Chilly Scenes of Winter

THIRTEEN

J.D. and Sam are sitting in the living room, listening to “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and drinking Bass Ale. Charles had one beer with them when he came home, but wants to be perfectly sober when he sees Laura. He slept only four or five hours the night before, thinking about her, wondering what had made her move, what had stopped her from calling, why he seemed so incapable of impressing upon her, why he had always — almost always — been incapable of impressing upon her that he loved her and had to have her, and when the dog jumped on his bed in the early morning he was actually glad to see it. By now, the dog responds to the name “Dog.” There is something wrong with his mind if he can’t think of a name for the dog. He should get referred to a psychiatrist. “I can’t name my dog, Doc.” So many situations he finds himself in remind him of the beginning of a good joke. “And the doctor said …” He should forget about a conventional shrink and let the people in Arica work on him, become a different person. Of course he won’t. It’s going to be all he can do to get up the courage to tell Laura that they must set out for Bermuda. Fly, or take a boat? Die in the air, or sink in the ocean?

J.D. says, “She must have been some chick.” Charles had just told him the outline of his relationship with Laura.

“She’s messed up,” Sam says. “I hope she doesn’t fuck you over tonight.”

“She was okay on the phone,” Charles says.

She was mad at him on the phone. He went too far. Somehow.

For a while, when things were going very well, he’d be talking to Laura and he’d forget she hadn’t been with him all his life. He’d mention kids from grade school and assume she knew them, too, talk to her about how he lied his way out of the Army and forget that he’d never before mentioned the Army to her. She never told him much about her past. Her mother died when she was in high school. He has no idea what happened to her father, whether he is dead or alive. And he can’t remember where she went to high school. In Virginia, but what part of Virginia? She worked as a waitress in high school. A man on the street in New York, where they went for their class trip, gave her his card and told her he wanted to sign her for his modeling agency. She was scared to call him, and is glad that she was. She jumped on the trampoline in high school, wanted to be an acrobat. She was a waitress. Did she ever tell him what waitressing was like, though? Or even a funny story? Doesn’t seem like it. She has a brother who runs a hunting lodge. She has not seen him for years and years. One Christmas he sent her a deer head. She wrote asking for a bearskin rug for Rebecca and got no answer. She met Ox when he was in the Marines, dated him a few times. He remembers, in fact, that they went dancing, and then she forgot about him. By chance, she saw him again a year later. He was married, then, and unhappy. He called her a year after that and said that his wife was in the bin. Then his wife got out of the bin. She lost contact with him. Then he called again, and she went to the house for dinner and never left. Rebecca loved her. That was that Then how could she mind his calling and putting her on the spot a little?

And what else, what else about Laura? That she jumped on the trampoline because somebody told her that she would drive her shinbones into her feet and she wouldn’t grow any taller. She worried that she was too tall. She took photography lessons, but was never very good at it, and there never seemed to be a convenient photo lab to develop the film, so.… And she took dancing lessons, and paid a French woman ten dollars a week to let her stand around her kitchen on the weekends and watch her cook. The French woman was always pregnant, and always out of some spice. Laura tried to have a baby and never did. No, no tests. That was that She went to college for a while. Some day she might go back, to study botany. She could model to make money, but she’d really have to go to New York to do that, and anyway — she was old now, too old to model. The French woman made things with fish heads. None of her professors tried to pick her up, none of them even knew her by name. She said once that she would like to meet Ox’s wife. They became friends. His wife married him because he was captain of the football team. He married her because she was crazy and funny. Laura went to see her, taking food and perfume. Ox drank, had another woman once — at least once — and stopped building houses, lost a lot of business, drank some more, she left. She left for a lot of reasons.

“I left New Mexico for a lot of reasons,” J.D. says. “Shit on me.”

Her hair always crackles with electricity. She puts hair spray on the brush, hoping this will cure it George Harrison is her favorite Beatle. She never had to wear braces. She likes expensive, delicately scented soaps. Her hair is long and wavy. She was so thrilled when she got her own car, even if it was an old car. She got Bs in college. The first drink she ever tasted was at eighteen, a rum collins. Now she drinks scotch. She feels sorry for giraffes. She doesn’t care what’s on her pizza, as long as it isn’t anchovies. She loves Caesar salad, however, and was surprised to find out that crushed anchovies were in it She likes Jules and Jim. She thought about being a filmmaker. She saw Otto Preminger on the street. Of course she was sure. She stirred tiny slivers of meat, almonds, and vegetables in her wok, grew violets the same colors as her round, pastel bars of soap, showered in water too hot for him. She asked, once, why May Day was celebrated. She does not remember names or dates well and is not apologetic about it She has big feet. Big, narrow feet. Butchers are kind to her, men in gas stations clean her windshield.

“What time are you going over there?” Sam asks.

“Around eight Another half hour or so.”

Actually, Laura set no time. He could go right this minute, but he doesn’t want her to think he’s too eager. He is very eager. At work, he thought about going out and buying her a diamond ring, proposing to her on the spot, pushing the ring on as he talked. He had no idea what size ring she wears. Or if she liked diamonds. Ox had given her only a silver band.

“Anybody call me?” Charles asks.

“No,” Sam says. “Unless it was when I was out.”

“How long were you out?”

“To get my check. I don’t know how long. I remember looking at my watch when I got there, and it had stopped.”

“If you want to go out tonight, I’ve got my car,” J.D. says.

“Nah,” Sam says. “I’m happy to sit here and drink.”

“I guess I didn’t tell you,” J.D. says to Charles. “I finally got tires to put on the car, had the guy come around and jack it up and put them on. The next morning when I came out of my apartment there was a kid with a crowbar, getting ready to take it to my trunk. I chased him for two blocks, then didn’t know what I’d do if I caught him. He had the crowbar.”

Charles shakes his head. “Place you live didn’t look like a very bad area.”

“There he was, just getting ready to pry it open.”

“Maybe it was a narc,” Sam says.

“My God. I never thought that. Do you really think that?”

“Got a lot of stuff around?” Sam asks. “Hey — you guys could be narcs for all I know.”

“Sure,” Sam says. He puts his empty beer bottle in line with the others.

“Clever thinking,” Charles says. “You’re under arrest.”

“I’ve got a gun! Don’t make a move!” Sam hollers.

“Okay … I was just thinking,” J.D. says.

“Get your head together, J.D.,” Sam says.

“I wasn’t thinking it seriously,” J.D. says.

“We fooled you, then,” Charles says. “Stick ’em up.”

“Forget it,” J.D. says.

“Narcs,” Sam says. “Jeez.”

“I didn’t really think that,” J.D. says.

“My long-suffering ass,” Sam says. “Narcs!”

“I wonder who becomes a narc nowadays?” Charles says.

“Abbie Hoffman,” J.D. says.

“Your mother,” Sam says to Charles.

“My mother. That would be funny. She’d find the stuff and sit there staring at it, and when they got back she’d be in the bathtub with it.”

“What’s this?” J.D. says.

“His mother is nuts,” Sam says.

“Oh,” J.D. says. “My aunt was.” He opens another beer. “She was a waitress, and she went out into the kitchen and cooked up a whole box of eggs and went out and dumped them on a customer who reminded her of her first husband.”

