The High Cost of Living (11 page)

Honor suffered herself to be led to Bernie's old Mustang, of a metallic faded purple color. It seemed put together of sardine tins and clattered and clanged on the smallest bumps, and Leslie fancied she smelled fish in the air. It had a moldering salty odor. Bernie's theory was that some large animal had died there in the midst of its winter hibernation on the used car lot and had not been removed until spring. What was left of the upholstery was spotted and stained, and some of the large discolorations in the back seat did suggest blood. It slumped toward the rear wheels as if sitting a little on its heels. It squealed turning corners at the sedatest pace, it squealed backing up, it laid down a palpable fog of exhaust like a black plumy tail, and it was a drunkard.

“But it's like riding in your great grandfather. The miracle is that it moves.” They were always in danger of running out of gas because Bernie refused to put more than two dollars' worth in at a time, claiming the car might break down any minute.

Normally Honor sat in the front as her due, leaving the back seat to Leslie, but now she crawled back after Leslie and curled up, her head hanging. “I feel like the chauffeur,” Bernie complained. “Do I smell bad?”

“Shush,” Leslie said, and put her arm tentatively around Honor. Honor did want comforting and cuddled nearer, letting her head fall against Leslie's shoulder. “Someday I'll do something Mama forbids and it'll be exciting and glorious instead of crummy. Someday!”

“Does it hurt?” Gently she stroked Honor's hair.

“A little. I just feel icky.” Honor's head was pleasantly heavy on Leslie's shoulder. The girl pressed against her like a tired child, looking as if she could not quite decide if she wanted to cry.

Sue had taken the kids to visit her parents in Houston, leaving George a temporary bachelor. Not that he would act the way she had observed other married faculty behaving, like horny little boys let out to play. Because of George's famous arrangement, he could always play. Instead they worked early and they worked late. Normally, George was controlled by a desire to spend time with his children. Whatever tenderness lurked in George poured out over his son, Davey, and his daughter, Louise, and his own widower father who lived upstate. Leslie thought of it as vertical tenderness: no competition, no envy. At night George rushed home to his children; when they were out of town nothing restrained his zest for work.

He sent her out for Chinese food in cartons. They did not let up until ten, when he drove her home. He parked, so she invited him up. She was not surprised, because although he hadn't visited her since they'd moved to Detroit, he had used to have a cup of coffee with Val and her in Grand Rapids. Occasionally Val would cook a supper, not for him and Sue but for him and his current youthful girlfriend. She imagined he was curious about where she was living and whether she-was living with anyone yet.

Chuckling, he looked around. “Is the university paying you too little?”

“Sure. But there's an aesthetic of emptiness.”

“Yes, but don't you think that blanket's a little gaudy?” Easily George sat on the floor, arranging his long legs. “That was mediocre Chinese. We'll have to locate a decent take-out place for worknights. Next time try one of those Black chicken-and-ribs joints.” George was a gourmet. He counted every bad meal a missed opportunity.

“There's a Syrian place we could try if I borrow your car.”

“Just don't get it in an accident. I'm supposed to fly down Thursday and come back with them Sunday,” George said plaintively. “What a ridiculous potlatch of money. I don't want to hear Sue's mother carry on about how she'd torture the kids, which she calls raising them. Arguing politics with her old man. He tries in his crude way to patronize me as an ivory tower academic as opposed to his two-fisted businessman. Whereas the only reason he never succeeded in losing Sue's nest egg is because her grandfather was smart enough to tie it up in trusts that petty crook can't undo. He's a barbaric old hard-drinking failure. Why should I spend half a grand to fly there for two days of watching him drink himself stupid and trying to abuse Sue?”

“You're well on the way to persuading yourself not to go.”

“The bitch is I can't figure out if Sue will be mad if I don't show. That is, how mad?”

“George, whatever I guess is likely wrong.”

“You think I'll blame you for bad advice?”

“Sure.”

“But think how much more annoyed I'll be if you advise me to do my duty and fly down, when I'm itching to be told not to.”

