Happy All the Time (12 page)

“First things first,” said Holly. “The kitchen doesn't have enough work space. I've been making do, but it's hard to do any really serious cooking. Next, I didn't
leave
you. I went away. I know you understand that, Guido, but I think you don't want to understand it. I do not want to get used to everything going well. I don't want to get used to marriage. It's too serious. I like daily life as much as the next person and I love daily life with you. We could go on and on quite happily but I think you have to interrupt things once in a while in order to get perspective.”

“Does this mean that I am going to be tortured in this way from time to time?”

“Don't be silly. Close your eyes and tell me exactly what is in this room.”

Guido shut his eyes and described in minute detail every object in the room.

“What's the point of this?” he said.

“Well, the point, of course,
is
that people get too used to things. I keep forgetting you don't, but I keep thinking you will so I try to keep one step ahead so you can't. If you got used to me, I think I'd shrivel up.”

They were lying side by side. Holly's head was propped up with one of the ornamental bed pillows she had retrieved from the closet where Guido, who could not endure the sight of them during her absence, had stashed them. Holly's hair was a little mussed. She wore a prim nightshirt, turquoise earrings, and the gold and turquoise ring Guido had intended as an engagement ring but which had turned into a wedding ring. Perhaps, thought Guido, it was her Oriental hair that made her seem inscrutable. But what did it matter? She was back.

Thus their reconciliation. But even with her sleeping next to him, Guido turned over and over during the night to make sure she was actually there. She always was, her hair nestled against the pillows and one elegant foot on top of the blanket. She was sleeping the sleep of the just and innocent. Her clothes were folded neatly over the armchair that for six weeks had held nothing more inspiring than copies of
The New York Times
.

The next morning she was up before he was, and he found her drinking coffee and wearing his old camel's hair robe. Her eyes were bright with unfocused alertness. She was reading the society page. At his place was a covered plate of muffins and jam. Holly read to him from the paper as if they had never been parted.

“It says here in the people column that a twenty-year-old boy stamp collector has been having a correspondence with an eighty-year-old woman stamp collector and that they plan to be married. Isn't that extraordinary?”

“They'll get used to it,” said Guido.

“Don't tease, darling,” said Holly, pouring him a cup of coffee. “They probably will get used to it and they'll be sorry. Here's the front page.”

Guido barricaded himself in back of the sports page and emerged when Holly brought him a plate of very perfect scrambled eggs with chives.

“I thought I might check out the real estate market today,” said Holly. “Just in case there's an apartment with our name on it. It might be nice just to look around and see how good we've got it—unless something better turns up.” She got up from the table and put her arms around his neck. “I've got a million errands to do,” she said. “I'm going to get dressed. There's a little more coffee in the pot for you and some hot milk on the stove. I'll call you at lunchtime.”

With that, she disappeared into the bedroom, leaving Guido to reflect that in matters of the heart, his wife was very businesslike.

It was a bright, cold morning. The sun shone through fat gray clouds, a nippy wind blew leaves into whirlwinds, and the sky, when the clouds moved, was an intense, cheery blue. It was not the sort of weather in which to be perplexed.

However, Guido was perplexed. Holly was as bewildering as ever. He needed time to contemplate her return, but time was not his. Betty Helen had flown off to visit her ailing mother, and Guido was now faced with the prospect of interviewing dozens of unsuitable boys and girls. Modern life was not producing very many Betty Helens, Guido thought sadly. How he would miss that steady, dependable, uninflected presence. Betty Helen was as bland as cream of rice.

At the door to his office he was greeted by a young man who wore his hair in the style of the early John Donne, a three-piece tweed suit, and cowboy boots.

“Can I help you?” Guido said.

“Yeah, I'm looking for Guido Morris.”

“I'm Guido Morris.”

“Oh, yeah? Far out. Well, I'm Misty Berkowitz's cousin, Stanley Berkowitz, and I'm your new secretary. I'm a present from Misty and your pal Vincent.”

