So I went upstairs and packed my bags and walked all the way to the station. It was a bad time to leave him and a heartless way to do it, but staying would have been worse, even impossible. He was dying, and I couldn’t have changed that, nor made the going much easier for him. I walked to the station and took the first train out and ended up here in Los Angeles, working for another foolish little man who likes to hire foreigners, doing the same sort of nothing I’d done in New York, but doing it at least in a warmer climate.
Last month I read he’d died. I thought I might cry but didn’t. A week ago I reread one of his books, Lips That Could Kiss. I discovered that I did not like it at all, and then I did cry. For Rachel Avery, for Joseph Cameron Bane. For me.
You Could Call It Blackmail
He was in the garden when the phone rang. It rang several times before he remembered that Marjorie had taken Lisa to her piano lesson. He walked unhurriedly back to the house, expecting the caller to hang up before he reached the telephone, but it was still ringing when he got to it.
“David? This is Ellie.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Why?”
“Your voice. Is something wrong?”
“Everything’s fine. No, everything’s not fine.”
“Ellie?”
“I’d like to see you. Could we meet for lunch?”
“Yes, of course. Just let me think. Today is what? Monday. I’m supposed to come into the city the day after tomorrow to have lunch with someone at Simon and Schuster. I hope I remember her name before I see her. I’m sure I could get out of it.”
“No, don’t do that. It doesn’t have to be lunch. If we could meet for a drink?”
“Sure. Not that it would be any problem to cancel lunch. Let me think. There’s an Italian place called the Grand Ticino on Thompson off Bleecker. It’s always quiet during the day. I must be the only person who goes there, and I don’t get there more than once or twice a year.”
“How do you spell it?”
He spelled it. “Two o’clock Wednesday? I’ll call what’s-her-name and move lunch back to noon.”
“Two is fine. I hope you remember her name.”
“Penny Tobias. I just did.”
The luncheon with Penny Tobias did not go well. Its unstated purpose was clear to both parties in advance; Simon & Schuster was interested in enticing David Barr away from his present publishers, while he in turn was not entirely averse to being enticed. Things would have gone well enough if he hadn’t had Ellie Kilberg on his mind. But ever since her call he had been writing any number of mental drafts of the conversation they would have, and he couldn’t stop doing this while Penelope Tobias stuffed fettuccine into herself and rattled on about the glories of the S & S spring list. He wasn’t genuinely unpleasant, but he was certainly inattentive and was positive it showed.
A few minutes after one she broke a long silence by signaling abruptly for the check. “I certainly don’t want to keep you,” she said.
“Penny, I’m sorry as hell.”
“Oh? Whatever for?”
“My manners. I have to meet an old friend in a little while and I guess it’s bothering me more than I thought it would.”
“You mean it’s not me? Here I was all set to switch to a new brand of mouthwash.”
He was twenty minutes early for his meeting with Ellie. The waiter, an elderly man with stooped shoulders, astonished him by greeting him by name.
“Mr. Barr, we never see you no more.”
“I live up in Connecticut now.”
“All alone, Mr. Barr?”
“A lady’s meeting me for cocktails, but I’m very early and I don’t think I can hold out until she gets here. I think an extra dry martini with a twist.”
He made the drink last. At five minutes of two the only other customers settled their bill and left, and perhaps a minute later Ellie appeared. He got to his feet while the waiter bustled about seating her. Her eyes had the brittle sparkle of an amphetamine high.
She said, “If that’s a martini I think I want one.”
He ordered drinks for both of them. Until the waiter brought them she asked questions about Marjorie and Lisa and his work. Then she raised her glass, looked at it for a moment, and drained it in three quick swallows.
“I should have told him to wait,” he said. “ ‘Keep the meter running and I’ll be ready in a minute.’ I don’t think I ever saw you drink like that.”
“Probably not.”
“Want another?”
“No. I wanted that one a lot, but it’s all I want for the time being.” She opened her purse and found a pack of cigarettes. It was empty, and she crumpled it fiercely and put it down beside the ashtray.
“There’s a machine in front,” he said. “I’ll get them for you.”
He returned with a pack of Parliaments and opened them for her, then held a match. Her hand closed on his wrist as she got the cigarette lit. She let go, inhaled, blew out smoke, looked at him and away and at him again.
“Okay,” she said.
He didn’t say anything.
“I thought of writing Dear Abby, but she would just refer me to my priest, minister, or rabbi. And I don’t have a priest, minister, or rabbi. You were the only person I could think of.”
“Must be my clerical image.”
“It’s that you’re a friend of mine and a friend of Bert’s. More than that. He and I have a lot of friends in common, but you were his friend before I married him, and you and I—”
“Were very good friends once upon a time.”
“I think I will have another drink. This is turning out to be harder than I thought.” When the drinks came she took a small sip and placed her glass on the tablecloth. She helped herself to a second cigarette and let him light it for her.
She said, “For the past two days I’ve been trying to figure out how to start this conversation. I’m no closer now than I was at the beginning. I love Bert very much. We have a good marriage.”
“I’ve always thought so.”
