Save Johanna! (14 page)

“Well, Johanna, tell me. Is that it?”

I feel him draw away without moving.

“No.” I put my face against his chest. “It’s not that. I love you and I want to marry you. But it’s not the book either. I don’t know what it is. Part of it is a remote feeling as if I’m removed from everyone.”

“From me?”

I almost smile. Suddenly everything falls into normal perspective. Here I am worrying that I’m going mad, and my lay analyst’s feelings are hurt. The truth of it is I have been feeling somewhat alienated from David lately, but obviously he’ll be crushed if I say so, so I lie. “Not from you, but certainly from everyone else.”

And now I don’t feel like going on. I’m back where I started. Alone.

David wants to know more about my fears, but the trust I felt before is gone. I claim confusion and uncertainty. He persists, and I withdraw further. A new element of resentment has emerged, and we both feel it. Positions harden, and we find ourselves teetering on the edge of an argument. But neither of us wants that, and in an unspoken agreement we both manage to sublimate the growing passions into sexual expression.

As we make love, our closeness grows, and I feel a fullness of love for David and, with our bodies joined, a solid defense against any assault.

Clutching, I hold him into me, my fingers slipping over the sweat of his back, my legs wrapped and locked around his. And then from nowhere a frantic desperation that has no sexuality to it speeds my pace and I throw myself against him, driving him faster and harder until in one last great thrust he spends himself within me and instantly I panic. He’ll leave me now. He’ll take his body from mine, and I’ll be alone again and vulnerable. But he must sense the fear that stiffens my body and, still holding me tightly, turns onto his back, carrying me with him. We stay wrapped together until his closeness calms me and the fright fades.

“We have to talk, Johanna, there’s no other way.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Then start with the writing. Is it going badly?”

“No, not at all.”

“Are you enjoying it?”

“I’m absorbed by it. It’s extremely demanding. I’m looking into the characters of unusual people, characters with complex and sometimes dark and ugly sides to them. It’s, well, exhausting, emotionally, and yet there are times I get so caught up in them that I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my body, and it’s almost impossible to withdraw from them and return to me. Am I explaining it right? I don’t know. I suppose I enjoy it. I know it’s something I have to keep working at until the job is done.”

“Couldn’t you put it aside for a while?”

“Uh uh. You know me, David. I have to finish what I start. Besides, it’s never going to be any different, so putting it aside now really means abandoning the project forever. I can’t do that. I have a contract. I’ve taken an advance. It would be out of the question.”

“It’s not out of the question if it becomes self-destructive.”

“I admit it’s a strain, but it’s not that serious. Trouble is, I lead such a fat-cat comfortable life that I’m just not used to real hard work. The trick probably is to increase the Valium temporarily and stop talking about it so much.”

“You take enough Valium.” He sounds so serious that I’m taken aback.

I sit up to see his face better. “Are you kidding?”

“No. I’m dead serious. I’ve noticed lately that you’ve been popping them like candy.”

“David! Since when did you become my Valium monitor?” I make no attempt to hide my annoyance.

“How many do you take a day?” he asks, ignoring my response.

“I’m not going to answer that. Not because I take so many but simply because I consider it a terrible intrusion.”

“Four? Five?”

“Stop it. Please.”

Now David slides up to a sitting position on the bed. Somehow, even in his nakedness, he seems to take on a starchy formality. Jesus, he looks like his mother. Incredibly he starts to lecture me about pills and alcohol and combining them with work, and I’m astounded at how closely I’ve been watched. And angry.

My voice has an edge to it. “To begin with, when I feel that I am exceeding normal functional use of any of these things I will deal with it as I have always dealt with my problems in the past—with self-control and intelligence and a strong will to survive. I really take offense at being called self-destructive because I am not now and never have been that way. As far as I’m concerned, the case is closed, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Or Avrum Maheely either?”

“Why do you drag him into this? I never said I wouldn’t talk about Avrum.”

“Good. Let’s talk about him.”

“There’s nothing to say. He’s a character in my book, that’s all.”

“Tell me about him.”

“No, you’re too hostile to him.”

“Too hostile to a murderer? How could that be?”

