Don't Rely on Gemini

by Packer, Vin

  Neal said, “Is that your sign?”

  “Thanks a lot … When did you decide I was materialistic and power-crazy?”

  “You wouldn’t say that about Joan of Arc,” said Archie Gamble, “and she was Capricorn.”

  “So’s President Nixon,” Dru Gamble answered, “and Barry Goldwater and J. Edgar Hoover; thanks anyway, but I’m a Cancer.”

  Neal said, “Which disciple was the Cancer?” “Dear old home-loving Andrew,” she said. “And who was the Virgo?” said Neal. “Virgo’s my wife’s sign.”

  “Philip was.”

  “Lyndon Johnson’s a Virgo, too,” said Dru Gamble, “and so is Greta Garbo … hey, I’m getting good. I think I’ll set up shop and give Mrs. Muckermann some competition.”

  “As if astrology didn’t suffer from enough ill repute,” Gamble said. “But let’s hear more from my ‘astro-twin.’ What do we have in common, Neal?”

  “I know one thing already,” she said.

  “What’s that?” Neal asked.

  “Neither of you mind freezing to death. I’m cold.”

  They took their drinks from the porch and moved inside.

  • • •

  By eight-thirty, Neal was getting crocked and hungry. He was planning to take them into Piermont for lobster at Sbordone’s, or they were planning to take him: Gamble insisted that dinner would go on his expense account. But both Gamble and his wife were nursing along the last drinks Neal had made them; Neal had the feeling they wanted him to agree to be on the show before they left the house.

  Gamble was balancing one of Neal’s yellow legal pads on his knee, making notes with a Pentel, while his wife stood near Sinister’s cage, trying to make the parrot talk.

  “He sings more than he talks,” Neal said, “but he’s unusually quiet tonight.”

  Eventually he would give Sinister away, but not for a long, long time. It would be an admission that he never expected to see Margaret again.

  Gamble said, “Well, so far, so bad. We ought to be able to find more in common than this.” He read from a list he had made. “We’re both only children. We’ve both been analyzed. We were both married for the first time in 1950. We’re both insomniacs. We bought the same type of Constitution mirrors at auction. We both smoke Trues. We’re both childless, and we’ve both lived in New York City most of our lives.”

  “And we were both Navy,” said Neal.

  “Yes, both Navy … Well, it’s not very hair-raising, is it?”

  Neal smiled. “Did you really think we’d have parallel lives?”

  “Hell no!” said Archie. “But I said a few prayers that I’d be wrong.”

  “Keep talking,” Dru Gamble said. “Maybe you’ll come up with more.” Then she gave Gamble a snide look and said, “Of course, there’s a certain new piece of information which we might include. Archie just found out about it last night.”

  “What’s that?” Neal picked up his own empty glass to fix himself a short one.

  Gamble said, “Nothing. It’s her liquor talking.”

  “Tell him what Liddy told you. Why not? Is it a secret?”

  Gamble put on a thick Southern accent. “Liquor get loose from de jug, it talk mighty loud.”

  Neal stood holding his empty glass. “Maybe we’ll do better if we get some dinner inside us.”

  “Yeah. Right,” Gamble agreed, but he only took a tiny sip from his drink. He said, “Hey, I forgot to put down your writing.”

  “I can’t pose as a writer, even if I do go along with this,” Neal answered. Should he go along with it, on the assumption he’d seem to be doing anything to get Margaret back?

  Gamble said, “If you’re going to write a book, it’s legitimate to point out the parallelism.”

  “I don’t even have a contract yet.”

  “And before you sign one,” Archie Gamble said, “you’re going to get an agent. I want you to have a talk with my agent, Neal.”

  Neal walked toward the kitchen for a refill.

  Dru Gamble was talking baby-talk to Sinister. “Want me to tell you a tecret, hmmm? I’ve got a tecret.” It was the same way Margaret used to talk to him.

  As the kitchen door was swinging shut behind him, Neal heard Gamble tell her to shut up.

  • • •

  Finally, around a quarter to ten, they were ready to leave. Neal and Archie were waiting outside on the porch while Dru used the bathroom.

