Motel

II

The motel courtyard was washed with sunshine, the trees were in full leaf. It was April, and Millie was wearing a bright cotton dress that echoed the blues, greens, and yellows of the season. Frank was wearing a business suit, but the tie he wore seemed geared to spring as well-a riot of daisies rampant on a pale green field. He unlocked the door knowledgeably, and removed the key with familiar dexterity. Millie entered the room first. She went swiftly to the dresser and put down her bag. As Frank locked the door from the inside, she went quickly to the drapes and pulled them closed across the windows. Frank threw the slip bolt and was turning away from the door, when Millie rushed into his arms. She kissed him passionately, and then moved out of his arms and disappeared into the bathroom.

Frank went to one of the easy chairs. He turned on the lamp between the chairs, and then began taking off his shoes and socks. Millie came out of the bathroom, carrying a facial tissue. She went to the mirror and began wiping off her lipstick. Frank took off his jacket. Millie slipped out of her pumps. Frank carried his jacket to the clothes rack, and hung it neatly on a wire hanger. Millie padded over to him barefooted, turned her back to him, lifted her hair from the nape of her neck and waited for him to lower the zipper on her dress.

“What’s the use?” he said.

“Huh?” she said, and turned to look at him, puzzled.

“What’s the use, what’s the use?” he said despairingly, and went to one of the chairs, and sat in it, and began wringing his hands. “How am I supposed to put my heart in this when my mind’s a hundred miles away? She’s driving me crazy, Millie. If she doesn’t stop, I’ll just have to leave, that’s all.”

“Leave?” Millie asked, surprised.

“Leave, leave, right,” he said, and rose and began pacing in front of the dresser. “I’ve warned her. I’ve told her a hundred times. She can’t treat me this way, damn it. I’m not some adolescent kid fresh out of college.”

“You’ve told her?” Millie said, and her eyes opened wide.

“A hundred times. More often than that. Repeatedly. Over and over again. A thousand times. Then today...”

Alarmed, Millie said, “What happened today?”

“What’s today?”

“Tuesday. You know it’s Tuesday. We meet every Tuesday.”

“I mean the date. What’s the date?”

“April sixth.”

“Right. So that means she was five days late to begin with. So what’s she jumping all over me for?”

“Five days late?”

“Right. And she yells at me about it. When she’s really the one to blame.”

“Frank, I thought we agreed a long time ago that we wouldn’t discuss anything like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like Mae or Michael.”

“Who’s discussing Mae or Michael? I’m talking about Hope. Hope Cromwell. She came in first thing this morning and said, ‘Where is it?’ So I reminded her that she’d only told me about the damn thing Friday, five days after it was due, and she said it seemed to her it shouldn’t take that long to do a thirty-second spot when I knew the client was waiting for a presentation, and maybe I’d get the material in on time if I didn’t take such long lunch hours every Tuesday. So I told her to take a look at her own lunch hour, which starts at eleven in the morning and ends at three, so don’t talk to me about long lunch hours, baby.”

“Did you really say that?”

“I certainly did.”

“You called her ‘baby’?”

“No, no, I wouldn’t call her ‘baby’. The point is I don’t like being bawled out for something that’s not my fault. And anyway, if I want to take a long lunch hour every Tuesday, so what? I’ve got half a mind to tell her what she can do with the job.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Why don’t you call her and tell her what she can do with the job?”

“Tell Hope, you mean?”

“Sure.”

“Well, she’s probably out to lunch right now.”

“Let’s try her,” Millie said, and went to the phone.

“Well, perhaps it’s best not to act too impulsively,” he said. “There are millions of copy writers in New York, all of them just as good as I am.”

“I doubt that very much,” Millie said. She lifted the receiver and handed it to him. “Call her.”

“Just a second, Mil,” he said. “Let me think about this a minute, okay?”

“What’s there to think about? Just tell her, that’s all.”

“I’ll tell her when I get back to the office.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

Millie put the receiver back onto the cradle, and turned her back to him again. Lifting the hair from the nape of her neck, she lowered her head and waited for him to unzip her dress. “You don’t have to take that kind of abuse, Frank,” she said. “You’re a very good copywriter.”

“Yeah,” he said, and lowered the zipper.

“So tell her.”

“I will,” he said, “don’t worry.” He unknotted his tie and threw it onto the seat of the closest chair. Unbuttoning his shirt, he said, “I’ll tell her I don’t have to take that kind of abuse.”

“Right.”

“I’ll tell her I don’t like to be blamed for something that’s not my fault. She should have told me about the presentation earlier.”

