Art said, “there’s some beer in the icebox.” She paid no attention to him and he went toward the kitchen. “I’ll get you some.”
Still looking at Jim Briskin, Pat said, “You want to dance with me?”
“You’re in no state to dance.”
“Then you don’t want to dance with me.”
“Come sit down.” Jim Briskin reached out his hand toward her. “What do you want to do, sit in my lap?”
“No.” As Art went into the kitchen, she was beginning to idle back and forth, a restless motion; her hands were up and she had shut her eyes again. His heart ached at the sight of such a pretty and tired woman, in her stocking feet, swaying beside the radio, her hands empty. The feeling was familiar to him, the yearning without an object. She did not really want to dance; she wanted to not be still, to be in motion. She could not bring herself to sit down.
Taking out the quart of beer, he poured a glassful and carried it into the living room. “Here,” he said.
Pat shrank away. “What?” she said. “Oh. Thanks. No, I don’t want beer.” And his contact with her was broken; she no longer was aware of him. Gliding away, she hummed to herself, the tuneless, jangling release of pain.
“That’s all we have around,” Art said.
Now she returned; her motion carried her back toward him. Her eyes opened, and she focused on him as if she were awakening. “Will you dance with me?” she said. “Art? Is that your name?” Her hand came to rest on his shoulder, and her other hand was up, waiting to be grasped. Before he had time to make a decision, he had let her slip within his arm and he had set down the glass of beer and was dancing with her, her body was warm, and he could feel her backbone beneath his fingers. Her face, close to his, shone damply. Above her lips tiny drops of perspiration glinted from the line of fuzz. It was a lovely fox-like face, new to him, and yet it was almost touching his. Now she turned her head, sighing, and then looked down. Her black hair tumbled forward, and strands of it swept along his cheek. On his shoulder her hand rested heavily.
“Yy-you dance good,” he said.
Suddenly she broke away. “Don’t you really have anything but beer? Did he tell you to say that?”
“You’re turning paranoid,” Jim Briskin said. “And sit down before you fall over.”
She directed a hard, calculated glance at him, and then she walked to the kitchen. Art followed her.
In the kitchen she had the icebox door open and was kneeling down, reaching in among the milk bottles. “It’s true,” he said. “We don’t usually—”
“I believe you,” she said, straightening up beside him. “Do you know I’m drunk? I feel so—” She shook her head. “Not in a drainpipe anymore. That’s something, at least. Maybe I feel romantic. Do I look okay?” Lifting her hands, she smoothed her hair.
“You look f-f-fine,” he said.
“Did she get pregnant on purpose? You’re very lucky, you know . . . to have a little doll of a wife like that. Did you go around together in school?”
“Yes,” he said. “We had c-c-classes together.”
“God,” Pat said, “you’re only eighteen. And what’s she, sixteen? When I was sixteen, I still thought babies were supplied by the hospital doctors . . . the woman just got large to make a place for it. Like kangaroos. Kids get older faster, now. Why don’t you go somewhere and get us a bottle?” From the pocket of her skirt, she took out folded bills and handed them to him; she stuck them between his fingers. “I saw a liquor store up the street. Get a fifth of rye or bourbon. No Scotch; I’ve had enough Scotch.”
Humiliated, he said, “I c-c-can’t buy liquor. This beer, some guys picked it up, you know? I mean I can go into a grocery store, I know some of these g-g-grocers around here. In a bar usually they’ll serve me. But at the liquor stores they’re real tough; they w-w-won’t sell liquor to you if you’re under twenty-one.” It was living death. He slunk in shame; he cringed.
But she thought it was funny. “You poor damn kid.” She reached up and her arms folded about his neck. The pressure of her mouth slid in a trail across his face; he felt the moist, clinging smear as she kissed him. Unbelievable. She had kissed him. Breathing into his eyes and nose, she said, “I’ll walk you down. Okay?”
Corning out of the kitchen with her, he said to Rachael and Jim Briskin, “We’re going down to the corner. W-w-we’ll be right back.”
“What for?” Jim Briskin said, not to him but to Pat.
“None of your business,” Pat said. Stopping by him, she kissed him, too; she seemed gay, now.
“Put on your shoes,” Jim Briskin said.
Supporting herself with her hand pressed to the wall, she bent her leg, lifting her foot behind her, and slipped on her high-heeled shoe. As she did the same with the other, she said, “I want you to realize I’m paying for this.”
“I hope so,” Jim Briskin said. “And you’ll pay for it a couple times again tomorrow morning. Who’s going to feed you tomato juice?”
“Come on,” Pat said to Art. “Where’s my coat?”
Finding it for her, he started to hand it to her. Both Rachael and Jim Briskin were watching. Should he hold it up and help her into it? While he was floundering, she took the coat from him and opened the door that led out.
“Goodbye,” she said. “We’ll be right back.” To his wife, Art said, “See you in a minute.”
Rachael said, “You might get some potato chips and maybe some of those cheese things.”
“I will,” he said, and he closed the door after himself and Pat. “Be careful,” he said to her. All at once they were in complete darkness. He wanted to take her arm, but he was afraid; he did not understand what was happening—he could not believe it—and so he merely walked beside her up the steps to the cement path. “It’s sure d-d-dark,” he said. “It’s funny, I saw you at the station, but I never said nothing to you. A lot of times we used to come in a group. Around four in the afternoon. We always listened to ‘Club 17.’ We came to talk to Jim Briskin. I guess he isn’t on it now. What is he, off for a while?”
The woman beside him was silent. At the gate she stopped to let him push it aside for her. The gate groaned. She went on ahead of him. In the night wind her hair blew, long and untied; such hair, he thought, as he had never touched. She walked much more slowly than Rachael, but he thought, as she had said, that she had had a lot to drink. Now, on the sidewalk, she wrapped herself in her coat and seemed unaware of him; she gazed at the signs of stores, at the bars, into doorways.
“It’s cold,” he said, “for July. It’s the f-f-fog.” The air was heavy with fog; around each streetlight was a ring of misty yellow. Traffic sounds had receded and the footsteps of other persons were muffled, remote. The shapes that passed by were indistinct.
“Do you want the baby?” Pat said. “Yes. Sure.”
“A baby will hold you and her together. You’re not a family without children; you’re just a couple. Do they all tell you not to have a baby? I wish we could have had children. Maybe we’d still be married.”
“Were you married?”
“Jim and I,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, taken by surprise.
“How long did you know heir before you got married? If I told you how I met Jim, you wouldn’t believe it. We went up the coast and we got crocked, and we went to bed together and that was it. We were up there on the Russian River for a week . . . six days, drinking and going to bed . . . walking around Guerneville barefoot. Going swimming. Have you ever been up there?”
He was able to say, “Sure, a couple of times. We used to drive up Friday night, a bunch of us. And stststay for the weekend.”
“Did you go up there with Rachael?”
“No,” he said, “but we went to Reno once.”