Don't Rely on Gemini (2 page)

“William Lilly. But this is a show about contemporary astrology.”

“Then mention the fact that the Crown Prince of Sikkim and that Hope Cooke postponed their wedding for a year because the astrologers told them to. Things like that.”

“Dru,” Archie had answered, “I have to get down to the nitty-gritty. Leos are lionlike and Pisceans are mystical, and you Cancers are whacked out because the moon rules you.”

She had said, “I'm not whacked out. I'm Rita Reliable, and you know it.”

She was, too.

He could not envision her changing like a changeful season, or letting go without a reason, or any of it.

“Hi!” he said, hugging her in their foyer. “I missed you.”

“Damnit all, Archie, you stopped for a beer!” She pushed him away and walked toward the kitchen, looking more than usual today like Julie Harris fifteen years ago. He followed her. He came up behind her and put his arms around her. “Since when am I disallowed a draft or two at the corner bar?”

“You spoiled the surprise,” she said, taking the Waring blender's pitcher off its stand “Remember the banana daiquiris we had at Wednesday's Saturday night?”

“Now? At two in the afternoon?”

“They're like a dessert. I made them very thick. But the beer taste will spoil it.”

“When did we start drinking after lunch?”

“We'll have them in those long-stemmed blue champagne glasses,” she said. “Reach above you in the cupboard.”

He reached. He said, “Oh, we started drinking after lunch about a year ago, Archie. That's how we became lushes.”

“I don't care if you have had beer. These will be delicious.”

He handed her the glasses.

“We're going to have twins, darling,” she said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about astro-twins. Archie, we got an answer! We've located an astro-twin, right over near Nyack!” “You're kidding! Whose?”

She handed him the pitcher. “Yours. Pour. I'll get the letter.” “Mine?”

“His name is Neal Dana. He was born on May twenty-seventh, 1927, in New York City, at three-thirty
A.M
. Same date, same place, same time. Just different hospitals.”

He stood there with his mouth hanging open, holding the pitcher of banana daiquiris.

“Take the drinks out on the terrace, Arch,” she called after him. “We'll celebrate there.”

It was the first Monday in May.

“Neal? Where are you?”

“I'm in a gas station on Route 9W. Penny, I've got good news!”

“Did you see the Doubleday editor?”

“Yes. He likes the idea, Pen. He really likes it!”

“Will they publish it?”

“I'm going to do an outline for him.”

“Oh, Neal, I'm so excited!”

“I think I can get a contract and an advance.”

“Really?”

“Not much of an advance.”

“Darling, that would really make it official, wouldn't it?” “I probably won't get more than a thousand dollars.” “It's not the money, Neal.” “I know.”

“You're going to be famous, Neal. I feel it!” He laughed. “Hold on. I've got to write the book first.” “Don't laugh,” she said. “Some night I'll turn on my television and there you'll be on Johnny Carson.” “Sure. Uh huh.”

“Just like that doctor who wrote
Games People Play.”

“Oh, Pen, my stuff isn't that commercial.” “Who says so? I think it's fascinating.”

“I've got to write the book first. Maybe I can't even write a book.”

“You wrote a thesis … Oh, Neal, I wish we could see each other tonight.”

“Wednesday's not far away. Margaret will be going into New York for her Italian class.”

“Who says it's not far away? Neal, I
miss
you.”

“Then stop by the clinic tomorrow and pick me up for lunch.”

“Do you mean it?”

“Around twelve-thirty.”

“I love you, Neal.”

“I love
you,
Penny.”

Did he?

• • •

Neal Dana took a right off 9W and drove his English Ford Consul down a winding hill into the town of Piermont, New York. Then he swung onto River Road, heading for Grandview-on-Hudson, in between Piermont and Nyack.

Dr. Dana (Ph.D.) was a psychologist attached to the Rock-Or clinic in Nyack. It was a private clinic, primarily an outpatient setup, but there were resident patients in the thirty-bed hospital, and seven private cottages on the grounds housing three patients each.

Rockland Countyites called it “Wethead Haven” because of the high percentage of alcoholics treated there, but the clinic had its share of catatonics, paranoids, and other schizophrenics, as well as miscellaneous neurotics who were teetering on the brink of psychosis.

It was an expensive clinic. Until a year ago, Rock-Or accepted no charity cases. Largely through Neal's efforts the rule had been relaxed to admit a few in residence and many more for consultation.

