Park Avenue Tramp

Chapter 11

Thursday on Long Island was wonderful, a fine day, and they drove from Jamaica to the North Shore and all the way along the North Shore to Orient Point, where they had a very interesting time in a secluded place, and the next day, Friday afternoon, they drove northeast into Fairfield County, Connecticut. They went directly to the Early American house of Charity’s friend, which had been arranged for, and they were alone there that night and the day after, and in the evening of the day after, which was Saturday, they lay side by side on a pair of chaises longues on a terrace and felt domestic, as if Joe had just a little while ago got off the 6:02 from the city. From where they were on the terrace, they could see across quite a lot of grass to a bluestone drive that ran down to the road through a split-rail fence with a hitching post beside it. The split-rail fence didn’t keep anything in or out, and nothing was ever hitched to the hitching post, but they were pretty and effective and were something nice to look at in the cool evening.

“Exurbia,” Joe said.

“What?” Charity said.

“I said Exurbia. You know. A place beyond Suburbia where people live.”

“Oh. Like in the book, you mean. I didn’t read it, because I hardly ever read anything at all, but I remember people talking about it at cocktail parties and places, and some of them were quite angry. The ones who live here, I guess. My friend, Samantha Cox, who owns this house, said that it presented a very distorted picture of things, but she was forced to admit in fairness that it was very clever. Samantha makes quite a point of being absolutely fair about books.”

“Well, I gather that your friend Samantha isn’t a real Exurbanite. It was probably easier for her to be fair than it was for some of the others.”

“That’s true. Samantha only comes out for short periods every once in a while. She really prefers to live in her apartment in town.”

“Why does she bother with the house at all, then?”

“It’s no particular bother. She has lots of money and can afford it easily, and she feels that it’s important to her career.”

“Career? Does she have a career?”

“Oh, yes. Didn’t I tell you? She’s very serious about being a TV actress, but she hasn’t had much luck at it yet.”

“Sorry. I don’t get the connection.”

“Lots of important TV people live in Fairfield County. Don’t you remember that from the book?”

“Yes, I do, now that you mention it. TV and advertising.”

“That’s the reason she keeps the house. She has parties sometimes and invites certain people to them.”

“I see. Wasn’t it fortunate that she hadn’t planned a party for this weekend?”

“It was. It was very fortunate.”

“How does it happen that you don’t have a country house of your own?”

“I don’t care for one. I wouldn’t want to live here or come here as a regular thing, and I have no other reason like Samantha’s to make it worthwhile.”

“Wouldn’t your husband care to live here either?”

“Oliver? Not at all. Oliver wants to live in the same place all the time and do the same things over and over. He’s really quite abnormal about it. He has a kind of schedule that he keeps. That’s why it’s possible for me to go around different places with little or no interference.”

“Even on weekends?”

“Yes. Isn’t it convenient?”

“At least. Do you really believe that he’s ignorant of what you do?”

“Well, most of it. Anyhow, even when be learns something, it doesn’t seem to make much difference in the long run.”

“That’s convenient, too. Do you think he’s learned anything about us?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Why not? Because he has?”

“To tell the truth, someone saw us that first night and told him, and I’m of the opinion that it was Milton Crawford. He’s the one I was with when I walked away and blacked out and went to where you were. Milton’s just the kind of sneak who would tell on someone if it suited him.”

“What did he say?”

“Milton?”

“No. Your husband.”

“Nothing much. He was sarcastic and nasty, the way he can be, but now it’s over and forgotten.”

“Oh, God. Just over and forgotten and nothing more to it.”

“I’ve told you and told you that Oliver’s odd. If you knew him, you’d understand. You can’t expect him to react to anything the way someone else probably would.”

“Thanks for telling me anyhow.”

“Are you angry because I didn’t tell you sooner?”

“No. I’m not angry.”

“I didn’t want to worry you, and I was afraid, besides, that you might decide it would be better if we didn’t see each other any more.”

“I have no doubt at all that it would have been better.”

“You see? If I’d told you, you would have refused to see me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“In spite of Oliver’s knowing about the first night?”

“In spite of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t have. Because I’m weak or strong or don’t care. Because I’ve wanted you constantly almost the whole week I’ve known you.”

“Isn’t it marvelous, the way it’s lasted? I’ve wanted you all the time, too, and as far as I’m concerned it’s very unusual. I’d not have thought in the beginning that it was possible. Do you think it will go on and on until we die?”

“For me or for you?”

“For both.”

“No.”

“For either?”

“Not for you.”

“For you?”

“Possibly. It won’t have as far to go in my case, you see, which makes a difference.”

