Chilly Scenes of Winter

TWELVE

Laura’s number is waiting for him when he gets back from lunch. He went to work over an hour early, thinking that for some reason Betty might get there early, too, and he would have Laura’s phone number sooner. Betty did not show up early, or at all. When he saw the memo (it did not have his name on it, and there was no explanation — only the number and Betty’s name) he was relieved that Betty was feeling well enough to come to work, and in a burst of sympathy before he called Laura (and to give himself a little more time to think) he walked down to the typing pool. Three women were there, but Betty was still not at her desk. He asked one of the women. She said that Betty had called in sick, but there had been a message for him. She asked the woman typing at the next desk if she hadn’t taken the message. Yes, and left it on his desk. “Thank you,” he said. He was bothering them. “Do any of you know Betty’s number?” The same woman who took the message knew Betty’s number. She opened her bottom desk drawer and took out a huge purse, a lavender purse, and found a little book inside with Betty’s number. “Thank you,” he said again, and went back to his office. He dialed Betty. There was no answer. He hung up and tried again. Still nothing. He put on the earphones and listened to a song. He went out for a drink. He came back to the desk and ran his hand over the pile of reports. It is just not the right moment to call Laura. He is worried about Betty, and he is sore from lifting cartons of books, and his lunch was horrible, and he’s sure that when she picks up the phone he will blurt that he loves her and plead with her to let him run over immediately. He has already told Sam he won’t be home for dinner. He opens a box of Steel City paper clips and examines one (“Doctor Dan wants to know who shot that paper clip. Come on … which one of you?”). How could she have moved without telling him? He picks up the phone again, then puts it down. No sense in calling and sounding annoyed. Best to treat it casually: “I hear you moved.” Shit. Why didn’t she call him; what’s that supposed to mean? He picks up one of the reports and begins making notations. He finishes the report and leans back in the chair. It is an orange chair with upholstery that looks and feels like burlap. He is reluctant to say that it is burlap, however, because he doesn’t want to think that he is sitting on burlap. That’s what they bag potatoes in. He puts his head back and stares at the sun, mid-point in the window. He is tired; last night after cleaning out Sam’s apartment he tried to sleep, but he kept thinking that the next day he’d get Laura’s number and he couldn’t sleep. Then the dog started walking around, jingling its collar. Sam finally got up to take the collar off, and the dog thought that it was a game and ducked its head (Charles eventually got up to help) and sprinted from the room. Then he was wide awake, and worrying about the way he had treated Betty and wondering if it was true that Pamela Smith left with her brother. What if some maniac had a knife on her and made her write it? He should have looked to see if there was a hidden message. How could she just leave like that? How could Laura? Why isn’t he calling?

What is your favorite meal? he asks himself.

Lasagna.

What is your favorite day?

Friday.

What is your favorite sport?

Skiing. (He chuckles.)

He begins again, trying to be honest, no tricks, just honesty. It is a game Susan taught him years ago that she said would help him fall asleep. She did not use the word “game,” but that’s what it is.

What is your favorite meal?

Lasagna, Chili.

Just one.

Lasagna.

Who is your best friend? Sam.

What is your favorite country? America.

Who was your favorite President? Kennedy.

Whom do you idolize? Nobody.

What was the best year of your life?

The year I met Laura.

What was the happiest month of your life?

Same.

Hour?

Same.

Then why aren’t you calling?

Fear.

Why are you fearful? Don’t know.

You do know.

Too many reasons to go into.

Go into one of them.

Afraid I’ll be overcome and will sound too desperate, blow the whole thing.

What if you blow the whole thing?

Don’t know.

You do know.

The end.

Sam would ask the same questions, prodding him. He would give the same answers. The game is not relaxing him at all; it’s not divorced from life, it is life. He closes his eyes and tries to count sheep. What do sheep look like? (“And now she says the picture on the piano is her husband.…”) Sheep have curly hair and little ears. In a pasture. Green grass. They bleat. He can’t see them, though.

What do you see?

A fruit stand.

That makes no sense.

I know.

What kind of fruit?

Apples, pears, bananas, peaches, grapes, and lettuce. No, not lettuce. Melon.

Do you want to eat the fruit?

No.

Want to buy it?

No.

Explain. Can’t.

Can.

Can’t.

He is feeling very uncertain. If he doesn’t call now, he will be in a worse state of mind when he does call. The phone rings. It is his boss. He has found his pen. It was on the windowsill, behind the Venetian blind. Charles tells him that it is wonderful that the pen has been found. “I’ll be having a small get-together soon, and will let you and your wife know.” His boss says that that is splendid. Why did he say that to his boss? Because he is making nervous conversation, hoping his boss does not sense that he’s goofing off. He congratulates his boss again. His voice is so insincere that it cracks. His boss chuckles. Spirits are high.

This is just not the right phone to call from. There is nothing pleasant about the phone or the surroundings. He puts on his coat and walks down the corridor to the elevator. He rides to the ground floor, walks past the blind man’s stand, out the doors. He runs across the highway to the shopping center. He goes into the Safeway and gets a brown bag and fills it with fruit He checks his wallet. Fruit could not possibly cost more than thirty-eight dollars. He throws in another pear, a bunch of grapes.

