The Broken Bubble

“Oh,” he said, taken by surprise.

  “How long did you know heir before you got married? If I told you how I met Jim, you wouldn’t believe it. We went up the coast and we got crocked, and we went to bed together and that was it. We were up there on the Russian River for a week…six days, drinking and going to bed…walking around Guerneville barefoot. Going swimming. Have you ever been up there?”

  He was able to say, “Sure, a couple of times. We used to drive up Friday night, a bunch of us. And st-st-stay for the weekend.”

  “Did you go up there with Rachael?”

  “No,” he said, “but we went to Reno once.”

  “Do you like to go out?”

  “Sure,” he said. “We used to go bowling a lot. And over to Dodo’s. A-a-and she likes to play poker. And dancing; she’s a cool dancer. And a lot of times we used to go to record shops. And stock car races…we drove down to Pebble Beach one time, for the races. When we had a car, we drove around. It broke down and we sold it.”

  “So you don’t have a car?”

  “No. I tried to get my brother Nat, who runs this used car lot on Van Ness, to lend me one, but he won’t.”

  Pat said, “Did you go around with other girls before you met her?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then she’s really your girl. Like in the movies. The girl you grew up with. The one woman for you.” Her hands in the pockets of her coat, she said, “You think there’s one girl for every boy? You believe that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Maybe so,” he said uncertainly.

  Reaching out, she ruffled his hair. “Do you know you’re cute? You’re so young…and you have your one girl. I’ll bet you still know kids you hang around with.”

  “I guess so,” he said.

  The liquor store was to their right, and Pat entered it. “Give me back my money,” she said to him as they stopped at the front counter.

  “What’ll it be?” the clerk, a middle-aged bald man, said. He smiled a pale, false-teeth smile.

  “A fifth of Hiram Walker’s,” Pat said. She took the dollar bills from Art and paid for the liquor.

  “Good night, folks,” the clerk said as they left the store. The cash register jangled.

  “What are you going to be,” Pat said as they walked back, “when you’re old and broken down, like Jim and me?”

  “A p-p-printer,” he said. “Hey, when we get back you want to see the dummies for our science fiction mag? It’s called Phantasmagoria. Ferde Heinke’s president of the fan club. It’s called the Beings from Earth.”

  She laughed. “My lord.”

  “It’s multilithed…we’ve got pictures of fans and some drawings. If you can draw, m-m-maybe you could draw for the mag. You know?” It seemed a luminous hope; he exploited it for all it was worth. “What do you say?”

  Pat said, “I’m no good. I can’t really draw. I took a couple of art courses in college.” Her voice was empty. “Don’t look to me for anything, Art. Look what I did to Jim. I can’t give. All I wanted to do was take. It was my fault. I know it, but I still can’t give him anything. Even when I try, I can’t. The other night I wanted to…” She broke off. “Have you ever had a woman hold out on you, Art? They’re supposed to do that. One kind, anyhow. I never thought of myself as that kind. I just couldn’t do it. Maybe I was still resentful. I was punishing him. Or maybe I’ve lost the capacity to give anything to anyone. I never gave anything to Bob Posin… I told Jim I did, but it was just to hurt him.”

  She stopped walking.

  “That’s my car,” she said. “What do you think of it?”

  Going to the curb, he identified it as a new Dodge. “Not bad,” he said. “Too much chrome, but not a bad p-p-p-power plant.”

  “Can you drive?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Reaching into her coat, she brought out car keys. “Here. Open the door.”

  Dumbfounded, he opened the car door. Pat motioned him in, and he crept in behind the wheel.

  “Where do you go,” she said, “when you take a girl for a drive?”

  “Twin Peaks,” he said. “I guess.” He was beginning to tremble.

  She slammed the door on her side. “Take me up there. Do you mind? I can’t go back; he’s waiting for me and I can’t; honest to God, I want to, but I can’t.”

  On the descending mountainside, cars were parked, most of them off the road or against the railing. In the cars shapes stirred slowly, in cumbersome positions. Below the road the pattern of lights flickered on the streets and houses of San Francisco. A field of lights as far as the eye could see. Fog drifted between the lights, and here and there the lights faded out. There was no sound except from the distant motors of cars.

  “Here?” Art said. “Okay?” He took the car off the road, onto a dirt shoulder. Tree branches scraped the hood. He shut off the headlights.

  “Turn the motor off,” Pat said.

  He did so.

  Beside him she opened her purse and brought out a pack of cigarettes. He found matches and lit one for her; the match shook and she steadied his hand.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  “N-n-nothing.”

  Blowing smoke from her nostrils, she said, “It’s peaceful up here. I haven’t been up here in ten years. Not since I was your age. You know where I grew up? Near Stinson Beach.”

  “That’s cool up there,” he said.

  “We used to go swimming. Every few days. Do you like to swim?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Are you good?” She handed him the package containing the bottle. “Maybe you can open it. There’s a corkscrew in the dashboard.”

  He managed to get the bottle open.

