Cloud Nine

Chapter 11

It made no sense to me, but she kept on, while I tried to figure it out. And in spite of my fighting it back, a suspicion entered my mind. I mean, if she had aborted, if this was what we thought, why was she crying about it? And why didn’t she turn to me, instead of including me out? And if she was crying because it was gone, that thing she had inside, what meaning did that have, in regard to all the rest? Was she actually raped, did she find Burl repugnant, and was this marriage all an act?

But when I got that far with it, she suddenly burst out: “Give me my wig! It’s in the top bureau drawer!”

I did, and she pulled it on. Then she grabbed her bag from the night table, took out the liner, and marked up her face once more. She was barely down when a knock came on the sitting room door, and I opened it to let in the doctor, a young guy, with kind of a Spanish look and the usual zipper satchel.

I said my wife had had an accident, and took him into the bedroom. Then I left him alone with her, so she could do her own talking, apparently giving details. I heard him go to the bathroom and come back, and then pretty soon he came out, into the room with me, and closed the door.

I said, “What do I owe you, Doctor?”

“Twenty-five dollars, please.”

I wrote the check, then asked: “What next? I mean, do I have to take her to a hospital? And if so, which is the nearest one?”

“She’s in luck. Hospital’s not indicated.”

“Well, give. What happened?”

“She lost the child, that’s all. But she aborted clean — foetus and placenta were both there, on the towel. When the placenta doesn’t come, there has to be a curettage. However, it did come, and that’s it. The bleeding has stopped, but I packed her with gauze, which she can take out whenever she wants.”

“You greatly relieve my mind.”

“I also gave her a hypo.”

“You mean, she’s in pain?”

“No — so she can sleep. It’s an awful shock, it jangles the hell out of them.” He hesitated, then went on: “They take it in various ways — some want nothing to do with the husband for weeks — others take it opposite: they want him at once, it’s the one thing that calms them down. How she’ll feel I don’t know, and you shouldn’t force yourself on her. But if she should feel in the humor, don’t withhold it from some mistaken idea of duty. What she wants is what she should have.”

“I’ll remember what you say.”

He picked up his check and left, and I tiptoed in to her, hoping to find a change, now that she knew for certain what we’d been guessing at, so she’d be in a different humor. But she was crying again, and wouldn’t look at me. “Hey!” I said, shaking her. “What is this? What are you crying about? Didn’t he tell you? It’s what we thought — you miscarried. It’s all over, it’s what we’ve been praying for! You won’t have that dream anymore, we don’t have to go to New York!”

“And you don’t have to marry me!”

“...Is that what’s been bugging you?”

“It’s enough, isn’t it?”

My mouth was trying to say she was just being silly, but the words wouldn’t come. Actually, it was the first I’d thought of that angle, and somehow, now that she’d brought it up, it didn’t seem silly at all. I swallowed a couple of times, then told her: “Listen, one thing at a time, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. The main thing is, you’re rid of that horrible thing that’s been making your life hell. Now, get yourself some sleep, and then we’ll take it from there. Decide what we’re going to do.”

“Don’t you ever cross that bridge?”

“I said one thing at a time—”

“You’re always talking about it.”

“Can’t we talk when you’re yourself?”

“I’m myself now. I’m always myself.”

I left her, went down to the boardwalk, and headed across to the beach. As I passed the guard called down: “I’m sorry, sir, if I mistook the young lady for your daughter.”

“It’s okay, most people do.”

“I meant what I said about sharks — they’re out there, and they don’t always give notice by shoving a fin out of water. Sometimes they shoot up from below and help themselves to a bite. Sharks are nothing to fool with.”

“I’ll see that she stays closer in.”

I climbed down to the sand, found a small dune, and sat down, facing the sea. Then I tried to think. I told myself: “Now that you don’t have to, now that there’s no real need, you must be out of your mind, even considering marrying this girl, this teenage child, whom you barely knew until yesterday. It’s over — the crisis is passed. You’ve done the right thing, or at least you were willing to. Now, take her home and let her go on with her life — as what she is, a schoolgirl — and forget any idea you had of going further with it. No doubt she’ll suffer a bit, but she’ll get over it, and better have the break now, with no great damage done, than later, as utter disaster.”

That seemed to cover it, and for a time I sat there, under the illusion the thing was settled. Then I thought: “But now that you’re threshing it out, it wouldn’t hurt at all to talk it over with someone, especially the one person you’re close to, who’s smart on all such things.”

I climbed up the boardwalk again, walked down to a drugstore and called Mother. The phone rang and rang and rang, but then who answered, in a snappish, disagreeable way, wasn’t Mother but Burl.

I hung up without saying a word.

I went back to my dune and sulked at her. I thought: “You did tell her, that’s true, that you were getting married, and that ended the situation, so she had no further reason for keeping that rat under cover, but did she have to bring him in the house, within hours of the time I talked to her?” It turned out later she did, for a reason quite different from any I thought she had, but I didn’t know that then, and sat there for quite a while, feeling sorry for myself.

Then I got to thinking about my life, especially the other girls in it. There hadn’t been too many, call it two or three, beginning with the one I had had in college, who lived at the Taft Hotel, and would sneak out on weekends, when I’d drive her to Milford or Norwalk or Bridgeport, and we’d shack up at some motel. But her people moved to Boston, and though she hinted around about marriage, I wasn’t ready for it, and she passed out of my life. Then, after I started in business, I bumped into this girl in Baltimore, who worked in a TV station, and had an apartment on Charles Street. It was okay, but then her hours got switched, so it all got too complicated, and then we didn’t date any more.

