Living Room (18 page)

“Vanity, vanity, you look fine.”

He had opened the duty-free bottles and had poured some Scotch over rocks for himself and Smirnoff for her. Her glass had a slice of lime, acquired where?

He pointed to the refrigerator, and like a little girl, she couldn’t keep from opening it, and there were the limes in one bowl, and in another, large one pineapple slices, papaya, mango and peeled oranges, each with a fork stuck in it.

”I ordered it when I booked the place,” Al said. “It’s for breakfast.” In pantomime, she pinned a medal on his chest.

She sipped at her drink slowly, feeling the alcohol tracing through her.

“Are you relaxed yet?”

She nodded.

“Sleepy?” He glanced at his watch. “Time to feel that way.”

She wondered whether she should say good night before going into her bedroom, didn’t. There was a lock on the bedroom door, which she didn’t lock.

She thought of his angular form and wondered what he would look like in a bathing suit or naked. Would he come in? On what pretext? Did one need one, holidaying for a weekend? What kind of a lover was he? He hadn’t even tried to kiss her. Was she unattractive to him? He liked the shape of her ass. Kiss my ass. It was no place to begin.

She woke with a start. Her watch on the nightstand showed two luminous dials quartering the circle. Three a.m. She went back to sleep, curled like a child, and was awakened by the morning sun streaming through the window slats.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“GOOD MORNING, STRANGER.” Al greeted Shirley with the physical bounce of an energetic early riser whose voice at that hour is an affront to all those who are not immediately wide awake. Shirley, emerging from the bedroom bathrobed, stifled a yawn.

“Did you sleep well?” said Al’s voice, as if from a podium. She thought he was going to clap her on the back, just to release energy.

“If you can’t talk till after coffee,” said Al, “I’ll shut up.” She shook her head. He held her chair for her.

Shirley thought she was smiling up at him idiotically. “I had a dream about a dog.”

“Woof,” he said.

“Another one.”

“Tell me,” he said, motioning her to start in on the half papaya in the plate before her.

She had never discussed the dog with Mary or anyone. Her father and Mrs. Bialek knew. Wo
uld the process of telling exor
cise?

“This papaya is delicious,” she said. “You look like you’re exercising sitting still. Where do you get all that energy?”

“Metabolism,” said Al.

“Same one that keeps you like a skeleton?”

She thought she saw a controlled flinch. “I’ve always been thin,” he said. “Tell me your dog story.”

Shirley savored the heavy texture of the papaya in her mouth. He was studying her.

She swallowed. “My father brought me a tiny, furry thing from the A.S.P.C.A. when I was eight. I had just made a comeback from a long illness. Anyway it was a reward, a toy bred out of every kind of North American dog that’s small and has hair. I was half an orphan. The dog was a whole orphan.”

“City kids,” said Al, “are always funny about animals.”

“You’re not a city kid?”

“No. In Indiana, you see farm animals every time you take a drive. Go on about your dog.”

“Well, I loved it. This clumsy ball of fur tried to follow my father to work, or me to school. Mrs. Bialek, the woman who took care of me after my mother died, didn’t like dogs or cats any better than humans, and the dog, it was a puppy really, tried to race out the door every morning when dad left and then when I left. And it was always an acrobatic feat getting the door closed with us out and it in.”

Al poured coffee. “This dog have a name?”

“I just called him Dog. Anyway, one morning I thought Dog had stopped short of the door and I closed it too quickly behind me and its paw, just the tip of it, got caught. I heard the howl too late. I only vaguely knew what a vet was, you see how citified you get in the Bronx? I found one in the phone book, it was a very long walk, I had to cut school, the vet’s waiting room was a jungle of yapping dogs and snarling cats, the worst of which was his receptionist, who kept calling me ‘little girl’ and said I had to have an appointment and did I have money. I had neither. Dog’s shattered paw didn’t affect her one bit. She told me to take it back to the A.S.P.C.A. and they’d put it to sleep.”

“You didn’t.”

“I carried Dog all the way back to the apartment, tried to borrow some money from Mrs. Bialek, who wouldn’t give me any till I got my father on the phone and he said okay, and then I phoned vet after vet after vet in the phone book till I got one that’d give me an appointment right away. It was a long subway ride and Dog whimpered the whole time. Everybody stared.”

“You did all that yourself at that age?”

“There was no one else to do it.”

Al’s appraising eye was on her again.

“Go on.”

“The vet set Dog’s leg. I had to keep going back to get it dressed once a week, my homeroom teacher was adamant about a dog being insufficient excuse for absences, and besides I had been gone from school too long during my illness. The logistics of keeping that puppy alive were incredible. My father suggested I give it away, he’d get me another one, but he understood that the only place that would take it would be the A.S.P.C.A. and they wouldn’t be able to find another home for a dog in that condition and they’d have to put it away. This went on for months. I made appointments late in the day and dashed madly from school to pick up Dog, hoping it wouldn’t pee in my lap in the subway, and I suppose somewhere along the line I began secretly to wish it dead.”

“And?”

“One Sunday I was out for a walk with Pop—you couldn’t just carry Dog all the time, we let him hobble around on a leash—I guess I wasn’t holding the leash properly or paying attention, Dog just broke away into the street. I could see it, terrified by the traffic, wanting to get back to safety or over to the other side, but it was just too slow or inexperienced about cars.”

“Run over?”

Shirley nodded.

“A relief. And you felt guilty as hell.”

