And later she said, “I never knew you were a writer. No Score.”
“Huh?”
“No Score.”
“You lost me.”
“Your book,” she said. “No Score, by Chip Harrison. I read it about a week ago.”
“It’s published?”
“You didn’t know? It’s all over the stands. All over Madison, anyway.”
“That’s really weird. I even forgot about it I mean, I kept looking for it and it never turned up, and I guess I thought they decided not to bother. They didn’t pay me very much money and I thought they decided to write it off. What was the title?”
“No Score. Don’t you even remember the title?”
“I had a different title for it I guess they decided to change it. It’s been about a year since I wrote it.” Then something occurred to me. “Oh,” I said. “I guess you read it, huh?”
She nodded.
“It wasn’t very good, huh?”
“I thought it was good.” She had a funny look on her face. “I never expected to be in it, though.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t even change my name. I thought you could get in trouble that way, not changing names.”
“I changed everybody else’s name.”
“What made me so lucky?”
“I just couldn’t think of another name for you,” I said. “It was just Hallie Hallie Hallie in my mind and I couldn’t think of you any other way.”
“You put down the things we did and everything. The words we said to each other.”
“I didn’t think anybody would know who it was.”
“Oh, of course not. How could they? Hallie from the Hudson Valley who goes to school in Wisconsin. How could anybody possibly figure out it was me?”
“Oh, wow.”
“It’s okay, Chip.”
“Yeah, it’s sensational. I never even thought. I didn’t think about anybody reading it that I would actually know. Or that was in it.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. Honest.” I looked at her, and she was smiling shyly. “I never guessed it was your first time. With me, I mean.”
“Oh. Well, it didn’t seem like something I wanted to announce.”
“When I first read it I was furious.”
“I can imagine.”
“What really got me was that I couldn’t even write to you and tell you how mad I was. I wrote a letter to your publisher just the other day. If they send it to you, you’ve got to promise not to read it.”
“They wouldn’t know where to send it.”
“I guess they’ll send it back to me then. I’ll tear it up.” Her face opened. “But after I stopped being mad, I guess it made me proud. Do you know what I mean?”
“I hardly remember what I wrote, Hallie.”
“Maybe I can refresh your memory,” she said. She stood up and took off her sweatshirt.
I said, “Last time you were wearing a bra.”
“I got into Women’s Lib a little last spring. I decided they were generally full of shit, but they’re right about bras. Do you think I need one?”
“No.”
She kicked off her sandals, unfastened her dungarees. “You’ve still got all your clothes on,” she pointed out.
“Hallie, we don’t have to. Honestly.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think you do.”
“Would I do it if I didn’t want to?”
I looked into those big eyes. “You might,” I said. “You might just because you thought you should.”
“I really want to, Chip.”
“Come here.”
I kissed her and felt her breasts against my chest. For some reason or other I felt like crying. I kissed her again and let her go, and she took her dungarees off and I started to get out of my clothes.
We made love.
She had her eyes closed. I put my hand on her stomach. She was shiny with sweat.
After a while I said, “Tell me about it.”
“Huh?”
“What went wrong?”
“Huh?” Her eyes opened. “Nothing went wrong. I had an orgasm.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“So you weren’t really there. You were somewhere else and it wasn’t right.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Or else I’m a little flaky, which is possible.”
“No.”
“I’m right, then.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
“What’s the matter?”
She turned away. “I didn’t think you would be able to tell. I guess that was pretty stupid, thinking that. I’m sorry, Chip.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Yes there is. The thing is, oh, I don’t know—”
I waited.
“The only way is to say it. I have an old man.”
For a minute I thought she meant her father. I had spent the past nine months with people who were several years behind on their slang. Then I realized what she meant and I said, “Oh. A guy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I figured you would be seeing guys. And the rest of it, as far as that goes.”
(This was a lie. Not that I had ever expected that Hallie would be sitting up in Wisconsin saving herself for me. But I just managed never to think about her with anybody else. I don’t much like to think about it now, if you want to know.)
“I’m sort of involved with him.”
“In a heavy way?”
“Kind of heavy, yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Like we’re living together.”
“Oh.” Why did I suddenly feel as though I was dying? “For very long?”
“Well, we were sort of together starting in April, but not actually living together. And he was in New York for the summer, he lives out on the Island, and we saw each other a few times during the summer, and when we came back to campus we started, uh, living together.”
“In your room?”
“No. He has this apartment off campus. I keep some of my clothes and things at my room because there isn’t much space at his place. But I sleep there, and cook meals and like that.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t think it’s a forever thing or anything, but, oh, I dig him, you know, and it’s very much what I’m into right now.”
“Sure.”
She turned to me. There were tears running out of her eyes but she wasn’t really crying, and the tears never got anywhere near her voice.
She said, “I’m really a bitch. I should have told you out in front and we never should have balled. Maybe all I really am is a cunt.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“I just don’t want you to hate me and you’ve got every right in the world.”
“Why should I hate you? I love you, why the hell should I hate you?”
“Oh, shit,” she said, and this time she let go and cried.
Epilogue
October 17, 1970
Miss Geraldine Simms c/o The Lighthouse Bordentown, South Carolina
Dear Geraldine:
Awhile ago I sent you a copy of a book I wrote called No Score. I hope you got it, because otherwise this won’t make too much sense. Or maybe it will — it seems to me I told you most of what happened in No Score at one time or another.
Anyway, along with this letter I’m sending you the carbon copy of another book I wrote.
I just finished it. In fact I haven’t finished it yet, I’m finishing it right now.
If you read No Score, you may remember that there was an Epilogue at the end that told what happened to me after the actual story of the book ended. I decided the other day that this book ought to have an Epilogue also and I couldn’t decide exactly how to do it. While I was trying to work it out in my head I also decided I wanted to write you a letter, and I thought about it some more and decided that, in a sense, this whole book was a letter to you. So I’m killing two stones with one bird.