“Fascinating,” I would say.
“And I’m not saying,” Adele would open-mindedly go on, “that there isn’t some merit to checking in on that part of the world from time to time. I know that it’s richly furnished with nerve-endings. But to give it top billing …”
I would agree wholeheartedly and shake my head at the error of laying too much stress on that area. Then, however, I too would be forced to demonstrate my open-mindedness. “I mean, it certainly doesn’t hurt to include it in the festivities from time to time, occasionally. But it’s more to reawaken one’s appreciation of the usual avenues than as an end in itself.”
Adele would suddenly start laughing.
I would look inquiringly at her.
“Nothing, nothing,” she would say. “Something just popped into my head and struck me as funny. It’s nothing — it’s not funny at all. It’s just that ancient expression ‘Hershey highway.’ ” Having said it, Adele would lean forward, her hands on her face, laughing hard. “Oh boy, sorry.” She would lift her water glass an inch off the table and then set it down, clearing her throat, still laughing a little. “Sorry. It’s just that if you could have heard this tape, on and on about ‘up her butt’ and ‘in her ass’ and ‘show me that tight little ass,’ God. Sorry.”
I would laugh politely. “What sort of voice did the man on the tape have?” I would ask.
“A very sort of straight-arrow voice,” Adele would say. “No Boston accent or anything. Maybe a bit like your voice. Quite deep, though.” She would give me a look and I would have a feeling that she was on the verge of asking me if I had made the tape. (The stately pace of sound-waves in the Fold would further explain my altered timbre.) But she wouldn’t ask. Possibly she wouldn’t want to know that I was the Arno Van Dilden behind Marian the Librarian. She wouldn’t want me to be a liar and a trickster and a sneak, but a genuine, somewhat-fun-to-talk- to one-time dessert companion, which is what I would genuinely want to be for her as well. We would walk back up the slope to the motel. Our respective keys would make jingly sounds. I would be so sleepy by this time that I would hardly be able to stand.
I would ask her, “Are you leaving at the crack of dawn or will you be able to have some breakfast?”
She would say that she would probably just get something at a drive-through.
“Well,” I would say, shaking her hand, “good luck with your bilingual research.” We would go into our rooms. I would take a shower and get in bed and fall asleep thinking about light-switches that go up and down without making a clicking sound. It would only be about eight-thirty, real time. The effort involved in trying to be likable, on top of the lack of sleep, would have completely wiped me out. Two hours later, the phone would ring.
It would be Adele. “Did I wake you up?”
I would say no.
She would say, “The reason I’m calling is, you know what? I think you unintentionally made off with my washcloth.”
I would pretend to think back. I would remember. “Right, of course. I was flustered.”
Adele would say, “I believe that you had it on top of that pile of reading material.”
“You’re right,” I would say. “Do you need it? I’ll bring it right over.”
“Well,” she would explain, “I’m thinking of taking a bath, and a bath is just not a bath without a washcloth.”
I would indicate that I agreed wholeheartedly with this statement. “The washcloth is one of the more versatile things you can bring with you to the bathtub,” I would say. I would tell her how much I liked it when I got soap in my eyes and I squeezed out the washcloth and scrubbed my eyes really hard with it, making the sting of the soap miraculously go away. Adele would tell me how as a child she had arranged her dolls at the foot of the tub and used wet washcloths as blankets, tucking them in. I would ask her whether she had raised her dolls bilingually. She would say that in fact she had developed several doll languages. We would share a few more thoughts on this rich and interesting subject.
“Well,” she would finally say.
“How do you want to work this?” I would tentatively ask. “I could just bring one over. You’ll hear a knock and I’ll just hand you one. I took a shower earlier, but I only used one.”
“I took a shower earlier, too,” Adele would say. “But I can’t sleep now.” She would hesitate. “If you’re not decent, or you don’t want to go outside in the cold, I was thinking that there seems to be a door leading directly from your room to my room. I’ll keep the chain on my side hooked on, because I’m not … well … anyway, you could just hand it through the gap in my door.”
I would tell her what a good idea I thought that was. “Let me see if my side opens.” I would undo the chain and the slide-lock on my side and open my door, revealing a second, knobless door on her side. “My side is open now,” I would say. “I’ll hang up and get the washcloth.”
“Okay, see you in a second,” she would say.
The white square of fabric would still be resting on top of the pile of dirty magazines. I would fold it up neatly, like a blank business letter, and knock once on her inner door. After a series of unbolting noises, the door would open a crack. Adele’s eye and the corner of her mouth would appear. “Surprise,” she would say.
“I’m so very glad to have found you at home,” I would gallantly offer.
Adele would put her hand to the gap and I would stuff the washcloth through. “Have a good bath,” I would say.
She would thank me and apologize for disturbing me so late.
“Don’t be silly,” I would say. “Do you read in the bath? I have the local paper. But I guess newspapers are not really bath matter. I do have, though, as you saw, a stack of dirty magazines. Ah, I forgot — you have Mirabella, so you’re all set.”
“I’ve already read everything in Mirabella except the horoscope page,” she would say. “I suppose I could read it again. I do love to read in the bath. In that … pile,” she would innocently ask, “are there any magazines that you could recommend?”
I would be taken aback by the idea of a recommendation. “To be quite honest,” I would say, “I had just laid them out on your — on the bed in your room there, pretty much at random, when you unlocked the door and found me. I haven’t really studied them. Why don’t I drag them over now, and we can take a look.”
“Okay,” she would say, elongating the second syllable with a trace of doubt.
I would exaggerate the “oofs” of lifting the weight of fourteen magazines. It is remarkable, though, how heavy a pile of men’s magazines can be. They would make a deep heavy rectangular sound when I let them drop from a few inches above the brown carpeting, a sound that would momentarily remind me of newspaper-recycling efforts and the closing of car doors. (It would make sense that dropped newspaper bundles and car-door-closings would be related, since car doors are in fact filled with old newspapers as sound-damping insulation.) With an air of bemused superiority, though with a distinct undertone of boyish excitement, I would read off the names of the magazines. “Let’s see. There’s Celebrity Sleuth and Leg Show, Max, Fox, Lips. What’s this one? Ah, Best of High Society, Assets, Club, Hooters, Velvet, High Society, Swank, Tail Ends, Gent …”
She would ask, “Why in the world do you need so many?”
“I only do this in motels,” I would explain. “I have to have the entire bed covered with open magazines. Ideally I’d have twin beds covered, and be able to pivot back and forth between both pictorial bedspreads.”