Punish Me with Kisses (26 page)

"Sure. Sure. Take it that way if you like. In the meantime I just want you to know that I'm the injured party.
I'm
the one whose life is messed up.
I'm
the one who ought to be hating everybody. Me. Not you.
Me
."

Silence. She didn't sleep well and could tell he wasn't sleeping well himself. She shut her eyes, tried to
will
herself asleep, but she could hear the pipes gurgling as the heat subsided for the night, could hear great trucks in the early morning hours tearing down the avenue and then the garbage trucks just before dawn grinding up the trash piled on the sidewalk in bags.

S
he got up very early. It was still dark outside. She made coffee, then left the house, went to a coffee shop, sat there hunched over her table, drank two more cups, ate a jelly roll, watched people come in, and thought:
I'll go to the office, get something done before they come, maybe reread that novel so I can give Mac an opinion. I'll throw myself into work today.

She did; she had her memo typed and on
MacAllister's
desk before he came in. She advised against paying the advance. "The novel's good," she wrote, "but I don't think it's big money reprint stuff. Also there's something about this agent's demands that makes me think the author's disloyal, that even if we pay him what he wants he'll go someplace else next time. He's dissatisfied with us for some reason, thinks he's ready for a prestige imprint, something 'classier' than B&A (as if there could be, Mac!). My advice —let's pass this one up."

MacAllister
called her in after lunch. "Just wanted you to know," he said, "I called the agent and told him 'no way.' Not because of your memo—I'd come to the same conclusion myself. But that doesn't take away from you at all. You're an editor, Chapman. You understand the business. You've got hunches, instincts. You're getting to be important around here."

She was overjoyed. She called the apartment to share her news. No answer. Maybe Jared was out someplace, walking in the Park, jogging maybe, or sitting in a movie house. She hated the thought that he was just lying on the bed watching TV, not bothering to answer the phone.

She came home prepared to talk things out with him, apologize first of all for her "diverting attention" remarks. Then she would put it to him bluntly—maybe the time had come for them to consider breaking up. She was annoying him with her Suzie mannerisms. She couldn't stand the idea that he thought her father was a killer. There was another possibility and she would put that to him, too—they could go away someplace for Christmas (Bermuda, the Caribbean, even Marrakech), someplace where they could lie out in the sun and try and patch things up. But he would have to purge himself of his suspicions of her father. Incest was one thing—that was bizarre and tragic and painful enough to contemplate. Murder was something else. She didn't want to hear about that anymore.

When she got home she found his note. It was sitting on the center of the bed:

Going away for a while. Need to be by myself, think things through. Will get in touch when I'm ready. Till then take care. J.

She quickly checked the closet, the drawers. He'd taken all his clothes, cleared out everything he owned. He was gone and from the look of things he didn't intend to return very soon. She lay back on the bed, looked at the note again. He hadn't even written "Dear Penny." He hadn't said that he loved her, where he'd gone or when he might return. He hadn't even called her "babe."

N
ow, just like I figured, they're hanging around me like files around a
honeypot
. Word's out I'm a nymph and every stud in Bar Harbor's getting his pecker sharpened up—

I
t was good to be alone for a change, free of his criticisms, his accusations that she was becoming too much like Suzie, free of him impinging upon her life. Of course she missed making love, the warmth of another body beside her in the bed, but he wasn't indispensable for that. No—she was better off without him, she thought. No more distractions, catering to another person's needs. She was free now to explore Suzie, explore the Suzie in herself.

She ran every day at dawn, even harder than before. There were new perceptions of her father to deal with, a whole new life to plan. There was also pain to be purged, the pain of the diary's revelations and her anger at her father for what he'd done. She screamed sometimes as she ran, screamed out her pain and rage. No matter how cold it was she was always soaking at the end, panting, exhausted, her heart thumping wildly, her chest aching, her anger broken, sometimes her eyes streaming tears.

It was in this state that, early one December morning a week after Jared left, she encountered Dr. Bowles. Her landlady was a tall, thin, sensibly dressed middle-aged woman with soft features framed by soft hair, cut short in bangs. Penny was standing just inside the inner door of the brownstone, perspiring and weeping and feeling lost, when Dr. Bowles came down the stairs.

"Oh," said the doctor in a sympathetic voice. "Oh, Miss Chapman, is there anything I can do?" Penny shook her head, trying to smile. "Come, then. Let me help you to your door." She grasped Penny firmly, maternally, and together they walked up the flight.

"Thank you," Penny said, fishing out her key. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to trouble you. I'm not usually like this. Oh, dear—" She was stabbing at her lock, couldn't seem to get the key inside.

"There's something very nice," the psychiatrist said, helping her with the door, "something which Camus once wrote: 'Happiness, too, is inevitable.' Think of that when you're sad, and you'll find you'll feel better right away."

"Oh," said Penny, smiling, "that's a lovely quote. Thank you very much."

"Not at all. Now I haven't seen your young man around for a while, so I suppose the two of you may have parted ways. It's only natural that you should be sad. Nothing's more painful than the ending of a love. But if it's more than that, if it's something more and you want to talk about it, in fact if you ever want to talk about anything at all, remember I'm just upstairs. Call first in case I'm with a patient, but otherwise you're welcome day or night. Now—" she brushed her lips against Penny's cheek, "have a good day. And don't forget Camus." She smiled and then she was gone, leaving Penny suffused with warmth.

