Fast Start, Fast Finish

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “And I’m going to get my decorator’s license, I just told you. Decorators make lots of money.”

  “Getting that license will take a long time too, won’t it? Maybe even longer?”

  “It doesn’t matter. My father’s a millionaire.”

  “But, Mrs. Lord. You’ve quarreled seriously with your father all your life. He has no use for your husband. He ignores your children. Are you ducking issues again? What makes you think—”

  “I wrote him a letter.”

  “What sort of letter?”

  “Apologizing—for certain things I’d said.”

  “Has he answered?”

  “Not yet.… But—”

  “You conceal from your husband and turn to your father. What would happen if—”

  “I didn’t turn to my father, I—”

  “Did you ever tell your husband I wanted to see him?”

  “No. I told you—”

  “Was it because you were afraid I’d tell him some of the things you’ve done? The way you’re afraid to tell your children that you’ve been having therapy for five and a half years?”

  “Stop it! You’re just trying to back me into a corner again. Make me say I’m a horrible woman!”

  “Treating your husband like a child isn’t being horrible, Mrs. Lord.”

  “But you’re trying to say it’s sick—I know. All I want to know is—is he sleeping with another woman?”

  “Have you asked him?”

  “I’ve met her, you know.”

  “Met whom?”

  “The woman everybody says he’s sleeping with.”

  “Well—”

  “She’s beautiful. I don’t know. Some days I think, no, he couldn’t be. Other days—I don’t know.”

  “I can’t answer that. But it’s something you might try taking up with him.”

  “Oh, how can I do that?”

  He paused, looking at her. “In other words, your relationship with your husband has disintegrated considerably.”

  “Has it? I don’t know.…”

  “Is there any way the terms of this relationship might change?”

  “What?”

  “How do you suppose you could change the terms of your relationship?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean no,” she said quickly. “They mustn’t change.”

  “Are you sure you mean that?”

  “Yes,” she said, jumping to her feet and reaching for her bag. “Absolutely sure. They mustn’t change. They won’t.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve disturbed you, Mrs. Lord.”

  “Isn’t it funny?” she said a little wildly. “All these months we’ve known each other, you still call me Mrs. Lord! Wouldn’t you think by now we’d have got to a first-name basis?” She was pulling on her jacket hastily, and as she was putting her arm through one sleeve, her gloves fell out of it; she scrambled for them on the floor. “Wouldn’t you think you might have started calling me Nancy?”

  “I can call you Nancy, if it makes you more comfortable,” he said. He sat very still. “Would that make you feel more comfortable … Nancy?”

  “I don’t know,” she said in a strange, shrill voice. “Really, what difference does it make? Oh!” she gasped, for now she had dropped her bag while trying to get the gloves on, and once more she was stooping awkwardly, picking up the bag.

  “Will I see you next Friday, Mrs. Lord?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She had the bag now, and the gloves, and was heading for the door.

  In the same calm voice, that voice that was always so maddeningly calm, infuriatingly calm, that voice that was astonished at nothing, but nothing—you could tell him that you had just been sexually assaulted by Genny McCarthy in the stockroom of Singleton’s while everyone else on the Lane looked on and cheered, and he wouldn’t bat an eye; he would say, “I see”—in that same calm voice. He said, “All I did was suggest that the terms of your relationship with your husband might be changed, Mrs. Lord.”

  “Well, they can’t be! You can’t change them!”

  “Of course I can’t,” he said. “But you can.”

  “But I’m not going to!” she cried.

  “May I ask you why you feel so strongly about this?”

  “Because—because—because, never mind why!” she said. “I’m not going to tell you why!”

  His calm eyes were steady. “Is this what happened with Dr. Seligman?” he said. “And with all the other doctors before him?”

  Nancy Lord ran out of his office and down the hall to the elevator.

  In the automatic elevator she clutched her purse to her stomach and thought, the terms of the relationship can’t change because, dear Dr. Harding, if they change just the slightest bit, you and the whole world will see that there isn’t any relationship left at all, that the relationship you speak of isn’t anything but these so-called terms. She was at the ground floor and through the glass door, out into the blinding midday sunlight that struck the sidewalk like a sheet of fiery mirror, when she realized that she had left her sunglasses, her prescription pair, on the table in his office. Well, he could keep them in settlement of her bill.

  When she got home that evening Charlie was still out, and there was a note addressed to her in the mailbox. She tore it open. It was typewritten and said:

  We are a neighborhood of decent, respectable, and moral families. We do not enjoy observing adultery or any other kind of immorality in our midst. And when it becomes blatant and threatens to become known by our young children, we protest. You’re not living in “Hollywood” anymore, just in case you didn’t know.

  It was unsigned, of course. She tore it into tiny pieces and flung the scraps into a wastebasket. Dear ladies! Dear snots! Well, she was one jump ahead of them! She sat down beside the telephone, grabbed the book, and began to look up real-estate agents. It was then that she noticed Maggie, huddled in the shadows of a dark corner of the sofa, looking at her. Nancy gasped, and the telephone book slid to the floor, and she had the unpleasant feeling that she had been talking, muttering to herself.

