The Trouble with Eden

by Lawrence Block

  As their weekly dates became more specifically sexual, they talked less, saw fewer movies. She preferred it this way. In his parked car, in darkness and silence, it was easier to tune him out and tune herself in. Their times together left her knotted with frustration which she was unable to recognize as such. She did not know that women had orgasms and mistook the tingling tension for ultimate sexual pleasure. Indeed, it was pleasurable for her; afterward she would feel vital and alive as she had never felt previously.

  The pattern of their evenings together became as predictable and ritualized as a bullfight. He would park the car in the riverside park, and they would kiss and touch each other for a few minutes before moving to the back seat. There he would spend an hour undressing and exciting her, and then she would bring him to orgasm. He taught her to do this with her hands and sat back with eyes clenched shut while she stroked him rhythmically as he had shown her. A sudden intake of breath would warn her to be ready with the Kleenex.

  Later she satisfied him between her breasts. Her breasts were not especially large (“One thing I can’t take is the type who looks more like a cow than a girl”) but neither were they small, and she would recline on the car’s back seat, knees high and upper body bared, while he crouched over her with his penis between her breasts.

  “Hold ’em together, make it tight, oh that’s right—”

  Finally there was a night when he tore the foil from an oiled prophylactic and pulled it on like a glove. Well, this is it, she thought, and lay back trembling. He had trouble entering her and cursed tonelessly. Then he was inside her, and there was pain, but hardly enough to think about, and then an instant later it was over and he was gasping and shaking upon her.

  “Well,” he said. “Well, now.”

  Later that night she was struck by the thought that this first time would surely be the last time as well. That it had been the pursuit he enjoyed, and that he would cease to be interested in the prize now that he had won it. The thought did not particularly bother her, although it seemed to her that it ought to. She knew she felt nothing like love for him, but she needed him in certain ways, didn’t she? There must have been a need that led her to give herself to him, and what could have happened in the act of giving to eliminate the need?

  Perhaps she more than he was excited by the approach and disappointed by the arrival. They went out together five more times and had intercourse each time. On these occasions his own performance improved significantly. He sustained the act for a respectable amount of time and performed it with rather more flair. And yet each time she enjoyed it less. He had had the ability to drive her wild with excitement, and now, although she still drew pleasure from his lovemaking, her excitement was only a fraction of what it had been.

  Toward the end, she began to withdraw mentally while they were making love. Previously she had blanked out her lover as a specific person. But now she blanked out the act itself and substituted fantasy. While he was astride her, his penis buried within her, her mind would entertain memories of when she had held him between her breasts.

  And years later, when she thought of Carl, she would at once see him curled beside her in that car, wiping his seed from her neck and throat, then folding the tissue and putting it away. That was always the first and strongest image that came to mind when she thought of him. It was the most he had ever shown of tenderness, the closest approach he had ever made to concern, and she never forgot it.

  She lit a cigarette and went over to the telephone. She lifted the receiver, poised herself to dial, and for a moment her mind lost the number completely. She could not even remember the area code. Then it came back and she dialed the number and her mother answered on the second ring.

  She said, “Hello, Mom. How’s everything at home?”

  “Linda! What a surprise.”

  “I just thought I would call.”

  “Dad and I were going to call you on Sunday. Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “I was just about to call your father for dinner. He’s out in the garage. We’ve been having a little trouble with the car.”

  “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  “Well, you could ask him. No use in asking me, for all I understand about mechanical objects. I seem to remember something about a wheel bearer or bearing, if there’s such a thing. I suppose Marc would know.”

  “He probably would.”

  “He’s still at the theater?”

  “Yes. He’s going to be directing a show in the spring, if everything goes right.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. He’ll be the director.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’m glad he’s making progress. It’s a difficult business, isn’t it? The theater. You have to keep at it for years and years. The struggle to get ahead. Do you think—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, the usual question, I suppose.”

  “There’s really no point in our getting married, Mother.”

  “I know it, and I’m sorry I—”

  “It would be different if we were living in Dayton, of course it would be different, but we’re not. But here nobody thinks about it.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people aren’t thinking about it in Dayton. I suppose I’m old-fashioned.”

  “I was married once, and so was Marc. Neither of us wants to rush into it again.”

  “You don’t have to explain to me, Linda. I understand.”

  “Well.”

  “All that’s really important is for two people to love each other, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what’s important, all right.”

  “Of course if it ever came to the point of having children—”

  “Then we would get married. But until then there’s no point to it. We’ve had this conversation so many times, Mother, and I—”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. Well—”

  “How’s everybody in Dayton?”

