In Bed With Clark Gable or something.” “It was Hollywood Here I Come—his experiences screenwriting there, and a double meaning which you, the teacher, got, if not even a triple, but why’d you write him if you thought it so bad?” and I say “Just what I told you: because he stuck with it — crummy book but a book every three years or so and apparently able to live fairly well off his work, which I would have loved but didn’t have whatever it is to do it.” “So you never had a book published?” “One little measly one — I’ve plenty of copies I bought for a dollar each so I’ll send you one if you like.” “That’d be nice, thanks, and your friend Henry?” “Henry Greenfield?” “Yes.” “How’s he doing?” “That’s right,” and I say “I see him about once every eighteen months — he’s completely changed: skinny instead of stocky, shaved his skull, big beard, wears an earring and kiddy clothes and has become a visual artist — he made enough in antiques to retire — and he and Gilda split up after twenty-five years,” and she says “I liked her, lots of spunk and smarts, even if she didn’t care for me — remember?” and I say “Even where and when she said it — they and I were subbing together at a Bronx junior high school and it was on the train to work and she said ‘What do you think Ramona has against me?’” “I never had anything against her.” “I know, which I told her then — I think it was all out of envy — your profession, personableness, income and that you didn’t have to hack it out as a sub every day. Anyway, I see her now even more than I do Henry — he’s become a bit too odd, the new face and costume each time and hip talk and woman after woman after woman and each five years younger than the previous one till they’re now younger than his daughter, who’s first-year med school, by the way.” “How could it be — shy little Phoebe?” “Little Phoebe who’s about ten feet tall.” “In size?” “Both…but how’s your old acting-school friend Thalia?” and she says “Thelma — it was at her party, in fact, where we met, wasn’t it?” and I say “It was a friend of my brother Peter’s, which is how I came to it, and you came with Thelma, so maybe she knew the host or someone who knew him — that was some night, Christmas Eve, snowing, and you and I talked awhile and then left for midnight services at Saint Patrick’s because you wouldn’t mind praying and I’d always wanted to be on the line there outside with someone like you who’d cuddle into me because of the cold, and it happened — well, I’ve told you this before, nothing like fantasies realized,” and she says “I think you told me it that very night,” and I say “It was the same with my wife, almost same circumstances, but a New Year’s Eve party I met her at.” “Your brother invited you?” “No, he was dead by then — I was actually invited by the hosts and saw her, my future wife—” “What’s her name?” “Carolyn.” “And your boys’?” “Andrei and Daniel, two writers she’s written about and admires and even knew, I think — and fell in love at first sight there — I did — In other words, at the party I was immensely attracted to her and introduced myself or had someone introduce us—” “Surely you remember,” and I say “I introduced myself and asked whom she knew — something dumb like that — woman or boy friend giving the party and found out she came with a woman friend, as you had twenty years before, and was single.” “What would you have done if she wasn’t?” “Probably made a pass at her, which I think I was still doing then — I know I was: if I couldn’t get the whole works then maybe just a quick fling. Though looking back at it it’s not something I’ve liked in myself and don’t especially care for when men do it to Carolyn at parties and gatherings of various sorts.” “It’s happened that often with her?” “Four or five times I know of — she’s very pretty with an attractive figure besides whatever else she gives off.” “What do you do when it happens?” and I say “Well, she tells me it after, but once I overheard it. ‘You’re married?’ the guy said, ‘well that’s too bad’—something like that — a sort of wry disappointment, which I think is what I used to use, since it doesn’t completely cut you off, but with her, you see — this confusion the men have I mean — it’s also because she doesn’t wear a wedding band.” “Why not?” and I say “She lost it doing the laundry in our building’s laundry room.” “How long ago?” “Three years,” and she says “She should get one because then maybe fewer men would make passes and you’d be less agitated by it,” and I say “I’m not really agitated by it and I’ve made a couple of passes or approaches or whatever you call it to women with wedding bands — before I was married, of course — though truth is when I made them I didn’t look at their wedding fingers for a band, and besides, some married women wear it on the right hand Russian-style — I just looked at my own hands to see which one the band’s normally on — and some unmarried women wear the band as a precaution of some sort, a safety device — I’m not getting the right word, but some strategy.” “Certainly not a strategy to attract men.” “Well, some men might be more attracted to married women, less of a threat.” “The husband could be a threat if he’s there,” and I say “True, true, anyway, she wasn’t married, so didn’t have a ring and doesn’t now.” “But you seem happily married.” “Very much so,” and she says “That’s wonderful — Josh and I were too for a few years but then we should have split up ten years ago but didn’t because of the children.” “Must be difficult living with someone you don’t want to live with,” and she says “Oh, despite what I might have said we remained compatible, we’re still compatible, he’s a dear, fair very decent sweet guy — no arguments or complaints, never yells — just he was always uninteresting and invariable, if I can speak openly. If you don’t like this, please say so,” and I say “No, it’s all right, what?” and she says “No spark is what I mean and little to no curiosity outside of his own work and the one thing we were interested and involved in together, the well-being of our kids — maybe the first couple of years before we married he was interesting or living with him was or seemed to be, but after that, well… I just couldn’t see myself going through ten to twenty more years of a totally dull compatible marriage with a boring lifeless man and most of those years without the distractions of kids — I in fact thought it’d make me nuts — I know, I know, I’ve made my point all too clear and probably contradicted myself several times and sound to you repellently faddish, so excuse me.” “It’s not that,” and she says “Not what?” “Everything you said, and I’m sorry for what you both have gone through,” and she says “Don’t worry about that, Josh finally realized with me our marriage was a tremendous mistake and is much happier with the situation now, but can you — I mean, you can be sure, to get back to what we were originally saying — in fact I still wear it, left hand, but not anymore the engagement ring, to feel safer on the street as you said — but that gives away what I was about to say, which is that I always wore my wedding band, no matter what I thought of my marriage, and I also once lost it but bought a new one in days,” and I say “So you think it odd my wife doesn’t replace hers?” “Not odd or no odder than that you don’t encourage her to or get her a new one — after all, yours sounds like a wonderful marriage,” and I say “It is, with minor problems of course.” “Like what?” “Like what everybody must go through when they don’t go through real marital problems — minor, too normal to describe — but if I just went out and got her a wedding band it would have to match mine like the original.” “Not really; mine didn’t — though if you insisted, then just as easy: you show yours and they match it.” “I don’t have her size.” “Ask her — eliminates the surprise, but you forfeit that,” and I say “Who knows his or her finger size? For it wasn’t that simple when we got our fingers measured by the man we ordered them from.” “Then you go back to him and he probably has a record of her size, so you can still pull off the surprise.” “Fingers don’t expand?” “If you get a lot heavier perhaps, but the way you spoke about her, she hasn’t.” “She’s actually lost weight, and she was never heavy, since we married.” “Then if she hasn’t lost a lot there should be no problem, or who knows, because maybe she likes not wearing one.” “What do you mean?” and she says “Some people don’t like wearing anything on their fingers or around their necks and wrists and so on.” “That’s what you meant? It didn’t seem so,” and she says “Then maybe I don’t know what I meant — really, what’s the difference? Be