A Company of Three

by Varley O'Connor

  “No, we’re not,” I said. She had stopped. “Come on.” But her eyes filled with tears. “Hey,” I put my arm around her. “We’re not really lost. It’s all right, we’ll find the way back.”

  We went on, walking silently side by side for a couple of minutes, then we rounded a bend and there was the Delacorte Theater and we knew where we were.

  “I’ve done such stupid, stupid things this year,” she said. “I just get frightened. Here I am back in New York. I never feel that I’m good enough here.”

  “You’re good enough.”

  “I was on such a roll, and now what? It felt so good, and I feel so hollow and useless without the show. It’s the only place where everything about me makes sense, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s like what attracted me most to Andre. It was how he could see me, all of me, even my contradictions and the qualities in myself I despair of. He saw it all, and it was okay. He helped me to understand that my totality could be put to use. It was my capital. In acting nothing was wasted, and nothing was ever really lost. He was so good for me in the beginning….”

  We came out near Columbus Circle and headed towards Top-of-the-Park to look over the impossibly beautiful city. In the lounge, we sat sipping wine, enthralled by the wintery powder blue light cloaking everything gently. I thought that deep down she really didn’t give a damn about that fancy apartment back there on Park Avenue and that she hadn’t run off with Andre that summer just to secure her career. She was more complicated than that. That same tenderness I’d felt in the morning swept through me; there was nothing I wouldn’t forgive her. And warmed by the wine we were light-hearted again, cocky, proud of ourselves for how well we had handled our tryst.

  “I have the best idea,” she said. “Come live with me! Why don’t we go down to Fourteenth Street and pack you up for a week?”

  I laughed and said, “I have to work.”

  “You can still go to work. Come on,” she said, “as a kick, a diversion.”

  “A change of scene,” I put in doubtfully.

  What the hell, I wasn’t planning to break off our friendship because of the previous night.

  On the way I said, “Irene, remember that day you came out of rehearsal for the show on East Fourth?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What did you mean when you said you and I could sleep together if I wanted to?”

  She sighed. “Men think sex is so important. It just isn’t.” Her hair blew back from her face and her scarf lifted high in the breeze. She laughed in delight and rose up on her toes as if meeting the wind and said, “B-r-r.”

  Later, we ordered out from a gourmet food store for dinner. Then we called Patrick. Irene described the apartment, but soon she broke off and grew serious, listening.

  “Here,” she said to me, “talk to him. He says he’s coming here tomorrow.”

  “What’s up?” I said into the phone.

  “Robert. They gave me no notice. I had to get out of my room and now I’ve moved into a nightmare, a place in which you can tell someone has recently died. Do you remember Lost Weekend? Ray Milland goes on that bender—”

  “Patrick, aren’t you under contract?”

  “Don’t you want me to come?”

  “We want you to come, that’s not—” Irene was signaling to me. “What?” I asked her. “Patrick, just a minute.”

  “He shouldn’t stay if he’s that unhappy, should he?” she said.

  “Patrick,” I said, “I don’t think you should fuck yourself up with Derek. You said he had a lot of influence, not just there, but—”

  “Robert, he’s some kind of throwback to earlier times. I can’t stay, the future is too hypothetical, I’m on the verge of nervous collapse.”

  As I hung up Irene said, “He’s coming then. Do you think it’s okay?

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  HE SHOWED UP the next night, thinner and harried, his plane having been delayed. I gave him a tour of the downstairs. At the doors to the pool I said, “Brace yourself.”

  He had to stoop going in, and when he saw it I thought he would swoon. “No, don’t insist I go any further,” he said. “I will dine in the Jacuzzi and sleep on a chaise lounge. There I am! Pisces. The fish,” he said, straining to be cheerful.

  Then we brought his bags upstairs and he chose a room. “Ah, this is nice, if austere,” he said. “The Japanese room, must be Robert’s.”

