Love In the Air

by James Collins

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, looking at Peter with her chin trembling.

  They sat in silence, holding hands. Then Dr. Smythe came over with a doctor in scrubs. She told Holly that Jonathan had been pronounced dead on arrival and that there was no indication that he had suffered. She then said that it was necessary for someone to identify the body. Peter volunteered, but Holly said she wanted to see Jonathan. The doctor led them to a room with greenish light where a body covered in a sheet lay on a gurney. A woman with repulsive jowls asked Holly her name, address, and relationship to the deceased. Then she nodded at the attendant, and he pulled back the sheet to reveal Jonathan’s head and shoulders. He had some burns and his hair was singed; his skin looked like putty.

  “Oh God!” Holly cried, turning and burying her face in Peter’s chest. But after a moment she stood back. “It’s okay,” she said. She took a couple of steps toward Jonathan.

  “Can you identify this as the body of Jonathan Selway Speedwell of New York County, State of New York?”

  “Yes,” Holly said softly.

  “Thank you. Please sign here. There are several copies so please press down hard.”

  Holly signed and the woman bustled out of the room. The attendant moved to cover Jonathan again, but Holly raised her hand and stopped him.

  “Not yet,” she said. She walked to Jonathan and tentatively stroked his cheek. She leaned down and kissed his lips.

  Although he thought it should, it did not disgust Peter that he was thinking, as he looked at her, about the beauty of her form as she did this, with her wild hair hanging down and covering her face.

  Holly rose. She laid her hand on Jonathan’s sternum and rested it there for a while as she looked at his face. “Good-bye,” she whispered.

  Then she turned and looked at Peter. She wasn’t crying, although her face was drawn and her body shuddered. Peter realized that she assumed that he would want to take a last look at Jonathan, too. He stepped forward, and Holly and he gave each other a little hug. Then Holly moved back to join Dr. Smythe. Peter was aware that they were both looking at him, and that a gesture was expected. Peter had never touched Jonathan, except maybe to shake hands. Now, with Jonathan stretched out dead before him, singed and cold, he was supposed to? Yes, he felt shocked and bereft, and even on his own account he had the desire to say or do something meaningful. But how could he act in a way that was contrary to the nature of his and Jonathan’s friendship? Peter couldn’t escape the feeling that if he showed too much sentiment, even in this situation, Jonathan would laugh at him. But he felt Holly’s eyes and those of the doctor on his back. He didn’t want to disappoint Holly. Or the doctor either, for Peter had come to respect him to a degree that was probably excessive.

  He pressed Jonathan’s shoulder. Then he slowly moved his hand to Jonathan’s head and stroked his hair where it had not been singed. It felt surprisingly thick and soft. Then, amid Peter’s confused impulses, an action emerged, which was for him to lean down and kiss Jonathan’s brow. Just because he did it for an audience didn’t mean that it wasn’t sincere.

  Dr. Smythe insisted that he would arrange for a funeral home to come for Jonathan and that Peter and Holly should go along. Leaving the emergency room, Peter had half expected to find David gone, having figured, with wild inaccuracy, that he could make a run into the city and be back before they needed him. But there he was in the parking lot, leaning against his father’s magnificent vehicle and then approaching and trying to find words of comfort. Now he was driving them back to the club, where they would collect some of Holly’s clothes and toiletries before they all went on to Janet’s house. The rain had stopped and the roads glistened orange from the streetlights. The lights themselves had an orange haze around them; along the dark stretches of road, meanwhile, the black puddles appeared as slick and dense as oil. The trees flapped their leaves and waved their branches senselessly in the wind. David drove. Holly sat in the back seat looking out the window. Peter sat in the back seat looking at her. She had taken his hand again when the car first began to move, and she held it the whole way.

  When they arrived at the club, it seemed deserted. Holly and Peter entered the main hall, where the lights were dimmed, and they were surprised to find Charlotte’s great-aunt sitting in a chair near the door. Seeing the two young people, she stood up.

