Naked Came the Stranger

by Penelope Ashe

  “Are you telling me they screwed up again?”

  Helene brushed her freshly dyed black hair away from her forehead with a calculatedly casual motion and bent over in front of Marvin to retrieve the Saks bill. She simultaneously inhaled, allowing Marvin a long look down the front of her blouse. She briefly studied one sales slip after another, and at the fifth she stopped.

  “Here it is,” she said. “I just knew there had to be a screwup.”

  Marvin studied the sales slip. It appeared entirely normal. It was for a dress that had been ordered by telephone. It had been ordered on the 27th day of November. It came to a figure of $125.

  “And where’s the screwup?” he asked.

  “No dress, honey,” Helene said. “No dressee, no tickee. Anyhow, there shouldn’t be any tickee. I never ordered that dress and they never sent it.”

  “You sure?” Marvin remained skeptical. “I mean, that’s kind of a weird mistake. They’ve got your name and address down there.”

  “What does that mean?” Helene moved closer to Marvin, close enough so that the biceps of his left arm rested against her right breast. Then she applied the pressure. “Some dumb broad writes the wrong address and the bill goes out. You think Mr. Saks checks these things personally?”

  “But that’s not the point,” Marvin said. “It’s not just a mistake. It’s money. You think they’re just going to take my word for it?”

  “Well, what can we do—take them back the dress I didn’t get? Come on, Marvin. You were ready to tell me off—how about taking some of that anger down to Saks and show them what a big man you are? Your mother would have been down there ten minutes ago.”

  In the garage Marvin stepped through a transparent plastic kite and climbed into his white Cadillac convertible. Batshit, he thought. As he gunned the car down the graveled street, Helene was upstairs looking at the $125 dress with the Saks label. She had once heard it said that, if he knows his client is guilty, a good lawyer tries to postpone the trial as long as possible. Witnesses can die; victims can change their minds; clients can take ill suddenly. Yes, given time, all kinds of things can happen. She shrugged, closed the closet door, went back to the copy of Vogue she had been reading before the interruption.

  The Saks shipping department manager managed to produce a receipt bearing Helene’s unmistakable signature within a half minute of hearing the complaint. Marvin’s shock at the enormity of his wife’s falsehood was exceeded only by his humiliation which, in turn, was exceeded only by his gratitude that the encounter had taken place in the manager’s small and sparsely populated office. Publicly, at least, his image was still intact. But even that was only a matter of time. Twelve days, a month, maybe six months—the time would surely come when the men would arrive to reclaim the Cadillac, the furniture, the appliances, the home … the reputation.

  He thought briefly, standing outside the shipping manager’s office, of the offer he had received last year to handle Mario Vella’s books—a most generous offer he had seriously considered until thumbing through the books one night. Now Vella was dead, murdered they said, and it was just as well he hadn’t got involved. Another offer from the government tax man who had tried to interest him in a bogus refund scheme. The endless opportunities to collect exorbitant fees from clients anxious to falsify their returns.

  His integrity was perhaps exceeded by his fear, but there was a third factor that held Marvin back. And that was the instinctive understanding that it would be Helene—not little Barry or little Jacquie (or little Marvin, for that matter)—who would gain from any additional income. The coin was a bad one—heads, Helene wins; tails, Marvin loses. Nobody had ever called Marvin a born loser. But then, nobody ever had to.

  “Marv,” the voice said. “Marv Goodman.”

  He turned to look into the most exquisite green eyes he had ever seen.

  “Come on now,” the voice continued, “I know you’re Marv Goodman.”

  He stared at the eyes, at the wide, slightly thin lips, at the small white teeth and the swift tongue that curled over them.

  “Gillian,” the voice said. “Gillian Blake.”

  Marvin was entranced at the way the tongue seemed to slip in and out with each syllable. It was moist and agile.

  “I’m hurt,” she was saying. “I really am. It was just last week at the King’s Neck Property Owners Association meeting. Remember? I sat right next to you. You kept telling me if they increased the dues any more they’d have to form a credit association.”

