I sat down on the bed and put my arm around her, which she accepted passively. She had several damp Kleenex wadded in one hand and I made her let me have them so I could throw them in the wastebasket. My first project was to clear the bed of damp Kleenex.
"Gosh," I said. "I'm really sorry. It was just one party. I had no idea you'd be this upset."
"Were you with another woman?" she asked, looking up at me. The skin around her eyes was puffy, but it didn't stop her from asking the right question. Instinctively, in about a tenth of a second, I lined up all the lies I might tell her, but then I didn't use any of them. It's difficult to lie to a person who has just been humbled to the degree Cindy had. Lying to her strength was easier than lying to her hopelessness.
"Yeah," I said.
She didn't seem surprised or any more hurt. Her brain had figured it out anyway and confirmation may have been a small relief.
"I've never been rejected before," she said. "Not in my whole life."
"I'm not rejecting you," I said. "I was just asked to dinner by a lady who owns an antique shop, so I went."
"You planned it in advance and you didn't tell me," she said.
"Well," I said, "I didn't know Lilah was going to throw a party."
I was well aware that my response did not exactly dovetail with her accusation.
"I bet you fucked her, too," she said numbly.
I just nodded.
"She's probably just some little hippie that sells junk," Cindy said.
Her statement had practically no energy in it. I saw no point in trying to explain that Jean was a nice woman. The notion that I had been sleeping with a hippie seemed to provide a modicum of comfort. An excess of truth needn't be rushed, it seemed to me. Truth can be counted on to arrive under its own power, where women are concerned.
"Now I don't know what to do," Cindy said. A minute later she got up, went to the bathroom, washed her face, and gave her teeth their usual careful brushing.
I considered that a good sign. Though devastated, she was not so far gone as to neglect her teeth. For Cindy to have gone to bed without brushing her teeth would be an indication of profound despair. She did not neglect to use dental floss. When she realized her nightgown was soaked at the neck she took it ofl" and put it neatly into her clothes hamper.
Then she rummaged around in a drawer and found a huge T-shirt, which she put on.
"I got it from Maurice," she said. Maurice had been the NBA guard.
I watched her warily, expecting that as her generally healthy instincts slowly reasserted themselves anger would suddenly make its appearance. I expected it to strike with hurricane force, whenever it struck, and I wanted to give myself at least an even chance.
But Cindy came meekly back to bed. "You ought to go brush your teeth," she said, as if we were getting into bed on a normal night.
When I got in bed she immediately took my hand.
"I wish you hadn't done this to me," she said. "Is she a hippie or what?"
"No," I said. "She's a nice woman with two little girls."
"You couldn't have picked a worse time," she said. "I saw Spud this afternoon."
Although I had sensed that Spud was in our future, I hadn't expected him to check in quite so soon.
"What do you mean *saw' him?" I asked. "Are you telling me you slept with him?"
"Don't be so mean," Cindy said. "I thought you were kind, only now everything you do is mean."
I hadn't meant to sound mean. It was more surprise than anger that had prompted the question. I had been feeling very guilty—illogically—and now the illogical basis of my guilt was starkly exposed. Cindy had had Spud, and I had had Jean. We had betrayed one another almost simultaneously, although since our own relationship was sort of accidental and our feelings undeclared betrayal might seem too strong a word.
On the other hand I felt betrayed, not to mention confused. Why had she cried for six hours because she suspected I was with another woman if she had just started an affair with another man?
The longer I thought about it, the more confused I felt. I couldn't even think of what questions to ask. Neither could Cindy, evidently. We were both locked in silence. It was strange to feel both guilty and abused at the same time. In a sense I ought to have welcomed Spud's interest in Cindy, since my interest in Jean had risen so rapidly. On the other hand, my interest in Cindy hadn't really sunk.
