30 Pieces of a Novel (62 page)

they
needed anything at the market, because I might have thought they were both in, when she answered it. Though first the peephole opened, probably to make sure no one was with me. She must have stretched on her toes to reach her eye to it, since she was at the most five-one, and then she said, ‘Hold it,' and the door opened and she was nude except for her panties. Jesus! I thought, What the hell's she doing?” and she says, “She wanted you in there, what else? Or she was so laid back that a peek at her bosom didn't mean anything to her. But judging from what this is leading up to, I doubt it. But was she like that, sort of a nudist?” and he says, “I don't know. I mean, she was European, or of descent, from Czechoslovakia, came here when she was five. But she certainly at the moment was nonplussed that I saw her. But there she was, her enormous breasts, which don't mean anything to you but were very exciting to me, and slim panties, more like a bikini. I could see her pubic hair through them and sticking out around them, and of course after I said ‘Excuse me' or something, I wanted to jump her. That's how I was then. That's why I'm so ashamed, or there's a better word for it, but of what I did and continued to do a few times and I could have stopped it right there,” and she says, “But if that was her purpose and you just quickly picked up on it—and that was the climate at the time, if I've got my decades straight—then you're not that much to blame,” and he says, “But he was my friend; I knew him long before I met her,” and she says, “I forgot; that's what you were saying; so I suppose you should have turned around and left, saying you'll come back at a more convenient time, giving her the benefit of the doubt,” and he says, “And that might have been what I would have done too, even though I know I was immediately worked up, but she said, ‘Hi, Andrew's not home, he's out of town for the week'—something like that. And ‘Listen, I can't keep the door open, one of our neighbors might walk by, so if you want to come inside, do.' And I went in—I didn't have to; she gave me that out—and knew we were going to have sex, although at the same time, as you said, I could have thought her nudity meant nothing to her and certainly not among friends. For all I know, if I hadn't quickly moved in on her—I mean, I must have had my arms around her and was pressing my erection into her in the little alcove there—she might have gone and got a bathrobe for herself, invited me to have coffee, just to chat. And she might have been sick—as I said, that's also what I remember from that first time—and so had just hopped out of her sick bed to answer the door and didn't attach any importance to her exposed breasts but had put her panties on along the way, or else already had them on in bed. And friends, up till then, was all we'd been. I liked her. I told you. She was bright, lively, good sense of humor, and was generous, just like him. They'd had me up for dinner a couple of times, had also invited me to parties with them. They must have thought, or one of them did, that I should meet someone, was by myself too much, and so on. I didn't know any women to go out with, then, or anyone who gave parties but them, which is where you do meet women. Though of course if I was that alone, maybe that was my main impetus to have sex with her, and also she could have known or sensed that too—that I had to be horny, or am I pushing the motivations there? But we'd never kissed, hugged, touched: none of that before. Just friends, and not real close ones. When the three of us were together, or when I did bump into her on the street or at a market, we talked a great deal, Clo and I, and I think laughed and joked around a lot too. Our attitudes were somewhat alike; Andrew was a bit more serious. We found it absurd the way people overbought, overdressed, went into debt, put on airs, wanted to impress, were desperate for high-powered jobs and plenty of money and attention and success and those sorts of things, while also not doing much deep thinking or reading. Well, Andrew thought much like that too, though I was far crankier and more judgmental. He was a good guy. I'm telling you, I liked and admired him. I sound phony now, don't I, but believe me, I'm not. I remember they also invited me to a few movies with them. I'd see them on the street or somewhere; they'd say, ‘What are you doing tonight?' I'd say, ‘Nothing,' because I was usually doing nothing, meaning nothing with people, and they'd say they're going to a movie and to come with them. They sat in the theater, she usually between us—I mean, it only happened two or three times—held hands, ate from the same box of popcorn, passed the box to me, though I couldn't stand the smell, sound, or feel of the thing. All of this I swear I remember. Did I ever before that first time think of her in a sexual way? I don't think so. Or, if so, fleetingly: the breasts and strong shape, and I have an imagination and could see what she was built like through her clothes, but with no designs on her, none whatsoever, my personal designs, I'm saying. Why? She was his wife, and maybe up till the moment she opened the door I was never attracted to her,” and she says, “So what it took was for her to take her clothes off; you never once mentioned her face,” and he says, “She had a pleasant one; smiled a lot, but authentically. And I suppose so, regarding the no clothes. And it also might have been the most optimum time, too: he being away, she saying so immediately, maybe something about the light and temperature if not balminess of the day, and my being just before I rang her bell overwhelmingly priapic, though nothing concerning her, and she being the same from the woman's side, which I'm just guessing now, since I don't remember that at all. As for those movies, they went a lot, so it wasn't so unusual for me to go with them a few times, because he was thinking of leaving his job in advertising to try his hand at becoming an independent moviemaker. I think that's why he didn't want any children then.” “And
