Any Minute I Can Split (25 page)

“I don't think it's so much the cattle,” she said slowly. “It's that it sounded very permanent, and very demanding. But not of me. I mean I'd just be in the background someplace while you and Roger . . . the truth is, I feel left out. The truth is that I'm jealous of this friendship between you and Roger. I mean, part of me thinks it's a beautiful thing, enjoys it, knows it's important for men to have . . . but part of me is jealous.”

“But Margaret,” De Witt said—softly, reproachfully—“you are the bond between us.”

Bullshit, De Witt. That is what David would call Pure Bullshit.

“Oh, yes? How could I tell?”

“Now you're being sarcastic.”

“What's in all this for me, is what I want to know. A concession maybe? A saloon or a whorehouse in Brattleboro so I can get to see you two once in a while?”
You are not being reasonable, Margaret. You can't get mad at them about some old cowboy pictures!

De Witt smiled. “I don't think that will be necessary.”

“Already,” she pointed out, “we've progressed from your wanting to make love to me to not even letting me kiss you.”

“You know perfectly well you'd have stopped me, anyway. With Roger downstairs and the children two feet away in the crib. Rue's not even sleeping.” In point of fact she was staring at him through the slats.

So. He'd called her bluff. It didn't diminish her anxiety; it only left her with one less excuse for it.

“All right, what if those things weren't true? Then would you have?”

“Of course I would have,” De Witt said. “If we had an understanding with Roger.”

“What if I wanted to desperately and the very thought freaked Roger out of his mind?”

“I think you know it isn't possible for us to live together that way.”

She knew.

“Would you do me a favor and take Rue down? I don't feel like seeing everyone yet.”

“You don't want to talk about the cattle thing?”

“What's the point?” she asked wearily. “Roger isn't going to change his mind, we might as well just play it out. Maybe he won't even be able to get the money.”

A short while later Rosie woke up and Margaret changed her and took her downstairs. Becky Kastle was alone in the common room.

“The men are walking the grounds,” Becky said. “They took the baby. And there's the other one. My goodness, isn't she pretty!” Margaret thanked her. Sat down. Her head felt as though it were in a vise.

“I'm sorry you're upset,” Becky said. Suddenly everyone was concerned with her moods. “Is it because of the farm business, or is it because of David?”

“I don't know,” Margaret said. “Maybe both.”

Becky smiled. She was really very pretty.

“How old are you, anyhow?” Margaret asked.

“Thirty-seven,” Becky said.

“I guess you know you don't look it.”

“Nobody looks their age any more.”

“Up here they do. The natives, especially. And some
of us.” From hard work, from no make-up, from clothes that were right for work but wrong for everything else. But mostly from hard work. From real life, you could say self-righteously if you were thoroughly convinced that work was life or vice versa.

“Maybe they just work too hard up here,” said Becky. Untroubled by any such conviction.

Silence.

Becky took a pack of cigarettes from her pocketbook, extracted one sloppy-looking joint, offered Margaret a choice. She refused. Becky lit hers, dragged deeply on it.

“I'm nervous,” she said, smiling in that direct, appealing way she had. “I'd like to talk with you about David but I'd understand if you didn't want to talk to me. If you're feeling hostile or anything.”

“It's just hard for me to think of you as David's mother.”

“David has the same problem,” Becky said. Margaret found her an ashtray. “David was never difficult when he was little.” She giggled. “Not that he was difficult later on . . . I mean it just became apparent later on that he had some problems, you know, relating to people . . . When he was little he'd want to stay home and play with stuff, gadgets, kitchen things, broken appliances and so on . . . but a lot of kids are like that and I didn't worry about it . . . I never worried about the kids anyway . . . I had a business at home . . . we were pretty broke when Davie was little, Monty my first husband was just switching over from being a union organizer to being a history teacher and he had to take all these courses and he couldn't earn much . . . we had these friends in Mt. Kisco, we were living in a cottage on their estate, they had a lot of money and he . . . it was Mitchell, actually, Mitchell and his first wife . . . anyway Mitchell set me up with an answering-service business right in the house . . . David could operate that board as well as I could when he was six years old, the only thing was, he didn't like to talk into it, he'd pick up a call and . . . is Davie a good lay?”