W
ord of Jared's leaving seemed to have gotten around at B&A. She wasn't sure how, but she assumed Lillian was the informant, and the telephone operators, of course—they knew Jared didn't call her anymore. Roy
MacAllister
, too, she thought, seemed to be eyeing her differently. Ever since she'd given him that memo he'd gone out of his way to be complimentary. But she knew he was a master of favoritism so didn't pay much attention until he asked if she'd have a drink with him one day after work. She said yes, she'd love to join him for a drink, and then she was amused when he took her to the same bar she'd taken Jared that day he'd appeared in the lobby and refused to accept her rebuff.

It was the same bar, but the conversation was different. No moody young actor this time trying to explain why he'd performed in
Pussy Ranch
, but a mature man exuding confidence and charm, telling her fascinating tales of writers and books. She wasn't "Chapman" anymore; she'd suddenly become "Penny" to him, and from that she sensed that he was interested in her, so even as she listened she thought about what she'd do if he made an advance.

"Look," he said finally, "this is great fun. Let's go on to dinner. I know a place in
Soho
—no writers, no publishing people. No one will know who we are."

They took a taxi, it was cold, and so they sat close together in the back. She liked the feel of his overcoat, expensive, cashmere. And the restaurant was excellent, not bohemian, no hanging plants against bare brick walls but everything black and white and Art Deco, and the other patrons looked happy and successful, and no one wore blue jeans, and the food was very good. He ordered a bottle of white Burgundy to go with their sole, was even more charming than he'd been at the bar. His stories were even better, she thought, and it was such a pleasure to sit in a good restaurant and laugh.

She liked him. She didn't think she could trust him, but didn't care, thought he was a magnificent, experienced man. And in her lightheadedness from the wine she knew he was going to ask her to come home. She was receiving all his signals and evidently giving the proper signals back, and she liked that, hadn't done that before, felt very grown-up, very New York and single and free. Yes, she decided, she certainly would go to bed with him if he asked. It would be interesting, would probably be delightful, and why shouldn't she? She didn't have a boyfriend now, she could do anything she liked. Yes, she could sleep with anyone she liked now, and she could keep a diary just like Suzie's, if she felt like it, and grade men on how good they were in bed, and the hell with tears and pain and the family pathology, the hell with living under the shadow of Suzie's death and thinking of herself as a member of a cursed clan.

"Shall I drop you?" he asked as they taxied uptown. "Or would you like to come home with me?"

"Your place," she said with a smile, "so long as it won't change anything at work."

"I can handle it. Can you?"

"No problem," she said.

He kissed her, then told the driver to take them to UN Plaza. His apartment was modern and expensive, a Corbusier chaise longue upholstered in spotted pony skin, couches and chairs covered with soft black leather, the lights dim, wall-to-wall gray industrial carpeting—a powerful man's retreat. It was a little like her father's office, she thought, then regretted making the connection. There it was again, Suzie's hang up, that feeling she so often had now that she was inside Suzie's skin.

Mac was so poised, so smooth, she was worried he'd find her awkward. But she wasn't frightened of him anymore the way she'd been the day he summoned her to his office and bawled her out for being drab. She watched him as he went to a bar, a backlit tortoise-shell étagère, studied him as he poured out two snifters of cognac, checked his body as he handed one to her and then guided her to a couch.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked.

"Just thinking of how you used to frighten me."

"Tell me about it." She did. He was amused, kissed her again, assured her he wasn't scary after all.

"I see that now," she said. "You're just a little lamb."

"You're an interesting girl," he said, looking at her carefully. "I think the papers had you wrong."

"'The 'ugly duckling'? If you'd known my sister you might agree with that."

"I doubt it," he said. "I have offbeat tastes."

"Like whips and chains."

"Something like that." He laughed.

"I guess they have your number," she said.

"Who has my number?"

"The girls at the office. They look at your boots and your black leather jackets and they say, well, you know, watch out for Mac, he's into S&M for sure."

"That's great. A little costuming and people take you just the way you want."

"You're not into it, are you, Mac? I don't want to get into anything weird."

"Relax. And don't be such a tease." He unbuttoned her blouse. "Ah, braless—" He touched her breasts, flicked at them. She closed her eyes, felt the vibrations reaching down between her legs.

He took her hand, led her to his bedroom, pulled back the comforter.

"You must be the only person in New York with white sheets," she said, trying to be casual as she undressed.

"I have black telephones, too." He stood beside her, naked, aroused, then pulled her to him, kissed her on the mouth.

"I used to wonder in edit meetings what you'd look like."

"Well—" he stood back. "Tell me—how
do
I look?"

"Pretty damn great I think." She meant it. He was lean and hard like a much younger man, thinner than Jared, less hairy, more feline.

"And you—you look pretty damn great yourself." They lay down, he put his arm around her, brushed his other hand gently between her legs.

Making it with Mac was completely different than making love with Jared. It was hard for her to define the difference, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. But then, after they finished and she felt satisfied and was falling off to sleep, she thought:
That's what it's all about, this man-woman stuff. Of course he's different. That's why people screw around.