Friday he walked past the mall but kept himself from going in. Saturday and Sunday he carefully avoided going to town, and Monday he drove in purposely to see her and the store was closed, all the stores were closed. He returned Tuesday late in the afternoon. He had the scene already blocked in in his mind: He would visit the shop and they would talk, and he would leave without attempting to date her. Then he would return Thursday or Friday and perhaps she would have coffee with him. If not he would ask her one more time the following week, and if she turned him down then he would say the hell with her.
So he walked into the Lemon Tree Tuesday and she greeted him with a huge smile and came out from behind the counter. “No business at all today,” she said. “How would you like to buy me that cup of coffee give me an excuse to take a break?”
A cup of coffee Tuesday, with effortless conversation as an accompaniment. Thursday he dropped over to the shop at six and had the uncanny feeling that she had postponed her break and expected him. They had coffee and sandwiches and he asked her to dinner Saturday night. “I’d like that very much,” she said.
Something had happened to change her mind. One day she had decided to discourage him and a few days later she did precisely the reverse.
Without intending to he said, “How come you’re here?”
“You invited me.”
“I know.”
“How come I accepted? I ought to invent something plausible but I can’t think of anything offhand.”
“Then let me withdraw the question.”
“Oh, I’ll answer it, if you’ll let me be cryptic. I’ve been in the stages of something, and it seems to nave run its course. Or part of its course.”
“That’s cryptic, all right.”
“I decided you were safe. Unthreatening. Easy to handle. Like that better?”
“Bitch.”
“More of a bitch than I ever knew. You seem to bring out the bitch in me, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Could we go, do you think?”
He raised a hand for the check.
He drove slowly, disliking the feel of the heavy car. He was driving the Buick. For the past half year he had barely driven it enough to keep the battery charged, but Karen preferred the VW so he had used the Buick since her arrival. He pulled into the driveway. The lights were on in Mrs. Kleinschmidt’s quarters over the garage. He pressed a button on the dashboard and the garage door swung up and back.
He stopped the car in front of the garage. She asked him what was the matter.
“The Volks is gone,” he said. “That means Karen’s out”
“I thought you were busy not playing the heavy father?”
“That’s not the point. I brought you here to meet her.”
“And now it looks like a setup to get me to your lair.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“That’s exactly what it looks like, except I saw your face when the car wasn’t in the garage, and you couldn’t have faked such a complete look of where-do-we-go-from-here? without acting lessons.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“Can I say I’d like to see your house without dragging myself into your lair? I’d like to see your house.”
He showed her the house. In the office she gestured toward the desk. “Does anyone ever get to read novels in progress? Or do I have to wait until it comes out?”
“You have to wait until it’s finished.”
“Nobody gets to read it until it’s finished?”
“Anita used to. My wife. Ex-wife. At the beginning I almost forced her to. She was very helpful then; she saw weaknesses that I wasn’t aware of. But then she kept on like that and in the meantime I had learned more about the craft of writing, and I knew more than she did. So she would offer criticism and it drove me crazy. Ultimately she learned to keep her mouth shut. Now nobody reads the stuff until it’s done.”
“Even if they promised to keep their mouth shut?”
“Even then. A book sort of grows, and it has to belong to its author until it’s done.”
“And then it’s nobody’s child anymore and it can join the club.”
“You know, that’s out of left field but it makes a certain amount of sense. Would you like to hear some music? What would you like to hear?”
They listened to music but did more talking than listening. It was a relaxing and comfortable evening but he was not relaxed and did not know why. After three records had played he got up to turn the stack over. When he returned she was on her feet, and before he knew what was happening she was in his arms and he was kissing her.
The kiss was long and thorough. When it ended she stepped back and let out her breath. He extended his arms for her, but she shook, her head so decisively his arms dropped at once to his sides.
“I really am a bitch, aren’t I? I’m sorry, Hugh, I really am. Would you take me home now?”
“If you want me to.”
“What I want — never mind. Yes, please take me home.”
They drove all the way in silence. He worked out conversational openers in his head, a great variety of them, but none of them seemed worthwhile. As he pulled up in front of the Shithouse she said, “I owe you an explanation.”
“Nobody ever owes anybody an explanation.”
“I wanted to find out if we had anything for each other. No. I knew we did but I wanted to prove it to myself. And I did, and then I also knew that I didn’t want to do anything about it. Yet.”
“You’re not a bitch, but if you were—”
“—I’d be a good one. I know. I certainly don’t want to be a cockteaser.”
“I can’t remember the last time I heard that word.”
“I can’t remember the last time I used it. If I ever did. I don’t think I ever did. Hell. All of a sudden I wanted to be home.”
“You’re here.”
“Yes.” She opened the car door but made no move to get out of it. “Maybe it’s that I’d like to have my clothes on the first time I meet your daughter. What’s so funny?”
“On my way out she said she’d look forward to meeting you at breakfast tomorrow.”
“She said that? I’m sorry to disappoint her. And to disappoint you. But I have the feeling that you didn’t particularly want to go to bed with me tonight, did you?”
“Of course I did.”
“But not overwhelmingly. Oh, forget it, I’m not making any sense. I enjoyed myself, Hugh. Thank you.”
“When will I see you?”
“Are you sure you want to? I don’t know. I’m really impossible, aren’t I? Give me a couple of days.”
“All right.”
He drove home trying to decide whether he was pleased or disappointed with the way the evening had
Somewhere in the course of it he had lost control of the situation, if he could ever have been said to have been in control.
She had wanted him physically, and that was good. And he was getting to know her and sensed that she would take a great deal of knowing. It was more important to know her than to make love to her, although the two did go hand in hand to a degree. She was right — his interest in her was not that specifically sexual. Had she not attracted him sexually he would never have thought to want to know her. That was at the bottom of it, it was always at the bottom of it, but here it played a secondary role. She had told him she was afraid of involvement, and now, despite the obscure changes she seemed to have undergone, she still seemed hesitant.
He was ready to get involved and wondered how much of this was attributable to the girl, this particular girl. She seemed very right. Yet he knew himself rather well and for long had subjected himself to motivational probing and analysis not unlike that he leveled upon the characters in his books. He had been looking for someone. He had not known it then, but he had been looking for someone.