It started in the parking lot, in the darkness less than ten yards away from the red- and blue-lighted steps. He stopped and let her turn against him in his arms, and then her crushed lips were opening under his mouth and her hands slid up and around his neck as he pressed her back against the fender of a parked car. They broke apart and came together again; then he led her swaying and stumbling out across the lot—it was nearly empty now—to the place where the chromework of his Pontiac, all alone, caught faint glimmers of starlight under the whispering black trees. He found the right-hand door and helped her in; then he walked in a correct, unhurried way around the hood to the driver’s side. The door slammed behind him and there were her arms and her mouth again, there was the feel and the taste of her, and his fingers were finding miraculous ways to unfasten her clothing, and there was her rising breast in his hand. “Oh, April. Oh My God, I—Oh, April…”
The noise of their breathing had deafened them to all other sounds: the loud insects that sang near the car, the drone of traffic on Route Twelve and the fainter sounds from the Log Cabin—a woman’s shrieking laugh dissolving into the music of horn and piano and drums.
“Honey, wait. Let me take you somewhere—we’ve got to get out of—”
“No. Please,” she whispered. “Here. Now. In the back seat.”
And the back seat was where it happened. Cramped and struggling for purchase in the darkness, deep in the mingled scents of gasoline and children’s overshoes and Pontiac upholstery, while a delicate breeze brought wave on wave of Steve Kovick’s final drum solo of the night, Shep Campbell found and claimed the fulfillment of his love at last.
“Oh, April,” he said when he was finished, when he had tenderly disengaged and rearranged her, when he had helped her to lie small and alone on the seat with his wadded coat for a pillow and bunched himself into an awkward squat on the floor boards, holding both her hands, “Oh, April, this isn’t just a thing that happened. Listen. This is what I’ve always—I love you.”
“No. Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true. I’ve always loved you. I’m not just being—listen.”
“Please, Shep. Let’s just be quiet for a minute, and then you can take me home.”
With a little shock he thought of what he’d steadfastly put out of his mind all evening, what had occurred to him briefly and not at all as a deterrent in the heat of his desire, and now for the first time began to take on an oppressive moral weight: she was pregnant. “Okay,” he said, “I’m not forgetting anything.” He freed one of his hands to rub his eyes and his mouth with vigor, and then he sighed. “I guess you must think I’m kind of an idiot or something.”
“Shep, it’s not that.”
There was just enough light to show him where her face was, not enough for him to see its expression or even to tell whether it had any expression at all.
“lt’s not that. Honestly. It’s just that I don’t know who you are.”
There was a silence. “Don’t talk riddles,” he whispered.
“I’m not. I really don’t know who you are.”
If he couldn’t see her face, at least he could touch it. He did so with a blind man’s delicacy, drawing his fingertips from her temple down into the hollow of her cheek.
“And even if I did,” she said, “I’m afraid it wouldn’t help, because you see I don’t know who I am, either.”
FOUR
WALKING AWAY from the hiss and whine of a Sixth Avenue bus, three or four days later, Frank Wheeler moved with a jaunty resignation toward Maureen Grube’s street. He didn’t especially feel like seeing her tonight, and this, he knew, was as it should be. The purpose of this visit was to break the thing off, and any impulsive eagerness for the sight of her would have been disconcerting. It always surprised and pleased him when his mood coincided with the nature of the thing he had to do, and this rare state had lately become almost habitual. He had been able, for instance, to wrap up all the rest of his Speaking-of series in little more than a day’s work apiece. Speaking of Sales Analysis, Speaking of Cost Accounting, and Speaking of Payroll—all now lay safely finished along with Production and Inventory Control, in a handsome cardboard folder on Bart Pollock’s desk.
“Well, Frank, these are fine,” Pollock had said yesterday, riffling the folder with his thumb. “And fortunately, I’ve got some good news for you this morning.” The good news, which Frank was able to receive with perfect composure, was that plans for Pollock’s project had now been “finalized.” There would be an “informal shakedown conference” next Monday, at which Frank would join his new colleagues in helping to “block out a few objectives,” and after which he could consider himself no longer a member of Bandy’s staff. Meanwhile, it was now “time for the two of us to get together here on the matter of salary.” No nervous sweat broke out inside Frank’s shirt as they got together on it, and no ludicrous ghost of Earl Wheeler hung over the proceedings. His eyes never strayed in dismal aesthetic searching among Pollock’s office fixtures, nor was he plagued with cautionary thoughts of what April might say. It was strictly business. He was richer by three thousand a year after shaking Pollock’s thick hand that morning—a sound, satisfactory amount that would provide, among other things, a comfortable fund against which to draw for the costs of obstetrics and psychoanalysis.
“Good,” April said on hearing the figure. “That’s about what you expected, isn’t it?”
“Just about, yes. Anyway, it’s nice to have the thing settled.”
“Yes. I imagine it must be.”
