Fast Start, Fast Finish

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  TO TESSA

  “The last nymph of Mégara”

  from Harry

  Athens, 1959

  In the center of the bowl lay a single, lipsticked cigarette butt. Her green-satin bedroom slippers were on the floor, along with The New York Times Book Review, spread open, face down, a coffee cup, a box containing stamps and stationery, and several pieces of morning mail. The doorknobs held other things—a hair net, a series of elastic bands, a bed jacket, and a broken puppy leash. Someone had started to water the plants on the windowsill but had been interrupted. So a kitchen saucepan still stood there filled with an opaque liquid plant food. The plants looked decidedly in need of nourishment, and in the warm sunlight the plant food had begun to emit a faint, unpleasant odor that mingled in the air with the smell of wet towels, soap, and nail lacquer.

  Outside the sunlight fell, in bright patches, through the trees upon the brick garden walk. She came up this walk and entered through the glass door, carrying a steaming cup of coffee. In her white-silk robe, tied loosely at the waist, she did not look precisely like a pagan goddess stepping down from the Attic hills. Nor did she look like Tessa Morgan, the famous movie star. Rather, there was something about her still-damp hair and the curve of her throat between the folds of the white robe that suggested a college girl who had just stepped out of a shower, which, indeed, was exactly what she had just done.

  He stood up as she approached him, her robe picking up the sunlight in white-handkerchief patterns. Lifting her coffee cup to her lips, she said, “Good morning.” She sipped the coffee. “Well,” she said cheerfully, “I took your advice. I did exactly what you said. I got them all together this morning, and I laid down the law. Now none of them are speaking to me.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry it didn’t work.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It was worth a try.” She smiled at him.

  It was then that he felt it consciously for the first time, with that smile—like a storm coming, bringing with it rain, claps of thunder, and an immutable knowledge, a certainty, of what was going to happen, of what was happening already, of what, perhaps, had been happening for a long time. The air between them seemed to grow, thick and heavy and tense. Perhaps she felt it too, because she turned away from him, set down the coffee cup, and lighted a cigarette.

  “You came to see me last night,” she said.

  He had hoped that perhaps Bruno had not told her. “Yes.”

  “I wish I’d been here. I’d much rather have talked to you than the person I was with.”

  “Yes.…”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I really shouldn’t have.”

  “Trouble at home?”

  He nodded.

  “I knew it. I was certain of it. Your face never lies to me, Lord Charles. The minute I saw your face when you came back to the table, after that phone call, I knew something had happened. She found out about the show, of course.”

  “Yes.”

  “And called you a liar.”

  “And a few other things,” he said heavily.

  She was moving nervously around the room, the lighted cigarette in one hand, touching and rearranging small objects—lifting, touching, moving—with the other. “I’m a liar too,” she said with a little laugh. “But of course when a liar confesses he’s a liar, you never know whether or not that’s just another lie. So you have to take that confession for what it’s worth.…”

  “Yes.”

  She moved to the desk and to the Canfield tableau, fingering the cards.

  He cleared his throat. “Can’t you get it to come out?” The thick air was tightening his chest, clogging his lungs.

  “Hmm? Oh, this. No, it’s a heartbreaking game,” she said, turning to him again with a helpless gesture.

  “Yes. It—”

  “If I had been home last night, what would you have said to me?” she said.

  “I don’t remember now.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not—specifically.”

  “When I got home and Bruno told me, I was terribly disappointed. And yet—”

  “And yet what?”

  “And yet you came back today,” she said.

  “Yes. Tessa, I think I’d better—”

  “And here we are.” She was looking at him, and this time her eyes were huge and grave. “You came back and here we are.”

  “Yes.”

  “We can talk and talk,” she said. “But both of us know what we’re thinking, don’t we? I know what you’re thinking. You must know that I’m thinking the same thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s going to say it first? Or does anyone have to say anything? There’s really not a thing to say—is there?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “Oh, but what a lot of time we waste!” She stepped quickly toward him. “Oh, Charlie,” she said, “we both want it, don’t we? I want it terribly. Do you?”

  He closed his eyes and said, “Yes—terribly.”

  “Then what else is there for us to do?” She touched his hand. “Oh, then come on,” she whispered. “Oh, let’s hurry, please!”

  He followed her out of the room, into the hall, and started up the stairs behind her. “No telephone calls, hon!” she called out brightly to Bruno and hurried on up the stairs before him, her bare legs flashing beneath the white-silk robe.

  They stepped into her bedroom and she quietly closed the door, turning the bolt. Sunlight streamed in through the windows and he noticed, irrationally, that the windows needed washing. Tessa walked to a window and looked out. Then she turned.

  “Shall we close the curtains?” he asked, his voice sounding choked and queer.

  “I don’t care. No one can see us anyway.”