  “Of course,” Marvin said, recovering. “How’ve you been, Mrs. Blake? And how’s … um … your husband?”

  “His name is Bill and he’s the same as ever,” she said. “But I had to ask you why you’re standing here looking so serious. I saw you in there a few minutes ago and I was certainly impressed. I had no idea you were so … forceful. You were certainly giving them all kinds of trouble.”

  “Oh, that.” A forced laugh. “You can’t watch these bookkeepers closely enough.”

  He hadn’t thought of himself as forceful in at least ten years, and it pleased him enormously that someone did. But why not? He was a young thirty-six. Tennis and skiing kept him in good shape. Tennis and skiing, he thought, also make an excellent substitute for sex, if one needed substitutes. He only weighed five pounds more than when he had won the Intrafraternity Tennis Championship at Cornell fifteen years earlier. He had always thought of himself as being ruggedly handsome, and his marriage had, if anything, increased the hardness of his looks without appearing to age him. And now, in the presence of Gillian, he felt strong and young. More than that, he sensed the woman’s interest in him.

  Gillian’s interest had, in fact, been aroused—but for not quite the same reasons. What Marvin would describe as rugged good looks, Gillian would dismiss as malevolence, even sadism. Gillian had first noticed Marvin Goodman the very day they had moved to King’s Neck. He was in the Security National bank as she and Bill were establishing their accounts. He could not be missed. He was arguing heatedly with a junior executive about what seemed to be an overdrawn checking account. Then, too, he could not be missed the night of the party. On that occasion he was involved in a dispute with his wife over the fact that not one of the other wives polled required $75 a week for food shopping. (His wife, Gillian recalled, handled the incident with perfect calm, a woman who well knew the use of sex as a weapon.) The next encounter was at the Property Owners meeting. And this was the fourth time fate had joined them together. In each instance, Marvin Goodman had been wrapped up in a subject of increasing importance to Gillian.

  Money. Fifteen hundred dollars was the price quoted. She knew it was high and she knew she had to raise it—and quickly. The demands of her job precluded a visit to Japan or Puerto Rico; her status as a celebrity made any unknown doctor too much of a risk. The one doctor she could trust, a highly recommended Lexington Avenue neurosurgeon with a profitable sideline aborting the unwanted offspring of the rich and the famous, charged a flat fee of $1, 500.

  Gillian looked at the plate glass window behind Marvin and saw that it was freckled by raindrops.

  “Damn!” she said. “That spoils everything.”

  “What’s that?” Marvin said.

  “That rain,” she said. “Here I thought I’d have a chance to walk a few blocks with you and maybe even talk you into buying me a little drink. Damn rain!”

  “It doesn’t have to spoil anything,” Marvin said.

  From somewhere in the past, from distant days of young manhood, Marvin felt stirrings that had been quietly laid to rest shortly after wedlock. It was not simply that this woman was desirable. Nor merely that she seemed available. What truly excited Marvin was the undeniable fact that he excited her, that she wanted him. Guilt? Perish the thought. There could be no sense of guilt if one considered Helene’s flagrant falsehood. Yes, Helene needed to be punished. And it was up to him.

  “It’s 12:45 now,” Marvin said. “Why don’t we hop into my wagon—it’s just
downstairs—and take us a little drive? We’ll find a spot for lunch. I mean I’m free for the rest of the day and right now I think I could use a little change.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  She put her hand around his arm and squeezed it. Marvin glanced quickly around the store. Saks’ Long Island store was located in Garden City, an upper-middle-class residential and shopping community a forty-five-minute drive from King’s Neck, and Marvin knew the odds were well against encountering any other neighbors. And so what? So what if he did? He walked calmly with Gillian to the parking lot, into the distinctive white convertible with the MG-1 license plates. Marvin headed directly for the Meadowbrook Parkway, and he felt the slight pressure of Gillian’s left thigh against him. At that moment Marvin Goodman knew his luck was about to improve.

