Never Too Late for Love

by Warren Adler

  "You're coming home?"

  "Of course." He paused. There was another long silence on the line. "You OK now?"

  "Knowing you're coming home, I guess."

  "Good. Look, keep cool. I'll see you on the weekend."

  She wanted to ask him his itinerary, in case she wanted to speak with him. But he hung up before she had a chance to ask him. Despite her unabated anger, she imagined she felt better and the next day drew the blinds and unbolted the door. But before she could leave, Mrs. Shrinsky blocked her way.

  "You want anything from the store?" Mrs. Shrinsky asked. She had managed to sleep and felt calmer. She was willing to believe that Bruce was telling the truth.

  "No, thank you," she answered politely, fishing in her shoulder bag for her car keys. Mrs. Shrinsky hesitated at the door.

  "You went somewhere yesterday?"

  "Yes."

  "You didn't take the car?"

  "No." She hoped that her one-word answers would dampen Mrs. Shrinsky's interrogative impulse. Instead, they only stimulated her.

  "You went with friends?"

  "Yes."

  "You buy something?"

  "I didn't go shopping."

  "You went to the beach?"

  She felt her irritation grow, but she held back her temptation to fling an obscenity at the woman. "Go fuck yourself," she whispered to herself.

  "No, I was picked up. I went for lunch." She regretted the words before they were audible.

  "Oh." Mrs. Shrinsky paused. "Where did you go?"

  "To someplace in Palm Beach. I forget the name."

  "Expensive?"

  "I didn't pay."

  "Your friends must have money. Yes? They're comfortable?"

  "Yes."

  "And the food?"

  "Delicious," Sheila sighed, slyly foreclosing on the next question. "I had the pate de foi gras."

  "The what?"

  "Chopped liver."

  "Good chopped liver I haven't tasted here."

  Sheila wasn't listening anymore. She started moving toward her car, waving when she reached it.

  There was a minor disaster waiting for her at work. Some pipes had broken and flooded the dentist's office, and they had to close for repairs, which left her with a long afternoon free. Parking in another space a long way from her apartment, she literally sneaked inside, quickly changed into a bikini, took a blanket outside in the rear of the apartment, where neither Mrs. Shrinsky nor Mrs. Milgrim could see her, then lay down to sun herself.

  "You'll burn up." It was Marvin Shrinsky's voice. He was standing over her, a folding chair in one hand. In the other, he held a tube of suntan lotion.

  "You'd better use some of this. It's thirty. The sun will fry you."

  The fact was that she had forgotten to put sun lotion on her skin. But how did he know that? she wondered. She wasn't exactly overjoyed at seeing him, but reasoned that it was better than being confronted by his wife. And he had always been a quiet man, conditioned by years of living with Mrs. Shrinsky.

  He handed her the tube. She squeezed some of it into her palm and rubbed it into her skin. Then she turned onto her stomach and untied her top.

  "Will you do my back, please?" she asked.

  "Of course," he said.

  "Thank you."

  He bent down beside her, squeezed some lotion into his palm and smeared it over her back.

  "The back of your legs, too?"

  "I'd appreciate that."

  She felt his hands gently running down her thighs and calves. She felt oddly aroused, closing her eyes.

  "Feels good," she said. His touch seem to relax her.

  She closed her eyes, as he continued to smooth on the lotion. After a while, he stopped, but she sensed that he was observing her.

  "It's no fun growing old," he said suddenly.

  "Consider the alternative," she said, offering the commonplace answer. He was silent for a longtime, but she continued to sense his observation.

  "I hate this place," he sighed.

  "You're not alone."

  "I feel like an alien," he said.

  "You, too?"

  He nodded and shrugged.

  After a few more moments, she felt the heat penetrate her back, then turned abruptly to expose her front. She hadn't remembered that her top was loose and reached quickly with her arms to hide her breasts from view. She knew he had already seen her. She retied her top and sat cross-legged in front of him.

