Three by Finney

by Jack Finney

  “Who?”

  “He’s a composer.”

  “No. Ralph Porter, naturally, but not Cole.”

  “Yeah, I just thought of it,” I said. “Sitting here looking at you, pet, the words and tune came drifting into my head. Ever hear of Rodgers and Hammerstein?”

  “Who are they?”

  “A law firm. Listen, here’s a song I worked out at the office today, just thinking about you and how we met and all. Want to hear it?”

  “You know I do!”

  I walked over to the piano, and sat down, Tess following to stand beside me. I struck a preliminary chord, then looked up at Tess. “ ‘Some enchanted evening,’ ” I sang slowly, looking deep into her eyes, “ ‘you will see a stranger . . . across a crowded room . . .’ ” I never finished the song. When I reached “ ‘Then fly to her side . . . and make her your ownnnnn!’ ” Tess fainted and fell into my arms.

  •

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  •

  “Mirror, mirror, on the imported-tile wall,” I said one morning after I’d been here in this alternate world a few weeks, “who’s the biggest success of all?”

  “In just what way?” it answered craftily.

  But I was equally crafty, alert for the put-down. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said casually, “let’s say maritally.”

  “Well, we’re still checking,” it said grudgingly, “but right now it looks as though you are. Some guy in Eagle River, Wisconsin, came pretty damn close, though! If only he didn’t say things were ‘yay high’ and—”

  “Never mind! If I edged him out, that’s all that matters. Now, how about businesswise?”

  “Actual or potential?”

  “Potential! I know there are plenty guys who’ve made it a lot bigger than I have so far, but—”

  “All right, all right! Then you are.”

  “Okay,” I said, and snapped my fingers commandingly, “let’s have it, then.”

  “Any other category you’d like to ask about?”

  I just smiled. “Not just now,” I said, and snapped my fingers again. Two Hands in gold-embroidered sleeves descended and reluctantly set a fresh-picked laurel wreath on my brow. I examined it in the mirror, then tilted it to a slightly more jaunty angle. The Hands came abruptly down again to set it straight, and I left it that way, wearing it humbly but with justifiable pride all through my shower.

  Because I deserved it; that showed in a million ways. A few minutes later, for example, while dressing, I managed—even though this bedroom offered plenty of leeway for coeducational dressing—to bump into my wife as much as ever. More than ever. But here in this best of many possible worlds, it elicited not muttered curses but happy giggles.

  It showed in startling contrast between me and other husbands on our floor. Opening my door one morning, I saw ffoulke-Wilkinson, in 14C, step out into the hall, checking through his alligator-hide attaché case. His wife—in hair curlers and without makeup looking like Mrs. Dorian Gray, senior—gave him a peck on the cheek which, by some complicated mental trick, he was able to ignore, continuing to look through his case as though she didn’t exist, as—for him—maybe she no longer did. He snapped his case shut and walked on to the elevator without a glance at or word to her.

  I heard Hildebrand, in 14B across the hall, come out one morning just before I opened my door, and if I hadn’t understood English I might have been touched: from somewhere inside the apartment his wife called sweetly, “Don’t hurry back, darling!” and he replied liltingly, “Drop dead, my dear!” Then the door slammed.

  And now today, waiting at the elevator, I saw Yaphank and his wife appear in the doorway of 14D at the end of the hall. “Bye, darling!” each of them called as he turned toward the elevator, and he looked back, smiling. Each blew a kiss to the other, but this time as he turned away he made a horrible face, cheeks inflated, tongue protruding, eyes crossed. Behind his back, as she closed the door, she was sticking her tongue out at him and, thumb on her nose, waggling her hand.

  At the door I kissed Tessie goodbye at nine o’clock sharp, and again at a quarter of ten, realizing that I was the only guy on this floor—maybe in the whole world—who was sometimes forty minutes late for work in the morning just from kissing his wife goodbye.

  Leaving the building, finally, I greeted my bird friends as they fluttered round my head; like bird-lovers everywhere, I’d learned their names. “Hello, Edward,” I said. “Good morning, Bernice!” On the bus, I smiled and nodded at most of the other upper-deck regulars, then sat down and read the ads on the backs of the seats: for Yucatan Gum; Maxwell House Toothpaste; “Painless Don” Regan’s E-Z Terms Dentistry. Passing the end of the Park at Fifty-ninth Street, I glanced admiringly at the monument to Winnie Ruth Judd.