“That’s right, she should have.”

“Damn right, she should have,” Frank said. “I’ll tell her there are millions of copywriters in this city, but not many of them are as good as I am. And if she continues to hand out the kind of abuse she did this morning, I’ll just head over to one of the other agencies where they won’t treat me like an adolescent.”

“Good,” Millie said, “tell her.” In bra, half-slip and panties, she padded to the clothes rack and hung up her dress.

“As for the lunch hour,” he said, gathering steam, “I’ll tell her to stop behaving as if it’s a banquet! It isn’t a banquet, it’s just an ordinary long lunch hour, and that’s that.” He nodded, took off his shirt, and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. Millie was silent for what seemed like a long time.

“Frank, have you ever done anything like this before?” she asked suddenly.

“With another woman, do you mean?”

“Yes, with another woman.”

“Besides Mae, do you mean?”

“Yes, besides Mae.”

“Never,” he said. “Why? Have you?”

Millie walked to the air conditioner. “Do you think this thing works?” she asked, and stabbed at a button on its face. “There,” she said, and went to the bed, and neatly folded back the spread, and then carried it to one of the chairs.

“Millie?” he said. “You haven’t answered my question. Have you ever?”

“Have I ever what?”

“Done this?”

“With another man, do you mean?”

“Yes, with another man.”

“Besides Michael, do you mean?”

“Yes, besides Michael.”

“Do you want an honest answer?”

“Of course I want an honest answer.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Jesus!” he said.

“You wanted to know.”

“Who was it?”

“Another man.”

“I know that! Who?”

“You don’t know him. His name is Paul.”

“Where’d you meet him?”

“In the Chock Full O’Nuts on Sheridan Square.”

“Having a nice long lunch, was he?”

“No, he was eating a cream cheese sandwich on toasted raisin bread.”

“I don’t want to know anything else about him,” Frank said. “In fact, I think we’d better get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to leave.” He went to the chair and picked up his shirt. He started to put it on, but one of the sleeves was pulled inside out. Angrily, he shoved at the sleeve, and finally managed to get his arm through it.

“He’s a sculptor,” Millie said.

“I don’t care what he is.”

“I posed for him once. Just my belly button.”

“Your what?” Frank said.

“He does belly buttons. Not always, you understand. That was his project at the time. When I met him. He was doing these enormous sculptures of belly buttons. It was really quite fascinating. I mean, things take on a completely different perspective when you see them larger than...”

“I don’t want to hear about your goddamn sculptor and his belly buttons!” Frank shouted. Calming himself, he said, “Get dressed, please,” and began buttoning his shirt.

“He filled a very important need in my life,” Millie said softly.

“I’m sure he did.”

“And I could hardly have known at the time that I was going to meet you on the eight forty-six from Larchmont. Besides, I stopped seeing him right after I met you. In February.”

“That’s not right after you met me,” Frank said. “That’s a full month after you met me.”

“Well, it takes time to end things,” she said.

“More time than it takes to begin them, I’m sure.”

“Now you sound like Michael.”

“Oh, did you tell him about your sculptor, too?”

“Of course not.”

“How come I’m so privileged?”

“I thought you’d understand.”

“I don’t. Put on your clothes, and let’s get out of here.”

“I wasn’t looking for anything, Frank, I hope you realise that. It just happened.”

“How? What’d you do, show him your navel in the middle of Chock Full O’Nuts?”

“I didn’t do anything of the sort.”

“Then how’d he know he wanted to sculpt your navel? There are six million women in the city of New York, how’d he happen to pick your navel?”

“He picked a lot of navels,” Millie said. “Not only mine.”

“How many?”

“At least fifty of them.”

“Now that’s sordid, that’s positively sordid,” Frank said.

“It wasn’t sordid at all.”

“Where’d you pose for him?”

“He has a big loft in Greenwich Village. There. But not the same day.”

“Oh, that makes an enormous difference. When did he sculpt you, if you’ll pardon the expression?”

“A month later. On October sixth.”

“You remember the exact date, huh?” Frank said. “That really is sordid, Millie, remembering the exact date.”

“Only because it was his birthday,” she said.

“What’d you do? Drop in on the loft, strip down and yell ‘Happy Birthday, Paul!’”

“Not Paul’s birthday. Michael’s.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Frank said.

“And I didn’t just go there. Paul called and asked me to come.”

“Oh, you gave him your number, did you?”

“He looked it up, the same as you.”

“He seems to have done a lot of things the same as me,” Frank said. “Will you for God’s sake get dressed?”

