by Max Shulman
But he was already rushing from the room. “I’ll be dressed in a minute, Mrs. Shapian,” he called as he disappeared.
“Strong-minded boy,” said Polly.
“Yes,” said Boo.
“How old? About eighteen?”
“That’s right. Eighteen.”
“Uh-huh,” said Polly. “Is there a cigarette in that box?”
“Polly, stop turning your head away. Look at me.”
“What for?”
“We have to talk—honestly, openly, woman-to-woman.”
“Who says so?”
“Will you look at me?” cried Boo. “I know you know about Gabriel. You knew the minute you saw him.”
“So?”
“So what do we do now? Pretend there is no Gabriel? Pretend I never did you this great, unforgivable wrong?”
“That is exactly what we do,” declared Polly, facing Boo squarely. “I don’t know whether there’s a statute of limitations on adultery, but if there isn’t, there should be. Gabriel happened eighteen years ago. I sure as hell don’t intend to start making waves at this late date.”
“You mean you are able to forgive me?”
“I mean it doesn’t signify any more.”
“And what about Ira? Can you forgive him too?”
Wrath suddenly kindled Polly’s eyes. “Ira is my business!” she spat.
“You’re quite right,” said Boo contritely. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” said Polly, all anger gone. “Excuse me for snapping at you. But it’s a plain fact: Ira is my business. I have been, God help me, in the Ira business for more than twenty years. It’s not what you’d call a fun business, but, on the other hand, it’s the only business I know, and I don’t propose to close up shop now on account of something Ira did back in his impetuous youth.”
“You are a woman of great wisdom,” said Boo sincerely.
“I am a woman—period. Sure, I can be big about what happened eighteen years ago. But if I should find out that you and Ira are still shacking up—well, I don’t know exactly what I’d do. Nothing out of a Noel Coward comedy, I promise you.”
“Are you saying you suspect that Ira and I are still lovers?”
“I suspect nothing, and that’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed married. I simply take it as an article of faith that Ira is true to me. I know now he had a fling with you, but he came home, didn’t he? And possibly he’s taken an occasional jump on one of those eager young starlets who infest Hollywood. I doubt it, but maybe he did. So what? What’s it got to do with me? All I need to know is that Ira comes home. He always has; I believe he always will.”
“I see. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”
“That’s one way to put it. Here’s another: marriage is a very fragile structure, and the foundation stone is called trust. Chip away at the foundation, and the whole thing comes tumbling down.”
“In your opinion, then, a wife should see no evil.”
“As long as she possibly can—yes. There is, of course, a breaking point. It’s no good holding a husband at the cost of your own self-respect.”
“You truly are wise, Polly,” said Boo with admiration. “I suppose it’s not possible for us to see one another again?”
“You suppose right, Boo. So good-bye, and thanks for the tea, and tell the kid with the runny nose I’m ready to go home.”
“I’m here,” said Gabriel, appearing fully dressed in the doorway. “Is that how you think of me, Mrs. Shapian, as a kid with a runny nose?”
“I’m sorry, Gabriel,” said Polly. “I meant no offense.”
He nodded. “My car’s right in front,” he said.
Polly went outdoors with him, got into a low-slung, handmade sports car. For a time Gabriel drove in silence. Then, sadly, he said, “But that is your image of me, isn’t it? Just a kid with a runny nose.”
Polly groaned. Her back was already overloaded with bundles of traumas; what she particularly did not need at this moment was to take on the added burden of an adolescent’s funk. “Gabriel,” she said patiently, “you’re a very nice boy and I’m sure in the fullness of time your nose will stop running.”
“Boy,” he said bitterly. “You call me boy. You call me kid. Never mind that I’ve got the third highest I.Q. in all history. To you I’m just a boy, a kid!”
“Gabriel, why should it matter what I think of you?”
“Why should it matter?” he shouted wildly. “Are you blind? Can’t you see?”
“See what?”
