Boys & Girls Together (38 page)

“Don’t be upset.”

“I’m not upset. What made you say that? Just because I said ‘nuts’? I always do that whenever I kick a rock. Sort of a password. I’m a terrific rock kicker. When I was a kid I was the greatest rock kicker in the world. Once I kept the same rock going for more than a mile without once breaking stride. I mean, anybody can kick a rock, but to not break stride, that’s something.”

“Jacks were my specialty.”

“I played Jacks too. Not so much in public. I mean, it’s a girl’s game, so I stuck more to marbles in public, but I played Jacks when I was by myself. I was good at it, too. Not great. Just good.”

“I was fantastic,” Imogene said as she pointed. “There’s the dorm.”

Walt stayed even with her as they cut toward the building. Fifty yards to the front door. Sixty at the most, so you better do it. If you’re going to do it you better get on the stick. Sometimes you just have to take the plunge. Kiss them right off. No working up gradually. Just do it without the preliminaries. Now. Right this minute now—

“What comes after ten-zees?” Walt said. “I remember you work your way up to ten-zees, but then what?”

“Eggs in a basket, then pigs in a pen.”

“Oh, sure, that’s it. Eggs in a basket, then pigs in a pen.” Don’t be a fink, fink. There’s thirty yards to go. Twenty-five and you’ll never get another chance, so make up your mind. One way or the other. Do it or don’t do it. Make up your mind. Think. Think—

He was still thinking when Imogene turned her body.

It was such a graceful movement that for a moment he wasn’t even aware that she had done it, but suddenly she was ahead of him, one step ahead, and then her body turned, pivoted, stopped, and she was facing him—facing him in the darkness. During the moment it took for him to realize her action, he completed one final step toward her. The gap closed. There they were.

Omigod, Walt thought. She’s making a pass at me.

They stood quite still, not looking at each other. Walt waited for her to move, but she didn’t, and then he realized that she was waiting for him to do it, move, act, something.
I wonder what I’m going to do
, Walt thought, because whatever quandary means, I’m in one, because I’m engaged and that’s important, to me, it is, even though I don’t know if I love her or not, Blake, and Blake says she’s a bitch, Imogene, but if she is I’ve never seen it so I don’t think so, what I think is that she’s beautiful and sweet and kind and maybe even cares for me, not much but maybe a little, maybe, so
I wonder what I’m going to do
. I mean, of course, I won’t do anything. I just couldn’t. Except she’s right there. Imogene. Waiting for me. The two of us. Together. In the dark. Alone.

Hey, Walt thought. Hey, I better remember this.

The pressure of her breasts against his body; he could feel the tender pressure. They were standing close together, almost but not quite touching, except where her breasts grazed the front of his shirt, and even though the pressure was light, so light, he could feel it. And the date was the eleventh of May; the time: half past twelve. Place: Oberlin, Ohio. More specifically, the lawn of Keep Cottage. More specifically still: close beside a tree, the biggest tree on the lawn, to the left of the front door, deep in shadow. The weather was warm, and a warmer wind washed them from the south. Except for the leaves overhead, there was no sound. The sky? Clear, with the usual number of stars, a wedge of moon. The moonlight was not strong, and the tree branches cut off most of what there was, but a bit of it managed to spot her shoulder, paling her pale red hair. She wore white, a man’s shirt, much too big for her, the sleeves rolled up over the elbows. Her red hair cascaded down, covering the collar of her shirt. Her eyes were bright—pale blue in sunlight, bright only now. Bright was the color of her eyes.

S
ID AT THE DELI
was Sid at the bottom.

In all his life he hated nothing as he hated that store. Yet, every morning at eight, he descended the stairs and unlocked the door and sat in the gloom waiting for customers. The boy was no help, being off at school, and Esther spelled him only occasionally, because of her migraine headaches.

The first migraine, the day of her father’s funeral, she had endured without medical aid, but a week later, after a second and more severe attack all but crippled her, she sought attention, thereby learning the name and nature of her malady. The doctor’s advice, so Esther reported to Sid, seemed eminently sensible: take it easy, get lots of fresh air, try not to get excited. For a few days thereafter, she and Sid alternated in the deli, but soon it turned out that her presence in the store brought the headaches on, so Esther returned to the doctor, later coming back to Sid with both a reason and a solution. Reason: being so close to the spirit of her father caused tension and tension caused headaches. Solution: stay out of the store. So the business of clerking fell to Sid alone, and Esther began getting lots of fresh air. As spring came she took to spending mornings upstairs, resting and gathering strength, and then, on nice afternoons, she would dress up prettily and wave goodbye through the store window and never return until late afternoon. Although Sid resented her departures, he had to admit that the treatment was working. Her headaches grew rare while her disposition and appearance were unquestionably better than they had been in years.

