Marathon Man

by Goldman, William

  The truth was, girls were a problem. Not that he didn’t adore them on general principles. It was just this: No girl he had ever cared for had given him a tumble, and none of those who wanted him could he ever convince himself to crave equally in return. Every girl who came after him was all the time so smart; there wasn’t a Phi Bete at college who didn’t eye him at least once during his undergraduate days. And he dated a lot, was intimate with a few, but they bored him. Just because they were smart and he was smart, they always assumed he wanted intellectual conversation. And he hated it. Give him a waitress with a C cup and a sweet soul and probably he would have settled, and gladly. But it never worked out. It never had and it never would—omigod, Levy thought, she’s walking in this direction.

  He quick picked up a book and flipped it open, and if she did sit at his table, what would he do? Just play it cool, that was the only way. When they’re gorgeous, they’re used to all the approaches, so let her approach you. Just bide your time and wait, and when she asks to borrow your eraser, just maybe casually slide it over to her, but don’t let her think you’re impressed, because the glamor girls were used to impressing everybody, and once they’ve got you they give you the heave, orange peel, that’s all you are to them, and Jesus, Levy, you don’t have an eraser!

  Well, he just had to get one or it was all over, so he stood and looked around the room. The girl Riordan was studying on the far side, and she was the type that always had erasers, so he started toward her, knowing that she was going to think he was trying to start something serious with her. That was the way the homely ones always felt about him. If he said, “Pardon me, could you lend me a sheet of scratch paper,” they always thought he was practically proposing. Still, it was worth it, because now he would be away from the table, so he wouldn’t feel unhappy when the Vision sat elsewhere.

  “Hi, excuse me,” he said to the girl Riordan. “I’m the guy sat behind you in the Biesenthal seminar, and I wondered, could I borrow an eraser, please?”

  She smiled at him. Wedding rings danced behind her eyes; Levy could see them sparkling. “What kind?” she inquired. “Ink? Pencil? Art gum?”

  “Just your ordinary everyday eraser would be fine, thanks.”

  “Faber Eraser Stik’s my favorite,” she said, handing it to him. “You can keep it. I’ve got others galore.” What kind of a human person has a favorite eraser? Levy pondered. The size of the disclosure shook him, because someday this creature would be head of the department, probably at Bryn Mawr, and she’d mark down some student from an A to a B because the student liked a Dixon Ticonderoga over a Faber Eraser Stik when it came to neatening up smears. “Thanks, I really appreciate it,” Levy said, and he turned.

  And there she was. Seated. Reading. Alone. At his very own corner table. The blue-eyed wonder.

  Clutching his Faber, Levy moved in a very businesslike manner back to his seat, sat down efficiently, picked up a book, opened it, and without even giving her a glance began to study. He was at one of a line of three chairs; she was across from him, on the far end of a similar line. Levy stared at his book intently until a movement of hers caught his eye, and he quickly looked over. Nuts, he thought as he saw her taking notes with a yellow pencil; she’s got her own eraser. He went back to his book and waited, because he wanted a look at her face without her being aware, so when she was deeply involved in her book, when she’d turned six or eight pages, he moved his eyes toward hers.

  She was, there was simply no room for argument, something. Probably she wasn’t beautiful. Garbo was beautiful, maybe Candice Bergen might be someday. This one here was only pretty. Pretty like Jeanne Crain or Katherine Ross, no more than that. Perfectly pretty was all. This one—

  Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls! That’s who she reminded him of, with the short blonde hair and the eyes and...

  ... the eyes were really not to be believed.

  So blue, dark, and deep, and—quit staring at her, don’t do it too long, give it a rest—Babe admonished himself a few more times before he thought, dammit, it was too late, he had gaped too long, she had felt it.

  And now she was looking back at him. “Yes?” she said. Only she didn’t mean “yes.” She meant bug out, take off, kid, get away, boy, ya bother me.

  “Huh?” Levy said, brazening it through as best he could. “You say something? I didn’t catch it.”

