“You told us it.”
“How they refurbished the tubs and used them as tanks to invade Russia?”
“And I told you it wasn’t a very appropriate joke for this party and as far as jokes go, not at all droll.”
“Play ball,” he says, dropping his hands and walking away.
“Who let that guy in?” Phil says.
“I kind of liked it,” I say. “Not the joke so much but the ‘Time in, play ball.’ Takes a certain amount of guts and it’s something I might do — the preambular apology.”
“It takes stupidity, not guts. I think he’s an idiot. You know Milikin?”
“Seen his illustrations all over the place but never met him.”
“Genius, man, genius, and where I come from you’d get strung up for using that word for his work. I wanted to find someone to introduce us. Diana’s busy.”
“Just go over to him, say ‘Hello, how’s by you, what’s new, the family, and I wanted to meet you.’ He’ll like the attention, especially from an artist.”
“That’s what I told him,” Jane says. “I’m in no rush to meet him myself, although I do admire the regard and prices he gets. I’ll speak to him of course, but first I want Phil to introduce himself. Do it, Phil. Everyone has to humble himself to someone at times, and he has thirty years on you, so you have nothing to feel competitive about.”
“It’s not that. There are people talking to him.”
“You want a few more drinks first? Because you know you’re going to go over before the night’s over. But then you’ll be too sloshed to make any sense to him and for him to appreciate your going over to want to do anything to help push your work.”
“You know that’s not why I want to talk to him.”
“Hey baby, this is the itsy old art lady you sleep with, so don’t be giving me that shit.” “Then speak like a lady, act like a lady,” and he gives more reasons why he can’t, shouldn’t, won’t introduce himself to Milikin and when she tells him to stop being a child and particularly with a voice so loud the whole world can hear, he says much lower that he’s not a child which she should know by now if she sleeps with him as she says and if she hasn’t been then he’s been having one hell of a ball with someone else the last ten years. But all kidding aside. If she has anything like that to say to him, say it at home. Then I see Helene. Of course I didn’t know her name at the time. Looking at me when I first looked at her. I’d lifted my head. First I turned my head away from Jane and Phil while they caviled about what each had just said, looked around the room, saw the woman from the couch, man with the pipe, Alan making a point, Milikin nowhere about, Cylette I think her name was being offered a light, looked at the rug, raised myself an inch or two on the balls of my soles, raised myself an inch or two on my heels, seesawed back and forth a few times like this, sipped some wine, set the glass down without looking away from it, then lifted my head while Phil told Jane how in many ways he’s more honest than she despite anything she might say, but none of it loud enough it seemed for anyone else to hear, and found myself looking at Helene looking at me. Well what do you know I told myself — hello, hello. She was standing between the food table and bar, about seven feet from the bar and seven from me. A crowd stood behind her, crowded around the bar, and there was an opening between us a foot or so wide and while we looked at one another people moved past it but nobody blocked it. She was being spoken to by a man whose whole body her whole body faced, but her face was turned sideways to me. She held a wineglass with two hands. Only the stem and lip of it showed, so I couldn’t tell what color wine she drank. We looked at each other for about ten seconds. Then I turned my head back to Jane and Phil while she was still looking at me. That’s when I said to myself Well what do you know, hello hello. I don’t know why I turned back to Jane and Phil. The position — body facing one way, head the other — could have been making me physically uncomfortable, but I don’t think that was it. If it was and I’d corrected it by turning more of my body to her, she might have construed that move as too open and provoking. I suppose I also didn’t think it right to look too long at someone looking at me whom I didn’t know, though she did to me. Jane said something to Phil about iguanas and sausages. Phil said “What do you think about that, Dan?” I said “About what?” “Damn lf he wasn’t even listening when we figured out the key to his past and present and all his future configurations but swore on our children’s heads to say it only once to him and never again. Tough luck, fella.” “He’s