“Comfortable?”
“Yes, I like the way you look after me.”
There, he'd been right.
If a contest were held for a queen of queens among the countries that make up Scandinavia, Jane Teller Siddley—standing five-six in her stocking feet, unambiguously swelling her 36C Warner bra so that there were no doubts about what was inside, her blonde hair undulating down her back, her clear Mediterranean blue eyes the size of a dress manufacturer's pinky ring, and her svelte hips moving—presented the very ideal of a Nordic princess. Her lips might be a bit too full for some tastes and her nose a bit short for ads, but Picasso would have certainly signed her up to model. What made her so extraordinary was that, although not unconscious of her natural gifts, she wasn't dazzled by or particularly interested in them. A word about her ass: It began its surfer's descent from the spine a bit too low, but in this imperfect world, no one would have noticed, and certainly those parents who take a special delight in pulling down the trousers of grown children—in the presence of company—would have bitten it with justifiable pride.
Alan, still wary of Saranac rules, gave Jane two dollars to buy her own movie ticket and arranged to rendezvous at the end of the candy counter. Since this was Lee Van Cleef-festival week, Italian Westerns were on the menu at the Euclid. She approved of his choice; another Antonioni fan she could live without. A hand brandishing a box of Thin Mints beckoned to her. Seated, they watched a hat-shooting contest between Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood, who was being roundly booed by the fickle students. Alan felt reasonably certain that no other faculty members, least of all any from the philosophy department, would be in the audience; and with hands as warm as a rabbit's crotch, he reached across to hold her right hand, which allowed a certain amount of elbow leverage on the lap. Nothing fantastic, but okay for openers. Seventeen killings later, occupying something like five minutes of screen time, he had enough confidence in his breath to begin licking the ear lobe closest to him. He hadn't necked in a movie—and needless to say, not an indoor one—since his last year at Rocky Mountain High. She didn't resist.
“Danger defines character,” he said, peering nervously behind him for Dr. Schultz, his boss.
“Alan, I'm glad I've come.” She was, for the moment.
She moved her head slightly away, the better to observe a Neapolitan lady posing as a Mexican harlot submit with unfailing good humor to the attentions of nine unshaven gunslingers who were taking turns tearing into shreds what had begun life as a Dacron blouse.
Eleven-thirty saw the culmination of hostilities, and since neither had Saturday classes, pizzeria and iced beer were called for. Avoiding the usual student hangouts, he drove her toward the north end of town to a roadhouse which attracted the top-echelon blue-collar crowd and didn't have such fancy prices. A country boy at heart, he had learned early the value of frugality on dates and always sought out those establishments with an atmosphere of local color that hadn't achieved the recognition of Diner's Club. Offbeat was his motto. He would make his bid later in the evening, when, armed to the teeth in his aerie with an assortment of popular-priced brands—Popov vodka, Mr. Boston gin, and Queen Anne scotch, not to mention an arsenal of cordials—he'd strike like Israel. He saw triumph in his stars. Failing these enticements, there were always Carnevelli's unshipped emyl nitrates. He had greedily smoked his last joint two days earlier, he recalled with regret. Unhappily, no Peter Fonda films were scheduled for at least a fortnight, at which time his connection usually materialized, so he would have to bide his time before copping.
A great many hairy forearms, and the babble that is Polish, were in evidence as they entered the warm confines of the Red Barn. Camels were still smoked, and blacks had not yet penetrated this last stronghold of Americana.
“I like it. It's not pretentious,” Jane said, as he helped her off with her squirrel coat and skillfully balanced it on a metal coatrack where several dozen other coats had achieved a precarious balance of power.
“That's exactly my feeling about the Red Barn. I'm sick to death of smart places, the students showing off their clothes. When I got to Saranac I wasn't sure if I was at a college or a fashion show.” She made a mental note to tear out her Ben Kahn label the first chance she got; no sense in alienating him. A man carrying four pitchers of beer led them to a red-leather booth.
