The Henderson Equation

by Warren Adler

  But while this was accepted procedure, after three days Nick began to worry. Perhaps it was this that shook his resolve not to pursue Margaret, made him careless about his own vulnerability as far as she was concerned. Certainly it made him less shy, even crafty, as he followed her one day to the Automat on the corner of Forty-second Street and Third Avenue. Drawing a cup of coffee from the tap, he brought it to her table.

  “I’m having one helluva time with Charlie,” he said as an opening gambit, hoping she would sense his need to unburden himself.

  “That’s pretty obvious.”

  “He’s got troubles. Big ones.”

  “Common afflictions,” she said, indifferently, without sympathy.

  He watched her face, the cheeks moving as she daintily bit into a sandwich. Was he soliciting her pity? A new ploy. He had expected her to inquire further. Instead, she silently chewed her sandwich, washing it down with coffee. He searched her eyes for some hint of interest.

  “Did I offend you the other night?” he blurted.

  “Of course not, Nick.”

  “Then why the indifference?”

  “Indifference?” Her eyes widened. She was silent a moment and put the remains of her sandwich back on the plate.

  “I’m not indifferent, Nick.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. Surely you can see that.”

  “I can’t. I really can’t. I know that I’m not indifferent to you, not after the other night. I really felt we were approaching something.”

  “I know, Nick,” she said, dropping her eyes.

  “Well, then,” he said, rejoicing in the admission. He knew again that he was in love. She paused, sipping her coffee, watching him.

  “I’m not looking for that kind of relationship, Nick. I’m not ready for it.”

  “You mean it requires some kind of apprenticeship?” He was conscious of his sarcasm.

  “No, I don’t mean that at all.”

  “Well, then, explain it better.” He felt his pressure on her. Was she teasing him?

  “It’s just not a priority in my life, Nick. It can only interfere with my career. Frankly, I’m frightened of any entanglement. Nick, you just don’t know what it means being a woman in this business. There are lots of pitfalls.”

  “I hadn’t realized you were so ambitious.”

  “That’s exactly how a man would react,” she said sharply. His eyes dropped to her chest. He felt a vague tug in his loins.

  “I didn’t know it had a gender,” he said.

  “I am ambitious, Nick. I took advantage of the war, of the boys being away, and I don’t want to yield my position. Can’t you see how vulnerable I am?”

  “No, I can’t.” He hadn’t suspected. It seemed far from his own frame of reference.

  He hadn’t imagined that there were other reasons, beyond simple human chemistry. It was, for him, a totally different way to view things. She was telling him that she cared for him. What was there beyond that? It was difficult for him to comprehend. Ambition was a male province, he reasoned.

  “I’m determined that nothing get in the way of my chances to make it in this business.”

  “What has one thing got to do with the other?”

  “A lot.”

  “I’m confused,” he admitted.

  “That’s because you’re a man. I know what I’m talking about, Nick. I’m prepared to make whatever sacrifice is required. I don’t want to get trapped.”

  “By what?”

  “Biology. Tradition. The way I look at it, I’m lucky to be where I am. I don’t want to blow it. If I had started just three years later, I’d be competing with the boys coming back from the war. Who the hell do you think would be getting the promotions? As it is, I begged them to put me on the street. Not that I’m unhappy being a movie reviewer. They can see that as a woman’s place, that and writing about garden parties or weddings. I consider myself damned lucky.”

  He searched his memory for names of women reporters. There was one at the News, a tough old bag.

  “There are lots of women in this business,” he mumbled, conscious of his attempts to twist reality.

  “Bullshit.”

  He looked at her and smiled.

  “All right, I concede that it might be slightly tougher for a woman.”

  “Slightly,” she sneered.

  “But that doesn’t mean you have to crawl into a shell. Why deny a perfectly human reaction? Margaret, I care for you. To me that’s important, very important. I can’t see how that can possibly interfere with your career.”

  “Poor Nick,” she said, “you just don’t understand. I care for you too, Nick.”

