Go Naked In The World

by Chamales, Tom T. ;

  “I’ve been trying to get you,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, Nick. I had made plans before we met.”

  “Song of India” was playing on the radio and he stood there staring at the sun-brown shoulders against the white strapless bra, and at the back of her legs which seemed to stare back brownly at him.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  She stopped stirring a drink, then slowly turned around. Her hair cropped, shiny metallic black, glistened redly on top as a sun line seeping through slightly parted drapes touched it. She stood there looking at him.

  “Take off your clothes,” he said.

  Her eyes held his and she half-smiled. She didn’t hesitate, bringing up her leg and leaning over to take off the shoes

  “Not the shoes,” he said. “I want to see you tall.”

  She took off the bra and half-slip and stood there nude and not moving, and he noticed how she was breathing and realized suddenly that they were breathing in unison and he could hear his own breath.

  “I like you, Nick,” she said in that strange soft, yet somehow turbulent way, as if now she was talking with her breath instead of her voice.

  He started for her, finding it hard to believe that it was all real; finding it hard to believe that there really was such a woman as this one and wondering what he could do to please her for being the woman that she was.

  Strangely, they make the cocktail party at Raul’s a little after six. Nick was surprised to see Yvonne was there. Tuttle, and Tuttle’s bride-to-be stopped by Nick’s house on their way in from Barrington. When Tuttle had found out Nick wasn’t home, he suggested to Old Pete that Yvonne go to the party with them, and forgetting Nick had a date with Nora, told Old Pete Yvonne could come home with Nick. To Yvonne’s (and Mary’s) almost complete astonishment, Old Pete readily agreed and while Yvonne was upstairs dressing, Old Pete lectured to Tuttle and his bride-to-be on the pitfalls of marriage, and on the relationship of money and marriage, all of which the athletic Tuttle found to be quite educational.

  Yvonne was introduced to Nora. Nick could tell right away that Yvonne didn’t care much for her. Then Yvonne slipped away, and a few minutes later Nick saw Yvonne and Ellen the Fair standing near the bar having a martini and talking.

  There were quite a few older people there. Raul’s father was very drunk. And Raul’s mother had a clique of her friends from the Glencoe Little Theatre Group, of which she was one of the original organizers. This group stuck pretty much together, Nick noticed, talking with passionate artistic gestures about art as if life itself really didn’t matter as long as there was art around to talk about. Nick and Nora had half a drink with that group and politely drifted away.

  Nick did not drink much. He was rather disappointed that some of his old younger friends he had hoped to see either hadn’t been invited or weren’t back from the war as yet. They tried to avoid the older men and the discussions of World War I. And Nick tried to avoid the older men that he could tell were eyeing Nora. He stayed very close to her and would not leave her when Yvonne and Ellen came over to talk to them, even though he wanted very much to go to the men’s room.

  It was a nice enough party; very chic; very North Shore; very suburban. The bar was on the sun porch and the big yard was lit with Japanese lanterns and Nick must have heard Raul’s father say to at least ten people that he really wasn’t being unpatriotic using Japanese lanterns—the Japanese weren’t all bad. Anyone that had invented as colorful a lantern as these couldn’t really be all bad. He was very drunk, very happy, in a Benchleyan sort of way.

  “The All-American Boy-Man,” Nora said to Nick once while watching Raul’s father. “As if he doesn’t give a damn whether there’s a party going on or not. Either that,” Nora smiled, “or he acts like he’s the guest of honor rather than the host.”

  “If my wife ever brought a bunch of faggoty artists like that into my house,” Nick said, “that would be all she wrote.”

  “Yes, Greek-master,” Nora smiled. “Let’s leave soon.”

  “Sure,” Nick said. “Somehow, the party’s a bust. I mean there’s an awkwardness in the air. As if half the people don’t know what to say or how to act to the other half. Or that half the people are overly conscious of the way they act. Or are thinking about what they are going to say before they say it. Or that everyone has the feeling that everyone else is watching them.”

  “This is the kind of party where everyone ends up getting drunk,” Nora said.

  “I’m not going to get drunk.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I feel any more comfortable than anyone else.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell your sister that we’re going soon?” Nora asked. “She did ask you for a ride home, you know.”

  “She got here,” he said. “I’m sure she can get home all right.”

  They were in the yard near the tulip bed, and in the west the last of the twilight was disappearing in that dark, quiet, end-of-day way, and over beyond the Japanese lanterns by the bushes the fireflies danced and the thick green foliage dulled the sound of talking groups.

  “I don’t think your sister cared too much for me,” Nora said.

  “Of course she likes you,” Nick said. “I told you Yvonne s never been around much. She was frightened, that’s all. I know how she acts when she’s afraid.”

  “I don’t think she was afraid. I like her,” Nora said, then looked slowly around the yard. “Let’s get out of here,” she said with a sudden and obvious anxiety.

  “All right,” Nick said, but unhurriedly.

  “Now—Nick,” she said.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, concerned.

  “For Christ sake,” she said, “let’s leave.”