Later, after I moved to College Heights Estates, there was a woman who showed houses for me. You have a house for sale, you put a woman in it Sundays, and she shows it to whoever comes. So my houses, for reasons I’ll explain, generally sell pretty quick, and she had a nice thing going. She was a widow up in her thirties, a bit on the plump side, but pretty, and always beautifully dressed. One night when I took her her check, she asked if I’d like to come in, and when I did, put out Scotch.

The rest was almost on cue — the pass, the brush, the brush of the brush, the peeling off in her bedroom. From there on in, we ran on kind of a schedule, except for one odd thing: After that one time, she never asked me to her place. She always came to mine, in her little Chevy, and after a cocktail, love, and dinner, drove home again, always around eight o’clock. And then one day she rang, to say she’d just been married. It turned out then that she’d been engaged all along, to a rich, middle-aged guy, whose mother was at death’s door, and who until it happened didn’t feel himself free. While he was marking time he was too decent to make passes at her, which left her with certain desires. And so, I’d come in handy.

That hadn’t been too long ago, and I sat thinking about her, about the girl in New Haven, and about the one in Baltimore. I’d been quite close to each one, and yet none of them had rocked me as Sonya had, in the twenty-four hours I had known her. And all of a sudden what had seemed to be settled wasn’t any more. I began wondering what this girl had that the others hadn’t had. And I heard my own voice answer: “Brains, for one thing. Maybe she’s just a schoolgirl, but she was the one, just the same, who figured out what could be done to mop up that awful mess.” That, I have to admit, put things in a different light. I sat there some more, with the breeze freshening up, and the surf really starting to talk. I thought of our swim out to sea, with her hand in mine, giving me courage. I thought how we’d looked at Cloud Nine and what she had said.

Then I heard my own voice again: “Another thing about her: When you’re with her you think about God.”

I knew then I was going to marry her.

I went in, and to give her more time to sleep, had some dinner in the dining room. When I went up it was just after seven, though of course, with daylight saving, still broad day outside. I opened the door real quiet, expecting to tiptoe into the bedroom and see if she’d come awake. But there she was, dressed, in the clothes she’d had on yesterday, stuffing things into her bag which was on a chair. On another chair was a hatbox, which was open, the new hat in it. But there hadn’t been any hatbox, which meant she must have gone out, after I went to the beach, and bought one. I wondered how much of a hypo it was, but said nothing about it, asking: “Well? Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home,” she snapped.

“Some particular reason?”

“You’re not wanted you take yourself off.”

“Somebody say you weren’t wanted?”

“Good as. At least they made it plain.”

“I just don’t seem to recall it.”

“Oh for Christ sake, Mr. Kirby, will you knock it off with the blibber-blabber? Yeah, you said it — you couldn’t look me in the eye, and that’s saying it, plain as it can be said.”

“When was this?”

“I said quit cracking dumb!”

I stood watching her, not knowing what to say, because of course, it was true, what she was dishing out, and you hate to own up to what makes you look crummy. However, this was the nitty-gritty, and no time for ducking and dodging. Finally I said: “Okay, I own up, I gave you a stall before, after the doctor left. I wanted to think things over, which I’d had no chance to do, up until then, at all. And if you think I apologize for it, you’re damned well mistaken. I wanted to think it over and did think it over, plenty.”

“Oh my, the Thinker, by Rodin.”

She called him Rodang.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“My bus leaves at nine o’clock.”

“Well it’s not yet eight, so you have plenty of time. If you’ve got that much straight, that I did think it over, I’ll get on to the next thing.”

“You mean that bridge that never gets crossed?”

“So happens we’re crossing it now.”

“Oh no we’re not, I’m leaving.”

“First thing: I don’t have to marry you.”

“You’re telling me? You’re telling me?”

“Sonya, have you got that much straight?”

“Do you want me to scream or what?”

“But I’m going to.”

“Going to what?”

“Marry you, what do you think?”

“You and who else?”

“Did you hear me?”

“I ain’t deaf... When?”

“Why not now?”

“Who would marry us now? We don’t even have a license!”

“Someone could be found.”

She looked me up and down, and I went on: “They’re right here in this room, everyone we need. Because when two people get married, who does it is them. The rest of it, the license, the service, the preacher, the clerk, is all for the law and the record. What’s for God, they do. ‘With this ring I thee wed,’ he tells her, and she swears to love, honor, and obey’ — and you better obey, brat. As you know, I don’t have any ring, but I do have something else, something you’ve admired, and—”

“Then, I’ll think about it.”

“Then, suppose you get the hell out!”

Because I was wrought up too, more than I’d realized, and for some reason she riled me. As I spoke I kicked her square in the bottom, so hard she plunged and fell. Then horror swept over me, at what it might do to her, after what had happened before, and I dropped to my knees in front of a chair, whispering: “Dear God, don’t let it be that she’s hurt!”

But then she was there beside me, her arm on my shoulder pulling me, pulling me close and whispering: “Don’t take on like that, please, please, please! I love it when you bop me — and that was a dilly, a real boot in the tail. Okay, I thought about it! I’m willing, I’m ready! Okay, wed me — wed me nice, wed me!”