The Husband

by Sol Stein

“Could I make a call first?” Peter asked.

  “Make it later,” said Paul. Peter followed him. Paul’s office door was closed behind them.

  “Elizabeth is a nice girl,” Paul said.

  “Yes,” said Peter, puzzled.

  “And you’re a nice fellow,” said Paul.

  “Thanks,” said Peter.

  “You nice fellows and girls ought to leave your picnic baskets and get in on time,” said Paul, his voice honed to a slight sharpness. Paul was puffing away at his pipe. Peter liked the smell. His senses were still on the alert. He wanted to keep it that way, to stretch the day out calmly.

  “I’m sorry we were late.”

  “Now,” said Paul. He put the dummy of the TBC brochure in front of Peter. “Why do you think they turned that down?”

  “Well,” said Peter, reflecting a moment, “the conception’s fine, we know that. They okayed it with enthusiasm. The design is good, not great, but TBC never went for the visually conspicuous. The copy is straight-forward, clear, the way Cary likes it, enticing only toward the very end. What do you think is wrong with it?”

  “What’s wrong with it,” Paul said, “is that the client fired it back at us.”

  “I think I know why,” said Peter.

  “Go ahead,” said Paul. “I’m waiting.”

  “Cary makes a big do about craftsmanship in mass production, but the fact is, he can’t produce a competitively priced industrial scale with his present setup. Sales are off, way off. His consumer scale makes people hate to step on it. That no-slip surface Cary put on feels lousy to bare feet, and most people weigh themselves in bare feet. We’ve told him that a dozen times. You have. I have. He’s sixty-six, insecure, and stubborn. His business is going downhill, and he’s probably been fishing around for advice. And since he won’t listen to advice that says his product line needs a drastic overhaul, he’s finding people who tell him the advertising and sales approach is wrong. He’s probably been interviewing agencies for a month or more. Maybe he’s even decided on one. But he’s also got a conscience. He’s been with us eight years, and the first five or six of them were great all around. So he’s decided to knock the brochure, and I think he’ll knock anything else we show him, green, white or pink, until he’s worked himself up to where he can overcome his instincts and fire us.”

  Paul was silent for a minute.

  “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “I thought you saw the message loud and clear. Besides, what can we do? Re-engineer his production line? Redesign his consumer models and tell him unless he bought our design he’d lose our agency? Paul, Cary and TBC are finished with this agency. He’s suiciding, and I don’t think either of us can stop it.”

  Paul’s expression didn’t change during the ten-second silence. Finally he said, “I think it’s a lousy brochure.”

  Peter unfolded his handkerchief and blew his nose to give him a moment to think. “Paul, the ground rule when I came here was, we could con the client if we agreed it was the only way to get through to him, but we’d never con each other. You know damn well it’s not the brochure!”

  “Maybe,” said Paul slowly, “if you weren’t spending all your energies elsewhere, you’d have come up with a workable solution.”

  Peter started to say something and stopped. Don’t risk it. Without Paul, no three hundred and thirty dollars every Monday.

  “Maybe,” said Paul, “we haven’t been getting your best efforts lately.”

  “You know what the problems are.”

  “We’ve all got problems. We do our work anyway.”

  “I have been doing my work, Paul.”

  As he spoke, Peter remembered, out of the blue, how when he had first joined the firm, the hub of enterprise had been Paul, Big Susan, and a man named Finch. Finch was not only a gifted gabber, but a first-rate copywriter. Hadn’t Paul and Susan and Finch gone on a client trip to the Coast and come back earlier than expected, and wasn’t that shortly before Finch left without a word to anyone, packing up his wife and three kids and taking on a job somewhere in Virginia as ad manager for a small electronics company?

  Hadn’t the next triumvirate been Paul, Big Susan, and Bud Blacker? That had lasted a long time. And they had gone on not one but many trips together. And then Bud had had his heart attack, stayed away three months, and then retired to the Southwest somewhere.

  Was that the pattern? It wasn’t the brochure, it was the trip to Chicago.

