“I guess I’ll fix up my drink,” he said.
Her fingers stopped moving on his chest. For a moment or so she was silent, breathing slowly and quietly. Then she said, “Will you make me one, too?”
Earl sat up and lifted himself over her, feeling guilty but relieved to be away from the insistent demands of her body. He made two drinks, then snapped on the lamp at the foot of the sofa and began looking for cigarettes. There was a pack in his pocket, but he needed an excuse for turning on the lights.
“There’s some on the coffee table,” she said.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
She had stretched out with her arms above her head. The position flattened her stomach and lifted her breasts into sharp little cones beneath the blue sweater. She smiled at him, her eyes soft and quiet. “That light’s awfully bright,” she said.
Earl sat down on the ottoman in front of the television set and lighted a cigarette. He didn’t want her, and he wished to God she’d cut out the sales pitch. He hadn’t wanted her for a long time, he thought with a stir of anger. He was just a damned stud, just doing a job.
“I’m getting hungry,” he said. “Don’t you think we’d better get dinner started?”
“All right.” She went into the kitchen and snapped on the light. He tried to think of something to say that might take her mind off her hurt feelings. “Those pork chops all right? I told Meyers what you said about the ones he gave me last week.”
“They’re just beautiful.” The enthusiasm in her voice was genuine; she was inspecting the chops with critical pleasure. “Just enough fat on them and they’re thick enough for a change.” She put the frying pan back on the stove with a brisk clatter. “You’ll see the difference.”
He shook his head and sipped his drink. Lorraine turned on the burner, then stepped into her loafers and came into the living room with her drink. For a few seconds she stood looking down at him, analyzing the worried frown on his face. “Honey, listen to me,” she said. “Will you listen to me without getting mad or upset?”
“Sure, sure,” he said. “I’m not some wild dog you have to tiptoe around. I can listen. What do you want to say?”
She knelt beside him and pressed one of his hands tightly against her breast. “You know I love you, Earl. Don’t you know that?”
“Sure, honey.” He felt smothered and trapped, but the yielding, supplicant position of her body brought a strange constriction to his throat; he touched her smooth hair awkwardly. “Yes, Lory, I know that. It’s — it’s important to me.”
“You know that I wouldn’t lie to you — that I wouldn’t tell you anything that wasn’t for your own good. Don’t you know that?”
“Sure,” he said. “I know that.”
She tightened her grip on his hand, staring at him with wide, anxious eyes. “If you do something crooked, everything we mean to each other will be ruined. Because you’ll keep going crooked once you start. And sooner or later they’ll catch you.”
“Not with Novak running things,” he said, feeling a sudden loyalty toward Novak swelling in his body. “He’s smart, Lory. All I got to do is follow orders. And this job is so big I’ll never need anything else.”
“What is it?” she said, whimpering the words in a trembling little voice. “For God’s sake, what does he want you to do, Earl? Why did he pick on you? Why couldn’t he leave you alone?”
“Look, he’s giving me a chance, if you’d only see it that way. He could have picked a dozen other guys. He’s a big operator, Lory. But he picked me.” Earl jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Me, a nothing, a guy without even a job. And he’s giving me a chance. While all you do is whine about yourself. Why don’t you think about me for a change? I’m nothing, don’t you understand?” The words came out in a thick, bitter rush and he jerked his hand away from her and began to pace the floor, his anger and frustration swelling and pounding for release. “I grew up in a shack on three dirt acres. Does that tell you anything? We lived like niggers. We lived right beside ’em, in the same kind of a shack, eating the same stinking food, and wearing the same rotten clothes. And my old man tied me up and beat me like a dog for playing with them when I was a kid and didn’t know any better.” He shook his fists in her white scared face, furious with the need to make her understand. “Can’t you see? Can’t you get it? There was nothing, no toilet, no furniture, nothing at all. That’s what I came from, Lory.” He rubbed his forehead, feeling the dry, bitter taste of shame in his mouth. “That’s what I was, Lory. Let me tell you something. Once I saw a picture of a harmonica in a catalogue. It cost ninety-five cents. I decided I was going to own that harmonica. Nothing would stop me. I saved two years. And you know the closest I ever came? Fifty-two cents. That was the closest I ever got, Lory.” He let his big hands fall to his sides. “Fifty-two cents. I didn’t make it, Lory.”
“But lots of people have it hard starting out,” she said uncertainly; she was confused by the intensity of his outburst. “I didn’t even get to finish high school, you know.”
“Sure, you had it tough,” he said wearily. “Everybody did, I guess. But maybe I had it tough in a special kind of way. I lied about my age to get into the Army — well, I would have lied to get into hell. Anything was better than that shack.”
“That’s all past now. If you’d settle down to a job — you could be anything you wanted.”
“With my record? Bosses love that. They start sweating if they see you within six feet of the cash register.” He pounded a fist into his palm. “Two jail stretches for nothing. If I go up again it’s going to be for something, I promise you.”
“Lots of companies would give you a chance. You won’t let them, that’s all.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, mocking her with his tone; his anger dissolved into a sullen futility as he realized that he couldn’t make her understand. “Why in hell should I let them pry into me? Would you like some fat bastard wrinkling his nose at you while you say, ‘Yes, sir, I’ve been a bad boy, but they taught me my lesson and you can kick me in the tail if I get out of line.’” He chopped impatiently at the air with his hand. “No, Lory, no! I can’t take that stuff.”
“You’re just thinking about yourself,” she said, beginning to cry. “You’re not thinking about me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he muttered, rubbing both hands through his hair. “Let’s forget it. Let’s forget it, in the name of sweet Jesus Christ.”
She got quickly to her feet, brushing at her tears with the backs of her hands. “We can’t forget it, Earl. Listen to me — please listen to me for just one more minute.” She put her arms around him, and when he stiffened against the pressure of her body she only clung to him more fiercely. “Let’s go away, Earl,” she said, in a desperate whisper. “I’ve got time coming at the store. Two full weeks. You remember the lodge we went to last spring? We could drive up tomorrow. You loved it there, didn’t you, Earl? You loved it. I know you did.”
“Yeah, it was nice,” he said slowly. It had been a fine time; clean air and walks through the woods, a good, healthy time.
“We could get the same cabin,” she said smiling quickly as she felt the tension easing in his body. “We could broil steaks and sit around the fire at night. Remember Tony, the fellow at the hotel you used to chop wood with? Well, you could see him again. Please, please, Earl. Let’s go away.”