  “Maggie!” she said. “You startled me.” She stood up and went to her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  Nancy turned on a lamp. “Are you all right?” she said, looking down at the white face under the waterfall of dark hair. “Maggie—you look terrible.”

  “Oh, thanks a bunch, Mother! So do you!”

  “Have you been crying?”

  “No!”

  “Well, what are you doing?”

  “Just sitting. Can’t I sit?”

  “Do you feel all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maggie, when is this party you’re supposed to go to?”

  “Saturday night.”

  “I don’t think you ought to go! I think—”

  “Oh, I knew it!” Maggie cried. “I knew you’d try to stop me, and I’ve got my new dress and everything!”

  Nancy hesitated. “I want you to see a doctor,” she said.

  Maggie said nothing for a moment. Then, in a low voice she said, “Which doctor?”

  “I think—Dearing, Dr. Dearing.”

  “Oh, great! Angela Dearing’s in my class!”

  “Doctors don’t discuss their patients with their children,” Nancy said.

  “I’ll just bet they don’t!”

  “Anyway, I think we should make an appointment.”

  “No!” Maggie screamed. “No! There’s nothing wrong with me! You just don’t want me to go to the party. You just don’t want me to do anything! Oh, why can’t you leave me alone? Why can’t everybody leave me alone?” And she jumped to her feet and ran, sobbing, up the stairs.

  Tessa stared at the painting for a long time, saying nothing. She stepped close to it, then stepped back again, assessing it from different distances and perspectives. She cupped her chin in her hand and tipped her head back and forth, squinting at it and frowning
, and she seemed to have forgotten he was there. Finally she said, “Have you got a cigarette?”

  He handed her one and lighted it for her and realized that his hand, holding the match, was trembling.

  She turned and picked up the picture with both hands. She held it out straight in front of her for a moment, then carried it slowly across the library and placed it on the mantel over the fireplace. “I’ll put it here,” she said and then stepped back and faced the portrait again, with one hand, the hand that held the lighted cigarette, resting lightly on the hip of her green-silk slacks.

  He wasn’t sure he could trust his voice. “Well, what do you think?” he asked at last.

  “Do I always look that frightened?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Am I frightened?” she asked absently. “What would I be frightened of? Being forty-three years old?”

  She had never mentioned her age before, and it startled him to think that she was older than he. She was moving toward the buzzer by the chair, and he said, “Don’t do that, please.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Ring for Minnie. Bring her in on it.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want her opinion? Minnie knows a lot about art.”

  “She knows nothing about art, and you know it.”

  “She knows a lot about people, and isn’t that the same thing?”

  “I don’t want her opinion. I want yours.”

  She let her eyes travel quickly back to the picture. “Do you? I think you’re a lousy artist, Lord Charles.”

  The remark stunned him. “You mean you don’t like it?” he said.

  Suddenly she was laughing. “Oh, Lord Charles! Such a little boy! ‘Don’t you like it?’ Oh, I’m sorry—that came out all wrong. I didn’t mean that. I just had to say something, and that came out. Will you forgive me? Oh, your face!” There were tears shining in her eyes.

  “What’s the matter with my face?”

  “You look so hurt! I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to hurt you so, but I had to say—something!”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s just such a shock to see myself as you see me—that’s all. Just such a shock. How long has it taken us?”

  “How long has what taken us?”

  “That,” she said, pointing. “The picture. I lose all track of time.”

  “June, July, part of August—two and a half months.”

  “That long? Well, you can say you once screwed the famous Tessa Morgan for two and a half months—that’s something of a record, by the way, for me. Tell your grandchildren. Put it in your memory book.”

  “Tessa, please—”

  “I’m taking a long trip,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette. “A long trip, and I’m departing imminently.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Egypt? I think so. Or maybe it’s the Solomon Islands. I don’t know. I think it’s west. But maybe it’s east. How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing.”

  She looked at him sharply. “Nothing?”

  “I can’t charge you anything, Tessa. How could I?”

  “Now, wait a minute,” she said. “Are you still harking back to what I said a minute ago? That you were a lousy artist? Well, don’t. Because I told you I didn’t mean that. I’ve told you I like the picture, and so a deal’s a deal; I’m going to pay you for it.”

  “You haven’t told me you liked it, not that it matters,” he said.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake! Do you want me to put it in writing?” She walked swiftly to the desk, snatched a piece of paper and pencil and wrote, in large, fierce, capital letters, “I LIKE IT.” She held up the message and showed it to him. Then, beneath these words, she added, “GOOD-BYE.” She looked at him with dark, angry eyes.

  “Ah, Tessa—”

  “Can you read? It says ‘Good-bye.’ It’s all over, our little episode. You’ve got a nice wife. She was right here in this room with me. It’s time you stopped playing any more dirty tricks on her. She’s the one who ought to look frightened. She is frightened.”