Penny's brother, Forrest Bissel, a chronic petty larcenist with a prison record, had been one of the first charity patients assigned to Neal. Forrest was twenty-two, one year younger than Penny. Both of them had been “battered children,” or children who had been beaten by one or more adults—in Penny's and Forrest's case, by Clarence Bissel, their father.

Penny still lived with her father in a small apartment in downtown Nyack. The mother was dead. Forrest had a room in Piermont, where he worked for Continental Can.

If Neal Dana had rehabilitated Forrest Bissel, Penny Bissel had rehabilitated Neal Dana. She had changed him from a middle-aged psychologist with the bitter regret that he was not an M.D. to a young man in his early forties who was just beginning to realize his potential as a therapist. And a writer—there was that now, too. Penny had convinced him that his long study of the psychological meaning of everyday mannerisms could be made into an interesting book.

On this first Monday in May he had finally done something about it.

He would have liked to celebrate this small triumph over his own self-doubts. He would choose to celebrate it by buying a bottle of champagne and enjoying a leisurely dinner while he detailed the day's happenings, then brandy on the upper porch overlooking the Hudson, watching the lights of traffic on the graceful, low-slung Tappan Zee bridge and the shore lights of Tarrytown … then bed, and the easy, warm lovemaking of two people a little high and awfully happy.

But Margaret was on a perpetual diet and refused to “waste calories” on alcohol. She never cleared the table before he was finished, but she always sat there politely, impatient to clear; she ate quickly and talked very little during a meal. Afterward she always had a project to attend to: something she was learning, or fixing, or beginning, or finally getting around to. They made love often, but not for long any more. Horizontally, Margaret was not very much different from the way she was vertically. She was efficient, controlled, and courteous.

She never failed to brush her teeth and gargle when it was over.

The house was at the top of a long, winding hill. It was small, more like a cottage, yellow with white shutters and a certain precious dollhouse look to it. Red roses climbed a trellis along one side. It was encircled by woods, and behind it was a small, round swimming pool, a white wooden summer house with built-in benches, and Margaret's extensive vegetable garden and flowerbeds.

Neal Dana shifted gears for the steep climb and honked his horn as the sign at the bottom of the hill directed, to warn anyone starting down that you were starting up. The neighbors' new Doberman pinscher came snarling across their wide lawn to give chase to the car.

• • •

“How did it go, dear?” Margaret's new brown dress matched her hair.

“Fine!” he said. “I'm going to do an outline.”

“Marvelous, Neal! … Do you want plain squash with your steak, or squash with onions and tomatoes?”

“Oh, I don't care.” He put his briefcase on a chair and looked at his mail. “I wish Minnie Nickerson would do something about her dog.”

“Decide how you want your squash. The coals are ready, dear.”

“It's only quarter to six, Margaret.”

“Do you mind awfully? I have my language records to work on after dinner, and I want to finish the Goodavage book.” “Will I have time for a shower?” “A quick one. Don't putter, Neal.”

He left the bill from Abercrombie unopened. He had ordered a velours shirt from there for Penny. Margaret paid the bills, but she never opened anything addressed to him. He would sneak the envelope into his briefcase at some point and send a check from the office.

It had been risky to charge and send that way. The receiver's name and address were probably marked across the sales slip. Neal realized it had been too risky to be accidental; a part of him wanted Margaret to know, was inviting a showdown.

Not yet.

It was too soon. He had only known Penny for six months. There was a twenty-year age difference. There was his position at Rock-Or. There were nineteen years of marriage. There was—Lord, so very much involved. What was he doing, anyway, even thinking about Penny and himself that way?

“Plain squash or squash with onions and tomatoes?” Margaret asked.

“I don't care.”

“Which one?”

“Plain squash.”

“Well, you don't have to bite my head off, Neal.”

• • •

There was always a clean cloth on the table, and linen napkins.

“No pieces with fat on them, dear,” Margaret said, passing him her plate.

He served her some of the charcoaled steak, a helping of squash, and some new potatoes.

“Put three potatoes back, dear … Tell me what the editor said.”

“I'm going to do an outline.” “Neal, I
said
put three back.”

“I put two back. You're not going to eat just one little potato?”

“Put the other back. I
am
going to eat just one.” “All right, here.” “Thank you.”

“I think I'll get a contract and an advance.”

“I couldn't be more pleased.”

