“Odd-looking cheese,” he said when he saw the sandwich. “Looks great. Will Jim care if I borrow this? He’s sure neat about his books.”
“It’s sickening,” she said. “Don’t judge that cheese until you’ve tasted it. I mean his neatness is sickening. Borrow what you want. I don’t care. He’s going to L.A. and won’t be back for another month. By the time he gets back he may have forgotten he’s a book collector. I suppose Bill Duffin, the great scholar, will remind him of it.”
“Don’t mention that name,” Flap said. “It gives me a hunted feeling.”
“Me too. Except I guess he’s quit hunting me now. Why is he hunting you?”
“I don’t think he wants me to pass my prelims. Emma says I’m paranoid, but Emma doesn’t know him.”
“You are paranoid,” Patsy said. “Quit worrying. Graduate school isn’t the whole world.”
She was swinging her legs a little as the rocker rocked, and Flap looked at them and grinned his old rakish grin. Patsy noted it and frowned at him, but in a friendly way. It was hard to be angry with Flap when his eyes lit up.
“I’m glad to see you’ve recovered your interest in life,” she said. “Still, you might as well quit letching.”
“That’s my only interest in life,” he said.
“Then letch Emma,” she said. “Why aren’t you good to her any more, by the way? That’s what I was meaning to blast you about. I used to think you were the best husband around because you kept Emma so happy. Why aren’t you doing it any more?”
“I guess I just forget to,” Flap said simply. “Could I have another beer?”
Patsy went and got it for him. “Well, try to remember to,” she said kindly, for he looked a little sunken. He glanced over his shoulder at the scholarly volumes on Jim’s shelves as if they were the Eumenides.
“It’s making me sick,” he said. “What if I fail those damn exams? I don’t even dare mention the possibility around Emma. She either becomes hysterically angry or hysterically hysterical. I’d probably have to kill myself if I failed them.”
“Nonsense,” Patsy said. “You know worlds of stuff. Why should you fail?”
“I shouldn’t,” he said. “I should pass. It’s the element of whim that scares me. Besides, I have theories and opinions. What if I put in the wrong ones?”
“Don’t. All you have to do is be precise.”
Flap looked at her caustically, as if he had never received less helpful advice in his life. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re as helpful as Emma. All she says is ‘You’re gonna pass.’”
“You worry too much. Drink more and eat more. Look at girls’ legs if it really helps. I would hate to think a set of exams could daunt
you
.”
“I ain’t daunted, just skeered,” he said, standing up. “How many books can I get away with borrowing? For some reason Jim’s books look more readable than library books.”
“Not to me. Take as many as you want. He can only kill me.” Flap carefully picked out four books and put them in his blue book-bag.
“I thought bookbags were supposed to be green.”
“Only if you’re from Harvard. Thanks for the meal. You sure have pretty legs. I wish you’d decide to have a fling with me.”
“Get on with your studies. I’m your wife’s best friend.”
“So what? She makes friends easily.”
“Is Tommy really sick?”
“He had two bad nights. It’s hard for a kid to sleep with his ear hurting.”
“We’ll bring him a little present.”
Flap stepped out into the white noon and put on his cracked sunglasses. He slung the bookbag over his shoulder. “Bring Teddy a little something too, if you do,” he said. “He’s feeling underloved just now.”
She went back and got Davey and sat with him on the couch. She liked the way the books tilted over where Flap had removed volumes. It was tempting to rearrange the books completely. She decided to do it but then sat and kissed Davey on the top of his head and wondered. Flap, for all his faults, was a comfortable man, and it seemed to her that when all was said and done, her sloppy friend Emma had made an excellent choice, and probably had more basic good sense than she herself would ever have.
9
F
LAP HAD SCARCELY LEFT
when Juanita arrived, and none too soon to suit Patsy. The thought of the weekend ahead made her restless; she slipped her shoes on and was at the door, ready to go to Hank’s when the phone rang. It was her mother, calling from Dallas, and the moment she spoke Patsy knew something was wrong.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
There was a silence on the wire.
“Is it Daddy? Is anybody dead?”
“No, no,” her mother said, almost wistfully, as if simple death would have been preferable. “It’s something that . . . upset me. I was wanting to come down and see you today. You and Davey. I could stay at a hotel.”
