Free Silent Treatment by Michael Palmer

smiled up at him from the bed.
    “Is everything okay?” she asked.
    The sight of her sitting there, her right leg exposed to the hip, sent an uncontrollable surge of blood to Kevin’s groin.
    “Everything’s fine,” he said. “Listen. How about calling room service and ordering dinner. Get anything you want for yourself. I’ll have a filet. Medium rare. And then maybe a massage. Are you good at that?”
    “I am very good at that,” she said.
    *   *   *
    Harry had lived in Manhattan for much of his adult life, but until today he had never been in Tiffany’s. With Mary Tobin’s help, he had freed up the last hour and a half to make earlier-than - usual rounds at the hospital and head home. The idea of doing something special for Evie had been his. The suggestion to do it at Tiffany’s had been Mary’s.
    Now, silently humming Joe Kincaid’s rendition of “Moon River,” Harry tried for George Peppard’s
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
nonchalance as a saleswoman laid one prohibitively expensive gem after another on the black velvet display cloth.
    “This tennis bracelet is quite charming,” she said. “It has alternating beautifully matched rubies and diamonds, each an eighth of a carat.”
    “My wife doesn’t play tennis too often.… Um … how much is it, though?”
    “Thirty-six hundred, sir.”
    Well, then, perhaps I could see something in a Ping-Pong bracelet?
    Eventually, he settled on a half-carat diamond pendant flanked by two small rubies. Evie loved precious stones.With the help, Harry suspected, of her ex-husband and ex-suitors, she had amassed a sizable collection by the time he started dating her.
    “I want to sell every piece I have,” she said, soon after they were married, “so we can buy a camper and drive across the country.”
    Harry knew that Evie had never been camping in her life and suspected that she would not be too enamored of black flies and blackened burgers. The declaration was part of her commitment to moving her life out of the fast lane and into whatever lane she perceived him to be traveling. Eventually, though, she stopped talking about the simple life and put her jewels into a safe-deposit box. They never did go camping.
    There’s nothing to worry about.… I hope this will mark a new beginning for us.… Everything’s going to be all right … Believe it or not, there are places I want to take you where you can actually wear this.…
Harry considered then rejected any number of messages for the card, before writing simply “I love you.”
    I need to talk to you
.… With Evie’s words playing over and over in his mind, he took a cab to the co-op they had owned since shortly after the wedding. The sixth-floor apartment, five decent-sized rooms and a tiny study, was in a well-maintained building on the Upper West Side, a block from Central Park. Over Evie’s eight-plus years there, the flat had changed, in her words, from “exquisite” to “adequate” to “small,” and, most recently, to “depressing.”
    I need to talk to you.…
Health? Money? The marriage? Her job? Could she possibly be pregnant? It had been so long since she had
needed
to speak with him about anything. Maybe she finally wanted to clear the air and start over again.
    There were two apartments on the sixth floor. The narrow hallway between them always seemed imbued with Evie—possibly some combination of her perfume, shampoo, and makeup. As usual the scent evoked powerful impressions of her. But this evening Harry was too distractedto pay much attention. He knocked once and then used his key.
    “Harry?” she called out from the bedroom.
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll be right out.”
    From her tone, he knew she was on the phone.
    Harry set the Tiffany’s box on the dining-room table and paced idly. The apartment was immaculate, brightened by several vases of fresh-cut flowers—Evie’s trademark. An Eric Clapton album was playing on the CD player. Clapton was one of Harry’s favorites. He