The Last Good Kiss (32 page)

murmured, "but since you didn't ask, I feel somehow

obligated to tell you."

173

"Old Chinese interrogation tactic," I said, and she

chuckled and slapped me on the belly.

"Be serious," she said, .still chuckling. "I'm about to

tell you the story of my life."

"Okay."

"We met during the war, you see," she said as she

leaned over to stub her cigarette out. "I was still a

child , only eighteen, but already widowed. My first

husband was one of those smart young men from

Carmel who stabled his polo ponies and dashed off to

join the RCAF, visions of the Lafayette Escadiille

dancing in his head. In the excitement of his departure,

he took my virginity, then with a burst of daylight

remorse he drove us up to Reno, where he made an

honest woman of me. Six months later, his Spitfire went

down into the Channel during Dunkirk. It was like

something out of a novel at the time, and I suppose it

still seems that way to me.

"Then I met Trahearne, and it seemed like the next

scene," she continued. "To the horror of everyone

concerned, I married him still wearing widow's weeds,

then sent him too off to the war."

"You're the woman on the bridge," I whispered.

"Oh, he told you that absurd story too," she said. "I

didn't know what it all meant to him, but something

inside me knew what to do."

"I wonder who the woman in the window was," I

said absently.

"His mother, of course," Catherine answered softly.

"Jesus Christ," I said , then sat up and fumbled for

another cigarette. "That's why I'm not curious," I said.

"I find out too many things I don't want to know as it is.

Jesus Christ."

"I don't suppose it was that terrible," she chided me.

"And it was such a long time ago. Trahearne only acts

as if it was so important because he's never been able to

write about it."

174

"Let's get back to the war," I said, "something I can

understand. "

"Four long years of wretched fidelity," she said,

"then another fifteen years while he worked out his

guilt because I could be faithful and he simply couldn't.

I don't think I minded his whoring, you know, not

nearly so much as I minded his guilty rages of which I

was the object of hatred. It wasn't an easy life at all. "

She took my cigarette from me. "One day two years

ago he called from Sun Valley to tell me that he was

divorcing me. I wasn't surprised; he had done that sort

of thing before. This time, though, he went through

with it, and let me tell you, he paid dearly for it. I

stripped him , as he said, like a grizzly strips a salmon,

left him wearing fish eyes and bones. That might have

been enough to bring him back, but he had already

remarried before he realized just how badly I had taken

him. Now he has a wife who is as recklessly unfaithful

as he is, so he doesn't have to feel guilty anymore, and

he hasn't written a word worth keeping in two years.

It's driving him quite mad, I suspect."

"And you're living with his mother," I said in

amazement.

"Edna was quite kind to me during all those years,"

Catherine said, "and it was the least I could do. She

was more like a mother than my own had been, a�d

living with her, I can keep an eye on Trahearne. I have

my freedom now, more money than I can possibly

spend before I die, and I also have my revenge. " She

paused and rolled over to hold me, saying, "Don't let

them tell you that revenge isn't sweet, either. "

"You still love the old fart," I said.

"Of course," she said as she straddled my hips, "but

I love this, too. You don't mind, do you?"

The complications and confusion worried me a bit,

but Catherine was a sweet and loving woman, her

passion fired by the years when she had kept it banked,

175

and during the night I didn't seem to mind at all. The

next morning, though, when she checked out of her

motel and moved her bags into my apartment, I had a

few doubts. We laid those to rest, though, for the next

three days. She cooked a better breakfast than Trahearne and she was easier to get along with, but I had to admit that I was relieved when she announced that

she had to fly back to Seattle, then home. It wasn't until

we were standing in the airport terminal that I realized

how much I was going to miss her.

"Somehow, this stopped being a weekend fling," I

said as we watched the passengers disembark from her

flight.

"I know, I know," she said, squeezing my hand

angrily. "It sounds so terribly trite, but I wish I had met

you twehty years ago. It's not only trite, it's a lie. Thirty

years ago would be closer to the mark, and you didn't

have your first pair of long pants yet."

"I was born an old man," I said, but she ignored me.

"You or somebody like you might have saved me

from this damned emotional martyrdom I seem to have

chosen," she said bitterly. Then it was time to go, and

she presented me with a tilted cheek for a matronly

goodbye kiss. "We'll pretend you were some anonymous lover I picked up in a cocktail lounge," she said.

"Whatever you say."

"This is goodbye," she said, then tilted her cheek

toward me again.

"To hell with that," I said as I grabbed her shoulders

and kissed her on the mouth so hard that it blurred the

careful lines of her lips, mussed her hair, and made her

drop her carry-on bag.

"You bastard," she muttered when she caught her

breath and picked up her bag. A blush rose up her

slender neck like a flame, touching her cheeks with

umber sweetly burnt. She reached up to wipe my

mouth, repeating, "You bastard. That was the last

176

one." Then she walked through the security check and

boarded the airplane without glancing back.

As she climbed the steps, I swallowed some dumb

pain and walked away too.

Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long

enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage,

my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an

empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my

tongue. She still loved Trahearne, still maintained her

secret fidelity as if it were a miniature Japanese pine, as

tiny and perfect as a porcelain cup, lost in the dark and

tangled corner of a once-formal garden gone finally to

seed.

After she left, I wandered around in a dull haze for

days, telling myself what an idiot I was, trying to

swallow with measured amounts of whiskey the stone in

my chest. It was June in Montana, high enough up the

steps of the northern latitudes to pass for cruel April.

Blue skies ruled stupidly, green mountains shimmered

like mirages, and the sun rose each morning to stare

into my face with the blank but touching gaze of a

lovely retarded child. I drove down to Elko to try to

find a landscape to suit my mood, but the desert had

bloomed with a spring rain and the nights were cool and

ringing with stars. I put Rosie's eighty-seven dollars in a

dollar slot machine and hit a five-hundred-dollar jackpot. Then I fled to the most depressing place in the West, the Salt Lake City bus terminal, where I drank

Four Roses from a pint bottle wrapped in a paper bag. I

couldn't even get arrested, so I headed up to Pocatello

to guzzle Coors like a pig at a trough with a gang of jack

Mormons, thinking I could pick a fight, but I didn't

have the heart for it. Eventually, none the worse for

wear, I drifted north toward Meriwether like a saddle

tramp looking for a spring roundup.

177

1 � ••••

ONE OF THE ADVANTAGES OF MY BUSINESS WAS THAT IT

didn't leave me much inclined to mourn lost loves too

long. Back in town, I worked a couple of divorces and

repossessed a few televisions from households where

domestic strife was the commodity of exchange. It

worked like a charm. My cynicism restored itself, and

my bank account remained flush. Then Traheame

called one afternoon.

"Hey, I'm sorry I left the cabin in such a snit," he

said.

"Looked more like a funky blue huff," I said.

"Always with the jokes, Sughrue," he complained.

"When are you coming up to get your damned dog?"

"My dog?" I said. "You stole him, old man, you

bring him back."

"Not a chance. I'm at home for as long as I can

manage it," he said.

"How's Fireball?"

"Last time I saw him, he was the bull of the woods

around here."

"The last time?"

"Yeah, he took to Melinda like a long lost'brother,"

he said, "and they're off on a little trip. You know how

Fireball likes to travel."

178