“I ought to eat breakfast here every morning,” Hank said when he sat down to it, but he still looked strangely sulky. He ate her food to the last bite while she sat across from him in a chair, rather silent, looking out the rain-streaked windows at the wet back yard. She held her cup of hot chocolate in her two hands and looked everywhere but at his face. Quiet as he was, and lonely as she had been, she was not really enoying his company. Feeding him had been a pleasant, useful task, but he was almost done eating and she felt tight in her chest. She didn’t want him to leave, but neither did she want him to stay. What she wanted to do had been accomplished and she wished that he could be instantaneously transported back to the couch in the library, with not another word said. She didn’t have any words.
“I’ll be glad when the semester’s over,” Hank said. It was as conventional a remark as could be imagined.
“Why?” she asked. “I won’t. Another one will just start. Ever since I can remember, people have been saying they’ll be glad when a semester ends, or glad when one starts, when they really don’t particularly care one way or the other. The one nice thing about rodeo is that it doesn’t operate on the semester system.”
She suggested they go to the living room and they went. She sat in her favorite chair by the rainy window, and Hank sat on the couch and picked up a copy of Esquire but didn’t look at it. He looked at her strangely, as if he were waiting for her to say something. But she felt silent and still; something oppressed her. Sitting down in the chair had been the last act she felt capable of. Having him in the room was too much. Something dreadful was going to happen; she could no more stop it than she could stop the rain. He was gradually filling the room; he had been there too long. There was no way either of them could get out of the room without it happening. It seemed so inescapable that her hands began to tremble a little, and she wanted it to begin so there would not be such tightness in her chest. When Hank frowned and got up and came to the chair, she was not surprised, though when he turned her face up and kissed her she was surprised to see the planes of his face so close to hers. She felt no whirl of emotion, only a deep blankness, close to unconsciousness it was so deep. At first his kisses were soft and tentative; after a time she opened her eyes and came out of the blankness into a kind of dizziness. His position on the arm of the chair was uncomfortable. “Sit on the couch,” he said, his mouth so close to hers that she felt his words like breath.
She sighed very deeply. “My feet are freezing,” she said. When she got up to get her big fuzzy-wuzzy slippers she found that her legs were so weak she could barely walk. She was glad to reach the couch; she sank and he caught her comfortably. She felt overwhelmingly grateful to him; mixed with a kind of fear was a deep relief, as if she had just been saved from a bad fall, or had just missed being in a car wreck. She shut her eyes and let herself be kissed some more, melting into a deep and delicious blankness, a state not possible unless her mouth was on his. Occasionally she opened her eyes and saw things and said things, but the blankness was accessible, easy to sink back into. He was very soft and gentle with her, as she had known he would be, and she quickly let herself trust him completely. It was a mistake, for while she was dazed with pleasure, wanting only to be kissed, he put his warm hand inside her shirt, on her breast. The shock was like a burn. She sat up and began to cry. Hank drew back but she continued to sob. He didn’t go away, didn’t even seem much bothered by her tears, which disconcerted her.
“You mustn’t do that,” she said, knowing it sounded silly. Hank made her let him rub her neck. She felt disconsolate but after a few minutes she felt better and gave a little yawn of pleasure. She saw that he looked unhappy and reached up and put her hand on his cheek—it was a wicked but delicious thing to do. He started kissing her again, not so gently. She couldn’t immediately resist or make him quit, but when she finally did she felt miserable. He kept trying to put his hand on her, on her breast, on her body, anywhere. He had crowded her into a corner of the couch and when she looked at his face between kisses she felt lost and hurt. He had stopped seeing her, and only wanted her; his fumblings were impersonal and crude. But when he managed to catch her mouth she stopped caring. The kissing was what she wanted; she couldn’t help it. But his hands were strong, and having to fight them away finally upset her and she began to cry again.
“Quit, it’s all over,” she said, sobbing.
“What’s all over?”
“Us,” she said. “Jim’s seminar’s out in an hour and we can’t ever do this any more.”
“Sure we can,” Hank said. It irritated her; he really expected to see her again, touch her again. He looked smug, as if she had become his in some way. “I’m in love with you,” he said, and Patsy flushed. She had not been prepared for him to say it. It undid her and she let him kiss her again. He had given up on desire, for the day, and went back to gentleness, and when it was just time for the seminar to be out they were standing near the door, Patsy with her face against his chest, smelling his smell and the smell of the suede coat, which she detested, except that it did look sort of right on him. She felt grave. Another hour of kissing had borne in on her that he was not really going away forever; he was only going four blocks to an apartment where he would be that night, the next day, and probably for years. She didn’t know what was going to happen and was glad of the kisses, which made her feel trusting rather than scared. Just as he was about to step out the door she remembered something. She went to the closet and meekly presented him the lovely red bottle.
“It’s all I have left,” she said. “I had some posters but you didn’t make it possible for me to give them to you so I tore them up. I haven’t had a chance to tell you but your apartment is awful.”
When he actually left she felt like crying. She peeked out, and he stopped on the wet steps and looked up.
