by Melissa Bank
I wanted to know about him, but I couldn't ask outright. "What did literary people used to be like?"
"They were Livers," she said. "Big livers."
I pictured the purplish-brown organ, and assumed she meant hard drinkers.
My aunt said, "Now all they do is talk."
—•—
After my freshman year in college, I spent a long weekend with my aunt on Martha's Vineyard. Late on a hazy afternoon, she took me to the clay baths. We walked down the beach, and as we neared the baths, I saw that everyone was naked, their clay-coated bodies varying shades of gray, depending on dryness. I looked over at my aunt.
She said, "A parade of statues," and I could tell by the way she said it—listening to herself—that she was testing the line for a novel.
I didn't feel young with her now so much as provincial. When we got to the clay pit, she said, "You go ahead," and I didn't hesitate. I took off my bathing suit, handed it to her, and splooshed right in.
Afterward, she rubbed some clay off my back and smeared it under her eyes. "You have my breasts," she said, as though I'd accomplished something.
I asked her to tell me about Archie Knox.
She glanced over at me, as though she still wasn't sure I was worth telling things to. Then she said, "He used to be very wild. In his martini days."
"Wild how?" I asked.
"Women," she said. "Women just loved him." She told me there was a story about one very young woman who'd committed suicide. I waited for her to go on, but she didn't. She was quiet. Then she brightened. "And dogs," she said.
"Dogs?" I asked.
"Dogs followed him everywhere."
—•—
"He was some sort of boxing champion," she told me the night she took me out to celebrate my graduation. "He was always punching someone in the nose."
"Macho," I said.
"No," she said. "It was the clarity of expression that appealed to him."
—•—
I was twenty-five before I saw Archie Knox again. It was at a party on Central Park West, which I attended as the guest of a guest of a guest. I was an editorial assistant at H—— by then and the youngest person at the party.
I nodded to him across the room, and as he came toward me, I saw that his hair had turned white.
"What're you drinking?" he asked me.
"Scotch and soda," I said.
A moment later, he returned and handed me a glass of milk. "Somebody has to take care of you," he said, and disappeared.
My friend from H—— left. I stood by myself, trying to appear captivated, until only a few people remained.
Archie came up to me. He took my elbow and said, "Let's get you something to eat."
I assumed he knew who I was, but when I mentioned my aunt, he said, "I'll be damned."
Over supper, I asked him about K——, where he was the editorial director. He didn't want to talk about that.
He told me my aunt was the most beautiful woman alive, even at eighty. He touched my chin, and moved my head from side to side, studying my profiles. He smiled and said, "No resemblance at all."
—•—
I met Archie at a French restaurant for supper before the theater. After the waiter had taken our order, I mentioned that my boyfriend, Jamie, was probably in Paris right now. Jamie had been in Europe for a month, trying to figure out what to do with his life—which was what he was doing with his life.
"Who is this Jamie person?" Archie asked.
"I told you," I said, and picked a crayon out of the glass and began doodling on the paper tablecloth.
"Does he make you happy?"
"Sure," I said.
He told me I didn't know what real happiness was. "You have to shrink yourself to fit into this little life with him."
I put my crayon down. "You don't know what you're talking about."
He told me I was made for something bigger. He said, "You're old enough to know better."
I said, "Don't you think you're a little old for me?"
"No," he said. Our drinks came and he downed his club soda in one long gulp, his Adam's apple rising and falling. He put money and the theater tickets on the table and stood. He said, "I think you're too young for me." Then he walked out.
—•—
He didn't apologize, or even mention it, when he called to invite me over for dinner.
He lived in a brownstone in the West Village, two whole floors to himself. I asked for a tour. Every room reminded me of a study—dark, heavy wood and leather, a little shabby, books and manuscripts everywhere.
Only his study was uncluttered. It was plain, just an ancient typewriter on a mahogany desk.
I followed him down the hall. "Guest room," he said, and I peered in. There was a breakfront full of boxing trophies—silver and gold statuettes with their little dukes up.
Two doors down, he said, "I assume you'd prefer to skip the master bedroom."
"Correct," I said.
He said, "Excuse me," opened the door and pretended to speak to someone inside. "I'll be up soon, darling," he said. He paused as though listening to a response. "Don't be silly," he said. "I'm just feeding a hungry child."
In the kitchen, he cut up a lime and apologized for not having wine to offer me.
I was noticing all the doodads on his windowsill—a ceramic rhino, a marble egg, a souvenir glass ball of snowy Nebraska. They were like the presents I'd given Jamie, and I was wondering who'd given Archie his, when he said, "I don't keep any alcohol in the house."
He handed me a glass of seltzer. " I haven't had a drink for two years," he said.
I almost said, You must be pretty thirsty, when I saw how he was looking at me, and he looked at me like that for a long time to let me know the importance of his words.
—•—
At Caffè Vivaldi, Archie asked me if I knew Dante's definition of hell.
I sipped my cappuccino. "Give me a minute," I said.
