“Would you tell me what you find so enthralling now that you didn’t notice last night?” Sally says this in a self-mocking, good-natured way. But important info is being sought. Who could blame her?
“Well,” I say, my mind suddenly whirring. A man exits the bathroom, so that I get a stern whiff of urinal soap. “You’re a grownup, and you’re exactly the way you seem, at least as far as I can tell. Everybody’s not like that.” Including me. “And you’re loyal and you have a quality of straight-talking impartiality”—this sounds wrong—“that isn’t inconsistent with passion, which I really like. I guess I just have a feeling some things have to be investigated further between you and me or we’ll both be sorry. Or I will anyway. Plus, you’re just about the prettiest woman I know.”
“I’m just about not the prettiest woman you know,” Sally says. “I’m pretty in a usual way. And I’m forty-two. And I’m too tall.” She sighs as though being tall made her tired.
“Look, just get on a plane and come up here, and we’ll talk all about how pretty you are or aren’t while the moon sets on romantic Lake Otsego and we enjoy a complimentary cocktail.” While Paul goes who knows where? “I just feel a tidal attraction to you, and all boats rise on a rising tide.”
“Your boat seems to rise most when I’m not around,” Sally says with distinctly diminished good nature. (It’s possible I’m not providing convincing answers again.) The woman in the far phone nook snaps closed an immense black patent-leather purse and goes striding quickly out. “Do you remember saying you wanted to be the ‘dean’ of New Jersey realtors last night? Do you even remember that? You talked all about soybeans and drought and shopping centers. We drank a lot. But you were in a state of some kind. You also said you were beyond affection. Maybe you’re still in some state.” (I should probably toss off a couple of barks to prove I’m nuts.) “Did you visit your wife?”
This is not the wisest tack for her to take, and I should actually warn her off. But I simply stare at my little black phone screen, where it states in cool green letters: Do you wish to make another call?
“Right. I did,” I say.
“And how was that — was that nice?”
“Not particularly.”
“Do you think you like her better when she’s not around?”
“She’s not ‘not around,’” I say. “We’re divorced. She’s remarried to a sea captain. It’s like Wally. She’s officially dead, only we still talk.” I’m suddenly as deflated by a thought of Ann as I was happy to be thinking of Sally, and what I’m tempted to say is, “But the real surprise is she’s leaving ole Cap’n Chuck, and we’re getting married again and moving to New Mexico to start up an FM station for the blind. That’s really the reason I’m calling — not to invite you to come up here, just to give you my good news. Aren’t you happy for me?” There’s an unwieldy silence on the line, after which I say: “I really just called up to say I had a good time last night.”
“I wish you’d stayed. That’s what my message said, if you haven’t heard it yet.” Now she is mum. Our little contretemps and my little rising tide have gone off together in a stout, chilly breeze. Good spirits are notoriously more fragile than bad.
A tall, big-chested man in a pale-blue jumpsuit comes strolling down the phone alcove, holding a little girl by the hand. They stop along the opposite phone bank, where the man begins to make a call, reading off a paper scrap as the little girl, in a frilly pink skirt and a white cowboy shirt, watches him. She looks at me across the shadowy way — a look, like mine, of needing sleep.
“Are you still there?” Sally says, possibly apologetic.
“I was watching a guy make a phone call. I guess he reminds me of Wally, though he shouldn’t, since I don’t think I ever saw Wally.”
Another mum pause. “You really have very few sharp angles, you know, Frank. You’re too smooth from one thing to the next. I can’t keep up with you very well.”
“That’s what my wife thinks too. Maybe you two should discuss it. I think I’m just more at ease in the mainstream. It’s my version of sublime.”
“And you’re also very cautious, you know,” Sally says. “And you’re noncommittal. You know that, don’t you? I’m sure that’s what you meant last night about being beyond affection. You’re smooth and you’re cautious and you’re noncommittal. That’s not a very easy combination for me.” (Or a good one, I’m sure.)
“My judgments aren’t very sound,” I say, “so I just try not to cause too much trouble.” Joe Markham said something like this yesterday. Maybe I’m being transformed into Joe. “But when I feel something strong, I guess I jump in. That’s how I feel right now.” (Or did.)
“Or you seem to anyway,” Sally says. “Are you and Paul having lots of fun?” A shift back in the direction of rising spirits, speaking of smooth.
“Yeah. Loads and loads. You would too.” I get a faint but putrid sniff of the dead grackle still on my receiver hand. Apparently it’s to be on my skin forever and ever. I intend to ignore this last remark about seeming to jump in.
“I’m sorry you don’t think your judgment’s very sound,” Sally says, falsely perky. “That doesn’t bode very well for how you say you feel about me either, does it?”
“Whose cuff links were those on the bed table?” This, of course, is rash and against all good judgment. But I’m indignant, even though I have no good right to be.
“They were Wally’s,” Sally says, perky but not falsely. “Did you think they belonged to somebody else? I just got them out to send to his mother.”
“Wally was in the Navy, I thought. He almost got blown up in a boat. Isn’t that right?”
“He did. But he was in the Marines. Not that it matters. You just made up the Navy for him. It’s all right.”
“Okay. Yeah, I was callin’ about this house you got for rent on Friar Tuck Drive,” I hear the big man say across the alcove. His little girl is staring up at her dad/unc/abductor as if he’d told her he needed some moral support and she should focus all her thoughts his way. “What’s the rent on that one?” he says. He is a southwesterner, possibly a twangy Texan. Though he isn’t wearing dusty old Noconas but a pair of white Keds no-lace low-tops of the male-nurse/minimum-security-prisoner variety. These are Texans without a ranch. My guess is he’s busted out of the oil patch, a new-age Joad moving his precious little brood up to the rust belt to set life spinning in a new orbit. It occurs to me the McLeods may likewise be in hot financial water and be in need of a break but are too stubborn to say so. That would change my attitude about the rent, though not totally.
“Frank, did you hear what I said, or have you just drifted off into space?”
“I was watching the same guy trying to rent a house. I wish I had something I could show him in Springfield. Of course, I don’t live here.”
“Okay-yay,” Sally says, ready for our conversation to float off too. I have registered whose cuff links they were, though they aren’t any of my business. The Navy-Marine mixup I can’t explain. “Is it pretty up there?” she asks brightly.
“Yeah, it’s beautiful. But really,” I say, suddenly picturing Sally’s face, a winning face, worth wanting to kiss. “Don’t you want to come up here? I’m popping for everything. Your money’s no good. All you can eat. Double stamps. Carte blanche.”
“Why don’t you just call me some other time, okay? I’ll be home tonight. You’re very distracted. You’re probably tired.”
“Are you sure? I’d really like to see you.” I should mention that I’m not beyond affection, because I’m not.