The letter was a catalyst. I showed it to Marilyn Mayberry. She invited me out to dinner on the night before my physical.
We went to a French restaurant called the Fleur de Lys. Marilyn kept her eyes on me while eating snails, filet of sole, and an eclair. I ordered an artichoke. Peeling the leaves, revealing the heart, swallowing it in garlic butter, daubing with my napkin, I was the soul of seriousness.
After dinner, still on her allowance, we rode in a hansom cab through Central Park, then sat by the bird sanctuary lake on 59th Street watching a matted swan and talking about destiny until the police chased us.
During our hour on the park bench, Marilyn told me many things, but the one that especially impressed me was the revelation that she had planned her wedding at the age of ten.
She described it, down to the point where a line of waiters carry flaming Baked Alaska into the dining room while she squeezes her husband’s leg under the table.
Her apartment had been mentally furnished a year before first menstruation. She wanted white French Provincial. She was on her way. Her mother had bought her a hope chest the size of a cave, and since she was “weensy,” uncles, aunts, cousins, friends and acquaintances had been stocking it. With her head on my shoulder, Marilyn informed me that she was indeed a girl of property.
In a soft voice, she asked me about careers. I was ready for her questions.
“A man needs direction,” I said. “I have my goal. If I am fortunate enough to leave the Army in reasonably good condition, I’m going into corporation law. You may not think that a dramatic occupation, Marilyn. But that’s what I want. And it’s not only the money, which is substantial. The organization of business has always intrigued me. And, on the higher levels, a businessman can share his career with his woman.”
I looked up. The gods were sitting in a row on top of the Plaza Hotel just behind us. I saw them eating an antelope hock and generally carrying on. The vision nearly spoiled my speech.
Late, very late, Marilyn Mayberry and I went home.
She lived with her mother and brother in a solid apartment house on Lexington Avenue. Until that night, our farewells were said outside her door. I had never crossed her threshold. The brother, a teenager, slept in an alcove and was trained to bite the ankle of any stranger.
When we reached her apartment, I took her in my arms. She pushed me away. My temperature dropped sharply. I was confused, but not for long.
Marilyn beckoned. She led me to another door down the 1 corridor. And from her evening bag she produced a key with a new set of teeth.
“My sister Betty and her husband Irv live here,” she said. “They have darling twins, Jerome and Charlotte. I want you to see the babies.”
“It’s three-thirty,” I said.
“Betty and Irv don’t mind. The kids’ room is off the foyer. Come on. Nothing wakes them. Nothing.”
I went.
We unlocked the door, clicking as quietly as possible. Marilyn took off her shoes. Me too. Like burglars, we entered the dark apartment.
Feeling her way, Marilyn took me to a room. Inside, a nightlight burned between two cribs. Two nice-looking children scrunched under blankets, one pink, one blue.
“Sweet? Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Milk and cake?”
“If nobody minds.”
We tiptoed again through darkness and found our way to the kitchen.
“Hush. Be a mouse.”
Marilyn turned on the fluorescent. It flickered, missed, ignited, blazed. There we were. But where?
That kitchen was like nothing I had ever seen. I enjoy the stamp of domesticity. But such a stamp.
The scene in brief: dirty dishes filled a table. Bottles of half-eaten baby food sat on the sink. Boxes of cereal, a bowl of fruit, wet towels, drippy Brillo pads, pans, a pile of chicken bones, and other testimonials to life lived covered every surface.
And the wash. The wash.
There was wash everyplace. Steel ribs on the ceiling were full of wash. A straw basket, of the modified Navaho type, was full of wash. A machine with its door open had a clump of wash hanging out, and a portable rack near the stove hung wash like a willow.
Food, dishes, bones, soap pads, the fantastic dangling wash came together in the brittle light. We stood in a tree house, engulfed in the foliage of an active marriage.
Marilyn grinned.
“Betty is such a slob,” she said.
At three-thirty-six, Eastern Daylight Time, we stood on blue linoleum. Dew from a turkish towel, or was it a diaper, fell on my forehead. Did Marilyn mistake it for a tear?
The drop ran down my nose, in business for itself, seeking the way to the universal ocean of human misery. And I saw a drop on Marilyn’s cheek take the same journey.
“Are you crying?” I said.
The fluorescents blazed onto the blue linoleum. Like bathers testing the water, we stood together and shivered. I heard the gods howl from behind a Sanforized house dress. Mostly I heard my heart. I looked at my wristwatch. The second hand flew.
“Why are you crying?” I said.
Marilyn shrugged. She played with my tie. I kissed her on the neck.
“Are you crying because this is Army Physical Eve?” I said. “Is that it?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Well stop, please,” I said. “You’re confusing me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I think we’d better say goodnight,” I said.
One of the gods coughed up phlegm.
“Here we are,” Marilyn said.
“Goodnight,” I said.
“No,” Marilyn said.
She opened two buttons of my shirt and slipped her hand in. Her hand was cool, a delicious temperature.
“I know how much you want to make love to me,” she said.
“Someday, dear,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll find a place. I’ll rent a car. We’ll drive to a motel on a mountain.”
“I’ve known,” she said. “Don’t you think I’ve known?”
“I knew you knew,” I said.
“Take off your stupid jacket,” Marilyn said.
“It’s late as hell,” I said.
She took off my stupid jacket.
“I want to feel your chest against mine,” she said.
“Look, dear,” I said. “Your sister is inside. Your brother-in-law . . .”
Marilyn took off my shirt. First she worked on my cufflinks and dropped them into the little pocket, then she did the rest.
“No T shirt?” she said. “Unzip me.”
Marilyn turned around. I unzipped her. She pulled her dress over her head. Then she reached behind herself and unhooked her bra. I slipped the bra off her soft shoulders.
Her breasts tumbled out like children at recess. We pressed together. Marilyn kissed my ear. It occurred to me that Oliver August, the vengeful seducer, had never opened a single button.
“Make me naked,” Marilyn said.
I made her naked. In the Garden of Lux, in the oilcloth pool, she looked remarkably fine.
“Be naked with me.”
I was naked with her.
“Hold me.”
I held her. The cool sweetness of her hand was total. I think I moaned. My moan set the gods cheering. Marilyn heard music.
Oliver August and Marilyn Mayberry fitted beautifully together. Together, we marveled at the coincidence.
Standing, grasping, moving slowly, in time’s own kitchen, under an umbrella of laundry, we made love.
“Go away,” I yelled to the gods.
“Oh,” Marilyn said, hugging tighter.
“Not you,” I said. “Oh sweet, not you.”
We made too much noise.
Her sister, a light sleeper, was attuned to all city dangers. For years, with the acuteness of those suspicious of fire escapes (every exit is an entrance), she rested with an open ear. Our tender battle in the place where she cooked for her own was enough to wake her twice. Like Betty, Irving came awake clearheaded and primed for attack.