  She met his gaze. His eyes were very clear and alert behind the lenses. Against the contrast of his white hair, his tan looked very dark. She figured he had more than fifty years on her.

  "At least you can get out."

  "I suppose I have that option," she sighed, with some degree of hope.

  "When you're young, you still have options. Time is on your side."

  "At least you have companionship," she said, feeling suddenly sorry for the man. "Being old maybe no bed of roses. But being alone is worse."

  "I suppose," he nodded in assent, but something seemed awry. "You could be old and alone, you know. Like Mrs. Milgrim." In his case, she wondered what was worse.

  "I suppose she's driving you crazy, too."

  "Too?"

  "I'm sure my wife is no picnic."

  "They mean well."

  "I think you're too tolerant," he said. "But you are quite an event for them."

  "Me?"

  "For me, too," he said smiling. "When you get old, the principal entertainment is being a busybody."

  "You mean a yenta."

  "They're all secretly yentas. Their minds are like tabloids. Gossip, food are the most important things in life for them."

  She laughed. It seemed a long time since she had laughed. She felt her top slip, but she did not adjust it and she knew he could probably see her nipples, which had inexplicably erected. Her eyes met his briefly. They seemed young, alert. He did not turn them away. 'I'm trapped in this old body,' they seemed to say.

  His thrill for the day, she thought to herself, turning away and lying down on her stomach again. He was silent and she dozed. When she opened her eyes again, the sun had moved in an arc westward and he was gone.

  Bruce arrived on Friday night, tired and irritable. Sheila had prepared him a dinner of steak and salad and had splurged on a bottle of good red wine.

  "I had one helluva week," he said, chewing his steak. The wine made his cheeks flush. "Business is slowing. We could be heading into a recession."

  "Just get me out of here," she said. "This was one lousy idea. They tell me I'm the principal event. I can't move without somebody watching me."

  "Please, Sheila, not now. Don't hassle me now. I've had one helluva week."

  "What about my week?" Was his week really as painful as mine? she wondered. He drank a glass of wine in a single gulp and poured another glassful.

  "I'm in prison here," she said. He let his knife and fork drop from his hands. The handle of the knife made a clunking sound as it hit the plate. He finished another glass of wine. "At least you're free to do what you want."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  She felt the bloat of venom, ready to burst out of her.

  "Do you sleep with other women on the road?"

  She couldn't believe she said it as if it was at the forefront of her thoughts. The Birmingham incident had made her edgy and suspicious.

  He stood up, walked the length of the living room, then back again. She was frightened. Had she gone too far? This place is making me crazy, she thought. Finally, he returned to the table. She refused to lift her head and look at his face.

  "All I know is that I work hard, damned hard," he said. "I work to give us a better future. I work to make money, lots of money. I'm a salesman, and I live a traveling salesman's life. You knew that when you married me. Believe me, my life on the road is not fun and games. I make no apologies for it. I like it, and it does give me a sense of freedom. My work creates for me a life away from you, separated. In your
world, think of me as out of country. But to me, you're home." He looked around the room. "This place is home. My real home is not on the road. What I do there, you must consider as a life apart."

  There was something implied in what he said that rankled her. Is he saying that when he is on the road, he lives another life, a life of freedom? Is he saying that when he is on the road, he is beyond morality, not to be questioned, not to be judged?

  "This place has got to me," she said, transferring her anger. "I do not feel at home here."

  "Well then, look around for someplace else."

  "You mean that?"

  "Of course, I mean that," he said, stroking her hair. "We'll check with the office and see what these condos are going for, then we'll dump it."

  The idea of escape placated her, at least through the weekend. They spent Sunday at the beach, then went out for dinner in Fort Lauderdale, got slightly drunk and had a good time together. It was like their courtship days. But then he was poking around in the dark on Monday morning, getting dressed, packing his bags. She lay there, listening, trying to hold back from thinking about the impending week. He hadn't mentioned selling the place again, she realized. When he bent over her to kiss her forehead in his ritual of farewell, she grabbed his wrist.