  We passed the Victorian opium den. “Irene’s,” he said, tipped off by her clothes on the bed. “Quite a bordello. Oh, look at this one. All frothy and white, fit for a virgin—well, that isn’t one of us.” Then, “Robert, I must.” We were inspecting the room with the moose head, but I think what attracted him was the black panther bedspread.

  “This will be mine,” he said finally. “It’s so butch.”

  I worked days at the restaurant while Irene and Patrick went shopping, to the movies, and one afternoon to the ballet. Evenings we swam, had dinner together, and drank champagne as the cases in the pantry dwindled. Each night we read in the library, with its heavy damask drapes shrouding the windows and carved wood paneling.

  On the sixth night, Irene announced: “I’ve made a decision. I’m not going out of town anymore. What’s the good of working where no one can see me? I have to work in town or I’ll never have a career.”

  “That would depend,” I said, “wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so. You know what I heard about de Kooning? Why he’s a drunk? He and a lot of those abstract painters worked so long in obscurity that they were ruined. He was in his fifties when he was discovered and it was too late.”

  “But he kept painting, didn’t he?” I said. “I mean, he’s still this fantastic painter.”

  “Yeah, he kept painting,” she said. “In a cold-water loft. They all had these cold-water lofts in SoHo. You could afford them then, they didn’t cost anything.”

  “Faulkner,” Patrick said, “started out in New Orleans, and supposedly he could live for a month on the money he made working some odd job for three or four days.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “But an actor—even if you could afford to work without making any money, and for years and years no one knew about you, and you didn’t care—you can’t do it alone. It isn’t like being a writer or a painter. You can’t sit in a room doing monologues forever.”

  “We’re so dependent,” Patrick said. “It’s so depressing.”

  “We should start our own theater,” I said. We all laughed.

  “I’m heartsick,” said Patrick. “Here, have a cigar.” Earlier he had unearthed a humidor in his bedroom.

  We had on swimsuits and robes: Irene, the red satin; me, a conservative terrycloth in a pale bluish gray; and Patrick, a Cary Grant number, a brown-and-burgundy print with brown satin lapels.

  “If we did have our own theater,” I said, “what would we do?”

  “Philadelphia Story,” Patrick said.

  “Oh God,” Irene said, “that would be fabulous for us.”

  “I’ve always thought you should do Shaw’s Cleopatra,” I said to her.

  “Really? Robert, that’s so sweet, thank you. Oh, oh. The two of you should do The Zoo Story.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Can I be the man with the parakeets?” Patrick asked.

  “Indubitably,” she answered. “You’d be the psycho,” she told me, “you love playing psychos.”

  “We should do all of Chekhov,” I said. “And Tennessee Williams.”

  “And Ibsen,” she said.

  “Can we do Sean O’Casey?” Patrick asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Down the hall a door definitely shut. “Someone just came in the front door,” said Irene.

  We all froze.

  “What should we do?” Patrick said.

  “I’ll go see who it is,” Irene answered, getting up. “You stay here. Oh, what a bore, betcha a thousand it’s Floyd.”

>   “Who’s Floyd?” Patrick asked me.

  “He lives here.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Son of Dude.”

  “Floyd, hi,” we heard her saying, “what a surprise.”

  “She’s his guest,” Patrick said. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

  But I didn’t have a good feeling. In fact, suddenly I had a very bad feeling. We heard their feet, he appeared in the doorway beside Irene, and my bad feeling got worse.

  “This is Floyd,” she said to us. “Floyd, Robert and Patrick.”

  He wore a Stetson, an ankle-length duster, cowboy boots with silver tips on the toes; he had long reddish blond hair and a Fu Manchu mustache.

  “Charmed,” Patrick said, rising—which I thought wise. Floyd was short, but stocky as a bull.

  “What’s going on?” he said to Irene.

  “Floyd, I told you, these are my friends.”

  “You’re wearing my robe,” Floyd said to me. “And that,” he said to Patrick, “belongs to my father.”

  “How is Dude?” Patrick asked.

  There was a pause. “We’d better be trundling along,” Patrick said. “Pardon us.”

