We just sat for some time, and then she went on: “I can understand your upset, and I promise you, I’m on tension too. I haven’t mentioned it to you, but Pat Moran called up, offering a piece of a deal he’s putting together, a million-dollar apartment here in Riverdale — he’s picked up five lots, three of them vacant, two with small houses on them, so on land he’s okay. And as he means to build a garage behind his main building, no parking problem’s involved, and as the apartments are going to be small, not suited to families with children, there’ll be no strain on the school.
“Or in other words, it’s a good, solid project that nobody should object to. Just the same, it calls for zoning reclassification, from Residential B to A — which is why he offered me in, as he counts on me to swing it. Well, I probably could. I’ve kept my connections up, and made a few new ones lately. But, until this thing is out of the way, I have no appetite for it. Politics is partly deals — like this one — but it’s also partly combat. If you don’t like a fight, stay out. I don’t mind one, as a rule. But, with this thing hanging fire, I’m just a bundle of jitters. I can’t forget what she said, about what’s waiting for Jane — I feel as though a time-bomb were ticking somewhere. I told Pat include me out. I had to.”
Some days went by, and then one night I went home, to have the door opened for me by Sonya, all dressed up in the same blue dress she’d had on the first day in the parking lot, and the little black hat, a tiny shell made of straw, on the order of a skull cap. I kissed her, followed her into the living room, looked her over and asked: “Well? We going out? Or what?”
“Why... I am. Yes.”
“And I’m not?”
By that time, I had sat down on one of the sofas, and she sat opposite, across the table, on the other. She didn’t answer at once, but then: “Gramie, my time has come.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I said I was going, didn’t I? Well, now I am.”
“But nobody’s asked you to go.”
“Listen, what’s the good of staying? We’ve been all over that, over and over and over. No marriage can stand the strain when the wife comes between the guy and his dream, the guy and his million bucks. So, I’m shoving off, like I promised.
“But I thought it might be nice if we had a last dinner together, that we both could look back on and kind of keep in our hearts. So I got us a Beltsville turkey, and made hominy, rutabaga, and cranberry sauce to go with it — oh, and that Graves white wine that you like — it’s all timed for seven-thirty, when it’ll be getting dark and we can eat by candlelight. And talk about how nice things were when we were up on our cloud.”
“Which is still up there, incidentally.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is, if you’d get on it, and...”
“Without the dream, it couldn’t be, and isn’t.”
I went over, took her in my arms, and tried to carry her upstairs, but she wrestled me off, and I quit — but not till I noticed how soft she was, and warm, and part of me, somehow. She said, “Gramie, don’t make it harder for me than it is. I don’t want to go, God knows. I have to, that’s all. So will you listen to me? What I’ve done today? So you can take up from where I left off and get the benefit?”
“What have you done today?”
“I broke up that marriage, Gramie.”
“You mean Jane’s? With Burl?”
“That’s right.”
“Then how did you break it up?”
“Does it matter? I did, that’s all. It’s what I’ve been hanging around for, what I had to do. Well? It’s done, and there’s no need to talk about it.”
“There is need to talk.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re keeping stuff back, stuff I have to know about.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Sonya, what is this? What have you been up to?”
“I will not talk about it.”
She went out to the kitchen and came back with the cocktail tray, making the martini at the side table. She chunked the ice with her pick, rubbed the glasses with lemon peel, put an olive with a toothpick in each, measured gin and vermouth with her eye. Then she dropped the ice in and stirred, till the pitcher began to smoke up. Then she poured and put my glass in front of me. I was still on her side of the table, and she sat down beside me. “I don’t like it, but this once I’ll drink with you, because it’s our last night.”
I raised my glass. “To us, then” I said.
“To us on our cloud when we had one.”
We sipped and I sat there looking at her, thinking how pretty she was. She asked, “Can I go on?”
“If you insist, I can’t stop you.”
“First, about her, Mrs. Sibert — well, I keep calling her that, but she’s really Mrs. Stuart, from being married to Burl. But, she’s kicking him out — I imagine she already has. So, soon as I blow, get over there. Drive to her house, stretch her out on the floor, and give her what she wants from you — which was her dream all along, not this crazy thing with Burl. Then you’ll get back your dream, and of course the million bucks. Be gentle with her, she’ll cooperate.”
“What else?”
“I’m taking the car you gave me.”
“What else?”
“I’m keeping the thousand dollars that you put to my account, as I’m going to need it to live on, while I’m getting started again — I can get a job as a waitress, I’m pretty sure of that — but I don’t want to feel afraid, or go home with my tail between my legs. So, I’m keeping that thousand, and some more I have too, that I imbizzled since we got married, from the household money you gave me. That’s another thing I want to thank you for, how nice you treated me, giving me more than I needed — Gramie, you’re one hell of a nice guy.”
“Then what are you leaving me for?”
“I said. It’s not a what, it’s a who. Mrs. Sibert.”
“What else?”
“Did you hear me? I imbizzled four hundred dollars.”
“Sonya, I love you.”
“Well? I love you. It’s why I’m leaving.”
“How about one last trip on our cloud?”
“If I took it I couldn’t go.”
“That’s the whole idea.”
“No, Gramie! I must go! I hafta.”
It was getting dark, and she took the tray to the kitchen, along with both our glasses. Then she tinkled her bell and called, and I went back to the dining room. The table was beautifully set, with roses as a centerpiece, arranged flat in a glass dish, a candle on each side, and tomato salad waiting, ready to eat. When we’d finished it she took the plates and brought in the turkey, a cute little one, perfectly cooked. Then she brought the hominy and rutabaga and cranberry sauce, and I did the carving.
She served me my giblet sauce, correcting me when I called it giblet gravy. She said: “It’s sauce, not gravy — I made it as it says in Joy of Cooking. It’s more digestible than gravy, and tastes better.” Then she poured the wine. Graves is a wine I like, a Bordeaux white, fairly dry, with a trace of sweet — but what I liked most about it was that she liked it too.
For dessert she served ice cream bricks with brandied cherries. Then for the grand finale, she served coffee diable, lighting it, and blowing the candles out. In the blue flame she looked like a girl from some kind of dream world, and I wanted to cry. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I love you.”
“Then, we love each other.”