  "I'm going to the office and put it on the market this week," she said. She could feel his arm stiffen.

  "Don't make any hasty decisions," he said. "Just go in there and find out what we can get for it now."

  "But suppose we can't get a good price?"

  "Then it may pay to wait."

  "But I can't wait."

  He kissed her forehead again, sat down beside her on the bed, and held her in his arms.

  "Cool it, Sheila. Cool it." He pressed her against him, held her for a moment, then released her and stood up.

  "I'll call you," he said. She heard the door close and the car's motor turn over in the distance. He was off to his other life. She was sure he slept with other women on the road.

  Burying her head in the pillow, she began to cry, her shoulders shaking, the sense of imprisonment too painful to bear.

  When he was gone, she got out of bed and made herself a cup of coffee. The sun was just coming up. Suddenly, she burst into tears.

  The sound of a familiar knock on the door startled her. So early, she thought, then got up and opened the door.

  "You're crying?" It was Mrs. Shrinsky. Was she telepathic? For some reason, she actually welcomed Mrs. Shrinsky's presence.

  "What's the matter, darling?"

  She could not stop crying. Deep sobs wracked her body, and Mrs. Shrinsky reached out and embraced her. Sheila did not resist. Mrs. Shrinsky pressed her close, running a soothing hand up and down her back.

  "It's all right, darling," Mrs. Shrinsky said. "What's so terrible?"

  She calmed down, comforted, at least into restraining her hysteria, although involuntary sobs continued to convulse her.

  "I can't believe this is happening," she said finally, gently disengaging and reaching into the pocket of her robe for more tissues. She sat on a chair and blew her nose.

  "You had a fight?"

  "Something like that," she said, trying to gather her thoughts together.

  "A lover's quarrel." Mrs. Shrinsky folded her hands together and nodded her head. "Believe me, you'll have plenty of those. Plenty."

  "I think he's seeing other women," Sheila blurted. Oddly, it seemed the only logical explanation for Mrs. Shrinsky's ears. Plural, no less. What else could she say? That she hated it here, hated her, even while accepting her gesture of comfort.

  "Ahhaaaaa," Mrs. Shrinsky said, nodding, a knowing look spreading over her jowly face. Her eyes sparkled with what might have been acute joy, an idea that communicated itself to Sheila, even through her despair. It was the absolute pinnacle of yenta heaven, the role of advice-giver to a betrayed wife. Mrs. Shrinsky's Nirvana had arrived.

  "With men, nothing changes," Mrs. Shrinsky said. "What is required is a little patience."

  "Patience?"

  "A man is a man," Mrs. Shrinsky said, pausing. Sheila imagined she could hear the purring of her inner works, winding up, setting its chiming mechanisms.

  "It's not the end of the world. Maybe he has a nosh somewhere, a nosh here, a nosh there. But they always come back. They always come back. This I can tell you from personal experience."

  "Your Marvin?"

  She looked suddenly stunned. Then she laughed and shook her head.

  "Not my Marvin," she said. "Not for years. But you'd be surprised how many friends of mine I've sat up the night with while they cried their eyes out, and I always told them the same thing. Patience."

  "Patience?" Sheila repeated the words to herself, searching for some relevancy to her situation. Why patience?

  "It'll burn itself out. It always does." She had the look of someone so authoritative, so wise, so knowing, and what she was saying seemed so meaningless, ludicrous.

  Patience, Sheila thought, anger replacing her self pity. She felt a flash of venality. Patience meant time passing.

  "But suppose it was your Marvin?" Sheila asked, her voice strong now.

  "I told you. I'm long past worry about Marvin." Mrs. Shrinsky appeared confused by the question. "Even when he could, it probably would never even have crossed his mind." She smiled benignly.

  Sheila felt a giggle begin. Then the tension seemed to drain and she stood up, feeling better.

  "You all right now?" Mrs. Shrinsky asked, as Sheila busied herself by clearing the coffee cup from the table and rinsing it in the sink. She was thinking how quickly the information would spread and how soon people would be watching her with pity.