  As the big car turned onto Northern State Parkway, Marvin glanced at the gas gauge. E—that’s where the needle was flickering. He bit his lip and eased off the gas pedal slightly, allowing the speedometer needle to settle back toward fifty-five. By the time Marvin found a gas station, the meter registered below empty and he ordered the attendant to fill the tank. It required just short of twenty gallons.

  “You nearly didn’t make it,” the man said.

  “You’re so right,” Marvin said. “But I have a feeling this is going to be my day.”

  The station was one of the few in the northeastern United States for which Marvin Goodman did not have a credit card. Still, even after paying for the gas, he noted there were almost fifty dollars remaining in his wallet. Fifty in his wallet and notmuch more in the world. Gillian sat beside him quietly as Marvin drove past the boat basin, now devoid of its white sails, and on toward the Throg’s Neck Bridge.

  “How do you feel, Gillian?”

  “A little nervous, Marvin,” she said—and honestly. “I wouldn’t want you to think I do this kind of thing with anyone.”

  “I don’t,” he said—and, indeed, he had no reason to. It was doubtless that … rugged quality. “But what do you feel like doing? What are your needs?”

  “I feel,” she said, “thirsty, hungry and … sexy. And not necessarily in that order.”

  “We can handle that list item by item,” he growled. “And not necessarily in any order.”

  At the Throg’s Neck Bridge, Marvin dug into his pockets but couldn’t locate the quarter.

  “Sorry,” Gillian said. “I can’t help. All I’ve got is my Saks charge plate and my good name. Let me say, if you’re ever offered a choice, take the charge plate.”

  He broke a ten to pay the toll and headed north. In West-chester he paid another toll on the Hutchinson River Parkway, then took the next turnoff and parked outside of Country Inn. The restaurant was decorated in a manner supposedly similar to what you might find in the French provinces, a fact that escaped most of its expense-account clientele. Marvin steered Gillian to the heavy oak bar.

  “First,” he said, “let’s take care of the thirst.”

  “Martini,” said Gillian.

  “Two of them,” he told the bartender. “Bone-dry.”

  “On the rocks or up?” the bartender said.

  Marvin looked at Gillian, who signaled up with her thumb. Marvin did the same, and Gillian closed her hand gently over Marvin’s upturned thumb.

  “Got you, lover,” she said in a low voice. Marvin, by way of answer, began moving his thumb slowly up and down inside her closed fist. “Mmmmmm. I’ll bet they call you Marvelous Marv.”

  “No,” he said. “No, they never have.”

  “Maybe they don’t see what I see,” Gillian said.

  “Maybe they don’t,” he said. “Maybe that’s what’s bothering me. Things like this don’t happen to me. They never happen to me. Why me? Why should this be happening to me all of a sudden?”

  “Drink up, Marvelous Marv,” she said. “Maybe you have something that I want. Maybe this kind of thing has never happened to me either.”

  They stayed long enough for a second martini. Marvin, euphoric from a combination of the alcohol and the prospect that lay ahead, left the grinning bartender a dollar tip. They climbed back into the Cadillac and continued north on the Hutchinson River Parkway. The next time Marvin glanced at his gold-banded watch it was nearly three o’clock and he realized they had not yet eaten lunch. They were almost in Connecticut when he pulled off the Parkway a second time. This time he followed a network of local roads into Bedford Village and eventually to La Cremaillere, a restaurant that Holiday Magazine had described as “distinguished,” a restaurant that Helene had begged to visit. Well, the hell with Helene.

  Lunch, if a trifle rich, was distinguished. And with a half bottle of vintage Chablis lulling his senses, Marvin for once forgot to tally up the bill, which he drowsily noted approached $25. And $5 for the young lady who offered such impeccable service. And another loose bill for the excellent young man who went to fetch the car.

  “How do you feel now?” he asked Gillian.

  “I’m not thirsty,” she said. “And I’m not hungry. Let me see, was there something else?”

  “It’ll come to you.” Marvin ran his free hand down her side and let it come to rest on her hip. “What you need is a conducive atmosphere. I think we passed one a few miles back.”