“It happened the minute I met you. One look and I knew—I knew! Oh, God, how happy I was! Do you know that I’ve been trying to find a mate for years and years? And for years and years I’ve been striking out. I kept thinking there was something missing in me. ‘Face it,’ I told myself. ‘When a man has an intellect like yours, he’s bound to be deficient in other areas. Face it: you are an emotional inadequate.’… Only I never quite believed it. I couldn’t stop feeling that when the right person came along, this dormant thing inside me would all of a sudden blaze into life. And I was right! I saw you and—wham!—it happened! There and then! Wham! Zowie! Varoom!”
“Gabriel,” said Polly, enunciating slowly and carefully, trying to contain a horror that sprouted and spread, “tell me you’re not telling me what you seem to be telling me.”
“But I am! Sure, it sounds crazy, but it’s true. It happened the second we met; it’s happening right now. All I have to do is look at you, and I get this weird, tight, constricted feeling in my gut.”
“Maybe your pants are buttoned to your vest,” said Polly.
“You are very funny,” he said somberly.
“So laugh.”
“You are very funny,” he continued. “You are very witty and intelligent, and you are not too bad-looking, and for the first time in my life I feel I have found a woman with whom I can communicate on every level—cerebral, social, and sexual.”
“Stop the car!” yelled Polly. “Stop the car this minute, you nasty, snot-nosed kid!”
“Polly, listen to me!” he wailed and jammed the accelerator pedal to the floor.
“What do you mean, Polly? I am Mrs. Shapian, and don’t you forget it!” The car was careening at eighty miles an hour, but Polly’s voice, honed by outrage, cut the wind like a knife. “Slow down! Slow down immediately, do you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, biting his lip. He slowed to thirty miles an hour.
“Now pull over to the curb,” Polly ordered.
“Please, Mrs. Shapian,” he begged, “don’t get out. It’s not the way you think it is.”
“It better not be!” said Polly with a shudder. Good God! Cradle-robbing was infamous enough, but this was cradle-robbing cum incest! Exactly how incest applied to this situation, she was too distraught to reason out—probably not at all, if one were to get technical, but this was not the time, nor had Polly the inclination, to explore dialectics.
“Stop the car and let me out,” she said. “Now.”
“Mrs. Shapian,” said Gabriel humbly. “Mrs. Shapian, please, ma’am, let me talk for just a couple of minutes. I’ll drive slow and I won’t talk more than two minutes, I promise. Then, if you still want me to stop the car, on my honor, I will.”
Looking at the guilelessness of Gabriel’s face, at his liquid, vulnerable, dark eyes, Polly suddenly got the crazy feeling that it was one of her own twin sons beseeching her, and, as it always happened with her own boys, she could not find it in herself to say no. “Oh, all right,” she told Gabriel. “You’ve got two minutes. And drive slowly.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Shapian.”
“You now have one minute and fifty seconds.”
“Mrs. Shapian, I know you are a fine, decent woman who is old enough to be my mother, and I know you are married to a fine, decent man who is old enough to be my father—”
Polly caught her breath sharply.
“And,” continued Gabriel, “I’m sure you love Mr. Shapian and he lo
ves you, and I surely don’t mean to suggest that you and I should have what they call an affair.”
“Hallelujah!” said Polly, dabbing her forehead.
“Even if you were to stop loving Mr. Shapian for some reason, or if he were to stop loving you for some reason, I would not insult you by suggesting that you and I should have what they call an affair.”
“Good, good, good,” said Polly.
“I would, however, ask you to marry me if you stopped loving Mr. Shapian or he stopped loving you.”
“That tears it,” said Polly. “Stop the car.”
“Please, ma’am, I still have almost a minute. I would, as I say, ask you to marry me, which may sound strange to you—”
“Oh, wondrous strange,” said Polly.
“Not really,” he replied. “Not when you consider my I.Q. Many people have been called geniuses in the course of history, and although there is much disagreement about who was and who was not, two men are accepted by almost everybody—Shakespeare and John Stuart Mill. Both these men, Mrs. Shapian, married women older than themselves. Don’t you find that interesting?”
“Not very,” said Polly, “and your time is up.”
“Not quite. I just want to say this in conclusion. I don’t have any real hope that you will stop loving Mr. Shapian or vice versa, so I regard it as highly unlikely that you and I will ever be married. As for what they call an affair, that, of course, is out. So, Mrs. Shapian, though I love you deeply and forever—”
“Oh, hush!” said Polly crossly.
