Boys & Girls Together (13 page)

Not that she resisted; rather, it was a matter of her being unable to control her lower lip. It sort of lay limp across Sid’s cheek, like a wet fish. Ye gods, he thought; have I maybe overdone? A quick glance at the table showed that the third vodka was gone. Sid stared at Esther, who could not stare back, being able only to blink in slow rhythm. Sid kissed her again and, when it ended, held her close. “Oh God,” he said carefully into her ear. “Oh God.”

“Sid,” she came back. “Sid.”

“Esther, I love you. Oh, I love you, believe me, Esther, I love you, do you believe me? Say you do.”

“Sid,” she said. “Sid.”

“Esther, my beloved,” and he started with the hands, moving tentatively along her shoulders, then down. “My darling, my darling, I love you so, oh God, Esther, I just love you.”

“Sid,” she said. “Sid.”

“My sweetest, dearest, beloved Esther,” and he repeated that a while as he riddled with the buttons. She didn’t resist him (or help him for that matter) but just kept saying “Sid, Sid,” over and over, and as he was well along with depriving her of her dress he felt a momentary fear that maybe she wasn’t all real; maybe cotton padding had given Mother Nature a helping hand. But the fear in no way crippled him, and when she was naked on the couch (slumped, but naked) he saw joyously that his fears were groundless. “Oh, my beautiful sweetest sweetheart,” Sid said. “You creature from my dreams, I worship you and love you.” And she kind of nodded with her eyes closed, and he knew she wasn’t paying too close attention, but he always felt sound was important in and for itself, so he talked a blue streak as he perused her shape. “Oh, oh, you Esther, my Esther, my sweet Esther, I love you, I love you,” and she nodded a little but she wasn’t doing much talking anymore. The couch was no longer required, so Sid (at heart a true romantic) started to carry her (with style) to the bedroom. “Esther, my own, my own,” and he shoved one arm under her back, which shouldn’t have tickled her, but she did manage a small laugh. “I’m taking you to dreamland, beloved,” and the other arm struggled under her dimpled knees. “We’re going now, my sweet,” Sid said. “To dreamland.”

It took a while to get there.

Sid lifted her halfway off the couch, but his grip on her back proved untenable and down she slumped. “Yes, my sweetheart, we’re flying off to heaven,” and he attacked her again, trying to get her off the damn couch. Finally he managed to brace his knee under her and with one final tug he had her up in his arms. Sid staggered back under his burden. “Only a moment more, dumpling, and we’ll be floating on heavenly clouds.” He banged her knees against a wall and her eyes half opened with distant pain, so he kissed them closed. “A little accident was all, my beloved; now rest up for dreamland.” He was strong enough and she wasn’t
that
heavy, but there was no denying that she was one hundred percent dead weight and bulky at that. “We’re at the door to dreamland, my sweet,” he said (wheezing a little now). “Heaven, here we come.” But the narrow door presented an unexpected problem in logistics and, try as he would, he could not solve it. He tried her first, him first, sideways, backward, front, but nothing came of it. His arms aching, he finally bulled his way through, scraping her knees again and banging her head for good measure. Again she came to life, but by now he was a little weary from all the talking so he didn’t bother to speak. Instead he fell forward, dumping them both on the bed. Immediately he assuaged her with tender kisses and then pulled off the bedspread (first maneuvering her to one side of the bed, then rolling her to the other), revealing sheets both cleaned and ironed. Sid stepped out of his pants, ripped off the clinging silk underwear and, sweating like a pig, leaped to his revenge.

Sweet it wasn’t.

Sid had to maneuver for both of them, never the Platonic ideal, but he was professional enough to manage it with reasonable success. And Esther lying like a lump was not the Esther he envisioned. But lump or no, she was still Esther, delectable as any plum. So if the battle was not an overwhelming rout, still it was a victory, clean and tasty. And when Sid deposited her at her doorstep (first filling her with several bowls of chili) he could feel the laurel wreath resting on his curly head. And that night, as he fought sleep alone in his bed (one more time—he had to go over it all just one more time), he knew he could give cards and spades to Valentino and not come out behind.

The way Sid lingered in bed the next morning, Greta Garbo might have been there. He had no Swede, of course, nor, for the first time in his life, did he want her. He had his daydreams; he was rich enough. Said daydreams consisted of the scene he was about to play with Esther, which would begin with his saying. “So long, Tootsie,” to which, shocked, she would reply, “So long? So long? You’re leaving me?” “That I am, Tootsie.” “But my ... my
maidenhead
—you took it.” “Better me than the garbage man, Tootsie.” “You ... you
deflowered
me.” “You should feel proud, Tootsie.” “Proud? Why proud?” “Because, Tootsie, you were planted by the greatest goddam gardener in the world.”

