“Why don’t you go on home?” Charley said. “I’ll get there when I can. Soon. I promise. Then we’ll talk.”
“I can’t see you anymore; you know that. Not now. There. I said it first, dear Charley. Now you’re spared telling me you won’t see me.” She smiled at him. “I think we should strive to end this with dignity. I would like that.”
“So would I.”
“If you take the long view, which I can’t but I’ll try, all that’s happened is I’ve postponed quitting for a month. I was going to quit when I met you; I’ll quit now instead.”
“And do what?”
“Leave town. I don’t know. Marry the boy back home, maybe. The boy back home’s on a Rhodes scholarship, is that funny?” She shook her head. “Is this sad?”
“Yes.”
“I guess it is, I guess it is.” Jenny made a smile. “Are we being dignified, do you think?”
“Terribly.”
“It’s not the easiest thing in the world, is it? I don’t think I’ll try it again for a while. There’s such a thing as being dignified too often.”
Charley went to her, touched her, pulled her into his arms.
“This isn’t very smart.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
They held each other for a while.
“It’s been incredible,” Betty Jane said, meaning the change in Charley. It was the middle of January, she was five months pregnant and she sat in the living room of her house in Princeton, sipping sherry with Penny Whitsell.
Sprawled on the sofa, Penny said, “He was probably working too hard.”
Betty Jane shifted in her favorite chair and stared first at the fire dying in the fireplace, then out the window at the falling snow. Her face, lighted by the embers, was, if possible, prettier than usual. “Aren’t you right, though; of course he was.” She paused, waiting for Penny’s nod before continuing. They had been close since grammar school and like good wrestlers could anticipate each other’s moves and pauses. Penny nodded. Betty Jane continued. “Charley’s just the most conscientious man alive. For a while back in September he was working late almost every night. Now he gets home early.”
Penny finished her sherry, reached for the decanter on the coffee table. “Whenever Fred worked nights it meant he was out with some broad. The bastard.” She refilled her sherry glass, took a long swallow. “B.J.?”
“Wha?”
“Seriously, do you think I’m swearing more since I got divorced?”
“Hell no,” Betty Jane said, and she laughed.
Outside, a car horn sounded: bump-dya-dee-ump-bump—dyump-bump.
“That’s Charley,” Betty Jane explained. “He’s been doing that lately. He also makes puns.”
“Obviously the man is cracking.”
Betty Jane smiled. It was a marvelous smile, gentle and kind and understanding. The face surrounding the smile was not remotely vivacious—no one could make that accusation—but it was perfect. The eyes were brown and bright and perfect, the nose straight and small. And perfect. The skin clear and smooth, perfect skin.
Penny started to get up. “I ought to move my car; it’s blocking the driveway.”
“Charley will move it; he won’t mind. I tell you, he’s just so chipper nowadays I can’t stand it.” She looked out at the snow, said “Chilly” and started to push herself out of her chair.
“Sit down,” Penny said. “Lemme.” She got up and put another log on the fire. “Try and remember you got a gut, huh?”
Betty Jane glanced at her stomach. “I’m ballooning so. It’s awful. I’ll never get my figure back.”
“What’s that in the Bible? Something about a chasing after wind?”
“I’m not vain. You know it. But Charley likes me thin.”
The back door closed and, a moment later, Charley was standing in the living-room doorway. “Who’s the fathead moron who left her stupid car blocking the driveway? Hello, Penelope.”
“B.J. was just telling me how chipper you are.”
“Lies.” He looked at Betty Jane. “I know you,” he said, and he dropped to his knees and kissed her. He put his hands on her stomach and called, “Hello-oooo in there.” Then he looked around. “Doesn’t somebody else live around here?”
“He’s upstairs. Furious with me. He wanted to go polar-bear hunting with a stick. I said he couldn’t. It’s practically a blizzard out. Wasn’t I right?”
“As rain,” Charley replied. “Or, in this case, as snow. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was right as snow. Excuse me a moment, ladies.” He stood and went upstairs and put on some old clothes. Then he walked to the doorway of his son’s room. Robby had a long stick and was firing it out the window.
“Kpow. Sploom.”
“Hello there.”
“Lo.”
“Word reaches me—”
“Splat. Kpow.”
“—that you’re a trifle miffed.”
“Huh?”
“New stick?”
“Maybe.”
“Your mother reports—”
“Wudduz she know? She wuddin knowa polar bear if it hidder.”
“Well said. Aren’t you Robert McGillicudity?”
“Who? What? No. Fiske.”
“Ah. Robert Fiske. I know your father.” Charley went back downstairs. “He is decidedly not in the best of humors. He said his mother was a witch, a harpie, cruel beyond—”
“He did? No, he didn’t either.”
“He’s going to cut you out of his will,” Charley said. “He told me so.”
Robby ran into the room. “You are my father.”
“Pardon, young man?” Charley said.
“Upstairs,” Robby went on. “Upstairs you said—”
“Darling,” Charley said to Betty Jane. “I think this young man is selling something. I’m sorry, young man, but we don’t want any magazines.”
“Magazines?”