“It is true. Deeply and forever. But I ask only this: will you please be my friend?”
A sharp answer came to Polly’s lips but faded abruptly as she saw the plea in Gabriel’s eyes. “You are a very difficult boy,” she said helplessly.
He nodded. “I know. The I.Q. of a superman; the social grace of a clod. You are the first woman who has ever wakened my heart.”
“Damn you, Gabriel,” said Polly as she felt the tears start down her cheeks.
“Shall I pull over to the curb?”
Polly resolutely blinked back her tears. “No, drive me to the Stonewall Jackson Hotel—slowly. And shut up while I talk.”
“You’re not mad any more?”
“Eyes front. Mouth closed. Ears open,” said Polly sternly. “Gabriel, I cannot be your friend. To give you the simplest reason, I’ll only be in Owens Mill three weeks and then I go back to Hollywood.”
“I’ve thought of that,” said Gabriel. “No problem. I can transfer to Cal Tech. In fact, they begged me to come out there after I published my paper on miniaturization. Do you know, Mrs. Shapian, that I can make a parabolic microphone that will fit on the head of a pin?”
“I am delighted to hear it. Truly delighted,” said Polly. “Because that solves everything. You stay home and make those cute, teensy microphones and keep your mother company and go to Acanthus College and someday soon—I guarantee it—you will meet a fine, intelligent girl your own age and get married and live happily ever after.”
A crooked, mirthless smile appeared on Gabriel’s face. “You were crying before, Mrs. Shapian, and for a minute I thought maybe you cared about me a little bit. But I’m wrong; I see that now. To you I’m just the kid with the runny nose.”
“In a minute you might be the kid with the bloody nose,” said Polly with a rush of annoyance. “Doesn’t that mighty I.Q. of yours work anywhere except on miniature microphones?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“It sure doesn’t. Gabriel, the answer is no. N-O. No, we cannot be friends—not in Owens Mill, not in California, not anywhere, not ever. Do you hear?”
“I hear, but I can’t believe you would be so cruel to me.”
“Here, thank God, is the Stonewall Jackson Hotel. Stop the car. Thank you for the ride. Good-bye. Forever.”
“Mrs. Shapian,” said Gabriel as she stepped out of the car, “I will die if I don’t see you again.”
Polly looked hard at him, clenched her teeth, whirled on her heel, and strode into the lobby. “Any messages?” she asked the desk clerk.
“No, ma’am,” he answered. “But Mr. Shapian is upstairs in the suite. He got here about ten minutes ago.”
Aha! thought Polly. So he knows I’ve met Gabriel and the cat is out of the bag. So, like a naughty kid who’s earned a spanking, Ira has come home early to get it over with fast.… Well, sorry, old man, I will not put a hairbrush to your swarthy bottom. You keep your guilt; I intend to keep my husband.
“Will you please send up a bottle of vodka and a bottle of vermouth?” said Polly to the desk clerk.
“Mr. Shapian already ordered it,” said the clerk.
“Splendid,” smiled Polly, and still smiling went upstairs and entered the suite. “Hello, darling,” she said airily and brushed Ira’s cheek with her lips. “Have a good day?”
“Fine,” said Ira, watching her closely. “How about you?”
“Oh, most enjoyable,” she said, widening her smile. “Does this old parched nose detect martinis in that pitcher?”
“Want one?” asked Ira, his wary eyes steady on Polly.
“Love it.”
He poured a drink, handed it to her, and resumed his watchful waiting.
She sipped her drink. “Mmm, good,” she pronounced. “Well, it sure was pleasant to see Virgil again. He doesn’t change much, does he?”
“Not much. Does Boo, do you think?”
“No,” said Polly, looking innocently at Ira. “Boo is Boo—beautiful, patrician, gracious.”
“What did you think of Boo’s son?” asked Ira. His eyes were locked with Polly’s now—a duel of inscrutability.
“Gabriel? Nice boy. Very intelligent. Courteous, too. He drove me home.”
“So you got a good look at him.”
Polly shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Notice anything special?”