In a little while the wistfulness I had felt when I was waiting indecisively outside Jean's house came back and transferred itself to Cindy. I had a sort of innocent wish that we could just cancel the day and be as we had been the day before. The feeling got so strong that I turned to Cindy and tried to kiss her. She turned gratefully toward me, perhaps with the same need, but the kiss proceeded to die. Instead of a rising of the blood all we came up with was friendly puzzlement. We were just sort of bumping mouths in our confusion.
By mutual agreement we gave up on the kiss.
"I thought you'd want to talk," Cindy said.
"I do,” I said. "But you said I was mean when I didn't have a mean intention."
"Couldn't you be more patient?" she asked. "I just said it because you scared me."
"So what about Spud?" I said.
"Don't berate me," Cindy said.
I had spoken as mildly as I knew how, I didn't know what to make of things at all. What had happened to the big, confident social climber? She had been there that morning, but all that was left was a healthy body.
"I'm just asking," I said, in my gentlest voice. "I don't have the right to berate you."
"That's right," Cindy said, as if the thought surprised her. "I shouldn't let you get away with it."
"But I'm not doing it," I insisted. "There's no question of getting away with it."
Cindy fell silent again, evidently discouraged by the conversation, which I also found peculiarly discouraging. Our attempts to talk were just as inept as our attempt to kiss.
"Just talk about Spud," I said. "I'm not judging you. You're free. Just talk about him a little."
Cindy sighed. "He's a lot sexier than you but he scares me," she said.
That hadn't been exactly what I had been expecting to hear.
"Where does Harris fit into all this?" I asked.
"He doesn't fit in at all," Cindy said. "That's the nice thing about having Harris as a fiance. Harris is really sweet. I wish you didn't have such a problem about him."
It was nothing to the problem I was about to have with Spud, but I didn't tell her that.
"Does that woman have big tits?" Cindy asked.
I did not see Jean's breasts, but I knew they weren't large.
"No," I said. "She's a small woman."
"That's one good thing," Cindy said.
"Why does Spud scare you?" I asked.
Cindy thought for a while. "Spud's very successful," she said. "He’s about as successful as anyone gets around here. I don't think he has much time for me.
"It was his secretary that called me," she added. "I guess he doesn't call people himself"
"I'm surprised he even fucks them himself," I said, bitterly. I had been worried about Spud all along, although all along only amounted to one day.
"He does, though," Cindy said. "That's the problem. Now I feel like doing anything he tells me to."
"I don't see why it's a problem," I said. "You don't owe me anything. You can do anything you want to do."
Then she began to cry again, sobbing hard and gasping for breath. I put my arms around her and she cried on my chest. It was a hard cry, but finally it ended.
"Oh, I hate being confused," she said. "I've never been this confused. If you'd just come home when you were supposed to and not gone and fucked that woman things would be a lot better."
"Maybe I secretly knew what you were doing with Spud," I suggested. "Maybe I was secretly just sort of staying even."
The statement was total bullshit, but it gave Cindy something new to think about. She sat up in bed and wiped the tears off her fac
e with the bottom of the long T-shirt.
"Okay," she said. "I can accept that if you'll just promise not to see her again. I can't stand being rejected."
"Are you going to stop seeing Spud?" I asked.
Cindy looked shocked. "Why would I stop seeing him?" she asked. "I've never had sex that good before. I could still feel it two hours later, while I was at the shop."
"Oh," I said. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Be my best friend," she said. "I told you he made me feel scared. Anyway, he won't leave his wife."
"This is getting pretty odd," I said.
"I know," she said, "but it's just the way things are now. Actually I like a lot of things about you. If you were my best friend I'd probably be all right."
"Am I ever supposed to get to fuck anybody?" I asked.
She was silent for a while. "I just don't want to think about that right now," she said. "I feel rejected enough."
"Are you sleepy?" I asked.
"No," she said. "I'm wide-awake."
So was I—zingy with wakefulness, in fact.
"Do you want to just head for New Mexico?" I asked. "We were going in the morning, anyway."
Cindy looked surprised. "Oh yeah," she said. "We were going to get those boots. You really want to go right now?"