And now, having so competently arranged his business affairs, he could give his full attention to personal matters—which did, at the moment, need considerable straightening out. For the past two nights, or three, his marriage had taken that technical turn for the worse which, in the old days, would have filled him with anguish: April had begun to sleep in the living room again. But these, thank God, were not the old days. This time it hadn’t come about as the result of a fight, for one thing, and it wasn’t accompanied by any apparent rancor on her part.
“I haven’t been sleeping at all well,” she had announced the first night, “and I think I’d be more comfortable alone.”
“Okay.” He had assumed, though, that it was an arrangement for that night only, and he was nettled the following evening, when she again came trudging from the linen closet with an armload of bedclothes and began making the sofa into a bed.
“What’s the deal?” he asked mildly, leaning against the kitchen doorjamb with a drink in his hand while she flapped and spread the sheets. “You sore at me, or what?”
“No. Of course I’m not ‘sore’ at you.”
“You planning to go on doing this indefinitely, or what?”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry if it upsets you.”
He took his time in replying, first lazily dunking the ice cubes in his glass with a forefinger, then licking the finger, then moving away from the door with a luxuriantly tired shrug. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t upset me. I’m sorry you’re not sleeping well.”
And that, of course, was the other, the really important difference: it didn’t upset him. It annoyed him slightly, but it didn’t upset him. Why should it? It was her problem. What boundless reaches of good health, what a wealth of peace there was in this new-found ability to sort out and identify the facts of their separate personalities—this is my problem, that’s your problem. The pressures of the past few months had brought them each through a kind of crisis; he could see that now. This was their time of convalescence, during which a certain remoteness from each other’s concerns was certainly natural enough, and probably a good sign. He knew, sympathetically, that in her case the adjustment must be especially hard; if it caused her periods of moodiness and insomnia, that was perfectly understandable. In any case, the time was now at hand when he could, in the only mature sense, be of help to her. Next week, or as soon as possible, he would take whatever steps were necessary in lining up a reputable analyst; a
nd he could already foresee his preliminary discussions with the man, whom he pictured as owlish and slow-spoken, possibly Viennese (“I think your own evaluation of the difficulty is essentially correct, Mr. Wheeler. We can’t as yet predict how extensive a course of therapy will be indicated, but I can assure you of this: with your continued cooperation and understanding, there is every reason to hope for rapid…”).
In the meantime, the main task before him was to put an end to the business with Maureen. He would much rather have been able to do it in a bar or a coffee shop uptown; that was what he’d had in mind this morning, when he’d cornered her in an alcove of the central file to make this date, but, “No, come to my place,” she had whispered over the spread folder they were using as camouflage. “Norma’s leaving early, and I’ll fix supper for us.”
“No, really,” he said. “I’d rather not. The thing is—” He would have said, “The thing is I want to have a talk with you,” but her eyes frightened him. What if she should begin to cry or something, right here in the office? Instead he said, “I don’t want you to go to any trouble,” which was true too; but in the end he had agreed.
The scene of the talk probably didn’t matter; the important thing was the talk itself, and the only really important thing about that was to make it definite and final. There was, he assured himself for the hundredth time, nothing to be apologetic about. It depressed him to consider how much energy he had wasted, over the years, in the self-denying posture of apology. From now on, whatever else his life might hold, there would be no more apologies.
“Excuse me,” called a woman’s voice from the curb. “You’re Mr. Frank Wheeler, aren’t you?” She was coming toward him across the sidewalk, carrying a small suitcase, and he knew at once who she was from the predatory quality of her smile. She had caught him with his foot on the first of the pink stone steps of Maureen’s building.
“I’m Norma Townsend, Maureen’s roommate. I wonder if I could have a word with you.”
“Sure.” He didn’t budge. “What can I do for you?”
“Please.” She tilted her head slightly to one side as if to reprove a sullen child. “Not here.” And she moved past him toward an arty little espresso lounge two doors away. There was nothing to do but follow her, but he atoned for his meekness by staring critically at her tense, quivering buttocks. She was solid and duck-footed, wearing a modishly tubular dress, a “sheath,” in defiance of the fact that it emphasized her breadth and muscularity, and she trailed a perfume that had probably been described as Dark and Exciting in its point-of-sale display at Lord and Taylor’s.
“I won’t keep you a minute,” she said when she had him cornered at a small marble-topped table, when she’d arranged the suitcase at her feet, ordered a sweet vermouth, and put her hands through the series of clicking, snapping and organizing motions required in the job of removing a pack of cigarettes from her complicated handbag. “I’ve just time for an apéritif, and then I must run. I’m off to the Cape for two weeks. Maureen was coming with me, but she’s changed her plans. She now intends to spend her entire vacation here, as I expect you know. I didn’t know until last night, which I’m afraid does put me in a rather awkward position with the friends we were to visit. Are you sure you won’t have a drink?”
“No thanks.” He had to admit, watching her, that she wasn’t unattractive. If she could loosen her hair instead of skinning it back, if she could take off a little weight through the cheeks…but then he decided she would have to do more than that. She would have to learn not to move her eyebrows so much when she talked, and she would certainly have to get over saying things like “I’ve just time for an apéritif” and “I’m off to the Cape.”
