The Ditto List (11 page)

“Well,” she said. Aggressively neutral. Like India and Dan Rather.

“Well, what?”

“What's the program?”

“I don't know,” D.T. admitted. “What do you want to do?”

“Oh, no you don't, D.T. I picked last time. The sailboat. It's not my fault you barfed.”

“There's a good movie at the Ritz.”

“War movies are boring.”

“Mose Allison's in town.”

“I'm not in the mood for blues, particularly
white male
blues.”

“We could drive up to the lake and rent a cabin and lie around in the sun and smell each other's sweat.”

“The last time we did that we lay in bed reading Dashiell Hammett novels and you talked like Humphrey Bogart for a week.”

“I can't go to the lake anyway,” D.T. remembered. “I have Heather tomorrow.”

“Want me along?”

“I don't think so. Whenever she sees you she asks me if we're married yet.” D.T. could have bit his tongue.

“And what do you
tell
her at such times?” Barbara's words weighed tons.

“I tell her, no. We aren't.”

“Do you say why?”

“No.”

“I thought not,” Barbara said, then scared him with a silence. “Bernie Kaplan invited me to go wine tasting tomorrow,” she went on finally, her words flat enough to skate on.

“Are you going?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On what we do tonight.”

“Oh. Well. Dinner, for sure.”

“Where?”

“Wherever you want.”

“No, D.T.”

“Chinese?”

“No.”

“Mexican?”

“No.”

“Burger King?”

“Jesus, D.T.”

“I just wanted to see if there was a pattern there. Apparently not.”

“Don't start with me, D.T.”

“Italian? We'll eat Italian. Linguini, fettuccine, Lamborghini.”

“What's Lamborghini?”

“A car.”

“Italian is fine, D.T. What then?”

“After dinner, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“After dinner. Well, dancing. How about dancing? That place with the big bands. Swing. How about that? ‘One O'Clock Jump.' ‘Stompin' at the Savoy.'”

“Very good. Then what?”

“Then … back here? I'll make Bananas Foster? Or strawberry daiquiries? Or hot buttered rum? Depending on the temperature?”

“Can we sleep naked on the deck?”

“Well, it's kind of dirty. The deck, I mean …”

“
Can
we?”

“Sure.”

“I mean really
naked
, D.T.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Shall I bring my oil?”

“Why not? Oil. Great.”

“Lemon or cherry?”

“Whatever you want.”

“
Lemon or cherry?
”

“Lemon.”

“See you soon,” Barbara said.

When he hung up he was semi-aroused, as he frequently became during one of their spats. In Barbara's view, physical activity was infallible pharmacopeia, a certain cure for everything from corns to cancer, and sex was the most effective medication on that sweaty shelf. Thus the best way to reconcile after an argument was to engage in a particularly lusty evening, with each of them giving and taking more than they had previously dared. So he always knew what to expect, was uncertain only of what he could deliver. Barbara was a Toscanini of the bedroom. She knew and was proud of it, having reached that distinction through a combination of theoretical research and hands-on experimentation. She exulted in aids and devices, would try anything once and most anything twice to be sure they'd done it right the first time, even things that came through the mail from places in Denmark or New Jersey. One thing she wouldn't do was absorb pain, an inhibition which sometimes bothered her but bothered D.T. not at all, since her stance allowed him to thankfully mimic it. Also, she wouldn't fellate him. Not because she found it vile, or because she had never previously performed the act, but because sometime after her marriage and before her first date with D.T. she had decided oral sex was a symbolic deed, the chief metaphor of woman's place in an oppressive world, and thus his every entreaty along those lines had been rejected. This one bothered D.T. quite a bit.

