“I don’t think we ought to be talking this way, Mrs. Lawes.”
“Don’t you? Do you think it’s improper? Do you think I am an improper woman?”
“I didn’t suggest that, Mrs. Lawes.”
“On the contrary, you did suggest it. You very definitely suggested it. However, I am not at all offended, so we had just as well drop it. I will only repeat that what you think is very amusing. It would be even more amusing if you were capable of seeing just how amusing it is.”
“I’m glad I amuse you, Mrs. Lawes. I guess it’s part of my job. Now you will have to excuse me. I have a customer.”
“Certainly, Roscoe. You are certainly excused.”
He went off to his customer, and she was no longer amused. She was depressed and frightened, and she told herself that she would finish her drink and go away and not return to this place again, ever again, but she knew quite well that she would return nevertheless, just as she always did, because here was the secondary source of desire, and here, in truth, was the primary source also, but the primary source was strictly forbidden and heavy with peril and was susceptible only to vicarious attainment through the secondary.
I will go away, she thought, I will go away, and knew that she would not.
And so she continued to sit, and eventually had another drink, and in time Emerson Page came in behind the bar and stood across from her in the borrowed significance of which he did not dream.
“Hello, Mrs. Lawes,” he said.
I will be quite casual, she thought. I will be merely a lady who has stopped in for a drink in the most natural way.
And she looked at him and felt the stirring of her early hatred and subsequent concession, a reaction of conflict that resulted from his being in her mind both an interloper and a medium, and she was not casual in the least.
“Where have you been?” she said.
“Upstairs in the apartment, taking a break. I was out earlier, and it pooped me. Hot. I’ve never seen it so hot around here. Hundred and ten at three o’clock, I understand.”
“Was Ed with you?”
“Ed? Not much. You couldn’t drag her out of that air-conditioned apartment on a day like this.”
“I didn’t mean was she out with you earlier. I meant in the apartment.”
“Oh. Yes. She was with me. Still there. Did you want to see her, Mrs. Lawes?”
“Why do you call me Mrs. Lawes? Why don’t you call me Lisa?”
“Lisa, I mean.”
“I’ve told you and told you to call me Lisa. Perhaps it’s significant that you always call me Mrs. Lawes. Maybe it’s a kind of unconscious sign that you don’t like me.”
“Oh, come off it, Lisa. Of course I like you.”
“I’m not so sure. Roscoe doesn’t like me, and Ed doesn’t like me, and it’s quite possible that you don’t like me, either.”
“Whatever gave you the idea that Ed doesn’t like you?”
“I have a feeling about such things. It’s practically infallible. I can always tell.”
“Well, this is one time your practically infallible feeling is all wrong. Ed likes you very much.”
“Really?”
“Certainly.”
“You’re not just telling me that?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why doesn’t she ever come to see me? Why doesn’t she ever invite me to come to see her? The only time we ever meet is when we happen to be here at the same time, or accidentally somewhere.”
“Well, to be frank about it, Lisa, the Laweses and the Pages have just never moved in the same social circle. I guess Ed would naturally be pretty shy about trying to move in. She’d be afraid someone would get the wrong idea about it.”
“That’s silly. That’s perfectly silly. Avery likes you. He likes you better than anyone else.”
“I don’t know about that, but, anyhow, it isn’t the point.”
“No? Can you tell me just what is the point?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s pretty confusing to a simple guy like me. I don’t know exactly what the point is, but I know what it isn’t, and it sure as hell isn’t just whether or not you happen to like a guy.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re only rationalizing. You have a feeling of inferiority and are trying to convince yourself that it’s something else.”
He laughed. “All right. Maybe that’s it.”
“Not that it matters, because you are obviously not telling me the truth, anyhow. The truth is, both you and Ed dislike me and don’t want to have any more to do with me than is necessary.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
“Do you think I am lying?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Lisa! Listen to me. Ed and I both like you. We like you very much, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Well, in your case I may be open to conviction, but in Ed’s, I’m certain I am right.”
“No, you’re not. You’re absolutely wrong.”
She picked up her glass and saw that it was empty and set it down and pushed it toward him.
“Then we had better have a drink together.”
“Are you sure you want another?”
“Quite sure. You needn’t worry about it. I’m used to drinking a great deal.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“Nothing, Lisa. It was just a remark.”
“To me it had an unpleasant sound. As if it meant something.”
“Wrong again. It doesn’t mean a thing.”
He fixed drinks for them. He would have made hers light, but he knew very well that she would have realized it immediately and made an issue of it, so he stuck to the prescribed ratio. She tasted it and was satisfied.
“She’s very lovely,” she said.
“What?”
“Ed. She’s very lovely.”
“Oh. Yes, she is, isn’t she?”
“How long have you been married?”
“Ten years. A little longer.”
“Ten years is a long time.”
“Not with Ed. Not nearly long enough.”
She thought of the things that had happened to her in the last decade, and it seemed like a very long time indeed. A long, bitter time. She wondered what kind of life it would be that could make ten years seem short. “A lot can happen in ten years,” she said.
“That’s right. In ten years Ed and I have come from a cheap short-order place to this. I don’t mean it’s so much, after all, but it has made money for us, and it has made us happy. It’s what we wanted, and it’s what we got.”
“Some people are lucky to get what they want.”
“Sure they are. And you’re one of them. It seems to me that you’ve been a hell of a lot luckier than most.”
“Does it? Well, it would be quite futile to try to convince you otherwise, I can see that. Besides, it makes absolutely no difference what you believe, so it is unnecessary to try. Do you still love her?”
Emerson looked at her for a moment with a stricken look in his face, as if the sudden, brutal inference that he might not love Ed left him mute and isolated in a terrible emptiness. After a moment he laughed at the incredible idea.
“Excuse me for laughing, Lisa. It’s just that I find the idea of not loving Ed completely unbelievable.”
“Why are you so sure? I don’t mean love her the way they say it gets after you’ve been married for a long time. You know the way I don’t mean. A dull kind of business of mutual respect and devotion to servitude with an occasional tepid concession to love. I mean, do you still want her and hunger for her with passion?”