"I don't see any reason not to," I said.
"I guess there isn't any reason not to," Cindy said. She switched on the bedlight. The thought that there was no reason not to leave seemed to strike her as sad.
"I don't know. Jack," she said, looking at me. "You didn't even promise not to see that hippie again."
It was true. I had evaded the issue.
"It's too complicated to talk about right now," I said. "Let's just go."
Cindy was a supremely quick packer. In fifteen minutes we were in the car and across the Potomac. It was a clear night. The Washington monument shone very white as we crossed the river. Cindy was lost in thought. In twenty minutes Washington was behind us. We passed the dark Manassas battlefield. Cindy's worries were soon absorbed by her healthy body—she slumped against the door of the Cadillac, peacefully asleep, as I drove on toward the west.
Chapter XV
Two hours later, as I was crossing the Blue Ridge in a heavy white ground fog, Cindy got tired of sleeping against the door. She curled up in the seat, her cheek against my thigh, and reached for my hand. But holding hands was difficult, since I kept changing hands to drive, so eventually she stuffed one hand under my crotch, in a way that evidently made her feel safe.
I just drove. Soon I hit 1-81 and had to contend with small convoys of trucks. Time sped as I sped. In Christiansburg I stopped and got gas and when I came back to the car Cindy was sitting up, looking as blank and puzzled as a sleepy child. I doubt she had the slightest idea what she was doing out in the middle of America, in the middle of the night. I asked her three times if she needed to go to the bathroom, but she didn't say a word. The minute we left the station she curled up again and stuffed her hand back under my crotch.
Despite a lot of experience, I am always underestimating the vast resources of doubt and insecurity that can lurk beneath the surface of even the most vibrant women. I had just done it with Cindy, and when I tried to think of what I might do to bring her confidence back my mind went blank. I just drove, conducting a quiet mano with the streams of trucks. I zipped along at a steady ninety, passing them in bunches. Once I got to Tennessee, where the cops are more tolerant, I upped it to ninety-five, shooting past the trucks so fast that the truckers hardly even had time to get annoyed.
As the sun was coming up I pulled into a gas station in Nashville. More than eight hours had passed, and yet I had no sense of having been gone from Washington more than a few minutes.
During the last eighty miles or so, Cindy had shown signs of restlessness.
"Jesus, I need to pee," she said, sitting up suddenly and looking with no comprehension at the Nashville skyline.
I had noticed already, in my few nights with her, that she had the rare ability to wake up looking perfect, or as close to perfect as human flesh can get. When she stepped out of the Cadillac and strolled across the dirty concrete to the John, the two sleepy, cynical gas station attendants, used to an all-night stream of argumentative travelers from Michigan, New York, and California, stopped moving and looked at her with open wonder, as if a true American Venus had stepped out of my pearl-shell Cadillac.
When she emerged, having done no more than splash a little water on her face, they practically stood at attention. She was wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and sandals, and she looked wonderful. The two guys would have probably given us the gas if Cindy had asked for it, but in fact she got back in the car without even noticing them.
"Jesus, this place is ugly," she said, looking around her. It was true. A strong wind was blowing and Nashville looked particularly gritty. Little waves of dust sailed down the empty streets.
Cindy stared at the town in surprise, faintly indignant that she had been exposed to such ugliness so early in the morning. It's not easy for people brought up in Santa Barbara to accustom themselves to the rest of America.
"Yuk," she said, as we sped out of town. For a time that was all she said.
I knew an excellent little country cafe, about an hour down the road, and since we were both starving we stopped and ate huge breakfasts. Everyone in the cafe, male and female alike, stared at Cindy the whole time we were eating. The cafe was full of truckers, mechanics, and local farmers trying to put off having to go out and farm—none of them had probably ever seen a woman as beautiful as Cindy.
