It (18 page)

He started in, then thought better of it and stood where he was a moment longer, listening to her, not particularly caring about who she was talking to or what she said, only listening to the rising-falling tones of her voice. And what he felt was the old familiar dull rage.

He had met her in a downtown Chicago singles bar four years ago. Conversation had been easy enough, because they both worked in the Standard Brands Building, and knew a few of the same people. Tom worked for King & Landry, Public Relations, on forty-two. Beverly Marsh—so she had been then—was an assistant designer at Delia Fashions, on twelve. Delia, which would later enjoy a modest vogue in the Midwest, catered to young people—Delia skirts and blouses and shawls and slacks were sold largely to what Delia Castleman called “youth-stores” and what Tom called “head-shops.” Tom Rogan knew two things about Beverly Marsh almost at once: she was desirable and she was vulnerable. In less than a month he knew a third as well: she was talented.
Very
talented. In her drawings of casual dresses and blouses he saw a money-machine of almost scary potential.

Not in the head-shops, though,
he thought, but did not say (at least not then).
No more bad lighting, no more knockdown prices, no more shitty displays somewhere in the back of the store between the dope paraphernalia and the rock-group tee-shirts. Leave that shit for the small-timers.

He had known a great deal about her before she knew he had any real interest in her, and that was just the way Tom wanted it. He had been looking for someone like Beverly Marsh all his life, and he moved in with the speed of a lion making a run at a slow antelope. Not that her vulnerability showed on the surface—you looked and saw a gorgeous woman, slim but abundantly stacked. Hips weren't so great, maybe, but she had a great ass and the best set of tits he had ever seen. Tom Rogan was a tit-man, always had been, and tall girls almost always had disappointing tits. They wore thin shirts and their nipples drove you crazy, but when you got those thin shirts off you discovered that nipples were really all they had. The tits themselves looked like the pull-knobs on a bureau drawer. “More than a handful's wasted,” his college roommate had been fond of saying, but as
far as Tom was concerned his college roommate had been so full of shit he squeaked going into a turn.

Oh, she had been some kind of fine-looking, all right, with that dynamite body and that gorgeous fall of red wavy hair. But she was weak . . . weak somehow. It was as if she was sending out radio signals which only he could receive. You could point to certain things—how much she smoked (but he had almost cured her of that), the restless way her eyes moved, never quite meeting the eyes of whoever was talking to her, only touching them from time to time and then leaping nimbly away; her habit of lightly rubbing her elbows when she was nervous; the look of her fingernails, which were kept neat but brutally short. Tom noticed this latter the first time he met her. She picked up her glass of white wine, he saw her nails, and thought:
She keeps them short like that because she bites them.

Lions may not think, at least not the way people think . . . but they see. And when antelopes start away from a waterhole, alerted by that dusty-rug scent of approaching death, the cats can observe which one falls to the rear of the pack, maybe because it has a lame leg, maybe because it is just naturally slower . . . or maybe because its sense of danger is less developed. And it might even be possible that some antelopes—and some women—
want
to be brought down.

Suddenly he heard a sound that jerked him rudely out of these memories—the snap of her cigarette lighter.

The dull rage came again. His stomach filled with a heat which was not entirely unpleasant. Smoking. She was smoking. They had had a few of Tom Rogan's Special Seminars on the subject. And here she was, doing it again. She was a slow learner, all right, but a good teacher is at his best with slow learners.

“Yes,” she said now. “Uh-huh. All right. Yes . . .” She listened, then uttered a strange, jagged laugh he had never heard before. “Two things, since you ask—reserve me a room and say me a prayer. Yes, okay . . . uh-huh . . . me too. Goodnight.”

She was hanging up as he came in. He meant to come in hard, yelling at her to put it out, put it out
now, RIGHT NOW!,
but when he saw her the words died in his throat. He had seen her like this before, but only two or three times. Once before their first big show, once before the first private preview showing for national buyers, and
once when they had gone to New York for the International Design Awards.

She was moving across the bedroom in long strides, the white lace nightgown molded to her body, the cigarette clamped between her front teeth (God he hated the way she looked with a butt in her mouth) sending back a little white riband over her left shoulder like smoke from a locomotive's stack.

But it was her face that really gave him pause, that caused the planned shout to die in his throat. His heart lurched—
ka-BAMP!
—and he winced, telling himself that what he felt was not fear but only surprise at finding her this way.

She was a woman who really came alive all the way only when the rhythm of her work spiked toward a climax. Each of those remembered occasions had of course been career-related. At those times he had seen a different woman from the one he knew so well—a woman who fucked up his sensitive fear-radar with wild bursts of static. The woman who came out in times of stress was strong but high-strung, fearless but unpredictable.

There was lots of color in her cheeks now, a natural blush high on her cheekbones. Her eyes were wide and sparkly, not a trace of sleep left in them. Her hair flowed and streamed. And . . . oh, looky here, friends and neighbors! Oh you just looky right
here!
Is she taking a suitcase out of the closet? A
suitcase?
By God, she is!

Reserve me a room . . . say me a prayer.

Well, she wasn't going to need a room in any hotel, not in the foreseeable future, because little Beverly Rogan was going to be staying right here at home, thank you very much, and taking her meals standing up for the next three or four days.

But she very well might need a prayer or two before he was through with her.

She tossed the suitcase on the foot of the bed and then went to her bureau. She opened the top drawer and pulled out two pairs of jeans and a pair of cords. Tossed them into the suitcase. Back to the bureau, cigarette streaming smoke over her shoulder. She grabbed a sweater, a couple of tee-shirts, one of the old Ship 'n Shore blouses that she looked so stupid in but refused to give up. Whoever had called her sure hadn't been a jet-setter. This was dull stuff, strictly Jackie-Kennedy-Hyannisport-weekend stuff.

