Archer stared at her in confusion. He’d been sitting there trying to find the words to apologize for not having bought her a birthday present. He’d been gathering up the strength to surrender abjectly in the face of the attack she’d be sure to launch. He’d anticipated an hour of admitting his guilt at the very least. But now his contemplated carpet of penitence had been yanked from under his feet. So he merely stared at Llona numbly and made the appropriate sounds. ‘Tm glad you liked it,” he told her. What present?
“It’s beautiful. So delicate. And it fits me perfectly.”
“I’m glad.” What fit her perfectly?
“However did you know the size? I didn’t think you noticed such things.”
“I notice more than you think I do. Heh-heh.” Archer’s cackle was unexpected and strained. What size?
“And it was wrapped so beautifully. Did you pick the wrapping and ribbon yourself too?”
“Oh, sure.” What wrapping? What ribbon? What size? What present? What was it? Who sent it? What was it all about?
“I know you didn’t wrap it yourself. You pick wonderful birthday presents, but you’re really not very good about wrapping. I’m not criticizing, you understand. It’s a wonderful birthday gift and you’re a wonderful husband. But who did wrap it?”
“My mother.” The words sprang automatically to Archer’s lips. Before he was married, his mother had indeed wrapped gifts for him. As he spoke them now, the words sparked a sudden suspicion. Could his mother have remembered it was Llona’s birthday and sent a present to her in his name?
But, evidently, the present hadn’t been sent in Archer’s name. Llona’s next comment indicated that. “And you’re such a romanticist,” she giggled convincingly. “That card was just too much!”
“Pretty clever, hey?” Card? What card?
“I’ll say. It made me feel like I was single and being courted all over again. So mysterious. ‘From a Secret Admirer,’ ” she quoted. “ ‘In memory of passionate nights.’ It’s so important to keep that kind of feeling alive in a woman, in a marriage, Archer. I’m so lucky you recognize that. I’m so glad I married you!”
“I’m glad I married you too,” Archer responded by rote. “From a Secret Admirer; In memory of passionate nights"? That sure didn’t sound like his mother! Still, who else could it be? “Uhh, listen, Llona, I’m out of cigarettes. I’m just going to run down to the corner and get some.” Archer simply had to get out of the house to call his mother and check this thing out.
“All right. And while you’re gone, I’ll put it on. I want you to see how divine it looks on me.”
“Sure. Sure. You do that.” Archer headed out the door. “I’ll be right back.”
His mother’s. voice over the telephone summoned up one of Archer’s recurring—and possibly Oedipal—fantasies. “Hello, is that you Archer?” she said, and the tone immediately painted the picture on his brain of a surrealist faucet, one giant Mama-breast the handle with one giant Mama-hand poised to turn it, and two large Mama-eyes the twin spiggots moistening with the Mama-grief soon to be poured forth. “Is it Christmas that you remembered to call me after all this time?” The breast-handle took the first turn; the spiggot-eyes spurted a few preliminary drops.
For an instant Archer was caught up in the old Oedipal-sadist fantasy. He saw himself with a penislike wrench yanking the breast-faucet-handle from the Mama-plumbing; he heard the scream of metal flesh torn from metal flesh. But he thrust the image from his mind and got right down to his reason for calling. “No it’s not Christmas,” he told his mother. “It’s July, so it’s not Christmas. What it is, it’s Llona’s birthday.”
“Llona who?” his mother asked with studied innocence.
Archer recognized the ploy, fought back his annoyance and refused to let his tone of voice respond to it. “Llona, my wife,” he told her. “Remember? The thing is,” he continued quickly before she could interject the expected sarcastic answer, “I was wondering if perhaps you sent her a present.”
“Why should I send her a present? It was your cousin Mortimer’s birthday last week, and did your wife What’s-her-name-—Looney; Llona; I can never remember—did she send Mortimer a present even if he is your first cousin? She did not! So why should I send her one?”
“She hardly knows Mortimer. And anyway, that’s not the poi --”
“I hardly know her. As a daughter-in-law, she never even picks up the phone to ask after my arthritis if I’m alive or crippled with pain or dead maybe. So why should I remember her birthday?”
Archer ignored the question. It was hot in the phone booth and he was sweating. He was sweating for two reasons. First of all, he always sweated when he talked to his mother on the telephone—sweated and silently cursed Alexander Graham Bell and the nameless inventor of Mother’s Day as well. Secondly, this business with Llona’s mysterious present was making him sweat. “I thought you might have figured I’d forget her birthday and sent her a present for me-—you know, as if it came from me.”
“You forgot her birthday?” There was untypical pleasure in Mrs. Hornsby’s voice. “Well, there’s some justice in the world it’s not only mothers are forgotten they’re alive all the time.”
“Then you didn’t send her anything from me with a card reading ‘From a Secret Admirer’?”
“Since when am I an admirer of your wife what’s-her-name who never even calls to find out if her husband’s mother is alive or dead? ‘From a Secret Admirer’!” Archer’s mother turned the faucet on full force with a reverse twist. “You’re married only a month and already that I-don’t-use-such-language is taking up with other men! My poor Archer! If you’d listened to me . . .”
Archer took about five minutes of that, and then he cut the conversation short. The worst thing about it was that he was slowly coming to the same conclusion his mother had so eagerly leaped at. His suspicion deepened and grew more gloomy when he arrived back at the apartment.
Llona was posed on the couch, waiting for him. She was wearing one of the sexiest black silk nightgowns Archer had ever seen. It followed the curves of her body like paint flowing over an automobile chassis. Whoever bought that nightgown must have known that body intimately! “Do you like it as well on me as when you saw it in the store?” Llona asked Archer as he entered.
“It looks great.” Archer spoke the truth, but his mind wasn’t on it. His mind was stuck in the rut of one question which superseded all the others. Who knew his wife well enough to send her such an intimate birthday gift? He blurted it out. “Who’s this secret admirer who sends you sexy nightgowns?” Archer demanded to know.
“Why, whatever do you mean, dear?” Llona asked innocently. “You sent it. Didn’t you?”
Archer took a deep breath and admitted his calumny. “No, I didn’t,” he confessed. “I forgot it was your birthday.”
“Oh, Archer, you’re so cute. You just want to be coy and play another one of your fun games. But I really can’t get into the spirit of it. I mean, I know you sent it. Who else would buy me such a sexy nightgown?”
“Your ‘Secret Admirer,’ that’s who!” Archer said through clenched teeth.
“Don’t be silly. There is no ‘Secret Admirer.’ Of course you sent it, darling.”