The Lake Shore Limited (16 page)

As if she were feeling the connection, too, Leslie leaned forward. "I like your hair," Leslie said. "Cut that way."

Billy's hand went up as if of its own volition and touched her hair. "I'm dyeing it now," she said.
Completely irrelevant, Billy
.

Leslie sighed. "I probably should be, too. Mine's gotten so white."

"But it's a
beautiful
white," Billy said. "Pure as the driven snow." She could hear the nervous, jazzed quality in her own voice. She hoped no one else could.

It seemed not. Pierce and Sam had started to talk across the table--they were at opposite ends--about the approaching primary elections, the odd assortment of candidates in both parties. Leslie said she and Pierce had gone to see Hillary Clinton in Hanover and were impressed.

"I can't vote for Hillary," Billy said. "Not after the Iraq vote."

"For Christ's sake, Billy," Pierce said. "Everyone voted for the war."

"Well, clearly a majority did. But not everyone."

"Who didn't?" Leslie asked.

"How soon they forget," Billy said. "Your buddy Patrick Leahy. My buddy Ted Kennedy. Paul Wellstone. Barbara Boxer. A bunch of the good guys."

"Mikulski did, too, I think," Sam said. "And Chafee."

"Right." She looked at him appreciatively. "And a couple of others. It wasn't a done deal at all. It really mattered, how Hillary voted."

"But didn't she sort of have to, really?" Leslie asked.

"Hillary?"

"Yes. Because of being a woman. Not to be a wimp."

"Not to be a woman, anyway," Sam said.

"But I
hate
that! It's so strategic." Her voice was too loud.
Pull it in, pull it in
. She lowered it, spoke calmly. "No, I'm for Obama. Ever since that convention speech. Plus he's my homey--from Hyde Park, just like me."

Sam offered the preposterousness of Mitt Romney as a candidate, and Pierce joined in trashing him. They moved on to Fred Thompson, and he got it, too. Billy started to relax a bit. She had the sense of an opening up of the evening, a kind of freely moving conversation spurred by politics--she loved politics, for this and other reasons--so she was surprised when Leslie was suddenly standing by her chair, lifting her coat from it, making excuses for herself and Pierce. She was tired, it was past their bedtime.
No, no, Billy and Sam must stay
, she said. Pierce was standing now too, pulling out his wallet, joking about how expensive the hotel was, saying that they had to get to bed as soon as possible to get their money's worth.

Sam and Pierce argued briefly about the money that Pierce tried to set down, but Pierce won--he simply wouldn't take the handful of bills back. Billy slid off her chair while Pierce helped Leslie on with her coat. Then she was lifting her face to Leslie's cheek, to Pierce's--and they were on their way, one last wave before they were out the door, into the dark night.

Leaving Billy and what she supposed was her
date
. She got up onto her high seat again. They were silent for a few seconds. Too long. "If we're going to stay," she said, "I'd like another drink." She knew this was a bad idea. She'd had almost no supper, hours earlier--half a tuna-fish sandwich consumed standing in the kitchen, Reuben watching the slightest shift of the hand holding the bread.

"Are we going to stay?" He was looking at her, truly asking.

"I suppose we should. We've been instructed to, anyway."

He laughed and raised his hand to signal the waitress.

When she'd come over again and taken their order, he turned to her. "Now that I've got you alone," he said, "let me ask you about the play."

"Okay."

"Would you say it had a
happy ending?
We were arguing about it."

She couldn't tell if he actually cared or was just being polite, so she didn't know whether to try to explain it to him, what she had wanted, and then the surprise of how it had gone tonight. What she said was "Maybe. I guess I don't really think of it as an ending, anyway. More a beginning, maybe."

"A lot of maybes there." His eyes were unreadable through his old-fashioned spectacles. "But then I suppose it's not really fair, is it, to ask the playwright what the play means."

Billy thought this was generous of him. She'd been evasive and he was being generous. She should be generous. She said, "It's fair enough. And it's probably time the
playwright
worked up a quick, deft explanation for wider consumption. Hey, what
is
my play about?"

"And?"

The waitress came then, with their wine.

