“But... what if I sound as hollow as you did? I’ve got this guilt-for-no-good-reason, too, you know. And won’t I just be sort of a... solid fact instead of a vague suspicion?”
“With a sixth sense or something, she’s narrowed it down to you anyway.”
“What? How do you know?”
“The name came up during the last quarrel. When you were assigned to the account, I used to mention you. I’ve always talked shop at home. She’s always been interested. For the last couple of months I’ve still talked shop, but I never mentioned your name. That was pretty stupid, I know. But again it was the product of guilt, I guess, and it was subconscious.”
“Oh boy.”
“Oh boy, indeed.”
“There’s that scene in the movies where the other woman calls on the wife and begs her to let him go. And then there’s the scene where the wife calls on the other woman and tells her to get out of Walter’s life. But how do you do this scene? I’ve never seen it played.”
“I don’t know how you can do it. But, you see, I know both of you. I know you both well enough to know you’ll like each other.”
“She’ll adore me!”
“You’ll have to say you’re doing it without my knowledge. You’ll have to say that I made some bitter and cryptic remark to you and you pried the rest of the story out of me. You’ll have to tell her that you’ve been attracted to me.”
“That’s no lie, darling.”
“But I ignored all the openings, and you finally decided I was that rarity in our business, the faithful husband. In fact, you can let her know I have a considerable reputation for same.”
“It wouldn’t have been a serious thing with me otherwise, Johnny.”
“And you can say I’m not exactly hitting the ball squarely around the shop lately.”
“But you are.”
“Sure, but how well will I scramble if the marriage keeps getting a little more sour? I love her, Tina. And for the first time I can’t seem to really communicate with her. Suspicion is a sick terrible thing.”
“So I tell her that because I do sort of love you, even though it’s a dead end street for me, I had to bury my pride and come talk to her.”
“I can’t tell you how much it will mean to me. To both of us. But it’s... such a ghastly thing to ask of you, Tina.”
She touched his hand quickly. “Idiot! I’d roll from here to Canarsie for you, through broken bottles. And it’ll make me feel better about myself. Create a little self-respect for a change.”
“The man who does get you is going to be very very lucky, Tina.”
“Put that in writing so I can show it to him, if I ever find him. Did you say next Sunday?”
“It would be a good time. I’ll be in Chicago all next week. You might phone her on Saturday and set it up.”
“I can borrow Meg’s little car and drive up there. I’ve wondered what your house is like. I have a crazy feeling, you know? I have the feeling she and I are going to become friends.”
“I hope it can happen. You’ll like her.”
“I sense that, damn it. Johnny, I better stagger out into a cab. I’ve had it, completely.”
“I’ll take you back.”
She looked rueful. “Just put me into a cab, dear. It would be bad timing right now to get the game to go along with the name, wouldn’t it? Tonight I’d be too tired to even drag my feet. Don’t look so alarmed, dear. It’s just a lousy joke.”
When he opened the taxi door for her, she turned and touched her lips to his cheek. “Goodnight, Johnny. You’re the nice one who got away.”
The misty rain had stopped and the city night was humid. He walked seven blocks uptown and two and a half blocks east.
While he walked he managed to keep his mind emptied of all inward things, staring attentively at the objects and persons in his line of vision, identifying them the way a child finds goats and kings in a puzzle maze. But as the miniature elevator carried him slowly aloft, he could hear the bump of his heart amid a drone of silence, and fancied himself in a magical machine which dwindled him as it lifted him upward. Feeling dwarfed and vile, he looked at himself in an oval mirror and grinned like a yawning dog.
Sometimes he imagined the key would not fit, and measured his relief against his terror, marveling at how precisely they cancelled each other. But it did fit, and the same light was on, and, in another room, a pink shade backlighted the pillowed tangle of blonde. She looked at him and he turned away and went to make a drink. He heard her behind him, a scented whisper, turned into her look of drowse, ‘then fed on the lips’ sweetness until the drink, unheeded, tilted icy onto the back of his hand and he saw a single eye, close, wide, vast, focused beyond him.
She rolled her forehead against his jaw and said, “It went well?”
“She’ll go see Fran on Sunday.”
“We’ll cheer them on, from Chicago. Poor little cat’s-paw.”
“Who is the cat’s-paw?”
She backed away, exaggerating demureness. “It’s such a dear role. Maybe we all take turns.”
She moved from shadow through the light and back into shadow, toward the doorway. He braced himself with school-yard defiance and said, “I don’t like you, Jemmy. You know that. I don’t like you.”
She turned in the pink doorway glow. “What has that got to do with anything?” There was a mild patience in her tone, as if he had violated a protocol understood by everyone. And then she was gone, into the pink light.
He turned and looked out the window. The glass was a cylinder of stone in his hand, too heavy to bring to his lips.
