“How about now?”
“Well, testing has improved, I guess, and screening of donors is a lot stricter—no one’s pretending AIDS isn’t a problem anymore, that’s for sure—so the supply is pretty safe these days, as I understand it.”
“But not completely.”
“People screw up sometimes, is one problem. A report not long ago took the Red Cross to task for laxity in its testing procedures. Seems that over a six-month period back in eighty-eight, they released a couple of thousand units of product that hadn’t been properly tested. The FDA just shut down some private banks in Oregon and South Carolina because of similar problems.”
“Scary.”
“Sure. But if you’re really worried about it, the big thing these days is autologous donation—storing your own blood for emergencies. Michael Jackson supposedly travels with several units of his stuff on ice, just in case.” Clay laughed. “I’m not up on all the bloody details, Marsh—maybe you should see a doctor.”
TWENTY-FIVE
It was too late to scare up a doctor for anything but a bridge game, so I tried Ellen Simmons again, this time at home. Her father answered the second ring—I guessed it was a full-time task, monitoring the ebb and flow of information in the household; like all authoritarians, Orson Simmons was maintaining control through the imposition of ignorance. I still wondered why Ellen submitted to such an atmosphere and why her father found it necessary to be a tyrant.
“What is your business with her?” Simmons demanded after I said my name and asked to speak to his daughter.
“Pretty much the same as it was the last time.”
“For your information, her mother and I found your public demonstration of affection to be highly offensive.”
“Sorry. Next time we’ll do our demonstrating in private. Then you can use your imagination. Tell Ellen I’ll be there in an hour.”
Hoping Ellen’s nocturnal habits were as invariable as she’d claimed, I hung up in the middle of Simmons’ bluff and bluster, then found my car and aimed it down the hill. Time and traffic being what they were, it took ninety minutes to get there.
Ellen was waiting for me on the porch, knitting in her lap, her body curling to and fro in one of the matched cane rockers that were the only comforts the house was blessed with. She approached the car so quickly I didn’t have time to fetch her.
“I was afraid you’d decided not to come,” she breathed as she climbed in the passenger side and locked the door behind her. I wondered if the person she was trying to lock out was her father.
Her dress was bright and crisp and Easterish—full and flowery and almost low-cut, topped with a crocheted shawl I bet she had made herself; I also bet it was the first time she’d worn it on an occasion other than reverential. Her lips were still her natural pink, but her hair was wound atop her head in the fashion of some yesteryear, her cheeks were inflamed with blots of rouge, her wrist clanked with the sounds of charms on a silver bracelet. She was all dolled up and eager to please, but for some reason I felt bad, maybe because I wasn’t the Lochinvar she hoped I was.
“Traffic,” I said to explain my tardiness. “I always forget how awful it is. Do you drive to work?”
She shook her head. “Bus. I catch it out there.” She pointed toward the Danville Highway. “Twenty-five minutes, door-to-door.”
“So what do you do with all those minutes?”
She colored and stayed silent.
“Come on, what? The Banker’s Journal? Road and Track? Needlepoint? What?”
“I write poetry.” She grinned sheepishly. “You can laugh if you want. Most people do.”
“What most people do is dumb. So what do you write—free verse? Couplets? Limericks?”
“Sonnets, mostly.”
“Sonnets are great; I like sonnets.”
“Really? Whose?”
“Ah … Shakespeare. He wrote good sonnets.”
“Who else?”
“… Ah, mostly Shakespeare.”
Her eyes glistened with her game. “And Browning, of course. And Keats.”
“Sure. Those guys, too. So how many have you written?”
“I try to write one a day—half going in, half coming home.”
“I’d like to read some sometime.”
She shook her head. “They’re not very good.”
“Even if that’s true, what difference does it make?”
Her brow knit thoughtfully, as though we were discussing cosmology. “I think if you decide to read a sonnet, you should read a good one.”
“If I stick to Shakespeare, how would I get to know you better?”
She met my eye. “Why would you want to?”
“Because I like you.”
She smiled shyly. “I’m glad. Despite what my father may have told you.”
“Speaking of which, I’ve been a little rough on him. I apologize if he’s upset.”
Her back stiffened. “It’s good for him to hear back talk for a change. Sometimes I think the reason he quit the machine shop was so he could have his own way all day long.”
“Why is he so protective of you?”
She blinked and looked toward the house, as if the answer might appear like an apparition, mysteriously emblazoned on the siding. “Can we go somewhere?” she asked softly.
“Sure. Have you had dinner?”
“Sort of.”
“Want some more?”
“Not really.”
“Drink?”
“Yes,” she concluded firmly. “One of those fruity things with lots of ice.”
“Coming right up,” I said, and put the Buick into gear and took the old highway into Danville. Since Ellen was an old-fashioned girl, I took her to an old-fashioned place—the bar of the Danville Hotel.
She ordered her frozen daiquiri—banana—and I ordered unfrozen scotch. We smiled at each other and took silent note of the unconvincingly rustic surroundings until the waitress brought the drinks. When she’d gone back to the bar, we picked them up and clinked our glasses. “Here’s to happiness,” I said.