  “Mrs. LeMenthe!” said Peter. “What—why are you still here? Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Mrs. LeMenthe did not acknowledge him but rather walked up to Holly and gave her an embrace. She simply closed her eyes and said nothing.

  Then, turning from Holly, Mrs. LeMenthe spoke. “Holly will be coming with me to spend the night at my house. As many nights as she wants, for that matter. I have my car at the curb.”

  “But, Mrs. LeMenthe,” Peter said, “we were planning on taking her to Charlotte’s mother’s house. Holly can’t stay here, of course, and that was where we thought—”

  “No,” Mrs. LeMenthe said. She had shed her silly-goose, great-aunt demeanor. “Certainly not. I will not have Holly staying in that house with those bothersome women. Charlotte suffered a complete nervous collapse tonight and was still hysterical when they put her in the car. She and her mother are in no condition to give Holly the peace and care she needs. No, that house is the last place on earth Holly will go tonight.” Then in a milder tone, Mrs. LeMenthe said, “She will be much happier with me. My house is not big, but it’s comfortable. The guest room is especially pleasant. I’ve just put in new curtains. I know how to cook and how to make tea and how to be quiet.”

  Peter and Holly looked at each other, back at Mrs. LeMenthe, and back at each other again. Holly, who had been relatively calm, began to burble. She embraced Mrs. LeMenthe and cried on her shoulders. Mrs. LeMenthe spoke soothingly but without condescension. “There, there, my dear. We’ll have some cries together.”

  Then she asked, “Holly, did you have any particular friends at the wedding? Anyone who would be a comfort to you?”

  “No,” Holly said. “No. No one.” She pointed at Peter, laughing and crying at the same time. “Only the groom!”

  “Very well,” said Mrs. LeMenthe. “You will come with us too. There is a cot in the basement. Or perhaps you should sleep on the daybed in the guest room. That way Holly won’t be alone. It might be a comfort, like having a dog sleep in a room with you.”

  “But, Mrs. LeMenthe!” Peter said. “I mean … Charlotte … I should see how she is doing and, well, tonight, be with her …”

  Mrs. LeMenthe’s expression and tone were resolute. “I imagine,” she said, “that you and Charlotte had planned to go to a very nice hotel tonight, probably one in town, and then leave tomorrow on your wedding trip, to Italy or some such place.”

  “Well, yes—”

  “Will you be carrying out those plans?”

  “Oh no, not now. At least not for a few days, whenever we can reschedule.”

  “Good. Then you can reschedule your wedding night. At this moment, having exhausted herself crying and moaning, Charlotte is in a deep sleep; you can count on that. Her mother is pacing around, drinking decaffeinated coffee and fretting pointlessly about a thousand things. Deirdre is watching television. There is no point whatsoever in your going there.” She took Holly’s hand and spoke in a passionate whisper. “This young woman has suffered a grievous blow. A grievous blow. My companionship, the companionship of a stranger, however well intentioned, can only help her so much. She needs a friend to be with her. A close friend, a dear friend. Someone who knows her and cares about her, as I can see that you do.”

  So that took care of that.

  Peter spoke to David about their plans and called Janet, who told him that Charlotte had indeed fallen asleep. After explaining to Janet, as best as he could, what they were doing, Peter went up to Holly and Jonathan’s room at the club and gathered up some of her things. Then he rejoined Holly and Mrs. LeMenthe and they drove off in Mrs. LeMenthe’s tiny car.