  “All right.…”

  They met instantly in the center of the room and he was kissing her, feeling the folds of the white robe fall open as she quickly pulled loose the sash. Two emotions spun in his head, mounted, and flung themselves together—dismay at what he was doing, and joy: wild pride, elation, at the sudden thrust of his desire for her, a desire that seemed more swift and insistent and enormous than anything he had felt since his youth, a stab of sexual desire that struck him and threatened to double him up with pain, and he groaned with this agony. She was whispering to him, and they were both tearing at his clothes until they fell away, and the robe fell from her shoulders, and she was caressing him and holding him unbearably, and all he was aware of was the hugeness of his need. She dropped to her knees, just briefly, and kissed him, while his hands fought in the damp tangle of her hair, let her lips cover him there, and then she was on her feet again, and they were struggling, dragging each other to the bed—measureless miles across the floor, it seemed—and they collapsed upon it, and he entered her instantly, and she cried out, “Lord Charles! Oh, God!”

  It was no sooner over than he wanted her again. This time, though, it was slower, more relaxed, almost innocent, with the rhythm of waves upon a beach, a tiny question asked, repeated, asked again, answered, and he heard himself saying, “Ah, love … love …” like a song.

  Then they lay very still together for a long time.

  “Naughty little children,” she whispered to him. “What naughty little children we are, Lord Charles. But how sweet we are together.” Her dark eyes looked up at him. “Are you glad or sorry?”

  “Glad,” he said.

  “If you say you’re sorry, I’ll understand.”

  “Not sorry.”

  “Neither am I. Isn’t it awful?” She smiled at him.

  “Awful.”

  “But it had to happen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing we can do. When did you first know it, Lord Charles?”

  “I don’t remember now.”

  “I do. It was right from the beginning. The first time I saw you. On the tennis court. I knew it then. You were so—pretty to watch. You were wearing nice white shorts. You had such nice, strong, good-looking legs.
I did a shameless thing. I looked right at the bulge in your shorts and said to myself, I want what’s inside those white shorts inside me, those nice strong legs right—where they are now. I’m a shameless woman.” With her fingertips she drew soft long lines across his shoulders, down the curve of his spine.

  He laughed softly, remembering what Genny McCarthy had said the day her dogs had been sniffing him, about having it bitten off. He told Tess about it.

  “That evil old dyke,” she said. “She should be as lucky as I am.”

  “Or me.”

  “I never wanted my picture painted. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  Her cool fingers moved ceaselessly. Almost without knowing it, as though he was in a dream, he realized he was making love to her again.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” he whispered.

  “I’m here,” she said. “Take all you want.” And then, pushing her body upward to him, encircling him with her arms, she said, “Oh, my love!” And, as he kissed her, he could taste the tears on her cheeks.

  Sometime later she stepped out of the shower and came into the bedroom, drying herself with a towel. From the bed he smiled at her. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said.

  She went to the bed and began paying housewifely attention to it. “Good Lord, what a mess we make,” she said, pulling at the sheets, blankets, plumping up pillows. He reached slowly up and pulled her down to him once more.…

  Later they dressed and went downstairs and out onto the terrace under the grape arbor, and she fixed drinks for them both. Standing under the arbor was like being sunk under the surface of a deep, dim pool. The tangle of leaves and vines—the stalks in many places grown thicker than a man’s wrist—threw the entire terrace into a blue-green shade. It made one feel like a piece of sunken sculpture. From the arbor there were hanging pots suspended, holding red-and-purple fuchsias, tuberous begonias, ferns, and ivies. He walked to the edge of the terrace and she followed him and stood beside him, her drink in her hand. It was afternoon now and a wind had risen. The hill ahead of them rose and beyond its crest there was nothing but a blowing sheet of sky and clouds.

  “A place for beginning things,” she said. “What are we beginning, Charlie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” she said. “I know.”

  He said nothing.

  “Have you ever cheated on her before?”

  “No. Or yes.”

  “But not recently.”

  “No. It was in the army—once. Make that twice.” He smiled at her.

  “Most men do,” she said. “If that makes you feel any better.”

  “I don’t feel bad, Tessa.”

  “You might, though—later.”

  “The only thing is—”

  “What is the only thing?”

  “I want there to be more times. Not just today. I keep thinking to myself—now I’ve found her, I want Tessa on and on. Maybe that thought makes me feel a little guilty.”

  “I have the same thought,” she said. “Which means we’ve got to make that picture take forever.”

  “I’ve really fallen for you, I’m afraid,” he said and laughed. “That expression dates me, doesn’t it. What is it they say nowadays? Flipped?”

  “I always fall for the nice ones,” she said. “I’ve slept with so many men. But only a very few have been nice.”

  He took her hand. “I’m glad I’m one of them.”

  “Is she a bitch—your wife?”

  The question startled him. It seemed a cruel, callous question for her to ask. But she had asked it with her usual candor and directness, as though there should be of course a simple answer, yes or no. He frowned at the drink in his hand, not at all certain what to say. Nancy—a bitch? Was it possible to be married to a woman for over eighteen years without really knowing whether she was a bitch or not?

  “Maggie,” Nancy asked, “how do you feel now?”

  “Oh, just about the same,” Maggie said.

  “Still the pains? Still—”

  Maggie nodded.

  Nancy looked at her thoughtfully. “Of course it takes some time to get back on your normal cycle,” she said. “It’s like—well, it’s like after you’ve had a baby, I suppose. Are you still menstruating?”

