“I've really got to go, Tub.”
“A few minutes more, please.” He opened a drawer and took out a box of cards and showed her one. “I passed my examination and am now a member of the Interior Design Consultants of America. And what with my contacts and the pension plan my family devised for me, I'm living it up. Coppie waived alimony, so I'm free. She called me to wish me good luck, but I sensed an ulterior motive. She wanted me to take her up to Schumacher and Widdicomb. I thought it was kind of unseemly to begin my business with my ex-wife as my first client so I turned her down. She pleaded with me, and I was under the impression that she wanted my advice—but no, all she was concerned about was the twenty-five percent off. And she's not even Jewish. There is a young lady with real problems.”
Slide doors from the den opened and a man said:
“Sorry, I didn't know you had a guest.” He had a soft, resonant voice that went with a small, miniature-featured face and a frame that might have been constructed from wishbones.
“This is Jane Siddley, my first love,” Tub said.
The man looked from one to the other through thick glasses and smiled.
“Tub's mentioned you.”
He shook Jane's hand, and told her his name was Steven. He renewed Tub's invitation for her to stay, but she looked at her watch with theatrical urgency.
“Steven was married, too,” Tub said, “Unhappily.”
“If we were only smart enough not to correct our first mistake,” he said. “But that's a test of character and there isn't much of that around.”
“I'm glad I got your letter,” Jane said. “It could've been years before we got together again.”
“Jane, you haven't even mentioned your trouble. What is it?”
“Nothing that I can't work out.”
They exchanged kisses and the promise of a future dinner.
He stood by the open door making small awkward waves as people do when nothing is left to say and a guest has to be seen out inoffensively. The elevator arrived and he vanished, a quirky memory that had surfaced and hurt unreasonably.
She took a cab back to the parking lot where she'd left the Mini, gave a disgruntled attendant her ticket, and waited by the elevator for the car. The attendant sped out like a Grand-Prix driver and said:
“What happens to a little thing like this if one of them big trailers hits you?”
“It already has.”
It was almost midnight and she was lonely and not at all sleepy. She couldn't make up her mind where to go, but some hysterical honking behind her made her move. She was sorry that she had broken her resolve to see old friends. They weren't friends any more, having left their families and established patterns that they could live with. Tub had been an awful shock, her first all-the-way, no-holds-barred lover. She didn't condemn or disapprove of his new bent, but somehow the early experience had been rosy and one of the few happy romantic infractions that a lifetime of law-abiding couldn't spoil. It was like suddenly finding that a much admired beauty spot high on the cheekbone had really been a blackhead. For the sake of a clearer complexion it was ruthlessly squeezed and what remained was an unfilled hole that refused to submit with good grace to make up. Deceit she could live with, the truth was a different matter.
Hard to believe that she had panted, counted the hours anxiously for the appearance of Tub and his magic wand. They had both had little skill but much enthusiasm. Orgasms crackled like Chinese firecrackers in the back of his first car—a much-owned XKE Jaguar with enough miles on it to get them halfway to the moon, which had sped through the hills and dales of Connecticut, not to mention the western cavities of New York State, to bring them to assorted clearings, guesthouses, nookeries, soft shoulders where they could couple peacefully. The seventeenth summer of madness, she called it when it was over, and went off to school to recover. The Moss gearbox had proved as intractable for screwing as shifting. Thanksgiving and his father's Caddy brought with it hydromatic and a back seat. Well, so nothing was precious any longer. Memories were old clothes that didn't fit.
