Three by Finney

by Jack Finney

  In the Packard I was so confused I had trouble getting the key in the ignition, and when I got the car started and backed out onto the driveway, I almost nicked a fender of the car behind us. I swung out onto the dirt road then and drove half a block leaning toward the windshield trying to see by moonlight before I remembered to turn on the headlights. I was driving away from the freeway toward open country and a place to pull over and talk; just now I couldn’t speak.

  But the top was down, a smooth flow of air cooling my cheeks, and pretty soon I felt I’d be able to make my voice speak calmly. I said, “Jan,” but she ignored me, frowning and picking at the seal of clear plastic around the neck of the bottle in her lap. Impatiently, she began to twist the cap off without removing the seal. My control was thin, and I yelled, “Jan! Goddamn it!” We’d reached more or less open country, nothing behind us, and I swung onto the narrow shoulder and stopped, braking hard. “Jan, answer me, or so help me I’ll—”

  She smiled pleasantly. “Call me by name, and I will.”

  I sat looking at her, but once again I knew, and had known, it seemed to me, for a long time. I knew who, this afternoon, had bought the screaming dress with a hem eight inches above her knees, who knew most of the words to “Bye Bye, Blackbird,” and who could dance the Charleston as though she’d invented it. “Marion?”

  “I’ll tell the cockeyed world. Open this goddamn bottle, Nickie; you need a little drinkie!”

  She was right. I grabbed the bottle and began peeling the plastic seal loose, the driver of a passing Volkswagen turning to stare back at us. And three drinks and four miles farther on down the winding dirt road—we were beyond the town limits and the last of the houses, out into open farm country—I needed another. I took it, steering with one hand, straight gin gurgling out of the bottle mouth down my throat.

  “Pass it here.” I did, she swigged, then grinned. “That’s no bathtub gin, Baby; that’s real prewar stuff!”

  “We have got to talk.” A short driveway just ahead led to the gate of a field, and I slowed to pull off.

  “Sure, but not now; this is fun! Drive!” She put her foot onto mine and jammed the accelerator flat. The car bucked, leaped forward, and I yanked the wheel away from the driveway and the ditch just beyond it. “Step on it! Let’s take a spin!” she yelled and turned to climb up on the leather seat and sit on the folded canvas top. “Whoopee!” she screamed, and some fragment of my mind was able to note that I was grinning and that my foot on the acclerator stayed flat on the floor.

  This was dangerous, the curves unbanked, the rear end of the big car fishtailing around them. But without slackening speed I leaned forward and with one hand loosened the big nickel-plated wing nuts of the windshield and lowered it to lie flat on the hood.

  The rush of night air, cool and fragrant with country smells, whipped my hair, pressed my glasses to my brows and cheekbones, and narrowed my eyes. We took another curve, sliding sideways for a yard this time before the wheels bit in again, my heart soared in my chest from excitement, and I yelled, “Whoopeeeeee!” Upon the folded top, Marion sat waving the bottle of gin in the air, a look in her eyes, half closed against the rush of air, of utter pleasure in the moment, her lips molded in a little smile of pure, unthinking, animal joy.

  “To hell with the speed cops!” she yelled, and took a long swig of gin, her taut throat white in the moonlight, then shoved the bottle down at me. I snatched it and drained the last of the gin without lifting my foot from the accelerator. A tree was rushing toward us, and I half stood behind the big wheel and with all my might threw the bottle at it. It hit squarely, smashing magnificently, splinters of glass flying like ice, and we both howled with delight, wild and free, more than I’d been since I was a child, more than I’d remembered it was possible to be.

  But a quarter mile farther on I slowed, pumping the brakes, then jounced off onto a two-rut dirt road leading toward a farmhouse whose lights showed in the distance. There were horses in a field, and trees extending over the shoulder of the road. I pulled off under them, set the hand brake, and turned off the ignition and lights; we had to talk.

  Marion was sliding down onto the seat beside me, her skirt pushing back, turning toward me, lifting her arms. “Oh, Nickie, Nickie,” she said, “it’s so good to be back.”

  “Hold it.” I put a hand up. “Listen, do you think I’m my father?”