  His heart leaped with joy. “So what’s the problem?”

  She shook her head. “Men,” she said. “Why are you all so obtuse?”

  He put his hand on top of hers, feeling its warmth against his flesh. “Hey, in a few days it’ll be New Year’s Eve. I’ve been assigned to cover it. Why not tag along? Unless you’ve got something better to do.”

  She looked at him for a moment, shaking her head and laughing, the tension broken. “What the hell?” she said.

  “Sure, what the hell?”

  Later he had gone back to Shanley’s to fetch Charlie, incoherent by now. He hailed a cab and maneuvered him into it, cursing his responsibility. Charlie’s problem was becoming a burden to him. Compassion for his friend was wearing thin.

  “It’s time to stop this shit now,” he said firmly, pushing Charlie, fully dressed, into the shower.

  Contemplating this renewed burst of feeling for Margaret, loosed now by the possibilities of reciprocity, left Nick little time to play crutch for Charlie. And, perhaps, seeing its abrupt loss, Charlie responded by taking the first weak and awkward steps by himself. It wasn’t that he went on the wagon. The next morning he was still nipping at the bottle to steady himself, but he was able to function through the day.

  Covering New Year’s Eve for the News was, in itself, an anomaly. The year actually changed sometime between the publication of the two-star and the three-star, and the story of the festivities was more a tradition than a necessity, causing havoc on the tenses. Fleets of photographers were sent out early to the city’s most exotic night spots to set up New Year’s Eve pictures. The pictures were always stilted, since the principals had been gathered either from the street or from among the booze-soaked regulars at the bar to whom New Year’s Eve meant only that liquor sales would continue for an extra two hours, till six A.M. A reporter could write the first roundup by rewriting last year’s story, then calling in changes as the evening progressed. Even that was fully predictable and the reporter was allowed to map out his own itinerary.

  Thus, Nick and his companions could pursue a free-loading hegira. Naturally, considering that it was his first date with Margaret, he took special care to choose carefully. He had also prevailed upon her to find a date for Charlie, who reached New Year’s Eve in reasonable control of himself

  Since Nick was the only one of them actually assigned to work that night, it was decided that they would all meet at Shanley’s for a hamburger, lining the stomach before the impending trek. Their first stop after Shanley’s was to be Sammy’s Bowery Follies, one of the city’s most popular freak shows.

  At Shanley’s, Nick and Charlie sat at one of the tables in the rear, waiting for the girls to arrive. Charlie was drinking beer in deference to the evening’s sexual possibilities, and spent the time rolling bread balls on the checkered tablecloth. For all his wise-cracking bravado and his rugged and disheveled good looks, Charlie was not a ladies’ man, although he enjoyed creating for himself the role of great swordsman. In Europe they had both stood on the same cathouse line, more as a badge of male macho than a provoking necessity of the sex glands.

  Sweeping into Shanley’s, her wonderful breasts jiggling promisingly in her open coat, Margaret was followed by a somewhat less prepossessing girl. Charlie glanced at Nick with that desperate look of letdown, th
e unfulfilled dream, a hint of disaster yet to come.

  The girl, whose name was Edie, was tall, big-hipped, her face beginning to puddle into fat. Margaret made the introductions and they sat down and ordered their hamburgers and french fries. The sight of his date for the evening had caused Charlie to switch to hard booze.

  “Edie’s a nurse,” Margaret said. “She works at King’s County Hospital.”

  “We work odd hours,” Edie said, bending her head over the foam of the beer. “I’m lucky to be off.” Charlie drank his booze from a shot glass, chasing it down with beer.

  “Do you take a Hippocratic oath?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact we do, a sort of adapted version of the one the doctors take.”

  “Do you believe in it?”

  Nick could see the beginnings of drunken belligerence. Edie looked helplessly at Margaret, who shrugged, signaling neutrality. Nick reached for Margaret’s hand and held it tightly, reveling in its yielding warmth. He felt too much joy to be bothered as Charlie pressed on about the nursing business as if he were seeking to draw out of the girl something he might attack.

