“What’s been keeping you?” Arlene said. “You’ve been over here more than an hour.”
“Have I really?” he said.
“Yes, you have,” she said.
“I had to go to the toilet,” he said.
“You have your own toilet,” she said.
“I couldn’t wait,” he said.
That night they made love again.
In the morning he had Arlene call in for him. He showered, dressed, and made a light breakfast. He tried to start a book. He went out for a walk and felt better. But after a while, hands still in his pockets, he returned to the apartment. He stopped at the Stones’ door on the chance he might hear the cat moving about. Then he let himself in at his own door and went to the kitchen for the key.
Inside it seemed cooler than his apartment, and darker too. He wondered if the plants had something to do with the temperature of the air. He looked out the window, and then he moved slowly through each room considering everything that fell under his gaze, carefully, one object at a time. He saw ashtrays, items of furniture, kitchen utensils, the clock. He saw everything. At last he entered the bedroom, and the cat appeared at his feet. He stroked her once, carried her into the bathroom, and shut the door.
He lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He lay for a while with his eyes closed, and then he moved his hand under his belt. He tried to recall what day it was. He tried to remember when the Stones were due back, and then he wondered if they would ever return. He could not remember their faces or the way they talked and dressed. He sighed and with effort rolled off the bed to lean over the dresser and look at himself in the mirror.
He opened the closet and selected a Hawaiian shirt. He looked until he found Bermudas, neatly pressed and hanging over a pair of brown twill slacks. He shed his own clothes and slipped into the shorts and the shirt. He looked in the mirror again. He went to the living room and poured himself a drink and sipped it on his way back to the bedroom. He put on a blue shirt, a dark suit, a blue and white tie, black wing-tip shoes. The glass was empty and he went for another drink.
In the bedroom again, he sat on a chair, crossed his legs, and smiled, observing himself in the mirror. The telephone rang twice and fell silent. He finished the drink and took off the suit. He rummaged through the top drawers until he found a pair of panties and a brassiere. He stepped into the panties and fastened the brassiere, then looked through the closet for an outfit. He put on a black and white checkered skirt and tried to zip it up. He put on a burgundy blouse that buttoned up the front. He considered her shoes, but understood they would not fit. For a long time he looked out the living-room window from behind the curtain. Then he returned to the bedroom and put everything away.
He was not hungry. She did not eat much, either. They looked at each other shyly and smiled. She got up from the table and checked that the key was on the shelf and then she quickly cleared the dishes.
He stood in the kitchen doorway and smoked a cigaret and watched her pick up the key.
“Make yourself comfortable while I go across the hall,” she said. “Read the paper or something.” She closed her fingers over the key. He was, she said, looking tired.
He tried to concentrate on the news. He read the paper and turned on the television. Finally he went across the hall. The door was locked.
“It’s me. Are you still there, honey?” he called.
After a time the lock released and Arlene stepped outside and shut the door. “Was I gone so long?” she said.
“Well, you were,” he said.
“Was I?” she said. “I guess I must have been playing with Kitty.”
He studied her, and she looked away, her hand still resting on the doorknob.
“It’s funny,” she said. “You know—to go in someone’s place like that.”
He nodded, took her hand from the knob, and guided her toward their own door. He let them into their apartment.
“It is funny,” he said.
He noticed white lint clinging to the back of her sweater, artd the color was high in her cheeks. He began kissing her on the neck and hair and she turned and kissed him back.
“Oh, damn,” she said. “Damn, damn,” she sang, girlishly clapping her hands. “I just remembered. I really and truly forgot to do what I went over there to do. I didn’t feed Kitty or do any watering.” She looked at him. “Isn’t that stupid?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Just a minute. I’ll get my cigarets and go back with you.”
She waited until he had closed and locked their door, and then she took his arm at the muscle and said, “I guess I should tell you. I found some pictures.”
He stopped in the middle of the hall. “What kind of pictures?”
“You can see for yourself,” she said, and she watched him.
“No kidding.” He grinned. “Where?”
“In a drawer,” she said.
“No kidding,” he said.
And then she said, “Maybe they won’t come back,” and was at once astonished at her words.
“It could happen,” he said. “Anything could happen.”
“Or maybe they’ll come back and ..but she did not finish.
They held hands for the short walk across the hall, and when he spoke she could barely hear his voice. “The key,” he said. “Give it to me.”
“What?” she said. She gazed at the door.
“The key,” he said. “You have the key.”
“My God,” she said, “I left the key inside.”
He tried the knob. It was locked. Then she tried the knob. It would not turn. Her lips were parted, and her breathing was hard, expectant. He opened his arms and she moved into them.
“Don’t worry,” he said into her ear. “For God’s sake, don’t worry.”
They stayed there. They held each other. They leaned into the door as if against a wind, and braced themselves.
THE IDEA
We’d finished supper and I’d been at the kitchen table with the light out for the last hour, watching. If he was going to do it tonight, it was time, past time. I hadn’t seen him in three nights. But tonight the bedroom shade was up over there and the light burning.
