Call Me a Cab

45

Katharine was alone at the table, having breakfast. Joining her, I said, “Where’s Barry?”

“Haven’t seen him. He’ll be around, no doubt.” She didn’t sound particularly pleased.

The waitress had met me with a coffeepot. She filled my cup, gave me a menu, and went away. I said, “Didn’t you talk things over with him last night?”

“No. We talked for a minute in the lobby, that’s all. Mostly about you.”

“He isn’t jealous,” I said. “He’s hipper than that.”

“No, he isn’t jealous. He doesn’t think you’re trying to take his place. He just thought he could take yours.”

“Say again?”

“He thought you should turn around this morning and head east, while I’d drive on to Los Angeles with him in his rented car.”

I hated that idea. I said, “What did you tell him?”

“That the cab was where I was doing my thinking, and that I intended to stay in the cab until Los Angeles, and then I’d come out and make my decision.”

“Good for you.”

“But he made me promise,” she said, “to talk it over with you. After all, it could save you something like eight hundred miles if you turned around now.”

The waitress had come back, pencil poised. “Katharine,” I said, “if nothing else, I’ve got to be around for the finish.”

She smiled and said, “Good.”

I told the waitress, “Number three, please, over easy. Grapefruit juice.”

Katharine said, “There’s something else, though. I was thinking about it, last night and this morning, and I should talk with Barry before I say yes or no. Before we reach Los Angeles.”

Which sounded like a reversal of what she’d just said. “So?”

“You can see it makes sense to discuss it with him, can’t you?”

“Sure. But I don’t get the point.”

“I want him to ride along in the cab.”

Immediately I said, “I can’t pick up fares outside the five boroughs.”

“Please, Tom, be serious with me.”

Did she think I wasn’t being serious? I said, “What about his rental car?”

“He can turn it in. Tom, it’s the right place for the discussion, in the back of that cab. You know it is. It’s my turf.”

“If only he’d stayed in— Where’s he live?”

“Westwood.”

“Sounds tacky.”

“It isn’t,” she said, with a little smile. “It’s Bel Air, really, but south of Sunset Boulevard. Nor far from UCLA. I redid the grounds.”

“Here he comes,” I said, looking around the waitress, who was delivering my breakfast.

“Tom, say it’s all right.”

“It’s all right,” I lied. The waitress went away, Barry arrived, I got to my feet and we shared another good handshake, a few conventional words were spoken, we all sat down, and I filled my mouth with ham and eggs while Katharine made the suggestion: “Barry, ride to Los Angeles with me.”

He was delighted, of course, but cautious, saying, “Are you sure?”

“We’ll talk. I think it’s a good idea.”

“But why make Tom drive all those extra miles, when I’ve got my own car?”

“No,” she said. “You’d be distracted by driving. And it would be your car. In the cab, we can just concentrate on the subject.”

Barry gave the waitress his order and drank some of the coffee she’d poured him. Then he said, “Katharine, I’m delighted.”

“Good,” she said. She glanced over at me and I stuffed some toast in my mouth.