her
job?” and he says, “Fabrics designer. I think she quit when she started having kids, or continued it at home was what she said when I met her on the subway. I was a substitute teacher at the time. So I had to have had a phone then; no other way I'd get work. And it must have been on a weekend when I went to their apartment, since I subbed almost every schoolday there was, the per-diem pay was so low, and she went to her own work downtown, unless she
was
sick and had taken the day off and that was the one day in the month I wasn't able to get a sub job. So now I forget why I went to their apartment, though I'm still almost sure it was during the day and the weather was warm.” “To have sex, why are you denying it? If she hadn't come to the door half nude—that was an act of fortuity for you—you would have been the one to devise an excuse to get inside. I'd even bet you called first to say you'd like to borrow something—coffee, toothpaste—and she quickly prepared that impromptu surprise for you, knew why you were really coming up but wanted to speed things along a little,” and he says, “Wrong, believe me, that's not how it was. And now, I don't know where it came from—probably from just talking about it—but I think I know why I went upstairs. I wanted to know if they'd be interested in two tickets I had for a recital that night. Myra Hess, at Carnegie Hall or City Center, but I think the Hall; I'd bought them for some woman and me. So I apparently was seeing a woman then or was starting to date one, or that was to be our first date. But she called to say she was sick—that's probably where the sick business comes in, though Clo could have been sick too; an Asian flu could have been floating around—and had to cancel and I didn't want to go alone and try hawking the extra ticket in the lobby, and the truth is I didn't want to go at all. Like the popcorn, there are some things I haven't liked for forty years—ask the kids about me and popcorn in movie theaters today. And though I love classical music and the piano especially and particularly the way Hess played on LPs—I had a few; we still have them though don't use them much and I don't know if any have been transferred to CD—I don't like concerts or recitals of any sort; larger the hall, less I like them. No doubt I only bought the tickets to make an impression on this woman. All right, I was trying to impress her: Dame Myra Hess, if she was a Dame by then; Carnegie Hall; probably Beethoven, Scarlatti. Or maybe she only said she was sick because she disliked concerts and recitals as much as I. That would have been a laugh, if she had told me later, but I don't think I ever saw her after that. By calling in sick she might have been saying it had been a mistake to make the date, if that was to be the first one, and she didn't want to go out with me, period. Anyhow—” and she says, “No, this is what I think happened, if this new version of yours is true. You were already sleeping with this woman you were dating—you don't remember half the women you slept with and almost none of their names. Or you had gone out with her long enough to feel that after the recital would be the first time you slept with her. But when she canceled you knew there'd be no sex that weekend—I'm assuming it was a weekend, a big date and an important recital like that—and you also knew that this Clo … Wait. How come you didn't invite
her
to the recital, once the other one bowed out, if you knew she was going to be alone? Because you didn't want to bother with any preliminaries like that?” and he says, “Because when I went upstairs to their apartment I didn't think she'd be alone. I thought Andrew would be there, or there that night in time for the recital. Now why didn't I invite her when she opened the door and said Andrew was out of town for however long it was? Maybe I did, or was about to or was thinking if I should, but because she was half nude she quickly whisked me inside—the neighbors, remember? But my intention when I rang their bell was that after all the meals they'd had me up for and parties they'd taken me to and so forth, this would be a nice payback to them, two tickets to a great pianist's recital, even if the seats were way up and maybe the second cheapest. Hess was past seventy then, I think, and very fragile—I know she looked much older than she was, you remember the record jacket photographs: bony and gaunt. And this recital was billed as being part of her last American tour and perhaps even her last performance in America ever,” and she says, “So, did you end up taking her to it?” and he says, “No, but I did go myself—I remember sitting in the third or fourth row from the top of the balcony. I don't think I tried to sell the extra ticket in the lobby or out front—no guts to—so just gave it away. That part of it's vague, but what isn't is my feeling so far away from the stage while the music, because it was piped up to us, seemed close. Also, I think Clo was too sick to go and would have construed it as a date or something, once we had made love, since I'm almost positive we did it in the afternoon before the recital. No, I'm sure of it. All she wanted, it seemed, was sex in bed and then for me to disappear. I mean, once I got into the apartment and put my arms around her and started things going with my lips and hands. We also did it another day or