Triangle

She looked at him, and for the first time he realized the second drink was affecting her. There was an owlish intensity in her gaze. She was a small dark girl, eyes large in a small face, eyes earnest under the dark curl of bangs, mouth showing the small erosions of discontent.

“The lousy stupid thing I do to myself,” she said, “I play these games, Johnny. The what-if games. So it’s a hypnosis thing. I know she’d never let you go. Even if you wanted out, which would be a fool thing.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Tina.”

She scowled at him. “The thing is, which you know, the hypnosis thing goes only so far, and then I drag my feet. Sometimes I think I’m the most dishonest person I know. Remember the night we couldn’t get a cab?”

“Of course.”

“Any number of cues I could have given you, and you would have taken it from there, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Oh, you know so, Johnny. You know so. I’ve got no international fame for glamor, but I’m suitable. And you’re a human type male type, and we have this kind of awareness that’s been going on with each other for months and months, and who could fault you? Who blames the guy?”

“His wife.”

“Yes indeed, and that’s our little problem, isn’t it?”

“Mine.”

“Anyhow, I guess you could say the game was called on account of rain that night. And after you went trundling on back to hearth and home, I paced my lonely pad telling myself I was a real smart girl. It went like this: He is Johnny Powell and he is one hell of an attractive man, so attractive that if it ever went one inch past where it’s gone already, you’d be hooked for good. And it is a lousy thing to do with your life, Tina, to become the sad little town mouse, stealing the suburban husband from time to time. You see, it couldn’t be casual.”

“For either of us.”

“Thank you, dear. It’s a sweet lie, but I appreciate it anyway. Anyhow, after trying to sell myself on how bright I was, I got down to the real truth of the thing. Terror. The fear of sin. You see, I’m really the worst kind of cheat.”

“I don’t think so.”

“The modern woman! Johnny, I’m up to here Victorian. I guess I’ve got to have all the licenses and permits. But, Johnny, where did all the men go? Did the girls like Frances get them all?”

“There’s some around.”

The waiter looked into the booth. Johnny signaled for another round.

“But I’m twenty-nine years old, Johnny, and when do I stop playing kid games with grown-up people like you?” Tears grew on the black thickets of lashes, rolled free. She dabbed them away.

“Maybe the next won’t be a game.”

“Comfort me, dearie, with brave words. Sure. But what scares me now is, maybe, despair. You know? I get assigned to some other account and there is another Johnny Powell, and maybe he’s only half what you are, but I have to set up all the trite misery for myself, go the dreary route with him because I have to sell myself at least one dream, because the clock ticks on. Maybe just as trite as what could have happened to us. I work for you. I’m a city girl. And you have that big glowing country wife and those dear, darling, glowing kiddies. Do you mind if I hate Frances a little?”

“Go ahead.”

“She’s so invulnerable. Why do they always have to look like Doris Day? Ah, that shining meaty smile, and knowing the PTA song. Oh God, Johnny, I sound so cheap and nasty, and it’s all pure envy. I’ve got a kid sister, up to her hips in babies, up to her armpits in suds, and I hate her sometimes too. I’m Aunt Tina, career girl. You and Frances are good people, and I’m glad I didn’t get any further into your lives. But sometimes I can feel so...”

She covered her face and sat hunched, weeping silently. The drinks came. Johnny saw a man in another booth, staring at them. What could it look like? The end of the affair. But what was it, when there’d been no affair? He felt tender toward Tina. He sensed it would be best to let her work herself out of tears. Gentle words might make it worse for her. He was aware of the city night around them, murmurous, full of mouths and lights and motors, with dark rooms and dark places in the heart and ten thousand simultaneous scenes, and he wondered how many of the scenes had dialogue interchangeable with this one. If everyone was masked, perhaps all the words would be alike.

She recovered and was shy. Her eyes looked torn, and she took small nibbles of her drink.

“Self-pity in the third degree,” she said. “Another of my noble traits.”

“There’s more in the inventory. Pride, spirit, decency, sensitivity.”

She smiled at him. “I’ll do what has to be done, sir. You don’t have to buy me with flattery. But it’s the mechanics of it I don’t quite see. Isn’t it going to look sort of strange and hollow to her, no matter how I do it?”

“It makes me feel sick, Tina, to even ask you to do it. But you have to know more about the marriage. You’ve got the right to know more. The kind of a job I have, there has to be trust. So many trips, so many late nights. A woman should feel loved and secure. Maybe Fran needs that security more than most. I don’t know. Maybe because of her folks splitting up when she was small. God knows I haven’t been a roving man. I don’t need that kind of trouble. You and I, we’ve been as close as I want to come. And you see, Tina, I haven’t reacted the way I should, because I have been conscious of this being a kind of infidelity. Do you understand?”

“Of course.”

“We’d been at the club and in the middle of the evening she turned all strange and remote, and I didn’t know what was up. But I did feel guilt — on account of you — even though I knew we were going to stay, what would you call it, pristine. We went home early. She’d danced with Hal Ward. He was tight. He was trying to make a pass. So he figured, I guess, to smooth the way by giving her the old get-even-with-Johnny motivation.”

“Hal doesn’t know a damned thing about us!”

“That’s what I would have said, but apparently he saw us somewhere and he couldn’t figure any other reason for us being there, and maybe we looked furtive or something. We didn’t see him, but he saw us.”

“He’s a wretched man!”

“At least he didn’t hand her your name. Maybe he was showing restraint. Or maybe he didn’t recognize you — just saw me with a female who wasn’t Fran.”

“With a friend like Hal, who needs enemies?”

