by Packer, Vin
Nine-two.
He crouched on the tree limb and watched helplessly while Penny drove the Ford Falcon up the hill.
“Minnie! Mrs. Nickerson!” His anguished cries were futile, as they had been when he had tried to make Penny hear him while she approached the turn. Every time he opened his mouth, the Doberman opened hers. He was treed like a cat.
Margaret would know everything the minute she saw Penny. Even if he were able to dream up some sort of reason for Penny’s arrival at the house, on the very night Margaret had her class, there was no way he could predict what words the two of them would exchange.
He was trapped.
The funny thing was, it was Margaret he was most worried about now. As controlled, as consistent and steady as she was, there had been that period three years ago when she had gone to pieces. There had been no infidelity involved, but she had seemed obsessed with the idea Neal didn’t want her, that he would like a divorce. It was understandable. The doctor had just told Margaret she should abandon the idea of having children.
“I’m not good for anything,” was the remark she made most often during that time.
Then she had gone to Bucks County to stay with her mother. It had taken Neal six months to talk her into returning.
Remember those six months?
They were the most wretched months of his life. My God how he had missed Margaret!
What kind of convenient amnesia had overtaken him that he could forget that?
He sat there in the tree, suddenly unable to remember Penny Bissel’s face.
Then he saw Minnie Nickerson’s porch light turn on.
“Kendal? Kendal?” she called.
The dog gave a whine and danced nervously around the tree.
“Kendal! Come on, girl! Come!”
The dog barked, moved away from the tree, then came back.
Minnie Nickerson clapped her hands. “Hurry, Kendal! Hurry!”
Now the dog began to lope across the lawn. He stopped once, looked back at the tree, and then obediently continued toward her mistress.
Neal Dana slid down the tree trunk. When his feet touched ground, he ran.
• • •
Margaret’s voice, shrill, from the upstairs landing.
“… stupid! Deceiving yourself this way, humiliating yourself this way, without any semblance of character or integrity; cheap, CHEAP!”
“Shut up! You shut up!” Penny was up there with her.
As Neal crossed the living room, running, shouting Margaret’s name, he heard her scream, “No, I won’t shut up! Face what you are—cheap, CHE—“
Then the lightning crack of flesh being slapped, followed by the thunderous sound of someone falling backward, down the stairs.
It was Margaret’s body that bounced and rolled toward Neal, Margaret’s head that hit the marble-topped bench on the landing, and her blood on Neal Dana’s hands, soaking into his shirt as he gathered her to him.
Her eyes were open, staring into his, as lusterless as the eyes of a fish on the end of a hook.
CHAPTER 5
’76 House had all the charm of an old Colonial inn. It was conducive to drinking, crowded, and the service was slow. Archie and Dru polished off three martinis apiece before dinner, instead of the usual two apiece.
“I’ve been thinking about what I’ll write when I finish this show,” Archie said after they were served their filet mignons. “Maybe nonfiction for a change.”
“As distinguished from the fiction of astrology.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe that thing I’ve always wanted to do on symbiotic relationships.”
“This meat doesn’t have much flavor. I’m sorry,” Dru said.
“It’s not your fault. Filet mignon never does.”
“You had your heart set on a nice juicy steak, too.”
“Do you remember my idea for the study of symbiotic relationships, honey?”
She glanced meekly at him. “I don’t even remember what symbiotic means.”
“Symbiosis,” said Archie, “literally means the living together of two dissimilar organisms when their association is mutually beneficial. But what I’m interested in is two people collaborating—people who can’t do whatever it is they do for a living alone.”
“Then why don’t you just say collaborating? Why do you have to drag in this symbiotic business?”
Archie intoned, “And in accepting this Pulitzer, I must mention my wife’s unquestioning support, her patience in listening to my ideas, and her remarkable attention span.”
“Thank you, gentlemen of the press, I’d like to mention my husband’s paranoia,” said Dru, buttering a roll.
“Plain old collaboration is an oversimplification,” Archie said. “I’ve collaborated a few times myself. But it isn’t my way of life. I’m talking about people like Laurel and Hardy, Gilbert and Sullivan, the two men who write under the name Ellery Queen. People like that.”
“Lerner and Loewe.”
“Right. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Abbott and Costello—”
“You could even include criminals: Loeb and Leopold.” “Or spies,” Archie said, “Burgess and Maclean.”
“Explorers: Lewis and Clark.” “I’d call it Two by Two. That’s a good title.” Dru said, “How about Simon and Garfunkel?” “They’re good. You see, it’d be interesting to discover why it is some people need to be teamed up to succeed.”
“I love the title, Archie.”
“Thanks, love. And what their personal relationships are like. Gilbert and Sullivan disliked each other intensely—they never socialized.”
“How about Huntley and Brinkley?”
“Yes, and Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca—they never really came back after they split up.”
“Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy,” said Dru. She sang softly, “ ‘Rosemarie—I love you. I’m always thinking of you.’ “
Archie said, “Husband and wife teams: Lunt and Fontanne, the Durants, those mystery writers—what are their names? The Gordons.”
“Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton,” said Dru, “Archie and Liddy Gamble.”
Archie put down his fork and leaned on his elbows. “All right, love, blow your cool and get it over with.”
“I’m not going to blow my cool,” she said. “Eat!”
“That last martini quenched my appetite.”
“Well, I said the secret password. What’s my prize?”
“Why can’t you just let things drop?” said Archie.
“Why can’t she? She called Father Gamble, didn’t she?”
“You make him sound like a priest. I wish you’d stop calling him Father Gamble.”
Dru said, “In my family that’s what we call fathers-in-law.”
“Dad doesn’t like it, either,” said Archie.
“He just can’t stand to be reminded of his age. The only reason I’d like to have a baby is to make him a grandfather.” Dru stopped eating, too, and took out a cigarette.
Archie lit it for her. “What’s the time?”
“We’ve got time. I asked you a question, Archie.”
“It’s eight o’clock. We’ve got to get from here to Grandview in an hour and a half, and I don’t know the roads.”
“She called him, didn’t she?”
“Do you think she’d come back to New York and not call him? Liddy always liked Dad better than she liked me.”
“Aw. Poor Archie.”
“Knock it off, Dru. Okay?”
“Why should I?” she said.
The fight was on.
• • •
At a quarter to nine, Archie stopped outside Nyack so Dru could call Margaret Dana from a gasoline station pay phone.
“It’s all right if we’re late,” she said, getting back in the car. “It seems he’s gone out to buy some champagne.”
“Some ‘astro-twin,’ “ said Archie. “It’s the last thing I’d do if I were in his shoes.”
“No, Archie—he doesn’t know yet. He just knows he’s in for a surprise.”
“Why the champagne?”
“Some men are big spenders.”
Archie turned onto the highway. “That isn’t why I didn’t want you to have a brandy.”
“Then why say ‘the bill’s already over twenty-five dollars’? That’s what you said.”
Archie put his hand on her knee. “Because I’m chicken. I just didn’t want the argument to have any more fuel.”
She put her hand over his. “I’m sorry, Archie.”
“Let’s forget it.”
“Am I a bitch?”
“Huh uh.”
“She wouldn’t have blown her cool like that, would she?” Archie said, “The hell with what Liddy would do or wouldn’t do.”
“Do you mean that?” “I mean that.”
She let go of his hand and leaned back against the seat. “It’s nice in the country, isn’t it? I wish we could afford a place out here.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Archie said. “Maybe for the summer. Maybe the Danas might know of something for rent.”
“I’d love it!”
“It’d be good to get away from New York.”
• • •
Nyack was a tacky town. They both commented on it as they drove through, and Dru spoke of Sneden’s Landing, a nearby community supposedly filled with artists and writers and theater people.
“But that’s just what I’d like to get away from,” said Archie.
“Okay, love, we’re on Piermont Avenue now. This is supposed to turn into River Road, so keep your eyes peeled.”
“I wouldn’t like to live right next door to the Joneses, though, Arch.”
“How the hell are we different from the Joneses?” he said.
“We are, that’s all. You’ll never admit that. It’s reverse snobbery on your part.”
“I said, how are we different?”
“For one thing, we don’t have children.”
“That’s about the seventh time you’ve mentioned not having children tonight. I think you want them.”
“Them?” she said. “I don’t even want one.”
“How else are we different?”
“Oh, Archie, come off it!”
“You mean the fact we smoke opium and have orgies?” “You don’t go to work every day.”
“No. When I go into my study I look at dirty pictures for six hours.”
“You know what I mean. You’re creative.”
“That’s why I’m on my way to see my ‘astro-twin,’ “ Archie said, “because I’m creative. It hasn’t got anything to do with commercialism.”
“I don’t believe you. Tear you down, you’ll build yourself up. Build you up, you’ll tear yourself down.”
“There ought to be an in-between.”
“We’re on River Road, Arch.”
“Fine … Anyway, I don’t learn anything from living with artists and writers and theater people. We’re all too neurotic. No one wants to buy a book about neurotics.”
Dru rolled the window down and tossed away her cigarette. “You’re right. The best sellers are about normal people. The Exhibitionist, Myra Beckenridge …”
• • •
When they reached the turn, Archie slowed down. “I think this is it.”
“Archie, she said it’d be on the left.”
“We’re not coming from Piermont. We’re approaching it from the other direction, so it’s this right turn.”
“She said it was a very long hill. This doesn’t look like it leads up a long hill.”
“It does, though—there’s the sign.”
“Where?”
“Near that Ford Consul. See?” “Oh, Archie, remember our Consul?”
He made the turn. “I remember mine. It wasn’t ours. You wouldn’t marry me yet.”
“I thought you were an alcoholic. You drank an awful lot in those days.”
“Some hill! Jesus!”
“Be careful, Arch … Archie?”
“What?”
“Don’t have too much champagne, promise?”
“Oh, am I glad I reminded you of the old days!”
“We’ve got to come back down this hill, that’s all. And I know how you love champagne.”
“And Scotch, and gin, and vodka, and rum, and brandy.”
