Motel

I

The January wind was blowing fiercely as he put the key into the unfamiliar door lock and then twisted it to the right with no results. He turned it to the left, and the door opened, and he pushed it wide into the motel room, and then stepped aside for her to enter before him. She was wearing a short beige car coat, the collar of which she held closed about her throat with one gloved hand. Her skirt, showing below the hem of the coat, was a deeper tan. She was wearing dark brown leather boots, almost the colour of her shoulder-length hair. Her eyes were browner than the boots, and she lowered them as she stepped past him into the room. There was an air of shy nervousness about her.

Fumbling to extricate the key from the lock, Frank almost lost his homburg to a fresh gust of wind. He clasped it to his head with his free hand, struggled with the damn key again, and finally pulled it free of the lock. Putting the key into the pocket of his overcoat, he went into the room, closed the door behind him, and said immediately, “I hope you won’t misinterpret this.”

“Why should I?” she asked.

“Well, a motel has connotations. But I couldn’t think of any other way.”

“We’re both adults, Frank,” she said. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be possible for two adults to take a room and...”

“That was precisely my reasoning,” he said.

“So please don’t apologise.”

They stood just inside the entrance doorway, as though each were reluctant to take the steps that would propel them deeper into the room. There were two easy chairs on their right, in front of the windows facing the courtyard outside. A table with a lamp on it rested between the two chairs. On the wall immediately to their left, there was a dresser with a mirror over it, another lamp on one end of it. An air-conditioning unit was recessed into a window on the wall opposite the door. The bed was covered with a floral-patterned spread that matched the drapes. Its headboard was against the wall opposite the dresser. A framed print of a landscape hung over it.

“Millie,” he said, “I honestly do want you to see this film.”

“Oh, I honestly want to see it,” she said.

“We talked about it so often on the train that it just seemed ridiculous not to show it to you.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Which is why I mentioned it at lunch today, and suggested that maybe we could take a room someplace, for just a few minutes, a half-hour maybe, so I could show you the film. Still, I don’t want you to think the only reason I asked you to lunch was to show you the film.” He grinned suddenly. “Though I am very proud of it.”

“I’m dying to see it,” she said.

“I’ll just be a minute, okay?” he said, and went to the door, and opened it, and stepped outside into the windblown courtyard, leaving the door open. She debated closing the door behind him, and decided against it. She also debated taking off her gloves, and decided against that as well. Outside, she heard the sound of the automobile trunk being slammed shut. A moment later, he came into the room carrying a motion picture projector.

“I was wondering how you were going to show it,” Millie said.

“I had this in the trunk,” he said, and put it down on the floor.

“Do you always carry a movie projector in the trunk?”

Smiling, he said, “Well, I can’t pretend I didn’t plan on showing you the film.” He took a small reel of film from his coat pocket, held it up for her to see, and then put it on the dresser top. Taking off his coat, he went to the rack in one corner of the room, and hung it on a wire hanger. He took off the homburg and placed that on the shelf over the rack. He was wearing a dark, almost black, shadow-striped business suit.

“Did your wife say anything?” she asked.

“About the projector? Why would she say anything?”

“I guess she wouldn’t,” Millie said. “I guess lots of men take movie projectors to work in the morning.”

“Actually, she didn’t see it,” Frank said. “I put it in the car last night.” He looked around the room. “I was hoping the walls would be white,” he said. “Well, maybe the towels are white.”

“Did you plan to take a bath first?” she asked.

“No, no,” he said, walking towards the bathroom door. “I just want to make a screen.” From the bathroom, he said, “Ah, good,” and was back an instant later carrying a large white towel. “Let’s see now,” he said, “I guess I can hang this over the mirror, uh? Move the table there, and set my projector on it. Uh-huh.” As she watched, he went to the dresser, reached up over it, and tucked the towel over the top edge of the mirror, covering it. She had not moved from where she was standing just inside the door. Turning to her, he said, “Wouldn’t you like to take off your coat?”

“Well... is it a very long film?” she asked.

“Sixty seconds, to be exact.”

“Oh, well, all right then.”