“How many husbands did she have?” Charles asks.

“Two. The second one was a cop. He’d practice his fast draw on her. She’d be walking through the house, and the gun would be pointing at her.”

“Need we ask what happened to her?” Sam asks.

“She’s milking cows in Vermont.” J.D. takes a long swig of beer. “At Christmas she sent me a picture of her milking a cow, and two dollars. Jesus.”

“Well, we’ve got enough information to run him in,” Charles says.

“Cut it out,” J.D. says. “I never really thought that.”

Charles goes into the bathroom. The toothbrush. He keeps meaning to get Sam a new toothbrush. He takes his own toothbrush down and brushes his teeth. He wants to take the toothbrush with him, to take his toothbrush to Laura’s and put it next to hers and never leave. The other woman’s toothbrush is next to here. Who is she? He combs his hair. It is quite a bit longer now. He can’t tell if it looks good or not. Why is he standing around the bathroom? Why isn’t he at Laura’s? He leaves the bathroom and asks Sam and J.D. if either of them knows where Wicker Street is. J.D. thinks he does and gives directions. Charles has trouble concentrating. There is a ringing in his head. He feels like he might black out. He sits on the floor, hearing J.D.’s voice faintly in the background.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sam says.

“Nothing,” Charles says.

“You look awful. She’s getting to you already, and you haven’t even seen her.”

“I’m okay,” Charles says. He wishes he were okay.

“Got it?” J.D. says.

“No. You’d better write it down.”

Sam goes out to the kitchen to get paper for J.D.

“Drink a beer before you go. You don’t want to be too sober,” Sam says.

“Why do you say that?”

“How much has sobriety ever helped you?”

Charles shrugs, accepts the beer. J.D. mumbles street names as he writes.

“Thanks,” Charles says, taking the piece of paper from him. “You two going to be here?”

“Yeah,” Sam says.

“If Betty calls, don’t tell her where I am. Say that I’ll call back.”

“She’d never call you after what you did.”

“Yes she will. Just say I’ll return the call.”

“I’d be plenty surprised,” Sam says.

Charles leaves most of the beer in the bottle, puts it on the hearth. “See you,” he says.

“Yeah,” J.D. says.

Sam says nothing. He shakes his head.

It is very cold outside. The bushes bordering the driveway look very stark; black twigs shoot in all directions. They are almond bushes. His grandmother made a list of all the bushes and trees and flowers in the yard that he discovered in a drawer when he moved in. There were instructions on how to prune them, feed, and propagate each. He has never done anything for the bushes, and they are all doing fine, but he still feels guilty when he thinks about that piece of paper. He never takes up the tulip bulbs, and every year they bloom. The lilies of the valley have crept out into the sunshine, and they, too, multiply.

He would like to marry Laura and move to another house, a big house in the country with no other houses around, and gardens that Laura would dig and plant in. Does she have any interest in gardening? Of course she must, if she once considered majoring in botany. That will be something he can tell her tonight — that they can sell his house and move to a big house in the country. What will happen to Sam? Sam can come, too. He can stay with them. They will get Rebecca, too, somehow, to make Laura happy. And then they should probably get a dog. It sounds too Norman Rockwellish to be true. Who would somebody assume Sam was, if they saw him seated at a table with a happy family in a Norman Rockwell picture? They might think he was an uncle. They would never think he was there because he was unemployed and didn’t have enough money to live. He imagines a conversation between a mother and her child:

MOTHER: Who’s this?

CHILD: The daddy.

MOTHER: That’s right And is this the mommy?

CHILD: Yes. And that’s the doggie.

MOTHER: And who’s this?

CHILD: I don’t know.

MOTHER: An unemployed jacket salesman.

Charles laughs. But not for long, because he has made the wrong turn. He puts the light on and looks again at J.D.’s directions. He should have turned right back there. He makes a U-turn and takes the correct turn, and then he’s on the road that will lead him to Wicker Street. He hopes that she will be glad to see him, that she’s not acting funny the way she was on the phone. Even if she does act funny, he can talk her out of it. Remember the mobile I bought you, Laura? The night I rocked you? Remember that dessert you used to make — the one with oranges? He wants to rush in, hand her a diamond ring, sit down in a chair in the kitchen and watch her make that dessert. He wants to eat the dessert, then jump into bed with her. What should he really do? What should he say when she opens the door? Wicker Streets cuts across the road to the left and the right. He turns right and sees the numbers going down. Naturally, he made the wrong decision. He turns around and goes the other way on Wicker Street. He should have brought something. The ingredients for that dessert … no, he should have brought flowers. But that would be corny. He’ll just park the car and casually go into the building and … and … what should he say? There are no parking places. He has to park the next street over and walk through the cold to her apartment. His nose will run. He reaches up, to check. That would be awful. The building is drab and brown, no locked doors, no list of tenants under glass. There is a brown bag crumpled on one of the chairs in the lobby. He goes up the four steps, past the mailboxes to the elevator. There is no Muzak in the elevator. He gets off at her floor. Incredible. He can’t believe this is happening. She has left Ox, she is living here, he is going to knock on her door, and she is going to open it. He stands in front of the door. Music is playing inside. He knocks and Laura opens the door. Incredible! There is Laura, in a pair of jeans and a wraparound sweater. She gives him a half-smile. “Hi.”

“Hi. How are you?”

“Fine. Come in.”

There is a bowl of crocuses blooming on the little table next to the closet she hangs his coat in.

“The last time I saw you you were sick,” he says.

She gives the half-smile again. “Yeah. And I thought I felt bad that day.”

“What’s the matter … now?”

“Come in,” she says. They walk down the short hallway to the living room. There is a mattress on the floor, covered with a yellow Indian bedspread. There are no curtains. There is a sofa, and a small rug in front of it. There are plants in the windows. There is a stereo playing.

“I’m sorry not to act nicer,” she says. “I’m glad to see you.”

He doesn’t know what to say. He stares. She looks the same, but she’s plucked her eyebrows. They’re thin arches now. Her eyes look much larger. He stares into them.

“I don’t know where to begin,” he says.

She smiles.

“Coming in, I started remembering that dessert you used to make with the chocolate and the oranges, and I thought about begging you to make it immediately.”

“Oh. I know the one you mean. You can come over sometime and I’ll make it for you.”

Sometime? What is she talking about?

“Tomorrow?” he says.

“Tomorrow? I guess so. If you want to,” she says.

The conversation has started all wrong. She is sitting on the mattress, her back against the wall. He sits down at the end of the mattress, looking up at her.

“You’ve got a roommate?” he says.

“Yes. She’s at the library. She’s in graduate school.”

“Oh. Well, what are … what are you doing?”

“Looking frantically for work.”

“Why don’t you come back to the library?”

“I don’t want to,” she says.

“Are you looking for another job like that?”

“I wouldn’t care. I’ve just got to get a job.”

“Sam’s out of work. You remember Sam?”

“Of course I do.”

Of course she would.

“That’s too bad,” she says. “Does he get unemployment, or.…”

“Yeah. He gets that. He’s over at my place now.”

“That’s nice,” she says.

“Are you okay?” he says.

