McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (38 page)

 
          
 
For a few minutes, sipping tea, I tried to
imagine how the various women I knew would be if they had children, a difficult
act of the imagination. The children kept disappearing from the picture,
leaving Coffee or Kate or Cindy relatively unaffected.

 
          
 
"Why don't you offer Jack a penny for his
thoughts?" Jean suggested, to
Beverly
.

 
          
 
Beverly
shook her head. “I don't know him well
enough," she said.

 
          
 
Jean and I sat in the kitchen, drinking more
tea, while the girls went up and got ready for bed.
In
nor time they were back, in red bathrobes, looking delightful but not very
sleepy.
Beverly
climbed up in her mother's lap, Belinda in
mine.

 
          
 
"What's this?" Jean asked. "How
come you're in his lap?"

 
          
 
Belinda shrugged. "Jist am," she
said.

 
          
 
"Let's read some more stories," she
suggested, looking up at me.

 
          
 
"Let's put you to bed," Jean said.
"I'm never going to find out anything about this man with you two
around."

 
          
 
"I’ll find out," Belinda
volunteered, looking straight up at me.

 
          
 
"What about you?" she asked.

 
          
 
"Nothing to say," I said.

 
          
 
"He don't
got
nothing to say," Belinda reported.

 
          
 
"He knows better than to talk to a
blabbermouth like you," Jean said. "Are you coming over here or
not?"

 
          
 
"Did you want to read the
stories.
Mom?"
Belinda
inquired.

 
          
 
"Come over here and maybe I’ll tell
you," Jean said.

 
          
 
Belinda gambled, one of her rare mistakes. All
Jean did, once Belinda was in her lap, was steal kisses from the vicinity of
her neck. Belinda burst into gales of laughter, subsided into giggles, and then
stopped and yawned heartily.

 
          
 
"Are you getting sleepy?" Jean
asked.

 
          
 
"No," Belinda said.

 
          
 
In fact, despite herself, Belinda was fading.
Once her energy began to go, it drained out of her like water out of a bathtub.
When she saw Jean had no intention of reading a story she squirmed out of her
lap and struggled back to me, only to lie lifelessly in my lap.

 
          
 
"Jist one story," she said.

 
          
 
"Let's go," Jean said, nodding at
me.

 
          
 
I carried Belinda upstairs, following Jean and
Beverly. Belinda was as helpless as a windup toy that had just run down.
"Jist one story," she repeated faintly. Her eyes were still open, but
the force was gone.

 
          
 
She and her sister had tiny adjoining rooms in
the small upstairs.
Beverly
's was blue, Belinda's yellow. Both were full of dolls and stuffed
animals, the stuffed animals mostly being of ancient vintage. Belinda slept
with a raggedy beaver that looked to belong to the forties.

 
          
 
Jean bent over and went about getting her out
of her robe, a process Belinda didn't assist in any way. When Jean picked her
up her head lolled back as if her neck were broken.

 
          
 
"God, you're made of rubber,
Belinda," Jean said. "Not very good rubber, either."

 
          
 
"You didn't brush my hair," Belinda
protested, faintly.

 
          
 
"Well, you sat in the wrong lap,"
Jean said. "Live and learn, kid."

 
          
 
"I wanted you to brush my hair,"
Belinda insisted.

 
          
 
"Nope, your hair's too sleepy," Jean
said. "I'll brush it in the morning."

 
          
 
Jean gave her a kiss.

 
          
 
“He didn't give me one," Belinda said,
sitting up suddenly. Lack of fair play had briefly restored her.

 
          
 
I gave her a kiss, receiving a hug in return.

 
          
 
"Are you going to take us to Disney
World?" she asked, in the midst of the hug.

 
          
 
"Not tonight," I said.

 
          
 
"Okay, but sometime," Belinda said.

 
          
 
"I wouldn't make her any promises, if I
were you," Jean said. "She has a memory like an elephant."

 
          
 
"Jist do it sometime," Belinda said,
just as her mother turned off the light.

 
          
 
It was only about
8:30
when we put the girls to bed. By
Georgetown
standards the evening was just beginning.
If I had been dutiful I could still have salvaged Cindy's evening. All I would
have had to do was thank Jean, dash back to Cindy's, endure a bit of a fit, and
proceed on to the party. We would hardly even be thought late, and Cindy's
reputation would be secure.