“Don’t try your high-pressure tactics on me, young man.”
“But, Daddy—”
“Great Scott!” Charley cried. “There’s a polar bear in the back yard!”
“For sure?” Robby said.
“It’s twenty feet high and covered with white fur; what else can it be?”
“Let’s go gitit.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’d really like to. But we just can’t.”
“Why can’t we? Why can’t we?”
“Because we haven’t got a polar-bear stick. Oh, if only we had a—”
“I got one!”
“I’m afraid you don’t understand. Polar-bear sticks are very rare; just any stick won’t do.”
“But I got one, I got one, I do.”
“Go get it, then. Let me see.”
Robby tore out of the room. They heard him going to his room and he was shouting “See?” even before he started coming down the stairs. “See? See? See? See? See?”
“By George, the lad does have a polar-bear stick!” Charley cried.
“I told ya! I told ya!”
“Get your coat on. And galoshes. Hurry!”
Robby hurried, Charley too, and they ran outside, standing hand in hand on the upper edge of the white lawn, which sloped gracefully down to the icy rim of Carnegie Lake. “Look out!” Charley yelled and he grabbed the boy, diving forward into the deep snow, rolling over and over down the hill. Robby screamed at first, but then he rested in his father’s strong arms, and when they reached the bottom it was hard to tell who was more pleased with the journey. They raced back to the top, where Charley grabbed the boy again, and again they rolled down, through fresh and different snow, and this time when they raced to the top Betty Jane was waiting for them, her coat thrown over her shoulders. “I thought I’d watch,” she said.
“Can she?” Charley asked.
Robby shook his head. “She’s a girl.”
&n
bsp; “And a good ‘thank God’ for that,” Charley replied before grabbing his wife, throwing her gently down, lifting her gently up, roughly washing her perfect face with chilling snow.
“Stop,” Betty Jane said, somehow making the word two syllables, but when Charley did she cried, “Don’t,” so he lifted her again, easing her up onto his shoulder, then snatching Robby with his right arm, lifting him too, slowly starting into a spin, faster and faster, and Penny, watching them from the living room, was suddenly reminded of her childhood and one of those round glass paperweights that you shake to make the snow fall.
“Thank God you didn’t quit,” Charley said.
Jenny raised her daiquiri into toasting position. “Hear, hear.”
Charley smiled, looked around the crowded restaurant.
Jenny stared at her glass a moment before starting to giggle. “Daiquiris make me giggle. Especially at lunch. Why is that?”
“The rum might have a little something to do with it.”
“Auh?” She giggled again. “You’re so intelligent. I really like you.”
“I like you too. That’s why it’s so great you stayed on the job. Before, when—”
“Use a euphemism,” Jenny warned. “Remember I’m a lady.” She picked up his swizzle stick and started making designs on the tablecloth. “There’s a character in a Tennessee Williams play. Sort of whory. Except every time the moon rises it makes her a virgin. She believes that. I guess, so do I.”
“During the dear dead days of our confusion,” Charley said. “I don’t think I liked you all that much. Not the way I do now. Now, I like you.”
“I’ll tell you one thing it made me realize. Tommy? My wandering Rhodes scholar? I don’t take him for granted anymore, believe me. As soon as he sets foot on American soil ...” She made a trapping gesture with her hands.
Charley smiled. “I think I’ll keep Betty Jane pregnant all the time from now on. She loves kids and she’s so excited about having another. It’s just great.”
“Two more months?”
“Approximately.” He pointed at Jenny’s empty glass.
“I’ll get smashed.”
“That maybe.”
“Do I have much to type this afternoon?”
“Little.”
“Another.”
Charley signaled for the waiter. “Two,” he said.
“What we were being,” Jenny said, “was immature.”
“Pardon?”
“I read this article. McCall’s or someplace.”
“Then it must be true.”
“No-no; it was by a certified psy ... psycho ... That word is too much for me at the present time.”
“Try shrinker.”
“Thank you. A certified shrinker. And she said—”
“Beware of lady shrinkers, certified or otherwise.”
“She said that when her patients had confusions, what they were doing, most of the time, was ducking reality.”
“I can’t think of anything better to duck.”
“Anyway, it’s an immature action. And it ends up horribly most of the time. Three of her patients tried to do themselves in. That’s McCall’s for ‘suicide.’ ”
“I was hot for your body,” Charley said. “I used to ogle you around the office. Secretly. Your dresses were always too big.”
“I thought you were pretty cute. Before I met you, of course.”
“I am pretty cute,” Charley said.
The waiter came with their drinks. “Would you like to order lunch now?”
“The lady is on a liquid diet,” Charley said. “I’m joining her.”
The waiter left them.
“What we had was bed,” Jenny said then.
“Before?”
“Before.”
Charley nodded. “That, and we were both probably a little lonely.”
“I never thought I’d get over it. When we stopped. I cried for two days. Then I came back to work and I figured I was a cinch to fall apart when you came in, except when you got there, I thought ‘Him? He’s not so beautiful. Plenty of fish in the sea.’ ”
“I remembered you as being prettier,” Charley said.