Billy leaned back as she set their glasses down. And then she proceeded to do a little housecleaning, picking up around them a little, taking away Pierce and Leslie's glasses and silverware, their napkins, giving the table a quick swipe with a towel.

"A clean slate," he said when she'd left.

They didn't speak for a moment or two. Billy had a sip of wine and glanced around the room. It was getting late for a Tuesday night. There was only one other table still occupied, and two couples at the bar, plus a lone drinker chatting to the bartender. He was someone Billy saw a lot by himself in the bars in this part of the neighborhood.
When you're by yourself in these same bars
, she reminded herself.

She looked at Sam, apparently pondering his wine. Everything felt awkward, suddenly. She needed to do something, something to make it easier. "What's Leslie up to, do you think?" she asked. "Has she
donated
us to each other?"

He looked surprised for just a few seconds. He said, "It felt something like that, didn't it?"

"So are you in any sense
hers
to donate?"

He raised his shoulders, his eyebrows.
Who knows?
"Are you?" he asked.

She considered it. "Well, maybe
she
thinks so. I was her brother's ... girlfriend, I suppose you have to say. Though that's such a ridiculous word.
Fiancee
, by her lights. So she feels, I guess, a combination of things about me. Affection, I believe, as I do for her. But also worry. Responsibility." She had some more wine and set the glass down. "I don't mean I think she owes me any of those things. But that's who she is. What she's like. As you no doubt know, if you know her." He nodded, a slight smile on his lips. "The deal is, Gus was supposed to love me forever, according to her. To take care of me. He died. Now who will do that? I think that's some of it." She pointed at him. "Now you," she said.

"Me what?"

"Now you explain why she thinks she can give you to me."

"That's easy," he said. "I'm an age-appropriate single man. An old friend. It's not so surprising she'd try to fix us up."

"But you didn't know about it."

"I didn't. She said a friend had a play being performed, would I join them, and perhaps we'd all have a drink together afterward."

She felt more comfortable suddenly, knowing he hadn't been in on it, hadn't agreed to it. She looked at him appraisingly. "So, are you more an old friend of Pierce's, or of Leslie's?"

"Both." He looked a little sheepish for a second, she thought. What was
that
about? "More Leslie. I met her first. I know her better." He was frowning, considering something. "She was kind to me when my marriage was falling apart. She and Pierce both were. But more Leslie, yes."

"When was that?"

"Oh, it was years ago. My wife and I built a house together near them in Vermont--I'm an architect--and before it was even finished, the marriage was collapsing. Leslie had sold us the land--she was working in real estate at the time--and as it turned out, she was more interested in the house than Claire, than my wife, was. Interested in the process, in the design, in the building of it, and so forth. We saw a lot of each other over that year and a half or so. I was up there every few weeks." His face had changed. She had the quick thought that it was like Gabriel's--Rafe's--when he was remembering Elizabeth. "I suppose you could say I had a kind of ... crush on her. Though that makes me sound like a ten-year-old." He dipped his head, smiled ruefully. "Which I might have just about been for a couple of months after my marriage ended." He looked at her. "But nothing ever happened between us."

"You don't need to tell me that."

"Well, it didn't."

"I mean, I think I know that. Or at any rate, it seems--it would seem--unlikely to me that Leslie would be unfaithful to Pierce." She gave a little snort. "Talk about codependency."

"Aka love."

"I take your point." She was enjoying this. Him. "It is a hideous word, isn't it? 'Codependency.'" She took some bread from the plate Pierce had ordered and spread it with some soft, blue-veined cheese. "Wordlet," she said. She pushed the plate toward him. "Phrase. How long were you married?"

"That time? About four years, total." He started to help himself to some bread and cheese, too.

"
'That time.'
There were other times?"

"One, other time." He looked up at her quickly. "My first wife died."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Again.
"That
will shut me up."

"No. It was a long time ago. And you?" He sat back, bread in hand. He seemed relaxed, physically. He'd turned his body to the side, his legs stretched out. And out and out, she thought.

"Marriage?" she asked.

"Yes."