  “The one with the Vacancy sign?”

  “That was the one.”

  It was all going incredibly well, Marvin thought. Too well, really. The idea that it was going perfectly sent him into a momentary panic. Something had to go wrong. Something would go wrong. Stop that! Stop thinking like a loser. That’s all over now. Everything’s perfect and everything will be perfect.

  The panic soon dissolved as Gillian rested her head against Marvin’s shoulder and traced the creases in his slacks. She started at the knees and worked her way up. Her touch excited Marvin immediately and Gillian traced the swelling outline, gently, gently, until Marvin felt the blood pounding against his temples.

  “Marvelous Marv,” she said, “so full of surprises.”

  When they reached the motel, Marvin noted with gratitude that there was a drive-in window for registering guests. He couldn’t have left the car at that moment in any circumstances. His slacks still bulged from Gillian’s gentle, skillful and persistent manipulations. The motel owner, a soft-spoken country man with leather elbow patches on his tweed jacket, accepted without comment the registration blank that carried the name “Milton Silver” and the “MG-1” license plate.

  “That’ll be $20 for the double,” he said.

  Marvin reached into his wallet, extracted the single remaining bill, handed it over.

  “And ten more, young fellow,” the owner said.

  Marvin looked at the bill and went white. It was a ten. He had tipped the young man at the parking lot ten dollars instead of one! God, God, God—it had to happen!

  “I seem to be momentarily short of funds,” he said. “You don’t happen to have anything for ten dollars?”

  “Might have if you were alone,” the man said. “But the best I can do for you and your lady friend is $16.”

  Marvin took the bill without a word, jammed the car into reverse, screeched out of the graveled parking area.

  “Damn it,” he said. “Damn it—I knew it!”

  “Don’t be like that, Marvin,” Gillian said. Her finger resumed its tracing efforts, but the swelling had vanished in the frustration of the moment. “We can go somewhere else. We can use your name. You can cash a check.”

  “Any check I would cash,” Marvin said, “would bounce from here to King’s Neck and right back again.”

  “But you could cover it,” Gillian said. “You could go to the bank on Monday and cover the check.”

  “You don’t understand, Gillian,” he said. “All I could cover that check with is unpaid bills. I’m broke. I’m flat broke.”

  Now that it had happened, Marvin couldn’t accept it. His conquest, so fortuitously begun and so intricately constructed, was collapsing like a deflated balloon
. He was again, again and forever, a loser. No, not a loser, the loser, the all-time number-one world-champ loser. And what he had even greater difficulty in accepting was the fact that Gillian Blake was convulsed in an uncontrollable attack of giggles.

  “You’re broke?” she said, finally.

  “I am driving from here,” he said, “directly to the nearest poorhouse.”

  “But this car?”

  “I own precisely $1,350 worth of this car. And the way they charge for this car, that means I own four tires and the rear window.”

  “The house?”

  “Will be mine in precisely twenty-eight years if I continue paying $325 a month until that date.”

  “Poor Marvin,” Gillian said. “Poor Marv.”

  They rode silently then, each contemplating a private disaster. Finally, more to clear the air than anything else, Gillian told Marvin that she had been going to ask him for a loan. A loan of $1,500. A loan to pay for an abortion because she was carrying, deep in her womb, the beginnings of a beatnik, the embryo given her by a hasty hipster.

  “You wanted my money?” Marvin said.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Gillian said. “I wanted you, Marvin. But wanting you didn’t prevent me from also wanting your money. But not permanently. Just a loan. And, honestly, I wouldn’t have even mentioned it except, you have to agree, it is an emergency.”

  “We each have our emergencies,” Marvin said.

  “Poor Marvin,” Gillian said.

  They were approaching the toll booth in Pelham. Marvin fished for a coin, found two dimes and a nickel. He searched his pockets, desperately for a moment, found another quarter. “For the bridge,” he said. His words were lost because Gillian was kissing his right ear.