She can’t be. The half-smile has become frozen on her face now.

“No, I’m not very happy, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t want to leave Rebecca.”

“Why did you?” he says.

“I didn’t, really. Jim told me, well, I don’t remember the exact way he told me, but he wanted to live alone. I thought it would be better for me to go than to have Rebecca living in a new place, maybe having to leave her school,”

“Why did he want to live alone?”

“How should I know? We didn’t talk.”

“You didn’t?”

“You’re so curious,” she says. She gives him a half-smile.

“I love you. I want to know what’s going on.”

“I can’t tell you. I don’t know myself. He told me that one night, and the next morning I explained as best I could to Rebecca, and I left. Frances let me stay with her, until I can find work.”

“You can stay with me.”

“No. I just want to think things out for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“That I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know if I’ll stay around here. I only would for Rebecca, but now I hear that he’s going to move.”

“Couldn’t you stay with me until you found out?”

“No,” she says.

“Why not?”

“Because I want to be by myself.”

“Frances lives here, though.”

“That’s the same as being by myself. She doesn’t make any demands on me.”

“I never made demands on you, did I?”

“People always make demands on other people.”

“What did I do wrong?”

“I wasn’t saying you did anything wrong. You were very nice to me. I didn’t start this conversation.”

“Laura, you’re talking funny. I can’t understand you.”

“You don’t want to understand me.”

“I don’t want to, but I think I do. You’re saying that you don’t intend to come back to me.”

“Not right now, no.”

The dizzy feeling comes back. He is very glad that he didn’t finish the second beer.

“But you will come back? You just want time to think? Time to think about what?”

“Charles, what are you talking about? I just said that I had to have time to think about where I would work and live.”

“With me.”

“I don’t want to live with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to be on my own. I don’t want anyone dependent upon me, and I don’t want to have to depend on anybody else. I just want to …”

“Laura, you’ve got to come back. We don’t have to live in my house. I was going to tell you we’d sell it and that you can pick out some place you’d like to live.”

“You really are crazy about me, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am.”

“That makes me feel awful. It’s not that I don’t like you …”

Like!

“But I don’t want to get into anything like that right now.”

“Laura, you love me! If you hadn’t loved me, you wouldn’t have gotten out of bed when you had the flu to tell me you couldn’t meet me. Don’t you even know that you love me? Remember the mobile I gave you?”

“The mobile?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Yes. I remember it. But I don’t know why you brought it up.”

“I don’t either. I was just thinking about the other apartment”

“Would you like some tea or coffee? Or scotch?”

“No! I want you! I want you to be sensible. I love you.”

“I know that There’s nothing I can do about it. I didn’t call you, you got my number and called me.”

“You mean you never would have called?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think?”

“I just don’t know. I do think about you.” Think about!

“You love me! This is the craziest thing imaginable. You love me and don’t even know it. Don’t you remember in the other apartment, how we ate dinner together and went to the movies and …”

“I remember it perfectly. It was very nice. It was peaceful.”

“Then move in with me. Or we’ll both find some place to move into. What’s happened between then and now?

Laura shrugs.

“Somebody else?”

“Nobody I’m serious about.”

“Who, Laura?”

“I went out with somebody a couple of times. I don’t even know why I mentioned it, since it’s not what happened between then and now.”

“Who?”

“A taxi driver,” she says. “I went out with him for a couple of drinks.”

“Two times?”

“Yes. Two.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes. That’s all.”

“Where did you meet a taxi driver, Laura?”

“In his taxi.”

“You’re kidding! He picked you up?”

“I don’t want to get into an argument. I’m feeling very low. I did not call you because I knew I could not cope with you. I am very fond of you. I remember the mobile, and I will cook you that soufflé tomorrow night. I want you to go home.”

“No! I can’t leave you like that. Shit, Laura. I never bothered you when you went back. I called once. I didn’t even call again after you said you’d call and you didn’t. I just drove around your goddamn house at night, looking at the lights. I can’t concentrate at work. I can’t stand the thought of dating other women. I hate other women. The only woman I can even stand the sight of is my sister. Cut this out! Come back with me. What is there for you here?”

“Peace. Look at the way you’re acting.”

“You mean if I’d been calm and subtle you would have come?”

“No.”

“Then I’m going to act this way. I’m going to talk truthfully.”

“Stop thinking about yourself and think about me. I need peace. I don’t need to be told what to do. I’ve lost Rebecca and my marriage has fallen apart and I can’t find a job, and you’re telling me it can be like it was before.”

“It can!”

“It can’t. I’m miserable. Before I was just unhappy.”

“A taxi driver! How the hell am I supposed to feel about that? You got in a goddamn taxi, and you let the driver pick you up.”

“So what?”

“That’s awful. It’s incredible. Taxi drivers don’t just pick up great women like you. Look at yourself. God, Laura.”

“I never saw as much as you did,” she says.

He gets up, legs shaky, and walks to the sofa. She is so unreasonable. He looks up at the picture on the wall: two parallel black lines are pushing a rainbow off the canvas. He looks at the rug: a circle of brown inside an oval of green, bordered with black. He wants to see something familiar — something from the old apartment.

“Isn’t there anything of yours here?” he says.

“It’s all back at the house,” she says. “I thought about going back to get some things, but I can’t face Rebecca.”

“She knows it’s not your fault, doesn’t she?”

“I don’t think seven-year-olds make intellectual distinctions.”

“Is there any chance of getting her?”

“Seemingly not. I’ve spoken to a lawyer. She is his daughter.”

“Maybe he’d let you take care of her because it would be better for her.”

“I don’t even know that it would. He’s nice to her. He’s her father.”

“But did you ask?”

“Yes.”

“He said no?”

She doesn’t answer. He stares at the little rainbow, at his feet on the rug. There is a magazine on the floor and a small minor. There are old wood floorboards, wide boards that have been painted brown. One of the panes in the window is cracked. The paint on the ceiling is chipped. The ceiling is painted light gray; it is white where the paint has peeled away. There are silver radiators. It could be a nice apartment, but it would need work. Strip the floors, paint the ceiling … he is already trying to imagine the place theirs, even though he has to leave it, even though she will probably leave it, too. She’d better leave it.

“If I come back tomorrow you might not be here.”

“I’ll be here after six. I have to go out looking for a job. And I’d better go to the store. After seven would be better.”

“You say that, but I might show up and you might be gone.”

“You mean deliberately? No, Charles.”

“Some goddamn taxi driver might pick you up.”

“I do not get picked up by just any taxi driver. Anyway, I don’t have the money for taxis.”

“So he was special to you. That’s what you’re saying?”

“I’m losing patience. I’ve been as nice to you as I can. Tomorrow I’ll even try to be in a better mood to put up with your telling me what to do with my life. Please go home and come back tomorrow.”

He simply cannot do it (“Closer, closer …”) He looks at his feet. They won’t move. He’s sure of it. He smiles at Laura. Isn’t she going to cut this out? Isn’t she going to come over and sit beside him? She stretches out on the mattress.

“I’m tired,” she says. “I was out all day.”

“Did you eat? I could take you out to eat.”

“No thanks. I think I’ll just get ready to go to bed.”

“But you do like me?” he says.

“Yes,” she says.