“Don’t talk like that. You know very well that it makes me sad. Anyhow, it has lasted this long and is still lasting, and I don’t want to talk about it, or my husband, or anything depressing and unpleasant like that.”

He turned his head to look at her and saw that she had been looking at him all along. Reaching for his near hand, she smiled the smile that was somehow sad even when she was relatively happy She was wearing a white blouse and short white shorts, even though it was quite cool now in the evening, and her skin was smoothly golden all over, where it showed and didn’t show, for the color had been acquired by lamps in privacy and not by the sun, which she didn’t particularly like and generally avoided.

“What do you think it would be amusing to do tonight?” she said.

“Honestly?”

“Of course honestly.”

“What we did last night.”

“Well, naturally That’s assumed. I meant besides that.”

“Nothing especially. Do you have an idea?”

“There are always lots of parties around different places on Saturday night. It’s true that we haven’t been invited to any, since no one knows we’re here, but we could undoubtedly find one where we would be welcome if we wanted to go.”

“Do you think we’d better?”

“I guess not. I don’t much want to go, anyhow. Do you?”

“I don’t want to go at all. I’d rather lie here and hold hands and look at the split-rail fence.”

“It’s very pleasant, isn’t it? And that’s another surprising and unusual thing. Ordinarily I’m not content to sit quietly for any length of time. Ordinarily I’d much rather be going somewhere and doing something exciting.”

“I’ll go somewhere with you if you want to go.”

“No. I agree that it’s much more pleasant here than it would be anywhere else. It’s beginning to get quite dark, isn’t it? It reminds me of under the trees on the street where I lived as a girl. That was in another town in another state. Light filtered through the leaves into the shadows and there were thousands of cicadas in the trees.”

“I thought you were a native New Yorker.”

“No. Not at all. Why did you think so?”

“I don’t know. I just assumed that you were.”

“Well, I’m not. I lived in another town in another state.”

“Tell me about living there.”

“I don’t think I want to. It would depress me. It’s better here and now than it’s ever been anywhere else at any other time. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes. I think so. I was even thinking that it would be pleasant and easy to die here. Just lying here looking at the split-rail fence. It’s strange. You’re subject to the absolute indifference of the universe, and you take comfort and courage in a split-rail fence.”

“It’s nice, I admit, but I don’t think you need to be so gloomy about it. You seem determined to make me sad, and I wish you wouldn’t do it.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t feeling gloomy or trying to make you feel sad. As a matter of fact, I’m feeling very happy.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. In my frame of reference, at least.”

She lifted his hand and pressed it flat against her breast and held it there. Between the hand and her heart was only the thin fabric of her blouse. After a moment, she slipped the hand inside the blouse, and the heart quickened and became urgent, pounding in his palm.

“Darling,” she said, “the bartender was wrong, wasn’t he? I’ve been good for you, haven’t I?”

“You’ve been good for me for almost a week.”

“Did you like it out on Long Island? Did you think it was good on Orient Point?”

“I liked it on Long Island. Especially on Orient Point. You told me how it would be, and that’s the way it was.”

“Was it better on Long Island or is it better now in Connecticut?”

“I don’t know. How can you say one time in one place is better than another time in another place when they’re both as good as they can be?”

“No, no. Surely one is a little better than the other. Nothing is exactly the same as something else.”

“On Long Island I think it’s better, and in Connecticut I think it’s better. Whichever place we are.”

“That’s good. You’ve said exactly the right thing, for it means that right now is best of all so far. Darling, it’s really becoming quite dark. Do you think we could be seen if anyone happened to come along unexpectedly?”

“I think we could.”

“Well, I don’t believe I can continue to lie here like this much longer.”

“We could go inside.”

“It would be a shame to have to. It’s much nicer outside.”

“Would you like to take a walk until it becomes darker?”

“Walk to where?”

“Just down to the fence. We could lean against it for a while and be part of the stigmata. A split-rail fence needs someone leaning against it.”

“What’s stigmata? I don’t like the sound of it.”

“It’s all right. Stigmata are the things you find around a certain place that are characteristic.”

“Really? I thought it meant something bad.”

“You’re thinking of stigmas. That’s different. Stigmas are marks of disgrace or something like that.”

“All right, then. We’ll be stigmata. First, however, I think we should have a Martini. We’ve sat here for quite a long while without having any at all.”

“I’ll mix some. The shaker’s empty.”

“If you get up to mix the Martinis, you’ll have to take your hand away from where it is. I’m not certain that I want you to do that.”

“Not even for a Martini?”

“Well, I suppose one can’t have everything all the time. After all, mixing Martinis isn’t anything permanent. It’s only a temporary interruption at worst.”