  “What I don’t understand,” Neal said, “is why you don’t get a pair of real twins? I’ve read studies of twins who were separated in infancy: they lived in completely different environments, sometimes not even aware of each other’s existence, but their lives turned out to be shockingly alike. Their personalities and habits were, too.”

  “It just isn’t as dramatic,” Archie said. “Every television viewer isn’t a twin, but every television viewer has an ‘astro-twin.’ You see what I mean?”

  “Yes. I get it.”

  “Besides,” Gamble said, “real twins are often born ten, twenty or thirty minutes apart.”

  “Would that make such a difference?”

  “Supposedly it’d make all the difference.” Gamble took out a package of cigarettes. “If you’d been born at four in the morning, instead of three-thirty, you’d be a Gemini with Gemini rising.”

  “What am I now?”

  “We’re Geminis with Taurus rising.” He passed Neal a True and lit it for him. “The sign that’s rising at the time of birth is called the ascendant. Now, that great old wise woman, Mrs. Muckermann, tells me that the ascendant is as important as the sun sign. So Taurus is as important an influence in our chart as Gemini. You see?”

  Neal shook his head. “I pass.”

  “I know,” Archie Gamble laughed. “It’s all very involved. That’s why there are so many misconceptions and so little valid astrology.”

  “Is astrology valid?” Neal said. “You don’t even believe that.”

  “I don’t believe communism works either,” said Gamble, “but I understand its theories. That’s all that concerns me: knowing the subject.”

  “You have a reason. You have an assignment,” Neal told him. “What reason do I have to get involved in all this?”

  Gamble shook his head. “My first year out of college I was a salesman for a while. I was lousy at it.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette.

  “I can only think of one reason,” said Neal.

  “That’s a start.”

  “It’d make Margaret very happy.” Gamble didn’t say anything.

  Neal said, “I suppose you know that she was here Wednesday night? You probably heard her crying.” “Yes.” Gamble looked embarrassed. “We had quite an argument about it.” “I’m sorry,” Gamble said.

  “She’s away cooling her heels, and I’m beginning to weaken and think oh, what the hell, if it means that much to her.” He looked across at Archie Gamble in the moonlight. “It’s not going to kill me,” he said.

  CHAPTER 10

  A week later Mrs. Muckermann was due for dinner at six; at five Dru was in the kitchen lining up the ingredients for spaghetti carbonara when the doorbell rang. A glance through the peephole revealed Mrs. Muckermann’s round blue right eye.

  “It’s me, sweetie, I’m early.”

  Under her breath Dru murmured, “Are you ready for this?”; she hadn’t bathed or shaved her legs or had any rest since lunch. She took the chain off the door and opened it.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind,” Mrs. Muckermann said. “You don’t, do you, Druscilla?”

  “I’m just surprised,” Dru managed.

  Mrs. Muckermann entered waving a bunch of rhododendron leaves. “These will look nice on your table,” she said confidently, “and I bought some white wine I saw on sale at Penthouse Liquors.” She thrust the packages at Dru. “Put the wine in the fridge, dear, so it’ll be cold for dinner.”

  Dru felt perversely angry at the realization that white wine would go well with spaghetti carbonara; she went to
do as Mrs. Muckermann directed, and Mrs. Muckermann tagged along behind her.

  “Is Archie working?” “Yes. He’s in his study.”

  “Good. We can have a little talk by ourselves.”

  “I’ve got to take a bath at some point,” Dru said, “but Archie will probably be finished soon.”

  “Let him work as long as he wants to, dear. We can go right on talking while you’re in the tub. I’ll give your back a scrub for you.”

  “Actually, I was going to shower,” said Dru.

  “Shower away then. The steam will be good for my complexion. It opens the pores.”

  Dru found a vase for the leaves, and Mrs. Muckermann took it out of her hands and arranged them on the coffee table.

  “Do what you have to do,” she told Dru. “Just step over me if I’m in your way.”

  “What I have to do is sit down and have a cigarette,” Dru said. “I’ve been on my feet all day.” She flopped full length on the couch while Mrs. Muckermann settled herself in the Boston rocker.

  Mrs. Muckermann said, “Maybe your brassiere is too tight, Dru.” “Huh?”