“I'll wipe it up in a minute,” he said, indicating the table, which resembled a melted ice rink. In a world gone mad, it was somehow reassuring to find a place of sanity, Alan told her, in which people had their values straight and Lawrence Welk was still king.
“A pitcher and a Barn Special pizza.” Alan ordered confidently. “Want to dance?” he asked, pointing to a crowded floor where a fox-trot was in progress and dips were held till the last possible moment.
“It's another world,” she said.
Ludicrous as it seemed to them, innocence was still a possibility here. The men were men and the women sold Avon cosmetics in their spare time; a Tupperware invasion planned with great boldness had been repulsed because everyone in Saranac was rolling in green stamps. Forays by magazine gangs had, however, penetrated, and most of the people had nine-year subscriptions for sixteen magazines. In the trade, Saranac was known as Magazineville, and if you couldn't sell your ass off there you were in big trouble. Encyclopedia salesmen spoke of Saranac with true reverence and boasted in other red-neck communities that there were more sets of Britannica there per square foot than any place in the world; indeed, this was true, and for every person over seven there were two and three-tenths sets.
“You don't know how to fox-trot,” Alan said after her third heel dig on the toe of his Hush Puppies.
“I've seen people do it at weddings. When I was nine I did it with my grandfather.”
The waiter signaled them and placed the steaming pizza on the table. He collected his money on the spot, as running a tab was discouraged by the cashier. The napkin holder and hot red pepper were set out before them.
“Delicious,” she said, spearing a knob of pepperoni that had begun to slide down the morass of cheese.
“I've never taken anyone here before. You're the first.” Strictly speaking this was a lie, for Alan had come three times before for purposes of picking up. He was batting .667, having made it twice with impunity in the Red Barn's parking lot. He'd nearly frozen to death, since he had a justifiable fear that the battery would go dead if he let the heater go merrily on its way. Balancing a girl on his knees was simply out of the question in a Volks. From the point of view of space, a blow job was the most satisfactory procedure, but these were first dates, and neither girl wanted him to get the wrong idea. Both were on the pill, but Alan had been scared to death viewing syphilis documentaries during his ROTC career. Preferring to be safe rather than sorry, he had loaded the glove compartment with nonslip premoistened Fourex skins. Two initialed handkerchiefs had been ruined in the process of removing the used condom, and sticky idiot dribble had joined the tip of his weapon to the slit of his undershorts, forcing frequent seat adjustments and fly wrenchings on the drive back to Thornton Park. He didn't count either of these encounters as a success, and he was running short of handkerchiefs.
“We could've gone to Doodle's....” This was Saranac's smart discotheque. Young men from Utica and Alfred had put it on the map.
But Alan had no intention of paying a five-dollar minimum for any girl or running the risk of encountering faculty spies; certainly not for something that wasn't a sure thing. He could live with the smell of sweat, beer, the sounds of a grating jukebox which played late Tommy Dorsey swing. He shifted over to her side of the booth when she declined yet another offer to dance.
“What's wrong, Jane? Don't you like it here?”
“I just don't believe this music. I haven't sat out so many dances since I broke my leg skiing.”
She had imagined an evening of stimulating discussion in his apartment, not pizza in a beer parlor. After all, the man was taking a tremendous chance wit
h his career. Why get caught holding hands among Poles? Perhaps he'd worked the whole thing out and was minimizing the danger.
“I'm relating to the whole scene here,” she said kindly.
Relate was a New York word that he didn't trust. A whole string of cockteasers had used it in his presence and he wondered if Jane was simply another one. The idea of being outwitted by someone with a BA enraged him. Assault, although the touchstone of sexual empiricism, was much too risky with a student, even a junior. He might present the Epicurean point of view, citing specific philosophers, if he could locate the notes on his index cards. Christ, they were back in the office. Maybe for the best, because he didn't want to waste a lecture on her. She might really get suspicious of him if she heard the same twaddle in class. Some other device was required. He touched her hand and she spun the pizza tray toward him, mistaking affection for an extra slice.
