Homebodies

by Joan Schweighardt

  Still, she can’t sleep. She couldn’t be more tired if she had spent the day dancing, but her mind is dancing yet, tirelessly. Pete is snoring lightly now. She is forced to ask herself, What kind of a man can sleep and snore when he allowed his shin to be caressed by the toes of his mistress while his wife and children supped at his side? What kind of a man would hold his hand out in front of his face feigning to be concerned with his laughter when really his concern was lust?

  She feels hatred rising up again to displace her moment of weakness and love. She looks at the clock. It is after three. In just a few hours she will have to get up with Brigit; it is her turn. She fusses with the pillow again and wonders why pillows are shaped the way they are. It seems like a good thing to wonder about, and she thinks that if she can stay with it, she will surely fall asleep. In the morning it will all be different. Maybe she will work it out in her subconscious, and by the time she awakens, she will know with what perspective to view the obstacle. But who exactly is the obstacle? Pete? Gladys? Pete and Gladys? Her?

  It seems to her that pillows should be L-shaped, like the Morgans’ sofa. There are lots of people, surely, who, like herself, like a pillow to hug as well as one for their heads. Or why not U-shaped pillows for pregnant women? Anyone who has ever been pregnant knows that it takes at least three pillows to get comfortable during the latter months. Maybe small pillows for people who stay put in their sleep and want nothing to interfere with the position of their arms. Or double-length pillows for people like Jake who roll from one side of the bed to the other. How about a very flat pillow for people who require only a slight elevation for their heads? Or a triangular one for those who don’t care to feel anything against their necks when they sleep—the same people who can’t abide turtlenecks.

  She glances at the clock again. It’s almost four. She thinks of Daniel Morgan. How much does he know? If Gladys is the kind of person who always says whatever is on her mind, then maybe she’s already told him. A lively woman who likes people … Pete thinks she doesn’t. I like you, she said. He didn’t care. She nudged his arm playfully, but he only moved it in closer to his side.

  Maybe he doesn’t love her anymore because she’s not loveable. Is that possible? Does she love herself as Gladys loves herself?

  If Pete and Gladys take up together, will Daniel be forced to abandon his life as an artist? Maybe she and Daniel can start a business together. Or maybe they can become lovers. Pete would like the symmetry in that.

  She thinks that maybe she should phone Daniel in the morning and make arrangements to meet him somewhere, tell him what she saw. But in the scenario which she immediately invents to go along with this notion, Daniel Morgan merely laughs at her. Gladys carries on that way with all our male guests, his phantom declares cheerfully. Does she really? asks Liz’s. Well then, maybe it’s just a harmless flirtation after all.

  PETE

  Pete can’t believe that Liz is still tossing about after all this time. She drank enough to put a horse to sleep. In bed, out of bed, to port, to starboard—she’s driving him crazy! He’d like to turn to her and yell, “STOP!” but he’s afraid that then she will want to talk about whatever it is that’s bothering her. And he’s trying to talk to himself about the things that are bothering him just now.

  A fantasy world! Well, what did she expect. He’s a writer! And whether he’s working on a novel, as he did in the old days, or a pamphlet describing the merits of a particular vacuum cleaner, he has to keep his imagination honed and ready to be applied to his craft.

  Of course it’s true that many of his fantasies involve women. But even these are rendered innocent by virtue of their numbers alone, for he is as apt to fantasize about one of his wife’s friends—or he was when she still had them—as he is about a stranger whose sweet face he has merely glimpsed from his office window. And, furthermore, when he sees by day the woman whose embrace he imagined only the night before, he is careful never to let on, to keep his fantasies once removed from the reality that includes his wife and children.

  Can a carpenter who inadvertently strikes his thumb with his hammer be called an assailant? Can a soldier who shoots his foot while cleaning his rifle be called a victimizer? He is, likewise, a victim then, assaulted by his imagination, the sole tool of his trade.

  It began innocently enough. Unhappy with her present situation and hoping to secure another, Gladys Morgan decided to phone up an employment agency. But she misdialed, and when she heard him answer, “Ghosts, Inc.”, she laughed and inquired as to the nature of his business. They spoke at length then, each describing their circumstances. His business was doing well, he told her. Her business was a guaranteed money-maker, and not so unlike his that they could not be combined. He had given the notion some thought himself, he said, just to keep her on the line. She gave him her number and made him promise to think it over.

  But it was not her idea that occupied his thoughts when he went home that evening. Rather, it was his recollection of the sound of her laughter and the childlike enthusiasm he had heard in her voice. By all rights, he should not have even heard her voice. If his secretary hadn’t been away from her desk at just that moment, he wouldn’t have. Judy would have dismissed her with the same impudent tone with which she dismisses vendors and donation-seekers. But Judy had been away from her desk. And he had answered the phone. And although he could no more envision adding an advertising division to his ghost-writing service than he could imagine hiring a plumber to work at the computer, he could not but think that there was something else involved here—something akin to fate.