“How nice,” said Guido. “I've never had a male secretary before.”

“I'm not a male secretary, man. I just type real fast. I'm taking a leave of absence from Princeton and I need some gainful employment. Misty thought I should have worn a ribbon around my neck with a little card. I'm the solution to all your problems.”

“I see,” said Guido.

“Well, you don't look too happy, but you will be because I'm basically steady. I'm a nervous type so I can type about a million words a minute. I can also read Greek and Latin. I'm in Classics, see.”

“We don't get very much call for Greek and Latin,” said Guido. “This may be a very dull place for you to work.”

“I need a dull place, man. I'm trying to let my brain cool out. I got very wired up last semester and I have to cool out.”

“Can you take dictation?”

“No, man,” said Stanley. “But I can write very, very fast.”

Stanley wrote a rapid, legible hand. He made excellent coffee. He loved to answer the telephone because of the groovy voices and he did in fact type like a demon. Shortly before lunch, he presented Guido with a stack of typed letters. All the
w'
s had been left out and were written in an Italic hand.

“Is the
w
key on that typewriter broken?” Guido asked.

“No, man. It's a little device I made up from going crazy typing term papers. See, you pick a letter and then you leave it out and then you write it in. It's a little challenge. I discovered it when I was on ups.”

“Ups?” said Guido.

“Speed,” said Stanley. “You know, amphetamines and stuff. All us young persons used to do it. My mind was turning into pea soup, so I stopped. But you discover some really weird stuff, like what I call ‘the left-out-letter syndrome.'”

“It looks very nice,” said Guido.

“Yeah, well, it looks like the key is broken but it gives a sort of personal touch.”

Vincent had already met Stanley. Misty had formally introduced them. He had taken this as yet another good sign-meeting a member of your beloved's family. His first night with Misty had been followed by many others. It seemed to Vincent that Misty took this for normal life. Vincent, of course, did not. He had made it a point to turn up in Misty's office at around five o'clock to see if she were free. The first few times, he was formal and abashed. He said, “Can we, that is are you, I mean are we going to see each other tonight?”

This did not sit well with Misty. “Oh, cut it out,” she said. “Stop turning me into some sort of social encounter.” By these utterances was Vincent's heart made easy. Not to treat her as a social encounter meant to treat her like an established part of his life.

“Well, I figure it's right to ask,” Vincent said.

“Oh, spare me your politeness,” said Misty. “Did you think I wasn't going to see you? Do you think I go to bed with any old fellow and then not see him? What do you think this is all about, anyway?”

“It just seems considerate to ask first.”

“Spare me your figures of speech,” said Misty.

Thus they fell into haphazard domesticity. Vincent asked nothing—if he asked, it might evaporate, he felt. Usually they repaired to Misty's apartment, which was smaller than Vincent's but had pots and pans and dishes. Vincent was himself somewhat indifferent to his surroundings. He had taken a rather grand apartment that during his tenure as trouble-shooter he had barely used. Before he met Misty, he had decided that bachelorhood was a form of penance and ought to be rather more wretched than not. He had been in the habit of dining out. Thus his apartment had little to offer in the way of creature comforts. He and Misty visited it when Vincent needed a clean shirt or to pick up his mail.

At Misty's they watched the evening news on Misty's tiny television. Vincent read the paper and drank his evening glass of whisky.

The whisky, he felt, was a definite sign. In fact, it was a turning point. Since Misty never entertained and almost never drank, there was nothing alcoholic in her apartment. A few weeks after their first night together, he was dazzled to find that she had bought not just a bottle of whisky, but a bottle of Irish whisky. Misty said nothing about this, nor did Vincent, who was moved beyond measure that she would actually go out and buy what he liked best.

After the news, they had dinner out, or dinner in. Misty could make pot roast, stew, and omelettes and Vincent had been taught by Holly to make a perfect salad. Together they collaborated on a series of soufflés.

“I like cooking only when it's dangerous,” said Vincent.

