Betty Blue

2

For several days we floated through a sort of Technicolor dream. We were never more than an inch away from each other. Life seemed amazingly simple. I had a few jobs-a kitchen sink, a haywire toilet tank, a stove with multisized burners-but nothing very serious. Betty gave me a hand, picking up the dead branches and litter and emptying the garbage cans in the alleys. We spent our afternoons lounging around under the porch, playing with the buttons on the radio or talking about unimportant things that is, when we weren’t fucking or preparing a few of the complicated dishes we’d picked out of the cookbook the night before. I’d pushed the chaise longue into the shade, she’d spread her mat out in the sunshine. Whenever anybody came by I’d toss her a towel, taking it back once the asshole had gone, then return to my chaise longue to look at her. I noted how all I had to do was lay my eyes on her for a little over ten seconds to completely clear my mind. It was a trick that came in handy.

One morning she jumped on the scale and let out a scream.

“Oh shit, I don’t believe it!”

“Betty, what is it?”

“Jesus Christ, I’ve gained another two pounds. I just knew it…!”

“Don’t worry about it. Believe me, it doesn’t show.”

She didn’t answer, and I forgot the whole incident. Then at lunch I found myself with a tomato cut in half on my plate-just a tomato, nothing else. I didn’t say anything, though-just dug right in as if there was nothing at all unusual. I left the table feeling fit, not weighted down by a bunch of calories, and we took a roll in the sheets-one of our best sessions. Outside the sun was vibrating, crashing down on the crickets.

I got up later and went straight to the icebox. Once in a while life hands you moments of absolute perfection, wraps you up in stardust. I was under the impression that my ears were whistling, as if I’d attained a higher level of consciousness. I gave the eggs a big smile. I grabbed three and scrambled them in a bowl.

“What are you doing?” Betty asked.

I started looking for the flour.

“I never told you, but the only time in my life that I really made money was selling crépes. I set up this little stand by the seaside and the folks stood in line in the glaring sun with their money in their hands. Yeah, every last one of them. I made the most fabulous crépes within twenty-five miles and they knew it. I’m going to show you I’m not joking…”

“Oh really, I shouldn’t…”

“You kidding me? You’re not going to make me eat alone. You wouldn’t do a thing like that…”

“Really, I’m not in the mood. Please. I won’t eat any.”

I saw right away that there was no sense arguing. It would be like beating my head against a brick wall. I watched the eggs slide out of the bowl and make their way one by one toward the drain, while my stomach growled. But I got a hold of myself and washed the bowl out without making a fuss. She smoked a cigarette and looked at the ceiling.

I spent what was left of the afternoon on the porch fixing the motor from the washing machine. At the end of the day, seeing that all was calm-she was just reading a book-I went in and put the water on. I tossed in a handful of rock salt, tore open a package of spaghetti, and went back out on the porch I crouched down in front of her.

“Betty, is something wrong?”

“No,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

I stood back up, folded my hands behind my head, and swept my eyes over the horizon. The sky was red and clear, promising winds for the next day. I wondered what kind of crap could have jammed the machine up.

I turned back to her, bent my knees, and leaned over. I ran a worried finger over her cheek.

“I can see that something’s not all right…”

She gave me the same hard look that had shaken me up a few days earlier. She lifted herself up on one elbow.

“You know a lot of girls who don’t have a job? Who don’t have a cent to their name, who are stuck in some retarded one-horse town, and who can still smile about it?”

“Shit, what difference would it make if you did have a job, a little cash in the bank? Why are you getting bent out of shape over a stupid thing like that?”

“Plus, I’m getting fat. I’m going to pot in this hole!”

“What the hell are you talking about? What’s so horrible about this place? Don’t you see that it’s the same all over-that only the scenery changes?”

“So? That’s better than nothing!”

I glanced at the pink sky and shook my head slowly. I looked back down.

“Look,” I said. “How about going into town for a bite and taking in a movie?”

A smile spread over her face like an atomic bomb. I actually felt the heat coming at me.

“Great! Nothing like a little drive to change the mood. Just let me slip into a skirt.”

She took off into the house.

“A skirt? That’s all?” I said.

“Sometimes I wonder if you ever think of anything else…”

I went inside and turned the fire off under the pot. Betty fixed her hair in the mirror. She winked at me. I had the feeling I’d scored a point.

We took Betty’s car, a red VW that burned oil. We parked in the middle of town with one wheel on the curb.

