Duplicate Keys
Page 31
It was then that she saw Henry’s back as he disappeared into the brush of the native plant collection. She didn’t think he had seen her, but she turned quickly and hurried toward the Japanese garden and the promenades of the greenhouse. About Henry she was also embarrassed, although it was the commoner embarrassment of having met kindness with rudeness, of having acted inconsistently and probably stupidly. Obviously it was only right to apologize to him sometime, and it would be all too easy to put off such an apology until the interval itself would amount to still another discourtesy. It now seemed bizarre that Henry had offered her such quick and passionate love only a few days ago. It probably seemed bizarre to him, too. It was marvellous in a way how completely her passion for him had been a part of the murder. At least, she didn’t feel it now. She surveyed the water lilies, not liking them particularly, but struck by the luminosity of the pale lavender ones. In the annual beds, varieties of marigolds, nicotiana, and begonias had been set out, just as they would soon be in her mother’s and grandmother’s flower gardens at home. Alice wondered if Henry had helped. She thought of Susan that morning, of her kindness that was merely kindness, and her toes curled with mortification. Still, such embarrassment was good if it served as a prophylactic against another abject relationship. Wasn’t it better, for the time being, to be loveless than to do it again a third time? She contemplated calling Jim Ellis for a moment, but finally didn’t want to do that either. That, too, was a relationship she was finally out of, that should be left to grow and branch and vine freely without even a shadow of her presence. And there was nothing exotic or especially interesting about it, after all, was there? It was just a marriage like millions of others. Jim’s most recent poems hadn’t even been concerned with it.
Alice wandered past the children’s garden and out the zoo entrance. She had begun to feel hungry enough to think of lunch, but not hungry enough to yearn for it. Still, there was a diner across the street.
Although the pastrami was lean and its juice had seeped tangily, with the mustard, into the fresh, warm rye bread, she pushed it away after the first half, wiped her mouth, and concentrated on her Coke. It had plenty of ice, and after sucking off all the sweet syrup, she began to crunch the pieces of ice one by one. The waitress came by and offered her dessert, but she shook her head and pointed to the sandwich. “Take that, too. It’s good, but I’m just not hungry.” She smiled, and the waitress smiled back at her. She looked out the window and wondered what to do with the rest of the afternoon. It was only three-twenty.
Behind her, Henry’s voice said, “I thought that was you. What are you doing out our way?” Without an invitation, he sat down. He was carrying a cup of coffee. Alice said, “No lunch?”
“I ate around eleven.”
“I was in the garden, actually. I didn’t see you.”
“You must have seen the roses.”
“They’re lovely.” He was wearing dirt-covered overalls and he saw her looking at them. He seemed, after all, very familiar, and their affair, though dreamlike in retrospect, bore all the self-consciousness and constraint of a real and no longer new relationship. Alice said, “I ought to apologize—”
“Me, too.”
The last thing Alice wanted Henry to do was apologize. She said, “What for?”
He looked at her, not exactly enthusiastic about going on. “Well. For being pushy, like you said.”
“I don’t know that I said that very seriously. Besides, I hang back more than most people do, I think. And why apologize for being the way you are? I’m sorry for something much more concrete. I stood you up and slighted you and was rude and stupid.” As she spoke, a wave of real regret passed over her.
“It’s worse, though. I’ve been pushy before. Every time, in fact. I’ve had this habit of pushing people toward commitments and then sort of going blank after they were made. This made me realize it.”
“Well, I—”
“I was angry with you. I did feel slighted and foolish and disappointed.”
“I’m sure you did. I—”
“I don’t feel that way any more.”
“I’m glad, but you shouldn’t anyway. Someday I’ll tell you all about it. Not now. Maybe in November.” Alice smiled, feeling rather impish.
Henry shifted in his seat and peered uncomfortably in his coffee cup. Unable to resist, Alice went on. “You said that you loved me.”
Henry’s face turned a decided shade of red, and it was Alice’s turn to peer into the bottom of her glass. Finally, he said, “Can I, uh, take it back?”
Alice’s smile broadened. “You know what? All things considered, even those you don’t know about, I rather wish you would.”
“You do?”
“Consider it never said.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
“I guess I don’t want you to, either.” Alice’s ice was now gone, but they seemed permanently seated. She wondered what they would talk about next. Henry said, “In November, I’ll probably be living in Brooklyn. I’ve been looking for a place. I may even buy something.”