Sid, in the meantime, declined. It was the store, the goddam store, that was doing it. He could never decide which was worse, waiting for the customers to come or waiting on them when they came. He loathed waiting on them. The indignity of it was bad enough; worse was the fact that he wasn’t good at it. They didn’t like him, the fat lady customers. They didn’t like him, not one bit, and he could tell. They resented his presence (was it his fault he wasn’t Turk), his slowness (he could never quite learn where anything was, and while he scurried frantically from shelf to shelf he could hear them muttering impatiently behind him), his jokes (they wouldn’t laugh—never; no matter how funny, they just wouldn’t laugh). So when they walked out the door with their brown bags full of junk, Sid wasn’t sorry.

Except that when they were gone, he was alone.

Alone with his thoughts and the rotten smell of garlic. Everything smelled of garlic in the lousy store, and eventually he too smelled of garlic, no matter how hard he scrubbed his once manicured hands. Stinking, Sid sat in the old man’s chair and thought. And no matter what he tried to think about, no matter where he began his daydreams, it was only a moment until his mind betrayed him and he was standing outside himself, looking down at himself, seeing only a small man who stank of garlic—a failure. A failure. A nothing. For the first time in his life his confidence was entirely gone. His dreams of gold, gone. Everything, gone. Alone in the store, Sid saw himself as what he was afraid he was: a butt, a runt, a gas bag, a clown—to be laughed at, to be pissed on.

One afternoon he closed up shop. He ran out the door, locked it good and took off for an hour. When he came back he was afraid Esther might find out, but she didn’t, so two days later, when the gloom became overpowering, he took off again. He didn’t go anywhere special, just walked, but he always felt better when he came back. Business, of course, fell off a little but not to the point of total disaster, so Sid kept it up, chipper with his secret, hoping only that he wouldn’t run into Esther, who would flay him, he knew, if she discovered. Spring had never seemed so becoming to Sid as it did on his afternoon walks, and so the day he saw the hearse parked in an alley he stopped and shook his head, because it didn’t seem right that anyone should die in such weather. The hearse, Sid noted first, belonged to Shapiro’s, and as he shook his head he saw that young Shapiro himself was seated behind the wheel. And Sid saw that young Shapiro was talking, with obvious relish, to a woman. And the woman, Sid saw, was Esther.

Sid stumbled back to the store.

Esther? Esther having an affair? No, no, not possible. Not Esther. She wasn’t the type and, besides, who would want her? Once it might have been conceivable, back then, when she had her body, but now her breasts sagged and her can was flabby and she was getting a gut. Sid nodded. It was absolutely impossible. What he had witnessed was an accident, a chance meeting; happens all the time. Young Shapiro was probably driving along in his hearse and he saw Esther and he gave her a lift to the alley. “Why to the alley?” Sid said out loud. He shrugged. Why not to the alley? Sure, he dropped her off at the alley and went inside and picked up some corpse. Made perfect sense. Esther unfaithful? Never.

But that afternoon, as she returned from her constitutional, Sid beckoned her into the store and they chatted amiably for a while. And as they chatted, Sid studied her—every move, every sound, every look. And it was obvious. All so obvious. Not that she slipped and called him “Eli,” young Shapiro’s name—nothing like that. Sid just knew. He could tell. Because she loved Eli Shapiro. Not only was she having an affair, she loved him.

Numb, Sid sank into Old Turk’s chair as Esther smiled and went upstairs. She loved him. That was what almost made him cry. Hot pants he could almost understand. But love? How could she? Why? Sid hid his head. Why not? Eli Shapiro was rich and handsome. Eli Shapiro had a present and a future. You didn’t piss on Eli Shapiro.

“Closed,” Sid said to the woman in the doorway.

“I just want milk,” the woman said.

“Closed,” Sid repeated. “Go,” and she left.

Sid got out of the chair and locked himself in the store. Then he turned out the overhead lights and sat back down in the darkness. Esther was leaving him. A matter of time only. She would take the child and go. How many times had he wished for just such a happening? And now the possibility was horrifying. Why? Why? He didn’t love her, so why not let her go? Be glad of it? Why? Sid huddled in the dark store, his hands around his knees. He had never lost a woman. And if he lost one now,
now
, with things the way they were, it could only prove that he was that lowest of all lows, a human urinal, and Sid was not remotely sure if he could bear that burden or, if so, for how long.

“Eli, over here,” Sid shouted as Shapiro entered the poolroom.

Shapiro approached.

“Good to see you, Eli,” Sid said, and he held out his hand. “I’m sorry to bring you all this way, but I told Esther I’d be playing tonight, and in case she calls me ... you understand. Esther and I, we don’t like to lie to each other.”