  That night he was stirred to speak to Liz about the idea of including an advertising division—though he did not, at that time, bother to mention that his musings had been aroused by a stranger on the telephone. (Perhaps he sensed already that there was an inherent danger here and had presented the matter to Liz with the hope that she would make some reasonable objection.) But Liz was preoccupied, sorting through a pile of old, threadbare sweaters, trying to determine how many pairs of mittens could be made from the portions that were still reasonably intact. She offered no opposition at all.

  As he often spoke to his clients on the phone first before meeting with them, it was not unusual for him to fashion features to go along with their voices. That night he fashioned a countenance for the misdialer. And that might have been the end of it if he had had—as was the case with his clients—the opportunity to meet with Gladys the next day. But the days ambled on, and he chiseled away at her features more feverishly. And so obsessed did he become that he began to think that he would never be free of her until he met with her and saw for himself that, once again, his creation eclipsed her model.

  He didn’t like to think that he was capable of wasting a person’s time to satisfy his own whim. He called Gladys a week later and explained that he didn’t think an advertising division would make sense for him at this time, but as he might change his mind in the future, she was welcome to drop in and discuss the idea with him when she happened to be in the neighborhood. As it turned out, she happened to be in the neighborhood that very afternoon.

  He didn’t like to think that he was a shallow man. She was beautiful, yes, even more beautiful than he had imagined. But he dismissed that fact as soon as they sat down to talk business. And he would have dismissed her idea as well, but he began to see that it had some merit. She wouldn’t be coming in cold, she informed him; she had some clients who would follow her. As for her salary, she would be happy to work on a commission basis until she had proven herself. She would need some equipment, but that would be the extent of his investment. And if the division failed, she would buy the equipment back from him. Did they have a deal or not?

  That night he told his wife about the phone call and that he was thinking of meeting with the caller. Liz, who was rewiring the vacuum cleaner, agreed that it might be a good idea. And she was right. He was a businessman, after all. He couldn’t ignore a good idea simply because its author was bound
to be present in his fantasy life for a short period of time. His imagination was a fickle thing and required a varied diet. He would hear a new voice or see a new face, and that would be that.

  Or so he thought.

  At first he assumed that Gladys smiled at everyone when she talked, that that was merely her way. But he noted, as the weeks passed and she began to set up shop, that her smile was absent when she spoke to his secretary or his research assistant, and he concluded that he was simply more likeable than either of them—nothing more. But then Gladys began to make it a habit, on those occasions when she had nothing to do, of joining him at the window or at the water cooler out in the hall and sighing in such a way that she seemed to be prompting him to ask for some account of her thoughts.

  Still he continued to chide himself for entertaining the idea that Gladys could actually have an interest in him. Why, for all that the scope of his knowledge was approaching encyclopedic dimensions, he couldn’t master the toilet-bowl plunger unless one of his children was there to advise him. This tormented him. He was a tormented man. Surely she could see this! And furthermore, he was full of irrational fears. Once, for instance, during a particularly dangerous thunderstorm, he had pulled off the road. He had sat in the car with his hand on his chest appraising the pace of his heartbeat and cursing the drivers who sped past him undaunted by the elements. When he told Liz later, she laughed. Would Gladys laugh too? In his fantasies, she never laughed at him. But then, in his fantasies, he was wild and extravagant—the kind of a man whom Robert Bly held up as an example to the others.

  One day his company, along with all the other ones in the building, was invited to attend a meeting conducted by an insurance broker who wanted to speak about group coverage. Pete arrived late, but Gladys had saved a seat for him—an innocent gesture in itself. But the building’s sole conference room was small, and the folding chairs had been placed so close together that his knee and hers made contact several times as the broker went on with his tedious disclosures.

  At first, Pete was embarrassed each time he found that his knee had slipped away on him, and he quickly reigned it in. But it strayed again soon enough, and he began to wonder why Gladys did not concern herself with the problem, for she had only to cross her legs like the other women in their row to alleviate it. Just to test her motivation then, he freed his knee to take its natural course, and when it came to rest against hers, he did not withdraw it.

  He had just begun to think that she approved of this rendezvous of appendages when he remembered that he was the kind of man who carried a snake-bite kit in his car (along with a first-aid kit, two umbrellas, a slicker, and a set of tools that rivaled those most men kept in their basements), and he concluded that she was completely unaware of the intimacy of their limbs. Then, before he could think further on the subject, the lights went off, startling him. This film, the broker was saying, would feature a view of his company’s national headquarters and interviews with some of its top executives.

  Pete saw a square of light skate down the wall and settle itself. Then he saw a building, and after that the animated faces of the executives, but he had no inkling as to what they were talking about. He became, instead, engrossed with the beam coming from the projector. As if by magic, it illuminated the very spot where his knee and Gladys’ were joined. He could see how the fabric of his pants was striving to mingle with the fabric of hers. He glanced up at her. She turned her head abruptly and smiled at him. Then she turned her attention—or so it seemed—back to the film.

  When the lights went back on, he realized that his face was red, and as he had been running one hand through his hair, he surmised that it was ruffled. Without bothering to see whether the broker had concluded his business, he excused himself.

  In the men’s room, he smoothed his hair and splashed cold water onto his face. He was disgusted with himself, and he wondered what kind of a man would assume that, just because a woman’s knee … no—just because the fabric that covered a woman’s knee had touched the fabric that covered his, that she was as smitten with him as he was with her. An imaginative man, he answered, and he was greatly relieved. He had his wife and children to think about after all.