“Have you?”
“Yes. I don’t think I know two people who like each other’s company as much. You both certainly give that impression.”
“It’s not a pose. It’s very real.” She lowered her eyes, worried the rim of the ashtray with the tip of her cigarette. “We have a problem. Or I have a problem. That’s obvious, I didn’t drag you here to discuss how perfectly happy I am.”
“No.”
“How well do you know Bert?”
“Well, that’s a tough question. I’ve known him for, what, twenty years? We were in college together. He was a sophomore when I was a freshman, although I’m a month older. So I guess I’ve known him longer than anyone else I’m really friendly with now.”
“But.”
“Right: but. But he’s the most guarded man I ever met, so in a sense I don’t know him very well at all. Ellie, about two months ago I met a guy in a bar in Weston. He’d just got off the train and he was going to have one quick one before he went home to his wife, and the two of us wound up drinking and talking until close to midnight. I never saw him before and I’ll never see him again. I don’t remember his name. If he even told me his name. But I knew that son of a bitch more intimately than I ever got to know Bert Kilberg.”
“He keeps himself very much to himself.”
“Yes.”
“David? This is what I want to ask you. How would he react if I had an affair?”
“You mean if he found out about it.”
“Well, yes.”
“Because I don’t know why he’d have to know. Are you seeing somebody?”
“Oh, no.”
“But you’re thinking about it.”
“I seem to feel the need.”
He nodded. “Most people do,” he said. “Sooner or later.”
She excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, first asking him to order another round of drinks. When she returned they were already on the table. “Scotch and water,” he said. “I decided to switch to something less toxic and I thought you might be inclined to keep me company.”
“Meaning don’t let the lady get smashed. For which I’ll surely thank you later. This is a nice place, although I don’t see how they can afford to stay open. How come you never brought me here?”
“I only bring married ladies here.”
“Is that the truth? It’s a good answer, anyway. David, I think I need an affair. But I hate keeping secrets from him. I know I’d have the urge to tell him.”
“Well, then, let me just tell you something.” He leaned forward. “Every time you get that urge, you just step on it full force. You squelch it. If you absolutely can’t help yourself, write it out on a sheet of paper and burn it and flush the ashes down the toilet. Because all you can accomplish by telling him is to create purposeless headaches for two people and possibly three. Or four, if the guy you pick is married. And he should be.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, my dear, cheating is safer when there are two of you doing it. You’ve both got the same thing to lose. And it’s more comfortable, it puts you both on common ground.” He laughed shortly. “In other words, when you want to have an affair go pick out a married man, and there’s something Dear Abby’ll never tell you.”
“Wherever would I find one?”
“Oh, that wouldn’t be a problem. Married men are looking for it a lot more earnestly than single ones. With your looks you wouldn’t have any trouble.” Lightly he said, “You could always pick an old flame. For nostalgia, if nothing else.”
“You’re a very sweet man, David.”
There was an awkward moment which they both attempted to cover by reaching for their drinks. Then she said, “He’s not married.”
“Who’s not?”
“The man I’m sleeping with.”
“Oh. Then this should-I-or-shouldn’t-I wasn’t as hypothetical as it sounded.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t going to tell you but it doesn’t make much sense not to. It’s been going on for a little over a month. He’s eight years younger than I am, he’s not married, and the two of us have nothing whatsoever in common. His only strong point is that he makes me feel excited and exciting.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But I don’t love him. I’m in bed next to him afterward and look at him and wish it was Bert next to me.”
“Where did you find him? I’m assuming it’s no one I know.”
“It’s not. I met him at Berlitz. He’s my instructor.”
“Berlitz? Oh, you’re taking Spanish or something. I think Marjorie mentioned it.”
“German. He was born in Germany and he looks like the really vicious blond captain in all the war movies. And I’m the girl who wouldn’t buy a Volkswagen. Oh, hell. For the past month I haven’t been able to figure out whether I’m wildly happy or wildly miserable. I don’t know why I dragged you here, David, but I guess I just had to talk to someone. And you were elected.”
They continued talking through another round of drinks. Then he put her in a cab, returned to the bar for one last drink, and took a cab of his own to Grand Central and caught the 4:17. “It was one of those endless lunches,” he told Marjorie, “and I don’t think it accomplished a thing. I behaved like a Dale Carnegie dropout.”
He called his agent, catching her just before she left the office. He said, “Mary, I think we can forget all about Mr. Simon and Mr. Schuster.” He gave her a brief version of the lunch, omitting mention of the reasons for his inattentiveness.
“Well, I always knew you were a bad judge of your own work, Dave. I thought it just applied to fiction, but evidently it’s the same in other areas. Penny Tobias thinks you’re sensational.”
“You’re kidding.”
“She called me around one-thirty. She said now she knows why your books are so perceptive, you’re the most sensitive person she ever met and she really hopes we can work something out because she personally would be so proud to publish you.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“I’m going to dine out on this story, Dave.”
“Change one thing when you do, huh? Penny called you at four-thirty, right after she got back from lunch.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mary Fradin. “Davey was a bad boy.”