  “That could be making you tired. You know, the breasts correspond to Cancer, so you Cancers are particularly sensitive there. You should not bind your breasts too tightly.” Mrs. Muckermann reached in her bag for a stick of Juicy Fruit. It was her habit when others smoked to chew gum.

  Dru said, “I don’t have a bra on.”

  “Then maybe you should put one on. Your breasts need more support than others; Cancers need a lot of support there.”

  “Mrs. Muckermann,” said Dru. “I’m a thirty-two-A.” “Maybe you’re just tired, dear,” Mrs. Muckermann agreed. For ten minutes Mrs. Muckermann complained that there were nothing but Italian restaurants in the Gramercy area—six that she could count—and crankily Dru argued back that there was Yen King and Molly Malone’s Pub, and the Hearthstone, and Joe King’s Rathskeller. Mrs. Muckermann said she couldn’t see herself enjoying dinner in Joe King’s with all the beer-drinking college boys singing bawdy songs at the top of their lungs, and Dru thought to add that there was also the Old Forge steak house and the Gramercy Hotel.

  “I’m not going to eat in my own hotel night after night,” said Mrs. Muckermann.

  “How about Max’s Kansas City on Park,” said Dru, amusing herself with the idea of Mrs. Muckermann sitting down to a steak amidst the yippies and the hippies and the jukebox roaring out rock.

  Mrs. Muckermann said, “I don’t know anything about it.” “Try it,” said Dru.

  “But what I really want to talk about,” said Mrs. Muckermann, changing the subject, “while Archie isn’t present to hear, is where Mars, Neptune and Leo are right now in Archie’s chart.”

  “I suppose they’re up to no good,” said Dru.

  “Dear, they’re in the Fifth House,” Mrs. Muckermann said.

  “I’ve forgotten what that means.” Dru had planned to fix a small antipasto to precede the spaghetti: salami, prosciutto, hot peppers and radishes served with grissini. She stretched her arms and decided to drop the antipasto from the menu.

  “The Fifth House,” said Mrs. Muckermann, “is the house of speculation, hopes, pleasures, schools, property values, and offspring.”

  “You mean we’re going to get a rent increase? Lose hope? Our stocks are going down—not Occidental Petroleum again; what?”

  Mrs. Muckermann said, “No, it’s not bad. It’s good!”

  Dru debated whether it would be better for the world if Mrs. Muckermann had had children, in which case she’d stay off Dru’s back about them, or whether it was better that Dru bear the cross and the world was spared little Muckermanns.

  Mrs. Muckermann said in a conspiratorial tone, “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, dear?”

  “We’re going to win the lottery. Right?”

  “Dru, do I have to spell it out for you? B.A.B.Y.”

  “N.O,” Dru said, “T.H.A.N.K.S.”

  Mrs. Muckermann’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t want a baby?”

  Dru used her wits. “With that Mercury-Saturn opposition in his chart, and the moon and Mars in a square?”

  “Is that what’s stopping you?” Mrs. Muckermann clapped her hands together. “I thought you had misgivings for some reason. I’ve never met a Cancer yet who didn’t long to be a mother … Dru dear, those aspects won’t affect a baby; you must remember—“

  While she was talking, Archie came out of his study behind her, saw her, made the motion of shooting himself through the head, and turned to go back inside.

  Dru said, “Hi, darling! All finished work for the day?”

  He hid the fist he was shaking at her as Mrs. Muckermann turned around to greet him. “Good evening, Archie.”

  “Don’t let me interrupt anything,” Archie said. “I was just going to get a beer and go right back to work.”

  “You do that,” said Mrs. Muckermann.

  Now it was Dru making signs behind her back: Help! Please!, with her hands fixed in a suppliant gesture of prayer.

  “I’ll see you later,” Archie said, and Dru got up and blocked his entry to the kitchen.

  She gave his cheek a hard pinch and said in a saccharine voice, “I want to get your beer for you, Arch. I’ll bring it in to you.”

  When she did, Archie was sitting at his typewriter imitating Professor Higgins, singing: “I think you’ve got it! By God, you’ve got it!” He ripped a sheet of paper from the machine. “You want to hear it?”

  “Archie, damnit, she’s your guest! I want to take a bath.”