“You can stay right here,” Patsy said. “Don’t be silly. What is it? Please don’t cry.” For she could hear the beginning of her mother’s tears on the phone, and her mothers tears, once started, were apt to flow for days.
“I’d rather not talk over the phone,” her mother said. “All these extensions—anyone could pick one up. I’m so distressed about Miri—it’s her.”
Silence again. “Well, what has she done?” Patsy asked. “Has she been arrested or anything?”
“No. Has she written you?”
“We never write. What’s she done?”
“I don’t know,” Jeanette said. “I’m just so frightened, though. I’m afraid she may be involved with a colored man.”
“Oh, goddamn,” Patsy said, both relieved and annoyed. “You didn’t have to scare me so. I thought somebody was dead.”
“I know, but I was too upset. I called and one answered the phone.”
“For god’s sakes,” Patsy said. “Isn’t that jumping to conclusions? Maybe she’s hired a butler or something. What did he say?”
“I hung up.”
Patsy was twisting with impatience. She wanted to be at Hank’s. “Listen,” she said. “Get a plane and come on. I’ll call Miri. It probably isn’t half as disastrous as you think.”
She hung up and went to Hank’s, so agitated that she forgot to buy anything to make sandwiches with. Hank was not there. The apartment was dark and cool, but not chill in the way most Houston apartments were. The air conditioner was too old. It gave the air a musty smell that she had come to like. It seemed to her, in moments of fantasy, that real people, who hadn’t money, probably lived their lives amid such smells, in such apartments, and she loved to lie on the couch and imagine herself an underprivileged housewife, one with a struggling young husband—the kind of wife who never wore stockings except to faculty teas. When Hank came in she was still on the couch, an empty milk glass on the floor beside her. Her thoughts were swirling—now to Miri and a possible Negro lover, now to her mother and the night of tears that lay ahead, now to Jim and a weekend that she could not imagine.
“I hope you’ve eaten,” she said. “I forgot to get anything.”
His appetite was of a different nature. Patsy was dizzy with willingness. It was bliss to be presented with a desire that blew away all that had been swirling in her head. Miri, Jeanette, Jim, all blew away and were replaced by the feel and smell of skin. They made love immediately on the couch. Afterwards they found themselves unduly sweaty and garment-plagued and got up and undressed and went to bed, to rest. Patsy rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. She told him about her problems but got little response. He never thought her problems were serious. He was reading
Tristram Shandy
but with reluctance. She dozed, and when she awoke the air conditioner seemed to have played out completely and she was sweating. Hank was fiddling with it. Everything beyond the bed seemed tinged with unreality. It seemed to her she had at last found a way to manipulate time. She felt like she had been on the bed for weeks. If she could just stay there, more weeks might pass with nothing bad happening.
When he sat down she stroked the smooth skin over his arm muscle. He hadn’t tried to stop her from going to Amarillo, and she was a little annoyed. “I guess you can finish
Tristram Shandy
while I’m gone,” she said. “It would hurt my conscience if I interfered with your studies.” But she was fishing. It wouldn’t have hurt her conscience at all. She was beginning to wonder what would. She wanted him to ask her not to go. If he had, she would have found an excuse to back out. But her hints never reached him, and finally, feeling distinctly petulant, she showered and left him to
Tristram Shandy
.
Miri simply could not be reached. Patsy tried four times before her mother arrived on the doorstep, fighting tears. Patsy popped Davey into her arms, hoping to plug the dike, but it didn’t work. She had to snatch him away again and divert him as best she could from the spectacle of her mother crying herself out. It was not hard to divert him, for her mother cried quietly, like a gentlewoman.
“But you really don’t know that anything’s wrong,” Patsy said. “You really don’t know a thing.”
“I know,” Jeanette sobbed. “If I knew maybe I wouldn’t act this way. When I see Davey I can’t help crying.”
“What’s he got to do with it?” Then she realized that Jeanette was envisioning him with a black cousin. Finally it was Juanita who calmed Jeanette down. She took her into the kitchen, made her some tea, and told her in her own hesitant English about the various horrors that had befallen her own daughters, in Old Mexico and South Texas. It left Jeanette feeling that her lot was only the lot of all mothers. “You have such a nice maid,” she said, after Juanita left to catch her bus. “I wonder how those people survive. Of course Daddy and I were poor once, but we didn’t have these problems then.”