  Dick had watched the paramedics work and then saw Peter speaking to the doctor before getting into the ambulance. After it drove off, Dick caught up with the doctor, who told him that the victim was the best man and that he seemed to have been killed instantly. Jesus Christ! Dick went back to the clubhouse to tell Janet and Charlotte. Charlotte went berserk. He and Janet agreed that they should call off the rest of the party, and Dick went off to tell the assistant manager, who was in charge that evening. The news of what had happened spread quickly and the guests were standing around at a loss as to what to do. Dick worked his way among them, explaining quietly that the party wouldn’t continue. At one point, as he was trying to find the bandleader, Dick ran across Julia. She was sitting in a corner by herself, drinking a bourbon and smoking a cigarette. Her hair was wet and she looked disheveled. Dick had spoken to her and she had seemed not to hear. “Julia,” he said again, and she slowly looked up at him. He had never seen the expression that she wore. It was weird. It was—he’d almost have to say that it was hateful. Clearly she was upset. He asked what had happened to her, where she had been all this time. She told him that she had gotten bored and gone outside to walk around the club a bit and have a smoke and the storm had started. Then people started running around and calling and she had gone over to see what was wrong. She had sat next to the best man the night before and talked with him a fair amount, and now … now …

  “Well, sure, of course it’s upsetting,” Dick said. “A young guy like that. It’s terribly upsetting.” She didn’t respond, and he asked if she was okay. “Yes, I’m fine,” she said. “Sure you’re all right now?” “Yes, of course. Please—go see to things.”

  Well, he had a hell of a time. Everyone asking questions. Despite what Dick told them, it took awhile for the guests to begin to leave. He kept reassuring them, as if he were the captain of a sinking ocean liner. He tried to comfort Charlotte as best he could; she took it very hard, sobbing and carrying on. It was an awful thing. And a girl on her wedding day, there would be a lot of emotion. The thing had been going off perfectly well until the accident had happened, although, in fact, just before then, a great load of boredom had dropped on Dick. It was all people from his days with Janet, and obviously people from the groom’s side, and the moment came when you just hit the wall, and thought you could barely stand another second. Then the thought of Julia had popped into his head. Julia was looking particularly fine that day in her silk suit. What great legs she had, those fine ankles, the curve of her calf. Near the base of his spine, Dick had felt a familiar stirring. He had thought about his plan for that night, later on, after this was all finally over, upstairs, when he would run his hand along Julia’s cool, smooth, gently concave inner thigh. And then, well, Christ, all hell had broken loose. The best man hit by lightning and killed, everybody running around and Charlotte in hysterics.

  After the place finally cleared out and he had agreed to come by Janet’s place the next morning, to “help” (what in the world was he going to be able to do to help?), he returned to where Julia had been sitting but didn’t find her. So he went up to their suite. There she was, curled up in a chair wearing her bathrobe. She had brushed her hair and taken off her makeup and looked pale. The robe wrapped her tightly from her neck down to her ankles; all Dick could see of her flesh was her face, her hands, and her feet, those long rabbit feet.

  “Hello, darling,” he said. “So here you are.”

  “Yes, here I am,” she said flatly, glancing at him without meeting his eye. He went over to her and leaned down to give her a kiss. She did not turn toward him, so he kissed her on the brow. He took off his coat and began talking. “Christ, what a night …” She didn’t say anything, just stared into the cold maw of the fireplace. Dick walked around unbuttoning his waistcoat and undoing his tie and working out his cuff links; he wanted to talk and he wanted to engage her. “So then the bandleader asked me if he should play something. I mean, Christ, what did he think, ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’? You can bet if they had kept playing, Janet’s friends would have been out there doing the fox-trot.” This was not going right. The evening had overexcited him, and so had seeing Julia. He didn’t even sound like himself. He allowed a long pause.

  “It’s just a tragedy. A tragedy,” he said finally. His voice was quiet, grave, the right tone. After a moment, Julia looked over at him. She had that same expression she had had when he had run into her earlier. He was taken aback. Then she turned away. “Yes, it’s very sad,” she said. There was silence.

  Obviously, he shouldn’t try anything, that was clear. He should put it out of his mind entirely. But the ashy taste of repudiated desire made him resentful. He had arranged for there to be some brandy in the room and he now poured himself some and sat down in the chair on the other side of the low table from Julia. The table had a small vase with flowers on it. He wanted very badly to take off his shoes but thought that this would be undignified.

  He tried another tack. “Are you all right, darling? This all seems to have gotten to you.”

  She looked over. “Certainly I’m all right. It’s very shocking, that’s all. I’m very tired.”