“I understand nothing,” Eli Shapiro said. “You telephoned me, told me to meet you on a matter of terrifying importance, you sounded upset, and here I am. Mr. Miller, I want—”

“Sid’s the name and I apologize. I know I acted mysterious, but I just had to talk to you, Eli.”

“I haven’t much time, Mr. Miller.”

“Please, Eli. Sid.”

“Sid. I’m playing cards this evening with my father and we pride ourselves on our punctuality.”

Sid sat in an empty chair. “We may as well get comfortable.”

“I’m quite comfortable standing. All right, what is all this?”

“I want you to promise to take care of the boy,” Sid said.

Shapiro looked at him.

“That’s the whole thing, Eli, right in a nutshell. I just want you to promise me, man to man, that no matter what happens, you’ll take care of the boy.”

“What boy? What are you talking about?”

“Eli, this is Sid. Come on. Will you promise?”

“You’ve made a mistake, Mr. Miller.”

“Eli, I
know
. I know all about it.”

“All about what?”

“Eli,
please
. I’m not mad. I understand you want to be cautious, but I know.
Everything
.”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Shapiro said, and he turned.

Sid grabbed his coat sleeve. “Esther’s told me everything, Eli. So cut it out.”

“Esther? You mean Mrs. Miller?”

“Eli, my God, Eli, will you stop with the ignorance. This is me. Esther’s told me everything. Today, after you screwed her, you parked in the hearse in an alley. Do you want me to tell you what you talked about?”

Shapiro said nothing.

“Don’t be upset, Eli. Esther always tells me everything. I told you earlier, we don’t like to lie to each other.”

Shapiro sat down.

“Oh, you are upset. Well, stop it. Esther loves you. I swear to you on my sacred word of honor, she loves you, Eli. You’re not like the others.”

“Others?”

“Of course others. Esther’s—but you know it anyway—Esther’s a nym ... nymph ... What’s that word, the opposite of lesbian?”

Shapiro said nothing.

“Maybe she’s not really that, but she needs her action. I suppose that’s my fault. I don’t satisfy her. Never have. Maybe that’s why she does it. But anyway, the thing is, she really loves you, Eli. But I’m afraid for the boy. I mean, he’s not yours, and I love him except I can’t take good care of him, and I want you to promise that no matter what Esther does when the two of you are married, no matter what she tells you, that you’ll love the boy and take care of him. Will you promise? Come on now, Eli, she loves you, you’ll get used to this—it’s not so bad. Eli, get hold of yourself. Snap out of it. Please. Aw, Eli ...”

The next day, Esther had a migraine.

Sid did what he could to help, talked to her, soothed her, rubbed her back and neck with ice until his fingers were sore. But the headache lingered. Esther moaned, writhing and sobbing through the night and well into the next morning until finally she dropped momentarily into a dead sleep. Sid scurried downstairs and opened the store, but in a while he could hear Esther pounding on the floor above, their signal, so he closed the store and ran upstairs and rubbed her again with ice. All told, he ran up and down the stairs more than a dozen times that day.

It set a pattern. Through the next month, Sid tended the invalid
and
tended the store. The doctors were no use; migraines were mysteries. Sometimes ice was good, sometimes heat. Try this, try that, try anything. Sid tried. He stumbled exhausted from week to week, losing sleep, weight, hair. There was never a minute to relax. If it wasn’t some old bag in the store screaming his name, it was Esther. Up the stairs, down; down the stairs, up. Run, run, all the day, all the night, run. He began to regret bitterly ever having spotted the hearse in the alley. For, compared to his present (non) existence, before had been splendor. At least before he had had occasional daydreams; now he had no time. Up the stairs, down the stairs. Coming, Tootsie, coming, Mrs. Feldman, coming, everybody, coming. In spite of his labors, business began falling off. He couldn’t really blame the bags for heading elsewhere; nobody likes banging on the door of an empty shop, waiting five minutes for a lousy quart of milk and a half a pound of cheese. But blame or no, business was failing, and so Sid was forced to keep longer hours in the store in an effort to bring it up to his old low level.
OPEN TILL EIGHT
Sid printed on a cardboard sign hanging in a window, and that sign lasted for a week, when the “Open Till Nine” sign replaced it. Then it was ten. Still there was no money. Eventually the sign read
OPEN TILL MIDNIGHT
and there it stayed. At midnight, Sid would lock the door and trudge up to Esther, rub her weakly as long as he could, then fall back limp on his pillow, feet, more often than not, hanging over the side of the bed. Rarely did he get a full night; Esther usually shuddered between three and four, slamming her fists against her forehead. Sid, once awakened, would feel his way to the icebox and return with the cold cubes, rubbing them into her flesh until she was semi-quiet, and then he would collapse again, dreamless until eight, when the first customers began filtering into the store.