Boys & Girls Together (91 page)

He was on a sandbar.

For a moment he could do nothing. Then he realized how funny it all was, how paralyzingly funny, so he started to laugh, kneeling there in the nice cool water beneath the blinding rise of the sun. He laughed and laughed because it was all so funny, not sad, nothing was sad anymore, least of all him, because he was indestructible now, nothing could touch him, and he laughed and slipped off the bar and started stroking his way back to shore. The water was wonderfully refreshing, and even though there was a steady ache behind his eyes he felt really marvelous and the cramps didn’t start actually to worry him until he was almost halfway back. Then at once both of his calves knotted and his stomach grabbed and Charley screamed out loud, sinking down below the surface, balling his hands, hitting at his calves, and they felt just the slightest bit better but his stomach was dragging him down. Charley fought for one sweet breath, got it, sank again, and when the first thought of death as an actuality crossed his mind he was able barely to realize that it would be funny too, if he died now on his way back, just as the sandbar had been funny a little while ago. The next time he made it to the surface he vomited, so the air was of little use, but the time after that was better and his calves were fine now, or almost fine, and if only his stomach would stop he felt he had an excellent chance of floating in to shore. But his stomach would not stop, and he doubled up in agony, vomiting again and again, and he realized what he had to do was straighten, but it hurt more than anything he had ever known and he doubted that he had the strength, but he tried, tried to straighten, and his stomach tightened, fighting him, and he made it to the surface one more time and filled his lungs with air and then, like some great fish, he broke water, jerking back with his head, kicking out with his feet, and his stomach fought him, tried to clench, but he was too much for it, and in a moment it began subsiding. Charley lay stretched straight out in the water facedown. His calves started knotting again but he ignored them easily.

Then he made a suede jacket in his mind and it floated him to shore.

Awakened by a kiss, Betty Jane watched her husband’s swim from their second-floor bedroom. At first she thought it was merely odd to swim so far, at dawn, in October. It was only when she found herself glancing around the room for some kind of note that she allowed herself to realize the other ramifications of his jaunt, and by that time he was floating safely, if weakly, in toward shore. He lay spent on the beach, half in, half out of the water, the larger waves covering him briefly with foam. She stared at him for the longest time. Then, when he tried getting to his feet, she hurried to him. He explained that he had gone out too far.

She called him a silly and helped him up to bed.

Cowards die many times before their deaths. “Hi, Jenny.”

“Hello, Mrs. Fiske.” Jesus—

“Busy, I see.” You are through with my husband. I am here to tell you that.

“Oh, not so very.” What the hell is she doing here?

Say it. Tell her. Stay away from him. “Good. It never pays to work too hard, I always say.”

“Not at these prices.” How much do you know?

“You’re looking well, Jenny.” When you age—when that day comes—when you age and your body sags, the sound you hear will be my laughter.

“So are you.” God damn it. “Where’s the boss?” Bitch.

“He won’t be in today.” Slut.

Why?
“Oh?”

“
Oh.
”

“Yes; he swam a bit too much over the weekend. He’s still exhausted.”
You are killing him
.

“Well, we’re none of us as young as we used to be.” You bitch, you stupid bitch, say something!

“I was just in the area, so I thought I’d drop in; I do that sometimes.” You will stay away from my husband. You will keep your sweating whore hands away from Charley.

“Yes.” You stupid insipid—

Tell her.
Tell her!
“
You
really are looking well.”

“You’ll make me blush.” Say what’s on your mind. Compose yourself, you clinging bitch, and say something. “Coffee?”

Thank God. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Cart was just here. How do you take it?” He loves me, bitch. The thought of him touching you ...”

“Black.” Look at her, slut with a whore’s face, and how can he touch a thing like you?

“Be right back.” She’s here to beg for him. Well beg, bitch. Screw up your courage and beg!

She is killing my husband and destroying me and there is no excuse for her existence in my life. She must be told and told firmly! That he is mine! That she is not wanted! That her services are no longer needed! That she is loathed! That she must leave! Leave! Him!
Take your whore’s body and go!