“And you’ll be here for sure.”

“Yes.”

He looks at the broken windowpane. He should offer to fix it. He doesn’t know how to glaze windows. He should find out and fix it tomorrow night He should demonstrate to Laura that he is very useful; there’s something to what she says — that he makes demands on her. He will make no demands at all, and will fix the window and offer to strip the floors. If he were only bigger, he could volunteer to go to her house with her and carry out furniture and paintings, but of course Ox would kill him or, even more degrading, just pick him up by the back of the neck like some trespassing cat, and drop him in the yard.

“Remember taking me to the zoo, and how upset I got when I asked what giraffes did for fun and you said, ‘How could they do anything?’ ”

“I should have thought of a nicer answer,” he says. “Like the cab driver Holden Caulfield asks about the ducks in winter.”

“That’s an awful scene,” she says.

He gave her Catcher in the Rye, and when she liked that he gave her Nine Stories, but after she read “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” she couldn’t read any more. She even made him take the book back, and she knew that he already had a copy. She just wanted it out of her sight.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he says.

He has to go. He shouldn’t press his luck. He rubs his shoes back and forth on the rug. He looks at the broken windowpane.

“Where’s the bathroom?” he says.

She points. He gets up, legs still shaky as hell, and walks around the corner to the bathroom. It is painted an awful shade of blue. There is a white shower curtain patterned with whiter flowers. Breck shampoo (not Laura’s — unless she’s changed) on the back of the toilet. He closes the door. He sits on the side of the bathtub, the curtain wadded beneath him. He just can’t go. If he stays in here for hours she might come to the door and ask if he is all right. He wants her to show concern. He wants her to act interested in him. When he was a kid, his mother used to ask if he was all right when he stayed in the bathroom too long. That annoyed the hell out of him. Mary Tyler Moore’s water-spattered face smiles up from the cover of People magazine, at his feet. Her roommate is messy. He looks behind him to see if Laura’s shampoo is in the tub. No. Where is Laura’s shampoo? He wants to smell it. He gets up and runs the cold water, puts his hand under it and raises the wet hand to his eyes. His eyes burn when he holds his hand against them. He sits on the small stool against the wall, looking at the toilet and sink. The music goes off in the living room. He hears Laura walk across the floor — the floor creaks — and then the music begins again. It is classical music, but he doesn’t know who. Mournful music. Albinoni, perhaps. It would be nice to bring her some records. She wouldn’t like flowers (he tried that in the past, and it turned out that she felt sorry for them because they had been cut off the plant and would soon die. She has a way of feeling sorry for things, even inanimate things), but she would probably like some records. He could bring wine and records. He could bring a diamond ring if he had the nerve. He could leave the bathroom if he had the nerve, if he could go out there and say good-bye. He cannot. He gets up and stands at the sink, running the cold water again. He holds his hand under it, turns the water off and rubs his hand down his face. After all this time he is seeing Laura again, and he is locked in her bathroom. He shakes his head — not to deny it, but because it’s so ridiculous. As ridiculous as driving to her house and looking at the lights, imagining what room she might be in when she’d already moved. Ox is in the house now, and his daughter, Rebecca. He still has Rebecca’s bird in his glove compartment. He would give it to Laura, but it might make her sad. She’d feel sorry for the bird. To say nothing of the fact that it would remind her of Rebecca. Laura buys plants that are dying in supermarkets — ones that have four or five leaves, marked down to nineteen cents, because she feels sorry for them. Couldn’t she feel sorry for him? Sorry enough to go back to his house tonight? He will never find out standing in the bathroom. But it smells good in the bathroom, and as long as he’s in the bathroom he doesn’t have to leave. He will never tell Sam about this. He probably will tell Sam, hoping for sympathy, since Laura probably isn’t going to give any. The metal fixtures are very bright, the floor is dirty. There is a small red rug, with hairs all over it. He opens the door, goes back and turns off the light, and walks slowly to the living room.

Laura is lying on the mattress. She sits up when he comes back.

“I thought you might be sick,” she says. “Why did you think that?”

“Were you? You look pale.”

“No,” he says.

“That’s what I thought. Rebecca was sick so much that the slightest thing makes me think somebody’s sick.”

“I was just standing around in there.”

“What?”

“I mean, I was washing my face.”

She frowns. “But you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

She turns on her side, propped on one elbow. Why did she pluck her eyebrows? She looks constantly quizzical. “What record is that?” he says.

“I don’t know. One that Frances had on. You can look, if you want.”

“No,” he says. He sits on the side of the mattress.

“Would he let you take your things?” Charles says.

“Jim, you mean?” He nods.

“I guess so. I don’t think there are bad feelings.” She sighs. “But I don’t really have anything. The furniture isn’t nice. He bought it.”

“It’s half yours.”

“I can’t haul it around like a pack rat,” she says. “Might as well leave it. I’m not attached to furniture, anyway. Sometime I’ll get around to going back for my clothes.”

“You could store anything you wanted at my house.”

“That’s nice of you. I might.”

He thinks about having boxes of her clothes near him. He could raise the lid and — better than a genie — Laura’s clothes. They would all smell like Vol de Nuit.

“Cookbooks,” she says. “I guess I should get them. Most of them are out of print. And the ones the French woman gave me.”

“It must be strange to walk out and leave all that stuff. It’s sort of the reverse of me walking into my grandmother’s house and being faced with all of it.”

The half-smile.

“Can I go to the store for you tomorrow?”

“I’ll have time,” she says. “And at the moment I can’t think of the ingredients. It’ll come to me in the store.”

“Would you like me to take you out to dinner first?”

“Let’s just eat here. I don’t feel like going out right now.”

“Whatever you want,” he says.

“I’m going to go to sleep. Come back tomorrow at seven,” she says.

“Okay,” he says. He does not move. He wants to say: Could I watch you sleep, Laura? He would just sit there and not make a sound all night. He has better sense than to ask — but not enough to leave.

“Don’t worry about the cab driver,” she says. “I wasn’t interested.”

“Good,” he says.

He gets up and looks at the record. It is Albinoni. The crack in the windowpane. At least the apartment is well heated. He remarks on this.

“You’re as trying as Rebecca. Good night,” she says.

“Good night,” he says. He even walks to the closet and gets his coat out. She gets up, then, and stands by the door. Without high heels on, she is shorter than he is. He puts his hands on her shoulders. She puts her arms out. He hugs her. He will never be able to let go. But what to do. It’s a gamble, but it’s all or nothing. He picks her up a few inches off the floor (she giggles) and waltzes her into the living room, spinning and dipping, dancing fast around the floor, the old boards creaking like mad. He hums to the music. He has Laura, and they are dancing a beautiful waltz, completely out of time with Albinoni. She is telling him to stop, and he is swirling, remembering, suddenly, Pete asking him what dances he knows. Pete, in the elevator: “Young people dance nowadays, don’t they?”

“La, la,” Charles sings, and with a final dip deposits her on the floor. He stands back and looks at her, but he doesn’t see her clearly. He had his eyes squeezed shut for the dip, and the light is blinding. Is she happy or angry? She smiles the half-smile.