  She gave him a look, went back to her reading.

  Well, Levy thought, I may have managed to get her ticked off, but at least I didn’t cave.

  Twenty minutes later, she grabbed her raincoat, left the room.

  Levy started gathering his books so he could follow her, until the Holmes in him deduced she wasn’t going anywhere permanent, since her books were still spread out on the table top. Levy left his own books in a similar condition and, after a suitable wait, picked up her trail, keeping her distantly in sight. She walked on through the library and out to the cool foyer, threw her shiny raincoat over her shoulders, opened her purse, lit a cigarette, started smoking. Then she turned, and spotted him following her.

  It was a tough moment; he couldn’t just stop dead, that would give it away, and he couldn’t hide, she’d seen him. The only out was to head for the foyer too and have a cigarette, and the fact that he didn’t smoke wasn’t terribly bothersome to him until they were in the foyer, alone, and he had nothing to do except stand there like a fool, but he was in too deep for that now, so without a beat he said, “Match?” right into those punishing eyes.

  She hesitated, handed some over.

  Levy took them, thinking, dummy, first you ask for the cigarette, then you ask for the match. Now he was forced to mime searching through various pockets before he gave her what he hoped was his Cary Grant smile along with “I’ll need a cigarette too, I’m afraid.”

  She hesitated a little longer, then gave him one.

  Levy lit up. “Next you’ll probably think I’m going to ask you to smoke it for me,” he said, giving her as unforced a chuckle as he had around right then.

  She half turned away from him.

  Levy was more than contented with her profile. She was just so pretty. Not the greatest shape that ever came off the assembly line. Better than Grace Kelly but no Sophia Loren. Kind of more buxom than willowy but still short of zoftig.

  They smoked in silence for a while.

  “You don’t even inhale,” she said, surprising him.

  “Not while I’m in training,” he managed, delighted he could come out with anything at all. Since she wasn’t interested enough to ask what he was training for, he told her anyway; he hated incomplete thoughts, a heritage from his father. “I’m a marathon man,” he said.

  She seemed less interested than ever.

  You’re losing her, Levy shouted where it echoed throughout his body. Not that you ever had her, but come on, hit her with a little something interesting, show her what a fool you’re not. “Cigarettes,” he shrugged desperately. “I can take ’em or leave ’em alone, but it’s a funny thing, though, women are really hooked on ’em, the Times had a big article on that just the other day, how women can’t stop smoking the way men can, wonder why that is.” You just insulted her sex, dummy, suppose she’s a Libber, how do you so effortlessly find just the wrong thing to say?

  In the foyer, the Vision at last turned back to Levy, looked him dead on. “Why are you following me?”

  Levy flung down his cigarette and stomped on it, just in time to avoid a coughing fit. “Following you? Following you! You must be some kind of crazy is all I’ve got to say. Who you think you are, Jackie Onassis? Why the hell should anybody follow you? I mean, I don’t want to crumble your ego or anything, lady, but you sat at my table, I was doing just fine until you butted in, I was all spread out and doing terrific research and then you came, so if anybody’s following anybody it’s you following me, and if you want to follow me, it’s no skin off my nose, people sometimes follow me, girls and like that, but you’d never hear me corner them with an
accusation, I mean, when people act nutty you’ve got to leave them room to retreat in, room for diplomacy, that’s the way I am when people follow me, anyway, gentle, understanding, and...” He would have gone on, except there was no reason to: She just snuffed out her cigarette and hurried out of the library into the night.

  “Lies,” Levy wanted to cry out after her, “I was following you because you’re just so pretty, I’m nothing, a schlepper, I can’t even run a whole marathon yet, but try me again, please, I promise I’ll make you smile.” She was gone.

  Another dazzling introduction executed by everybody’s favorite Casanova, the legendary T. Babington Levy. Levy stood there awhile, contemplating the entirety of his latest campaign. Rarely, if ever, had such ineptness been shown. Why, he got this target so ticked she’d fled without even her books, and when you got someone that mad—

  —her books.