  “Of course not. I did last night. When we saw my movie. I was still confused then: you lose track of time. Because it doesn’t matter.”

  “These aren’t the Twenties, either, you know.”

  “Ain’t it the truth! Some party. Everybody standing around talking about nursery schools! What the hell kind of party was that? Nobody getting any kicks. What was that big red bridge we came over?”

  “Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “What happened to the ferries?”

  “They got rid of them.”

  “Good night! How stupid! They were fun.”

  “Well, we kept the cable cars. A few of them.”

  “That’s nice. Oh, listen! Did Dempsey beat Tunney?”

  “No. Tunney won. Twice. They had a rematch.”

  “Darn. Dempsey’s so attractive, much cuter than the Prince of Wales. What year is this?”

  “Nineteen eighty-five.”

  “What? Why, that’s . . . fifty-seven years.”

  “Fifty-nine.”

  “I hate arithmetic. That means I’m . . .”

  “Eighty.”

  Her mouth dropped open, then she smiled. “No, I’m not. And you know it.”

  Something stirred in the back of my mind. It had been there for some time, now it moved forward, demanding recognition. “Marion. . . . Last night. After the movie. Was that . . . you?”

  She leaned back against her door to face me, her shoulders trembling with silent laughter. Then she nodded.

  I swung away, staring across my door top at the tree beside us. I heard Marion slide across the seat toward me, then she poked me in the ribs. “Hey,” she said softly, “what’s so interesting over there? Hey, Nickie, look at me!” I shook my head. “Why not?”

  “No, goddamm it!” I swung around to stare at her, then shook my head in disbelief. “Lord, I’m sitting here looking at my wife’s face and body, talking to you about how I was unfaithful to her! It’s like incest! Only worse!” I set my elbows on the lower rim of the big wooden steering wheel and put my face in my hands. “Jesus! I must be the only man in fifty thousand years to discover a new kind of sin.”

  “And wasn’t it nice?” I didn’t answer or move. “Come on,” she said softly, coaxingly, “it won’t hurt you to say it was nice. Because it was. And you know it.”

  “The hell it was.”

  “Oh, yes, it was. A lot better than what’s-her-name, Dishwater Janice, knows anything about.” She was quiet for a moment. “Look at me, damn it! I don’t really look like your wife at all!”

  I turned, then narrowed my eyes. This was Jan’s face, her dark hair, her arms, hands and body, but . . . there was a recklessness in the eyes, a fullness to the smiling lips, a tension and excitement in every line of that familiar body, that I’d never seen before. There was a resemblance to Jan but, incredibly, nothing more. This was another woman, this was Marion Marsh and no one else, leaning toward me now, moist lips smiling, offering herself. “Kiss me, Nickie.”

  I shook my head and turned away fast.

  “Why not?”

  “For an absolutely ridiculous reason: I don’t want to be unfaithful to my wife!” I was staring almost blindly at the trees beside me fighting back a temptation—oh, Lord, I wished I hadn’t drunk that gin—so intense it caught my breath, wanting so much I couldn’t believe it. I squeezed my eyes shut and began taking slow deep breaths, thinking cool thoughts, knowing that this girl was right beside me waiting, offering . . . and I won. Opening my eyes, finally, I felt actually weak.

  I took a few more slow calming breaths, then turned to Marion to make her un
derstand that she had to get out of our lives. Still turned toward me, smiling, she didn’t move, and said nothing, just waited as I hunted for words. She looked—but how could she, how was this possible?—voluptuous, the most sensual absolute female I’ve ever seen. It shone from her eyes, exuded from that familiar, utterly strange body, filled the air. “Nickie,” she said softly, “do you realize that under these clothes there’s a naked girl?” and the intensity of the sudden disappointment I felt, the cold shock of knowing I had won and was going to successfully resist, was more than I could stand, and I grabbed her. I grabbed her, she grabbed me, and there, staring horses and all, parked on a country road like a high-school kid, my wife’s body in my arms, I was wildly unfaithful to her all over again; oh, Jesus.

