“What do you mean, Angie?”
“If we’re gonna go out tonight, there’s some stuff I gotta blow off,” she said. “I gotta buncha phone calls to make, for starters.”
“I don’t want to cause you any trouble, Angie.”
The girl was searching through her purse—for phone numbers, Wallingford assumed. But, no, it was for more gum. “Look”—she was chewing again—“do ya wanna go out tonight or what? It’s no trouble. I just gotta start makin’ some calls.”
“Yes, tonight,” Patrick replied.
Why not yes, why not tonight? Not only was he not married to Mrs. Clausen, but she had given him no encouragement whatsoever. He had no reason to think he ever would be married to her; he knew only that he wanted to ask. Under the circumstances, sexual anarchy was both understandable and commendable. (To the old Patrick Wallingford, that is.)
“Ya gotta phone at your place, I guess,” Angie was saying. “Betta gimme the numba. I won’t give it to nobody unless I hafta.”
He was writing out his phone number for her when the same newsroom woman reappeared in the doorway. She saw the piece of paper change hands. This gets better and better, Wallingford was thinking. “Two minutes, Pat,” the observant woman told him.
Mary was waiting for him in the studio. She held out her hand to him, a tissue covering her open palm. “Lose the gum, asshole,” was all she said. Patrick took no small amount of pleasure in depositing the slippery purple wad in her hand.
“Good evening,” he began the Friday telecast, more formally than usual. “Good evening” wasn’t on the prompter, but Wallingford wanted to sound as insincerely somber as possible. After all, he knew the level of insincerity behind what he had to say next. “There seem to be certain days, even weeks, when we are cast in the unwelcome role of the terrible messenger. We would rather be comforting friends than terrible messengers,” he went on, “but this has been one of those weeks.”
He was aware that his words fell around him like wet clothes, as he’d intended. When the file footage began and Patrick knew he was off-camera, he looked for Mary, but she’d already left, as had Wharton. The montage dragged on and on—it had the tempo of an overlong church service. You didn’t need to be a genius to read the ratings for this show in advance.
At last came that gratuitous image of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, shielding her son from the telephoto lens; when the image froze to a still, Patrick prepared himself for his closing remarks. There would be time to say the usual: “Good night, Doris. Good night, my little Otto.” Or something of equivalent length. While Wallingford hardly felt he was being unfaithful to Mrs. Clausen, since they were not a couple, it nonetheless seemed to him some slight betrayal of his devotion—that is, if he delivered his usual blessing to her and their son. Knowing what he’d done the night before with Mary, and thinking that he knew what the night ahead of him, with Angie, held, he felt disinclined even to speak Mrs. Clausen’s name.
Furthermore, there was something else he wanted to say. When the montage footage finally ended, he looked straight at the camera and declared, “Let’s hope that’s the end of it.” It was only one word shorter than his benediction to Doris and Otto junior, but there was no pause for a period—not to mention the two commas. In fact, it took only three seconds to say instead of four; Patrick knew because he’d timed it.
While Wallingford’s concluding remark didn’t save the ratings, there would be some good press for the evening news because of it. An Op-Ed piece in The New York Times, which amounted to a caustic review of the television coverage of JFK, Jr.’s death, praised Patrick for what the writer termed “three seconds of integrity in a week of sleaze.” Despite himself, Wallingford was looking more irreplaceable than ever.
Naturally, Mary Shanahan was nowhere to be found at the conclusion of the Friday-evening telecast; also absent were Wharton and Sabina. They were no doubt having a meeting. Patrick made a public display of his physical affection for Angie during the makeup-removal process, so much so that the hairdresser left the room in disgust. Wallingford also made a point of not leaving with Angie until a small but highly communicative gathering of the newsroom women were whispering together by the elevators.
But was a night with Angie truly what he wanted? How could a sexual adventure with the twenty-something makeup girl be construed as progress in the journey to better himself? Wasn’t this plainly the old Patrick Wallingford, up to his old tricks? How many times can a man repeat his sexual past before his past becomes who he is?