"Proximity without intimacy," he said.
"Listen, Dante." I was going to remind him about Jamie, but instead I said, "I just don't feel that way about you."
He said, "Spare me the juvenalia."
—•—
Archie and I were having dinner at a restaurant in Mid-town when the publicist of H—— came over to our table. "Hello all," she said.
Afterward, I said, "Now everyone's going to think we're having an affair."
"Well," Archie said, "we fooled them."
—•—
For my birthday, Archie gave me his novel, his first, he said, and only. It was almost as old as I was. The book was about a boy growing up with his mother in Nebraska, and I read it straight through, sitting on the futon on the floor of my tiny apartment. When I finished, I called my best friend, Sophie.
She said, "I wouldn't care if he was Hemingway." "You mean because he's an alcoholic. Because he's twice my age."
She reminded me that he was more than twice my age. "But no," she said. "I mean because he's larger than life."
—•—
Jamie left a message on my answering machine, telling me how much he missed me and that he was delaying his return another week or so.
I called Archie. "You want to go to the movies?"
"No," he said. "All right."
The only movie he wanted to see was Key Largo at the revival house on Eighth Street. Afterward, walking out, he told me that while Bogart was dying, Lauren Bacall slept with Frank Sinatra. "Don't ever do that to me, okay, honey?"
I said, "I don't even like Frank Sinatra."
So, back at his house, he put on a Sinatra record. "Don't tell me you don't think that's beautiful," he said.
I said, "You're scaring me."
—•—
In a cab home from a jazz club, he said, "You act like I just want to sleep with you."
He said, "I want to everything with you."
Which was when I touched him for the first time. I slid my fingers underneath his sleeve and
touched his forearm.
He took my other hand. "But if you just want to sleep with me, that's okay, too."
The cab pulled up in front of my building. "Call me if you change your mind," he said.
I nodded and got out.
He leaned out the cab window. "Call me any time of the night or day."
Upstairs, Jamie was asleep in my bed.
—•—
I had forgotten everything nice about Jamie, and especially the main thing. His fingertips swirled as light as smoke on my skin, and my body gave in right away, before I told myself, You can't be blamed for what you do in your deep.
We had breakfast in the diner around the corner.
"So," Jamie said, "what've you been doing?"
"Nothing," I said, and coughed. "Thinking a lot."
He nodded, putting some jelly on his toast.
I said, "I've been thinking we shouldn't go on like this."
"Like what?" he said. "I've been away for two months."
I said, "I feel like I have to shrink myself to fit into our life together."
"Well, cut that shit out," he said, and grinned. "I missed you."
"Look," I said. "I think there's somebody else."
"Jesus," he said, and his voice got a little mean with exasperation. "There is nobody else."
"There is," I said.
That made him sit up. It was the first time he'd sat up in a long while, if he ever had, and I admit I was glad to see it.
—•—
I called Archie, but the phone rang and rang. I picked up his novel and read it again. I was still holding it when I woke up.
In the morning, I took a walk over there. I knocked on his door, waited and knocked again.
The door opened. "Well," Archie said.
His hair was sticking out funny, and even though he was smiling, he didn't seem glad to see me.
I wondered if he already had a guest over.
"Come in," he said.
The house seemed big and dark and formal. We sat down at the big mahogany table in the dining room.
I told him about finding Jamie in my apartment and breaking up with him the next morning.
He said, "About time," and came over to me. I stood, I held him, and we kissed, but it was not what I expected it to be.
—•—
He lit cigarettes for both of us and lay back. He was quiet, so I was; he was thinking, so I did. We lay there in the dark.
I said, "What?"
He didn't answer for a long time, so long I thought he wouldn't. Then, finally, he said, "Everything."
Even now, remembering the sound of his voice chastens every word I say.
—•—
In the evenings, he'd work upstairs in his study, and I'd edit manuscripts at the big mahogany table, where I could worry a sentence for an hour.
He'd come down to refill his iced tea and look in on me. "What is it?" he'd ask.
Standing behind me, he'd read. He'd take the pencil out of my hand and cross out a word or a sentence or the whole page. "There," he'd say. It took him about thirty seconds, and he was always right.
—•—
Each time, Archie was mystified. Each time, he told me it had only happened to him once, years ago, when he was blind drunk. He'd light our cigarettes and lie there, staring straight ahead.
"It's not you, babe," he said one night.
I nodded, as though consoled. The thought had never occurred to me.
—•—
He took me to a literati dinner party and introduced me as "The Rising Star of H——."
I was shy, so I talked too much.
The men smiled indulgently.
The women were unfailingly gracious.
When we were undressing for bed, I said, "They think I'm a bimbo."
"Bimbo sounds masculine," he said. "Bimba."
"This bothers me," I said.
"Honey," he said, "they're just jealous."
"Just jealous."
"Right," he said. "We're the only happy couple I know."
—•—
He couldn't believe all the great old movies I'd missed. "Your whole generation is culturally bankrupt," he said. He set about trying to educate me.