“Weigh this, please,” he says to the teen-age boy standing at the produce scales. The boy’s face falls. He spills it all out, separates the different kinds and puts them on the table the scale sits on. One falls. He picks it up, face red. He writes 89 on the bag and drops the apples in. He weighs the bunch of bananas; 72 appears under the 89. He weighs the single grapefruit. “Wait, these are ten for ninety-nine,” he says. He writes 10 on the bag. The oranges cost 49 and the single pear 16. He adds it up, circles it in red. Charles almost runs to the checkout counter, where he has a long wait. A woman in front of him, her cart full of boxes of disposable diapers, stands reading Family Circle. She has a pug nose and bangs. Her clothes are all different colors. Charles rechecks and finds that he has only thirty-five dollars. Still — the fruit costs so little. Thirty-five. He recounts and sees that he’s right. Finally he gets to the cashier. She has on a pink smock. She is pregnant. She rings up the amount on the cash register. He gives her a ten dollar bill and starts to leave without his change.

“Sir,” she calls.

He doesn’t want the change; he wants to get on with it. But wouldn’t they go after him if he ran? Sweating, he turns back. She counts it out loudly. A woman in line stares at him.

He goes back to the office and walks through the lobby. The blind man is asleep (looks it, at least) in a chair in the comer. Charles takes out one piece of fruit — the pear — and puts it on the blind man’s counter. He walks quietly away. The blind man does not move. Someone will pick up the pear on their way home and the blind man will say, “What have you got?” and they will answer, “A pear,” and the blind man will be completely mystified. He sells no fruit. He will have no idea where it came from. Charles chuckles. He goes to his office and sits in the chair. Reports. He has reports to do. The bag tips over on his desk, the bananas stick out. An apple hits the floor. He retrieves it, sits down and dials Betty’s number. No answer. But at least he knows her last name now. It is Betty Dowell. He will know what buzzer to ring.

But Laura, Laura … he really went out to find a suitable place to call Laura. He has taken care of Betty now — he will drive to her apartment after work and give her the fruit and apologize — and he should just pick up the phone and dial Laura, not make a big thing of it. He does. The phone rings exactly fifteen times.

Charles does as much work as he can between then and five-thirty, then leaves the building and goes to his car in the parking lot. He gets in and puts the key in the ignition. He leans back and closes his eyes. Laura. He sits forward and turns on the ignition. He begins to drive, through the heavy rush-hour traffic, to Betty Dowell’s apartment. It’s oldies time on the radio. “The Name Game” plays. “Laura, Laura, bo bora banana fana fo fora, fee fi mo mora, Laura,” he sings. He takes a banana out — he has a bit of trouble tearing it off the stalk with one hand — and peels it. He bites into it. He went to the store and he forgot to buy food for dinner. Damn! Why don’t housewives all go mad, go completely crazy, run naked down the streets, stampeding, screaming? How could he be right in the grocery store and forget? Wait. How could he be going to call Laura, how could he be going to go over to Laura’s and still eat at home? Oh, shit. He is terribly confused. He finishes the banana and throws the skin out the window. He double parks in front of Betty’s apartment. A driver rolls down his window and curses him. “Think you own this lane, you bastard?” A couple is walking into the apartment building. The woman holds the door open for him. Just like that! He won’t have to stand on the street shouting that he is there. He will surprise her; she will have to let him in, have to accept the fruit. Maybe he should have sent a fruit basket with a big bow. Maybe this looks tacky. But wouldn’t the other have seemed too presumptuous? Muzak plays in the elevator. A note above the controls: “I found a brown glove. Also have cat to give away. Apt. 416.” He has forgotten to look and see what floor Betty lives on. When the elevator stops at three for the couple, he pushes “lobby.” He goes out the door, holding it open with his foot, and peers at the list of tenants in the corner. Dowell, Dowell … 512. He goes back to the elevator and rides to five. He stands in front of apartment 512. He knocks. There is no noise inside. He knocks again. He reaches in his coat pocket for a pen, writes “For Betty from Charles” on the bag of fruit and leaves it leaning against her door. He goes back to the elevator and rides to the lobby, walks across the blue patterned carpet to the door, walks out the door to his car. He drives home. Everything is fine now. She will get the fruit, she will forgive him; he will call Laura, she will forgive him. But what has he done to Laura? What did he ever do that she wouldn’t call him? He has got to find out He drives faster.

Sam holds the door open for him.

“I thought you weren’t coming home.”

“I wasn’t. I couldn’t reach her. Thought I’d call from here.”

“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but I was baking a tuna casserole. You can have some.”

“Yeah? That’s good.”

“I’m the perfect little housewife.”

“You ought to go to law school.”

“We went through this before, Charles.”

“I kept after you about the dog and you got a dog.”

There is silence. The wrong example. And speak of the little devil, there he is sauntering into the kitchen, a little late to appear enthusiastic about his homecoming.

