“Look, everything’s going to be all right.”
“Oh, everything’s going to be sensational, Kleinman. No question about it. He’s a living legend and everybody’s favorite father figure and it would be a sin against God to go to college in Pennsylvania and not pay a single visit to the kindly old Reading rabbit-snatcher.”
“Huh?”
“A cunning colloquialism I read somewhere. I never actually heard anybody say it aloud. Rabbit-snatcher for abortionist. Picturesque, don’t you think? Picture a man drawing a rabbit not from a hat precisely but from a—”
“Ugh.”
“Quite. How much further to Reading? There was a sign back there but I didn’t see it.”
“Neither did I. Maybe twenty miles? I don’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter. Light me a cigarette? Thanks. Tell me it’s going to be all right. No, fuck that, you already told me that. Tell me he’s going to be the compassionate dedicated abortionist in the legend.”
“That’s what everybody says. His daughter had an illegal abortion and died and now he performs them so other people won’t have to go through it.”
“It’s so perfect I keep gagging on it. If he winds up looking like Jean Hersholt I’m going to shit. But he’ll be terrific, right? Not your everyday dirty old man with whiskey on his breath and filth encrusted under his fingernails.” Her voice went suddenly serious. “Andrea, I’m scared shitless.”
“Turn the car around.”
“No.”
“There’s no law says you have to go, Winkie. In fact the law says just the opposite. Turn the car around.”
“I’m going through with this.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“But I do. Listen, it’s ridiculous, I’m twenty years old and haven’t had a single abortion yet. I mean, it’s like a secondary virginity, if you follow me. So what if I’m nervous? I was nervous when I lost the primary.”
“I think we should go back to campus.”
“And break our appointment? Suppose we got charged anyway? Doesn’t your father charge when patients don’t show up?”
“I’m serious, Winkie.”
“I’m serious, too. I’m very fucking glib but I’m also serious. I’m going through with this. Look, what choice do I have? Stop and think about it for a minute. Have the baby and put it up for adoption? Come on. If I actually had the baby I’d keep it. You know something? If I were five years older I’d do that little thing. ‘How do you do, world? I’m Miss Winifred Crispin Welles and this is my illegitimate daughter, and isn’t she the sweetest thing?”
“What if it were a boy?”
“Then I’d strangle the little bastard. Men are evil, Andrea Beth. I thought you knew that.”
“You could get married.”
A theatrical reaction, the steering wheel abandoned, then gripped quickly when the car begins to swerve. “Married? I’ll be an angel and pretend you never said that.”
“Wouldn’t he marry you?”
“Do you want to know something? I’m almost sure he would, the pig. I’ll tell you this much. He’d marry me a lot faster than I’d marry him. Hell would freeze a lot faster than I’d marry him. I don’t want to marry anybody, and I don’t want to marry anybody for a dumb reason like being pregnant, and I wouldn’t marry him under any circumstances. And having the baby and keeping it would be terrific if I were a much stronger person than I am—”
“You’re a strong person.”
“Oh, like hell I am. I don’t have a tenth of your strength, and would you keep an illegitimate baby?”
“No.”
“What would you do, as far as that goes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you must have thought about it.”
“Of course, loads of times. And especially now. Just now.”
“And?”
“I guess I’d do what you’re doing. Have an abortion.”
“Because there’s nothing else to do, right?”
“I guess.”
And, a little later, “Listen, not to worry, Kleinman. I’ve got my luck working for me. Nothing can possibly go wrong because I’ve got a Jew along for luck. Jews have always been lucky for me.”
“You told me that the first day I met you.”
“What did you think?”
“That you were probably crazy. But in an interesting way.”
“That’s something. Were you offended?”
“Offended? I don’t know. Probably a little.”
“You didn’t let it show.”
“Oh, of course not.”
“You’re not offended now, are you?”
“No. But I still think you’re probably crazy, Winks.”
“What a revelation. ‘Reading — 18 Miles.’ But it’s on the other side of Reading, isn’t it? You’ve got the directions?”
“That’s the tenth time you’ve asked me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. The first boy I ever fucked was Jewish. I must have told you that.”
“About seventy-three times.”
“I didn’t know you were counting. Do you suppose that’s why I’m keen on circumcision?”
“Maybe.”
“Because I just think it’s so much cleaner and more aesthetic. It doesn’t much matter for screwing, but when you get a little more intimate it does. Don’t you think so? Or don’t you?”
“I think the weather’s going to be great if the rain holds off.”
“And I think you’re a fucking prude, Andrea Beth. That’s what I think. Why am I manic and depressive at the same time, will you tell me? Isn’t it supposed to alternate? Oh, the hell with it anyway. Can I tell you something terrible?”
“Could I stop you?”
“I don’t see how. No, this is a monumental confession. I’m enjoying this a little. I’m terrified, that was no bullshit, but part of me is sitting in the back seat observing this, this fucking film entitled Winkie Gets Aborted. It’s sort of a sequel to Gidget Goes Bananas. Do you know what I mean? I mean all of this stupidity appeals somehow to my sense of theater. Now isn’t that disgusting?”
“A little. I’m nervous, too, and I’m enjoying it in a way, and it’s not even me it’s happening to. Maybe that’s more disgusting.”
“It’s the notorious Jewish empathy. Hey, maybe the doctor’ll be a Jew. Wouldn’t that be great?”
“He hasn’t got a very Jewish name.”
“Maybe he changed it. Or maybe he doesn’t use his real name for abortions. In fact I’m sure he doesn’t, so maybe he’s a Jew.” Then, with a swift shake of her head, “No, not with my luck. With my luck he’ll be a Catholic. He’ll save the fetus and let me die, the bastard.”
“You never talk much about Bryn Mawr.”
“Don’t I?”
“Not really. Not about Bryn Mawr, not about your life in New York.” The Huntley-Brinkley Report had just ended and he had turned off the set. He straightened up. “I’m not suggesting you’ve got some deep dark secret—”
“Hardly that.”
“Just wondered if there was anything you wanted to share.”
“Well, you don’t talk much about college, either. You’ll talk about law school if it’s a story involving a legal point or if it includes someone we’re friendly with now, but how many times do you tell Stover-at-Yale anecdotes about the time you spent far above Cayuga’s waters.”
“I guess that’s true.” He sat down beside her, picked up her hand in his. “Maybe it’s because we can’t really share those parts of our lives. They’re areas of our separate pasts. When I think of Cornell. To a great extent those were the years when I grew up. Being away from home — oh, we’ve talked about this, how easy it is to tell if someone went away to school or not. It was enough of an influence on me, those years at Cornell, that I didn’t have to go away to law school. I’d been away once and I could come back.”