During the drive into the city she heard herself chattering and tried to stop. It was compulsive noise-making, a trait she deplored in others. But if she stopped, she was afraid of what the unemployed mind would do. It seemed akin to stage fright.
It was not until the evening was within one drink of being over that she was able to escape her own masquerade of forced gaiety. They were in a quiet lounge, a banquette in a paneled corner, shadowy, far from the casual piano.
She took a deep shuddering breath and felt that she was looking at his wise and gentle eyes for the first time in the entire evening. “I’ve been a horror,” she said.
“Not so.”
“A bad return on your investment, Cal dear. Investment of the wisdom of the heart, I guess. Thank you for turning it into a city I’ve never seen before. Places I’ve never been. Thanks for not asking me what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. Thanks for taking charge.”
“A date with a lady, Lollie. Not a sentimental journey.”
“Date with a tiresome lady. Yattatta-yack. I’m hoarse from all the girlish giggling. I’m exhausted from having a fun time. But a good evening to remember. Please believe that, Cal.”
“I want to.”
“You have a thoughtful look.”
“With a tinge of guilt.”
“What about?”
“It wouldn’t be easy to say. I guess I always suspect my own motives. I can try to applaud myself for making this evening as easy for you as I possibly could. Then I get into the idea of what I’m trying to prove. So now I have the compulsion, masochistic no doubt, to put a vagueness into words and clobber the whole evening, maybe to punish myself.”
“You lost me.”
“That makes two of us. I’ve been trying to prove, perhaps, I can make whole areas of existence... easier for you. We’re both survivors. With a solid base of affection. Living half-lives. I’m thinking of the constructive suggestion any outside busybody would make.”
He saw her eyes narrow and her face grow still. “Don’t, Cal. Please.”
He tried to smile. “A yen to neaten up the world. Manipulate. Make the maximum use of human talents. But in name only. A place shared.”
Her voice was husky and her eyes were cold. “A neat little sacrificial gesture for a dead friend.”
“No, I just...”
“What in hell do you think I am? Part of your problem? A factor in some lousy equation?”
“Lollie...”
“I’m not something to be arranged. I’m not up for barter. And I’m not one of your obligations! I’d like you to take me home.”
A leaden silence lasted until they were opposite the George Washington Bridge. Suddenly they both spoke at once.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Let me go first. I didn’t like it, Cal. I didn’t like it at all, but I didn’t have to take it that badly. Because the motives were good. One should always remember the motives. I apologize.”
“I guess you remember what Mitch used to tell me back in the days of my delayed adolescence. He always said I had a positive genius for cramming my foot into my mouth. I haven’t gotten over it. Or over the yen to make tender, noble, sacrificial gestures. It was a vulgar suggestion, Lollie. Vulgar, meaning without taste. When you do remember this evening, please have some amnesia about the tail end of it.”
“You too,” she said. “I didn’t come out so darn well either. And you know, I gave you an opening, asking you what I should do with my life.”
“I’ve got some alternate advice, if you think I’ve got any credibility left.”
“Now don’t get too humble.”
“Never fear. Anyway, make a small plan instead of trying to make great big ones. Come June, close the house, load the car, show your kids the country and see some of it yourself. Just wander. Hit the parks, the far places, the towns you’ve never heard of. Be gypsies for the summer.”
“We talked about taking that kind of a trip someday.”
“So take it.”
“It... sort of scares me.”
“If it does, then maybe it’s something you should do. And if you find no place which looks better to you, then you’ve found out that this is your home, and this is where you should stay.”
“Like proving it for good.”
“Yes.”
She did not mention it again until he was saying good-by to her, and the sitter was in his car, waiting to be driven home.
“It’s been good having you here, Cal.”
“I’ll be in touch. Lollie, I’m proud of you. Of the way you’re handling it.”
“Is there another way?”
“A lot of other ways, but not for you, thank God.”
“Cal, this was a good evening, really.”
“I’m glad if it was.”
“And I think I’ll take that trip with the kids. Thanks for everything.” She kissed him quickly on the corner of the mouth and went hastily into the house. When he backed out of the drive, he saw her in the living-room window, standing and looking out. She waved and he touched the horn ring lightly.
The next day, heading west on the jet, he found it difficult to concentrate on his work. He put it aside and looked down at the hazy checkerboard patterns of the farm states. The aircraft seemed to hang motionless above the slow turning of the earth. He realized he had learned, at last, that Mitch Barnes was dead. And the world was that much emptier. Objective knowledge had not been enough. The heart resisted logic. He achieved a final knowledge only by seeing the places where Mitch should have been, and found him gone. By seeing the empty arms of Mitch’s widow, and her evasive eyes.
He felt his face grow warm when he thought of his grotesque suggestion, and was glad he had been as carefully indirect as he had been able to be. Lollie was not a contrived person. Her heart, her instincts were warm and genuine. Any pattern which ignored the demands of the heart was unthinkable to her, and justly so. The true heart is a gambler, and resents being asked to play for matchsticks.
He would write to her, often. And see her again in May. And undo any small damage he might have done. He had not wished to add himself to a short ignoble list — Johnny Dorran, Ralph Becklund, Calvin Burch.
But at least his approach had been sanctimonious, if that was a virtue. He’d offered the name without the game. And the alternate suggestion had been sound.
He was unable to come east in May. He phoned her and explained why. She sounded better to him. Cheery and casual. She said they were going to try the gypsy trip and the kids were all steamed up about it. Together they’d marked up a bushel of maps. They would be on no time schedule, but when they got to the coast, if they got to the coast, she would phone him.
But when she did phone him, in late August, the call came from Las Cruces, New Mexico. She sounded enthusiastic and alarmed. “You sort of got me into this, Cal, so if it sounds as if I’m yelling for help... well, I am.”
“I’ll call you back and tell you how soon I can get there, Lollie.”
She explained, without telling him very much, that she wasn’t exactly in trouble. She needed advice.
He rearranged his appointment schedule, made airline arrangements and called her back and told her to meet him at the airport at El Paso at eleven the next morning, a Tuesday.
It was a blistering morning in El Paso. She had sounded so uncertain over the phone, he was totally unprepared for the exuberance and vitality of the woman who met him. She’d brought the children with her. All three of them were so deeply tanned their white teeth were startling and their eyes looked pale. Their hair, Laura’s particularly, had been sun-scorched to a lighter hue. During the forty-mile trip north to Las Cruces, all three of them chanted the wonders of the Southwest, the people, the climate, the way the mountains look, mesquite, sage, early morning horseback rides. Laura looked very slim and fit.