I had a feeling tonight.
Then I saw him. He opened the screen and walked out onto his back porch wearing a T-shirt and something like Bermuda shorts or a swimsuit. He looked around once and hopped off the porch into the shadows and began to move along the side of the house. He was fast. If I hadn’t been watching, I wouldn’t have seen him. He stopped in front of the lighted window and looked in.
“Vern,” I called. “Vern, hurry up! He’s out there. You’d better hurry!”
Vern was in the living room reading his paper with the TV going. I heard him throw down the paper.
“Don’t let him see you!” Vern said. “Don’t get up too close to the window!”
Vern always says that: Don’t get up too close. Vern’s a little embarrassed about watching, I think. But I know he enjoys it. He’s said so.
“He can’t see us with the light out.” It’s what I always say. This has been going on for three months. Since September 3, to be exact. Anyway, that’s the first night I saw him over there. I don’t know how long it was going on before that.
I almost got on the phone to the sheriff that night, until I recognized who it was out there. It took Vern to explain it to me. Even then it took a while for it to penetrate. But since that night I’ve watched, and I can tell you he averages one out of every two or three nights, sometimes more. I’ve seen him out there when it’s been raining too. In fact, if it is raining, you can bet on seeing him. But tonight it was clear and windy. There was a moon.
We got down on our knees behind the window and Vern cleared his throat.
“Look at him,” Vern said. Vern was smoking, knocking the ash into his hand when he needed. He held the cigaret away from the window when he puffed. Vern smokes all the time; there’s no stopping him. He even sleeps with an ashtray th
ree inches from his head. At night I’m awake and he wakes up and smokes.
“By God,” Vern said.
“What does she have that other women don’t have?” I said to Vern after a minute. We were hunkered on the floor with just out heads showing over the windowsill and were looking at a man who was standing and looking into his own bedroom window.
“That’s just it,” Vern said. He cleared his throat right next to my ear.
We kept watching.
I could make out someone behind the curtain now. It must have been her undressing. But I couldn’t see any detail. I strained my eyes. Vern was wearing his reading glasses, so he could see everything better than I could. Suddenly the curtain was drawn aside and the woman turned her back to the window.
“What’s she doing now?” I said, knowing full well.
“By God,” Vern said.
“What’s she doing, Vern?” I said.
“She’s taking off her clothes,” Vern said. “What do you think she’s doing?”
Then the bedroom light went out and the man started back along the side of his house. He opened the screen door and slipped inside, and a little later the rest of the lights went out.
Vern coughed, coughed again, and shook his head. I turned on the light. Vern just sat there on his knees. Then he got to his feet and lighted a cigaret.
“Someday I’m going to tell that trash what I think of her,” I said and looked at Vern.
Vern laughed sort of.
“I mean it,” I said. “I’ll see her in the market someday and I’ll tell her to her face.”
“I wouldn’t do that. What the hell would you do that for?” Vern said.
But I could tell he didn’t think I was serious. He frowned and looked at his nails. He rolled his tongue in his mouth and narrowed his eyes like he does when he’s concentrating. Then his expression changed and he scratched his chin. “You wouldn’t do anything like that,” he said.
“You’ll see,” I said.
“Shit,” Vern said.
I followed him into the living room. We were jumpy. It gets us like that.
“You wait,” I said.
Vern ground his cigaret out in the big ashtray. He stood beside his leather chair and looked at the TV a minute.
“There’s never anything on,” he said. Then he said something else. He said, “Maybe he has something there.” Vern lighted another cigaret. “You don’t know.”
“Anybody comes looking in my window,” I said, “they’ll have the cops on them. Except maybe Cary Grant,” I said.
Vern shrugged. “You don’t know,” he said.
I had an appetite. I went to the kitchen cupboard and looked, and then I opened the fridge.
“Vern, you want something to eat?” I called.
He didn’t answer. I could hear water running in the bathroom. But I thought he might want something. We get hungry this time of night. I put bread and lunch-meat on the table and I opened a can of soup. I got out crackers and peanut butter, cold meat loaf, pickles, olives, potato chips. I put everything on the table. Then I thought of the apple pie.
Vern came out in his robe and flannel pajamas. His hair was wet and slicked down over the back of his head, and he smelled of toilet water. He looked at the things on the table. He said, “What about a bowl of corn flakes with brown sugar?” Then he sat down and spread his paper out to the side of his plate.
We ate our snack. The ashtray filled up with olive pits and his butts.
When he’d finished, Vern grinned and said, “What’s that good smell?”
I went to the oven and took out the two pieces of apple pie topped with melted cheese.
“That looks fine,” Vern said.
In a little while, he said, “I can’t eat any more. I’m going to bed.”
“I’m coming too,” I said. “I’ll clear this table.”