Yet without being able to explain the feeling, not even to himself, Wallingford felt like a new man, and one on the right track. He was a man on a mission, on his labyrinthine way to Wisconsin—notwithstanding the present detour he was taking. And what about the detour of the night before? Regardless, these detours were merely preparations for meeting Mrs. Clausen and winning her heart. Or so Patrick convinced himself.
He took Angie to a restaurant on Third Avenue in the Eighties. After a vinous dinner, they walked to Wallingford’s apartment—Angie a little unsteadily. The excited girl gave him her gum again. The slippery exchange followed a long, tongue-thrusting kiss, only seconds after Patrick had at first unlocked and then relocked his apartment door.
The gum was a new flavor, something ultra-cool and silvery. When Wallingford breathed through his nose, his nostrils stung; when he breathed through his mouth, his tongue felt cold. As soon as Angie excused herself to use the bathroom, Patrick spit the gum into the palm of his one hand. Its shiny, metallic surface quivered like a puddle of mercury. He managed to throw the gum away and wash his hand in the kitchen sink before Angie emerged from the bathroom, wearing nothing but one of Wallingford’s towels, and hurled herself into his arms. A forward girl, a strenuous night ahead. Patrick would be hard-pressed to find the time to pack for Wisconsin. In addition, there were the phone calls, which were broadcast on his answering machine throughout the night. He was in favor of killing the volume, but Angie insisted on monitoring the calls; it had been in case of an emergency that she’d given Patrick’s home phone number to various members of her family in the first place. But the initial phone call was from Patrick’s new news editor, Mary Shanahan.
He heard the background cacophony of the newsroom women, the high hilarity of their celebration—including the contrasting baritone of a waiter reciting “tonight’s specials”—before Mary uttered a word. Wallingford could imagine her hunched over her cell phone, as if it were something she intended to eat. One of her fineboned hands would be cupping her ear—the other, her mouth. A strand of her blond hair would have fallen across her face, possibly concealing one of her sapphire-blue eyes. Of course the newsroom women would know she was calling him, whether she’d told them or not.
“That was a dirty trick, Pat,” Mary’s message on the answering machine began.
“It’s Ms. Shanahan!” Angie whispered in a panic, as if Mary could hear her.
“Yes, it is,” Patrick whispered back. The makeup girl was writhing on top of him, the luxurious mass of her jet-black hair entirely covering her face. All Wallingford could see was one of Angie’s ears, but he deduced (from the smell) that her new gum was of a raspberry or strawberry persuasion.
“Not a word from you, not even ‘Congratulations,’ ” Mary went on. “Well, I can live with that, but not that awful girl. You must want to humiliate me. Is that it, Pat?”
“Am I the awful girl?” Angie asked. She was beginning to pant. She was also emitting a low growling sound from the back of her throat; maybe it was caused by the gum.
“Yes, you are,” Patrick replied, with some difficulty—the girl’s hair kept getting in his mouth.
“What’s Ms. Shanahan care about me for?” Angie asked; she sounded out of breath. Shades of Crystal Pitney? Wallingford hoped not.
“I slept with Mary last night. Maybe I got her pregnant,” Patrick said. “She wanted me to.”
“That kinda explains it,” said the makeup girl.
; “I know you’re there! Answer me, you asshole!” Mary wailed.
“Boy…” Angie started to say. She seemed to be trying to roll Wallingford on top of her—apparently she’d had enough of being on top.
“You should be packing for Wisconsin! You should be resting up for your trip!”
Mary shouted. One of the newsroom women was trying to calm her down. The waiter could be overheard saying something about the truffle season. Patrick recognized the waiter’s voice. The restaurant was an Italian place on West Seventeenth. “What about Wisconsin?” Mary whined. “I wanted to spend the weekend in your apartment while you were in Wisconsin, just to try it out…” She began to cry.
“What about Wisconsin?” Angie panted.
“I’m going there first thing tomorrow,” was all Wallingford said. A different voice spoke up from the answering machine; one of the newsroom women had seized Mary’s cell phone after Mary dissolved in tears. “You shit, Pat,” the woman said. Wallingford could visualize her surgically slimmed-down face. It was the woman he’d been in Bangkok with, a long time ago; her face had been fuller then. That was the end of the call.
