Kate shrugs.
The second message is from Helen.
“David, where are you?” she says. “Can you please call me when you get in? There’s something I forgot to mention when we spoke earlier. Love you. Bye.”
David looks at his watch.
“I’d better call her,” he says.
“Sure,” Kate says, and goes across the room to sit on the sofa. She watches him as he dials.
“Hi, sweetie,” he says.
“Hi, how’d the lecture go?”
“It was very good, in fact.”
“Where’d you eat?”
“I grabbed a sandwich before it started.”
“With Stanley?”
“No, alone.”
“He’s not so bad, is he?”
“He’s awful.”
Helen laughs.
On the sofa across the room, Kate watches and listens.
“Do you think you’ll have time to do something for me tomorrow?” Helen asks. “Before you come up?”
“Well, I won’t be coming up till Saturday, you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Saturday morning. I’ll be on the...”
“I know. I didn’t mean you’d be coming up tomorrow, I meant can you do something for me tomorrow.”
“Sure, what is it, hon?”
Hon, he thinks. Sweetie, he thinks. Kate is hearing all this, he thinks. Cat-eyed, she watches him, her face expressionless.
“Do you know that little shop on Madison and I think it’s Sixty-second or — third? I don’t remember the name, but they sell all kinds of kooky handcrafted jewelry and things?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Do you remember it? We bought Aunt Lily’s Christmas gift there last year. The quilted cat.”
“Is that the name?”
“No, that’s what we bought her.”
“Oh. Yes, I think I remember it.”
“I don’t know the name.”
“Neither do I. But I’ll find it. What did you want?”
“Can you see if they’ve got something really beautiful but not too expensive that would make a nice birthday gift for Danielle? Harry’s throwing a surprise party for her on Saturday night, and I haven’t been able to find anything really nice up here. You know how she dresses...”
“Yes.”
“Very chic, very French. I thought something in that oxidized metal, whatever it’s called, eulithium, eulirium, delirium...”
David laughs.
“...whatever, some nice dangling earrings maybe, but not too expensive.”
“How much is too expensive?”
“Anything over a hundred dollars.”
“That sounds like a lot.”
“Well, you can’t get anything nice for less than a hundred, but don’t spend more than that.”
“I’ll go there first thing.”
“I don’t think they open till ten.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“When will you call again?”
“Tomorrow sometime? After the morning panel?”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“I love you, David.”
“I love you, too.”
“Good night, honey.”
“Good night.”
He puts the receiver down gently.
“You miss her so much, why don’t you just go up there?” Kate asks at once.
“Honey,” he says, “I...”
“No, don’t ‘honey’ me,” she says. “She’s your honey, don’t give me any of that honey shit. You want her so much, just get out of here. Go do it to her, you want her so much.”
And suddenly she’s in tears.
He goes to the sofa and tries to take her in his arms, but she shrugs him away, telling him she’s the one in danger here, she’s the one getting phone calls at the theater from a lunatic, but instead Helen’s the one who gets all his attention, Helen can feel free to call here at any hour of the day or night...
“Honey, the call was forwa—”
“I told you not to call me that. Don’t you ever call me honey again, do you hear me? Call her honey if you want to call someone honey. But don’t call me honey, not anymore, do you hear me?”
She is sitting in the center of the sofa in her misty little delicate apricot and tangerine dress. Tears are rolling down her face, hands clenched in her lap. He wonders why it has come to this again, Kate in tears. Where has his exciting young mistress gone? Who is this troubled woman in her place?
“Kate,” he says, “I love you.”
“Sure.”
“You know that, Kate.”
But he is wondering.
“Then why don’t you do something?” she asks.
“What would you like me...?”
“You can go shopping for her...”
“Kate, I’ll do anything you...”
“But you can’t do one simple fucking thing for me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Take the letters to Clancy. I want to make sure they’re safe in his hands. Tell him to come here. Tell him I want to press charges against this person who’s ruining my life. I want this to stop, do you understand me?”
“Yes. But in all honesty, Kate, I think it would be more effective...”
“Is something wrong with you? I’m being watched, can’t you understand that? Are you afraid to go, is that it?”
“I’m thinking of you, Kate. I’m trying to find the best way...”
“Are you afraid he’ll find out you’re fucking me?”
“Of course not!”
But he knows she’s right.
“Are you afraid he’ll tell Mama?”
“You know that’s not...”
But it is.
“Tell Helen up there on the Vineyard? Give her a call and say, ‘Hey, guess what, Mrs. Chapman, your husband’s diddling a dancer in Cats, did you know that?’”
“I’m not afraid of anything like...”
But he is.
“Then why won’t you take the letters to him?”
“I will. If that’s what you want. That’s...”
“I mean, I realize it’ll be difficult for you, but at least nobody’s about to kill you, is he?”
“Nobody’s about to kill you, either.”
“No? Then why is he hounding me?”
David sighs heavily. He knows her fear is appropriate; there is, after all, a very real person out there threatening her. But her behavior of the moment seems somewhat irrational, no? A bit peculiar? A tad bizarre? A trifle off the fucking wall, vouldn’t you zay, Doktor? He is an analyst, after all, and not a pig farmer, and he knows a fit of hysterics when it erupts in his presence. But he’s not her analyst, is he? And besides, maybe he’s wrong. After six years with Jackie — admittedly not the best in the business, but certainly capable enough — Kate may have entirely put to rest whatever was haunting her. Either way, it’s not his problem, is it?
He wonders again where his sweet young mistress has gone. Will this ranting young woman on the couch — how appropriate that she’s on a couch, he thinks — next confess that she has a weeping boil on her ass? Quite frankly, he doesn’t want to hear about it. Until ten minutes ago, she was his lover. When did she get to be his patient? Tell it to Julia, he thinks.
Maybe he is a pig farmer, after all.