Making Love (25 page)

“I had a family to support.”
 

“You were just horny, Frank. A simple fact. And the GI Bill wasn't designed to accommodate that. Good night, all.”
 

“It sounds like you're gettin' a truly worthwhile education.”
 

“Make it up with your brother, Patricia,” her mother said, nervously rubbing glycerine on her hands.
 

“She doesn't have to bother, Mother. You needn't drop by for Christmas, Patricia. We won't be expectin' you.”
 

Joe went to the hallway with the two girls and asked Conlon if she needed any help with her suitcase, but she shook him off and kicked open the unlatched door. She gave him a dutiful wooden peck on the cheek and then started down the walk.
 

“Good sweet Christ, Sally,” they heard him say, “I waited all night for her to kiss me and....”
 

Outside the crisp night air had a hint of snow and the sky hung low, laminated with a deep magenta glow, like a coloring process that had run. Conlon shook her head, carrying on an exclusive dialogue with herself while Jane wiped the ridge of ice from the windshield.
 

“My father'll like the color of the sky. He'll be able to quote Matthew: ‘... the signs of the times ...' Something like that. An indication of hypocrisy.” She got into the car, avoided the two faces pressed against the front-room window and looked straight down the quiet road she'd skated along as a child, then said bitterly:
 

“My mother's knowledge of me revolves around two things—am I taking my wheat germ and what's my menstrual cycle doing. I haven't taken wheat germ since I left home, always hated it, and my period's never so much as given me a bellyache. Keep away from Irish bars and laborers and don't screw. With that kind of advice behind me, how can I possibly go wrong? I can conquer the world, face any problem, get straight A's, and live a happy, productive life.”
 

“Conlon, you're a bitch.”
 

“Well, maybe I'm finally learning something.”
 

The blight of Kew Gardens behind them, they headed due east through the broken glass of Queens. Conlon fought with a jagged hangnail on her thumb. Jane couldn't quite see why concerned parents should cause her this degree of worry. Group love? Was that it? More than likely, since Conlon could holler with the best of them, and if the two men with their heavy portfolios hadn't known they were onto a sure thing, they would've run for their lives. By the same token, Conlon could have dialed 911 or the FBI if the indignities had been totally devoid of sexual merit.
 

“Face it, Conlon, it wasn't so terrible the other night.”
 

“It's awful, Jane ... you're right. I'm ashamed to admit it though. I'm a mark.”
 

“If you'd been told what was going to happen, what would you've done?”
 

“Thought about it.”
 

“Not the least bit curious?”
 

“Curious, yes,” Conlon said, then considered withdrawing from the discussion. “I cared about Mel. Are you in love with Sonny?”
 

“Yes, I am. But that doesn't alter the fact that when I was in Marbella this summer, I fooled around.”
 

She seldom made admissions about her personal life, but now, secure with Sonny, the summer seemed remote, a memory of old irrelevant facts. They couldn't touch her, and so she talked, wondering afterwards if she hadn't needed the exorcism, the small reward that goes with the confession of an unindictable misdemeanor. Conlon sulked, and Jane knew she wanted some evidence, so that Jane could hang alongside her. Nothing else, Jane realized, would make Conlon feel better. She had nothing to gain from such a reciprocal exchange, and it appealed to her innate philanthropical tendencies.
 

“I met one of those fortyish married men, off for a three-day cheat. Perfect, even bronze, and you know they've been using half a dozen different suntan lotions, just so they're not missing anything, and of course a member of the lime after-shave club. Good dancer, flat stomach, Canadian exercises, and naturally the first thing he does is offer you an airline ticket.” She now had Conlon's attention. “Mr. Colored Shirts, that's what I called him. I watched him at the discotheque for an hour looking around for strays. He'd reached the two a.m. desperates, which meant that he was prepared to lay money on a lucky young lady. In a way, I suppose he reminded me of my father, which isn't all that significant. He was also staying at the Marbella Beach Club, so we went back together.
 

“No monkey business with Mr. Colored Shirts. He came armed to the teeth with, well, like the rubbers of the world. Skins, Ramses, French ticklers, lubricants. I didn't know what was on his mind, disease or perversion. He and Mrs. Colored Shirts were separated. Seventeen years of marriage, three teen-agers, and wallet-size photographs. Mrs. Colored Shirts is attractive, hides her fortieth birthday very well, and can write a textbook on eye shadow.
 

“The problem is, and now I know I'm in for confidences, some of the magic that was never there to begin with is starting to wear off. Missus is delicately boned and a little small on top. Part of the problem. Then with the exception of the three planned births, he's never come in anything that wasn't made of rubber because she isn't taking the pill or going to use anything to accommodate his climax. Withdrawing is unsatisfactory for a few important reasons. She's spent a fortune on linen, pastel sheets, monogrammed pillow cases, and she claims those stains never come out. He once slipped a pillow under her ass and she didn't speak to him for a week. The other thing is that when the stuff gets into her pubic hair, it's hard to wash out and it depresses her. Anal intercourse is out because she is neither fag nor sheep. Oral activities are strictly for blue films and guys with black socks....
 

“Everyone's upset—the kids, her parents, his parents, she is, he is. So he's traveling the world with a blue Pan-Am bag full of condoms, duty-free scotch, miniflagons of cologne—and if that isn't enough, he's also Jewish and his friends have taken her side, think he's behaving like an ass, and cut him at the country club.
 

“We made it and it's good and long but he's having a little trouble firing his rockets. Either it's the booze or it's late or too much sun or Canadian exercises. I arrive before him and he says very sweetly:
 

“'Can I ask you a personal favor?'”
 

