Inside he makes a large drink and he turns the TV on and he fixes something to eat. He sits at the table with chili and crackers and watches something about a blind detective. He clears the table. He washes the pan and the bowl, dries these things and puts them away, then allows himself a look at the clock.
It’s after nine. She’s been gone nearly five hours.
He pours Scotch, adds water, carries the drink to the living room. He sits on the couch but finds his shoulders so stiff they won’t let him lean back. He stares at the screen and sips, and soon he goes for another drink. He sits again. A news program begins—it’s ten o’clock—and he says, “God, what in God’s name has gone wrong?” and goes to the kitchen to return with more Scotch. He sits, he closes his eyes, and opens them when he hears the telephone ringing.
“I wanted to call,” she says.
“Where are you?” he says. He hears piano music, and his heart moves.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Someplace. We’re having a drink, then we’re going someplace else for dinner.
I’m with the sales manager. He’s crude, but he’s all right. He bought the car. I have to go now. I was on my way to the ladies and saw the phone.”
“Did somebody buy the car?” Leo says. He looks out the kitchen window to the place in the drive where she always parks.
“I told you,” she says. “I have to go now.”
“Wait, wait a minute, for Christ’s sake,” he says. “Did somebody buy the car or not?”
“He had his checkbook out when I left,” she says. “I have to go now. I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Wait!” he yells. The line goes dead. He listens to the dial tone. “Jesus Christ,” he says as he stands with the receiver in his hand.
He circles the kitchen and goes back to the living room. He sits. He gets up. In the bathroom he brushes his teeth very carefully. Then he uses dental floss. He washes his face and goes back to the kitchen. He looks at the clock and takes a clean glass from a set that has a hand of playing cards painted on each glass. He fills the glass with ice. He stares for a while at the glass he left in the sink.
He sits against one end of the couch and puts his legs up at the other end. He looks at the screen, realizes he can’t make out what the people are saying. He turns the empty glass in his hand and considers biting off the rim. He shivers for a time and thinks of going to bed, though he knows he will dream of a large woman with gray hair. In the dream he is always leaning over tying his shoelaces. When he straightens up, she looks at him, and he bends to tie again. He looks at his hand. It makes a fist as he watches. The telephone is ringing.
“Where are you, honey?” he says slowly, gently.
“We’re at this restaurant,” she says, her voice strong, bright.
“Honey, which restaurant?” he says. He puts the heel of his hand against his eye and pushes.
“Downtown someplace,” she says. “I think it’s New Jimmy’s. Excuse me,” she says to someone off the line, “is this place New Jimmy’s? This is New Jimmy’s, Leo,” she says to him. “Everything is all right, we’re almost finished, then he’s going to bring me home.”
“Honey?” he says. He holds the receiver against his ear and rocks back and forth, eyes closed. “Honey?”
“I have to’ go,” she says. “I wanted to call. Anyway, guess how much?”
“Honey,” he says.
“Six and a quarter,” she says. “I have it in my purse. He said there’s no market for convertibles. I guess we’re born lucky,” she says and laughs. “I told him everything. I think I had to.”
“Honey,” Leo says.
“What?” she says.
“Please, honey,” Leo says.
“He said he sympathizes,” she says. “But he would have said anything.” She laughs again. “He said personally he’d rather be classified a robber or a rapist than a bankrupt. He’s nice enough, though,” she says.
“Come home,” Leo says. “Take a cab and come home.”
“I can’t,” she says. “I told you, we’re halfway through dinner.”
“I’ll come for you,” he says.
“No,” she says. “I said we’re just finishing. I told you, it’s part of the deal. They’re out for all they can get. But don’t worry, we’re about to leave. I’ll be home in a little while.” She hangs up.
In a few minutes he calls New Jimmy’s. A man answers. “New Jimmy’s has closed for the evening,” the man says.
“I’d like to talk to my wife,” Leo says.
“Does she work here?” the man asks. “Who is she?”
“She’s a customer,” Leo says. “She’s with someone. A business person.”
“Would I know her?” the man says. “What is her name?”
“I don’t think you know her,” Leo says.
“That’s all right,” Leo says. “That’s all right. I see her now.”
“Thank you for calling New Jimmy’s,” the man says.
Leo hurries to the window. A car he doesn’t recognize slows in front of the house, then picks up speed.
He waits. Two, three hours later, the telephone rings again. There is no one at the other end when he picks up the receiver. There is only a dial tone.
“I’m right here!” Leo screams into the receiver.
Near dawn he hears footsteps on the porch. He gets up from the couch. The set hums, the screen glows. He opens the door. She bumps the wall coming in. She grins. Her face is puffy, as if she’s been sleeping under sedation. She works her lips, ducks heavily and sways as he cocks his fist.
“Go ahead,” she says thickly. She stands there swaying. Then she makes a noise and lunges, catches his shirt, tears it down the front. “Bankrupt!” she screams. She twists loose, grabs and tears his undershirt at the neck. “You son of a bitch,” she says, clawing.
