed him might scroll across Horace’s broad forehead, disgusting cyst and all. At moments like this, his brow tightly knit, his eyes narrowed, Walt