  “Of course, Nora. But is something wrong?” he asked, taking her hand.

  Her hand was rigid, and she glanced at him with an obvious contempt for a second, then opened her cigarette case and took out a cigarette and without giving him a chance to light it, lit it herself.

  “There’s an old friend of my husband’s over there.”

  “Where?—Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. And took her arm and without another word, without a goodbye to Raul’s family, they left.

  They stopped at a famous old steakhouse on 41 and had cocktails and dinner, and after the fine tender New York cut sirloin, ordered a stinger, and after Nick ordered the second stinger Nora excused herself and went to the ladies’ room, and when she came back she said, “Take me home after this one, Nick.”.

  “Home?” She had been very uncommunicative ever since they had left Raul’s house, but Nick was certain it was over the upset caused by seeing that old friend of her husband s, and he had been confident that a few drinks and dinner would cheer her up.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said. “Just take me home, Nick. I’m afraid I’m rather upset.”

  “Maybe you’d like to go to the Edgewater and dance,” he said.

  “Be nice, Nickie,” she said in a condescending mother-to-son tone. “Please. We’ve had fun. Don’t spoil it. We’ll have more.”

  “Fun,” he said, truly perplexed, and fingering the package of Chesterfields on the table. “Jesus, Nora, it’s more than that. At least as far as I’m concerned it’s more than that.”

  “You hardly know me,” she said pleasantly enough, but somehow he got the feeling that underneath she was toying with him. “You don’t know anything about me,” she said.

  “I know all I want to know,” he said.

  “Let’s talk about it some other time,” she said pleasantly “All right?”

  She saw his fingers grip on the cigarette package and saw the tight bunched force of his shoulders swell angrily under his khaki shirt and the angry welling of redness on the dark skin of the ancient young-old face and all trace of melancholy leave the eyes that were now quick angry dark, as dark, it seemed, as pitchblende, and, she thought suddenly, under the darkness
, as deadly as was pitchblende.

  “What’s wrong with right now?” he said because the terrible anxiety made him say it somehow, and he hated himself, suddenly, and hated her and it (the anxiety)—hated himself for succumbing as he had.

  She calculatingly put her cigarette out in the tray and looked up at him with such an unmitigated look of female frigidity that he was suddenly completely oblivious to whatever it was he had planned to say next.

  “Look, Nick,” she spoke composedly but nevertheless remotely. “I planned a nice evening too. I’ve a perfect right to change my mind.”

  Speechless, he stared at her in that sulking, bewildered yet violent way of a wounded animal. For a moment she couldn’t tell whether he was, like an animal, going to turn upon her, or run to seek refuge, or just remain there sulking and bewildered.

  “You got another date? Why don’t you say so—” he said. “Why don’t you come out and say it?”

  If I had, it wouldn’t be any of your business, would it, Nick? she said in that soft and composed way that still completely defied the frigid way that she held her head and moved her lips when she spoke and rested her hands on the table.

  Then suddenly he wasn’t thinking about anything that she had done or said, or that he had done or said, only that somehow for him it always ended up this way. Somehow just when he thought it was going to be different—somehow, some way, it was always taken away. And this time it wasn’t him that had taken it away—

  What right did she have to do what she had done? What right to make him believe as she had made him believe, then to do this to him—and suddenly he wanted to hurt her just as much as she had hurt and degraded him, and in the process, hurt and degraded, in a sense, he thought, all decency and human dignity by her infamous deception.

  “You’re like all the rest,” he said. “Just like all the rest.”

  “And what are you like?” she said suddenly not so composed.

  “You goddamm Catholic Polack son-of-a-bitch,” he said, slowly, deliberately.

  With that she knew that she had him, and knew that he knew he was now had, and all her composure returned, augmented by this new confidence.

  “Go ahead, Nick,” she said coldly and composedly. “Keep it up. Show me how very much you’re like all the rest—How foul-mouthed. Race prejudiced. Narrow—like all the rest. Go ahead and show me—now.”

  Ensnared, slowly, he took a slow drink, trying to take advantage of the Time, the very same Time that only moments before he had defied because he had decided that this thing must be resolved here and now, as if he had owned the one and only license to all Time.

  “I’m sorry, Nora. I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t mean that,” he said with a sudden desperation.

  “Keep talking, Nick,” she said. “Keep talking and you’ll see how very much you really are like all the rest,” she spoke composedly.

  “You don’t give a damn, do you?”

  “Are you asking me or telling me, Nick?”

  “Asking you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then you don’t,” he said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You mean after all that’s happened—and you don t give a damn,” he said. “My God, what kind of woman are you?”

  “You don’t own me, Nick.”

  “Christ, I didn’t say I did, did I?”

  “You didn’t say it. But you act that way.”

  He paused for a moment, running his hand through his hair perplexedly. “Yes,” he said defeatedly, “yes, I guess I have—Would you have one more drink here with me, Nora?” Would you?”

  “If you won’t act like this I will.”

  “I told you I was sorry,” he said. “I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You told me. Order up then. And pay the check.”