  “You should have thought of that when you first walked up and said hi-yah to that nace old lady in you’alls nace pravit pock over to Gram’cy Squa-yah.”

  “It’s your show, Archie!”

  “Is it my paycheck, or your paycheck?”

  “Please!”

  “That’s good. Now try to put a little more sincerity into it.” He came across and put his arms around her. “I’ll entertain her, honey. But listen to this opener, hmm?”

  “Okay.”

  “Somewhere out there, watching this program with you,” Archie read, “is your ‘astro-twin.’ He was born the same year you were, on the same day, at the same time. Is your hobby painting? His probably is, too. Do you like modern furniture? He probably does, too. Have you got three children? I’ll bet he has three, too. And right this minute if you’re sitting there thinking ‘Rubbish,’ he’s undoubtedly echoing that inner thought. The subject? Astrology. Part I. ‘Astro-twins.’ Yours … and as you’ll see for yourself tonight, mine.” Archie threw the paper back on his desk. “That’s just a rough draft, but that’s how I want to open. Like it?”

  Dru said, “Except for one thing: Mrs. Muckermann won’t like the ‘rubbish’ bit. It’s too negative. Can’t he be thinking something positive?”

  He said, “You’re right … Then I’ll just lead into the fact I never knew Neal before I started researching the subject of ‘astro-twins,’ and how much alike we are and blah-blah, blah-blah.”

  She said, “And how you’ve both been married for nineteen years,” sorry she had said it immediately after the words were out.

  He threw up his hands. “Go win!” he said. “Goddamnit, I knew I shouldn’t have told you one damn thing about what Liddy wanted the other night. Now, I knew that. All the way home I was fixing the old zipper good across my mouth because I knew somehow it’d all turn out to be my fault!”

  What Liddy had wanted was to inform Archie that their divorce three years ago was illegal. Liddy had gotten it in Mexico, in her hurry to marry Moneybags, and Moneybags’ lawyers had discovered it shortly after he had discovered someone to whom he would rather be married than dear lovely Liddy.

  Dru said, “I take it back, Arch. I’m sorry.”

  “I know you’re always sorry after, but you just can’t stop! You can’t drop it!”

  “I’m not as nonchalant as Liddy, I guess.”

  Archie heaved a sigh. “She’
s not nonchalant about it at all! She’s in a hurry to remarry, and she can’t until we straighten this out!”

  “Mrs. Muckermann’s in there hell-bent on my having a bastard,” Dru said. She laughed. “Oh, Arch, come on: I promise not to needle you any more … I like living in sin! I feel like a hippie.”

  He gave her a thoughtful look. She was wearing her old shorts and one of the button-downs with the sleeves cut off at the elbows, and she was barefoot. He said, “You look like something from over Avenue A way. How are things in Tompkins Square Park? Get any good grass lately?”

  “I’m trying to get to the tub.”

  “That’d be a start.” He smiled. “Go on. I’ll make out with Anna Awful while you’re in the suds.”

  “Speaking of suds,” she said, “that’s the last beer. You’ll have to call Arnold’s if you want more.”

  Then she said, “Arch?”

  “Hmmmm?”

  “I’ve been thinking. I feel so sorry for Neal.” “So do I. And I also feel we’d better return those letters and the diary.”

  “He’s so crazy about her, Arch. It’d kill him. Let him believe she’s in a snit about the show. She wants him to believe that!”

  Archie took a swallow of beer. “She’s obviously gone off on a little trip with Golden Boy. I don’t think she’s coming back right away. I’d want to know if you were off camping with a lover.”

  “Oh how we camped,” Dru sang, “on the night we were wed … No, dum-dum, we aren’t returning the letters and the diary. What a short memory you have. You hated it when Bob Towers told you Liddy was playing around, and you hated Bob Towers for being the one to tell you. You haven’t been friends with him since!”

  “Somebody was bound to tell me eventually,” Archie said.

  “And Neal will find out eventually, too, probably. But if he learns about it through us,” she said, “good-bye ‘astro-twin.’ He’d hate us, Arch!”

  “Touché,” he said. “With your brains and my looks, honey, we’re going to the top of the ladder.”

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” Dru said, “why don’t we have Neal in on your birthday.”

  “What?”