A Company of Three

by Varley O'Connor

  “Oh, fine.”

  “You really had an okay time?” I asked.

  “Is he always ‘on’ like that?” she said.

  “Most of the time.”

  “He’s gay, isn’t he?”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” she said.

  “What?” Looking up from my script, my old protective instincts galloping forward.

  “There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with him, Jenny. What do you mean, there’s something wrong with him?”

  She didn’t answer. My defensiveness lay in the air like a suspicious perfume. But lying there in the dark I thought, What is she implying? He didn’t bring the shillelagh from Cork but he limped; was it his limp to which she referred? Of course not. I felt that old dragging inside. He had sounded revitalized on the phone from New York. Since he came, that impression whittled away. Yes, something was wrong.

  To see that she saw without the least understanding of why, and of what he used to be, was awful.

  The next night we both sat on the bed, me with my script, her with Vogue. “So?” I asked.

  “What?” she said.

  “How did today go?

  “They’re not what you’d call optimistic, are they?”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “Well, it’s true, Robert, no wonder you were such a depressive when I met you, if these are examples of your friends.”

  “They’re very good actors,” I said.

  “She sure is tense,” Jenny said.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “yes, she is.”

  She put down the magazine.

  “Do I make you happy?” she said.

  My smile, my brief touch on her thigh were not reassuring. I kept comparing their faces, Jenny’s and Irene’s—there was a similar length to the upper lips, the same spacial relation between their noses and their cheekbones—and sneaking a quick extra peek as Jenny turned off the lamp on her side, I had the extremely unnerving fear that I slept with and made love to a woman with the face of Irene. The fear leaped beyond Jenny and I saw myself searching everywhere, always, only for Irene. When Jenny turned to me in the night I feigned sleep. She liked being held more than any woman I’d known; she liked being held more than sex. That night I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand her delicious musky smell in the sheets, her voluptuous body, her big hands, I couldn’t stand how I knew I would hurt her.

  The fourth night we went out to a Japanese restaurant. As we sat down at our table Jenny turned to Irene and Patrick.

  “Tomorrow’s your last night here, why don’t we go to the theater?”

  “No,” I said too emphatically. With a few notable exceptions, LA theater was remarkably bad. That was all I needed, more ammunition for Irene.

  “Oh, okay,” Jenny said.

  “We could go to the movies,” Patrick suggested.

  “I just thought you’d like to see theater,” Jenny said. I gave her a look. The night didn’t begin on an upswing, but it took a new dive over the menus.

  “I think—yellowfin for an entree,” Patrick said.

  “Major bucks,” said Irene. I looked at her, then looked at Jenny; Jenny hadn’t picked up. Then the waiter appeared and told Patrick the price.

  “Go for it,” Irene said. Jenny’s brow wrinkled ever so slightly, evidence that she was possibly on the verge of perception. But she dropped it and smiled.

  Patrick studied his menu while the rest of us ordered and finally said, “No, it’s too expensive, I’ll have the salmon teriyaki.” The waiter disappeared, and Patrick said to Irene, with hauteur, “These prices. I ask you.”

  Jenny wore an expression that screamed, I’m sure there’s a reference here I should know; then again I saw her decide not to pursue it.

  I felt provoked. It could have been utterly good-natured—his teasing was conceivably his way of saying he thought Jenny was sweet. But I still didn’t like it, and anyway, Irene started it.

  The next day I was off work. In the morning, Jenny announced she was off to a triple aerobics class and lunch with a friend. “A long lunch,” she informed me, “an expensive lunch.”

  Go for it, I thought. The previous night had been mildly funny.

  Irene wasn’t up yet. I smelled cigarette smoke and followed it into the living room.

  “I am sitting in your chapel,” Patrick said.

  It was a long room with lines of arched windows at the sides, a false fireplace that looked like an altar, and light entered cut into pieces by trees.

  “I like the minimalist effect,” he told me, “you should never do anything else.” He had a glass of vodka in his hand and a cigarette burned in the ashtray on the table. The burns on his fingers had paled.

  “I’m off,” he said, rubbing out his cigarette. He finished the vodka.

  “Off where?”

  He seemed not to remember, then did: “Roger has returned.” Good old Roger, who had supposedly been out of town only three days before. How conveniently he’d reappeared.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. Our one full day together. “Of course it’s my single chance to see him.”

  “He’s picking you up?” I asked.

  “I’ve phoned for a cab.”

  “Where does he live?” Come on, Patrick, think. But he couldn’t even lie effectively anymore. He stood there blankly, so remote for a moment I thought he had entered into a fugue state.

  He looked down at me and smiled; pleased, I was sure, to be capable of producing an answer:

  “Silverlake.”

  I don’t think he cared whether I believed him. Everything about him was unhinged, askew; his dark shirt, jeans, and jacket were neat, his coarse unruly hair was as tidy as it got, but somehow he tilted when he stood.

  “I think it’s come,” and he went for the door—a slight lurch, a correction. I was struck by the effort it took, as if he were old.