“Go,” she says.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, and goes to the door. He listens. No floorboards move behind him. If he turns and looks at her, he will never go. She says she wants him to go. He opens the door and walks out into the hallway. He leaves the door open behind him, but he walks all the way to the elevator without hearing it close. It is too silent in the elevator. He worries that it will crash. And where did he park, exactly? The cold air outside makes his face burn and he runs for the car, hoping that the tires aren’t slit. They are not. Neither has he forgotten the key. He gets in the car and starts it, his hand shaking. Someone on the radio is droning the news. He listens and gets more and more depressed until he realizes that he can turn it off. He does not have to hear Henry Kissinger’s well-modulated voice, speaking the words Henry Kissinger always speaks. With the radio off, he feels a little better, but it’s still too silent. Few cars are out this late, and the lights are flashing yellow. That means it’s after midnight. How did that much time go by? He says Laura’s name out loud a few times, to interrupt the silence. He puts on the heater, and by the time he is halfway home his legs have stopped jerking. He watches the speedometer and the rearview mirror; this is the time of night cops like best, watching for drunks speeding home. He would not want to be given a sobriety test. He knows he could not walk a straight line. He would lurch and weave and stand shaking in front of the policeman. He drives five miles below the speed limit, and has to stop at every light that isn’t just flashing. Well, it wasn’t a bad visit. He can’t tell if anything he did was very right or very wrong. He stayed too long. She kept telling him that. But other than that, he didn’t do too badly. Tomorrow he will do better. And she said the taxi driver didn’t mean anything to her. A taxi driver. Jesus.

J.D.’s car is still at his house, parked on the street. Charles pulls into the driveway — it seems steeper than usual, or perhaps he’s just a little sick to his stomach — and turns the ignition off and gets out. He walks to the front door and opens it. J.D. is passed out on the sofa, a blanket over him. The dog barks a greeting, and J.D. groans and rolls over to face the back of the sofa, the blanket falling on the rug. Charles picks up the dog, strokes it, and walks through the living room to his bedroom. The light is on in Sam’s room, and Sam gestures for him to come in.

“What did she do to you?” Sam says.

“Nothing. It went fine.”

“I’m surprised. But that’s good.”

“You look like you don’t believe me.”

“You look half dead. You don’t look good.”

Charles shrugs. “Neither does J.D.”

“J.D. got good and drunk. We walked the dog for a mile, and he still didn’t sober up, so there he lies.”

“Does he have to go to work or anything?”

“He’s just working part-time now.”

“Oh. Well, see you in the morning. You want the dog?”

Charles puts the dog on the bed. The dog walks up to the other pillow and curls up.

“Get me up when you get up,” Sam says. “You can drop the dog and me at the animal hospital in the morning. It’s got worms.”

Charles makes a face. “Worms?”

“Yeah. All dogs get worms. Drop me at the animal hospital and I’ll only have to pay for a bus home.”

“Okay. See you.”

“Hey, Charles?”

“Yeah?”

“Those worms don’t crawl out or anything, do they?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.” Sam says. “You should have seen the things.”

That night, as usual, the dog paces (Sam removes the collar at night, but you can hear the dog’s toenails on the floor if you listen carefully) and J.D. groans and goes to the bathroom many times. Charles is glad he isn’t either of them. He is glad to be himself, now that he’s going to get Laura. And he is. He reassures himself of this, and eventually falls asleep. He awakens several times, though (flushing toilet, the dog pacing), from nightmares that he is losing her. In one nightmare he meets Frances, and instead of being a woman, Frances is a tall, handsome man, and Laura is obviously in love with him. They tell him to go away, and he jumps out the window (these nightmares are faithful, down to the last detail: he sees the shattered pane of glass as he crashes through the window), and he awakes spread-eagled on the bed, his face in the pillow. J.D. flushes the toilet. He is now only half glad he’s not J.D. J.D. will vomit a few more times, and eventually it will be over with.

He calls Laura when he gets to work. If she hasn’t left the apartment, he can at least tell her that he loves her and to have a good day. The phone rings and rings.

His boss asks him if he will have lunch with him. Charles is sure he is going to be fired. He works diligently until noon, when Bill said he would come for him. Bill does not appear until twelve-fifteen.

“Kid was on the phone. Sorry to be late.”

Bill is losing his hair. He is wearing a blue blazer and navy blue shoes — that’s something Charles has never seen before — and he has new glasses.

“Kid’s going nuts in the cold, wants an electric blanket. Jesus. My kid doesn’t even try to be self-sufficient. I said, ‘I sent you money galore. Can’t you go out and buy a blanket?’ and he says, ‘Do you want me to get into Harvard or not? Getting into Harvard requires that I do a lot of studying.’ So I said — I’ve always wanted to say this — I said, ‘I think you place too much importance on getting into Harvard. I don’t care if you get into Harvard or not, personally!’ That shook him up.”

“I’d be afraid to sleep under an electric blanket,” Charles says. He thinks of his mother: God — what if that occurs to her? What if she plugs herself in and roasts?

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Bill says. “I’ve been sleeping under number three for years. My wife’s nuts for the thing. She wants to be under number four. As I’m dropping off I hear her click it up a number.”

Charles smiles, waiting to be fired. The elevator doors open and they walk out of the building.

“That blind man gives me the creeps,” Bill says, when they are outside the building. “I’m all for hiring the handicapped, but that blind man’s something else.”

“What is it about him?” Charles says.

“I don’t know. I just can’t account for it.”

“Maybe he’s the devil,” Bill says. “Other morning I came in and bought a paper from him and he said, ‘Up late last night, huh?’ As it happens, I was out damned late. Playing cards. You don’t play cards, do you?”

“No,” Charles says.

“That’s too bad. I mean — it can be overdone. But an occasional game of cards.” Bill slaps Charles on the back. “That’s what I tell my wife. She doesn’t like me out playing cards. What the hell. An occasional game of cards. Not that it’s always cards exactly.”

Bill’s face lights up, and what started as a conspiratorial smile ends up a sneer.

“You play those cards, don’t you, Charlie?” Bill says. “Ha!” Bill says.

They are crossing the highway. That means either the drugstore or the delicatessen. “How about some hot pastrami?” Bill says. “Fine,” Charles says.

“You’re a very quiet guy,” Bill says. “Notice that?”

“I guess so,” Charles says.

“So’s my kid. And then I get a phone call about an electric blanket. I worry that he’s not getting any action up there at Dartmouth. I was going to say something about that to him, but he’s a great one for confiding in his mother. If he wants an electric blanket, though, that means there’s nothing else to keep him warm, huh?”

“I guess,” Charles says.

“That’s a shame,” Bill says. “Nice-looking kid like that. Always work work work.”

“Yeah. He’s a nice kid,” Charles says.

“He works so hard he doesn’t remember his mother or his father’s birthday. Top that. You don’t have kids, but when you do you’ll see that things like that matter. I still go out and get his mother a gift and sign his name, and she does the same thing. Sometimes I feel like shoving that pen up his ass.”

Bill holds open the door. The delicatessen is mobbed. Bill stands in the longest line, the one for “twos.”

“Reason I asked you to have lunch with me, I thought that you were closer to my son’s age than I am … I’ve got a few years on you, huh? And maybe you’d have some idea what I might say to him to slow him down.”

