A Week as Andrea Benstock

by Lawrence Block

  “They fired you?”

  “Not exactly. I was coming in late and calling in sick a lot and the boss talked to me, and the two of us more or less agreed I would leave. It was one of those things where I could have talked my way back in but I didn’t want to.”

  “Uh-huh. Then what?”

  “Then I went through a period of time, I don’t know how long, where I would wait tables here and there in the Village. There were plenty of jobs available and you could go from one to another and work when you needed the money. With the tips it paid better than office work. And it made it very easy to drift. You could adjust your hours at will. And I wasn’t getting anywhere and wasn’t even trying to get anywhere, and eventually it occurred to me that I didn’t want to get anywhere. I didn’t want to wait tables for the rest of my life but I didn’t want a more challenging job, either. And the life I was leading, sleeping with a lot of men and barely knowing their names, hanging out at the bars every night, it was no way to spend a life.”

  “You must have enjoyed it.”

  “Of course I did, for a while. But you can only spend so much time that way or you go off the edge. You said something must have scared the shit out of me.”

  “I had the feeling.”

  “There were lots of things that scared me. There was a woman who used to turn up at the Riviera. I don’t know how old she was. Probably the age I am now, but maybe older. She seemed very old to me at the time. She was an alcoholic but she didn’t get sloppy drunk and she was presentable, and just about everybody who hung out there had gone home with her at one time or another. I reached a point where I hated to be in the same bar with her because it was so easy to see myself turning into her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Vicki, her name was. I never knew her last name. Hundreds of people down there that I knew by their first names only. Those were funny days. There was one morning—Cass, I don’t know if I should tell you this.”

  “Don’t if you don’t want to.”

  “Oh, there’s really no reason not to. It was the first thing I thought of when you said something must have scared me. One morning I woke up in my own bed in my own apartment.”

  “And there was a total stranger lying next to you.”

  “No. That happened once but it wasn’t that bad, and there were times when I would wake up in some man’s apartment without remembering going there or what we did, but usually I would at least remember the guy, No, this time I woke up alone.”

  “And that scared you?”

  “Forget it.”

  “I’m sorry, Andrea.”

  “I woke up alone. And I tried to remember the previous night, and it had been a usual kind of night, this bar and that bar and then my memory began getting patchy, and the last thing I could remember was being by myself and on my way from one bar to another, I had this flash of throwing up on the street. I used to throw up occasionally. I never do that any more. But in those days I never had a hangover, I never knew what a hangover was, and nowadays, God….”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “But that morning. No hangover, but this rush of guilt and fear because of the holes in my memory. And then I discovered that I had come home with somebody, I’d brought someone home with me.”

  “I thought you said you were alone.”

  “Yes, I was. But someone had been with me and had left. I didn’t remember any of it but I’d brought someone home and I had had sex with him and I didn’t know who it was.”

  “How could you be sure?”

  She stared at him. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? Let’s just say there was evidence. Oh, hell. I had dried come in my pubic hair, does that clear it up for you? If you laugh I swear I’ll throw an ashtray at you.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “It was the thought of some man walking around and he’d fucked me and I might have enjoyed it, who could say, and I didn’t even know who it was. I could meet him on the street and not recognize him and he’d have fucked me and he could give me a big hello and he might be a total stranger to me. Or maybe it was someone I knew, an old friend, and he’d say, hey, last night was terrific, and I’d have to pretend I knew what he was talking about. Or—oh, hell, it was terrible. I’m sure there was nothing I could have done that would have been as bad as not remembering what I did do, and I knew that at the time, but it seemed to sum up everything that was wrong with the life I was living.”

  “So you came home.”

  “Not that day and not that week, but I think that I was what decided me. If any single thing decided me.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “I wasn’t going to tell you because I was ashamed, you know, and it wasn’t anything to be all that ashamed about, was it?”

  “Not really.”

  “The shame was because I didn’t remember.”

  “And that’s why you’re in Buffalo, and that’s why you’re married to Mark. One thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “Something I’ve been thinking. It wouldn’t be hard for you to start hating him for the same reasons you married him. Buffalo is safe but it’s also dull, and you might decide that Mark’s both of those things and that it’s dull being his wife. Now hold on. I’m not saying he’s a dull man. He’s not. But you can take him for I granted, or at least you think you can, and you might wind up resenting him for all of that. I don’t know if I’m putting this correctly.”

  “And I don’t know that I care for what you’re saying.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll just let it go at that.”

  “Yes, maybe we will. Making such a big thing about how we’ll always be friends, but this conversation could end a beautiful friendship right off the bat.”

  “Oh, I doubt it, but we’ll let it go.”

  But she couldn’t let it go. “I wonder how much you project,” she said. “If you think about who you married.”

  “Oh, there’s a little truth in that.”

  “And maybe you only wanted to screw me so that you could get even with her.”

