“Can you hold this for me?” he asked, passing a worn leather shaving case over the fence. Faith had once told Ed to stop by if he needed anything—Really, she’d said, nodding her head like a dime-store dog—and was glad he’d finally felt comfortable enough to do it, to break free, if even temporarily, of his self-imposed isolation. She stared at the bag for a moment, thinking drugs, jewels, the severed digits of his former wife’s right hand.
“It’s money,” Ed shrugged. “For when I get in trouble, which seems to be more and more these days. I appreciate it.” He smiled at her, shyly, then looked away as if her gaze would wound him.
“I don’t understand,” said Faith. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
Ed turned to her, and she thought he looked confused, as if she’d just cracked a bad joke or asked him how to make a soya fritter.
“Right,” he said, “Sheriff Waldon’ll call you. I gave him your number. I appreciate it, Faith.” And with that he walked off purposefully, as if late for a shareholders’ meeting.
Faith took the bag inside and made a cup of tea—there was no need to rush it. She moved through the kitchen methodically, reaching for the china cup, drawing a silver spoon from the dish rack, sliding the kettle from the burner, her poker-straight spine tingling with anticipation. When she was finally perched atop the Dr. Zielbach Ergonomi-Stool, she thought about waiting to open it. Maybe tomorrow. Faith lived for moments like this: a scandalous peek into a neighbor’s life. She stared at the bag, thinking. Or, more accurately, imagining. Maybe there was a love note. Or a suicide note. Who could tell with Ed? You’re pathetic is what she finally said to herself. She then tore it open and found that Ed, who may have been a slovenly, unhealthy drunk, wasn’t a liar. The case contained money, only money—$1,250.00, to be exact—and Faith was disappointed. At first she considered hiding it with her own valuables in her underwear drawer, but the thought of the rough edges of flaking leather tearing into her cotton briefs made her neck go stiff. She finally threw it onto her closet floor and refused to think about its interaction with her shoes. She would help Ed, sure. Why not? She would gain his trust; maybe she would even save him from the things he didn’t know were killing him.
MARVIN HAD BEEN A ROMANTIC when Faith met him more than thirty years before at the Blue Goose, where she’d go for the occasional grasshopper before she discovered herbal tea and Dr. Zielbach. He’d sing Smokey Robinson songs to her, fold bar napkins into roses and insects, ignore the welts that would suddenly flame red on her face and arms when he spun her around the dance floor. No man had ever had this type of physiological effect on Faith, had excited her to the point of eruption, and she imagined each red splotch was the shape of a heart, or a wedding ring, or a part of the anatomy that would turn her face crimson. They were married three months after they met—Faith wasn’t getting any younger, her mother always said—and shortly afterward Faith realized that she remained welt and hive free when Marvin licked the back of her knee or slid his fingers over her breasts. She wondered why she had been cured—she still loved him, after all—and ultimately determined that she was now content rather than happy, in love rather than in lust. But the more she eased into the comforts that a long-time relationship provided, the more Marvin wanted to recapture what Faith felt was no longer required. He wanted to take her to the Blue Goose and sing to her, though she felt silly when he reembarked on a courtship ritual that had already been successful, and she felt he was sullying the memory with this bad, albeit unwitting, parody. She just wanted to go home and read a book while Marvin watched the news.
But the more Faith wanted to be home, it seemed, the more Marvin wanted to be out playing her Romeo, caressing her hand while crooning oldies at the piano bar or dipping her as they waltzed at Sparle’s. In public the welts and hives resurfaced, and that’s when Faith understood that they had not been the physiological effects of love but something much more sinister: an outer manifestation of her inner discomfort; she was not bursting from love but from embarrassment. She suddenly recalled not the rich baritone of Marvin’s young voice as he belted out a soulful version of “My Girl” or the strength of his arm as he held her parallel to the dance floor, but the disapproving stares, the forced smiles, the comments that in retrospect were not as friendly as they had once sounded.
She’d meant to tell Marvin, gently, that she no longer enjoyed his overtures, his overblown displays of affection, but he preempted her. After twelve years and seven months of marriage, twelve years and seven months of wining and dancing and dipping, twelve years and seven months of welts and hives and public inflammations, he fell into a plate of linguini at Marco’s and didn’t get up. Faith blamed herself for the heart attack: she should have watched his drinking, cooked less meat, convinced him to exercise. The day after Marvin’s funeral Faith dragged the industrial trash bin from the garage to the middle of the kitchen floor and chucked into it every bit of food in the house: canned peaches in syrup, frozen T-bones, orange soda, garlic bologna, hamburger buns, even butter. For three days she drank water and ate nothing, unplugged the phone and let the doorbell ring. Then, after she could no longer tolerate her hunger headache, she searched the directory for a health food store and slowly traded her grief for carrot fritters and vegan tacos, Tai Chi and yoga.
She’d forgotten about the hives and rashes until Ed entered her life. They had returned with a vengeance when the neighbors stared over fences to watch her offer Ed a bag of homemade granola or to share the health-food-store circular with him, or even when she climbed into her car to drive to the jail, Ed’s money in hand, as if they knew she was going to fetch the man she thought looked like her former husband, one she might save in place of the one she couldn’t.
FAITH HAD DIPPED INTO ED’S bag twice before, both times after Ed had been dragged in for drunk and disorderly after putting up a stink at the Tap Shoe. This time the sheriff told her to bring twice as much bail money, and she figured as she entered the jail that Ed had moved from being a pain in the ass to full-scale criminality.
“Ed,” she called through the thick iron bars on his cell, but Ed remained a snoring, undulating heap. Faith turned to the sheriff.
“Does he have a car to drive?” she asked, having just then understood that it may have been impounded.
“Yep,” said the sheriff, smirking.
“Is he fit to drive?” she asked, and Waldon nodded as he counted out the money, plunking each bill onto his desk.
“Well, then,” said Faith, “let him.” She turned to leave, and Sheriff Waldon tsked.
“What?” said Faith. “What?”
“He’s a lucky man, Faith. Not many women would put up with him … with this.” He glanced around the small jail and his eyes landed on Ed.
Faith was appalled. “I don’t put up with him,” she said, caressing the rash that had suddenly spread across her right shoulder. “He’s my neighbor, that’s all. I’m just being neighborly.”
“Well, sure,” said Sheriff Waldon. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“Who else has he got?” Faith said defensively, knowing those words would make Waldon think she pitied Ed. But how else could she justify her behavior? How else