“Okay, Jamie.”
“That’s the truth.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not.”
“Good night, Jamie.”
“Good night.”
They were silent for several moments.
“I’m not,” he said again.
She did not answer.
Lying in the dark beside her, listening to her breathing, he wondered why he hadn’t told her the truth. She suspected the truth, she obviously suspected it, so why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t he been able to find the courage to tell her he was in love with another woman? How long could he continue living the lie?
“Connie?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Connie,” he said, and hesitated. “I love you,” he said.
She was silent for a moment.
Then she asked, “Why are you telling me this now, Jamie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why now?” she asked again.
“I don’t know.”
“All right,” she said, “go to sleep.”
“I love you,” he said.
“All right,” she said.
He could not fall asleep. He lay in bed beside her, thinking of what Lipscombe had said at the party, thinking of the conversation he had just had with Connie.
He had known her almost half his life.
She was his history.
She was bonfires in the streets of New York on election night, and Alf Landon buttons, and Mayor La Guardia reading the comics during the newspaper strike. She was the Lindbergh baby being kidnapped, and the Dionne quintuplets, and the Duke of Windsor abdicating his throne for Wally Simpson. She was radio, lines like “Who’s Yehudi?” and “One of these days I’ll have to clean out that hall closet,” shows like “Grand Central Station” and “The Green Hornet,” she was Woody Herman coming from the roof of the New Yorker Hotel, she was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the conquest of polio, the McCarthy hearings on television when Lissie wasn’t born and Joanna was only six. She was his past, she was himself, so how could he leave her? He loved her. How could he possibly leave her?
Ah, but he loved Joanna more.
Ah.
He got out of bed, went into the bathroom to take a robe from the hook behind the door, and then tiptoed back to Connie’s side of the bed and turned off the burglar alarm. He did not put on any outside lights. In the dark, he made his way barefoot over the flagstone path to the barn, and unlocked the studio door, and then turned on only the light over his desk. It was almost two o’clock in the morning. He dialed her number and waited.
“Hello?” she said.
“Joanna?”
“Jamie?” she said, surprised, instantly awake. “What is it?”
“Honey,” he said, “I had to call, I don’t know what to do. I want to tell her about us, but...”
“Why?” she asked, suddenly panicked. “Are you about to—?”
“No, no...”
“Jamie, don’t walk out on me again. Please don’t do that.”
“No, that’s not...”
“You said you wanted to tell her.”
“Yes.”
“Then...”
“I want to leave her,” he said, and paused. “Joanna, I want to marry you.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“Joanna?”
“Is that a... a proposal?” she said.
“Yes, I think it’s a proposal.”
“Because... Jamie, please don’t fool around at two in the morning, okay? Because...”
“Joanna, will you marry me?”
“... because I cry very easily when people I love ask me to marry them.”
“Will you, Joanna?”
“Jamie, you don’t have to marry me, you don’t have to tell her, no one’s forcing you to...”
“It doesn’t make any sense this way, Joanna.”
“Jamie, darling...”
“I want to marry you, will you marry me?”
“Jamie, Jamie, please, I will cry.”
“Please say you’ll marry me.”
“Yes, Jamie, I’ll marry you. Jamie, do you mean it? Do you really...?”
“I mean it.”
“Jamie, you’re not going to call me in the morning and tell me...”
“No, I’m not going to do that.”
“Because then I’d shoot myself, or stick my head in the oven. So please don’t do that to me.”
“I won’t, darling, I promise.”
“Jamie, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said.
“What time will you be in on Monday?”
“I’m seeing Lew at ten. I should be through at eleven, eleven-thirty. Give me ten minutes after that.”
“Make it five.”
“I’ll make it three.”
“I love you,” she said again.
“I love you, too.”
“Call me tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“Sleep well, darling.”
“You, too,” he said.
He put the receiver back on the cradle. He took a deep breath, and rose from his chair at the desk. He was turning to walk toward the door when he saw Connie standing there in her nightgown. He did not know how long she’d been standing there, just inside the door, did not know how much, if any, of the conversation she’d overheard. As with most important events in his life, he had the feeling that this one, too, would happen by accident.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“A friend,” he said.
“A friend you call at two in the morning?”
“Yes,” he said.
“What friend?”
No more lies, he thought.
“A... woman I know,” he said.
“A woman you call ‘darling’?”
“Yes,” he said. “A woman I call ‘darling.’ ”
“Who? Diana Blair?”
“No,” he said, and shook his head wearily. “Not Diana Blair.”
“Then who? Tell me who she is. This woman you call ‘darling.’ ”
“Her name is Joanna Berkowitz.”
“Do I know her?”
“You’ve met her.”
“When? Joanna...? Oh. The Vineyard. The one in the gold top.”
“Yes.”
“But that was...”
“Yes.”
“Almost two years ago, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that the summer of...”
“Yes.”
“How old is she? She’s just a child, isn’t she? She can’t be much older than Lissie.”
“She’s twenty-six.”
“Twenty-six.”
“She’ll be twenty-seven in...”
“How long has this... did this start on the Vineyard?”
“Yes. Connie...”
“So what... so what does... what does... you said... I heard you say you... you... you loved her. You said you loved her. So what does... what do you plan to... what?”
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“Love her?”
“Yes.”
“Love her?”
“Yes.”
“Then what...? Jamie, what does... Jamie, what do you...?”
“I think we...”
“No.”
“Connie, I would...”
“No, don’t say it.”
“I would like a divorce.”
“No. The answer is no.”
“Connie...”
“No!”
“Connie, I want...”
“No, I’m not going to give you a divorce so you can run off with a... with a... girl who... who... you son of a bitch.”
“Connie...”
“No older than your daughter, you son of a...”
“She’s—”
“You son of a bitch.”