She'd been on the verge of really opening up to Conlon that morning on the drive down from Saranac, but Conlon had been distracted, a little moony with thoughts of Mel clouding her mind. Conlon was essentially a good girl, level-headed, realistic, an eight hundred scorer on the college boards, an accomplishment that brought her to Saranac on a scholarship; a lot of nun's Latin and advanced algebra had been drummed into her head at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, and she had determined at all costs not to be a credit to her race and parochial school. Her B average was a good-enough holding pattern to keep the State's grant. Mel, the spoiler, had like a virus snuck into her life and she abandoned all of her one-night stands for an honest-to-goodness affair with a married man. At the beginning the relationship had disturbed Conlon, and she had had crazy thoughts of writing to Rome for a Papal dispensation. Why not? The Spaniards could eat meat on Friday, Henry the Eighth got past Catherine of Aragon. What was wrong with Patricia Conlon marrying a soon-to-be-divorced Jew?
“There's nothing wrong with what you're doing,” Jane said. “But sooner or later he'll dump you,” she noted factually.
“He made promises,” Conlon replied. Simpering created awkward wrinkles on her face.
“He made a few to his wife, too. I've got very little new to say on the subject of an affair, except, enjoy it. How long has he been married?”
“Six or seven years. Two kids,” she added.
“Well, at least he won't bungle it.”
Like most people who could give sound advice when cornered, Jane was not above smashing things for herself. And here she was driving around New York alone on a Friday night while Conlon and her trouser suit were dancing merrily in some discotheque, would return to the splendor of Mel's suite, dispense with late movies, and eat each other like cheesecake. Jane thought of herself as sensible, not one of the world's great problem solvers, but at the same time in need of a solid ear and practical suggestions.
She turned up First Avenue and found herself confronted with what appeared to be New York's legion of college protesters. But there was no campus nearby, nor loudspeakers hooked to tinny amplifiers. The divorced population of the five boroughs were out meeting and greeting one another. They were well dressed, loud, laughing. Happiness was in the air. Young junior executives in Alexander's finest were promoting pretty little things who could take a hundred and twenty words a minute and three guys in one evening. Dates were made for Sunday brunches and bicycle rides in Central Park.
Jane felt lost, out of it. She parked by a hydrant and toured the battlefield of First Avenue, which, like a Labor Day weekend, would cause enough crashes, disasters, and crack-ups to spoil the lives of a generation of unborn children.
At Joiners she discovered a management offering a free drink to any single female after midnight. She accepted the challenge which brought her face to face with Sonny Jackson for the second time that evening. He had seen so much female flesh that at first he gave her an impenetrable stare, declared that the premises were violating fire laws, and was about to send her to another bar when a dim awareness broke through.
“We met at the party,” he said.
“I thought I'd come in for a drink.”
He took her to the bar, snapped his fingers professionally and drew a young bearded man to their end of the bar.
“Give us a set-up. What're you drinkin', Miss?”
“Jane.”
“Right, Jane. What would you like?”
“Scotch on the rocks.”
“It's eighty-six with the house drinks,” the bartender said. “After one...”
“On my tab,” Sonny announced. “Our free offer's only good for an hour,” he explained.
Another shill trick, she thought.
“I can pay for myself,” Jane said.
“No. It's on me.”
Sonny kept a wary eye on the door, but most people were on the way out, having connected earlier. He took a free stool,
placing it next to hers. He looked neat and businesslike in his dark suit, but preoccupied. He tilted his glass up.
“Here's lookin’ at you.”
“But you aren't, are you?”
“We got a new bartender,” he whispered, “and I'm keepin’ an eye on him. He's a little slow with the change and sometimes he forgets to ring up.”
“Why don't you get rid of him if he's worrying you?”
“Union,” he observed laconically. “If I catch him with the goods then we can yank him.”
A man in a red shirt with an oatmeal beard and nine rings on his fingers came over.
“Hit the registers, Sonny.”
“Okay. This is Frank Rizzoli, the manager. Say hello to Jane here, Frank.”
“Hello, Jane,” he said without taking his eyes from the bartender. “Anything cookin’ with Fast Gun tonight?”
“No, I been watchin', Frank.”
“We'll get the mother yet. It's easier gettin’ him hit than firin’ him.”
“We don't want pickets again,” Sonny said, with the assurance of one who had been called scab.
