“Morning,” said Bob. “Where’s your screaming, agreeing friend?”
“She went home hours ago.” Ethan poured himself a cup of coffee and sat at the table, waiting for the interrogation that he knew had to come. “So,” Bob began. With this one word he was saying many things. He was saying, So this is your life. He was saying, So that’s the way lovemaking sounds for you. He was saying, I don’t recognize those sounds in regards to my own lovemaking. He was saying, Is it all as nice for you as it seems?
“Yeah,” Ethan answered.
“But, who is she?”
“A woman I know.”
“Where’d you meet her?”
“On the street.”
“What?”
Ethan opened up the pink pastry box and perused its contents. “It was during a carless time of mine, and I was sitting at a bus stop on Broadway when she pulled up in a new Pontiac to ask me directions to the Rose Garden. She had Oregon plates and frankly, I didn’t think she needed directions in the first place. ‘All right,’ I told her, ‘you’ve got so much free time on your hands, why don’t you give me a ride home?’ That appeared to be what she was thinking about, anyway. And I hadn’t meant it meanly, but she took offense, or pretended to take offense. Then my bus came and I got on. I forgot about her, but when I got off at my stop, there was the Pontiac again. ‘Excuse me, young man,’ she said.” Ethan selected a pastry and took a bite, catching the crumbs with his free hand.
“And then what happened?”
“She said she supposed she was going my way after all. I got in her car and she drove me home.”
“Then what?”
Ethan raised and lowered and raised and lowered his eyebrows.
Bob said, “Right off the bat?”
“Yep.”
“Was this in the daytime?”
“Yep.”
“And when was that?”
“End of last winter.”
“How often do you see her?”
“Every couple weeks she shows up. There’s no schedule; it’s all down to her. I don’t even have her phone number.” Ethan pushed the pink box toward Bob but Bob couldn’t focus on anything other than the discussion at hand.
“But who is she?” he asked again.
“I really can’t tell you, Bob. I mean, that’s a part of the whole deal. I know her first name is Pearl, and I know she’s rich, and that she’s married, though she acts like she’s not — takes her ring off before coming up. Okay, fine. She wants to pretend about certain things and I’m comfortable with that. She told me once, ‘The first time you ask me for money, Ethan, you’ll never see me again.’ Can you top that? She’s always chasing after the upper hand, and I let her think she’s got it, but she never will — not really she won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I truly don’t care if she never comes back.”
“But you welcome her when she does.”
“Welcome her is a bit much. I don’t turn her away, though, it’s true.”
“I think she probably felt welcome last night,” Bob observed.
Ethan bowed in his seat. He took another bite of his pastry. “As time goes by, I think of my visits with Pearl, and the Pearls of the world, as practice. Because someday, buddy, I’m going to fall in love too, just like you. And when I do, that woman will be doted on to within an inch of her life.” When Bob said the scenario felt a little dark or heartless to him, Ethan said he was giving the whole thing too much credence. “Really, it’s just a small courtesy she and I are doing for one another, like holding the elevator open for a stranger.” He patted the pink box. “These sticky buns are excellent, Bob.”
Bob sat there smoking his cigarette and drinking his coffee and watching his friend and considering the vast differences of their respective experience. He hadn’t yet introduced Connie to Ethan, but it was only now that he admitted to himself he’d been intentionally keeping them apart. It wasn’t that he believed Connie would, against her own free will and faithfulness, swoon over Ethan for his profile and charisma; and neither did Bob think Ethan would utilize his tools to woo Connie away from him. His fear, or fearful belief, was that Connie and Ethan would both, upon meeting each other, come to learn and understand that they were true mates, truer than Connie and Bob could ever be. It felt paranoiac, but also commonsensible, true enough in its potential. For the first time in his life, Bob had love and friendship both, and all he had to do to maintain this was nothing at all. Thirty minutes later he sat out front of Ethan’s apartment in the idling Chevy, and the danger of it was clear and vivid: he mustn’t ever let them meet, he told himself. He would not let them meet.
THE SITUATION WITH CONNIE’S FATHER EVOLVED. CONNIE ARRIVED AT the library an hour after Bob came on shift, her face swollen and raw from crying. “Good morning, I’ve made an error.” The night before she had approached her father with news of her relationship with Bob and it had not been well received.
Bob said, “Wasn’t the plan to not tell him?”
“It was, but then I did, because I’m an idiot.” She touched her face. “Am I a mess or am I a mess?”
“You’re a little bit of a mess.”
She sighed. “I was trying to eat my cereal but he wouldn’t stop shouting, so I left.”
“I thought you said you told him last night?”
“Yes, he was shouting then too. Finally he went to sleep and I thought the shouting was over but when he woke up it started all over again. And I’m not sure what to say other than he’s insane, and that I really am an idiot, and I don’t know what we’re going to do.” She retired to the restroom to cry awhile longer. After, she and Bob sat together in the break room to discuss what they might do about the situation. Bob understood they were at a crossroads of some kind, and a rare boldness possessed him and he put forth the idea that she shouldn’t go home at all, but stay at his house instead.
“What does that mean, ‘stay’? Stay for how long?”
“For however long you want. For forever.”
“What about the will?”
“What about it?”
“He says if I see you anymore he’s going to cut off my inheritance. The money, the house, everything.”
“Do you think he means it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, even if he does mean it, we don’t really need anything from your father at all, do we? I have a house. I have money.”
Connie looked confused, almost annoyed. “I’m sorry, what are you telling me?” she asked. “Are you proposing?”
“Do you want me to?”
“I guess I do.”
“You guess you do.”
“I do.”
“Okay, I’m proposing.”
“Okay, propose.”
“Will you marry me?”
“You’re supposed to get down on a knee to propose.”
Bob got down on both knees. “Will you marry me?”
Miss Ogilvie had walked in at the point preceding Bob’s question; before Connie could answer, she said, “Personal business elsewhere, Bob, thank you.” She exited the room and Bob came up from his knees and led Connie outside. She said nothing about the question of marriage but agreed that Bob should pick her up that night, and that she would stay with him at least until the situation calmed or became clearer, and they worked over the details while waiting for Connie’s bus.