“He’s fine, by the way.”
“Good.”
“Bert?”
“Yes, Cindy?”
“Never mind, nothing.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I’ll put the shirt in the mail. I washed it and ironed it, I hope it doesn’t get messed up.”
“I hope not.”
“Good-bye, Bert,” she said, and hung up.
“Eighty-seventh Squad, Kling.”
“Bert, this is Cindy.”
“Hi,” he said.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“I was just about to call the I.S.”
“Oh.”
“But go ahead. It can wait.”
Cindy hesitated. Then, her voice very low, she said, “Bert, can I see you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” he said.
“Yes.” She hesitated again. “Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve.”
“I know.”
“I bought something for you.”
“Why’d you do that, Cindy?”
“Habit,” she said, and he suspected she was smiling.
“I’d love to see you, Cindy,” he said.
“I’ll be working till five.”
“No Christmas party?”
“At a hospital? Bert, my dear, we deal here daily with life and death.”
“Don’t we all,” Kling said, and smiled. “Shall I meet you at the hospital?”
“All right. The side entrance. That’s near the emergency…”
“Yes, I know where it is. At five o’clock?”
“Well, five-fifteen.”
“Okay, five-fifteen.”
“You’ll like what I got you,” she said, and then hung up.
He had forgotten, almost, what she looked like.
She came through the hospital’s chrome and glass revolving doors, and he saw at first only a tall blond girl, full-breasted and wide-hipped, honey blond hair clipped close to her head, cornflower-blue eyes, shoving through the doors and out onto the low, flat stoop, and he reacted to her the way he might react to any beautiful stranger stepping into the crisp December twilight, and then he realized it was Cindy, and his heart lurched.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
She took his arm. They walked in silence for several moments.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you. So do you.”
He was, in fact, quite aware of the way they looked together, and fell immediately into the Young Lovers syndrome, positive that everyone they passed on the windswept street knew instantly that they were mad about each other. Each stranger (or so he thought) cased them quickly, remarking silently on their oneness, envying their youth and strength and glowing health, longing to be these two on Christmas Eve, Cindy and Bert, American Lovers, who had met cute, and loved long, and fought hard, and parted sadly, and were now together again in the great tradition of the season, radiating love like flashing Christmas bulbs on a sixty-foot-high tree.
They found a cocktail lounge near the hospital, one they had never been to before, either together or separately, Kling sensing that a “first” was necessary to their rediscovery of each other. They sat at a small round table in a corner of the room. The crowd noises were comforting. He suspected an English pub might be like this on Christmas Eve, the voice cadences lulling and soft, the room itself warm and protective, a good place for nurturing a love that had almost died and was now about to redeclare itself.
“Where’s my present?” he said, and grinned in mock, evil greediness.
She reached behind her to where she had hung her coat on a wall peg, and dug into the pocket, and placed a small package in the exact center of the table. The package was wrapped in bright blue paper and tied with a green ribbon and bow. He felt a little embarrassed; he always did when receiving a gift. He went into the pocket of his own coat, and placed his gift on the table beside hers, a slightly larger package wrapped in jingle-bells paper, red and gold, no bow.
“So,” she said.
“So,” he said.
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
They hesitated. They looked at each other. They both smiled.
“You first,” he said.
“All right.”
She slipped her fingernail under the Scotch Tape and broke open the wrapping without tearing the paper, and then eased the box out, and moved the wrapping aside, intact, and centered the box before her, and opened its lid. He had bought her a plump gold heart, seemingly bursting with an inner life of its own, the antiqued gold chain a tether that kept it from ballooning ecstatically into space. She looked at the heart, and then glanced quickly into his expectant face and nodded briefly and said, “Thank you, it’s beautiful.”
“It’s not Valentine’s Day…”
“Yes.” She was still nodding. She was looking down at the heart again, and nodding.
“But I thought…” He shrugged.
“Yes, it’s beautiful,” she said again. “Thank you, Bert.”
“Well,” he said, and shrugged again, feeling vaguely uncomfortable and suspecting it was because he hated the ritual of opening presents. He ripped off the bow on her gift, tore open the paper, and lifted the lid off the tiny box. She had bought him a gold tie-tack in the form of miniature handcuffs, and he read meaning into the gift immediately, significance beyond the fact that he was a cop whose tools of the trade included real handcuffs hanging from his belt. His gift had told her something about the way he felt, and he was certain that her gift was telling him the very same thing — they were together again, she was binding herself to him again.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Do you like it, Bert?”
“I love it.”
“I thought…”
“Yes, I love it.”
“Good.”
They had not yet ordered drinks. Kling signaled for the waiter, and they sat in curious silence until he came to the table. The waiter left, and the silence lengthened, and it was then that Kling began to suspect something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. She had closed the lid on his gift, and was staring at the closed box.
“What is it?” Kling asked.
“Bert…”
“Tell me, Cindy.”
“I didn’t come here to…”
He knew already, there was no need for her to elaborate. He knew, and the noises of the room were suddenly too loud, the room itself too hot.
“Bert, I’m going to marry him,” she said.
“I see.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” he said. “No, Cindy, please.”
“Bert, what you and I had together was very good…”
“I know that, honey.”
“And I just couldn’t end it the way… the way we were ending it. I had to see you again, and tell you how much you’d meant to me. I had to be sure you knew that.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Bert?”
“Yes, Cindy. Okay,” he said. He smiled and touched her hand reassuringly. “Okay,” he said again.
They spent a half hour together, drinking only the single round, and then they went out into the cold, and they shook hands briefly, and Cindy said, “Good-bye, Bert,” and he said, “Good-bye, Cindy,” and they walked off in opposite directions.
Sadie When She Died, 1972
Augusta Blair
The lady was sitting on the living room sofa.
The lady had long red hair and green eyes and a deep suntan. She was wearing a dark green sweater, a short brown skirt, and brown boots. Her legs crossed, she kept staring at the wall as Kling came into the room, and then turned to face him. His first impression was one of total harmony, a casual perfection of color and design, russet and green, hair and eyes, sweater and skirt, boots blending with the smoothness of her tan, the long sleek grace of crossed legs, the inquisitively angled head, the red hair cascading in clean vertical descent. Her face and figure came as residuals to his brief course in art appreciation. High cheekbones, eyes slanting up from them, fiercely green against the tan, tilted nose gently drawing the upper lip away from partially exposed, even white teeth. Her sweater swelled over breasts firm without a bra, the wool cinched tightly at her waist with a brown, brass-studded belt, hip softly carving an arc against the nubby sofa back, skirt revealing a secret thigh as she turned more fully toward him.