Call Me a Cab

48

The San Bernardino Freeway, westbound. We went through Ontario, Pomona, West Covina, El Monte, Rosemead, Alhambra. Barry was right, the smog did lessen the farther west we traveled, but it never entirely disappeared. By the time we reached the city line of Los Angeles proper, it was merely a metallic glitter in the air, a sharp taste in the back of the throat, a faint burning at the corners of the eyes.

The discussion in back had worn itself down to a smooth eroded artifact, a kind of separate third presence back there, slowly fading into a ghost; to haunt them? Barry broke a long silence to call, “Tom, take the Golden State Freeway south.”

“Right.”

“But then stay to the right; you’ll be taking the Santa Monica Freeway next.”

“Okay.”

In a quieter, almost pitying voice he said, “Katharine, we’re nearly there.”

“I know.” She sounded tired, prepared to say yes just to end it; game called because of weariness. The right answer, but for the wrong reason.

There was heavy traffic now, four lanes of it in each direction. I wanted so much to keep my eyes on the mirror, but I couldn’t. My attention was divided as we negotiated the Golden State and then the Santa Monica Freeways, the cab weaving and wobbling through all those purposeful Mercedes-Benzes and Volkswagens. Santa Monica Freeway; less than fifteen miles to go.

We’d done five of them before Barry spoke again: “Katharine, we’ve talked it out. We’ve discussed it many times in the past, but this time we’ve exhausted it, haven’t we?”

“Yes.” They’d exhausted her.

“There’s nothing left to say.”

In the mirror, she silently shook her head.

“Katharine,” he said, gentle but insistent, “is there any reason why it would be wrong for you to marry me?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, but he let her go, he didn’t repeat the question, he merely waited. He would be very good for her.

“No.”

“Katharine, you know I love you.”

“Barry, I’ve never doubted that for a second.”

“Do you love me?”

“Oh, yes, Barry, that’s one of the few things I’m sure of.”

“Tom,” he called, “take the San Diego Freeway north, get off at Wilshire Boulevard.”

“Right.”

“Katharine, we’re nearly home.”

“I know.”

“Katharine. Will you marry me?”

Her face was drained. There was a mistake here somewhere! I wanted to shout something, but there weren’t any words.

“Yes,” she said.

I couldn’t help what happened to the cab, or what lanes it wandered through; all my attention was riveted to that mirror. Barry was looking thunderstruck, but delight was emerging, like the sun coming through rainclouds. Katharine was smiling at him, shaky but relieved, the strain lines already fading from her face.

“Katharine, yes? Now?”

“We’ll take that plane this afternoon.”

Honking all around me. I didn’t want to look in the mirror anymore anyway; let them embrace in private. I got the cab back on an even keel, ignored all those drivers behind glass silently shouting at me in their air-conditioned isolation, and just ahead saw the exit for Wilshire Boulevard.

Barry had come up for air: “Turn right,” he called, “and take the fourth left.”

“Right.”

There was a traffic light at the end of the exit ramp. I stopped, then made my turn and began counting blocks. At one was a red light; I stopped. My eyes were determinedly forward.

Behind me, Barry was reassuring her: “Sweetheart, you won’t be sorry. You know how much I cherish you, I’ll make everything possible for you.”

“I know you will.”

“Now that you’re going to be mine, we can—”

“Yours?”

“What?”

Katharine said, “I’m going to be yours?”

There was something new in her voice, some completely strange and different note. And now the damn light turned green. I drove forward, in city traffic, with pedestrians everywhere.

Behind me Barry, sounding bewildered but also anxious, said, “Of course you’ll be mine. You’ll be my wife.”

“You’ll own me?”

“It’s not owning,” he said. “And besides, I’ll be yours, too. If I’ll own you, then you’ll own me.”

“But I don’t want to own you. I don’t want to own anybody.”

“It’s just a phrase, Katharine. ‘Be mine.’ It means be my love.”

“Be my Valentine,” she said, in a thoughtful way. “Let me make you mine.”

“Those are just phrases.”

“No, they’re not. They say what they mean. ‘Let me make you mine.’ If we marry each other. We have proprietary rights.”

“Oh, Katharine, not all over again. Not again.”

