He goes into a bar, buys a beer, tells himself to speak slowly and conscientiously and watch out for slurs and repeats, dials her number from a pay phone there. She says “Hello,” doesn’t seem tired, he says “It’s Howard, how are you, I hope I’m not calling too late.” “It’s not that it’s too late for me to receive a call, Howard, just that of the three to four calls from you so far, most have come this late. Makes me think … what? That your calls are mostly last-minute thoughts, emanating from some form of desperation perhaps. It doesn’t make me feel good.” “But they’re not. And I’m sorry. I get impulsive sometimes. Not this time. You were on my mind — have been for days — and I thought about calling you tonight, then thought if it was getting too late to call you, but probably thought about it too long. Then, a little while before, thought ‘Hell, call her, and I’ll explain.’ So some impulsiveness there after all.” “All right. We have that down. So?” “So?” “So, you know, what is the reason you called?” “I wanted to know if you might like to meet at the Breakers for a drink, or maybe it’s too late tonight for that too.” “It probably is. Let me check the time. I don’t have to. I know already. Way too late. If you want, why not come here.” “That’s what I’d like much better, really. You mean now, don’t you?” “Not two hours from now, if you can help it.” “Right. Is there anything I can pick up for you before I get there?” “Like what?” “Wine, beer? Anything you need? Milk?” “Just come, but without stopping for a drink along the way.” “I already have. But so you won’t get the wrong idea, it was because my phone wasn’t working at home. Just tonight, which was a big surprise when I finally picked up the receiver to call you. So I went out to call from a public phone. But I didn’t want to call from the street. Too noisy, and I also didn’t want to give you the wrong idea that I’m always calling from the street. So I went into this bar I’m in to call but felt I should buy a beer from them first, even if I didn’t drink it — though I did — part of it — rather than coming in only to use their phone. That’s the way I am. I put all kinds of things in front of me.” “Does seem so. Anyway, here’s my address,” and gives it and what street to get off if he takes the bus. “If you take the Broadway subway, get off at a Hundred-sixteenth and ride the front of the train, but not the first car, so you’ll be right by the stairs. The subways, or at least that station at this hour, can be dangerous, so maybe to be safer you should take the bus or a cab.” “A cab. That’s what I’ll do.” “Good. See you.”
He subways to her station, runs to her building. If she asks, he’ll say he took a cab. They say hello, he takes off his jacket, she holds out her hand for it, probably to put it in what must be the coat closet right there. He hands it to her and says “I took the subway, by the way. Should have taken a cab, but I guess I’m still a little tight with money. I’m saying, from when I wasn’t making much for years. I don’t know why I mentioned that. It was a fast ride though — good connections — and I’m still panting somewhat from running down the hill to your building,” has moved closer to her, she says “I didn’t notice — you ran down the hill here?” he bends his head down, she raises hers and they kiss. They kiss again and when they separate she says “your jacket — excuse me. It’s on the floor.” “Don’t bother with it.” “Don’t be silly — it’s a jacket,” and picks it up, brushes it off and hangs it in the closet. He comes behind her while she’s separating some of the coats, jackets and garment bags hanging in the closet, turns her around by her shoulders and they kiss. She says “Like a nightcap of some sort — seltzer?” “Really, nothing, thank you.” “Then I don’t know, I’m enjoying this but we should at least get out of this cramped utilitarian area. The next room. Or maybe, if we want, we should just go to bed.” “Sure, if it’s all right with you.” “I’ll have to wash up first.” “Same here.” “And I wouldn’t mind, so long as you’d come with me, walking my dog.” “You’ve a dog?” “It’ll be quick, and I won’t have to do it early in the morning.”
They walk the dog, make love. They see each other almost every day for the next few weeks. Museums, movies, an opera, eat out or she cooks for them in her apartment or he cooks for them in his, a party given by friends of hers. They’re walking around the food table there putting food on their plates when he says “I love you, you know that, right?” and she says “Me too, to you.” “You do? Great.” That night he dreams he’s being carried high up in the sky by several party balloons, says “Good Christ, before this was fun, but now they better hold,” wakes up, feels for her, holds her thigh and says to himself “This is it, I don’t want to lose her, she’s the best yet, or ever. Incredible that it really happened. Well, it could still go bust.” He takes her to meet his mother, has dinner at her parents’ apartment. He sublets his apartment, moves in with her. He can’t get used to the dog. Walking it, cleaning up after it, its smells, hair on the couch and his clothes, the sudden loud barks which startle him, the dog licking his own erection, and tells her that as much as he knows she loves the dog, the city’s really no place for it. She says “Bobby came with me and with me he stays. Sweetheart, think of it as a package deal and that Bobby’s already pretty old.” When his lease expires he gives up his apartment to the couple he sublet it to. He begins insisting to Denise that Bobby’s long hair makes him sneeze and gives him shortness of breath, which is keeping him up lots of nights, and that the apartment’s much too crowded with him. “If we ever have the baby we’ve talked about maybe having, it would mean getting an apartment with another bedroom at twice the rent we pay now, which we couldn’t afford, or disposing of the dog somehow and staying with the baby here.” She gives Bobby to a friend in the country. “If one day we do get a larger apartment,” she says, “and Bobby’s still alive, then I don’t care how sick and feeble he might be then, he returns. Agreed?” “Agreed.”