  “Now, listen, Tessa—”

  “No wonder she got herself a job.”

  He blinked. “How did you know about that?”

  “Not from you. But I have my spies. And I know damn well why you never told me. You were scared I’d start making demands on you, weren’t you? Have I ever made any demands on you? Tell me that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Yes, I’d be frightened as hell if I were she. You bastard.”

  “Now, listen, this was your idea in the beginning.”

  “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, you bastard! That’s a typical bastardly Lord Charles remark. It was my idea—not yours? All my fault? Well, see here, Charlie, it takes two to tango and you’ve been tangoing your little tail off for two and a half months, but the dance is over. Take your money and leave.”

  “I’m not taking any money from you, Tessa. I’m not taking anything from you.”

  “What is this—principles? Honor, all of a sudden? You’re making me laugh again!”

  “I’ve taken enough.”

  “That isn’t even true. You’ve taken nothing from me—but nothing! You don’t know how to take anything from anybody else, that’s your whole trouble!”

  “Listen, I don’t even know what this whole fight is about, but can’t we at least—”

  “Part friends? Maybe. If you’ll take the money.”

  “Well, I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Okay. There’s one other thing you could take, of course, but you’d never think of it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. It’s my secret. Ask for it, and you could have it, but I’m sure as hell not going to offer it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, can you understand this?” She pointed. “There’s the door. Get out.”

  He knew that if he had any suitcases to accompany him they would already be waiting for him on the front step. “I’m sorry, Tessa,” he said.

  “Beat it! Scram! I told you—I’m taking a trip. Departing imminently. I’m getting married. I’m—”

  “Who are you marrying?”

  “Bruno.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, get out! What business is it of yours who I’m marrying. I’ll marry anybody I damn well choose.”

  “All I can say is, Tessa, I’m sorry it had to end like this.”

  “Great line. Sounds like something from one of those old hack scripts of mine. Well, don’t be sorry. Don’t be sorry for me. Do you know what I did this morning?” She stepped toward him. “When I knew you were coming with the picture, I had the grocery boy sent up to my room and let him lay me. And let me tell you something—he really delivers the groceries, that grocery boy! I’ve got a great new life carved out for myself with that grocery boy—we have a ball.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  She slapped him. “Go home and look in the mirror,” she said. “Now get out. How dense can you get? I’m throwing you out. Do I have to call Minnie and get her to help me throw you out? Minnie’s built like a brick shithouse and between the two of us we can sure as hell throw you out. Do I have to do that? Do I have to call Minnie?” She turned and ran into the center of the room and began to scream. “Minnie! Minnie! Help! Help!”

  He turned on his heel and went out of the room, out of the house, down the steps to his car.

  “How much did she pay you?”

  “I couldn’t charge her anything, Nancy.”

  “Oh,” she said in a dead voice. “Then that means she didn’t like it.”

  He hesitated, not knowing what to say or what the true answer really was. Then he said, “Yes, that means she didn’t like it.”

  She nodded. “I used to look at it, the portrait. Upstairs in your study. And wonder.”

  “Yes.”

  “Too—experimental, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked away from
him and made an X with her arms across her bosom, hugged her shoulders, and shivered. “Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s all over,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  Absently she said, “I’m going to need some money for my course.”

  “What course?”

  “My decorating course. I signed up for it today. It’s three nights a week.”

  “Oh,” he said carefully. “I didn’t know about that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, how much is it?”

  “Two hundred. Two-fifty. Something like that.”

  “My God,” he said, “you get a job for eighty-five a week, and you immediately sign up for a course that costs two-fifty! Is this the way you economize?”

  “Mr. Singleton suggested it. I’m going to become a decorator.”

  “Oh. You’re going to become a decorator. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “I was going to tell you, but you’ve been busy.”

  “How many years will this take? Three? Four? Five?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, please. I’m tired. Aren’t you tired? Do you want a drink before dinner or not?”

  “Would you like one?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “All right.”

  The attendant carried the long narrow box as gingerly as if he expected it might contain a bomb and led her into one of the small antechambers of the vault, placed the box on a table, tiptoed out, and closed the door behind him. Nancy sat down, opened the lid, and lifted out the box’s meager contents. Her passport, expired of course; her birth certificate; her marriage license; her children’s birth certificates; her will—her life summed up on sheets of stiff paper. And for an awful moment she thought that these few remaining papers were all there were. Then it fell out from between the others—the certificate she had thought was there. Pinned to it was a note in her father’s imposing hand, “Merry Christmas, 1940, from your loving father, W. R. Aylesbury.” Dear, sentimental Daddy, it had been his annual gift—ten shares of Telephone, and this was the last of it. Merry Christmas. She removed the certificate, replaced the other papers in the box and closed it. She carried it out of the cubicle into the vault, where the attendant took it and bore it reverently back to the gleaming wall of other boxes, where he returned it to its tiny slot, locked it in, and handed her the key.

  Outside, on the floor of the bank, a floor man approached her. “Good morning, Mrs. Lord.”