  He called for the waiter and ordered the drink and the check, then looked back at her.

  “I just want to know where I’m at—that’s all. You can’t blame me for that.”

  “You can’t know everything exactly when you want to know it, Nick. You know that by now. Certainly you’ve grown up enough to know that.”

  “I love you, Nora. For Christ’s sake, can’t you tell that I love you?” he said. It was only the second time in his life that he had ever told a woman that he had loved her, and he was surprised now that he had said it, and surprised at how easy it had been to say it. The first time he had been only thirteen, and the girl, eleven.

  “Maybe there are a few things I want to know, too,” she said. “Maybe your attitude’s really a little selfish. Did you ever think of that, Nick?”

  “I really am sorry for what I said, Nora,” he said. “You know damn well I didn’t mean that—don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t think you did mean it.”

  “Can we stop—I mean forget it. The whole thing. Like it never happened.”

  “It shouldn’t have started in the first place,” she said. “I only asked you to take me home. You knew I was upset.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, but now he was conscious of saying it and because he was conscious of saying it he somehow was forced to add his very best, most subtle-hound-dog look. “But you don’t know how I feel about you,” he said truthfully, the look evaporating.

  “Or me about you.”

  “I love you,” he said softly, reaching out for her hand. He took the hand which was frigid at first and then began to feel the life come into it. He could see from her mouth that she was about to say something and said “Nick,” softly, and up came the waiter with the fresh stingers and he had to take his hand from hers.

  She raised her glass. “Let’s forget,” she said.

  They toasted to that.

  “Maybe we could go to the Buttery or somewhere and talk,” he said. “I want to talk to you some place quiet.”

  “But you promised you’d take me home after this. Remember?”

  “Couldn’t we have just one drink at the Buttery or somewhere? Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “Not tonight. Please, Nick.”

  “Well, tomorrow then?”

  “I thought you had that dinner with your cousin. Gus the Goat, or whatever his name.”

  “I can call that off.”

  “That wouldn’t be fair, Nick.”

  “Gus wouldn’t mind,” he said.

  “I’m afraid not tomorrow, Nick.”

  “Tell me, will you, is there someone else?” he asked, the horrifying anxiety somehow making him ask, as if truly he had no control whatsoever over his own tongue. “Just tell me if there is.”

  “I told you once,” she said, “that if there was someone it wouldn’t be any of your business. And I don’t think it is your business any more now than it was a while ago.”

  “Then there is someone else,” he said frantically.

  She put her drink down abruptly. “I’m going right now,” she said. “Are you going to take me? or should I call a cab?”

  He was conscious now of the other people in the dining room and had the sudden feeling that everyone was watching them, and had been watching them, and wondered if anyone had overheard the way she had been talking to him. He put his drink down. She started to get up.

  “Jesus,” he said, “give me a chance to leave the tip.”

  She stood there looking down at him as he fumbled with the change then he got up and took her arm and walked out with her.

  In the car he asked her if she wouldn’t stop by the Buttery for just one drink and she said no that the way he was he would probably only start it all over again.

  “I’m sorry, Nick,” she said in that cold remote way of hers.

  He tried to hold himself together. Tried not to say anything, but somehow he had to say, “You do have a date, don’t you? You knew it all along, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “For Christ’s sake, tell me. Just tell me. And I won’t see you again. I won’t call—if you don�
�t want me to. But for Christ’s sake answer. Give me the courtesy of an answer, at least.”

  “No, I don’t have a date,” she said.

  Then he really felt like a fool.

  “Can I call tomorrow?” he said softly, subduedly.

  “If you like. I won’t be home most of the day though. Call about one. I should be up by then.”

  “All right,” he said, and pulled up in front of her place. “Can I come up for a minute? Just a minute,” he said.

  “Some other time, Nick. All right?” she said in that pleasant way she had of saying things.

  “I’ll walk you to the door,” he said.

  “No,” she said, and reached over and kissed him full and hard on the mouth and got out. “Goodnight, Nick.”

  He drove away. When he reached Michigan he decided to go back. She was lying to him, he felt. He parked the car around the corner from her apartment building and walked across the street from her building and waited in the shadows. He felt terribly humiliated and supposed that now she wasn’t even thinking of him. He hoped for a moment that he had really hurt her calling her what he had and that maybe she was upstairs there now in the apartment crying over it. Then again the picture came into his mind of her selling newspapers on the street comers of Gary when she was a little girl and he felt guilty for having said what he did, and guilty too for standing down here and waiting, and hoping in one way that she had told him the truth and was not going out, and hoping in another way that soon she would come down and go out so that he wouldn’t be such a fool for standing down here in the shadows spying on her.

  Spying? Spying, hell. He wasn’t spying, really. No, he was finding out whether or not she was telling the truth. He might as well find that out and get it over with. And if she was lying, if she didn’t have enough insides to tell him that there was someone else, he wouldn’t want her anyhow. Who the hell wanted to be married to a liar? To a woman you couldn’t really trust.—Well, not him. Maybe some men would give in to a woman like that, but not Nick Stratton.