“Maybe,” he said. “More often doesn’t mean all the time. Do you want to marry her?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t know.”
“That would be a solution,” he said, “but you’re not sure that’s what you want.”
“No,” I said, “I’m not.”
“Would that be a worse solution for you than not seeing her at all?”
“I had never thought of marrying Eva. I had never thought of marrying anyone. I never had much money before. You need money to get married, don’t you?”
“You have a good job now,” he said.
“It can’t last,” I said.
“Why can’t it last?” he asked.
“Just a feeling I have. Besides I can’t live with another person seven days a week.”
“Maybe you can’t. Maybe you can.”
“I need to be by myself,” I said. “People like me have no business being married.”
“I won’t argue that with you,” he said, “but you have made some strides recently. You’ve shown yourself capable of change.”
I liked his saying that about me. “Small, slow changes,” I said.
“Not so small,” he said. “Not so small.”
So I postponed the decision I was about to make and took another walk with Eva. On the way back, though it was not Thursday, I asked her if I might come in.
She looked surprised but said okay. And then after some foot dragging on my part, we went to bed.
I expected Ron to knock on the door in the middle of things and was primed to say Don’t answer, but he didn’t. During the act itself, I was thinking of how I would tell Klotzman and what his reaction might be.
We did it at times with Eva on top, a position she said she liked. I didn’t mind being passive.
“You are very dear to me,” Eva said.
“Thank you,” I said in a hoarse voice.
Eva laughed. “You are supposed to say something reciprocal.”
“Yes,” I said. “Me too.”
“Well, I guess I can’t get anything out of you,” she said.
“I like you,” I said, not knowing what she wanted.
“I already know you like me,” she said. “Tell me something I haven’t heard before.”
“I like it especially when you’re on top,” I said. She hadn’t heard that before. It was the best I could do on short notice.
“Do you?” she said. She seemed pleased to hear it.
“I like it when you’re pleased with me,” I said.
“You really are a dear,” she said. “At least I think so.”
I was improving in the reciprocation game, though it wasn’t my strong suit.
I still hadn’t gotten any hard information on Ron’s status.
Sometimes I put my ear to the wall that connected our apartments to check out if Ron was there. The insulation was foolproof. I heard nothing beyond what the imagination was willing to play for me.
Ron’s hateful presence found its way in almost everyone of my dreams. In one he and Eva were talking in hushed voices of getting married. “I’ve always wanted to get married.” said Eva. “It’s been a childhood dream of mine. Every girl wants to be married.” “If we tie the knot,” Ron said, “you’re going to have to stop seeing that lout next door.” “I don’t know if I can,” she said. “Then it’s no deal,” Ron said. “Just once in a while,” she pleaded. “Just for walks. Have a heart.” “He has to disappear,” he said. “You can’t have everything.” “Oh Ron,” she said, “I do want everything. I want marriage and everything that doesn’t come with it.” Ron held firm and they were still unmarried when I woke.
I thought if I married her, then Ron couldn’t but I would make the same demand Ron made in my dream. The reason I loathed Ron was that he was like me in so many ways.
Maybe I only imagined it. It was possible, wasn’t it, that Eva had no interest in marriage, that she valued being her own person and was content with our part-time connection, which may also have included seeing Ron.
I thought that on our next walk I would try in some indirect way to get her to tell me what I wanted to know.”
Now that marriage had entered our conversation, at least in my dreams, I felt a greater freedom of dialogue. I asked her if Ron had ever proposed to her.
“In a way,” she said. “Not exactly. I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“I see,” I said. “If he didn’t exactly propose, how could you tell him you weren’t interested.”
“He asked in a conjectural sort of way,” she said. “I told him in the spirit of the conjecture that I wasn’t interested.”
“You mean if he proposed, you were likely to turn him down.”
“Something like that.” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity,” I said. “Were you not interested in marriage or marriage to Ron?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose a little of both.”
I didn’t know where to go from there so I opted for silence.
“There must be some other reason you brought it up,” she said. “You seem at times obsessed with Ron. There’s no reason to be, Mel.”
What was she telling me? “No reason?”
“No reason,” she repeated.
I wanted to deny that I was obsessed with Ron, but I suppose it had some truth to it. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “that you’re more important to me than Ron.”
That should have satisfied me but it didn’t. I wanted Ron to be disappeared altogether. “You’re important to me too,” I said.
She gave me a hug which I returned.
The question still nagged me: Was Ron, in his less important role, still in the picture? I couldn’t ask directly, though the words rattled about in my head.
“Ron reminds me of my half-brother, who I never liked,” I said.
“I think I knew that,” she said. “You may have told me or I may have inferred it. In any event, I know that Ron is not one of your favorite people.”
“I’m indifferent to Ron,” I lied.
“That’s fine,” she said, “if it’s true. Are you really indifferent to Ron?”
“Who is Ron?” I joked.
“Who is he indeed,” she said.
For the moment he vanished, but I couldn’t trust it would stay that way. I had bested Ron, who had no idea, not knowing he was in a contest with me.
I confided this conversation to Klotzman, who chided me for not asking what I wanted to know directly.
“What if she said she was still seeing Ron?” I asked. “What then?”
“Then you would know where you stood and you could say I would prefer if you stopped seeing Ron.”
The idea of it brought sweat to my forehead. “I couldn’t,” I said.
“Nonsense,” he said. “You could but you won’t. You’re afraid to. What I wonder, is what exactly are you afraid of. Tell me.”
“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to know.
“Think about it,” he said. “What is the worst that can happen?”
“I don’t know what the worst is. The time before when we had a similar conversation, she told me she was her own person.”
“And how do you interpret that?” he asked.
“Well, what do you think it means?”
“You think it means that doing what she wants means that she will see Ron once in a while.”
“I didn’t know what to think, but now that you put it that way.”
“You can say to her, you tell me I’m more important, I don’t want you to see Ron any more.”
“I’ve thought of that,” I said, “and I rejected it.”
“Why not? The worst she can say is that she won’t and then you can say you’ll have to choose between us, but she may very well say, if that’s what you want, I will.”
“I don’t want to risk a refusal. I’m not one to give ultimatums.”