  She got the question out and closed her eyes and tuned out the answer. Everybody in Dayton was about the same, except that so-and-so got married and so-and-so got divorced and so-and-so had a coronary, his second, poor man, but he was recovering nicely all the same, and Mrs. Something was getting cobalt treatments and when they got to that stage, it was as much as saying there was nothing to be done, but doctors of course would never come right out and admit this so they sent you for cobalt instead of telling you to go die quietly, and—

  She said the right words in the right places, grateful for a stream of talk that she could half listen to, the endless stream of vital statistics about people whose names she barely recognized and in whom she had not the slightest interest. Sometimes she felt that she ought to be interested. She had spent eighteen years in Dayton plus summers during her college years. The people who filled her mother’s monologues were the people she had known for the greater portion of her life. Insofar as she had a home, Dayton was that home. If she were to die tomorrow, Dayton was where the body would be shipped, Englander’s Funeral Home where the rites would conducted, Park Hill Cemetery where she would be tucked into the earth.

  Dayton was where she had run when her marriage broke up. The day she and Alan acknowledged it was over, she flew instinctively to Dayton and moved immediately into her old bedroom. And after a trip to Alabama had officially terminated that marriage, she again returned to Dayton. Because it was all the home she had, and when things fell apart, you went home. She had gone there knowing she could not stay there, could not live there, knowing that whatever life she was going to make for herself had to be made someplace other than Dayton. But it had still been the only place to go each of those times.

  “Here’s your father now, Linda.”

  “Hello, Dad.”

  “Well, Linda. When are we going to see you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to get away.”

  “Keeping busy, are you?”

  “Well, th
ere’s always something to do. I understand you’re having car trouble.”

  “My own fault for not trading the damned thing. You spend four thousand dollars on an automobile and you expect to get more than two years out of it. Fix one thing and something else goes. I’ll tell you something, you and Marc are just as lucky not to have a car. Is he around there? I’d like to say hello to him.”

  They had met Marc once the previous Thanksgiving. She had wanted some time to herself and suggested the trip to Dayton, positive he would tell her to go alone. He surprised her by accepting the idea enthusiastically, and the visit had gone far better than she had dared to expect. Marc was consistently polite, projecting warmth and interest in tedious conversations with her parents. He was acting, of course, playing a role in what seemed to her a transparently phony way, but he had gauged his audience well and they warmed to him. For their part, her parents avoided any mention of marriage and in no way showed disapproval for the nature of their relationship. On the last night her father, loosened slightly by brandy, took Marc aside and put a paternal hand on his shoulder. “I’ll tell you something,” he had said, “you kids have the right idea. You’re young and you’re enjoying yourselves. You know what marriage is? Marriage is the number one cause of divorce. That’s what it is. If you don’t have the one you’ll never have the other.”

  “Probably the most profound thought either of them ever had in their lives,” Marc commented later. “Christ, how did you stand it for all those years?”

  “They liked you, you know.”

  “Listen, don’t get uptight about it. Everybody’s parents are terrible. Mine are worse than yours. ‘Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.’ The man’s a fucking philosopher.”

  “Well, this is costing you a fortune,” her father was saying. “And your mother’s putting dinner on the table. You give Marc our love, Linda.”

  “I will.”

  “And take care of yourself. You want to say good-bye to your mother? Never mind, she’s got her hands full. I’ll say good-bye for you.”

  She cradled the telephone and lit a fresh cigarette. She had called to tell them about the break, to tell them she was coming home again, but her conversation had not taken her in that direction. Marc is fine. Everything is fine. She would not go back to Dayton. She was not sure what it was that she needed, could not define it, but whatever it was she would not find it in Dayton.

  There was a red leatherette address book in her purse. She thumbed through it trying to find someone to call. She dialed a New York number and let it ring twelve times before hanging up. She dialed another New York number and got a recording telling her that the number had been temporarily disconnected. She tried a third number and got a busy signal. The fourth number rang twice before she decided that she did not want to talk to that person after all, so she rang off without knowing whether the call would have been answered or not.

  She supposed that she ought to eat dinner. Her father and mother were now sitting over the dinner table, talking about how nice a boy Marc was and wouldn’t it be nice if things worked out and they did get married and settled down. She sighed and went to the refrigerator again, checked the cupboards again. Nothing appealed in the slightest. She put up water and was fixing a cup of instant coffee when there was a knock at the door.

  She said, “Marc?” And put her hand to her mouth, surprised at the automatic response.

  “It’s Peter.”

  “Oh. Come in, it’s open.”

  When she had first seen Peter Nicholas with Gretchen Vann, she’d taken them for mother and son. Gretchen’s hollow cheeks and darkly circled eyes made her look far older than her thirty-seven years. Peter, blond and slim-hipped and open-faced at twenty-two, could have passed for eighteen. They shared a large one-room apartment on the ground floor with Gretchen’s three-year-old daughter, and had been living there several months before Marc and Linda moved in.

  Marc had found them amusing. “She probably started nursing Peter the day she weaned the kid,” he had said. “The bond that holds them together is that nobody on earth can guess what either one sees in the other. God knows they have a strange effect on each other. Every day she looks a little older and he looks a little younger. One of these day’s he’s going to crawl right back into her womb and never get out.”

