McMurtry, Larry - Novel 05 (49 page)

 
          
 
"
My gosh
,"
I said. "Cindy and Spud are planning to marry?"

 
          
 
"Yep," Boss said. "Spud's like
Boog. He's been good at his job too long. He's just at the right age to leave
his wife for someone half as good."

 
          
 
I was so stunned I couldn't think of a thing
to say.

 
          
 
Boss went about cleaning up, perfectly
self-assured.

 
          
 
"I guess I ought to go," I said.

 
          
 
"You're welcome to stay," Boss said.
"Plenty of beds.
But then a bed's not what you
want, is it?"

 
          
 
I shrugged. I had no idea what I wanted. The
fact that my life lacked purpose had never been more obvious.

 
          
 
"I think I'll just hit a motel," I
said. "I'm getting where I can't sleep, in a house."

 
          
 
She seemed at least slightly sympathetic, but
not sympathetic enough that I dared approach her. I stopped as I was going out
the door, looking back to see if Boss had anything else to say.

 
          
 
I drove to
Georgetown
and cruised past Cindy's house. Sure
enough, a light was on in her bedroom window. I felt like dumping the fifty
pairs of boots on her doorstep, but if I did that someone would just steal
them. I wasn't despairing enough to want to lose fifty pairs of boots.

 
          
 
Despair or not, I had difficulty accepting
what had happened. Once Cindy's confidence had collapsed, our relationship had
begun to seem almost real. Women were often accusing me of only choosing weak,
insecure, dependent women. It was the weak, insecure, and dependent women I
chose who flung the accusation at me most often. A good percentage of the women
I chose spent most of our time together explaining why it was wrong for me to
have chosen them. Cindy had even done that, although she did it in a rather
oblique way, by explaining to me constantly why I wasn't successful enough for
her.

 
          
 
Now that she had the most famous editor in
America
maybe she could relax, on that score.

 
          
 
I drove to
Alexandria
and sat in the parking lot of a motel for
twenty minutes but I didn't go in and get a room. While I was sitting there I
called Coffee, but her dope dealer answered so I hung up.

 
          
 
The next time I killed the motor I was in
front of Jean's house. The downstairs was dark but a light was on in her
bedroom. I have a theory that women love surprise arrivals, and now I had an
excellent opportunity to test it. Despite this theory, I didn't jump right out
of the car and run over and ring the doorbell. I sat in the car almost as long
as I had sat in the motel parking lot.

 
          
 
On the other hand I knew I had to act. It was
getting late. The light in Jean's bedroom could go off any second, in which
case it would seem ten times more difficult to go up and knock on her door. A
woman who had just gone to bed might destroy my theory. She might not welcome a
surprise arrival from someone she was mad at anyway.

 
          
 
Finally I got out and walked up her steps. For
perhaps a minute I just stood there, looking at the door. Then it occurred to
me someone might see me and mistake me for a burglar, so I knocked.

 
          
 
The knock rang loudly in the quiet
neighborhood. At least it seemed loud to me, but nothing happened. Jean didn't
come downstairs.

 
          
 
I knocked again, more loudly still. That got
results. Lights began to go on in the house. An upstairs light came on,
illuminating the stairs. Then I saw Jean scamper downstairs, in a bathrobe, but
she didn't head for the front door. She headed for the kitchen. A light came on
in the dining room. Then she peeped into the living room and switched that
light on too.

 
          
 
Only then did she approach the door, crossing
the living room cautiously.

 
          
 
“Who is it?" she asked, without opening
the door.

 
          
 
"Me," I said.

 
          
 
"Jack?" she said. "Is that
you?"

 
          
 
"Yep," I said.

 
          
 
She opened the door a crack and looked out at
me, her eyes very large. When she saw it was me she heaved an enormous sigh.

 
          
 
"Jesus, you scared the piss out of
me," she said.

 
          
 
"Fm sorry," I said. "I should
have called."

 
          
 
It only occurred to me then that I could have
called from across the street. In my anxiety I had forgotten my own telephone.

 
          
 
"Why did you turn on so many
lights?" I asked.

 
          
 
"So I could see who I was being murdered
by," Jean said. "Why do you think? Nobody's knocked at my door this
time of night in several years. I get scared, you know."

 
          
 
She opened the door a little bit more, but
just to get a better look at me rather than to let me in. It was not a friendly
appraisal, exactly. As her fear subsided, anger took its place. It came to her
suddenly that she was very mad at me.

 
          
 
"What are you doing here anyway?"
she asked. "Who told you you could come and knock on my door in the middle
of the night?"