“What you need is a good excuse.”

“I'll have to come clean with Sue. I can't fool her.”

They were supposed to be truthful, which amounted as near as she could see to George advising Sue of his infidelities. Sue had none. She was busy with the kids and the house, and she never met men who weren't George's colleagues or his students, none of whom were apt to take the risk of getting involved with her. Their arrangement seemed to Leslie to come down to a rationalization of the fact that George had more freedom, more power, more choice than Sue did. But she kept her mouth shut.

“She'll probably think it's some girl. I'm getting too old for all that anyhow.” George patted his belly, not believing it for an instant.

“No doubt you've been busy getting settled.”

“The only stunning women around are Blacks, and that's just too complicated. This town is so charged, we couldn't even go to a bar together.”

“You could spend a day doing something she asked you to fix in the house. That'd cost you a day, but three less than flying down.”

He chewed that over, rubbing his mustache. “I could arrange it so that … Hmmmm. If I actually got a plumber to fix the hot water system … I could send you or Cam out there to wait.… We'll call plumbers tomorrow morning.” He looked around her room as he talked as if taking an inventory.

Finally she teased him. “My life is not only an open book, but practically an empty box.”

He tapped his mustache, smiling with his best father-confessor air. “Surely you don't need to be lonely here. There must be lots of places you can meet women. There seem to be plenty of women's activities on campus.”

“Sure. I can go volunteer for the rape hot line.… I don't especially want to meet anyone. Not yet.”

“Have you heard from Valerie?”

“Not since I saw her at Christmas. She never writes. I know she moved because the phone's disconnected.”

“Is she living with somebody else?”

As if she had been caught unbraced by a blow. “I suppose. I guess I'll find out when I go see her. Maybe I'll do that spring vacation.” She sounded ridiculously vacillating, but it hurt so much to talk about.

“I don't mean to pry.” But he did. He was always curious. She felt George was genuinely sorry she did not have something going here, in part because he wanted things to go well for her as he wanted what was under the hood of his car to work well. She hoped she wouldn't have to spend Friday sitting in his house waiting for the plumber.

“I'd better be going.” George meant it, for he got up dusting his pants. She saw him to the door and down the straight steep flight. The street door clicked shut behind him. Then she locked her door and stood in the center of the room. She wished he had not mentioned Valerie. She took off her boots, stood with her hands laced on the top of her head, and waited to see what she felt like doing with the short end of her evening.

A fumbling at the window. She froze. Wind? No. She found herself crouching, then, thinking better of it, she reached into the rack over the hotplate and pulled out the stoutest knife. She walked toward the window. She was frightened, her body sang with tension and she felt over-wound as if an arm might suddenly fly off. Lightly she crossed the room on the balls of her feet, almost bouncily, and then, hefting the knife, drew back the blind. A man crouched there pawing at the window. “Hai!” she screamed and feinted with the knife, the glass between them.

“Hi yourself, Les. Let me in.” Bernie's silky voice came unmistakably through the window.

As the adrenaline receded, she felt weak. “Bernie? What the hell are you doing on my fire escape?”

“Let me in. It's cold.”

She unlocked the catches. He was dressed just as he had been earlier in the day, with his old leather jacket on and a plaid cashmere muffler around his neck. As he climbed in she shook him roughly by the shoulder, then slammed the window and locked it again. “I do have a door.”

“Yes, but no buzzer. Am I supposed to stand in the street bawling
Les-Lee, Les-lee
, like an eight-year-old? Leslie, come out and play-ay! It's cold and crappy standing on your street. I keep expecting to get mugged, and rough trade keeps trying to pick me up. I have as much trouble standing on a street corner as you would, my dear, and you shouldn't forget it.”

“The hell you do. And you don't fear rape. And you don't have to come crawling up my fire escape like a cat burglar.”

“But I am a cat burglar.”

“I think not,” she said coldly. “Maybe a shoplifter. Well, take off your jacket and enjoy my amply furnished, sensuously outfitted digs. Everyone complains but everyone comes visiting.… How long were you out there?”