“This kind of date is so different. I feel like I'm with real people.” The irony was lost.
“That's what attracted me to the place. At college we live in an artificial society and it's important to break out.”
“What kind of future does a philosophy professor have? I mean you stay at school, get tenure, or move to another school....”
“I'm writing a book.”
“That's wonderful. What's it about?”
“It's confidential.”
“I see.”
“A number of prominent textbook companies have approached me, but I'm not a textbook man.” He had approached them, hoping to swing them for an advance on his PhD thesis, but they politely told him to get lost.
His wrist watch was at the one-thirty intersection, and what with the drive back, and an hour of chat before making his pitch, it would bring him to three o'clock. He had arisen at seven, so that meant twenty hours with no sleep, which was fine if you were an army medic or a cop hot on a dope-peddler's trail, but for a philosopher who used his brain a lot it was Sleepsville.
“How do you feel?” he asked, hoping she'd cop out.
“Fine. A little thirsty.”
He looked for their waiter, who had slipped an accordion around his neck and was loosening up his fingers as a yodeling group prepared for the late show.
“It's hopeless. But, look, I've got plenty to drink at my place.”
“Okay, let's make a move,” she said suppressing a yawn.
Carnevelli, to be perfectly honest, hadn't much taste when it came to furnishing an apartment, and Alan explained how he'd been forced to brighten things with plenty of knickknacks and Renoir prints. A small faculty loan had been required for the overhaul and paint job, but despite his reluctance to get himself into hock he had to live like a human being. The two things that most interested Carnevelli were the kitchen and the bedroom, and he purchased a lot of eye-level infra-red equipment, with the result that Alan could make toast in twelve seconds, fry an egg in half a minute, grill hot dogs in a minute, if that kind of thing was important to you. The bedroom was another matter—a horsehair mattress from a Sloane's sale, two swanky Danish teak side tables, and wall-to-wall mirrors, since he enjoyed watching his performances and was, like some French filmmakers, critic, star, and director. Alan had the ceiling mirror removed because it gave him a headache to wake up in the morning and stare at his tousled hair and sleep-ridden wrinkles. It was also bad for the occasional nightmare; he got the idea that someone was watching him, even though it was his own frightened face.
A pad it wasn't, yet, but Alan was working diligently toward that state of affairs. The school carpenter had built shelves but proved unreliable, stopping to watch Mets games and indulge himself on beer and Fritos. When he demanded prohibitive advances for materials, Alan finally sacked him and dealt directly with a builder, who was pleased to bevel edges and supply cherry-colored bricks for an additional charge. It all took shape and the unit now housed Alan's KLH stereo as well as his colossal collection of second-hand books. A first edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a moving-in present from his mother, really gave it class. A love seat was encountered at a fire sale, and the smoky green leather man's chair by the fireplace was acquired at an auction held by the Lackawanna Railroad. Smokers had puffed merrily in that chair for thirty years, as they had leisurely observed the beauties of the Delaware Water Gap; why shouldn't he? Colonel Fredrickson, his table connection at the Salvation Army, found just a fine maple flyleaf job, suitable for coffee, and a pair of drums which had graced a dentist's waiting room. Lighting by Tensor and F. W. Woolworth, he was ready to make his appearance in the Times Sunday Magazine section, next to Craig Claiborne and veal Marengo.
At precisely 2:05 a.m., the Volks was waywardly parked on a snowdrift. Jane climbed the front steps ahead of him. Her brief skirt exposed the small covered no-man's-isthmus between the buttocks, and he made a mental note to investigate it at the earliest opportunity. He opened the door to the apartment, listened to the drone of his sleeping neighbors adjacent, and switched on the light.
“Can I take your coat?”
“What's that?” she asked, indicating a large black trunk.
