He lowered the receiver gently onto the cradle and stretched out on the bed. His father had known what her reaction would be. Maybe his father knew her best, after all. You don’t know Molly, his father had said.
Ah, but I do know her, he thought. Or believed that I knew her, or at least was starting to know her. As far back as the beginning... well, almost the beginning. Her apartment that day, the clutter of packed cartons and things waiting to be packed into yet more cartons. It was very cold, wasn’t it? I’m sure it was cold. I’m forgetting. It had to be cold in February, didn’t it? It was cold, I’m sure of that. We were both working in overcoats, yes. Molly was wearing a bright green muffler around her throat, a matching green watch cap on her head, green woolen gloves. Her blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Our breaths plumed from our mouths as we worked. It was already 8:00 a.m., and the moving van was coming at nine. Molly was moving.
I’ll never forget, he thought.
They talked as they worked. Molly directed him to her dishes and cups and saucers. He wrapped each of the items in newspaper. She packed them into the cartons. She told him the move from First Avenue to York would bring her closer to the hospital. Besides, she’d be able to see the East River from the new apartment. She liked the sounds on the river, she said. All those boats, maybe even ships coming from faraway places over the sea. He told her he hadn’t forgotten it was St. Valentine’s Day. In fact, he’d been walking past Tiffany’s yesterday and had seen a fat gold heart in the window and had almost bought it for her. “For Valentine’s Day,” he said, and smiled.
“Almost?” she said.
“I didn’t have any money with me,” he said. “It cost two hundred dollars.”
“Almost?” she said again.
“I’ll pick up something later today,” he said.
“Why is it always almost?” she said, and suddenly she was weeping. She stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, cartons and dishes and saucers and cups everywhere around her, stood in her long dark overcoat, wearing the green watch cap and muffler, and she covered her face with her hands and wept into her green woolen gloves. “All anybody does is take from me,” she said, weeping.
He was crouched near one of the cartons, a newspaper-wrapped saucer in his hand. He looked at her weeping in the center of the kitchen and wondered what she wanted from him. A lousy little heart from Tiffany’s? I’ll buy the heart this afternoon, he thought. I’ll run over there and buy it. He got to his feet. He put down the saucer. He tried to take her in his arms.
“No, don’t,” she said.
“Molly...”
“Please,” she said, “I don’t care, really, I don’t. I know you don’t love me, it doesn’t matter whether you buy me presents or not.”
“But I do love you,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever said the words to her.
“No, you don’t. Oh, please, David, you love fucking me is all, please.”
“Molly...”
“I’m a person,” she said. She wiped one gloved hand under her runny nose, and shook her head and looked at her watch. “I have to pack,” she said, “I have to get out of here.”
“I know you’re a person,” he said.
“No, you don’t! You think I’m a quivering, quaking quim is all. I don’t care, really, I don’t. But, Jesus, isn’t anyone ever going to see me for what I am? Isn’t anyone ever going to treat me like somebody?” she said, and burst into fresh tears.
“I know you’re somebody,” he said.
“Who am I then?” she said, sobbing.
“Someone I love.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I do love you, Molly.”
“Please,” she said, sobbing. “When I was in Blooming-dale’s the other day, looking for your Valentine present...”
“Molly, I’m sorry, really. I’ll go buy the heart this afternoon.”
“Who needs the heart?” she said. “If you almost bought it, then you didn’t buy it, so what difference does it make? That’s not why I’m telling you about Bloomingdale’s, you’re not even listening to me.”
“I’m listening, Molly.”
“There was this girl there?” she said, sobbing. “And she was trying on dresses? And her mother was looking them over? She’d come out and show the dresses to her mother? And she came out in one dress and showed it to her mother, and she said, ‘Mom, make believe I’m somebody. How do I look?’ And I burst into tears right there in the store because nobody in the world knows I’m somebody, either.”
She began crying more bitterly, her face in her gloved hands. He watched her helplessly. Whatever had gone before, whatever they had done together in bed, seemed suddenly unimportant, an act even monkeys in the zoo could perform with expertise. She had given him her body completely, and he had taken it unashamedly, greedily accepting her extravagant gift, taking from her with both hands, and giving nothing but his own lust in return. Now, here in this cluttered kitchen, she was giving him more than she had ever given him before. She was daring to expose herself. She was trusting him with her tears.
He turned wordlessly and left the apartment. He raced down the steps. He ran into the street. His bank was downtown in the Village. He had only eight dollars in his pocket, but he blew almost all of it on a taxi downtown. There was $512 in his account, all he’d been able to save from his monthly G.I. Bill checks. He withdrew all of it but five dollars. He took another taxi uptown. He found a flower shop a block from Molly’s new apartment. He put $500 in cash on the counter and told the startled florist what he wanted.
Molly told him later that the first dozen roses were waiting outside the door to the new apartment when she got there at nine-thirty. The movers had not yet arrived. She picked up the roses in their pressed cardboard vase and opened the little envelope hanging there and looked at the card. It read, “Molly, I love you.” No signature. She told him later that she’d hoped the roses were from him but that she was singularly unimpressed. A dozen red roses were not the same as a fat gold heart from Tiffany’s. She unlocked the door and went into the empty apartment. She put the vase of roses on the kitchen counter top because her furniture wasn’t there yet, and there was nothing else to put them on. The next dozen roses arrived at ten o’clock, a half-hour later. The same card. “Molly, I love you.” She smiled. The movers arrived just about when the third dozen roses were delivered at ten-thirty. She rummaged in a carton she had marked GLASS and found real vases for all three dozen roses. She did not expect any more roses. She would have called him at his apartment to thank him, but she didn’t yet have a phone. Besides, she wouldn’t have been able to reach him; he was downstairs outside her building, watching for the delivery boy, making certain the roses kept coming.
She was telling the movers where to put her furniture when the fourth dozen roses arrived at eleven o’clock. She had run out of glass vases, so she left them in the cardboard vase. She told him later that she’d frankly hoped this batch would be the last of them. But the roses kept coming. Every half-hour. The same card each time. “Molly, I love you.” By one o’clock, when the movers finally left, there were seven dozen roses in the apartment and a boy standing at the front door with yet another dozen. By three o’clock, there were twelve dozen roses. When David walked into the apartment at five o’clock, there were sixteen dozen roses on the kitchen counter and sitting on top of unopened cartons and on all the tabletops and windowsills and even on the floor.