“You’re getting wet,” she said, unable to think of anything else to say.
When he was gone she went to the kitchen and piled the dishes in the dishpan and covered them with too many suds and stood at the sink letting the dishes soak, dabbling in the soapsuds with her hands and occasionally smiling to herself. It was scary, really, but with her hands in her own dishpan she could not be too scared. She decided to go back to Westbury and get some more posters. Before they parted forever she could at least see to it that his terrible apartment got fixed up.
14
EVENTS SEEMED to come in clusters, like grapes. The next morning Jim left early, to go book scouting with Bill Duffin. He looked very pleased and it sliced through Patsy’s mind that maybe the reason he looked so pleased was because he was really going to a rendezvous with Lee. It was a silly thought, she decided, putting on some knee socks. She hurriedly combed her hair and made the bed. She wanted to rush out to Westbury and buy some more posters, and she had promised Emma that they would launder that morning and so had no time to waste. In her haste she broke a fingernail and sat down at her dressing table, annoyed, and was filing it when there was a knock at the door. She looked at herself, her heart pounding violently; she was sure it was Hank. It agitated her very much.
But it was not Hank on the landing. It was Sonny Shanks. Patsy was too surprised even to feel let down. He wore a nice maroon sports coat, a dark blue shirt, and Western pants. He smiled at her and nodded pleasantly, as if he had arrived exactly on time for an appointment.
“Howdy,” he said. “Come to see the baby. Looks like I’m a day or two early.”
“A month, actually,” Patsy said. “You surprised me. You’re always surprising me. Do you mean to tie me up?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Come in, then,” she said. “Maybe I’m even a little glad to see you, I don’t know. You’re the first cowboy I’ve seen in months, not counting Peewee. I’m going somewhere in ten minutes, though. You can pay me compliments while I file my nails.”
He really didn’t look violent, and she decided that flirtation was the best way to handle him. She felt much more comp
etent at flirtation than she had previously.
“That’s long enough for me to have a mornin’ toddy,” Sonny said. “Point me at the liquor, why don’t you?”
Patsy did. “Are you a compulsive drinker, or something?” she asked. “Every time I see you, you’re drinking. Maybe you just drink because you’re shy. Maybe you’re tormented by feelings of inadequacy.”
Sonny broke out some ice cubes, a little surprised by her new manner but not disconcerted.
“Say something,” she said. “If you intend to keep popping into my life every few months you have to get used to my sharp relentless tongue.”
“Used to it already,” he said. He took his drink and strolled into the living room. “Hey, this is the way I like to live,” he said. “You got your living room and your bedroom right together. Don’t go crashing into so much woodwork that way. Used to know an old boy who got so worked up over a girl he busted through a plate-glass wall and almost cut his dingus off. Wouldn’t have happened if he’d had his bed in the living room.” He tipped his glass at her cheerfully and took a swallow.
Patsy sat on the couch filing her nail. “Don’t be crude, now,” she said. “Nothing of that sort goes on here. We’re all dedicated to humane letters around here. We subjugate the flesh.”
“What?” he asked, amused.
“Subjugate,” she said. “Don’t you know the word?”
“I know it sounds worse than running through a plate-glass wall naked,” he said, looking at a small Chagall print. “I’ve got a girl friend who’s got pictures like that. Only she’s got the real ones.”
“If I had her money I’d have the real ones too.”
“If I had her money I’d have her,” Sonny said. He finished his drink.
“We all have our problems. I’ve got to go.”
“Any place I’d like to see?”
“No place I intend to take you. We’ll just have to talk about your problems some other time.”
“Well, liquor beats Listerine,” he said, putting down his glass. “Only reason I drink in the morning. Where’s old Jim? He’s who I actually had the business with. I need to know if he still wants that job. We’re making the movie this summer.”
“I think he’s going to be helping me baby-sit this summer. I suppose he’d like to talk to you, though. He’ll be back this afternoon.”
“I think I’ll look up Dixie, since I’m here,” Sonny said. “Why don’t we all go have a feast, or something—maybe tonight? Your little dancing buddy from L.A.’s due in this afternoon.”
“Mr. Percy? I’d like to see him. Unfortunately we have something planned for the evening.” It was the evening the Duffins were going to take them out.
They went out the door together and Sonny looked at her appreciatively and laughed. His good spirits were infectious and she couldn’t help smiling. She was in good spirits herself.
“If I was ever lucky enough to get in the sack with you I’d have to prop a dictionary on the pillow so I’d know what was happening,” he said.
“The first cowboy who ever tried to seduce me told me I was too wordy,” she said. “Boy, did I scare him off. It doesn’t seem to work with you.”
“No,” he said. “I’d probably take the chance, even without no dictionary. Thanks for the drink. Might see you this afternoon.”
