The Devil's Cook

9

Otis Bowers awoke with a sensation of rising slowly through brackish water to the surface of a stagnant pool. His teeth felt smeary and his face, with its growth of meager beard, dirty. It took him a moment, dreading the day, to remember that it was Sunday, a fact which by no means diminished his dread. He did not plan the traditional pause for worship and rest, having no conviction in the one and little hope of the other. Ardis, stirred by current events to an old animus, was hardly a restful mate. He could feel her beside him, hear her breathing. He knew without looking that her back was turned against him, a position she seemed able to maintain even in the tossing and turning of sleep.

Carefully Otis eased his legs over the side of the bed. This slight effort exhausted him, and he sat slumped for a few minutes, braced by his arms. Then he struggled to his feet and padded into the bathroom. Now, with a kind of sustained rush, he brushed his teeth, washed his face, lathered, and shaved. Returning to the bedroom, he saw with despair that Ardis was sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

“Good morning,” Otis said.

“Is the coffee making?” Ardis said.

“Not yet. I just woke up.”

“What time is it?”

He looked at the alarm clock, which she could have seen for herself by simply turning her head.

“Twenty minutes past nine.”

“I want my coffee.”

“I was just going to make it.”

He went out to the kitchen and put cold water into a Pyrex pot and leaned against the table until the water boiled. He removed the pot from the burner, measured in the instant coffee, and watched it while it steeped. This done, he poured two cupfuls and carried the cups to the bedroom. Thus far, he had been reasonably successful in not thinking about things he didn’t want to think about.

“Here you are,” he said.

She carried the cup immediately to her mouth, afterward closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against the headboard. Her face looked grayer and older than it was.

“I wonder if Terry’s back,” she said.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Jay since yesterday.”

“Aren’t you terribly concerned?”

“Don’t start that again. Please don’t.”

“Oh, excuse me.” Ardis raised her head and opened her eyes, disclosing the malice behind her lids. “I’d forgotten how sensitive you are on the subject of Terry. She made a fool of you with so little effort, didn’t she?”

“I suppose she did. You are welcome to think so, if you like. Can’t you forget it, Ardis? Can’t you let me forget it?”

“That would be nice for you, wouldn’t it? It’s not as easy as all that for me.”

“Can’t I make you understand that there never really was anything between Terry and me? Nothing ever happened. She was only playing a game with me. Terry’s got a cruel streak in her. She enjoys things like that. I’m not the type Terry would take seriously.”

“Why not? Aside from being a fool in your personal affairs, you’re a brilliant physicist. You have a wonderful career ahead of you. All you have to do is use common sense.”

“Terry doesn’t give a damn about physicists, brilliant or otherwise, and she didn’t give a damn about me.”

“Are you saying that what’s good enough for me isn’t good enough for your precious Terry?”

Fool or not, Otis could see the folly of going any further in that direction. It was futile, in fact, to go anywhere in any direction. His offense had not been infidelity, but a fatuous gullibility that in her view reflected on his legal bedmate. He would have been in less trouble, actually, if he had done as well in adultery as in physics. He had not, however. He had been involved in a fiasco, not a conquest; and he admitted that he deserved Ardis’s scorn, although he yearned for surcease.

“Nothing of the sort,” Otis said. “I’m just saying that Terry has a beastly set of values. Look at the way she treats Jay. She really has no regard for him, although he’s a very competent economist. It’s a mystery to me why she ever married him. She’s much more taken with animals like Brian O’Hara.”

Ardis sipped her coffee, staring at him slyly over the run of the cup.

“‘O.’ for O’Hara?” she said.

“Must you be so devious, Ardis?” He sat down on the side of the bed, clutching his cup and saucer in his left hand. “I simply don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the Personal ad that appeared in Thursday evening’s Journal.”

“What Personal ad?”

“It was addressed to ‘T.M.’, and it was signed ‘O.’ It arranged a meeting for a certain time and place.”

“What time and place?”

“Three o’clock Friday afternoon. Apparently at the university library.”

Otis stared into his cup. Then he shrugged and looked up.

“It’s absurd. In Terry’s case, what’s more, completely unnecessary. In spite of the initials, I don’t believe it was meant for her at all.”

“That settles the matter very neatly, doesn’t it? Case closed, eh?”

“Didn’t you expect me to deny that it was ‘O.’ for Otis? Very well, I deny it. All right, I’ve been a fool, but not so big a fool as to engage in any damn foolishness like this. Why should I? I could have spoken directly to Terry whenever I chose.”

“So, for that matter, could O’Hara.”

“That’s the point. The Personal wasn’t meant for Terry at all.”

“You can dismiss such coincidence if you care to. I’m not prepared to do so.”

He stared at her with a thoughtful expression, as if his mind, having dismissed one consideration, had gone off on another tangent.

“How do you happen to know about the Personal? I can’t recall anyone’s mentioning it.”

“I read it when it appeared.”

“I didn’t know you read the Personal columns.”

“This time I did.”

“Interesting. And you thought of me the first thing, didn’t you?”

“Not without cause.”

“There’s nothing quite so exhilarating as a wifely faith. I’m wondering what, suspecting me of a clandestine meeting in advance, you would be capable of doing to prevent it.”

“Nothing. I doubt that you’re worth it.”

“Wouldn’t you even spy a little? Just out of curiosity?”

“Not when I had a migraine headache. Friday afternoon, you’ll remember, I had one.”

“I know you said so.”

“And so I had. I came home early and took a sleeping pill. I was here in the apartment all afternoon.”

“At the scene, so to speak.” He laughed without humor and rose abruptly. “Are you actually offering explanations, Ardis? It’s not like you.”

They looked at each other with the closest thing to understanding that they had achieved for a long time.

“More coffee?” he said.

“Yes.” She held out her cup. “Please.”