night before Andrew came home, and then a couple of other times over the next six months or so when he was away. I forget what led up to them, but that's usually the case and you only remember the first. Though once, when she was sick again and he was away or at work in the city that day and I couldn't get a sub job, or something like that—maybe I didn't even try that day, and not because I knew this would happen—she rang my bell and asked if I had aspirins, she'd run out. This time she definitely had a bad flu, had to stay home from work, I think she said. I said I did—the aspirins—and she came in and was in a bathrobe and I might have seen something through it—a leg, a breast—not that by this time in our little sex affair I needed that to get me going, though it couldn't hurt, and we started kissing, bad flu and all, and she took the aspirins … I'm making the last part up. I know I had aspirins to give her—I don't think I've run out of them in forty years—and I believe that was my last time with her, so the only time in my apartment. I went away for a month that summer—August, an artist colony, always August, my summer vacation retreat those days—and they'd separated by the time I got back and she'd moved out and he kept the apartment, which was originally his, and she quickly got herself a steady boyfriend and married either him or the next one in a year,” and she says, “Did Andrew ever say anything to you about it—hint, at least, that he knew?” and he says, “Never, and it wasn't that I couldn't read the signs—I was fiercely if not even over-obviously on the alert for them—and I never brought it up, since I was already a little ashamed—that started at the artist colony—and after that the shame just grew. Andrew and Harold and his first wife and I did go to a couple of things together that fall after the separation—a movie, maybe, and I think once that Japanese-Californian health food restaurant that was on Columbus between Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth a short time and where you could bring your own sake and beer. I remember they'd even heat up the sake for you and put it in a pretty carafe. Andrew and I, in all the time I knew him, never socialized just the two of us. We weren't that companionable, and I don't think we even felt comfortable together without Clo or Harold there, though we did meet on the street or in the building's vestibule a few times, as we had in the past, and chat briefly and amicably about nothing, really. After that, Harold sort of drifted away from me, which now makes me think he did get wind that I'd slept with Clo, which as I said would have been a definite no-no with him—I could sleep with whomever's wife I wanted to so long as it wasn't a mutual friend's or his own—and also makes me think Andrew told him that that's what he thought I'd done but to keep it a secret. Because he also never mentioned it to me, though he almost had to know, even without Andrew's saying anything, since he knew what I was like then,” and she says, “And what was that?” and he says, “What do you think? That my prick came first, scruples second, when it came to women I was attracted to, though on most other counts I was a fairly to even an avidly scrupulous person. High minded, maybe a bit self-righteous, definitely socially conscious—is that how you say it?—running after robbers, stepping into arguments and trying to reconcile matters if I thought someone was going to get hurt … you know my stories. Helping blind and lame and elderly people cross the street, stopping traffic to do it if I had to. Worried about very young children when I see them alone outdoors, and so on, risking my life and getting a punch in the jaw sometimes too, but it was that or not being able to face myself, I thought. Even with your father, twenty years later, that time the Korean produce store was being robbed and we were all walking past together and saw it and I wanted to run in, and he grabbed my shoulders and said, ‘You have a family now' … I had to be a little crazy, I know, and not just then. So what was I saying?” and she says, “That there was a decent side to you at the time too. But what happened with Andrew after that?” and he says, “He moved out that winter or so. He started making—well, he'd always done well, compared to me, since college—but now a lot of money, and he wanted a better apartment,” and she says, “And to perhaps be out of the house of bad memories and also the same building as you,” and he says, “I don't think people take it that far in New York if they're paying a fairly modest rent with no huge annual jack-ups for a nice large place. No, he wanted something with more light and a better view and a working fireplace and floors he could walk on barefoot without his feet continually getting splinters in them, I think I remember him saying. Their apartment was in back and faced a twenty-story residential hotel. Mine was on the street and got light most of the day but was much noisier and, in the summer, because of the car fumes and the garbage cans right outside, smellier. He got a floor-through in the Village with two fireplaces, a lovely brick townhouse on West Eleventh, I think, but I never saw it, just heard, since he didn't invite me to it and by that time our only mutual friend, Harold, wasn't, as I said, much of a friend to me anymore,” and she says, “Maybe, in addition to how he felt about you sleeping with Andrew's wife, he thought you'd go after his,” and he says, “I'm sure he never worried about it, since he knew that Gwen, his first wife, and I didn't even like each other much, something he actually brought up a couple of times and I probably said, ‘Oh come on, why do you think that?'” and she says, “But sexually? She's