She took off her gloves and her coat. She was wearing a smart, simple suit and a pale green blouse. As she carried the coat to the rack, Frank took the lamp off the table, moved the table, set the projector down and plugged it into a wall socket.

“Isn’t sixty seconds very short?” she asked.

“No, that’s the usual length. Some are even shorter. Thirty seconds, some of them.” He looked up from where he was threading the film. “You don’t have to hurry back or anything, do you?”

“No, no,” she said. “As long as I’m back before dinner.”

“What time is that, usually?”

“Seven-thirty, usually. But I have to be back before then. My husband gets home at seven, you see. And he likes to have a drink first. So I should be home around six-thirty, seven. Not that I have to account for my time or anything, you understand.”

“Well, even if you did,” Frank said, “there’s nothing wrong with two adults having lunch together.”

“If I thought there was anything wrong with it, I wouldn’t have accepted.”

“In fact, it seems entirely prejudicial that a man and a woman can’t enjoy each other’s company simply because they happen to be married to other people-you didn’t tell your husband, did you?” he asked.

“No. Did you tell your wife?”

“No,” he said. “I never even told her I’d met you on the train.”

“It’s really silly, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” he said. “But you know, the truth of it is that most people just wouldn’t understand. If I told my wife... or anyone, for that matter... that I’d taken you to lunch...”

“And to a motel later...”

“To show you a film...”

“Who’d believe it?”

“There,” he said. “Let me just close these drapes.” He pulled them across the rod, darkening the room, and then snapped on the projector. As the leader came on, he adjusted the throw and the focus, and framed the film on the centre of the towel. “Here goes,” he said, just as a heraldic blast of trumpets sounded from the projector’s speaker. The film appeared on the towel. There were two ten-year-old children in the film. The children were singing.

“Hot buttered popcorn” they sang,

“We like it, you like it.

“Hot buttered popcorn

“From Pike, it’s

“Great!”

The children were digging into a box of popcorn now. One of the children asked, “Do you like popcorn?”

“I love popcorn,” the other child said.

“Me, too.”

The children fell silent. On the screen, there were close shots of their hands digging into the box of popcorn, other close shots of the popcorn being transferred to their mouths. The camera pulled back to show their beaming faces.

“Good, huh?” the first child asked.

“Delicious,” the second child said.

“What is it?”

“Popcorn. What do you think it is?”

“Yeah, but what kind of popcorn?”

“Hot buttered popcorn.”

“I mean, the name.”

“Oh. I dunno.”

“Is this it here on the box?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

The camera panned down to the front of the popcorn box, and the words PIKE’S POPCORN printed on it.

“Pike’s!” one of the children shouted. “That’s the name!”

Together, they began singing again.

“Hot buttered popcorn,

“We like it, you like it.

“Hot buttered popcorn

“From Pike, it’s

“Great!”

The screen went blank. Frank snapped off the projector, and then turned on the room light. Millie was silent for what seemed an inordinately long time. Then she said, “I didn’t realise it would be in colour.”

“Yes, we shoot everything in colour nowadays,” he said. “What’d you think of it?”

“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “Did you write the song, too?”

“No, just the dialogue. Between the kids.”

“Oh,” Millie said.

“It was very easy and natural for me,” he said. “I have three kids of my own, you know.”

“Yes, you told me that. On the train. Two boys and a girl.”

“No, two girls and a boy,” he said.

“Yes. How old are they?”

“The boy’s nineteen. The girls are fifteen and thirteen.”

“That’s older than my girls,” Millie said. “Mine are eight and six.”

They looked at each other silently. The silence lengthened. And then, into the silence, the telephone suddenly shrilled, startling them both. He moved towards the phone, and then stopped dead in his tracks. The phone kept ringing. Finally he went to it, and warily lifted the receiver.

“Hello?” he said. “Who? No, there’s no Mr... oh, yes! Yes, this is Mr Mclntyre. The what? Yes, the Mercury is mine. In what? In the parking space for seventeen? Oh, yes, certainly, I’ll move it. Thank you.” He hung up, and looked at Millie. “I parked the car in the wrong space,” he said.

“Is that the name you used? Mclntyre?”

“Yes, well, I figured...”

