Blow Hot, Blow Cold

3

“Darling,” Nancy Howell said, “what do you think of Lila?”

“She’s beautiful, sexy and delightfully promiscuous,” David Howell said. “I discovered it tonight behind a spirea bush. The promiscuous part, I mean.”

David was lying on his side with his back to Nancy, who was sitting on the opposite side of the bed in a pale yellow shortie nightgown. There was only a dim light burning, the lamp on the bedside table, because David wanted to go to sleep, which was why he had his back turned and why he said what he did in answer to Nancy’s question. What he said was supposed to be a stopper; and what he meant, instead of what he said, was, in effect, to quit-talking-for-God’s-sake-and-turn-out-the-light-and-get-to-sleep. Unfortunately, Nancy wasn’t sleepy in the least.

“I guess that was when Larry and I were making love on the redwood bench,” she said. “Really, though, David. What do you think of Lila? I mean really. What you think, I mean, when you don’t intend to tell anyone, at all, ever.”

“I just told you.”

“Larry said she doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong.”

“Larry’s right. She has absolutely no morals, I’m happy to say.”

“Larry says she’s a natural-born liar.”

“I’m all for lying myself,” said David, sleepily. “Like you, for instance, lying right now — lying down and turning out the light. Good night, lover.”

“Lover! I can’t even keep you awake.”

“It’s too soon after Lila, lover. Contact me first thing in the morning.”

“Aren’t you even interested in what Larry said?”

“Larry was drunk. What a man says when he’s drunk is seldom interesting.”

“I’m not so sure Larry was drunk. He didn’t talk or act drunk.”

David’s response was a deliberate snore, which meant that he was damned if he was going to say another word. So Nancy sat quietly on the edge of the bed thinking over Larry’s evaluation of his wife. Nancy didn’t want it to be true, for she genuinely liked Lila. On the other hand, she didn’t want it to be untrue, either, for she liked Larry just as genuinely.

Pretty soon David began to breathe as if he was actually asleep instead of pretending to be. Nancy went into the bathroom. She turned on the little nightlight in the outlet above the mirror where you plugged in your electric razor if you used one, which David didn’t; then, leaving the bathroom door open, she came back, turned off the bedside lamp, and returned to the bathroom. She squeezed a ribbon of paste onto her toothbrush and brushed her teeth vigorously; then she sat down on the edge of the tub and wondered what a girl did when her husband wasn’t interested in anything interesting — conversation or otherwise. She could, of course, go downstairs and make herself a sandwich which she didn’t want, or a cup of coffee which would only push sleep farther off. So those were out. To be honest, her head was not quite stable from the beer, and what she really ought to do was to go outside and walk around in the fresh night air.

Having decided what she ought to do, Nancy proceeded to do it. She stole back into the bedroom, found the shirt, shorts and flats she had worn to the party, returned to the bathroom, removed her shortie, and redressed. Then she went downstairs and out the front door. The sliver of moon was gone in a luminous sawdust of stars, and a soft breeze blew from the west. Altogether it was as pleasant a night as a wife with a sleeping husband could ask.

She sat on her front steps for a while, then strolled down the walk to the street. Turning left, she sauntered along looking up at the stars. She had just reached the Connors’ driveway on the far side of their front yard when, suddenly, the door of their attached garage rolled up with a clatter, and there, in the light of his garage, stood Larry Connor. As Nancy watched he got into his car, a Buick Special, started the engine, and backed out. Nancy saw him stop in the drive, get out of the car and turn off the garage light, and pull the door down. In the Buick again, he backed slowly down the drive to the street. When he came even with Nancy on the sidewalk, she spoke to him, although, until that instant, she hadn’t had the least intention of doing so.

“Hello, Larry,” Nancy said. “Where are you going?”

Larry braked the Buick violently and leaned out his window, peering.

“Oh, it’s you, Nancy,” he said. “What are you doing out here at this time of night?”

“I couldn’t sleep and came out for a walk.”

“Well, it’s a nice night for it.” Larry sounded reserved, almost formal.

“Isn’t it, though? There must be a million stars, and the breeze is wonderful.”

“Did you ask me where I’m going?” he asked brusquely.

“I guess I did, Larry, come to think of it.”

“Well, I’m going down to my office to sleep. I go there to sleep when I find it impossible to sleep at home.”

This sounded ominously like a reference to the Connors’ domestic difficulties. Nancy kept still in the hope that Larry would change the subject, or go away. He did neither.

In the silence Nancy became conscious of an odd rhythmic sound that she could not identify. It turned out to be Larry pounding on the steering wheel with a kind of cadenced desperation. This lasted for only a few seconds, then Larry spoke quietly.

“You remember what I said tonight, Nancy?”

“About what?”

“About wanting you to understand how things really are?”

“I guess so. Yes—”

“You remember that. Good night, Nancy.”