He squeezes her wrists, then lets go, steps back, looking for something heavy. She stumbles as she heads for the bedroom. “Bankrupt,” she mutters. He hears her fall on the bed and groan.
He waits awhile, then splashes water on his face and goes to the bedroom. He turns the lights on, looks at her, and begins to take her clothes off. He pulls and pushes her from side to side undressing her. She says something in her sleep and moves her hand. He takes off her underpants, looks at them closely under the light, and throws them into a corner. He turns back the covers and rolls her in, naked. Then he opens her purse. He is reading the check when he hears the car come into the drive.
He looks through the front curtain and sees the convertible in the drive, its motor running smoothly, the headlamps burning, and he closes and opens his eyes. He sees a tall man come around in front of the car and up to the front porch. The man lays something on the porch and starts back to the car. He wears a white linen suit.
Leo turns on the porch light and opens the door cautiously. Her makeup pouch lies on the top step. The man looks at Leo across the front of the car, and then gets back inside and releases the handbrake.
“Wait!” Leo calls and starts down the steps. The man brakes the car as Leo walks in front of the lights.
The car creaks against the brake. Leo tries to pull the two pieces of his shirt together, tries to bunch it all into his trousers.
“What is it you want?” the man says. “Look,” the man says, “I have to go. No offense. I buy and sell cars, right? The lady left her makeup. She’s a fine lady, very refined. What is it?”
Leo leans against the door and looks at the man. The man takes his hands off the wheel and puts them back. He drops the gear into reverse and the car moves backward a little.
“I want to tell you,” Leo says and wets his lips.
The light in Ernest Williams’ bedroom goes on. The shade rolls up.
Leo shakes his head, tucks in his shirt again. He steps back from the car. “Monday,” he says.
“Monday,” the man says and watches for sudden movement.
Leo nods slowly. “Well, goodnight,” the man says and coughs. ?
??Take it easy, hear? Monday, that’s right.
Okay, then.” He takes his foot off the brake, puts it on again after he has rolled back two or three feet.
“Hey, one question. Between friends, are these actual miles?” The man waits, then clears his throat.
“Okay, look, it doesn’t matter either way,” the man says. “I have to go. Take it easy.” He backs into the street, pulls away quickly, and turns the corner without stopping.
Leo tucks at his shirt and goes back in the house. He locks the front door and checks it. Then he goes to the bedroom and locks that door and turns back the covers. He looks at her before he flicks the light. He takes off his clothes, folds them carefully on the floor, and gets in beside her. He lies on his back for a time and pulls the hair on his stomach, considering. He looks at the bedroom door, outlined now in the faint outside light. Presently he reaches out his hand and touches her hip. She does not move. He turns on his side and puts his hand on her hip. He runs his fingers over her hip and feels the stretch marks there. They are like roads, and he traces them in her flesh. He runs his fingers back and forth, first one, then another. They run everywhere in her flesh, dozens, perhaps hundreds of them. He remembers waking up the morning after they bought the car, seeing it, there in the drive, in the sun, gleaming.
Gazebo
That morning she pours Teacher’s over my belly and licks it off. That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.
I go, “Holly, this can’t continue. This has got to stop.”
We are sitting on the sofa in one of the upstairs suites. There were any number of vacancies to choose from. But we needed a suite, a place to move around in and be able to talk. So we’d locked up the motel office that morning and gone upstairs to a suite.
She goes, “Duane, this is killing me.”
We are drinking Teacher’s with ice and water. We’d slept awhile between morning and afternoon. Then she was out of bed and threatening to climb out the window in her undergarments. I had to get her in a hold. We were only two floors up. But even so.
“I’ve had it,” she goes. “I can’t take it anymore.”
She puts her hand to her cheek and closes her eyes. She turns her head back and forth and makes this humming noise.
I could die seeing her like this.
“Take what?” I go, though of course I know.
“I don’t have to spell it out for you again,” she goes. “I’ve lost control. I’ve lost pride. I used to be a proud woman.”
She’s an attractive woman just past thirty. She is tall and has long black hair and green eyes, the only green-eyed woman I’ve ever known. In the old days I used to say things about her green eyes, and she’d tell me it was because of them she knew she was meant for something special.
And didn’t I know it!
I feel so awful from one thing and the other.
I can hear the telephone ringing downstairs in the office. It has been ringing off and on all day. Even when I was dozing I could hear it. I’d open my eyes and look at the ceiling and listen to it ring and wonder at what was happening to us.
But maybe I should be looking at the floor.
“My heart is broken,” she goes. “It’s turned to a piece of stone. I’m no good. That’s what’s as bad as anything, that I’m no good anymore.”
“Holly,” I go.
When we’d first moved down here and taken over as managers, we thought we were out of the woods. Free rent and free utilities plus three hundred a month. You couldn’t beat it with a stick.
Holly took care of the books. She was good with figures, and she did most of the renting of the units.
She liked people, and people liked her back. I saw to the grounds, mowed the grass and cut weeds, kept the swimming pool clean, did the small repairs.