better off,” Jane says, “and you’re an awfully slick liar. Now let’s drop the subject, darling, okay?” “J’agrée, mon queen — to any sing.” She grabs his hand and yanks him closer to kiss him. I turn my head and more of my body this time to this woman. She’s facing the man with her body and face, listening to him engrossedly it seems. “We’ll saunter up to him en duo,” Jane says. “It can’t hurt. Speak to you later, Dan, unless you want to join us,” and I say “No thanks, I’ll save your place,” and turn back to the woman. She’s still listening. He’s using the words “quiddity,” “tendentious” and “rhetoric” in one sentence. If I look at her long and hard enough without looking away I bet she looks at me. Seconds after I think this she turns her head to me. It never worked before. It didn’t work now. She just turned to me again, or turned this way, not realizing I was still here, and last time I tried that trick I was probably in high school. We look at each other. She starts to smile, sort of smiles, then smiles because I smile or maybe I smiled because I felt her full smile about to appear and we smile at each other like this and I bob my head once and she blinks her eyes once, more a reflex than a signal I’d say, and turns to the man who has stopped talking to her and might have been looking at us looking at each other since she turned to me but is now looking at her, and raises her empty glass and he says “Not yet but it could stand some filling up,” and they go to the bar.
Blouse, neck, hair, breasts, forehead, cheek, collar, cuffs, skirt, can’t see her shoes. She squeezes through the crowd that came together behind the man who squeezed through first. Her back’s to me. She seems to have a large round rear and small waist. I picture her ironing one of those cuffs and me moving flush up against her rear, arm around her waist, other hand cupping her breast, fiddling with her nipple, neither of us in clothes. She’s behind some people now and all I see is her hair, then what seems her hand pouring wine from a bottle into a man’s glass. Go over, say hello or if she’s still with the man then stay close to say hello when he momentarily looks away or talks to someone else and maybe even leaves her. I head for the bar, turn to the food table, I wouldn’t know what to say. “Hello, how’s by you, the family?” Might be original enough to tickle her but I doubt it. A funnyman she might think, one who isn’t afraid to make a fool of himself, but I doubt it. Earnest approach then. “I wanted to meet you, plain as that, what can I say?” She looks earnest herself but the approach might what? Put her ill at ease or touch her in some not too positive way and then she could silently blame me for her sudden awkwardness or whatever it might come to when before she was feeling so good. Just go over. Say and do nothing. Or say nothing but do something. Pretend to want more wine. Just want more wine, since when do you have to pretend, and while there look at her and if she’s not looking at you continue to look at her and if she then looks at you, maybe then you can make one of a number of moves. But finish your wine first. Or go over with it. She’ll know the real reason you’re coming over, but if she’s interested, and for an intermittent minute she seemed to be, she won’t care what’s the excuse.
I drink up and start for the bar. “Excuse me, excuse me.” She’s still talking to that man. What did I expect? And if she was talking to anyone, what did I tell myself to do? I look for Jane and Phil. Nowhere around. I told myself to get near her and at the right time strike. I go to the food table, put my glass down, slice some cheese, but too much cheese tonight, too much food for now. Sit down. I head for the couch. “Excuse me, excuse me.” It’s filled. Look for a chair. All filled. Diana’s talking to someone. Seeing me she lifts her eyebrows as if saying still not having a good time? You look lost her eyebrows say. I smile, holdup my hand, thumb and index finger joined, indicating the obvious. She smiles. I turn to the bar. Woman’s not there. Good. Could mean she’s by herself somewhere where I could get to meet her. Good also means I can go to the bar now because she’s not there. I need to? Not that I’m high but I might be slightly. No, I need something to hold. Some people smoke. Others jingle change. I go over, “Excuse me, excuse me,” and pour a glass of red wine. Woman at the bar’s pouring a thick liquid from a decanter into what looks like a silver thimble the size of a double-shot glass. “Vodka? Is it for someone special or can anyone have it?”