I Loved You Wednesday (28 page)

“Which one, Chris? Yours or mine?”

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.”

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know, Chris. Try straightening out. I don’t know. Nothing. You’re fine. Maybe it’s me. I just need some time to simmer down. Forgive me.”

“Please don’t apologize.”

“All right. I retract the remark.”

“Much better. I love you.”

“Good. I gotta go now. I don’t want to be late.”

“I won’t keep you then.”

“Good-bye, Chris.”

“Good-bye.”

That afternoon Pat calls from New York to say the managing director had phoned to tell her what a good job I’d done and wanted me to know how everyone in the agency has been told about it and this can only be very good for me.

What else is new? Any other time in my life I’d’ve been dancing from the ceilings with such encouragement. But the cloud of Chris hangs sourly above, rendering me measurably miserable.

That evening the performance is even smoother than the night before. Not only am I more relaxed and confident, but so are all the other players, who last night had to work with practically a total stranger.

After the show I go out with the cast, over to the Broken Drum. We eat, drink and chat, mainly about the show. Our
Barefoot in the Park
is at the center of all our universes right now, and so it serves as common denominator for all discussion.

And it’s a pleasure zeroing in on something other than that which is hammering away at the back of my head, still keeping me moody and upset amid all this buoyant outside activity.

I return to my hotel room around one and, after changing my mind seven times, decide finally
not
to call Chris. I’m still too annoyed with her. Still too thrown. I’ve no idea what to say, am afraid I’d probably say the wrong thing anyway. I simply have to give it more time. Wait till I’ve cooled off and sorted things out at least to the extent I’ve some idea what’s going on.

So I go to sleep, trying to forget the whole thing, at least for a time.

The following day I don’t even begin to get out of bed until one in the afternoon. It’s amazing the world of good a solid twelve hours’ rest can provide a weary body. My mind is now less muddied and able to focus again with less blur.

But I’m still too annoyed to call Chris.

In fact, it isn’t until another two days pass that I finally start to unwind and begin considering how truly upset
she
must’ve been to get the two of us into a near catastrophe like that.

And so, with time, my anger subsides, melting away as always, into compassion and at least a small amount of understanding of her very strange ways.

So it is with this eventual conciliatory tone that I pick up the phone to call the kid again, in New York.

“Steve?”

“You bet!”

“How are you?” This last question delivered calm, cold, subdued.

“Better, thanks.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. It’s all going well here. Really well.”

“That’s good.”

“Everything all right, Chris? You sound a little down.”

“I know. . . . It’s, well, among other things Ruth got sick yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Had six or seven fits in a row. Really bad ones. So I took her over to the Animal Medical Center, to their emergency room.”

“And?”

“And you may have a little trouble believing this, but they accepted her as a patient and transferred her to the intensive care ward.”

“Intensive care?”

“Right. She was practically comatose by the time I got her there, and the vet said she’s got to be watched around the clock several days.”

“Damn.”

“Well, at least you’re making a lot of money there, so you can afford the whopper of a bill you’re going to get.”

“How long?”

“Maybe a week. I’m sorry, Steve. I tried comforting her, honest. I told her I’d been in intensive care myself and it was a ball. She wasn’t much impressed, though.”

“I don’t blame her. How are you?”

“Fair.”

I really don’t like the tone in her voice. “What’s up?”

“Well, I got a commercial today.” She tells me as if she just found out she were being sent to Auschwitz.

“That’s great! Good for you!”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Breeze again. Remember that shampoo job I did for Clairol?”

“Right.”

“Apparently they liked it so much, they’ve decided to use both a city background and a tropical setting, for contrast. So we’re all going down to St. Lucia to shoot it.”

“How fabulous!”

“I know. Being paid to go on vacation. Can’t ask for a better deal than that, huh?”

“I guess not.”

“I met with the director today to discuss it. We worked together on the other spot as well. Nice guy.”

“I’m really pleased.”

“And I don’t have to tell you how I could use the rest.”

“Honest. You don’t have to tell
me.
When do you go?”

“About two weeks.” She answers with just the slightest impatience.

“Something bothering you, Chris?”

“Who,
me?”
she offers, total innocence.

I know I’m in trouble. “Yeah, you. Let’s have it.”

“Forget it.”

If only we could. “No. Tell me.”

“All right. For openers, why didn’t you call, Steve? After what happened the other night, how could you not call till now?”

“I was calming down, Chris. Thinking things out.”

“No excuse! You must’ve known you were driving me crazy!”

“Come on, Chris. Don’t do this to me.”

“To
YOU?
Don’t do this to
ME!
I’m the one going bananas here, wondering where the hell you are, why you haven’t called, getting sick watching your dog having those terrifying convulsions.”

“Well, why didn’t you call me? Phones dial both ways.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to speak with me!”

“Back to that insecurity, are we?”

“It’s no insecurity. I have a pretty good idea what’s going on there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and the actress playing Corie. You’re balling with her, right?”

“Jesus,” I sigh. “Where do you come up with them?”

