She put the phone back on the hook, I turned the knob on the bathroom door and closed it.
While Martha was taking her shower the phone rang again. Later, when she came out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, I said nothing to her about my phone call, just as she had said nothing to me about hers. At first I was secretive out of a feeling that enough had happened for one day. But then sitting in the living room, waiting for her to dress, I wondered if I was not trying to spare Martha the possibility of feeling an ugly, an inappropriate emotion. Given our conversation at the lake and the phone call to Long Island, her response to my news might not be tonight what it would doubtless be in the morning.
It had become warmer all at once, and I sat without my jacket, my feet up on the window sill, watching the storm clouds begin to fill the sky over Fifty-fifth Street. Soon it started to rain and thunder, and grow darker. I sat in the dark with no light until a small lamp was flipped on behind me. I turned; Martha had come into the room, ready for dinner. The light was soft and fell in a flattering way upon the dress she was wearing; I could not remember having seen it before.
“You’re looking beautiful,” I said to her.
She remained standing where she was. “Thank you.”
“A blond girl,” I said, “with a suntan and her hair up—”
“And in a new white sharkskin dress.”
“It’s very lovely.”
“See my shoes?”
“They’re nice. It’s all very lovely.”
“I’ve never worn them before.”
“Maybe we should wait until it stops raining.”
“All right.” She sat down across from me and put her gloves on the little end table.
After a moment I asked, “Would you like a drink?”
But she didn’t seem to have heard. “This is what I wanted,” she said softly.
“Yes,” I said.
“And I like it — do you know that?”
“I thought you did.”
“All that sun and the water and the peace, and then a man in a fresh batiste shirt and a silk tie waiting for me in the living room so we can go to dinner. Even the rain, even the thunder.”
“We’ll go as soon as it lets up.”
After a while there was a jagged lightning streak across the sky, and a crash, and our one little lamp went out; in the kitchen the refrigerator stopped humming.
“It’ll go on in a minute,” I said.
“I called the kids,” Martha told me.
“Did you?”
I could see only her white dress in the dark and her white shoes. “When you were in the shower,” she said.
“How are they?”
“Markie left all his envelopes in the rest room of a Texaco station. But they sounded fine … Gabe?”
“Yes.”
“I think if you go East you better go alone.”
“You want me to go though?”
“A little time apart,” she said, after a moment, “might not hurt.”
“Will it help?”
“What’s to be helped?”
“You’re the one, I thought, who’d been indicating that we’re at some sort of crisis.”
“I don’t think we are,” she said.
“I didn’t think so either.”
“I told you I liked it. It was an agreeable day. I did laugh.”
The light went on, and Martha stopped speaking; and I was moved, even made lustful in a curious self-contained way, by the cold beauty she radiated.
“You look very voluptuous and healthy in that dress,” I said, “and in control.”
“When we come home we’ll make love. Not now.”
“You’re being very gallant, Martha, and very self-possessed tonight.”
“Oh I know.”
Suddenly she wearied me. “I think the storm’s rather laid a pall on me.”
“Let’s go then,” she said. “I’ll cheer you up. Plus my suntan and my blond hair and my self-possession, I am also a lot of laughs.”
“Theresa Haug had her baby,” I said.
“What?”
“Libby called. Sid called her. She had a baby girl.”
“When did she call?”
“While you were in the shower.”
“And you weren’t going to tell?”
“I thought I’d save it.”
“It sounds as though the news depresses you.”
“It leaves me feeling peculiarly washed-out, Martha.” Which was true; I found myself having something like the reaction I had feared for Martha. I couldn’t understand it.
“Aren’t you happy?” she asked.
“I suppose I am. Libby was very excited. I just feel played out. That’s all.”
“We can sit here a while longer, if you want.”
So we sat there, while outside the storm slowly rolled away. “I suppose,” I said, “I should have a feeling of accomplishment.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Of being unnecessary.”
She did not say anything, and I could not tell if it was clear to her that the strange feeling I had was envy, envy for the Herzes.
“Just old fleeting depression,” I said.
“I understand.”
“This comes,” I hurried to say, “on top of my father’s letter—”
“Yes?”
“—and,” I said, “my overhearing your conversation with the kids.” So my two secrets were out. Why not?
“Oh,” she said. And then, “Well, what was the difference? You were taking a shower. It was as good a time as any.”
“The difference is obviously that you didn’t want me to know that you wanted to call, that you had called. That you had broken down, given in, or however it is you choose to put it.”
“You didn’t want me to know the Herzes had a baby. So we’re even.”
Even, we sat back in our chairs. Until I asked, “How long do you think we’re going to be able to keep this kind of business up?”
“I suppose something will happen some day.”
“I don’t know what.”
She understood. “I don’t care, really, if I never get married, Gabe. I’ve had that. I told you — I like this. Marriage is really quite beside the point. You know that.”
“Do you?”
“I knew it a long time ago. I knew it the day they got on that plane. I probably knew it before then, but that was a very forceful event. I supposed that you knew it too.”
“I suppose I did.”
“I don’t think we should worry about it then,” she said. “It’s still raining a little. Do you still want to make love to me?”
“Not exactly. Not now.” It wasn’t intentionally that I had repeated her words.
“But why don’t you do it anyway?” she said. “I think we should do whatever suits our needs. My needs, all right? I would like to be seduced right now. Undressed slightly against my will, my nice new dress thrown on the floor, and bango. That’ll put a little glow around dinner later.”
“You want me to service you?”
“I wasn’t being cynical. I meant it.”
“That doesn’t make it a hell of a lot less cynical, I shouldn’t think.”