Living Room (10 page)

Al laughed. The timbre of his voice, a clear bass coming from inside a long, mechanical frame: all he had said was his name, but it resounded like a pronouncement.

“Shirley Hartman. Sorry I fell asleep. I’m irresponsible.”

“Never mind,” he said, as Mary dropped their hands. He was looking at Shirley to see how the flesh differed from the woman he had seen on Channel 5 and in his dream.

“I’ll get drinks,” said Mary. She took the men’s now-empty glasses. “The usual?” she asked Shirley.

“Please. Can I peek at Clarence?”

“Sure.”

In the tiny bedroom where Clarence slept, Shirley adjusted her eyes to the darkness. By the bleak blue fan of the night light, she saw Clarence bottom up as if he were still a baby, his face barely visible as she strained over the side of the crib. The blanket moved with the trembles of his regular breathing. It’s a wonder they didn’t suddenly stop.

She felt Mary’s presence over her shoulder.

“He’s marvelous,” said Shirley.

“I’m so glad you like him.”

“I was referring to Clarence.”

“Oh?” Then, “Al’s got a mind like a razor.”

“That doesn’t sound very attractive.”

“I meant incisive, quick, the kind you like to joust with.”

Clarence stirred in his crib.

“We’d better get out of here,” whispered Shirley. “I thought you were supposed to be making drinks.”

Mary vanished. Shirley glanced at Clarence, safe for a while from his mother’s matchmaking.

Out in the living room the light seemed brighter than before. “It may be finite,” said Al to Jack, who had moved to an adjacent chair.

“What may be?” asked Shirley.

Al looked up at her without speaking. Jack said, “The universe.”

She sat down. “Mind if I eavesdrop?”

But they did not go on in the intruder’s presence. Jack stood. “I guess I’ll help Mary with the drinks.”

“Doctor,” Shirley said, her eyes on his thickening waist, not wanting to be left alone with the stranger just yet, “you ought to get more exercise.”

“Any time you say.”

“I meant jogging.”

“Any way you like.”

“Jack, you’re incorrigible.” She was holding him in the room. Jack turned to his friend. “Al, what do you do to keep thin?”

“Nothing. I inherited a fortunate metabolism.”

And then, divided by carpet and distance, Shirley felt caught in that sudden silence, the uncomfortable presence of a person you didn’t know well enough to be easy about a minute’s lack of conversation. With a voice like his, she thought, he’s what: a radio announcer? Too much nervous energy there to talk into a microphone. Politician? Would have heard of him.
You’re typecasting, Shirley, maybe the voice has got nothing to do with it.

She must have been staring. Al said, “I thought you were about to say something.”

Shirley shook her head. Jack escaped to the kitchen.

Al had the habit of dealing with social obligations like small talk by ignoring them. He didn’t mind, in fact was entertained by the banter between Jack and Mary into which he had thrust a few words earlier in the evening. But then he had settled down to listen, to watch this couple he liked as if he were a spectator at a ballet, Jack left, Mary right. They talked with a weaponry
available only to the married, the arsenals of petty
information, the underground streams of past emotions coming to the surface. He had gotten over his early feelings of being a voyeur at other people’s marriages, but now Shirley’s presence interfered by reminding him that he didn’t belong either. Whatever the company, however close or not the friends, when the evening was over, these two, Jack and Mary Wood, would end in each other’s arms.

He looked at Shirley, who was suddenly pretending to study the cover of a magazine lying on the coffee table. Was she thinking of her next remark? People in advertising or marketing were always on stage selling, or was he being unfair? She looked more relaxed now than when she first came in. She’d been a friend of Mary’s since school. Mary got bored with second-raters quickly. Maybe this Shirley wasn’t. Then why did she have her neck in the publicity noose all the time? Actors died if they were ignored; some people behaved like actors, not listening, just waiting for the cue at the end of someone else’s speech. Perhaps he liked the occasional movie better than going to the theater because at a stage play even the people in the audience lost their privacy, were part of a crowd, expecting each other to applaud in unison. Perhaps books were best because there wasn’t another elbow on the armrest next to yours. Was privacy the ultimate good? Should he speak to her now, was that his civilized social obligation as a guest? If he proffered words, it wasn’t a contract, say something coward, it won’t kill you to be polite! He glanced directly at her, catching her eye as she sat opposite, opposite perhaps in every way, caught with him in their web of talklessness.