  “Peter, I think you and Susan and I ought to pay a visit to TBC and swing Cary around.”

  Cary wasn’t swingable. He was.

  Outside, pencil lines of rain were coming down, spotting the window.

  “Take your time,” said Paul. “Think about it.”

  “I don’t think we can save that account,” said Peter, the day cracking around him.

  “I think we should try,” said Paul. He paused for emphasis. “There’s a lot at stake.”

  Peter knew how much there was at stake. Slowly he got up out of his chair. He thought for a moment. Thinking was useless. Could he threaten to reveal Paul’s voyeurism? How? And who would care? Maybe if some clients—which?—heard Paul was kinky they’d be put off, but that’s…

  Peter thought the word “blackmail.” Wasn’t that what Paul was doing to him? Play my special little game of ball, or else you’re fired? Also blackballed with other agencies? Anybody hiring him after ten years with Dale, Bowne would want to talk to Paul, get his views on why Peter left. What would Paul say?

  It didn’t matter what Paul could bring himself to say. Peter couldn’t talk about Paul to anyone else and live with it. Maybe Elizabeth, some day—but not a business connection.

  He stopped at the closed door of Paul’s office.

  “I’m sorry, Paul, I can’t make that scene.”

  “What scene?”

  Don’t kill it, came the warning.

  “I mean, I don’t think anything will change Cary’s mind now.”

  “At least we’ll know we’ve tried.”

  “No, Paul.”

  “If we lose TBC’s billings, it’ll be awfully hard justifying your salary.”

  “There are a helluva lot of other things around here that could use my time,” he ran on, stopping only because he knew he was off the subject.

  “Sure there are other accounts. But you’re the highest-paid creative talent we’ve got. It doesn’t make economic sense to use you on penny-ante accounts.”

  “I don’t think you should. I think—”

  “Last evening,” Paul interrupted, “I ran into Mike Cohen. Very smart copy chief.”

  Peter nodded agreement. “He’s young but very good.”

  “We stopped for a drink and ended up having dinner. I think he’d come over for about five thousand dollars less than you take down.”

  “You’d can me for five thousand?”

  “I wouldn’t dismiss five thousand dollars.”

  “What about everything I’ve done around here for ten years?”

  “I wouldn’t dismiss sentiment, either.”

  “Sentiment?”

  Paul came around his desk and over to the door and put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, Peter. I’d hate to lose you.”

  Peter tried to disregard the hand on his shoulder, to concentrate on trying to understand. Despite Freud, it was still hard to see sex as the pivot. God’s magnificent trick for procreating, the needle of desire bringing people together until they could find other common grounds for living together, or finding that the grounds didn’t exist and so sex deployed them for another mate. How many turns could God’s trick take? The cocksman, the table hopper who cannot sit still long enough to make a friend, much less a mate. The numberless Lesbians who married and even reproduced, making God’s trick work both ways. And the homosexuals who settled for being wives to strong women, with an occasional excursion underground when the needling got strong. Well, that was all practically normal now, wasn’t it, c
ompared to the really kinky ones? Now here was Paul, the pitiful voyeur who was going to fire him when all Peter’s defenses were down, when he couldn’t take firing unless he played the kinky game. Paul’s hand came off the shoulder.

  And why not play the game if you knew it was only a game? Millions did it, one way or the other. Look at the kids today; they tried everything and weren’t struck down by bolts from heaven. The wife swappers were thriving in the middle-aged suburbs. Why not play the kinky game with Paul and Big Susan, at least until the mess at home quieted down, the economic pressure was off? Would Elizabeth have to know, and if she found out, would it make a big enough difference to change their lives?

  Would it change his life? That was the important thing.

  Paul seemed to be smiling. Was he sensing the possibility of a victory?

  “Let me show you something,” said Paul, turning the lock on the office door. Paul opened the locked drawer on his desk, took out an accordion file full of photographs, and spread them out on his desk.

  It was quite a collection. Peter had heard about the collection, but he had never seen it.