  “I can see that.”

  She didn’t respond. There was a glass of water near her.

  “What have you got there? Are you sure you wouldn’t like some of this brandy? My nerves are pretty well shot, and it’s the best thing.”

  “No thank you,” she said.

  Sympathy. Sorrow. That direction. “I’m worried about Charlotte,” he said. “She took it very hard. Very hard. Of course, her wedding day, and all the emotions. The joy turned all around to, well, tragedy, really. Of course there’s that poor girl, Jonathan’s wife, do you know the one?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, well, quite pretty. How she will carry on, I don’t know. But I suppose she will. People do. Good God! Do they have children?”

  Julia didn’t respond.

  “Then of course there’s Peter. His best friend dead. Terrible.” Generous now, bighearted. “I saw him go off in the ambulance. That’s got to be tough.”

  “Peter is a good and capable guy,” said Julia. “I’m sure he’ll handle himself well.”

  As far as Dick knew, Julia had never given Peter’s character a moment’s thought, so he was surprised to hear her express such a firm and respectful opinion of it. Staring at his brandy, he waited for her to say, Oh, but what about you, darling? You were the one in charge of the evening, and no one could have carried off such a difficult situation better. You amaze me in a crisis. To which he would have replied with a wave of his hand, Oh, come on. I just tried to keep things on an even keel. But she didn’t say that.

  They sat in silence awhile. Dick turned over in his mind the day’s events, what would happen tomorrow, his trip to London on Thursday. Notwithstanding all those distractions, the worm of his lust continued to burrow. In Dick’s case, the vinegar of resentment, when applied to its tail, gave it a sting but also prodded it. It strained and twisted and wanted to push on. Dick looked over at Julia. He looked at the triangle of white skin below her neck formed by the lapels of her robe; he looked below there; the robe was snug. It was thick and had bunched up on account of the way she was sitting. His eye could find nothing to rest on until he reached those feet again. They were tucked up under her, so that she was sitting on the hem of the robe. No point of entry.

  He was analyzing these features when suddenly the whole topography shifted. Julia had put her feet on the floor and was now standing up. As she did so, the robe fell open for a moment. She was wearing a thin cotton nightgown, and he could see the shapes and shadows of her body. It occurred to Dick that he had been married to Julia for fourteen years; when he had been married to Janet for fourteen years, such a sight would have slightly disgusted him, and not because Janet was a bad-looking woman at that time. But now, this glimpse—especially after all the crap of the long, awful, expensive day, after his lust had waxed so long, after putting up with this c
oldness—caused an eruption in his breast. Wouldn’t it be sort of right? With all the emotion of the day, the intensity, wouldn’t that propel them together?

  She gathered the robe up and retied it tightly, saying, “I’m awfully tired. I’m going to go to bed.” With one hand she collected from the table and compacted some bunched-up tissue, the plastic wrapper of a cigarette pack, foil from the brandy bottle, and the cardboard and plastic container that Dick’s new shoelaces had come in. She put those items in the ashtray, picked up both the ashtray and her glass, and began to move away.

  “How about a good-night kiss?” said Dick.

  Julia stopped. “Oh, of course, darling,” she said. “Sorry, you know. Just, so awful—”

  “A terrible thing.”

  He stood and drew her to him, and in the split second available he tempered his eagerness and chose the extra-dose-of-affection hug and kiss, a firm hug and a sweet, soft kiss and a long, firm hug again, rather than the ever-so-slightly-suggestive hug and kiss, the hug a little tighter, one hand a little lower on her back, the kiss a notch or two longer and wetter. During his embrace, Julia’s arms were spread out wide as she held the ashtray in one hand and the glass in the other.

  When they separated she smiled and moved off. She emptied the ashtray in a wastebasket and put it and the glass on a sideboard, on a tray with other glasses and an empty water bottle.

  “Good night,” she said, and walked into the bedroom.

  “Be in soon!” Dick called after her. Seen from behind, the thick, tightly cinched robe exaggerated the curve of her hips.