“It belongs to Carnevelli and I'm waiting for it to be picked up.” Carnevelli on the last evening had cleared out his whips, birch rods, and collapsible pillory and advised Alan that Railway Express would collect these items in a few days. But the agency, Alan now believed, suspected some fishy business and had been stalling him for weeks. Labels from Camp Iroquois and Powhattan spoke of gentler days in Carnevelli's life, of summers in the Honesdale Woodlands and sylvan Torrington, where waterfronts resounded with his decisive “buddy-up” and assured parents that he was second to none in his prowess with a bamboo pole.
“He was thrown out at the end of the summer semester,” Jane said.
“Did you have any of his courses?”
“No, I was warned not to. He was some kind of nut. It's easy enough to get it here, but you don't have to take pictures of girls during gym with a Minox, do you?”
“I suppose not,” Alan agreed. “Drink?”
“You wouldn't have any Grand Marnier?”
“I do,” he said, leading her to a shelf of miniatures.
“I don't want to drink it if it's part of a collection.”
“Don't be silly.” He poured himself a vodka and tonic and she got two-and-a-half ounces of Grand Marnier. They clicked glasses; he asked if she wanted to hear Bartok or Led Zeppelin. She went through his record slat in the bookcase and expressed both surprise and pleasure at such discoveries as Cream, Canned Heat, and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Obviously a man of catholic tastes.
“We've broken all the rules,” she said.
“Not yet ... and not all of them.”
“I'd just be suspended but they'd put you on the rack.”
She was in danger of getting what she wanted, and it made her indescribably sad. The passage of time between her silent observations of her parents’ lives, and now her own, seemed monstrously short. Ten years went by in an instant, but the past had never been safe territory for her.
“You know, I was in such a hurry to grow up that in a way I'm sorry.”
“It's a little late to get theoretical. Age is a condition and there's nothing more to be said about it.”
“I wouldn't want to go back. I don't mean that. It's just that I seem to have spent my life escaping from one thing to another. When is it going to end?”
He hopped on the sofa. He hoped that this wasn't an attempt to give him a first date refusal. It was getting late. The 3 a.m. deadline loomed on the horizon, and he decided to find out where he stood.
“I better drop you at the dorm, or else you'll have trouble.”
“Have patience, Alan. I took an overnight for the pop concert.” She showed him the $7.50 ticket initialed by the head of the dorm. “I thought we might be out late.” She smiled at him a bit wantonly, but in spite of the assurance that she had offered herself on a plate—made up her mind beforehand—he knew that girls sometimes talked themselves o
ut of it. This was a time for action and conciseness.
He made a move to slip his hand along her thigh.
“Hey, don't you trust me? I said later.”
He sipped his drink, now a bit calmer, but nevertheless unrelieved, and Jane had no illusions about him. When he was ready, he'd drop his load anywhere, into anything. She happened to be handy. The commerce of biology was a shady deal like everything else. She'd drift into an affair with Alan Sawyer, and like all the others it would mean nothing. A hedge against the weather or something like that.
“Oh, well, why wait?” she said, thinking that her own hypocrisy was always so inexpensive, it was other people's that really stung.
He kissed her and she returned it. Much cheaper than conversation. Birch logs were tossed casually on the burning embers and flamed shortly. He lifted up her cashmere turtleneck and was greeted by skin of Alpine whiteness, removed a perfumed ball of cotton which was lodged between her breasts and began a systematic reconnaissance mission between her thighs. She was breathing heavily, thinking of nothing.
“Wouldn't we be more comfortable ...?” He broke off and led her to Carnevelli's lair, the first customer under the new management.
“It's like a brothel,” she exclaimed.
“Mr. Carnevelli's interior decoration.”
“No wonder he got canned. Sex maniac,” she pronounced, not unkindly.
“I could cover the mirrors with a sheet.”
“Why bother? I've got no hangups. I like you, Alan,” she said, then wondered why she'd lied, since he didn't appear to need romance to go with the situation.
“You're a wonderful girl, Jane. I've got a sense about people,” he said vaguely.
“Really? Tell me.”
Making Love Page 3