“Black it is.” All right, say it. Say it!

“Jenny—” Tell the whore!

“What?”
Say it
.

“There’s something—”
THE WHORE MUST BE TOLD!

“What?”
SAY IT! SAY IT!

“My heavens, look at the time.” Of course, eventually she’s got to bore him to distraction. You sleep with a whore but you live with a wife. Nothing to be gained by telling. Not really.

“Can’t you stay?” How can he stand it with you? Well, he won’t much longer.

“I’ve really got to dash.” I’ll never leave him.

“Well, if you have to, you have to.” I’ll never let him go.

“Take care now, Jenny.” God, how I pity you.

“You too.” Poor thing.

Both: “Biiiiiiieeeee.”

Two days later, when he came to work, Charley stopped by Jenny’s desk to report that his wife had left him that morning.

She followed him into his office and requested details.

He demurred, saying there were none, that she simply had packed up the children and gone, asking would he please not follow.

Jenny asked if he was happy.

He said he was.

She wondered why he didn’t look it.

He explained it was because of the suddenness of her departure.

She went into his arms and asked did he really think it was over.

He said he really thought it was.

She said she almost felt let down since it ended so quietly.

He agreed, saying a good screaming match might have provided catharsis.

Then she told him her news, how she wasn’t pregnant after all.

He mused at the oddity of both the tests being mistaken.

She hastened to inform him of her miscarriage over the weekend.

He nodded.

She explained that she deemed it unwise to contact him over the weekend, and, besides, she wanted him to be there when she told.

He asked after her present health.

She said she was fine.

He said she certainly looked it.

She said how she loved him.

He said how it was his lucky day.

Betty Jane stared at the bay, then jerked around, grabbed for the phone. She told the long-distance operator that she wanted to place a call to a Mr. Mark Sanders in Manhattan. The operator, for some reason, thanked her. Betty Jane gripped the phone, listening to the clatter coming from the kitchen, where her mother was trying to quiet her son from urging her daughter into making an even greater racket with a frying pan. Paula loved banging frying pans around more than almost anything. Betty Jane took a deep breath and when a man answered she said “Mark?”

“Mark’s not here.”

“Betty Jane Bunnel—no, Fiske—tell him Mrs. Fiske called and he knew me from school last winter—Princeton, tell him—and would you tell him too to call me? Collect. Please.”

“I meant not here, Mrs. Fiske. Mark’s in Ann Arbor.”

“That’s in Michigan,” Betty Jane said, though she couldn’t for the life of her think why.

“Yes.”

“Well, will he be back soon?”

“I don’t think so. He was offered a teaching fellowship. I’m a friend of Mark’s—I’ve got his apartment now. Can I help you?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not important?”

“I didn’t say that.” She hung up.

“Who was that?” her mother asked.

Betty Jane shook her head.

“Was it Charley?”

“No, it wasn’t Charley.”

“Well, maybe he’ll call soon.”

“I told him
not
to, Mother.”

“Well, don’t bite my head off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank God Penny’s coming.”

“What are you talking about?”

Mrs. Fiske glanced at the grandfather’s clock in the corner. “She’ll be here any minute.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mother. Penny’s
my
friend. If
I’d
wanted her here
I’d’ve
told her to come.”

“Mother knows best.”

“Never use that phrase to me again!”

“Have you taken your temperature?”

Betty Jane lifted her hands in surrender.

“I don’t understand you young people,” Mrs. Bunnel said, and when there was a thud followed by a grunt from the kitchen she left to investigate.

Penny arrived shortly after. She poured herself a half glass of Scotch, sat down across from Betty Jane and said, “Are you out of your trick head?”

Betty Jane smiled.

Penny swallowed half her Scotch. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were out here?”

“Because I didn’t and don’t want to see or talk to you.”

“A friend is someone you can tell to go to hell and they’ll understand. I read that some place. Wha happen?”