  But Floyd wouldn’t move to let us get by.

  “Stand clear, my good man,” Patrick said.

  “Those are my father’s cigars,” Floyd said, and he rolled back on his heels and hitched up his trousers.

  “Oh Floyd, don’t be a redneck,” Irene said. She pulled him into the room, and Patrick and I started off down the hallway.

  “He smelled like bourbon,” Patrick said. “Should we leave her alone?” But then Irene came after us. “Don’t worry, he’s exactly like all these guys I grew up with, I know how to handle him—”

  “Irene,” he bellowed.

  “Coming!” she called. “But I suppose it’s good that you’re going.”

  “You really topped yourself this time, Irene,” Patrick said.

  Floyd came out of the library. We went on to the entryway.

  “Hold it!” he called to us.

  “Floyd, don’t be stupid,” she said. “They’re leaving.”

  “Did they stay here?” he asked her. “Did they stay here with you?”

  “I don’t believe this,” she said. “Yes, they stayed here, what of it?”

  “I don’t like it,” he said, “I don’t like it one bit.” He stood with his legs apart, hands on his hips. He was one of those little guys who picked fights.

  “How long have they been here?” he asked her.

  “Since the first day I came here,” she snapped. “I slept with them both. I slept with him Monday and Wednesday.” She nodded at me, and then at Patrick. “And with him Tuesday and Thursday. Over the weekend we all slept together.”

  Floyd couldn’t quite compute that. “Ho-ho, that’s a good one, Irene.”

  “I’m not kidding,” she said, her eyes ablaze.

  His face fell, and for a second I felt sorry for him. “You stayed in my apartment and slept with these men?” he asked her.

  “Yes, Floyd, I did.”

  The wind had gone out of his sails, completely. “I thought you were okay, Irene. I thought we were together.”

  “You don’t even know me. The one reason you wanted to know me was to sleep with an actress. You used me, Floyd.”

  “I used you?”

  “Irene, let’s just go,” I said.

  “He can’t do anything,” she answered. “There’s two of you and only one of him.”

  “Irene, don’t you dare,” Patrick said. “Just be quiet, let’s go.”

  She looked at him, then at Floyd. She was outraged, and with great effort said, “Okay, we’ll go.”

  “Five minutes!” yelled Floyd. “Be out in five minutes or I’ll call the police!”

  We went upstairs and packed. When we came back downstairs he was pacing back and forth in the entryway.

  “Floyd,” Irene said, “we have too much stuff, so I’ve left my bags upstairs in the hallway. I’ll come for them tomorrow.”

  “Bitch,” he said.

  “Watch your language,” said Patrick.

  “I’ll have them sent,” Floyd told her. He stood fuming while she wrote our address for him on a slip of paper from her purse. He had probably envisioned a sexy reunion. “Bitch,” he repeated.

  “Floyd,” I said, “watch it.” I had just had the astounding idea that a fight might be fun.

  She gave him the address, saying “What time may I expect my bags to arrive?”

  “Whenever I get around to it.” His lips were ready but stopped mid-word.

  “It’s been fun,” Patrick said.

  “Get out,” Floyd answered.

  “Bye, Floyd!” Irene called. “Thanks for everything!” But then she turned to him once more—he was standing in the doorway—and said, “I guess this means I don’t get an audition?”

  He slammed the door shut. We clung to the walls of the hallway, trying to smother our laughter. “Oh, God,” Irene said, “oh, God,” wiping tears that ran down her face, “I can’t stop laughing.” She had a box of my belongings in her arms, I had my suitcase and Patrick’s garment bag, and Patrick carried a trunk he had bought in Minneapolis.

  We rode down in the elevator and went out to the street.

  “Shit. Christ, Jesus, it’s cold,” Irene said.

  “I can’t even feel it,” said Patrick.

  “I don’t want to go home,” Irene said. “Let’s get a drink.” We took a cab to Third Avenue and got out at a singles place packed with drunk people in giant collars and Jordache jeans. We squeezed ourselves into a corner at the end of the bar and stacked everything on the trunk. Someone got up and Irene took the seat; Patrick and I stood crushed against the front windows.