I don’t answer. Instead I grab my robe and put it on. I would pour another brandy, but he’s made me self-conscious about drinking for the moment. With the cool silk of the robe against my skin, I feel a chill and turn down the air conditioner a notch. I don’t want to sit next to him in bed, and the only other chair in the room is covered with a week’s accumulation of discarded clothes. No choice. I flip the clothes on the floor and sit down. I must have enough anger on my face to make him feel uncomfortable about his own nakedness, and he pulls the sheet over his genitals. Now we’re both less vulnerable.

“What would you like to know about the fictional character in my book?”

“What does he look like?”

“What kind of question is that? You’ve seen his picture dozens of times. You know what he looks like.”

“I know what the real Maheely looks like.”

“David, what kind of a game are you playing?”

“You’re right, Johanna, I guess I do sound facetious. But I don’t feel that way. I’m concerned about you. I feel you withdrawing from me into some kind of secretive life. An unhappy life. Things are disturbing you and when I try to get you to bring them out—to help you—you close up even tighter. We’ve always trusted each other with everything, but now—I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

“Just be patient with me, David.” I go over to the bed and hug him. “There’s nothing seriously wrong. I swear it. And I’m not taking too many pills, and Maheely
is
just a fictional character to me, and the book isn’t anything but a lot of hard, sort of unpleasant work. But I’ve made the commitment, and you can help me by just seeing me through.”

“In other words, stay out.”

I shrug. It’s the time to be honest, for now at least. “Can you trust me?”

He’s silent for a moment, and still. Then I feel his hand on my hair, caressing it, giving me his answer, and I move up against his chest to his mouth and kiss his soft, sweet-tasting lips, and our mouths join, filling each other with love. How can I doubt this man? There’s no one else on earth who means more to me. Why am I not trusting him the way I should?

“I almost forgot,” he says.

“Ugh.”

“Not to worry, this is a nice surprise.”

“You got the paintings.”

“I had the boy from the office pick them up. But it’s not that.”

“Better?”

“I think so. My parents wanted to get you something special. And completely on their own, without consulting me, they invited Sephra, Wes, and the kids to the wedding.”

I shoot upright. “I told you they
can’t
come.”

“And sent them tickets. They’re something, aren’t they? I told them they couldn’t have given you a better gift. Right?”

It’s as though I’ve been punched in the stomach. How grotesque!

I guess my true reaction shows on my face because David looks shocked.

“What’s wrong?”

“They shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s true, even with the reduced fares it’s still a lot of money, but that’s what they wanted to do. They really care about you, Johanna.”

“Then they should have asked me first.”

David looks confused. “They wanted it to be a surprise. In fact, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“Since when?” His face tightens.

“Not when it comes to people.”

“Hey, hold it a minute. What’s going on here? What are you talking about? This is your only sister. Is it the money, or don’t you want her to come?”

“I just wanted to be consulted first.”

“I asked you about Sephra a few weeks ago, and you told me she couldn’t afford to come. You didn’t want her to spend the money. Is that true?”

“Partially.”

“What!”

“Well, I had other reasons.”

“Goddamn it, Johanna! More secrets. Or is it just plain, simple lying?”

We’re standing on either side of the bed, shouting at each other. And it’s too late to stop it now.

I scream at him, “What do you want from me! There are some things I want to keep to myself. Jesus, you’re suffocating me!” With tears blinding me, I grab the first clothes I can reach, sweeping them up off the floor and throwing them on. David stands next to the bed, staring at me as I unleash a torrent of cruel, recriminating words at him. I hear myself telling him to leave me alone, to stop running my life—anything else that comes into my head. Still shouting, I zip up my jeans, grab the first pair of shoes in reach, and fly out of the room. My keys are on the hall table. I snatch them up without slowing down and head out the door, slamming it hard behind me. I can’t stop long enough to wait for the elevator so I use the steps, running down them as though I’m being chased. I’m still furious and crying when I hit the street, but the emptiness of it and the sudden realization of the lateness of the hour quiet me. I stand still for a couple of minutes just trying to catch my breath. Not thinking.

I start walking. Heading down Sixty-fourth Street toward Columbus Avenue. I’m so angry that I’m scarcely aware, much less afraid, of the dark, empty street. I look around a couple of times to see if David is following me. He isn’t. Good, I don’t want him to. I want to be alone.