  “I was making coffee,” Linda said now. “Want a cup?”

  “Thanks, but—actually I’d like a cup if it’s no trouble.”

  “The water’s hot. Cream and sugar?”

  “Just cream.”

  “Well, it’s milk.”

  “That’s okay. I hardly ever drink coffee anyway. It’s supposed to be terribly yin.”

  “Is that macrobiotics? I didn’t know you were into that.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I keep thinking I ought to be, but I never manage to get into it. I’ll have brown rice for three meals running and then I’ll go and have a Coke, which is ridiculous, and then I’ll see how ridiculous the whole thing is and I’ll have a cheeseburger and that’s the end of the macro thing. Things like that are only possible if you’re living alone, anyway. Or if the person you’re living with is into it. And Gretchen. The thing is, she’s just the kind of person who ought to be into something like that. Some discipline that would help her get herself together.”

  His eyes were an absolutely clear and guileless blue. He made small hand movements as he spoke. His fingers were very long, very slender.

  She asked about Gretchen.

  “Oh, she’s all right, I guess. You know how it is. She’s okay when she’s working, and when she’s not okay she can’t work and she goes into a down cycle. It’s the work that’s important to her. It doesn’t matter if anybody buys her pots or not, It matters in terms of money but sales don’t affect her personally, just that she’s getting the work done and likes what she’s turning out. This is good coffee.”

  “It’s a tricky recipe. The hard part is boiling the water.”

  “I can imagine. Say, why I dropped in. I was over at the Playhouse and Marc wasn’t around, and I thought he might be here. Which he obviously isn’t. Is he coming back here before the show or should I catch him over there?”

  She put down her cup, got a cigarette out of the pack, dropped it, picked it up, got it lit.

  She said, “No.”

  “No he won’t be here?”

  “No he won’t be here and no you can’t catch him there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, shit,” she said. She stood up and got the note from the sofa. “Annie doesn’t live here anymore,” she said.

  “I must have missed the opening credits.”

  “Any luck and you could have missed the whole movie. Here.”

  He started to read the note. “Oh, wow,” he said. He finished reading it and held it out to her. She took it from him, folded it neatly.

  “What do I say, Linda? Hell. I picked a great time to knock on the door.”

  “No, I’m glad for the company.”

  “How are you taking it? I’m full of stupid questions. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly. No, I seem to be taking it pretty well. I suppose I’ll fall apart in a little while but maybe not. As a matter of fact, I was feeling really rotten all afternoon, and I came home to the note and immediately felt better.”

  “Maybe you were picking up vibes this afternoon.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been very terrific at picking, up vibes.”

  “Well, maybe—oh, shit.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He’s supposed to be lighting a show tonight. Marc. I don’t think he told anybody. It’s almost seven and the curtain’s at eight thirty and—can I use your phone?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just to call the Playhouse. Tony’s going to shit when he hears this.”

  She paid little attention to the conversation. It did not much surprise her that Marc would leave without telling anyone at the theater. He had always be
en the sort to take his responsibilities seriously only while they affected him personally. Once he was out of New Hope, whatever difficulties his absence might cause simply would not occur to him.

  Peter said, “Well, that’s a break. At least I think it is.”

  “What?”

  “They’re going to let me light the show.”

  “That’s great.”

  “I’ve done a couple of matinee performances of other shows, and I handled the board once during rehearsals of this one, so it shouldn’t be too rough. The thing is, I might get to do it regularly if it goes all right tonight.”

  “You’ll be good.”

  “I don’t have to be fantastic. Tony knows I’ll work for less than he would have to pay anybody else. I don’t know what Marc was getting but it must have been around eighty.”

  “You’re close. He was getting eighty-five and felt he should have been getting a hundred and a half.”

  “Josh Logan couldn’t get a hundred and a half out of Tony. He was doing good to get eighty-five. Now if he offers me the job, and he probably will, I’ll get fifty.”

  “You shouldn’t take that little.”

  “Well, I could probably get sixty if I fought, but I probably won’t fight. I should, but I probably won’t.” The boyish face flashed a smile. “The money doesn’t really matter. Gretch always has enough. I want to do the work, see. A few dollars one way or the other doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “That’s the trouble with the theater. Everybody wants the work.”

  “And a son of a bitch like Tony gets away with slave wages. That’s why we have to scrounge, which leads to a question. How’s my chances of scrounging another cup of coffee?”

  “Don’t you have to get over to the theater?”

  “I have half an hour. Coffee keys me up and I want to be keyed up tonight. What I was going to do, I was going to go downstairs and take a pill, and I thought if I had another cup, I could get away without taking the pill. I don’t like to take uppers too much because I like them too much, if you follow me.”