She nodded. “My father had not kept up with the vet’s bills, and I’d be home afternoons and there’d be a call from the receptionist demanding the overdue payment and I’d say but the dog is dead.”

“The sun’s out,” said Al, pointing from the balcony to people straggling onto the sand, laying out towels, making themselves comfortable in beach chairs.

“You own a dog?”

“Not recently. Come on, let’s get into swimsuits. We don’t want to miss all that sun.”

While she was changing, Al phoned the front desk and arranged a surprise for later in the day. Then he quickly got into his suit, threw a towel around his shoulders, and very nearly bumped into Shirley as he came out his bedroom door. She boldly looked him over, top to toe.

“Hmm,” she said, “a bikini.”

“You’re wearing one.”

“Well, girl bikinis have been around some time.”

“So have these, in Europe anyway. If I was fat I guess I wouldn’t wear one.”

“Ninety-eight-pound weakling.”

He could tell she wasn’t displeased by what she saw. Women weren’t usually as open about men’s bodies. Experience or attitude?

“Charles Atlas wouldn’t do me any good,” said Al. “I can’t even take the credit for watching calories. I just don’t get fat.”

“Lucky you.”

“You seem under control.”

“Wait’ll you run into my once-a-month-starvation plan.”

“The only thing I want to run into is the water.”

He led the way.

On the beach he laid out towels, walked against the tide into the water, then when waist high, dove and swam straight out, arms thrusting through the water in a strong, splashless crawl.

When he returned, toweling himself, he said, “Aren’t you going in?”

“I’m a lousy swimmer. Bathtub-drowner class.”

“I’ll go in with you.”

“You’ve just dried yourself off!”

He led her into the water by the hand. It was the first time their skins touched.

Afterward, lying side by side in the sand, Shirley asked, “What’s your project? That thing you’re working on.”

Al was silent for a long time.

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

“I was just thinking how to put it.”

“Do you write?” asked Shirley. “I know a couple of people other people think don’t do anything, and what they do is write.”

“Well,” said Al, “do you think of yourself as a writer?”

“No,” said Shirley readily. “I’m a copywriter. None of it is intended to survive.”

“Oh, is that the criterion? That leaves an awful lot of nonwriters who write.”

“Yes. And you haven’t answered my question.”

“You ought to put some suntan lotion on.”

“I suppose so.” She stood. He watched her smooth it onto each limb, her midriff.

“Your face,” he reminded her.

“Forgot.” She completed the job, offered him the plastic tube.

“I don’t burn.”

“You don’t get fat, you don’t burn, you’re not mortal.”

“Thanks.”

She studied his back. “Are you going to tell me what you do?”

He turned to face her. “I’m a tree surgeon.”

“Tell the truth.”

“Actually, that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“What?”

“Tell the truth. I’m sort of digesting each field that interests me, trying to understand it in a way that the people in it don’t seem to. That’s how I got close to Jack Wood. I peppered him with questions about medicine.”

“I thought it was Mary you were close to.”

Had Mary told her? She wouldn’t. But women did, didn’t they? Assume nothing. “Well, both,” he said, “but it was Jack I pumped for information, speculated out loud with. He’s smart.”

“Yes.”

“Most doctors aren’t.”

“Would someone smart want to spend his life advising mothers about their babies’ colds or taking flu calls or giving proctoscopies?”

“How about advertising?”

“Let’s not start on that one again.”

“Truce. I’ve had the most fun, and maybe the most difficulty with the thing I just finished, which is why I wanted to spring loose for a place like Bermuda. I’ve been on ethics. Can’t do religion as a separate field any more. And ethics gets you into politics, which I’ve tried to stay away from. Anyway, I got a handle a few weeks ago.”

“Like?”

“Don’t laugh,” said Al. “Promise?”

“No promises.”

“You’re tough.”

“That remains to be seen,” said Shirley. The heat of the sun was beginning to get to her, but she didn’t want to interrupt him now.

“My angle was to try to restructure the Ten Commandments into something that would be viable today.”

Why was she looking at him that way?

“Give me a for instance,” she said, “like they say in the Bronx.”

“You’re getting red, you better turn over.”

She did, and he looked.

“Am I distracting you?”

He looked away.

“For instance?”

“Well, number one is thou shalt not have any other priorities before the conduct of your own life.”

“That finishes off God.”

“Not really. Think about it.”

She thought, then said, “What’d you come up with on adultery?”

“Particular field of interest?”

“Shut up. I mean talk.”

“Well, thou shalt not commit adultery, according to my redraft, unless it gives thee and thy partner pleasure and hurts no other appreciably.”

Al looked at her. “You don’t like it.”

“You’re oversensitive, Mr. Chunin. What do you mean by appreciably?”

“Well, I expect scholars will have to fuss over some of my definitions. Adultery sometimes affects third parties. The question is how much. Does it ruin their lives or happiness? That’s too much. Does it bother the third parties a lot less than the adultery pleases the adulterers? I think appreciably is a dividing line that lets you think an individual situation through sensibly.”

“Is this all book knowledge or personal knowledge?”

Was she hinting about Mary?

“A bachelor usually runs into it now and again. Haven’t you?”

“A bachelor girl runs into it now and again.”

“Do you think my revise holds up?”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“My number three is religious. It says—let me remember this accurately now—thou shalt not find Him an excuse for avoiding pleasure and call Him God; that is blasphemy.”

“You’re a hedonist.”

“I’m trying to learn,” he said. “I’ve got another one. My number four says remember the Sabbath is not for take-home work.”

She nodded approvingly.