"One. Young. Disastrous. A bully." Her husband's face went by, sneering. "I thought it was romantic, fool that I was, to be married to a complete jerk."

"You would have to explain the romantic part of that to me."

"Oh." Billy remembered herself then quickly, the way she had thought about it, getting married to Steve. It was hard to believe she'd been so dumb. "The difficult man. You know. Women have been sold a bill of goods about difficult men. Heathcliff. Rochester. Marlon Brando in
Streetcar
. Well, Marlon Brando in anything.
On the Waterfront
. God." She took a bite of the bread and cheese.
"One-Eyed Jacks,"
she said with her mouth full.

"Your character tonight was difficult."

"Gabriel?" she said. She shook her head and lifted her hand to tell him to wait. When she'd chewed and swallowed, she said, "I think his wife may be more difficult, actually. That he's become difficult partly in response to her. Or so I saw it."

"Well, you're the writer. Isn't the way you see it necessarily the truth of the matter?"

"Yes. But also no. I mean, I write it a certain way. I think of it a certain way. But then it can change depending on who the actors are, how they say things. How they feel them. Depending on who's directing it, even. Maybe especially that." She thought of Edmund, his face, frowning at her about sleeping with Rafe. She thought of Rafe. Suddenly she wanted to explain this to Sam, what had happened on the stage, how miraculous it had seemed to her.

"Like tonight." She leaned forward a little, elbows on the table. He shifted slightly, as if in response to her. "Like the way Rafe--the actor, the guy playing Gabriel--said that last thing:
Elizabeth
. It was, to me, fantastic. I mean, I wrote it, of course. I even wrote how I wanted him to say it. But in the end, it's just a word." He was watching her attentively. "Not even a word, actually. A name. And he said it ... perfectly. Wonderfully. It was ..." She gave a little half laugh, an expulsion of breath, and his face lifted. "I felt, 'So
that's
what I meant.' It was so clear to me all of a sudden. A revelation." Suddenly, absurdly, she felt almost tearful. This embarrassed her, and because of that, she made her voice tough and said, "Maybe I should sleep with him before every performance."

Sam's face changed. He sat up straighter. "Well," he said. He cleared his throat. "Yes. I guess you should."

"Oh, Christ," she said. She reached over and almost touched his sleeve. "I shouldn't have said that." Her lips tightened.
I will grow old and die
, she thought,
still doing this foot-in-mouth thing
. She thought of Edmund again. "I said it earlier tonight, too, to someone else. Apparently it's a
line
I'm trying out."

He looked at her for a moment, and then he smiled. A tentative smile, at best.

And she realized that he thought she'd been joking. Joking about the whole thing. She couldn't let him think that. "I mean, it
is
true. I did sleep with him." She watched as his face changed again. "Not that it meant anything." She sighed, and shook her head. "I mean, it did mean something, but it didn't ... change anything, for him or for me." She met his eyes, neutral behind the glasses. Waiting, it seemed. She lifted her hands, slightly. "We were lonely. We slept together. Once. But I made my little unfunny
joke
because I really, truly am so grateful for the way he said that line, the last line, tonight. It seems to me it's what I meant, but without knowing that I meant it. That he was able to make it contain ... so much. Love, yes. But capitulation, giving up, giving in. Loss." She was remembering the moment again, she saw Rafe's face. "Sorrow for himself and for her. And relief. Love. Did I say that? A kind of joy." She shrugged. "I don't know." She stopped. After a moment, she asked him, "Didn't you think all of that was there?"

"I did, yes. I think so. But I would have thought ... you intended it. All that."

"Well, now it seems so clear, I must have. Or I would have wanted to. But it was Rafe who saw it. Who read it that way. Who made it contain that." She brought her hand down on the table.
"God
, I love the theater."

After a moment, he said, "Well. We certainly seem to have covered a lot of territory here."

"Mea culpa. You've been a model of restraint."

"I've been an open book. Not that I wanted to be."

"Not so! You've told me the bare minimum. The number of marriages and the way they ended."

"And Leslie."

She waved her hand. "Leslie."

"No, actually I think I was too dismissive of it to you. Since you've been so honest ..."