For his part, D.T. felt vaguely immoral in any position other than the missionary and during any act that wasn't at least theoretically procreative. He didn't know why, and he didn't really care, since he was able to suppress those inhibitions almost at will, with the aid of a little booze or a period of abstinence in excess of a week. Deep down, he recognized that he had never enjoyed sex quite as much as he had in the days when copping a feel in the drive-in was the highest achievement of his art, and the pimply prying faces in the vehicles that surrounded his gave even rudimentary fumblings an air of daring he had never been able to duplicate, not even the time he and Barbara had made love in a pup tent at noon in June at a reserved campsite in the middle of Yosemite National Park.

Much of the time D.T. did not have to move a muscle during their reconciliatory trysts. Indeed, the crucial muscle had always moved itself, thank the Lord, as if it were Barbara's puppet and not his own appendage. Thereafter, he had simply to hang onto his erection for as long as possible, by thinking of people and places without the slightest erotic content—Des Moines, say, or Meryl Streep. Sex, too, was rather like a war. The Crimean came to mind.

Despite the fever of making up, their penchant for reaching a disputatious stage two minutes into their every conversation convinced D.T. that he and Barbara would eventually devour what was good in their relationship and leave only the bad, eating the heart and leaving the choke. In his office, D.T. encountered many a couple in a similar set, men and women who defined their relationship solely by the degree of their anger, for whom only argument ignited conversation, only violence begot sex. Still, if he and Barbara were in fact doomed, they would both survive the crash. Barbara could survive anything short of happiness, and D.T., well, he spent so much time lying to his clients he knew exactly how to counsel himself.

He went outside and swept the deck, then tugged the mattress off the spare bed and wrestled it to the space he'd cleaned, then draped the rail with sheets to shield the mattress as best he could, though he knew of no specific eyes to shield it from. It might be like the drive-in, he realized. His cock swelled slightly in his pants and he adjusted it for comfort. Then he went inside and used television to calm him down.

Friday night.
Washington Week
. Second-guessing the politicians.
Wall Street Week
. Games for the rich, the only losers the amateurs putting up the money for the pros to play with. Then the network garbage.
The Dukes of Hazard. Dallas. Falcon Crest
. The decline of civilization as reflected in its amusements. The Greeks got Lysistrata and Agamemnon. We get J.R. and Luke Duke.

The phone rang again. How he hated the pit it dug in him. “Mr. Jones?”

The voice was birdlike, not possibly in peril. His muscles momentarily retired. “What can I do for you?”

“My name is Esther Preston, Mr. Jones. We've never met. However, a young woman named Rita Holloway apparently went to see you on my behalf this afternoon. Do you recall her?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Her visit was entirely unsolicited by me, as she tells me she disclosed.”

“Yes.” D.T. tried to think of who she sounded like. Doris Day? No. More like the youthful Katharine Hepburn. Gaily cynical. Firmly self-deprecating. Slightly tipsy.

“I very much do not want to waste your time, Mr. Jones. However, I have a problem. Miss Holloway is currently ensconced on my divan. She has already called her young man and broken her engagement for the evening. She is about to embark on a search for linen, in order to make herself a bed. She threatens to remain until I agree to see you. I hope you understand that she means what she says. She is a very determined woman.” There was a pause. “Also a delightful one.”

“I agree. On both counts.”

“Then I'm afraid we must arrange a meeting. So that Miss Holloway can resume a normal life.”

“When would be convenient?”

“My time is entirely unburdened, Mr. Jones. Any time you wish. I assure you it will take no more than a minute to confirm what I'm sure you already suspect.”

“What's that?”

“That I have no case at all against my former husband.”

D.T.'s mood flip-flopped. For reasons unclear to him, he felt a need to be encouraging. “We'll see,” he said. “I have to be in your neighborhood tomorrow evening. Perhaps I could stop by around six?”

“Of course.”

“Until then.”

“I'll look forward to it.”

He replaced the phone but his mind retained her, spun with imagined portraits—gentle, handsome, serene, and maternal. His thoughts floated freely, until he realized he had imagined everything but the central fact of Esther Preston's being—the disease that wracked her body and the chair in which she lived her life. The phone rang once again and he was grateful.

“Hello?” he said.

“Ah …”

“Yes? Who is it?”