“What about your trip to China?”
“Actually, I withdrew my application. I decided that putting it in had been just a habit. New York is really pretty interesting.”
“Are you speaking sociologically?”
“Not at all. You could spend years studying parts of the Bronx, and more years out in Jamaica Bay. Speaking botanically, a lot has happened here, and rather quickly, too. The hand of man has been heavy, but pretty obvious. Europeans tend to stampede through the china shop in a destructive rush, but they always leave shards and scraps and untouched corners. There aren’t any untouched corners in most of the Orient, and the shards and scraps have been put to use long ago. I’m ready for years of weekly field trips, I think.”
“May I go along sometimes?”
“Of course.”
The waitress came by with the coffeepot, but Henry waved her away. When she gestured toward Alice’s empty glass, Alice shook her head. Still, though, they couldn’t seem to stand up. Henry sighed. “We aren’t very well suited, are we?”
“No.”
“I—” He stopped.
“But we’d be good for each other’s faults.”
“You mean my rushing into things.”
“Yes, and my never seeing things. Besides.” Alice smiled, but did not go on. After a moment, Henry smiled, too. “Yes,” he said. “There is that!” In a moment, they stood up. As they left the restaurant, his arm came around Alice’s shoulders, and he squeezed. Alice lifted her chin and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
AFTERWORD
I would like to thank the following people and institutions for their generous help when I was researching this novel: The Brooklyn Botanic Garden; The New York Public Library; Detective P. Hoffman of Manhattan’s 20th Precinct; Captain Edward Steinberg of Riker’s Island and Staten Island; David Vladek of Washington, D.C.; Paul Greenough, Adrienne Drapkin, and Beth Nugent of Iowa City, Iowa; and Jerry Becker of Chicago. To Marc Silag, for his expertise on the music business, I am very grateful. I would also like to thank Bill Silag for his willingness to make all those calls, for his huge fund of information about every subject, and for his patience. Any mistakes in the work are, of course, entirely the fault of the author.
ALSO BY JANE SMILEY
GOOD FAITH
“A vindication of the traditional American novel…. It depicts its disquiet by means of rich, seamless prose, scenic immediacy and tight plotting. It’s a true winner.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Forthright, likable Joe Stratford is the kind of local businessman everybody trusts, for good reason. But it’s 1982, and even in Joe’s small town, values are in upheaval: not just property values, either. Enter Marcus Burns, a would-be master of the universe whose years with the IRS have taught him which rules are meant to be broken. Before long he and Joe are new best friends—and partners in an investment venture so complex that no one may ever
understand it. Add to this Joe’s roller-coaster affair with his mentor’s married daughter. The result is as entertaining as any of Smiley’s fiction.
Fiction/Literature/0-385-72105-6
THE AGE OF GRIEF
“A glorious achievement. … Infinitely satisfying. … A triumph.”
—The New York Times Book Review
With a wry intelligence and a lively comic touch, The Age of Grief captures moments of great intimacy with grace, clarity, and indelible emotional power. In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely, single woman befriends a married couple, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In “Long Distance,” a man is relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned, while enduring his own complicated sorrow.
Fiction/Literature/0-385-72187-0
A THOUSAND ACRES
“A full, commanding novel. … A story bound and tethered to a lonely road in the Midwest, but drawn from a universal source. … Profoundly American.”—The Boston Globe
When Larry Cook, the aging patriarch of a rich, thriving farm in Iowa, decides to retire, he offers his land to his three daughters. For Ginny and Rose, who live on the farm with their husbands, the gift makes good sense—a reward for years of hard work and a challenge to make the farm even more successful. But the youngest, Caroline, a Des Moines lawyer, flatly rejects the idea, and in anger the father cuts her out of the will. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. An ambitious reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear cast upon a typical American community, Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.
Fiction/Literature/1-4000-3383-7
ANCHOR BOOKS
Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, NOVEMBER 2004
Copyright © 1984 by Jane Smiley
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1984.
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Smiley, Jane.
Duplicate Keys / Jane Smiley.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. City and town life—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction.
3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.M39 D8 1984
813′.54—dc19
83047852
eISBN: 978-0-307-75877-4
www.anchorbooks.com
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