Call Me a Cab

17

Katharine was very annoyed. “It’s been almost half an hour.”

“Coffee,” I said, to the hovering waitress, and sat down.

Katharine gave me a critical evaluation: “You were drinking last night.”

“I think maybe the pork chops were bad.”

“They were not. I phoned your room around eleven, and you weren’t there.”

What crap was this? After Sue Ann, who had been a lot of very uncomplicated fun, who needed a harridan taking liberties she hadn’t earned? We weren’t shacked up. “Look, lady,” I said. “You hired me to drive the cab. I didn’t hire you to cure me of my vices.”

“Yes, your vices,” she said, and all at once she wasn’t really annoyed anymore. Looking at her, it seemed to me she was actually amused. Did she know I’d been with a woman last night? How do women do that sort of thing? All at once they know.

My coffee came while I was still trying to work out a response. There was none, though, so I busied myself with milk and sugar.

Katharine, in yet a different tone, said, “Have some breakfast.”

“We’re late.”

“You need the protein.” Was that another smart crack? To the waitress she said, “Bring the gentleman a number three.” Then, to me, “Orange juice or grapefruit juice.”

“Grapefruit.” I needed the shock to my system.

“And he likes his eggs over easy.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “This morning, in honor of myself, I think I better have them scrambled. Makes them easier to deal with.”

After the waitress went away, I said, “What were you phoning for, last night?”

“I wanted to know if you play chess. I have a travel set.”

“Oh. No, I don’t, not really. I fooled around with it in college, that’s all.” Then, because her earlier manner still rankled, I said, “It isn’t among my vices.”

“Now, don’t get bad-tempered,” she said. “I didn’t get mad at you when you called me look-lady.”

“Well, why should you?”

“Tom,” she said, “wait just a minute. Let’s start all over again. You’re a little hungover this morning, and I’ve been very edgy because I want to make my decision by the time we get to Kansas City, and we’re very close to having a fight.”

“I’m not starting anything,” I said, grumpily, then immediately heard my own words and regretted them. “No, forget that. You’re right, we’re both a little touchy this morning.”

“Friends?” She extended her hand across the table.

“Friends,” I agreed, and took her hand, which was smaller and more delicate than Sue Ann’s. (Flashback: Complete physical recall of Sue Ann.)

The waitress returned with my grapefruit juice, my side order of toast, and a plate containing number three: scrambled eggs and ham. I ate, more doggedly than enthusiastically, meantime thinking about one thing and another, including the idea of Katharine phoning me at eleven at night to play chess. Was that possible? Could it be I’d had my choice of two women last night? I couldn’t believe it, but I paused in my protein-harvesting to ask the question: “What made you want to play chess last night?”

An ironic smile played like heat lightning on her lips. “I’m not one of your vices either,” she said. “I was getting very nervous and depressed, that’s all, thinking about Barry and Kansas City and everything, and sometimes it helps to distract yourself with a game. That’s all there was to it, Tom.” She was looking very serious now. “I thought we understood one another, that’s why I felt I could call.”

“We do understand one another.”

“I’m not in the market for an affair,” she said. “Nor a one-night stand. Not with anybody. Don’t you think I’ve thought about it?”

“No,” I said, in some surprise.

“It’s the worst solution to my problem,” she said. “The way to deal with the question by making it obsolete.”

“I see what you mean.” And I did; she hadn’t meant she’d thought about having an affair with me, she meant she’d thought about having an affair, period. With anybody, just to cop out on the Barry decision. And she was too smart to let it happen that way.

I finished my breakfast and we separated, her to pay the bill, me to get the luggage from both rooms and stash it all in the cab. Sue Ann was gone from the room, leaving in her wake the mingled aromas of sex, cigarette smoke, and shower steam; I gave the bed a grateful smile on the way by.

The family saga that had brought us together was on the floor. I shoved it into my suitcase, got Katharine’s things from across the way — what a neat person she was — put everything in the trunk of the cab, and drove around front. When I went in to leave the keys at the desk, Katharine was just finishing, and we started out together. Katharine said, deadpan, out of the corner of her mouth, “The headwaiter wants you.”

I looked over at the restaurant entrance, and there was Sue Ann, looking demure and foxy. She gave me a grin and a tiny nod of the head and a one-finger wave from down at her side.

I must stop off here on the way back. I returned her smile, and Katharine and I went out to the cab. As I held the rear door for her, she gave me a sidelong look and said, “I’m glad I gave her a good tip.”