The first thing he said was, ‘Will you marry me?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?’
‘I’ve heard of it. I don’t believe in it. And if I did, love and marriage don’t necessarily go together. Au contraire.’
‘So beautiful and so cynical,’ said Tony sadly. ‘Doesn’t my honourable proposal restore your faith in my sex?’
‘It merely reinforces my impression that you are crazy.’
‘Look at it this way.’ Tony put his elbows on the table. The table wasn’t very clean, but neither were Tony’s elbows; I deduced that this pose was characteristic. ‘All my life I’ve been looking for my ideal woman. I’m pushing thirty, you know; I’ve had time to think about it. Beauty, brains, and a sense of humour, that’s what I want. Now I know you’re intelligent or old Bronson wouldn’t have hired you. He’s above the sins of the flesh, or thinks he is. You are obviously beautiful. Your sense of humour – ’
‘Ha,’ I said. ‘You deduced that from the twinkle in my eye, I suppose.’
Tony cocked his head and considered me seriously. A lock of black hair fell over his left eyebrow.
‘Is that a twinkle? It looks more like a cold, steely glint. No, I’m willing to take the sense of humour on trust.’
‘You’d be making a mistake. I am not amused. And even if I were amused, I wouldn’t marry you. I’m not going to marry anyone. Ever.’
‘If you prefer that arrangement,’ said Tony, with a shrug.
So it went, for most of the winter. The demoralizing thing about Tony was that he wasn’t kidding. He really did want to get married. That didn’t surprise me; any man with a grain of sense knows that marriage is the only way, these days, to acquire a full-time maid who works twenty-five hours a day, with no time off and no pay except room and board.
Naturally Tony wouldn’t admit to these motives. He kept babbling about love. He couldn’t help it. His background was hopelessly conventional. He came from a big jolly family out in the Bible Belt, with a fat jolly mother and a tall, thin jolly father – he showed me their pictures, which he kept on his desk. That shows you what he was like. He was crazy about his parents. He even liked his brothers and sisters, of whom there seemed to be an indeterminate number. He had a half-ashamed and inarticulate desire for children of his own. Oh, his ostensible motives were admirable – and his attractions were considerable. To say we were physically compatible is to put it mildly, but that wasn’t all; we had a hundred interests in common, from European history to basketball. (He had been the star of his high school team, and so had I.) He shared my passion for medieval sculpture, and he was crazy about old Marx Brothers movies. I couldn’t imagine finding anyone I liked better. But I didn’t weaken.
‘Why not?’ Tony demanded one day. It was a day in January or the beginning of February, and he was getting exasperated. ‘Damn it, why not? Are you down on marriage just because it’s out of fashion? I didn’t think you were so conventional!’
‘That has nothing to do with it. I’m not against marriage per se. I’m against it for me. I’m not going to get married. Why the hell do I have to repeat it every other day? I think I’ll make a tape.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘What, the tape? It would save the wear and tear on my vocal cords. Now listen, Tony – ’ I put my elbows on the table, and then removed them; I was certainly not going to imitate his vulgar habits. ‘Your attitude is a perfect illustration of the reason why I don’t intend to marry. I state a point of view, and you attack it. You don’t listen, you don’t try to understand, you just say – ’
Tony said it.
‘Obscenities will get you nowhere,’ I said. ‘My feelings are a fact, not a personal delusion. They are valid for me. What business have you got trying to tell me how I ought to feel? You think you want an intellectual wife, who can discuss your work with you. But it wouldn’t last. After awhile you’d start expecting apple pie instead of articles, and then you’d want me to quit work, and if I got promoted and you didn’t, you would sulk, and then if we had a baby you wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night and change its dirty diapers – ’
I stopped, not because I had finished my monologue, but because Tony wasn’t listening. His elbows were on the table, his face was hidden in his hands, and he was laughing so hard that the table shook.
Since he wasn’t looking, I permitted myself a sour smile. So maybe it did sound funny. But the basic premise was sound. I knocked one of Tony’s elbows out from under him so that his chin splashed into his coffee cup, and that ended that discussion.
But it wasn’t the end of the argument. I could tell by the speculative gleam in Tony’s eye that for the first time he was really thinking about the problem. It was amusing to watch him ponder my hang-up, as he called it, as methodically as he would consider an abstract academic question. At least it was amusing until he came out with his conclusions.
We were at Tony’s apartment. He had built a fire in the fireplace and had carefully seated himself in a chair across from the couch where I was sitting. He hadn’t touched me all evening, which was enough of a change to make me wary. He sat there for a long time staring at me, and finally he said, ‘I’ve figured it out.’
‘Oh, have you?’
‘Yes. What you need is to be dominated.’
‘Is that right,’ I said.
‘That tough exterior is a defence,’ Tony explained. ‘Underneath, you are looking for a stronger shoulder to lean on. But since you are a superior female, you need to be convinced that the male is even more superior.’
‘All right,’ I said, between my teeth. ‘You may be stronger than I am, you ape, but just try those gorilla tactics on me and you’ll get something you – ’
‘No, no, I’m not talking about anything as crude as physical domination. I intend to convince you of my intellectual superiority.’
‘Ha, ha,’ I said.
‘You doubt that I am your intellectual superior,’ Tony said calmly. ‘Of course you do. That’s your trouble.’
I bit back the yell of outrage that was right on the tip of my tongue. He wanted me to lose my temper; that would prove my emotional immaturity.
I leaned back on the couch, crossed my legs, and took a deep breath. Tony’s eyes glazed, but he didn’t move.
‘And how,’ I inquired, practising deep breathing, ‘do you propose to convince me?’
Tony was a funny colour. With some effort he dragged his eyes away from my torso and stared at the fire.
‘I haven’t figured that out yet,’ he admitted. ‘But I will.’
‘Let me know when you do.’ I fell back onto the couch, hands clasped behind my head. I kicked off one of my shoes. ‘Did I tell you I expect to have two articles published by the end of the year? How are you coming with the one you started last fall?’
That was too much. Tony growled and lunged. I was ready for him; I slid out from underneath and stood looking fondly down on him as he sprawled awkwardly across the couch.
‘Since you are going to dominate me mentally, there’s no point in this sort of thing,’ I said, slipping my foot back into my shoe. ‘Call me when you’re ready to start dominating.’
He was ready sooner than I expected.
It was one of those awful March days in the Midwest, when ice and snow and sleet seem doubly outrageous because they follow a few days of mild weather. Slogging along through the slush, I was not in my best mood, even though the evening ahead looked interesting. Tony was about to share one of his finds with me – a man, not a theory of history. Jacob Myers was one of the big wheels in our little town. Actually, he was the only wheel of any size. One of his ancestors had donated the land on which the university was built; the family automobile plant was the leading industry. The public library, the main street, and the park were all named after members of the clan. Having too much money (if that is possible) and a weakness for culture, Myers dispensed fellowships and research grants with a lavish hand. Oddly enough, one of the few faculty members who hadn’t profited from this generosity was Tony, though his father and Myers were lodge brothers, or something. I happened to know – though not from Tony – that he had even paid back the money Myers had loaned him to finish graduate school. Myers hadn’t liked that. My informant declared the old man used to light his cigars with Tony’s cheques until Tony threatened to leave the town and the university.