“What’s the matter?” Avery said.
“Nothing. Nothing whatever is the matter. I was only wondering if it would be advisable to have another martini while we are waiting for dinner.”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe we should wait until afterward.”
“All right.”
“I don’t want to be arbitrary about it, however. If you really want the martini, I’ll get it.”
“No. You are probably perfectly right. It would be better to wait.”
“You know how it is sometimes on an empty stomach.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Are you sure it’s all right? I don’t want to be arbitrary.”
“You said once that you didn’t, and I believe that you don’t. I am convinced that you are right in saying that we should wait until after dinner. Is that satisfactory? If it is, we can quit discussing it.”
“Are you annoyed?”
“No.”
“You sound as if you are.”
“I am not annoyed. I just don’t want to spend the rest of the night discussing whether we should have another martini or not.”
He looked at her for a moment and then got up and walked into the bar and returned a few minutes later with a fresh martini. He placed it in front of her and sat down without saying anything, and she picked it up and drank some of it and wondered why she had been so nasty with him when she was actually feeling quite affectionate and not inclined to be nasty at all. Granted that it was irritating to want a martini and have it denied you, it was nevertheless nothing to warrant a quarrel, especially when the martini was not exactly being denied you, but was only being postponed for a while. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re quite welcome.”
“Have I made you angry?”
“No. Of course not.”
“If I have, I’m sorry.”
“Really I’m not angry. If you want a martini, it’s your right to have one.”
“I’m a nasty bitch.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I am, though, just the same. You have been much too kind to me, and I repay you by being the nastiest kind of bitch.”
“Look, Lisa. Please don’t talk like that. Here. Let me have a sip of the martini, will you? I should have got another for myself.”
She handed the glass across to him, and he took it and drank a little of the martini, and she was truly sorry for the way she had behaved. She was about to say so for the second time, but the waitress came at that moment with the dinner and prevented her. The second martini was verifying what the first had indicated, that it was essential to get some food into her stomach if she was to continue drinking, but the food was revolting and absolutely inedible, not because it was bad or badly prepared, but simply because it was food, and she ate some salad and a bite or two of meat and could force herself to eat no more.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Avery said.
“I don’t seem to be. I thought I was, but the sight of the food has taken away my appetite.”
“It’s very good.”
“I don’t doubt it. It’s not that. It’s nothing to do with the way the food is prepared or anything.”
“You ought to eat more, Lisa. You eat so little.”
“It’s a bad habit of mine. I eat too little and drink too much.”
“I don’t mean to lecture you. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I understand. You only mean to be kind. You are thinking of my welfare.”
“Will you have a dessert?”
“I couldn’t. Really I couldn’t.”
“Some coffee, at least?”
“Well, all right. A cup of coffee.”
After a while the waitress came back and took the order for coffee, and a boy with a cart came and cleared the table. Avery sat erect and stared across the room, his attention caught by someone behind Lisa. She was still feeling remorse for her behavior regarding the second martini, and she had a strong compulsion to be especially friendly with him in order to make up for it.
“Do you see someone you know?” she said.
“Yes. That elderly couple over there. You can’t see them from your position, of course. Their name is Chalmers. As a matter of fact, they’re very old friends of the family. They used to come to the house quite frequently years ago, but recently they scarcely get out at all. I suppose I had better go speak to them. They’ve certainly seen me and will be expecting it. Would you like to come?”
“Is it necessary?”
“I think it would be nice if you would, but it isn’t necessary, of course.”
“If it isn’t necessary, I won’t go.”
“All right. I’ll make some kind of explanation. Do you object to my leaving you for a few minutes?”
“Not at all.”
“Excuse me, then.”
“Certainly.”
He got up and walked past her and out of her range of vision, and she thought with a renewal of remorse that her compulsion toward friendliness and compatibility had not been very strong if it could not compel, so slight a concession as the exchange for his sake of a few inanities with an elderly couple. The coffee was brought and left, and she sat looking into hers but not drinking it. Minutes passed and the coffee cooled and Avery did not return. He was being delayed, it seemed, for quite a time by the elderly couple named Chalmers who were old friends of his family and who were probably garrulous and tenacious and given to exercising the prerogatives of old family friends, among which is the earned prerogative to be a bore. She was really becoming impossibly irritable, she thought, which was not good and could be corrected by a third martini, and she wished that Avery would come back and arrange it. Looking up through the archway into the bar, she saw that Emerson Page, the nice guy who did things, was sitting at the bar doing something, and what he was doing was having a drink for himself. She saw also that the stool on his right was empty, and it occurred to her that she had a perfect right to go in and occupy the stool and arrange for herself what Avery would not come and arrange. It would be quite easy to arrange in such a place of vantage, because everything was available, including a bald bartender who could be seen functioning. Getting up, she went in and occupied the stool.
“Hello, Mrs. Lawes,” Emerson said. “Decide to come in where it’s handy?”
“Yes. Avery is talking with someone, and it looks like going on for quite a while, so I thought I would have a martini. A third martini, to be exact.”
The bartender came along, and Emerson laughed and said, “A third martini, Roscoe.”
Roscoe made the martini and poured it and left on business. Lisa leaned forward on her stool and put both elbows on the bar and lifted the fragile glass in both hands.
“Your martinis are very good,” she said.
He smiled. “If you like martinis. Most women seem to. My wife Ed drinks them almost exclusively. Usually I drink bourbon myself. Did you have a good time in Mexico City?”
“No,” she said. “I had a perfectly horrible time in Mexico City.”
Which was, she thought, what came of third martinis. On an empty stomach, anyhow. You said things that you meant but had not meant to say. You were truthful, in short, and this was dangerous and should be avoided. Since the truth was out, however, and could not be retracted, there was probably nothing imperiled in having a fourth martini, which could be had just as soon as this one was finished. She finished it and pushed the empty glass away from her on the bar with the idea that Roscoe would soon notice it and fill it.
“Why do you call her Ed?” she asked.
“What?”
“Your wife. You called her Ed. Why?”
“Her real name is Edwina. I just call her Ed for short.”
“Oh. The affectionate diminutive. Is she pretty? Avery said almost everyone thinks she is.”
“Well, I think so, of course. I don’t know about almost everyone, however. She’ll be down pretty soon, and you can judge for yourself.”