I smiled wryly into the night. Enjoy it while you can, dear, because it doesn’t last long. And when it’s over, there isn’t much to look forward to.
I rolled over in bed and rose on one elbow as Paul came in. He didn’t turn on the lights but began to undress quickly in the dark.
“Hi,” I said.
He made a startled movement. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.
“I wasn’t really asleep,” I said. “What time is it?”
“Late,” Paul said and went on undressing.
“I tried to call you earlier,” I said. “Around nine. But nobody answered the phone.”
“That must have been while I was in the boss’s office,” he said. “Sorry. Why did you call?”
“I just wanted to talk,” I said. We were silent a moment. Then I said, “Will you have to work more nights?”
“I’m afraid so. Two, maybe three nights a week.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as it lasts. But not tomorrow, though. I said we had something planned and I couldn’t possibly get out of it.”
“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, forget it.”
“That’s not the way I feel about it,” Paul said testily. “That’s the way I explained it.” He found his pajamas and started to put them on. “What did you do while I was gone?” he said.
“Nothing much,” I said. “I was right about that girl across the way, though. Her boy friend picked her up shortly after you left for the office.”
“Look, Myra,” Paul said, getting into bed, “do me a favor, will you? Forget about that girl. A joke’s a joke, but this one is beginning to wear a little thin.”
“Sure,” I said. I hesitated a moment, then moved closer to him. But he only groaned and rolled over on his side away from me. “God, I’m tired,” he said. And a few minutes later I heard his deep regular breathing.
After a while I slept myself.
The next morning the cleaning lady came in to do the heavy work. I could have done it myself, should have, in fact. But I’d always had her to help at the house, and sheer inertia kept me from letting her go now that I no longer needed her. In any case, she came and I went out on the balcony to be out of her way. And so it was that I came to see the girl across the way once more.
It was late when she rose — close to noon — and she padded out from her bedroom to stand just inside her balcony doors and stretch like a great cat. Even without makeup and with her hair in a disarray from the night’s sleep, there was just one word to describe her and that’s the one I used before — stunning. I couldn’t blame Paul for staring at her. If I’d have been a man, I wouldn’t have been content with just staring; I’d have gone over and met her.
The cleaning woman called me inside then. But I saw her later in the day. She looked as if she’d just come in from shopping, because she was dressed for the street and carried a long flat box that she placed on the coffee table in front of her sofa and began to unpack carefully. It looked also as if things between her and her boy friend were going to get interesting before long, because what she held up to admire was a long filmy negligee.
So, of course, that evening while I was waiting for Paul to finish dressing, I couldn’t resist going to the balcony and looking over at her. But the negligee was nowhere in evidence. She sat on the sofa again as she had the night before, but dressed this time in her bathrobe and with her hair in curlers.
What? I thought. No date tonight? Well, we can’t be winners all the time, honey, and tonight’s my night to howl.
But somehow the evening didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. We went to what had been our favorite restaurant, but it had been years since we’d been there last and it wasn’t the same as we remembered. Or maybe we weren’t the same. Or maybe it was just that the evening wasn’t the spontaneous spur-of-the-moment affair I had intended. But whatever the reason, we didn’t really enjoy ourselves and came home early.
More than a little disappointed, I slipped off my dress, pulled my robe over my slip, and went out onto the balcony to catch the last of the lake breeze. After a few moments Paul came out to stand beside me.
“Sorry the evening was such a flop,” he said.
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” I said. “It just happened that way. And,” I added, nodding toward the other building where the dark-haired girl was visibly boredly watching TV, “at least I had a better evening than she did.”
“Myra,” Paul said, “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to keep dragging that up.”
“I’m not dragging anything up,” I said. “I just commented that she didn’t have a date tonight.” After a moment I added thoughtfully, “And that’s odd.”
“Myra!”
“Don’t ‘Myra’ me,” I said. “It is odd, because a girl that good-looking shouldn’t have any difficulty getting all the dates she wanted.”
“Maybe she just didn’t want one tonight,” Paul said.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “that’s not it. Because she’s bored silly over there.”
“Well, whatever the reason then,” Paul said, taking my elbow firmly to lead me back into the apartment, “it’s still no business of yours. Now come to bed. I’ve got a big day ahead of me tomorrow.”
He was right, of course. It was no business of mine. But she’d piqued my curiosity, and I knew I wouldn’t be content until it was satisfied.
I didn’t see the girl at all the following day. I glanced over her way a couple of times, of course, but either she was out or our schedules didn’t mesh. That evening, though, as I was opening up the apartment again after Paul had gone, I noticed her lights were on and that the drapes covering her balcony doors were unpulled. I hesitated a fraction of a second, then, flicking off the lights behind me, stepped out onto the darkened balcony for a better view.
For a while nothing stirred in the other apartment, but then just when I least expected it she moved in from the side outside my line of vision and began to rearrange things on the coffee table.
It was hard to tell what she had planned for the evening because she was dressed in a long housecoat, which could mean anything — or nothing. I felt a stir of encouragement, though, when she suddenly broke off what she was doing and moved purposefully out of my line of vision again. Obviously, she’d gone to answer the door. So the housecoat had to mean that they intended to spend the night in.
I was proved right a few minutes later when she reappeared behind the balcony doors, mussed and rumpled and laughing. I craned forward, waiting for her lover to join her so I could get a good look at him. But then suddenly she reached up and abruptly drew the drapes together.
I took an involuntary step backward as if physically affronted. A couple of seconds later, though, I realized there couldn’t be anything personal in it. Looking out from the light, she couldn’t possibly have seen me in the dark. Still, it was curious that she’d picked that particular moment to shut off her apartment. And it made me more curious than ever to get to the bottom of things over there.
It took me another two weeks of patient observation, but then I had my answer. And, of course, something this good I had to pass onto someone. Which is why I told Paul.
It was on another Saturday. He was back out on the balcony, fiddling with the grill, and the girl across the way was back doing her stretching and bending exercises where the whole world could see.