“It’s a shame,” Mary said. “That poor woman. You never know when something like that is going to happen, do you? That poor woman.”
“Let’s not talk about it,” Betty said.
Ramsey cleared his throat. “I’ve heard a little talk about Larry,” he said. “Not that I want to spread any rumors.”
“What kind of talk?” Max asked.
“Oh, just about what he was doing out in that storm,” Ramsey said.
“What do you mean?” Fran asked.
“Well, just talk,” Ramsey said, “and I don’t want to spread any rumors. But there was some mention of another woman.”
“You’re crazy,” Felix said immediately.
“I’m only saying what I heard.”
“Well, what you heard is wrong. I think I knew Larry better than any of you. Isn’t that right, Betty?”
“They spent a lot of time together,” Betty confirmed.
“And a straighter guy never existed,” Felix said. “I’d like to know who told you a thing like that, Paul.”
“What difference does it make? I just heard it around.”
“If I knew who told you that, I’d go over and tell that guy a thing or two, you can bet on that.”
“Forget it,” Ramsey said. “I just heard it around.”
“This was a real sweet man,” Felix said, “I’m not kidding you. I’ve met a lot of people in my life, but Larry Cole was one of the genuine real sweet men. I’d have done anything for that guy. All he had to do was ask. I’m not kidding. I mean it.”
“I didn’t know you were such close friends,” Max said.
“Well, who talks about friendship? It’s either there or it isn’t. But it burns me up how people can change a legitimate business trip — he was out in that damn storm on his way to see a client — into something with... with... hints of another woman! It just burns me up! Boy, sometimes I wonder where everybody’s mind is!”
“Well, forget it,” Ramsey said. “It was only something I heard.”
“You know how hard that guy worked? Do you think it’s easy to sit there on your own, without that steady salary coming in every week? He had to hustle for every cent he ever made. That’s what he was doing in that damn hurricane! Lining up another client so he could feed his family. You should have heard him when he talked about Eve and the kids. You should have seen his face! This guy was devoted! One of the real sweet people, believe me.”
“I always liked him,” Max said.
“It’s a shame,” Mary said. “A thing like that. Such a young man.”
“Listen, it makes no difference to me one way or the other,” Ramsey said. “I mean whether he was fooling around or not. Everybody else is doing it, anyway.”
“Oh, shut up, Paul,” Doris said.
“Well, he’s not exactly wrong, Doris,” Max said.
“Sex is here to stay.” Ramsey said, shrugging. “Let’s admit it.”
“That’s the right idea.” Max agreed, trying to raise the party out of the mud of morbidity.
“The right idea,” Fran scoffed. “My husband. The sex machine.”
“Who?” Max said, pretending to be offended.
“The sex machine with the missing part.”
“Who’s got a missing part?”
“Well, maybe not missing. But hard to find.”
Everyone laughed, and the laughter seemed to dispel any remaining remnants of the previous talk.
“Those people in Massachusetts who had those key parties knew what they were doing,” Ramsey said.
“How about it, Felix?” Doris said, winking. “You want my key?”
“Sure, sure,” Felix said.
“Take her up on it, Felix,” Betty said, grinning.
“Sure, sure.”
“Listen, I’m available,” Max said.
“Ask him, Doris,” Fran said. “He’ll run a mile.”
“Go ahead try me,” Max said.
“Nope. Either Felix or nobody,” Doris said, winking at Betty this time.
“Look out there on the floor,” Ramsey said. “Everybody dancing with everybody else’s wife. That’s the only reason they come to these affairs.”
“Speak for yourself, John,” Felix said.
“I’m only making an observation,” Ramsey said. “Look at them. Cheek to cheek. Who’s more honest? Those sneak thieves on the dance floor out there or the ones in Massachusetts who swapped keys?”
“The ones in good old Mass,” Max agreed instantly.
“Certainly.”
“I don’t think so,” Felix said.
“Felix is very moral,” Betty said solemnly. “Really. He is.”
“It’s not that I’m a prude, but I’ve got old-fashioned ideas about marriage. Adultery is dishonest. And immoral. And illegal.”
“I’ll bet you,” Ramsey said slowly, “that half those guys out there who are dancing with another man’s wife would like to take her to bed.”
“Now watch it, Paul,” Felix said seriously. “That’s no kind of talk to—”
“I’m only trying to make a point.”
“Then make it, and let’s talk about something else.”
“All I want to know is this. What’s more honest? A flirtation? Or an affair?”
“He’s got a good point,” Max said.
“I fail to see it,” Felix answered bluntly.
“Look out there on the dance floor,” Ramsey said. “You see that tall guy with the glasses? That girl he’s dancing with isn’t his wife. Look at where his hand is.”
Everyone looked.
“All right, all right,” Felix said.
“Who’s more honest?” Ramsey asked. “Them or the ones who go to bed? Who’s crazy?”
“Is that your point?” Felix asked.
“That’s my point.”
“Okay, you made it. Now let’s talk about the weather or something.”
Ramsey chuckled. “I always distrust the ones who don’t want to discuss it,” he said.
“Sure,” Felix answered, smiling.
“Doesn’t anybody want to dance?” Arthur asked.
“Come on, honey,” Felix said and lovingly he took Betty into his arms.
The Picasso print of the boy leading the horse had been his favorite and now the moving man lifted it gingerly from the wall and carried it past Eve to the front door. She could remember when they’d bought the print. It had been a bitter cold day in January and they’d stopped at the museum only to escape the frigid streets. She watched as the man put the framed print into the truck, and then another man carried out the Saarinen chair which had cost them something like three hundred dollars, their one extravagance when they were first married and furnishing the three-room apartment they had in the Bronx.
She watched the chair move out of the house, and she marveled at how quickly the place she had called her home could become nothing but a bare shell stripped of whatever personality its owners had given it. Standing in the living room as the moving men rushed past her like a silent demolition crew, she felt lonelier than she had at any time since the accident. She tried to put the horror of that night out of her mind now, the phone call from the harbor police, and then the wild rush to the hospital in the hope they’d been wrong, please, please let them have been wrong, and the terrible pallid stillness of the mortuary, the somber, embarrassed attendant and the swift, clean pain of looking into the dead face of what had been her husband and knowing it was over.
I must not think about it now, she thought. Life goes on. I must not think about it.
Alone, she stood in the living room as the furniture which had surrounded her life was moved into a truck backed to the curb. How easily they take apart a home, she thought. How easily they pack a life into the back of a truck. This afternoon she would move into the apartment on Fifth Avenue with her parents. Her furniture would go into storage, and she would become a guest in the apartment which had once been her home. If she ever thought back to Pinecrest Manor again, it would only be with pain. Her loneliness was a completely engulfing thing. She did not know what was ahead for her. A job, she supposed. She could not, after all, ask her father to assume the responsibility of her and her two children, nor did she want to. A job then, and perhaps her own apartment eventually and a nursery-school arrangement for David, and a woman to help with the house. A new life alone. She had always believed her life was set, its course charted. And now...