“We’re
finito
.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to go into it.”

“Who cares what you want?”

“Oh, Penny, I went to see that lousy whore secretary and I was all ready to have it out.”

“Except you didn’t.”

“Except I didn’t.”

“You said nothing whatsoever.”

Betty Jane nodded. “I had to leave him. For everybody’s health. I got so fed up with myself after I left her without speaking I just all of a sudden later got this urge to pack and run.”

“What’s health got to do with it?”

“Charley tried suicide. Out there.” She pointed toward the bay. “The sandbar saved him.”

Penny finished her Scotch. “Where were you when they passed out brains?”

“Meaning?”

“Nobody
tries
suicide.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen, dumbo, if you really wanna knock yourself off, it’s easy. Take any elevator ten floors up, find the nearest window and move out smartly.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Charley wasn’t trying suicide, I’ll bet anything. He just wanted you to think he was.”

“That’s not true.”

“When was this?”

“Last weekend. Dawn.”

“You’re a heavy sleeper. What the hell were you doing up? What woke you?”

Betty Jane looked blank.

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Well, think about it. How long has Charley been coming here?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Just that everybody knows about the sandbar and where it is. I’ve been out there and so have you and
so has Charley
.”

“He’s not that kind. He wouldn’t do a thing like that and you know it.”

“Not consciously, maybe. But I’ll bet when you remember it’ll turn out to be Charley woke you up. And after you remember, just forget about it and get the hell back to him as fast as you can.”

“You talked differently a year ago.”

“I was younger and thought I had a shot at marrying this buyer from Hudson’s in Detroit and I’d spent one year less on the open market. And I haven’t even got kids. You got two—count ’em, two—and how the hell can you be sure your looks are gonna last? People age under strain, B.J., even you. He’ll get bored with this broad someday. You better be there when he does. I’m telling you, you’re crazy to pitch it.”

“Charley kissed me!”

“Huh?”

Betty Jane stood and walked to the window, staring out at the bay. “That morning. That’s what woke me. Charley kissed me. I remember it so plain.” She turned to Penny. “But why would he want me to see?”

Penny shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe so
you’d
get upset and
do
something. I rest my case. Now go make up.”

“Not while he has that whore. If I go back now, I hope I die.”

“Don’t say that. Ever.”

“I say what I feel,” Betty Jane said.

Jenny tugged at her skirt with one hand and combed her hair with the other. When the doorbell rang she gave up the tugging and concentrated her entire effort on trying to “do something” with her hair. When the doorbell rang a second time she dropped the comb, ran her tongue across her lips and opened the apartment door. Jenny said “How do you do” very politely and gave a little curtsy.

“Miss Devers, I believe,” Charley said.

“May I take your coat?”

“Thank you.” He gave it to her. She took it and hung it carefully in her closet. “All dolled up,” Charley said, and he went to her and began to touch.

“Now you must wait,” Jenny said, pressing his hands together. “This is our first date and you must show respect.”

“May I molest you later?”

“If you show respect you may do whatever you want to later, but this is our first real human-type date and we must treat it accordingly. May I tell you something? I can almost never remember being so excited. Do you realize we are going to walk out that door
into the open air together
?”

“As they say, ‘at last.’ ”

“At last,” Jenny repeated. “Now I have a duty. What was it?” She pressed one hand against her forehead, then giggled. “Oh yes—I’m the hostess. Would you care for anything? A drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Would you like to wash your hands?”

Charley broke out laughing.

“I boned up for tonight,” Jenny said. “Don’t you dare laugh. It’s proper for the hostess to ask if you want to wash your hands or anything.”

“My hands are spotless, like my soul.” He looked around. “I don’t even mind these goddam blue walls tonight so much. And that is remarkable.”

“I’m not trying to be a nag, but considering the occasion and all, could you please remember the respect due me and watch your language?”

Charley bowed. “Gosh darn blue walls,” he said.

“I love you,” Jenny said.