“I’m not lonely anymore,” Jenny said. “My acting classes are great and I work at it. Before, I was just potchkeying. Now I dig. And I’m writing Tommy every day. And once a week at least my boss takes me to lunch.”
“We’ve been very lucky. No one ever found out. And we salvaged something from the wreckage: we like each other.”
“I’ll tell you one thing. If I had to pick someone with whom to have a first confusion, I’d pick you.”
“Ditto.”
“Was I really your first?”
“Aye.”
“Miss Devers is permanently honored.”
“Once I almost bedded with an English lady authoress. I think she was willing.”
“Beware of English lady authoresses, beddable or otherwise.”
“I beware.”
“Hey—” Jenny called, and she waved, “Archie—hi.”
Archie Wesker walked over. “Very suspicious,” he said.
“You’ve caught us, Archie,” Jenny told him. “We’re having an affair. May we trust you to keep our secret?”
Archie shook his head. “What is it with you two? I’m not accusing anyone, you understand, but it’s all very mysterious.”
Jenny raised her napkin up to just below her eyes. “Me and Marlene,” she said.
IT’S A GIRL
PAULA FRANCES FISKE
PRINCETON HOSPITAL
EIGHT POUNDS SIX OUNCES
THE TWELFTH OF MAY
“I thought it was a lovely announcement,” Jenny said. She finished typing a letter, handed it to Charley to sign.
He sat on the edge of her desk. “I thought so too. Betty Jane was all for making a book out of it. You know: ‘At home at ... ’ and ‘Length ... ’ and so on. Who cares how long a baby is?”
“You do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“How long was she?”
“Twenty-one and a half inches—something around there.”
“You phony.” She started cleaning off her desk top. “How could it be around? Exactly is what you mean; admit it.”
Charley shrugged. “I do not like boastful parents. Lift?”
“You mean like a taxi? Home?”
“Sure.”
“How come?”
“We’re cocktailing up in that vicinity. Betty Jane’s coming in. Our first gala since the arrival.”
Jenny stood. “Ready?”
“Momentarily.” He went and got his coat. They walked down the corridor to the elevators. “After this cocktail thing, I’m taking her to dinner. Someplace where the atmosphere’s overpowering. This is basically a therapeutic meal. You see, after the baby there comes this terrible thing called ‘Post-Pregnancy Pudge.’ The woman feels a bit on the flabby side. She is, of course, which is why you can’t tell her she’s imagining things. Therefore you have to do something to make her Think Feminine again.”
The elevator came. They got in and rode down in silence. “I can’t stand people who talk in elevators,” Charley said as they crossed the lobby to the street.
“Neither can I.”
Charley was about to raise a hand when a cab appeared. “Just like in the movies.” They got in and he gave Jenny’s address.
“How do you feel about people who talk in taxis?”
“That’s all right. Because the driver’s not really there. Only the back of his head exists. He’s more or less invisible.”
“Don’t I wish,” the driver said, and he launched into an account of his troubles with his wife, a charming woman, sweet and levelheaded, except for the fact that she was very much in love with Argentina Rocca, a leading television wrestler.
“Right here,” Charley said when they reached Jenny’s building.
“Want to come in?” Jenny asked. “Have you got time?”
“I have, ex
cept may I tell you something? I never much liked your apartment.”
“I’ve had it redecorated,” she told him. “Repainted, I should say. I never liked it either. It’s better now. Different, anyway.”
“In that case,” Charley said, and he paid the driver.
As they walked up to the building, Jenny held her hand out in front of her and made it shake. “This is where they resume their illicit relationship,” she told him. “Notice how her hand trembles uncontrollably?”
“His breath is coming in little gasps,” Charley replied. He gasped a little.
Jenny unlocked the door to her apartment and switched on the lights.
“Blue walls?” Charley said.
“You’re supposed to get used to them, I think. At least that’s what the painter promised me.”
“Why blue?”
“It was just after our tearful separation. I needed a change and I begged the landlord. He also does the painting. All he had was blue. White would have meant waiting a week and I didn’t feel like waiting. Drink?”
“No, thanks.” He sat down on the sofa bed. “Memories flooded over him. For a moment he felt giddy ... torn ... confused ...
“She watched him and prayed she would be strong enough to resist him.”
“Could he resist her? he wondered.”
“She stood rooted to the spot, her loins on fire—Charley, do women have loins or is it just men?”
“Everybody do. I’ll take a little vodka if you have it.”
“Coming right up.” She went to the kitchen. “Rocks?”
“Please.” When she brought him the drink he said, “I’m sorry about the walls.”
“Why?”
“They’re so goddam blue. Most walls in most apartments aren’t deep blue like these. They’re hard to forget. When my father died the only thing I was thankful for was that he didn’t have anything special, anything his. No pipe, no chair. I think maybe he did it on purpose. He knew it would be easier. There wouldn’t be those things that you’d look at and summon him back. Nothing to remember. Nothing specific. These walls.” He shook his head. “Hard.”
“Maybe I’ll just have a little teentsy,” Jenny said, and she hurried to the kitchen and poured herself a drink. “How’s that for a sickening phrase?”
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