Mary and Jack returned from the kitchen, praise God, that very moment, distributing the drinks, and Jack said, “What have you two been talking about?” which made Shirley and Al both laugh.

“Must have been awfully funny,” said Mary.

Somehow, it was Shirley’s cue. Gathering strength, she said to Al, “What do you do when you’re not unemployed?”

Al studied the color of his drink. “I thought young people didn’t ask that kind of question an
y
more.”

Shirley wished Jack and Mary wouldn’t just sit there like an audience.

“I’ve been unemployed for eleven years,” said Al. “Since college.”

That would make him about thirty-three, Shirley figured.

“If you’re wondering whether I’m rich,” said Al, “I’d be happy to mail you a copy of my personal financial statement.”

Well, unfriendly stranger,
Shirley thought,
this evening wasn’t my idea.

“I’m waking up,” said Shirley. “Let’s start all over again. Good evening, I’m sorry I was late, you said your name was Chunin?”

“Well, the truth is it’s pronounced with a guttural ‘ch’ like in Russian, but nobody manages it except relatives, so it’s become Chunin like choo-choo.”

“Is Al short for Albert?”

Silence.

“Alfred?”

“My father had a great flair for informality. The birth certificate said Al, period.”

“What did your mother have a flair for?”

“For accepting my father’s suggestions. It was pre–Women’s Lib.”

He was watching her reactions.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You can say anything you want to.”

“Actually,” continued Al, “my mother died when I was three.”

“Well,” said Shirley, “mine when I was seven.”

Jack inserted, “This is a motherless children evening.” He didn’t catch Mary’s look.

“Do you remember your mother?” asked Al.

“Constantly. It’s as if I had a hearing aid with my mother’s advice permanently prerecorded in it, sounding off whenever I do something she thinks is wrong, which is frequently.”

“I don’t remember what mine sounded like,” said Al. “Just the
visual sense I get from photographs.”

“Mary’s mother is still alive,” said Jack. “It isn’t an asset.”

“Shall I put some music on?” asked Mary.

“Not for me,” said Shirley.

The voice shook his head. The advertising lady seemed less brittle than he had thought she would be.

Shirley was saying, “I’ve never met a man before who’s never worked. Does a woman support you?”

“Infrequently, for a few minutes at a time.”

Jack’s raucous laughter died away as Al what’s-his-name twined left- and right-hand fingers together over his knee, a stick drawing, Shirley thought, all bones.

“My father,” said Al addressing Shirley only, “owned a restaurant in South Bend, Indiana. He trusted everybody. His accountant told him the bartender and waitresses were stealing him blind. He was an insurance freak. Term, straight life, endowment, mostly term, cheap and big end numbers. Our insurance man became his best friend. I think it was my mother’s sudden death that got him started on his hobby. Every morning was the beginning of a potential doomsday. If luck held, he figured he had a week to go, never a month. He was in good health.”

“What happened?”

“He died. Drove to Chicago to buy some new kitchen equipment, head on, double indemnity, came to nine hundred thousand dollars, more than he could ever make in the restaurant business.”

“Life,” said Shirley, “is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“He had a happy ending, I suppose,” said Al. “Dying was his goal. He prepared for it and he made it.”

The erector set untwined his hands from around his knee. “Look, I’m boring everyone.”

“Not a bit,” said Shirley. “How old were you when he—”

“Oh, twenty-one, I was okay. I finished up the last year in New Haven and came to New York to see what the Village was all about.”

“And?”

“It was about fifteen dollars a week. I could have lived there forever on my father’s loot, but I didn’t like it.”

“No privacy.”

“How’d you know?”