“True. I’ll mix them.”

He got up and walked a few steps to a table that was nothing more than a thick circle of clear glass on wrought iron legs. The shaker and bottles and glasses and a bucket of ice were on the table. He mixed the Martinis in the shaker and poured two into two glasses and carried the glasses over to the chaises longues.

“I’m not as good at this as Yancy,” he said, handing her one of the two.

“Yancy’s a superior bartender,” she said, “and he makes superior Martinis, but his judgment isn’t always reliable as to who’s good for whom.”

“That’s right. Yancy’s mortal and therefore he is fallible.”

He resumed his place on the longue, and she replaced his hand, and they drank the Martinis slowly, and it got a little darker.

“Are these all the Martinis?” she said.

“No. I thought it was as easy to mix four as two, and that’s what I did.”

“That’s the way I usually think about it. It seems a shame to waste the energy and the space in the shaker.”

“Shall I pour the other two?”

“Yes, pour them. After drinking them, we’ll walk down to the fence and be stigmata, and then it will surely be dark.”

“Martinis are stigmata too, when you come to think of it. They’re just as much stigmata as hitching posts and split-rail fences and people.”

“Everything and everyone are stigmata.”

“Correct. As stigmata, let’s drink these last two stigmata.”

He got up again and poured them, and they drank them, and afterward they walked down the bluestone drive to the split-rail fence. Leaning against the fence, they listened to some kind of bird making a sad sound in the gathering darkness, but neither of them knew what kind of bird it was.

“Tomorrow is Sunday,” he said.

“What about Sunday?” she said.

“We have to go back.”

“Oh. I suppose we do. I suppose it wouldn’t be wise to stay any longer. Anyhow, Samantha agreed to let me use the house only for the weekend. If I didn’t keep the agreement, she might become annoyed and say something to somebody.”

“Would she do that?”

“Samantha’s capable of it. I don’t trust her very much, to tell the truth. I only asked her for the house because I couldn’t think of anyone else who had one that was suitable. She’s sometimes malicious and does sneaky things.”

“In that case, we’d certainly better not annoy her.”

“Yes, we’d better go back tomorrow. However, there will be other places we can go at other times. You see how it is? Far from not wanting to see you again, I’m already planning how it can be arranged.”

“I’ll have to go back to work Monday night.”

“Playing the piano?”

“That’s my work.”

“That’s true. It is, isn’t it? Somehow one doesn’t think of playing the piano as being work exactly.”

“It’s work, all right. Sometimes it gets to be very hard work.”

“I suppose it does. The hours and the people and all. Do you like it? Do you wish you were doing something else?”

“I never wish I were doing something else besides playing the piano. I wish all the time that I were playing the piano differently in a different place.”

“Why don’t you, then?”

“Its not that easy. I’m as well off playing where I am as anywhere else they’d let me play.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m not good enough to do what I’d like to do, even if there were time to do it.”

“I think you’re extremely good. When I was there that night and heard you suddenly start playing, I thought you were wonderful.”

“Thank you, but I’m not.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps you are merely lacking confidence.”

“No. It’s just tricks, what Chester and I do. It’s clever sometimes, but it’s never really good.”

“I refuse to believe it. I don’t like to hear you talk about yourself that way.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

“Monday night I’ll come listen to you play, and it will be very good. Will you play something especially for me if I come listen?”

“I’ll play everything especially for you.”

“Perhaps it better hadn’t be Monday, though, after all. For the sake of appearances, after being gone for the weekend, I think I’d better stay home Monday night. I’ll come Tuesday.”

“All right. Tuesday.”

“Will you let me go to your place with you afterward?”

“If you want to.”

“I’ll want to. I’m positive already of that. Are you positive that you’ll want to let me?”

“Yes. Quite positive.”

“That’s arranged, then. And now we must stop thinking about tomorrow or Tuesday or any time but now, and you must stop being despondent and critical of yourself. Do you agree?”

“I agree.”

It was now as dark as it was going to be. Stars were out, but no moon. The sad-sounding bird was vocal in the darkness.

“Well, please don’t just stand there,” she said.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to hold me.”

“Like this?”

“No. Put your hand here. Right here.”

“Like this?”

“Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Darling, can’t we go now? Right now?”

“By the road? Someone might come.”

“I don’t care.”

“Afterward you would.”

“Oh, God, God, God! Don’t you want to? Are you going on and on finding reasons not to?”

“I want to. On the terrace. Let’s go back to the terrace.”

“All right. Right, darling. But hurry! Please hurry!”

So they went back to the terrace, hurrying as if they had only a few minutes instead of all night.