Margaret stared at her.

Becky giggled, mashed out the rest of her joint. Tm sorry. I took you aback. Or maybe afront. Did I affront you? I get very affrontful sometimes when I'm stoned. My true lousy nature coming out . . . or . . . no kidding,
is
Davie a good lay?”

“I can't talk to you about that.”

“That's too bad,” Becky said, without apparent ill feeling. “Is there something else you'd like to talk about?”

“No.”

“Don't you ever think about sex?” Becky asked.

“Sure I do,” Margaret said.

“That's a relief.” Becky stood, stretched. “People who never think about it make me jittery. I think about it all the time.” She walked over to the window, looked out toward the barn. “I've been married on and off for nineteen years and for nineteen years that's what I think about when I'm not busy. Before I had orgasms I used to think all the time how it would be to have orgasms and then when I started having them I wondered if they'd be better with someone else, and about bad orgasms and good orgasms and so on, and then I went through this period of being unfaithful to Monty and then I'd think about whoever I was doing it with, and what we were doing, and so on, and now I've been going through this pretty faithful stage but my mind still . . . David does have a beautiful body, doesn't he? I was so surprised when he went out for sports, Little League and all that shit, he didn't seem like that kind of kid at all . . . he always did have a beautiful body, though, even when he was little he had those shoulders . . .
Why
won't you talk to me about David? Do you have all kinds of hangups about sex?”

“Yes.”

Becky laughed. “I can see why David loved you. You're really very lovable.”

“David didn't love me.” David didn't love anybody, but she wouldn't say that.

“David doesn't love anybody,” Becky said.

Margaret stood up. “I think I'd better give Rosie some juice.”

Becky nodded. “Sure. Listen, I hope I didn't . . . is there anyone in the big bedroom in front? I think I'm gonna take a nap, I'm soooo sleepy.”

“I don't think so,” Margaret said. “If there is, you can just use one of the other ones.”

M
ITCHELL
would sell the farm and land for a total of $125,000. When Roger asked where was the favor to De Witt in all this, Mitchell explained that it was only because of his love for De Witt that he was willing to sell the land at all. Roger asked what good his willingness would do if they couldn't raise that kind of money, it being nearly impossible to get mortgages on unimproved land. Mitchell allowed as how he would be willing to take back a mortgage of up to $50,000. He also agreed that if Roger and De Witt were unable to raise the cash to buy the entire parcel, he would sell them one half or one third of the land parcel for $50,000 or $35,000, respectively. He insisted upon shaking hands with Roger, claiming that he was convinced that someone with Roger's resources would have no problem raising the money. Then he and Becky went off for an overnight visit to friends in Newfane.

“I think we'd better have a meeting,” De Witt said.

“What for?” Roger said.

“To discuss this idea with everyone.”

“What if Roger can't get the money?” Margaret asked. “Roger, have you thought about how you'll get the money?”

“I don't see what there is to discuss,” Roger said to De Witt. “If I can get the money I can get it, and if I can't, I can't.”

“Sometimes with a group,” De Witt said, “things aren't as simple as they seem.”

“Give me an idea of what you're talking about,” Roger said.

“I don't want to lay on something that may not be there,” De Witt said. “But I really think we should all talk.”

“I'
M
very confused and miserable,” she said to Roger before the meeting. “I don't know if I'm more afraid you'll get the money or you won't. The whole thing of having to go to Philadelphia . . .”
What if David comes back looking for me and I'm not here? What if the farm catches fire? What if your parents don't like the twins?
She felt tearful again and turned away from Roger so he wouldn't see her crying. He would think the tears were directed at him. Men were slower than women to cry, correspondingly slow to perceive that you might be crying for some much vaguer reason than a desire to manipulate them. Maybe it was jealousy; they never told you to stop crying, they said don't be hysterical, a cunning bit of word play designed to suggest that the womb was a dishonestly acquired secret weapon for the manufacture of tears. She waited for him to say Oh Shit. To tell her to go someplace else if she felt like being hysterical. She looked at him; he was watching her. Waiting. If she got really impossible he'd just go off someplace with De Witt for a beer.

Instead he sat down on the side of the bed and beckoned to her to sit next to him, then put his arm around her.

“What's up, Maggie? What are you so jittery about?”