Not that he cared about who had called her or where she thought she was going, since she wasn't going anywhere. Those were not the things which pecked steadily at his mind, dull and achy from too much beer and not enough sleep.

It was that cigarette.

Supposedly she had thrown them all out. But she had held out on him—the proof was clamped between her teeth right now. And because she still had not noticed him standing in the doorway, he allowed himself the pleasure of remembering the two nights which had assured him of his complete control over her.

I don't want you to smoke around me anymore,
he told her as they headed home from a party in Lake Forest. October, that had been.
I have to choke that shit down at parties and at the office, but I don't have to choke it down when I'm with you. You know what it's like? I'm going to tell you the truth—it's unpleasant but it's the truth. It's like having to eat someone else's snot.

He thought this would bring some faint spark of protest, but she had only looked at him in her shy, wanting-to-please way. Her voice had been low and meek and obedient.
All right, Tom.

Pitch it then.

She pitched it. Tom had been in a good humor for the rest of that night.

A few weeks later, coming out of a movie, she unthinkingly lit a cigarette in the lobby and puffed it as they walked across the parking lot to the car. It had been a bitter November night, the wind chopping like a maniac at any exposed square inch of flesh it could find. Tom remembered he had been able to smell the lake, as you sometimes could on cold nights—a flat smell that was both fishy and somehow empty. He let her smoke the cigarette. He even opened her door for her when they got to the car. He got in behind the wheel, closed his own door, and then said:
Bev?

She took the cigarette out of her mouth, turned toward him, inquiring, and he unloaded on her pretty good, his hard open hand striking across her cheek hard enough to make his palm tingle, hard enough to rock her head back against the headrest. Her eyes widened with surprise and pain . . . and something else as well. Her own hand flew to her cheek to investigate the warmth and tingling numbness there. She cried out
Owww! Tom!

He looked at her, eyes narrowed, mouth smiling casually, completely alive, ready to see what would come next, how she would react. His cock was stiffening in his pants, but he barely noticed. That was for later. For now, school was in session. He replayed what had just happened. Her face. What had that third expression been, there for a bare instant and then gone? First the surprise. Then the pain. Then the

(nostalgia)

look of a memory . . . of some memory. It had only been for a moment. He didn't think she even knew it had been there, on her face or in her mind.

Now: now. It would all be in the first thing she didn't say. He knew that as well as his own name.

It wasn't
You son of a bitch!

It wasn't
See you later, Macho City.

It wasn't
We're through, Tom.

She only looked at him with her wounded, brimming hazel eyes and said:
Why did you do that?
Then she tried to say something else and burst into tears instead.

Throw it out.

What? What, Tom?
Her make-up was running down her face in muddy tracks. He didn't mind that. He kind of liked seeing her that way. It was messy, but there was something sexy about it, too. Slutty. Kind of exciting.

The cigarette. Throw it out.

Realization dawning. And with it, guilt.

I just forgot!
she cried.
That's all!

Throw it out, Bev, or you're going to get another shot.

She rolled the window down and pitched the cigarette. Then she turned back to him, her face pale and scared and somehow serene.

You can't . . . you aren't supposed to hit me. That's a bad basis for a . . . a . . . a lasting relationship.
She was trying to find a tone, an adult rhythm of speech, and failing. He had regressed her. He was in this car with a child. Voluptuous and sexy as hell, but a child.

Can't and aren't are two different things, keed,
he said. He kept his voice calm but inside he was jittering and jiving.
And I'll be the one to decide what constitutes a lasting relationship and what doesn't. If you can live with that, fine. If you can't, you can take a walk. I won't stop you. I
might kick you once in the ass as a going-away present, but I won't stop you. It's a free country. What more can I say?

Maybe you've already said enough,
she whispered, and he hit her again, harder than the first time, because no broad was
ever
going to smart off to Tom Rogan. He would pop the Queen of England if she cracked smart to him.

Her cheek banged the padded dashboard. Her hand groped for the doorhandle and then fell away. She only crouched in the corner like a rabbit, one hand over her mouth, her eyes large and wet and frightened. Tom looked at her for a moment and then he got out and walked around the back of the car. He opened her door. His breath was smoke in the black, windy November air and the smell of the lake was very clear.

You want to get out, Bev? I saw you reaching for the doorhandle, so I guess you must want to get out. Okay. That's all right. I asked you to do something and you said you would. Then you didn't. So you want to get out? Come on. Get out. What the fuck, right? Get out. You want to get out?

No,
she whispered.

What? I can't hear you.

No, I don't want to get out,
she said a little louder.

What—those cigarettes giving you emphysema? If you can't talk, I'll get you a fucking megaphone. This is your last chance, Beverly. You speak up so I can hear you: do you want to get out of this car or do you want to come back with me?

Want to come back with you,
she said, and clasped her hands on her skirt like a little girl. She wouldn't look at him. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

All right,
he said.
Fine. But first you say this for me, Bev. You say, “I forgot about smoking in front of you, Tom.”

Now she looked at him, her eyes wounded, pleading, inarticulate. You can make me do this, her eyes said, but please don't. Don't, I love you, can't it be over?

No—it could not. Because that was not the bottom of her wanting, and both of them knew it.

Say it.

I forgot about smoking in front of you, Tom.

Good. Now say “I'm sorry.”

I'm sorry,
she repeated dully.

The cigarette lay smoking on the pavement like a cut piece of fuse. People leaving the theater glanced over at them, the man standing by the open passenger door of a late-model, fade-into-the-woodwork Vega, the woman sitting inside, her hands clasped primly in her lap, her head down, the domelight outlining the soft fall of her hair in gold.