“I don’t think there’s anything you can say if he doesn’t intend to slow down.”

“Aw, Charlie, there’s got to be some way to tell him to limber up. Are there any poets or singers or people like that I could introduce him to who would, you know, urge him to limber up?”

“I don’t know. I’m not as up on things as you probably think. Uh — you could get him a Janis Joplin record, one she sings ‘Get It While You Can’ on.”

“Tell me more.”

“Janis Joplin? You never heard of her?”

“I think I’ve heard of her.”

“She killed herself. She was a singer, at Woodstock? She was very free, you know, hippies identified with her. That one song …”

“Isn’t my kid going to know she killed herself? Won’t that make him think she’s nobody to listen to?”

“I don’t know. If he thinks that way.”

“I don’t know what he thinks, Charlie.”

“Well, try that one. Get him Pearl.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The name of the record.”

“I knew you’d come up with something,” Bill says, slapping his back and moving him up in line.

In a few minutes the hostess seats them. She brings menus and a bowl of bright green pickles. Bill’s hand shoots into the bowl.

“That record’s going to surprise him,” Bill says. “I’m not going to send it with a note or anything. I’m just going to let him figure the thing out. That song’s plain enough that he’d figure it out?”

“Couldn’t miss it,” Charles says.

They eat their sandwiches in silence. Bill looks very pleased with himself. Charles is let down; he expected to be fired. All that adrenalin surging around for nothing. For that asshole kid. He would like to break the record over the kid’s head. Harvard. Just as bad, Dartmouth.

“Would you send an electric blanket to your kid?” Bill asks.

“No.”

“Why not?” Bill says.

“That’s just a lot of crap. Anybody can pile some stuff on and keep warm in bed.”

“They’re good things,” his boss says.

Oh yeah. His boss has one.

“Maybe you ought to send it, then,” he says.

“I never know when I’m talking to you exactly what you’re thinking. Tell me honestly, now: should I send an electric blanket?”

“No. They’re useless crap manufactured to make money.” Bill nods.

“But that record will go over okay?” he says.

“I imagine,” Charles says.

“No poets that you can think of, though?”

“I don’t know any poets who deal specifically with the problem of not agonizing if you don’t get into Harvard.”

“Yeah,” Bill says. “My impression is that they never speak specifically to any point. You ever sense that?”

“Yeah,” Charles says. It is the easiest thing to say. Bill insists on paying for lunch. “Not only will I pay, but I’ll teach you poker if you want to learn.”

“Thanks. Sometime I might.”

“Tell me the truth, Charlie. Forget that I’m your boss. You were very honest about the electric blanket. Would you ever take me up on my offer to teach you poker?”

“No,” Charles says. “Cards bore me.”

“Ha!” his boss says, and slaps him on the back, pushing him against the door to the outside.

They walk down the arcade, to the record shop. Charles finds Pearl and hands it to Bill.

“Look at that,” Bill says. “That looks like an old lady.”

“She’s only around twenty-five,” Charles says.

“I thought you said she was dead.”

“I mean in that picture.”

“That looks like my mother. Except for the way she’s dressed.”

“Yeah. She burned herself out good,” Charles says.

Bill takes the record to the cashier. It is put in a bright orange bag for him. He swings it back and forth as they walk back to work.

“What do you think of these fancy shoes?” Bill asks.

“I was noticing them.”

“Yeah? My wife put me up to getting them. She said she’d seen enough of black and brown. I don’t know. Everybody looks like a clown nowadays.”

Back in their office building, Bill turns left and Charles turns right.

“Thanks for the advice,” Bill says. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“Sure,” Charles says.

Charles stops at the typing pool on the way to his office. Betty is still not there. Back in his office he tries to reach Betty, but there’s no answer. He tries Laura again; nothing there. He reaches in his coat pocket for the piece of paper he discovered early in the morning, when he was rummaging to see if he had his house key. He unfolds the piece of paper and stares at Sandra’s number. He dials that. A woman’s voice says, “Hello?” He has no way of knowing whether it is Sandra or not, because he doesn’t speak, and he can’t remember what her voice sounded like that day in the park. Why has he even dialed her number? He hangs up and throws the piece of paper away. He begins work on a report, then reaches in the waste paper basket and retrieves the number, smooths it out and puts it in his top drawer. Sandra somebody-or-other. It seems like months and months ago that he ran through the park. Why wasn’t he at work that day? Sore throat. But why …? Can’t remember.

He stops at a florist on the way home and buys yellow tulips for Laura. They are in a pot, so they won’t make her sad. It is a silly blue pot, with a ceramic windmill at one end. At least the tulips are pretty. Coming out of the florist’s he sees a hardware store across the street. What the hell. He puts the tulips carefully on the seat and locks the car. He runs through the heavy traffic to the hardware store and asks where they keep the car wax. A salesman points him to the back of the store. “Aisle two,” he says.

Charles picks up three containers of Turtle Wax and checks out. He runs back to the car. A day of good deeds: advice to his boss, a present for Laura, and Turtle Wax for Pete. He drives to his mother’s house. The Honda Civic is parked outside. He will lie to Pete and say that he didn’t notice it, swear that he didn’t notice it. It is so silly-looking — a toy.

Pete’s face is white when he answers the door.

“Charles! How’s my boy?”

“Fine, Pete. I stopped by with something for you.”

“Is that so? Well, I’m mighty glad to see you. What a surprise.”

“How’s everything?” Charles says. He never comes here uninvited.

“Today things couldn’t be better. Come upstairs and see.”

“She’s in bed?” Charles whispers.

“Mommy had, Clara had a bit of a setback, but she’s as bright as a firecracker now. Come on up.” Pete gestures nervously from the steps.

“Honey,” Pete calls, “you’ve got a visitor.”

“No!” she shrieks.

“What’s the matter with her?” Charles says.

“It’s just Charles,” Pete calls.

They reach the top. Charles whispers to Pete: “What is it?” Pete shakes his head, keeps walking.

“What a nice surprise, isn’t it?” Pete says loudly. They stand in front of his mother’s door.

“My firstborn,” she says.

“Isn’t this some surprise, Mommy?” Pete says.

“How are you doing?” Charles says. The room smells very perfumy.

“She’s as fresh as a daisy in the field today, aren’t you, honey?” Pete says.

Clara stares at them.

“Were you … sick?” Charles asks.

“I was in the hospital,” she says.

“What?” Charles says, turning to look at Pete.

“Well, now, you were in the hospital a while ago, but you haven’t been back now, have you?” Pete says.

“You mean when Susan and I came before?” Charles says.

“I know you did,” Clara says.

“We all know that,” Pete says, slapping Charles on the back. “How about taking a seat?” he says to Charles. Charles sits in the pink tufted chair. Pete strolls around like a master of ceremonies.

“I was quite sick,” she says.

“You’re looking fine now,” Charles says.

“Oh, Pete says that I have to be freshened up. He throws me in the tub, Charles, and squirts perfume all over me and I’m too weak to get away.”

Charles looks at Pete in confusion. Pete reddens.

“We have to freshen up,” Pete says. “We can’t lie in bed without a bath for a week, can we?”

