Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (7 page)

    The spaghetti she was cooking reminded me that I hadn't eaten much today. She was one hell of a cook.

    I started to say I was sorry but she stopped me. "You don't owe me an apology. You had a perfectly good reason for getting drunk. Your heart was broken." Then she smiled. "But the story doesn't end there."

    "What story, Mrs. Goldman?"

    "You and Pamela."

    "Pamela?"

    "Guess who's upstairs in your apartment?"

    "You're kidding."

    "About half an hour ago, she knocked on my door and asked if I'd let her in. Which was kind of funny because I thought I'd heard noises before that. Must be those mice you're always telling me about."

    We have this running joke about my rent being lowered because of the mice - some of which, I claim from time to time, are the size of ponies.

    "Anyway, she's waiting for you up there."

    "I wonder what's wrong."

    "Gosh, McCain. Look on the bright side. Maybe she decided you're the one she really loves."

    I wouldn't allow myself to even think about it. I'm the one she really loves after all. Sure, and Dick Nixon has a portrait of Trotsky hanging in his office.

    I pushed the candy and roses at her. "I am sorry about this morning."

    She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, leaned far enough that her left breast brushed against me. Her breasts weren't particularly big but they sure were nice. "You're crazy, you know that? You can't afford things like this."

    "My pleasure." I looked up the stairs leading to my second-floor apartment. "Wish me luck."

    "Just remember." She laughed. "I love weddings."

    "I'll be sure and mention that to her."

    "Good luck. And thanks for the flowers."

    The stairs. And Pamela waiting at the top of them. But why? Not that she didn't drop by from time to time, she did. But not at this time of day. And she never stayed if I wasn't there. Could it be possible that Mrs. Goldman was right? That Pamela had finally perceived me as the truly wonderful guy I really am, superior in all ways (except for being able to beat the shit out of this phony FBI agent named Rivers) to all other beings of the male persuasion?

    I wanted to dance up the stairs the way Donald O'Connor did in Singin' in the Rain and take her in my arms and kiss her as she'd never let me kiss her before.

    But I was still aching from the run-in with Rivers and I needed to pee pretty bad and I had the beginnings of a headache. Other than that, I was a midwestern girl's dream man.

    The door was unlocked. I pushed it inward. Darkness.

    "What's that word they use in the movies for when somebody messes up your apartment while they're looking for something?" Pamela said from the couch.

    "You mean tossed?"

    "Right. Tossed. That's what somebody did to your apartment."

    "Aw, shit."

    "But don't turn on the light, OK? I need to talk to you and I can't do it if the lights're on. And I owe you about a third of a bottle of bourbon."

    "That's a lot for you."

    She giggled. Only then did I realize she was bombed. "And for you. You can't hold your liquor any better than I can." Then she said, "I shouldn't be laughing."

    "Why not?"

    "Have a drink with me first."

    You have to appreciate how strange this all was. Her being let into my apartment. Her drinking my bourbon. Her getting drunk. I'd never seen her even tight before. Women who wear those cute little white gloves everywhere they go shouldn't be allowed to get drunk. It's against their charter.

    I stumbled a couple times getting myself a glass, and I tripped getting back to the couch and the bottle. By then, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Pale moonlight gave a ghostly glow to her white slip. And that's all she appeared to be wearing.

    She said, "I want you to make love to me."

    "What?"

    "You heard me."

    "Pamela, are you all right?"

    "All these years you've been begging me to make love and now I throw myself at you and you say no?"

    "I'm not saying no, Pamela. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on here."

    "I'm a home wrecker, that's what's going on here."

    "You're not a home wrecker."

    "Oh, yes, I am. Just like Barbara Stanwyck."

    "I thought it was Alexis Smith."

    "It was Alexis Smith. But I saw another movie last night. Barbara Stanwyck was an even bigger home wrecker than Alexis Smith." Then: "Pour yourself a drink."

    I poured myself a drink.

    "Do you have the things?"

    "Things?"

    "You know, Trojans."

    "Pamela, we really should talk first."

    "All these years, McCain, all these years. And you finally get your chance and you say no… Oh, God."

    "What?"

    "I'm going to be sick."

    "I'll help you."

    "No! I don't want you to see me sick, for God's sake. That's what'd come to your mind every time you saw me."

    "No, it wouldn't. I've helped lots of people puke."

    "That isn't something I'd brag about."

    She barely made it. She tripped too, over stuff that had been strewn across the floor by an intruder. He'd even left a faint stench behind. Honoring my commitment to live in a cave, I found a flashlight in my kitchenette drawer (don't you love that word, kitchenette?) and started tallying up the damage. Tender and loving he hadn't been. At least the cats were okay. I found them cowering under the bed. He went through drawers, firing everything back over his shoulder. He went in, around, and through all the furniture. And he had no hesitation about dumping out my sugar and flour, looking for whatever hidden treasure drove him onward.

    As for Pamela, she was real serious about me not participating in her vomiting. She ran both faucets and the shower, which blocked out all other sounds. She was in there a good twenty minutes, during which time I picked up the phone and called the Judge.

    She had one of her midweek cocktail parties going, mostly other judges and lawyers from Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. Men of the Republican species, mostly. Her man Abernathy took my call. "At the moment, she's showing Judge Reinhold how to cha-cha."

    "Tell her it's important."

    "Between you and me, I think she has a crush on Judge Reinhold."

    "Ah. How sweet. Interrupt her anyway."

    She came on the line a few minutes later. "McCain, I realize that you're not acquainted with the folkways of civilized people, but seven-thirty-five in the evening is a vulgar time to be interrupting." She was flying high on brandy and the charms of Judge Reinhold, whoever he might be.