“Ha!” Angie cried. She’d twisted the two of them into a sideways position, which Wallingford was unfamiliar with. The position was a little painful for him, but the makeup girl was gathering momentum—her growl had become a moan. When the answering machine picked up the second call, Angie dug one of her heels into the small of Patrick’s back. They were still joined sideways, the girl grunting loudly, as a woman’s voice asked mournfully, “Is my baby girl there? Oh, Angie, Angie—my dahlin’, my dahlin’! Ya gotta stop whatcha doin’, Angie. Ya breakin’ my heart!”
“Mom, for Christ’s sake…” Angie started to say, but she was gasping. Her moan had become a growl again—her growl, a roar.
She’s probably a screamer, Wallingford considered—his neighbors would think he was murdering the girl. I should be packing for Wisconsin, Patrick thought, as Angie violently heaved herself onto her back. Somehow, although they were nonetheless deeply joined, one of her legs was flung over one of his shoulders; he tried to kiss her but her knee was in the way.
Angie’s mother was weeping so rhythmically that the answering machine emitted a pre-orgasmic sound of its own. Wallingford never heard her hang up; the last of her sobs was drowned out by Angie’s screams. Not even childbirth could be this loud, Patrick wrongly supposed—not even Joan of Arc, blazing at the stake. But Angie’s screams abruptly ceased. For a second she lay as if paralyzed; then she began to thrash. Her hair whipped Wallingford’s face, her body bucked against him, her nails raked his back.
Uh-oh, a screamer and a scratcher, Wallingford thought—the younger, unmarried Crystal Pitney not forgotten. He hid his face against Angie’s throat so that she couldn’t gouge his eyes. He was frankly afraid of the next phase of her orgasm; the girl seemed to possess superhuman strength. Without a sound, not even a groan, she was strong enough to arch her back and roll him off her—first on his side, then on his back. Miraculously, they’d not once become disconnected; it was as if they never could be. They felt permanently fastened together, a new species. He could feel her heart pounding; her whole chest was vibrating but not a sound came from her, not a breath.
Then he realized she wasn’t breathing. Was she a screamer and a scratcher and a fainter ? It took all his strength to straighten his arms. He pushed her chest off him—his one hand on one breast, his stump on the other. That was when he saw she was choking on her gum— her face was blue, her dark-brown eyes showing only the whites. Wallingford gripped her lolling jaw in his hand; he drove the stump of his forearm under her ribcage, a punch without a fist. The pain was reminiscent of the days following his attachment surgery, a sickening pain that shot up his forearm to his shoulder before it traveled to his neck. But Angie exhaled sharply, expelling the gum.
The phone rang while the frightened girl lay shaking on his chest, wracked with sobs, sucking huge gulps of air. “I was dyin’, ” she managed to gasp. Patrick, who’d thought she was coming, said nothing while the machine answered the call.
“I was dyin’ and comin’ at the same time,” the girl added. “It was weird.”
From the answering machine, a voice spoke from the city’s grim underground; there were metallic shrieks and the lurching rumble of a subway train, over which Angie’s father, a transit policeman, made his message clear. “Angie, are ya tryin’
to kill your muthuh or what? She’s not eatin’, she’s not sleepin’, she’s not goin’ to Mass…” Another train screeched over the cop’s lament.
“Daddy,” was all Angie said to Wallingford. Her hips were moving again. As a couple, they seemed eternally joined—a minor god and goddess representing death by pleasure.
Angie was screaming again when the phone rang a fourth time. What time is it? Patrick wondered, but when he looked at his digital alarm clock, something pink was covering the time. It had a ghastly anatomical appearance, like part of a lung, but it was only Angie’s gum—definitely some sort of berry flavor. The way the light of the alarm clock shone through the substance made the gum resemble living tissue.
“God…” he said, coming, just as the makeup girl also came. Her teeth, doubtless missing the gum, sank into Wallingford’s left shoulder. Patrick could tolerate the pain—he’d known worse. But Angie was even more enthusiastic than he’d expected her to be. She was a screamer, a choker, and a biter. She was in midbite when she fainted dead away.
