She had said: “I’m more interested in after dinner,” and he had laughed and said, “If I have to suggest anything it means there was a flaw in the production.”
She didn’t know if he was serious. His touch was pretty heavy, she thought. If he were serious there wouldn’t be so much talk. But she didn’t know. She hadn’t much experience.
Her legs moved under the covers. Her body was hot. She lay still then, savoring a sudden falling coldness in the pit of her stomach. The room was very quiet. She sat up and reached for the telephone, but after dialing a number she put the receiver down before anyone answered and went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
She put on a bathing cap and soaped herself extravagantly. The hot water steamed the glass door of the shower stall, and she could hardly see her body through the swirling vapor. It was a pleasantly alarming feeling, as if she were hiding from someone in a safe warm place. The water rushed down her slim body and sluiced the soap into a frothy pool at her feet. She brushed her teeth, tied back the damp ends of her hair, and got back into bed, snuggling down deeply under the covers.
She decided to count up to twenty. Mrs. White would knock by then, something would make her knock. No lamb chops or steak. The dry cleaning, the laundry, the mail. But although she counted very slowly there was no interruption. She went on to fifty, whispering each number with a growing excitement. Finally she stopped counting and closed her eyes. Barbara could pick up Bobby after school...
She sat up, lit a cigarette. Then dialed Dick Baldwin’s number with care.
At the office he used a crisp, man-at-work voice: “Hi, Chick. What’s up?”
“Well, I just called to tell you how sorry I am about that ridiculous scene Det made yesterday. He’s awfully embarrassed, I think, but you know how he is — he just can’t admit he’s wrong.”
“Forget it,” he said. “He was excited and blew his top, period.” Then: “So what else is new?”
“Are you busy?”
“Not particularly. Why?”
“Well, you sound kind of preoccupied. I picture you at the typewriter with your sleeves rolled up and a cigarette in your mouth. Pounding out the big story. Is that what you’re doing?”
“Not exactly. I was dictating some notes on car production. Very boring stuff, you’d find it.” He paused. “And you’re busy as a little suburban bee, I imagine.”
“Not exactly. I’m still in bed actually. I’m too bored to get up.”
“Boredom is a luxury I can’t afford, unfortunately. So relax and enjoy it.”
“I’m just at loose ends, I guess. But I wanted you to know how sorry I am about yesterday. Det’s got such a hair-trigger temper. But he really feels awful about it, I know.” She paused. “Am I keeping you from anything?”
“No — nothing earthshaking, that is.”
“I like talking to you at work. You sound so irritable. I should hang up, I know. But oh, I feel like a change of scenery. I’d like to have a job in a factory or be going up to Alaska.” She laughed and said quickly: “Do you remember that little French restaurant you told me about?”
“French restaurant? Oh, sure. The one on Eleventh Avenue. It’s at about Forty-fifth Street, I think.”
She waited, but he said nothing else; and she could hear his slow even breathing. Her fingers tightened on the receiver. “How about taking me to dinner?”
“That’s a marvelous idea, Chicky. I’ll tell you what. You meet me at... oh damn! What lousy timing. I’ve got a business date tonight. Some character from the UAW is girding himself to convince me that wages can go up while car prices come down.”
He went on talking, repeating his regrets and damning his luck. Chicky could see herself in the mirror across the room, small blonde head, bare shoulders and breasts, sitting clean and scrubbed in her bed. She looked very white and small.
“It’s all right, Dick,” she said. “It was just a stray thought.”
“Well, wait! Do I get a rain check? Supposing I call you when I get my desk cleared away. Okay, Chicky?”
“That will be fine.”
“Say hello to Slugger Detweiller for me.” He sounded brisk and busy again. “Tell him I’m begging for a return match. With double Martinis at thirty paces.”
“I’ll warn him. We’ll see you soon, Dick.”
“Fine. Maybe we can take in a show. I’ll talk to our theater guy and see...” He stopped and she heard him draw a sharp breath. “Chicky, I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ve got to think... Do you understand?”
She put the phone down on his worried voice and smoked a tasteless cigarette. It was really funny, she thought. If you looked at it a certain way it was quite funny. He was scared. It was all talk, safe, uninvolved talk. And she hadn’t known it. She had thought it was her decision to make. Yes or no. Say the word. She wondered fleetingly if lots of women thought about having affairs without thinking if I can. If anyone wants me.
But she had made a start. She realized that. She had tried. And one time it wouldn’t be just talk. She had to prove it could happen; otherwise nothing would be right again. And with that knowledge cold and hard inside her she turned on her face and began to cry.
Barbara Farrell finished lunch at one o’clock. From the windows above the sink she looked up at a steel-blue sky tinted evenly with the pale copper light of autumn sunshine. It was more like spring than fall, she thought. The big brown leaves drifting to the ground were an incongruous sight in the soft, warm air.
She took a steak from the freezer and put it out to thaw. After yesterday’s roast this was an extravagant choice but she felt John needed cheering up. Last night he had hardly touched dinner. He had been worried about Malleck, she knew. But what worried her was that he seemed to have a reluctant respect for the man. Malleck didn’t bluster; he was coldly and toughly sure of himself. He didn’t sugar-coat his fanatic opinions, or rationalize them with bargain-basement philosophy. He put them flatly and quietly, a big cold man with a deceptively soft voice and features that looked as if they had been hacked out of a block of wood. And John had heard him out; not courteously, but with something like respect.
Usually their family meals were festive. John enjoyed sitting with cigarettes and an extra cup of coffee and listening to the children prattle about their day’s activities. This had been the custom in his own home, she knew. The dinner table had been a forum for opinion and discussion and argument.
John’s father (whom she had met only a few times before his death) had been a positive but courtly old man, with the firm notion that vigorous talk over food was a fine aid to digestion. He had been in the contracting business but from John’s stories she had the impression he would have been happier building medieval cathedrals rather than modern houses. He disliked the deft and functional. He distrusted people who ate quickly and silently. He approved of missed trains and forgotten anniversaries; the inevitable imperfections of life amused him. People who tried to draw neat patterns in the almighty confusion of existence struck him as fools.
John was a lot like him, she knew. It was all toned down, a bit wry and derisive, but underneath the humor there was the same contempt — or was it fear? — for ambition and authority, for people who rode hard at life, who managed their affairs forcefully and shrewdly. It was why he poked fun at Sam Ward and Grace. It was why he kept out of the dogfights at the office. But was it the reason for his seeming respect for Malleck? Was John afraid of him?
Barbara went into the living room to get a cigarette, and tried to put the worrisome thoughts from her mind. She knew that her distinctions were critical, and she didn’t enjoy them; it struck her as graceless to pry at some suspected weakness that was unimportant and irrelevant to their happiness.