Goldilocks

3

It was a little after three A.M. when I got to the house. I went directly into the den, turned on the desk lamp, and phoned my partner Frank. When I told him what had happened, the first thing he said was, “Oh, God” and then he asked if Jamie had committed the murders. I told him Jamie had said no, and then filled him in on everything else he’d said. Frank advised me to go to bed, he’d see me in the morning. We said good night, and I hung up, and sat at the desk for a moment, unmoving, my hand on the telephone receiver. I snapped off the lamp then, and rose, and went down the hall to the bedroom.

Susan was asleep.

I tiptoed into the room and then went into the bathroom to turn on the light, leaving the door cracked so that light slanted into the room but did not touch the bed. I had no desire to awaken her. We’d been fighting when the call from Jamie came. I had, in fact, been on the verge of asking her for a divorce.

The fight had started twelve hours earlier, on our way to the Virginia Slims finals that afternoon. The matches were supposed to begin at one o’clock, and we’d left the house at twenty to, which was cutting it a bit close on a Sunday at the height of the tourist season. There are only two seasons in Calusa: the tourist season and summer. In the good old summertime, there is no one here but mad dogs and Englishmen. And me. During the season, most of the tourists come from the Midwest. That’s because if you draw a line due south from Columbus, Ohio, it will go straight through the middle of Calusa. Frank says that Calusa is really only Michigan on the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe he’s right.

The fight began because my daughter Joanna asked a question as we were crossing the Cortez Causeway. I was at the wheel, and I was driving Susan’s car as opposed to my car. Susan is an only child. Only children are very specific about what is theirs and what is yours. The Mercedes-Benz was Susan’s. The Karmann Ghia was mine. Susan was very jealous of her possessions, and especially of the Mercedes-Benz which — I don’t mind telling you — had cost seventeen thousand dollars and some change.

At precisely 12:47 P.M. on the dashboard clock (I remember looking at it because I knew we were running late and I didn’t know whether the Evert-Goolagong match would be the first one, and I didn’t want to miss the opening serve) my daughter Joanna asked whether it was absolutely necessary for her to go with us that night to hear Mstislav Rostropovich. Calusa is a very cultural town. Not for nothing is it called the Athens of Florida. Actually, no one calls it that but Frank. He’s originally from New York. When he calls Calusa the Athens of Florida, his eyes glint and his lip curls.

“Rostropovich is the world’s greatest cello player,” I told Joanna.

“You took me to see the world’s greatest violin player, too,” Joanna said, “and he put me to sleep.”

I did not blame that on Isaac Stern. When a person is twelve years old, anything but reruns of I Love Lucy will put her to sleep. Besides, Mr. Stern was working against a rolling and continuous wave of coughs, sneezes and snorts that caused him first to change his program midconcert, and then to chide the audience gently for the epidemic of nasal catarrh. When we left the auditorium that night, I ventured the guess that we wouldn’t be seeing Mr. Stern in Calusa again. Susan said, “Why not?”

I said, “Because the codgers were rude.”

“It’s rude of you to call them codgers all the time,” Susan said. “They’re simply old people.”

“They’re rude old people,” I said. “I’d personally rather choke than cough in the middle of a violin passage.”

“I personally wish you would,” Susan said.

It was perhaps memory of the Isaac Stern argument that prompted the Virginia Slims argument. In recent months, I’d taken to cataloging our many and varied arguments, the better to recall them fondly. I did not know, of course, that the Virginia Slims argument would later become the Beefeater Martini argument and still later the Reginald Soames argument and eventually what I will always and forever remember as the Jamie Purchase argument, even though his phone call at one in the morning ended all argument at once. It was still not yet one in the afternoon when Susan said, “Would you mind not discussing this now?”

“Discussing what?” I said.

“Whether or not Joanna has to come with us tonight. We’re late as it is...”

“We’re not that late,” I said.

“Well, just keep your eyes on the road, okay?”

“There’s nothing I can do but stay in line, anyway,” I said. “This car may have cost seventeen thousand dollars but it doesn’t have wings.”

“And some change,” Susan said. “You forgot to say ‘and some change.’”

“And some change,” I said.

“Just drive,” she said, “okay?”

“No, you just drive,” I said, and pulled up the hand brake at the stoplight on U.S. 41, and got out of the car and came around to the other side of it. I slammed the door when I got in again.

“I don’t know what you’re so angry about,” Susan said.

“I’m not angry,” I said. “If you don’t like the way I drive, you can drive yourself. It’s as simple as that.”

“I don’t like to drive when I have the curse,” Susan said.