 
          
 
"It's not that late," I said,
although it was.

 
          
 
Jean opened the door and came out on the
porch, brushing against me as she did but not looking at me again. She stood on
her top step and looked at my car, which was sitting innocently in the street.

 
          
 
"Why are you looking at my car?" I
asked. She really looked angry.

 
          
 
"It's parked in my street," she said.
"I'll look at it if I want to."

 
          
 
"There's no point in hating a car,"
I said.

 
          
 
"How stupid do you think I am?" she
said.

 
          
 
"I don't think you're stupid."

 
          
 
"You have no right to show up here,"
she said. "It's my
house,
I like to invite the
people that show up here."

 
          
 
"I know," I said.

 
          
 
"You don't, you don't!" she said
emphatically. "You don't know how it scares me when people I'm not
expecting show up at my door. I hate it. I get totally scared."

 
          
 
"You shouldn't be living alone if you're
so scared," I said.

 
          
 
Jean looked at me contemptuously,

 
          
 
"I'm sorry I said that," I said.

 
          
 
"Go on," she said, after a moment.
"Tell me you make a lot of mistakes."

 
          
 
Then she sat down on her top step. She was
barefoot and it was a cold night. I sat down, too, but not too close to her. I
was worried about her feet.

 
          
 
"Aren't your feet cold?" I asked.
"Don't you have some house shoes?"

 
          
 
"My feet are none of your business,"
she said.

 
          
 
"Don't be so mad," I said. "I
won't lie to you anymore."

 
          
 
"Yes you will," she said.
"Can't you even be honest about the fact that you lie?"

 
          
 
Actually, it wasn't easy to be honest. Despite
almost constant lying, I think of myself as pretty honest. There seems to be
some paradox, pitting truth against literal
statement, that
I have never understood. My view was that I only lied in the hope of achieving
a better truth, but that was never the view of the people I lied to when they
discovered the he.

 
          
 
It seemed to me a complex subject, but it
didn't seem so to Jean, or to most of the women I knew. To them a lie was a
lie, invariably bad. I have never been able to persuade a single woman that
certain lies were the route to a happier truth.

 
          
 
"It was a minor lie," I said,
deciding not to try and argue ethical theory with a woman whose feet were
freezing on the cold steps.

 
          
 
"All the more reason it was disgusting,”
Jean said. "A major lie, such as concealing that you have a wife or
something, I could understand. You might conceal that you had a wife in order
to get to fuck me, which is as least an understandable motive. Why tell me some
stupid little lie about
Miami
?"

 
          
 
I didn't answer. I didn't want to try and
re-create the grounds of that lie.

 
          
 
"You better say something," she
said. "I'm not going to sit out here freezing if you won't even talk to
me."

 
          
 
"Why do we have to sit out here?" I
asked. "Couldn't we go in the house?"

 
          
 
"No," Jean said. "You're not
getting in my house. I don't want it. I don't trust you anymore."

 
          
 
"How about my
car?"
I asked.

 
          
 
"Why should I trust your car?" she
asked.

 
          
 
"I mean how about getting in it. It's
warm."

 
          
 
"You'd think it was below zero," she
said. "If I leave the house one of the girls might wake up. And anyway I
don't want to sit in a car with you."

 
          
 
She didn't seem quite so mad.

 
          
 
"Let's hear about the woman in
Miami
," she said. "I assume this was
your glamorous friend."

 
          
 
"Yes," I admitted.

 
          
 
"Why was it so important that you go see
her in
Miami
?"

 
          
 
"She was in trouble. At least she thought
she was. It turned out she wasn't."

 
          
 
"The plot thickens," Jean said.
"He likes women who appear to be in trouble but actually aren't. If they
appear to be in trouble then you can appear to come to the rescue."

 
          
 
I didn't say anything.

 
          
 
"That's one of the worst syndromes,"
Jean said. "It's revolting it's so sexist."

 
          
 
"Maybe I can outgrow it," I said.

 
          
 
"No, I have a feeling you need to feel
you're coming to the rescue," she said. "Otherwise why did you follow
me out of the auction that day when I was
crying.
It's
probably an unbreakable pattern with you—coming to the rescue."

 
          
 
I didn't argue. For all I knew she was right.

 
          
 
"I don't need rescuing," she said.
"You're dishonest and you can't stay put."

 
          
 
We sat for a bit.

 
          
 
"Finish the story," Jean said.
"How come the glamorous friend in
Miami
got out of trouble so quick?"

 
          
 
"A very important man fell in love with
her," I said. "I'll probably never see her again."