The troubles of the day before had somehow settled in in such a way as to raise her beauty a dimension. Riding through the night in a state of emotional collapse would have made most women look sort of blasted, but Cindy had awakened from it so surpassingly beautiful that it was quite understandable that people stared. The traumas had added an element of gravity that she had previously lacked. It overlay her normal energy and health, which of course were still abundant. Three or four truckers at the counter were as stricken by her beauty as the filling station attendants. They kept turning cautiously on their stools, toothpicks in their mouths, to stare at her.
Also, she wore no bra. Though her breasts were smallish, she had prominent nipples, and bra-less women with prominent nipples were not an everyday sight in central Tennessee. The men stared openly, except for two or three who were with women. The best those could do was cast an occasional glance.
"How many states before New Mexico?” Cindy asked, when we were on the road again. Her knowledge of the geography of mid-America was minimal.
At the cafe we had bought both the Nashville and Memphis papers, and Cindy was indignant that neither of them contained a thing that she considered news. The front-page story in both papers was about a bizarre incident in which a Tennessee farmer had gone berserk and tried to drive his tractor into the local courthouse, in order to run over a county agent he didn't like. The county agent had escaped, but the tractor had got stuck in the door of the courthouse so firmly that no one could figure how to get it out without pulling down the courthouse.
It seemed like a funny story to me, but Cindy was annoyed that such trivia would be given front-page space. There was nothing more relevant to the world situation in either paper. The one syndicated gossip column contained gossip that Cindy had known for weeks, which just increased her indignation.
"I wish you'd stop in the next town, so I can get the Times and the Post," she said.
"They don't get the Times in the next town," I said. The next town was Cuba Landing, Tennessee. "You'll be lucky if we can find one in Memphis."
Actually we did find one in Memphis, but only because I had the forethought to whip by the airport. Cindy had scarcely said a word since breakfast. She was looking out the window rather hostilely, and it seemed to me resentment might be building. After all, I was the one who had brought her to a place where The New York Times wasn't sold.
Finding one at the Memphis airport was a big relief. I could barely get Cindy to stop reading it long enough to glance at the Mississippi River. The Father of Waters made little impression on her. She read the Times through most of Arkansas, obviously reading slower than usual in order to make the news last. An occasional glance at the dreary Arkansas flats probably convinced her she'd be lucky ever to see another copy of The New York Times.
West of Little Rock I began to tire. I had driven a thousand miles, not an exceptional drive for me, but long enough. Also, there was the factor of Cindy. The fact that she was along, and feeling resentful, affected my mental pacing. Although she had not spoken fifty words, her presence took a certain amount of dealing with.
"You want to drive?" I asked.
"You could have asked me sooner," she replied.
Before she had driven twenty miles I dozed off, only to be awakened by the sound of a siren. It felt like I had only slept a few minutes, but when I looked out the window I saw that we were in Oklahoma. The grass had changed.
A big, shy young cop was standing by Cindy's window with a ticket book in his hand, but he didn't seem to be saying anything. Apparently the sight of Cindy had struck him dumb with awe.
The fact that Cindy had inspired the awe did not mean that she was prepared to be tolerant of it.
"So what's the deal?" she asked. "Was I going too fast, or what?"
"Uh, yes ma'am," the cop said. "You were runnin' along there at about ninety-seven m.p.h."
Cindy said nothing.
"Yes ma'am, you were kinda speedin' along there," the cop said, sighing heavily. A consciousness of his professional duty obviously weighed heavily upon him at that moment.
"Well, I had the radio on," Cindy said, by way of explanation.
"Aw yeah," the cop said, as if he had been offered a sufficient excuse.
"Anyway, I didn't hit anybody," Cindy pointed out.
The patrolman agreed that that, too, was the truth. Then, unable to think of a next move, he just stood and looked. Cindy didn't pander to the look—she neither smiled nor made excuses. But she was so beautiful that the young cop had probably already forgotten that she had been going ninety-seven. He may even have forgotten that he was a patrolman. He hadn't so much as asked to see her driver's license. He just stood and looked.