  The scenes of unorthodox sex shimmered in front of Peter. Kill it came the cry inside his head, kill it, he’s trying to show you how normal he is, how others do it. And suddenly, with no clear notion of what was happening, Peter found himself raising up the side of the desk until the photographs began to slither off, with Paul clumsily trying to catch them. And then, unable to stop, Peter kept raising the edge of the desk until it was nearly vertical, with a strength he didn’t know he had. His arms screamed with the effort, and then the desk was going over with a tremendous crash, and instantly there was a hubbub of voices outside Paul’s locked door trying to get in.

  It was a miracle that Paul escaped injury. His face glowed a fierce red. He spluttered sounds. Finally, “You bastard, you dirty bastard.”

  Peter, his right arm now throbbing excruciatingly, a sharp pain thrusting across the knuckles, thought of the irony of Paul calling him a dirty bastard, and maybe the truth of it, at the same time glad he—his instincts, perhaps his fear—had made the decision.

  There was hammering on the door now, and Paul had to unlock it and open it a wedge to say, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and close and lock it again, but not before the eye-popping girls had caught a glimpse of the mess inside.

  Without a word, Peter helped Paul right the desk. The edge that had hit the ground had cracked. They gathered up the photographs, and Paul stuffed them into the accordion file, but the locked drawer on his desk wouldn’t lock now, and Paul cursed.

  The pain in Peter’s hand was a lot worse.

  The men stood there, looking at each other. Finally Paul said, “We’ll send you a check for the rest of the month. You’d better get your things out of your office now.”

  Peter couldn’t help laughing; the month ended tomorrow. He saw that Paul misconstrued the laugh, but what could he say?

  Paul righted his overthrown chair, sat in it, and swiveled away to stare out the window. Peter unlocked the door and, when he was out, closed it carefully behind him. At a distance, there was still a bit of a crowd, but Peter saw clearly only Big Susan. “I think you’d better go in to him,” was what he said, and Big Susan, without a word, went into the office, and he could hear her lock the door behind her.

  Then, behind the curious faces of the secretaries and some of the men who had now come out of their offices to see what had happened, he saw anxious Elizabeth keeping as far back as she could.

  He had already gathered his personal stuff into his briefcase when she came into his office. “Can’t talk about it now,” he said, then noticed the memo on his telephone and called Jonathan.

  The boy answered the phone very quickly. He must have been waiting for the call all this time.

  “Dad?”

  “Sorry, couldn’t call back sooner.”

  “That’s okay.” He sounded awfully grown up.

  “What’s up?”

  “Mom’s been crying.”

  “What happened?”

  “Over Maggie,” said Jonathan. “She doesn’t understand about you and Mom. She’s having trouble at school.” Margaret had never had trouble at school.

  “I’ll try to see her today.”

  “It’s too late today. She gets out at three ten. Can I tell her you’ll meet her at school tomorrow?”

  “Is that what she wants?”

  “She asked me to call you.”

  Why hadn’t Maggie called herself?

  “Gotta hang up now, Dad,” he said, and his voice vanished with a click.

  Peter threw the crumpled message slip into the wastebasket. When he looked up, Elizabeth was gone, but when he reached the street level in the elevator, she was there waiting for him.

  He carried his loaded case in his left hand. She took his right hand in hers, but he winced with the pain and she let go.

  As they came out of the revolving door to the street, she said, “Tell me about it.”

  On the way to her house, he told her.

  Everything.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was a calculated decision: Elizabeth would not accompany Peter to pick up Margaret in school. She’d be at her desk working, just in case Paul was looking for a reason to fire her also.

  The school, as Peter came in sight of it, squatted like a white brick packing case three stories high built before it was thought desirable for schools to be attractive. In front was the huge cage of the school yard, the ten-foot wire fence as forbidding as a prison. It was empty of children, the only sign of life some candy wrappers whipped around the yard by the wind.