At Columbus I turn uptown. It’s about 2:30 a.m. Saturday, and Columbus Avenue is swinging. In the eight years I’ve lived in this neighborhood I don’t think I’ve ever taken this walk alone at this hour. It feels good. Free. I’m feeling better, good enough to be amused at my outfit. The jeans are OK but hardly the right match for my best silk blouse, badly wrinkled from spending half the week under a pile of clothes. I wish I had been smart enough to grab my running shoes, probably a necessity for a sojourn down Columbus Avenue at this hour. Instead, I’m wearing killer heels. Well, at least they’re a match.

Thinking about what just happened with David will get me nowhere, so I focus on a more imminent problem. I don’t want Sephra to come. I’d made up my mind weeks ago, maybe years ago, and certainly this last time in San Francisco. I don’t want her in my new life, and there’s only one thing to do. It’s three hours earlier in California, only eleven-thirty, a little late, but I decide to call. At the end of the block I can see a bar called the Windmill. I’ll call from there.

It’s dark inside, older and shabbier than it looks from the outside. One glimpse at the customers and I can see it’s not one of the four billion new singles’ places that have exploded up and down Columbus Avenue in the last five or six years. This is one of the leftover neighborhood bars. Good. I’m not likely to meet anyone I know.

And it’s old enough to have a closed phone booth. Though it’s been only a couple of weeks since I called Sephra on the Coast, I’ve forgotten the number and have to get it from information. I suppose that says something. Not to know your only sister’s phone number.

Sephra answers on the second ring. I hastily explain the abrupt change of plans that prevented me from seeing her in San Francisco, saying that I’d gotten an unexpected call from someone for a critical interview for my book and that I’d had to fly home immediately. She understands perfectly, she says, and I experience a twinge of dismay at how glibly I’ve learned to lie. She was, of course, completely surprised at the news of my coming marriage, gushes with congratulations, and promises to come East a day or two early to help me in any way she can. I will, she says, probably be overwhelmed with details of the wedding.

“And I think it’s incredibly generous of the Agars to have sent us tickets,” she says, “but we don’t feel we can accept such a gift. After all, Johanna, it’s not as though we can’t afford it. Frankly, we were puzzled. Why do you suppose they did it?”

“Sephra. . . . This is very hard for me to say. . . .”

“My God, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, really, it’s just about the wedding.”

“Johanna, don’t worry, we’re not going to take the tickets. Actually it made me very uncomfortable. . . .”

“It’s not the tickets.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Sephra’s voice changes tone and becomes distant. “You don’t want us to come.”

“It’s just going to be a small wedding, very informal. I don’t think it’s worth such a trip.”

“Well . . . I suppose it would be difficult, what with the kids and all.” She’s making it easy for me. I feel rotten.

“Thanks.”

“Johanna? Are you OK?”

“Just tired. I’ve been doing a lot of work, and I don’t sleep so well.”

“The nightmares again?” she asks, referring to the terrifying dreams I used to have as a teenager. I hadn’t had them for years, but in the last couple of months I’ve begun suffering them again. Seconal helps a bit.

“Yeah, a few,” I say. “I think I’m just overtired.”

“Do you think you should see someone?”

“You mean a shrink? For a few bad dreams? I hardly think so.” I hate when she plays mother.

“Would you like to talk to me?”

“About what?”

“There are things we could talk about. It might help.”

“I’m fine, Sephra, I don’t need any help—anymore.” I can’t resist the last dig. All those years, all those questions she avoided answering. Now she wants to talk. Well, it’s too late. I don’t want to hear what she has to say anymore.

“Johanna, there’re only the two of us left. Maybe we can help each other.”

“No.”

“Please, there are things we should talk about. Things that have to be brought into the open.”

Suddenly I feel overcome with terror. I must stop her. “No,” I snap. “Don’t tell me.” I don’t know what I don’t want to hear, but my fear is so intense I can barely breathe.

“Johanna, trust me, I should have done it years . . .”

I slam the phone onto its hook, cutting her off in the middle of her sentence. My hands are shaking, my whole body is trembling. Perspiration covers my face, and the heat in the booth becomes unbearable. I have to get out. I struggle with the door, but it’s stuck and I’m trapped. I grab the handle with both hands and shove it in and out, trying to dislodge the panels. I can’t. And then suddenly it’s opened, pulled free from the outside.