“I happen to be very annoyed with Maureen at the moment,” she was saying. “This vacation mix-up is only the latest in a long line of foolishness, but that’s beside the point. The main thing—” and here she looked at him keenly—“the important thing, is that I’m very deeply concerned about her too. I’ve known her a good deal longer and I believe I know her better than you do, Mr. Wheeler. She’s a very young, very insecure, very sweet kid, and she’s gone through a lot of hell in the past few years. Right now she needs guidance and she needs friendship. On the face of it—and I hope you’ll forgive my speaking plainly—on the face of it, the one thing she definitely does not need is to get involved in a pointless affair with a married man. Mind you, I’m not—please don’t interrupt. I’m not interested in moralizing. I’d much rather feel that you and I can discuss this thing as civilized adults. But I’m afraid I must begin with an awkward question. Maureen appears to be under the impression that you’re in love with her. Is this true?”
The answer was so classically simple that the framing of it filled him with pleasure. “I’m afraid I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
She leaned back and smiled at him in a canny, speculative way, letting little curls of smoke dribble out of her nostrils, picking a flake of cigarette paper from her lip with the lacquered nails of little-finger and thumb. He was reminded of Bart Pollock at lunch saying, “Let me see how good a judge of character I am,” and he wanted to reach across the table and strangle her.
“I think I like you, Frank,” she said at last. “May I call you that? I think I even like your getting angry; it shows integrity.” She came forward again, took a coquettish sip of her drink, and propped one elbow on the table. “Oh, look, Frank,” she said. “Let’s try to understand each other. I think you’re probably a very good, serious boy with a nice wife and a couple of nice kids out there in Connecticut, and I think possibly all that’s happened here is that you’ve gone and gotten yourself involved in a very human, very understandable situation. Doesn’t that about sum it up?”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t even come close. Now I’ll try, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I think you’re probably a meddling, tiresome woman, possibly a latent lesbian, and very definitely”—he laid a dollar bill on the table—“very definitely a pain in the ass. Have a nice vacation.”
And in four headlong strides, one of which nearly sent an effeminate waiter sprawling with a tray of demi-tasse cups, he was out of the place. All the way up the pink stone steps he felt he couldn’t contain the giant sobs of laughter that heaved in his chest—the look on her face!—but in the vestibule, where he leaned against a row of polished brass mailboxes to let it all come out of him, he found that instead of guffaws he was capable only of a self-stifling, whimpering giggle that came in uncontrollable spasms, using only the top part of his lungs and making his diaphragm ache. He couldn’t breathe.
When it was over, or nearly over, he crept back to the front door, pushed aside the dusty net curtain that covered its glass and peered down, just in time for a rear view of Norma out on the curb, wagging her handbag for a taxi. Her back was stiff with anger and there was something extremely pathetic about her suitcase, which looked expensive and brand-new. She had probably spent days buying it and weeks shopping for the things that would ride in its silken depths today—new bathing suits, slacks, sun lotion, a new camera—all the fussy, careful apparatus of a girlish good time. With the odd whimpering sounds still bubbling up from his rib cage he felt an incongruous wave of tenderness go out to her, as she climbed into the cab and rolled away.
He was sorry. But he would have to pull himself together now; it was time to deal with Maureen. He took several deep breaths and pressed the bell, and when the answering buzzer let him into the hallway he was careful not to take the stairs too fast. He didn’t want to be short of breath when he got there; everything depended on his being calm.
The door was on the latch. He knocked once or twice and then heard her voice, apparently coming from the bedroom. “Frank? Is that you? Come on in. I’ll be right out.”
The apartment was scrupulously clean, as if in readiness for a party, and a faint scent of simmering meat came from the kitchenette. Only now, strolling around the carpet, did he notice
that a phonograph was playing the music he was dimly aware of having heard all the way upstairs, a smooth Viennese waltz done with many violins, the kind of thing known as cocktail music.
“There’s some drinks and stuff on the coffee table,” Maureen’s voice called. “Help yourself.”
He did, gratefully making a stiff one, and tried to relax by sitting well back in the deep sofa.
“Did you close the door?” she called. “And lock it?”
“I think so, yes. What’s all the—”
“And are you sure you’re alone?”
“Sure I’m sure. What’s all the mystery about?”
She threw open the bedroom door and stood smiling there on tiptoe, nude. Then she began an undulant dance around the room, in waltz time, waving and rippling her wrists like an amateur ballerina, blushing and trying mightily not to giggle as she whirled for him to the soaring strings. He barely managed to put his drink on the table, spilling part of it, before she came falling heavily into his arms and knocked the wind out of him. She was drenched in the same perfume as Norma’s, and when she enveloped his head in a welcoming kiss he saw, at startlingly close range, that she was wearing even more eye make-up than usual. Each of her lashes was as thick and ragged as a spider’s leg on her cheek. Released from her mouth at last, he tried to ease himself into a more upright sitting position, to shift her weight off his belly, but it wasn’t easy because her arms were still locked around his neck, and in the effort his coat and shirt were dragged painfully tight across his back and chest. Finally he was able to free one hand to tear open his choking collar, and he tried to smile.