We hadn’t been in the pizzeria five minutes when this blonde walks in and Betty starts jumping up and down next to me.

“Hey, that’s Sonia. HEY, SONIA! OVER HERE!”

The girl in question suddenly moved toward our table, almost knocking the guy behind her off balance. The girls kissed and the guy plunked himself down in front of me. The girls seemed happy to see each other-they held hands. They introduced everybody. The guy let out a sort of mumble. I lost my self in the menu.

“God, let me look at you! You look like you’re in great shape!” said Betty.

“You too, sweetheart! You don’t know how happy I am to see you!”

“Pizza for everybody?” I asked.

When the waitress showed up, the guy seemed to wake up. He took her by the arm and slipped a bill in her hand.

“How much time do you need to make champagne appear on this table?” he asked her.

The waitress looked at the bill without saying a word.

“A little under five seconds,” she said.

“You got it.”

Sonia threw herself at him and bit his lips.

“Oh, baby, you’re fantastic!” she said.

After a few bottles I agreed with her completely. The guy was telling me how he’d struck it rich speculating on coffee just when the prices skyrocketed.

“My telephone rang off the hook and money rolled in from all directions at once. See, you had to play it close to the chest. You had to hold off until the last minute, then sell everything at breakneck speed. At any second you could either double your money or go bust…”

I listened attentively. That kind of story fascinates me. Talking about money blocked the effects of the alcohol in this guy. All he did was burp a little loudly from time to time. I sucked on this bad-ass cigar he’d given me and kept the glasses filled. The girls’ eyes were shining.

“I’m going to tell you something,” he added. “You know that movie where the guys jump out of their cars just at the last minute before they go over the cliff? Can you imagine how they must feel?”

“Hard to imagine,” I said.

“Well, that’s what it was for me, multiplied by a hundred!”

“You jumped out at the right time?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think I jumped out at the right time. After that I collapsed and slept for three days straight.”

Sonia ran her lingers through his hair and squeezed herself against him.

“And in two days we’re taking a plane to the islands!” she cooed. “It’s my engagement present! Oh, sweetie, maybe that seems silly to you, but I’m crazy about the idea!”

Sonia looked like a ruffled bird with a sensual mouth. She laughed all the time. It kept things nice. The bottles came and went and for a little while Betty took my arm and put her head on my shoulder. I dragged on my Davidoff.

Toward the end I couldn’t listen to anybody anymore. I heard only a faint murmur. Everything seemed far away. The world was absurdly simple and I was smiling. I wasn’t waiting for anything. I was so plastered that I started laughing to myself.

At the stroke of one in the morning, the guy fell over without warning and broke his plate in half. It was time to go home. Sonia paid the bill by getting some cash out of the pockets of his sport coat, and we dragged him outside. It was hard, given the state we were in, but once outside he got a little life back in him, and that helped. Even so, we had to stop at each streetlight to get our wind back. We were hot. Sonia stood in front of him while we took a breather. He was wobbling on his legs-Oh baby, she said, my poor little baby. I wondered if they hadn’t parked on the other side of town.

Finally she opened the door of a hot new sedan with a ten-foot hood and we dumped her little baby inside. Sonia kissed us good night quickly, anxious to get home and put something on his head. We watched them start up. We waved. The thing took off into the night like the Loch Ness monster.

After a while we found our VW. I wanted to drive. To drive like I wanted, I needed something truly responsive-high beams by the row, a hundred miles per hour in no time flat, smooth as butter-I HAD to drive.

“You sure you’re going to make it?” Betty asked.

“I assume you’re joking. Nothing the matter with me.”

I got through town without a hitch. There weren’t many people out. It was a real joyride, except that once in a while the engine freaked out and the VW jumped forward.

The night was black. The headlights swept the road ahead and there was nothing-just the pale lights of a dancing road sign. I had to lean into the windshield to see.

“You get a load of this fog?” I said.

“I can’t see anything. What are you talking about?”

“Remind me to adjust the headlights. This is the pits.”

I followed the white line, putting the left front wheel right on it. After a while something intrigued me. I knew the road well, there wasn’t the least turn in it, no curves at all, but now, very gently, almost imperceptibly, the goddamn little white line was going off to the left, bending incomprehensibly. I opened my eyes wider and wider.

Betty screamed when I drove into the ditch. The car sank its nose into a sorry little pond. I tried to turn the motor off-the windshield wipers went on.