“Two hundred grand invested here and nothin’ but grief. I got partners climbin’ outa my ears. When I take a shave in the mornin’ I got partners lookin’ in the mirror. Get myself a rich chick this winter and say bye-bye. This time, I'm serious, Sonny. I got nine hundred invested in cruisewear and enough Coppertone to turn the world black.”
“You do it, Frank. Be back in a minute,” he informed Jane.
She watched him pick up the night deposit bag from behind the bar, then remove the cash from the three registers.
“Sonny's a good boy,” Frank told her. “What're you drinkin'?”
“I've still got one.”
Behind them someone had put in enough money in the jukebox to hear the collected works of Vanilla Fudge, who began their attack from six different concealed speakers.
“I hear this crap every day. My eardrums have gone funny on me. Like a buzzin’ sound all the time. Even when I'm not here, I think I hear sounds. Ever been on a cruise, Jane?”
“A few. On charters, though.”
“What's that, like a small boat?”
“Yes, small boats.”
“Never get me on one of ‘em. I like tonnage under my feet. I'm booked on the Homeric,” he added, with some pride. “Liquor cruise. Cost of booze included in the total price, so that all the time you haven't got your hand in your pocket. Cabin for myself, so that I got operatin’ room. Nassau, The Bahamas, St. Thomas, the works. I'm goin’ to specialize now.”
“In what?” she asked curiously.
“Rich divorcées with low overheads. I'm tired of the young kids, present company excepted since you're a friend of Sonny's. Biff, bam, bang. I need a place to lay my head. After all, I'm not a goddamn machine. I'm ready for a little intelligent conversation. In its place.”
Sonny waved the night deposit bag at them.
“Back when I've done the count.”
“Leave singles,” Frank admonished him.
“It's loaded.”
“Where you from, Jane?”
“Connecticut.”
“Go to school there?”
“No, Saranac. That's upstate New York.”
“Never been there myself. Got a football team?”
“No, it's all girls.”
“No football team, that's why I never heard of it. Take Sonny, he knows every college in the country from his playin’ days.”
Sonny reappeared with the bag and a deposit slip for Frank to sign.
“Thirteen hundred even,” Sonny said.
“Fine, I'll make it fourteen.”
“How can you do that?” Jane asked.
“Error in our favor. We got away with it once and we been doing it ever since. We're not workin’ for the Chemical Bank. On Mondays, they got a lot of countin’ to do and sometimes they shift in a trainee or someone's sick and doesn't show up.”
“Okay, Frank, I'll see you tomorrow night,” Sonny said.
“Get me the line for Sunday, will you? My guy's been playin’ games lately and I think he's into the shylocks and they're making the price.”
“Right.” He took Jane's arm as though helping an elderly convalescent from her wheelchair and she smiled at him, but he was too concerned with the money under his arm to notice.
The street contained the losers of the human lottery held that evening, and she and Sonny walked in the gutter to avoid the crowd. He seemed a bit nervous, but relaxed when he reached the night-deposit chute.
“I'm bonded but I still get a little jumpy. Some of these junky kids you can't explain anythin’ to. They don't want to hear explanations.”
“Do you carry a gun?” she asked in alarm. Reality was a rather unpleasant prospect.
“I'm licensed,” he explained, “but I never carry it. So far so good.”
The chute was opened and the money dropped, relieving his tension. He looked around indecisively, then turned to her for a lead. She felt comfortable with weak men and she had no intention of letting him go, not that she planned to dominate him or had some plan for manipulating him. It was simply that there was no pressure and no impending battle of wits to anticipate. She took his arm. He offered bacon and eggs at a west-side diner and she realized that she hadn't eaten all day. The subway was waived in favor of her car.
“I've never been in one of these,” he said enthusiastically. “I'll bet they go like hell.”
“I can do a hundred and ten.”
“Would you believe this little thing could move like that?”