  Levy dashed back into the libe, scooped up his own research, hers, bee-lined to the out-of-sight magazine area behind the librarian’s desk.

  Five minutes later, the Vision was in the entrance to the room and heading fast toward the corner table, where her books had been. She hesitated, looked around, took a few steps, glanced back, left.

  Fifty minutes later, Levy was buzzing her name in the foyer of her rooming house near campus.

  She answered via intercom. “Who, please?”

  It wasn’t the best connection in the world. “Miss Opel?” Her name was Elsa Opel; well, no one was perfect.

  “Who is this?” Her accent—Swiss maybe? Maybe Slav, he was rotten at accents, for a great historian, anyway—was considerably more pronounced when she had to force her voice than it had been in the foyer.

  “Tom Levy—the marathon man.”

  “And you’ve come for another cigarette, is that it?” Levy laughed. “No, no, it’s just you forgot your books and I figured they might be important, so after I was done studying I brought them on over—it’s right on the way to my place, no big deal or anything.”

  “That’s very kind,” she said, and pushed the button, allowing the door to unlock.

  Levy saw her standing in the doorway toward the rear of the place, on the main floor. “Here,” he said, and he handed them over.

  She nodded. “Thank you. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Levy said. Then he said, “Your name and address were on the inside of your notebook, in case you’re wondering how I knew where to come, Miss Opel.”

  “I wasn’t, but again, thank you. And good night.”

  “Good night,” Levy repeated.

  “You say ‘good night’ but you don’t go anywhere.”

  “I twisted my ankle on my way over here,” Levy explained. “I was just giving it a rest.”

  “You weren’t limping when you walked down the hall.”

  When it came to lying, he really was the worst. “If you’re a marathon man, you don’t like to give in to pain.”

  “Where were you hiding?” she said then.

  “Hiding?” Levy replied, wondering whether he should start to ready his supply of outrage again, as he had in the foyer when she’d first accused him of following her.

  “I came right back when I realized my forgetfulness. The books were gone. Yours too.”

  “Gee, I don’t see how that’s possible,” Levy said, “I was studying right there the whole time.”

  “I must have gotten confused. Thank you, Mr. Levy. Good night.” She closed the door.

  “Behind the librarian’s desk. I was hiding there,” Levy replied from the corridor.

  She opened the door, looked closely at him. “Why?”

  “It seemed like the best place to hide.”

  “No, not why were you hiding there, why were you hiding at all?”

  “Well, I couldn’t have you catch me making this million-dollar heist of your school books, it would have been too embarrassing.”

  “Are you embarrassed now?”

  “Oh yes. Humiliated.”

  “Is that why you’re perspiring?”

  “Partially. I ran over here. I run every place.”

  “Why did you go to all this bother?”

  “It wasn’t so much bother, really. You do live kind of on my way home. I mean, it’s not totally out of the way.”

  “Do you always pursue people who sit at your library table, is it some kind of fixation?”

  Levy shook his head, nodded, shrugged, nodded again. “Because you’re so pretty.” It was the wrong thing to say; he knew it the minute the words were gone. “It just happened, I didn’t work for it.”

  Levy made one last try for a retrieve. “Well, I can’t very well rave on about how smart you are, I don’t even know you, you may be a real dummy, and I’m done lying to you.”

  “But you’d like to know me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Because I’m so pretty?”

  “That’s got a lot to do with it.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “And are you always so incompetent with women?”

  “Oh yes; this is actually way above average for me.”

  “Well, I’m twenty-five too, and you’re probably very nice, and in ten years you may be twenty-six, but right now I’m a nurse and I haven’t got time.”

  But I’d make you so happy, Levy wanted to say. Then he thought, Listen, schmuck, don’t keep news like that secret, tell her, you got nothing to lose, she’s flushing you anyway. “I’d make you so happy.”

  She was really stunned.

