“Right. And she yells at me about it. When she’s really the one to blame.”
“Frank, I thought we agreed a long time ago that we wouldn’t discuss anything like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like Mae or Michael.”
“Who’s discussing Mae or Michael? I’m talking about Hope. Hope Cromwell. She came in first thing this morning and said, ‘Where is it?’ So I reminded her that she’d only told me about the damn thing Friday, five days after it was due, and she said it seemed to her it shouldn’t take that long to do a thirty-second spot when I knew the client was waiting for a presentation, and maybe I’d get the material in on time if I didn’t take such long lunch hours every Tuesday. So I told her to take a look at her own lunch hour, which starts at eleven in the morning and ends at three, so don’t talk to me about long lunch hours, baby.”
“Did you really say that?”
“I certainly did.”
“You called her ‘baby’?”
“No, no, I wouldn’t call her ‘baby’. The point is I don’t like being bawled out for something that’s not my fault. And anyway, if I want to take a long lunch hour every Tuesday, so what? I’ve got half a mind to tell her what she can do with the job.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Huh?”
“Why don’t you call her and tell her what she can do with the job?”
“Tell Hope, you mean?”
“Sure.”
“Well, she’s probably out to lunch right now.”
“Let’s try her,” Millie said, and went to the phone.
“Well, perhaps it’s best not to act too impulsively,” he said. “There are millions of copywriters in New York, all of them just as good as I am.”
“I doubt that very much,” Millie said. She lifted the receiver and handed it to him. “Call her.”
“Just a second, Mil,” he said. “Let me think about this a minute, okay?”
“What’s there to think about? Just tell her, that’s all.”
“I’ll tell her when I get back to the office.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
Millie put the receiver back onto the cradle, and turned her back to him again. Lifting the hair from the nape of her neck, she lowered her head and waited for him to unzip her dress. “You don’t have to take that kind of abuse, Frank,” she said. “You’re a very good copywriter.”
“Yeah,” he said, and lowered the zipper.
“So tell her.”
“I will,” he said, “don’t worry.” He unknotted his tie and threw it onto the seat of the closest chair. Unbuttoning his shirt, he said, “I’ll tell her I don’t have to take that kind of abuse.”
“Right.”
“I’ll tell her I don’t like to be blamed for something that’s not my fault. She should have told me about the presentation earlier.”
“That’s right, she should have.”
“Damn right, she should have,” Frank said. “I’ll tell her there are millions of copywriters in this city, but not many of them are as good as I am. And if she continues to hand out the kind of abuse she did this morning, I’ll just head over to one of the other agencies where they won’t treat me like an adolescent.”
“Good,” Millie said, “tell her.” In bra, half-slip and panties, she padded to the clothes rack and hung up her dress.
“As for the lunch hour,” he said, gathering steam, “I’ll tell her to stop behaving as if it’s a banquet! It isn’t a banquet, it’s just an ordinary long lunch hour, and that’s that.” He nodded, took off his shirt, and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. Millie was silent for what seemed like a long time.
“Frank, have you ever done anything like this before?” she asked suddenly.
“With another woman, do you mean?”
“Yes, with another woman.”
“Besides Mae, do you mean?”
“Yes, besides Mae.”
“Never,” he said. “Why? Have you?”
Millie walked to the air conditioner. “Do you think this thing works?” she asked, and stabbed at a button on its face. “There,” she said, and went to the bed, and neatly folded back the spread, and then carried it to one of the chairs.
“Millie?” he said. “You haven’t answered my question. Have you ever?”
“Have I ever what?”
“Done this?”
“With another man, do you mean?”
“Yes, with another man.”
“Besides Michael, do you mean?”
“Yes, besides Michael.”
“Do you want an honest answer?”
“Of course I want an honest answer.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Jesus!” he said.
“You wanted to know.”
“Who was it?”
“Another man.”
“I know that! Who?”
“You don’t know him. His name is Paul.”
“Where’d you meet him?”
“In the Chock Full O’Nuts on Sheridan Square.”
“Having a nice long lunch, was he?”
“No, he was eating a cream cheese sandwich on toasted raisin bread.”
“I don’t want to know anything else about him,” Frank said. “In fact, I think we’d better get dressed.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to leave.” He went to the chair and picked up his shirt. He started to put it on, but one of the sleeves was pulled inside out. Angrily, he shoved at the sleeve, and finally managed to get his arm through it.
“He’s a sculptor,” Millie said.
“I don’t care what he is.”
“I posed for him once. Just my belly button.”
“Your what?” Frank said.
“He does belly buttons. Not always, you understand. That was his project at the time. When I met him. He was doing these enormous sculptures of belly buttons. It was really quite fascinating. I mean, things take on a completely different perspective when you see them larger than...”
“I don’t want to hear about your goddamn sculptor and his belly buttons!” Frank shouted. Calming himself, he said, “Get dressed, please,” and began buttoning his shirt.
“He filled a very important need in my life,” Millie said softly.
“I’m sure he did.”
“And I could hardly have known at the time that I was going to meet you on the eight forty-six from Larchmont. Besides, I stopped seeing him right after I met you. In February.”
“That’s not right after you met me,” Frank said. “That’s a full month after you met me.”
“Well, it takes time to end things,” she said.
“More time than it takes to begin them, I’m sure.”
“Now you sound like Michael.”
“Oh, did you tell him about your sculptor, too?”
“Of course not.”
“How come I’m so privileged?”
“I thought you’d understand.”
“I don’t. Put on your clothes, and let’s get out of here.”
“I wasn’t looking for anything, Frank, I hope you realize that. It just happened.”
“How? What’d you do, show him your navel in the middle of Chock Full O’Nuts?”
“I didn’t do anything of the sort.”
“Then how’d he know he wanted to sculpt your navel? There are six million women in the city of New York, how’d he happen to pick your navel?”
“He picked a lot of navels,” Millie said. “Not only mine.”
“How many?”
“At least fifty of them.”
“Now that’s sordid, that’s positively sordid,” Frank said.