  He opened the front door and stepped out onto the stoop, looked down at the street, and of course the cab wasn’t there. It was beautiful on that stoop, a spear-shaped cyprus rose up amid tangles of foliage I couldn’t name, and there were three fragrant white calla lilies among the green. The narrow brick steps that descended from where we stood were bright with sun; and he lifted his face to the light.

  “I’ve quit, you know,” he said. “I am sometimes depressed. But really, considering everything, it doesn’t matter. When one considers the good things.” He smiled at the tree. “Anne Bancroft—always,” he lifted his eyes to the sky. “Irene when she’s angry, I think she’s grand. You,” fondly, “when you direct. Baryshnikov’s dancing. New York in the spring.” He closed his eyes, and held up a finger that shook slightly. “Irene,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you.” He opened his eyes. “She is too subtle for most people, and probably too infuriating as well. But she isn’t for you.”

  In a minute or so the cab came into view and stopped at the curb. I watched him start down. He tripped and then caught himself, reached for the wall to his side and recovered his balance. He lifted his arm in a wave without turning back.

  Inside I saw Irene was in the kitchen through the archway; dark outfit, wet hair. On the counter beside her cup was the copy of Crime and Punishment she carried around. She’d been about to pour coffee but stopped.

  “What is he taking?” I asked her.

  “Taking?” She poured. “He takes something to sleep.”

  “What else?”

  “A pain medication for his knee.”

  “Well, is he supposed to drink with it? How the hell much does he take?”

  She set down the pot, “Look. If you and Jenny are into, uh—orange juice, okay. But don’t judge us.”

  “All I’m saying—”

  She turned to me. “He’s in pain,” she said. Tears came into her eyes and she went out the back door. I went after her.

  “What is it with you? Everything’s an assault on me, on Jenny, on our life he
re. He was high enough this morning, he practically fell going down the front steps.”

  “He left?

  “Yes, he left.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. You aren’t being fair,” I said.

  “It’s hard to be fair. You don’t know how it’s been.” A real martyr, I thought. Maybe she was competing with Patrick to see who could be more fucked up.

  “Why, in your company over the last four days, do I keep thinking of a line from The Country Girl. ‘That’s a conceit with you. To talk like a veteran of all the wars.’”

  “Don’t be clever,” she said.

  “I’m not clever in the least.”

  “You know,” she said evenly, “I’m really much more like Patrick than I’m like you.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “You used to admire him.”

  “It’s not that, I still do—”

  “I don’t turn on people when they’re down,” she said harshly.

  “No, as I recall, you turn on people when things are fine. You prefer to do it when they’re very well.”

  “We only hurt each other,” she said in a minute. “We’ve always hurt each other.”

  But that wasn’t all, I thought, that wasn’t all of it. There was love there, true love, for each other, for the theater—and no one carried the joy for it all that she did. I wouldn’t negate it, I couldn’t anymore. Not with her here in front of me, even like this.

  “You’ve always had an idealized vision of me,” she said. “I’ve felt such pressure from you because of what you seemed to expect.”

  “Should you not expect things from people you love?” I asked. “I’ve always thought that was the point. If you love someone you think the best of them, not the worst, you do expect marvelous things, for, to you, they are marvelous. What else is love?”

  She didn’t reply. She looked at the lemon tree and said, “I like your trees, I like that tree.”

  I went and picked one of the lemons and brought it to her. She was lovely in the sun. Her hair was drying, curling at the ends. I sat down across from her.

  “I’m sorry your showcase didn’t go well.”

  “I knew it wouldn’t, I’ve been through it enough.”

  “Everything’s gotten ruined for you, hasn’t it?” I said.

  “I think everything’s gotten ruined for you.”

  I sighed, leaned forward, elbows on my knees. Then, a great fool, I asked, “Are you seeing anyone?”

  She waited. “No. You didn’t waste any time.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I waited; it was almost a dance. “What do you think of her?”

  “She’s fine, she’s—very Californian, how can you tell what these people are like?” We both laughed, and then we were quiet.

  “Why did you send the check?” I asked.

  “It was your money.”

  I waited. “How are you managing?”

  “I still work at the restaurant. I’m a receptionist too, for this monumentally wealthy alternative doctor. I read a lot there.”

  “What about work?”

  “Work? You mean acting?”

  There I was, the cheerleader for acting, as always. “Yes, acting. Well, what? You don’t want to? Patrick?”

  “I don’t want to. Patrick. I don’t have time,” her face tense, holding the lemon in both her hands.

  “When I called you, Robert—”

  I didn’t say I was sorry.

  “When I called he was in the hospital.”

  “Yes. I suspected.”

  “It had happened once before since you left. But that second time I didn’t know how badly he was hurt. He came home the next day, as it turned out, but since then he’s been worse—disappears for days, or stays in bed like he used to. The teaching has helped. Your mother’s been wonderful, patient and supportive. But I feel, lately, I have to watch him all the time … I don’t know what he’ll do.” She put the lemon down on the table, looking off toward the door in that listening attitude she had.

  “Now he’s gone out,” she said miserably.

  “You can’t always watch him,” I said. “He isn’t a child.”

