Promise of Safekeeping : A Novel (9781101553954) Read Online Free

Richmond with no exceptions. It washed into the gutters and sluiced into drains, and in Carytown young people with bright umbrellas ducked beneath awnings and into cars. Will, who had not been caught in the summer storm, stood and watched the downpour from the window ofhis rental apartment, where he’d once lived and where Arlen now stood at his side. The wind blew hard and flung drops of water against the glass.
    “Hoo-
wee
,” Will said. “Bad out there.”
    “It’s . . . incredible,” Arlen said.
    They stood for a moment, watching. When the storm began to let up, they went together into the bathroom, Arlen standing in the doorway and Will bending over the toilet bowl. He lifted the lid of the old beige tank, turned brownish by years of buildup, and he plunged his hand inside.
    “I got a joke for you,” he said as he worked. “How can you tell when a lawyer is really, really cold?”
    “I give up.”
    “He’s got his hands in his
own
pockets.”
    Arlen made a noise, a cross between a groan and a chuckle, and Will felt a bit happier. He adjusted the flap in the back of the toilet so it created a tighter seal, and the hiss of running water was silenced a moment later. Will stood, put the heavy porcelain lid back on the tank, and wiped his hands on a towel. “All fixed. If it starts running again, let me know and we’ll get a new flap. But you oughta be okay.”
    Arlen stood leaning against the doorjamb of the closet-sized bathroom, and yet his face was as blank as if he were daydreaming from some scenic vista. He was a big man—he’d always been big—but the soft fat he’d grown up with was gone now, replaced by cords of hard muscle. His eyes were very round and pronounced, flecked with gold. A few freckles peppered his dark skin.
    “Arlen?”
    He shook his head slightly, his eyes clearing. “Thanks. I wouldn’t have known how to fix it.”
    “Naw. Don’t sweat it,” Will said, struck by Arlen’s situation—his perfect lack of adult experience. He didn’t even know how toadjust the flap in a toilet tank. In some ways, taking in Arlen was like taking in a teenager instead of a grown man.
    They walked into the small living area. There was no furniture apart from an old pink couch fit for a nursing home and a small television propped up on a cardboard box. The apartment was simple and practical enough—even a little cheery when the blinds were open and the sun came in—and Will was glad he could offer it to his friend. He dropped himself into the cushions, took off his baseball hat, and blotted the sweat from his forehead with the front of his shirt. When he spoke, he did his best to sound casual. “You had a visitor today.”
    “Eula?”
    Will’s heart sank. “No. Lauren Matthews. Remember her?” Arlen was quiet. Thunder rumbled, weakening in the distance. “All these years, and still wound tighter than a Gibson guitar.”
    “What she want?”
    “She didn’t say,” Will said, and he tried not to show that the question bothered him. What
did
Lauren Matthews want with Arlen? He thought of her—her sheath of a dress, her sharp little face. He had the sense, even when he stood in the same room with her, that she was looking at him from behind a two-way mirror, so that he couldn’t quite get a read on her but she saw everything about him.
    He’d never perfectly grasped what it was about her that somehow both attracted him and repelled him. Lauren was the perfect opposite of his ideal woman in every way. He liked women who weren’t afraid to be a little bit broken down, rusty around the edges—women who were confident and knew how to get their hands dirty and have fun. What he did not like was pretty, better-than-thou redheads who started snooping around at his best friend’s apartment, causing trouble for a man who’d had more trouble in his life than most people could stand.
    “She say anything?” Arlen asked.
    “Not really.” Will pulled his hat back on. He dug into his pocket