Everything was fine for the first year. I was holding down another job nights, and we were getting ahead. We had plans. Then one morning, I don’t know. I’d just laid some bathroom tile in one of the units when this little Mexican maid comes in to clean. It was Holly had hired her. I can’t really say I’d noticed the little thing before, though we spoke when we saw each other. She called me, I remember, Mister.
Anyway, one thing and the other.
So after that morning I started paying attention. She was a neat little thing with fine white teeth. I used to watch her mouth.
She started calling me by my name.
One morning I was doing a washer for one of the bathroom faucets, and she comes in and turns on the TV as maids are like to do. While they clean, that is. I stopped what I was doing and stepped outside the bathroom. She was surprised to see me. She smiles and says my name.
It was right after she said it that we got down on the bed.
“Holly, you’re still a proud woman,”
I go. “You’re still number one. Come on, Holly.”
She shakes her head.”Something’s died in me,” she goes. “It took a long time for it to do it, but it’s dead.
You’ve killed something, just like you’d taken an axe to it. Everything is dirt now.”
She finishes her drink. Then she begins to cry. I make to hug her. But it’s no good.
I freshen our drinks and look out the window.
Two cars with out-of-state plates are parked in front of the office, and the drivers are standing at the door, talking. One of them finishes saying something to the other, and looks around at the units and pulls his chin. There’s a woman there too, and she has her face up to the glass, hand shielding her eyes, peering inside. She tries the door.
The phone downstairs begins to ring.
“Even a while ago when we were doing it, you were thinking of her,” Holly goes. “Duane, this is hurtful.”
She takes the drink I give her.
“Holly,” I go.
“It’s true, Duane,” she goes. “Just don’t argue with me,” she goes. She walks up and down the room in her underpants and her brassiere, her drink in her hand.
Holly goes, “You’ve gone outside the marriage. It’s trust that you killed.”
I get down on my knees and I start to beg. But I am thinking of Juanita. This is awful. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world.
I go, “Holly, honey, I love you.”
In the lot someone leans on a horn, stops, and then leans again.
Holly wipes her eyes. She goes, “Fix me a drink. This one’s too watery. Let them blow their stinking horns. I don’t care. I’m moving to Nevada.”
“Don’t move to Nevada,” I go. “You’re talking crazy,” I go.
“I’m not talking crazy,” she goes. “Nothing’s crazy about Nevada. You can stay here with your cleaning woman. I’m moving to Nevada. Either there or kill myself.”
“Holly!” I go.
“Holly nothing!” she goes.
She sits on the sofa and draws her knees up to under her chin.
“Fix me another pop, you son of a bitch,” she goes. She goes, “Fuck those horn-blowers. Let them do their dirt in the Travelodge. Is that
where your cleaning woman cleans now? Fix me another, you son of a bitch!”
She sets her lips and gives me this look.
Drinking’s funny. When I look back on it, all of our important decisions have been figured out when we were drinking. Even when we talked about having to cut back on our drinking, we’d be sitting at the kitchen table or out at the picnic table with a six-pack or whiskey. When we made up our minds to move down here and take this job as managers, we sat up a couple of nights drinking while we weighed the pros and the cons.
I pour the last of the Teacher’s into our glasses and add cubes and a spill of water.
Holly gets off the sofa and stretches on out across the bed.
She goes, “Did you do it to her in this bed?”
I don’t have anything to say. I feel all out of words inside. I give her the glass and sit down in the chair. I drink my drink and think it’s not ever going to be the sa
me.
“Duane?” she goes.
“Holly?”
My heart has slowed. I wait.
Holly was my own true love.
The thing with Juanita was five days a week between the hours of ten and eleven. It was in whatever unit she was in when she was making her cleaning rounds. I’d just walk in where she was working and shut the door behind me.
But mostly it was in 11. It was 11 that was our lucky room.
We were sweet with each other, but swift. It was fine.
I think Holly could maybe have weathered it out. I think the thing she had to do was really give it a try.
Me, I held on to the night job. A monkey could do that work. But things here were going downhill fast.
We just didn’t have the heart for it anymore.
I stopped cleaning the pool. It filled up with green gick so that the guests wouldn’t use it anymore. I didn’t fix any more faucets or lay any more tile or do any of the touch-up painting. Well, the truth is we were both hitting it pretty hard. Booze takes a lot of time and effort if you’re going to do a good job with it.
Holly wasn’t registering the guests right, either. She was charging too much or else not collecting what she should. Sometimes she’d put three people to a room with only one bed in it, or else she’d put a single in where the bed was a king-size. I tell you, there were complaints, and sometimes there were words.
Folks would load up and go somewhere else.
The next thing, there’s a letter from the management people. Then there’s another, certified.
There’s telephone calls. There’s someone coming down from the city.
But we had stopped caring, and that’s a fact. We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled our lives and we were getting ready for a shakeup.
Holly’s a smart woman. She knew it first.
Then that Saturday morning we woke up after a night of rehashing the situation. We opened our eyes and turned in bed to take a good look at each other. We both knew it then. We’d reached the end of something, and the thing was to find out where new to start.