The roar of water kept either of them from talking for some time. She had put bubble bath into the water, and it foamed up in massive pink layers as she waited for the tub to fill. At last there was enough water in the tub. He marveled at the amount of water she needed. And she did not want it as hot as it was; she carefully switched on the cold until a good deal of the suds had been damaged. The whole affair struck him as inefficient, but he said nothing. He sat out of her path, a spectator.
In the tub, she lay back resting her head against the porcelain side. Suds covered her.
“Like a French movie,” he said.
“Now you see, I never would have thought of that,” she said. The suds had begun to depart. She stirred them around and they departed even more quickly. “They don’t last,” she said.
“You should have gotten in while it was filling.”
“Oh really? I always wait. I’m afraid I’ll get burned.”
“Can’t you work the taps with your toes?”
“Oh my god, what a morbid idea. How bizarre. Like a monkey.”
All his adult life, while bathing, he had operated the taps with his toes, getting in as soon as there was enough water to cover him. Just enough so that he did not come in contact with the bare porcelain.
“There’s one difference between men and women,” he said.
“If that’s what you do, keep it to yourself.” Her hair had been tucked up into a plastic cap, and that, too, was different. And she scrubbed her back with a long-handled brush, and her nails with a small nylon brush. Amazing, he thought. So many differences in such a simple event as bathing.
For half an hour she remained in the tub soaking. He had never stayed in more than a few minutes. When the water got cold, he always hopped out. But she simply sat up, turned the hot water back on, and ran enough of it to rewarm the tub.
“You’re not afraid now,” he said. “Of getting burned.”
She looked at him blankly.
After she had bathed she dried herself and then wrapped herself up in a white towel the size of a rug. Stepping into woven slippers, which she had brought back from Mexico City, she walked from the bathroom to the bedroom, where she had left all her clothes neatly arranged on the bed.
“Maybe I won’t dress,” she said. “We’re about ready to go to bed anyhow, aren’t we?” She had him go into the kitchen and see what time it was; the clock in the bedroom had stopped. The time was eleven-thirty, and he reported that to her.
“It’s up to you,” he said. The trip from Reno had not tired him, much; after making the drive so often he had no complaints about air travel.
“I’m emotionally exhausted,” she said, standing in her white robe, still damp from the tub. “But I feel like doing something crazy.” She tugged aside the window shade. “It’s a dark night. I feel like running out in the backyard with nothing on.”
“There’s not much in that,” he said. “Especially after a bath. And you’d get your Asian Flu back.”
“True,” she said. “But I do want something. Is there anything to eat? Let’s eat something. Can you cook?”
“No,” he said.
“I hate to cook. I’m no good at it at all. Fix something to eat,” she said coaxingly, but with overtones of firmness.
Finally he went into the kitchen and inspected the canned and frozen food. “How about some shrimp dipped in beer batter?” They still had a can of beer from those he had brought that first day.
“Swell,” she said, seating herself at the kitchen table in her robe, her hands folded expectantly. “I’ll let you fix it; I’ll enjoy the luxury of having someone to do things for me.”
So he fried the shrimps in the batter and served them to her, and to himself.
“Bruce,” she said, as they ate, “I’m frankly not certain what your legal relationship to the office is. It was mine—I mean, my share of it was mine—before we got married.”
“It’s still yours,” he said, aware of that and having no desire to dispute it.
“But,” she said, “as it expands you’ll acquire an equity in it. It won’t just be as if you worked there as an employee. It’ll become joint property. I should have Fancourt tell me the law, for your sake as well as mine. I want you to have an equity in it. In fact, I’ve been thinking of having him write up the tide so that you stand as co-owner. I’d do it like this: I’d give you the three thousand as a gift, outright, with no strings, and you’d buy Zoe’s half interest, and acquire equal title with me.”
“Hell no,” he said, horrified.
“Why not?”
“I didn’t earn it. All I want to do is build it up into something.”
“But that makes you just an employee, who draws a fixed salary each month, for his work.”
“That’s okay. I’m office manager. In charge.” In charge, he thought, of my wife and myself. There aren’t very many people to manage. But, he believed, Susan would allow him to make the business decisions: she had already shown that she wanted to lean on him.
“You have complete authority down there,” she said, nodding her head slowly up and down. “You’ll be able to sign for things, and order things, and sign checks, and write up ads for the newspaper and so on. But you know—it’s hard for me to realize it—all our money has to come out of that place. It isn’t like it used to be; I could simply live on Walt’s earnings when the office lost money. It’s got to support two adults and one grammar school child. Two and a half people. That means it’s got to net something like five thousand a year minimum, no less.”
“That would be only about four hundred a month,” he said.
“We’ve never netted four hundred a month. In all the time we’ve operated it. You know, all of a sudden I have cold feet.” She put down her fork. “It scares me. Real panic.”
He sat down next to her and put his arms around her, but she sat as stiffly as she possibly could. “Remember that you hired me because you considered me an expert,” he said. That seemed remote, the original business relationship between them in which she had wanted him because he worked as buyer for a large and successful discount house.
“But you’ve never managed a place,” she said.
That chilled him, hearing her talk like that. As if no matter what she said, about anything at all, she could in the next breath take it back, unsay it, force them to start over again at the bottom and therefore perhaps arrive at a different conclusion altogether.
“We settled that,” he said. “That’s water under the bridge. You presumably made up your mind, so I won’t discuss it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You have to keep me from backtracking; I know it’s one of my fundamental weaknesses. Everybody says so. I tell them something, and then next day I get worried and I forget I said it.”
“I know I can run the office,” he said shortly, “so we can drop the subject.”
She appeared genuinely contrite.
While he was putting the dishes into the sink, she said from the table, “Let’s go somewhere. To a cocktail lounge or somewhere. I got spoiled down in Reno. I keep wanting to rush right out and have a big time. We do have something to celebrate.”
“What about Taffy?”
“If we’re only gone a little while she won’t wake up,” Susan said.
This sort of business being new to him he said, “What if she does?”
“She won’t,” Susan said.
“I’ll take your word for it.” He dried his hands. “Better put on something, though.”
She disappeared into the bedroom. After some equivocation she decided on a plain dark suit. “Will this do?” she asked.