  At work, I again proved my right to the laurel wreath, which I was still wearing invisibly. Little Bert Glahn was waiting in my office, and we took a cab over to a recording studio in the Fifties; Perce Shelley and Orville from the agency were already there. The Navel-O-No doctor-campaign had upped sales 16 percent—we were beginning to tap the preadolescent market—and now the agency was ready with the follow-up campaign.

  The film was completed, and we sat in the studio watching them dub in the sound. On the screen the filmed countdown flicked past; then on cue a gong sounded, and in shivering haunted-house lettering appeared the words Fascinating Disappearances! At a floor microphone, a gilt-haired young man in tight pale-green slacks and a fluffy sweater, the sleeves of which were pushed up his forearms, said in a deep ominous masculine voice, “Throughout history there have been fascinating disappearances! Where is the missing Bierce? Where is the missing Earhart? Where is the missing Crater?”

  The guy at the gong whacked it again, and the scene switched to a fancy boudoir. A beautiful model in a thin negligee stood smiling at us. At another floor mike, a fat lady chewing gum said in a breathy sexy voice, “Yes! Here to enhance milady’s charm is the most fascinating disappearance of all! Where is the missing crater?” The girl on screen swung her hips, and her negligee ballooned open: she wore feathered mules, brief pants, and a brassiere, and for just an instant as the negligee opened, there was a glimpse of her stomach, smooth as an egg.

  Music from a small orchestra at the end of the studio swelled up, and on the screen at the spot where the girl’s navel would ordinarily have been visible, a tiny package of Navel-O-No appeared, and enlarged swiftly to fill the entire screen. Then the guy in the green pants came on with a sales pitch, the commercial ended, and they all turned to look at me.

  I sat nodding thoughtfully, consideringly, feeling the thrill of power, then made my decision. “Tremendous,” I said quietly, and relief filled their eyes. “Subtle, delicate, real creative craftsmanship. Perce, Orville, get a tape ready with sound for a board meeting. They’ll like it, I guarantee. What do you have in mind for a follow-up?”

  “A terrific variation,” Perce said. “Sound of helicopter, and open with a spectacular aerial shot of Vesuvius; a real grabber!”

  Lyndon said, “The guy’s voice opens with ‘A volcano! An ugly frightening crater!’ Cut to the girl in the negligee as the voice says, ‘Until it’s extinct!’ ”

  “The girl turns,” said Perce Shelley, “her negligee flies open—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, standing up, “I get it.”

  “Think they’ll do a job saleswise?” Bert said anxiously.

  “Yep, this series ought to open up the entire West for us.”

  “Even Texas?”

  “Especially Texas.” I turned to walk rapidly out of the studio, my hand brushing my head as though smoothing back my hair; actually, of course, I was adjusting my wreath.

  It was a nice day, brisk but sunny, so I walked back to the office with Bert, refusing an offer by the ad-agency boys to carry me. Cutting through Grand Central Station, I caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking curtained booth. It looked a lot like the tell-me-your-troubles booth, but as we came closer, I saw that the s
ign was red and orange, not blue, and that it said LET’S HEAR YOU BRAG! YOU DESERVE IT!

  I sent Bert on ahead to the office and glanced around. No one was looking, so I ducked in, pulled the curtains, dropped in a quarter, and began discussing my marital and business successes in a calm impartial way. The tape reels slowly revolved, and from the speaker in the ceiling a soft, sexy voice murmured, “You don’t mean it! . . . Oh, god, you’re wonderful . . . and so good-looking. . . . I wish I’d seen you first! . . . Kiss me!” and it was worth every penny of the $1.75 I spent before they refused to give me any more quarters at the newsstand.