In the evening, Vincent smoked his cigar and read at one end of the couch. Misty sipped her coffee and read at the other end. This was not romance as Vincent had ever known it. In fact, their first night together might have been viewed by ordinary lights as relatively unromantic. Vincent did not sweep Misty off her feet. She did not wilt into Vincent's arms and say: “Take me, I'm yours.” They did not drink themselves into a state and repair to bed in a tangle of bedclothes. They had simply gone to bed as if they had spent a lifetime going to bed together. They took off their clothes and folded them. Neither made a point of noticing the other's trembling hands. Misty had pulled back the covers in a matter of fact way, except that her knees were shaking. Once in bed, they did not fall on each other with incoherent cries. They did not shut their eyes and swoon with unnameable raptures. They lay side by side for a while until they discovered that they were holding hands.

“So. Here you are,” said Misty. Her voice was unsteady. Vincent did not take this as a sign to lift her into his arms. He turned over on his side. She turned to face him. They did not smile. Their hearts were pounding. The poet says: “We breathe each other in, from ember to ember.” They breathed.

Now Vincent had actually met a member of her family. Stanley had been invited for dinner and Vincent found him very entertaining. In an effort to lock up as much as possible at one time, he put it to Stanley.

“If you're taking off the semester, why don't you go work for my friend Guido Morris? He's in a bit of a jam and you might help him out. And it's a worthy cause.”

He was delighted to see Stanley hard at work when he walked into Guido's office. Stanley, who found Vincent's field of expertise inexhaustibly amusing, said, “What's new on the rubbish heap?”

“How's the life of a male secretary?” Vincent said.

“It's far out,” said Stanley. “Of course, I've only been at it a few days. Mr. Morris will see you now. How's that? Nice and official, huh?”

Guido was sitting at his desk reading proposals and drinking a glass of seltzer and lime juice.

“What's happening on the rubbish heap?” he said.

“Is Stanley writing your material now?” said Vincent. “How's Holly?”

Guido felt a resurgence of despair. “She's wonderful. I'm terrible. I feel as if I had been flattened by a truck, but she's as adaptable as a thermostat. She says she wants to move. She said something last night about the artifacts of stasis.”

“What's that?”

“I have no idea. When she gets like that, I never know what she's talking about. On every other subject she's as clear as glass. I can't talk about it. All I know is that she's back.”

“Remember when we were young and everyone used to think that women were emotional?” said Vincent. “I wonder what lucky person thought that one up. It's awful when you realize that the way things used to be is boring but the way things are is altogether strange. All the girls I used to know seem like chaff, but I'm beginning to think a swooning woman might be very attractive.”

“By that I expect you mean that your friend Misty is giving you a hard time,” Guido said.

“If you mean, is she attacking me, she isn't, but she's hardly giving me a break. I know she doesn't find me ape-like and repellent, but I can't find out how else she finds me. She's a clam. Oh, what the hell. I'm going to ask her to marry me.”

“Why don't you stick your head in a coal stove?” said Guido. “It saves time.”

“I love her,” said Vincent. “And I'm certain that she loves me. She won't tell me because she says I don't deserve to know. But I'm positive she does.”

“Isn't life simple?” said Guido, bitterly.

“In the old days,” said Vincent, “I'd pop the question and she'd say yes and then we'd go and do it. Then we'd settle down and live our lives like normal people.”

“What makes you think you're normal?” said Guido. “Besides, in the old days, there weren't any Hollys or Mistys. Our trouble is that we don't know how things are supposed to be anymore.”

“I don't care,” said Vincent. “I'm going to proceed on the assumption that things are the way they're supposed to be and I'm going to ask Misty if she wants to marry me.”

“You barely know her,” said Guido.

“So what?” Vincent said. “And you're a fine one to talk. You hardly had a long engagement. Besides, you're the one who said that when you're right, you're right. So now I'm right.”

“I'll send you the name of a good lawyer as a wedding present,” said Guido. “But before you propose, please thank her for sending Stanley to me.”