“But champagne more. You never think it’s affecting you until too late.”
“I’ll be good.”
“I don’t believe this hill! Are you ready for this hill?”
• • •
When they reached the top, Archie parked the Triumph under a tree beside a Ford Falcon. Next to it was a beige Volkswagen.
There were no outside lights; even the porch light was not on.
Dru said, “Thanks a lot for this enthusiastic reception. I can hardly hear anything over the noise of the brass band.”
“Maybe we’re in the wrong place.” He squashed his cigarette in the ashtray and looked over his shoulder at the house again. “Nobody seems to be running out to greet us.”
“Why don’t you go see if the Danas live here, darling? I’ll wait.”
Archie got out and walked across the gravel drive to the house. There was a screened-in porch at the front and Archie knocked on the door. No one came.
He tried the screen door—it was open—and went across the porch and tapped the brass knocker on the door to the house.
A few minutes passed before a man answered. He looked like a younger Joe DiMaggio, as tall as Archie was but with a receding hairline and a thinner build. Brown eyes, unsmiling.
What was the noise in the background?
“I must have the wrong house,” Archie apologized. “I’m looking for the Danas’.”
“This is the Danas’.”
The noise came from the upstairs of the house, a muffled sound.
“Is Mrs. Dana here? I’m Archie Gamble from New York.”
“She’s not here.” He didn’t have the door open very wide. He had the suspicious attitude of someone who was on guard for theft or a mugging.
“She was expecting me,” Archie said, and before he could add anything about Dru’s phone call to Margaret Dana less than thirty minutes ago, the man interrupted him.
“We weren’t expecting anyone. Mrs. Dana isn’t here.”
Then Archie knew what that sound was: it was a woman crying. Trying not to make noise—perhaps crying into a pillow, but crying audibly, nevertheless.
Archie decided not to pursue it. Whatever the situation had been thirty minutes ago, it was changed now; it was obvious Dru and he were unwelcome.
“I’m sorry I disturbed you,” Archie said, “but Mrs. Dana invited—“
“She isn’t here,” Dana repeated emphatically. And Archie gave him a quick salute. “Thanks for the trouble.”
The door was shut in his face.
“If you want my opinion,” Archie said as he started the car, “she sprung the surprise on him and they had a fight about it.”
“I don’t believe her!” said Dru. “She’d let us come all the way out here, and not even show her face!”
“Her makeup’s running, from the sound of things.”
“But Arch, over the phone she sounded so convinced everything would go smoothly. She said he was out buying champagne and he was in a very festive mood.”
Archie turned down the hill. “I have nothing but respect for him. I’m glad he’s my ‘astro-twin.’ If you’d pulled this on me without any warning, I’d be tempted to give you a good clout in the mouth, too.”
“He hit her?”
“How would I know? I didn’t see her.”
“You said ‘too.’ You’d be tempted to give me a good clout in the mouth, too.”
Archie said, “I don’t know what he did. I only know she’s upstairs crying.”
“He’s buying champagne one minute and chickening out the next. That sounds like you, all right. He probably wants
it all to himself.”
“In between minutes the poor guy learned his wife turned him in as an ‘astro-twin’ for a network TV show.” Archie laughed. “I was about as welcome as the man in the white coat who drives the wagon from the funny farm.”
“Moody!” Dru said. “He didn’t have to take it out on us!”
“I don’t think he did. I think he took it out on her.”
“Poor woman.”
“Oh, come on, Dru!” Archie said. “She must be some kind of a nut. Who’d bother with this stuff?” “Maybe they need the money.”
“Three hundred and fifty dollars? She knew that was all there was in it for him. Scale.”
“You’re beautiful,” Dru said. “One minute you tell me we’re no different from the Joneses, and the next minute you talk as though three hundred and fifty dollars wasn’t a lot of money to the average person.”
Archie said, “It’s a lot of money to me, too. But not enough to make me go on CBS as an ‘astro-twin.’ “
“If he’d have cooperated, you’d have had to go on.”
“Would you believe ten thousand three hundred and fifty dollars?”
“Archie,” she said, “what’s the matter with you? Why are we going so—“
• • •
The windshield was shattered by the impact as the car slammed into the tree. “Dru, are you all right?” “I think so.” “Get out!”
The radiator was smoking. “I can’t,” she said.
“Here, on my side.” He held out his hand and pulled her toward him. “Are you all right, darling?” she said. “Yes.”
“God, my God, I thought we were done for, Arch!” “The brakes just gave out.”
“Thank God for that tree,” Dru said. “We could have landed right in the river.”
“Let me get the flashlight.”
“Don’t, Arch, it looks like it’s going to blow up.”
“It’s all right.” He leaned inside and opened the glove compartment.
“Oh, Archie, our car! Look at our car!”
“Don’t be so commercial,” he said. “Be creative. What do we do now?”
“We go back up and use their phone.”
“No. We go down to the road and thumb a ride to a gas station.”
“Archie,” she said, “it’s their hill! They’re responsible!”
“Because we haven’t had our brakes checked in the last six months?”