“I'm basically generous so he can ask me anything. I've already asked him one earlier. Skin or nothing. No flywheels, bear grease, vibrators, or Jergen's lotion. Can he please, please, please! use a Trojan, which reminds him of when he was a kid and enjoying sex with the fresh wonder of adolescence.... That's it.”
 

Conlon responded positively to this operation scar, nodded her head vigorously.
 

“It sounds revolting.”
 

“Why? I enjoyed it.”
 

She looked at Jane with unmistakable skepticism, and although she wanted to say something wry, it came out bitterly:
 

“Jane, what makes you such a sweet, lovely, goddamned, silly liar? For God's sake, I've never even caught you masturbating.”
 

“Some people never believe the truth.”
 

“Oh, I believe you had affairs, but with muscle-bound beachboys who were the sons of millionaires.”
 

“Conlon, you're a case.”
 

“Honey, what happened to me was real, ugly life, not some Spanish fairy tale. And I'm not going to be used again.”
 

Sonny loomed ahead, standing guard by the night depository, and Jane had a wave of anticipation. He had the confused movement of someone waiting to be picked up uncertain of the direction of his destiny. He circled the corner, and she blew the horn, still a light way from him. Conlon noticed her nerves, sneered disapprovingly, but Jane didn't notice. Jane had the kind of luck to use something, then return it to the store and get a double credit for it, while Conlon had to fight with the adjuster, make threats, ultimately plead, and thank her stars she'd got a fractional rebate.
The commerce of luck, unfair, hopeless for the world's Patricia Conlons,
she thought.
 

Jane veered into the curb and he came to the car, bright-eyed, innocent, his triumph still unbelievable. Conlon clambered into the back seat. He kissed Jane on the mouth, oblivious of Conlon's presence. Simply a piece of human luggage, a tall pug-nosed Irish kid with a face only childless parents would claim. He finally acknowledged her presence.
 

“Sorry I missed the turkey and stuff, but we was jammed. Don't any of these kids have a home?”
 

Sonny rode with them to Gramercy Park. Limp, leafless old New York trees reinforced by wooden staves teetered in the square. He pleaded exhaustion, gave Jane a squinting signal to indicate that much as he'd like to, it would be awkward with Conlon in possession of the living-room sofa. His helpless delicacy always surprised Jane, who took it as a sign of untapped depth—or was it just embarrassment?
 

“Was he going to come up?” Conlon asked. As a visitor she had no rights; an accusation of interfering would terminate her stay before she'd even unpacked.
 

“I was with him this afternoon.”
 

Jane brought out some of Mrs. Burke's prize linen, Orchard Street specials, and set up the sofa, which appeared at first to be something turned out by Castro craftsmen but had no lower deck and nothing to pull, just surface, three squarish foam-rubber pillows.
 

“Don't you stay with him?”
 

“Off and on. He's got a boy and he usually likes to get home. I don't sleep there—too tricky.”
 

“The kid won't say anything, will he?”
 

“Sonny likes to maintain appearances. He doesn't want Junior to grow up twisted, so we do things the All-American way. I come over for cornflakes and bananas on weekends and with bags of goodies from F. A. O. Schwartz, which they think is—oh, it's gorgeous—a Jewish candy store on the East Side that specializes in games.” She slipped off her dress and put on Sonny's favorite peignoir. “He doesn't know much about me.”
 

“Or your money?”
 

“I want to keep it quiet.” She sighed, wrapped a blanket around the cushions to keep them in place, and said, “He nags me about getting a job. I guess he's afraid that he might have to support me and he only makes ends meet.”
 

“And you can't tell him you don't have to work?”
 

“I'd rather not. Do you want to work?”
 

“I haven't thought about it,” Conlon said. “It might be fun for a while. But not as something regular that I didn't have any choice about.”
 

“That's exactly how I feel.”
 

“Maybe we'll look around tomorrow. Good night, Con.” She put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “What's the matter?”
 

“Jane, I'm scared.”
 

At nine o'clock, still wiping the crumbs of sleep from her eyes, Conlon lightly tapped Jane's shoulder to wake her.
 

“I just signed for this. Could be important.” She handed Jane a telegram.
 

She opened the yellow envelope a bit nervously. The abrupt waking up and the thought that she'd been found out unsettled her.
 

your mother taken into rhinebeck clinic tuesday night stop flying up from palm beach today stop meet me at clinic please
 

father

“Are you going?”
 

“I have to. For all I know she could have swallowed glass. Nothing would surprise me. The last time I saw her—oh, forget it.”
 

Conlon was coming along, no stopping her, although Jane made a faint-hearted effort to persuade her that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade would be more entertaining, and football watching with Sonny, quarterbacking from his post in the leather chair, certainly more edifying. But Conlon was frozen in a state of ambivalence which was made up of loyalty to Jane, New York without Mel, a family she didn't want to see until a wedding or death were announced, and simple human curiosity.
 

Almost a year since the Siddleys had been together as a unit, and Jane realized that her father wouldn't have cut short his stay if the situation weren't serious. Luckmunn's face floated eerily through her mind, coupled with her mother's, the two on some futile treasure hunt. Why blame Luckmunn for rejecting what a score of others had also abandoned through the years? The last of her lovers, he was in a sense the least culpable. The thought of facing her parents together—in one room—without being high on grass made her quake. High, at least, she could pretend to cope with them. They were driving west, heading for the George Washington Bridge, when Jane turned off.
 

“There are a couple of prostitutes in Sonny's building. Maybe I can scrounge some pot from them.”
 

“You're getting paranoid, Jane.”
 

“Don't lecture me, will you.”
 

“What happens if Sonny happens to be visiting them?” Conlon asked with calculated naïveté.
 

“There's no end to your friendship, is there, Conlon?”
 

“I just don't want you to be let down again.”
 

“Christ, I promised Junior I'd take him to the Macy's parade.”