  “I shouldn’t do this,” Pat said, taking the bottle. “I know I shouldn’t, but I have to do something; I can’t go on this way. You think he’ll forgive me?” Rummaging in the glove compartment, she came up with a plastic handle-less cup. “God,” she said, “It’s still got Band-Aids in it.” She tossed the cup back in the glove compartment. “I don’t want to drink. Here.” She handed the bottle back to him. “Put it away or drink it or something. You know what I came up here for?”

  “What?” he muttered.

  “I’m looking for something. I’m twenty-seven, Art. I’m ten years older than you. Do you realize that? When I was your age—you were seven. You were in the first grade.” She sat smoking, her legs crossed. In the dull light entering the car her legs sparkled; he made out the line of her ankle, her heel.

  “You’re sure nice-looking,” he heard his voice say.

  “Thank you, Art…”

  “I mean it,” he said.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s get out of here; I don’t want to stay here.”

  Obedient, crushed with disappointment, he started up the engine. As he shifted into reverse, Pat reached out her hand and turned the ignition key; the engine died.

  “You actually would,” she said. “You’re so—what is it? Let it go.” She put out her cigarette and lit another with a shiny metal lighter. “You’d drive me back if I asked you to…you wouldn’t put up a fight, you wouldn’t argue with me. Do you really like me, Art?”

  “Yeah,” he said fervently.

  “What about your wife?”

  For that he had no answer.

  “You’re going to be a father. Do you realize that, Art? You’re going to have a little boy. Have you thought what name you want to call him?”

  “No,” he said, “not yet.”

  “How will you feel?” She was staring out at the lights below them. “You’re a seventeen-year-old boy and you’re going to be a father.”

  “Right…” he said.

  “Eighteen,” he said.

  “The world’s so goddamn peculiar…” She turned on the car seat, facing him; she had drawn up her legs and tucked them under her. In the light her cheekbones were radiant, and he traced, in his
mind, the line of her forehead, the ridge of her eyebrow, and then her nose. She had thin lips. In the half-light her lips were black. Her chin and neck were in shadow.

  “Come on, Art,” she said.

  “Come on what?” he said, afraid of her.

  “Before I change my mind.” Rolling down the window, she tossed her cigarette out; it fell into darkness. “I feel so awful. This is a terrible thing to do…it isn’t fair to you or your wife or Jim or any of us. It’s so mixed up. But what else is there, Art? I’ve been going around and around. I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

  Her fingers reached up and touched his face. Moving toward him, she brought her lips close to him; he felt the pressure of her mouth, the hard, sharp pressure of her teeth as she kissed him. Her breath smelled of flowers and cinnamon. As he put his arms around her, he heard the rustle of her clothes and the faint giving of muscles and ligaments and joints, the stirrings of her body. Her sleeve brushed his eyes; she was clinging to him, resting her head against his neck. How heavy, her head was. She lay on him, breathing shallowly. Panting, he thought…not moving—but content to lie against him with her eyes shut, her arm up so that her fingers curled into his hair. She was discouraged and lonely, and he knew what she wanted: she wanted to lie close to him, turning her face up to be kissed. He held her face between his hands and lifted her; at once she let her lips slacken so that he could find her mouth. She was back into the past, living out her own young days. She was with him, in the romance and excitement of a first date, wrapped up in his arms on the front seat of a car, parked at the side of the road above the lights of the city, overlooking the darkness, the night and fog. In other cars other boys held their girls and petted them and kissed them; he ran his hands along the fabric of her blouse, along her shoulders and arms. He avoided her breasts because that was not what she wanted. Holding his mouth against hers, he poured out of him and into her the love she wanted; he lost nothing and yet he felt her fill out and become powerful with it. She had to take it from him. But…he had it to give her.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She sighed. She said nothing. Her face lay pressed to his shoulder, time passed and she did not stir, and at last he realized that she had fallen asleep.

  Gently, he lifted her back until she rested against the door. Then he covered her with her coat. Starting up the engine, he drove down the hill, back into town.

  As they drove among the lights of Van Ness Avenue, she stirred a little, sat up, and then said, “Do you know where I live?”

  “No,” he said, “but we’re not going there; we’re going back to Fillmore.”

  “Take me home,” she said. “You can call your wife from my place. Please.”

  He had been wrong. “Tell me where,” he said. He felt leaden, but he did as she said; he could not back out. Beside him she was opening her purse to get out her cigarettes. Neither of them spoke, and then she said, “rum right here.”

  He turned the car.

  “What are you going to tell her?” she said.

  “I don’t know. I’ll tell her something. I ran into these guys. Grimmelman, maybe.”

  “You’ve never done anything like this before, have you?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Do you want to? You don’t have to. I won’t make you do it.”

  “I want to,” he said. And he did want to. “You’re really cute,” he said. “You’re really pretty.”

  “Thank you, Art.” she said. “I know you mean it. You wouldn’t say so if you didn’t.” She seemed calm, at this point.

  10

  After her husband and Pat had left the apartment to go to the liquor store, Rachael went into the kitchen and washed dishes. Ten or fifteen minutes passed, and then she dried her hands and walked to the front door.

  “They’re not coming back,” she said, standing at the door.

  Jim Briskin was slow to agree. “Sure they are,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. But I thought it would be with the different guys… Grimmelman and those people.”