  “Yes I do,” she said. “I wouldn’t be a nurse if I didn’t.”

  “Does it bother you to see all that human misery?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t you feel ghoulish?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do you see lots of hopeless cases?”

  “There is always hope.”

  “I can tell you’re a Catholic.”

  “Edie and I went to parochial school together,” Margaret offered, turning her eyes from Nick’s. “Only I’m the renegade.”

  “You mean you believe all that Catholic crap?” Charlie asked. He had ordered another shot.

  “Of course,” Edie answered brightly.

  “Everyone to their own opiate,” Charlie said.

  “To each his own,” Edie retorted.

  “Margaret?” Charlie asked. The smile took the edge off his sarcasm. “You brought me a saint. What a great gift for the New Year. A healer, a believer, balm for the savage spirit.”

  “I see you’ve got a flair for poetic expression,” Edie said, revealing her toughness. Nick knew then that she could handle Charlie.

  They finished their hamburgers and hailed a cab. Nick sat between the two girls, his arm around Margaret’s waist, feeling the joy of being so close to her. His confidence in the promise of the evening began to grow. Now he was sorry that he had dragged Charlie with him. He determined to ignore him. Nothing, he vowed to himself, would destroy the specialness of this evening. He was in love, he assured himself. All disruptive factors paled beside this knowledge. He pressed his lips into Margaret’s neck.

  Sammy’s Bowery Follies used the aberration of alcoholic addiction as a form of entertainment. Men and women, grown uncannily alike with the bloat of wine—apparently a wino was able to sustain greater longevity in his addiction than whiskey drunks—actually performed a show for the benefit of the curious uptowners who flocked to the place. It was certainly worth a good picture and the photographer had apparently set up his shot and left. A little man with a big paunch showed them to a table after Nick had identified himself. They ordered a round of drinks. Charlie ordered a double Scotch.

  “It’s weird,” Margaret said, looking at the odd people.

  “No more weird than the rest of life,” Charlie pointed out.

  “I agree with you, Margaret,” Nick said.

  He held Margaret’s hand under the table, his thigh pressed against hers. Lifting his glass, he clinked it against hers.

  “Let’s order champagne,” Nick said. “The occasion calls for champagne. It’s New Year’s Eve.” He motioned to the proprietor.

  “You got champagne?”

  “Champagne?” He yelled across the room to a fat toothless woman strumming a piano. “Hey, Fanny, we got any champagne?”

  “Yesh,” she giggled, her booze-burned throat hoarse but still strong. “We just made a batch in the back room.”

  “How’d you make it, Fanny?” a man shouted from the bar.

  She put one hand over a huge breast and squeezed it.

  “And I’ve given it my best year, baby,” she squealed.

  The proprietor brought over a bottle of New York champagne and an ice bucket. Popping the cork, he poured it into glasses. They watched it bubble, lifted their glasses simultaneously, and clinked them.

  “To 1948,” Nick said. He was feeling warm, festive.

  Edie looked at her wristwatch. “We’ve still got two hours.”

  The girl at the piano began to sing a medley of lewdly rearranged Cole Porter tunes, to the accompaniment of howls from the bar. Soon they all had the giggles and the champagne was gone. Even Edie had loosened up a bit and appeared to be enjoying herself, although Charlie could not seem to shake his sardonic mood, visible in the way he smoked his cigarette, holding his hand stiff, the cigarette locked between the two wrong fingers. Nick went off to call the rewrite desk and fill in the color for the next edition.

  “You lucky son of a bitch,” the rewrite man said.

  “Tough shit,” he replied, exhilarated by Margaret’s presence and the effects of the champagne.

  They left Sammy’s Bowery Follies holding their glasses, with Nick tucking another bottle of champagne under his arm. Hailing a cab, they arranged to hire the man for the evening, pooling their meager funds of about thirty dollars and sealing the deal with the driver in champagne toasts. They stopped at El Morocco, the Carnival Club, then Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe.