  “No, that’s not how it works with me. I don’t like to look for complicated motives, you know.”

  “Not when it comes to you, you mean.”

  “You got it, kid. Why look for complicated answers for the simple Polack? Every boy needs a hobby and adultery’s more interesting than stamp collecting. I’m a runner-arounder, that’s all. I’d screw a snake if somebody would hold its head.”

  “Well, I like that,” she said.

  When her mother returned to the car neither of them said anything. Andrea started the engine and turned the car around, and she was able to find her way back out of the cemetery the way she had come.

  Halfway home Andrea braked for a traffic light. Her mother said, “I wonder how often I’ll do that. Go to the cemetery.”

  “How do you mean that?”

  “Well, I went to my parents’ graves. They’re buried in Pine Hill, of course. I always went a couple of times a year, and I’m only beginning to realize it now, Andrea, but I went because I thought I had to. That it was something I was supposed to do, the duties of a daughter. Not that I thought anyone was looking down from heaven and watching me, because that’s nonsense, but as though I acted as if somebody was watching. Oh, it was a way of remaining close to them, or trying to feel close to them, but it was also a duty, it was something to do a certain number of times a year. I’m out of cigarettes. Do you have one?”

  “In my bag.”

  “Thank you. With your father, it’s different. Just now while I was standing there alone I was thinking that this was as close as I could get to him. But is that true? I don’t think that it is true. I think that I am always close to him, wherever I am, and at the same time I’m never close to him. He’s a part of me, and at the same time he’s gone, and both of those facts will always be true. And they are just as true whether I’m standing in a cemetery or saying kaddish in temple or sitting home watching television. Does it make sense to you, what I just said?�
��

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I wasn’t sure. I know what I meant but I wasn’t sure I made it clear. I suppose I’ll go to the cemetery as often as I feel like it but I don’t know how often that will be. One thing, I don’t think I’ll ever go because I think I’m supposed to go. All the things we do because we think we’re supposed to do them, and who on earth cares what we do? Nobody does.”

  When she pulled the car into the driveway on Admiral Road her mother told her not to bother coming in. “You’ll want to get home. Robin must be home from nursery school now, isn’t she? I think I’ll just lie down for a rest before I fix myself some dinner.”

  “Why don’t you come out and have dinner with us?”

  “Oh, that’s nice of you, but not tonight. Tonight I think I’d rather be by myself.” She reached for the door handle, “Thanks for going out with me, darling. I appreciate it.”

  “Mark’s having an affair.”

  “What did you say?”

  She looked straight ahead, focusing her eyes upon her hands as they rested on the steering wheel. She found that she was staring at her wedding ring and thought that it might dissolve symbolically before her eyes.

  “I didn’t think I was going to say that.”

  “Well, I didn’t hear anything,” Sylvia Kleinman said.

  “He’s seeing someone.”

  “You can talk to me, Andrea, but only if you’re sure you want to. Otherwise I never heard a word you said just now. If you’d rather.”

  She turned, looked at her mother. “No, I have to talk about it,” she said. “Oh, God, it’s been going on for months. I have to talk about it.”

  “Well, come inside,” her mother said, after a moment. “Come on in the house. I’ll put up a pot of coffee.”

  She had thought it would be very hard to talk about it with her mother, yet once she started it turned out to be very easy. The words flowed. Then there were no more words to say and she sat waiting for her mother to say something.

  “He knows that you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you haven’t had a confrontation. It hasn’t come out into the open.”

  “No, not yet. It almost has. We talk about it without talking about it. I called him this morning to ask him if he would be coming home to dinner. It was childish, it was a way of telling him without telling him. I don’t really know why I did it.”

  “Because you were hurt.”

  “I suppose that must be why.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’ll be better when it all comes out in the open, when we can talk about it instead of talking around it.”

  But her mother was shaking her head. “I don’t agree.”

  “You don’t?”

  “It would be better if he didn’t even know you knew, but I suppose it’s too late for that. But you can stop mentioning it, stop referring to it. You can act as though you’re forgetting about it, as though you’ve decided that it has all blown over. And that will make it easier for all concerned, and before you know it it will blow over, and that will be the end of it.”

  “Just like that.”

  “That’s the way it usually works, Andrea.”

  “Unless it’s someone he’s serious about. And I think it probably is.”

  “And you’re afraid.”

  “Of course I’m afraid. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “You’re afraid he’ll leave you and Robin.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid of that. Or I may leave him—that’s a possibility too, you know.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Why would I do that?” Her voice cracked, and she reined herself in, made herself calm down. Quietly she said, “Because I just might find out that I don’t love him any more, Mother. For a starter.”

  Her mother got to her feet, crossed the room and stood for a moment at the window. It was very much a theatrical gesture, and Andrea wondered if it had been done with a theatrical purpose in mind. Whether it had or not, Sylvia Kleinman had certainly taken command of the scene. She stood at the window, her back to Andrea, and let the silence build.

