Love and Will: Twenty Stories

Arrangements

She comes into my room. I hold her hand. She kisses my lips. We undress one another and go to bed. Later, she dresses and leaves. I sleep for a little while and dress and go outside. I see her talking to a man on the street. I say “Hey, how are you?”

“Excuse me,” she says, “but I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Harry. Harry Lipton.”

“Harry Lipton? No, the name’s not familiar either.”

“Harry Trusky then.”

“Trusky? No, try again.”

“Harry Bittom.”

“Bittom, Bittom. Now that’s much less better. I’m sorry.” She turns her back to me and resumes talking to the man. He looks at me over her shoulder.

“How do you do?” he says.

“Hello.” I put out my hand. We shake.

“Arnold Peters,” he says.

“Harry Fortundale.”

“Fortundale,” he says. “How’s it going today?”

“Fine. Couldn’t be better.” Her back is still turned to me. “Do you think you can introduce us?” I say to him.

“You mean you and the lady?”

“The lady and I, yes.”

“What was your name again?”

“Harry Levitt.”

“Harry Levitt, Gretchen Morley. Gretchen Morley, Harry Levitt.”

She turns to me, puts out her hand. We shake. She says “Nice to meet you. What do you do?”

“Lots of things,” I say. “Work, sleep, eat.”

“And make jokes too, I bet.”

“Make jokes, don’t make jokes. Run, walk, play, read, dream.”

“And change your name whenever you want to?”

“Change my name, don’t change my name. Dress, undress, make my bed, cook.”

“And have women up to your room, I bet.”

“Have women up to my room, don’t have women there. Tie my shoelaces, don’t. Buy clothes, give them away. Things. Many things.”

“And kiss and make love, I bet.”

“Kiss, make love, don’t. Sometimes. Sometimes it seems like never. Turn on and off lights. You know. What do you do?”

“All of those except the name change. Talk to people mostly. I like talking to people best.”

“I don’t,” Arnold says, walking away.

“He makes jokes too,” she says. “Wait up, Arnold,” she yells at him.

But he’s turned the corner, is gone.

“Now it’s just us two,” she says.

“If you mean together here, yes.”

“What would you like to do?”

“Talk. Go up to my room with you. Talk to you there. I find you very attractive.”

“That’s all?”

“Interesting, intelligent, sensitive, warm.”

“I mean, that’s all you want to do in your room?”

“Undress you, be undressed by you.”

“That’s all.”

“Have you come in my room after I’m already in my room and on my bed, and then get in my bed.”

“That’s all?”

“To make love, why not?”

“Where do you live?”

“Sixth brownstone up the street, north side, top floor, apartment C.”

“I’ll be there,” she says.

“How long will it take?”

“Does that depend on both of us or do you mean how long you want it to take me to get to your room?”

“Leave here two minutes after I’ve gone. That will give me time.”

“To do what?”

“Get to my building, up the stairs, unlock the door, go in, close the door, make my bed, peel an orange, set it out on the night table for us to eat and lie on my bed.”

“I don’t like oranges. No citrus. Too acidy. And just before one gets into bed, too sticky to eat.”

“Then just to make my bed.”

“It’s not necessary. Except if you want to put on fresh linen, that’s okay with me.”

“Then give me five minutes after I leave.”

“Five minutes from … now.”

I run to my building, up the stairs, unlock my door, into my apartment, close the door, take the linens off the bed and throw them in the closet, get fresh linens out of the dresser and put them on the bed, peel an orange, eat it, wash my hands and lips and dry them, and just as I hear her footsteps on the last flight of stairs, dump the peels and pits into the garbage bag and jump on the bed.

She comes into the room. I hold her hand.

“We didn’t say anything about your holding my hand,” she says.

I drop her hand.

“We also didn’t say anything about your dropping my hand.”

“I didn’t know what else to do with it. All I could think of doing with the hand I held were several other things we hadn’t arranged to do. So I thought the next best thing to my not having done something we hadn’t arranged to do was to stop doing what we hadn’t arranged to do, which couldn’t have been to continue holding your hand.”

“We also hadn’t arranged to confuse one another.” She kisses my lips.

“We didn’t say anything before about your kissing my lips,” I say.

“Do you mind?”

“Nor anything about asking if I minded or not once you did something we hadn’t arranged to do.”

“What do you want me to do, unkiss you?”