  And yet . . . something was lacking; it was no good trying to pretend. In this world, as in the other, I was still a man unlucky enough to have been born with an unfulfilled need. Successful executive though I was now, I sometimes envied really creative people like Orville and Perce. I was like the occasional man who carries inside him the spirit of a concert pianist but is all thumbs at the keyboard; the urge to bring into this world something that would leave it a better place still nagged at me here as much as in the world in which I knew Nate Rockoski. Now, leaving Grand Central Station and the cozy, curtained little booth to walk on toward my office across Lexington Avenue just ahead, I was reminded of this by one of the curious coincidences in which life abounds. I stopped at the curb, joining a little group waiting for the lights to change, and my eye was caught, as were all others, by a spectacular, candy-striped, stretch Rolls-Royce. It was, I estimated as it approached the corner, about thirty feet long. Then I became aware of excited voices around me saying, “It’s Nate! Nate Rockoski!”

  Sure enough: the lights changed, the Rolls stopped, and there in the back seat I saw him, looking just the same here in this world, except that now he was wearing a silk hat, a long coat with an astrakhan collar, and his chin and clasped hands rested on top of a gold-headed cane. No one crossed the street, everyone stood staring; I felt the awe and wonder of the crowd. He lifted his head to smile and nod benignly, like Queen Elizabeth, and as he moved, his unbuttoned outer coat fell open, and I saw that his obviously expensive suit was patterned with dollar signs. “He’s rich, isn’t he?” I said to the man next to me, who looked at me, astonished.

  “Of course!” he said, and when I asked how Nate had done it, the man said, “Just the way he says he did in this month’s Reader’s Digest: a little effort, a little ingenuity, is all it takes; anyone can do it, he says.”

  “But what did he do?”

  “Invented a soft drink, patented a nutty name for it, and oh boy, how the money rolled in.”

  “What’s the drink? I’d like to try it.”

  I heard mechanism click in a metal box on a standard beside us, the lights about to change, and the man next to me pointed to an enormous neon-lighted billboard on the roof of a building down the block. COCA-COLA, it said, and the traffic light changed. “He used to be poor, a sort of crackpot inventor,” the man said, staring lovingly at Nate as the Rolls soundlessly moved forward, “but things have gone better with Coke!”

  At the intersection just ahead, a fire truck, its hooter hooting, was about to cross Lex, but the driver saw Nate’s Rolls approaching and slammed on his brakes, politely gesturing Nate across first. As the Rolls passed in front of the fire truck, Nate nodded his thanks, touching the brim of his silk hat with the shining gold head of his cane. On the curb with the others, I stood staring after him, then reached to my forehead and removed the wreath. Staring at it for a moment, I saw that its leaves had turned to brown; then I dropped it into a trash can and, as the light changed again, walked on across the street with the others.

  I felt better after work: who, on his way home to Tess, would not? And on Forty-second Street I stopped at one of those little places that print fake headlines while you wait. When I got home and Tess came in from the kitchen to pick up the paper I’d just tossed onto the piano, glancing at the headline as she always did, she was astonished to see a double line of large black type spelling out a particularly lurid invitation specifically directed to her; which, blushing prettily, she instantly accepted.

  That evening, as I often did, I wandered to the white grand piano, and played a medley of songs I’d written just for Tess, including “Tea For Two,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” and “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” As always, Tess was astonished at how apt they were; how out of all the millions of people in the world they seemed to fit us alone. She was so pleased that I sat a little longer, idly fingering chords, humming experimental notes, occasionally muttering a few trial words of verse. And in no more than five or six minutes, while Tess sat on the bench beside me, her eyes shining, I’d worked out another song for her: just a simple little thing which, with equal simplicity, I called “Stardust.”

  Hell with Nate Rockoski, I thought happily as Tess and I walked hand in hand down the hall to our bedroom: who wants more than this? But the Human Being always wants More Than This, and as I stood in our bedroom unbuttoning my shirt, I still felt a lack in my life. Like any husband anywhere, however happy with his wife, I could and often did carry on routine domestic conversations without engaging the mind at all. Undoing my cuffs, staring absently into space, I murmured, “What’d you say, dear?”

  “These stupid buttons,” Tess said, and I glanced at her. She was frowning at a button in the palm of her hand; then she twisted her hip attractively to look down at the side of her skirt, from which a short thread stuck up among a row of three or four similar buttons. “They come off all the time, and spoil the line of the skirt besides.” I nodded absently, making a sympathetic little murmur about putting in a zipper instead, not even listening to her reply.