“I hate to be freshened,” she says.

“Look at Mommy’s — Clara’s — nice pink bed jacket. Her thoughtful husband got that for her. If Mommy — Clara — takes to bed, she might as well look cheerful.”

“What’s new?” she says to Charles. She looks like she expects to hear the worst.

“Not much. Back to work and all that.”

“I can’t seem to do my household work,” she says.

“That’s all right,” Pete says automatically. “If you’re going to get all confused when you get out of bed, I’d just as soon have you in bed.”

“I get confused,” she says to Charles.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Don’t I?” she says to Pete.

“We don’t want to dwell on this,” Pete says. “Aren’t you mighty glad to see Charles?”

“I know it’s Charles,” she says. “I’m not confused when I’m in bed.”

“Can I fix coffee for anyone?” Pete says.

“No thanks,” Charles says.

“Susan wrote me a nice letter,” Clara says.

“Mommy mislaid it,” Pete says.

“Oh. That’s nice,” Charles says. “How is she?”

“I want you children to keep contact. You do keep contact, don’t you?”

“Sure we do. I was just talking to her on the phone,”

“I talked to her on the phone,” Clara says. “It was in the day, and Pete doesn’t believe me.”

Pete turns red.

“What did she have to say?” Charles says.

“Mice and rice and everything nice,” Clara says. Charles looks at the floor.

“Say,” Pete says. “What about a look at a little something I’ve got?”

“What’s that?” Charles says, playing dumb.

“Come on, come on, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

“A death car,” Clara says.

“A Honda Civic,” Pete says, louder than Clara. “Come take a look.”

Charles walks in back of Pete, out of the room and down the stairs.

“Here,” Charles says. “This is to celebrate the new car.”

“What’s this?” Pete says. “Hey! Turtle Wax!”

Charles nods.

“I knew you didn’t really forget. Say, thanks a lot. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” Charles says.

“Come on.…”

“Really, it’s a present.”

“Hell,” Pete says. “My own son couldn’t have given me anything I wanted more.”

Pete puts the bag on the hall table, puts on his coat and walks outside.

“She’s much worse,” Charles says.

“She’s out of her goddamn mind, to be honest with you. She gets up and flips around like a fish when I’m not there. Not that water ever touches her. I have to do that once a week. Throw her in. What else can I do?”

“Christ. Have you spoken to a doctor?”

“No. I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“What are they going to do but take her to the hospital? Then what happens? I’m there all the time, the house is like a tomb.…”

“What if she does something to herself?”

“She’d forget what she was doing if the knife was poised at her heart. Really. You can’t imagine what bad shape she’s in.”

“I think I get the idea.”

“I’m not calling any doctor,” Pete says. “I’m not going to run back and forth to the hospital. They don’t do anything for her there, anyway. Put her in a room with a murderer.”

“How do you know that?”

“That foreign broad told me she was a murderer. Showed me all these photographs of kittens and puppies, one hand showing the picture, the other clutching her throat.”

Charles sighs. They are standing in front of Pete’s Honda Civic.

“You know what my consolation is?” Pete says. “You want to know what my one consolation is?”

“What?”

“That car,” Pete says. “Well. It’s very nice.”

“That car must get a thousand miles to the gallon. I get in that in the morning and just leave the past behind.” Charles smiles.

“I do. You don’t believe me?”

“Sure.”

“Sure is right That thing gets a thousand miles a gallon.” Charles stares at the little white car.

“Looks like a whale, doesn’t it?” Pete says. “Friendly like a whale?” Charles resumes his smile. “Wait till I take that wax to her. Some shine.” Pete unlocks the car. “Take a sit,” he says. Charles sits in the car. His legs are cramped. “What a beaut,” Pete says. Charles gets out.

“So what brought you by?” Pete says.

“Just wanted to give you the Turtle Wax.”

“Jesus, that’s very nice of you. When I saw you standing there I thought: he’s come to tell us he’s getting married.”

“What? Why would you think that?”

“I thought for sure. I don’t know.”

“I’m not getting married,” Charles says.

“If you were my own boy I’d pry,” Pete says. “Ask what happened to that California honey.”

“She went back. She’s a lesbian, anyway.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re kidding me. How’d you meet one of those?”

“Long time ago. When she wasn’t.”

“No kidding,” Pete says. “Must make you feel bad.” Charles shrugs.

“Whew,” Pete says. “Glad I don’t know her.” He shakes his head sideways.

“I guess I’ll be getting home,” Charles says.

“Don’t bother to go back in,” Pete says. “She’ll have all her clothes off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every time you have — I don’t mean you, I mean anybody — anybody has a conversation with her and they turn their back, she’s as naked as a jay.”

“Pete, you’re going to have to do something.”

“I’m sitting tight. I know eventually I will.”

“Well. Call if you need me.”

Pete nods. Charles shakes his hand.

“See you,” Charles says.

Pete stands on the sidewalk waving as he pulls off. He waves back, and lets out a long sigh when he turns off their block. His father is dead, his mother is crazy, Pete is all alone. He puts on the radio for the appropriate song. It is “Rocket Man” by Elton John. He listens to the radio and worries all the way to Wicker Street. Once again there is no parking space on Wicker Street. He parks on the same street he parked on the night before and cuts through an alley to Wicker Street, holding the tulips, in their white bag, inside his coat for extra warmth.

Laura opens the door wearing a black sweater and a long gray skirt. He is so surprised by how beautiful she is that he forgets to hold out the bag of tulips.

“Hi,” she says.

“You’re beautiful,” he says. “These are for you.”

“Oh, thank you.”

He walks into the apartment. Incense. He watches her put the bag on the floor and pull it apart at the top. “Tulips! They’re beautiful!”

“They’re in a thing. A container. So they won’t die or anything.”

“Thank you, Charles. It’s so gray out. These will be beautiful.” She looks around for a place to put them, settles on the coffee table.

“Your roommate studying again?”

“Yes.”

“Do you really have a roommate?”

“You don’t believe I have a roommate?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. She’s at the library. She studies there until midnight. Sometimes later.”

“Did I make you mad?”

“No,” she says. “It was just a foolish question.”

“What’s that on the stereo?”

Damn! He was going to bring her records. He was right in the store and he forgot. “Keith Jarrett.”

“Beautiful,” he says.

He sits on the sofa. The two black lines have not yet done in the rainbow. “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes,” he says.

She goes into the kitchen and takes a bottle off the counter and pours scotch into a glass. She drops in an ice cube. “Just scotch, or water with it?” she says. “Just scotch.”

“I might have a job,” she says, handing him the glass. There is writing on the glass: Hot Dog Goes To School. A dog, knees crossed, is beaming. He holds a piece of paper that says 100 %.

“A job?”

“A job selling cosmetics.”

“Oh. Would you like that?”

The perfume in his mother’s room … Pete throwing his mother in the bath.… “It’s a job.”

“When will you hear?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Then you have to wait home for the phone call?”

“Yes,” she says. “You’re not very subtle about playing detective.”

“If you’re here I can call and say good morning. I like to hear your voice.”

She sighs. He looks at the window — the cracked glass. A nightmare: he had some nightmare about that glass. He takes her hand.