    "I need you to call your friend J. Edgar and confirm an agent of his."

    "And this can't wait till tomorrow?"

    "You're in court from eight on. He'll be busy and you'll be busy and it'll be another day before this guy gets identified."

    She sighed. "All right." I could hear loud cha-cha music in the background. "Give me the man's name."

    I gave her Rivers's full name. I also gave her a description. The music continued to blare. I imagined all those judges doing the cha-cha in their black robes.

    "I'll call him first thing in the morning."

    I said, "So how're you and Judge Reinhold getting along?"

    "That damned Abernathy. He's worse than Louella Parsons. Gossip gossip gossip. We're just good friends. We belong to the same riding club here and the same yachting club in Florida. Now, is there anything else your dirty little mind would like to know?"

    

    

    Pamela was still in the john. I turned on the TV. Two cowboy shows and a detective show. I turned it off. Couldn't concentrate on anything except the prospect of making love.

    Since fourth grade I'd loved her. Emotionally I loved her, spiritually I loved her, sexually I loved her. And here was my chance - so why hadn't I just dragged her right across my messy floor into my messy bed?

    She came out a very different girl than she'd gone in. Wore a button-down shirt of mine. Long golden hair now pulled back into a chignon. Exuding sobriety. I could tell all this even in the darkness. "You have a cigarette? I ran out."

    "Sure." I gave her a cigarette.

    "Mind if I make some coffee?"

    "Not at all. But I've just got instant."

    "That's fine." She put on the teakettle. Made herself a cup, silent all the while. Went back and sat down on the couch.

    "You figured it out yet?" she said.

    "Figured what out yet?"

    "Why I'm here?"

    "I guess not."

    She sighed and took another sip of coffee. Picked up another Lucky from my pack. I extended my Zippo lighter.

    She sat back against the couch, closed her eyes, smoked her cigarette. The shirttails didn't extend far down her legs. I could see her panties. Lust was getting the best of me.

    "He went home and told his wife about me and then she told him about an affair she'd been having, and then they both realized what terrible people they'd been as spouses and as parents. So practically in the middle of the night, they went to see their pastor - you know that Episcopalian, Reverend Loughgren - and they told him everything and he blessed them and now they're happily married again. My reputation is zilch in this town now. Zilch. And I come from a good family, too."

    No tears. No dramatics. She sort of laid it all out, in fact. "So what do I do? I come over here and sit around practically naked and offer myself to you. Now that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Thanks for not taking me up on it. You're a real gentleman. It wouldn't have meant anything to me, and I know you don't want it that way."

    "Well," I said. "Well, well, well."

    "I mean, I just wanted to hurt him. But I see now that if I'd gone to bed with you, I'd just have ended up hurting myself."

    I think I probably threw in several more "well, well, well's" somewhere along the way. But I was speaking on automatic pilot. Because if I'd ever needed the cold slap of confirmation, she'd just given it to me. The slap that said she didn't love me romantically and never would.

    Then she said, "You know what I'd like to do, though?"

    "What?"

    "Could we just lie down and you just hold me?"

    God, was she hard to figure out.

    "I mean, we'd keep our clothes on and everything."

    "Oh." It was going to be like high school again, you lying beside her and every time you brush against her - your body just one giant erection - she says, in the voice of a much put-upon saint, "Please, McCain, I thought we were just going to lie here and not do anything."

    "I know it's a lot to ask and it's really unfair - because we won't be doing anything or anything - but I really just need to be held. You ever get like that? Where you just ache to have somebody hold you like you're a little kid?"

    "Nah," I lied, "I never felt like that."

    "I'm really down, McCain. Please just be near me."

    

    

    She cried, wept, sobbed, shrieked, gasped, wailed, moaned, and once even screamed. And I'm not using a thesaurus here, either.

    I had a lot of what you call mixed emotions - which usually means, in my experience, that you don't much care for what someone is doing. I guess I was jealous, mostly. It sure would be nice if she cared enough about me to do any of the things listed above. On the other hand, when I was being more rational about it, I saw we were in the same fix. Stu, the selfish prick, had broken her heart and she had broken mine.

    About half an hour after we stretched out on the bed, she went to sleep. There were two things wrong with this by my calculations. One was that my arm was under her head and was already numb. The other was that, because of the angle of my useless arm, I was pressed against her backside and every time she squirmed even a little bit - well, I'll let you imagine the rest for yourself.

    It happened about an hour into our little emotional sojourn on the bed. I was dozing off; my arm by now had atrophied. My dad had a good saw. We could save hospital money and just do the amputation ourselves. It'd be like pruning a tree.

    I was dozing and not aware and -

    And then she was facing me and kissing me, and when I tried to say something she inserted her tongue in my mouth to shut me up. And then a moment of terror. All those years I'd loved her so much and wanted her so badly, what if, in the moment when it was about to happen, I couldn't -

    As she started to strip away the shirt she was wearing, I realized that certain parts of my body weren't responding the way they should. Here, just twenty minutes ago I couldn't get the damned thing to behave itself, and now -

    But then we were kissing again and her silken fingers moved down my stomach. A brief touch was all it took and then - thank God - I was ready.

    

    

    "Well," she said afterward, in the darkness. "Was it worth the wait?"

    I felt so many different things - exultation, simple love, complex love, and a terrible fear that now I'd never get over her; I'd actually slept with her and was hooked for life, like poor old shambling Lon Chaney Jr. in all those werewolf movies - that I wasn't quite sure what to say. But I knew what she wanted me to say, so I said it. "God, are you kidding. It was wonderful."

    "I taste all right?"