  Fortunately Peter had picked up Margaret at the school once early in the semester and knew exactly where to go. Through the side door, one flight up the clanging metal staircase, turn right and there was the back door to her classroom. He could see Miss Icardi in front of the green- gray blackboard. Miss Icardi was as he remembered her: plump, fiftyish, her shining black hair tucked safely in a bun.

  Several of the children noticed him in the glass of the door. Their whisper telegraph worked instantly. Margaret glanced backward, spotted him, couldn’t control a delighted wave. Miss Icardi saw him at the same moment. Peter didn’t wave at Margaret, lest Miss Icardi think he was waving at her. Thankfully the jarring end-of-class bell rang.

  Peter had to step aside as the calves stampeded out of the classroom, Margaret scrambling with the rest. When she reached him, he hugged and kissed her; they were like lovers greeting each other on a crowded railway platform, probably much too demonstrative, but why care?

  “Mr. Carmody?” Miss Icardi’s right hand and left fingers were intertwined in front of her, lest anyone be tempted to shake her hand.

  “Oh, hello,” said Peter, disengaging himself from Margaret. “Nice to see you again.”

  Miss Icardi took his proffered hand reluctantly. Peter winced with the pain of the handshake. Damn hand still hurt.

  “The principal asked to have a word with you,” Miss Icardi said, an official timbre in her voice.

  “Oh?” said Peter, wondering what was up. He and Margaret followed Miss Icardi down the hall, encased in the stares of passing students.

  The principal’s name was Anderson. He was no more than thirty-seven or eight. His eyes seemed to float behind tortoiseshell television-producer glasses. He pumped Peter’s hand once, demonstrating strength, efficiency, and got to the point. “We have instructions in writing from Margaret’s custodian that she is not to leave school with you.”

  “Her who?”

  “Mrs. Carmody.”

  Peter tried to control the slight tremble that invaded him.

  “I’m her father,” he said.

  “You may go now,” the principal said to Miss Icardi, who looked very relieved and trundled off without a word.

  “I’m only obeying instructions, Mr. Carmody. I’m certain you understand I have no further prerogatives in the matter once I’ve received instru
ctions in writing.”

  Instructions? Prerogatives? What the hell was going on? “This isn’t so unusual, Mr. Carmody,” the principal continued. “We’ve had other cases of this sort.”

  Cases?

  “We are advised that you are no longer living in the child’s household, is that correct?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “In such cases, the mother is the head of the household in which the child resides, and until custody is finally determined, which is always the mother’s in any event, the custodian’s instructions are followed with regard to the welfare of the child.”

  “Maggie,” Peter turned to her whitened face, “they are wondering whether it is in your welfare to talk to me.”

  Mr. Anderson let an official smile escape him. “We’re not unreasonable people here, Mr. Carmody. You may talk to Margaret in my private office if you like.”

  “I was going to buy her an ice cream soda and walk her home.”

  Peter expected Anderson to make a crack about not having ice cream sodas on the premises. Anderson said nothing, led the way to his inner office, a simply furnished, large room with a desk, several chairs, charts all along one wall, and behind the desk, an American flag. “I’ll just clear these things out of the way,” he said, removing the papers from the top of his desk. He left them alone in the room.

  Like visiting hours in a prison, was Peter’s thought. He brushed it aside as Margaret put her head against him. He patted her hair, wished she wouldn’t sob. Then when she did, he was glad of it, of course. He gave her time, then touched her tears with a clean handkerchief. It jolted him to see Anderson standing in the doorway so soon again.

  “It’s all right,” Peter said to the principal. “I’m not hurting her.” He hadn’t meant the smart reply, but—the thought came as verse—Peter is as Peter was and always will be.

  Anderson vanished.

  “Tell me everything,” Peter said to Margaret, who stuttered out the regiments of words she had stored in her armory. It was clear that she had had a delayed reaction to his leaving, wishing it into a very temporary matter. When too many weeks went by, it suddenly came through to her that her father might never be returning. Never, never! Rose, in the guise of consoling Margaret, would cry, too. Jonathan seemed to take everything coolly, isolating Margaret in her grief. She used none of those phrases, but that, in sum, is what she told him.