“If I’m not all smiles it’s because I just visited my mother,”

“How is your mother?”

“Loony.”

“But, I mean …”

“She’s loony and well cared-for. She’s stopped bathing, and I think she’s stopped getting out of bed.”

“What is your stepfather going to do?”

“That’s a funny way to think of Pete. I always think of him as Pete.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Nothing, he says. Unless she gets unmanageable.”

“That’s so awful,” Laura says.

“I shouldn’t tell you my problems. You’ve got enough of your own.”

“I’ve got a job, probably. What problems do I have?”

“You’re feeling good now?” he says, his mood lifting.

“No. Heavily ironic.”

“Oh,” he says.

“Would you like another?”

He gives her the empty glass. The ice cube hardly melted at all. It is the last scotch he will drink.

He looks at her standing in front of the kitchen counter, pouring. He stares at her ass.

“I’ll tell you something funny. My boss asked my advice today about his son, who wants — in this order — to get into Harvard and an electric blanket.”

She laughs. “What advice did he want?”

“He seemed to want to know if there were some poets who advised young men not to worry about getting into Harvard.”

“Were you able to help him?” She is coming back with the drink. The drink is yellow. Her sweater is black, her skirt gray, her boots black, her hair brownish blond. It is Laura.

“You must have been,” she says, “with that grin.”

“Actually, I was. I recommended ‘Get It While You Can’ by the late, great Miss Janis Joplin.”

Laura nods. “A fine selection. Sure to change his thinking entirely. Then all he’ll yearn for is the electric blanket.”

Laura has fixed herself a drink. “You don’t mind eating a little late, do you?”

He shakes his head no. She is really quite beautiful in profile.

“You’re smiling too much,” she says. “You’ve had enough scotch.”

“No,” he says. “I’m just smiling.”

The radiator hisses. He looks at the plant hanging in the window above the radiator and at the yellow tulips. There is loud applause as the record ends.

“Jesus,” he says, stroking her shoulder with his free hand, “I’m going to get that dessert.”

“I didn’t realize you liked it that much.”

“I was wild for it. I crave it constantly. A riddle: how is orange and chocolate soufflé like Laura?”

She sighs again. “You’re so subtle,” she says.

“You’re so lovely. Imagine a taxi driver getting lucky enough to pick you up.”

“Enough! I don’t want to hear any more about the taxi driver.”

“Imagine me being that lucky. When I was that lucky.”

“I’ve never understood why you like me so much,” she says.

“I know it. And you always talk about my ‘liking’ you. You won’t even say out loud that I love you.”

“I don’t understand why you love me.”

“The orange soufflé.”

“Sometimes I think it really is something as crazy as that You love me because of a dessert I make. The recipe is in a cookbook.”

“I looked through all the ones at my house. I couldn’t find it.”

She laughs. “That’s the one book I took, I think.”

“You do have the recipe here, don’t you?”

“If I don’t, I can remember it.”

“Tell me. Tell me how you make the orange soufflé.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. I want you to tell me.”

He closes his eyes.

“You peel four oranges and … I can’t tell you. I’m embarrassed.”

He opens his eyes, drinks more scotch. “You peel oranges … go on.”

“I can’t. I feel too silly.”

She laughs. She has big front teeth. He loves her. “Then I’m going to watch you.”

“You can watch if you don’t talk. I don’t want you to embarrass me. Then I wouldn’t be able to make it.”

“No! You can’t threaten me about the orange soufflé. You promised you’d make it!”

“You’re crazy,” she says.

“I am completely normal. So normal that others come to me for advice. My own boss, for example. I know more than my boss.”

“You don’t know how to make dessert I’m the only one who knows that,” she says.

“No kidding around. I want that dessert”

“Would you like me to make the dessert and forget about dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she shrugs.

“And I’m watching,” he says.

“You’re drunk, I think.”

“I’m not. If I were drunk I’d be on a talking jag. When you go into that kitchen I am going to stand there and be utterly silent.”

“You’ll have to say something. Otherwise I’ll get nervous.”

“When you want me to talk, hit me with an egg.”

“I’m serious,” she says.

She gets up and goes into the kitchen. He follows (far enough behind to stare at her ass). He sits in a chair. He gets up, pours a glassful of scotch, sits in the chair again. Laura takes a white pot out of the cabinet, opens cream and pours it in, puts it on the stove.

“Say something,” she says.

“I was thinking about that snow fort we discovered in the park that winter when we had a bad storm. How strange it was that no kids were in it, just a big white enclosure.”

She jiggles the handle of the pot on the stove, stares into it.

“Which further made me think about not being able to get to work because of the snow, and how bright the glare was that day in the apartment”

She opens the refrigerator, takes out a carton of eggs.

“In support of the fact that I really am crazy, I never called you — except that once — when you went back.”

“I don’t know why I did,” she says. She is separating eggs. The yolks slide from the shells into the bowl.

“And that, in turn, made me think about you running out in the kitchen naked for something to eat, and me finding you jumping around in misery in front of the refrigerator. You couldn’t decide what you wanted, but your feet were cold.”

She laughs. She begins to whip the egg yolks. He takes a long drink of scotch, thinking how good the orange soufflé will taste.

“And how I told you I had a bath toy for you, and it turned out to be me.”

He takes another drink of scotch. “It would be nice to have a huge bathtub, one big enough to go under and come up, like seals. To really float in.”

“The dream tub bath,” Laura says. The cream bubbles to the top of the pan and she lifts it off the burner, adds it to the eggs, pours in cognac, leans over to smell.

“That was a swell apartment,” he says. “I miss it.”

She turns around. “Why are you so nice to me?” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you hate me for walking out like that? For making you so unhappy?”

“What would I gain by not being nice to you?”

“You mean you’re just acting nice to get me back?”

“Sure.”

“What do you really want to say? Go ahead and say it.”

“You just want to hear bad things. I don’t know any bad things I want to talk about. It’ll give you an excuse to stop fixing this soufflé.”

She shakes her head (brownish-blond hair). She begins to whip egg whites.

“And you love me because I make this dessert,” she says.

“Because of all of the above.”

Her head is still shaking. “I guess I should follow through and let you down again,” she says. She puts the whisk aside and walks over to his chair, sits in his lap. She smells like oranges. He puts his nose in her hair. He kisses her hair.

“I got my way,” he says.

“YOU did,” she says.

“A story with a happy ending,” he says.

He rocks her in the chair. The kitchen is a mess. If he rocks her for three and a half more hours — which is possible — her roommate (who exists) will come home to find the kitchen a mess. He looks out the window, sees through the steamy panes that it has begun to snow.

“Look at that,” he says. She raises her head a little.

“Just before I left,” she says, “there was a snow. We went to see his wife. We stopped on the way for all the usual disgusting food, and we got her magazines — because the magazines there are all ripped apart — and soap, and things like that. When we came in she had her chair sideways, by the window, looking out at the snow, and she said, without even looking up to know that it was us, that the doctors had said that sitting and staring at the snow was a waste of time; she should get involved in something. She laughed and told us it wasn’t a waste of time. It would be a waste of time just to stare at snowflakes, but she was counting, and even that might be a waste of time, but she was only counting the ones that were just alike.”