She was thirty-two years old, and she still referred to her menstrual cycle as “the curse.” I think she felt the words implied intercourse denied, the curse being not the flow of blood itself, but rather the interruption it caused in an otherwise wild and passionate sex life. There was, in fact, a look of suppressed sensuality about Susan. Dark brooding eyes, an oval face framed by cascades of long brown hair that fell straight and loose to her shoulders, a full pouting mouth that gave an impression — not entirely inaccurate — of a sullen, spoiled defiant beauty.

We got home from the matches at about five-thirty. Susan had sulked for most of the afternoon, but she seemed to have got over her peeve by the time she’d showered and dressed for dinner. It was decided that if Joanna could not appreciate the better things in life, why then she could stay home.

She said, “Good, I can watch The Sound of Music on television.”

“If you came with us,” I said, “you could hear the sound of music in person.”

The Beefeater Martini argument started when I ordered my second drink before dinner.

“You’re not going to have two of those, are you?” Susan asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I’m going to have two of them.”

“You know how you get after two martinis.”

“How do I get?”

“Fuzzy.”

It was Susan’s contention that I never got drunk when I drank, for example, two Scotches with soda or two any things with soda, but I always got drunk or fuzzy or furry or slurry (these were all Susan’s words) when I had two martinis, especially two Beefeater martinis, the magic word Beefeater somehow adding more potency to the drink.

“Susan,” I said, “please let’s enjoy dinner without another argument.”

“We wouldn’t argue if you wouldn’t drink,” Susan said.

“We argued this afternoon,” I said, “and I wasn’t drinking.”

“You probably had one before we left the house.”

“Susan, you know I didn’t have one before we left the house. What are you trying to establish here? That I’m—”

“Then why’d you get all upset when all I did was tell you to watch the road instead of—”

“I got upset because Joanna had asked me a question, and I was trying—”

“That was no reason for you to snap at me.”

“I snapped at you because you were nagging. And you’re nagging now. If a man has a couple of martinis before dinner—”

“Beefeater martinis,” she said.

“Yes, Beefeater martinis, right, that doesn’t make him an alcoholic.”

“You’re going to get fuzzy and spoil the evening,” Susan said.

“The evening is spoiled already,” I answered.

Susan fell asleep while Rostropovich was playing Schumann’s Fünf Stücke im Volkston, Opus 102, Mit Humor, no less. I said nothing about it. We had not exchanged a word since leaving the restaurant, and we said nothing on the way home, either. Joanna was still awake when we came in. It was already a half-hour past her normal bedtime. “It’s ten-thirty,” I said, tapping my watch.

“I know,” she said.

“Have you finished your homework?”

“Yeah,” she said, “but I was trying to figure out this record club thing.”

“What record club thing?”

“The record club, Dad. My record club.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, “your record club.”

“Will you help me fill out the dingus?”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“Dad, it’s due back on the sixth.”

She went into her room and came back with a printed card. I studied it carefully and handed it back to her. “It only has to be postmarked the sixth,” I said.

“Where does it say that?”

“Right there.”

Joanna looked at the card. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Tomorrow’s only the first. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“Okay, Dad,” she said, and kissed me good night. “Mom?” she said.

“Yes?” Susan said.

“G’night, Mom.”

“Good night,” Susan said. She was already in bed. Joanna went to the bed, and bent over and kissed her on the cheek.

“G’night,” she said again, and then went to her own room.

I undressed silently, and turned out the light on my side of the bed. Susan lay stiffly beside me. I knew she was not asleep, her breathing was too erratic, interrupted by occasional long sighs. At last, she said, “What is it, Matthew?”

“What do you mean, what is it?”

“Why do we fight so much?”

“You invariably start them, Susan.”

“That isn’t true.”

“You started the fight on the way to the tennis—”

“No, you flew off the handle.”

“Because you were bugging me about the way I was driving.”

“You said you didn’t want to be late.”

“We were in no danger of being late.”

“There was a lot of traffic, and you weren’t watching the road, you were talking to Joanna.”

“Here we go again.”

“It’s true, Matthew. You get distracted, and you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Susan, you make me sound like someone who can’t tie his own shoelaces!”

“I don’t want another argument.”

“Then cut it out, would you please? I can’t hold a conversation and drive at the same time, I can’t drink two martinis before dinner, I can’t...”

“You do drink too much.”

“When is the last time... would you please tell me the last time... can you tell me anytime you’ve seen me falling-down drunk or even...”

“You get fuzzy,” Susan said.

“Susan, I drink less than almost any man I know. Old Reggie next door—”

“Mr. Soames is a drunk.”

