“It did. She’s a very charming girl, in her excited way.”
“I’m sure this is going to make her very happy.”
“It’s terrific,” Sid said.
“I haven’t spoken to Paul, have you?”
“I spoke to him once.”
“I suppose he’s excited too.”
“I suppose so.”
“Paul’s a much calmer person than Libby,” I said.
“Of course, Libby tells me that his father just died. I guess that’s muted his pleasure some.”
I nodded. “Though,” I said, a few moments later, “I don’t believe they were very attached, Paul and his father.”
“Apparently Paul goes to synagogue for him every day.”
“He does?”
“Every morning, Libby told me. To say Kaddish.”
“I didn’t know that … I never really thought of Paul as a religious person.”
“However, a death—” he began.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” There had been something in his voice that I did not like — the tone of a man who considers himself a little more upright than his neighbor.
Heading up Maryland, his mood changed, and the tone, if it had ever been present, changed too. “Well,” he said, “I know someone who’s going to be glad to see you.”
“Who’s that?”
“I take it you’re Theresa’s Mr. Wallace.”
“Oh. Yes. She never got it right and I gave up trying.”
“Well, she asked for Mr. Wallace. I think it’ll help, your being there. I’m glad you could stay in town.”
I did not quite understand — or rather, I thought I understood, but was a little blinded by surprise, and then by irritation. “I planned to be in town anyway,” I said.
When we were within a block of the Herz apartment, he said. “So we’re all straight on procedure then.”
“I think so. The Herzes will wait in your car, and you’ll get out with me and get a taxi.”
“I’ll have a taxi right by the hospital entrance.”
“And I’ll get Theresa, then I pay the bill—”
“You’d better pay the bill first,” Sid suggested. “I think it’ll be less complicated. Paul will give you the check — I called up and got the total on the bill—”
“Then I bring her downstairs,” I said, “and get into the cab with her.”
“I’ll park the car around the corner. That way the Herzes won’t have to see her. And she won’t have to see them.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
“That seems about everything. I take it she hasn’t seen the baby.”
“That’s all been taken care of.”
He was not really officious, and not actually self-laudatory, and his managerial qualities were certainly to be valued, especially at this time, and yet I found myself feeling a tinge of resentment for all the little things he had thought to do. Even on the previous night, when I had told him on the phone that he could use my car, he had countered by suggesting that it might actually be better to use his — it had four doors and would make it easier getting in and out with the baby. Probably that was so, and I had acceded; but after hanging up, I had a picture of him in his bachelor apartment thinking about the number of doors my car had as compared to the number of doors his car had, and I appreciated how, after all, a certain kind of woman might find him a little dull. “I suppose that’s the most sensible way,” I agreed.
“Otherwise they get attached, and it could cause trouble later. With the adoption. It’s better for everybody this way, the girl included.”
“Absolutely.”
He parked, and just as we were stepping out of the car, a window above us opened and Paul stuck his head out. “We’ll be right down,” he called.
Sid and I sat down on the front steps of the brick building to wait. Across the street some kids were playing in a small weedy lot; next door to us several Negro women with shopping bags in their arms were chatting on the porch; a tall thin elderly man, apparently related to one of the women, was standing down below polishing his car and occasionally tossing a remark back up toward the porch conversation. It was a restful moment, a pleasant summer moment, and there was even the smell of honeysuckle from a bush in the little scrubby yard to our left. But most pleasant of all was a pleasure I began to take in my companion’s organizational abilities. As we sat there waiting for the Herzes, I looked out toward the street and counted one, two, three, four — all Sid’s doors — and I told myself that everything was going to come off smoothly and easily. Why shouldn’t it?
Jaffe had said something to me that I did not hear.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“—says that you’re going East?”
“Martha does?”
“Yes.”
It had only been at dinner the night before that I had definitely decided to go; it must have been after dinner then, between the time Martha had picked up the phone and handed it to me, that she had passed on the information to Jaffe. It was like having your decisions go out over the wire services.
“My father,” I explained, “is getting married. That is, he’s just set the date, and he wants me to come spend some time with him and his fiancée. My mother died a few years back, you see.”
“Well, that’s quite an interesting thing, for an older man like that to remarry.”
“He’s sixty. I imagine it is.”
“How does it feel for you?” he asked pleasantly.
“Oh,” I said — and wondered, as I paused, how much he really did know about my private life beyond the fact that I owned a two-door automobile—“I’m very happy for him.”
“It should be pleasant.”
“Yes.”
“I mean your trip.”
“I don’t think I’ll be gone more than a week.”
He took that fact in. “New York?”
“They’re out on Long Island. East Hampton.”
“Isn’t that where Dick Reganhart lives, Long Island?”
“He’s in Springs.”
“Oh,” said Sid, “is that far?”
“As a matter of fact, it turns out to be about ten miles east.”
Just then someone called down, “Hey, hi!” It was Libby. “You two — one more minute!” Her hair was hanging loose on either side of her face, and she was waving at us with her lipstick.
“Hello,” I said, looking up.
“How are you?” Jaffe called.
“Terrified,” she answered. “I can’t get my lipstick on anything but my nose. I’m shaking all over.” She ducked inside.
Jaffe turned to me. “She’s really quite a spunky girl. They’ve had a lot of troubles apparently.”
I wondered if he was trying to needle me. But his manner was agreeable, and I decided that all he had been trying to do, now as earlier, was to make conversation.
Next he said: “I suppose you’ll get over to see Cynthia and Mark then.”
“I’m sorry—”
“I suppose in the East you’ll get over to see the kids.”
“I don’t really know.”
“If you should, send them my love.”
“Certainly.”
“If they even remember me.”
“Oh,” I said, “I’m sure they will.”
“I hope so,” he said. Maybe he didn’t recognize the irony; maybe he did. “I was very fond of them,” he added, as though they had not departed merely from the Midwest but from this life.
A second later the door behind us opened and Libby and Paul appeared. We all greeted one another. Shaking Paul’s hand, I said, “Congratulations.”
By contrast to the rest of us who were suntanned — Libby included — Paul looked more haggard then ever. Of course it was only two weeks since his return from Brooklyn and his father’s funeral; looking at his hair that needed cutting, and his eyes that needed sleep, I was struck again by the news of his going each day to synagogue to say the mourner’s prayer. “The best of luck,” I said to him.