After watching the original Thin Man, he said, "You're like Nora, and I'm like Nick. We're like Bogart and Ba-call. Like Hepburn and Tracy."
I said, "More like Mr. Wilson and Dennis the Menace."
—•—
We had Sophie over for dinner.
Archie told her about pursuing me, the party on Central Park West, the publicist, and the Sunday I knocked on his door. "Finally," he said, "Jane gives in. We go upstairs. I take off my clothes. I take off hers—"
"You want coffee?" I asked.
"No, thanks," Sophie said.
Archie glared at me. "She's a little nervous, she says, 'Can we talk?' 'Sure,' I say. 'No prob.' I get cigarettes. We lie there, smoking and talking. Of course, I can't concentrate—"
"Dessert?"
Sophie said, "Not for me."
"So," Archie went on, "I'm waiting for her to finish her cigarette." He made his voice low. "I'm about to give up when she gives me this little nod, and she sits up to put out her cigarette." He paused. "And she drops a live ash on my chest!"
I stared at him: What are you talking about? That was a whole other night.
He was watching Sophie laugh.
He said, "She starts a brushfire in my chest hair! The gazelles leap out and then the elephants stampede ..."
Sophie was still laughing when she looked over at me, and her expression said, Okay, now I get it.
—•—
I stored up jokes and anecdotes to tell him. I practiced them in my head.
"How was the dentist?" he asked.
"You know what he told me?" I said. "I should be brushing my gums! Did you ever hear of that?" I paused. "My hairdresser will probably tell me I should be brushing my neck!"
He laughed, almost against his will. "You're so weird," he said.
—•—
At a publication party, I overheard him say, "... so Jane accuses me of being an anti-Semite."
I was behind him, at the bar, and I took my wine from the bartender and stayed where I was.
Archie said, "I remind her that my ex-wife is Jewish, and Jane says, 'What does that prove? Every misogynist I know is married.' "
The man he was talking to said, "Very clever."
In the cab, I said, "What was that anti-Semite thing about? And the other night with Sophie. You know, I don't want to just be some made-up character in your anecdotes."
"To be just, "he said.
"What does justice have to do with anything?" I said.
He said, "Good editors don't split infinitives."
"You're correcting my grammar now?"
"Yes," he said. "I'm helping you to be better. And I expect the same from you."
I said, "What if I don't want to be better?"
He said, "Then you'll be just a petulant, infinitive-splitting eavesdropper."
—•—
I gave up my apartment and moved in.
—•—
I had to tell my family then.
My parents were very quiet.
My brother said, "Can't you find kids your own age to play with?"
My aunt was very old by then, and I hadn't seen her for a long time. After I told her about Archie, she closed her eyes, and I thought maybe she'd fallen asleep. Finally, she said, "A young woman does a lot for an older man."
I said, "It's not like that." I wanted to convince her. I said, "We think alike."
"Oh, my dear," she said. "A man thinks with his dick."
—•—
The doctor assured Archie everything would be fine as soon as they got his blood sugar under control. It was good news. He came home with a gadget, The Pricker, we called it.
He'd never liked me to see him inject his insulin, but with The Pricker he was different. It was our project. He'd
press the button and the pin would nip out and prick his finger. I'd take his finger and smear the blood on the treated paper and put it into the gizmo. While we waited for the reading, I'd guess how sweet his blood was.
—•—
At home, he read a novel, lying on the leather sofa in the den, an iced tea and a bowl of colossal olives on the end table. He turned on PBS. He called out, "American Masters is on—it's Irving Berlin."
I didn't move.
He refilled his iced tea, and said, "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
I listened to the sound of his slippers shuffling back to the living room.
In bed, he said, "I don't know who you are, but I want Jane back." He started kissing me. "What have you done with my Jane?"
I laughed.
"Ah, well," he said. "Any port in a storm."
—•—
He called in his blood-sugar results, and the doctor adjusted his insulin dosage. We waited for the big change. He was still supposed to monitor his blood sugar. I don't know when he stopped. I found The Pricker way in the back of the pantry, behind his supply of syringes.
—•—
We spent weekends at his farmhouse in the Berkshires. The first time I saw his car, a white Lincoln Continental, I couldn't believe it. I said, " It was nice of your father to lend you his car."
"It's very comfortable," he said, making his voice creaky and old.
It was like riding in a living room.
—•—
His farmhouse was a century old, and the walls slanted and sloped, the kitchen had a checkerboard floor, every window looked out on a meadow. We took our meals outside. In the evenings, we visited his friends or played Billie Holiday on the ancient record player and danced.
—•—
He went to a specialist at Mass. General, and was told he couldn't expect his body to work right as long as he kept smoking.
We quit.
We drank fruit juice. We did breathing exercises. When he wanted a cigarette, he took a nap. I wept.
He felt better, he said. No more spots in front of his eyes. His feet didn't tingle. But those were the only changes.
—•—