It was time for her to come in, and I waited. Then: “Did you sing that with her?”
“No, I never did.”
“Are you sure?”
“They were going to have me do Don Giovanni. This last outfit, I mean. So I got the score, and found it in there. I had heard you humming it around, so — I learned it.”
She came tumbling down the ladder, all floppy in a suit of my pajamas. She slipped in beside me, put her arms around me. “Leonard.”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you flopped. Because I flopped, and — if you could do this one thing I’ve always wanted to do, and can’t — I couldn’t stand it. And—”
“Go on. And what?”
“It’ll be all mine, now, this that you have in your throat. That’s why I came back there. Leonard, when you sang that day it almost killed me. I think you wanted it to. Oh, I’ve been a terrible wife to you, Leonard. I’m jealous, and spiteful, and mean and nothing will ever change me. But when I get too terrible, just sing to me, and I’ll be your slave. I’ll come crawling to you, just the way you came crawling to them, in the second act tonight. That woman has given us something that was never there before, and I’m going to thank her, and win her, and make her my friend. Oh, I can, I don’t care what has gone before, I can win anybody when I really want them... Now I’ll say it. Something you’ve never heard me say before. I’ve fallen in love. With my own husband.”
I held her tight. She put her mouth against my throat, and began kissing it. “Now sing, and I’ll sing.”
We sang it together, and it was terrible, and it was the sweetest duet I ever heard. That’s all.
Introduction and notes Copyright © 1986 by Roy Hoopes. Copyright 1923 by A. S. Abell Co. Copyright 1927 by Press Pub. Co. Copyright 1925 by The American Mercury, Inc. Copyright renewed 1953 by The American Mercury, Inc. Copyright 1927 by The American Mercury, Inc. Copyright renewed 1955 by James M. Cain. Copyright 1929 by The American Mercury, Inc. Copyright renewed 1956 by American Mercury Magazine, Inc. Copyright 1930 by J. M. Cain. Copyright renewed 1957 by James M. Cain. Copyright 1933 by The Conde Nast Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed 1960 by Conde Nast Publications, Inc. Copyright 1934, 1936 by McCall Corp. Copyright renewed 1962 by James M. Cain. Copyright 1937 by McFadden Publications. Copyright renewed 1964 by James M. Cain. Copyright © 1961 by Esquire, Inc. Copyright 1938 by James M. Cain. Copyright renewed 1965 by James M. Cain.