“Yours or mine?”
“Both.”
“Together?”
I blinked and swallowed and limited my answer to the ambiguity of a smile.
We both drank quickly, as if we had errands to perform and had to get to them. Because I still hadn’t gotten around to asking my questions, I ordered another round. Because she seemed determined to obliterate her inhibitions pursuant to an agenda of her own, Ellen was more than agreeable—strawberry this time. Although I was intrigued by her élan, what I mostly hoped was that she wouldn’t get sick—while I was a drinking man myself, Ellen was both by nature and nurture a teetotaler.
“You still haven’t told me why your father is so protective of you,” I reminded her when the second batch of booze had come.
“I don’t know why,” she said. “It’s just the way he is. It’s the way his father was as well, I think.”
“Despotism runs in the family.”
She squirmed. “Sort of.”
“I think there’s more to it than that.” I waited till I had her full attention. “I think something happened to you back in high school. Around the time Tom Crandall went to Vietnam.”
Her eyes flicked on and off my face. “I already told you something happened—I lost my virginity.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
“What makes you think there’s anything else?”
“Reading between the lines, mostly.”
She shook her head. “What’s between the lines is only empty space.” She fidgeted with her collar. “It’s none of your business, anyway.”
“It is if it has something to do with why Tom was killed.”
“Who says he was killed?”
“I do. And you used to.”
“You know everything about it, I suppose.”
“I know a homicide when I see one. And I know a cover-up when I smell one, too.”
“Cover-u
p,” she sniffed. “You make it sound like Watergate or something.”
I looked at her till she looked back. “Isn’t it time the story came out? Maybe when it does, you won’t have to hide at home for the rest of your life.”
Her protest was shrill. “I live at home because my parents need me. They can’t cope with the world.”
“I think they’re coping just fine according to their lights; you’re the one who’s dysfunctional.”
A tear formed in her eye. I was sorry to be its architect, but I plunged ahead. “Whatever the truth is, I don’t see how it could be worse if it came to light—you’re already living like a prisoner on work furlough. Emily Dickinson may have been a great poet, but she wasn’t a great role model.”
It hurt her worse than I intended. To hide her pain, she closed her eyes and bowed her head. I looked out a window, at the Cadillacs and Mercedes grazing in the parking lot, untroubled by our contretemps.
“Look at this place,” I said roughly. “Danville was a sleepy country town back when you were in high school, but now it’s yuppie heaven—half the Oakland A’s live out here, for God’s sake. Do you or your family know any of these people?”
She sniffed defiantly. “We know lots of people. Old valley people, like us. We see them every Sunday at church.”
“Then give your friends a chance to show what good Christians they are. Forgiveness, absolution, all that.”
She dug a handkerchief from her bodice and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want to know what happened between you and Nicky Crandall after Tom went to Vietnam.”
“Who said anything about Nicky?”
“I did.”
“Have you seen him?”
“No. Have you?”
She shook her head. “You don’t know anything, do you? You’re only guessing.”
I kissed the back of her hand. “I’m a good guesser. I majored in it at college.”
She didn’t remove her hand from my grasp, but she didn’t say anything, either.
“That’s why your parents keep you locked away, isn’t it? So Nicky can’t get at you?”
Her hand grew as rigid as wood as she formulated a plan. When she had one, she withdrew her hand and drained her drink and looked around the bar. “How badly do you want to know all this?”
“Pretty badly.”
“Badly enough to make love to me?”
I was the one who was reeling this time. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” she replied airily. “If you get a room in this hotel and take me there and make love to me, I’ll—”
“This place doesn’t rent rooms anymore.”
“Then somewhere. Anywhere. If you do, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. If you don’t, I won’t. It’s as simple as that. You think I’m teasing,” she added when I didn’t respond.
“I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t think you do, either.”
She pouted. “You’re just saying that because you’re not interested in the proposition.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what?—you’re saving me from myself? Doing the honorable thing? Maybe you’re afraid of my father. Or perhaps you’re homosexual, asexual, unsexual. Please pick one before I start to cry.”
As her emotions threatened to wreck her resolve, I tried to keep things from becoming more absurd than they already were. “Let’s just say I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“I’m the one doing the extorting, Mr. Tanner.”
“You don’t know anything about me. I’m old enough to be your father. I’m—”
“I know Tom liked you,” she said softly.
I swore. “That’s really what you want—to spend another night with Tom. I’m sorry, but I’m not him.”
She stiffened in rebuttal. “I know that. I also know you’re not someone who would hurt me.”
“No.”
“Or laugh at me.”
“No.”
“Or make me do something I didn’t want to do.”
I tried a smile. “‘Maybe’ is as good as you’re going to get on that one.”
Ellen swirled the slush in her glass, gazing into the strawberry floe that had become a match to her complexion, indulging fantasies I could only guess at. I felt sorry for her, at bottom, which made me leery: I make mistakes when I feel sorry for people.
