Ordinary People (17 page)

 

 

 

In the car he turns the radio up loud; it relieves him of the need to talk. Ragged piano blues. They listen intently. She sits, gloved hands in her lap, her books beside her on the seat.

“I didn’t know you had a car,” she says.

“Christmas present. My folks.”

“It’s nice.”

Her voice is soft; he turns the radio down so he can hear her better.

“I live on Wisconsin,” she says.

“Yeah, I know.”

She looks over in surprise. “You do?”

“Yeah, you told me. Before Christmas. Remember?”

“Oh.” She nods. “Well, it’s that one, there.” She points out a white frame house, with dark green shutters. He pulls to a stop in front, leaving the motor running. Her hand is on the door handle. “Thanks a lot.”

“Welcome.”

“I’d ask you to come in, but my mother—she’s funny about that. She works—” She turns suddenly to face him. “There was something I wanted to say to you. That day we—I said a stupid thing that day. I didn’t know about your brother, then. I’m sorry.”

Stunned, he sits there, not moving. He had almost forgotten the incident. Now it rushes back to him. An embarrassed silence while they sit; he, staring out at her house, she, at her hands, lying limply in her lap.

He gives a small, brusque flick to his pants leg. “You know the rest of it, too? I mean, about me?”

“Yes.”

Should have told her. Should have known someone would tell her. Sometime. Sure. Bring it up over a Coke, “Oh, by the way—” whip out the newspaper clippings.
“...
police chief
...
Lake Forest... reasonably certain
... no drugs
involved.... ”No drugs. Part of the shame. Somehow it is not such a personal failure if you are on something anybody can do something crazy if he is stoned but crazy on your own time is much more serious damning in fact.

“There are worse things,” Jeannine says, still looking at her hands. “People do worse things than that.”

“Yeah.” He wants to help her through the awkwardness of the moment, but it comes out rudely, as if he is cutting her off.

“Well,” she says. Her hand moves quickly downward; the door swings open. “Thanks again for the ride. I would have frozen.” And she is out of the car, safe on the sidewalk, turning away, hurrying up the steps and into the house.

He pulls into the driveway to turn around.
Nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe not. Nothing anybody particularly wants to be associated with either.

 

 

The circular drive in front of the house is choked with cars, some of which he recognizes: Truan’s mother’s Mercedes; the Lazenbys’ white Pontiac; Mrs. Genthe’s Cadillac. He parks in front and walks up the driveway; lets himself in through the garage. As he enters the kitchen, the dining-room door swings open. “I thought I heard somebody trying to sneak in!”

Mrs. Lazenby confronts him. He smiles at her, awkwardly. “Hi, how’re you?”

“I’m fine, you dreamer. Thinking you could get away with that! Up the back stairs without saying hello to anybody, huh?”

He grins. “That was the plan.”

“Carole? Bring him in here!”

No way out. She takes his hand, leads him into the dining room. He is greeted by his mother’s bridge club —Mrs. Cahill, Mrs. Genthe, Mrs. Leitch, Mrs. Truan, two other women he hasn’t met; he nods, smiling politely during the introductions. His mother sits quietly through his ordeal.

“He’s thin, Beth,” Mrs. Truan says. “You should fatten him up.”

She smiles. “How was your exam?”

“Not bad.”

Mrs. Lazenby has cut him a piece of chocolate cake. She hands it to him, on a napkin. “Here. For being such a nice boy, humoring the old ladies. Where’ve you been, anyway? We miss you.”

“I’ve been meaning to stop by,” he lies. “I’ve been busy.”

“Well, don’t be so busy,” she says sternly. “Come over some night, I’ll make lasagna. Talk to Joey about it.”

“I will,” he says.

He escapes then, to his room, where he sits staring out of the window. The problem of connecting is partly that of fitting mood with opportunity. When he sees Lazenby’s mother, he remembers their house, all warmth and friendliness; eating toast spread with peanut butter, playing catch in the back yard with Major, the fawn-colored boxer; he and Lazenby and Buck, each trying to kill the other in a game of Horse under the basketball net. If Lazenby were here. In the room, this minute. But, no. Passing each other each day in the hall doesn’t do. The moment is wrong; the mood is wrong; too much clanging—of lockers, bells, echoes of other conversations. It wouldn’t work anyway.