“You had a fine time making monkeys of us last night, didn’t you?” he says to the dog.

“Sorry,” Sam says.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” Sam says. He opens the oven door and looks in.

“You got a postcard from Pamela Smith. In case you were still worried that she was abducted, or whatever you were thinking. A Special Delivery. Just came this afternoon. I read it. I don’t get it.”

Sam goes into the living room, hands him the postcard. On the front is a statue of The Winged Victory. On the back is written:

L

ARICA

B

E

R

A

T

I

OF MIND AND SPIRIT

N

It is signed, “Pamela Smith.”

“Wow,” Charles says.

“What does it mean?” Sam says.

“Arica’s some sort of therapy, something like that.”

“Oh. You want to eat pretty soon?”

“Yeah. Call me.”

Charles goes into the bathroom and shaves and showers. He pinches the roll of fat around his waist So what? — Ox is repulsive. He saw a picture of Ox in a bathing suit once that made him almost physically sick. So what if he has an inch of fat? He brushes his teeth. He urinates. He used to urinate in the tub, but he didn’t want Sam doing it, and he thought that if he stopped, somehow Sam would sense that he was not to urinate in the tub. At the time, it made sense. He flushes the toilet. He examines his teeth in the mirror. They are fine teeth. He looks at his hair. He should have washed it.

“Dinner,” Sam says.

Charles goes into the bedroom and squirts on deodorant, drops the towel over the lamp. He puts on fresh underwear and goes out to the table.

“That looks very good,” he says to Sam.

“I took the bus to the store. We didn’t have shit.”

“Good idea,” Charles says. He burns his tongue. Damn! It won’t be any fun kissing her with a burned tongue. He glowers at the casserole.

After dinner he ceremoniously pulls a chair up to the phone on the kitchen wall and calls her. He has memorized the number. Or at least he thought he had until a strange woman’s voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Is Laura there?”

“Not right now.”

“Is she expected back?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure when. Who is calling?”

“Charles.”

“I’ll tell her you called.”

“Are you a friend of Laura’s?”

“I live here.”

“Oh.”

“Good-bye,” the woman says. “Good-bye,” Charles says.

He walks over to the sink, where Sam is doing the dishes. “She’s living with some woman,” he says. “Huh,” Sam says.

“I wonder what’s going on,” Charles says. “She said Laura would call back.”

Sam shrugs; Sam thinks that his affection for Laura is disproportionate.

At eleven o’clock the phone has still not rung. He calls again. The same voice answers.

“May I speak to Laura?”

“Just a minute.”

A long time passes, and then Laura says hello. Her voice is very faint. He wants to shout at her to get her mouth closer to the phone. She always does this; she’s impossible to talk to on the phone.

“Laura. What’s going on?”

“That’s a good question, isn’t it?”

She answered him! He didn’t blow it by shouting that he loved her!

“Talk to me. What’s happening?” Charles says. “Well, as you’ve somehow found out, I’ve left Jim. I’m … living here.”

“You’re living with some woman,” he prompts her.

“Yes. She’s also leaving the man she lived with. She just started graduate school.”

“What about you? What … what are you doing?”

“I was getting ready to go out for a drink with a friend.”

“But have you left him? You’ve left for good?”

“Yes. Look, this isn’t a very good time for me to talk to you. I have to think about some things. I can call you.…”

“When?” he says.

“Well, another time. When I’m feeling more like talking.”

“Who are you having the drink with? You’ll be talking then.”

She laughs. No answer.

“Laura, I couldn’t believe it when I found out you’d moved. I didn’t believe it had happened. Are you okay? Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

“Nothing very mysterious. I wish there was something I could say.…”

“Say anything!”

“How did you get this number?”

“From Betty.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“You’re okay?” she says.

“Okay? I don’t know how to feel. I’ve got to see you. You’ve got to tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“Charles, I don’t. I don’t mean to sound nasty, but I’m not in the best mood now, and I don’t feel like sorting everything out in a second just so you can know.”

“When would you … when are you going to call me?”

“Soon.”

“You mean not tomorrow?”

“A second was just a convenient way to put it. I’ll call you when I can call you.”

“Laura, shit! I’m sorry if I made you mad, but I’ve got to see you. I stayed away when you went back to him, but now I’m coming over there.”

“If you come over tonight I won’t be here,” she says.

“Then tomorrow. All right?”

“If it means that much to you.”

“It does.”

“I don’t think you’re thinking of me. I think you’re thinking about what’s best for you.”

“I love you!”

Silence.

“I know,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Where do you live?” he says.

“On Wicker Street—140 Wicker. A small building,”

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

She hangs up. What went wrong? What’s happening? Where is Wicker Street?

That night he dreams that he is launched in a spaceship to the stars. His mother is there. She is taking a bath on a star. He gets back in the rocket. Mechanical failure! That strange jingling! He sits up in bed, eyes wide open. The dog is walking again, his collar jingling. By now it is clear; the dog has insomnia.