“I know. And when we got home early from the club, it could have been settled very quickly and easily. But as soon as I found out what it was all about, I became full of indignation and outrage. They say you get the biggest reaction from an unjust accusation. I’d say the reaction is bigger when there is just a tiny germ of truth in the accusation, just a little stink of guilt. So instead of trying to help her, I got proud as all hell. I wouldn’t even discuss it. I wouldn’t deny it or confess it, so naturally she took my attitude as a confession. The best thing I could have done would have been laugh. But that’s the sort of thing you remember too late. After a week, when I finally woke up and saw what I was doing to her — because I happened to feel abused — I made the complete denial I should have made in the first place.”

“A little too late.”

“Yes indeed. And I could hear myself hitting false notes — because of the guilt and because it was a little too late. My God, I even sounded as if I was the chicken husband making the usual trite lie. She pretended to accept it. Maybe she believes me with ninety per cent of her, but the other ten is dubious, and it’s a little wedge sticking into a sort of dangerous potential fracture-line in our marriage. Every trip, every night I have to stay in the city, is like giving that wedge a little tap. Staying in town tonight is another little tap. No matter what you think of her, she’s never really had enough confidence.”

“But... what if I sound as hollow as you did? I’ve got this guilt-for-no-good-reason, too, you know. And won’t I just be sort of a... solid fact instead of a vague suspicion?”

“With a sixth sense or something, she’s narrowed it down to you anyway.”

“What? How do you know?”

“The name came up during the last quarrel. When you were assigned to the account, I used to mention you. I’ve always talked shop at home. She’s always been interested. For the last couple of months I’ve still talked shop, but I never mentioned your name. That was pretty stupid, I know. But again it was the product of guilt, I guess, and it was subconscious.”

“Oh boy.”

“Oh boy, indeed.”

“There’s that scene in the movies where the other woman calls on the wife and begs her to let him go. And then there’s the scene where the wife calls on the other woman and tells her to get out of Walter’s life. But how do you do this scene? I’ve never seen it played.”

“I don’t know how you can do it. But, you see, I know both of you. I know you both well enough to know you’ll like each other.”

“She’ll adore me!”

“You’ll have to say you’re doing it without my knowledge. You’ll have to say that I made some bitter and cryptic remark to you and you pried the rest of the story out of me. You’ll have to tell her that you’ve been attracted to me.”

“That’s no lie, darling.”

“But I ignored all the openings, and you finally decided I was that rarity in our business, the faithful husband. In fact, you can let her know I have a considerable reputation for same.”

“It wouldn’t have been a serious thing with me otherwise, Johnny.”

“And you can say I’m not exactly hitting the ball squarely around the shop lately.”

“But you are.”

“Sure, but how well will I scramble if the marriage keeps getting a little more sour? I love her, Tina. And for the first time I can’t seem to really communicate with her. Suspicion is a sick terrible thing.”

“So I tell her that because I do sort of love you, even though it’s a dead end street for me, I had to bury my pride and come talk to her.”

“I can’t tell you how much it will mean to me. To both of us. But it’s... such a ghastly thing to ask of you, Tina.”

She touched his hand quickly. “Idiot! I’d roll from here to Canarsie for you, through broken bottles. And it’ll make me feel better about myself. Create a little self-respect for a change.”

“The man who does get you is going to be very very lucky, Tina.”

“Put that in writing so I can show it to him, if I ever find him. Did you say next Sunday?”

“It would be a good time. I’ll be in Chicago all next week. You might phone her on Saturday and set it up.”

“I can borrow Meg’s little car and drive up there. I’ve wondered what your house is like. I have a crazy feeling, you know? I have the feeling she and I are going to become friends.”

“I hope it can happen. You’ll like her.”

“I sense that, damn it. Johnny, I better stagger out into a cab. I’ve had it, completely.”

“I’ll take you back.”

She looked rueful. “Just put me into a cab, dear. It would be bad timing right now to get the game to go along with the name, wouldn’t it? Tonight I’d be too tired to even drag my feet. Don’t look so alarmed, dear. It’s just a lousy joke.”

When he opened the taxi door for her, she turned and touched her lips to his cheek. “Goodnight, Johnny. You’re the nice one who got away.”

The misty rain had stopped and the city night was humid. He walked seven blocks uptown and two and a half blocks east.

While he walked he managed to keep his mind emptied of all inward things, staring attentively at the objects and persons in his line of vision, identifying them the way a child finds goats and kings in a puzzle maze. But as the miniature elevator carried him slowly aloft, he could hear the bump of his heart amid a drone of silence, and fancied himself in a magical machine which dwindled him as it lifted him upward. Feeling dwarfed and vile, he looked at himself in an oval mirror and grinned like a yawning dog.

Sometimes he imagined the key would not fit, and measured his relief against his terror, marveling at how precisely they cancelled each other. But it did fit, and the same light was on, and, in another room, a pink shade backlighted the pillowed tangle of blonde. She looked at him and he turned away and went to make a drink. He heard her behind him, a scented whisper, turned into her look of drowse, ‘then fed on the lips’ sweetness until the drink, unheeded, tilted icy onto the back of his hand and he saw a single eye, close, wide, vast, focused beyond him.

She rolled her forehead against his jaw and said, “It went well?”

“She’ll go see Fran on Sunday.”

“We’ll cheer them on, from Chicago. Poor little cat’s-paw.”

“Who is the cat’s-paw?”

She backed away, exaggerating demureness. “It’s such a dear role. Maybe we all take turns.”

She moved from shadow through the light and back into shadow, toward the doorway. He braced himself with school-yard defiance and said, “I don’t like you, Jemmy. You know that. I don’t like you.”

She turned in the pink doorway glow. “What has that got to do with anything?” There was a mild patience in her tone, as if he had violated a protocol understood by everyone. And then she was gone, into the pink light.

He turned and looked out the window. The glass was a cylinder of stone in his hand, too heavy to bring to his lips.