“Why are you sorry?”
“Bob, stop.” She busied herself taking off her coat and hanging it on the peg in the hall. She stood watching the wall. “I want your friend to like me, okay? It’s important to me that he and I get along.” Bob didn’t take his coat off. He walked upstairs and lay down on top of the comforter, listening to Connie making the usual house-at-night noises downstairs: water on and off, back door open and shut, lights clicking off. Bob hadn’t named his concern, but by the way he was behaving it must have been obvious he had again been overtaken by a jealousy. He felt he was making himself unattractive, but no matter how he approached it he couldn’t think of a way to force the jealousy to cease. As he lay there squirming in his unhappiness, he became aware that Connie’s house-at-night noises were growing more pronounced — she was banging and clattering things around in the kitchen with more force than was necessary. Bob listened with care and interest — yes, she was definitely expressing an anger. Bob thought she had considered the source of his concern, translated it, and now knew a sense of insult, which rather than bringing Bob to a place of remorse or sorrow made him soothed and hopeful. Was it not likely, after all, that Connie’s anger meant she didn’t recognize Bob’s fear as plausible, or even possible? As the banging and clattering grew louder, so did Bob’s relief grow. When Connie came upstairs she was stomping her feet and cursing under her breath and Bob was more or less thrilled. She took an angry shower and got into her pajamas angrily, punching her feet through the leg holes; she sat down hard on the edge of the bed and glared at Bob, who calmly explained that he loved her so much it had made him a little bit crazy that night, and that he was very sorry if he had insulted her, or insulted their life. It was a process for them to arrive at a place where Connie forgave him, but after, late in the night, Bob took her hand in his, and she didn’t pull away from him. In the morning Bob issued a warning to himself. He hadn’t understood the fallibility of their pact; now he saw that it was not a permanent structure but something that had to be cared for and tended to. He was afraid of what he’d done and by the way he’d behaved and he told himself that the only way forward was to believe in what he and Connie had made and to protect it.
There followed a period of four or five weeks where Bob heard no word from Ethan; and neither did Bob contact him. Bob was glad for them to take the break, but also bothered by it, because it seemed to confirm his fears. Twice through the course of the month Connie asked after Ethan, and both times she was playing toward a casualness, but Bob disliked that she was considering him at all. He told himself he was willing to forgo the friendship with Ethan if it meant he didn’t have to feel so badly as before; but really, it was more complicated than that. At some points during this lull he missed Ethan terribly, and he thought of the pair of them walking up the sidewalk at night, and they’d had three of four drinks each and were talking volubly, oblivious to all but the thoughts and considerations they passed back and forth, huddling against the cold. For the rest of his life, whenever Bob thought of his former alliance with Ethan, this was the scenario that came to mind: the two of them hurrying along, talking over one another and laughing, cigarette smoke pooling in their wake. Where were they going in such a rush as that? And what were they discussing with such enthusiasm?
From the start of their friendship Bob had wondered who Ethan was when they were apart, but it happened only once that he caught a glimpse of Ethan in his element. It was a foggy morning and Bob was reading the newspaper at the Information desk when a car pulled up across the street, a rattling junker filled with young men and women, loud and jeering, 7:15 a.m. Ethan sat in the backseat, crammed in with the rest; he made to exit the car but as he stepped on the sidewalk the hands of his friends reached up and pulled him back in. This happened twice more before he finally broke free, the collar of his T-shirt stretched out, his hair yanked up in a shock, and he stood facing his fellows, bowing grandly as balled trash rained down on his skull and shoulders. When the car puttered away Ethan disappeared up the steps and to his apartment. Bob returned to his paper but the text was elusive to him, and he could think only of Ethan’s gloriously shambling homecoming.
Forty-five minutes later Ethan walked into the library. He’d showered and changed and combed his hair, and he offered a calm good morning greeting before making a sober appraisal of the latest books Bob had recommended to him. He didn’t mention anything about his late night; Bob understood by this that Ethan thought of him as a serious person, someone he might learn from or better himself by, but one who might not need to hear all the details of his social life. This was not unflattering, but there was also some part of Bob that wished he could have been in that rattling car, coming home when most are waking up, after a full night spent in what had to have been the most thorough and joyful kind of sin. What did Ethan see in Bob, then? Was Bob exotic in his plainness? Was he merely a straight man for Ethan? How had it happened that these two people should become friends? Connie believed it was important that someone as isolated as Bob not abandon his one friendship, which was logical, sound; but he did nothing to bridge the gap and had accepted that the era of his having a male companion had passed. Finally, though, Ethan came to see Bob at the library. He wore a tailored suit and overcoat, his hair was cut short, he was tanned, and he had a puzzled expression on his face. At his side there stood an attractive, elegant young woman whom he introduced as his fiancée, and that her name was Eileen.
EILEEN WAS NOT CHARMING BUT HAD CONTEMPLATED CHARM AND could perform a version of it that was convincing so long as you didn’t inspect it very closely. She was not shy, was not capable of shyness, and she did not seem to be in possession of a sense of humor; at any rate she was not funny on purpose. Ethan stood by watching as his fiancée communicated with his friend, and the puzzled expression that had read on his face when he’d entered the library remained. He wasn’t unhappy; he had the look of a man unsure of his location. Eileen was saying to Bob, “We came here to invite you out to dinner tonight.”
“You and Connie both,” Ethan added.
“That’s why we came here,” Eileen said.
Bob explained that he and Connie had plans for dining in with their neighbors that night, but invited Ethan and Eileen to join the group, and he named a time, and that they needn’t bring anything other than themselves. After the couple left the library, Bob telephoned Connie to tell her the news.
“Well,” said Connie, “what’s this fiancée like? I suppose she’s very beautiful.”
“Yes,” Bob said.
“And in the personality department?”
“She doesn’t give a lot of clues about that.”
“Still waters, maybe.”
“Maybe not,” Bob said. Connie was evidently happy at this attack on Eileen’s personality, and Bob began to dread the thought of the dinner and he moved slowly toward it with a foot-dragging petulance. When he arrived at home, Connie was upstairs getting ready for the evening. She was humming a jazzy tune, and when she came downstairs Bob saw that she was wearing makeup, a fancier-than-normal dress, and heeled shoes. Before he could catch himself, he asked, “Why are you all dressed up?” Connie stood up straight to let her disappointment shine, then said, “Bob, if you think I’m not going to make myself look nice to meet your best friend and his fiancée, then I don’t know what to tell you other than that you should consider going and fucking yourself.” Which was fair enough, after all; and the words had the effect of a splash of cold water on Bob’s face. He apologized and Connie accepted the apology and together they set the dining room table.