With a final slug of her drink, Ellen raised her eyes. “I haven’t had sexual relations for eighteen-and-one-half years, Mr. Tanner. My night with Tom has become pivotal—I marvel at it, I relive every second of it, I regard it as the defining moment of my life, I measure time from before and after that instant. And I don’t think that’s healthy. I think I ought to move beyond it, especially now that Tom is dead. Whatever it was that Tom and I were to each other needs to become history rather than float over me like a veil.” The essay was so essential it left her no option but to beg. “What I was hoping was that you’d help me.”
“I’d like to,” I said truthfully. “I just don’t think your idea is the best way to go about it.”
She met my eye without defenses. “The time with Tom was … overwhelming.” Her cheeks reddened even further. “I’d like to be overwhelmed once more before I die.”
The craving was so candid I couldn’t meet her gaze. “There must be men at the bank who would be happy to—”
She shook her head. “They would talk. Rumors would fly. People would speculate about me even more than they do now. They already think I’m odd; I don’t want them to think I’m libertine as well.” She made another pass at her daiquiri and seemed surprised to find it empty. “Let’s face it,” she went on, her words slurred with liquor and weighty with disappointment. “You don’t find me attractive.”
“I find you very attractive.”
“I don’t excite you. You’re afraid you couldn’t … perform.”
“I’m a bachelor; I could perform with a stump. I’m just not sure I should.”
She looked around, then leaned forward so she could whisper whatever it was she thought would turn the tide. “I have very nice breasts, Mr. Tanner. You’d be surprised.”
I laughed to cover my embarrassment. “No, I wouldn’t. Look, Ellen. Your offer is tempting. Maybe when this business with Tom is over we can get together and see how things develop. But I can’t just waltz you off to some motel and screw you like a hooker. You’re too nice a girl for that.”
She made a fist and pounded the table. “To hell with nice. Nice girls sit at home and listen to their parents rant and rave about the evils of the world as if laughing and singing and dancing and loving were the most barbaric things on earth.” She put down her glass and took my hand in fingers that were cold and damp. “Do you have any idea how badly I wish I could be like a hooker and offer myself to the first man who came along? But I can’t do that; I don’t have that in me. It has to be someone … nice.” She smiled bravely despite it all. “And you’re a nice man, Mr. Tanner. If you weren’t, we’d already be undressed.”
All I can say in defense of my decision is that it took me several seconds to reach it. “I haven’t made love to all that many women,” I said finally. “But I have to tell you that very few of them have called me ‘Mr. Tanner’ on the way to the bedroom.”
TWENTY-SIX
The motel was the first one I came to, on the south edge of Walnut Creek wedged between a hospital and a barbecue joint. It was unobtrusive and unostentatious, suitable for iniquity, a match to my mood. The clerk was smirking by the time we reached the desk—they always seem to be smirking when you’re doing something to warrant it. “We’d like a room,” I told him.
“Twins or queen?”
“Queen.”
“That’ll be ninety-seven dollars. Plus tax.”
“My goodness,” Ellen erupted behind my shoulder. “I had no idea.”
I tried for a joke. “It keeps you from forming bad habits.”
E
llen wasn’t amused. “It’s unacceptable. A hundred dollars for a bed? For one night? Outrageous. We’ll just go to your—”
I put my hand over her mouth and tossed two fifties on the counter. “This is business, remember? I can write it off.”
The smirk slid to a smarmy grin. He shoved a key my way, told us to “have fun,” and watched as Ellen led me like an illfated lamb in the direction of an excessively mirrored elevator.
The room was adequate, I guess—I was too immersed in the shifting sands of morality to pay much attention. When we were enclosed within its pastel confines, we looked at each other with a blend of incredulity and mirth.
“I almost brought my nightie,” Ellen said with a timid smile. “But it was too dowdy. I did bring my toothbrush.” She patted her purse.
“So this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
She shook her head. “Spur of the week.”
“I’m afraid there’s still a problem.”
A lip quivered. “You’ve gotten cold feet.”
“Pretty much everything on me is hot, pedal extremities included, but I don’t have a condom. Things are different than they were eighteen years ago. We shouldn’t—”
“I’m not from Mars, you know,” she said primly, and reached into her purse. When her hand emerged, it was holding the crimped edge of a foil-wrapped disk the way I hold the worm while I’m trying to bait my hook.
She held it so I could see the brand. “Is it all right? I didn’t … the man said it was one-size-fits-all.” Her cheeks could have served as landing lights.
“It’s fine.”
Her eyes sparkled. “I’m a very efficient person, Mr. Tanner. I anticipate contingencies and provide for them. I’m very underutilized at the bank.”
“So that makes two things I know about you—you’re efficient and you’ve got nice breasts.”
Her response was brazen. “I’m five-six, I weigh one-twenty, I like silk scarves and frilly underwear, I devour Anne Tyler and Barbara Pym, and I’ve voted for Jesse Jackson two times.” She blushed. “Does any of that disqualify me?”
“That makes you first in line.”
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