 
          
 
But an hour and a half later I had made no
moves at all toward securing her reputation. I was still sitting in Jean's
pleasant kitchen, drinking brandy and soda. Jean had another large mug of tea,
but no brandy and soda. I guess she didn't need it because she wasn't nervous.
I was very nervous and drank more than I usually drink.

 
          
 
I don't know why I was nervous, because Jean
was quite relaxed and merely told me the story of her life—a life so normal its
story didn't take long to tell. Her father worked for the Department of
Agriculture, which is how she had happened to get to live in
Mexico
. Other than that, she had always lived in
Maryland
, not far from where we were at that moment.
She had gone to the
University
of
Maryland
, married Jimmy when he was a graduate
student, had two daughters and various not very interesting jobs, and that was
it. For years she had spent ail her spare time at flea markets and swap-meets,
buying things and sticking whatever wouldn't fit into her house in her parents'
garage, which was a few miles away, in Poolsville.

 
          
 
"I've always been a junk junkie,"
she said. "I don't know if I really want the stuff, or if it's just a good
way to pass the time. A little of both, I guess."

 
          
 
"You don't buy junk," I said.
"You buy very nice things."

 
          
 
"Oh well," she said, dismissing the
compliment. "I've never had any money. I don't think I've ever spent over
fifty dollars for anything."

 
          
 
"But you were ready to spend several
hundred on the icon," I reminded her.

 
          
 
"It was an act of defiance," she
said. "I get a little crazy about objects, sometimes. Also it makes me mad
that I never have any money. Jimmy has plenty of money but he's obsessive about
not spending it. If I had spent six hundred dollars on an icon while I was
married to him he would have cut my throat."

 
          
 
That was surprising. Jimmy hadn't looked rich.

 
          
 
"Oh, he's rich, all right," Jean
said. "You'd never guess it from how we lived, though. Jimmy's all screwed
up. He has all the attitudes of a rich person but he won't spend money. He
wants to be waited on hand and foot and he can usually find some woman that
will do it. I even did it for a while, but no more. I'm not waiting on anybody
hand and foot again."

 
          
 
She looked at me rather severely, as if she
expected that I might reveal myself to be a person who wanted to be waited on.

 
          
 
"The only redeeming thing about Jimmy is
that he loves the girls," Jean said. "He's easy to replace as a
husband but not so easy to replace as a father. Although even there you can't
count on him for the practical stuff, like taking them to the dentist and
buying them shoes. But he does love them a lot."

 
          
 
"And he uses them to try and get you back,
right?" I said, since I thought I had observed that very tactic being used
the day I had seen him.

 
          
 
"Oh, yeah, but he's not getting me
back," Jean said.

 
          
 
"Jimmy's incapable of learning a new
trick,
and I’m not susceptible to the old tricks
anymore."

 
          
 
She stared off into space when she said it,
and then turned her eyes suddenly and caught me looking at her. All evening I
had been becoming progressively more impressed with her, and more attracted as
well, but at the same time I felt unusually cautious. I had sense enough to
know she was not the kind of woman I knew much about. For one thing, she was
two years older than me and up to that point I had never had a single girl
friend
who
was older. Besides, Jean had been a mother
for five years, and I had never been a father. I had never had a single girl
friend
who
had a child, either. In a way, they and I
were the children, our relationships probably not much more serious than a trip
to Disney Worid.

 
          
 
Watching Jean gave me the sense that there
were probably reaches of womanhood I hadn't experienced. Jean's world seemed
quite modest, but it also seemed to have a density and an intricacy that I
wasn't familiar with. It wasn't just the girls, either. It showed itself even
in the way the objects in the kitchen had been placed. It wasn't overplanned,
but at the same time it was subtle.

 
          
 
"Why are you looking that way?" Jean
asked.

 
          
 
"I don't know what way I'm looking,"
I said

 
          
 
"Worried, that's how you're
looking," she said. "What have you got to be worried about? You seem
to be free as the breeze."

 
          
 
"I guess I am," I said.

 
          
 
Jean looked faintly disgusted.

 
          
 
"I guess I have no right to pry,"
she said. "It was nice of you to come to dinner. In theory I like for the
girls to know there are other men in the world besides their father, in case I
end up with one. But in practice I never bring anyone home."