“Let’s just say we’re even now. Both of us having done something to the other that we hadn’t arranged to do and then doing our best to undo it.”

We undress one another and she gets into bed. We make love. Later, she begins dressing.

“We didn’t say anything about your dressing,” I say.

“If I’m to leave, one of us has to dress me. Since we didn’t arrange that either, I decided to dress myself.”

“We also hadn’t arranged your leaving here.”

“Neither my staying nor you.”

“Then how do we undo now what we didn’t arrange to do?”

“By your dressing and leaving with me or soon after me. Then we’d be on the street where we first started arranging things, which would make us even again I suppose, though I haven’t quite figured that one out yet.”

“We didn’t say anything about figuring things out either. Better, why don’t you undress and come back to bed? We did arrange that.”

“We arranged you undressing me and my coming to bed, but we didn’t say how many times. Why don’t we forget whatever arrangements we made and from now on do only what we want to or have to do?”

“But we didn’t arrange forgetting our arrangements or really forgetting anything.”

“We arranged to talk, right? So now we’re talking about forgetting our arrangements.”

“Let me think about it. I realize we didn’t arrange anything about my thinking about it, though I also know that everything we do together or apart can’t be arranged. All right. We’ll make a new arrangement to make no more arrangements. You think it could work?”

“We’ll see, darling, we’ll see.”

I get out of bed, take her hand and help undress her. We get back into bed. We stay there for two days. In bed. Occasionally out of bed, but never out of the room. Cooking, cleaning, washing, eating. Sleeping together, making love. Dressing, undressing, each other and ourselves. Reading. Doing many things we hadn’t arranged to do and some things we never did together or apart. Most of it works. My cooking and her cleaning doesn’t too well, but we agree they can be improved. We don’t tire of one another after two days. That’s something we never could have known. We laugh more. We have more fun, cry a few times over past memories and present happiness, hold each other more too. Then she says “Let’s go out.”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

“That’s all right. But I do, so I’m going out, with or without you.”

“Sure. You’re right. Who says no? But suddenly I want to go out too, more with you than without you. Much more.”

We dress ourselves. I hand her her coat. She finds my scarf and wraps it around my neck. We go out. We see Arnold Peters walking on the street. He says “Hello you two, how’s it going?”

“Can’t complain,” she says. “As for Harry, he’ll have to speak for himself.”

“Harry, that’s right,” he says. “What was your last name again?”

“Raskin.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that.”

“Raskin. Harry Raskin.”

“Big change over this guy,” he says to her. “How you been, Harry?”

“Fine. Couldn’t be better. You?”

“Not so good.”

“Too bad. Anything I can do for you?”

“You can give her some time to let me take her out for a night.”

“I think that’s her decision.”

“You’re damn right it’s my decision,” she says. “Sorry, Arnold, but no.”

“Tough luck,” he says. “It would have been fun for me at least.” He goes.

“I don’t like him anymore,” she says. “And won’t, unless he changes.”

We go to her hotel, tell the night clerk she’s checking out, pack her things and carry them to my apartment. She’s moved in. We share many things: dresser, bed, bathroom glass, expenses. We both cook, work, clean the apartment. She has a child. We get married. We move several times, but always stay together. Occasionally she takes a business trip or vacation on her own or with the child and occasionally I do the same. Sometimes we all go together. A few times we leave our son with a nurse and each of us goes off separately on business trips or vacations and stay away for the same or different lengths of time, when our son gets old enough to stay home alone for a while, we go off together or separately, on business trips or vacations and sometimes we all go off separately or together, and sometimes just one of us with our son or she and I together while the other stays home or takes a vacation or business trip alone. Then our son moves out. We get a smaller apartment. We divorce but come back together again after a few years but don’t remarry. By this time our son is living with a woman and they have a child. We get old. One day she gets quite sick. Her temperature stays high for two days. The doctor comes and says she has to be moved to a hospital immediately, it’s that serious. I sit beside her while we wait for the ambulance to come. I hold her hand.

She says “We didn’t say anything about your holding my hand.”

“Are you delirous?” I say.

“Yes.”

“I know what you mean now. I forgot. No, we didn’t say anything about my holding your hand. But I thought you might want me to. I know I wanted to. And it feels good, doesn’t it?”

She nods, closes her eyes, dies.

I go off, but it’s never the same with anyone else after that.