Likewise, Jeannine. But if there were a telephone number here on his desk pad. So that when the feeling hit, he could go directly to the telephone, without stopping to think or to collect himself; just dial the number and it would be done.

He gets up; goes to the telephone table in the hall, flipping through the telephone book. D. Pratt on Wisconsin. Carefully he notes it down. On the desk pad in front of him is another number, written months ago. 356-3340. Under it, in pencil:
Karen.
He looks at it for a long minute. Then, he gets up and goes again to the telephone.

The telephone is answered on the first ring. The voice is suspicious.

“You want Karen? Who is this?”

“It’s—I’m a friend of hers. From Northville.”

“Northville.” The voice goes flat. “Well, she isn’t home right now. She’s at school. Don’t you go to school?”

Her mother, of course. Nobody else would take the trouble to cross-file him, or to be so damn worried. No
ma’am no school. No time. Too busy being crazy.

“Yes,” he says. “I do. But we’re off this week. Exams. Would you tell her I called? My name is Conrad—”

“I’ll give her the message.”

The receiver bangs loudly in his ear.

“Thanks very much,” he says politely to no one. Replacing the receiver, he goes to his room to fall, face upward on the bed, arms outstretched. Nice. A nice cool zero for the day. Well, she wouldn’t have wanted to talk to him anyway. Why should she? Why would anybody? He tries again for the image of the woman outside the library, but it won’t come. If she had stared, it was merely out of curiosity. Wondering why one of his eyes was set higher than the other, or if his head was too small for his body.

Anyway, a person who performs these joyless and ritualistic sex acts upon himself, this is what he deserves. He rolls onto his stomach, hands behind his neck. Downstairs, the laughter of women escapes the living room, finding its way up the stairs to lie beside him.
Fairy. Fag.

He rises grimly from the bed.
Get it over with.
Cross
off both numbers in one afternoon why not?
He dials Jeannine’s number.

“Hello?” Her soft voice, musical even over the telephone.

He clears his throat, nervously. “Hi. This is Conrad,” he begins. “Jarrett.”

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, hi.”

“Listen, I was wondering.”
What Jarrett? What were
you wondering? “Would you be interested in going out sometime?”

A long pause. “You mean, with you? Like, on a date?”

Eyes closed, he grinds his forehead, slowly and deliberately against the wall, a bubble of laughter loose in his chest.

“Yeah,” he says, “well, it wouldn’t have to be a real date. We could fake it. See how it goes, sort of.”

She giggles. “Okay, that was dumb, I agree. Just pretend I didn’t say that. Start over.”

He grins at the receiver; obligingly he clears his throat. “Hi,” he says. “This is Conrad. Jarrett.”

“I’d love to,” she says. “When?”

“What we need,” Ray says, “is a secretary.”

“I thought we had one.”

“No. A legal secretary. A widow, sixty years old, bad legs, good eyes, willing to work nights, willing to knock herself out for this goddamn job—”

“Gee, how come we can’t find her?” Cal leans back in his chair. “Sounds like a terrific deal for her.” He stretches, arms over his head, glancing at his wristwatch. Eleven-thirty.

“This is ridiculous,” Ray says, rolling down his sleeves. “We are not accountants, we are lawyers, goddammit. Why do we mess with these returns? Why don’t we tell ‘em all, ‘Look, guys, we advise, that’s all, we do not prepare tax returns, we do not do your busy work‘—What’re you laughing at?”

“I’m laughing because we have this same conversation every year. Here, give me those files. I’ll take care of them.”

“Nah, just leave ’em. Sandy’ll do them in the morning.”

“Sandy,” Cal says, “is a lousy filer.”

Their new secretary. Cherry has gone, but the new one has the same fake smile, the same wide-eyed, over-made-up look and apologetic, fluttering hands. And the file baskets are still overflowing. Business as usual.

Ray sighs. “She’s an improvement, though, huh? Three letters this week, no errors. She doesn’t crack gum in your face when she talks to you.”

Her name is Sandra Farentino. She also has a boy friend who goes to Northwestern. A bad sign, he told Ray.

Ray said, “Well, that’s what happens when you let your partner do the hiring, buddy.”