  “I would, it’s true,” Levy hurried on. “I’d learn all about nursing—I’m smart as a whip—we could have these great long terrific talks about tourniquets—”

  She burst out laughing.

  “You will see me again, sure you will, say it.”

  “You shouldn’t beg people—”

  “I’m not begging, for Chrissakes, nobody’s begging, why the hell should I beg, I’m junior Phi Bete, I was tops in my Rhodes group, a first breezing, and lemme tell you something, people with that kind of record don’t go around begging things from dopey nurses who smoke —what kind of a nurse smokes, don’t you know anything? If you can’t tell begging from beseeching, you’ve got no chance with me.”

  “If I do see you again, will you promise to shut up?” I’m winning, Levy thought. Imagine that. He nodded his head.

  “All right,” she said after a moment. “All right. I’ll see you again.” And then, surprisingly, she reached out and sadly touched his cheek. “But it won’t come to anything.”

  “You can’t tell,” Babe said, watching her eyes. She looked so damn sad, she really did, so why did that make her even prettier?

  Elsa rubbed her fingers against his skin. “Yes I can,” she answered softly. “Regret is the best we can hope for...”

  Alone, she lit a cigarette, smoked it all the way down, put it out, lit another. Then she picked up the phone and called Erhard. “He is terribly sweet,” she said. “Very naïve, very kind.”

  She listened a moment.

  “I’m sorry if I sound depressed. I’m not, I’m tired.” Another pause.

  “Yes, I think it’s fair to say that he finds me attractive.”

  Pause.

  “How much time do I have?”

  Long pause.

  “I’ll do my best.” She closed her eyes. “With luck, in a week he’ll love me...”

  8

  Babe got out his aging Remington and began to pound.

  Doc? This is me and you better sit down. I mean it, it’s that important, that incredible, that gravity suspending. (Omigod, you’re thinking, he’s in love again—once more the kid brother’s head over heels.)

  Right.

  Doc, Doc, I don’t know where to begin—

  (Begin with her buck teeth, you’re thinking; start with how her thin-haired skull glistens in the moonlight.)

  Wrong.

  (Nothing wrong with the teeth or the hair? Odd. The last on
e had fewer strands than bicuspids. Hmmm. No boobs but a great mind. Or maybe three boobs and a great mind, which?)

  Neither, and go to hell.

  (Must have been a field hockey champ back in school. Calves like Bronco Nagurski, shoulders like Larry Csonka, but a nice complexion from all the outdoor effort.)

  Close your hole and listen to me—I’ve known her a little over a week, and each day when I go to pick her up I think I’m crazy, no one’s that terrific, but each day she’s more terrific, more tender, more divine, perfect, impeccable, immaculate, utopian, consummate, indefectible, sublime. And I’m understating.

  (Probably I can get you a quick admission to Menninger’s.)

  Let me start with the faults: her name, I’ve got to admit, is Elsa Opel.

  (Nothing wrong with that, I once had a car named Opel.)

  And she’s my age, Swiss, and a nurse—

  (Look on the bright side, could have been a stewardess.)

  —other than that, faultless. Other than that, a head-spinner. All my life, I’ve been drooling after other guys’ girls. You don’t know what it’s like to watch the other bastards drooling after mine.

  (A drooler, is she? That what you’re trying to hint? Nothing wrong with drooling. One of the better things you can do with saliva, actually. Limited substance, saliva. Any other impediments? You better tell me now. Pin-headed maybe? Didn’t you get interested in a love at Denison who verged on being pin-headed?)

  Everyone makes mistakes. But not this time. Oh Doc, Jesus, it’s so fantastic please get your ass down here to meet her. New York isn’t that far, come on. I want to see your head spin, I really do. See, there’s one thing I haven’t told you.

  (Okay, hit me with it, I’m braced.)

  She loves me back. She really does. A beautiful girl, a beautiful, non-competitive, sweet, sensible girl, and she cares for me. After all these crummy years, my cup is running over.

  Sumbitch,

  Babe

  9

  Scylla lay in bed blinking.