“Only that he’s a bright kid,” she said casually. “Well, Ira, what do you want to do tonight?”
“I will tell you exactly,” replied Ira, for, indeed, he knew exactly. When a man has just been stabbed with the sneakiest weapon in the entire arsenal of female cutlery—to wit: forgiveness—there is only one possible course of action open to him. “What I want to do tonight,” said Ira, “is to get slowly, carefully, thoroughly, painstakingly, scientifically, systematically, and heroically drunk.”
“I’m with you, sweetheart,” said Polly and handed him her glass for a refill.
Chapter 15
Polly and Ira woke the next morning with hangovers that made death seem like a month in the country. Thereafter, out of regard for their livers and eyeballs, they reduced their alcohol intake to submorbid levels. But drink they did. Each day Ira went to the campus and worked hard on the television show, while Polly lunched with Virgil. Sometimes there were just the two of them, sometimes they were joined by the better talkers on the Acanthus faculty—most often Dr. Silenko and Linden-Evarts. Then, each night, Polly and Ira met in their suite and ingested martinis until they could commune sociably, if not amorously.
Thus passed twenty days. Ira worked prodigiously, lushed amply, dwelt in a state of truce with his wife, and achingly refrained from phoning or visiting Boo. Labor plus vodka combined to keep his life tolerable—miserable, to be sure, but tolerably miserable.
At 9 A.M., December 18th, the day the Acanthus telecast was to go on the air, Clendennon arrived in Owens Mill with Dr. Andrew McAndrews. From the airport they went to the campus and located Ira in the impromptu tv studio he had caused to be built in the Acanthus gymnasium.
Lined up against all four walls of the gym, somewhat like the booths in a church bazaar, were the sets. In the center of the floor stood a jungle of cameras, microphones, lights, and sound equipment. A large, shiny van—in fact, a converted house trailer—was parked alongside one wall. This was the control booth. Along the front ran a window; inside were three small tv sets—monitors, as they are called—and a console studded with dials a
nd switches. From this console the technical director and his staff would regulate the shooting and transmission of the show. Behind the console were two rows of easy chairs where important personages from the sponsor, the network, and the agency could sit in comfort and watch the show on the monitors. And everywhere in the gym technicians were building, painting, adjusting, testing, yelling, and running to Ira with their problems.
Ira was adjusting a heated dispute between his cameraman and his engineer when Clendennon, carefully leading Dr. McAndrews through a thicket of equipment, came into view. “Excuse me, Ira,” he said apologetically. “May I interrupt you?”
Ira, preoccupied with his warring technicians, looked at Clendennon and almost failed to recognize him. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Yeah. Wait a couple of minutes. I’ve got to get this settled.”
“Of course,” murmured Clendennon and stepped back while Ira handed down his judgment and sent the cameraman and engineer, both unsatisfied but at least docile, back to their jobs. Then Ira turned to Clendennon.
“How good to see you again, Ira,” said Clendennon with a pleasant smile and a correct, unfulsome handshake. Ira shot him a curious glance. No chickie-baby? No doll buggy? No parade of teeth? No effusive palpation of shoulder and nape? Why the disguise? wondered Ira.
“This,” continued Clendennon in a tone respectful yet unservile, “is Dr. Andrew McAndrews.”
Ira looked at the newcomer and understood at once the reason for Clendennon’s false-face. McAndrews was definitely the wrong type to chickie-baby. It was not that the old doctor lacked humor; laugh lines were deeply etched around his mouth and the twinkle of wit stood plainly in his eyes. But even more plain was his authority. It was clear at first sight that here was a man patient, polite, even courtly; but what he knew, he knew, and he would not suffer fools.
“I can’t tell you, Doctor, how pleased I am to have you on this program,” said Ira. He offered McAndrews his hand and received, in return, five strong, clean fingers that could, with equal assurance, build a stone fence or suture a bile duct.
“The pleasure is all mine,” said McAndrews, and on his lips the tired old phrase seemed new and true.
“Now, sir, your opponent tonight is Dr. Clara Silenko—a formidable woman, as I’m sure you found out when the two of you were on the Surgeon General’s panel.”