While Bongo was finishing up the casserole, I sat down and smoked a cigarette. Aside from the gunshots in the next room, all I could hear was the silence in the street. It felt good-as if we were in the heart of a summer night. Then I rolled up my sleeves and sudsed up the kitchen sink, my cigarette between my teeth.
I was putting the final touches on a floral plate when Eddie came in. I gave him a wink. He stood behind me, his drink in his hand, looking at his feet. I started scrubbing at some burned-on grease.
“Listen,” he began. “I’ve got a proposition for you-the two of you.”
I tensed, my hands under the water, looking straight ahead of me at the tile on the wall-splattering myself.
“Betty and I stay here and take care of the store,” I said.
“How’d you know?”
“Beats me.”
“Well, I’m going to go ask Betty what she thinks about it. Is it okay with you, though?”
“Yeah, it’s okay with me.”
He went back into the other room, nodding his head.
I went back to the dishes. I took two or three deep breaths to get my head back together-to finish the dishes without breaking too many-but I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing. I found myself staring at the running water, imagining the serenity that awaited us. From time to time I’d wash a plate. I didn’t want to get delirious over Eddie’s offer. I didn’t want my dreams to get too concrete. I chased them out of my brain. I preferred vagueness, letting the soft feelings wash over me without thinking. It’s a shame that movie music is so trite-I deserved better than that.
As expected, Betty flipped. She was always up for anything new. She was always sure that something somewhere was waiting for us, and whenever I dared to modify her thesis a little-saying that it was OTHER THINGS, ELSEWHERE that awaited us-she’d laugh in my face and skewer me with her eyes, saying, Why’re you always splitting hairs? What difference does it make? I didn’t argue. I just lay down and waited for it to blow over. We spent most of the evening going over everything. We tried to make it as simple as possible. It was easy to see that Eddie was in fact making us a gift of it, even though he made it seem otherwise.
“Anyway, she was all I had left, and for the moment Lisa and I don’t need anything… Now wouldn’t be a good time to sell, and I’m not about to leave my mother’s house to just anybody.”
He was looking at the two of us out of the corner of his eye as if we were his children. I opened his beer for him, laughing, while he explained about selling pianos. All in all, it didn’t seem too mysterious.
“Listen, I’m not worried,” he said.
“Me neither.”
“If anything goes wrong, you know where to find me.”
“We’ll take care of everything, don’t worry.”
“Yeah, you’re at home here.”
“Come by anytime, Eddie.”
He nodded and hugged Betty.
“You two are okay…” he whispered “This is really helping me. It would have been a thorn in my side.”
He had tears in his eyes. There was a short euphoric silence between us, like the cream layer between cookie wafers.
“I only ask one thing of you,” said Eddie.
“Anything…”
“Would you mind bringing her some flowers from time to time?”
They left during the night. I drank a last beer and Betty walked around the living room, squinting. It made me want to laugh.
“I see the couch in the other corner,” she declared. “What do you think…?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Well, let’s try it…”
We hadn’t been alone in the house for five minutes. I could still hear Eddie wishing us good luck and shutting the car door.
I wondered if she was kidding.
“Now? You want to start with that now?”
She looked at me, surprised. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Why not? It’s not late…”
“No, but I think it could wait till tomorrow…”
“You’re no fun. It’ll only take a minute.”
The thing dated from the war. It weighed at least three tons. We had to roll up the rug and inch our way across the room-the wheels were stuck, and it was late for that sort of work. But you do certain things without putting up a stink when you live with a girl who’s worth the trouble. That’s what I told myself as I was moving the buffet table, which was then also in the wrong place. I complained, for show, but inside I was having a good time. Even if all I really wanted was to go to bed, I could certainly move a little furniture for her-in truth I’d have moved mountains for her if I’d known how to go about it. Sometimes I wondered if I did enough for her, and sometimes I was afraid I didn’t-it’s not always easy to be the man you ought to be. You’ve got to understand that women are a little strange. They can be as annoying as anything when they set their minds to it. Still, I often wondered if I did enough for her. I thought about it mostly at the end of the evening, when I’d gone to bed first, lying there watching as she took her creams and lotions from the bathroom shelf. Anyway, being what you ought to be in life is not something that just happens to you-you have to work at it.
We had both worked up a sweat. When all was said and done, I have to admit, I felt pretty weak in the knees-perhaps I hadn’t really gotten all my strength back. I sat on the couch and looked around me with an air of exaggerated smugness.
“Now this is something else again,” I said.
She sat down next to me, her knees tricked under her chin, biting her lip.
“Yeah… I’m not sure… Maybe we should try a few different-”
“Different, my ass,” I said.
She took my hand, yawning.
“I’m beat, too. No, I was just saying…”
A little while later we were in the bedroom. I was about to take the covers off the bed, when she stopped me.
“No, I can’t do this…” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
She was staring at the bed in a very odd way. It’s true that from time to time she would go off into the ozone like that. Her attitude intrigued me-I hardly recognized her. I didn’t worry about it, though: girls have always intrigued me, generally speaking, and after a while you get used to it. I’ve decided that you can never completely understand them-you’ve just got to resign yourself to it. I’ve observed them out of the corner of my eye. After a while they all start doing weird things-incomprehensible and dazzling. It leaves you standing there as if you’ve come upon a fallen bridge; all you can do is throw a few wistful stones into the void and go back where you came from.
Naturally she didn’t answer me. I looked at her face and wondered where she’d gone. I decided to push it.
“You can’t do what?” I asked.
“Sleep there. I can’t sleep there.”
“Listen, it’s the only bed in the house. It might not be a barrel of laughs, but… think about it. It’s ridiculous.”
She backed up toward the door, shaking her head.
“No, I can’t. For the love of God don’t force me…”
I sat down on the corner of the bed. She turned and left. Outside the window, I saw two or three stars-it must have cleared up outside. I went back out into the living room. She was jiggling one of the armrests on the couch. She stopped for a minute and smiled at me.
“We’ll just unfold this thing here. It’ll be fine for now…”
I didn’t say anything. I grabbed the other armrest and shook it like a plum tree until it came off in my hand. The couch obviously hadn’t been unfolded in twenty years. She seemed to be having trouble with her side, so I went to give her a hand.