Now, walking along, he smiled to himself. The illusions of youth. Joanne—her name was Joanne Pike—was about the sweetest, most considerate girl he had run across. She had never understood what ailed her husband, and when he returned, she simply wrote the interval off and made up with him.
And, he thought, Rachael probably would make up with Art. But she would not make up with Pat, and, he thought, perhaps she really would seek her out and do her harm.
At that thought he felt a slow, dreadful coldness grow inside him.
Among all the people in the world, Pat was the most precious to him, and he wondered if he was supposed to protect her from Rachael. He wanted to take care of her, protect her, and be responsible for her. Even last night. Even at the time when he had sat on the edge of the bed listening to her as she lay stretched out in her nylon slip, looking down at her and hearing her account of what she had done and why, hearing how she had gone to bed with somebody else.
What a mess it was. But they were in it now; they were in it to stay.
13
At three-thirty in the afternoon, Art Emmanual, in a sport coat and pastel slacks, his shoes shined, his hair oiled and combed, entered the McLaughlen Building. He pressed the elevator button. With rumblings and clankings the elevator, the iron trap of scroll-work and springs and cables, descended to the lobby. Three men and a woman, in business suits, stepped off and went past him, out of the building. He entered the elevator, started it up, and ascended to the top floor.
Ahead of him was the barren, unpainted hallway. To his left was the high-ceilinged front office of the station, and at her desk Pat sat typing. Her hair was tied back in braids; she wore a jacket and a blouse with buttons running up the middle.
“Hi,” he said.
Startled, she stopped typing. “Hello.” On her face was an expression of fear. “I thought I’d drop by,” he said. “Hh-how are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Did you get home all right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
Standing, she came toward him. She wore a long skirt and low-heeled slippers. “What did Rachael say?”
“She was in bed.” He shuffled his feet. “She d-d-didn’t say much. She knew we went somewhere. I don’t think she knows, though. What we did, I mean.”
“Really?” Pat said.
He said, “I thought maybe you could get off for coffee.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think you ought to come here. I might as well break it to you now.” Taking him by the elbow, she led him down a hall and into a small back room. “I’m engaged to the station business manager, Bob Posin. He’s around somewhere. So you go on home.”
Abashed, he said, “Yeah? I didn’t know that.”
Now she was aware of his sport coat. “That’s a good coat for you. I’m not so sure about the slacks.” He said, “You always dress real good.”
“Thank you, Art.” She was preoccupied. Then she smiled a thin, worried smile and said, “Look, you go on home or wherever you were going. I’ll try to call you sometime this evening. Or maybe that wouldn’t be so good.”
“I can call you,” he said, with hope.
“Would you do that? I’m sorry about now, but when you know somebody who works in an office, you want to be pretty careful about dropping in on them. You understand.” She passed by him, then, her long skirt swirling. “Goodbye, Art,” she said.
As he left the station, she was back at her desk, involved in her typing.
Anguish, he thought to himself.
Going down by the elevator, he experienced all the misery possible, the pain went with him all the way to the ground floor and out onto the sidewalk. He carried the pain block by block as he walked aimlessly. The pain was there as he got into a bus and rode out toward Fillmore Street. At Van Ness he got off the bus, and the pain was right there. He knew it would not leave; it would have to recede gradually, over a period of weeks. It would have to wear out of him; he could not shake it.
Stopping by Nat’s Auto Sales, he said, “How about a car?”
“No,” his brother said, painting the tires on a Chevrolet. “Ask me tomorrow. I’m getting in a couple of turkeys on trade. Maybe you can have one.”
“I want a clean car,” he said angrily. “Not some old broken-down turkey.”
Nat said, “Go to Luke.”
“You son of a bitch,” he said, and went on.
At home he threw himself down in the living room to read the paper. Rachael was nowhere around; probably she was shopping. The texture of the paper hurt his hands. Rough texture . . . his flesh crawled. Sensitive, he thought. He could not bear to hold anything. Throwing the paper onto the floor, he went outside onto the front walk; he went past the gate and down the sidewalk. At the corner he stood watching the people and cars.
When he returned to the apartment, he found Rachael in the kitchen. Unloading a brown paper bag—taking out soap and tomatoes and a carton of eggs—she said, “Where were you?”
“Nowhere,” he said.
“Did you go see her?”
“N-no,” he said. “What do you mean? Pat?”
“She’s probably down at the station,” Rachael said. “If you want to go see her.”
“I know,” he said.
“What’s she like?” Rachael said. She gave no sign of hostility; her manner was placid but, he thought, unusually deliberate “I’m kind of curious. She’s almost the same size as I am. I think she’s a twelve. Did you get a look at her without anything on?”
“I don’t know!” he said evasively.
“You don’t?” She stared at him.
“Ff-forget it,” he said. “Sure I got a look at her. And that wasn’t all I got.”
Rachael went into the other room and put on her coat—
“Where you going?” he said.
“Out. For a walk.”
“When’ll you be back?”
“We’ll see,” she said. The door closed and she was gone.
Feeling angry and ridiculous, he began putting away the groceries. For the first time it occurred to him that she might walk out and not come back; she was capable of doing anything she thought was right. He worried about her and about their marriage, and then he worried about dinner. Was she coming back for that?
By five o’clock he was convinced that she was not coming back. She had been gone an hour. Opening a can of soup, he fixed dinner: soup and a sandwich and a cup of coffee. While he sat alone at the kitchen table, he heard steps on the front walk; he put-down his spoon and hurried into the living room.
Jim Briskin was coming down the stairs. “Hello,” he said, as Art opened the door. “Where’s your wife?”
“Out,” Art said. “She’ll be back.”
“I wanted to drop by and see how she was.” He looked around the room. “What time did you get in last night?”
“Not too late,” he said evasively. And then he thought to himself how he had gone off with Jim Briskin’s girl. The emotion he felt was pride. He felt a kind of triumph. “Did she used to be married to you?” he said. “She sure is s-s-something.”
“Look, kid,” Jim Briskin said, “don’t ever talk about a girl like that. It’s between you and the girl.”
Flushing, he said, “It was her idea; don’t start yelling at me. She wanted to go down to the liquor store, and then when we got there, then she w-w-wanted to go for a drive.”