I practically fall out, right onto the man who pulled it open.

“Hey,” he says, grabbing me by the shoulders, “take it easy.”

“Thanks . . . sorry. It was stuck. I couldn’t get out. . . .”

“You were shoving it the wrong way.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mumble, and then he says something about not apologizing to him because it’s not his door. I’m only half listening.

“You look like you need a drink,” he says, and for the first time I take a good look at him. I had the impression he was an older man, but he’s only about twenty-five, with longish, yellow-streaked hair that hangs straight down the sides of his cheeks. His face is bony and sallow, but he’s not homely.

“Well, what about it?”

“What about what?” I don’t quite know what’s going on.

“A drink, you want one?” he asks again, leaning his face into mine. He smiles. Slightly crooked but pleasant, and I decide a drink is exactly what I need.

I nod my head and follow him to the bar. He’s tall and slim, with surprisingly broad shoulders that strain his tight T-shirt. His arms are muscular, and he’s got one sleeve tucked up to make a pocket for his cigarettes. From the back I can see the edge of a tattoo on his arm. When he turns I see another one on his forearm.

“What’ll ya have?” he asks.

“Vodka, please, with a twist.” He orders bourbon for himself and vodka for me, then he says, “Hey, uh, what’s your name?”

“Johanna.”

“Yeah, Joanne, I’m Ron, and this here’s my friend Jimmy.” He motions to a dark-haired man standing next to him at the bar.

“Right,” Jimmy says, “how you doing?”

“She got stuck in the phone booth,” Ron tells him. They talk about that for a couple of minutes, and I half listen. What if Sephra called back and got David? I don’t want her to talk to David. She might tell him. I don’t know what it is, but I know I don’t want him to know.

“Hey, wake up,” Ron says, holding out the vodka to me.

“Thanks,” I say and take it. The music is screeching out from the jukebox, making conversation a strain. Perfect. I don’t have anything to say to these people anyway. But I smile and nod and shake my head on cue. Jimmy holds out his drink to me, and I hear him say, “To Joanne.” And we all drink.

I finish mine first. I need the sting to numb my brain. But one isn’t enough. I tell them the next one is on me, then remember that I don’t have my pocketbook. No matter, they wouldn’t consider it.

“No way, baby,” Ron says. “Broads don’t buy the drinks when we’re around. Right, Jimmy?”

“Right,” Jimmy agrees. He orders another round for all of us. This one works better, and I feel the tightness in my jaws loosen, and Sephra and David and everyone else seems to get swallowed up in the pound of the music and the haze of smoke that dims the already low lights.

Ron tries to pull me closer to the bar. “Come on, Joanne, it’s cold out there.”

The strange grip on my arm brings me to the top of the thick, warm soup I’ve begun to float in. “Thanks,” I say, pulling back. “I’m OK.”

“Sure thing,” he says, letting go instantly. “Still thirsty?”

I smile. “Very.” He orders another vodka for me. Somewhere, far in the back of my head and receding even further, is the common sense that says I shouldn’t be accepting free drinks from strange men, but I need them now. It’s just a few dollars out of their pockets, and I
am
smiling a lot. The next drink makes me smile even more. A genuine smile. What could have been my problem, and who cares anyway? I’m not so high that I don’t know I’m high, which means I’m not drunk. Right? Well, maybe a little.

“You look like you need a spot to lean on,” says Jimmy, making room at the bar.

I move up to the bar because I am a little woozy, and I could use something to steady the rocking. Woozy feels so good.

We’re all three touching, these two strangers and I, standing together. It’s very crowded, and I’m wedged in between them, my back squeezed against Ron. His body has arched to accommodate mine, and I can feel his hard, bulky chest jammed against me. I haven’t had such intimate contact with any man other than David for almost four years. It’s odd, and his feel is very different. He’s shorter, and new areas of my body lean against unfamiliar parts of his. His feel is sharper and bonier. He slides his hand, a large, weighty hand, across the front of my waist and pulls me in tighter to him. I feel very small and delicate. There’s a warmth radiating from him that feels good against my body.

