Excerpt from Honeydew by Edith Pearlman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

When the letter came from the college inviting him to teach he presented it to her. She said no.
He wrote Yes; and shipped the etchings; and boarded a plane.

"Exfoliation completed," said Paige's soft voice. He opened his eyes. She held the folded towel aloft. He beheld a mountain of translucent flakes of skin with here and there a toenail poking out and, on top of the mountain, a large bit of callus she had removed without his feeling a thing. He marveled at this exuda like a small boy proud of his poop.
"A second soaking now," and she brought new, clear, warm water.

He soaked without assistance.

She sat down next to him. She sighed: a rather happy sound. Perhaps fate, working through the rental agent who showed him his place, had delivered him to her. She could learn to like paintings, even cut down on poker. He sighed too; and with his nearer hand he picked up the wine from the table between them and transferred it to his other hand. She put her palm on top of his folded socks. He fingered her fingers.

Together they watched a cab roll down Channing Street toward them, bright eyes shining. It stopped at his house. Out stepped a blonde in a belted raincoat. The April thaw was too warm for the otter. Her hair was more disheveled than he'd ever seen it outside of the bedroom. A stocky cabwoman removed a large wheeled suitcase.
"That's Finnegan's cab," Paige said. "She's a poker friend of mine."

Finnegan received her money and drove away, though the house was dark except for the turret. Renée left the suitcase on the sidewalk and went up the steps to the door. Bobby could see her, could feel her, pushing the bell. Renée stood in front of the door for a while, then with bowed head descended the stairs and trundled her suitcase across Channing and headed toward Main. He could see her pretty face and the expression of anxiety it never quite lost. It was the face that had approached him as she walked down the aisle. He could see, or thought he could, the scar he'd created. He could guess that she had at last forgiven him for not turning around and driving back and extracting corpses from the Volkswagen. He had long ago forgiven her those saintly reproofs. She crossed Main and stood in front of Tenderfoot, peering in.

Should he let her in? Her presence or nonpresence, her forgiveness or dismay, his occasional indulgence in exfoliation, or in psychoanalysis, meditation, religion, drugs, coffee enemas?—?nothing would scrub from his mind's eye the purple machine leaping upward into the falling snow and returning head-down to asphalt. He had to live with the memory. He might as well live with Renée too.

Still he sat.
Still she peered.
With an irritated shrug Paige walked to the door, opened it, nodded at the after-hours guest, motioned her inside.
"This is Renée, my wife, former," said Bobby. "This is Paige, my pedi . . . my aesthetologist."
"Pleased."
"Pleased."
"Perhaps we could have some more wine," Bobby said. "Perhaps you could dry your feet," Paige said, "and take the lady home."

He was slow about foot drying, shoelace tying, looking in vain for the book on Rome, paying. He forgot not to tip; Paige took the extra money. At last they were gone, Renée still wheeling the suitcase. Paige turned to the welcome chores of throwing tow- els into the washing machine and boiling instruments. Then she turned out the lamps in the shop.

His turret was still bright. She knew that he spied on her from its obliging window. She had seen him plain, doing it at twilight; she had seen him at night, when the mild light from the streetlamps entered the turret and was modestly strengthened by porcelain and mirror, creating a complicated chiaroscuro back- ground against which his seated form was an opaque cutout. Maybe the comings and goings at Tenderfoot raised his spirits; maybe he needed to transcend difficult moments on the can. She'd sympathized with his aloneness; she'd considered it promising. Now?—?for he had talked unaware during his reverie, people often did?—?she knew that he was not alone, that he lived in the crushing embrace of an unforgettable incident.

Excerpted from the book Honeydew. Copyright © 2015 by Edith Pearlman. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company. All rights reserved.