  Jim opened the door and started up the steps. “They must have gone off in her car.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Hell,” he said, “I’ll try her apartment.”

  “Let him go ahead,” Rachael said. Her eyes were dry; he was amazed at her self-control. “She’s very lovely and look how grownup she is. If he wants to, then he should. What difference does it make if they go ahead or not? I couldn’t keep him here…could you have kept her here?”

  “No,” he said. But he did not come back inside. He remained on the steps, the door open behind him.

  “You can’t control other humans,” Rachael said. “You can talk to them, but it doesn’t make any difference. Maybe in little things, or if they believe it already. Anyhow, I’m glad she’s so nice.”

  He said, “I’ll kill her.” He meant it; he could feel her neck between his hands.

  “Why? You know she’s had a lot to drink. You know Art and I have had trouble…he wanted to go out. There’s so many things he hasn’t done and he wants to do them. He’s too young. I was the only girl be dated. I guess I’m the only girl he ever—however you say it. People say it different ways. I don’t know any good way.”

  “There isn’t,” he said, “not in a situation like this.” He blamed himself. It was his fault. “Rachael,” he said, coming back into the apartment, “I did it. I brought her here. And I knew she was in a state; I knew she was ready to try anything. We both were.”

  “It’s a bad thing for you,” Rachael said, “since you’re in love with her.”

  “Look.” He picked up his coat from the chair. “You stick around here. I’ll go over to her place and try to round them up. I’ll see you later.” Without waiting, he left the apartment and went along the path to the sidewalk. Pat’s car was gone, all right. He hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of her apartment.

  The lights in her windows were off, and nobody answered his rings. Another tenant entered the building using his key for the main door, and Jim went into the lobby behind him. Upstairs, at Pat’s door, he knocked and then tried the knob. Still there was no answer. He listened, but he heard nothing.

  Going back downstairs to the street, he searched in vain for a sign of the Dodge.

  They were not here at her apartment. Where else, then? The only remaining place was the radio station. The time was twelve-thirty, and Hubble would have locked up; Pat had a key, and she and Art would have the station to themselves.

  Again he flagged a cab. As it took him, toward Geary Street, he thought to himself that at least he could pick up his car; it was still parked in the cab stand in front of the station.

  When he had paid the driver, he saw that his car was gone. The cab stand was empty. And, peering up, he saw no lights in the top-floor windows of the McLaughlen Building. He walked around to the parking lot and still there was no sign of his car and no sign of Pat’s Dodge.

  A drugstore down the street was open. He entered it and, in a phone booth, called the station’s number. The phone rang on and on; at last he gave up. They were not there either.

  He located the number of the Kearny Street police station and called. “My car’s been stolen,” he said. “I left it parked in front of where I am and now it’s gone.”

  “Just a moment,” the police voice said. Clicks deafened him and then, after an endless pause, the voice returned. “What is your name?”

  He gave them his name. “It must have happened within the hour,” he said. He felt absolutely futile.

  “The make and license number?”

  He gave that, too.

  “Just a moment, sir.” Again there was a wait. “Your car was towed off,” the police voice said. “It was parked in a hack stand, and the cab company phoned in a complaint.”

  “Oh,” he said, “then where is it?”

  “I don’t know; you’ll have to enquire about it
tomorrow morning. Be here at Kearney Street at ten-thirty and arrangements will be made to return it to you.”

  “Thanks,” he said, hanging up.

  Without a car he was more helpless than ever. He walked out onto the sidewalk, and when a cab passed he waved to it. Again he was riding in a cab, and again he had given Pat’s address. In his mind he was positive that they would show up there. Maybe, he thought, they had gone for a ride.

  When the cab let him off before the apartment building, he saw the Dodge, moist and gleaming, parked by itself in a slot near the entrance.

  He rang the bell by her name, but there was no response. Again he waited. Presently a figure appeared on the other side of the door. A heavyset man stepped out of the building, glanced at Jim, and went on. He caught the door before it shut. Somebody was always going in or out. He climbed the stairs to her floor.

  The door to her apartment was closed, and no light showed. He knocked. She did not answer, but he knew that this time they were here. Finally he tried the knob; the door was unlocked.

  “Pat,” he said, opening the door. The room was dark.

  “I’m in here,” she said.

  He went into the bedroom. “Just you?” he demanded, fumbling to find the lamp.

  “Don’t turn the light on.” She was lying on the bed. “Wait a second.” In the darkness she rose up and moved; he was aware of her motions. “Okay,” she said, “I wanted to put something on.” Her voice was relaxed, and she sounded drowsy. “When did you get here? I was asleep.”

  “Where’s Art?” he said, snapping the light on.

  She lay stretched out in the bed, wearing a slip. Her feet were bare. Beside the bed, on the chair, was a neat pile of her clothing; under the slip she had on nothing at all. Her hair, dark and heavy, lay spread out on the pillow. He had never seen her so lacking in turmoil, so content. Smiling, she said, “I sent him home. I gave him money for a cab.”

  “Well,” he said, “you’ve destroyed their marriage.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’m a girl he went with before his marriage Do you see? This is what he missed…do you know that Rachael is the first girl he ever took out?”