His hearse was parked by the curb, looking strangely incongruous under the huge waving trees. Winter sunlight slipped through the branches. Patsy walked over to it and peered in. Seeing him had brought back much. She would have liked to ask about Boots and Pete, but knew he was the wrong person to ask. The rear end of the hearse was still littered with ropes and rodeo gear. Sonny stood on the curb kicking at it with a bootheel, and he too looked out of place and even seemed to know it. He needed his rightful milieu: the plains, the long empty highways, the bulls and horses and violent men, the space and the deep changing sky. All that belonged with him, while the large houses and well-kept lawns of South Boulevard seemed to conceal the real Sonny and make him look like a different man. She was tempted to ask him to ride to Westbury with her, but once he was gone she was glad she hadn’t. Sonny was still Sonny. They might have run out of pleasant banter—the old scary force might have come out again.
She got the posters and a small cute turn-of-the-century etiquette book that had just been reprinted. She rushed home, hid the posters, and bundled up her laundry before Emma came. They went to the Sudsy-Dudsy and washed and yakked. Emma was envious of Sonny’s visit.
“The boys would go out of their minds if they could meet someone like that,” she said. “You have all the luck. What did I ever get to do but come to this laundrymat? It’s a big night for us if there’s something good on television. You’re going out with the Duffins and you know a famous cowboy and a screenwriter. Maybe I better reduce.”
“I was never less reduced,” Patsy said. “Don’t go envying me the Duffins—they’re no blessing. I think they’re evil. Maybe not evil individually, but evil in combination.”
“Everything you say makes it worse. I don’t even know anyone evil. Everyone we know is nice, more or less. This is supposed to be a crazy confused age and here I don’t even know anyone who’s all that crazy. What’s the matter with me? Why did I get left out of the age?”
“You may know somebody crazy if you keep knowing me,” Patsy said. “I’m likely to crack at any time.”
It was a small squalid laundrymat, poorly lit, with old top-loading washing machines that were always konking out. The reason they liked it was because scarcely anybody else ever came there. Emma’s machine did konk out and Patsy watched her adjust it.
“It’s getting so these machines won’t take two diapers at a time,” Emma said. “Remember the night the man tried to wash the rug?”
Patsy giggled at the memory. They had been roommates at the time. In those days the Sudsy-Dudsy had been more prosperous and a number of people were there. While she and Emma sat talking a little man came in and, unobserved by anyone, stuffed his living-room rug into one of the machines. He couldn’t even get the top closed on it, but he did get the machine started. The first intimation anyone had that something untoward was happening was when the lights in the building flashed blue and went off and the cheap metal chairs all began to rattle. Then the machines all began to shake and a horrible vibrating sound was heard. Everyone leapt up and ran out into the parking lot, expecting earthquakes, crumbling buildings, air raids, Russian paratroopers, and mushroom clouds. When they calmed down enough to look back into the Sudsy-Dudsy they saw the little man clinging as nonchalantly as possible to the washing machine, which was flinging him from side to side and attempting to wrench itself from its bolts. He tried to indicate by his expression that nothing unusual or dangerous was happening—he was just getting his living-room rug cleaned in the quickest way—but finally all the fuses blew and several of the ladies harangued him mercilessly while he dragged the sopping rug out of the machine.
“That was crazy,” Patsy said. “You see, your life hasn’t been totally devoid of incident.”
“True. Something like that is good for a laugh once every five years, when you remember it. Still, it’s hardly wild debauchery.”
“Small loss. I doubt wild debauchery’s all it’s made out to be.” She remembered that she had almost been debauched the day before and wondered.
“I’ve got to quit reading novels,” Emma said. “They’re full of crazed sensualists. It makes me feel cheated by life. I never even met a crazed sensualist.”
“Are you kidding?” Patsy said. “You’re married to one, if you ask me.
“That’s around you. He’s only intermittently crazed around me and then half the time he’s in too big a hurry to take his shoes off. I seldom even get laid by anyone barefooted and that seems the very least one can ask of life.”
“Oh, come on,” Patsy said, trying to remember if Jim had ever made love to her with his shoes on. She could not remember him being in that big a hurry. br />
When she got home he was there, and in a high state of excitement; but his excitement was social, not sexual. He had just managed what he considered a brilliant piece of social maneuvering. He had seen Sonny, been offered a job as a still photographer on the movie, and had invited Sonny and Joe Percy to dinner with them and the Duffins. The only fly in the ointment, so far as he was concerned, was that Sonny had already made plans with Dixie, which meant that she would be coming along.
“This ought to be an evening,” he said proudly.
“Shit, damn, and hell,” Patsy said. So far as she was concerned there were more flies than ointment. To make matters even worse, they were going to her aunt’s club. It was high atop a bank and everyone there was so conservative they were practically paralyzed, the waiters included. “I can see you’re looking forward to my poor aunt making a fool of herself in front of your patron intellectual,” she said. Jim was too cheerful to be affected by her mood and tried to hug her. She shrugged him off. “I slave over washing machines while you think up schemes to humiliate my aunt,” she said. “Sonny was by this morning. He must be mellowing; he didn’t even try to rape me. I hope you told him you weren’t taking his crummy job.”
“No, I sort of think I might,” Jim said. “It would just be for six weeks and it might make a good change from graduate school.”
Patsy was infuriated. It had never occurred to her he would seriously consider taking the job. Jim anticipated her.