“It was just like open heart surgery,” Millie said.

“What was?” Frank asked.

“Doing my navel. I didn’t have to expose any other part of me. He had me all covered up with a sheet, except for my navel. It was very professional.”

“When did it start getting unprofessional?” Frank said, and whipped his tie from the seat of the chair, and walked angrily to the mirror.

“After he cast it in bronze.”

“Did he put it on the living room table?” Frank asked, and lifted his collar and slid the tie under it, and then began knotting the tie, and had to start all over again because somehow he’d forgotten how to knot a tie. “I think that would’ve been touching,” he said. “A bronze belly button instead of a pair of baby shoes.”

“It would’ve been too big to put on a table, anyway,” Millie said. “I told you, the whole idea of the project was...”

“The whole idea of the project,” Frank said, “was to get fifty stupid housewives into bed with him!”

“We weren’t all housewives,” Millie said.

Calming himself again, carefully knotting his tie, Frank said, “In any case, Millie, I think we should leave. I don’t know how to sculpt, you see. I wouldn’t know how to sculpt a goddamn navel. Or how to pick up a goddamn lady in the Chock Full O’Nuts on Sheridan Square.”

“You did fine on the eight forty-six from Larchmont,” she said.

“Oh, I did. I see. I’m the one who seduced the innocent little housewife, led her down the garden...”

“Well, I certainly didn’t have the movie projector in my trunk!”

The telephone rang, shocking them into silence. They both turned to look at it, but neither made a move for it. The phone kept ringing.

“Why don’t you get it?” Frank said. “Maybe it’s Paul. Maybe he’s doing buttocks this week.”

Millie did not answer him. With great dignity, she padded to the phone, and lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she said. “Who? Yes, just a moment, please.” She held out the receiver to Frank. “It’s the manager. He wants to talk to Mr Mclntyre.”

Frank took the receiver from her. “Hello?” he said. “Yes? The what’s too loud?” He looked across the room at the television set. “It isn’t even on,” he said, “so how can it be on too loud? Well, you just tell the man in seventeen that perhaps the television on the other side of him is on. In eighteen, that’s right. Tell him it is not on in sixteen. Goodbye,” he said, and banged down the receiver. “Stupid ass,” he said. “Good thing we won’t be coming back here anymore.”

In a very tiny voice, Millie said, “Won’t we?”

They looked at each other silently.

“I didn’t know you’d get so angry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Then why’d you tell me, Millie?”

“I had to.”

“Why?”

“Because of what you said.”

“When?”

“Just a little while ago.”

“What did I say?”

“You said this wasn’t a banquet.”

“Huh?”

“You said it was just an ordinary long lunch hour. Well, to me it’s a banquet. And if it’s just an ordinary long lunch hour to you, then you can go to hell. If you’re in the habit of taking lots of women to a motel in New Jersey...”

“I have never...”

“Putting a projector in your trunk...”

“I have never...”

“And showing them your lousy sixty-second commercial...”

“I thought you liked my commercial,” he said.

“Not if it’s been seen by every stupid housewife in the city of New York!”

“It’s been seen by stupid housewives all over America,” Frank said. “It’s been aired approximately two hundred and twenty times. Listen, Millie, how did you suddenly become the injured party? I’m the injured party here. I’m the one who’s been betrayed.”

“Betrayed?” she said. “Oh my God, you sound just like Michael.”

“Leave Michael out of this, if you don’t mind. Let’s get back to Paul.”

“Why? Paul was nothing but an ordinary long lunch hour.”

“A little while ago, you said he filled a very important need in your life.”

“That’s right, he did.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Millie. Either he was meaningful or he was a cream cheese sandwich on wholewheat.”

“Toasted raisin.”

“Whatever.”

“He was both.”

“Perhaps you’d like to explain that.”

“Perhaps I wouldn’t.”

“Fine. Let’s get dressed.”

“Fine,” she said.

She walked angrily to the rack, took her dress off its wire hanger, and slipped it over her head. “I thought you’d understand, but apparently you’ve never been neglected in your own home.” He did not answer. “Apparently Mae adores you completely,” she said, walking to him. She turned her back to him, and he zipped up her dress. “Thank you,” she said. “Apparently Mae never treated you in a way that might force you to consider addressing a stranger in Chock Full O’Nuts. But when someone is concerned solely with Puts and Takes and selling short, then perhaps a woman may feel the need for conversation...”

“Conversation!” Frank said. “Jesus!”

