Jazz Funeral

hard to think what to say, not to let his mind wander back to whatever deep place it had just visited. And suddenly he realized how tired he was. All day guests, people, friends, relatives, acquaintances, people Patty knew, people he didn’t care about. He wanted to be done with them.
    Where was Patty? Maybe she’d get rid of them.
    Over there, pouring someone a drink.
    He got up and walked over, approaching from the rear, putting an arm around her, leaning close to whisper in her ear, catching her perfume. And to his utter amazement, he felt himself getting hard. This was Patty, his wife of seventeen years. But it was like being with a stranger; or being young again. He couldn’t figure out what the hell it was like. It was just unexpected.
    Instead of whispering what he meant to, he said, “I can’t take it any longer. I feel like I’m coming apart.”
    She turned quickly, touched his cheek. “Oh, George.”
    He held her. “I think I have to go upstairs.”
    “Do you need help?”
    He had known she would say that, though why a grown man would need help getting up the stairs in his own house, he couldn’t imagine. But he nodded. “Come with me.”
    He put his face against her head—her shoulder was too far down—and let her lead him, gracefully fending off the well-meaning and intrusive.
    When they were in the bedroom, she started to loosen his tie, but he took her hands away, enfolded her, kissed her with more passion than he had in eight or nine years.
    “George!”
    “I want you, Patty.”
    “You brought me upstairs to make love?”
    “Yes.”
    “Now?”
    “Feel.” He put her hand on his erection.
    She stared at him, unbelieving. “I could almost believe you’re glad Ham’s dead.”
    He said, “Aren’t you?” And they stared at each other a long moment.
    For an answer, she kissed him again, grinding into him like a teenager. George felt strangely exhilarated. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so turned on by Patty, when he’d had so much fun making love to her. The thought of the house full of mourners only excited him more.
    As he picked her up and laid her on the bed, the answer to Why?—the question he hadn’t consciously asked himself—came anyway: “So I won’t have to think about Melody.”
    He squeezed Patty’s breast, entwined a hand in her hair and yanked—too hard, probably—anything to enhance sensation, to turn his brain off.
    I must be dreaming.
    Patty tried to remember when he’d made love to her at his own instigation. She couldn’t. It was always her idea, and it was always desultory. Yet, feeling his fingers in her hair, feeling him pull it that way she kind of liked, she felt only annoyance.
    How can I do this with a houseful of people?
    It’s what you want, isn’t it?
    I guess so. But why don’t I feel anything?
    She moaned as he stroked her breast. He said her name. He was wrecking her dress.
    She started to unbutton his shirt. He stopped her and took off her dress, as she’d known he would.
    I know him so well.
    The thought almost made her cry, weep with longing for what she’d missed all these years. She wanted so much to enjoy this, and she wanted to please him.
    But she was thinking of Melody, and her fear was consuming her. She couldn’t seem to focus like George, and she envied him. She couldn’t stop thinking. Try as she might, she couldn’t turn off her brain.
    Why am I doing this?
    You know why. Because he wants to .
    She’d just read Women Who Love Too Much , and had seen herself so clearly it scared her. She’d thrown the book out. But little lessons from it came back to her now and made her hate herself, despair for her marriage.
    “What’s wrong? Patty, what is it?”
    She hadn’t even realized she was crying.
    “Oh, George, I love you so much.” She wrapped her legs around him, buried her face in his neck.
    When it was over, she said, “What are we going to do?”
    She was sorry she’d said it, knew it had spilled out only because she was frantic. She thought he would say “About what?” and she would have to make something up, so as not to add to his load, not remind him when he needed to forget.
    But he said instead, “Fuck the police.”
    “What?”
    “We can find her, Patty. We’re her parents. We’ll look for her ourselves.”
    “We will?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, George Brocato saying “we,” including her, as if she were his wife.

CHAPTER TEN
    Skip stopped at Old Metairie Village