“That’s exactly my point. I am not a drunk, I am not even a heavy drinker. What is this, would you please tell me? Is this Gaslight or something? Are you trying to convince me I’m a drunk because I have two martinis before dinner? Are you trying to drive me to drink, Susan, is that it? Susan, you had two drinks before dinner, do you know that? You had two drinks, Susan, I counted them. You had two Manhattans, Susan. You fell asleep during the concert—”

“I did not fall asleep,” she said. “And please don’t change the subject.”

“Susan, say it, okay? Do you think I’m a drunk? Say it.”

“I do not think you’re a drunk.”

“Fine, then...”

“But I do think you drink too much.”

“What, exactly, is too much, Susan?”

“Two Beefeater martinis is too much.”

“Jesus Christ!” I said.

“Lower your voice,” she said. “All the windows are open.”

“Then close the windows and turn on the air conditioner,” I said.

“The air conditioner is broken,” she said. “Or did you forget that, too?”

“That’s right, I have a very poor memory,” I said. “That’s why I’m such a lousy lawyer. I can’t remember what a witness is saying from one minute to the next.”

“No one said you’re a lousy lawyer.”

“No, but I have a lousy memory.”

“You forgot about the air conditioner, didn’t you?”

“I thought you called about the air conditioner.”

“I called, but they wouldn’t come on a Sunday. If you paid more attention to what was going on around here, you’d have known nobody came to fix it.”

“I thought they came while I was out getting the Times.”

“Then why would we have all the windows open instead of the air conditioner on? If the air conditioner had been fixed...”

“How do I know? Maybe you want Old Reggie to hear us fighting. Maybe you want him to suffer a coronary occlusion.”

“I hate the way you talk about Mr. Soames. He’s a nice man.”

“He’s a fart,” I said, and got out of bed and stalked into the living room.

I debated putting on the Modern Jazz Quartet. I sometimes played the Modern Jazz Quartet at full volume just to annoy Old Reggie next door. Reggie had a cavalry mustache. He carried a walking stick, which he poked at lizards. He also poked it at our cat, Sebastian. Sebastian was a much finer individual than Reginald Soames. Whenever I played the Modern Jazz Quartet at full volume, Sebastian the cat stretched out on the terrazzo floor in the living room, exactly midway between the two speakers.He closed his eyes. His ears twitched in time to the beat. He was a most appreciative and big pussycat. Old Reggie was a fart. When I played the Modern Jazz Quartet — I didn’t even like the Modern Jazz Quartet, I only played it to annoy Old Reggie — he came out with his walking stick and said in his whiskey-seared voice, “A bit loud, eh, Junior?” and then he said, “What is that crap, anyway?” I always told him it was Mozart. “Mozart?” he said. “Mozart, eh?”

I realized all at once that Reginald Soames was a sad and harmless old man who simply had the ill fortune of living next door to someone whose marriage was in trouble. I thought about that. I thought about the only two things in this marriage that meant anything to me — my daughter Joanna and Sebastian the cat. I was on my way back to the bedroom to tell Susan everything, to tell her at last, to tell her I wanted a divorce, to tell her she could have the house and both cars and the boat and the savings account and the record collection and the piano nobody played if only she would let me take Joanna and the cat with me when I left.

That was when the telephone rang.

It was Jamie Purchase calling to say his wife and two children had been brutally murdered.

Now, at a little past three in the morning, as I pulled back the sheet on my side of the bed and got in beside Susan, my only wish was that she would not wake up. I was exhausted, I was numb, I didn’t know what I was feeling or thinking. Before the argument, before the call from Jamie, I had set the alarm for seven A.M. At eight every Monday I played tennis with Mark Goldman, who was a dozen years older than I and a dozen light-years better. Seven A.M. was only four hours away. I tried to figure out a plan of action. Should I call Mark at three in the morning to tell him I couldn’t play tennis with him tomorrow? Should I leave the alarm set for seven and call him when I woke up? Or should I simply turn off the alarm and sleep till Mark called me from the club to ask where the hell I was? I was too tired to think. I left the alarm set for seven. Cautiously, I eased my legs under the sheet. I had the dread premonition that if Susan woke up, the first thing she’d say would be, “And another thing...”

She stirred beside me. She rolled into my arms. We were both naked, we had slept naked from the beginning, thirteen years ago. The end had almost come two hours ago, when I’d been about to tell her everything. Her body was warm with sleep. She put her hand on my right shoulder. I had known this woman since she was seventeen. I had married her when she was nineteen. I was now ready to divorce her. I had not yet told her, but I was ready.