I was scraping plates into the garbage can when I saw the ants. I looked closer. They came from somewhere beneath the pipes under the sink, a steady stream of them, up one side of the can and down the other, coming and going. I found the spray in one of the drawers and sprayed the outside and the inside of the garbage can, and I sprayed as far back under the sink as I could reach. Then I washed my hands and took a last look around the kitchen.
Vern was asleep. He was snoring. He'd wake up in a few hours, go to the bathroom, and smoke. The little TV at the foot of the bed was on, but the picture was rolling.
I’d wanted to tell Vern about the ants.
I took my own time getting ready for bed, fixed the picture, and crawled in. Vern made the noises he does in his sleep.
I watched for a while, but it was a talk show and I don't like talk shows. I started thinking about the ants again.
Pretty soon I imagined them all over the house. I wondered if I should wake Vern and tell him I was having a bad dream. Instead, I got up and went for the can of spray. I looked under the sink again. But there was no ants left. I turned on every light in the house until I had the house blazing.
I kept spraying.
Finally I raised the shade in the kitchen and looked out. It was late. The wind blew and I heard branches snap.
“That trash," I said. “The idea!”
I used even worse language, things I can’t repeat.
THEY’RE NOT YOUR HUSBAND
Earl Ober was between jobs as a salesman. But Doreen, his wife, had gone to work nights as a waitress at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop at the edge of town. One night, when he was drinking, Earl decided to stop by the coffee shop and have something to eat. He wanted to see where Doreen worked, and he wanted to see if he could order something on the house.
He sat at the counter and studied the menu.
“What are you doing here?” Doreen said when she saw him sitting there.
She handed over an order to the cook. “What are you going to order, Earl?” she said. “The kids okay?”
“They’re fine,” Earl said. “I’ll have coffee and one of those Number Two sandwiches.”
Doreen wrote it down.
“Any chance of, you know?” he said to her and winked.
“No,” she said. “Don’t talk to me now. I’m busy.”
Earl drank his coffee and waited for the sandwich. Two men in business suits, their ties undone, their collars open, sat down next to him and asked for coffee. As Doreen walked away with the coffeepot, one of the men said to the other, “Look at the ass on that. I don’t believe it.”
The other man laughed. “I’ve seen better,” he said.
“That’s what I mean,” the first man said. “But some jokers like their quim fat.”
“Not me,” the other man said.
“Not me, neither,” the first man said. “That’s what I was saying.”
Doreen put the sandwich in front of Earl. Around the sandwich there were French fries, coleslaw, dill pickle.
“Anything else?” she said. “A glass of milk?”
He didn’t say anything. He shook his head when she kept standing there.
“I’ll get you more coffee,” she said.
She came back with the pot and poured coffee for him and for the two men. Then she picked up a dish and turned to get some ice cream. She reached down into the container and with the dipper began to scoop up the ice cream. The white skirt yanked against her hips and crawled up her legs. What showed was girdle, and it was pink, thighs that were rumpled and gray and a little hairy, and veins that spread in a berserk display.
The two men sitting beside Earl exchanged looks. One of them raised his eyebrows. The other man grinned and kept looking at Doreen over his cup as she spooned chocolate syrup over the ice cream. When she began shaking the can of whipped cream, Earl got up, leaving his food, and headed for the door. He heard her call his name, but he kept going.
He checked on the children and then went to the other bedroom and took off his clothes. He pulled the covers up, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to think. The feeling started in his face and
worked down into his stomach and legs. He opened his eyes and rolled his head back and forth on the pillow. Then he turned on his side and fell asleep.
In the morning, after she had sent the children off to school, Doreen came into the bedroom and raised the shade. Earl was already awake.
“Look at yourself in the mirror,” he said.
“What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“Just look at yourself in the mirror,” he said.
“What am I supposed to see?” she said. But she looked in the mirror over the dresser and pushed the hair away from her shoulders.
“Well?” he said.
“Well, what?” she said.
“I hate to say anything,” Earl said, "but I think you better give a diet some thought. I mean it. I’m serious. I think you could lose a few pounds. Don’t get mad.”
“What are you saying?” she said.
“Just what I said. I think you could lose a few pounds. A few pounds, anyway,” he said.
“You never said anything before,” she said. She raised her nightgown over her hips and turned to look at her stomach in the mirror.
“I never felt it was a problem before” he said. He tried to pick his words.
The nightgown still gathered around her waist, Doreen turned her back to the mirror and looked over her shoulder. She raised one buttock in her hand and let it drop.
Earl closed his eyes. “Maybe I’m all wet,” he said.
“I guess I could afford to lose. But it’d be hard," she said.
“You’re right, it won’t be easy,” he said. “But I’ll help.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. She dropped her nightgown and looked at him and then she took her nightgown off.
They talked about diets. They talked about the protein diets, the vegetable-only diets, the grapefruit-juice diets. But they decided they didn’t have the money to buy the steaks the protein diet called for. And Doreen said she didn’t care for all that many vegetables. And since she didn’t like grapefruit juice that much, she didn't see how she could do that one, either.