“Is this Mr. Jones?”

“Yes … Who is it? Michele? Barbara?”

“This is Lucinda Finders, Mr. Jones. I, ah, seen you this afternoon? At your office?”

“Sure. I remember. How are you?” he asked, knowing from the sounds that scraped his ear that she was far from fine.

“Not so good, I guess.” She coughed or something like it.

“What's the matter?” D.T. began to sweat a toxin.

“Del was here.”

“Where?”

“My sister's.”

D.T. couldn't recognize her next sound. Its source was clearly agony, its product an otherworldly whistle. D.T.'s bowels loosened then cramped. “Is it the baby?” he asked. “Did he hit your stomach again?”

“Not there. My face, I think … can you get a broken face?”

D.T. couldn't bring himself to answer. “Was he threatening you if you didn't stop the divorce proceedings?” he asked instead.

“Uh huh.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him to get out of my life.”

Of course she did. Her courage was a trophy he only dreamed of. With it, he could have conquered Everest. Without it, he lived in fear of calls like this.

“It's my fault, Lucinda,” he said. “I should never have let you go back to your sister's. Is there anywhere else you can stay? Somewhere Delbert doesn't know about?”

“I don't know of any. We, I mean I, ain't got many friends. Not since I come to the city. My girlfriend went back to Reedville to work at the cannery.”

“How about the Spousal Abuse Victims' Environment? Remember I mentioned it this afternoon? The places they put you are absolutely secret. I don't know where they are myself.”

“No. I told you.”

“But you can't stay where you are. He'll be back.”

“I'll make out, Mr. Jones. I just think I'd best see a doctor about my face. Maybe you could call your friend? If you're not too busy?”

“Of course.” His mind spun. “Here's what we'll do. Let me make the call, then I'll pick you up and take you to see the doctor. At the hospital or his office, wherever he wants. Okay?”

“I couldn't let you do that. The bus runs right near here. I got a pass and everything.”

“I insist, Lucinda. I'm just sitting here watching morons on TV. What's your address again?”

When she told him without further protest he realized how damaged she must be. “I'll be there in twenty minutes,” he said.

D.T. hung up and put on his coat. When he called John Faber, his doctor, he got an answering service. He left his name and a message that conveyed his urgency, and asked the girl at the service to have the doctor leave a number where he could be reached when he called in. Then he drove to Lucinda Finders' sister's house.

It was a single-story bungalow of post-war plainness, complete with mulberry tree and cyclone fence and a lamb lying in plastic, precious peace on the front stoop. All lights in the house were out. D.T. tapped tentatively at the door, wondering if after hanging up the phone she'd done the thing he would have—fled blindly until something stopped her.

The darkness swallowed his knocks. He tried again and waited, looking from time to time for Delbert at his back. “Mr. Jones?”

Her voice crept to him from behind the black screen that was a foot from his nose. “Lucinda? Is anyone here?”

“Just me.”

A light glowed suddenly above his head and immediately attracted moths. The screen door opened. She stood on the border of light and dark, and he assumed the streak across her face was shadow. Then she stepped toward the light and he saw that it was blood.

The right side of her face was a balloon of red and black with a creeping stripe of yellow. Her left eye was an involuntary wink. Blood had caked below a nostril. “Are you okay?” he asked insanely.

She nodded and it hurt her. She drew air noisily. From within a wince she suggested that they go. “Del might come back,” she explained. “And Marilyn might not let me go off with you if she gets back and you're here. She thinks men are bad for me. I think I'm kind of broke up,” she added, touching her face.

“Come on,” D.T. said, and took her hand and led her off the stoop. “Did he have a gun?”

“Not that he showed.”

“What did he hit you with?”

“His hand.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

“He asked if I'd seen a lawyer yet. When I told him I had, he asked me who it was. I wouldn't tell him. He spit on me. Then he hit me. Twice. He would have done it more but he heard a siren somewheres and took off. He said he'd be back if he ever got served with papers.”