  And yet some diligent little cell of the brain, resolutely doing guard duty while the others were resting, must have been listening. Because incredible as it sounds, we were in bed, the lights out, my mind on the stars, when it somehow and nevertheless managed to claim my attention. “What did you say!” I said to Tess.

  “I said, ‘Stop that, you fresh thing,’ but I was only fooling.”

  “No, no, I mean before!”

  “When?”

  “When I told you to put a zipper in your skirt, what did you say?”

  “Why, all I said was ‘What’s a zipper?’ Ben! What did you turn on the light for? What are you doing with the phone book!?”

  “ ‘What’s a zipper,’ ” I quoted happily, the yellow pages a blur as I flipped through them, my creative urge ecstatic. “I am looking for the name and address of the best patent lawyer in town!”

  •

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  •

  “You are! You are!” the mirror snarled next morning. “Will you shut up about it!” though I hadn’t said a word.

  “Okay,” I said with quiet dignity, “where’s the wreath?”

  “You got one yesterday. What’s the matter? You can’t wear a wreath two days?”

  I didn’t argue; the fact was worth more than the symbol, and my cup was full. There was absolutely nothing now that I’d have changed in The Wonderful Alternate World of Ben Bennell. It was perfect, and of course—you’ve noticed this, too, haven’t you?—it is precisely at such a time that Life grins nastily, spits on its hands, picks up the Big Club, and takes aim at your head.

  But I’d forgotten that, and the day began blissfully. Outside it was a beautiful morning as I started for the office, and a Brazilian macaw said, “Morning, Ben, you look like ten million. After taxes!” I said, “You, too, Fred; fine feathers make fine birds,” and he said, “Hey, pretty good, have to remember that.”

  On the upper deck of the bus I stood up front, facing the rear, and sounded a note on my pitch pipe. All the newspapers were lowered, and the mighty Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah burst forth. At Forty-second Street I hated to get off because Miss Poindexter, a rather plump, glasses-wearing, but very pleasant computer operator in a Thirty-fourth Street garment factory, was standing in the aisle, a hand on the seat back, the other outflun
g, in the middle of a marvelous soprano solo rendition of “Ave Maria.”

  In Grand Central Station I sat down in the booth and dropped in my quarter, but today it rattled right back into the coin-return cup. As the reels began revolving, the sexy voice murmured, “For you, and from now on, darling, it’s free.”

  At the office I phoned and made an appointment with Cox and Box, prominent Madison Avenue patent attorneys; Box’s great-great-great grandfather, his secretary informed me, had obtained Whitney’s patent on the cotton gin, beating out Benjamin Franklin’s lawyer by six and a half all-important minutes. That afternoon when I kept the appointment, although I didn’t yet know this, didn’t yet feel it, the Big Club swung down toward my head: the young attorney into whose office I was ushered at Cox and Box was Custer Huppfelt!

  There was no mistaking him; we’d gone to grade school and high school in the other alternate world, and I’d known him afterward. And his smile now, as he stood up from his desk watching me walk into the office, was the same weary-cynical, look-what-the-cat-dragged-in smile he’d always had, even in fourth grade, and he lazily put out his hand as though just barely willing to grant me that boon. But did I know him in this world, too!? I wondered, panically, shaking hands. Custer answered the question for me. “How are you, Ben?” he said, and then I remembered. Life in the two alternate worlds, as I’d already realized, was more alike than different, and here, too, Custer and I had gone to school together, although in this world, I recalled, he’d gone on to study law at Harvard.

  “Nice to see you, Cus,” I said, smiling, looking him over. He seemed the same: tall, thin, good-looking, skin permanently tanned. Except, I suddenly realized, in the other world Custer was brown-eyed and black-haired. Here he was blond and blue-eyed, probably because of a pair of blue genes somewhere in his ancestry.

  We reminisced together, then brought each other up to date. He was new in the firm here, but extremely well thought of; probably be made a partner before long. He still lived in the Village, and he was thinking about buying a new car. He wasn’t married yet, but was seeing a lot of a girl who was absolutely nuts about him. Finally he remembered, probably only because I was a client now, to ask how Tess was. Same old Custer, I thought, in this or any world.