“Oh, certainly, what’s the sense of...?”

“That’s what I figured. I’d better move the car. It’s supposed to be in sixteen.”

As he started for the door, she said, “Maybe we just ought to leave.”

“What?” he said.

“Well... you’ve shown me the film already. And since you have to move the car, anyway...”

“Yes, but we haven’t discussed it yet,” he said. “The film. In depth, I mean.”

“That’s true. But we could discuss it in depth in the car on the way back to the city.”

“Yes, I guess we could do that,” he said. “Is that what you’d like to do?”

“What would you like to do?”

“Well, I thought I’d move the car to number sixteen, and then maybe we could discuss the film afterwards. In depth. If that’s what you’d like to do.”

“Well, whatever you want to do.”

“Well, fine then.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll move the car,” he said quickly, and went out, and closed the door behind him. She debated sitting on the bed, and decided against it. She debated sitting in one of the chairs near the windows, and decided against that as well. She settled for leaning on the dresser. She was leaning on it when he came back into the room, blowing on his hands.

“Whoo, it’s cold out there,” he said. “I can’t remember a January this cold, can you?”

“You should have put on your coat.”

“Well, I figured just to move the car...”

“Did you move it?”

“Yep,” he said, “all taken care of. Room sixteen in space sixteen.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“Mine? Oh, you mean room seventeen. A big black Caddy. With a fat old man behind the wheel.”

“Alone?”

“No, he had a girl with him. A frumpy blonde.”

“Probably has a film he wants to show her,” Millie said, and smiled.

“Probably,” he said, and returned the smile. “So... what’d you think of it?” Without waiting for her answer, he said, “I got quite a bit of praise for it. In fact, the Head of Creation called me personally to...”

“God?”

“No, Hope. Hope Cromwell. She’s the agency’s creative head. That’s her official title.”

“What’s your official title?”

“Me? I’m just a copywriter, that’s all.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say just a copywriter.”

“Well, Hope’s a vice president, you see. I’m just...” He shrugged. “Just a copywriter.”

“Michael’s a vice president, too,” she said. “My husband. He’s a stockbroker, did I tell you that?” She paused, and then said, “Is Hope attractive?”

“No, no. Well, yes, I suppose so. I suppose you could call her attractive. I suppose you could call her a beautiful redhead.”

“Oh,” Millie said. “Is she a nice person, though?”

“Actually, she’s a pain sometimes.”

“So’s Michael,” Millie said. “Especially when he starts discussing futures. Are you, for example, interested in soy beans?”

“No, but men like to discuss their work, you know. I guess he...”

“Oh, I understand that. But I’ve never even seen a soy bean, have you?”

“I’ve seen soy bean sauce,” Frank said.

“But have you ever seen a soy bean itself?”

“Never.”

“So why should I be interested in something I’ve never seen in my entire life?”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Or its future,” Millie said. “Of course, Michael’s interesting in other ways. He has a mathematical turn of mind, you see. I’m a scatterbrain, but Michael...”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I am, believe me. If it weren’t for Michael, I wouldn’t know how to set the alarm clock. Well, I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean. He has this very logical firm grasp on everything, whereas I just flit in and out and hardly know what I’m doing half the time. I’m very impulsive. I do things impulsively.”

“Like coming to lunch today,” Frank said.

“Yes. And like coming here to the motel.”

“That was impulsive for me, too,” he said.

“Well, it wasn’t as impulsive for you as it was for me. Because, after all, you did put the projector in your car last night.”

“That’s right,” Frank said. “Yes, in that respect, it wasn’t as impulsive, you’re right.”

“What would you have said if your wife saw you putting the projector in the car?”

“I guess I’d have said I was bringing it in for repair or something.”

“Would she have believed that? Does she trust you?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve never given her reason not to trust me. Why shouldn’t she trust me?”

“Well, if you go around sneaking movie projectors into your car...”

“I didn’t sneak it in. I just carried it out. She wasn’t even home, in fact.”

“Where was she?”

“At the shop. Mae owns a little antiques shop in Mamaroneck.”

“Oh? What’s it called?”