“What problems did you have then?” Patsy asked, curious.
“You know, I don’t really remember. Garland was very anxious about money. I guess he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to provide for me. I wasn’t anxious much, I don’t think. You and Miri were both such dears as children that we never had to worry about you at all. You were both so sweet and pretty.”
“But then we grew up,” Patsy said. “What a change that’s wrought.” She was silent, trying to imagine Davey grown up to be a man. Was it possible that the day would come when she would be sitting, tear-streaked and poorly made-up and fifty-five, making one of her daughters nervous because another of them, or Davey, had grown up and was making what to her were hideous mistakes? She jiggled her son on her lap and could imagine it, for there might be thousands of girls, of all colors, whom she would not want him to marry. She sighed and Jeanette sighed and they turned the talk to Davey, who was cheerful. He helped the afternoon pass.
Late in the afternoon she took Davey and Jeanette next door to visit the matronly widow who lived there. While they were making a fuss over Davey she sneaked back home and managed to get Miri on the phone.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Sure,” Miri said.
“I can’t talk very long. Momma’s here, going out of her mind with worry about you. Have you got a Negro boy friend, by any chance?”
There was a pause. “That isn’t any of her business,” Miri said hostilely.
“I’m
the one that’s asking. I don’t care—I just want to know. I’m having to fight battles for you on this end. It’s pretty tacky of you not to come home all summer. No wonder they’re worried. You can have an Eskimo boy friend, for all I care.”
“You’re not really very different from her, though,” Miri said.
“I
am
very different from her, and you know it.”
“Well, there are lots of boys around. I don’t classify them by colors. Are you still living with Jim?”
“I’m
married
to Jim,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be living with him? He’s in Amarillo making a movie right now.”
“That’s what I thought. I think you probably need some boys around.”
Patsy was startled. “Listen,” she said, “don’t bitch at me. You’re not all that worldly, just because you smoke marijuana. If you’ve got such good boys around why do you sound so bitchy?”
“I’m too much for them,” Miri said. “You don’t really know me any more. You’re back there. It’s different out here. Out here it’s great.”
“It’s too bad there are no men there who can handle you, if it’s so great,” Patsy said. “I’m going to tell Momma you don’t have a Negro boy friend, if you don’t mind.”
“It’s a lie.”
“I know it’s a lie, but it will make her sleep better. It doesn’t hurt to consider
her
a little, you know. She loves you, even if you don’t like her.”
“Okay,” Miri said, sounding a little chastened. “I don’t want her to worry. We were going to come to Texas but our Volks broke down.”
“You sound like you’ve had a wild freshman year. Have you been taking LSD?”
“Sure. Have you?”
“No. I’m too old. I guess I missed it.”
“Out here you don’t have to miss anything.”
“Okay, dear,” Patsy said. “Try to miss getting pregnant or busted, if you don’t mind.”
The story she fabricated for Jeanette was so successful that she almost regretted it. All she said was that Miri was dating a law student from Stanford, but it cheered Jeanette up immediately and left her so grateful that Patsy scarcely knew what to do with her. She had meant to fly back to Dallas the next morning, but she decided to stay another day and enjoy her grandson. The morning turned out to be more trying for Patsy than the tearful afternoon had been. Once cheered, Jeanette became everything that was irritating to Patsy. She cooed too much over Davey, overpraised Patsy at every turn, and was enthusiastic at depressing length over Jim’s new career. She went on about how glad she was Patsy had made such an ideal marriage, how much Garland liked Jim, how reassuring it was to them that they were so normal and well married, how they could hardly wait for another grandchild. Patsy gritted her teeth. In desperation she took her to Emma’s, where Jeanette outdid herself in complimenting Emma on a rather dowdy dress and her generally shabby furniture. The only dark cloud on Jeanette’s day was the Ford, which struck her as unnecessarily old and low class; she remarked four or five times how all the car dealers in Dallas were friends of Garland’s. They would, she was sure, bend over backward to give them a good deal on a new car. “No, thanks, we like this one,” Patsy said grimly.