“And twelve days.”
“Who’s counting?” Frank said.
“I am, damn it!” Millie said.
“I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to...”
“I understand fine,” Millie said, and walked to where she’d left her pumps near one of the easy chairs. Sitting, she said, “Mae’s your wife, and I’m your Tuesday afternoon roll-in-the-hay.”
“Millie, that isn’t...”
“Look, Frank, you’re Italian and you’ve got all these romantic notions about being in love, but actually I think what you really enjoy most about coming here is the idea that I’m some kind of whore or something.”
“I have never thought of you as...”
“Have you ever thought of me as a mother, Frank?”
“A mother!”
“I have two children, you know. I have two adorable little girls that I made. Me. Personally.”
“With a little help from Michael, I assume.”
“What would you do if, with a little help from Michael, I got pregnant again? I can just imagine how that would sit with you. Big fat belly marching in here every week, what would that do to the image of the bimbo on the Via Margherita?”
“The what?”
“The Via Margherita. That’s where Italian men keep their little pastries.”
“I’m not an Italian man, I’m an American man.”
“Right, you’re Mr. McIntyre, right?”
“I’m Mr. Di Santangelo, but I don’t have a bimbo on the Via Margherita, wherever the hell that may be. As a matter of fact, I don’t have a bimbo anywhere.”
“As a matter of fact, you have one right here in New Jersey,” Millie said. She reached down for one of her pumps, and without looking up at him, slipped her foot into it and said, “Michael wants to have another baby.” She put on the other shoe and only then looked up at him. “What should I do?” she asked.
“That’s up to you and Michael, isn’t it?”
“It’s also up to you,” she said.
“Why don’t we arrange a meeting then? Three of us can discuss it, decide what we...”
“Do you want me to have a baby, Frank?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Why not?”
“I hate babies,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be your baby.”
“I hate anybody’s babies.”
“How can a man who hates babies write a popcorn commercial with two little kids...?”
“That has nothing to do with it. I hate popcorn, too.”
“You’d never even see this baby,” Millie said. “All I’m trying to find out is whether you like the idea of me having one, that’s all.”
“No, I don’t like the idea.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like the idea of your having another man’s baby.”
“Another man? He’s my husband!”
“Anyway, what is this, a conspiracy or something? Is everybody in the whole world having a baby all of a sudden?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, and went immediately to the clothes rack, and took his jacket from its hanger.
“Who’s having a baby all of a sudden?” she asked.
“Millions of women,” Frank said. “Chinese women are having them right in the fields. As they plant the rice seedlings, they...”
“Never mind Chinese women, how many American women are having babies that you know of?”
“Right this minute, do you mean?”
“No, I mean nine months from last month when you and Mae were in Antigua working so hard on your suntans.”
“Mae, do you mean?”
“Is Mae pregnant?”
“Who? Mae?”
“Mae. Is she?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Which is why she ran out instantly to sell her little shop, right?”
“I don’t know why...”
“Probably at Bloomingdale’s this very minute, picking out a bassinette.”
“Millie...”
“Knitting little booties in her spare time,” she said, her voice rising, “papering the guest room with pictures of funny little animals! How could you do this to me, Frank?”
“To you?”
“Yes, to me!” she shouted. “Who the hell do you think?”
“Please lower your voice,” he said. “If he bangs on the wall one more time, he’ll put a hole through it.”
Whispering, Millie said, “Didn’t you once consider the possibility that...”
“What? Now I can’t hear you at all.”
In her normal speaking voice, but enunciating each and every word clearly and distinctly, Millie said, “Didn’t you once consider the possibility that the thought of Mae having a baby might prove distressing to your lady friend on the Via Margherita?”
“Oh, cut it out with that Via Margherita stuff.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Do you know what you sound like, Millie?”
“What do I sound like?”
“A jealous wife.”
“I suppose I do,” she said. “But I’m not your wife, am I? I’m no more your wife than she is.” She gestured toward the wall and the room next door. “To him, I mean. The man who bangs on the wall.”
“Millie, I don’t think you need equate us with a frumpy blonde and a fat old man.”
“To him, she isn’t a frumpy blonde,” Millie said. “To him, she’s all perfume and lace, the girl on the Via Margherita. All right to open these drapes now?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said.
She pulled the drapes back on their rod. Sunlight splashed into the room. The day outside was clear and bright, the courtyard lined with the brilliant reds and oranges of autumn. She turned from the window, the sunlight behind her.
Frank looked at his watch. “We’d better get going,” he said. “Hope’s got a meeting scheduled for...”
“Just a few minutes more, Frank,” she said. “I gave you plenty of time on the train, when we were just beginning. I think you can give me a few minutes now... when we’re about to end.”
“End?”
“Yes, what do you think we’re talking about here?”
“Not ending, Millie.”
“No? Then what?”
“I don’t know. But two people can’t simply end something after ten months together.” He looked at his watch again. “Millie, really, we’ve got to go now, really. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay? I’ll call you in the morning...”
The telephone rang.
He looked at the phone, and then he looked at his watch again. The phone kept ringing, but he made no move to answer it. Millie went to it, and lifted the receiver, and said, “Hello?” and then listened, and then said, “No, I’m sorry, Mr. Mclntyre isn’t here.” Gently, she replaced the receiver on the cradle. “The manager,” she said.
“What did he want?”
“I don’t know. The television’s off, and neither of us is yelling, and no one’s banging on the wall.” She shrugged. “Maybe he just felt lonely, Frank, and wanted to say hello.” She went to him. “The way we did, Frank.”
They looked at each other. It seemed for a moment as though they would move again into each other’s arms. But Millie turned away, and went to the dresser and picked up her bag.
“I think I’ll tell Michael okay,” she said.
“I think you already have,” he said.
“Maybe so,” she said.
She went to the door and threw back the slip bolt and opened the door wide. He came to her, and they paused before stepping out into the sunshine, and turned, and stared back into the room. Then, gently, he took her hand, and together they left the room, closing the door behind them.