“Good night, Larry. See you tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe.”

He backed into the street and turned and drove off toward town. Now, damn it, Nancy thought, he had her so upset again that she couldn’t possibly go to sleep, just when she had begun to think that she could. She wished to hell that Larry Connor would have the kindness not to say things that might mean something or nothing or everything.

Nancy walked back and sat down on her front steps again and tried to decide just what Larry had meant by what he had said. Whatever he had meant, it was evident that he and Lila had had more trouble after getting home from the party, or he wouldn’t be bound for his office at this hour to spend the night. Was it because he had talked to her, kissed her? Nancy decided that her feeling of guilt was absurd, because she had not really wanted either to be kissed or to listen, and had only submitted in a neighborly spirit.

After ten minutes or so, Nancy got up and walked around the house into her backyard, wishing she had remembered to bring some cigarets with her. Then she realized that her sudden craving for a cigaret had come from seeing a tiny glow in the darkness across the alley; in the Walterses’ backyard. Someone was out there smoking. Stanley, of course; Mae didn’t smoke. Poor old Stanley probably couldn’t sleep, either.

Nancy walked over to the picket fence at the alley, peering through the darkness at the little red dot in the other yard.

“Stanley,” she called softly. “Is that you?”

The burning dot jerked around.

“Who’s there?” Stanley’s voice said. “Who is that?”

“Nancy Howell. I’m here, at the alley fence.”

The red dot drew nearer, and Stanley Walters took shape behind it. He was wearing a pair of pajamas with broad stripes that only enhanced his bulk. He leaned across his fence for a moment, as if to identify Nancy definitely; then he opened his gate cautiously and came across the alley.

“What are you doing out here alone, Nancy?”

“I couldn’t sleep. It’s such a lovely night, isn’t it? Ever so much cooler.”

“The weather report is for not quite so hot tomorrow.”

“I hope so. The last few days it’s been too hot even for sun bathing. Do you happen to have an extra cigaret on you, Stanley? I’m dying for one.”

“Heaven forbid! A gal as pretty as you, Nancy, ought to live forever.”

This was another of Stanley’s attempts at gallantry, like the nectar-of-the-gods-for-a-pair-of-goddesses bit, but it didn’t sound quite so silly here in the dark, so late, in a tête-à-tête. Actually it was rather touching, Nancy thought, because it was plain that poor Stanley meant every word of it. She took the cigaret he offered her and lit it from his, drawing deeply on it. The smoke in the cool starlit night was rich and satisfying, and to hell with lung cancer.

“Thanks, Stanley, you’ve saved my life.”

“I’ll come around later to claim my reward.”

“You do that,” Nancy laughed. “Couldn’t you sleep, either?”

“No. Mae went right off, though.”

“So did David. He’s sleeping like a pig.”

“Have you been out long?”

“A little while.”

“I thought I heard Larry’s car drive off a while back. Did you see him?”

“It was Larry, all right. He and Lila must have had a quarrel. He told me he was going to spend the night in his office.”

“Larry shouldn’t do that. I mean, go off and leave Lila alone like that.”

“Don’t worry about Lila, Stanley. She’s been alone at night before. So have I.”

“Larry thinks too much, is his trouble. He gets to imagining things.”

“About Lila?”

“It’s none of my business, but Lila doesn’t deserve to be treated the way Larry treats her.”

“How does he treat her, Stanley? I don’t believe I know.”

“You’ve heard the things he says to her. He just doesn’t appreciate Lila properly, is all.”

It was obvious that Stanley appreciated Lila, properly or improperly. Nancy decided that too much had been said about what probably shouldn’t have been mentioned at all. Besides, she was getting goose-pimples, strange as it seemed after such a hot day. Shivering, she took a last drag on the cigaret and dropped it over the fence. Stanley automatically crushed it under the heel of his leather slipper. Pavlov’s dog, Nancy thought.

“Well, I’d better be getting inside, Stanley. Thanks for the coffin nail.”

“Think nothing of it,” Stanley said. “Nighty-night.”

About halfway to the house Nancy looked over her shoulder to see if Stanley was going inside, too. But he was still standing where she had left him. At first she thought he was gallantly watching her to the house, but then she saw that his attention was elsewhere. His head was tilted toward something above the Connors’ backyard. Stanley was watching the lighted window of the Connors’ bedroom! The room in which Lila was alone tonight, and apparently still awake. The notion that flashed across Nancy’s mind was so fantastic that she had to laugh at it in the same instant.

Oh, no! Nancy thought. Even poor Stanley must know better than that.

She went upstairs. David was still sleeping soundly, the swine. Nancy got back into her shortie and crawled into bed beside him and lay on her back for a long time, resisting every temptation to move, or sit up and read or light a cigaret; and in an unguarded moment after this long, admirable exercise in self-discipline, she fell asleep.