“Not much of an advance. A thousand dollars, fifteen hundred.” “That isn't much, is it?” “They don't pay much.”

“Doubleday? They're one of the biggest publishing houses in the world.”

“Publishers in general. They don't pay much.”

“Dear, they
do
pay considerably more than that. I read where they paid Harold Robbins something like four hundred thousand for just an idea.”

“Margaret, I'm not Harold Robbins. I'm not Jacqueline Susann, either.”

“There ought to be a happy medium between one thousand and four hundred thousand all the same.”

“They pay more for novels.”

“I wonder what they paid for
Our Crowd?”

“It isn't the money that's important, is it?”

She looked across at him and smiled, closed her eyes and opened them, and said, “Of course not.”

Margaret always winked with both eyes at the same time. As much as Neal had studied the psychological importance of everyday mannerisms, that was one of Margaret's everyday gestures he couldn't figure out. Was she begging “enough!” in a very civilized way, or indicating that when she opened her eyes whatever it was that had been there before she closed them, wouldn't be there any more?

The latter, perhaps, for she was changing the subject now.

“There's something missing, and you haven't even commented on it.”

But he wanted to talk about what had happened at Doubleday. He said, “Of course the thousand wouldn't be all I'd get if the book were successful.”

“Don't you wonder where Sinister is?”

Sinister was their parrot. He amused Neal, but Neal could live without him. He required live worms in his diet, which Margaret kept in a jar in the refrigerator, and if he felt left out of things he whistled and sang at the top of his lungs and called out, “I'm Sinister! I love the view!” “Where is he?” Neal said.

Margaret broke into baby talk. “Him's at the vet's. Him is getting a pedicure and him's getting a dip, and him has to stay overnight.”

It was totally un-Margaret to speak that way; in the five months they had owned Sinister, Neal had never recovered from the shock of hearing her purr and whine when she talked to or about the bird.

It was hard for Margaret, of course. She was forty now. She had never been able to carry a baby. She had made four tries before her gynecologist discouraged the idea of her ever having children.

Both Neal and Margaret had been disheartened by it. But it was worse for a woman. Neal supposed that was why she kept herself so busy with all her projects and why she fussed so about her figure. You couldn't blame her for being self-absorbed. Unlike Neal, she received no gratification of the sort he found in his work, in helping people. Gardening and cooking and keeping house could be stretched just so far … So Margaret studied languages and measured herself and fawned over Sinister, and read books on astrology and the occult.

Neal said, “Is he at Dr. Halliday's?”

“Yes. Him knew, too. Him trembled all the way over there.” “He'll be all right.”

“You didn't even notice him was gone.” “I'm sorry, dear.”

Back to her normal tone then. “Neal, how's that little girl whose brother you helped?”

“Penny Bissel? I suppose she's fine.” “Do you ever see her?”

“She drops in from time to time. In fact, I think she's coming by the clinic tomorrow … What made you think of her?” “I spoke to him the other day in town.” “Forrest?”

“Is that his first name? I was in Piermont. He passed me on the street.”

“He knew who you were?”

“Oh, yes. He gave me a very nice hello.”

“Forrest Bissell said hello to you?”

“Yes … And he asked how you were.”

“I see … Strange.”

“He's a Scorpio.”

“What?”

“He's a Scorpio.”

“Margaret, you're not making any sense!”

She did that same thing again with her eyes, closing them and then opening them. “What are you yelling at me for, Neal?”

“I'm sorry … I just don't understand.”

“He was born October twenty-seventh, that's all. Which makes him a Scorpio.”

“Margaret, how would you know when Forrest Bissel was born?”

“You're overreacting, Neal.”

“Well, did you have a long conversation with him or what?” “I do believe you're jealous.”

“Margaret, he is
not
a very reliable character, that's all. He has no business starting conversations with you!”

She smiled. “He didn't start a conversation, Neal. I overheard him telling some man that he was saving his money to go to Europe: that he was going to leave on his birthday, October twenty-seventh … that's all.”

Neal didn't say anything. His heart was beating fast.

Margaret said, “I wish you liked astrology better.”

“Why?”

“Because one day I might surprise you.”

But he was not listening to her now. He was thinking that if a part of him did want a showdown, a much larger part didn't, because for a moment in their conversation he had imagined they were on their way to one, and instantly he had told himself to deny everything, and then end things with Penny Bissel for once and for all.