“Don’t you talk down to me! I know what’s going on! The tarot cards were most specific!”

“All right, Chris. Calm down.” “Don’t tell me to calm down. You haven’t been having my problems. What about us?”

“That’s a tough one. I’m not sure.”

“Well I’ve had plenty of time to think.”

“And?”

“And I’ve realized you’re retreating.”

“Not again, Chris. Let’s not do that one again, huh? It’s getting boring. Find some new material.”

“You’re growing distant. I know you, Steve. Better than anyone. And this time I’m not being paranoid. Don’t you think I sense the difference in you?”

“Chris, you’re talking crazy again. If I’m annoyed at you, it’s because you frustrate me so. I’m going bonkers trying to figure out how to deal with you and all your goddamn neuroses.”

“Wrong. You’re growing distant.”

“You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m not.”

“I don’t.”

“All right, Chris. I’ll play your game. Jesus, you sure know how to bring a fellow down. Tell me. Tell me how I’m retreating from you.”

“Don’t patronize me!”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You did!”

“All right. I’m sorry. Please tell me. Give me an example, so I can answer you. Okay?”

“It’s not all that simple, I’m afraid.”

“Why do you insist upon talking in riddles?”

“I am not talking in riddles. All right, you want an example, here: when you wouldn’t let me give up my apartment. That’s backing down, buddy. No matter how you word it.”

“But I told you. . . .”

“You told me nothing! If you were upset that I hadn’t consulted you, that’d make sense. But you went past that and told me
not
to break my lease.”

“For justified reasons!”

“Wrong! You think about it, Steve. You just relax awhile and think about it. Sad news is you’ll realize I’m right.”

“You’re really starting to wig out, Chris. Why don’t you start listening to yourself awhile?”

“I’ve been doing nothing else since you left.”

“I don’t know, Chris. Maybe you ought to think about going back to your shrink. Maybe he can straighten some of this out.”

“Me? Go back?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Well, maybe you ought to
start
seeing one.”

“Chris. . . .”

“My biggest mistake ... I thought I knew you so well.. . my biggest mistake was thinking you were different. But you’re not. You’re no better than any of them. No matter how you slice it, Steve, once again it’s still the same fucking runaround.”

I stare at the phone a few moments, unable to collect the many abstract thoughts zooming around inside my brain. At last I say quietly, “I can’t discuss this anymore, Chris. I’m too tired. Too talked out. I can’t even think. I guess I need time to find some way to convince you how wrong you are. But not now. Everything is suddenly too complicated. I’ve got to hang up. I’ll talk to you.”

“Good-bye, Steve.”

“Good-bye.”

As I hang up, I realize I’m actually
more
confused than before the conversation began. So once again, I choose to file things away until such time when it might be possible to lay the pieces out in some ABC fashion.

I let another two days pass, in fact, without even letting the subject of Chris cross my mind.

On the third day a very strange thing happens.

After ordering a late breakfast delivered to my room, I sit down to eat, numbed by the afternoon giveaway show of greed and avarice blaring from the tube, and it suddenly occurs to me, while buttering a piece of whole wheat toast, that she could be right.

This notion so disturbs my equilibrium I discontinue the buttering process at once, turn off the telly and sit there to think it through.

I have been so in control, so on the prowl, so fanatically busy watching and blocking all of Chris’ moves these past many weeks, I haven’t allowed myself the distraction of observing my own behavior.

And in taking into account all I’ve done and all she’s done, I don’t suppose anything in all these many weeks of living together has been quite so hesitant a balk as my not allowing Chris to give up her apartment. Shit!

Is it actually possible after all these years of begging for Chris’ undivided affections, I’m not fully prepared to accept them? Is it somehow conceivable that somewhere in the recesses of my mind, though no doubt placed there by her lunicidal shenanigans, I told her not to give up her apartment because I was secretly harboring the fear we might not eventually work things out together, after all?

Which of us, then, was not living up to our part of the bargain?

She has certainly grown as possessive, crazy and as destructive as she said she would. No surprise there.

But had I not welcomed and tended to these machinations as I’d promised? Suddenly, looking back, I realize she is right. I am retreating. I am growing impatient. I guess I haven’t remained a bachelor these thirty years for nothing.

Incredible as it seems, in her own subverted way, that business with the lease on her apartment was perhaps an ultimate test to my determination and commitment.

And I blew it.

After all, somewhere in the core of this mess is the fact I’m crazy about that Madwoman of Chaillot. She drives me up the wall and way past the point of distraction. But that must be the price paid for loving her. And I won’t give that up no matter the cost.

All right, big shot.

Now what do you do?

I’ll call and tell her she’s right. I’ve seen the light. I’ll tell her to break her lease and move in with me for good. I may not have the strength right now to put up with all her needs,but shit, we’ve got so much going, she’ll just have to bear with me. Don’t I bear with her?

And she’ll understand. I know she will. Surely she’ll allow me this one slip after her score of tumbles.

So I call.

No answer.