“Hey, cripple,” said a strange man’s voice on Patrick’s answering machine. “Hey, Mista One Hand, do ya know what? You’re gonna lose more than your hand, that’s what. You’re gonna end up with nothin’ between your legs but a fuckin’ draft. ”
Wallingford tried to wake up Angie by kissing her, but the fainted girl just smiled.
“There’s a call for you,” Patrick whispered in her ear. “You might want to take this one.”
“Hey, fuck-face,” the man in the answering machine said, “did ya know that even television personalities can just disappear ?” He must have been calling from a moving car. The radio was playing Johnny Mathis—softly, but not softly enough. Wallingford thought of the signet ring Angie wore on the chain around her neck; it would slip over a knuckle the size of his big toe. But she had already taken off the ring, and she’d dismissed its owner as “a nobody”—some guy who was
“overseas.” So who was the guy on the phone?
“Angie, I think you ought to hear this,” Patrick whispered. He gently pulled the sleeping girl into a sitting position; her hair fell forward, hiding her face, covering her pretty breasts. She smelled like a delectable concoction of fruits and flowers; her body was coated with a thin and glowing film of sweat.
“Listen to me, Mista One Hand,” the answering machine said. “I’m gonna grind up your prick in a blenda. Then I’m gonna make ya drink it!” That was the end of the charmless call.
Wallingford was packing for Wisconsin when Angie woke up.
“Boy, have I gotta pee!” the girl said.
“There was another call—not your mother. Some guy said he was going to grind up my penis in a blender.”
“That would be my brother Vittorio—Vito, for short,” Angie said. She left the door to the bathroom open while she peed. “Did he really say ‘penis’?” she called from the toilet.
“No, he actually said ‘prick,’ ” Patrick replied.
“Definitely Vito,” the makeup girl said. “He’s harmless. Vito don’t even have a job.” How did Vito’s unemployment make him harmless? “So what’s in Minnesota, anyway?” Angie asked.
“Wisconsin,” he corrected her.
“So who’s there?”
“A woman I’m going to ask to marry me,” Patrick answered. “She’ll probably say no.”
“Hey, ya gotta real problem, do ya know that?” Angie asked. She pulled him back to the bed. “Come here, ya gotta have more confidence than that. Ya gotta believe she’s gonna say yes. Otherwise, wh
y botha?”
“I don’t think she loves me.”
“Sure she does! Ya just gotta practice,” the makeup girl said. “Go on—ya can practice on me. Go on— ask me!”
He tried; after all, he’d been rehearsing. He told her what he wanted to say to Mrs. Clausen.
“Geez… that’s terrible,” Angie said. “To begin with, ya can’t start out apologizin’ all over the place—ya gotta come right out and say, ‘I can’t live widoutcha!’ That kind of thing. Go on— say it!”
“I can’t live without you,” Wallingford announced unconvincingly.
“Geez…”
“What’s wrong?” Patrick asked.
“Ya gotta say it betta than that !”
The phone rang, the fifth call. It was Mary Shanahan again, presumably calling from the solitude of her apartment on East Fifty-something—Wallingford could almost hear the whoosh of cars passing on the FDR Drive. “I thought we were friends,” Mary began. “Is this how you treat a friend? Someone who’s having your baby…” Either her voice broke or her thought trailed away.
“She’s gotta point,” Angie said to Patrick. “Ya betta say somethin’ to her.”
Wallingford thought of shaking his head, but he was lying with his face on Angie’s breasts; he considered it rude to shake his head there.
“You can’t still be fucking that girl!” Mary cried.
“If ya don’t talk to her, I’m gonna talk to her. Someone’s gotta,” the compassionate makeup girl said.
“You talk to her, then,” Wallingford replied. He buried his face lower, in Angie’s belly; he tried to muffle his hearing there, while she picked up the phone.
“This is Angie, Ms. Shanahan,” the good-hearted girl began. “Ya shouldn’t be upset. It hasn’t been all that great here, really. A while ago, I nearly choked to death. I almost died—I’m not kiddin’.” Mary hung up. “Was that bad?” Angie asked Wallingford.
The Fourth Hand Page 22