They lock up; descend the smooth and silent elevator to the street. A hollow quiet fills the building, even though it is not empty tonight: there are lights behind many doors on their floor. The building glows as they walk away from it.

“Want to grab a sandwich?”

“Sure.”

They walk the two blocks to the Carriage Grill, a fancy name for a dull spot, with its menu of pale, warmed-over food. A lawyers’ hangout. Down the street, at the Orrington Hotel, are the accountants and data-processing men. Just the same as college, when groups of look-alikes had their own spots: fraternity men, independents, foreign students, med students, art students, the rich, the working (no poor students—just the rich or the working). So. Nothing has changed. Beside him, Ray complains over his coffee cup. “... said I gave her a raw deal, I was the villain because I overex pected, I was a narrow-minded, arrogant chauvinist—her exact words—Christ, I ask you, is it chauvinistic to expect six hours of work out of somebody, when you’re paying for eight—”

“Cherry? She told you all that?”

“She wrote it in a letter. Addressed to me. You were innocent, I’m not sure why.”

“I suppose,” Cal says, “because I left it up to you to handle it. I’m sorry. I know I do that to you. Cop out. I never know how to tell somebody, ‘Hey, you’re just not making it.’ I don’t know why.”

Ray shakes his head. “No problem, Cal. I don’t mind that. It’s just—well, I like to be let in on what’s happening with you off and on, you know?”

“With me? What d’you mean?”

“You haven’t been around the last couple of months, that’s all.”

“Around? What are you talking about?”

“Jesus, Cal, I’ve known you for over twenty years, you think I can’t tell when something’s wrong?” He looks down into his cup. “You’re not yourself.”

“I’m not myself,” he says. “Okay, Howard, who am I, then?” But Ray doesn’t answer. The waiter approaches with their corned-beef sandwiches. He refills their coffee cups.

“What do you want me to do?” Cal says. “Stop by your office, hum a few bars from The Sound of Music every day? Everything’s fine, Ray. Nothing to worry about.”

“Why are you worrying, then?”

He laughs. “I’m not. In fact, I’ve been thinking about taking a couple of days off in March to play in the lawyers’ tournament in Dallas.”

“Well, great. Why don’t you do it?”

“The middle of the month—I’d be leaving you with all this crap—”

“Don’t be dumb, I’d do it to you in a minute.” He takes a bite of his sandwich. “Beth going with you?”

“Probably, yeah. We’ll stay with her brother and his wife. They have a place in Richardson.”

“I think that’s good,” Ray says. “I think it’d do you both good to get away for a few days. That’s the answer.”

The answer to what? Life, reduced to the simplest of terms. Formulas. Get away for a while. Everything works out for the best.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Ray says. “It’s none of my business. But, you worry too much. You’ve been on the rack about him long enough. It’s a habit, now. You got to let go sometime, buddy.”

“Ray, I’m not on the rack about him.”

“Thing is,” Ray says, “in another year he’ll be gone. Off to Michigan or Harvard or wherever the hell he gets it in his head he wants to go. Maybe he’ll decide to take a tour of Europe for a year, not even go to school, who knows—”

“How come all of a sudden you know so much about him?”

“I don’t. Look, I’m giving you the benefit of my experience.”

“Thanks,” he says drily.

“I mean, with Valerie, it’s more than her living away from home. She’s gone, Cal. She’s got her own life, her own friends, she breezes in for a few days of vacation —maybe girls are different, I don’t know. Or maybe she was too aware of the stuff that happened—I mean, between Nance and me. But they leave, Cal. And all that worrying doesn’t amount to a hill of crap. Just wasted energy.”

“I’m not worried about Con,” he says.

“Who, then? Is it Beth? Is something wrong between Beth and you?”

“No!”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure!”

He turns. Ray is wearing an uncomfortable look.

“Well, you gave me some advice a long time ago, on that business with Nancy, and you know what that lets you in for, don’t you? Getting it all back someday, whether you want it or not. So, how do you want it?”

He gives a snort of laughter. “I don’t want it.”

No mistaking the look of discomfort, now. Ray has something on his mind. “Listen, Cal, Nance and Beth had lunch together, last week—” He breaks off, staring down into his coffee cup.

“Next time,” Cal says, “try for more directness. Make an appointment. What are you supposed to tell me?”