“Something Old”

“Really?” Millie said. “That’s a darling shop! Does your wife really own it? I’ve been in there several times. Which one is your wife?”

“Well, there are only two of them in the shop, and one of them’s sixty years old. My wife’s the other one.”

“The little brunette? She’s very attractive. I bought an ironstone pitcher from her last month. What’d you say her name was?”

“Mae.”

“That’s a pretty name. Very springlike.”

“Yes. Well, it’s M-A-E, you understand.”

“Oh, not M-A-Y?”

“No, M-A-E,” he said, and they both fell silent.

“Well,” she said.

“Well,” he said.

“Did you register as Mr and Mrs Mclntyre?” she asked.

“Yes. Well, I couldn’t very well register as Mr and Mrs Di Santangelo, could I?”

“Why not?”

“I’d still be up there signing the card,” he said, and laughed. “Di Santangelo’s an unusually long name, you see.”

“My maiden name was longer. Are you ashamed of being Italian?” she asked abruptly.

“Ashamed? No, no, why should I be ashamed?”

“It just seems strange to me that you’d choose a Wasp name like Mclntyre...”

“It’s not a Wasp name.”

“Did you choose it last night? When you were putting the projector in the car?”

“No, I chose it when I was registering.”

“My mother would die on the spot if she knew I was in a motel room with a Wasp named Mclntyre.”

“It’s not Wasp, it’s Roman Catholic.”

“Worse yet,” Millie said. “Is your wife Italian, too?”

“She’s Scotch.”

“Do you think we can get something to drink?” Millie asked.

“As a matter of fact, I have a bottle in the car,” Frank said.

“My, you’re very well appointed, aren’t you?” she said, and smiled. “A projector in the trunk...”

“Well, I figured...”

“But maybe we just ought to leave,” she said. “Find a bar on the way back.”

“Oh, sure, we can do that, if you want to.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“Well, this is a nice comfortable room, we might just as well... would you like a drink, Millie?”

“I would love a drink,” she said, and he rose instantly and started for the door. “But not if it’s any trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” he said, and went outside again.

She debated taking off her boots, and decided against it.

She sat on the edge of the bed instead. There was a Magic Fingers box on the side of the bed. She read the instructions silently, took off the boots after all, inserted a quarter into the box, and lay back on the bed. The bed was still vibrating when Frank came back into the room. He was carrying a brown paper bag.

“Are you having a massage?” he asked.

“It said ‘soothing and relaxing.’”

“Is it?”

“It’s soothing,” she said. “I don’t know how relaxing it is.” The machine suddenly stopped, the bed stopped vibrating. “Ooo,” she said. “Now I miss it.”

“Shall I put another quarter in?”

“No, I think a drink might be more relaxing,” she said, and sat up. “I don’t ordinarily drink, you know. Michael’s the big drinker. Do you have a drink when you get home at night?”

“Oh, yes.”

“How many drinks do you have?”

“One or two. Usually two.”

“Michael also has one or two, but usually three. For a fellow who’s on such a strict diet, he sure knows how to put away his whiskey. Jewish men aren’t supposed to be big drinkers, you know. There are statistics on that sort of thing.” She smiled and said, “I probably married the only Jew in Larchmont who has three glasses of whiskey before dinner. Big glasses, too.”

“Are you from Larchmont originally?” Frank asked.

“No, the Bronx. Michael was born in Larchmont, though. We met at a dance. He used to play alto saxophone in a band. Would you like to hear something strange? The first time he took me out, he told me he was going to marry me. Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“No, that’s what I told Mae the first time I dated her.”

“Really?”

“Mm-huh. Let me get some glasses and ice,” he said, and went into the bathroom.

“Is there a little instruction booklet or something?” Millie asked.

“No, just the ice machine,” he said. “Under the sink here.”

“I mean, that you fellows consult before dating a girl for the first time. I think it’s extraordinary that you and Michael would have used the same line on two separate girls. Don’t you think that’s extraordinary?”

“No,” he said, coming out of the bathroom. “In fact, it wasn’t a line with me. I really meant it.” He walked to the dresser, and poured Scotch into both glasses. “I knew immediately that I wanted to marry her. Did you want water in this?”