“Oh, since ten-thirty. Thursdays through Sundays I work as a waiter at a restaurant near here—À Votre Plaisir. Supposed to be French. The menu's sort of French. A couple of Cubans own it and everybody in the kitchen is Puerto Rican.”

“Since before I got here with George?”

“Just a couple of minutes before.”

“Why didn't you rap on the window sooner? Were you listening?”

“Of course.” He sat on her mattress. “I was so intrigued to see you arrive with a man, how could I possibly butt in? I was ravished by curiosity.”

“You and George. You have a lot in common. You're both uncommonly nosy.”

“But I'm smarter than he is, because I know about him and he doesn't know about me.… He's younger than I expected and much better looking, with that wicked little mustache. Is he after you?”

“My god no. George knows I'm gay. And he's compartmentalized. He'd never lay a hand on Cam either, because she's his secretary.”

“Are you so sure? He has a way of looking at you.”

“He looks at everybody that way, it's habit,” she said shortly. “Naturally I'm so devastatingly attractive no one can entirely resist me, but George manages.”

“When did you tell him you're gay?”

“Shortly after I became his assistant. I figured he'd find out anyhow.… He's good about it.”

“I don't believe it. I don't believe in liberalism.”

“Well, it's points in a way. Better than having a Black secretary even. Sue is never jealous of me. In some funny way he does get on better with women. Man are competition. I'm his loyal dependent, and as he says, I won't get pregnant or married in whatever order.”

He lay back thinking. Then he sat up and leaned forward. “So you saw my light fingers at work in the jewelry store. What did you see?”

“I saw you take the earrings.”

“Which?”

“I did see you, Bernie. I think they were hoops.”

He thrust his hand into his jacket and brought out the hammered silver hoops on his palm. “These? Come and look.”

Gingerly she tucked herself onto the far end of her mattress. “They're pretty. For Honor's birthday?”

“The same. How about these?” Again he reached into his jacket and this time he brought out crescent moons in filigree. “You can give her either pair. I know you don't have much cash.”

“That wouldn't be right.”

“Dog-do. What am I supposed to do with them? Go back and get my ears pierced? I have enough troubles. Come on, tell me which you want to give her.”

“Either pair. See, I didn't take much persuading. I'm saving what bread I can to go to Grand Rapids over spring vacation.”

“You get to give her the hoops, since you caught me in the act. Frankly, I'm surprised. I thought my hand was quicker than anyone's eye. Now guess what?” Again he stuck his hand inside and this time he brought out two stud earrings. “Last act. For Madame.”

She kept her hands in her lap. “No.”

“I know you like this kind, because I've seen you wear one. Look, these are little scarabs. It isn't turquoise like yours. It's some Mediterranean blue stone, I don't know what they call it. Scarabs are fancy beetles.” He dropped the tiny studs on her thigh and they rolled off. She would not pick them up.

“No, really. I don't … care for presents.”

“Then take them as mortification for your spirit. Or your flesh. You like to be ascetic and mortified.”

“No. I like to be serene. That's different.”

“Letting me bribe you into liking me better would ruffle your serenity?”

“I don't like being given things.”

“I don't believe you. At least look at them. They won't explode.”

She dug them from under her thigh and dropped them on the blanket between them, rolling them out like tiny blue dice. “It was nice of you to think of it.”

“We both think it was sly. But not sly enough. You don't want to be treated like Honor.”

“You'd think that the fewer things I have the simpler it would be. But it's like adding objects to this room. Everything takes on significance. If you came tonight and there was suddenly an armchair, you'd stare at it and ask about it—”

“I'd for sure sit in it. Although I don't mind sitting on your bed; it makes you so nicely nervous.”

She felt her cheeks heat. She wanted to go sit against the wall away from him, but that would be obviously a retreat. He was right, it was absurd that she should object to his occupying the mattress when she provided no other place to sit. It was also absurd that she should allow him to embarrass her; he was no prick-waving straight shooter like Hennessy about to harass her.