  I paused. “Irene. You cut me off with the check. Never called until then. Why then? What could I do?”

  She raised her shoulders, let them drop. “I just didn’t know at first how to deal with it alone.”

  “You do now, though?”

  “As well as anyone could.”

  “You don’t make any sense to me,” I said. “You don’t give a damn about acting anymore, you go around like the walking dead. You’re most busy, it seems to me, worrying over Patrick—”

  “You don’t even care, do you?”

  “What the fuck can I do?” We both looked away from each other. The light was so steady and warm on the trees and flowers that it hurt. “I’m saying, since I know you and I’ve seen you do it before, that maybe you’ve immersed yourself too much in Patrick. Maybe to avoid yourself, your own problems, your work.”

  “I don’t have any work.”

  “You could, if you would stop running away from it at the slightest provocation.”

  “At the slightest provocation,” she repeated. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “How dare you—criticize me. I wrote you that letter—it was like shouting into a void. You’re—cold and heartless. You sit there and talk about acting. Go ahead, act, with your coldness. Pretend for money how truly you feel.” She stood, in tears, and turned away.

  “Explain to me,” I said, “how your excessive devotion has helped? He isn’t better, he’s worse.” I couldn’t stand to see her like this, to see all of the brio I had loved in her transformed into this—even her darkness, the extremity in her that made her such a fine, deep actor, used only for this?

  Wiping her eyes she turned back. “This isn’t about pragmatism, I love him! Not in the way you seem to think, he didn’t take me from you. God, even this asinine visit—he so wanted to come. Now I see he had some crazy fantasy of getting you and I back together.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s depressed and embattled, I’m—I don’t know what I am. Depressed, over acting, over you. Don’t say anything. I don’t regret what I did. But he and I, together, we—rest in each other. I have a kind of peace with him I’ve never had. He accepts me as I am. I accept him.”

  “I think you and he bring out the worst in each other.”

  “No. You know nothing about it.”

  “I have eyes to see,” I said. It wasn’t the business that had brought her so low, it was him. “What I see is somebody who’s going down, and he’s taking you with him.”

  She started inside, and I grabbed her forearms.

  I didn’t know why I did it exactly, to bring her to her senses, to touch her, to establish contact for one last time before it was gone.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, but she didn’t try to pull away.

  I let her go.

  “I want to go to my room. I should never have written the letter to you. I’m sorry. No, really. I am.”

  I stood in the brilliant sunshine, and then went in too.

  The rest of the day and evening was a blur. When I returned from the gym Patrick and Jenny were preparing dinner. Patrick had taken a nap, roused himself for the longest dinner of my life: he detailed to Jenny a thorough fabrication regarding his billing in the last Broadway play, a fight to the finish with the producers for days until, facing them across a great evil conference table he said, “As the inimitable Faye Dunaway, playing Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, put it, ‘This isn’t my first time at the rodeo, boys.’” At which point he slammed down his glass, splashing most of its contents onto Jenny’s good maple table. Jenny laughed at his stories, a touch hysterically as they went on, and Irene and I sat quietly. Couldn’t she see? I thought, how absolutely he was set on his course, bound for a breakdown. Then what, Irene, I thought? What? How could she stand it? He may as well have been gone, leaving his bod
y to a stranger. She had been fighting since her mother died, to be seen, to be someone, only to rest in this, him?

  Jenny and I barely spoke as we undressed. She rolled to her side of the bed, I to mine, and lying there, listening to her even breaths, I thought I might die of loneliness. I reached for her, touched the sleek satin of her gown smooth across her hip, rested my hand against her.

  I was awakened at four by somebody on the stairs. The numerals glowed on the clock in the dark. At first I was confused. Then I recognized the heavy tread. Patrick was going downstairs, probably for more booze. I got up and walked quietly to the top of the stairs and listened. He went through the kitchen and into the living room.

  He opened the front door—it made a loud chuff. He closed it. Go, I thought. But I stood there. Go, I told myself. Time lengthened, the door did not open again. I went back to bed.

  20 Hurt

  The alarm rang at six. It was Sunday. I showered and dressed, preparing to take them to the airport. Jenny slept.

  Irene sat in the kitchen. “He isn’t here,” she said.

  Maybe he had forgotten the flight or the time, a man in such a state couldn’t adhere to schedules. Maybe he did not want to return to New York. Maybe he wanted us worried about him. We should go out, down the hill. We would find him sitting on a bench, overcome by remorse about last night.

  But then, he might call. Jenny could answer.

  We sat, and it became seven, then eight, and though not a shred of myself had envisioned this, had intended what I feared, I began to expect the worst possible outcome. The world seemed to shift, to disperse and reconfigure all of its elements into a new world—one that I had made.

  At nine o’clock we began calling hospitals.

  “Does he have any identification on him?” I asked Irene.

  “Yes, in his wallet, but nothing that would place him here.”

  “Where is his plane ticket?”

  “Up in his room.”

  “Is there a Roger? Can we contact him?”

  “No, he doesn’t live here.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “In San Francisco.”

  We sat at the kitchen table, light spreading over the floor.

  “How do you know that?”