Betty opened the door in a rage, without a word. I asked myself what I had done wrong, how this could have happened, exactly. I got out behind her. The VW looked like a big stupid animal in its death throes. The bumpers were all smashed in.

“We’ve been attacked by martians,” I said.

By the time I turned around to look at her, she was gone, marching down the road in her high heels. I galloped after her.

“Jesus, don’t worry about the car,” I said.

She was walking fast, like she was on springs, looking straight ahead of her. I had a hell of a time keeping up.

“I couldn’t care less about that hunk of tin!” she said. “It isn’t that…”

“There’s no problem… We can’t have more than a couple of miles to go. It’ll do us good…”

“I’m thinking about Sonia,” she went on. “You remember Sonia…?”

“Yeah… you mean your girlfriend?”

“Yes, right. Don’t you think she’s lucky, my girlfriend? Don’t you think that SHE can afford to SMILE?”

“Shit, Betty, don’t start that again.”

“You see,” she went on. “Sonia and me were waitresses in the same place before I came here. We did the same job-polish the glasses, serve, sweep. At night we sat around together in our apartments and talked about what life would be like once we got out of there. Tonight I saw how she’s done since then. I think she’s found herself a nice little place in the sun…”

You could see the motel lights in the distance. We weren’t out of the woods yet, and the downward slope was getting slippery.

“You don’t agree?” she insisted.

I told myself, just keep walking, don’t pay attention to what she says-in a second she’ll forget all about it.

“Explain to me why I’m always in the same rut. Tell me what I do wrong that keeps me from climbing up the ladder a little…”

I stopped to light a cigarette and she waited for me. Her eyes went through me. I sort of shrugged, as if to say, “Search me.”

“We’ll never get a break if we stick around here,” she said.

I looked over her shoulder. She was breathing quickly.

“I don’t know…” I said.

“What do you mean you don’t know? What kind of answer is that?”

“Shit, it means I don’t know!”

To put an end to the scene, I took a few steps off the shoulder of the road and pissed. I turned my back to her. I thought I’d gotten her to button her lip. I made a little blue cloud of steam in the night, thinking that, sure, living with a woman always has its inconveniences, but in the end the scale always tips in favor of doing it. Let her bitch all she wants, I thought, it doesn’t really bother me. It’s a small price to pay for all the good things I get from her. I felt her boiling over behind me. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I really had someone by my side. It had been a long time.

I zipped my pants up, feeling good. That`s how it is when you take up with a high-spirited girl-yon can’t avoid a few hot moments, no way around it. The alcohol made my blood warm. I pivoted around on one leg to face her.

“I don’t feel like discussing this anymore,” I said. “I’m not up to it. Be a pal…”

She looked at the black sky, sighing:

“But God, don’t you ever think that life is passing us by, right under our noses? Doesn’t that just get to you sometimes?”

“Listen: Ever since I’ve been with you I don’t feel like life is passing me by. I even feel like I have more than my share, if you really want to know…”

“Oh shit, I’m not talking about that! I mean let’s get out of this together! Somewhere opportunity is knocking at the door. We just have to find where…”

“Too simple. A mistake.”

“God, you’d think you’d found paradise here in this crummy desert. You must be half nuts.”

I had decided not to answer. I stepped toward her, but unfortunately got my foot stuck in a hole and fell flat on my face. I hurt my knee. It was obviously a detail that didn’t bother her. She kept at me about her rage to live in the fast lane while I was busy crawling behind her in the dust.

“Take Sonia. Look how she made out. Now she can really live! Imagine what we could do if we just got off our butts and…”

“Betty, for Christ sakes…!”

“I can’t understand why you don’t feel suffocated here. There’s nothing happening-nothing that’s going to happen!”

“Come here and help me, goddammit. Come…”

But I could see she wasn’t listening. She hadn’t budged an inch. She was totally locked into her fantasy by then-breath short and eyes shining.

“Don’t you ever see yourself taking off for the islands one of these mornings?” She added. “One of these days, just setting sail for paradise?”

“Let’s get home and go to bed,” I said.

She fixed her eyes on me:

“All we have to do is stir things up a little! All we have to do is want to.”

“And what do you hope to accomplish, exactly? What do you think is going to-”

“God, can you imagine what it’s like on the islands?”

The vision of it had set her brain on fire. She let out a little nervous giggle, then took off without me, juggling her sugar-plum daydreams while I barely managed to get up on my knees.

“SHIT…” I yelled after her. “YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR ISLANDS!?”