Luther Burbank stretched in bed. Gloating was a terrible habit, and whenever he did it (often) he felt, ordinarily, pangs. But not this morning. For Esther had been an adversary worthy of his guile (worthy? My God, for a while she looked a winner) and only genius had brought her to her knees (pun), so why should a genius feel guilty? Rising, he allowed the rug to cushion his pink feet as he journeyed to the bathroom. Inside, he gave the mirror a longer than usual look at his baby blues while he selected the proper Sid to enter Turk’s deli and bid humped Esther a fare-thee-well: Grinning Sid, Sober Sid, Modest or Brilliant Sid—there were so many, each more perfect than the last. He decided finally on Sid the Wandering cavalier. (The element of mystery was what appealed most to him; after all, who could explain Napoleon, Charlemagne, mighty Alexander?)

He dressed with great care, combing his curly locks to perfection, brushing his teeth till they glistened. (Let her remember him at his most beautiful; might pain her just a speck more in the long run.) Then, jaunty as d’Artagnan, he mounted a trusty taxi and set off in quest of his final fillip, that terminal burp which always signals the settling of a perfect meal. Next to the delicatessen was a shoeshine parlor and there Sid dismounted, letting the rhythmic Negro touch up his Florsheims. Flipping a quarter to the grateful black, Sid invaded Salamiland.

Old Turk was armpit deep in his pickle barrel (maybe he’d dropped a penny?), and the way his monolithic nose was screwed over to the left indicated his displeasure in his task. At Sid’s approach he gratefully removed his withered arm from the brine. “Pickle man’s coming tomorrow,” he explained. “Therefore the census.”

“A job for a lesser man than you,” Sid said. “Counting cucumbers.”

“Agreed.” The old man nodded, sponging his dripping arm. “But—” and he shrugged—“a little humbling is good for the soul.”

“Perhaps, perhaps no. Where is your beauty this morning?”

“Up.” His dry thumb indicated the apartment above.

“I would speak with her.”

“I would not.”

“I must.”

“She is bursting with alum, I promise you.”

“I’ll sweeten her.”

“Doubtful.”

“It’s a chance I have to take. We must have words.”

“Then go to your doom,” Old Man Turk said, plunging back into the pickle barrel.

Sid left him and sauntered up the stairs. Knocking, he waited. Nothing. He knocked again. More of the same. Sid tried the door, found it open and entered. Striking a pose in the center of the living room, he called softly, “Esther.” No reply. “Esther?” He moved toward her closed bedroom door. “Esther! It’s me. Sid. Esther, you in there, Esther?” The sound of inner thrashing indicated that she was. “I’m out here, Esther,” Sid said and when her stumbling had become consistent, he retreated toward the living-room window, posing himself so that the sun streamed in around his curly head, burnishing him an almost solid gold.

If he had never looked better, she had never looked worse. She leaned in the doorway, eyes half closed, pale, a torn gray robe flattening her curves. “Yeah?”

“Esther, you all right?”

“It looks like I’m all right?”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m sick, fool.”

“I’m sure sorry about that,” Sid said seriously while someone inside him laughed. “Esther ... ?”

“Yeah, what?”

“I’m leaving, Esther.”

“Leaving? What leaving?”

“Town. I won’t be seeing you for a while. Maybe longer.”

“You bothered me for
that
?”

“You’re not hearing what I’m saying, Esther. I said I’m leaving town.”

“So go.”

God, but she was tough. Sid had to give her credit. Not much, though. Her puny attempt at pride only made him smile.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. Goodbye, Esther,” and he turned for the door, knowing he would never get his hand on the knob, knowing she couldn’t let him (and still survive), knowing the silence would be broken by her crying out his name.

“Sid?”

Why was he never wrong? Sid smiled again. The mark of genius, probably. Did Charlemagne make boo-boos? Sid continued toward the door, waiting for her to plead. She did. On cue.

“Sid. Sid, please. Wait.”

At the door he pirouetted (who’s this Nijinsky anyway?) and gave her his Sunday smile. She stood across the room, still leaning against her doorway. “Yes, Esther?”

“What happened last night?”

When Dempsey cold-cocked Willard in the summer of ’19, there came a moment—halfway through the first round—when big Jess was done, gone, out; only he didn’t know it yet. His body had the message, probably, but his brain, stubborn, absolutely refused to answer the phone. “What do you mean, what happened last night?”

“Just what I said—what happened last night?”

“You mean you don’t remember?” Left to the head, right to the heart, right to the head.

“I’d ask if I remembered?”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“It was hot, I remember that. You took a shower. I felt funny. Then later I got sick on some cheap chili.”