  • • •

  We passed the house where, incredibly, the party was still going on and reached the highway before I felt I could talk. I heard myself then, voice solemn and actually trembling a little with the seriousness of what I had to say. “Marion. Listen to me. You can’t ever, ever do this again.” But she didn’t answer, and in the greenish light of a highway lamp I saw that she was asleep.

  All the way across the Bridge and San Francisco she slept, but at the sound of the ratchet as I set the hand brake, she opened her eyes, glanced up at the house, then at me. “Hi,” she said.

  Blinking against the gin I’d had, forcing my vision, I studied her face; we were almost directly under the street light before the house. “Hi, Jan.”

  “Hi” Her hand came up to her mouth, ladylike, to stifle a belch. Then she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “Nickie . . . I don’t feel so good.”

  • •

  CHAPTER FOUR

  • •

  A little before noon I stood in the kitchen in pajamas and slippers waiting for the toast to pop up, trying not to listen to the loud plopping pulselike gurgle of the percolator. I had a full-blown hangover, and it helped to stand absolutely still while I waited, arms hanging at my sides, eyes closed; when the toaster popped it made me wince. I had to make my way to the other side of the kitchen then, but by walking without lifting the soles of my slippers from the linoleum I managed. Getting the plates out wasn’t too bad, but the trays are propped in the narrow space between stove and refrigerator, resting on the floor on their edges, and I had to stoop. I made it by bending very slowly, at the knees only, eyes straight ahead, locating a tray by feel.

  Al scratched at the back door; it was past time for him to be let in, and he knew it. I called to him, eyes closed; I told him we’d decided to get rid of him and had bought a plant instead. Maybe he believed me, because as I walked to the refrigerator I heard him pattering back down the stairs.

  I was looking for, praying for, tomato juice, pushing milk cartons aside; vodka and tomato juice, I’d remembered, was supposed to be the remedy for this kind of pain. There wasn’t any, though; we seldom drank it. But there was a big chilled bottle of California champagne Jan had bought at a local liquor-store sale and was saving for our anniversary. This was an emergency, and I got it out, peeled off the imitation lead foil, and worked out the plastic cork, careful about noise.

  The tray vibrated in my hands all the way down the hall, the liquids slopping over. Jan’s face, as I turned into the bedroom, was bone-white above her pink nightgown and the dark knitted shawl over her shoulders; she’d had more gin than I’d had. She was sitting up against her pillow, and she said, “Oh, thank God. I couldn’t possibly have gotten up myself, I’d have starved right here. Thanks, Nickie, darling,” she added so nicely, so lovingly, that my conscience began to ache more than my head.

  “I made it entirely by touch; didn’t dare open my eyes.” I set the tray at the center of the bed and climbed back in again. Then, slowly, slowly, chewing by an act of will, swallowing carefully, we got the dry toast down with careful sips of ice-cold, incredibly delicious champagne; washed down aspirin; swallowed coffee. When we sat holding our second cups, I said, “How you feeling?”

  Jan considered, cup cradled in both hands. “Better,” she said, voice a little surprised. “My headache’s not too bad now; I guess the aspirin’s taking hold. And I feel a bit less horrible in general; the coffee and toast, I suppose.”

  “With a big assist from the champagne. You aren’t supposed to do this, you know, or you’re on the road to alcoholism.”

  “Well, it helps.” She sipped a little more champagne, a little more coffee, then sighed, put down the cup, and sat back, closing her eyes, and dozed.

  I sat looking at her, pale and vulnerable: this was Jan, this was my wife. Last night and the night before that I had . . . It didn’t matter that it was her body; it was another woman, absolutely no question about that. Once in a while I’d daydreamed a little about other women, but still the answer to whatever problems we had was never actually someone else; I wanted to work things out with Jan. I sat looking at her—there was a little color returning to her cheeks—remembering times before we were married, remembering our honeymoon, that kind of thing, feeling very tender toward her and almost fiercely protective. Then I slipped off into sleep, too.

  “Nick?”

  “Yeah?” I opened my eyes and ran a quick check over my system. I was definitely healing.