“Thank goodness you said that. Now I finally know what was wrong.”

Was this the fourth block? How am I supposed to count to four under such conditions? Screw it; I turned left.

“Katharine, I thought we were through with all— Tom? Tom, where are we? This isn’t the right street!”

“I counted to four. I thought I counted to four.”

“Pull over, Tom,” he said, sounding harried. “Park for a while, I can’t— I’m sorry, I can’t think about directions right now.”

“Okay with me,” I said. It was fine with me. In fact, at last everything was fine with me. There was a parking space on the right, just before a restaurant called Lancaster Abbey, made up to look like a medieval stone monastery; I pulled in there, cut the engine, and settled down to pretend I wasn’t looking in the mirror.

Katharine was no longer weary; eagerly she was explaining things to Barry, who watched her as though she had suddenly without warning right in front of him turned into a frog. “What threw me off,” she was saying, “was that you were Mister Right. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe there was something the matter with you and I just wasn’t seeing it. Or I thought there was something the matter with me, but you couldn’t see it.”

“Katharine, you’re not making sense.”

Yes, she was. She said, “What was wrong all along was marriage. People have asked me to marry them before, Tom asked me about that, and— Tom?”

I looked around, an innocent bystander. “Mm?”

Barry was having a hell of a time keeping up. “Tom asked you to marry him?”

“Of course not,” she said. “He asked me if I hadn’t been proposed to before. And I was, Tom, and I told you about one of them.”

“The Tupperware boy.”

“That’s right. And he was obviously wrong, so when I said no I thought I was saying no to him.”

“Ah hah,” I said. “I see the point.”

“Well, I’ll be damned if I see the point,” Barry said. He was finally getting bugged, but was remaining a gentleman about it.

Katharine told him, “The thing I couldn’t get hold of was, the problem wasn’t in you and it wasn’t in me, it was in marriage. I don’t want to get married. It’s as simple as that.”

“You don’t want to get married.”

“But I never knew it. I always thought, well, I don’t want to marry him because he has this wrong with him, and I don’t want to marry him because he has that wrong with him, and when I met you and you didn’t have anything wrong with you I was just stymied. I couldn’t bring myself to marry you, and honest to God, Barry, I just simply didn’t know why.”

“You don’t want to get married.” He kept repeating that as though it were a simple absurdity, and if he just said it often enough Katharine would recognize it as an absurdity and they could go on to talk about something else. The wedding, for instance.

But all Katharine did was repeat it back to him: “That’s right, I don’t want to get married. But you do, Barry, and I respect that. Maybe someday I will, too, though to tell the truth I really doubt it. What we’ve had the last two years is all I have to offer.”

“The last two years have driven me crazy,” he said, very quietly.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m wrong for you.”

They were both silent a while. I blatantly remained half turned in their direction, gawping at them directly rather than through the mirror, but neither seemed aware of my presence. Katharine gazed at Barry with tenderness and concern — and relief — and Barry studied her face, his own hands and knees, the sidewalk, the passing traffic, even the notice at the back of my headrest: Ask Driver For Out Of Town Rates. And finally, head down, eyes watching his fingers tap together between his knees, he said, “I can’t do it anymore, Katharine.”

“I know you can’t.”

“It isn’t that I won’t ask you again.

It’s that I can’t ask again.”

“I know that, too. But if you did ask again, I finally know what the answer would be.”

He turned his head at that and looked at her, for a long silent time. Then he nodded slightly, saying, “Yes, I see.”

“I’m sorry I was so stupid for so long,” she said.

“No.” A kind of ironic bitterness came into his voice, and he said, “You were hard to get. Hard to catch. You weren’t easy to capture, and I was determined to make you mine. I guess I do know what you’re talking about, though I don’t agree with the conclusion. And I do love you.” He touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “Goodbye.”

“Barry.” Which was her form of goodbye.

He opened his door, then gave me a little half-amused smile. “Nice to meet you, Tom.”

“And you.”

He got out of the car and walked away, back toward Wilshire.

I looked at Katharine and she said to me, “I’m right. I’m finally right.”

“I believe you are. And what would you like to do next?”

She glanced around. “Would that restaurant have a bar, do you suppose?”

“It very well might,” I said.