“I tried the Village,” said Shirley. “I had to earn my way out.”

Al sighed. “Don’t be bitter about inherited wealth. It wasn’t my idea.”

Shirley said, “Mind if I ask a personal question?

“Sure,” said Al.

“Sure mind?”

“Sure ask.”

“Are you gay?”

She could see the flush in his face, slight but visible. He studied her face.

Finally, he said, “Would it matter?”

“Some of my best friends,” was all she could manage.

Mary was standing at the kitchen door, appalled but listening.

“We’re playing tag,” Al told her. Then to Shirley, “Are you Jewish?”

“All my life. It’s not a sexual preference.”

“Are you a lesbian?”

“I’m an unmarried Jewish girl who is not, to her knowledge, a lesbian.”

“What the hell is going on here?” asked Jack.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Shirley said to Al.

“True. What would you like the answer to be?”

“Hmmmmm.”

“It’s not a commitment, just an answer.”

Shirley could see the look that darted from Jack to Mary.

“Okay,” said Shirley. “For the meantime, I’d like to keep the options open. Let’s say I’d prefer you to be heterosexual.”

“You have anything against gays?”

“Nope.”

“Just that you’d prefer me in particular not to be one?”

“You’re trying to move twice in a row. Fair is fair.”

“Okay,” said Al. “I’m straight.”

“Dinner is ready,” said Mary, her voice a bit loud.

As they were taking their places at the dining table, Al, as a gesture to his hosts, held the chair for Shirley as she sat.

“I think,” he said to his hosts, “she was paying me a compliment.”

Leg of lamb, mint sauce, a salad with endive and flavored with dill kept the attention of the by-now ravenous diners.

“It’s good,” said Jack.

“It’s good,” said Al.

“Well,” said Mary, “I’m glad nobody is straining their vocabulary. Shirley, tell Al about the Ford campaign.”

“It’s confidential till the client says yea or nay. I shouldn’t have mentioned it to you.”

“Ford?” asked Al.

“Ford,” said Shirley, but no more.

Jack broke the silence. “Tell her about the house, Al.”

Al leaned across the table to Shirley. “I think we have a prompter.” He leaned back. “Never mind, happy to tell about the house.”

“It’s fantastic,” said Mary.

“Shut up, Mary,” said Jack.

“As president of the singles around here,” said Al, “I’d say you two aren’t doing a damn thing to encourage the idea of people living together on a regular basis.”

“Who,” said Shirley, putting her fork down, “elected you president?”

“Please tell about the house,” said Mary.

“Okay.” Shirley watched him twine the Lincoln fingers together, elbows on the table. “When I decided to get out of the Village, I was also deciding that I wasn’t very good at handling that insurance money. I put most of it into a discretionary account with a
guy named Tiny
I had known
from
school, who bought
some municipals for me, and some high-yield utilities, widows-and- orphans stuff he called it, saying I was probably helpless in making new money and I might as well have Dad’s last as long as possible. His advice to me was to put some of the balance into real estate. I told him I didn’t want to be a slum lord. No, no, he said, he meant I should buy a house where the land values were good. Real estate went up, never down, it’d be safe. So I rented a Volvo—ever driven a Volvo, nice car?—and spent several days driving around New Jersey, Westchester, Connecticut, finally decided I’d better put myself into the hands of a real estate agent. Tiny recommended a friend of his. I told him I wanted a big house, I didn’t care about the number of bedrooms, I wasn’t much on entertaining. I wanted large rooms so I could walk around indoors when it rained. And I wanted a lot of walking space outdoors for when the weather was nice, maybe a garden, maybe a pool, woods if possible, and I didn’t want to be in view of another house or see one. He said a house like that on grounds like that would run six figures, what did a young fellow like me want to spend that kind of money for? I told him I wasn’t spending it, I was investing it. I said if I didn’t find something like that around New York I’d be tempted to go back to Indiana. He said I’d need a housekeeper plus a gardener for a place like that, and I said how much, and he told me, and I said I thought that was okay. We had a lot of trouble.”