  His fantasies were coming along so nicely these days, and he was delighted that there was no reason to give them up. They had progressed now from simple flirtations to adventures which required elaborate settings and circumstances. Only last night he had held her in his arms while the bombs dropped all around them. He had wiped away her tears, amazing her with his bravery and confidence. And in this latest one, they had been out in a boat, and the rain had begun to fall and the seas to swell even before they could get themselves beneath the decked-over bow. Seeing that she was soaked and her teeth were chattering, he had suggested that she get out of her clothes and into the spare slicker, and …

  How, he wondered, could he have had such a lewd and vivid fantasy while watching a film on insurance coverage? And then to assume that she was having one too just because she had turned and smiled … and all the while her knee had remained steadfastly linked to his …

  But the fact was—and this he did not notice until he had calmed down somewhat and the last vestiges of his recent fantasy had drifted away from him—the fact was that his knee was tingling. It felt the way his arm did when he fell asleep with his head on it. Why, he wondered, should his knee be tingling? And then he began to imagine that she had applied some pressure to it. Now he had to lecture himself all over again.

  By the time he was ready to leave the men’s room, he had once again convinced himself that the event which had so stirred him had taken place only in his mind. In truth, he believed now, their knees had not been touching at all. As he turned into the hall, he expected to see her back at her desk, but she wasn’t there.

  Not wanting to be tempted to look around for her, he lowered his head, and he didn’t lift it again until he had entered his own office. To his surprise, she was inside. And more startling yet, she was studying the picture of his wife and children that he kept on his desk. Without realizing what he was doing, he took the picture from her hand and set it down again as he passed her to gain his chair. Then he cleared his throat and asked her what she needed. She smiled her angelic smile and reported that she had come to invite him and his family to dinner.

  At last he had conclusive proof! If she wanted his entire family to come to dinner, to the home which she shared with her husband, then she could not, after all, be responsible for the tingling that was still going on in his knee. He needn’t concern himself with the matter again. He felt like a fool for having imagined otherwise. He promised to relay her invitation to Liz and asked her to shut the door on her way out.

  He laughed aloud, and when he finally stopped, he made an attempt to get back to work. But the tingling in his knee became more pronounced, and he began to fancy all over again that she had put some kind of spell on him. Just to be on the safe side, he promised himself that even if his wife did not object—and he was certain she would—that he would tell his Galatea that they could not possibly attend.

  Well, my intentions were good, Pete says to himself as he drifts toward sleep. He is still wearing his socks. He uses the toes of one foot to ease the sock down over the heel of the other. Gently, so as not to wake Liz, he slithers down the bed until the bare heel comes into contact with the bed post. Unlike Gladys’ foot, it is cold, but better than nothing.

  … PETE

  Pete is standing on his wife’s side of the bed, wiping sweat from his brow with his wrist. His curly hair, which he frequently runs his fingers through when he is anxious or alarmed, is sticking out on either side of his head like a pair of earmuffs worn too high to be serviceable. And yet, as close as he is physically to his objective, mentally he is still vacillating.

  What, he wonders, would Batman do?

  The question is one he asks himself frequently. It is his little secret. He has seen the movie six times now, once on the big screen with Jake, and, si
nce he bought the video (ostensibly for Jake), five times more. (If Michael Keaton were an inch or two shorter and wore thicker glasses, Pete fancies, they could pass for twins.) He knows every scene by heart. It is the possibility of a double life that intrigues him; an ordinary man puts on a ridiculous costume and immediately becomes powerful, admirable, decisive … wild and extravagant. Although he keeps Bly’s Iron John by his bedside, he prefers the Batman story to the Iron John myth. He is sometimes tempted to write to Bly and suggest that he consider giving the Batman transformation the spotlight in his next book. Really, the only thing he likes about the Iron John myth is its focus on the “goldenness” of masculinity. The boy dips his finger into the Wild Man’s stream and it turns to gold; the boy bends over the stream and his hair turns to gold; later the boy is free to give away the gold coins that the King’s daughter bequeaths on him; he doesn’t need them; he is golden himself. Pete understands this perfectly; gold—and all its connotations, fire, power, wealth—is definitely the right symbol. But he would like to point out to Bly that there is gold in Batman too. Batman’s insignia is gold! Gold and black. It represents both the bright and the dark sides of masculinity. And, he would like to tell Bly that, unlike Iron John, Batman is more accessible; he could reach more men through it.

  Pete recalls the scene where Batman takes Vicky Vale captive, brings her to his bat cave, and gets the film away from her. Had he a right to do so? Of course. If he’s to make the world a better place, he’s got to protect himself.

  He decides that he will have a preliminary look and then make up his mind.

  Like a magic carpet, his hand begins to float toward the knob on the night table drawer. But just as he is about to make contact with it, the door flies open behind him. He withdraws the capricious hand at once. Turning, he shouts, “How many times—”

  Jake is used to this opening. He takes it to be rhetorical. “Can I get a pet snake?” he asks.