Sid leaned against the door. Willard was falling; Charlemagne too. “Nothing in between?”

“Quit with the games!”

“You don’t remember ... What could he ask? His hands gripped the doorknob for support. “ ... kissing me?”

“That was a week ago. Outside the front door. You aroused my pity.”

“Pity.”

“What else?”

“Pity!”

“Fool.”

“
Pity!
”

They charged toward each other like fighters, standing in the center of the hot room, panting, circling, measuring.

Sid stared at Esther. (Nobody got the best of him.)

Esther stared at Sid. (Nobody got the best of her.)

Eventually (inevitably) they married and got the best of each other.

J
ENNY GREW UP IN
Cherokee, Wisconsin.

When she was born, Cherokee’s population was 182; when she left home, nineteen years later, the population was 206. Aside from that, nothing had changed. The town consisted of a general store, a meeting hall, a drugstore, a saloon, all clustered together on a dirt road. Gray wooden structures, square in shape, they differed from one another only in size, like children’s building blocks. The climate was dry, the weather clear—cool in summer, painfully cold from November through March. The houses of the town stretched feebly along both sides of Cherokee Lake, one of the endless small bodies of water that pockmarks the flat face of northern Wisconsin. The entire area was distinguished by two things only: on one side of the lake stood an exclusive camp for boys, while directly across was Cherokee Lodge, a small, luxurious retreat catering to vacationing businessmen who hunted or fished, as the season demanded.

Jenny’s home was near the lodge. Her father had built it himself. When he became engaged he set to work, and when the living room, bedroom, kitchen and bath were finished, he got married. Then, each time his wife became pregnant, he would build another room for the new baby. It was an ample house, sturdy and clean, set in the woods above the shore of Cherokee Lake.

Jenny’s was a quiet family. Mary, her mother, was a plain, quiet woman, tall, big-boned. Her brothers, Simon and Mark, were quiet brothers. But her father was the quietest of all. Carl Devers rarely spoke. He was a giant, with light blond hair, great thick shoulders and long, surprisingly thin hands. The hands were remarkable—powerful, supple; there seemed to be nothing they could not do. His large face was unusually expressive; emotion ran close behind his blue eyes. With his hands and his eyes, he could answer almost anything; there was really little need for him to speak. When he did talk, one syllable kept recurring: “Auh?” He said it quietly, always with a rising questioning inflection. “Auh?” Jenny came to know the sound and its almost limitless meanings—yes, no, I’ll think about it, I love you too, good night. “Auh?” It was his word.

Carl Devers was a guide. Businessmen came from all across the Middle West to fish with him or hunt in the hushed, snow-covered woods. Partially because of his skill, partially because of his size, stories grew up around him. “Carl Devers,” the businessmen would say, back again safely in the comfort of their clubs. “Let me tell you about Carl Devers. Big, blond sonofabitch. And strong. Why, I’ve seen him grab a couple of packs and hoist a canoe and take off through the woods on a portage and there I am, running like hell to keep up with him, and all I’m carrying is a goddam fishing rod. But that’s nothing. This guy is fantastic. Why, I’ve seen him ... And so the legend swelled.

Jenny grew up in the woods. Running. Barefoot across the pine-needled ground, then down the gentle slope to the beach, then along the narrow stretch of sand, then up again, back into the tree shadows, darting. She ran like a willowy boy, the movements long, controlled, filled with quick grace. Sometimes she would plead with her brothers to chase her and then she would shout with joy, scampering past trees, bolting through bushes, under limbs. By the time she was five, Mark, who was nine, could barely catch her, and even Simon, eleven, would have to set his mind to his task, biting into his lower lip, scrambling after her. Her hair was long and still light blond, her father’s color, and it flew behind her, sometimes swirling across her pale skin as she turned abruptly, spinning, changing direction. She was tall, but she did not mind it then, and her legs were good, thin-ankled and long. Days she spent with her mother, Simon and Mark being off to school, Carl usually having left before any of the others were awake, at dawn, not to return until near suppertime. One night, after he came home, Jenny copied him. She stuck his pipe into her mouth and slipped into his boots and clumped through the front door, then she kissed her mother on the cheek, as her father did, and said “Auh?” as her father did, and nodded to her brothers the way he nodded. At first they just watched her. Mark was the first to laugh, staring as she sat in her father’s favorite chair and knocked the ashes from his pipe into the ashtray. “Auh?” she said again, and by this time they were all laughing, Carl loudest of all. Jenny was trying hard not to giggle as she put the pipe back into her mouth, adjusting it to her father’s angle. Carl came over to her then and lifted her from the chair, holding her high with his great arms. Slowly he brought her down, folding her gently against his chest, while the others applauded. For a moment Jenny wanted to cry.