“It’s called taste, Eddie.”
“What does your taste say about hustling pool?”
“My taste doesn’t say a fucking thing about it.” She turned, carried the coffee can back to the stove and took its top off. She began spooning coffee into the basket of the little machine.
He hesitated a moment and then said, “I think Martha was ashamed of it.”
“Was Martha your wife?”
“Thoroughly.”
“That’s a funny thing to say.”
“I’m learning to talk like you.”
“You’re an Anglophile.”
“There’s a lot of that going around.”
She got the coffee machine back together and put it on the burner in front of the stove. “Well I’m not Martha. When I saw you playing pool with Roy I was thrilled.”
He looked at her back for a moment as she adjusted the flame. Then he stood up barefoot and took the hammer. “Where do you want to hang this?”
“I admire skill,” Arabella said, coming over to him, “and I respect people who live by their wits.” She handed him a brass picture-hanger. “Center the painting above the chest. The trees in it will look good over the green.”
He held up the framed canvas for a moment. Like the painting over the sofa, it was crude and bright, as though done by a skilled child. There were two figures and a horse standing under trees; everything was as simply drawn as in a child’s painting, but each leaf of the trees had been individually painted.
“It’s what some people call naive art,” Arabella said. “It was done by a woman without formal training.”
“It would make a good jigsaw puzzle. Sharp lines.”
“These two pictures are all I got from the divorce, if you don’t count the alimony. Harrison kept the furniture—even the sheets and towels.”
“Why did you get the paintings?”
“Because they’re mine. A friend bought me the other one and I bought this myself.”
“Harrison likes naive art?”
“He hates it. It was the friend who taught me about naive art. Contemporary folk art.”
“Okay.” He went over to the chest and held the painting up. “I’m pretty good with a hammer, too.”
“It’s what attracted me to you in the first place.”
On his fourth night in Arabella’s apartment he lay awake in bed next to her for over an hour. It was late, but there were still sounds of traffic from Main Street through the closed windows. He wore shorts in bed and she was naked, covered by the sheet and a silvery down comforter. She slept facing him, the sheet and comforter huddled under her left arm, which was bare and white with light freckles toward the shoulder. Even in sleep her face looked smart. What was he doing in bed with a woman like this? The lashes on her closed eyes were perfect, curling slightly upward above unblemished cheeks. Her small hand lay on his arm.
She was on the rebound from a genteel life and she liked him. She was interested in what he knew about running a small business, had asked him solid questions about it over dinner that evening, wanting to know how he had figured his operating expenses and what the problems were with taxes. She liked the idea of hustling pool; it excited her to be with a gambler. She liked his looks.
He liked her air of competence and ambition, the clarity of what she said, the authority her voice had on the telephone, the way she disdained makeup, did not talk down to him, slept naked, swore, and never wavered in matters of taste. When she made love she did it without the encumbrance of modesty or indirection, although her passion was restrained and her orgasms silent. But they did not know each other very well yet. He had his own restraints too and was afraid sometimes to let go, but he felt he could talk about that with her when the time came.
One thing that disturbed him was the newspaper in the desk drawer. Unpacking three days before while Arabella was out, he had checked the desk for an empty drawer, sliding out the bottom one first. A newspaper sat on top of a pile of newspapers. He took it out idly and saw that the paper under it was another copy. Below that were others—at least a dozen, all the same. There were two photographs on the front page; one was of Nancy Reagan and the other was of a smiling young man with light, curly hair. Above this a headline read: ART EXPERT KILLED IN CYCLE CRASH. The word art caught his attention; Arabella knew a lot about art. The article identified the man as Gregory Welles, assistant professor at the university and editor of the Journal of Kentucky Arts and Crafts. Arabella wrote articles from time to time for the journal. He looked at the date at the top of the page; it was a little over a year old. Welles had swerved on a country road to avoid being hit, had gone over into the ditch, had died. With him at the time was Mrs. Harrison Frame, who escaped serious injury. Welles and Mrs. Frame had been visiting the shop of a craftsman in Estill County. Eddie had noticed two moon-shaped scars on Arabella’s knees; when he asked about them she said, “I was in a wreck,” and changed the subject.
Twelve copies of the same paper. He looked closely at the young man’s face. It was a plain, American face, but Eddie felt his stomach tighten as he looked at it. Of course she would have had other lovers. It shouldn’t bother him. What did he want—a forty-year-old virgin? And the man was dead. Still, he did not like it. He hated it. He hated the young man, the man Arabella had gone off with, riding country roads behind him on his motorcycle, the man she had been able to talk art with, had probably slept with as she was now sleeping with him. Eddie finished the article. Greg Welles had died at twenty-six.
Thelma’s parking lot was half full when they drove up at nine-thirty. He had wanted to get there before any serious games would start and was afraid he might be too late. Fats said this was the hottest place in the whole South. Eddie’s stomach was tight and his mouth dry. He was ready to play.
The bar was packed and noisy, with a Loretta Lynn recording from the jukebox—loud as it was—only barely discernible against the talking and shouting of the people jammed at the bar and filling the small tables. There were a half-dozen illuminated beer signs over the bar itself; a sequined globe hung from the center of the ceiling, with colored lights sparkling on it. There were no pool tables in sight. Arabella looked around as though she were at a circus, her eyes wide.
He spotted a doorway with a sign over it reading GAME ROOM, took her by the elbow and led her past the crowded tables. The dance floor was filled with couples in bright silky shirts and jeans, with young men wearing big mustaches, and long-haired women. Arabella seemed astonished by it all, and when he got her into the relative quiet of the other room, she said, “It’s just like the movies.”
There were five tables of the same small size as Haneyville’s, and games were in progress on three of them. One of the others had a plastic cover over it, and on the fifth a foursome of silent children were poking cue sticks at balls. Arabella looked at them for a minute; none was over ten years old. Then she whispered, “Is that the junior division?”
For some reason he felt irritated at the joke. “The parents are probably back there dancing.”
“With one another?”
“Honey,” he said coolly, “I don’t understand these places any better than you do. I’m just learning my way around.”
“I thought you made your living in places like this.”
“In poolrooms. Not barrooms.”
She got quiet then, and he began watching the three games. The ones on the first two tables were not much; none of the players had a decent stroke or knew what to shoot at, but what was happening on the middle table was something different. It was a cool, quiet game of serious nine-ball. One player was oriental. Japanese, with delicate features, narrow eyes and brown skin. He wore a blue velvet jacket that fit perfectly across his narrow shoulders, and a silvery open-collared shirt underneath, matching his silver trousers. The man he was playing was thirtyish, with a heavy beard and workingman’s clothes.