Call Me a Cab

43

We were crossing the lobby after dinner, and a tall man in a light blue sports jacket and gray slacks was checking in at the desk. He turned, and Katharine gasped and said, “Oh, my God!” And I knew.

He saw us and walked in our direction, smiling. As he approached, I said quietly to Katharine, “He doesn’t look much like his picture.”

He was, in fact, more handsome than the picture, and taller than I’d supposed. He was one of those men with a calmly self-confident walk; you knew he would always be modest, and always be capable of dealing with the situation. He came up to us with a happy but slightly apologetic grin on his face, saying, “Katharine, you’re just going to have to forgive me. I decided I couldn’t wait another day to see you.” Turning to me, he extended his hand and his smile and said, “You must be Tom.”

“And you absolutely have to be Barry.”

We exchanged a brief solid handshake and he said, with some amusement, “You aren’t exactly what I expected.”

“On the other hand, you’re precisely what I expected. Katharine has spent the last five days describing your perfections.”

He studied me a few seconds, to see if I was pulling his leg, but I wasn’t; when he’d reassured himself he said, “Katharine keeps telling me how wonderful I am, too. Unfortunately, it’s mostly over the long-distance phone. By the way, you didn’t stop at the first Holiday Inn on the Nevada side.”

“The sun was still fairly high,” I explained, “and I still felt fresh, so we did some more miles. I had no idea we were meeting.”

“Neither did I.” Explaining more to Katharine than me, he said, “But after the phone call I started thinking, and I just couldn’t wait anymore. So I took a plane to Vegas, and rented a car, and drove on up. I’ve spent the last hour checking parking lots for a New York cab.”

“This isn’t fair, Barry,” Katharine said. Her voice sounded strained. “I told you I’d make my mind up by Los Angeles, and that won’t be until tomorrow.”

“I’m not here asking for answers, honey,” he told her. “I just wanted to be around you, that’s all. If you’d like to talk anything over with me, I’m here and I’m available. If not, that’s up to you, and I guarantee you right now I won’t press for an answer until we’re actually in Westwood.”

“Barry,” she said, “tell me the truth. Do you have it in the back of your mind, here we are in Nevada anyway, we could get married right now and not have to go through the whole round trip, all the way to Los Angeles and then back here and then back there again?”

“Definitely not,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I do have in mind, though. The plane I chartered this afternoon; I talked to the pilot, and he could fly us to Vegas the day after tomorrow and then fly us right back to Los Angeles again.” Grinning, he said, “You won’t mind a plane ride after you make your decision, will you?”

“I don’t want to think about the day after tomorrow,” she said. “I want to think about tomorrow and that’s all.” She was upset, but I knew she’d been going to be upset anyway, the next day; this merely moved the crisis forward twenty-four hours. On the other hand, while I understood Barry’s anxiousness, it seemed to me he’d made a mistake. If it was possible for him to drive her away, it would be by pushing too hard.

He himself sensed that, I guess; at least he downplayed the meaning of his presence here, saying, “We’ll take it one day at a time, honey, and that’s a promise. Anyway, I have to finish checking in. I’m in room two twenty-six if you feel like phoning later.” To me he gave another brief smile and nod, saying, “Nice to meet you.”

“And you.”

I watched him return to the desk, where the clerk was waiting for his signature. When I looked at Katharine, she was gazing at his back with a very tortured expression. “He won’t press,” I assured her. “He’s just over-anxious, that’s all.”

“Good night, Tom,” she said, not looking at me, but at Barry’s back. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sure,” I said, and went away. Looking back across the lobby from the doorway, I saw them both still in the same positions; but soon the clerk would release Barry and he would turn around. I went on to my room.