“Yes, with someone whose interests extend beyond commodities. With someone who doesn’t think of a woman as just another commodity. Paul thought of me...”

“As just another navel,” Frank said.

She stared at him icily, and then said, “Paul thought of me as a very exciting individual. That’s how he filled a need in my life. And that’s why I’ll always be grateful to him.”

“Fine,” Frank said, and put on his jacket. “Are you ready?”

“Not quite,” Millie said. “Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the other aspect as well.”

“Millie,” he said, “you have said it all, you have really said it all. Now let’s just get out of here, okay?”

“I’m not dressed yet,” she said, and sat and put on her pumps, and then walked to the dresser and rummaged in her bag for her lipstick. “Haven’t you ever felt like going to bed with somebody?”

“I have,” he said.

“Not Mae, I mean.”

“Not Mae.”

“Who?”

“Hope.”

“Hope? The Head of Creation?”

“Yes.”

“Hope!”

“That’s right.”

“That’s disgusting,” Millie said. “She’s your boss!”

“She’s also a beautiful redhead.”

“And a Wasp besides,” Millie said.

“She happens to be an atheist.”

“Has Mae ever met her?”

“She has.”

“Does she like her?”

“Not particularly.”

“Good,” Millie said, and capped the lipstick and dropped it into her bag. “I’m ready,” she said.

“Let’s go then.”

“Let’s go,” she said, and started for the door, and then suddenly stopped, and turned back to look into the room.

“Got everything?” he asked.

She hesitated.

“What’d you leave?”

“Nothing, I guess,” she said, and shook her head. At the door, she hesitated again, and then said, “Frank, there’s just one thing I’d like to know. Why do you find Paul so threatening?”

“I do not find him in the least threatening,” he said.

“Then why are you so angry?”

“I am not in the slightest bit angry,” he said.

“I was stupid to tell you,” she said, and shook her head again. “Michael’s right. Stupid is stupid, that’s all.” She sighed, and then said, “Let’s go.”

“What do you mean, Michael’s right?”

“He’s right, that’s all. He thinks I’m stupid, and I am.”

“You are definitely not stupid,” Frank said.

“Michael thinks so. Maybe that’s because he’s so smart.”

“Has he ever actually said he thinks you’re stupid?”

“Not in so many words. But what he does is, I’ll make a suggestion about something, you know, and he’ll say, Thank you, Millicent,’ with just the proper inflection and tone, you know, to make me feel like an absolute moron. As far as he’s concerned, if I keep my mouth shut and dress the girls properly and help him watch his damn calories, that’s enough. Do you want to know something, Frank? I’ve known you for only four months, and I feel closer to you than I do to my own husband. What do you think of that?”

He did not answer.

“Well, it’s true,” she said. “Which is why I can’t understand why you feel threatened about something that happened...”

“I don’t feel threatened.”

“You all feel threatened,” she said. “If I’d ever told Michael about even posing for Paul, he’d probably have hit me or something.”

“What do you mean? Are you trying to tell me he beats you?”

“Don’t be silly, he’s Jewish.”

“So was Louis Lepke,” Frank said.

“Yes, but he got mixed up with a lot of Italians. Now don’t get offended.”

“I’m not offended.”

“You do find it threatening, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t find it threatening,” he said. “In fact, I find it lovely. In fact I find it delightful that you picked up a belly-button sculptor, and posed for him, and went to bed with him, and can still remember the exact date, October eighth...”

“Sixth,” she corrected.

“Yes, I find that all perfectly damn wonderful,” he said, his voice rising. “I thought we were, for Christ’s sake, supposed to be in love with each other! I thought we were supposed to be able to trust each other and...”

There was a sudden hammering on the wall opposite the bed. Frank stopped mid-sentence, and turned to look at the wall.

“The black Cadillac,” Millie whispered.

There was more hammering now, louder this time.

“Stop that banging!” Frank shouted, and it stopped immediately. “Fat bastard,” he said, and Millie giggled. “Thinks he owns the place. Move the car, lower the television, bang, bang, bang with his goddamn fist!” He glared at the wall. Millie was still giggling. “Go ahead!” he shouted. “I dare you to hit that wall one more goddamn time!”

There was no further hammering. Frank turned from the wall. Millie had stopped giggling. She was watching him steadily.

“Are we supposed to be in love with each other?” she asked.

“That was my understanding,” he said quietly.

“That was my understanding, too,” she said. She walked to him, and turned her back to him, and lifted the hair from the nape of her neck. He reached for the zipper at the back of her dress, and gently lowered it.