  By the time they arrived at the Diamond Horseshoe, Charlie was staggering, leaning against Edie who was also slightly tipsy but still in full control. The nightclub was jammed. Noisemakers filled the air with deafening blasts. Streamers sailed through the smoke like rockets. Nick was in love, feeling gay, happy, light-headed. Hell, it was 1948! He had lived through a war. He was working in his chosen profession. He had a great friend and he was in love with a girl and the future stretched out before him in an endless verdant landscape. No New Year’s Eve could possibly match this one, he thought.

  The music grew louder. The din of voices accelerated. Then the orchestra began the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” and he and Margaret stood up and kissed, their bodies hungering, lips parted, tongues deeply entwined. Around them the celebration reached its final intensity. Even Charlie and Edie were locked in an embrace.

  “I love you, Margaret. I love you more than anything I can think of that exists in the world.” He was conscious of the clichés, the platitudes, but could not find better words. Margaret was silent. He could feel tears stream down her cheeks.

  “Why cry, darling?” Nick asked.

  “I’m not sure how happy I should be.” She seemed helpless and vulnerable in his arms. Sensing this only increased his feeling of strength, of confidence.

  He felt the surge of his manhood, the meaning of its mystery.

  “We’re going,” he said suddenly to Charlie, who looked up drunkenly and nodded.

  “We’ll be fine,” Edie said, tentatively watching Charlie, whose head wavered.

  “We’re going to the apartment. Meet us later,” Nick said. He smiled thinly, admiring his courage, watching Margaret turn away her eyes in embarrassment. Outside the streets were jammed. Times Square was the center of the universe on New Year’s Eve, the great symbol of American optimism that the passage of time would make all things better. They couldn’t find their cab in the crush and walked instead, the air clearing their heads as they strode with arms around each other’s waist.

  He had spent the morning, before he went to work, cleaning and dusting the apartment, even washing the windows and the woodwork, banging the dust out of the upholstery, buoyed by the hope that somehow Margaret and he would make it back together. The moment they were inside the apartment, the consciousness of self-realization goaded him into a swift, lustful, strong embrace. They stood in the center of the living room, too greedy for
each other to take the time to remove their clothes in logical sequence, and she was still wearing her coat when he had removed her brassiere, the first priority of his obsession. He felt the naked breasts in his hands wonderfully firm, the nipples straight and hard. He could not let her go even for a moment, his right hand fondling her breasts while his left reached down her back, insinuating itself beneath the elastic of her panties and down to where her buttocks parted. Standing there, tongues entwined, still in their coats, the wonder of her flesh in his hands, he could feel the strong shudder of his own ecstatic orgasm as its force consumed his body with joy. She must have felt it too since her body pressed closer as his raged against hers. He could barely catch his breath, wondering if she had shared the experience.

  The orgasm by no means spent his passion and when they had at last undressed properly and slipped between the cool sheets of the bed, clinging to each other, he could not believe his happiness. The light from the living room was enough to spread good visibility in the room and, assured that her modesty would not be offended, he slid the sheets down and looked at her wonderful breasts, more beautiful than he had imagined. He squeezed them gently, fondled them, rolled the nipples gently between his lips, then seeing her special joy in it, he rubbed the tip of his erected penis around the nub of each nipple, giving equal time to each breast, until her response in reaching out to his erection and taking command of the process induced him once again to a raging orgasm, only this time he could feel the mutuality of their spendings, a delight never to be replicated in quite the same way. They rested, smoked cigarettes, and talked in hushed tones about their aspirations, exploring their feelings.

  “You can’t conquer biology,” he had told her proudly, as if he were imparting a great truth.

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “You see, it’s not so easy to control how you feel.”

  “Not easy at all.” She paused. “But I still intend to fight this thing. It just isn’t going to louse up my priorities.”