She was oddly touched by his delight and innocence and his ability to refrain from the usual prosecuting-attorney's questions that flew with the speed of missiles from the long line of men she had known in her short years. Like most people who grow up with great wealth, she avoided the subject, and she had the good breeding not to complain about her parents to strangers and friends. She had little faith in human perfection, no ideal man loomed on the horizon, and she lived from minute to minute, which perhaps best explained her present situation. Unfamiliar circumstances always helped her to resolve the moments of confusion that intruded on her life.
The diner was a truckers’ stop, and Sonny ate like an athlete. Good manners prevented him from changing plates with her to get at her untouched home fries, and he nibbled at them from a distance. He doubled his usual tip for Flo, the all-night waitress, who handed him her copy of the Daily News, exchanged greetings with a few of the regulars who called out: “Hey, Sonny, how's the boy?” and held the door for her.
The night air was misty, having received its daily contribution from New Jersey chemical plants, and they stood beside the Mini in the parking lot waiting for divine guidance. A consistent roar of the trucks was what they got instead.
“We're not far from my place,” he said, “and I'd invite you back ... but my boy's sleepin'.”
This was the most novel rejection she'd ever received, and she took it like a soldier.
“Not that I wouldn't like to, mind you.”
“It's late,” she said.
“Where're you stayin'?”
“Where the party was.”
“Oh, I see.”
She started to shiver from tired chills. He put his arms around her and nuzzled her like a favorite pet.
“I'd ask you back to the hotel, but I'm just a guest.”
“Don't worry about it. We'll get together another time.”
“I'm going to California for a few days.”
“When do you expect to be back ... ?” He stopped. “Aren't you upstate at that school?”
“I'm quitting.”
“Is that the smart thing to do?” he asked. “Sorry I never hit them books when I was at school, I can tell you that. What'll you do, get some kind of job?”
“I think so.” She didn't want to scare him off, but thought she'd better ask now. “How old is your son?”
“Wesley Junior will be ten on J
anuary second. Born the day after the Sugar Bowl in ‘61. Believe me,” he said with an illuminating remembrance smile, “I'll never forget it.”
“Where does Mrs. Jackson keep herself?”
“In New Orleans, as far as I know. I haven't seen Joy-Sue in years. We're divorced. At least I think we are. I signed some papers years ago and I got a copy floatin’ around somewhere. Wesley Junior and me run a bachelor establishment.”
She looked up into his sweet docile eyes and broken face and kissed him. She felt confident and protected in the arms of the unknown, the undefined.
“You're a pretty kid, Jane. Really nice, I mean it. But I got to tell you I'm not lookin’ to get tagged again.”
She embraced his honesty, then opened the car door.
“Lookit, how do I get in touch with you, Jane? You won't have a phone yet, will you?”
“Why don't I call you when I get back?”
“Fine.” He searched his pocket for a pencil, then gave up the pursuit. “Have you got somethin’ to write with?”
An eyebrow pencil was located in her bag and handed to him. His address and phone number in various smudges were put on the small border below the price of the News.
“Can you read it?”
“Two hundred and fifty Riverside Drive.”
“That's on Ninety-eighth Street.”
“I can drop you off,” she said.
“I wouldn't think of takin’ you out of your way. A girl in my neighborhood on her own this late isn't a good combination.”
He waved, then moved suddenly, shifting from side to side, swiveling his hips with the grace of a natural broken-field runner as if in pursuit of a last perfect touchdown. The cab passed him by, but another seeing his plight stopped. Good fortune, always a little late for Sonny Jackson, nevertheless offered him a fleeting smirk. Jane waved back and said to herself: “Sonny, you're beautiful.
The sky was beginning to lighten as she drove cross-town. The city was as close to deserted as she'd ever seen it, but for the first time that day she felt better, a sense of release, an easing of spiritual breath, and she knew that her problem wasn't quite so serious as she'd imagined.
She was pregnant, a rabbit had died on her behalf. She neither pitied the rabbit nor herself. There were several candidates for father over the past few months, Alan Sawyer the most likely and possibly the least lovable.
Making Love Page 7