  Then she said, “A couple of years ago you were talking about one of your friends, I don’t remember which girl it was. You said she was acting as if she was the first woman ever to have a baby.”

  “Oh, Barbara Singer.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The expression wasn’t original on my part, I’m afraid.”

  “That doesn’t matter. It was a nice turn of phrase because a person instantly knew just what you meant. You’re acting as if you were the first woman whose husband ever saw another woman.”

  “In other words, it happens all the time.”

  “That’s right, Andrea.”

  “In other words, men are just little boys, and they can have sex without being involved, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, and if we all stick our heads in the sand like a flock of ostriches everything will be all right. In other words.”

  “Not that, exactly.”

  “Oh? Because that’s what it sounds like. Exactly.”

  “No.” Crossing the room toward her, sitting on the couch beside her. “With some men that’s true. They have other women to prove their manhood. Or because it’s a pleasure that they aren’t willing to deny themselves, and it means no more to them than eating a meal or swallowing a drink. Maybe more men are like that than not, I couldn’t say.”

  “I don’t think Mark’s like that.”

  “No, neither do I. Although any man might be like that from time to time, but something you told me makes me think it isn’t that way in this case.”

  “That he picked me up again after . . . after daddy’s death.”

  “That’s right. If it was just physical, and the two of you became very close right after your father’s death. Not that you haven’t always been close but I think you saw how much you needed him. Now that would have been a very good excuse for him to break it off with this woman and leave it broken off. You don’t have any idea who she is?”

  “No idea at all. I try not to think about her. Of course I want to know who she is, but at the same time I don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I can understand that. Well, it was a time when he could have left it broken off if it was just a sex thing, just a seven-year itch—you have been married seven years next month, isn’t it?”

  “Seven years next month, yes.”

  “But the seven-year itch isn’t necessarily just sex. Or it can be just sex, but the man involved might have to convince himself it was more than pure sex or else he would feel it was cheapened. What’s the matter, what did I say?”

  “That was perfect, what you said. That’s Mark, all right. That’s exactly what he would do.”

  “You’d know better than I would, Andrea, but I think he might do that.”

  “Oh, he would.” There was a delight in this insight into his character, a pleasure in recognition. “He’s such a romantic. I think he could do almost anything if he managed to convince himself that he was doing it for love.” She closed her eyes for a moment. Without opening them she said, “He could leave me, if he thought he loved someone else.”

  “He won’t leave you.”

  “He might.”

  “Not if you make it easy for him to stay. Right now you’re going through two things at once. You’re afraid, concerned about the future of your marriage, and at the same time your pride is hurt. Your pride wants to confront him, to force the issue, but underneath you want your marriage to last and so that’s the last thing you should do.”

  They went on talking, and they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes, and Andrea kept raising objections which her mother kept handling, calmly, patiently. But there was something that kept her mother’s words from soothing her and she did not know what it was. Then she was struck by the visual image of her mother at the graveside, and then she knew.

  She said, “But don’t you see? No, you wouldn’t see, beca
use you had something perfect yourself. But whether the marriage lasts or it doesn’t, it almost doesn’t matter. Because it will never be the same between us again.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “We’ve been married seven years. How will I feel about Mark in thirty-two years? Not the way you feel about daddy.”

  “You may. I hope you will.”

  “Because I’ll forgive and forget? I don’t think a person does that.”

  “Really?”

  “No, I really don’t. Forgive? Oh, of course I would be able to forgive him, but it would always be there, wouldn’t it? I don’t think I would ever get over it.”

  “But you would. You will.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone would completely get over something like that, really.”

  “People do, Andrea.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “I did, Andrea.”

  She looked at her mother. Their eyes met. She felt as if she’d been struck in the chest, directly over her heart, and involuntarily she put her hand to the spot and fancied she could feel her heart pounding beneath it.

  She was back in her own house in plenty of time to take Lucinda to the bus stop. Then she set about preparing dinner, with Robin keeping her company. Robin kept up a nonstop account of all the fascinating things Lucinda had told her. On this particular day Lucinda had been preoccupied by the various ways in which any number of relatives and acquaintances had died. This one had cancer, this one had the pleurisy, that one had fallen in the path of a New York subway train. She didn’t know whether or not to interrupt Robin’s grim recital, but decided it would probably be more traumatic if Robin were prevented from repeating what she had heard.

  And at least Lucinda talked to the child. She commonly said more in an hour to Robin than Andrea heard from her in a year.

  She kept busy in the kitchen, kept up her half of the conversation with Robin. Mark came home at the normal time, and the two of them met him at the door. Robin wrapped her arms around his legs and hugged him. He picked her up and held her in the air. “Spring is here,” he announced, “’cause I see a Robin.” He put the child down and took the drink that Andrea was holding, and she got up on her toes and kissed him.