  “What happened last night? I can’t remem . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she sat frowning at the foot of the bed. Then she focused her eyes on me again. “Nick! Last night. Did I—dance? I did, didn’t I?”

  “Well. Yeah. A little.”

  “By myself?”

  I nodded, watching her.

  “It’s funny, I can barely remember. It’s like catching a little glimpse of myself for a moment, then it’s gone.” Her eyes widened. “I sang, too, didn’t I? Up there on the platform!”

  I nodded again.

  “Oh, Nick, how awful!” She covered her face with her hands. “Why didn’t you stop me! What’ll I ever say to the Hursts!” She lowered her hands and sat staring at me wonderingly. “And afterward . . . I’m not sure I really remember this; it’s like a dream you can barely recall. But . . . didn’t we drive around? Speeding? Skidding on the curves? And didn’t you—you did, Nick! You threw a bottle at a tree!”

  I nodded again.

  “I don’t understand it. We’re not people who get drunk!” She sat staring at me.

  I didn’t know what to tell her or whether to say anything. I shrugged and said, “Well. It happens sometimes. Sneaks up on you.” There was beginning color in her cheeks but dark smudges under her eyes. She looked delicate, fragile, and a wave of guilty tenderness moved through me. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  She smiled at the truth in my voice. “I know you are. You’re better, too, aren’t you?” I nodded. “I’m glad.”

  I leaned toward her and kissed her lightly. Then I leaned far across the tray, took her shoulders in my hands, and kissed her again, much longer and harder. I wanted to make things up to her, and it seemed to me this was how. “Well!” Jan pretended to catch her breath. “What’s this all about? And with a hangover at that.”

  I grinned. “Especially with a hangover. That’s how it works with me, I don’t know why; always has.”

  “Always? Does that mean—”

  “Never mind the ancient history. This is what matters.” I leaned across the tray again, reaching for her.

  “Well, maybe we should get rid of this, for heaven sakes.” She lifted the tray and set it on the floor. Then she turned back to me as I moved closer, and we kissed, long but gently. Presently we slid down to lie heads comfortable on her pillow. We both smiled, appreciating each other, appreciating in anticipation the leisurely, almost languorous, hangoversstill-persisting quality of the domestic lovemaking just ahead.

  Again we kissed, snuggling closer, making ourselves comfortable. Jan searched for and found the handkerchief she keeps under her pillow and wiped at her nose. I pulled the blanket up over our shoulders and punched up my pillow; a pulse had begun at the base of my neck, a h
eadache deciding whether to come back or not. But I didn’t care. I had a burden of guilt to make up to Jan, and the nice thing was that I was enjoying doing it. I was kissing her now with a slow passion, she was responding, I felt the beginning blur of my senses, and grinned with relief because I was enjoying this every bit as much as, even more than, last night. Jan’s hands met behind my neck, clasped, and she drew me tightly toward her, kissing me harder and again and again very rapidly, and my arms tightened around her till she gasped. “Jan?”

  “Yes? . . .”

  I was overwhelmingly tempted to kid myself into thinking I’d been fooled. I wanted to. Lord, how I wanted to. But I knew this was the moment of truth, the test I must not fail, and I shoved her away so violently her clasped hands were torn apart and she cried out. But I kept on shoving, brutally, frantically, using both hands. “No, goddamn it, no!” I was yelling. “It’s you, and I know it!”

  “Oh, what’s the diff!” Marion said angrily.

  “All the difference in the world!” I’d thrust my leg straight out, holding her off, the sole of my foot flat against her stomach.

  “Yes, there is, isn’t there? All the difference in the world.” She lay smiling at me, Jan’s face but Marion’s hot and mischievous eyes.

  I’m a silent-movie buff, a term I don’t much like but I haven’t a better one. And I’ve watched many an old Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin, Mack Sennett. So I know that the best of the old slapstick routines are far from slapdash. Granted the beginning premise, some of those fine old sequences—like Keaton and the mortar on the flatcar in The General—are marvelously logical, each event deriving inevitably from the one preceding. In a weird way they’re true to life; they could have happened. So it doesn’t surprise me that what occurred now, right in my own bedroom, turned into something the Keystone Kops would have understood.