“No, thanks,” she said.

Frank handed her one of the glasses. “Well... cheers,” he said, and clinked his glass against hers.

“Cheers,” Millie said, and drank. “Wow!” she said.

“Too strong? I can ...”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said, gasping. “Before you got married...?”

“Yes?”

“Did you go to bed with your wife? I don’t mean to be personal.”

“No, no, that’s a perfectly legitimate question. We’re both adults, after all, and if we’re going to be honest with each other, we should be entirely honest.”

“Precisely,” Millie said. “Did you go to bed with her?”

“Yes.”

“A lot?”

“Every now and then,” Frank said. “We were at school together, you see. The University of Pennsylvania. It was very convenient.”

“It was very convenient for Michael and me, too.”

“It’s even more convenient for the kids nowadays. My son, for example...”

“How old did you say he was?”

“Nineteen. He’s a sophomore at Yale.”

“Does he have a beard?”

“A moustache.”

“Michael has a moustache, too.”

“I was saying that the kids don’t give a second thought to it nowadays. It’s all very natural and casual with them.”

“Natural maybe,” Millie said, “but I don’t think casual.”

“Well, it should be a very natural thing, you know. Sex, I mean.”

“Yes, but not casual. I don’t think it should be casual, do you? Sex, I mean.”

“No. But I do think it should be natural. Would you like to take off your jacket or something?”

“It is warm in here, isn’t it?” She took off the suit jacket, and tossed it to the foot of the bed. “You were saying about your wife...”

“My wife?”

“About sleeping with her all the time.”

“Well, not all the time. But we were on the same campus for four years.”

“That’s a long time to be sleeping with somebody.”

“Especially if her father is a Methodist minister,” Frank said.

“My father runs a Buick agency in the Bronx,” Millie said. “Did you deliberately set out to marry a Wasp? I mean, because you’re ashamed of being Italian and all?”

“Hey, come on,” Frank said, laughing, “I’m not ashamed of being Italian. And besides, I don’t think of Mae as a Wasp.”

“What do you think of her as?”

“A woman,” he said, and shrugged. “My wife. Whom I happen to love very much.”

“I happen to love Michael very much, too,” she said, “though he is a pain sometimes. This is very good, this Scotch. No wonder Michael belts it down every night. Could I have just a teeny little bit more?”

He took the bottle of Scotch from the dresser and went to her, and poured more of it into her glass, and then sat on the edge of the bed beside her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“That must have been very nice,” she said, “going to an out-of-town college, I mean. I went to N.Y.U. I used to commute from the Bronx every day.”

“When did you graduate?”

“Ten years ago. In fact, Michael and I went to a reunion just before Christmas. It was ghastly. Everyone looked so old.”

“How old are you, Millie?”

“Thirty-two,” she said.

“Do you realise that when I started at the University of Pennsylvania you were still being pushed around in a baby carriage?”

“You’re how old? Forty-six?”

“Four.”

“That’s only twelve years older than I am,” she said, and shrugged.

“Exactly my point. When I was twenty-two...”

“Why’d you start college so late?”

“I was in the Army. My point is that when I was starting college... did you want some more of this?”

“Just a drop, please,” she said, and held out her glass again. He poured liberally into it, and she raised her eyebrows and said, “That’s like one of Michael’s drops.”

“Anyway, when I was starting college, you were only ten years old.”

“Yes, but that’s not in a baby carriage.”

“No, but it’s very young.”

Sipping at her drink, she said, “Is that why you want to make love to me?”

“What?” he said.

“Make love,” she said. “To me,” she said. “Because I’m twelve years younger than you are?”

“Well, who... well, who said anything about...?”

“Well, you do want to make love to me, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“Well, is that the reason?”

“Well, that’s part of it, yes.”

“What’s the other part? That I’m Jewish?”

“No. What’s that got to do with...?”

“If that’s part of it, I really don’t mind,” she said. “A lot of Gentiles find Jewish girls terribly attractive. And vice versa. Jewish girls, I mean. Finding Italian men attractive.”

She looked at him steadily over the rim of her glass. She rose then, and walked to the dresser, and put her glass down, and began unbuttoning her blouse.