  Maggie nodded again.

  “Then—well, I think we should have you see a doctor,” Nancy said.

  “A doctor? What kind of doctor?”

  “A doctor. A gynecologist.”

  “A real doctor? Oh, great!” Maggie wailed.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “A doctor would be able to tell what had happened, wouldn’t he?”

  “Well—perhaps,” Nancy said.

  “Oh, great, Mother! Then we’ll all be arrested or something, and there’ll be a big scandal, and I’ll have my name in the papers, and everybody in the whole high school will know, and everybody in the whole town will know! Oh, just great!”

  “Your health is the most important thing, Maggie,” Nancy said. “If you don’t feel better in a few days, then I think—”

  “Anyway, my health is fine! I feel fine, Mother.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I said I feel fine!” Maggie cried.

  Nancy touched her daughter’s arm. “Ssh! Your father’s coming,” she said.

  Dinners were in the dining room now. The room was nearly finished. It was waiting only for the rug that Nancy had ordered to come from Bloomingdale’s. Noticing the empty place as he sat down, Charlie asked, “Where’s Harold?”

  Nancy, serving the salad, shrugged. “I don’t know. Off with his friends, I suppose.”

  “I don’t like him just not showing up for dinner when he feels like it.”

  “He’s off with that Buck Holzer,” Carla said. “That’s who he’s always off with.”

  “I really think he ought to get a job for the summer, don’t you?” he asked Nancy. “I don’t like the idea of him just batting around.”

  “Well, perhaps,” Nancy said.

  “I know you want the kid to enjoy himself. But still, he’s almost eighteen. He should be doing something. Even part time.”

  “I imagine most of the summer jobs have been taken by now,” she said.

  “Buck Holzer smokes pot,” Carla said.

  “He does not!” Maggie shrieked. “That’s a filthy lie!”

  “Now, wait a minute—” Charlie said.

  “She just sticks up for him because she thinks he’s so cute,” Carla said.

  “Shut up! Liar!”

  Leaning forward across the table, Carla said, “If you don’t think he’s so cute, then why did you cut his picture out of the yearbook and paste it in—”

  “Shut up!”

  “In your di-a-ry,” Carla chanted, “in your di-a-ry!”

  “Mother! That little sneak has been in my things again!”

  “To me Buck Holzer is the creep of the week!” Carla said.

  Charlie looked at Nancy, who was merely gazing wearily at her plate. She looked indifferent—almost bored. Had this been one of her doctor days? Yes, it had. It was strange, the way these visits changed her behavior for the next few days. Then he looked at Maggie and Carla, who were glaring fiercely at each other. “Girls,” he said, “are we through with the shouting? I’d like to get back to this pot-smoking business. Where did you hear this, Carla?”

  “It’s not true, Daddy,” Maggie said. “She just made it up.”

  “And Buck Holzer won’t even look at you—will he?” Carla said to Maggie. “He doesn’t know you’re alive!”

  “Quiet. Carla, I asked you a question.”

  “I don’t know, Daddy. It’s what the kids at school say.”

  “They don’t!”

  “You don’t know that this is true, then, Carla,” he said.

  “No. But some of the kids say so, Daddy.”

  “Daddy,” Maggie said, “the kids who say things like that about him are just jealous. Because he’s the best at
hlete in the class.”

  “Well, I’m sure that Harold has more sense than to get involved in anything like that,” Charlie said. “Still, maybe we’d better have a little talk with him, Nancy. Don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so,” she said distantly.

  “If he’s the best athlete in the class, how come he was thrown off the basketball team?” Carla asked.

  “He wasn’t thrown off! He quit!”

  “He was thrown off!”

  “Girls, please,” Charlie said. And then, “Yes, I think we’d better have a talk with him. And I definitely think he should get a job.”

  Nancy lifted her fork meditatively and then said, “I’ve been thinking I might get a job.”

  There was a silence at the table. It was broken by Carla, who giggled and said, “Really, Mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of job, honey?” Charlie asked her.

  “I have a college degree. Plenty of women get interesting jobs with less than that. There are lots of things I could do.”

  “But you don’t have any experience or—”

  “Did you have experience at your first job?” she asked him in what seemed to him an unpleasant way. “Anyway, my children are grown now, and I don’t have to worry about sitters. And it would be a help to you, wouldn’t it—now that you’re working at home? Not having me underfoot all the time, getting in your hair?”

  “You don’t get into my hair, honey,” he said. And looking at her, he saw Tessa’s hair—dark, tangled, damp, smelling of shampoo.

  “And now that your show has been postponed.”

  “Oh, Mother!” Maggie wailed. “Don’t go to work! None of the other kids’ mothers work.”

  “You’re such a snob, Maggie,” Carla said. “I can name you a dozen kids whose mothers work. I think it’s a good idea, Mother! I’m all for you.”

  “But we don’t need the money, Mother!”

  Nancy looked quickly at her husband, then turned to Maggie. “Have you got something against my making more money, Maggie?” she asked. “You spend enough of it, it seems to me. All of you do. Anyway, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about.”