 
          
 
"Do you think you'll end up with
one?" I asked.

 
          
 
"Oh, sure," Jean said. "I
probably will. I could use some help with these girls. It's hard to maintain
the kind of enthusiasm it takes to stimulate two kids, if you're just one
person. That's why I asked you to dinner. The girls think you're
interesting."

 
          
 
She grinned.

 
          
 
"Maybe you are," she said. "But
how am I gonna know if you're just gonna sit there drinking brandy and looking
worried?"

 
          
 
"Are you divorced already?" I asked.

 
          
 
It sounded like a silly question, and Jean
looked slightly disgusted again.

 
          
 
"No, but I've filed," she said.
"The hearing's in about a month. Jimmy gave me a lot of trouble. He can't
get it through his head that I really want to leave him. His immediate
conclusion was that I was insane, since in his view only someone insane could
want to leave him. He's got a nice girl friend—or nice enough—but that doesn't
seem to affect his thinking. Then when he decided I meant business he got
vindictive and did a lot of childish things."

 
          
 
"Like what?"

 
          
 
"Like canceling all the credit cards and
taking all the money out of the joint account," she said. "He even
changed the lock on the Volvo door, so I couldn't get in and drive it."

 
          
 
"Gosh," I said. "He seemed
kinda nice."

 
          
 
"He is nice, except when he's threatened
with the loss of a possession," Jean said. "Then he reverts to being
a rich child."

 
          
 
She fiddled with her mug, looking at me
speculatively.

 
          
 
"He knows all about you," she said.

 
          
 
"What do you mean? We haven't even really
met."

 
          
 
"Yeah, but he took your license number,
the other day at the store," Jean said. "His family's famous around
here, you know. His father has a very important job."

 
          
 
"Doing what?"

 
          
 
"At the CIA," Jean said.
"Besides that his family owns a detective agency that does a lot of work
for the government. So Jimmy called the family detective agency and told them
to find out everything about you."

 
          
 
That was surprising. It was hard to believe
that a man with a nice face, overalls, and an old Volvo would simply do things
like that.

 
          
 
"What did he find out?" I asked.
Actually I was curious to know how my life might look to a total stranger, such
as a detective.

 
          
 
"Oh well," Jean said, shrugging.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this."

 
          
 
"Tell me anyway."

 
          
 
"Well," she said, "he found out
who
your girl friend is, and that you just bought a
horse farm in Middleburg from one of his father's old rivals.”

 
          
 
"I didn't really buy it," I said.
"A good detective would have found out right away that I don't have that
kind of money."

 
          
 
She nodded. "He told me that, too,"
she said. "He thinks you're just a front for somebody. Jimmy's very
scornful of people who don't really have money. Also, he hated your car."

 
          
 
"Well," I said. "He doesn't
have to ride in it."

 
          
 
There was quite a long silence, after that.

 
          
 
"So did you stand her up?" Jean
asked. "Is that why you're worried?"

 
          
 
I finished my brandy and took my glass to the
sink, to wash it out. It's a finicky habit of mine, which seems to be getting
worse. I have a compulsion to wash out my glasses. When I set it on the cabinet
I looked down at Jean, who was looking at me with a slightly expectant smile. I
didn't know whether she wanted a comment or a kiss. Since I didn't have a
comment I leaned over and kissed her, though the kiss was so hesitant that it
barely reached her. She quickly put a light hand on my neck. Her hand was warm,
from having been holding the tea mug all this time. I was bent over awkwardly,
which she seemed to realize, because she too stood up. Even so I was a lot
taller than she was.

 
          
 
"The first thing I ever really wanted was
stilts," she said, drawing back for a moment.

 
          
 
"You really are worried, aren't
you?" she said, leading me out of the kitchen. I assumed we were going up
to the bedroom but instead she led me to the couch with the brown lap robe,
where, in a very short time, we managed to make love. I wasn't in a hurry, but
Jean was. I think she was in such a hurry that she cheated herself out of an
orgasm, but I couldn't be sure.

 
          
 
"No woman likes to be upstaged by her own
daughter," she said, by way of comment, afterward. "I shouldn't have
drunk so much tea. I could feel it jiggling."

 
          
 
The ends of her short hair were damp with
sweat. She stuffed a blue pillow under her head and kept her eyes on the
stairway.