The other man—Jimmy, the dark one—hands me another drink, readjusting his position so that his thigh is touching mine. When he leans over to pick up his drink his genitals press against the front of my hip. Hands and legs, arms and thighs are surrounding me, closing me in into an ever-shrinking circle. Somewhere, high up in the peaks of my mind, some detached part of me observes it all. Below, the vodka, the heat, the anonymity, the need, all respond.

The dark man gets up from his stool. He’s very tall and big, and as he leans over me, his face coming close to mine, a chill runs through my body. I know him. Not his face, his shadow. I know the feel of his darkness looming over me, trapping me. I squirm to get out from under, but his hand slides under my blouse and the fingers run over my breasts and I’m hypnotized. He talks to me, but my hearing is scrambled; bits and pieces of sentences come through; the drift is rough and hard and sexual. More and more the men play over my head, against each other, passions fed on fuck words, cock words, cunt words, and movements that grow bolder and more arrogant. I’m held, squeezed, rubbed against, used. And all the time the little girl smiles, moving with it all, curling against whatever touches me, slithering and winding, lost in the deep, good feeling of being loved.

Another drink, and then the dark man, Jimmy, takes the empty glass from me, pulls my hand down pressing it tight against his erection, moving it up and down slowly. I curl my fingers around him, and they feel small against his thickness. I want to sit on his lap.

Somewhere in that small sane spot in my mind there’s a terrible shriek and a bolt of fear strikes me, but I fight it off and float back into the strange irresistible warmth of my passions.

Keep away from me, David. You too, Sephra and Claudia, all of you. Keep out of my life.

But I don’t have to worry, they’ll never find me here. Here, right under their noses, but so far under they’ll never think to look. They don’t know what it’s like to stroke this underbelly, taste this kind of fucking, it’s not all pills and vodka, they’re only the keys, not what’s inside. I know what’s inside. I belong there.

There’s someone I hate, and I don’t know who it is. Oh, God, don’t let it be David.

“OK, baby, let’s go.” It’s the blond one, Ron. His bourbon breath is unpleasant, harsh, and
bitter. I pull back.

“Uh uh.” I shake my head no, twisting around to the bar. I want another drink. One of them spins me around. “We’re getting out of here,” he says, “now.”

Their hands fall away from me, their bodies move out of touch.

“Shit! The broad is bombed. Grab her fucking arm and let’s get her out of here.” Maybe that was Ron. I don’t know. I don’t want to go. I’m feeling dizzy and sick, but they’ve got my arms and they’re moving me out.

Outside is better. The fresh air helps.

“Come on, Joanne, get in the car.”

Car? What car? “What car?”

But nobody answers. They start pushing me toward the street.

“Hey, don’t push me.”

The dark one, the scary one with the black eyes, eyes like Avrum’s, comes into focus. Why is he so angry? I don’t care. I’m going home.

“Goonigh.” I want it to sound sharp, but my clumsy tongue can’t manage the “t.” It’s hard to see
which way is downtown so I start to walk to the corner to be sure. I’m still deciding which corner when somebody knocks me hard in the back, and I lose my balance and start falling. I reach out to stop myself against the fender of a car, but the blow is so strong I hit the car and bounce off, falling off the curb and into the gutter.

The pain of my thigh hitting first the sharp edge of the curb and then the cement with a hard thump is instantly dimmed by the rush of alarm that shoots through my body. Danger sends me leaping up the second I hit the ground. The fuzziness is gone from my eyes, and I see
everything clearly. The blond one is in the driver’s seat, the back door is open. They’re going to shove me in there. The dark one is going to do it. They’re going to rape me. I’ve got to run.

Jimmy’s steel hands grip my shoulders and shove me back against the open door, his heavy body pinning me, then pushing me down into the car. I’m screaming and scratching and kicking, but he’s all over me and I can’t break away.

Suddenly my knee catches a soft spot and he drops away for an instant, leaving me a free space, and I rush into it, simultaneously tearing off my shoes and flinging them behind me. Now I’m running and screaming down Columbus Avenue, turning the first corner I come to. I look behind me but see
no one. Then I see
the headlights. They’re following me in the car. I’m not screaming. I can’t scream and run. The car is up to me now, traveling alongside me.