  “What’s potent?” Irene asked.

  We ordered stingers and relit our salvaged cigars, and Patrick said: “I have a confidence, friends.” Another seat opened up. I sat down, and Patrick hovered between us with the clearest, most placid expression on his face. “On my thirtieth birthday,” he said, “I will come into a legacy.”

  “Really?” said Irene.

  “Oh?” I said, padding his dramatic pause.

  “Yes. I will receive in the neighborhood of two million dollars from my mother’s estate.” We just looked at him. “I want to share it with you,” he told us, “with you both, because I love you.”

  “God,” I said. “Wow.”

  “Patrick, that’s so sweet,” said Irene.

  He was very emotional. He looked at me, “Robert, you won’t have to wait tables ever again.” He looked at Irene. “And you can start sleeping with paupers.”

  “Ha-ha,” she said.

  His eyes shined. “We can have a theater. Whatever we want.”

  10 Happy

  The day after Floyd kicked the three of us into the bitter streets of Park Avenue, Irene and I picked up her cat in Fort Lee. I hadn’t collected him yet since my parents, against all expectation, had become attached to the beast. He followed my mother around like a puppy, so she couldn’t help unintentionally trampling him at least once a day.

  “Oh, it wasn’t a bother,” my mother insisted, kissing him good-bye. Irene gently settled St. Martin into his case, and then my mother knelt down beside Irene and they clucked and cooed at him through the bars.

  “What a darling.”

  “The baby.”

  They stood, and Marilyn took Irene’s hands. “Now promise me you’ll come to dinner next week.”

  “We’d love to. Then the following week, you come to us. You can visit St. Martin.”

  Ever after, my mother never neglected to ask about the cat when we spoke on the phone. “Any work?” she would ask. (The restaurant was my job, acting was my work, and I demanded that she refer to them by their proper names.) Then, “How is Patrick? Irene?” Lastly, as though he were my youngest and most precious child: “St. Martin?”

  “Listen, Mom,” I said repeatedly, “get a cat.”
/>   “No, I don’t think I will... you know how they shed ...”

  “You said you didn’t mind.”

  “Oh yes, but that was St. Martin.”

  St. Martin spent most of his time with Irene in her room, which was tiny—about the size of her room at Ruth’s. But she said she liked it, and she would lie in there reading for hours, St. Martin sleeping beside her, and I’d think: two cats.

  Irene was unusually free of attachments to possessions and places. For a woman she didn’t have many clothes, the boots being her single indulgence. When she moved in, she borrowed a sewing machine from a friend and made curtains and a slipcover for the couch in the living room out of purplish blue fabric she bought at a shop on Orchard Street—but I think she did it more for Patrick and me than herself. This unsuspected talent of hers impressed me: I watched her busy at the curtains, her small white hands against the blue fabric—quick and skillful. Her mother had taught her to sew, she told me. She positioned the footlocker in her room exactly as at Ruth’s, under the window, the photographs set out on top: the mother and the horse.

  That first spring we all lived together, we remained poised on the brink of a change we could already sense, though not see.

  I existed in a semiperpetual holding pattern to which I had almost adapted. The future was no longer self-evident, plastic, and surely better than the present. Gone entirely was the feeling I’d had at the beginning of that summer at Crispins, the feeling of satisfaction and marvelous ease—to see the fruit of my effort, with others I respected, and to think: this is how it will be. I hadn’t been terribly young then, I hadn’t expected a smooth stretch of luck onward and upward, but I had expected connections, progression.

  Strangely, being deprived made me see and understand life in ways I would not have, otherwise: I would sometimes feel liberated into a perfect and complete present; the tiniest common details gained in intensity as they had as a result of acting, of art. But then I would see in Patrick’s eyes, or Irene’s, that familiar anxiety, that disappointment, that wariness and defensiveness, and I knew that something had already started to dissolve.