  When Mrs. Shrinsky left, she dressed and, before she went to work, she stopped at the main office of Sunset Village and listed the condominium for sale.

  "The market is not so good now," the agent told her.

  "Just sell it," she said firmly. She felt her strength return. "I don't care what you get for it."

  She realized her action might be futile because Bruce would have to sign the documents too, but even that inhibition could not dampen her will.

  The office was open only a half day and when she returned to the condo, Mrs. Milgrim came by, salivating at the gossipy prospect.

  "You had a fight?"

  It was futile to protest.

  "Nothing serious."

  "I could tell you about men," Mrs. Milgrim said.

  "Don't," Sheila said, curtly. She wondered if Mrs. Milgrim would catch her discourtesy. She hadn't.

  "Could I tell you about men?"

  "I really don't want to hear it," Sheila said. What could they tell her?

  The historical gap was infinite. Actually, she felt like E.T., a different species on another planet. What am I doing here, cried within herself.

  "I'm going to take a shower," she said to Mrs. Milgrim. "And I don't need anything from the store. I don't need any solace. I don't need any pity. I don't need any advice."

  "You're upset?"

  She didn't answer, going into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her, listening, until she could hear Mrs. Milgrim's shuffling steps and the opening and closing of the front door.

  When she came out, she sniffed. Mrs. Milgrim had left her trademark. Sheila squirted air freshener into the effluvia.

  Then she got into her bikini and lay on the blanket behind the apartment, her body to the afternoon sun, waiting.

  She could hear Marvin Shrinsky dragging his chair out of the screened porch, setting it up beside her. She looked up and squinted into his face.

  "I've had one lousy weekend," she said.

  "So I understand."

  "And I'm getting the hell out of this place as fast as I can."

  "Who can blame you?"

  "I'm young," she said, holding down the edge of her hysteria. "I'm young. Look at my body." She started to undo her top strap.

  "Please," Marvin said.

  She got up and went into he
r apartment. He followed her. The screen porch led to her bedroom and she stood there in the center of the room.

  "I'm young," she said again, removing the top and letting her breasts fall free. She held her hands under them.

  "See," she said, her voice breaking. "Touch them."

  He hesitated at first, reaching out finally, touching her nipples, watching them harden.

  "Can I kiss them?" he asked.

  "Help yourself," she said, feeling aroused. She noted the tell-tale bulge in his long shorts and thought of Mrs. Shrinsky's earlier comment about Marvin's absent potency.

  "Would you like to, Marvin?" she asked, seeing the opportunity for a kind of weird redemption, a way to strike back at the enemies of her peace of mind.

  "I'm a man wandering in the desert dying of thirst," he sighed. She pulled down his pants and discovered his youthful readiness.

  "You've been hiding your light under a bushel, Mr. Shrinsky," Sheila said, leading him to her bed.

  "From her," he sighed, demonstrating that he was, indeed, up to the mark in that department.

  "And if she walked in right now?" Sheila asked.

  "I'd be a legend in Sunset Village till the end of time."

  When they were finished, Marvin kissed her on the forehead.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "It's my parting gift," Sheila said. "My statement for your wife and Mrs. Milgrim and Bruce for putting me in this prison. I feel like a free woman."

  "I'll help you pack," Marvin said. "That's the least I could do."

  TYING UP LOOSE ENDS

  When his persistent chest pains were diagnosed as angina, Arnold Gold realized that he was, indeed, approaching the outer edges of his mortality. He was frightened at first, then surprised. For at Sunset Village, death was commonplace, and the Sunset Village theme song--the ambulance siren--was as ubiquitous as lightening bugs on early tropical evenings.

  The knowledge that his flesh was expiring wrought profound changes in Arnold Gold. The doctor said he could live another ten years if he watched himself carefully, rested, and took his medication as prescribed. But, then, they always said that. Having just passed his seventy-second birthday, reaching his eighties in a reasonably together state seemed too remote a possibility to contemplate, especially when the pains stabbed at his chest.